I don't think we'll all keep more or less the same amount of cash in our pockets.

I'm trying very hard to work out how they'll replace it. My best guess so far involves the roll out of the so called 'smart meters' . . . Electricity, especially for certain uses, is going to become VERY expensive in the near future.

We're getting a bit near the forbidden ploitics here, but if governments did actually tax us as much as they needed we wouldn't have the mountain of national debt!

Go back 110 years, hay and oats were widely available, people with petrol driven cars were considered dangerous lunatics, and petrol was only available at the chemist's. I wonder if the grey beards back then were saying 'these new fangles cars will never catch on, I'm sticking with my horse and cart'.

Just for interest. Electric cars outnumbered I.C. cars at the end of the 19th century. Dime in the slot charging stations where installed in large American cities. The "experts" of the day laughed at the thought of I.C. engines ever being any good. Come the 1st WW Britain and France built thousands of I.C. engine wagons etc. Aircraft engines I.C again, developed at a tremendous rate, in Britain, France, Germany and Italy. Why?

In a Model Engineer editorial it was discussed that oil and coal where running out. Everyone would be driving electric cars within a few years. The power would come from small wind mills and a tidal barrier in the Bristol channel. Sound familiar? The date was December 1920.

The "experts" were wrong. Politicians lie for a living.

The biggest promoters of the electric car are the ones who will make the biggest profit from the tax payer subsidies.

Just a few reasons why I am sceptical.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 27/07/2017 08:32:53

Just up the road from me a mini gas powered powerstation was built and fuelled with ryegrass.

Subsisised construction cos its green.

Now the farming company planted 2500 acres of the ryegrass, cost unknown.

Then when it was ready the mower started using about 100 litres of diesel to cut the stuff.

The chopper followed to blow it into the fleet of tractors and trailers, chopper using 800 litres per day.

And carted off to silage type pit for storage.

Matured grass is fed into plant one loader bucketful at a time to fill aforementioned gas producing plant.

9 large electric motors keep brew agitated 24/7 as gas is produced.

Aforementioned gas is fed into a gas powered internal combustion engine driving a generator.

Electricity is finally being fed into grid at a feed in price above selling price to users.

Methinks all them with companies with money makes money from subsidies all in the name of green renewable energy.

But with all these processes and energy conversions, losing unknown percentage of the inputs can anyone really know the cost to the environment and the taxpayer.

Think I will nip out and buy a couple of small diesel cars, stick them in storage and hollow out the garden to about 1000 feet down, line with tank and slowly buy diesel to stockpile enough fuel to see me out.

Motorbikes converted to pedals

Lawn mowers, old fashioned push or get a goat or concrete the grassed area.

Chain saws, who needs one

Canal boats, back to horse drawn

Maybe they cancelled lectifying the Lake district cos they realised there would not be enough lectrickery to go around, what with all them new fangled cars using it all.

Edited By George Clarihew on 26/07/2017 22:14:47

If they are that worried about pollution as they should be ,they should make public transport free to reduce car use .

Of course what they dont tell you is the enviromental damage caused by mining the materials needed to make batteries and then dispose of them when they are knackered. Why no one has gone for Hydrogen ?

In built up areas many people have to park in the street & that may not always be outside their house. So if they want to charge their vehicle at home at night do they have a long lead up the street to the car ?

The … will have a field day nicking cable

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 27/07/2017 08:29:19

You can buy electric chainsaws and mowers for decades, with or without a cable!

Canal boats are the ideal subject for electrification, they need ballast so big batteries don't affect them at all and there are some very successful ones out there.

I'm not against Electric vehicles and am fully trained to the highest level available to repair these vehicles .

I even run a Prius myself.

My comments were aimed solely at the governments lack of thinking about a subject before jumping on a band wagon.

They should be announcing new battery manufacturing and disposal plants, and the ensuing new jobs, keeping us at the forefront of the new technology.

Instead of frightening anybody who is currently in a trade that will be severely effected by announcing cut off dates for their jobs.

on one hand making themselves look good by improving the environment whilst abolishing incentives and increasing the taxes on EV's in the background with the other

Edited By Antony Powell on 27/07/2017 09:08:33

I am sure Neil is right about climate change having a real impact already. But when we start looking for what's to blame, everyone seems to turn to the noxious gases we pump into the atmosphere, and the energy we waste, but nobody seems to look at the amount of pure heat we waste. Just a few "for instances." Every morning wasted hot water from my shower and shave is thrown away down the drain. If it is cold and I switch the heating on, my house, like most, leaks heat into the atmosphere. My car is probably the worst offender – it needs a radiator to get rid of a huge amount of heat into the atmosphere, and every time I brake four discs shed more heat into the air. Waste heat from my kitchen goes into the outside air through the cooker hood, and almost everywhere we look, even in my countryside location, there's something pouring out pure heat as well as polluting gases. Even electric motors waste heat, and so do power stations.

All of this heat must go somewhere, and it is quite noticeable that the temperature in cities is slightly higher than in the surrounding countryside. Perhaps I'm not making this case very clearly, and maybe I am naïve as well, but I know damned well that the weather is warmer than it was when I was a child 60 years ago and the world's population was smaller and we had the sense of wrap up warmly on cold days.

Edited By Mike on 27/07/2017 09:57:32

Who remembers when atomic power stations were first built ? Headlines – power will be so cheap it won't be worth sending out bills. A government enquiry into the future of computers ? They thought a market of 3 or 4 a year might be feasible.

As an engineer (retired) I agree with you.

The question people should be asking is not "Does man made CO2 result in global warming?" bit "How much is it responsible?". The first has been proven beyond doubt and the second the second is very strongly suggested by the correlation between CO2 and global warming in many years of records. Anyone who doubts that needs to read and understand the scientific papers. A very good, if somewhat out of date, explanation in layman's terms is given in Bjorn Lomborg's book, "The Sceptical Environmentalist".

If petrol and diesel cars are banned from 2040 it is unlikely to affect me as I'm not likely to still be driving at 94 years of age. Also, the governments making such statements are equally unlikely to still be in power. Who knows what future governments will do?

Looking at the problem as an engineer I can see a major problems with electric cars. While particulate and NOx pollutants might be reduced, CO2 production is just moved from one place to another in countries that rely on fossil fuel power for electricity generation. When you look at the efficiency of oil fired power stations compared with cars, taking into account all the losses in distribution, battery charge/discharge, etc., there is very little to choose between them. Electric is a bit better than petrol cars but a bit worse than diesel. There is only a big decrease in CO2 emissions in countries that rely heavily on nuclear power. So we should be investing in nuclear power stations or developing "renewable" energy sources that do not rely on the unpredictable weather such as geothermal.

Russell

Edited to remove stutter!

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 27/07/2017 11:22:38