www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0b9aafc2-4123-11e1-b521-00144feab49a.html#axzz1jvWJS4Xz
Hydrogen-powered cars – frequently derided as the perpetual technology of the future – are to receive the support of ministers in an initiative, backed by industry, that aims to make the technology commercially viable by 2015.
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>> >> (free) registration required
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>> Worth every penny.
Well I've signed up for the weekly Life & Arts email...
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If hydrogen can be produced cheaply and the infrastructure exists to transport it etc. then we could just have modified petrol engines running of it instead.
Isn't the problem just how to produce hydrogen and transport without it all costing a fortune. And maybe the safety aspect too.
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Interesting, but just another sort of electric car, still five years away at least if we ever see it.
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But if they sort out the hydrogen problem then you can run a combustion engine instead. BMW have been doing this for years. The problem is producing, storing and transporting hydrogen.
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>> But if they sort out the hydrogen problem then you can run a combustion engine
>> instead. BMW have been doing this for years. The problem is producing, storing and transporting
>> hydrogen.
Yes, considering that hydrogen, to be stored as a liquid, needs to be at a temperature of -253 degrees celsius.
liambean.hubpages.com/hub/Future-Car-The-Problems-with-Hydrogen
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>> Interesting, but just another sort of electric car
The significant difference is "...electric vehicles that are not held back by the limited range of batteries."
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Yes, that is significant. But hydrogen is expensive and problematic to handle.
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>> Yes, that is significant. But hydrogen is expensive and problematic to handle.
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>>
The bigger problem is that hydrogen takes a lot of electricity to produce and we don't have the capacity in the generation system to do it.
Please don't anyone mention wind farms.
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>> bigger problem is that hydrogen takes a lot of electricity to produce and we don't have the capacity in the generation system to do it.
= 'hydrogen is expensive' ON
mumble mumble matelots mumble mumble grog ration bad for personality mumble...
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>> = 'hydrogen is expensive' ON
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>> mumble mumble matelots mumble mumble grog ration bad for personality mumble...
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Cobblers, you said "hydrogen is expensive and problematic to handle". Nothing about production.
The grog ration was stopped in 1970, I know because I was there, however senior rates retained a ration of commercially available spirits in the mess bar onboard ships and submarines. :-)
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>> The grog ration was stopped in 1970, I know because I was there,
Heh heh... after two centuries of campaigning by doctors, social reformers and other killjoys...
After all you really needed to be plasterado out on the end of the main yardarm reefing the main course in a force 10 off the Horn. It would have kept your mind on higher things.
Military officers have always believed in keeping the men tanked up especially when action threatened. 'Do as I say, and as I do actually. Cheers!'
Ever seen a wardroom pink gin? A quarter of a pint and not even visibly pink...
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>> Ever seen a wardroom pink gin? A quarter of a pint and not even visibly
>> pink...
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They just smell of gin.
When visiting New Zealand in a submarine in the days of the rum ration a motorcycle policeman received some hospitality. On leaving he tried to do a "U" turn on the jetty, we fished him out of the water but I don't know how he explained where his bike was to his boss. :-)
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>> They just smell of gin.
What with the officers reeking of gin and the men stinking of rum, it's a wonder those captured Somali pirates have survived long enough for anyone even to consider repatriating them owing to congestion in the court systems of all the relevant riverine countries...
Whatever happened to hanging them out of hand from the yardarm and feeding the bodies to the sharks? The Senior Service is a shadow of its former self.
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>>The Senior Service is a shadow of its former self.
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I could not agree more, and would include the other forces and police. Both hands tied behind their backs by do gooding, PC, human rights activists.
Unfortunately the bad guys know it. Nothing like a little collateral damage to keep them on their toes.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Thu 19 Jan 12 at 20:08
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>> Unfortunately the bad guys know it.
... and unfortunately it's a different world now too. And the bad guys (as we call them) are quite astute and really only want ransom; they don't routinely rape and murder as they might have done in a world with no proper communications. Our navy may be quite efficient for its size but it rules the waves no longer. Suppressing Indian Ocean piracy by brutal violence would take international agreements that are not forthcoming.
