[Stoves] PM emissions from engines

neiltm at uwclub.net neiltm at uwclub.net
Tue Jun 6 17:36:17 CDT 2017


On 6 Jun 2017 at 19:59, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:

> I am willing to bet that with the addition of electronically controlled
> valves the hindrance can be overcome. They can't be far from market. My
> nephew did his PhD on them 10 years ago. Fully programmable valve timing,
> no cam shaft, no chain etc. Flat torque profile. 

Whether they ever come to market seems likely to depend on political 
decisions over favoured and disfavoured technologies.  Another great 
technology we never got for the ICE was optical sensors looking at the 
colour of the burn in order to modify the next firing.  Then the cat was 
globally mandated as an imposed solution to meet emission targets already 
capable of being reached by such advanced lean burn technologies, and my 
brother's career took an abrupt turn in a totally different direction as 
he muttered about governments imposing solutions on engineers instead of 
the standards, and leaving the solutions up to the experts.  Your last 
link indicated that the petrol/gasoline engine is also slated for the 
abominable encumberance of particulate filters that has already ruined 
the diesel engine, and caused me to have to trade my last car in for an 
older model without one, as it was unfit for purpose by design. But never 
fear, the UK government is always one step ahead in the war on us, and 
they intend to punish those hanging on to old models without the new 
technology.  At a time when engines should be running better than ever, 
motorists are complaining about their poor and uneven performance, new 
unreliabilities and massive servicing expense compared with the earlier 
models with diesels at least, but gasoline engines seem slated to go the 
same way.  It is clear from the massive government subsidies that we are 
to get electric vehicles, like it or not, and if they can't be made 
attractive enough fast enough, then spoiling the ICE adds disincentive in 
the direction of the desired change.

To bring this thread back on topic, the manipulations and mandatory 
globalised adoptions of sub optimal technologies seems to be something 
the motor industry has in common with globalised stove solutions!

Its an old cliche the garage/backyard inventor who discovered a way to 
get 10 more MPG out of a carburettored vehicle, but I actually know 
someone who's brother not only did this but got offered a 7 figure sum 
from the motor industry for his patent!  He didn't take it, but shortly 
after that the carburettor became history anyway.

If the poorest people still can't afford a nineteenth century clean 
burning paraffin pressure stove, without Crispin having to radically 
simplify and make the build cheaper and lower tech, I find it hard to see 
how they are likely to (usefully to them) get LPG and electricity, even 
if it is possible to see how they could.  Which probably means that 
GACC's 'interim' biomas technology could fill a very long interim for all 
too many, and hard to prevent once learned and adopted, because locally 
empowered.

Neil Taylor




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