5 ms·

We could have had incredibly clean cities 30 years ago, if the UK government hadn't effectively killed off LPG in favour of "scrappage schemes" to get people to

We could have had incredibly clean cities 30 years ago, if the UK government hadn't effectively killed off LPG in favour of "scrappage schemes" to get people to buy "cleaner greener diesel" cars. Until about the early 2000s you could get a grant to cover the cost of converting your petrol car to run on propane. There's masses of it that has to be burnt because it's a waste product from cracking heavier fractions to make plastics feedstocks, and it burns producing only carbon dioxide and water - no HC, no CO, no particulates. They run warehouse forklifts on it, because unlike diesel or petrol you don't die if you breathe the exhaust fumes. But, there was more profit to be had in buying everyone's cars for a couple of hundred quid and "scrapping" them - in reality, even 30 years later there are still millions lying in fields that haven't been touched - and then selling people very expensive finance packages so they can buy a diesel car instead. So now we have stinky diesels everywhere and everyone is in debt. Working as intended.

FridayoLeary 11mo ago
It's odd how few cars run on lpg.
twodave 11mo ago
Propane also has to be pressurized, which complicates its use. Gasoline being liquid at rest is advantageous. That said, when I was in Rio in 2007 I saw plenty of cars running on pressurized natural gas. They were considered pretty crappy, though.
- ErroneousBosh 11mo ago
  It's not very pressurised. The 95 litre tank in my old Range Rover is around 8 bar, which is about half the pressure in the air suspension tank and only about three times the pressure in the tyres. Although as you say being able to just pour more petrol in from a can is an advantage! CNG and hydrogen tanks need ridiculously high pressures - 250-300 for CNG and over 700 bar for hydrogen. Even if that was dry nitrogen it would be a potentially lethal bomb! The nice thing about LPG is you can use plastic pipe and inexpensive compression fittings that are easy to connect and disconnect when you need to work on stuff. If you undo a pipe and it's got line pressure in it, the biggest problem is that it stinks and you might get frostbite if it sprays on your hand. It just kind of hisses out a bit. You want to do this outside though if you're unsure if there's pressure there. Propane is a lot less explodey than petrol, so you end up using a little more of it but you get a bigger slower bang, which gives you less flat-out power and more torque. Everyone needs more torque, no-one needs to be flat out wide open throttle. The downside is that being less explodey, it means you need the ignition system to be in perfect condition. I get about 10,000 miles from a set of spark plugs before it starts getting hard to start and noticeably groggy acceleration, even allowing for it weighing over two tonnes and and having a 200bhp engine. It's never going to be fast! At least it's lawnmower-grade spark plugs, good old BPR6ES, same as in your boat engine.
RASBR89 11mo ago
Where are these fields?
- jamiek88 10mo ago
  Yeah there absolutely are not fields of 30 year old cars in the uk lol. Our agricultural land is efficiently exploited and would never waste the space, public lands would be in uproar and the government did not buy acres and acres to stash ford fiestas.

FridayoLeary 11mo ago

It's odd how few cars run on lpg.

twodave 11mo ago

Propane also has to be pressurized, which complicates its use. Gasoline being liquid at rest is advantageous. That said, when I was in Rio in 2007 I saw plenty of cars running on pressurized natural gas. They were considered pretty crappy, though.

ErroneousBosh 11mo ago
It's not very pressurised. The 95 litre tank in my old Range Rover is around 8 bar, which is about half the pressure in the air suspension tank and only about three times the pressure in the tyres. Although as you say being able to just pour more petrol in from a can is an advantage! CNG and hydrogen tanks need ridiculously high pressures - 250-300 for CNG and over 700 bar for hydrogen. Even if that was dry nitrogen it would be a potentially lethal bomb! The nice thing about LPG is you can use plastic pipe and inexpensive compression fittings that are easy to connect and disconnect when you need to work on stuff. If you undo a pipe and it's got line pressure in it, the biggest problem is that it stinks and you might get frostbite if it sprays on your hand. It just kind of hisses out a bit. You want to do this outside though if you're unsure if there's pressure there. Propane is a lot less explodey than petrol, so you end up using a little more of it but you get a bigger slower bang, which gives you less flat-out power and more torque. Everyone needs more torque, no-one needs to be flat out wide open throttle. The downside is that being less explodey, it means you need the ignition system to be in perfect condition. I get about 10,000 miles from a set of spark plugs before it starts getting hard to start and noticeably groggy acceleration, even allowing for it weighing over two tonnes and and having a 200bhp engine. It's never going to be fast! At least it's lawnmower-grade spark plugs, good old BPR6ES, same as in your boat engine.

RASBR89 11mo ago

Where are these fields?

jamiek88 10mo ago
Yeah there absolutely are not fields of 30 year old cars in the uk lol. Our agricultural land is efficiently exploited and would never waste the space, public lands would be in uproar and the government did not buy acres and acres to stash ford fiestas.