Tony Blair

[BadgerBodger]

Interesting topic. My two cents for what they’re worth. 
 

like others have said EV works for city dwellers. But not for most as they’re both too expensive AND impractical for anyone without a private driveway (currently, but likely not forever). EV models are marketed at that size and affordability range upwards. side note… as much a I hate all these e-bike everywhere they do seem to potentially be a part of the solution 

 

 

ICE for me is providing best value for money based on a 5 year usage cycle when considering purchase price, maintenance cost, fuel and resale value (so long as I only buy - nearly new). That IS changing and the tipping point is getting closer to viability on a cost basis BUT as a family we would not be able to have two given the current mileages capacity. I see electric cars as the Betamax. Something else will likely be VHS maybe a hydrogen fuel solution or maybe something we simply haven’t thought about/isn’t yet practical.
 

re carbon capture. I have mixed feelings about this. I’m a strong believer in forward motion and this is an important step for lack of a better solution. The concept of carbon credits is forcing companies to start thinking about their own solutions (to carbon emissions) which should stimulate creativity. In this case maybe we need to rethink the problem as having another dynamic - tax. If you consider the impact of the laffer curve on business in combination of incentive effects the policy make more sense, hopefully stimulating yet more innovation and development 
 

I think carbon capture is a step in the right direction and the development of efficiencies in the technology is right BUT that solution for sequestration could be a misstep, or at least, only a small part in the long term solution (which in all

likelihood will land on - plant more forests!!! - a topic for another time perhaps…) coming back to carbon capture, it’s not all about sequestration but some is actually re-used for manufacturing amongst other things.

 

The reality is we, have to think more about what we are doing with our waste, because in my view, that’s what this is, a waste problem, which is solved by a multitude of factors but started by attacking the biggest generators which are energy production (in its various forms and usages), and quite literal waste. As usual the hierarchy of control should be eliminate, reduce, re-use, recycle, dispose (responsibly). 
 

EV is  quite high in the hierarchy with it reducing emissions 
 

carbon capture sits lower on on the re-use/recycle/dispose levels but when you consider that with current processes carbon must be generated, carbon capture is the next most responsible thing to do. 

 

ultimately both are steps forward and forward motion is forward motion which is better than stasis or regression. 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:38 by BadgerBodger
Clarity

[G and J]

8 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

If the Guardian is to be believed - a bit of a stretch I know

Crumbs, I didn’t realise.  The Guardian was my favourite too.   Which paper can I believe then?  I’ll read that one from now on.

 

I will admit to sneaking a look at the front page of the Star from time to time.  They are simply so bloody funny and clever too.  The Lizz Truss/Lettuce thing was truly inspired - but as a poodle cohabiter (one never owns a poodle, one simply serves them) I was upset when they described Trump as “Putin’s poodle”.  But it was ok.  They apologised for the unintended insult to poodles.  

 

 

[joth]

20 minutes ago, BadgerBodger said:

EV works for city dwellers. But not for most

Globally, most people live in cities 

 

In the UK most people live in urban areas (towns and cities)

 

Most people with the free time to harp on on the internet about this terrible lot in charge and bring back the good old days don't live in cities 

 

edit and add I'm including myself in this slander. I'd love an EV, I have gobs of spare PV I could charge it with, but current models just don't work for most my use cases.  My work now does require some smaller local trips so a transit EV or ID buzz would be great, but it'd mean becoming a 3 car household. Most our lives we've been a zero or one car household so 3 just doesn't sit right. The existing RV and estate car do their respective jobs perfectly and have decades use left in them, hopefully by the time the car needs replacing an EV will be more viable (or our needs reduced to match them). It's not range that's the main issue with EV btw, it's smaller size and lack of winter driving suitability (and capital cost)

Anyway my main point is I'm not most people, I'm a random outlier. No commute, no school run 

Edited Wednesday at 06:58 by joth

[G and J]

11 minutes ago, BadgerBodger said:

as much a I hate all these e-bike everywhere

I recently used a rental e-bike to get from Liverpool Street station to Victoria.  Wow.  Half the time of any other method, cheaper, and really lovely.   I wonder if some bright spark (sic) might deploy a fleet of short term rental Citroen Amis in a town like the e-bikes.  

