How about one of these then!!!! :giggle:

Even has the stupid clothes available too.

LOL get a grip. A bit of fun never hurt anyone.

totally agree but you know what some people are like.

Well I could have said walk!

I wouldnt hesitate to use an electric vehicle for getting to work. Even better if i could charge it at work also. The only problem i can see is the lack of range for holiday trips and the like. The ampera would work but i think its all electric range is tiny. If you could have an all electric range of say 50 miles and the range extender engine then that would be very successful. I believe when running an ampera as a normal car it still returns 44mpg. Seems pretty good to me but can it be done? Oh i forgot its £30,000. Stuff it.

There is also the whole issue of making the batteries, their expected lifetime and how the power is produced in the first place.

Personally I cycle to work when ever I can, I do not cycle in bad weather and less often in the Winter when it is dark as we live on an unlit country road, parts of which are national speed limit.

Paul

If all car manufacturers could agree on a standardized design, then there would be the possibility of making the batteries in the form of removeable packs. The idea being that you could drive into a 'recharging station' the car is positioned in a jig and the whole depleted pack it automatically removed and replaced with a fully charged pack and the whole process not taking more than 5 mins max. You would also only pay for the electricity charge. This would also ensure that the packs were regularly replaced when they became inefficient and thus avoiding a heavy financial penalty to the electric vehicle owner.

I don't see why I can't be done - look at all other portable electrical consumer items that require batteries - they are all designed around the fact there are certain size batteries to fit a particular space. Why not so with cars?

Just a thought....

IMHO ethanol is still the better option.

Hydrogen = we can make it with what we have but not store it

Ethanol = we can make it and store it.

We just need to learn to make it in a way that doesn't sent food prices through the roof. Something which should be easier than solving the hydrogen issue.

Plus Ethanol / petrol are just very good ways for us to store energy. The energy / volume is very good, convenient and they're relatively safe. Relatively safe meaning we've found ways to mitigate the big risks with using petrol / ethanol and the infrastructure is there to distribute and sell it.

Hydrogen is still out there with wind turbines. Ok on paper but a bit crap in reality.

Ethanol is produced from grain that is in short supply as it is. There is not enough land to grow all the grain needed to power the cars and feed the population.

Lets face it, while countries like India are churning out tonnes of polutants, whatever we do is insignificant.

Go nuclear.

Lets face it, while countries like India are churning out tonnes of polutants, whatever we do is insignificant.

Go nuclear.

Nuking India is a bit extreme

As long as Nuclear is safe and the decommissioning is taken into account it is a good way of producing clean(ish) power if you can find somewhere to build the reactor.

Paul

Nuking India is a bit extreme

As long as Nuclear is safe and the decommissioning is taken into account it is a good way of producing clean(ish) power if you can find somewhere to build the reactor.

Paul

Nuclear fusion as opposed to fission is the way forward.

Nuclear fusion as opposed to fission is the way forward.

That's a bit technical for me - what's the difference (in simple terms)?

Nuclear is certainly a prime contender (if the waste products came be decommissioned safely - and not dumped in the sea or on the moon!)

Nuclear fusion as opposed to fission is the way forward.

What just like the 'Mr Fusion Reactor' from Back to the Future, just don't drive at 88mph

Ethanol is produced from grain that is in short supply as it is. There is not enough land to grow all the grain needed to power the cars and feed the population.

Lets face it, while countries like India are churning out tonnes of polutants, whatever we do is insignificant.

Go nuclear.

Hence me saying we need to make it in a way that doesn't affect food prices. You can distill alcohol from juast about anything that will rot, it's just easier to do it from carbohydrate rich substrates which coincidentally are usually good for us to eat. It shouldn't be a massive leap to find something else to use like food waste, poo, etc.

They can already make biodiesel from algae.

The infrastructure for alcohol already exists, but not for hydrogen. We don't even have enough generation to crack water for H2. We don't have tehnology to efiiciently compress ot store H2 (it makes metal tanks brittle and leaks out of everything else) plus it's never going to be liquid H2 and we can't get as much energy in a tank of compressed H2 as we can from petrol/alcohol.

So for H2 we need new power stations, new grids, new storage mechanisms.

For alcohol, we just need something else to rot that isn't food. Everything else is the same as for petrol.

Edited 29 September, 201213 yr by Aspman

The ideal situation is making ethanol from waste products. Once the food or nutritional value has already been extracted.

Then that ethanol needs burnt in high compression, compression ignition engines acheiving excellent efficiency (knocking on 50% allegedly). Burning ethanol in a low compression spark ignition engine is a huge waste.

Scania has ethanol diesels. Compression ratio around 28:1 plus boost.

If all car manufacturers could agree on a standardized design, then there would be the possibility of making the batteries in the form of removeable packs. The idea being that you could drive into a 'recharging station' the car is positioned in a jig and the whole depleted pack it automatically removed and replaced with a fully charged pack and the whole process not taking more than 5 mins max. You would also only pay for the electricity charge. This would also ensure that the packs were regularly replaced when they became inefficient and thus avoiding a heavy financial penalty to the electric vehicle owner.

