As I posted earlier, some very innovative technologies now in development for producing green H2 from cheaper / less environmentally damaging electrolysers

No. If the elecity is not renewable then the H2 is not green. How efficient the electrolyser is compared to current electrolysers is irrelevant.

But this article assumes that all electricity that goes into cars is produced using renewables and that is simply not true

I don’t understand your point here. Your comment is true, but in an EV vs H2 discussion it just means H2 will continue to be a highly polluting power source for the long term and so no good for CO2 reduction.

By chance today the Guardian (how very STW) have a good analysis of H2 vs EV:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/13/will-hydrogen-overtake-batteries-in-the-race-for-zero-emission-cars

Their answer is EV has already won the race for cars, but H2 is a good contender for large vehicles.

does that mean all these anti-EV folk I see on social-media will have to drop their “the grid can’t cope” theories?

No – because it’s the internet: It’ll be a conspiracy by the big evil EV manufacturers.

I believe the hydrogen filling stations store liquid H2

Three different strategies are used: external supply by liquid H2 and storage in a vacuum insulated tank, external supply of gaseous H2 and storage in tube trailers, or on site production by electrolysis and storage as high pressure gas.

Each method has its own pros and cons and as it’s is such a young technology there is not yet a single industry standard method.

I’ve got the blower type and it works very effectively to turn my wet MTB boots dry for the next morning. You can set a timer and I usually use 30mins, although more like 60mins if the boots are sodden.

Only downside is it is quite lightweight so can overbalance with heavier shoes, so they have to be lent against something.

So, the company I worked for manufactured H2 and also ran an H2 refilling station in southern Germany.

The H2 was mainly made from methane and the carbon is removed at the start of the process: so you are just moving the CO2 emissions upstream. (Green H2 can be made but has lots of barriers to making it in the industrial quantities needed to power vehicles in the short term).

In all the visits I did to the office where the H2 filling station was located I never saw it being used. I guess it was there to demonstrate the technology is possible and to supply the handful of H2 demonstration vehicles the car manufacturers run.

only six LH2 filling stations open in the U.K. down from ten in March ‘22

doesn’t surprise me at all.

PS I think the H2 filling stations will be for high pressure compressed H2 not LH2: liquid hydrogen is quite problematic to handle.

Isn’t a corporation’s legal duty to maximise their profit for share holders? They can get sued if they don’t do that…

Your comment may have got lots of votes, but I don’t think it is true. Perhaps you can quote which law gives you the ability to sue them if they don’t maximise profit?

I think the directors can do what they want on profitability and if most shareholders don’t like it they can appoint new directors.

Just finished reading Tom Holland’s Rubicorn describing Rome’s “democracy in the period leading up to Julius Ceaser becoming emperor.

It is apparent, then like now, that democratic politicians buy elections, promise things they don’t intend to do, populists will sway the masses, and a few good principled politicians will be subverted by those who just like money and power. But at some level the voters have an opportunity to boot out a political group if their direction or corruption becomes too awful.

It is also apparent from the history of Roman Emperors that the alternative system of an absolute leader is substantially worse.

Nah it’s all sorted, I saw on the internet that it was caused by Diversity.

And I heard on the internet it was all caused by capitalism.

To put the alternative perspective, nearby somebody purchased a pub and got planning permission to build on the car park because they were changing it to a “cycling destination” so everyone would walk and ride there. Predictably most people still drive there and the the local residents have to suffer all the parked cars now on the streets.

Perhaps the HA has been through the same experience themselves on other large scale developments and has now got policies for what proportion of a new development must have parking – whatever the owner might promise.

Yes – going to a good physio privately is a very good way of identifying the problem quickly and in many cases resolving it too.

Your problem may be different but I was told by my GP my knee pain was wear and tear – I was about 35. I went to a physio and it turned out to be muscle imbalance, and it’s still going strong 30 years later.

Where in the shed do you plan to leave you bike and how many bikes will the chain be securing? Under the bikes but towards the wall they are leaning on is the obvious place.

