Green Cars

il_principe

Still should be better than extracting oil, distilling it and then burning it though?

verloren

Depends on how you make it - if you do it using coal (as the US and particularly China are inclined to), I'd say the answer is no. If you do it by burning pigeons and seals, sure

Sewinman

jashburnham wrote:

Meh, the phrase "green" car was something dreamt up by the marketing department, mainly so they can sell stupid Honda Prius' (Prii?) to stupid hollywood actors and ecomentalists who love a bit of "green" tokenism. It's all about image these days - that's why we have in creasing number of on-shore windfarms - pointless things that will never recoup the carbon cost of their construction.

Rather than waste money on daft schemes, green cars, electric charging stations etc - I'd like to see more money thrown at hydrogen fuel cell research; we know it works, now we need to work on bringing the costs down.

The most ridiculous green car is the G-Whiz. It's not even classed as a car so does not have to conform to the Euro NCAP test nor the 31 mph Dept of Transport UNECE Regulation 94 test. I wouldn't climb into one in a hurry.

At least the green lobby are starting to accept the need for nuclear.

The Prius has the lowest Co2 emissions for its class - it is therefore a greener car to run than others.

Onshore wind farms 'payback' their carbon in 3-5 months, conservative estimates by anti-wind types stretch that to 9 years. Hardly possible to describe those periods as 'never'.

Hydrogen fuel takes more carbon/energy to create than it saves when using it...the criticism you leveled wrongly at wind power.

nation

mattybain wrote:

nation wrote:

brixtonbiker66 wrote:

On the green subject , What does happen to a carbon fibre bike at the end of its life?

Can it be recycled??

Nope. It's usually burned or landfilled. There are a few companies that shred it to make filler material or re-process it for parts that don't need any significant structural strength, but that's not really "recycling" per se.

The act of processing used or abandoned materials for use in creating new products, sounds like recycling to me!!

So what is "recycling" per se?

What I mean is that it's impossible to reprocess old carbon fibre such that it can be made into new carbon fibre, in the way that metal can be melted down and re-cast or re-forged into new parts, or paper can be processed into new (if lower quality) paper.

About all you can use it for is in place of sand or aggregate for making concrete, or dissolving it into tar for road surfacing. The object is reducing the volume of non-recyclable material going into landfill.

ride_whenever

A few things:

verloren hit the nail on the head. Using something to breakdown water into hydrogen then burning it is never going to work without some energy input (1st law of thermodynamics) hence the work on solar fuel cells to trap sunlight and use it to create hydrogen. Basically all energy comes back to the sun (except nuclear.,which can be traced back to other stars) it is a case of finding a good energy source that we can take advantage of. Like we have been doing with fossil fuels over the past couple of hundred years, these reserves basically represent concentrated sunlight that was slowly accumulated over thousands of years.

The best forms of future energy are fusion, fission and solar power. These are where a large proportion of the research funding is going currently.

As for the prius, it might have very low CO2 emmissions, but according to the internet, it produces more CO2 over it's lifetime than a hummer...

gpsBRM

There is an interesting article on What Car about green cars.

http://www.whatcar.com/green-special-re ... EL=3194607

Looks like there is 2 schools of thought on how much energy is used to produce a car. But according to CNWs research a Jeep Wrangler is one of the greenest. Probably becuase its made of simple materials and processes plus last alot longer than your average hatchback.

http://www.whatcar.com/NonCar/4106623419.jpg

il_principe

Sewinman wrote:

jashburnham wrote:

Meh, the phrase "green" car was something dreamt up by the marketing department, mainly so they can sell stupid Honda Prius' (Prii?) to stupid hollywood actors and ecomentalists who love a bit of "green" tokenism. It's all about image these days - that's why we have in creasing number of on-shore windfarms - pointless things that will never recoup the carbon cost of their construction.

Rather than waste money on daft schemes, green cars, electric charging stations etc - I'd like to see more money thrown at hydrogen fuel cell research; we know it works, now we need to work on bringing the costs down.

