United Kingdom VI: Summer Lovin'

[Cassius_Smoke]

Wait, I've moved my decimal point the wrong way. It's 500 million cars. OK we have enough for the UK, but probably not the world. Plus lithium has about 3 years worth of use.
I just don't see how replacing one finite energy source (petrol) with another (lithium) is the solution we are looking for.

[CMcK]

Plus lithium has about 3 years worth of use.

EV batteries last way longer than that due to far more sophisticated battery management than a typical cell phone. Plus even when an EV battery pack is past it’s best it can repurposed as a home storage system for example. Battery recycling tech is coming along too so no need to keep mining for new minerals.

What we really need is people buying less cars. The environmental impact of all these leasing schemes where people get a new car every 3 or 4 years is surely offsetting the cleaner engine tech. I see guys at work with cars barely doing 2000 miles per year on a lease handing it back for a new one. It would cheaper to keep the car and pay it off. Modern cars are generally very reliable and you’re unlikely to spend more on maintenance of a say eight year old car than the cost of a lease. The energy associated with the construction of a new car is where the real environmental damage is done. But there’s a lot of focus on local emissions.

Our world is built around cars but most cars are stationery 90% of the time. I’m sure loads more people could walk or cycle to work but why bother when it’s so convenient to jump in the car? Public transport isn’t sufficient and too expensive. Luxembourg has it right all public transport is free and it works well.

[CAPCOM]

Fawkes and the Spectator?
Are these not effectively government sources with Johnson and his mistress's links?

The tier system allows the lockdown to continue as a set of regional ones while the government can say (with their sources) that there is no national lockdown.

No. Objective centre right. The Spectator is the oldest written magazine in existence.

It is totally objective on many fronts...

Cummings wife is an associate editior though...

[Dogg Thang]

I'm not quite sure how to interpret that post. I feel like it's quite clever and mocking those who might in any way believe it is objective and yet part of me wonders if it was meant to be taken at face value?

Either way, the last line says it all really.

[wheelaa]

1.06 billion cars with your figures (20 per tonne * 53 million).

(Edit...assuming metric tonnes)

[Anpanman]

Plus lithium has about 3 years worth of use..

EV batteries last way longer than that due to far more sophisticated battery management than a typical cell phone. Plus even when an EV battery pack is past it’s best it can repurposed as a home storage system for example. Battery recycling tech is coming along too so no need to keep mining for new minerals.

We've talked about this earlier, I'm more for hydrogen but the fact is we simply don't have all the answers now. The wind farms have plenty of downtime in summer, they could produce hydrogen super cheaply but as CMck says we have to store it somewhere.

Batteries may last longer than three years but, there are people like us and the elderly who use their vehicles very little, we bought our car fifteen years ago brand new and have less than 35k on it, there is no way a battery is going to last that long and under use can hurt a battery more than overuse. The cost of batteries will be in the 000's so there is every likelihood we'll have bought our third battery by now.

We don't have the infrastructure yet for charging at home, which may/may not be easy to implement but you still have the issue for people who live in flats and tower blocks plus overnight street charging in places that aren't leafy Surrey where the local chavs might find it great fun to rip out the chargers for a laugh.

[cutmymilk]

It'll be electric. Infrastructure will come. I have not heard anything about lithium shortages til I read this thread. Surely someone would have told the governments in the world and Elon Musk if it was that big a deal.

[Dogg Thang]

The other thing is that it is rare, if ever, that we ever solve this stuff outright so the next solution doesn’t have to be the perfect or permanent solution, only the better solution. If that’s lithium batteries for now with the knowledge that, eventually, there will need to be something else, fine.

[fishbowlhead]

It'll be electric. Infrastructure will come. I have not heard anything about lithium shortages til I read this thread. Surely someone would have told the governments in the world and Elon Musk if it was that big a deal.

Quite well documented that lithium resources can’t cover anywhere near the amount of cars needed. Hydrogen is the only realistic sustainable option, but thats not being pushed anymore and is already a dead end.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I think as a species we have to think bigger. We can't hop from one expendable product of the earth to another. Even nuclear power as good as it is, uranium won't last forever.
We are, I think, technologically advanced enough now to solve the energy problem with clean free energy, if we put our minds to it. We managed to create a vaccine for Covid19 in a year through shared knowledge and a shared goal. Let's solve the energy issues next.
With solutions being tested like K-Star in Korea and the American laser fision energy plant, its clear we have ideas. We just need to pump money in to them. I bet in 10 years we could have it solved.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

[Brad]

All I took from Cass’ post was laser powered cars. I’m in. Where do I sign up?!

[cutmymilk]

Quite well documented that lithium resources can’t cover anywhere near the amount of cars needed. Hydrogen is the only realistic sustainable option, but thats not being pushed anymore and is already a dead end.

I think hybrid might be the winner with the new 2030 rule. Cars will have fairly small batteries to increase mpg.

[Hirst]

I'd like to point out that petrol cars were outlawed in the film "Firebird 2015 AD" starring Doug McClure. It didn't work out well for them and therefore I think we should not outlaw petrol cars.

[Dogg Thang]

I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way but that’s a pretty convincing argument.

[Anpanman]

Quite well documented that lithium resources can’t cover anywhere near the amount of cars needed. Hydrogen is the only realistic sustainable option, but thats not being pushed anymore and is already a dead end.

The other thing is that for the logistics industry you will have more trucks on the road as the carrying capacity will be greatly reduced due to the battery weight unless legislation changes to increase tonnage beyond 44t which will then increase road wear.