On Mon, 18 Jul 2016 16:29:07 +0100
David Cantrell wrote:
On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 08:47:47AM +0000, d wrote:

The few times we tried it it actually took longer to shop online than
actually
do it in the shop.

I don't see how that is even possible. I just add items to my shopping
basket whenever I'm close to running out of them. That takes about as
long as writing them on a shopping list would.

My supermarket is a 3 min walk away. I know exactly where everything is and
I can go around in about 5-10 mins.

Meanwhile, in a sodding web browser: click-click-where-is-it-click-click-
click-oh-ffs-do-I-want-this-click-click-browser-hangs-click etc etc rinse and
repeat.

--
Spud

On 2016-07-18 16:03:22 +0000, d said:

My supermarket is a 3 min walk away. I know exactly where everything is and
I can go around in about 5-10 mins.

Both of those are extremely exceptional. Most people cannot do a round
trip to their nearest supermarket and a family weekly shop in less than
an hour and a half or so.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 05:29:11
on Mon, 18 Jul 2016, remarked:
While I'll agree something needs to be done about the pollution in
London, essentially outlawing cars that that will affect the less
well off is not the way to do it. The millionaire in his 8mpg 2016
Lambo isn't going to be
affected but the single mum in a low paid job (for example) driving a
2000 micra will be. Its disgusting.

Still, Labour have been showing their disdain for the working classes for
years so I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise.

If the pollution is reduced then the residents, even the poor ones, will be
better off health-wise.

Anyway, isn't the tax on diesels only? People can always get an old
petrol-engined car as I have.

The problem with that is they tend to be gas guzzlers. I swapped my 2001
petrol car for a 2005 diesel last year and literally doubled the MPG
(same size engine and a slightly bigger vehicle).

Not an entirely fare comparison. Diesel is denser than petrol, so a gallon
of diesel will emit more CO2 than a gallon of petrol. There's also the
issue that Diesel engines produce significantly more of the types of
emissions that are directly harmful to human health in an urban
environment, namely particulates and NOx. Diesel engines burn with a
diffusion flame in excess air while petrol engines burn with a premixed
flame in roughly stoichiometric air/fuel conditions. The diffusion flame
gives rise to the particulates problem due to incomplete combustion. If you
have an exhaust gas without free oxygen, a simple catalytic converter will
reduce NOx to molecular nitrogen and molecular oxygen (ie the stuff in
regular air). If you use the same catalyst with excess oxygen (as is
present in diesel exhaust), the oxidizing environment will drive the
chemistry the other way and potentially increase rather than reduce (in
both senses) the NOx. There are other chemical pathways that can be used to
reduce the NOx emissions from a Diesel engine, generally involving urea
(the industry has adopted the name ad blue because marketing people think
the word "urea" might be unpopular).

There is the other issue that between 2001 and 2005 engine technology for
both petrol and Diesel engines improved, so it's not really a like for like
comparison in terms of technology level.

Robin

In message , at 17:07:37 on Mon, 18 Jul
2016, bob remarked:

Anyway, isn't the tax on diesels only? People can always get an old
petrol-engined car as I have.

The problem with that is they tend to be gas guzzlers. I swapped my 2001
petrol car for a 2005 diesel last year and literally doubled the MPG
(same size engine and a slightly bigger vehicle).

Not an entirely fare comparison. Diesel is denser than petrol, so a gallon
of diesel will emit more CO2 than a gallon of petrol. There's also the
issue that Diesel engines produce significantly more of the types of
emissions that are directly harmful to human health in an urban
environment, namely particulates and NOx. Diesel engines burn with a
diffusion flame in excess air while petrol engines burn with a premixed
flame in roughly stoichiometric air/fuel conditions. The diffusion flame
gives rise to the particulates problem due to incomplete combustion. If you
have an exhaust gas without free oxygen, a simple catalytic converter will
reduce NOx to molecular nitrogen and molecular oxygen (ie the stuff in
regular air). If you use the same catalyst with excess oxygen (as is
present in diesel exhaust), the oxidizing environment will drive the
chemistry the other way and potentially increase rather than reduce (in
both senses) the NOx. There are other chemical pathways that can be used to
reduce the NOx emissions from a Diesel engine, generally involving urea
(the industry has adopted the name ad blue because marketing people think
the word "urea" might be unpopular).