The most ridiculous green car is the G-Whiz. It's not even classed as a car so does not have to conform to the Euro NCAP test nor the 31 mph Dept of Transport UNECE Regulation 94 test. I wouldn't climb into one in a hurry.

At least the green lobby are starting to accept the need for nuclear.

The Prius has the lowest Co2 emissions for its class - it is therefore a greener car to run than others.

Onshore wind farms 'payback' their carbon in 3-5 years, conservative estimates by anti-wind types stretch that to 9 years. Hardly possible to describe those periods as 'never'.

Hydrogen fuel takes more carbon/energy to create than it saves when using it...the criticism you leveled wrongly at wind power.

For it's class, whatever that means. I've seen 3 different tests where large diesel beemers out performed Prius's for fuel efficiency among other things.

The key argument for me though is the idea of lifetime cost (Dust to Dust) if you like. The Prius scores quite highly here but is beaten by some surprising cars:
The Toyota Prius involves $3.25 per mile in energy costs over its lifetime, according to CNW, while several full-size SUVs scored lower. A Dodge Viper involves only $2.18 in energy per mile over its lifetime. So if your concern is the broader issues such as environmental impact of energy usage, some high-mileage vehicles actually cost society more than conventional or even larger models over their lifetime.

As for windfarms, there is a vast and well funded (mainly by the UK taxpayer) "pro" lobby who have succeeded in pedalling a lot of guff. Of course it comes down to individual farms, but the one I have knowledge of is being built on reclaimed marshland and the foundations have required huge amounts of concrete, which of course is a massively polluting substance to produce. It's also worth pointing out that all this is done at huge cost to the taxpayer for very little appreciable return. OFGEM themselves (who act to defend public interest), recently demanded the abolition of the £32bn subsidy which is the driving force for the current rush to build wind farms. Stating that the present wind farm subsidy system was wasteful, suppressed innovation in renewables, and produced extremely expensive emissions reductions.


It's all about tokenism. The reality is that this government cares more about being seen to do the right thing, than actually doing the right thing.

As for Hydrogen, I'm out of my depth and freely admit that, but does using hydrogen result in lower emissions? I've always been led to understand that it does. If this is the case then given the current party line of "Co2 causes climate change" surely this is something that should be invested in properly?

Christophe3967

Sewinman wrote:

The Prius has the lowest Co2 emissions for its class - it is therefore a greener car to run than others.

Afraid not. Just extracting the nickel (of which there is only about 70 years supply left) for the batteries is hugely damaging to the environment. Nasa used the nickel mine sites to practice driving their lunar buggies over. Life expectancy in areas around nickel mines are lower and cancer incidence is significantly higher. The nickel gets transported from Canada to Wales then to China and then to Japan, and the cars then get shipped back to Europe and the USA. They require special tyres to run efficiently; these only last 15,000 miles on average, and most owners don't bother to buy them. They rarely achieve more than 45 mpg in normal use and there is no effective means of recycling them. They may be clever, a necessary step on the path to true enlightenment, they may provide their drivers with a warm glow of self satisfaction, but they ain't green.

MrChuck

jashburnham wrote:

As for Hydrogen, I'm out of my depth and freely admit that, but does using hydrogen result in lower emissions? I've always been led to understand that it does. If this is the case then given the current party line of "Co2 causes climate change" surely this is something that should be invested in properly?

As somebody else said above, it depends on where the energy needed to produce the hydrogen comes from, but as a rule of thumb anything that shifts emissions away from the exhausts of individual cars to big power stations should produce less emissions overall.

