Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms EV article from Rowan Atkinson

Well I still feel duped as does RA but for a different reason which even Simon Evans won't debate. If the Western world went to all electric vehicles tomorrow (which of course is not possible) it would not make a significant difference to the progress of climate change, the majority of factors effecting climate change are generated in the non western countries. The single biggest issue that no one wants to tackle is the rampant destruction of the worlds Rain Forrest's, this in itself is the catastrophic catalyst in climate change but also the most difficult factor to challenge. EVs make the western wealthy feel better and able to blame the rest for not making an effort, but still pollute the oceans and purchase palm oil based products, meat, etc.

Here is something to think about; the cruise line industry has exploded over the last 20 years with the ships getting ever bigger and more prolific, all for our pleasure. There are around 500 cruise ships in operation globally carrying around 600,000 passengers, more than ever before and I bet a number on this forum go cruising. On average a cruise ship smokestack produces the emissions equivalent of 12000 automobiles a day, let's not get into the oil bilge water, human waste and damage to habitats.

Indeed - at one point they were taking out something like the size of Wales, daily, IIRC.
While we can all do our bit, no amount of personal habit change, industrial policy and set-aside farming in the UK can offset such destruction.

Will

We have just experienced the conundrum of what to do when the gas central heating boiler dies.
Our 14 year old gas boiler died recently. Our house is close to 50 years old, but thanks to a rolling program of improvement over the last 25 years it gets, just, an EPC of B. WE thought the solution would be a heat pump. We were wrong, for 3 main reasons...

1. Price and Delivery: A gas boiler cost £5000 fitted and delivery was 3 days: it was made in England. The best quote we got for a Chinese heat pump was £12,000 AFTER the grant and delivery would be 3 months. So 3 months with no heating and hot water from the immersion heater.

2. Disturbance and Unpredictable Extra Costs: Our house has half inch copper pipes, embedded in the floor screed. The advice received was that because the heat pump works at 2X the flow rate and 50% higher pressure the probability of leaks was high, so better to replace all the piping with plastic: disruptive and an additional cost.

3. Lack of Electricity: We would have to give up our EV charging point as the local transformer doesn't have the capacity to provide power for both EV charging, a Heat pump and other domestic consumption.

Stopping or restricting the sale of gas boilers will not achieve change.
Investing in Electricity distribution infrastructure and making the cost of heat pumps the same as gas boilers might.

Requiring all new builds to have both PV panels, batteries and heat pumps makes far more sense.

As to synthetic fuel, this requires only water, Carbon Dioxide from air and energy. The final product is virtually indistinguishable, chemically, from petrol. So no investment in or change to storage and distribution is neededand all existing ICE engines will run with it.

The middle eastern "desert" states are investing heavily in green electricity production as they have space, sunlight and wind in excess.
As has been said, marine transport is a massive polluter: a few new floating hotels run on LPG, but that isn't the answer.

The planet's environment is evolving, we are not the sole cause, but we have to learn to live with it, we cannot stop it and it is pointless to try.

Enough, let's all talk about something we can change, such as incompetent and disingenuous politicians.
Actually,, I'm not sure we can even achieve that.

this, from Andy Palmer's twitter gives context & perspective, from someone inside the industry:
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Palmer )

Having read Rowan Atkinson’s article and its “fact check counter” in the Guardian attacking and supporting electric vehicles, I came away feeling particularly bemused by the EV lobby's hatred of alternative forms of propulsion and visa-versa - and I say so as someone who has been dubbed by the media as the ‘Godfather of Electric Cars’.

No solution is perfect and all solutions have side effects. After all, each technology is at a different stage of maturity. When I started development of the Nissan LEAF, arguably the world's first mass EV, the vast majority of public commentary was negative. With that in mind, let us remember that ‘green legislation’ is trying to solve the blight of Co2 emissions and not particulates; the more critical of which are now brake and tyre dust.

It is an inescapable truth that EV’s produce Co2 in their manufacturing. The only reliable reference data we have is the Volvo analysis that suggests an EV produces about 70% more than an equivalent ICE. The Co2 use in running an EV depends on the source of charging electricity, but is cleaner than running an ICE. Over life, an EV’s total footprint will be less than that of a conventional ICE.

But there are alternatives, notably and importantly, now validated by the EU in their interpretation of “zero carbon”. Today there are three major alternatives:

1) Fuel Cell
2) Combustion of hydrogen
3) Combustion of synthetic fuels or E-fuels

Each have advantages and disadvantages; all are an improvement over current state.

Combustion of hydrogen or hot hydrogen is interesting for, heavy goods vehicles, as an example. It uses about 80% carry-over ICE parts and the resultant tail pipe emission is water. The advantage verses EV is lower manufacturing Co2 and virtually no Co2 in operation. The disadvantage is the sourcing and cost of green hydrogen and a small amount of NoX produced.

Combustion of synthetic fuel will become better understood from 2026 as it powers F1. Synthetic fuel takes Co2 from the atmosphere, converts it to gasoline and then burns it in a combustion process - resulting in net zero carbon use. The disadvantage is the maturity and sustainability of the fuels' manufacturing process and the fact that you have tail-pipe emissions, albeit at the level of Euro7.

The EV haters, hydrogen haters, e-fuel haters need to acknowledge that no one solution is the final solution. When government pick winners they always fail. Best solutions come from running and allowing many solutions; allowing them to compete and letting the end consumer pick the winner or winners. Darwinism, if you will.

