Diesel cars have received a great deal of bad press these last few days. Some reports say that some countries are banning them from city centre but fail to mention that this only applies to older vehicles. Euro 6 vehicles are not excluded. Little mention is made of the higher carbon dioxide emissions of petrol vehicles.
The power wasted in the combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine depends mainly on the compression ratio. Petrol engines simply cannot function at very high compression ratios.
Euro 6 diesel engines are costly to manufacture due to the complexity of making the engine comply with the limits at various engine loadings and speeds.
Clearly a diesel electric hybrid car could tick all the boxes. Now if this drive train could be put in my Octavia …….
On Monday 9 February a large goods vehicle ploughed into school children leaving a school in Bath. First reports indicate that the driver had lost control and was sounding his horn.
Picture from BBC News
This brings to mind a potential problem I had when driving a large goods vehicle.
It was a long journey and I was not familiar with that particular vehicle. After a couple of hours driving I began to get cramp in one of my legs. Rather than pulling up on the hard shoulder and adjusting the seat I pulled the seat height adjuster which raised the seat. Unfortunately the seat rose abruptly and the ergonomics made it difficult to lower the seat again. I was now too high to reach the brake pedal. No doubt other drivers of trucks with seats controlled by compressed air will be familiar with the problem. Fortunately the traffic progressed smoothly and I eventually sorted out my rooky error.
Monday 9 February 17.15pm I was watching the Community Channel, Eco-Tech. It covered organic solar cells produced by Konarka. Eager to gather more information on this new technology I ‘Googled’ the company. It went bust three years ago. Although the panels were inefficient at just 4% relative to the best silicone products (which can achieve 20%), they were very cheap to produce. Unfortunately the plastic degraded in ultra violet and Konarka went bust.
Although the ‘Community Channel’ made a fascinating program, it is cheating by implying that the technology is ‘cutting edge, I would dearly love to know how this ‘new technology’ developed since the making of the program.
Research is not a steady process and sometimes there will be ‘failures’. Even a so called failure will point others away from that road. Maybe a team will re-visit that area of research and solve problems which earlier teams did not solve due to lack of time, investment or suitable materials, turning a ‘failure’ into a ‘set back’.