[G and J]

8 minutes ago, joth said:

Most people with the free time to harp on on the internet about this terrible lot in charge and bring back the good old days don't live in cities 

Office Christmas Party Syndrome.

 

Everyone knows they could have done it better than ‘that idiot’.  Till they try and do it.  

[BadgerBodger]

24 minutes ago, joth said:

Globally, most people live in cities 

 

In the UK most people live in urban areas (towns and cities)

 

Most people with the free time to harp on on the internet about this terrible lot in charge and bring back the good old days don't live in cities 

 

Yes. They do. But most don’t have off street parking which, unless you are willing to put up with the inconvenience of have to go and sit somewhere to charge or they have charging everywhere you park (work, shop, etc) an EV is no good. Where I currently live it’s virtually all terraced housing (Leeds) in the main city… 

[LA3222]

36 minutes ago, BadgerBodger said:

Interesting topic. My two cents for what they’re worth. 
 

like others have said EV works for city dwellers. But not for most as they’re both too expensive AND impractical for anyone without a private driveway (currently, but likely not forever). EV models are marketed at that size and affordability range upwards. side note… as much a I hate all these e-bike everywhere they do seem to potentially be a part of the solution 

 

 

ICE for me is providing best value for money based on a 5 year usage cycle when considering purchase price, maintenance cost, fuel and resale value (so long as I only buy - nearly new). That IS changing and the tipping point is getting closer to viability on a cost basis BUT as a family we would not be able to have two given the current mileages capacity. I see electric cars as the Betamax. Something else will likely be VHS maybe a hydrogen fuel solution or maybe something we simply haven’t thought about/isn’t yet practical.
 

re carbon capture. I have mixed feelings about this. I’m a strong believer in forward motion and this is an important step for lack of a better solution. The concept of carbon credits is forcing companies to start thinking about their own solutions (to carbon emissions) which should stimulate creativity. In this case maybe we need to rethink the problem as having another dynamic - tax. If you consider the impact of the laffer curve on business in combination of incentive effects the policy make more sense, hopefully stimulating yet more innovation and development 
 

I think carbon capture is a step in the right direction and the development of efficiencies in the technology is right BUT that solution for sequestration could be a misstep, or at least, only a small part in the long term solution (which in all

likelihood will land on - plant more forests!!! - a topic for another time perhaps…) coming back to carbon capture, it’s not all about sequestration but some is actually re-used for manufacturing amongst other things.

 

The reality is we, have to think more about what we are doing with our waste, because in my view, that’s what this is, a waste problem, which is solved by a multitude of factors but started by attacking the biggest generators which are energy production (in its various forms and usages), and quite literal waste. As usual the hierarchy of control should be eliminate, reduce, re-use, recycle, dispose (responsibly). 
 

EV is  quite high in the hierarchy with it reducing emissions 
 

carbon capture sits lower on on the re-use/recycle/dispose levels but when you consider that with current processes carbon must be generated, carbon capture is the next most responsible thing to do. 

 

ultimately both are steps forward and forward motion is forward motion which is better than stasis or regression. 

 

 

And how much carbon are we going to capture, how much will that cost the UK taxpayer and how much will that reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere given that the biggest polluters in the world don't care.

 

The West is on a crusade to hoover the atmosphere whilst our neighbours keep spewing ever more crap into. Absolutely pointless and crippling to the country.

 

Population of UK is about 1% of the world, our carbon emissions are also about 1%. They are spanking 20 billion on carbon capture to remove 'wet finger in air' between 20 to 30 million tonnes by 2030. In that time we will have emitted 1.7billion tonnes and globally the figure will be around 187 billion tonnes. So we are removing at best 0.01% of the CO2 generated.