And it wouldn't be entirely just either. Somalia is out on the edge, a devastated country with no proper government and difficult (to put it mildly) to stabilize. Of course most of the population would love some sort of stability: the poorer you are, the worse off you are when any shock - drought or war, say - comes to mess you up. These people in many cases feel driven to piracy. It isn't the sort of thing a reasonable person would take up because it looked fun and profitable. What it looks is squalid, arduous, complicated and dangerous, demanding physical and financial investment and commitment. And how much of the ransom would be left by the time it had filtered down through the numerous middlemen?
Almost makes one feel sorry for the carphounds.
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>> Almost makes one feel sorry for the carphounds.
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My answer would be make it more dangerous to be at sea and armed within a defined (large) area than ashore in Somalia or wherever.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Thu 19 Jan 12 at 21:42
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A Somali pirate is almost certainly less worried about any amount of danger at sea rather than dying of starvation along with his family confined to the land. I don't seen any quick solution to the problem.
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>> A Somali pirate is almost certainly less worried about any amount of danger at sea
>> rather than dying of starvation along with his family confined to the land. I don't
>> seen any quick solution to the problem.
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Arm every ship that runs through the area, kill the pirates in the act. In the end you run out of pirates and/or they give up because there is no money in dead pirates.
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>> Arm every ship that runs through the area, kill the pirates in the act.
Arm it with what? And with whom? Sounds easy - a few infantry rifles, a few RPGs, a couple of twin .50 calibre machine guns, why not some Oerlikons while you're about it. So when, at some expense and not without a lot of bureaucratic carp, you've got all these bulk carriers and other vessels bristling a bit with weaponry, you still have to find people on board in sufficient numbers with the ability (no small matter) and the willingness to kill people in cold blood or while under fire. And of course if they don't wipe the pirates out the pirates may well take a vengeful and disapproving attitude.
You just can't find many people like that outside the armed forces these days, and my guess is not all that many even inside them. People aren't like that any more. This isn't the eighteenth century, or the movies.
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The pirates are in small un armoured craft, it's hard to board a moving ship one is exposed. Five marines with standard weapons will hold most of them off.
How about a convoy system shadowed by a helicopter gunship.
We are talking about untrained teenagers in speedboats with Kalashnikovs,
The opportunities for a duck shoot are endless. Shooting pirates is a legitimate and noble sport anywhere I the world at any time. Always has been.
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>> The opportunities for a duck shoot are endless.
A Kalashnikov in practised hands is a formidable infantry weapon. And ducks don't fire back at you with perhaps RPGs as well.
You are talking about finding deckhands and seacooks who would be CAPABLE of laying down effective coordinated fire and WILLING to do so. All right: you have two perhaps (remember ships these days don't carry large crews, and where are your 'five marines' going to come from?). Suppose three of these small unarmoured boats full of heavily armed teenagers come at your 400yd long bulk carrier from different angles with their grappling hooks and so on. They've done it before, perhaps often. Your two gung-ho Malay seamen haven't.
I imagine this has been tried Zeddo. No doubt there are ships that could cope, but there must be a hell of a lot that can't, and wouldn't try. As I said, it sounds easy, fun even. But in the event it probably wouldn't be.
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>> come from?). Suppose three of these small unarmoured boats full of heavily armed teenagers come
>> at your 400yd long bulk carrier from different angles with their grappling hooks and so
>> on. They've done it before, perhaps often. Your two gung-ho Malay seamen haven't.
Suppose Suppose Suppose, you are becoming an apologist AC.
The possibilities to shoot pirates are, as I said, endless. How about a couple of warship radar pickets packing helicopter gunships strategically placed in a no go zone some 15 miles off shore. Anything enters the zone is target practise.
How about a carrier 100 miles off the coast, a flight of warthogs shooting up anything that can float in port on the mainland.
How about a convoy system with armed patrol vessels
How about 25 armed marines dropped on each ship at the start of the danger run.
How about re-routing the ships 200 miles more off the coast
How about.. How about... how about... When someone says "what can be done" The possibilities are endless.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 20 Jan 12 at 17:12
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>> The possibilities are endless.
It's all very well to talk omnipotently about aircraft carriers, platoons of marines coming down ropes onto every vessel passing through the danger zone, etc., but whose carrier will it be? Whose marines will they be? That stuff isn't free, it's incredibly expensive, mounts up like anything. And all for a handful of ratty starving fisherfolk...
