Electric vehicles

[Tod]

Yes that is the vehicle.
Tod

[Alan]

Gasoline has been around for 130 years or so. Looking forward that far, I don’t think we’ve even invented its replacement yet.

[Parazine]

I think the way forward is by Hydrogen.

Tod

Problem is that Hydrogen does not occur naturally on this planet, the Earth does not have enough gravity to hold on to it and it therefore floats off into space. That means Hydrogen has to be manufactured or extracted from compounds by some means, requiring energy input from burning fossil fuel.

The way forward is to extract Hydrogen from electrolysis of seawater, using solar panels to provide the current. Not particularly efficient (solar panels are about 20% efficient) but very green. Currently, about 5% of Hydrogen is manufactured by electrolysis, the rest comes from the steam reforming process, using natural gas and heat, about 1000 degrees centigrade. 

There are no easy answers to our current predicament..........

[Ruairidh Dunford]

It’s amazing what can be done when the big guns get behind something though, isn’t it?

[Austin in the Shed]

For electricity more could be developed by wave power / sea currents .Maybe under water turbines. As predictable as the tides.
War unfortunately promotes big technology gains.

[Marcus Ling]

Many years ago I was in business converting cars to CNG in the early 1980s when we had a large discovery of natural gas in NZ and one of the oil crises. The government of the time was on a "Take or Pay" agreement, meaning they had to pay for the gas whether they used it or not. Hence there were a number of other methods used to consume the gas such as a methanol conversion plant (still running) and a Gas to Gasoline plant.

One of the big issues with gas as a vehicle fuel is the problem of adequate storage on vehicles. CNG required a high pressure gas cylinder installed in the boot, they stored at 3000 psi, but only provided about 150km of range, typically.

The other problem with gas fuels is the problem of transportation, they cant hold enough energy in road tankers to make those feasible so there needs to be an extensive pipe network to get it to the filling stations and they need high pressure gas compressors and storage. From memory the energy stored in vehicle Hydrogen Gas Cylinders at 620bar is only abut  one third of the CNG equivalent. So range is likely to be an even bigger issue than E cars.

Unfortunately there is no Silver Bullet, and philosophy cant overcome the physics.

[Bob Culver]

Spurred  by the fact that second hand kits fetched almost the price I paid, and assurances from the PM that would always be cheaper than petrol, I labouriously converted my Jowett to CNG. Made venturis of wood to facilitate experiment and these proved far less fickle than the low obstruction mixers fitted to more modern cars. First the propane was stripped from CNG further reducing its punch then the whole programme faded as latest cars with electronic controls became less suited. Tales abounded of melted carb components, floats rubbed through, perished petrol lines causing fires, endless expensive tune ups, hard starting, grossly pocketed valves etc. Cars with auto adjusters would reach the stage where barely go! But in the Javelin it did solve carb icing and with 1cwt in boot it rode well. Oddly valve recession was less than on petrol. The kits became worthless and after several years use I possibly broke even! It was interesting to calculate the loads on the cylinder about 18 inches in dia!! I dont think any exploded  in crashes but one or two during filling. I still have half full of gas. It was remarkable that the mixer fed at 2,000 psi or so could respond to variations in suction far less than in a carb venturi.
Nothing to do with Sevens except that I wish I had spent the considerable effort on the Seven instead!

[andrew34ruby]

There are no easy answers to our current predicament..........

There are easy answers to our present predicament of carbon production and global warming.

We could (should?) reduce motorway speed limits to 60mph, and other out of town roads to 50mph.

And drastically reduce air flights, less passengers, less freight, and lower speeds.

Various things can be done to make buying and selling houses easier. Persuade people to live near work and commute by walking.

Make clothes expensive so people wear them out rather than throwing them away.

Make all transport of goods expensive -- why do I buy beer in Lidl that was brewed and bottled in Kent?

Abolish road tax and triple the duty on petrol.


If global warming is real, we have to be drastic.

And still enjoy the occasional drive in an old car!

[Tony Griffiths]

Not to mention the battery disposal costs and problems 

I suspect India and China will use Coal fired power for a long time to come.

The Indians and the Chinese are, literally, laughing at the West, for without cheap energy industry cannot function and jobs are exported. China plans to build 300 to 500 new coal-powered plants by 2030 (that's two per month for the next twelve years) and are engaged in building hundreds of coal-fired plants and the associated energy infrastructure overseas; India's coal-fired power generation capacity is expected to rise by 22.4% in the next three years. India's energy needs continue to build rapidly as millions move out of poverty, just as in China - who are building upwards of 500 new regional airports. People in developing nations have no intention of giving up flying, or driving and are looking forward in many cases to having, for the first time, holidays and fridges, freezes and air conditioning in their homes. However, to save the world, some bright spark in the EU had a good idea. Chop down trees in the USA; turn them into pellets; ship them across the Atlantic and then truck them from Immingham to the Drax power station. Why? Because the Government had to introduced an EU carbon tax on coal and then pay a subsidy to Drax that amounted to two-and-a-half times more for the electricity it produced from wood than coal. And who's paying for this? One guess. We do.

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All well and good, Derek but a lot depends on what you have to use your car for. A zoe or similar is fine if all you want to do with it is a bit of local commuting. In my instance I have family in Germany who I visit several times a year. Due to our rural location travelling there by train is nigh on impossible, and there are no flights from anywhere near here to Stuttgart. That means I have to drive. Its a 900km journey each way.

I also undertake several long continental journeys each year, usually around 800 miles, which my diesel car can cover, just, on one tank. One day I'll stay in the truck lane and see if it will make 1000!

[Phil Kingdom]

The electric car at the moment is a novelty charging stations are appearing here and there but to have a nationwide charging network would seem to be almost impossible as every on street parking space would need a charging point, to say nothing about yobs unplugging them on the way home from the pub, the only way to make EVs viable is to have replaceable battery packs, drive in replace battery and off you go.
It would seem that the motor manufacturers don't worry to much about carbon footprints as each new model seems to be getting bigger, it would make more sense for them to be fitting smaller engines, in the UK we can only travel at 70 MPH maximum and most A roads these days have 30 40 and 50MPH limits all over the place and the extra traffic on them maybe the Austin 7 will become a viable form of everyday transport in the not to distant future.