I don't see why I can't be done - look at all other portable electrical consumer items that require batteries - they are all designed around the fact there are certain size batteries to fit a particular space. Why not so with cars?

Just a thought....

Seems pretty simple when you put it like this. I would imagine the battery packs would be too large to handle easily though but then this will improve over time. You would need to pay monthly rental fee for batteries but then that happens in some electric cars anyway i suppose. The big problem is the space required to store them and the changes required to the infrastructure for this to happen. Who would pay for these changes? Certainly not Shell / BP etc why would they.

So for H2 we need new power stations, new grids, new storage mechanisms.

For alcohol, we just need something else to rot that isn't food. Everything else is the same as for petrol.

Watched a program a while ago, cant remeber what it was. Some guy in America used the pips / seeds from olives i think it was for producing his own fuel. He actually sold this fuel on his own forecourt. Now i think about it, it may not have been olives. Whatever it was it was a good idea as the food was still used eleswhere as food and the pip / seed which is normally thrown away was utilised to make fuel. Thats pretty efficient if you ask me. He was currently selling it as a biofuel mixed in with regular fuel but said the percentages could be increased to a point where it massively reduce our dependance on regular oil. I assume you could probably get it to work on its own i.e without regular fuel at all but someone else would probably know more than me if that is indeed possible.

Edited 1 October, 201213 yr by Jockdooshbag

If Ethanol is such a waste in spark ignition, then why is RON91 E10 (10% ethanol) being sold/marketed here, and not E10 diesel? (or something equivalent)

I guess it makes sense, because the "diesel" engine will run on nearly anything... But from a marketing point of view, why not go with that?

Right, I want a piece of action as well

Electric transportation (excluding trains) has similar environmental footprint to traditional int combustion engine technology. It beats traditional when enegry generated for recharging those batteries is from reneable sources - have a read http://www.treehugger.com/cars/life-cycle-analysis-compares-footprint-of-gas-and-electric-passenger-cars.html - surprisingly batteries impact on environmnet is marginal according to that study...

The above study does not take into account this seemingly new (actualy old thing but rather "forgotten" by "oil mafia") biofuel, biobutanol, which is extremely close to regular petrol in its properties and can be produced from grass... have a read here.

Very valid points on production and storage infrastructure!

I still think booze was the best invention human kind ever committed and as we can clearly see will save human race from the energy crisis in the future !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butanol_fuel

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/emerging_biobutanol.html

http://www.bp.com/assets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/downloads/B/Bio_biobutanol_fact_sheet_jun06.pdf

And this one is really interesting as has hard on the ground economic data in it !

http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2012/06/22/who-shall-dare-biobutanol-and-the-intrepid-ethanol-producer/

So perhaps yes to electric vehicles but charged by electricity produced by turbines fuelled by biobutanol?

Trolls welcome

Right, I want a piece of action as well

Electric transportation (excluding trains) has similar environmental footprint to traditional int combustion engine technology. It beats traditional when enegry generated for recharging those batteries is from reneable sources - have a read http://www.treehugge...enger-cars.html - surprisingly batteries impact on environmnet is marginal according to that study...

The above study does not take into account this seemingly new (actualy old thing but rather "forgotten" by "oil mafia") biofuel, biobutanol, which is extremely close to regular petrol in its properties and can be produced from grass... have a read here.

Very valid points on production and storage infrastructure!

I still think booze was the best invention human kind ever committed and as we can clearly see will save human race from the energy crisis in the future !

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Butanol_fuel

http://www.afdc.ener...biobutanol.html

http://www.bp.com/as...sheet_jun06.pdf

And this one is really interesting as has hard on the ground economic data in it !

http://www.biofuelsd...hanol-producer/

So perhaps yes to electric vehicles but charged by electricity produced by turbines fuelled by biobutanol?

Trolls welcome

Producing electricity with turbines cleanly is all well and good but the fundamental problem still exists which is that the electric cars have no decent range and take too long to charge up. For the forseeable future they can only be considered commuter cars. This is fine but how do you then solve the issue that crops up (no pun intended) i.e going on holiday in your car?? Plus some commuting is in excess of electric cars range plus what about salesman and reps etc who travel a large part of the day? I just cant see them being viable unless battery technology improves ten fold in our lifetime. Cant see that happening.

I'm no expert so there are probably lots of holes in this idea: Skalectric cars.

Take the concept of the ones where you could change lanes (not the proper ones with a slot).

All power is transmitted via electric guides in the floor.

I'm sure there are lots of problems with that idea though.

Or turn it upside down and replicate electric trains.

Admittedly neither are viable on every road, but could be applied to the main roads (motorways) to aid long journeys. I'm fairly sure that most electric cars have enough range to reach a motorway and then could be recharging while driving.

Or adapt the technology of charging mobile phones by placing them on a charging pad. I did see on TV this technology in use for charging parked cars without plugging in. Could this be adapted to charge from the floor whilst in motion?