 

If anyone can educate a retard like me as to why it makes sense to spank 20billion quid removing 0.01% of global carbon emissions across 5 years then by all means, I'm all ears.

 

Don't suggest it's worth it to develop new technology as even if we can somehow advance the technology by a magnitude of ten it still makes no sense. To advance it by 100 is fantasy land and absolutely none of the country's actually making big carbon emissions will be interested in wasting the kind of cash we are on this rubbish.

 

The big polluters like China are laughing at us. We cripple ourselves pursuing a net zero fantasy all while their emissions shoot up to offset our drop all whilst making an industry and getting rich by suppling all the net zero equipment to us.

 

This whole net zero fantasy will come home to roost in the next five to ten years and then we're snookered.

[JohnMo]

1 minute ago, LA3222 said:

And how much carbon are we going to capture

I was involved in a project a couple of decades ago for Peterhead power station - all CO2 was captured (all flue gas in fact) it would have been process, hydrogen comes out as a waste product (no market for it then, there is now), waste gas stream gets compressed and sent offshore to spent well.

[JohnMo]

24 minutes ago, LA3222 said:

West is on a crusade to hoover the atmosphere

So

24 minutes ago, LA3222 said:

20billion quid

That's small beer on a global or country perspective, tax take in 2024 in UK was about 1,100 billion. It makes money by making companies pay to use it or they get hit by more expensive carbon credit penalties.

 

My last reasonably sized project was £2 billion, payback was in between 8 and 10 months. Project life expectancy 15 years.

 

24 minutes ago, LA3222 said:

anyone can educate a retard like me as to why it makes sense to spank 20billion quid removing 0.01% of global carbon emissions across 5 years then by all means, I'm all ears

Two ways to look at emissions.

 

London has huge issues with localised population caused by lorries, ships and cars. Removing those sources of pollution from bad areas, fixes those pollution issues at a local level. Makes no difference on a global scale, but people living in that area can breath better and live more healthy.  Carbon capture is a just a slightly bigger version the above. If we look after the smaller stuff that effects us, it's a good thing, not a bad one.

 

You putting 400mm of loft insulation in does nothing for emissions on a global scale, but it reduces your emissions, helps your wallet in the long term. Your next door neighbour doesn't bother, but why should it not stop you doing the right thing.

 

Don't look at things as global this, and global that, we can do things we control, doing the right thing gives a cleaner healthy country.

[ProDave]

59 minutes ago, joth said:

Most our lives we've been a zero or one car household so 3 just doesn't sit right. The existing RV and estate car do their respective jobs perfectly and have decades use left in them,

The number of cars thing is an issue.  In practical terms it does not matter how many cars you own, it's how many miles you drive.  I have my classic MG sports car, so having a third car does not mean we drive more miles than if we had 2, it means when the sun is out and I drive the MG, I am not driving one of the other cars.  1 car between the 2 of us would probably mean more total miles, because if we both wanted to go to different places, the sum of miles travelled to drop one off then come back and then go where you want, and repeat on return.

 

The problem with multiple cars but doing the same mileage is the insurance and tax regime, you would have to insure and tax all 3, so your fixed costs rise.  That only works for the classic car as that's (for now) £0 historic vehicle tax and very cheap classic car insurance.

[BadgerBodger]

8 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

 

 

Don't look at things as global this, and global that, we can do things we control, doing the right thing gives a cleaner healthy country.

This. Leading by example is the only way. If everyone takes the approach that “it’s not my problem”, no-one does anything. 
 

Everyone does their own bit. 
 

Like you say, the “20 billion” is small fry, and I don’t know the exact numbers but some if not all will be covered by the various “carbon” taxes. 

[ProDave]

We should all be encouraged to do what we can.  I have built our new low energy ASHP heated house which has saved us burning the nearly 2000 litres of Kerosene we used each year in the old house.  That has probably saved more CO2 emissions than if we had stayed in the old house and changed both cars for EV's.

