Electric vehicles

[Andy Bennett]

Alan
Respecting your engineering knowledge, whilst I get the core argument that everything, including the sun will run out of energy eventually and so isn't strictly speaking renewable, 5 billion years or so is enough and will see the end to the world anyway.
So making use of 'free' energy, be it wind, sun, hydro or wave must be a fundamentally good thing. The question of course then goes to the damage caused in making the equipment required to capture/store this energy.

In my previous life I had contact with Culham labs etc through supplying equipment used to work on nuclear fusion (ie replicating the sun) rather than fission (the bomb). Fusion is safer for a multitude of reasons not least because it naturally stops rather than runs away.
The problem with fusion has been getting more power out that you put in to create the right conditions.

I have just installed solar panels and the whole system has a 20 year insurance backed guarantee so they must be confident that it will last, but again I haven't calculated the environmental cost of producing the equipment. I also have a hot water tube system which has been using the sun to heat water for 15 years now using a simple thermal syphon system and no sign of it failing.

Innovatine systems which, for example, use surplus solar power in the day to pump water uphill and then lets it run back down to use it to power turbines when the sun isn't shining just seem to make sense. accepting that scaling is an issue for these types of systems. Again the environmental damage must be understood if damming is considered to create hydro power.

oh and I do think that sometimes we need 14 year old schoolgirls to stare Trump down and to ask the questions everyone else feels silly asking, or worry that it will end their career. Emperor's new clothes and all that.
Andy