DVLA website (TAX disc)

Unfortunately there is a form of segregation involved – the people who watch daytime reality ‘horror’ tend to be younger than what appears to be the usual phone-in audience on local radio (other than those who appear to phone from work). This might be shown by a caller I heard recently mentioning Rhodesia and Nyasaland as though they were current countries (Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980, and Nyasaland became Malawi in 1964), in a chat about safari holidays.

You confirm my suspicions that it is a particular subculture of society which participates in these sad shows.

I think it’s because the vast majority of ‘normal’ people are at work and don’t have the time. Jeremy Kyle show a prime example. Six weeks off work sick has really opened my eyes. How can these people eat with no teeth and who would honestly want to reproduce with them ?

Yes they are but why is it always only that type of caller who phones in?

Listening to local radio phone-ins is fantastic for those who want a laugh.

Apparently anyone who takes their tax disc off display, from their windscreen, has something to hide and needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!

(In the same show: “I’m not saying that all Muslims should be locked away in prison camps, but…” and “prepaid benefits cards should only be allowed to be used for the purpose of basic foodstuffs and any attempt to purchase a luxury item should see a percentage reduction deducted from the following weeks allowance so that they understand the value of money…“. I tell you, local radio phone-ins are an excellent way to hear the base fears and xenophobic tendencies of your generic Little Englanders!)

Not sure how you propose selling everything unpackaged……and the majority of clothes the world wears are synthetics – “plastics”. Funny how the material which was universally embraced just a few decades ago is now the media’s bad boy!

It’s all this recycling crap, my plastic bottles still go in the same bins, I don’t think the technology is available yet to fully take advantage of the stuff. Burying it on the other hand is laying down a future source to be mined when the shortages, technology and costs make it a viable source.

All this packaging should be simply banned, it’s alright saying we can recycle this paper, cardboard or plastics, but why recycle paper when the simple solution is not to produce it in the first place, which of course would mean one less tree getting cut down in my name and less fuel to burn producing it and plastics..

I’ve seen a design for a passenger airliner with hydrogen fuel-tanks in the fuselage. Hydrogen is an excellent fuel apart from the problems of transporting enough of it; you can compress it or freeze it but the tanks or insulation may be a problem.

Personally I’d like to see the return of large rigid airships; not fast but plenty of space to store the fuel!

This is slightly off topic but I’m intrigued by the idea of running out of oil.
What happens to the jet engine? Is that history when the oil does finally run out.
I can’t see a viable electric option for a replacement. Perhaps we will see an alternative engine
that could eventually end up in cars?
Hydrogen or nuclear powered fighters perhaps?

I predict that eventually a handheld hydrogen or nuclear reactor (perhaps plasma or ion) will be a reality. Powering everything from laptops to cars.
Cold and totally safe.

Can’t argue with much of that. There’s probably more chance with hydrogen cell technology despite the problems to be overcome.

I would suggest that the government targets for renewables, far from being modest, are probably unattainable, based as they are on capacity rather than energy actually produced.

Well, exactly…..if we can’t reach these modest targets for renewables?

Do not get me wrong, I’m all for renewables, and building solar panels into the very structures of a home could possibly provide enough power to ‘fuel’ a vehicle but our infrastructure isn’t anywhere near that point yet and I don’t think we should underestimate the vast energy consumption of our current vehicles.

Unless we’re willing to accept a significant reduction in the capabilities (range, weight, power, speed, performance) of our vehicles we’ve got to find an awful lot of extra renewable energy from somewhere.

What I mean by sustainable is that fossil fuels are finite, they will run out. There will be some electricity when the wells run dry. Nuclear fusion/fission hopefully and the renewables contributing. Whether it will be enough is another matter. The one beauty of pure EV is that they are mostly charged overnight, smoothing the peak demand curve.

How many non-Hybrid / alternative fuel vehicles at Paris? I have no idea, but certainly not an increase over previous years. Whereas eighteen years ago the count for alternatives was a nice, round zero.

Thats all well and good, but you are still going to need oil to build the plastic car, the road, the tyres. Electric isn’t the be all and end all, especially as at the moment the damn clean energy is plugged into coal fired power stations at the other end.

CD – I would suggest that the government targets for renewables, far from being modest, are probably unattainable, based as they are on capacity rather than energy actually produced.

Thank you Moggy. That is probably an interesting comparison to make!!

What I mean by sustainable is that fossil fuels are finite, they will run out. There will be some electricity when the wells run dry. Nuclear fusion/fission hopefully and the renewables contributing. Whether it will be enough is another matter…

Exactly my point; nothing wrong with the technology of the vehicles but possibly a lot wrong with the assumption that there will be sufficient sustainable power to run them from.

I wish I knew more about the ‘wastage’ losses from alternative-fuel (electric) vehicles; my assumption has always been that ‘zero emissions’ vehicles actually produce an equivalent, or greater, carbon footprint, but just somewhere else. Fine if you can offset that with a large increase in renewable energy capacity but at the moment we are struggling to meet some fairly modest government imposed targets.

Just as a matter of interest: my car fuel tank holds the equivalent of 750kWh in diesel and the average British home uses about 4000kWh of electricity per year.

I failed to notice your reference to nuclear fusion as a source of energy…

…if that is made viable then forget everything I’ve said about having enough electricity! 🙂

If you graph hybrid sales (doubtless available online somewhere) you’ll see the rate of adoption follows the rising part of a normal distribution S curve. Slow at first and then accelerating as they gain acceptance. Launched with a single model in 1997, total sales have now reached about 8 million in the sixteen / seventeen years.

Practical EVs are less than three years old, even so they are now selling at the rate of around 125,000 per year. I’d expect the curve to kick up with the appearance this year of so many more models

Maybe that’s sluggish. But I wonder what sales of ICE cars looked like 1902, sixteen years on from the first practical ICE vehicle?

Moggy

As an advocate of electric propulsion what have been the key two or three reasons for the relatively sluggish growth in its adoption?

What I mean by sustainable is that fossil fuels are finite, they will run out. There will be some electricity when the wells run dry. Nuclear fusion/fission hopefully and the renewables contributing. Whether it will be enough is another matter. The one beauty of pure EV is that they are mostly charged overnight, smoothing the peak demand curve.

How many non-Hybrid / alternative fuel vehicles at Paris? I have no idea, but certainly not an increase over previous years. Whereas eighteen years ago the count for alternatives was a nice, round zero.

Moggy

And how many non hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicles? Is that ‘sustainable’?

I think we are maybe at cross-purposes over the word ‘sustainable’. As I said I don’t doubt the manufacturers ability to produce, or over-produce, the vehicles; I do doubt the ability of the world to generate enough fuel / power to sustain all these new vehicles.

Your opinion is contrary to that of all the major motor manufacturers. Something like seventy alternative fuel / hybrid vehicles on the market at the moment, more to be launched at Paris tomorrow.

But who knows? You could be right, they could all be wrong.

Moggy