 

But there comes a point when you have to say, I only have one life on this planet.  I am going to live it, and enjoy it, not restrict what I can do and where I can go.  And that means having a car big enough to do things and go places.

 

One of the things that gets my goat about the present push for all things to do with net zero, is they try and pretend you can go green without changing what you do.  That is utter rubbish.  They need to come clean and tell the truth, the only way we might ever reach net zero is by changing what we do and where we go a LOT.  Our lives will be very much more restricted.  That is hard to stomach as an older person used to being able to do things and go placed.

[JohnMo]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

by changing what we do and where we go a LOT

More akin to what occured in lockdowns in 2020 for COVID. Almost no cars or flights moving about. Can now can see the main road between Inverness and Aberdeen, its a constant stream of cars and lorries in both directions.

[ProDave]

4 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

More akin to what occured in lockdowns in 2020 for COVID. Almost no cars or flights moving about. Can now can see the main road between Inverness and Aberdeen, its a constant stream of cars and lorries in both directions.

The A96 desperately needs dualling, like the A9, and Nairn desperately needs a bypass.

[BadgerBodger]

Agreed. Compromises will be required. 
 

But incremental improvements combined with small changes in lifestyle/approach can make a huge difference. 
 

Sometimes there is very little compromise for the end user though, just look at concrete, still a major source of carbon emissions the production of cement has been improved so as to reduce carbon emissions by roughly 50% and development in concrete design by use of cement replacements such as GGBS mean that overall embodied carbon is reduced by nearly 30%. This is an averaged number and can be further reduced by use of recycled aggregates and increased GGBS in some applications. Proof that legislation, taxation and incentivisation works. 
 

This kind of approach cascades into developing worlds (eventually) through the realisation that it can and does save money in the long term. 

[LA3222]

2 hours ago, JohnMo said:

That's small beer on a global or country perspective

It may well be small beer but that is one project. The true cost of net zero will not be known until decades after the fact when people start to dig into the weeds. When has a government project ever come in on time or within budget. There is also the cost to industry, knock effect to jobs and so on. There are too many second, third and fourth order effects to this net zero drive to quantify the true cost. At the minute the zealots are in charge and driving the car so no one is looking closely and joining dots. 

 

Someone said leading by example. Yep. That works. When cash money is involved those taking a moral stance can sit there and pat themselves on the back whilst doing so all the while those making money are happy to let you do so.

 

Carbon taxes. Another way to cripple UK industry when we already have amongst the highest energy prices in the world.

 

The country is a mess and putting net zero on a pedestal is making it worse. Fix the foundations and then do what you can. There is little point in watching the house burn down whilst pontificating on the global stage about how morally superior you are to the rest of the world because we are saving the environment.

 

NHS is fundamentally broken.

Criminal and Justice system likewise.

Education.

Roads.

Social Care.

 

I'm not sure I can point to any successes within the UK at the minute.

 

 

[JohnMo]

17 minutes ago, LA3222 said:

NHS is fundamentally broken.

Criminal and Justice system likewise.

Education.

Roads.

Social Care.

 

All true but really a different discussion.  We start to discuss population growth, no additional schools, hospitals, no additional social services provision etc. Net zero or not, isn't fixing those broken things soon.

 

19 minutes ago, LA3222 said:

country is a mess and putting net zero on a pedestal is making it worse

Not sure it's making it worse, it's a mess, but providing stuff like wind energy or not, isn't going to produce more or less doctors it's a different and difficult bucket that one party politics, and a short term outlook, decades of under investment are to blame.

 

We could always go back to Britain's hay days, coal fires, steam trains, coal fired industrial growth, acid rain, smog; that killed, child workers. We stopped that the country is better off without it. So why wouldn't we be better with clean energy, clean industry? 

 

Get PV, get a heat pump, get low cost heating and zero cost cooling. Washing machine on, ovens been on, immersion is on - all provided by PV, what's not to like. Roll on net zero I say. But fix the roads, hospitals and schools as well. Everything isn't mutually exclusive, a government should be able to more than one thing at a time, if they can't, boot them out next election.

