Could Mobo's and gas guzzler's actually help make a greener planet?

[PCUK]

As has been mentioned, what happens when the lithium runs out? Less known reserves than oil and hugely polluting to mine and build into batteries which last only a few years. Power stations at max' capacity and yet the tree huggers; political and non political never mention this. Climate change is a natural phenomenon and nature will adjust the population as necessary. So why worry?

 

[Grubble]

As has been mentioned, what happens when the lithium runs out? Less known reserves than oil and hugely polluting to mine and build into batteries which last only a few years. Power stations at max' capacity and yet the tree huggers; political and non political never mention this. Climate change is a natural phenomenon and nature will adjust the population as necessary. So why worry?

I suppose the tree huggers might suggest recycling the lithium in the batteries (which obviously last much longer than a few years).

The beardy wierdies might also suggest other sources for lithium be found and/or different metals to make batteries out of.

At least you are recycling the oil company propaganda though.

 

[penberth3]

Hi Superheat6k, I think Bruce's point was about diesel particulate pollutants ie nitric oxide molecules NOx etc,...

NO, NOx are gases, not particulates. Diesel particulates are a different thing, although part of the same problem.

 

[mersey]

The real question is how much pollution/CO2 do leisure boats produce out of the total? I suspect we are quite a long way down the list of polluters, but when diesel is finally banned there will be other alternatives, including electric boat engines - the technology has been around for an awfully long time.

Port of London have published an Air Quality strategy

https://www.pla.co.uk/environment/Air-Quality-and-Green-Tariff/Air-Quality

"We’ve also, again a first for a UK port, introduced a Green Tariff to encourage operators to use the cleanest vessels when coming to the Port of London."

https://www.pla.co.uk/assets/airquality2018.pdf

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

When we're all driving electric cars in 10-15 years, as has been widely predicted, where is all the electricity going to magically appear from?

And thats one of the areas in which the whole EV argument falls down and the other area is that the distribution network simply wasnt designed to deliver the kind of power required to charge millions of EVs. Windmills and solar panels are not going to deliver the extra generating capacity and I have no idea who is going to pay to upgrade the distribution network and install the millions of charging points that will be required. I believe the National Grid has estimated we need another 6 - 8 Hinkley Point C sized nuclear power stations to generate the extra power to charge the UK's fleet of road vehicles even if it has only gone partially electric

 

[superheat6k]

Again there is a lot of real information about EVs that you can find online, rather than simply repeating oil company propaganda with myths about lack of efficiency and so on.

You know that in the 21st century some of us have solar panels on our roofs and some of us could recharge our EVs from our own solar panels or that almost 30% of the electricity we currently generate in the UK comes from renewable sources?

Whether you like it or not, the internal combustion engine is on the way out for cars and its nothing to do with living in a "PC world" but more to do with reducing the amount of harm cars do to those around them and reducing our reliance on resources from places like Saudi Arabia.

Personally I don't like spending £50 at the petrol station just to pay for solid gold Lamborghinis - maybe you do.

I presently am looking at an EV for SWMBO, and my own car is a hybrid. But when comparing vehicle operating efficiency the overall efficiency should be considered, not just what the car itself uses / delivers.

For a petrol or diesel car which burns the fuel at say ~ 20% efficiency there has to be factored in the energy losses of processing and delivering the fuel to the car.

For an EV which is about 60% efficient there has to be factored in the energy losses from the generation and power distribution. Fossils fuels are around 35% efficient, then distribution looses ~ 6%, not sure on wind or solar, but these efficiencies also ignore the delivery losses from the source of the fuel. For wind & solar there is also the losses associated with their production, and service.

So to compare EV with Petrol / Diesel is not at all straight forward and some googling does not produce readily available answers from those who might educate us. Perhaps there are valid reasons why this information is not readily found, after all none of the politicos have the answers here.

As already mentioned the Grid is going to massively struggle to power all these EVs that are going to arrive en masse over the next few years, after all it is already very close to capacity limit, and little provision to increase capacity is realistically being made.

For those who think that a couple of solar panels on their roof will solve all their energy problems, a few cloudy days and you will struggle to get just a few miles, especially as no doubt there are plenty of other uses for the solar generated power within the building. Most solar equipped houses are not (yet) net exporters of power, and few presently will have an EV parked outside.

 

[Assassin]

Actually Jerry C has hit the nail on the head and not quite realised it, in the only survey done into all cars it was actually the large Chelsea tractor which came out as the cleanest in terms of total emissions and this showed the electric car as the electric car which came out as the dirtiest and this information was produced by many of the car magazines and readily accessible.

People argue apples and pears and Governments exploit this, to make this equal they converted everything into energy consumption for the survey and this included the supply chain as well as the assembly and recycling of vehicles and this exposed a common Government lie and this is that 80% of all vehicle emissions were the "in service" emissions and the remaining 20% were in the manufacturing and recycling of a vehicle, this lie is still currently told, the survey showed this was actually the other way round and that 80% of a vehicles emissions were in the manufacturing and recycling of a vehicle and only 20% were "in service emissions" so why are we being lied too.

Other forms of energy are readily and easily available but commerce comes into play, the more profits a company can make then the more revenue a Government can make from it, I have successfully produced something called HHO which is basically 2 parts hydrogen and one part oxygen and this is made using nothing more than free electricity from solar panels or a compact wind turbine and rainwater, and everyone can make them at home as they are simply an HHO generator made from stainless steel sheet of 2-3mm thick.

Nuclear power was a scam from the outset and several decades ago the Government were convinced to spend £billions on uranium and plutonium and they did and despite the fact they were deliberately misled they haven't done anything about it, so what about the third radioactive element, Thorium? Uranium and Plutonium can be weaponised and thorium cant, and once again money was the motive.
Thorium has many distinct advantages as its radioactivity level is much lower than the natural environment so even in the worst meltdown scenario it wont pose a radioactive risk if it does go bang and recent changes in 2012/13 mean it has a 98% efficiency of uranium for producing electricity, but it has another distinct advantage for the environment in that up to 10% of nuclear waste can be added to it and in the reaction process it neutralises this nuclear waste and renders it harmless, so our stored nuclear waste can be safely disposed of as an aside and neutralises the risk this nuclear waste poses for thousands of years.

In point of fact, the latest Euro 6 diesel engines are cleaner than petrol engines due to their various afterburning technologies and this makes EU 6 diesel engines the lowest polluters of all internal combustion engines except for HHO and hydrogen engined vehicles in city centres, they emit less emissions as the NO, NOx and soot particles are burned off and they use less fuel.