20 year old gas bills? I’d chuck the lot in recycling.

This

Whoosh

Well perhaps not. The point being that verbing itself is a well established verb converted from a noun; it’s a good example of many English words(such as table a motion or liquify some wax) that started as nouns and later became verbs too. So if it’s acceptable to use verbing then there is nothing wrong with other verbed nouns, like inbox.

Perhaps what Cougar really objects to is neologisms; in which case he won’t be Googling anything.

Similarly, verbing nouns.

Like the word “verbing”?

I just put it on and set the timer on the cooker for 1:45, forget about it completely and then come back and start monitoring it with a temp probe

If this is the kind of effort I’d have to use for waxing my chain I’d go back to wash, dry, and lube every ride.

But in practice I’ve been using Putoline in a cheap Argos DFF for 3 years cooking at about 90–130C. No doubt some here would see that as “overcooked” but it is still coating the chain well, it still lasts well between re waxings and it still makes the chain last a long time compared to wet lubes. So I’m happy with that process, whatever the current internet rabbit holes may say.

One thing to bear in mind is that at depths of 30ft or so, depending on your body type, breath size and other factors, you will become negatively buoyant. If you don’t have the strength to actively swim up from there to the surface you won’t float up, you will drown.

Any reason you didn’t go for a cheap deep fat fryer?

This

Is there something I’m missing technique wise on big berms that would give me more speed?

Is there something you should be telling us technique wise on small berms that would give us more speed?

I think you’ll find that a silver 2010 diesel Mondeo hatch is the zenith of automotive history

close: but in fact the 2011 estate in midnight blue (dark grey really) was the zenith.

When I saw Dads Army as a kid in the 1970s it never dawned on me that Sargent Wilson was Pike’s dad.

Listening to the radio 4 repeats over the last few years makes me amazed how naive I was then.

What I did, probably too late for you now, is to get Halifax and Barclaycard which charge no fee on foreign spend or cash withdrawals. This is the best way to avoid fees when travelling abroad.

In India I used them at ATMs to withdraw cash, and would pay off my credit card balance to avoid interest payments. Only thing is being India some ATMs may be off line or not work with your card, so you have to keep a good float of cash just in case.

I’ve been using Duo since the start of COVID when I was ill in Ischgl for a few days with a mystery illness. So I started refreshing my schoolboy German.

I’m now on a 1440 day streak, which is the only gamification care about. I’ve mainly focused on Italian and Spanish which were both new languages for me. Although I’ve had to drop Italian because learning such similar languages is too confusing and Italian although lovely to speak is just way less useful than Spanish.

Last year I learned some Japanese when I visited there and found the tiny bit I learned very useful, and fascinating to tackle a language that is constructed so differently to European languages. I was particularly please to learn the word Eki one day and the next day be able to use it IRL to make sure I was on the right bus. And the Japanese are so positive about any attempt you make to use their language.

I’ve never paid for Duo, partly because of that annoying subscription advert they constantly play me, with the highly irritating American voice over. And partly because I’m mean.

my palms or the heels of my hands hurt and my fingers go numb

I used to get this, because the handlebar grips were too hard. Swapping them out for Ergon grips and gloves with gel palms fixed the problem for me.

https://www.sigmasports.com/item/Ergon/GP1-Handlebar-Grips/P7J7

Never got to see them live but loved playing his bass lines.

I don’t know why H2 as a car fuel is being discussed so much here. It is simply not available as a green fuel in any meaningful amount and until we have almost unlimited amounts of green electricity it won’t be viable to produce industrial quantities of green hydrogen – so not for decades yet.

Other than possibly specialised applications like heavy transport it will remain the wrong answer to the question of green power compared to electricity for a long time to come.

If I can across as impersonal or uncaring then I apologise

You do not come across like that, but you do make some very interesting comments about how electric power is supplied and used.

