You continue to bat out straw-man arguments. 600 miles in one day is an exception. My use case of short trips is completely consistent with published statistics from DoT and driving organisations like the AA etc.
Electric vehicles
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Blackswanwood
Still Learning
As I’ve already said several times I have no axe to grind as to whether people choose an EV or an ICE car. My view is that we are transitioning to EV’s so it wont Work for everyone at the moment. That doesn’t mean the practical Issues will not be overcome.
My view on climate change is that it is real and is being caused in no small part by our actions. I choose not to pay much credence to the views of the NIPCC (or Just Oil as it happens). The table on page 2 ….
https://ncse.ngo/files/nipcc.pdf
… gives a pretty good summary of why I feel their view is unlikely to be balanced.
Feel free to have the last word - I’m comfortable enough in my own skin to not need to feel the need to get embroiled with a conspiracy theorist.
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
It's absolutely true that we all have our own biases, but in the case of Blackswanwood highlighting the background of NIPCC; he does have a point. The output of organisations that are created/funded specifically by groups with an active interest in getting a chosen message across should be treated with a great deal of extra caution.
Sadly it seems that it's pretty easy (if you have money) to set up an official sounding "Institute of ..." or "... Research" type body, and publish material in non-peer reviewed journals (that may also be funded by the same sources).
(I accept the irony that previous pages have discussed Wakefield's dangerous nonsense... that was published in a supposedly trustworthy peer-reviewed journal)
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Got it! Only you have a valid use case. Surprising and unwarranted arrogance. I wont be talking to you again.
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understood
In the race to see which flag is hoisted higher, information from serious scientists who happen to be expert in their own fields being is lost.
Name calling? are you two?
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@jepho
Do you think you could engage in this discussion with a measure of politeness and good grace?
You’ve stated many times that you worked in some science area or other for decades, hardly surprising that somebody just might ask you for more detail on your claim?
For what it's worth, I find Jethro to be a complete pain in the @RSE and a very poor example of a Cornishman - FWIW, he doesn't live in Cornwall either.
You've stated several times on here that you have "a lifetime of working in science", so I think my asking in what field etc. is relevant to the argument. Was it in medicine? Astrophysics? Food preparation? Without knowing what your specialist field was, how can we judge its relevance or otherwise in this debate? As far as my own history goes, I left school with no qualifications worth mentioning and over the years have steadily added sod all to that total. The difference is, I am ready to believe those with better minds than me who are in the majority.
The fundamental question here is do we care about the planet and if we do, what can we do to damage it a bit less than we have been for the last couple of centuries? The odds are stacked in favour of the argument that man's huge outpouring of CO2 is having an adverse effect and contributing to global warming. Even if you think there is less than a 20% chance of that being true, surely it still makes sense to cut emissions. If you went to your doctor and were told that there was a 20% chance of dying in the next year if you carried on smoking for instance, would you carry on regardless? Even if you would, would your reaction be the same if it was the lives of your children and grandchildren on the line?
As I understand science, it makes sense to act on the best information available and at the moment, the best we have is that climate change is real and caused by our use of fossil fuels.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
FWIW, he doesn't live anywhere now.
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I don't disagree with what you have said.
I also agree with the point you are making here.
This sort of thing is rife. A highly regarded publisher of medical journals (Elsevier) arranged with a large pharmaceutical company (Merck) to assist them getting the anti-arthritis pharmaceutical, rofecoxib some favourable press. Rofecoxib was shown to double the risk of getting a heart attack or suffering from a stroke when compared with a placebo. Elsevier created 6 fake medical journaals and had clinicians put their name to articles which had been ghost written by Merck. The 6 fake medical journals were all published in Australia between 2000 and 2005 and advertise drugs made by Merck.
https://www.labonline.com.au/conten...er-published-fake-medical-journals-1096209413
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
The future of the electric vehicle has to be with the tram/trolley electric pick-up from wires or rails. Old technology, simple, tried and tested, still widely used successfully, from high speed trains to individual trams and trolley buses.
Battery power would then be short trips from termini/stations.
