Andy

You seem to think that it is necessary to prove ones competence continuously, and that CPD (of some kind) is the way to prove this. Fair enough, so let us assess some of the competence currently being shown by some others and therefore assess their ability to do their jobs. You may not agree with my assessments, but must be entirely evidence based if you wish to disagree.


Currently electric vehicles are being pushed very hard by all manner of people, unfortunately some of them engineers. The major reason for this is because they believe that internal combustion engines cannot be used in future because they emit exhaust products which must be eliminated from the atmosphere for various reasons, although they do not understand these reasons at any fundamental level. For example they have failed to examine the toxicology of NO2, and therefore believe that it is highly poisonous. They have not examined the so called "greenhouse effect" of CO2, or the advantages of higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere to plants, and because of this believe that we must eliminate fossil fuels of all kinds. They have also not considered what else may be done to replace such fuels in the more northern countries with seriously adverse climates, where human existence needs space heating. They have not considered the provision of electricity if we all have electric vehicles, because the supply is completely inadequate even at this point as coal plants are shut down, although they are the least polluting of all major fossil fuel uses; perhaps excepting gas, but that has other questions. "Renewables" is shouted, but these have the ultimate problem that the supply is completely unpredictable, and we need power at a high level at all times. Storage of grid levels of power (say 1000GWhr) is immensely dangerous, a fault could release this over a short period with the possibility of damage like many large hydrogen bombs at once.


You will see that I have used the word belief a number of times above. Engineering is never about belief, it is about hard facts, many of which are gained at great effort and expense. All of the above points are avoided by engineers for reasons which I cannot begin to understand, but which stem from politics. I am old enough not to care to be popular with people in general, but I do care about the future. The greatest risk to the developed world is failure to engineer the future to deal with whatever comes along, and to do that engineers need to understand many things fully, particularly when these form part of a belief system of others, rather than simple facts. I asked the question about electricity in my last post deliberately, because the "model" answer says more about early 20th century scientific belief than understanding. "Green" is a belief system based on supposition and poor science. So was alchemy and witchcraft. The future depends on engineers getting the answers right.


Just in case you wonder, NO2 is an irritant gas, not very poisonous, naturally occuring from lightning. It is produced in high temperature and pressure combustion in air, in small volumes. It can be virtually eliminated with suitable catalysts. The EU limit is 200 ug / m3 for air quality assessment. Such levels can easily be met with diesel engines and exhaust treatment. High levels found in some towns are due to stationary traffic having insufficient exhaust temperature to operate the catalyst, a road design defect now blamed on diesel engines! That is known as politics.

Andy

You seem to think that it is necessary to prove ones competence continuously, and that CPD (of some kind) is the way to prove this. Fair enough, so let us assess some of the competence currently being shown by some others and therefore assess their ability to do their jobs. You may not agree with my assessments, but must be entirely evidence based if you wish to disagree.


Currently electric vehicles are being pushed very hard by all manner of people, unfortunately some of them engineers. The major reason for this is because they believe that internal combustion engines cannot be used in future because they emit exhaust products which must be eliminated from the atmosphere for various reasons, although they do not understand these reasons at any fundamental level. For example they have failed to examine the toxicology of NO2, and therefore believe that it is highly poisonous. They have not examined the so called "greenhouse effect" of CO2, or the advantages of higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere to plants, and because of this believe that we must eliminate fossil fuels of all kinds. They have also not considered what else may be done to replace such fuels in the more northern countries with seriously adverse climates, where human existence needs space heating. They have not considered the provision of electricity if we all have electric vehicles, because the supply is completely inadequate even at this point as coal plants are shut down, although they are the least polluting of all major fossil fuel uses; perhaps excepting gas, but that has other questions. "Renewables" is shouted, but these have the ultimate problem that the supply is completely unpredictable, and we need power at a high level at all times. Storage of grid levels of power (say 1000GWhr) is immensely dangerous, a fault could release this over a short period with the possibility of damage like many large hydrogen bombs at once.


You will see that I have used the word belief a number of times above. Engineering is never about belief, it is about hard facts, many of which are gained at great effort and expense. All of the above points are avoided by engineers for reasons which I cannot begin to understand, but which stem from politics. I am old enough not to care to be popular with people in general, but I do care about the future. The greatest risk to the developed world is failure to engineer the future to deal with whatever comes along, and to do that engineers need to understand many things fully, particularly when these form part of a belief system of others, rather than simple facts. I asked the question about electricity in my last post deliberately, because the "model" answer says more about early 20th century scientific belief than understanding. "Green" is a belief system based on supposition and poor science. So was alchemy and witchcraft. The future depends on engineers getting the answers right.


Just in case you wonder, NO2 is an irritant gas, not very poisonous, naturally occuring from lightning. It is produced in high temperature and pressure combustion in air, in small volumes. It can be virtually eliminated with suitable catalysts. The EU limit is 200 ug / m3 for air quality assessment. Such levels can easily be met with diesel engines and exhaust treatment. High levels found in some towns are due to stationary traffic having insufficient exhaust temperature to operate the catalyst, a road design defect now blamed on diesel engines! That is known as politics.