The Scottish government plans to phase out new petrol and diesel cars in favour of electric ones by 2032ANDREW MATTHEWS/PA
Nicola Sturgeon’s plans to phase out all new petrol and diesel cars in 15 years’ time have been branded unachievable and potentially damaging by a leading engineering expert.
Jack Ponton, senior honorary professorial fellow of engineering at the University of Edinburgh, warned that there were huge problems with the proposal and potentially insurmountable hurdles to overcome.
The first minister announced this month that she wanted Scotland to have phased out all diesel and petrol vehicles by 2032 — eight years before the UK commitment of 2040.
The Scottish government does not have the power to ban all petrol and diesel engines but Ms Sturgeon wants to make the infrastructure so efficient and available that no one would want anything but an electric vehicle. Ms Sturgeon…
The rest of the article is behind a pay-wall (not many things are more annoying than to have to pay to look at brainless ads., but that is another story) .. Ref.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/electric-vehicle-pledge-branded-unaffordable-and-unachievable-g8l5qpkgf
But the points in the article is; unaffordable and unachievable (so now you know, you do not need to pay to read the rest), but there’s more, this from Breitbart:
Delingpole: Imagine Trying to Escape a Hurricane in a Tesla…
Would you want to flee a hurricane in a gas-fuelled pick up? Or a battery-powered Tesla?
Last week, drivers of the latter got lucky when they were bailed out of disaster courtesy of Tesla’s canny marketing department. (h/t Eric Worrall at Watts Up With That?)
Tesla drivers who fled Hurricane Irma last weekend received an unexpected lesson in modern consumer economics along the way. As they sat on choked highways, some of the electric-car giant’s more keenly priced models suddenly gained an extra 30 or so miles in range thanks to a silent free upgrade.
The move, confirmed by Tesla, followed the request of one Florida driver for a limit on his car’s battery to be lifted. Tesla’s cheaper models, introduced last year, have the same 75KwH battery as its more costly cars, but software limits it to 80% of range. Owners can otherwise buy an upgrade for several thousands of dollars. And because Tesla’s software updates are online, the company can make the changes with the flick of a virtual switch.
But that’s easy enough to arrange when hardly anyone drives the things.
What happens in the near-future when, we’re told, everyone is going to be driving electric cars – whether they like it or not?
Well a German IT expert called Hadmut Danisch has been doing the math. And the result isn’t pretty.
It will, as Lubos Motl notes, lead to “Mass Death on the Highways.”
With fossil fuels, the car’s range is far greater, fueling time is just minutes and extra canisters of fuel also can be easily brought along. Power outages would not interrupt petrol stations because the gas pumps can be easily powered by portable fossil fuel-powered generators.
But with electric cars it would be a totally different story. If a hurricane hit, power lines would go down, knock out the power grid and thus would make the charging of electric vehicles impossible. Solar panels would fly off buildings as roofs are torn off. Wind parks would automatically turn off because they are not designed to operate in hurricane force winds. Many wind towers would simply buckle in the 250 km/hr wind gusts, meaning the green power supply infrastructure would of course get destroyed. In summary, solar panels and offshore wind parks in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico make about as much sense as raising sheep on a wolf-farm.
And after the hurricane passes, electric cars would remain immobile because the power grid would be knocked out. Recharging vehicles would be impossible. Emergency vehicles also would quickly lose their power charge and sit idle. Recovery and clean up efforts would take months, if not years. The toll on human life would be unimaginable.
Welcome to your bright green future. Underwater in an electric car.
Ref.: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/14/delingpole-imagine-trying-to-escape-a-hurricane-in-a-tesla/
???
The “green” madness is so fun, expensive yes, but trully fully!
Let’s do another ..
Britain needs an energy revolution – stop the terrible renewable subsidies–Nick Timothy
By Paul Homewood
A rather rambling, badly thought out piece by Nick Timothy, formerly the Theresa May’s chief advisor until he cocked up the election:
He starts by rehashing his arguments for an energy tariff cap, to protect consumers from the evil Big 6 energy companies.
His arguments really are nonsense, as the UK probably has the most competitive energy market in the world. The fact that some people cannot be bothered to shop around is their problem, not the government’s. Even he admits that half of people have switched suppliers at some time.
Timothy accepts that the total price of energy won’t fall, as a cap on standard tariffs will simply mean that cut price deals won’t be as cheap.
But then he starts to make a bit of sense:
A safeguard tariff cap would not, of course, reduce the cost of energy overall. To do that, or to at least check the increase in prices, we need a bigger change.
This is not only a question of social justice but of economic competitiveness. Britain’s industrial electricity prices have increased by more than 150 per cent since 2004.
They are the fourth highest of the 29 mainly western member countries of the International Energy Agency. They are more than double those in America. And they have been getting increasingly uncompetitive. In 2004 our industrial electricity prices were cheaper than the IEA average; in 2010 they were 0.7 per cent more expensive; now they are 54 per cent more expensive.
It is not possible to have a successful industrial strategy with energy costs that cripple industry. And neither will the Government succeed in rebalancing the economy while industrial electricity prices are so high.
We need lower prices, and to get them we need a new energy strategy based on competition and a sensible regulatory framework. For that to happen, there must be meaningful price transparency for all forms of power generation, including nuclear power and renewables.
Well, we all know the reason for this – the Climate Change Act. After all, it was only last year that Timothy himself who described the Act as a “unilateral and monstrous act of self-harm”.
It is curious then that he goes on to write:
This will require a new approach to reducing carbon emissions. There is no need to abandon our international commitments, and no need to abandon the Climate Change Act.
He looks forward to a time when, energy technologies would compete against one another on a level playing field. That would mean a more rational energy market, with prices that are fairer for households and more competitive for industry.
Given that renewable energy options are a long way from competing on a level playing field, (that Timothy says should include the cost of coping with intermittency), his proposals are incompatible with the Climate Change Act.
