Are we all looking forward to the Carbon Tax?

[BobL]

Well as a guy pointed out on the radio the other day, when you buy an electric car, you aren't carbon neutral - all you are doing is transferring your carbon footprint from your car to the power station. As long as power is being generated by burning coal, you haven't really done anything.

Now we're getting somewhere, . . . . if nuclear power is used then . . . . .

Also, we are already at the point where if a solar collector is placed on the car and parked outside the battery can be charged during the day. In addition a solar collector on a home can put energy back into the grid and then pulled off at night to recharge the car. Several enthusiasts have done this with small cars already.

The most significant thing about vehicles like the Prius is not the instant carbon saving but showing the public that an electric car is not a toy and contributing to half way house technology cost savings. Prius type vehicles gets new technologies onto the production line and makes them more affordable. We have to start somewhere. A revolutionary all electric vehicle is not going to happen overnight.

[Waldo]

Now we're getting somewhere, . . . . if nuclear power is used then . . . . .

Also, we are already at the point where if a solar collector is placed on the car and parked outside the battery can be charged during the day. In addition a solar collector on a home can put energy back into the grid and then pulled off at night to recharge the car. Several enthusiasts have done this with small cars already.

The most significant thing about vehicles like the Prius is not the instant carbon saving but showing the public that an electric car is not a toy and contributing to half way house technology cost savings. Prius type vehicles gets new technologies onto the production line and makes them more affordable. We have to start somewhere. A revolutionary all electric vehicle is not going to happen overnight.

What you both said.

In a way, it's like Madona or the latest Hollywood bimbo, stealing a kid for 'adoption' from an impoverished country. But what are they really doing and what do they think they are achieving and what are the ramifications of what they think they are doing?

[damian]

Yes I'd thought about that, the value of adopting new ideas in order to encourage more new ideas. Sticky. The hybrid potentially addresses one of the serious limitations of the internal combustion engine. It's efficiency drops off as you move away from it's optimum revs. A lot of work has been done to address that, but the modern engine is still a pretty second rate compromise. This is why so much work was put into an infinitely variable transmission. Anyway...

The problem is the hybrid as it's deployed doesn't lead anywhere. As I understand it the car switches from the electric motor to the petrol for actual drive, it doesn't use the petrol to generate electricity and use the motor all the time. I don't know this so correct me if I'm wrong. The Nimh batteries aren't particularly efficient, I think about 60%. Apparently lithium ion are very efficient, which brings us to the real bugbear of all these electric and pseudo electric cars, the batteries.

So the hybrid has some value as an indicator to manufacturers that there is a market for an alternative, and that some people are willing to pay a premium for a car that demonstrates an actual or potential enviromental advantage. It is not however a base from which a future improved car can develop. It is not a stepping stone to completely electric vehicles, nor enviromentally sound electric vehicles, nor is it a stepping stone to hydrogen powered vehicles.

Thus it is my OPINION (note the caps) that the prius and similar cars are of limited value in this regard. I am as always prepared to believe I'm wrong.

edit: Incidentally there are some wonderful all electric vehicles right now, have a look online. The issue right now as I type is the cost of LI batteries. With those the performance/range issues are largely addressed along with the total pollution load issues to some extent. LI are THE big breakthrough in hi efficiency and low pollution vehicles. If they become more affordable and don't produce an excessive pollution load in production then we may finally see the all electric car become common place.

2c

[mic-d]

mic-d:

gas: Physics. a substance possessing perfect molecular mobility and the property of indefinite expansion, as opposed to a solid or liquid.

So when does a suspended areosol become a true gas ?

When water evaporates it undergoes a phase change, where it goes from a liquid to a gas, water vapour by definition is a gas. A suspended aerosol is fine condensed (liquid)water suspended in gas, it is not water vapour, for example cloud or fog. It's basic first year science, perhaps even high school science these days, which I have lectured to many students about. An aerosol will never become a true gas because by definition it is suspended liquid (perhaps solids) in gas.
Would you like me to find a friendly PhD to support this?... Oh wait, that would be ...

Me.

Cheers
Michael

[BobL]

So when does a suspended areosol become a true gas ? because the CCE's just love to ignore water vapour and clouds in their figures.

When a material starts to approximate P V = n R T it's a gas, whereas aerosols won't do that.

[BobL]

I don't have time, and probably lack the inclination anyway, to either find the info for you or do a proper analysis. I am sure a search engine will lead you to the many good sites questioning climate change evangelism.

And we all know that everything on the web is true . . . . right.

There are so many 5 minute experts out there that read a couple of websites that suit their pre-existing viewpoint and think they can make an informed opinion about climate change. This stuff is incredibly complicated - no one person can every hope to get across the topic - anyone that says they can is sprouting bovine aerosol. Unlike most scientific research, which is relatively clearly defined and clear cut, and one piece of evidence can bring a theory undone, climate change does not fit into that mold. There are a zillion parameters and the computer models and the research are done in big teams. No single expert has the total skill and knowledge base of any of the teams, so only expert teams can comment on the validity of their and related results. This is a new way of doing science and we'd better get used to it as that's how more and more problems will have to be tackled. If the climate change opponents can garner the same level of expertise as an existing team (not retired disgruntled flunkies and TV weathermen as was done recently by a US senator) and develop and analyse models in depth with the same degree of attention to detail as the teams do then I will take notice of them. The modeling guys are always looking for ways to flunk the other teams models but everything seems to be pointing the same way. The guys and gals in our lab that do ice core work take around 10 years to learn to do what they do, and when some idiot comes along and attacks their work after reading a half baked article by a so called expert - I see them smile and sigh and shake their head.