>>Very, very, very few greens want to get rid of all cars

A lot of the rhetoric is anti-car and anti-road.

Here’s the thing. I think they’re placing far too much emphasis on trains and buses. They are against road building. All because there is an underlying dislike of cars. That dislike comes from issues such as oil, pollution, and the disruption of communities (I actually agree with Greens on the last point – the other problems are solved by powering the car with electricity).

Public transport is mostly a density issue. I used it in London because the roads were clogged. It made more sense that driving. The same might apply in Auckland at peak times. So I support the reduction of congestion.

But this idea is simply not relevant to most other places. They aren’t really congested, and there is plenty of scope to build roads. We could build big highways and ring roads round cities, like they do in Holland, and free the inner city of cars. Holland gets this balance right, and I see no reason we can’t do it here.

>>improved torque means quite nifty amounts of acceleration

Right. I would love to buy a high end electric car, like a Tesla. Right now.
But I can’t, because they don’t sell them here.

And if a petrolhead like me can get on board, don’t you think you’ve found a great happy medium? Green cars?

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

“Electric cars aren’t free (very far from it), aren’t non-polluting, and aren’t going to solve issues of traffic congestion.”

But, I admit, they are cool. The improved torque means quite nifty amounts of acceleration. With a light frame you could get something a lot like a smart car but which does a quite astonishing acceleration 0-60km.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

“The car is here to stay. So, it is time for greenies to revise their long held beliefs regarding cars and do what they demand of others….”

BP,

I think you’re attacking a straw man. Of course the car is here to stay. Very, very, very few greens want to get rid of all cars. I’m sure you can find some. But they are a fringe.

Cars are an extremely adaptable and useful form of transport for taking small groups such as nuclear families, especially on trips that go moderate distances and don’t go to and from the same place that lots of other people are going to/from.

A family trip to a bach 50km away, for example, is highly suited to a car trip. But the overwhelming majority of car trips are not like that.

You don’t take the family to the bach every day. Most commuters are following a route that is extremely similar to thousands of other commuters. Most trips by car are less then 3km and the mode and median number of people in a car journey is one (alas, a quick google can’t re-find my reference – anyone got one?).

We can reduce car usage vastly *and* reduce urban journey times *and* make things cheaper for all by focussing on improving alternatives for daily commuting and short urban trips.

Carbon emissions are not the only form of pollution. Electric cars aren’t free (very far from it), aren’t non-polluting, and aren’t going to solve issues of traffic congestion.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

In the future, I suspect we’ll look back and wonder what on earth we were thinking using petrol to power cars when electricity is the alternative.

Ticks all the boxes.

The car is here to stay. So, it is time for greenies to revise their long held beliefs regarding cars and do what they demand of others….

Change.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Interesting comment:

“Lithium is not a fuel – it is more like a fuel tank if anything. It is not consumed as we drive but when new vehicles are produced and, as the previous comment pointed out, it is never destroyed so can be recycled at the end of the battery life. Oil consists of complex molecules that have formed over millions of years and once destroyed they will not be recreated so it is very much a finite resource. Lithium being a simple element (found in an ionic form) is indeed abundant it is only a matter of finding sources in economically extractable concentrations. Aside from these brines there is also a mineral spodumene which can be converted to Lithium Carbonate. Though this is a more costly process it was for a while the most common method of extraction. “

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Known reserves.

No one is yet looking too hard for lithium.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

BP
28 million tonnes of lithium when our global annual usage is 16,000 tonnes sounds like a lot. 28 million tonnes divided into a billion electric cars plus assorted spare battery packs, electric buses and other applications sounds rather small to me. It works out to be around 20kg per pack or perhaps 2% of a typical car’s weight. After that, there is no more, so we had better recycle it carefully.

Trevor.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

“The car will have zero emissions, and could be the start of a wave Meridian Energy will early next year introduce several Mitsubishi MiEV vehicles for trial and promotion purposes.

The Government’s Energy Strategy plans for electric cars to reach 5 per cent of market share by 2020, and hit 60% by 2040.”

tinyurl.com/4xuhyl

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Well there are a couple of other things to think about with the price of oil.

