The Road to Zero

[Will Mazeo]

Well if people study history they'll find crazy weather events like huge areas going dry for years and years, but people nowadays take things for granted, they think that just because we are here and we have tech some things will never happen. Countries that have colder weather and water never think of emergency plans, they never think "what happens if we dont have rain for 3 years?". And when when things happens it's easier to blame global warming than the own population that was dumb and didn't think ahead.
It's kinda like our electric system, the sun can send us back to early 1900 at any moment, nobody is investing on protecting us against this, and it's not even expensive.

 

[ozm8ey]

Tis the hottest summer in something like half a century in Ireland, 3 weeks with no rain, the country was on the verge of a water crisis. It started raining on Friday though so it's all good. If it went another week it would have caused all sorts of trouble.

It's probably a freak event. If it's really global warming then I think Ireland should drop out of the Paris agreement too, this summer has been great.

Here in Australia where i live about 7 years ago we used to get a month without rain at 40-47c days for over a month. Now the it rains all the time. back 7 years ago they issued water restriction we were running out of water from the damns but now its like overflowing

 

[Durge Driven]

Solar and battery at home you can charge your car and pay your power bill, even be in credit
Good idea would be for all countries to introduce rebates for using pushbikes

My idea to fix Australia power issues would be 50+ year project and employ millions

Divert and dam water all along the Great Dividing range and pump it over and back. It would make China 3 Gorges look like a toy

Mitigate flood damage for all time
Clean power
Irrigate West of the Divide

 

[Aaron Smythe]

 

[Jugulador]

https://www.energy-uk.org.uk/energy-industry/electricity-generation.html

There is no point to ban diesel/petrol for cars and still use it to generate electricity. Actually 54.1% of Englands electricity generation is made by some kind of fuel fossil burn. And there is the efficiency of the grid (that makes some waste, no matter how god it is... and it's worst in countries with bigger territory) and the proper production and disposal of batteries.

It could be better to simply research better diesel/petrol engines and limit its displacement. Or invest on more (and better) public transportation.

 

[Nevini]

Electric cars are for the middle class, poor people use the bus... Get over it move along and for gods sake be quiet and know your place.

 

[Turk]

https://www.energy-uk.org.uk/energy-industry/electricity-generation.html

There is no point to ban diesel/petrol for cars and still use it to generate electricity. Actually 54.1% of Englands electricity generation is made by some kind of fuel fossil burn. And there is the efficiency of the grid (that makes some waste, no matter how god it is... and it's worst in countries with bigger territory) and the proper production and disposal of batteries.

It could be better to simply research better diesel/petrol engines and limit its displacement. Or invest on more (and better) public transportation.

The UK has traditionally had easy access to fossil fuels for power plants. I think most the coal is already gone but you still have gas reserves. Well, the Scottish have gas reserves and there's an outside chance the Scots could leave the UK at some point, taking their gas with them. Obviously they'd still be selling it to the UK but the cost would probably go up, especially if Scotland ended up in the EU and the rest of the UK was outside it.

The bottom line is fossil fuels won't last forever, individual consumers and nations need to find an alternative to a fuel that will only go up in price in the future.

We can either prepare for that fact or end up in an energy crisis..

The global economy can be very fragile, a celebrity has the ability to knock millions off the value of a company with a tweet, the leader of a 1st world country can send markets into free fall just by bringing up the possibility of changing the current system in any way, shape or form. As long as we're depending on that global market to fuel our economies we're at risk.

 

[Jugulador]

The UK has traditionally had easy access to fossil fuels for power plants. I think most the coal is already gone but you still have gas reserves. Well, the Scottish have gas reserves and there's an outside chance the Scots could leave the UK at some point, taking their gas with them. Obviously they'd still be selling it to the UK but the cost would probably go up, especially if Scotland ended up in the EU and the rest of the UK was outside it.

The bottom line is fossil fuels won't last forever, individual consumers and nations need to find an alternative to a fuel that will only go up in price in the future.

We can either prepare for that fact or end up in an energy crisis..

The global economy can be very fragile, a celebrity has the ability to knock millions off the value of a company with a tweet, the leader of a 1st world country can send markets into free fall just by bringing up the possibility of changing the current system in any way, shape or form. As long as we're depending on that global market to fuel our economies we're at risk.

I agree with it. But it's an economic subject, not an environmental, like it's said.

It's all about money (that is a very legit reason), but there a lot of people selling this thing like an ecologic solution. That is my problem with it... when it, ceases to be a rational political economic plan and became a positive correctness agenda... and, because of that, things aren't done properly... like it's happening here in Brazil and can happen anywhere else.