Resistance to this is from the boys not wishing to lose their toys, and the highly profitable but highly destructive motor industry , but we live in changing times.
The point is - the electricity has to be distributed countrywide and it makes infinitely more sense to pick it up directly from rails/wires, rather than stopping and charging extremely inefficient batteries - then craziest of all - increasing power usage by having to carry around these great heavy batteries wherever you go
Battery power would then be short trips from termini/stations.
Resistance to this is from the boys not wishing to lose their toys, and the highly profitable but highly destructive motor industry , but we live in changing times.
The point is - the electricity has to be distributed countrywide and it makes infinitely more sense to pick it up directly from rails/wires, rather than stopping and charging extremely inefficient batteries - then craziest of all - increasing power usage by having to carry around these great heavy batteries wherever you go
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Phil Pascoe
Established Member
The future of the electric vehicle has to be with the tram/trolley electric pick-up from wires or rails? Apart from its being totally impractical for 95% of the Country.
Mikebart
Established Member
Trouble is it’s a bit like restricting smoking, but not doing the same with alcohol.
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
It really annoys me when that happens, as it undermines the legitimacy of "good" scientific research (and publications), and the muddying of the waters opens the door for the quacks and fraudsters.
DrPhill
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Where possible I see this as the best option.
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
I've seen some trials of systems like this for electric HGVs (an "arm" on the top of the cab that could be raised, to interface with a wire above the road). The idea being that it made sense to install on long motorway sections. From memory, the article even claimed it did/could make financial sense; though I don't recall the details.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Electric rail network could extend from Wick to Penzance. Thats about 99% of the country.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Yes. And then you need a car both ends of the journey, unless of course you intend to do away with cars. To be of any use then the trains would need to stop about every quarter of a mile, so 10,000s of new platforms etc. It would take weeks to get from one end of the Country to the other.
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Interesting article in the Spectator:
So, a deal has been reached. The world has agreed on what Cop 28 president Sultan al-Jaber has called a ‘robust action to keep 1.5 Celsius in reach’. The world is too ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels.
And meanwhile, back in the real world? If the world really had just made a meaningful commitment to end the use of fossil fuels, you might have expected shares in oil companies to have crashed this morning. But have they heck. Shell, BP, all are unmoved. It is expansionary business as usual. The UAE has invested $150 billion (£120 billion) to increase oil production by half to five million barrels a day by 2027. In the US, oil and gas production reached a new record last year. Even coal production was up 2 per cent. There is enough new gas production in the pipeline to increase output from 11.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day to over 20 billion cubic feet. We can be very thankful for that in Europe – it is us, feeling the absence of Russian gas, who are the main customers. The US agreed to spend a piffling £20 million of aid money on poor countries. The US can’t be blamed for seeking energy security, but can anyone say what was the real difference between having the Biden administration at this conference and having a Trump administration snub it?
The share price of Shell and BP are unmoved by the Cop pledge
As for China, it has built 182 new coal-fired power plants in the past two and a half years – since president Xi Jinping announced he was setting his country a target to reach Net Zero by 2060, comfortably beyond his own reign, in spite of his moves to guarantee himself lifetime presidency. Brazil, which was pressing right up until the last day for Cop 28 to agree to ‘phase out’ fossil fuels rather than simply transition away from them? It plans to expand oil production in its offshore fields to become the world’s fourth largest producer by 2030. Canada, which joined Brazil in demanding a ‘phase out’? It has increased oil production by 375,000 barrels per day over the past two years.
Alexander Larman
Never mind Cop 28 and its 98,000 gas-guzzling, private jet-using delegates – never has there been such a bonanza in fossil fuels. If this is supposed to be the ‘beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels, as the EU’s climate envoy put it, it is a mighty strange one.