The only advantage hydrogen has is the speed of filling a tank- much faster than charging a battery. I think there are big engineering problems with storing and transporting it.

verloren

gpsBRM wrote:

There is an interesting article on What Car about green cars.

http://www.whatcar.com/green-special-re ... EL=3194607

Looks like there is 2 schools of thought on how much energy is used to produce a car. But according to CNWs research a Jeep Wrangler is one of the greenest. Probably becuase its made of simple materials and processes plus last alot longer than your average hatchback.

http://www.whatcar.com/NonCar/4106623419.jpg

It makes sense that the Jeep would come top - it's basically made out of girders (even the engine), and we've had a lot of time to work out how to produce those efficiently

Sewinman

All power stations use huge amounts of concrete and involve massive cost to the tax payer. How much do you think the UK government has spent over the decades in developing and commercialising nuclear energy, and they have not even decided what to do with the waste yet. All new technologies require subsidy and wind power subsidy is comparatively tiny.

Hydrogen requires electrolysis - which uses up a lot of electricity.

Your accusation of tokenism is a good excuse to do nothing and not very helpful other for a bit Clarkson-esque smugness.

biondino

Just like Darwin had to find intermediate species to justify his theory of evolution, our technology needs intermediate stages if it's to achieve long term success. Perhaps someone will, just like that, discover a workable, clean and safe form of nuclear fusion and everything'll be okay forever, but since we can't rely on that, we are obliged to continue research into other forms of renewable energy.

And that research is demonstrated in things like windfarms (not that I believe Jash for a second since a) he has an agenda and b) it's not like he's going to produce any falsifiable data) and the Prius. They aren't perfect, and in some criteria they may actually have negative effects. But if the Prius leads us to a new generation of greener cars then its role will have been immense and essential.

Look at solar power. It's still not commercially viable in most cases, but it's getting close. Presumably the Jashes of 20 years ago were saying "but it costs more to produce a solar panel than it'll ever make back" and we're supposed to say "oh yeah, good point, forget about it then"? I don't think so.

If and when wind power is either proven to be too inefficient, or it's superceded by cleaner, better forms of renewable energy, then it can be decommissioned, but the research value will no doubt be priceless on top of the almost certainly real, quantifiable savings and benefits it provides (with the possible exception of some badly-planned marshland efforts, maybe).

Oh, and geothermal energy is a fuel of the future and it isn't powered by the sun but by gravity.

Sewinman

biondino wrote:

Just like Darwin had to find intermediate species to justify his theory of evolution, our technology needs intermediate stages if it's to achieve long term success. Perhaps someone will, just like that, discover a workable, clean and safe form of nuclear fusion and everything'll be okay forever, but since we can't rely on that, we are obliged to continue research into other forms of renewable energy.

And that research is demonstrated in things like windfarms (not that I believe Jash for a second since a) he has an agenda and b) it's not like he's going to produce any falsifiable data) and the Prius. They aren't perfect, and in some criteria they may actually have negative effects. But if the Prius leads us to a new generation of greener cars then its role will have been immense and essential.

Look at solar power. It's still not commercially viable in most cases, but it's getting close. Presumably the Jashes of 20 years ago were saying "but it costs more to produce a solar panel than it'll ever make back" and we're supposed to say "oh yeah, good point, forget about it then"? I don't think so.

If and when wind power is either proven to be too inefficient, or it's superceded by cleaner, better forms of renewable energy, then it can be decommissioned, but the research value will no doubt be priceless on top of the almost certainly real, quantifiable savings and benefits it provides (with the possible exception of some badly-planned marshland efforts, maybe).

Oh, and geothermal energy is a fuel of the future and it isn't powered by the sun but by gravity.

+ a million. Very well put.

MrChuck

biondino wrote:

Just like Darwin had to find intermediate species to justify his theory of evolution, our technology needs intermediate stages if it's to achieve long term success. Perhaps someone will, just like that, discover a workable, clean and safe form of nuclear fusion and everything'll be okay forever, but since we can't rely on that, we are obliged to continue research into other forms of renewable energy.

And that research is demonstrated in things like windfarms (not that I believe Jash for a second since a) he has an agenda and b) it's not like he's going to produce any falsifiable data) and the Prius. They aren't perfect, and in some criteria they may actually have negative effects. But if the Prius leads us to a new generation of greener cars then its role will have been immense and essential.

