18 hours ago, dave2013 said:

 

Same here.  There's a reason why electric vehicle sales are still so low.  Part of the issue is that people are reluctant and slow to make so drastic a change - we've been used to gasoline and diesel powering our vehicles for 100 years so that's not going to change overnight. 

 

 

That's not the true picture.   You can't expect an entire population to suddenly switch to electric vehicles over night. What we see is sales of electric cars growing rapidly. And as range and cost continue to drop  the transition will be even more rapid. For example, the  best selling sedan in the US is the Tesla Model 3 Q1 2020.  Beating Honda and Toyota. 

In 2018 for example electric car sales in the US increased by 81%. 

 

 

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Electric car sales UK: market up 78% year-on-year

https://www.drivingelectric.com/news/678/electric-car-sales-uk-market-78-year-year#:~:text=Electric-car sales shot up,up from 15%2C510 in 2018.

 

 

 

Quote

 

Electric vehicles to set new market share record in 2020

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/electric-vehicles-to-set-new-market-share-record-in-2020-59050766

 

 

Quote

 

Led by Tesla, electric vehicle sales are predicted to surge in 2021

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/29/led-by-tesla-electric-vehicle-sales-are-predicted-to-surge-in-2021.html

 

 

18 hours ago, dave2013 said:

 

but I'm also not an alarmist who believes that the seas will soon rise 30 feet and inundate all of our coastal cities, or that we only have 12 years until the world is destroyed.  The transition to sustainable energy must be done gradually and methodically, allowing people time to adjust. 

 

 

You may not be an alarmist Dave, but if you actually study the science you will understand that there is actually real urgency. No, we don't only have 12 years, but we absolutely must act with haste.  "Gradually and methodically" you say... depends how you define the terms, but as I say, we cant procrastinate, there isn't the time to do so.  Politicians have being procrastinating year after year after year. We will pay the price if this continues. 

 

Quote

I also don't wish to see gigantic wind turbines everywhere I look, obscuring the world's natural beauty.  There is a place for wind power, but it clearly shouldn't be the major source of our energy.

 

You wont see gigantic wind turbines everywhere you look, that's not how it works. There is no intention to make wind power ubiquitous, a mixture of renewable energy is the goal. However... wind will and should be a major player. Especially offshore wind which is very successful in many parts of the world, especially here in the UK. Offshore wind has many advantages, pretty much constant wind, not on land so no complainers moaning about their view. Personally, I think wind turbines look great, very majestic. I have no issue with them, especially as I understand how important it is for us to accelerate the transition to renewable energy. 

10 hours ago, n4gix said:

Where do we find the super-genius who can invent "Mr. Fusion?"

 

Its already been invented. We have actually already achieved ignition. What we haven't done is generate more energy than we put in.

ITER in France is currently under construction. The biggest Tokamak yet. It should generate more energy than we put in, but wont feed that energy to the grid, its purely experimental.

Numerous teams around the world are working on fusion. 

 

https://firstlightfusion.com/technology/#our-approach

 

This is my favourite. 

https://generalfusion.com/2018/11/timing-everything-pushing-fusion-forward-pistons-cutting-edge-electronics/

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fusion_experiments

 

 

16 minutes ago, martin-w said:

You may not be an alarmist Dave, but if you actually study the science you will understand that there is actually real urgency.

Lol:

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions

Electric car sales may well be on the up, but many of us are tied to the bottom end of the used car market. Such is life that I cannot live in a cave as a hermit to possibly accrue a fat wad of cash. My last car which I still own, NOT lease, cost £1200. I do not think that there are any sub-£1000 road legal electric cars on the road. I'd need a hefty subsidy i.e. a freebie to obtain an electric car let alone the dream of playing hooligan in a Tesla...

Down the road, pun intended, I'm sure they'll become cheaper..🍻

5 hours ago, Murmur said:

Lol:

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions

 

Oh please, not that Heller guy. The guy who used a fake name till he was caught out. He's been debunked for misrepresenting and using dodgy pseudoscience countless times.

 

http://gregladen.com/blog/2018/08/08/how-steve-goddard-a-k-a-tony-heller-does-bad-science/

 

Please don't post that stuff.

4 hours ago, HighBypass said:

Electric car sales may well be on the up, but many of us are tied to the bottom end of the used car market. 

 

Yep, very true. The new Tesla Plaid won't please you then, 530 mile range and 131,000 of my English pounds. 200 mph. 😆 

59 minutes ago, martin-w said:

..The new Tesla Plaid won't please you then...

It would please me greatly... if I could buy one! LOL 🍻 Pity about the Cybertruck.. I wonder if the grey import market will be strong in the future? 

the next step … would be to refine the design and work out more of the engineering details

😄

Cheers

 

Very interesting thread. On the original topic of hydrogen fueled gas turbines. They are not emissions free. They do not have carbon in their exhausts but they do produce more Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) then a natural gas turbine. You don't see those marketing articles clarifying this. Most of the hydrogen fueled car research is with fuel cells, not gas turbines, for this and safety reasons already mentioned in this thread. You don't need to pressurize the hydrogen to as high a pressure for a fuel cell as you do for a gas turbine and due to the lower operational temperatures of the fuel cells you do not have the NOx generation.