Those who have been carefully watching proceedings over the past couple of weeks may have noticed a subtle difference between the language being used by different countries. While activists and numerous groups were certain they were demanding a phase out of all fossil fuels, US climate envoy John Kerry was talking only about ‘unabated’ fossil fuels. Britain, too, was using this language. The difference is that the US position allows for carbon capture and storage – which could allow for the burning of fossil fuels with no, or with very low, emissions. There is, though, a very big question over this strategy: who is going to pay for carbon capture, if indeed it can succeed as a commercial technology at all? We have had carbon capture since the 1970s – when ironically it was devised by the oil and gas industry as a means of forcing more fossil fuels out of declining wells. But if it is going to be used without that incentive, someone is going to have to pay – as well as finding the room to store all the carbon. Moreover, it is one thing to capture the carbon from the chimney of a gas-fired power stations, quite another to try to capture it from the exhaust of a jet plane.
Don’t, though, be fooled by grand words of transitioning away from fossil fuels. There is scant sign that the world intends to live up to its grand words.
So, a deal has been reached. The world has agreed on what Cop 28 president Sultan al-Jaber has called a ‘robust action to keep 1.5 Celsius in reach’. The world is too ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels.
And meanwhile, back in the real world? If the world really had just made a meaningful commitment to end the use of fossil fuels, you might have expected shares in oil companies to have crashed this morning. But have they heck. Shell, BP, all are unmoved. It is expansionary business as usual. The UAE has invested $150 billion (£120 billion) to increase oil production by half to five million barrels a day by 2027. In the US, oil and gas production reached a new record last year. Even coal production was up 2 per cent. There is enough new gas production in the pipeline to increase output from 11.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day to over 20 billion cubic feet. We can be very thankful for that in Europe – it is us, feeling the absence of Russian gas, who are the main customers. The US agreed to spend a piffling £20 million of aid money on poor countries. The US can’t be blamed for seeking energy security, but can anyone say what was the real difference between having the Biden administration at this conference and having a Trump administration snub it?
The share price of Shell and BP are unmoved by the Cop pledge
As for China, it has built 182 new coal-fired power plants in the past two and a half years – since president Xi Jinping announced he was setting his country a target to reach Net Zero by 2060, comfortably beyond his own reign, in spite of his moves to guarantee himself lifetime presidency. Brazil, which was pressing right up until the last day for Cop 28 to agree to ‘phase out’ fossil fuels rather than simply transition away from them? It plans to expand oil production in its offshore fields to become the world’s fourth largest producer by 2030. Canada, which joined Brazil in demanding a ‘phase out’? It has increased oil production by 375,000 barrels per day over the past two years.
Alexander Larman
Never mind Cop 28 and its 98,000 gas-guzzling, private jet-using delegates – never has there been such a bonanza in fossil fuels. If this is supposed to be the ‘beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels, as the EU’s climate envoy put it, it is a mighty strange one.
Those who have been carefully watching proceedings over the past couple of weeks may have noticed a subtle difference between the language being used by different countries. While activists and numerous groups were certain they were demanding a phase out of all fossil fuels, US climate envoy John Kerry was talking only about ‘unabated’ fossil fuels. Britain, too, was using this language. The difference is that the US position allows for carbon capture and storage – which could allow for the burning of fossil fuels with no, or with very low, emissions. There is, though, a very big question over this strategy: who is going to pay for carbon capture, if indeed it can succeed as a commercial technology at all? We have had carbon capture since the 1970s – when ironically it was devised by the oil and gas industry as a means of forcing more fossil fuels out of declining wells. But if it is going to be used without that incentive, someone is going to have to pay – as well as finding the room to store all the carbon. Moreover, it is one thing to capture the carbon from the chimney of a gas-fired power stations, quite another to try to capture it from the exhaust of a jet plane.
Don’t, though, be fooled by grand words of transitioning away from fossil fuels. There is scant sign that the world intends to live up to its grand words.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
If COP1 had achieved anything we wouldn't be on COP28.
DrPhill
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Good public transport at each end would work instead of car, or 'on demand' taxi type thing.
We already have the strategy for accessible and fast on the railway. Some trains go fast and stop at selected stations (intercity). Others stop at all stations including the intercity ones. You travel fast to the most appropriate 'intercity' station, and then transfer to another slower train for the final section of the rail journey. A bit of inconvenience, but you get the benefits of the fast trains and the benefits of a closer station.
As for a platform every quarter mile - that is just setting the bar ridiculously (and unnecessarily) high to support your prejudice.
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