UK X: Who Wants To Live Forever

[MartyG]

Where are we at with making plastic without oil? Given that everything we own is made of it and it will run out at some point.

Best thing we can do at the moment is reduce our use of it - buy less pre-packaged stuff. There is research going on around it, but it's a long way off getting to production, it revolves around producing ethylene gas from other methods.

[Mayhem]

Sorry but it's just not true that electric cars will mean more overall pollution because of gas-fired electricity production to produce the power for charging. Already 40% of our electricity in the UK comes from renewables. And it's cheaper than pricey fossil fuel electricity. It works, it's already happening, and its usage will only grow.

Tell that to all the people still paying stupid amounts for their electricity despite this, I think that is the most incongruous part, especially as Octopus (whom I used to be with) claimed to use 100% renewables for their customers and yet price fixed to everyone else. I think that's what gets people's goat and can't understand if we are generating this much renewable, why prices are still so high like everything was still coming from gas and coal. But that's between the energy suppliers et al.

I wasn't saying increased electricity production to cover charging cars will be more polluting, I was merely noting that pollution from such power stations would obviously go up. Out of sight, out of mind, people ignoring this aspect and just focussing on the fact EV cars don't have exhausts. The overall pollutions levels yes, will definitely go down.

And I was going to bring up the point about oil is used for a lot more other things than just making petroleum, but that's already been noted. We are still going to need to extract it for the foreseeable.

[CMcK]

A lot of renewable electricity producers are being paid the same rate per unit produced as the price of electricity produced by gas. It’s was done to kickstart investment in renewables but has backfired spectacularly for customers this last eighteen months.

[MartyG]

Tell that to all the people still paying stupid amounts for their electricity despite this, I think that is the most incongruous part, especially as Octopus (whom I used to be with) claimed to use 100% renewables for their customers and yet price fixed to everyone else. I think that's what gets people's goat and can't understand if we are generating this much renewable, why prices are still so high like everything was still coming from gas and coal. But that's between the energy suppliers et al.

This is a misunderstanding of how energy is bought by suppliers (and it was also a bit sleight of hand by Octopus).

Energy is bought wholesale at a price set by The National Grid, regardless of the energy source. Octopus couldn't actually buy 100% renewable energy in enough quantity to meet demands anyway - the SoH is that Octopus offset the non-renewables part with renewables investment.