Petrol prices

cptrayes said:
Generating electricity isn't really a problem. We have massive areas of desert in the world which could generate huge amounts of energy from the sun. We have energy in the wind and the sea that just needs harvesting.

Managing an explosive fuel like hydrogen is a pretty tricky business though. Would the fuel cell you envisage generate electricity in the car? Because if not, the storage and transport of large amounts of hydrogen is completely impractical. My "consultant engineer" tells me that to delivery the same amount of energy as petrol/diesel, your average filling station would have to have 27 tanker deliveries an hour. If that's even a tenth of the truth, it can't be done, the petrol station would be constantly shut to take deliveries.

If your "in car" solution is possible, how many years are we away from a commercial application in a family saloon? Because electric cars are viable now and have been since the 1980's even though General Motors did their damndest to kill it off, acording to "Who killed the electric car?"
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I believe that hydrogen fuel cell cars have been built as prototypes and are viable but they don't have the support from the government grants that electric cars do and so are struggling to get off the ground. I'm no expert, I only know what I have seen on TV/read in magazines/heard on the radio but it seems a much more practical solution than an electric car than needs to be plugged in for 12 hours after about 20 miles.

The trouble with electricity is that it is difficult and inefficient to store it or transport it, so it is all very well generating it in desert based solar farms or off shore wind farms but you lose a lot in transporting it and storing it. IMHO these schemes are great in areas that lend themselves to it, and in small scale schemes such as feed in tarriffs for solar panels on your roof or wind turbines in the garden but are not workable as the only energy source, they will always require back up from coal or nuclear or similar. If all cars go over to electricity then the requirements for electricity will go up massively, and we will struggle to meet the demand.
 
skint1 said:
haha, I often kid with the TB mare that she better learn to plow when Western civilisation collapses, she doesn't think I mean it... :D
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Since we sold our second car, DH keeps threatening our horse with being hitched up to a covered wagon. Perhaps he's ahead of the times!

Mind you didn't Joe Grundy start driving Bartleby when he lost his driving licence, perhaps an example to us all!!! :D
 
KristmasKatt said:
I believe that hydrogen fuel cell cars have been built as prototypes and are viable but they don't have the support from the government grants that electric cars do and so are struggling to get off the ground. I'm no expert, I only know what I have seen on TV/read in magazines/heard on the radio but it seems a much more practical solution than an electric car than needs to be plugged in for 12 hours after about 20 miles.
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The range is well over 20 miles of course :)

The refuelling problem can be solved two ways. Immediately practical - have the batteries on a rack. Pull into a "refuelling station" and change the battery rack. Very close to being a commercial proposition - liquid which carries electricity and can be pumped just like petrol. Both of these will work, one of them right now.

As far as the transport of electricity goes, there are far more effecient conductors currently being developed from non-metals (someone thought outside the box!!) and we already ship electricity in from France, so why not Spain and Southern France both of which will soon be deserts with global warming going as it is.

The prototype cars you mention, I think, have a massive hydrogen storage "balloon" on the roof of the car? If that's the one you are thinking of, that's the one that's totally impractical because you cannot deliver the fuel to the filling stations, the volume required to supply the same energy as oil based products is too high.

One things for sure, it's an interesting world we live in right now!
 
cptrayes, the one I saw didn't have a balloon..... it looked like a normal car, i think Honda had developed it if I remember correctly....

I can't remember the precise range of the electric cars around at the moment but I remember thinking, "that wouldn't even get me to work without recharging" and at the time my commute was about 50miles. I guess changing batteries would solve this a bit though.

I'm no expert.... I think at the heart of the problem is a need to change the way we live, and just reduce the travel we do.
 
It was the Honda Clarity I was thinking of. They are already in use in California.

However Honda have apparently sadly reduced their investment in this as industry and governments seem to be more focussed on plug in electric cars.......
 
Instead of punishing drivers by increasing tax, perhaps the government should look at the root causes of why demand for car usage has increased.
Back in the 1960's it was common for families to live easily without a car. Many villages had a shop, post office and often a bank. Social life revolved around the church hall and local pub. Our village had a huge Co-op grocery lorry, a butcher, green grocer and library all which came weekly.
Children went to the small village school or used a school bus. More people worked locally and walked or cycled to work.
Perhaps the government should look at reversing the policies implemented over the last generation and restore village life back to living communities instead of being places to sleep at while commuting outside for work and leisure.

For a size able number of the population, the government has made it extremely difficult to live reasonably without being a two car family.
 
horserider said:
Instead of punishing drivers by increasing tax, perhaps the government should look at the root causes of why demand for car usage has increased.
Back in the 1960's it was common for families to live easily without a car. Many villages had a shop, post office and often a bank. Social life revolved around the church hall and local pub. Our village had a huge Co-op grocery lorry, a butcher, green grocer and library all which came weekly.
Children went to the small village school or used a school bus. More people worked locally and walked or cycled to work.
Perhaps the government should look at reversing the policies implemented over the last generation and restore village life back to living communities instead of being places to sleep at while commuting outside for work and leisure.