Look at solar power. It's still not commercially viable in most cases, but it's getting close. Presumably the Jashes of 20 years ago were saying "but it costs more to produce a solar panel than it'll ever make back" and we're supposed to say "oh yeah, good point, forget about it then"? I don't think so.

If and when wind power is either proven to be too inefficient, or it's superceded by cleaner, better forms of renewable energy, then it can be decommissioned, but the research value will no doubt be priceless on top of the almost certainly real, quantifiable savings and benefits it provides (with the possible exception of some badly-planned marshland efforts, maybe).

Oh, and geothermal energy is a fuel of the future and it isn't powered by the sun but by gravity.

+1

verloren

jashburnham wrote:

As for Hydrogen, I'm out of my depth and freely admit that, but does using hydrogen result in lower emissions? I've always been led to understand that it does. If this is the case then given the current party line of "Co2 causes climate change" surely this is something that should be invested in properly?

As others have said, it takes a lot of energy to make, store and distribute hydrogen. The same is true of petrol. Similarly converting the hydrogen or petrol into movement in your car is inefficient (in both cases comfortably more than half of the energy in your fuel is lost, and the RMI estimates that less than 1% of the energy embodied in petrol goes to moving the driver). I don't know the relative efficiencies of these two processes, but hydrogen is unlikely to get 10x better, or even 2x better.

Hydrogen's advantage, because it is energy storage rather than energy source, is that we get to choose how to generate the initial energy. If we generate it using coal then it's not likely to be better than oil, even though by concentrating production in one big smoke stack rather than a million exhausts we can do much more effective emissions scrubbing. If, on the other hand, we use a 'clean' source such as solar we make the overall process cleaner. If we can make the initial generation clean enough then it wouldn't much matter if hydrogen was much less efficient than oil, because we wouldn't be wasting anything that could hurt us.

So while developing hydrogen is a worthy goal, I guess, it's environmental impact is limited by the upstream energy sources we need to develop such as solar, geothermal, etc.

wildmoustache

verloren wrote:

gpsBRM wrote:

There is an interesting article on What Car about green cars.

http://www.whatcar.com/green-special-re ... EL=3194607

Looks like there is 2 schools of thought on how much energy is used to produce a car. But according to CNWs research a Jeep Wrangler is one of the greenest. Probably becuase its made of simple materials and processes plus last alot longer than your average hatchback.

http://www.whatcar.com/NonCar/4106623419.jpg

It makes sense that the Jeep would come top - it's basically made out of girders (even the engine), and we've had a lot of time to work out how to produce those efficiently

Yes, you need to take a "total factor input" approach when assessing the "greenness" of a car, or anything for that matter.

Christophe3967

biondino wrote:

Just like Darwin had to find intermediate species to justify his theory of evolution, our technology needs intermediate stages if it's to achieve long term success. Perhaps someone will, just like that, discover a workable, clean and safe form of nuclear fusion and everything'll be okay forever, but since we can't rely on that, we are obliged to continue research into other forms of renewable energy.

And that research is demonstrated in things like windfarms (not that I believe Jash for a second since a) he has an agenda and b) it's not like he's going to produce any falsifiable data) and the Prius. They aren't perfect, and in some criteria they may actually have negative effects. But if the Prius leads us to a new generation of greener cars then its role will have been immense and essential.

Look at solar power. It's still not commercially viable in most cases, but it's getting close. Presumably the Jashes of 20 years ago were saying "but it costs more to produce a solar panel than it'll ever make back" and we're supposed to say "oh yeah, good point, forget about it then"? I don't think so.

If and when wind power is either proven to be too inefficient, or it's superceded by cleaner, better forms of renewable energy, then it can be decommissioned, but the research value will no doubt be priceless on top of the almost certainly real, quantifiable savings and benefits it provides (with the possible exception of some badly-planned marshland efforts, maybe).

Oh, and geothermal energy is a fuel of the future and it isn't powered by the sun but by gravity.

