Goodbye to private motoring...from just 9 years?

[Deleted User]

Have I understood correctly that plug in hybrids will still be allowed until 2035 so we have 14 years before diesel / petrol powered cars are actually banned so anybody commenting about not been able to charge or having range issues has a long time to solve those issues?

AdrianC

Bigphil1474 said:

Personally, I agree that plug in electric cars are the Betamax version. Use of liquid hydrogen for power instead of petrol (takes energy to produce it, but can be offset with increased renewable electricity production), or even hydrogen converters in cars - fill it up with water, and let chemistry do the rest.

Still grid electricity -> forward motion, just with a whole load of extra steps and inefficiencies in the way.

Were_Doomed

Forum glitch made your post appear twice @AdrianC?

[Deleted User]

Bigphil1474 said:

... or even hydrogen converters in cars - fill it up with water, and let chemistry do the rest.
This can't be done due to the laws of thermodynamics - in a perfect 100% efficient world it would take as much energy to extract the hydrogen as the hydrogen can then produce - end result of zero energy.

In reality it takes more energy to extract hydrogen from water than can be recovered by subsequently burning because nothing is 100% efficient. Currently 50-55kwh/kg to extract hydrogen which yields 40kwh/kg. That's before the energy used in transporting it to the point of use.

Just need someone to come up with a power source that doesn't involve the use of limited rare resources, hence why Hydrogen is a good bet given we've quite a lot of it to play with.
Typically platinum or iridium electrodes are used in the electrolysis of water to hydrogen along with lithium and sodium as the electrolyte. 

   

AdrianC

Deleted_User said:

Bigphil1474 said:

... or even hydrogen converters in cars - fill it up with water, and let chemistry do the rest.

This can't be done due to the laws of thermodynamics - in a perfect 100% efficient world it would take as much energy to extract the hydrogen as the hydrogen can then produce - end result of zero energy.

You mean... perpetual motion hasn't been discovered and productionised?

Oh. Shucks.

jon81uk

headpin said:

The UK cars produce approx. 0.16% of the worlds greenhouse gas emissions. And, bearing in mind the Chinese and Indian emissions are increasing year on year, then our percentage will become even smaller. So, once again the UK population pick up the tab for what is in effect a pointless exercise that will have little effect on the global total. 

Looks good politically, but will be like !!!!!! in the Ocean, nobody will be able to see any difference.

World emissions is not the point in our governments action.
Reducing pollution in towns and cities is the goal, so people aren't breathing in small particulates.

Mickey666

ToxicWomble said:

Something like £ 40bn a year I think that will need to be found.

It will be likely that running an electric vehicle won’t be cheap anymore - interstingly, I wonder if existing petrol/diesel cars will get hit with a double whammy.

We could be looking at some serious “car poverty”

How about instead of punishing motorists like this there is an big effort in funding and upgrading public transport so people have a choice

The very fact that public transport requires funding and subsidies to make it even half workable is proof of how inefficient it is compared to the private car.  Think about it - public transport is inflexible and inconvenient forcing people to only go where it goes and requires huge subsidy by taxpayers.  In contrast, private cars are so cost-effective that they can be heavily taxed and STILL be more flexible, efficient and desirable than public transport.  Imagine how cheap private motoring would be if it wasn’t taxed so heavily.

Mickey666

A._Badger said:

born_again said:

ToxicWomble said:

What about all those “white” vans and HGVs
What are the stats for pollution caused proportionaly by these ?
Think I will just go buy a van

Sorry to spoil your day but EV "White Vans" & HGV's are already here.
Failing that HGV's can run on hydrogen.

You do know it takes a lot of energy to produce hydrogen, I suppose?

Exactly.  Hydrogen is not a SOURCE of energy, only a means of transporting it.  A bit like electricity in that respect.

Mickey666

ToxicWomble said:

Hmm kill of a couple of billion people so we can carry on driving petrol cars — radical but tempting.
Natures having a good go atm
Maybe she drives a V8 🤫

A typically stupid comment that prevents any sensible discussion about the problem of over-population.  Well done.

Mickey666

AdrianC said:

Mickey666 said:

Unfortunately, population control is too hot an issue for most governments, nay people, to handle so it is largely ignored.

As far as I'm aware, only one major government in recent times has had a serious attempt to restrict birth rates, with a single-child policy strictly enforced...
Yet birth rates have fallen in the UK. Total fertility rate of 3.5 children per woman at the start of the 20th century, 1.7 immediately pre-war, 2.7 immediately post-war, 2.9 in the early 60s, 1.6 today.

Of course, the real issue with population growth is the other end of the age range. People do insist on living longer and longer... Life expectancy now is around 82, about twice that of the middle of the 19th century, and about 50% longer than the 1930s.

But the fact is that 7billion people is ALREADY too large a population for the planetary resources to support sustainably at the standards of living that everyone aspires to.

And therein lies the problem.
Our expectations.

So should we in the developed world insist on ever more toys and consumerism and consumption?
Or would it be fairer for the entire world to head to a level that is sustainable, even if that means a reduction for those of us way ahead of that point?

And, of course, it's not just consumerism - it's medical technology, too. We in the developed world get ever more money spent on prolonging our poor-quality, poor-health last years, while the growth in the world population is largely due to massive reductions in infant mortality and deaths from easily preventable causes, including simple malnutrition.
Who could possibly argue against that?

...our population continues to grow (it has TRIPLED in my lifetime!)

Gosh. You must be very old.
The UK's population is now about 66m - a third of that is 22m, a level last seen in the 1860s.

Oh, you mean the world's?
Yes, it's tripled in the last 70 years or so... since about 1950 - a time when average life expectancies in the UK were just under 70 years of age...

I can’t see any coherent point being made, just a few random observations.  Is that because you don’t think global over-population is a problem?