MPG can be misleading so % increases are what you should look at (which is why I’m glad you mentioned the 5%). A 1MPG improvement @ 20MPG is twice as good as a 1MPG improvement @40MPG.

usually refered to as BREEAM

It’s part of the active rust prevention system. When I get around to re-building my spitfire engine I’m hoping to eliminate this particular feature!

The loyalty tax is frustrating, on the one hand I’m ok with it essentially being a tax for being lazy and by shopping around my lower prices are essentially subsidised by the lazy masses, however I find it utterly ridiculous that this kind of business practice goes on in this day and age.

There’s an argument that wind is currently more viable than wave due to the massive funding for wave power in the 80's in the UK. Wave had the money, aimed really high and was ultimately too ambitious. Wind power had little funding so started with small working prototypes and slowly evolved into ever larger models.…

If you have a family of 5 (and to be fair anything more than this needs a minivan to move everyone and is therefore a hopeless situation) then a 5 seater and a 2 seater will do. Everyone in one car? Take the 5 seat. 1 kid need to go somewhere, take the 2 seater. 2/3/4 people need to get somewhere, take the 5 seater.

beautiful

Fingers crossed for camless engines next year.

It’s based on sound principles and I believe the hypermiling community are all about warm air intakes. Just to cloud the issue: a warm air intake probably helps the engine warm up faster so that could be where much of the mileage gains come from as the engine spends less time running rich to warm up.

A warm air intake will boost efficiency & mileage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warm_air_…

Anyone else think the packaging of a rotary engine is very similar to the packaging of an electric motor? There could be the potential for a drivetrain with the option of full e motor, full rotary or hybrid power.

It’s a clever way of playing down a reduction of engine power. That last 1 or 2 mph of top speed needs a surprisingly large amount of power so 1 or 2 mph off the top speed sounds like a small amount, but the power loss will likely be significant. (eg, 170bhp tdi passat tops out at 141mph, 103bhp tdi passat only…

I believe they are talking about radiation exchange with space/the universe. We couldn’t heat that up a measurable amount if we tried.

It’s very low grade heat (tends to be low temperature and not always available) so the energy (mainly pumping) & infrastructure (pipes, heat exchangers) required to utilise it is usually too costly to be worthwhile.

That’s interesting to know. When I went to the Hoover dam they explained the white band was the drop in lake Mead and just said that they had been in drought for 7 years or something. I remember thinking it’s crazy calling a 7 year water deficit a drought & not the new status quo.

If it’s been going on for 15 years and the lake supplies Vegas, is there any weather data to support the idea that it’s a drought & not just Vegas using too much water?

Even with a good helmet, the wind noise on a motorbike at 70mph is in the region of 100 dB which can start to damage hearing after 15 mins of exposure. I always wear earplugs when on a bike, but I’m probably over sensitive about my bat-hearing.

You know that generally the plant is sized using standard heat loss/gain criteria then a temperature set point is specified. This set point can be altered by the user or building manager. I’ve never specified a coooling set point using a formula.

I’ve got an engine swap to do in my spitfire. Knackered crank thrust bearing is driving this, but I want the new one to be a well ballanced, lairy cammed, fire breathing (1300cc 4 pot) engine. Unfortunately life is getting in the way, that and the fact that I’ve done all the cheap bits and need to pull the trigger on…

Can’t overstate this enough. Look up Phosgene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene), and there’s this terrifying testimonial: http://www.brewracingframes.com/safety-alert-b…