Mad Mary White on TodayFM again

Stekelly wrote: »

I dont see how our system encourages change anymore than say the UK system. Everyone in the uk knows the most current reg (old letter system and new number based one)

It's not quite as blatant though is it? Ours is really obvious and simplistic.

I dont think she had thought thru' her idea

If I picked her up correctly her idea was either to have something like C1-CW-12345, or something with 5 stars instead of the C1 for the most environmentally friendly car. Would this mean say in Dublin in 10 years time when there would be over a million cars registered (between now and then), you would have the following number plate " *****-CW-1000001 "

They better start making more room on cars to fit that crap

Prototype "Greens" 09 reg plate -

ismynametoolong wrote: »

Mad Mary must be drinking the Bio fuel she is buying from some friend in the Midlands or where ever she gets it.
Unfortunately we gave these clowns a mandate and the economy will suffer as a result. Who is paying for this ridiculous idea of off setting ministers carbon travel foot print you and me buddy and making some carbon broker very rich in the process. We now have the most draconian CO2 taxation system in Europe even the Swiss decided not to go with CO2 taxation because of economic concerns. Our market will from July turn into an 80 % Diesel market a fuel which is much more dirty and polluting than Petrol and far worse for the local environment. Also just so the fuel companies dont get accused of profiteering overnight Diesel has already started to creep ahead of pertol in price at the pump and is set to get worse.

Doesn't diesel always get more expensive during the winter??

I was so dismayed by her complete ignorance about what she was talking about yesterday that I wrote the following letter to the papers...


I listened to Mary White TD of the Green Party speak on the radio last night. As part of a conversation about their latest plans to make 'Green' cool by replacing the year on our registration plates with an energy rating, she was asked about the energy rating of her own car. She claimed it was highly efficient because it was running on Pure Plant Oil so when it was NCT'd it had emissions of just 0.1%. 0.1% of what, she didn't say (or seem know for that matter), but she speculated that normal family cars would run at well over 2% or 3% which would make her figure of 0.1% exemplary.
I checked back on my last NCT report, it shows CO (carbon monoxide) and HC (hydrocarbons) emission measurements, both checked at low idle and at high idle. The units for the CO emissions were 'volume %' and for HC emissions were 'Parts per Million'. I assume that Deputy Whites quoted figure was for CO emissions, due to the mention of a percentage value, and the measurement was at high idle based on the fact that this will be the lower of the two values and portray her car in the best possible light. Comparing this to my own report from July 2006, my car registered a reading of 0.16 volume %, very close to the performance of Deputy Whites Eco Machine. My car runs on petrol, not pure plant oil like Deputy Whites. Worse again, it would attract a very poor F Energy Rating under the new system for VRT and Motor Tax. How can this be?
First of all, despite what you'd think listening to Deputy White, her car does pump out greenhouse gasses, just like a regular car. The 'Carbon Neutral' credentials of biofuels are established on the basis that the carbon contained within the fuel has been absorbed from the atmosphere by the crop from which the fuel is derived, as it was grown. For some biofuels, these credentials can be pretty tenuous, not only because of the amount of energy required to grow and harvest the crop, and convert the crop into fuel, but also because of the environmental implications of diverting agricultural land from food production to fuel production, but that's another matter.
Getting back to the NCT report, a second read brought more enlightenment. The limit for CO emissions was 0.3 volume %. This limit varies according to year of manufacture, but my car being 8 years old would indicate that if anything, it has been lowered for more recent models. It seems Deputy White’s claims of normal family cars running at 2% and 3% were sourced from Berties Big Book of Numbers.
Research into the presence of high levels of CO or HC in the exhaust identified a rich fuel / air mixture as the probable culprit, possibly a result of a defective sensor, fuel injector, catalytic converter, or other engine component. It seems the most frugal car can register high levels of CO or HC in the NCT if there is an engine fault and the biggest gas guzzler can register comparably low levels of CO and HC to that of Deputy Whites Eco Machine. Neither CO nor HC measurements can be correlated to the CO2 based Energy Rating of a car, as used in the new Motor Tax and VRT bands, which is measured in g/100km. How are we expected to take the Green Party seriously when their policy spokesperson demonstrates such a blissful ignorance of the subject matter?
One thing I would agree with Deputy White about is the large environmental impact of the manufacture of new cars. Mine is even older than hers and I see no reason to submit to number plate snobbery, either chronological or pseudo-ecological, any time soon.