[Mattg4321]

The point of £20 billion on carbon capture is probably what pocket does that taxpayers money end up lining.
 

Much the same as how the Covid situation was taken advantage of by the elite class to appropriate our money and to hell with the consequences to public services/health/inflation and the economy in general etc etc

[JohnMo]

It has to be remembered that £22 billion is pledged over 25 years, not a project today or tomorrow.

[jack]

  

16 hours ago, ProDave said:

There seems to be a huge disconnect between what the customer wants and what would be a practical way to reduce emissions,and what is actually available or "they" would like you to buy.

 

And it seems from our discussions recently with car salesmen, most people feel the same which is why EV sales are falling short of the targets they have set.  You cannot force people to buy a product that does not meet the requirements of the user.

 

Good salespeople are exceptional at telling people what they want to hear. You're plainly an EV skeptic, so even a whiff of that from you during your conversation with them would have had them reflecting your opinion straight back at you.

 

I, too, would like a hybrid with a massive battery-only range. But that essentially means packaging a full BEV into a full ICE vehicle. You'd end up with the full weight and cost of an entire ICE drivetrain and fuel, coupled with the full weight and cost of a long-range BEV drivetrain and batteries, plus whatever's needed to integrate them. Something like that would be extremely heavy, and insanely expensive to buy and maintain. Something has to give, and in the hybrid market today, it's battery-only range.

 

At all times, car companies deliver in the intersection between what people want and what it's practical/commercial to deliver. That overlap has grown continuously since the introduction of EVs, and presumably will continue to grow (as the PHEV and BEV market has done continuously).

 

 

 

[JohnMo]

3 minutes ago, jack said:

would like a hybrid with a massive battery-only range. But that essentially means packaging a full BEV into a full ICE vehicle

No it's an electric vehicle with range extender. Range extender is a small engine running at a fixed speed and is there to charge battery while you drive.  So you then get a full battery distance plus how ever big the fuel tank. On a long journey you could just top up with fuel and off you go again, instead of waiting for a charger to become free.

[Nickfromwales]

18 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

It will be fun to find out if it was the renewables that tripped the Spanish / Portuguese & a bit of Frances grid yesterday though. 

Apparently @Onoff test fired the 6kw body drier, and sends his apologies.

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

Everything isn't mutually exclusive, a government should be able to more than one thing at a time, if they can't, boot them out next election.

Lather, rinse, repeat......I'm afraid! Constant downhill spiral of increased promises vs decreasing delivery of anything close to resembling the horseshit they promised us to get them voted in. Needs a cull and an total overhaul tbh.

[JamesPa]

2 hours ago, JohnMo said:

Get PV, get a heat pump, get low cost heating and zero cost cooling. Washing machine on, ovens been on, immersion is on - all provided by PV, what's not to like. Roll on net zero I say. But fix the roads, hospitals and schools as well. Everything isn't mutually exclusive, a government should be able to more than one thing at a time, if they can't, boot them out next election.

Very much agreed.  I have had PV for over a decade but only got an EV and heat pump last year.  Both are absolutely unequivocally much better functionally, and cheaper to run (even without the PV), than the fossil fuel devices they replaced.   Endless complaining about government whatever the colour (and frequently with no viable and coherent alternative suggestions), gets us nowhere, except possibly where the Americans have ended up.  Actually doing something does!

Edited Wednesday at 13:12 by JamesPa

[jack]

55 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

No it's an electric vehicle with range extender. Range extender is a small engine running at a fixed speed and is there to charge battery while you drive.  So you then get a full battery distance plus how ever big the fuel tank. On a long journey you could just top up with fuel and off you go again, instead of waiting for a charger to become free.

 

Sure, that's another option.

 

So why do you think these aren't being produced/sold en masse if (as @ProDave suggests) there's such as big demand for a vehicle that can provide what they offer at the price they can offer it?