A discussion on ?climate change? that was just threatening to get past the usual knee jerk drivel has sadly been canned by the moderators. Although I can?t personally think of a subject more critical to the future survival, or that will have greater influence on the future form of motoring, that?s fair enough.
As a discussion point that will hopefully be seen as more appropriate to this forum, I would like to pose the following question.
Supposing, ignoring your actual views, that we really do need to reduce carbon emissions / fossil fuel use in order for the present society we live in to continue to be recognisable, how do we begin to reconcile that with the convenience, freedom and mobility that most of us take for granted? I?d really like to avoid the boring ?it?s real? ?no it?s not? arguments, as opinions are entrenched. Rather, my question is: what could we do to maintain our current standards of living?
As a start, it seems to me that the very model of car ownership may have to change. An electric car, if coupled with sustainable electricity generation, is a highly practical form of urban transport in less dense settings (I can?t imagine that everyone driving in London is ever going to work). I will grant you that most electric cars to date have been hideous or ludicrously expensive, but for many short journeys they could be highly practical.
Will we have to move to a model where people may own an electric car for short journeys, but use pool cars or some form of shared resource to move greater distances? Or will the model become similar to that using bicycles in Paris, for example, where efficient and clean public transport takes the long distance strain, and shared resources complete the last mile.
I?m genuinely interested in this, at least in part because at the moment I fly about once a month and drive 27k a year as a part of my job. I don?t think that?s sustainable, if only because fossil fuels will run out. What potential solutions can people think of?
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If the current administrations were serious about this then something other than diesel and petrol would be powering our cars.
The current setup of refined crude oil in and 0 CO2 out will NEVER EVER happen. Making a silk purse out of a sows ear has never been more apt.
How is the consumer supposed to make an informed decision until those in a position of power provide some sense of direction ?
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It won't matter too much what form of transport you use in 40 years time if the rate of growth of the population isn't tackled. Most of the Earth's problems are directly related to the population size. Reduce the population and transportation (and other) problems will start to disappear.
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It's almost inevitable, if CO2 emissions are to come down materially, that travel and especially car driving (among quite a lot of other things) will become prohibitively expensive. All solutions proposed involve manipulating the market to discourage fossil fuel use through carbon taxes.
The result should be less travel, and in some respects an improvement in people's lives - travel for holidays might be fun, but driving 3 hours a day to get to work and back isn't, and many people do that. People just won't take a job 50-100 miles away unless they can move, or unless rapid and affordable public transport is nearby.
Electric cars powered from renewables don't need to be taxed so heavily, except of course that the means to produce much more electricity in this way will be very expensive, and so therefore will be the watts, and the investment in public transport will cost a bundle as well. Sad to say Manchester has probably made the wrong decision on a slightly longer view. Lots of small G-wiz type things going to the station perhaps?
As for job-related driving - I'm going 100 miles to Brum for a meeting next week - it could easily be done with a tele-conference and I'm sure it would be if it cost £1 a mile to get there and back. Distribution is another issue...
Bio-fuels seem to provide a get-out-of-jail card here - we could still have our IC-engined fun without adding to atmospheric CO2. The problem is course that with a 9bn world population we probably can't grow enough to eat, and to drive around as we do now; also, private cars will be near the bottom of the priority list - there are lots of other consumers of fossil fuels that are competing for these resources.
It doesn't sound much fun if you like cars, and I can see why so many people demand proof of GW! Of course no proof is available unless we find another planet to play with - we are the experiment, so it seems sensible to plan mitigation. Nevertheless, the consensus is that reducing CO2 will be much less expensive (and unpleasant) than the consequences of not doing.
It's probably a bit delusional to hope that the coldest first two weeks in December for many years herald a mini ice-age that will make all this unnecessary!
Bit of a stream of consciousness there, sorry. I wish I cold be around to see - but I'll have to be 97 so I'm not counting on it.
Edited by Manatee on 14/12/2008 at 10:32
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Good points Gordon and L'escargot (human population)
I don't "do" conspiracies normally but it's struck me that, at a time where the combustion engine is looking increasingly doomed, Ford and GM are kaput ostensibly as a result of the credit crunch. Development of alternative means of energy also seems to have been "delayed" over the past 30 years though the scientific and technical wizardry available today is almost fantastic.
We know we cannot "have" a water fuel-cell because such a device would eliminate the need for energy. Nothing to tax.
I'm not an expert on these matters but even as a capitalist pig I can't get rid of the nagging doubt that combustion engines have been kept artificially current. And, as a result of that trillions and trillions of dollars have passed hands over the last 100 years.
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>>We know we cannot "have" a water fuel-cell because such a device would eliminate the need for energy.
No, because they don't work.
At least I think they don't work - as the American oil companies somehow arranged, allegedly, for the inventor, Stanley Meyer, to have a brain aneurysm in 1998 we might never know for sure ;->
For sure a lot of people have a vested interest in keeping IC engines around (the same people who got rid of Clinton and propelled George W into the White House - not exactly a conspiracy theory, but more credible than the idea that GW is!)
