classic33
Leg End Member
Fifty years ago, it'd have been possible to walk home from the pub. Four within an 1/8 mile, now 1/2 a mile to the nearest, which shuts around 11pm not 1:30am.
Are we being forced to go electric?
- Thread starter gavroche
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Gillstay
Veteran
Correct, we have to change as doing nothing will result in change anyway, and doing badly will just accelerate the poor outcome that awaits us.
Alex321
Guru
- Location
- South Wales
50 years ago - 1971. Almost half of households owned a car.
But people just didn't travel as much as they do now, most people lived within walking distance or an easy bus ride of their work, even small villages had regular buses to the nearest town, most shopping was in town centres, "retail parks" just didn't exist.
Yes, many managed without cars then, but society was set up for that to be the norm. We can't go back to that by changing individual behaviour, it will need massive changes to society as a whole, and the necessary changes will be very strongly resisted, as people have got used to the current normal, and businesses like the large retail units they can have in the out of town retail centres, they won't want to revert to much smaller high street shops.
Having said which, COVID has shown how much it is possible to work from home for many office type jobs, and hybrid working is likely to become the norm for those jobs, which could lead to a significant reduction in car use, if not in ownership.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Which puts us kind of between a rock and a hard place. Fossil fuels need to be phased out. Simple 1:1 replacement of private vehicles with EVs for use as at present isn't feasible because they will be too expensive (shortages of lithium or neodymium or whatever). So something has to give.
As you say, a change in working patterns with increased working from home for office jobs, increased home delivery and reduced visits to physical shops may decrease car use, but they don't decrease ownership.
And that's the problem: Moving everyone to EVs (or possibly hydrogen), and also having them used less would be a rosy solution because it would allow people to continue to own and cherish their private cars as status symbols. But they will be bloody expensive. So some sort of increased shared use, or public transport, or transport-as-a-service or whatever may need to be part of the solution.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Will clean the roads too. See recent thread on hedge clippings.
I wouldn't say forced but encouragex by the huge financial savings of running, buying an EV currently. Thrn there is all the pollution savings from no tailpipe emissions.
See my post here of this morning's journey.
https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/nissan-leaf-what-do-we-think.274306/post-6587573
See my post here of this morning's journey.
https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/nissan-leaf-what-do-we-think.274306/post-6587573
Landsurfer
Veteran
Thats fine Andy but it was almost no wind yesterday and non overnight so your electricity for your journey probably came from a Carbon source .. Coal, Diesel or Gas ... so no pollution savings at all really ...
- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
Thank you.
Yes, you are correct. I thought I had typed fusion. Must be going mad!
cougie uk
Guru
This is a useful resource. It's about 23% renewables at the moment.Thats fine Andy but it was almost no wind yesterday and non overnight so your electricity for your journey probably came from a Carbon source .. Coal, Diesel or Gas ... so no pollution savings at all really ...
https://grid.iamkate.com/
But look how far we have come since 2012 ! It's no point saying don't bother with electric as some of its from coal or whatever.
Petrol is always 100 % from fossil resources.
Electric increasingly isn't.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
UK baseload is predominantly gas, with some nuclear and dwindling coal.
Even if there are no carbon benefits from powering vehicles by electricity from gas turbines, there are some benefits or potential benefits from switching the pollution away from tailpipes (improved urban air quality, the opportunity for centralised carbon sequestration). Not to mention the fact that the % if renewables can always be increased.
Hanging around waiting for fusion power is a fools game. Even the reactors that promise to get more energy out of the reactor than is put in tend to be fudging the figures. They tend to refer to the in/out of the plasma itself and ignore all the energy consumption of the flipping great machine that sustains the plasma*. It needs a dramatic breakthrough of some sort as the existing incremental research is not leading anywhere. The best fusion reactor we have to rely on is the big one in the sky.
