LETTERS
TALKING POINT
Think big, save fuel
Regarding Richard Brown’s point
about 4x4s (Letters, 7 April) I concede
that fact that the CO 2 figure
fixes the vehicle excise duty
(VED). This was poorly reported by
the media coverage of last year’s
Budget and was universally hailed
as a ‘4x4 tax’.
However, to suggest he went
past two 4x4s on an ice-covered
hill in a VW Lupo could only mean
the drivers didn’t have 4WD
engaged or they were asleep.
I have owned a number of 4x4s
and the extra traction and
improved roadholding they generate
is unbelievable — you simply
have to drive one to fully appreciate
it.
In the case of the VW Lupo, it
was designed for economy/
shopping and as such does not
appear in the World Rally Championships
— most entrants having
been 4WD drive since the Audi
Quattro become all conquering 27
years ago.
20
Call me a cable car
Jon Hicken has a good point when
he says there are no viable
alternatives to the car/bus as
personal transport (Letters, 10
March).
As an avid skier I think it would
be a good idea to link city centres
to industrial/housing estates,
outlying districts and park-and-ride
areas by a ski gondola/cable car
system.
This would not only speed
traffic by getting buses (and taxis)
off the roads, but also make for
cleaner air by removing the high
pollution their stop/start style of
motoring causes.
Another advantage would be a
reduction in noise pollution and
stress caused by the daily
commute.
I realise this system would be
expensive to instigate, but we only
have one planet on which to live,
and surely it would be worth the
effort?
Malcolm Phillips
Malvern, Worcs
May I suggest that if Mr Brown
is concerned about fuel consumption
he should have been driving a
larger car. He would then only
needed to have made one trip to
the shops and not two.
Chris Leonard, Warwick
Wheels of misfortune
In answer to ‘Two-wheel winner’
from Dave Gardner (Talking Point,
7 April) his scooter may be able to
achieve low running costs of
100mpg-plus and the ability to sail
past traffic queues, but this type
of transport is not particularly safe
on today’s congested roads.
And scooters are certainly not
a green option as the two-stroke
engines are dirty, smelly, fill the air
with part burned oil/oil mist and
soot, and are extremely noisy.
Richard Hope, Swansea
■ While I agree in general with
Dave Gardner describing two
wheels as a commonsense alternative
to public transport for short
commutes, I disagree with his particular
choice.
The two-stroke engines that
power scooters are environmentally
unfriendly and inferior compared
with the four-stroke engines
generally used on motorcycles.
May I suggest the bicycle as an
even better short-journey alternative.
Robert Ireland, Dorset
You can’t be serious
As a magazine purporting to
engage the interest of engineers
and scientists, your editorial can
be surprisingly unchallenging —
especially your Letters pages.
The Greenhouse Effect, greenhouse
gases, carbon footprints,
climate change and saving the
planet are not serious cornerstones
of science. After all, The
Engineer is not a magazine for
lifestyle junkies.
Although it is true that the
greenhouse gas issue has given
an enormous financial boost to
trade and industry in developed
countries, the proposition itself is
political rather than scientific. It
may benefit those of us who are
being supported by public funds
to deal with this bogus subject —
but remember, the rest of the population
has to pay for it.
It is, therefore, a good idea for
engineers to stop and think about
an incredibly successful existing
technology originally designed to
use solar energy to synthesise
atmospheric carbon dioxide with
water into a wide range of products,
including oil. This extremely
complex process has enormous
benefits, the only downside being
the space needed for the necessary
light-gathering arrays.
The upside is that the technology
is very cheap to install and as
long as there is enough water
available for the process, large
quantities of oil can be created.
One big benefit of this process
is that, although the photo-chemical
reaction does produce a highly
corrosive gas, these emissions
quickly dissipate into the atmosphere
where they are neutralised
by air-breathing organisms.
Another is that the equipment
can be changed or modified at
very little cost to produce large
quantities of biomass which can
be also be used for food.
But this carbon-fixing equipment
only works properly if there
is sufficient carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere. Cosmologically
speaking, since CO 2 is an
extremely rare gas and not particularly
plentiful on Earth, it is foolish
to try and reduce its already
tiny percentage in the atmosphere.
The CO 2 — H 2O synthesising
process may be cheap but it
uses a lot of CO 2 from the
atmosphere, and if the current
levels happened to fall, the whole
photo-chemical process would
become impossible.
Justin Gudgeon
by email
Monkey business
In the article ‘More sense, less
travel’ on virtual cocoons (News, 7
April) the old one about the video
of a gorilla in a basketball game
was used to illustrate a point
about perceptual trade-offs.
Recently it was mentioned on
the radio and I later described the
experiment to my wife. (For those
who don’t know, students were
asked to count the number of
times a ball was passed, and 70
per cent didn’t notice a man in a
gorilla suit on the court.)
I was surprised at how unimpressed
she was and more surprised
when she told me that team
mascots (a man in a gorilla suit
obviously fitting that description)
often go on court during a game.
On the subject of things not
being what they seem, a story is
told about NASA developing an
expensive pressurised space pen
while the Russians used a pencil.
Have you ever tried sharpening a
graphite pencil in zero gravity surrounded
by electronics? The
Americans did and that’s why they
invented the pen.
Robin Herrick
by email
Nothing changes
I couldn’t help noticing the similarity
between the pictures (see
below) on pages 18 and 70 (Viewpoint
and Back Page, 24 March).
the EnGIneeR 21 APRIL–4 MAY 2008
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