Of course I agree, but the Prius has been done and we need to move on to the next step, husband our resources, rather than have Toyata subsidised through green taxation.

And for how long must we have this avatar?

wildmoustache

Christophe3967 wrote:

biondino wrote:

Just like Darwin had to find intermediate species to justify his theory of evolution, our technology needs intermediate stages if it's to achieve long term success. Perhaps someone will, just like that, discover a workable, clean and safe form of nuclear fusion and everything'll be okay forever, but since we can't rely on that, we are obliged to continue research into other forms of renewable energy.

And that research is demonstrated in things like windfarms (not that I believe Jash for a second since a) he has an agenda and b) it's not like he's going to produce any falsifiable data) and the Prius. They aren't perfect, and in some criteria they may actually have negative effects. But if the Prius leads us to a new generation of greener cars then its role will have been immense and essential.

Look at solar power. It's still not commercially viable in most cases, but it's getting close. Presumably the Jashes of 20 years ago were saying "but it costs more to produce a solar panel than it'll ever make back" and we're supposed to say "oh yeah, good point, forget about it then"? I don't think so.

If and when wind power is either proven to be too inefficient, or it's superceded by cleaner, better forms of renewable energy, then it can be decommissioned, but the research value will no doubt be priceless on top of the almost certainly real, quantifiable savings and benefits it provides (with the possible exception of some badly-planned marshland efforts, maybe).

Oh, and geothermal energy is a fuel of the future and it isn't powered by the sun but by gravity.

Of course I agree, but the Prius has been done and we need to move on to the next step, husband our resources, rather than have Toyata subsidised through green taxation.

And for how long must we have this avatar?

You could reduce high polluting car ownership and use pretty easily. IMO even the newer measures don't go far enough. The key point is that the only "cost" to doing this is that people have to settle for (e.g.) a Prius, a Focus, a bicycle etc., rather than a Porsche Cayenne. It's no great hardship and certainly not an area we have to forego economic output for. But politicians are very afraid of people who drive cars with high power outputs.

biondino

wildmoustache wrote:

You could reduce high polluting car ownership and use pretty easily. IMO even the newer measures don't go far enough. The key point is that the only "cost" to doing this is that people have to settle for (e.g.) a Prius, a Focus, a bicycle etc., rather than a Porsche Cayenne. It's no great hardship and certainly not an area we have to forego economic output for. But politicians are very afraid of people who drive cars with high power outputs.

I agree with the sentiment but I think we're getting uncomfortably close to civil liberty violations if we expressly forbid people from, say, driving Porsche Cayennes (aka The Ugliest Car In The World). That's the problem being a wet liberal - you can't come down too tyrannical on people's asses but you can't just let them do what they want, either - it's a tough balance

downfader

Dig deep enough and you get heat - geothermal - can even be dug out by hand in some cases

Spain and Arizona are trying a different form of solar energy that takes very little to set up - solar towers. Beams of sunlight are reflected onto a 300 foot high tower and water systems inside are heated, and after some other things that I dont fully understand electricity is generated. 1 tower is said to be able to light around 100,000 homes.

Then theres sea-based power.

I think these are things we need to realise we need to invest in a lot more of else we'll be going nowhere. Nuclear research too into fusion.

ride_whenever

geothermal is great, but you have to do the sums pretty carefully otherwise it ends up using more energy pumping the water back up than you can extract from it. It also needs to be built on stable ground.

Fusion is so popular because it promises to be extraordinarily good, it is just a case of making a reactor large enough to produce enough energy! Look at the sun, it's self sustaining!

wildmoustache

biondino wrote:

wildmoustache wrote:

You could reduce high polluting car ownership and use pretty easily. IMO even the newer measures don't go far enough. The key point is that the only "cost" to doing this is that people have to settle for (e.g.) a Prius, a Focus, a bicycle etc., rather than a Porsche Cayenne. It's no great hardship and certainly not an area we have to forego economic output for. But politicians are very afraid of people who drive cars with high power outputs.