For a size able number of the population, the government has made it extremely difficult to live reasonably without being a two car family.
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I completely agree with this! I would happily live in a small community, but the opportunities just are not there any more.
 
horserider said:
Instead of punishing drivers by increasing tax, perhaps the government should look at the root causes of why demand for car usage has increased.
Back in the 1960's it was common for families to live easily without a car. Many villages had a shop, post office and often a bank. Social life revolved around the church hall and local pub. Our village had a huge Co-op grocery lorry, a butcher, green grocer and library all which came weekly.
Children went to the small village school or used a school bus. More people worked locally and walked or cycled to work.
Perhaps the government should look at reversing the policies implemented over the last generation and restore village life back to living communities instead of being places to sleep at while commuting outside for work and leisure.

For a size able number of the population, the government has made it extremely difficult to live reasonably without being a two car family.
Click to expand...

Very true! I agree that car useage needs to reduce but to do that, we need to look at ways of making that possible - such as improving public transport an awful lot and making it affordable again, giving businesses finanical incentives to allow working from home and improving rural broadband to make that possible, encouraging small shops and making those affordable too - even if there is a local shop, the chances are that the supermarket will be cheaper after all. Also, access to LOCAL schools, healthcare and other services is needed.

Simply pricing people off the roads without addressing these issues is simply a route to further depressing the economy, and is a big step backwards.
 
KristmasKatt said:
It was the Honda Clarity I was thinking of. They are already in use in California.

However Honda have apparently sadly reduced their investment in this as industry and governments seem to be more focussed on plug in electric cars.......
Click to expand...

Got it. Nice car. The bit that is missing is the figure of how much electricity it takes to crack the source "fuel" (water I think) into hydrogen and oxygen. I wonder if it is any less then getting the same miles from an electric car? I must ask my engineer when I next see him :)

I agree with everyone above. I think it will happen, but there's a lot of pain to go through first before we go back to a more sustainable (and fair) way of living.
 
Spudlet said:
Very true! I agree that car useage needs to reduce but to do that, we need to look at ways of making that possible - such as improving public transport an awful lot and making it affordable again, giving businesses finanical incentives to allow working from home and improving rural broadband to make that possible, encouraging small shops and making those affordable too - even if there is a local shop, the chances are that the supermarket will be cheaper after all. Also, access to LOCAL schools, healthcare and other services is needed.

Simply pricing people off the roads without addressing these issues is simply a route to further depressing the economy, and is a big step backwards.
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Exactly!

When I was a child my parents had one car for the whole family. DH and I are trying to manage with one car at the moment (sold his old one, because we had bought a new one but the new one had to be sent back) it is a right pain even though he works mainly from home and we live on the edge of a market town. If we were in a more rural location it would be even worse, at least he can walk to the shops. Public transport doesn't work for me because I'm on an out of town business park.
 
horserider said:
Instead of punishing drivers by increasing tax, perhaps the government should look at the root causes of why demand for car usage has increased.
Back in the 1960's it was common for families to live easily without a car. Many villages had a shop, post office and often a bank. Social life revolved around the church hall and local pub. Our village had a huge Co-op grocery lorry, a butcher, green grocer and library all which came weekly.
Children went to the small village school or used a school bus. More people worked locally and walked or cycled to work.
Perhaps the government should look at reversing the policies implemented over the last generation and restore village life back to living communities instead of being places to sleep at while commuting outside for work and leisure.

For a size able number of the population, the government has made it extremely difficult to live reasonably without being a two car family.
Click to expand...

I isnt the goverments fault!!! just people having the freedom to travel buy food where they want or is cheapest, travel futher for work, holidays etc that shut the local inificent or expensive services once cars were avalible to the proletariat, Simple solution to the worlds problems isnt going to happen, we are too sucesfull and the human poplulation is growing at a frightening rate who is going to stop it, maybe there will be wars or plauge but realy no politcian or goverment apart from maybe china will stop it , they just love the junk science of climate warming or whatever suits at the time to call it and use it as an excuse for so called green taxes while doing nothing to help anyone but the few that benifit like wealthy landowners lilke camerons FIL ... stealing from our electric bills to give investors money for solar panels and windmills but the answer is to lower the population then most of the problems and polution will be minimal...
 
I agree with you regarding population, and also the fact that the goverment suits wealthy landowners, and only China did do anything to reduce population. They prevented millions of people being born, and in turn helped prevent another major famine.

However... It is partly the goverments fault for getting rid of local services and shops. Britain has a tendency to support large corporations (such as Walmart(asda) or tescos) while making thing more and more difficult for small businesses. Also with public transport, it was sold of to private companies who decide its not in their finacial interests to run in rural areas, and try and make as much profit as possible.
 
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