The other thing is that very strong exercise of military power invariably arouses international anxieties and jealousies. Complicated agreements are necessary before any shooting starts, and in this context so far they seem to be only partial at best.
I'm a bit surprised by your Warthog suggestion. Sounds as if you don't much care if the pirates' mothers, aunts and nippers get wasted too in a bit of likely collateral...
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>> I'm a bit surprised by your Warthog suggestion. Sounds as if you don't much care
>> if the pirates' mothers, aunts and nippers get wasted too in a bit of likely
>> collateral...
Correct, I dont. They are providing support and living off the spoils.
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>> They are providing support and living off the spoils.
Nothing much else to live on. Kenya doesn't want them, Ethiopia can't afford them. They are in an unenviable predicament. They don't have human rights in the same way that you do. Seems a bit, er, American of you to take such a cavalier attitude to their lives and deaths.
Shooting pirates in the act is one thing - I don't have anything against it although like a lot of things it is easier said than done - but zapping coastal villages is a step too far. Exactly the sort of thing some third world people still hate us for, although we haven't done much of it for ages.
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>> coastal villages is a step too far. Exactly the sort of thing some third world
>> people still hate us for, although we haven't done much of it for ages.
Its a whole new ball game to set sail from your village, armed to the teeth to pillage and plunder on the high seas. Always has been. The stakes go up immeasurably , the rewards go up completely out of proportion, its only logical that the risks and dangers should follow it.
They are pirates because its easy. Its time it was made less so. It only requires will, there is no practical difficulty.
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>> They are pirates because its easy.
You think so Zeddo? Well I don't. It can't ever have been easy, even in the days when pirates might be anyone and actually did pillage and plunder (and rape and murder) on the high seas. And one or two of those, in case you have forgotten, later became, after a bit of slave trading too in some cases, hallowed names in the history of our own much-loved Royal Navy.
These Indian Ocean Somalis don't do that, they try to capture ships and squeeze the owners for some money. Great nuisance of course to those captured, but (as others have said) many if not all owners would rather cough up than get into any heavy paramilitary security malarkey, with its legal consequences which can sometimes drag on for years. And to be quite honest if the owners and crews can put up with the risk, so can I. I don't feel hot under the collar about it. And I doubt if there are any ex-fishermen driving Bentleys in Knightsbridge, although the middlemen and money men are perhaps well represented, and were all along.
Naturally if I was going to charter a ship to take me through those waters on a pleasure cruise I would make sure we were well tooled up and woe betide any pirate who tried anything. I'm sure you feel the same. But that's just us. We are both a bit old-fashioned really.
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>> Suppose Suppose Suppose, you are becoming an apologist AC.
You probably know quite well that 'suppose' was a figure of speech. It wasn't supposition really: that is what they do according to the media. And of course it's the obvious thing to do if you want to capture a cumbersome undermanned vessel if possible without bloodshed.
Nor am I being an apologist, although I revel of course in devil's advocacy. Pirates like bank robbers risk being shot and that doesn't make me squeamish at all. On some level after all they are asking for it.
But I do think some people overreact a bit to these pirates. Of course they must vary like all human categories, but they aren't just despicable, demented, incomprehensible murderers like Islamist suicide bombers for example. They are people on the edge whose only asset is that they are sailors, squeezed beyond endurance by the climate, their own politics and, in fact, globalized capitalist fishing. The piracy choice would seem manly to many. It does to them, and reading between the lines it does to our marines too, or some of them.
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>> The pirates are in small un armoured craft, it's hard to board a moving ship
>> one is exposed. Five marines with standard weapons will hold most of them off.
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>> How about a convoy system shadowed by a helicopter gunship.
>>
>> We are talking about untrained teenagers in speedboats with Kalashnikovs,
>> The opportunities for a duck shoot are endless. Shooting pirates is a legitimate and noble
>> sport anywhere I the world at any time. Always has been.
>>
Shipping companies in the whole aren't interested. A few have security firms (a la blackwater) onboard but still a minority. As to convoys again the same not worth it financially they'd rather take the risk. Plus I'd bet no one has done convoys in years the skills across the world's navies (certainly the rn) are long gone.
