Electric or not....

[mcbeee]

I've been in the "sparks" business for 36 years and had some schooling in it before that and I can't figure that one out. Are you sure you didn't see it on Dr Who?

[Nosa]

As i said my description is not entirely accurate, But I knew I had seen something about it.

http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1219-wetsus.html

[Z4_in_Norway]

As i said my description is not entirely accurate, But I knew I had seen something about it.

http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1219-wetsus.html

Had never heard about this before. But a very interesting read.
Cost always seems to get in the way when it comes to renewables.
We want cleaner energy, but we are not willing to pay a higher price for it.

[Markyboy]

I personally think at electric cars are only useful for tackling localised pollution in Cities. Only problem is that they are not as effective as a pedal bike. The energy has to come from somewhere and in the uk (along with the vast majority of the worlds population) this generally means a coal, gas or oil power station. In a country like Norway where energy from renewable sources is abundant then it is a different matter. Is the Norwegian government encouraging the use of Electric cars like the British are?

This is an interesting article from the telegraph website regarding the issues the desired number of electric cars would pose to the national grid in the uk:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/new ... -fail.html

I read about the new electric mini in Autocar the other month, it think their verdict was "Good, but only for 74 miles" or something along those lines.

A friend of mine drives a Prius thing( I know this is a hybrid rather than purely electric). I think he manages around 4 mpg better than my 10 year old diesel skoda daily driver. The batteries weigh hundreds of kilos, the lithium is mined in Canada, shipped to Japan for processing, the overly heavy car is then shipped back to the uk where it provides worse economy than most most small diesel hatches whilst being subsidised by the tax payer. Then when the batteries are a few years old they have to be shipped back to Japan to be reprocessed in a custom built plant (covering several hundred acres of land that was probably a green field site previously) whilst a new battery is shipped back to the uk........

There was another article I read which was much more interesting....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/gre ... light.html

long live the internal combustion engine!

[johnnyboy_10138]

as far as batteries are concerned, I have a buddy from college working who is working on a way to extract lithium from soil using methods that can be adapted to be used in third world afirca, so hopefully it will catch on and he will remember when he is rich