 

[Jugulador]

it is: "there are a lot of people"... not "there a lot of people"... the forum is not allowing me to edit my post.

 

[Littlefysh]

My apologies for looking like a fool, but I have looked through the document and need clarification on something. Will the policies laid out in this document mean that all ICEs will not be road legal in 2040? So, if I wanted to but a car that had an ICE and nothing else from 2004 or something, would that be made not purchasable after 2040, or even not road legal?

 

[Socky Noob]

Ugh. Can they not please? People think cars are the number one contributor to pollution when it really isn't. There's a lot of things out there that do just as much damage but you don't see people going out wanting those things banned. Modern cars have come a long way and are much less polluting than they were before the 70's oil crisis. I mean, for crying out loud, a modern V8 probably is less damaging than a 60's 4 cylinder. It's not the first world creating all these issues. Blame barbaric countries like China and India who could give zero craps about the environment. Why don't we go and protest them instead?

If you want my honest opinion on how the world should handle air pollution, it's simple. We make everything else that causes pollution (factories, power stations, etc) environmentally safe and just leave cars alone. If we could make our electricity come from renewable sources 100% and make everything else clean, there would be no reason to go after cars. We'd be putting out very little pollution at that point. Maybe we could figure out a way to substitute fossil fuels without going full electric. There has to be a form of fuel that could be readily made and burn cleanly. I don't want to live in a world with quiet and boring cars and being barred from ever driving a regular ICE car. If you want to stop crony governments and big oil companies from ruining cars, you need to use a new form of energy. You're still polluting by driving electric because it's more than likely coal energy. You've done nothing to save the environment.

 

[Sim Strata]

Won't happen...or something better than useless EVs will turn up

 

[Jugulador]

 

[Turk]

Will the policies laid out in this document mean that all ICEs will not be road legal in 2040?

That's probably unlikely, I'd say there will be a raft of exceptions. There are people still running old farm machinery displays and they have associations with historical societies, there's no way they're going to stop demonstrating that old machinery.

They will also make exceptions for all sorts of old and exotic cars because the people who own those types of cars hang out with politicians.

Ugh. Can they not please? People think cars are the number one contributor to pollution when it really isn't. There's a lot of things out there that do just as much damage but you don't see people going out wanting those things banned. Modern cars have come a long way and are much less polluting than they were before the 70's oil crisis. I mean, for crying out loud, a modern V8 probably is less damaging than a 60's 4 cylinder. It's not the first world creating all these issues. Blame barbaric countries like China and India who could give zero craps about the environment. Why don't we go and protest them instead?

What is the number one polluter if ti's not cars? And what do you mean by pollution? CO2 or other chemicals that come out of a cars tailpipe?

Natural sources of CO2 like the oceans doesn't really count. Pollution is what we add to that system.

The fact that a V8 is less damaging than a 60s 4 cylinder just goes to show what we're doing is working, but even if a modern engine pollutes 3 times less than an old engine if there's 20 times more of those engines out there it's not really reducing pollution just slowing the rate at which it increases.

If you want my honest opinion on how the world should handle air pollution, it's simple. We make everything else that causes pollution (factories, power stations, etc) environmentally safe and just leave cars alone. If we could make our electricity come from renewable sources 100% and make everything else clean, there would be no reason to go after cars.

There would unfortunately. Again the problem is the rate at which the human species is expanding and it's compounded by the rate at which poor people are becoming richer. China and India is adding middle class consumers to the economy at an alarming rate. There's nothing wrong with them improving the quality of life for their citizens but it means we need more and more energy to met those demands. So again, any gains we get from making our technology more eco friendly is dwarfed by the rate at which demand increases.

If everyone switches to automated electric cars it's a good thing for ICE enthusiasts, it gets' all those rubbish drivers from behind the wheel, it means oil lasts longer and with reduced demand becomes cheaper, it removes the requirement for owning an ICE car, so the only people who'll own them are the people who love them.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

The laws requiring cat converters ( to pick a random example ) didn't suddenly outlaw any existing vehicle - that's not how those things go. You can stop people using ICE cars en masse by simply taxing fuel, no need for draconian laws.

As for clean burning alt fuels, there are loads, they're just either difficult to produce in volume, like ethanol - emissions are water and CO2 there - or hard to handle and store like hydrogen. You can put practically anything that burns in an ICE, it and the trapped atmosphere just have to expand.

Why are we not spending large sums reforesting, there's a reasonably easy way to help reduce CO2 levels.