I expect that renewable powered aircraft will develop the same way renewable energy cars have. First hybrid propulsion and then after the battery technology improves all electric. Aircraft flights  usually only need full power for the climb, reduced power for cruise, and minimal for the descent. When I was still flying the only reason I didn't cut the power completely on the descent was to prevent shock cooling of the engine. With a hybrid you could cruise at a higher altitude longer and then recharge the batteries on the descent using wind power instead of spoilers, flaps, and landing gear to control your speed.

Ted

5 hours ago, martin-w said:

 

Oh please, not that Heller guy. The guy who used a fake name till he was caught out. He's been debunked for misrepresenting and using dodgy pseudoscience countless times.

 

http://gregladen.com/blog/2018/08/08/how-steve-goddard-a-k-a-tony-heller-does-bad-science/

 

Please don't post that stuff.

 

7 hours ago, martin-w said:

 

Oh please, not that Heller guy. The guy who used a fake name till he was caught out. He's been debunked for misrepresenting and using dodgy pseudoscience countless times.

 

http://gregladen.com/blog/2018/08/08/how-steve-goddard-a-k-a-tony-heller-does-bad-science/

 

Please don't post that stuff.

Lol. Yes I post that stuff. All those reported articles written in the last 50 years were real. Guess you can't debunk that.

 

8 hours ago, Murmur said:

Lol. Yes I post that stuff. All those reported articles written in the last 50 years were real. Guess you can't debunk that.

 

 

Its a real pity you have mutated this topic into a climate change debate, when we were all enjoying the original subject matter.

Lets make this the last such post.

 

None of your 50 articles by discredited Heller form a huge consensus or are a result of literally thousands of peer reviewed papers. 

 

Article 1: Famine, nothing to do with global warming. "Prediction" of "possible" famine, based on a book by  William and Paul Paddock. Typical nonsense cheery picked by Heller. There was not a consensus by the worlds scientists that there would be a famine. Again... nothing to do with the current climate crisis or the literally THOUSANDS of peer reviewed papers that tell us unequivocally that the world is warming due to our action. 

Article 2. Pollution: Again, nothing to do with climatology or the current climate crisis or the literally THOUSANDS of peer reviewed papers that tell us unequivocally that the world is warming due to our action. 

Article 3: Prediction of ice age: The vast majority of scientists in the 70's were predicting warming. I know, I was there.   And of course the media jumped on the band wagon and ran with the cooling scenario.

https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-basic.htm

Article 4: Anther pollution article. Nothing to do with the current climate crisis or the literally THOUSANDS of peer reviewed papers that tell us unequivocally that the world is warming due to our action. 

Article 5: Ice age again.

Article 6: Ice age again.

Article 7: Ice age again.

Article 9: A book written by ONE scientist re cooling. Ice age again.

Article 10: Acid rain. Nothing to do with the current climate crisis or the literally THOUSANDS of peer reviewed papers that tell us unequivocally that the world is warming due to our action. 

I could go on, but I'm dammed if I am doing so for the entire 50 cherry picked articles by newspapers, journalists, non experts and a few scientists opinions that didn't form a consensus. Don't be fooled by that Heller guy. Even climate deniers don't take him seriously anymore.

This stuff is not new, its not some new con to steal your taxes. We have known about and understood the green house effect since the 1800's. Thanks to people like - 1824 - French physicist Joseph Fourier - 1861 - Irish physicist John Tyndall - 1896 - Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius - 1900 - Another Swede, Knut Angstrom - 1957 - US oceanographer Roger Revelle and chemist Hans Suess.

Please lets get back on topic. 

 

13 hours ago, Ted Striker said:

 

I expect that renewable powered aircraft will develop the same way renewable energy cars have. First hybrid propulsion and then after the battery technology improves all electric. Aircraft flights  usually only need full power for the climb, reduced power for cruise, and minimal for the descent. 

Ted

 

So far it has been small short range electric aircraft for training, like the Pipistrel Alpha Electro. We also have Eviation Alice coming along, soon to have its first test flight, carries 11 people and  a range of 1000 kilometres. But yes, for reasonable range aircraft, certainly hybrid. I posted a HYPSTAIR video earlier. Airbus are working on a hybrid regional aircraft in conjunction with rolls Royce too. 

https://www.pipistrel-aircraft.com/hypstair/

 

Quote

With a hybrid you could cruise at a higher altitude longer and then recharge the batteries on the descent using wind power instead of spoilers, flaps, and landing gear to control your speed.

 

Yep, prop regen is an important technology for electric aircraft. That's how the Alpha Electro works. The prop generates power in the decent.

 

 

 

Great way to utilize hydrogen.

The Energy Observer.

https://www.energy-observer.org/

 

Solar power during the day, then extracts hydrogen from sea water at night for its fuel cells.