Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms The big diesel con…..?

I still have to remind to switch off items not in use - like lights as she leaves a room...
"But you paid for those solar panels to provide electricity"
"Yes dear, but there is a clue in the name 'solar'"...

Graham its a woman thing , I remember dad shouting at mam ' switch the bloody lights off woman ' she always had an excuse. I now find Jnr is just the same . She would rather open the door than turn the fire down . Dont tell me what to do its like talking to the wall.

Indeed. In France only about 18% of electricity is produced by burning hydrocarbons, so the environmental argument for plug-in electric cars holds far more water than it would in the UK, where an electric car is mainly just moving the pollution somewhere else. One also has to consider if the infrastructure of the national grid is adequate to provide all the charging required for our cars if we all rush out and buy electric ones, as it seems there may be shortfalls in generating capacity on the horizon even without this extra demand.

My dear old dad (who served on diesel electric submarines) likes to point out that there's nowt new about hybrids. I suspect ultimately hybrids with fuel cells to top up the batteries may be the way forward.

One of my Grandfather's friends went home to Scotland on leave from the trenches in WWI, arriving home in the middle of the night.

The very first thing his father (who he had not seen for 2 years) said to him the following morning when he came down to breakfast was "Aye, I thought ye were back. Ye left light on on the landing last night"

The elephant in the room is the railways. Many old dirty high consumption diesels running almost constantly, even when standing for twenty minutes. Electrics need high level supply and where does that come from?

Governments have known about the problems with diesel emissions for years. As usual the expediency of letting diesels carry on was chosen. Extra mpg, revenue,
Especially for commercial vehicles was the choice.
Cities have the problem of emissions due to congestion. Huge volumes of traffic in restricted area.
There are significant problems to overcome in the interim before bans are in place. What will replace diesels in cities?
How will people, goods actually get transported in?
Electric trams? No...the rails and power gantries will cause issues. Generation, cyclists stuck in rails.
Trolleybuses may be better...no rails. Park and ride?
I assume the politicians have the answers ready?
With the plans proposed by major car companies to expand charging points nationwide I will be looking more clisely at electric/hybrid for our next tintop workhorse.
Cost of buying as a private owner not company car is an obstacle but possibly ok.
I like the Tesla package for home battery too. A sensible route.
I am a bit annoyed at the long term strategic failure of successive governments re generating capacity. It appears that emissions for generating have taken a very high lead causing debates and procrastination, all whilst closing existing generators. Powercuts are deemed to be acceptable? I await the excuses from politicians and blame shifting.

J.T.L our next venture will be to reopen all the Pits (coal mines) in the North East.

To many to list

Where's Jeremy? I expect he will have a perfectly valid reason for this...


They'd get a lot more revenue if the truck was petrol driven.
Fully laden, the consumption would be somewhere around 4 times that of diesel... Just think of the emissions level then...

The potential pollution problem from all these batteries is also worrying...

I like Tim's idea for getting a better return on my solar PV installation though

Somewhere in Europe is a tram system which gets power from a supply in the road which is only live under the tram. Somebody told me about this, this week.

How many people will get run over by electric cars soon !