I agree with the sentiment but I think we're getting uncomfortably close to civil liberty violations if we expressly forbid people from, say, driving Porsche Cayennes (aka The Ugliest Car In The World). That's the problem being a wet liberal - you can't come down too tyrannical on people's asses but you can't just let them do what they want, either - it's a tough balance

Well, you can make such cars so ridiculously expensive to drive that very few people would do so. They always have been taxed more and the link between polluting and paying for it is now stronger and more explicit, but I'd like to see it go further. Put another way, I value the benefits from reducing the use of such cars far more than I value the benefits to the users (which, to be on message with the cycling fraternity, are trivial and selfish ). The fact that there are growing numbers of great cars that pollute much less makes really penalising big polluters much easier to do.

il_principe

biondino wrote:

Just like Darwin had to find intermediate species to justify his theory of evolution, our technology needs intermediate stages if it's to achieve long term success. Perhaps someone will, just like that, discover a workable, clean and safe form of nuclear fusion and everything'll be okay forever, but since we can't rely on that, we are obliged to continue research into other forms of renewable energy.

And that research is demonstrated in things like windfarms (not that I believe Jash for a second since a) he has an agenda and b) it's not like he's going to produce any falsifiable data) and the Prius. They aren't perfect, and in some criteria they may actually have negative effects. But if the Prius leads us to a new generation of greener cars then its role will have been immense and essential.

Look at solar power. It's still not commercially viable in most cases, but it's getting close. Presumably the Jashes of 20 years ago were saying "but it costs more to produce a solar panel than it'll ever make back" and we're supposed to say "oh yeah, good point, forget about it then"? I don't think so.

If and when wind power is either proven to be too inefficient, or it's superceded by cleaner, better forms of renewable energy, then it can be decommissioned, but the research value will no doubt be priceless on top of the almost certainly real, quantifiable savings and benefits it provides (with the possible exception of some badly-planned marshland efforts, maybe).

Oh, and geothermal energy is a fuel of the future and it isn't powered by the sun but by gravity.

You have assumed, Blondie, that I'm a green naysayer. I am not. However I am arguing for a balanced approach. The simple fact is that windfarms are inefficient, expensive an unreliable, as well as being a total eyesore. However they are a very visible sign of any government's green intentions, they scream "look at usm we are doing something!"

My argument is not against renewables at all, I just want to see money spent effectively. So what about requiring all new builds to incorporate solar panels and stricter legislation with regard to insulation - for example. The problem is that efforts like this simply don't have the visibility that a windfarm does.

I'm also very excited by the prospect of things like solar towers. What would be wonderful would be for the EU to have the ambition (and financial courage) to work with Saharan Africa in building large solar arrays and finding a viable and effective way to share this power. On Shore Wind will never be a solution, it simply is not capable of fulfilling even a fraction of our requirements and requires vast tracts of land that as a small island we just don't have.

Hopefully we'll crack fusion, and I believe we will - but I agree that to rely on this would be foolish in the extreme.

wildmoustache

jashburnham wrote:

biondino wrote:

Just like Darwin had to find intermediate species to justify his theory of evolution, our technology needs intermediate stages if it's to achieve long term success. Perhaps someone will, just like that, discover a workable, clean and safe form of nuclear fusion and everything'll be okay forever, but since we can't rely on that, we are obliged to continue research into other forms of renewable energy.

And that research is demonstrated in things like windfarms (not that I believe Jash for a second since a) he has an agenda and b) it's not like he's going to produce any falsifiable data) and the Prius. They aren't perfect, and in some criteria they may actually have negative effects. But if the Prius leads us to a new generation of greener cars then its role will have been immense and essential.

Look at solar power. It's still not commercially viable in most cases, but it's getting close. Presumably the Jashes of 20 years ago were saying "but it costs more to produce a solar panel than it'll ever make back" and we're supposed to say "oh yeah, good point, forget about it then"? I don't think so.

