Electric everything.

[Mick F]

............ but fusion is creeping ever closer to being commercially viable and that will be the game changer.

The nearest nuclear fusion we have is 93 million miles away.

[[XAP]Bob]

And we're using it - heavily.
Almost every source of power we have is based on that fusion reactor. Ironically the exceptions are our own fission reactors, which use the products of previous fusions reactors similar to the one we have on our doorstep.

[Mick F]

Yep.

Without it, we wouldn't exist.

[Hellhound]

Electric cars are absolutely the future.

Why?

[Oldjohnw]

A more prosaic concern is that the cost of EVs is, for many - if not most - prohibitive. Undoubtedly fossil fuel prices will rise as we get closer to the ICE manufacturing deadline. Unless we have a brilliant public transport infrastructure within 9 years people are going to be stuck. There is so far no evidence that such plans are being considered although road building continues as some sort of fetish.

When I purchased my current car 5 years ago I obtained a less than a year old fairly high spec VW Golf. I paid £12k. If I were to buy a similarly aged electric vehicle today and paid twice that I might be lucky to get a Fiat 500. This is a problem. It might be the true price one has to pay but for many it is impossible and a Fiat 500 would be useless.

[DevonDamo]

What intrigues me is where we're going to get plastics and tarmac etc from once we're no longer pumping oil for petrol.

When I was a dope-smoking student, there was a bit of a cult book going around which had recently been published called 'The Emperor Wears No Clothes' which claimed that cannabis was only outlawed in Western countries in the 1920s was because of lobbying by the oil industry - DuPont, in particular. Their interest in this was, allegedly, that the hemp plant is the most cost-efficient source of all sorts of raw materials, including cellulose, which can be used to create biodegradable plastics.

Knowing nothing about industrial chemistry, I have no idea whether this is all drug-addled conspiracy nonsense, but the book does at least provide sources to back up the claims and a quick internet search doesn't throw up the deluge of unfavourable fact-checks by the scientific community which you usually get with this sort of stuff. BS or not, it's still an interesting read:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... lothes.pdf

[Audax67]

I think it's too late to worry - the hard decisions should have been taken long ago, but hard decisions lose elections. Right now the carbon emissions from every three Americans would be enough to kill a fourth person somewhere else on the planet, and to judge from the slowing of the Gulf Stream and the horrendous heat "domes" they're having in the US, the climate tipping-point is behind us.

All power should be either nuclear or renewable today, but as with GMOs the loud voices of the ignorant made nuclear expansion political suicide.

Enjoy life while you can. Après nous le déluge.

[Pebble]

we just have to look at Bit Coin Mining to know we're doomed - LOL, it would have been madness 50 years ago but now in the middle of a climate emergency it beggars belief.

[simonineaston]

Without fossil fuels presumably this is going to be produced from increased Nuclear capacity

This was perfectly possible until the 'green' activists put the kybosh on the perceived bogeyman of nuclear power back in the '80s (Argghhh, we can't see it, smell it, touch it or feel it - it must be dangerous"!) and now it's too late... Adoption of nuclear power generation would have given us breathing space to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels in a measured way, but we've now missed that boat, hence the unseemly & illogical scrabble to find more power from unsuitable sources. Or in the case of the UK government, a failure to manage to do even that!

[PH]

A more prosaic concern is that the cost of EVs is, for many - if not most - prohibitive.

I know it may seem pedantic, but that should read the cost of ownership.
Even on a budget that would put your car way out of reach, I can afford to use an eclectic car anytime I need it, I know not everyone has such access, but many do and it's a growing.
https://www.co-wheels.org.uk/

The solution would come from doing different things, rather than finding ways to do the same ones, I don't hold out much hope.

[Oldjohnw]

A more prosaic concern is that the cost of EVs is, for many - if not most - prohibitive.

I know it may seem pedantic, but that should read the cost of ownership.
Even on a budget that would put your car way out of reach, I can afford to use an eclectic car anytime I need it, I know not everyone has such access, but many do and it's a growing.
https://www.co-wheels.org.uk/

The solution would come from doing different things, rather than finding ways to do the same ones, I don't hold out much hope.

Quite. But people have to find £12k or now £25k up front. I would love to do things differently - actually I will be in a positive to buy but many are not so fortunate - but if the infrastructure is not available ..

Where I currently live car share is non existent and hospitals are over 60 miles away.

[Jdsk]

I don't think heavy vehicles will ever be electric. Range will never be enough and bigger batteries mean less payload.
Hydrogen will be the fuel for large vehicles.

OK so why not hydrogen for all vehicles?

Because the energy cost of the whole fuel process is too high, and because the infrastructure doesn't exist.

I don't think heavy vehicles will ever be electric. Range will never be enough and bigger batteries mean less payload.
Hydrogen will be the fuel for large vehicles.

Why are we being force fed EVs when it's obviously not going to work long term?I doubt we will ever have the infrastructure for EVs in the UK.What happens to all the batteries when EVs are phased out?

The infrastructure is already working in the UK, and there's no missing component that has yet to be invented.

The batteries can be reused in static applications where the energy storage density isn't so critical, and then recycled.

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

............ but fusion is creeping ever closer to being commercially viable and that will be the game changer.

The nearest nuclear fusion we have is 93 million miles away.

For me, about 33 min on the bike.

Jonathan

[Audax67]

we just have to look at Bit Coin Mining to know we're doomed - LOL, it would have been madness 50 years ago but now in the middle of a climate emergency it beggars belief.

You don't even need to look that far. 4k resolution videos of cute pussy-cats on Farcepuke, Instagram & so forth probably consume just as much.

[peetee]

With global weather patterns changing for the worse hydro-electric generation must have the potential to play a more significant role.