Electric vehicles

[Tony Press]

"China made and sold 1 million electric cars this year and e pacts to make 2 million next year.
Tesla built Giga car factory in China recently in 168 days? Capable of making more than 100,000 cars in the first year. source “Wired” website."

Best of luck with that given mrs google tells me that 70% of electricity in China is now generated by coal fired power stations  - 1 million electric cars will increase the usage- more coal fired power stations needed!

[Dave Wortley]

Nuclear power is not the solution to energy needs in my opinion. We talk of climate change and the future for our grandchildren and their grandchildren but little consideration appears to be given to the decommissioning and disposal of the various degrees of radioactive waste. I was involved in a BNFL project in the mid eighties which is now undergoing decommissioning, only thirty-odd years after it was constructed. This equipment in itself was for processing and disposing by vitrification and deep underground burial in the Lake District ( of all places!)of nuclear waste brought to Britain from Japan and other countries. Tonnes of radioactive equipment to be somehow shoved out of the way for millennia, buried deep underground. Surely this is very irresponsible of our generation, an awful legacy to be dealt with. No solution has yet been found. Nuclear power is an incidental byproduct of the race for nuclear weaponry in the first instance. Who remembers Calder Hall, now Sellafield?

[Tony Griffiths]

Nuclear power is not the solution to energy needs in my opinion. We talk of climate change and the future for our grandchildren and their grandchildren but little consideration appears to be given to the decommissioning and disposal of the various degrees of radioactive waste. I was involved in a BNFL project in the mid eighties which is now undergoing decommissioning, only thirty-odd years after it was constructed. This equipment in itself was for processing and disposing by vitrification and deep underground burial in the Lake District ( of all places!)of nuclear waste brought to Britain from Japan and other countries. Tonnes of radioactive equipment to be somehow shoved out of the way for millennia, buried deep underground. Surely this is very irresponsible of our generation, an awful legacy to be dealt with. No solution has yet been found. Nuclear power is an incidental byproduct of the race for nuclear weaponry in the first instance. Who remembers Calder Hall, now Sellafield?

Ah, David, but this is hi-class waste - we send our low-class waste to the Far East to be disposed of and they send us their better stuff. Joking aside - it's a very valid point, and no thought was given to designing nuclear power stations so that they can be sealed or otherwise safely decommissioned after use. Actually, I'm wrong; the thought was given, but only in terms of the immediate cost and how to keep it down; i.e. spend as little as possible - short-termism at it's best. One solution proposed was to drop the waste containers on the sea bed along a subduction zone, say off the coast of Japan, and let plate tectonics take care of it. Years ago, in another life, I was discussing this very issue with some students. "Why not put it on a rocket and fire it into the sun?" I asked. Before the words were out of my mouth, hyper-bright Jane shot back, "And what if the rocket blows up on the pad?"

[AllAlloyCup]

I’m pretty certain that China will be the biggest producer
Of solar panels, fuel cells, hydro power and wind power before too long.
But then it is the biggest country.

Of course we’ve built our entire UK infrastructure and economy on coal,
Gas and oil, and invested very slowly in renewables, especially in England .

Oil companies should be given tax breaks to diversify into renewables.

Regards

Bill g

[Alan]

There’s no such thing as renewable energy. Once it’s used, it’s used. Google “entropy” and you’ll see what I mean. Sooner or later the world will run out. What is important is that we understand what we are doing. So far we seem to be being railroaded by politicians with a name to make and by 14 year old schoolgirls. What we need is action led by people who understand the problem and the scientific laws behind it. Electricity is a second tier energy source at best. It’s not the answer.

[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

[Austin Carr]

Ffestiniog Power Station is an example of pumped storage:-
75
https://www.fhc.co.uk/en/power-stations/...r-station/

[John Mason]

We all have been told that burning down the rain forests or getting rid of them in other ways is contrabuiting to global warming and therefore changing the world weather patterns leading to drought and floods ( Believe this to be true) and we also need to look at other methods of creating energy. So we have created massive wind farms all over the world. Surely these also alter weather patterns by taking the strength out of the wind which if un molested would reach parts in greater strength like it has for thousands of years.

That’s my rant out of the way now back to Austin Sevens cars that give out more pollution than modens.

[Alan]

I think, John, that is the whole point. The world has been burning fossil fuels for 2000 years. We are finding it’s not a good idea. Ten years ago we were browbeaten into driving diesel cars because they were better for the environment. They weren’t. Now we’re are being told it’s ok to take huge amounts of energy out of the earth’s atmosphere by way of solar panels and wind farming. But is it ok? I don’t know, but I’m sure said schoolgirl isn’t qualified to judge and nor are the politicians driving this.

[Ivor Hawkins]

Just as an aside, I put the Austin through an MOT at the local garage and asked them to run an emissions check out of interest...it’s emissions figure was lower than the three year old BMW that failed its MOT just before mine passed!