There is the other issue that between 2001 and 2005 engine technology for
both petrol and Diesel engines improved,

Doubling the MPG? Really?

so it's not really a like for like
comparison in terms of technology level.

I'm comparing 8p/mile vs 16p/mile.
--
Roland Perry

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at 13:06:05 on Mon, 18
Jul 2016, Neil Williams remarked:
Are you sure about that? I though any diesel sold in 2006 or later
would have a sufficiently clean engine.

He's right - they are going for the *next* Euro standard for diesels -
you can't even buy one yet, or if you can they've only been out for a
year or so.

Mine is Euro 4 (2005 on), and I thought they wanted to discourage
anything that wasn't at least Euro 5 (2009 onwards).

The goalposts have moved to Euro 6? (2014 on).

Maybe not those goalposts. No diesel cars supposedly meeting those Euro
standards actually do so on the road as has been made clear by Volkswagen.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , d () wrote:

On Mon, 18 Jul 2016 10:44:08 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
It does apply to petrol as well, but only on much older vehicles. In
2020, the many five-year-old diesel cars will be subject to the tax, but
only 14-year-old petrol cars (of which not many remain on the roads).

I forsee a large increase in the number of right hand drive bulgarian and
romanian registered cars on the roads in london.

Saw a Romanian one in Cambridge the other day.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 15:09:50
on Mon, 18 Jul 2016, remarked:
Are you sure about that? I though any diesel sold in 2006 or later
would have a sufficiently clean engine.

He's right - they are going for the *next* Euro standard for diesels -
you can't even buy one yet, or if you can they've only been out for a
year or so.

Mine is Euro 4 (2005 on), and I thought they wanted to discourage
anything that wasn't at least Euro 5 (2009 onwards).

The goalposts have moved to Euro 6? (2014 on).

Maybe not those goalposts. No diesel cars supposedly meeting those Euro
standards actually do so on the road as has been made clear by Volkswagen.

Sure about that? The VW scandal only involves those cars where they
refrained from fitting the Ad-Blu equipment (to save money and boot
space). There are plenty of cars which do have that equipment fitted,
including the subsequent model of my car since 2009 (to meet Euro 5).
--
Roland Perry

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On 2016-07-18 16:03:22 +0000, d said:

My supermarket is a 3 min walk away. I know exactly where everything is
and I can go around in about 5-10 mins.

Both of those are extremely exceptional. Most people cannot do a
round trip to their nearest supermarket and a family weekly shop in
less than an hour and a half or so.

Good grief! In remote parts of the countryside maybe but not in cities where
most people live.

It takes me about 5 minutes to cycle to one of my 3 nearest supermarkets and
never more than an hour to do the family shopping even when I cycle further
as I did today.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
15:09:50 on Mon, 18 Jul 2016, remarked:
Are you sure about that? I though any diesel sold in 2006 or later
would have a sufficiently clean engine.

He's right - they are going for the *next* Euro standard for diesels -
you can't even buy one yet, or if you can they've only been out for a
year or so.

Mine is Euro 4 (2005 on), and I thought they wanted to discourage
anything that wasn't at least Euro 5 (2009 onwards).

The goalposts have moved to Euro 6? (2014 on).

Maybe not those goalposts. No diesel cars supposedly meeting those Euro
standards actually do so on the road as has been made clear by
Volkswagen.

Sure about that? The VW scandal only involves those cars where they
refrained from fitting the Ad-Blu equipment (to save money and boot
space). There are plenty of cars which do have that equipment fitted,
including the subsequent model of my car since 2009 (to meet Euro 5).

Measurements of actual pollution from Euro 4 and later vehicles in Cambridge
rather undermined the City Council's plans to clean up the city centre where
pollution levels are illegally high. We were doing so well too, before
reality intruded. :-(

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 2016-07-19 00:11:55 +0000, said:

It takes me about 5 minutes to cycle to one of my 3 nearest supermarkets and
never more than an hour to do the family shopping even when I cycle further
as I did today.

If you are cycling to a supermarket (rather than driving, or bus there
and taxi back) you are going to be doing a rather smaller shop than a
typical weekly family shop. Again you are an exception. And again
most people (other than possibly in London) do not live within 5
minutes' cycle ride of the nearest full-size supermarket.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.