2035 ban on petrol/diesel cars and the implications to boating?

Deleted User said:
Who's talking about shipping which is of course essential to economic growth? We are talking about non essential pleasure boating which has a far smaller effect on economic growth and not only that but pleasure boating takes place much closer to the coastline often in areas which have been designated delicate marine environments. We have already seen attempts to ban certain types of pleasure boating activities in certain areas both in the UK and the Med and it is only a matter of time before some of those attempts succeed in a world in which there is increasing awareness of emissions and environmental protection. All I'm saying is that the pleasure boat building industry better be working on methods of propulsion which use less fuel and spew out fewer emissions otherwise there wont be a pleasure boating industry in the future
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I wonder if there is any legs in the concept of motor boats in something like this... Scientists Have Developed The Most Efficient Water-Splitting Catalyst Yet

The interesting part is using solar panels to do it. Berth up for the week, come weekend there is enough with a bit of shore power help to cruise about for several hours, largely free. But I'm a dreamer.
 
GaryJeffery said:
There is an awful lot mis informed (and dis-informed) comment on the subject generally. Whilst all here make valid observations and comment, the “full” picture has not yet been mentioned. I’ll try a brief summary. About 60% of crude oil is fuels, the rest is used for plastics, detergents, synthetic fibres, pharmaceuticals, electronics and a plethora of lubricants and obscure chemicals that essentially do extremely important jobs in the production or makeup almost EVERYTHING used in the modern world that isn’t an animal or plant derivative. Think about that for a moment, without oil, there would be NO plastic, no industrial processes to create all things we need to maintain production of electronics, metals, household appliances, even our actual boats themselves! Take fossil fuels out of the equation and two enormous questions arise, 1 if we continue to use the non fuel part of crude for all the good stuff (still a polluting and dirty activity) then financial viability of an activity dictates that prices of everything will have to rise massively to offset the losses to oil companies, creating global runaway inflation of the price of EVERYTHING. Almost nothing inThe modern world has not been either produced or moved without fossil fuels at some point.
2. What the hell do we do with the billions of gallons of unusable fuels? I don’t think dumping it in the ocean or burying it on land is going to go down very well.
Yes we need cleaner air and less pollution generally, but as other posters have alluded to in this thread, if the exploration and extraction of oil stops because it is no longer a financially viable activity, due to over zealous legislation, then we will truly be back in the dark ages
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If we reduce how much oil we use for fuels the price will fall - supply and demand. Oil prices over the last few years have varied from $50 a barrel to $100 a barrel - high street prices didn't follow that movement. If we end up using so little oil that companies are no longer prepared to get it out of the ground that would actually be a good thing. Not going to happen in the next 50-100 years though.

regarding plastics, detergents, synthetic fibres, and some pharmaceuticals - we can already make them from plant based products.
continuing to use oil as a primary energy source will keep us in the dark ages.

The coal and steam age created modern industries of manufactured goods
The oil age created modern manufacturing, aerospace, electronics, computers and the service industries.
The renewable/nuclear energy age will allow battery electric vehicles, hydrogen fuels, maybe even fuels from CO2. There is a lot going on, each technology we create invariably enables or inspires another.
Each technological step that humans do creates more scientific knowledge - we hopefully use that knowledge usefully

Technologically at this point in time, if we really tried, (the big problem left is political rather than technology) we do not need oil or coal any more. I am not suggesting we stop tomorrow, that would cause chaos, however incrementally shifting from one energy source to others as they become available makes sense because it preserves whatever oil is left for applications where for now there is no viable substitute. These newer sources of energy create more efficient, hopefully less polluting products.
 
GaryJeffery said:
There is an awful lot mis informed (and dis-informed) comment on the subject generally. Whilst all here make valid observations and comment, the “full” picture has not yet been mentioned. I’ll try a brief summary. About 60% of crude oil is fuels, the rest is used for plastics, detergents, synthetic fibres, pharmaceuticals, electronics and a plethora of lubricants and obscure chemicals that essentially do extremely important jobs in the production or makeup almost EVERYTHING used in the modern world that isn’t an animal or plant derivative. Think about that for a moment, without oil, there would be NO plastic, no industrial processes to create all things we need to maintain production of electronics, metals, household appliances, even our actual boats themselves! Take fossil fuels out of the equation and two enormous questions arise, 1 if we continue to use the non fuel part of crude for all the good stuff (still a polluting and dirty activity) then financial viability of an activity dictates that prices of everything will have to rise massively to offset the losses to oil companies, creating global runaway inflation of the price of EVERYTHING. Almost nothing inThe modern world has not been either produced or moved without fossil fuels at some point.
2. What the hell do we do with the billions of gallons of unusable fuels? I don’t think dumping it in the ocean or burying it on land is going to go down very well.
Yes we need cleaner air and less pollution generally, but as other posters have alluded to in this thread, if the exploration and extraction of oil stops because it is no longer a financially viable activity, due to over zealous legislation, then we will truly be back in the dark ages
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Mmmm ... but for one thing :

Your post assumes that the talk is about full scale stoppage of 'Oil' use. That is definitely not the case.