What I’d like to make clear is that any significant improvement in Co2 consumption is a good improvement. We do not have the technology to produce totally net zero carbon cars today or in the foreseeable future, but we can see ways of significantly reducing the carbon consumption in multiple technologies. Rather than dismissing one technology verses another, I advocate “the engineer's” approach of acknowledging the imperfection of every solution and continuing the improvement/ kaizen of each over time.

There are more alternative solutions ahead of us, that are unknown today; that is the nature of engineering. Let’s not dismiss any of the alternatives which accelerate the journey to net zero carbon travel.

Just picking up on some of Peter's points here, because I have a friend who is retiring and wishes to relocate nearer to her daughter, now in Norwich. My friend is adamant she wants a new build house to avoid the faff of repairs as she ages, despite I and a few others agreeing that as most appliances and systems now work on the cheapest option, a decade's useful life is all they have.

But the new build has absolutely zero future proofing for climate change options. There is still the minimum building regulation thickness of insulations, no upgraded capacity for an induction hob let alone an EV on the drive..! No EV panel work built or offered as an option.

Surely if these things are important, builders and developers should be taking the lead here.

I'm also getting very twitchy these days, over the limitations upon our personal freedoms to travel. We seem to be treated like cattle and financially herded onto currently non existent public transport 'solutions', when these solutions don't serve your intended locations, destinations or timings.

Take attending my local hospital for my old mums appointment, for example. She was almost immobile, so we had to take apparatus with us, with all that entails with slowness and patience, all of which would be a point of conflict in public transport. To try and do it in a car is now penalised with ULEZ, high or non existent parking charges, and congestion charges, all of which do nothing except make the schemes money. It certainly doesn't help the environment..!

There are so many leaping on to this bandwagon of late, under the guise of stopping oil. Such is the corruption of this agenda, that vast amounts of money are being paid to politicise it & make this mass clamping down on freedom of movement far clearer.

We all in our own way, wanting to help. But this whole green cause is being hijacked for personal gain & fame nowadays.

A version of my last epistle appeared as the 2nd letter in the Telegraph Letters Column today.
Fame at last!

Oh, when discussing sources of energy I have it on good authority that we will have working fusion reactors by 2035, but the Green lot will try to get them banned because limitless green energy makes all anti carbon and the green movement's existence pointless....

Rowan Atkinson talks about the cost of producing the batteries etc. but no real figures. What I would like to know out of curiosity to be able to do a reasonable comparison is how much CO2 goes into building the following cars.

• 2016 Skoda Rapid 1.2TSI Manual
• New Tesla Model 3
• 2019 Morgan +4
• New Frontline MGB with 2.0L engine

It is probably possible I could run a Tesla just on Solar although I would need to fit a much larger Solar system on the roof and producing solar panels would also generate CO2.

Based on 2.3KG of CO2 per litre and my wife's Skoda Rapid using about 4L/100km on some trips and 5L/100km on trips with hills I would say 2.3KG by 5 divided by 100 = 115grams of CO2 per km. As both a Morgan +4 and Frontline MGB 2.0L have a similar Duratec engine I expect both to use say 7L/100km and produce 164grams of CO2 per KM based on the Morgan Brochure I saved back then.

Has anybody seen the actual production figures published. I found this article https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/susta...osal-what-impact-do-our-cars-have-planet suggesting 5.6 for a petrol car with 3/4 of that being the body and 8.8T for an EV. Without any other figures then maybe it is Skoda Rapid 5.6T, The Tesla 8.8, The Morgan only 4T due to being hand made and Frontline say 1.5T due to the body etc. has already been counted 50 years ago. Does any of that sound reasonable?

Is so then the MGB is 8.8T - 1.5T = 7,300KG of CO2 meaning I could use over 3,000 Litres of Petrol before the car catches up to the production of the Tesla, at 7L/100km that is 42,000km.

Anything I am forgetting? Would those production figures include transport of the materials and parts to the factory and the finished cars to the dealer etc? If I had a Tesla and charged it purely from solar panels then that is power I would not be putting into the grid to benefit others so they would use more CO2 from their electricity. But the petrol I use would have a cost in CO2 just in the drilling, refining and distribution as well that needs to be taken into account.

I feel we are not told everything and is that because companies don't want us to know? They prefer us to buy cars based on pretty colours.

Also when countries fly war planes just to try show power over other countries, or in an actual war like Russia should we care about CO2 from our cars? I expect these planes do a lot more damage than a petrol car. We are told to behave and do our bit to protect the environment but the leaders of the world are not setting a good example. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ry-aircraft-entered-its-air-defence-zone

Its funny how those analyzing Lithium mining and battery production costs often take the view that oil exploration / drilling / social costs of dealing with corrupt petro-states are sunk costs and not to be counted! For example, do you reckon that 75% of the 2nd Iraq war was because Iraq is a petrostate, and add those costs / CO2 expense to the ICE etc accounting sheet?

On the matter of "why bother with EVs... there will always be wars, volcanos, burning peat bogs etc" then we have to remember that CO2-encouraged global warming is an existential threat to our comfy western way of life. ANYTHING that can substantially change the game is worthy of trial and investment.

Yes those figures are scary. It seems like a very environmentally unfriendly business. I remember reading another article saying that all the cruise ships in Southampton create more pollution while in port than everything else going on in Southampton, cars industry, etc.



Yes, I feel the environmental cost of petrol is a lot more than the 2.3KG of CO2 when it is used in an ICE. I also feel you have a point about Iraq and that many wars over the decades have been oil related.

Also Yes we should do what we can, it just feels frustrating that some leaders do stupid things making our efforts feel like a grain of sand on the beach.