If and when wind power is either proven to be too inefficient, or it's superceded by cleaner, better forms of renewable energy, then it can be decommissioned, but the research value will no doubt be priceless on top of the almost certainly real, quantifiable savings and benefits it provides (with the possible exception of some badly-planned marshland efforts, maybe).

Oh, and geothermal energy is a fuel of the future and it isn't powered by the sun but by gravity.

You have assumed, Blondie, that I'm a green naysayer. I am not. However I am arguing for a balanced approach. The simple fact is that windfarms are inefficient, expensive an unreliable, as well as being a total eyesore. However they are a very visible sign of any government's green intentions, they scream "look at usm we are doing something!"

My argument is not against renewables at all, I just want to see money spent effectively. So what about requiring all new builds to incorporate solar panels and stricter legislation with regard to insulation - for example. The problem is that efforts like this simply don't have the visibility that a windfarm does.

I'm also very excited by the prospect of things like solar towers. What would be wonderful would be for the EU to have the ambition (and financial courage) to work with Saharan Africa in building large solar arrays and finding a viable and effective way to share this power. On Shore Wind will never be a solution, it simply is not capable of fulfilling even a fraction of our requirements and requires vast tracts of land that as a small island we just don't have.

Hopefully we'll crack fusion, and I believe we will - but I agree that to rely on this would be foolish in the extreme.

well put jash.

One point I disagree with you on is that we don't have enough wind... jesus man ... trying riding around the west coast of scotland and repeating that over a glass of malt in the pub at the end of your 8 hour, 23 mile ride.

verloren

jashburnham wrote:

The simple fact is that windfarms are inefficient, expensive an unreliable, as well as being a total eyesore. However they are a very visible sign of any government's green intentions, they scream "look at usm we are doing something!"

Not disagreeing with your point at all, but fossil fuel power stations are relatively inefficient and expensive too. And I'd put any wind farm you want up against Ratcliffe on Soar power station when it comes to impact on the landscape

biondino

I think windfarms are beautiful (for real, and regardless of any perceived good they do)!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davewilliams/288648104/

wildmoustache

biondino wrote:

I think windfarms are beautiful (for real, and regardless of any perceived good they do)!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davewilliams/288648104/

I do too actually. I find them disturbing and beautiful. I also have a NIMBY approach to them, but only because MBY would not accomodate one. Otherwise I'd happily retire to live off the income from the energy company and finally sort out my training regime.

Eau Rouge

Out of interest, is there any actual reason to think that if humanity stopped producing CO2 in the morning that we wouldn't still have huge climate change over the next century?
It's not as if the whole thing is just man-made, is it?
Now, if we can't actually stop it happening, does it make any sense to go and deprive ourselves of everything invented after 1850 just to please those who won't be happy until we are back living in caves and tree-houses?
That is, of course, not to say we do nothing, just that we shouldn't screw ourselves over and throw it all away for no real gain at all.

I have a huge problem with fission power stations too. I'd rather have the CO2 from non-fission power stations than all that waste we have no real way of dealing with properly, to say nothing of the security headaches.

downfader

jashburnham wrote:

I'm also very excited by the prospect of things like solar towers. What would be wonderful would be for the EU to have the ambition (and financial courage) to work with Saharan Africa in building large solar arrays and finding a viable and effective way to share this power. On Shore Wind will never be a solution, it simply is not capable of fulfilling even a fraction of our requirements and requires vast tracts of land that as a small island we just don't have.

Hopefully we'll crack fusion, and I believe we will - but I agree that to rely on this would be foolish in the extreme.

Predictions on cracking fusion are estimated at around 2040 - just hasnt been the investment there

The trouble with the Saharan ideal is that the sand will cause major problems with the mirrors. They would end up needing replacement. I have heard that other African countries like South Africa and their neighbours might be interested.

Solar power could also possibly be harnessed offshore too.

biondino

It's be amazing if, as countries like Kuwait, Venezuela and Scotland (lol) have got rich on the back of oil, places like Mongolia, Chad and Mauritania might be superpowers of the 22nd century as the world's suntraps.