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Not As Environmentally Friendly As Promised

...there are currently no other credible explanations for the sudden increase in CO2...

CO2 was massively higher at various times hundreds of millions of years ago. Of course it wasn’t politically expedient to blame it on capitalism back then.

Plastic waste is a big problem. Like smallpox used to be, before technology solved it.

maximus otter
 
CO2 was massively higher at various times hundreds of millions of years ago. Of course it wasn’t politically expedient to blame it on capitalism back then.
Human beings weren't pumping masses of it into the atmosphere back then but they are now. Yes other things can put CO2 into the air but at the moment it is mainly human activity.
 
l’d say that the biggest argument against electric cars is that they’re crap.

I’m not a petrolhead, but didn’t Jezza eviscerate one in a test a year or two back? He set a simple challenge: Drive the family to the seaside from London. He just made it to a resort, had a ‘mare finding a “plug”, then had to charge it for seventeen hours to enable the return journey.

Another negative is that large areas of China are being turned into unusable quagmires of toxic chemicals to produce the elements required for the batteries.

l believe that the cars also have to be subsidised massively by the taxpayer to be as “cheap” - hah! - as they are.

Finally, where do Greentards think that the electricity to charge their virtue signals comes from, outer space? No, it comes from the same honking great power station that they profess to be trying to put out of business.

All of the above doesn’t even address the “Oh, by the way, they also catch fire. Oops, eh?” issue.

maximus otter

You can't escape the physics. If you have a heavy hybrid car (heavy because - you know, batteries) then it will use more power to move itself over a given distance than a lighter car with a similarly efficient transmission. . The fact that some of the power comes off the grid creates the illusion of efficiency, not the fact. A straight petrol electric car without the hybrid part would be better than both current cars and hybrids.
 
You can't escape the physics. If you have a heavy hybrid car (heavy because - you know, batteries) then it will use more power to move itself over a given distance than a lighter car with a similarly efficient transmission. . The fact that some of the power comes off the grid creates the illusion of efficiency, not the fact. A straight petrol electric car without the hybrid part would be better than both current cars and hybrids.
Yes - it's completely illusory.
Charging up batteries is actually a wasteful process. A lot of energy is lost along the way.
I suppose the inefficiency issue wouldn't matter so much if:
(a) We had enough power stations to cover the demand.
(b) The power was cheap enough.
(c) All power was successfully obtained from non-polluting, renewable sources such as wind/tidal/geothermal or from long-lasting heavy-duty sources such as nuclear.

But none of that will happen.
 
If one was to place, say, an old car tire in the living room of your home and set fire to it, the change in air quality would soon become noticeable. If fact it would kill you if you stayed there.

If the tire had never been set on fire the air quality wouldn't have changed much.

Q.E.D

INT21
 
If one was to place, say, an old car tire in the living room of your home and set fire to it, the change in air quality would soon become noticeable. If fact it would kill you if you stayed there.

If the tire had never been set on fire the air quality wouldn't have changed much.

Q.E.D

INT21
Air quality isn't the only reason why electric vehicles are being promoted, but it's certainly a major selling point.
Pity the poor souls who have to live near all those lithium processing plants and power stations.
 
Alchopwn,

..(3) Service stations will also provide battery rental where you can rent a charged battery and replace it at other service stations when it is spent...

This falls apart when you consider the sheer volume of batteries that will be needed to provide a replacement for the tens of thousands of cars that even a small town has. Plus the power requirement to charge all the flat batteries will be huge.

If you live in your own home with a secure driveway and a South facing aspect where you can fit solar panels then you may be on a winner.

Otherwise it really won't work.

And, of course, there is already a shortage of the materials required to male LiPo cells.

Small Diesels with cyclone collectors for the dirt, that's the answer.

INT21
 
Doesn't Lithium have some medical use also ?

INT21
 
A straight petrol electric car without the hybrid part would be better than both current cars and hybrids.

Oddly enough, just yesterday l was at a local garage as l’m considering changing our little Japanese puddle-jumper for a newer model. l noticed that a hugely disproportionate number of the cars forlornly waiting for new owners were hybrids.

Discuss.

maximus otter
 
Alchopwn,

Small Diesels with cyclone collectors for the dirt, that's the answer.

INT21

I suspect the fatally mixed messages over diesels has damaged that potential market for a long time to come. But a diesel - electric would be fairly efficient. (using the electric motor basically as a transmission). It depends how bulky the particle scrubbers have to be and how much weight they add. At least the infrastructure is there to run such a thing.