Fission reactors were developed off the back of arms technology, which needed plutonium. That's why they produce so much shitty waste. If they had been designed purely for power production then maybe they would be cleaner. But there would be decades of research needed there. All the same, I still think they are our best bet for low carbon baseload production but they do have a slightly bad rep what with Chernobyl and all.
* Ref http://news.newenergytimes.net/2021...-needed-for-the-joint-european-torus-reactor/
Even if there are no carbon benefits from powering vehicles by electricity from gas turbines, there are some benefits or potential benefits from switching the pollution away from tailpipes (improved urban air quality, the opportunity for centralised carbon sequestration). Not to mention the fact that the % if renewables can always be increased.
Hanging around waiting for fusion power is a fools game. Even the reactors that promise to get more energy out of the reactor than is put in tend to be fudging the figures. They tend to refer to the in/out of the plasma itself and ignore all the energy consumption of the flipping great machine that sustains the plasma*. It needs a dramatic breakthrough of some sort as the existing incremental research is not leading anywhere. The best fusion reactor we have to rely on is the big one in the sky.
Fission reactors were developed off the back of arms technology, which needed plutonium. That's why they produce so much shitty waste. If they had been designed purely for power production then maybe they would be cleaner. But there would be decades of research needed there. All the same, I still think they are our best bet for low carbon baseload production but they do have a slightly bad rep what with Chernobyl and all.
* Ref http://news.newenergytimes.net/2021...-needed-for-the-joint-european-torus-reactor/
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- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
Cars are here to stay imo - it's the power source that needs sorting out.
Little cars like the Citroën earlier in the thread raise a laugh but really the likes of these have to be the future surely?
The battery powered solution is already being exploited by manufacturers who cannot drag themselves away from performance in the 0-62mph stakes.
Who really needs Teslas/Polestars/Range Rovers etc with 0-62mph times of sub 5, 4 and even 3 second sprint times to this speed.
I have one friend who proudly boasts of his green purchase of a 400bhp RR Sport Hybrid!
Ditto another with a Porsche Taycan Cross X boasting 750bhp - ludicrous.
Little cars like the Citroën earlier in the thread raise a laugh but really the likes of these have to be the future surely?
The battery powered solution is already being exploited by manufacturers who cannot drag themselves away from performance in the 0-62mph stakes.
Who really needs Teslas/Polestars/Range Rovers etc with 0-62mph times of sub 5, 4 and even 3 second sprint times to this speed.
I have one friend who proudly boasts of his green purchase of a 400bhp RR Sport Hybrid!
Ditto another with a Porsche Taycan Cross X boasting 750bhp - ludicrous.
- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
The 'small' Rolls Royce reactors look like an interesting solution as, I agree, fusion is some way off albeit I think longer term solutions are what needs developing rather than short-term knee jerk responses.
FishFright
More wheels than sense
I’ve said elsewhere just build some more nuclear power stations and be done with it
I can see that being the solution chosen with a bit of renewables on the side. Mainly because it will allow energy use to continue rising.
BrumJim
Forum Stalwart (won't take the hint and leave...)
- Location
- Selly Oak, Birmingham
It is the anomaly, where in order to get general acceptance of electric vehicles, the manufacturers believe that Jo(e) Public needs to be enthused by "halo" models. Largely the reason why cars such as the Golf GTI and Peugeot 205GTi were built, and why a lot of car manufacturers support a racing program. There are many who really couldn't give a toss about this lot, but are expected to look to those a bit more enthusiastic for advice on what car to go for, and therefore they get their leads from the exciting models rather than the dull ones.
The big hope from car manufacturers is that people stop associating electric vehicles with the humble milk float, and more with Teslas, Polestars and electric SUVs. One of the advantages of electric vehicles are that they have good acceleration in the sensible zone (up to 70 for high-performance vehicles, up to 40 for city cars), and less so in the silly zone (e.g. 70-150). Which is a selling point.
Of course all this perpetuates the resource-grabbing energy-wasting trajectory we are on at the moment.
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