Green hydrogen is pretty much no existent at the moment – we had this discussion in a previous thread about using it at Port Talbot for steel making.

Green hydrogen comes from electricity, which means it is only an alternative transfer and storage mechanism between the green electricity generation and the car. Comments about fossil fuel power stations apply to both. If you have lots of green electricity in the future, and today we do not, do you send it by cables to an EV battery or do you turn it into H2 that is transported and stored at petrol stations for use in H2 cars.

There are pros and cons to both strategies, but green hydrogen at scale is decades away and in the meantime EVs are here now and are the only game in town.

Lots of great suggestions above. Another idea is to buy a copy of London Hidden Walks and just do an outdoor walk in a special neighbourhood. Soho, Mayfair and Shoreditch were each fascinating walks that occupied a solid half day.

London's Hidden Walks Volume 1

Thanks all, in the end I decided to splash some cash on ShowersPass.

you really want to maximise as much sun as possible.

This, crops need light to grow. In your first year watch carefully what parts of the garden get several hours direct sun, March-Sept. These are your best bets for future beds and elsewhere for compost bins.

I’d recommend a bike tour – no hear me out: although it’s hilly there are morning tours that start up at the park on the hill so they are down hill all the way to the riverside. A well as a nice ride you get to see lots of places in the city you probably wouldn’t see otherwise.

I’m sure you saw what you saw, but Putoline has a flash point of >200C (their information), which is consistent with other hydrocarbon waxes, and the self ignition point of hydrocarbon waxes is about 250C. So you must have either had a faulty new DFF that just remained heating despite being far above your set temperature, or you had got some very flammable  contamination in the DFF, or the the “alight” you saw was coming from an electrical fault within the DFF.

But Putoline itself, or cooking oils, or indeed even petrol, will not simply self combust just by being heated to temperatures of 150-170C at which you would fry chips.

I think using a DFF is fine – no need for a slow cooker. Putoline say to heat the wax on a gas burner, so a DFF will be no worse than that, unless you set it to a high temperature.

When I contacted Putoline to ask what temp they said 70-80C. Any hotter and some of the additives will evaporate.

Non wax additives may be important for motorbike chains, but I don’t think they are a big deal for bike chains. Also DFFs can be set for about 70-80C if you want to go for the slow melt/low temperature approach.

I can’t remember what the flashpoint of Putoline is but a DFF will easily achieve it!

Putoline quote the flash point as greater than 200C, so a DFF will NOT easily achieve it.

Also the flash point is not the temperature that a liquid will burst into flames. It is the temperature at which it will give off enough flammable fumes to be ignited by a source of ignition (such as a burning match) near the surface of the liquid. So while it may be a good idea not to leave hot Putoline unattended, a whole chain of major failures would be necessary to start a fire.

Crackling noises are just droplets of water boiling. If you only heat the wax to about 80C probably some water from a damp chain will not get driven off. If you run the DFF at about 100C you will evaporate all the water from the chain in a few minutes and not get any crackling noises next time you melt the wax.

Tomato

raw tomatoes were created by the devil to make oysters seem relatively palatable.

Tangerine?

No, that is just a variety of Orange from Tangiers. Just like a Satsuma is also a variety of Orange, but from Japan.

Oranges are fine.

Any raw fruit beginning with the letter T.

@infovore – good post.

I do MTB and road riding, both are great fun in their own different ways. I don’t do downhill but I’m sure people who ride that are great guys too and have a lot of fun, however unappealing I find it personally.

In terms of personal experience, when I’m riding the MTB and wave to a roadie I find they usually wave back. Maybe roadies in the SE are just nicer?

Thank you @thecaptain – every day is a lesson.

costs of H2 production and how far away we are.

Yes – that’s why I said it: I worked in the industrial gas industry.

Still, it’s something to aim for in the future.

Yes, but realistically we will do well to have 10% of global capacity from renewable H2 DRI by 2050 – not a practical solution to replace the current plant in Wales during the mid 2020s.