Many moons ago Rover had what was the basis for such a transmission with a mechanical gearbox to provide emergency low gears for special situation and a single gear for all normal driving - it was coupled to a torque converter rather than an electric generator, but something similar would do the job. You'd have IC powerplant->gearbox->direct drive for low speeds and IC ->gearbox->genny->electric motor for normal use. Relatively simple and relatively light.
 
Oddly enough, just yesterday l was at a local garage as l’m considering changing our little Japanese puddle-jumper for a newer model. l noticed that a hugely disproportionate number of the cars forlornly waiting for new owners were hybrids.

Discuss.

maximus otter
Price.
 
Hybrids seem to be a kind of 'half - way house'.

They don't have the problem of relying only on a battery that may run flat at some inopportune moment, but they do suffer from having a very limited battery range without the engine running.

So ok if you want to be green around town, Particularly if you are passing through towns on a longish trip.

INT21
 
Hybrids seem to be a kind of 'half - way house'.

They don't have the problem of relying only on a battery that may run flat at some inopportune moment, but they do suffer from having a very limited battery range without the engine running.

So ok if you want to be green around town, Particularly if you are passing through towns on a longish trip.

INT21

A good friend of mine has a hybrid 4x4. Charging it overnight gives him just enough battery power to get to and from work providing he uses the engine up hills. But it is INCREDIBLY complex, goodness knows how much CO2 was emitted in its making , and it is packed to the gills with unrecyclable electronics. I wouldn't mind betting a Morris Minor (several of which are still chugging around here) produces less CO2 over its 50 year life time than this and its replacements every 10 years will produce.
 
A good friend of mine has a hybrid 4x4. Charging it overnight gives him just enough battery power to get to and from work providing he uses the engine up hills. But it is INCREDIBLY complex, goodness knows how much CO2 was emitted in its making , and it is packed to the gills with unrecyclable electronics. I wouldn't mind betting a Morris Minor (several of which are still chugging around here) produces less CO2 over its 50 year life time than this and its replacements every 10 years will produce.
Yep.
That's another thing. The only people who can afford these fancy 'green' cars are quite well off (OK, 'rich' from where I'm standing). One notable thing about such people is that they tend to buy a new car every 3 years or so. Thus...destroying the 'green' aspect of the purchase totally! It's almost a form of virtue-signalling.
 
Quick question. Do you believe in the Plastic Trash Gyre in the Pacific? It is estimated to be somewhere between the size of Texas and the size of Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

Believe is an interesting turn-of-phrase. Knowing how bad humans are for dumping rubbish (a quick look at any lay-bys near where I live is bad enough, sadly) then it doesn't surprise me that there this massive patch of plastic in the ocean.

(But I don't necessarily believe Sky News every time they show a picture of a plastic bottle on a beach somewhere; for all I know they could have placed it there just before they started filming). :D


Note: this question is not about climate change, but is directed towards your idea that humans are incapable of causing immense environmental changes via pollution. The planet is (nearly exclusively) a closed system (lost helium being an exception). If we dump waste, whether vehicle and industrial emissions or plastic waste, it ends up somewhere and has an effect. Surely you wouldn't disagree with this?

I didn't say that humans were incapable of causing environmental changes - I think it's pretty obvious that humans pollute the planet. But I don't think they are the sole cause of climate change. As someone upthread mentioned (sorry, not sure who it was) it's more likely that the climate was heading that way anyway, and we've possibly accelerated it. Or that it was heading that way anyway, and nothing we can do will stop it.

And I will re-iterate what I said previously: no amount of tax increases will fix it.


Now the meteorologists around the world have been noting the global average temperatures increasing for a very long time. They have compared notes with geologists and obtained evidence from wherever they could in the geological record that our planet provides, that show there has never been such a rapid and extreme increase in carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Now while our planet's atmosphere is huge, it is still a closed system, and there are currently no other credible explanations for the sudden increase in CO2 emissions other than human activity, and yes, people have looked. The scale of the disaster our civilization is constructing for itself is impressive. One could almost view it as an alien conspiracy if human irresponsibility weren't a more plausible answer.

That would be the meteorologists who are willing to toe the party line, of course. ;) My opinion still stands that they cannot possibly know, based on what you have to admit is a drop in the ocean in terms of the age of the earth, what the climate will do over a long period of time.

Imagine a sinusoidal wave, on an oscilloscope. The meteorologists are studying the equivalent of zooming right in so they can only see the tiny curve at the top of one wave. Unless and until they have the ability to 'zoom out' and see the entire wave (i.e. the entire climate lifetime of Earth so far) then I will continue to take their findings with a rather large pinch of salt.


And now a question for you:
Do you believe it's possible for the Sun to have an effect on the Earth and its climate? Ever heard of the Maunder Minimum?