To stop the use of Oil fully - would take generations to accomplish.
 
If we reduce how much oil we use for fuels the price will fall - supply and demand. Oil prices over the last few years have varied from $50 a barrel to $100 a barrel - high street prices didn't follow that movement.
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??

The producing states will not allow the price to fall ... you only have to watch the actions of the major producing countries and what they agree to do when prices drop.

Second high street prices DO alter with supply ... but unfortunately quickly UP when supply is limited ... but slowly down when supply is plentiful. Reason is volume in storage / reserve. Plus greed of course.
 
moresparks said:
What puzzles me as an aging dinosaur with average intelligence, why is not more development put into the capture of co2? I understand that a facility could be built that would extract co2 from the air and convert it into a fuel to power transport and power plants. Technology exists that converts the co2 into a carbon neutral fuel that is compatible with all petrol fueled vehicles, airliners, ships etc and filling stations so no changes required to the infrastructure. I am guessing that using this “fuel” won’t reduce co2 levels but would certainly stabilise emissions until the next stage in the science.
I just guess I am too simplistic!
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If we assume the co2 is from burning fuel for energy to recreate the fuel will take considerably more energy than burning it gave. At the moment we don't have a great surplus of clean energy to do this on a large scale. Perhaps feasable for energy storage but won't make up a significant replacement for fossil fuels.
 
There are about 35 million vehicles on our roads in the UK. Sales of new vehicles are about 2 million a year. Simple sums say 17 years to replace the IC engined vehicles. There is no current viable solution for alternative power to large freight vehicles. Urban deliveries could be EV’s or HFCEV’s. I’m reasonably confident that diesel/bio diesel will be around for at least another 30 years. I shall be dribbling on a mobility scooter by then if still alive.
 
Wow.. Great to see such debate and range of ideas with people going ‘big picture’ too.

My question was really whether boating would be marginalised as it feels like an easy win for politicians. If that is the case then what do people think the timescale would be as I cannot afford to have my second biggest asset become worthless! 30 years does not sound that long to me (I would be 78) and working to that timescale would mean (in my mind) that pleasure boating would become difficult (availability of fuel) expensive (cost of fuel) and unattractive (environmental issues) long before then. That said the optimist in me thinks that in 30 years we could have a IC alternative that we can retro fit, meaning we can all keep boating, I would love a silent boat, emission free boat.. that would mean that our sailing friends would have to come up with some new arguments re why sailing is better ??
 
Don’t dismiss the power of the constituency MP. There will be a number of MP’s where leisure boating is a significant part of the local economy, and they will fight tooth and nail to protect it. There doesn’t appear to be swathes of empty berths on the Hamble or The Solent, and several marina’s are extending berthing numbers. They must have done some sensible business planning to estimate returns on this investment. The industry will trend to more efficient boats, and some of us might switch to sail. For me fuel is probably 4th or 5th in the cost pyramid. Berthing top, depreciation next (for newer boats this will be a much bigger expense) maintenance, then probably fuel. It is a bit like buying a car. Some get hung up on consumption, when depreciation is by far the biggest cost, unless you own a clunker.
 
If we could hedge technology and politics accurately to 20-30 years we would all be rich (though as I guess as this is the motorboat forum, richer). I can definitely see inland boating being severely restricted in a shorter timeline than that, skint people burning unseasoned wood at jogger face height and running clapped out frame generators in what can look like floating shanty towns in major urban centres has pretty low popular support. Higher end electric boating for reasonably well heeled people mostly based in marinas seems a lot more viable.
 
kashurst said:
Electric cars produce a great deal less emissions through their complete life cycle
The study below compares BEVs withsimilar IC cars and assumes similar usage and lifetime, and a USA style electric power generation system - which still uses coal and oil. Operate a BEV in the UK the emissions are even less as we have more and more renewable energy. Also life times of BEVs is potentially between 2 and 5 times longer than an IC car as the electric motors don't wear out and the brakes last massively longer as they rarely get used, and despite the rumours the batteries are getting better and lasting longer and longer.
Gasoline vs Electric—Who Wins on Lifetime Global Warming Emissions? We Found Out

As for rare materials, lithium is not at all rare - its the 33rd most common element.
neodynium is very rare and used in magnets - however BEVs can use electric motors that do not have magnets in them. Tesla Model S uses an induction motor (hence the company name after the inventor of the induction motor), that contains, copper, aluminium, iron and steel. The next generation of BMW electric motors will not have magnets in them either. Cobalt is used in batteries at the moment but the % is reducing all the time. Battery development has far from stalled. There hasn't been a super fast charging battery yet but there have been a lot of incremental changes to increase efficiency and reduce resources used to make them. Why do you think they are getting cheaperand more energy dense.

