It’s been over a month since my last I made my last blog post from Italy. Since coming back it’s taken a while to get used to the shock of going back to work.
Anyway, onto topic.
I’ve been thinking a lot about climate change because while I was in Italy it was unseasonably warm, there was very little snow in the mountains in Europe. There has been a general increase in concern about the environment & energy in parliament and then there’s the hype around global warming.
This got me thinking about electric cars, because many point the finger at petrol/diesel cars as being major polluters. And in some ways rightly so.
As a chemist by degree I know a lot about the nasty stuff that cars produce, and as a car driver I know why I think I need one.
First off lets take a few steps backwards and looks at the Greenhouse Effect:
The main greenhouse gas which we can control is Carbon Dioxide
However, I find that a lot of people don’t really know what it’s all about – in fact many intelligent people don’t know the difference between The Greenhouse Effect and Ozone Layer Depletion
Ozone Layer Depletion is entirely caused by humans by the use of fridges and aerosols which give off CFCs and others. It was particularly prevalent in the 70s-90s, but changes in coolants used mean that the ozone layer hole is no longer increasing and is actually healing itself back ie the hole is shrinking.
The Greenhouse effect occurs naturally without human intervention, but has been exaggerated by humans burning fossil fuels (coal, wood, petrol, gas etc.) producing Carbon Dioxide. This causes the planet to warm up rapidly over a period of time.
Note, there are other greenhouse gases but they are largely not human caused so largely out of our control.
Back to what I was trying to talk about
Electric Cars
Now, my normal comment on electric cars is that it’s just distributing the pollution elsewhere as in most countries the electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal etc.).
However, when I did a bit of research it appears that electric cars are significantly more efficient according to the stats than their petrol counterparts. On top of that, it’s said that it’s easier to maximise the efficiency of a power station than an internal combustion engine in a petrol car.
However, I’m still not convinced that:
a) The calculations are accurate
b) That all the inefficiencies are being taken into account
On my way back from italy I started planning on doing some real life calculations on how efficient electric cars are based on how much energy they really consume from the point of burning the fossil fuels vs petrol cars. I will need to either get some of the data online or find someone who owns an electric car to make it a reality. Should make for an interesting comparison, and either way I think it will be surprising to me.
interseting read, and if the goverments etc get off their backsides and make greener power top of the agender, and in some cases maybe rule that a hydro station WILL be built there, or a wind farm WILL go there, or sorry sufers but we think greener power is far more important than the size of the waves ( i know surfing is fun, but surley if these devices are that good, and they are gonna save the planet ……. )
Here in Devon, there have been a number of places marked for windfarms , and then people stand up and say NO NOT HERE!! ….. 😀
Thanks Adrian
My post was sparked largely from watching a parliament debate where most politicians didn’t know what they were talking about and a radio 4 programme which was looking ahead at 2007 what we would expect. They largely did know what they were talking about in terms of the environment but I wasn’t convinced that the solutions offered will produce the required results.
I can fully appreciate that wind farms make one heck of a lot of noise, and now they’re saying that they’re so inefficient that the maintenance cost & pollution produced servicing them means we might as well not bother with them.
I hope they’re wrong – and in some respects I hope I’m wrong with electric cars. I’d gladly charge my car up from home and think that an electric car would be perfect for me. I drive less than 20 miles a day to and from work, and a few miles at weekends & evenings. There’s the occasional motorway trip (eg. I’m driving to the south coast in Feb) other than that I largely travel by public transport.
If I get the time to calculate E Vehicle consumption things you’ll hear it here first
BTW adrian I got an email saying you requested your password – i take it that’s all sorted. I just haven’t seen it here before
Also, just FYI I turned off the requirement that you need to be a member to post comments a couple of months ago as I have enough anti spam protection and i thought i might be discouraging real comments from visitors who don’t want to register. I haven’t had any real guests yet, but that may change!
Happy birthday, stony! So you’re an Aquarian?
I watched An Inconvient Truth the other night. It really does make some very good points, and I would recommend watching it. Now we just need the government here to back it up, and push the automotive industry to get off their asses.
I want to see that film – just haven’t gotten around to watching it yet. Have seen quite a lot of stuff about it and the footage in his presentations looks amazing.
It’s incredible that so many people still refuse to believe that the greenhouse effect is some form of black magic conjured up by evil scientists (or something like that)
Oh, and thanks MHC – have been really sluggish with my blog of late. Should be able to catch up this weekend