:)
 
I understand what you are saying but for example, there have been other mass extinctions of life on Earth over time also but there is no doubt we are causing the current one. I can't remember which astronaut it was now that said that when you are standing on the ground looking up at the sky, it looks huge and it doesn't seem possible that anything we could do could change it. But when you are in space looking down, that atmosphere looks very, very thin.

Remember Acid Rain? We caused that. We turned one of the fundamental elements of life-water, into acid. :sstorm: And we did manage to reduce it too.


Oh, I know we caused acid rain, and oil spills, and numerous other things :)

But I must admit I find it curious when people say - as you've said in this quote - that they are aware of previous events on earth like mass extinctions which happened before humans started polluting, yet also say there is "no doubt" that we are causing the current one.

How can that be, why can't what's happening now be just part of a natural cycle? How did the Earth get out of the ice age before we came along? Dinosaurs driving around in their 4x4s ? :D

I think sometimes people - not you specifically :) - want to think they are the cause of something so that they can do something to fix it, rather than feeling helpless that it's all just part of something that we can't possibly change.

We can do something about pollution and rubbish, yes. We should be concentrating more on that perhaps, fix what we can fix.

:)
 
But I must admit I find it curious when people say - as you've said in this quote - that they are aware of previous events on earth like mass extinctions which happened before humans started polluting, yet also say there is "no doubt" that we are causing the current one.

How can that be, why can't what's happening now be just part of a natural cycle?
Because we are personally killing masses of stuff by actually killing them and killing masses more indirectly by trashing their habitats. There really isn't any doubt about that! Or are you saying that one species (ie us) purposely and knowingly wiping out so many others is natural? I am not sure if any of the other mass extinctions were caused this way though I stand to be corrected. It happens when humans introduce foreign species to a place though it is still humans that caused that.
How did the Earth get out of the ice age before we came along? Dinosaurs driving around in their 4x4s ? :D

If that isn't a Larson cartoon it should be! :) I think we can know we are causing stuff when we know we are actually causing it. My garden plants aren't wilting right now because I watered them. Sure yes, they could be green because it rained. But it didn't rain. The existence of natural rain events doesn't mean I can't cause essentially the same effect with B&Qs finest filled with tap water. It seems pretty reasonable to me to acknowledge that yes, the climate can change due to natural causes but that human activity is accelerating it.

I think sometimes people - not you specifically :) - want to think they are the cause of something so that they can do something to fix it, rather than feeling helpless that it's all just part of something that we can't possibly change.
I wish I did feel like there was something I could do to fix it. :(
 
Because we are personally killing masses of stuff by actually killing them and killing masses more indirectly by trashing their habitats. There really isn't any doubt about that! Or are you saying that one species (ie us) purposely and knowingly wiping out so many others is natural? I am not sure if any of the other mass extinctions were caused this way though I stand to be corrected. It happens when humans introduce foreign species to a place though it is still humans that caused that.

Oh, what I meant was natural in terms of the Earth's climate cycles, which I believe are a natural phenomenon regardless of whether humans are here or not.

As for humans introducing foreign species to a place - it drives me up the wall whenever I hear about people introducing, say, rabbits to some un-rabbited island, and then ten or so years later, having to cull them all cos there's too many. We should really stop interfering so much in things like that!


If that isn't a Larson cartoon it should be! :) I think we can know we are causing stuff when we know we are actually causing it. My garden plants aren't wilting right now because I watered them. Sure yes, they could be green because it rained. But it didn't rain. The existence of natural rain events doesn't mean I can't cause essentially the same effect with B&Qs finest filled with tap water. It seems pretty reasonable to me to acknowledge that yes, the climate can change due to natural causes but that human activity is accelerating it.

Yes, good point.


I wish I did feel like there was something I could do to fix it. :(

Just try not to pollute, try to leave outside spaces as you found them (except if it's your front garden and it's filled with weeds :D ) and don't do anything intentionally nasty to the planet.

:)
 
Oddly enough, just yesterday l was at a local garage as l’m considering changing our little Japanese puddle-jumper for a newer model. l noticed that a hugely disproportionate number of the cars forlornly waiting for new owners were hybrids.

Discuss.

maximus otter

It would suggests to me that either:
They're trying to make prospective car-buyers more likely to choose a hybrid by giving the impression that that's the only choice,
or
They're doing really badly at selling the hybrid cars which is why they have so many left.

:D
 
Puts on safety helmet.

Zebra, have you heard of the Hockey Stick ?

If so, do you believe in the logic behind it ?

If not, why not ?

INT21.
 
The city where I live had It's river literally catch on fire due to pollution.
 
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