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Jul 15, 2008
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Electric vehicles only have a future in urban environments and this future is due to their ability to export any so called pollution to another location.
It is fake news to think they cause no pollution :eek:hmy:

The revolution actually happened a while ago and went by almost unheralded.
That was our ability to produce biofuels from plant material.
That ability slots a renewable energy source into the Carbon Cycle which is a natural phenomenon.
The future is that biofuels will gradually replace fossil fuels.
The mobility of goods and people will decrease and more of the Earth's surface will be cropped more intensively to produce fuel.
 
Jul 18, 2017
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Thanks Otherclive for a very informative post as I learn from posts such as yours. However it seems the new generators are only in the "thought of" stage at present and may eventually move to planning and actually building stage. However as we all know this will take another decade or three and will be nuclear which then totally negates using the electric car to save the planet.
 
Nov 11, 2009
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Buckman said:
Thanks Otherclive for a very informative post as I learn from posts such as yours. However it seems the new generators are only in the "thought of" stage at present and may eventually move to planning and actually building stage. However as we all know this will take another decade or three and will be nuclear which then totally negates using the electric car to save the planet.

I don't really understand your comment regarding nuclear power generation and electric cars saving the planet. After all didn't Ted Kennedy's car accident kill more people than Chappaquiddick? And haven't dams killed more people than nuclear accidents?
 
Mar 14, 2005
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Buckman said:
TBH electric cars are not the answer as even in the future, give or take 50 years, our National Grid will not be able to cope. Even in 2030 it will be nowhere near coping with the demand especially if we have a few cold winters.
Imagine every one comes home about 6pm, car is plugged in and dinner is cooked. The grid would never be able to cope with a high demand during that period. If there is a major power failure, it will mean many people going hungry as no microwave dinner and not being able to get to work because the battery in the car is flat.
In addition, the electric has to come from somewhere so does that mean burning fossil fuel? If they went nuclear with additional power stations what is the point of an electric car anyway?
What do we do with the "old" used batteries as I am told it is difficult to recycle batteries? Replacement batteries have to be produced but where will they come from and how will they be shipped? Too many drawbacks with electric at present and in the near future. After all we had electric vehicles, i.e. trolly buses or trams 50 years or more years ago and they all ended up in the scrap yard.
I don't know an answer as to whether there is an alternative to using fossil fuel, but I am convinced that electric is not the way forward.

Hello Buckman,

You are applying our present day technology, capacity and power distribution protocols to the future, You are forgetting that over the same period new technology for controlling and managing vehicle charging will be developed to overcome most if not all your stated concerns.

I have previously commented of several ways in which these future needs may be met including local power stores to supplement and meet local high demand and smart charging which priorities according power usage and vehicle charging needs.

These are both possible today, but will be even more likely in the future. More use will be made of renewables such as photo voltaic, and wind power. And there are likely to be more large scale generators, and quite likely local power schemes such as Combined Heat and Power (CHP). I'm not precluding the use of fossil fuels in this mix, but used responsibly the total thermal efficiency of some of these options can rise to wards the 80% which is near to doubling current large scale generator efficiencies.

We have to face the facts that we are using more energy than is needed, we need to look at our personal efficiencies, improving building insulation. appliances with reduced consumption, cutting down on unnecessary power usage and waste.

Contrary to your source of information, Batteries are highly recyclable, far more easily than IC engines, and even now most of the batteries you buy do use recycled materials and chemicals. See:

https://www.recycle-more.co.uk/files/0150_how_batteries_are_recycled.pdf
Our world is progressively changing, Its not happening over night, but the seeds of change have been sown, and the new shoots have already started to show and they will continue to grow and flourish. Simply saying we don't like whats happening and ignoring or refusing to consider the implications will just leaver us behind. increasingly we will find older technology and equipment will be obsoleted, rendered unworkable or even illegal.

We have to be ready to adapt, that doesn't necessarily mean jumping on the first bandwagon that comes rolling through, but being open to ideas and making measured changes as time goes by will help to lessen the shock. Just think back 20 years or so, how the internet has changed the way we do a lot of things.

All electric may not be the total solution, but at the moment it is the front runner, and it can be made to work.
 
Jul 18, 2017
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Okay so we don't count Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi or Three Mile Island disasters which only affected about 1/2 million people and cost billions to rectify? There are others but not as serious. Chernobyl had long lasting affects over the whole of the EU. The nuclear stations were thought to be safe.
In the drive to make profit, what corners will they cut when building the current nuclear station which ultimately may have an affect on our health? Electric vehicles are a major contributor in shifting pollution from cities to the countryside so not exactly pollution free. An electric car probably creates as much pollution as current engines both diesel and petrol.
 
Jul 18, 2017
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ProfJohnL said:
Hello Buckman,

You are applying our present day technology, capacity and power distribution protocols to the future, You are forgetting that over the same period new technology for controlling and managing vehicle charging will be developed to overcome most if not all your stated concerns.
Correct regarding present day and I cannot see any major improvements within the next 5 - 10 years regarding the life of batteries. Even the Tesla car lags way behind conventional vehicles when it comes to mileage.
 
Mar 14, 2005
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Buckman said:
Okay so we don't count Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi or Three Mile Island disasters which only affected about 1/2 million people and cost billions to rectify? There are others but not as serious. Chernobyl had long lasting affects over the whole of the EU. The nuclear stations were thought to be safe.
In the drive to make profit, what corners will they cut when building the current nuclear station which ultimately may have an affect on our health? Electric vehicles are a major contributor in shifting pollution from cities to the countryside so not exactly pollution free. An electric car probably creates as much pollution as current engines both diesel and petrol.

I have no wish to belittle the terrible consequences of nuclear incidents, and lessons must be learned from them. But the reality is that virtually every technology man has ever developed has has its share serious consequences. We have become more aware of the need for responsible development and hopefully it will mean that any new technologies will be properly researched and failure mode tested to prevent avoidable problems.
Pointing the finger just at nuclear is not fair.

Electric cars do have pollution consequences I have never claimed otherwise, and yes the pollution is deferred to the power station, and becasue of this its difficult to make a totally fair comparison, All pollution has dangers and problems but becasue the pollutants an IC engine produces are different and more dangerous compared to those from power stations.

But to try and make some sense of it without going into detailed chemical analysis, it is my understanding that large scale power stations will be running at between 35 to 40% efficiency compared to an IC car at about 15 to 20% (current technology) so electric power starts at being about twice as efficient. This means the more efficient power station is likely to produce less and certainly less dangerous pollutants than IC engines.

Some people will be lucky enough to be able to rely on solar and wind power to charge their cars, in which case there is no pollution involved with travelling. So I do not agree with your last comment.
 

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