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Like Oxford, should Sheffield ban all non electric vehicles?

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1) Electric cars are currently powered by fossil fuel burning power stations. If everyone switched to electric cars, we'd need to build about 12 new power stations. It's basically just moving the pollution from point of consumption to point of production. Electric cars will be no good until the grid is 100% renewables and we've got much better battery technology.

 

2) Transport contributes 11% of pollution. Domestic heating is 40%. Essentially the boiler in your kitchen cupboard is 4 times more polluting than your car

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1) Electric cars are currently powered by fossil fuel burning power stations. If everyone switched to electric cars, we'd need to build about 12 new power stations. It's basically just moving the pollution from point of consumption to point of production. Electric cars will be no good until the grid is 100% renewables and we've got much better battery technology.

 

2) Transport contributes 11% of pollution. Domestic heating is 40%. Essentially the boiler in your kitchen cupboard is 4 times more polluting than your car

 

Good post. The greenies next idea will be to ban our boilers then. Yes, they really are that insane.

 

Angel1.

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i'll put my hand up as a "greenie", it's usually interesting to hear people tell me what i think... And i'll agree that banning gas boilers would be insane.

 

i think what we have here is a classic 'straw man', it's lovely to see one out in the wild!

Edited by ads36

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1) Electric cars are currently powered by fossil fuel burning power stations. If everyone switched to electric cars, we'd need to build about 12 new power stations. It's basically just moving the pollution from point of consumption to point of production. Electric cars will be no good until the grid is 100% renewables and we've got much better battery technology.

 

2) Transport contributes 11% of pollution. Domestic heating is 40%. Essentially the boiler in your kitchen cupboard is 4 times more polluting than your car

 

Clearly, that depends on the size of the power station, but with managed charging, the increase in demand is expected to be around 6-7GW. Hinkley Point C is around 3.2GW I believe.

 

It's easier to reduce and manage that pollution in one location rather than one million. Dealing with transport pollution, and dealing with domestic boiler pollution aren't mutually exclusive.

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Once they have taken appropriate steps to reduce pollution because of their own actions perhaps

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Good post. The greenies next idea will be to ban our boilers then. Yes, they really are that insane.

 

Angel1.

 

I'm a greenie. But there's a way to do it

 

1) Solar panels on every house, except in conservation areas

2) Small windmills in every garden, except in conservation areas

3) Local storage batteries in every garage or loft

 

Then you have the infrastructure to wind down fossil fuels. Which is basically what Uruguay have done and they are up to about 90% renewables now.

 

The things holding it back are

 

1) Batteries - lithium ion is not good enough for local storage in houses or cars. We need the next leap in battery technology first

2) Political will - when there's a centralised system you can tax it. When there's local production as well as consumption, you can't. Plus there's the evil oil and nuclear lobbies with their fingers all over government. If we really wanted to go for it, you simply just wave stamp duty on every house that gets solar panels and windmills fitted when it is next sold.

 

---------- Post added 16-10-2017 at 14:14 ----------

 

Clearly, that depends on the size of the power station, but with managed charging, the increase in demand is expected to be around 6-7GW. Hinkley Point C is around 3.2GW I believe.

 

It's easier to reduce and manage that pollution in one location rather than one million. Dealing with transport pollution, and dealing with domestic boiler pollution aren't mutually exclusive.

 

Nuclear is obsolete. It's too expensive and dangerous. Just about every country in the world is now on phase-out, except China and Iran, but even China are having doubts now.

 

Hinkley C will never be built

Edited by Dan_Ashcroft

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The nasty comment on 'weaker' members of society has been removed. It is not to be reposted.

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Yes! And would be another nail in the coffin for the dying Sheffield city center

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Dan - except for the occasions in the UK when the sun is infrequent, there's no wind and the temperatures low.

Like winter for example in a high pressure system. No wind, no sun, cold.

Base load can't be provided by renewables like solar and wind effectively, and if you were green then you'd want nuclear as the baseload option, because it's far cleaner than coal, gas or oil.

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Hi Dan

 

EV, battery and generation tech are advancing at such a pace that some of the concerns on this thread are quickly going away, e.g. battery generations or "base load".

 

I think you'd enjoy the Fully Charged channel by Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Scrapheap Challenge, Carpool) - it's a great way to keep up!

 

As for "should Sheffield ban all non electric vehicles?" .... It will come in time and we have to fix the foul air... but Sheffield won't lead the way.

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What advances can solve the problem of base load? Are you suggesting that we'd have enough battery power to last for a fortnight in the winter?

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But unlike Oxford where its only a city centre exclusion wouldn't it be brave if a 4 mile exclusion zone was introduced?

 

From hillsbough, to woodseats, to halfway to attercliffe

 

All non electric vehicles banned

 

And this would also include hybrid cars, banned too.

 

This would make a bold statement to the rest of the world that sheffield takes its environmental responsibility seriously.

 

And that poor health will not be passed onto the next generation from the current generation

 

It would cause absolute chaos as well. Of all the places in the country to try it, a city which is so badly planned in terms of integrated transport systems, would be the worst possible experiment.

 

Do you have any sensible ideas to share with us?

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