Just ideas and probably flawed beyond belief..,

Some stuff on new battery tech

http://www.ecomagination.com/breakthrough-technology-could-lead-to-battery-powered-future

For me the ideal way to transport people is to use biotechnology and genetic engineering - Horse is the most efficient, the greenest mod of transport ever used. No environmental impact, for town transport as fast as cars these days (I think cars are slower than an averae horse now in cities), and doesn't use any natural resources (carriages can be built out of timber!).

Than take a leap of imagination and think about geneticaly designed bio-engineered mucle structures directly powering "cars" of the future, all you have to do is throw some bamboo sticks in at one end and take out the waste at the other end. Biochemical energy is the future, afterall we run on it .

http://techblog.lbl.gov/2012/05/the-future-of-battery-power-lies-in-numbers/

At the moment the best we can do is store that energy in alcohol and then burn it at rather pathetic energy usage ratios...

I'm no expert so there are probably lots of holes in this idea: Skalectric cars.

Take the concept of the ones where you could change lanes (not the proper ones with a slot).

All power is transmitted via electric guides in the floor.

I'm sure there are lots of problems with that idea though.

Or turn it upside down and replicate electric trains.

Admittedly neither are viable on every road, but could be applied to the main roads (motorways) to aid long journeys. I'm fairly sure that most electric cars have enough range to reach a motorway and then could be recharging while driving.

Or adapt the technology of charging mobile phones by placing them on a charging pad. I did see on TV this technology in use for charging parked cars without plugging in. Could this be adapted to charge from the floor whilst in motion?

Just ideas and probably flawed beyond belief..,

All good ideas but its the cost with implementing them that is the issue. Induction charging is already a reality and would work with cars but doesnt increase range unfortunately. The idea about motorways with overhead or underground power supplies is a good one but again who is going to pay for this? Plus there is all the maintenance associated with keeping them working and seeing as we cant even fill a few pot holes i doubt these systems would last long. Or the toll for using them would be so massive as to make tem irrelevant.

The solution will be something that utilises existing roads and petrol station infrastructure. Probably biofuel short term and then hydrogen in the future but hydrogen still involves significant changes to petrol stations so not sure how viable that is.

I'm no expert so there are probably lots of holes in this idea: Skalectric cars.

Take the concept of the ones where you could change lanes (not the proper ones with a slot).

All power is transmitted via electric guides in the floor.

I'm sure there are lots of problems with that idea though.

Or turn it upside down and replicate electric trains.

Admittedly neither are viable on every road, but could be applied to the main roads (motorways) to aid long journeys. I'm fairly sure that most electric cars have enough range to reach a motorway and then could be recharging while driving.

Or adapt the technology of charging mobile phones by placing them on a charging pad. I did see on TV this technology in use for charging parked cars without plugging in. Could this be adapted to charge from the floor whilst in motion?

Just ideas and probably flawed beyond belief..,

Not really, look at your electric toothbrush, then power cordless pc monitors... the technology is already here, all you need to do is build additional lane on every road which would have the induction loop embedded and equip electric cars with transducers and voila!

Some stuff on new battery tech

http://www.ecomagina...-powered-future

For me the ideal way to transport people is to use biotechnology and genetic engineering - Horse is the most efficient, the greenest mod of transport ever used. No environmental impact, for town transport as fast as cars these days (I think cars are slower than an averae horse now in cities), and doesn't use any natural resources (carriages can be built out of timber!).

Than take a leap of imagination and think about geneticaly designed bio-engineered mucle structures directly powering "cars" of the future, all you have to do is throw some bamboo sticks in at one end and take out the waste at the other end. Biochemical energy is the future, afterall we run on it .

http://techblog.lbl....ies-in-numbers/

At the moment the best we can do is store that energy in alcohol and then burn it at rather pathetic energy usage ratios...

Actually using horses is worse than cars. This has been proven in the past. Horses **** everywhere. The intruduction of motorised transport drastically improved the quality of life for those living in big cities. This is documented historical fact. I know you were only kidding in all likelyhood but i thought it needed saying. Plus horses cost a fortune to keep, far more than cars cost to run.

Edited 1 October, 201213 yr by Jockdooshbag

My vRS TDI 6M runs 0-100 in 8.5sec (or so)

And can do 1,000km in a day, without having to stop to do anything to it.

Try and do that on a horse, 'eh? :p

No environmental impact,

I have horses walk past my house daily, having had several of these beast fart in my vicinity I'd argue that there is a significant impact on my local environment from these creatures. Horse **** I can live with but the wind....

I honestly think that infrastructure is the killer here. There is no H2 infrastructure, there is a liquid fuel infrastructure and by liquid I mean at room temp liquid.

Just about any sustainably producible liquid fuel is going to be easier to manage than H2.

we're short on electricity as it is right now. Renewables are starting to look like big shiny money pits to more and more people and to have their own environmental impacts in production and in use. Great white hopes like wave power don't seem to be going anywhere and no one is stepping up to build new nukes.

Shale gas might well drop LPG prices so that's going to **** on the green parade from a great height.