As for using rare materials, the biggest consumer of Cobalt by far is the petrol chemical industry, who use cobalt as a catalyst to get sulphur out of diesel and petrol. The catalyst gets consumed eventually and ends up in the petrol, where it gets burned and blown out the exhaust- lost forever. At least in a battery it can be re-used and/or recovered and used again.

If the auto industry thought electric cars were no better overall don't you think they would have pointed it out? Making cars is not exactly a cottage industry.

Sorry, but the IC cars days are numbered, lorries will go electric too, and despite rumours about having enough electricity in the national grid, the power companies are paying attention too.
China is addressing its energy pollution issues, its also building the belt and road network to reduce shipping and use trains instead for huge distances. However the USA - teh worst polluter per capita - under don-don is doing nothing.
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Actually the reverse is true Kashurst, only one total lifetime survey has been completed and this shows electric cars, at this time, are the worst polluters and this is down mainly to the batteries and their lack of recyclability and the costs of recovering recyclable materials economically.
Like you I have seem many of these claims and reports and when you filter them out, most eminate from a few simple points of disinformation and hypothesis, but never a mention of the only fully comprehensive lifecycle report and this is my main issue, WHY?

Making cars is not a cottage industry, neither is commerce and if car makers need to produce electric, hybrid, or fuel cell vehicles then they will as survival of a company is paramount and profit is king and they are often dictated by political will and always by commerce, and undoubtedly battery technologies will advance and they may even get around the CO2 they produce during manufacturing and even the recycling of batteries may reach a point at which they will be fully recyclable, but certainly not within 15 years. Lithium is not rare currently, but it will be very rare if all IC engines are replaced with batteries and electric motors the quantities of lithium alone will be around 8 X the currently mined, and known about deposits if mining experts are to be believed, and cobalt quantities will rise well above their current usage and there won't be enough.
 
Jamie Dundee said:
There is a period of at least 15 years post ban where it is accepted that petrol/diesel cars will continue to run. Therefore fuel will obviously be available for these vehicles, and our boats, the question is how much it will cost.

Won't affect me. I'll (hopefully) be long dead by then.
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Cheerful.

But agree, 30 years hence, I too will not be here.
 
Deleted User said:
Who's talking about shipping which is of course essential to economic growth? We are talking about non essential pleasure boating which has a far smaller effect on economic growth and not only that but pleasure boating takes place much closer to the coastline often in areas which have been designated delicate marine environments. We have already seen attempts to ban certain types of pleasure boating activities in certain areas both in the UK and the Med and it is only a matter of time before some of those attempts succeed in a world in which there is increasing awareness of emissions and environmental protection. All I'm saying is that the pleasure boat building industry better be working on methods of propulsion which use less fuel and spew out fewer emissions otherwise there wont be a pleasure boating industry in the future
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Because shipping is the beginning Mike, and everything has to be introduced somewhere and shipping will simply be the thin end of the wedge, and like most things it will filter down until it reaches the humble jet ski.
 
GaryJeffery said:
The particles issue really only applies to engines of outdated design, which sadly includes the vast majority of trucks, container ships, cruise ships and tanker ships. These , though small in number in comparison to the number of cars on the roads are the actual culprits of this type of pollution. My own car is a deisel (2016) modern design, with particulate filter system, much cleaner. I have a 4.5 litre 7.5 ton truck and a 2.4 liter Transit van, which do think is the cleaner running? Actually, it's the Truck! Newer tech in the engine and exhaust system makes it extremely clean, and less than half the cost in VED. Our boats though, are generally not as advanced and the incentive for manufacturers to add it is just not there as competition dictates that it must go faster and faster. Whether or not this type of 'clean' tech can be retrospectively fitted to your boat is another matter., though I believe it is entirely possible. Ultimately water is a tough thing to push stuff through, so you need lots of power. If we can settle for a slower pace and less power, then we can use smaller, cleaner engines. Whats wrong with trolling along at 5 - 10 knots? Not as exciting, but it does save many gallons on even a short trip.
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Diesel particulale matter already cracked and as you state, your lorry is the cleanest.
But, your point of retrofitting clean technologies has already been cracked and is currently being trialled by several manufacturers and Bosch appear to be leading this at the moment with injection technologies for diesel and they claim these can be retrofitted back to EU3 and the old EU3 equipped vehicles are disappearing due to old age and are being replaced by newer vehicles through natural progression; the real breakthrough is the current trialling of exhaust technologies which are claiming total emission reductions of around 90% and something I am eagerly awaiting seeing.
 
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