All this money being printed in the US is going to equal more inflation which will send the price of oil up.

NZ can offset most of the inflation effects on oil by allowing the NZD to rise against the USD.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

>>the price of oil will fall through the floor

Remove car demand for oil, the price of oil must fall, unless supply levels fall faster.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Well the guy i supported for the republican ticket has come though this looking great,

during the primary’s the media was laughing at Ron Paul, now every day he is on and they are all bowing down to him and asking what will happen next. He’s getting more TV coverage than obama & Mcain on Fox.

The one thing i have to say during this bailout week is that Fox Busines channel has been awesome, they totally opose the bail outs and they are very vocal about it.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

BP – do you mean:
http://www.worldlithium.com/An_Abundance_of_Lithium_1_files/An%20Abundance%20of%20Lithium.pdf

I’m not sure which side to believe:
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1434

Let’s hope you’re right.

Trevor.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

I’ll try to ratchet it down as I explain just what $700 billion means in terms of our nation’s energy infrastructure
“America has about 130 million private homes, so that’s about $5,400 per home—not quite enough to put a one-kilowatt photovoltaic system on every roof. I use that as a standard, because that’s what my wife and I have on our own house, and it basically zeros out our electricity bill for the year.”

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46694

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Trevor29

> BluePeter is dreaming if he thinks the price of oil will fall through the floor. Yes we can displace some of our oil usage. But one of the drivers for that is high oil prices. If we do succeed in displacing enough so that supply can exceed demand, then that will cause oil prices to drop and efforts to displace further oil will ease off, keeping the oil prices high. After all, the easily substituted usages (i.e. the cheapest alternatives) will be the ones developed first.

Yes I think this is right (although I too believe that oil must drop in price.) But if oil were to fall back down to $10 like it was 7 years ago then it would be competitive with electricity for car energy. Sadly, many first world governments have high taxes on petrol which mean that electricity would still win.

10KWhr of electricty (about the energy in a litre of petrol) costs around $2which is currently the same as petrol (including the 80 cents tax). But since petrol engines are only about 20% efficient, electricity works out at about 40 cents a litre. The tax alone is more than that.

Anyway, the price of oil could still fall a bit (maybe $50 or so) and encourage other energy forms. Remember coal is quite a bit cheaper, but we don’t use that in our cars.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Receny study, An Abundance of Lithium, shows that “concerns regarding lithium availability for hybrid or electric vehicle batteries or other foreseeable applications are unfounded. There is plenty of lithium available, more than enough to meet the needs of all the electric cars the planet could afford to build.

And that is just known reserves….

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

BP
I followed your link. The idea of swappable battery packs is attractive. I see one significant snag – the battery packs suggested are lithium ion batteries, as used in laptop batteries, etc, but on a much bigger scale. However we don’t have the lithium resources globally to make enough batteries to power enough cars to make a significant difference, particularly if more than one battery per car is needed.

Trevor.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

BluePeter is dreaming if he thinks the price of oil will fall through the floor. Yes we can displace some of our oil usage. But one of the drivers for that is high oil prices. If we do succeed in displacing enough so that supply can exceed demand, then that will cause oil prices to drop and efforts to displace further oil will ease off, keeping the oil prices high. After all, the easily substituted usages (i.e. the cheapest alternatives) will be the ones developed first.

Trevor.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

>>Those roads are maintained by oil

We don’t need to displace all oil usage, only some of it.

The supply lasts much longer, and can be used for roads. The price falls through the floor. There are also substitutes for oil.

Again, I’d encourage people to read this:

tinyurl.com/54upna

It is a good solution to the transport problem. It is also green.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

BP
Your future car may be powered by electricity but it still runs on roads. Those roads are maintained by oil. The more heavy vehicles use those roads, the more oil is needed to maintain them.

Trevor.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

bach

>>Sorry but there is an apartment block shading your batch owned by Kiwi’s form Dubai

More hysteria. NZFirst voter, by any chance?

Anyone got a reasoned response to my proposal, hmmmm?

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)