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>> make it more dangerous to be at sea and armed within a defined (large) area than ashore in Somalia or wherever.
Yes, tough on piracy is a reasonable thing to be. Anyone except a pirate would be for it.
But tough on the causes of piracy... now there's a genuine challenge for the alleged grown-ups who control the world's coffers and value flows... one can't help suspecting that the real pirates are to b found...
Oh never mind. Perhaps the thing to do would be to start with the pirates and work our way up. Trying to sort out Somalia is a thankless task. In fact all of that corner of Africa is a bit dodgy. Some tourists captured by the Danakil yesterday in northern Ethiopia. I hope they've still got their goolies. Many a gooly decorates a warrior's belt in those parts...
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>> These people in many cases feel driven to piracy. It isn't the sort of thing a reasonable person would take up because it looked fun and profitable.
I mentioned this thread to my wife, and she reminded me of something specific that I had forgotten: the ocean off southern Somalia, whose land consists essentially of desert, used to have rich inshore fishing that kept these coastal, maritime populations alive. Fish stocks have been greatly reduced over the last couple of decades by industrial trawling (by the Japanese among others), and some of this piracy by starving fishermen may have started as a sort of protest against that.
Same sort of thing has happened in the Atlantic off southern Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania. The fish have been scooped up by big trawlers from Japan, Spain and in fact Morocco. Wouldn't be surprised if other nations had been involved including us perhaps. Apart from the greedy depletion of fish stocks which some claim is irreversible (I doubt it personally), the point is that in the short term local coastal populations who fish from small short-range vessels have effectively been robbed of their major food source.
'I'm all right El Jacko. These sardines make great fish meal to spread on the rapeseed fields.'
Tchah! KnowImean?
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...Ever seen a wardroom pink gin?...
I once interviewed a Navy man who served during the Second World War.
He said the American sailors were always keen to visit our ships, rather than the other way around, because the American fleet was 'dry'.
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>> ...Ever seen a wardroom pink gin?...
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>> I once interviewed a Navy man who served during the Second World War.
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>> He said the American sailors were always keen to visit our ships, rather than the
>> other way around, because the American fleet was 'dry'.
>>
Still true, but the Americans always have ice cream. :-)
Social sporting fixtures are well organised, they supply the BBQ, we supply the beer. Always been so.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Thu 19 Jan 12 at 22:13
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>> The significant difference is "...electric vehicles that are not held back by the limited range of batteries."
That could also apply to the Volt / Ampera. And to diesel electric trains :)
I followed a hydrogen fuel cell bus in East London a while back, it was covered in self-promoting graphics so I had a look at the relevant website later. I understand each vehicle cost somewhere north of 1 million quid.
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If I had to choose between a leccie and a hydrogen leccie, I'd rather take my chances with the batteries.
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How much water would you get in the exhaust gases from burning hydrogen compared with burning petrol? Would exhaust systems corrode quicker with hydrogen?
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Depends how hot it is, combi boilers have plastic condensate drains and the cooled gasses go through a plastic flue.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 20 Jan 12 at 11:58
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There's a lot more water, as that is only combustion product of burning pure hydrogen - there's no CO2, so the flue gas is not acidic - SS would be adequate to stop it rusting (due to presence of water then air when swtiched off).
Hydrogen has limited future as a road fuel though: it's got no mass - even when compressed to 200 bar (the pressure a H2 tube trailer runs at), it's got low specific heat, it catches fire spontaneously if you get a system leak (it has a very low ignition energy, combined with odd physical properties that mean it tends to heat up when it expands, rather than cools down as most gasses do), production is currently very energy and raw materials intensive (most is made from natural gas by steam - methane reforming, which requires loads of energy, and produces loads of CO2 - like 10te per te of H2 produced!). Clean road fuels currently demand large amounts of hydrogen to produce them, so most refineries are already running at H2 generation capacity - OK so if we stop with the normal fuels, then the H2 demand drops, but that is catch 22 with getting it out there in the first place!
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Am I rememberi incorrectly that the UK would allow for armed personnel on ships?
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Hydrogen Fuel cells - on the way. - Focusless