Which of us is going to try an HHO conversion and report back?
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Manatee, exactly.
It's worth noting here that Clinton's administration saw an increase in CO2 emmissions which levelled under the uber-monster-of-everything George Bush.
An inconvenient truth for Al.
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I think the next decade will really be quite interesting, let alone 2050!
I am waiting to see where commercial vehicles will go, at present there are a few companies trying out electric 7.5t trucks and vans, but these suffer from limited range, so ok for city centre work, but not really much use for much else. I know the body shop and a supermarket have trialled LPG converted artics, but they have not seemed to catch on. If fossil fuel is going to run out or just become too expensive then how are goods going to get around? Are we going to go back 300 years when all furniture was made locally, you had a flour mill in every village, you had a baker and a butcher in every viallage etc, etc! Or just going to go back 40 odd years ago where trains carried the bulk of the goods and Scammell Scarab's then delivered locally? Personally I cant see it, too many people have got too used to having everything at their doorstep when they want it.
Then there is the French guy who has invented the compressed air powered engine - to me that has some serious mileage to be had out of it - quite, no local pollution but perhaps best of all can be recharged via a high pressure air line in a matter of a couple of minutes!! Maybe not ideal for long journeys but for city and town commuting it seems ideal to me!
As I have a 5yr old and a 4 month old I quite often wonder if they will even get to the point of having a car licence or car ownership, or will the tax on personal transport just be too much for them in the next 12 - 17 years? If it is then the govt need to look at how they are trying to get everyone to work, current working patterns etc are just not sustainable if personal transport is not available.
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A very interesting thread. Whilst most seem to want to argue about the existence or otherwise of 'climate change' (which I happen to subscribe to), the fact is that fossil fuels will run out and become very expensive. Changing the way we do things will not be an option - it will become a necessity. Every aspect of the way we live and organise our lives will be affected - oddly, I find it very exciting.
The change will be painful for Luddites, but the inconvenience will be eased by the financial advantages as fuel becomes more expensive - does anyone seriously believe that the current dip in fuel prices is any more than temporary? We don't like change, we never do, but we will learn to appreciate new solutions - e.g. the guided bus route into Cambridge. Such schemes have their opponents - but new approaches to the transport problem have to be tried.
Before taking an early retirement option, it was the company ethos to charge around the country in order to be present at meetings - the more miles you did - the greater was your standing. I remember charging off on a 300 mile round trip to a meeting immediately before the last fuel crisis - thereby wasting a valuble 3/4 tankful of petrol. As someone mentioned earlier, higher costs will force us into the sensible route of video conferencing. We'll save a fortune on fuel and time.
All I'm looking for is a C1 type car, but with adjustable steering to accommodate a creaky 6ft3 frame!
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New Zealand's previous Labour Government [ we turfed them out a month ago ] had a dream-sheet that they were pushing to have 80% of our cars electrically driven within 10 years. They also, by legislation, banned any further new fossil-fuelled power generation for 10 years. The electric cars were to be recharged overnight by "renewable" generation. It appears that they have been either badly advised, or have just gone into dreamland, although I guess we have to give then credit for trying.
We have heavy-handed legislation covering management of resources, which makes wind power the only viable alternative. I have done the relatively simple calculation based upon the Citroen Berlingo Electrique, assuming that we can persuade the Mums on the school run to reduce from their SUV's. My enquiries to the Minister of Energy as to where he intends to install 10,625 windmills has not been answered. This assumes that each CBE is recharged only once per 24 hours, giving a limit of 45 miles.
Climate has changed, is changing, and will always in future change [ although NASA-GISS has been caught out too often for me to really trust their numbers]. However, I am on the side of those who search for alternative energy sources. I agree that oil must eventually run out, and that before then, prices will be astronomical, but I just wish that those brandishing the magic solution would provide us with a properly thought-through methodology as well, preferrably one which does not require the repeal of the Laws of Thermodynamics.
One thing that I have never been able to discover with all these wondrous schemes is the actual "well-to-wheel" energy cost. In our desperation to go "green", are we in truth actually spitting more polution into the atmosphere taken overall? e.g. carbon fibre reduces weight, and therefore fuel consumption, but how long does it take to pay back the energy & pollution cost of processing the oil into resin, and the carbon into fibres, plus the heat and energy of vacuum-packing to get things bonded together, as compared to a steel bodyshell ? I have read recently that the modern solar cell takes 10 years to "pay back" its manufacturing energy and pollution.
Motoring in 2050 ? My guess is that long-distance driving will become untenable for the private individual. Either Governments will forcibly limit travel, or will provide long-haul public transport [ probably high-speed electric trains ] with local travel either by hoof, bicycle, or small ,probably electric, cars and buses.
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