Volt heads can rev up, as I’ve test-driven the future

Rationalist says:

07:53am | 10/08/09

Goddamn hippies and their bizarre ways.

Eric says:

08:32am | 10/08/09

Of course, electric cars still need to burn coal or oil to provide the electricity.

But that can be fixed by building nuclear power stations. We have one third of the world’s uranium, and we ought to use it.

watty says:

10:14am | 10/08/09

Instead of being bored reading about coal you should have had a real good belly laugh at the outlandish claims being made by the windpower and solar Mafia.

When Pickens cancels 650 windmills on order from GE you know the rot is setting in

Bill says:

10:33am | 10/08/09

So in summary,

You inspire to own a Tesla because of it performance, with out admitting it would be run on brown coal from the lazy whiny coal industry, or making the mental effort to ascertain if using electricity is in fact more carbon intensive once you factor in generation efficient, transmission losses and the charging efficiency of the car and compare that to a efficient diesel..
Your not too excited about a Pruis, perhaps because of the “minute to get to 40km/hr” performance but are amused by the gimmick of heads up display and the solar extraction fan, just like the solar powered ones you could buy in the 80s to close into you window and keep the car cool
You plan one day to take public transport and will walk if you can make it convenient, perhaps by scheduling meetings so others have to travel to near your self.
Being that you’re an environmental activist it would appear that the activist part means preaching to other to make the very sacrifice that is too inconvenient to make yourself but feel better by slanging off “whinny lazy coal industry” that make you life so comfortable

Zeta says:

11:15am | 10/08/09

Peak Oil. What a joke. While these Al Gore loving hipsters are busy test driving solar powered scooters to make it easier to drive to the organic supermarket once the oil cataclysm happens, shouldn’t we be looking at ways to get more oil? Surely Earth isn’t the only planet with oodles of the black gold under the ground, let’s start blowing up other planets and hoovering their resources into giant space vacuums for consumption by Joe and Jane Mundane in their Castle Hill McMansions. It will create jobs too. And insure that our lifestyle, founded on the massive consumption of goods and services is not threatened by terrorists or environmentalists ever again. Also, what about all those countries full of hippies that have never bothered to pull their oil out of the ground? Countries that no one would ever miss, like New Zealand. Or Tibet. Or Victoria. Since Rudd has pulled out brave superhuman warriors out of Iraq, couldn’t we send them to a new country full of oil? Think outside the box people.

Pete davies says:

12:18pm | 10/08/09

@eric @watty We have tons of coal, wind, solar and natural gas, biofuels - why do you nuclear robots always say NUCLEAR or bag natural sources? We’ve spent decades propping up the coal industry with subsidies,extra taxes -why should we have to fund nuclear on top of that? I lived on solar and wind power on the Central Coast of NSW for 12 years (with a gennie for emergency backup)  and a gas powered car - why do YOU need nuclear Mr Energy Hogs - what are running in your McMansions? (You live in one of the most energy abundant countries in the world dufus!)

ANDIKA says:

12:24pm | 10/08/09

Dan, If Captain Planet had a car, it wouldn’t be that ugly looking Toyota Prius – he’s have more style and at least own a Tesla. Toyota can design nice looking cars, just look back at the Supra and the MR2 but they chose a real crap design for the Prius – probably because their focus groups told them that the wankers who buy Prius’ want to show off. Pity the Tesla costs a lot and takes about 16 hours between charges (see TopGear segment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUw43oC2A34). Sure the power is cheap but where do we get the power from – Coal powered so it’s not that environmentally good is it? Not to mention all those Lithium batteries which are heavy and cost a bit to make.
Problem is pure electric cars are already redundant thanks to the real future of cars – Hydrogen /Electric such as the HONDA Clarity. Again, see the TopGear segment about the Honda Clarity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffRagsjSpkE
Pure Electric is like VHS and Hydrogen/Electric is BLURAY. Honda and Mercedes Benz are spending billions on Hydrogen/Electric tech and in time, the existing petrol stations can be retro-fitted into Hydrogen stations.
As for the Peak Oil theory, this gets recycled every four or so years. So your guess is as good as mine when the Oil will run out but I wouldn’t bet the house on it happening anytime soon.
I also had to laugh out loud when I read you own a Toyota Echo – give me a break – what a Wimp! No man ever admits to owning a car like that! And you intend to replace it with public transport? Are you kidding? You must have plenty of time on your hands if that’s how you plan to get around via public transport.
If you were really fair dinkum, people like you should have been lobbing the GOV to also introduce a ‘clunker’ scheme here just like the US. At the very least, getting old Junkers’ off the road and replaced with modern efficient cars is a sensible thing to do. May be you’d not be the only bloke to own a girly Echo!

Shinsengumi says:

12:46pm | 10/08/09

Pete Davies:  It is true, and there is a place for all types of energy sources.  However, you may find (just as my old man, an Environmental Scientist who advised the Minister for the Environment for a few years) that the energy required to produce and ship the wind + solar devices is not recovered during the average lifetime of the device.  However, those devices still have their place and application, and in areas where wind + solar are abundant, why not?  Decentralised & self-reliant power production is only sensible.

Nuclear power is the cleanest form of bulk energy generation by a large margin.  It produces more energy for the least environmental impact.  If we are ever to get off carbon-based energy, we need huge amounts of cheap electricity, everywhere.  There is no other choice.  The only way huge amounts of cheap electricity can be produced is via nuclear.

And before you start bleating about Chernobyl, nuclear technology today is so far advanced I doubt you could fathom it.  As for the Simpson-esque ‘green goo radioactive waste’ furphy, if you were to couple re-processing facilities onto every reactor, you could re-use your fuel rods over and over until you ended up with radioactively inert metals (lead, etc) and a handful (literally several hundred grams of white rocks) of radioactively poisonous waste.  All this without the fissile material ever leaving the confines of the facility.  The end result of proper reprocessing of the spent nuclear fuel would be a few hundred grams of radioactive waste with a very short half-life (days to a few months, at best years).  It can be packed in syncrete and dumped into a volcano or deep ocean trench (eg Mariana), where the Earths’ crust folds back into the molten core of the earth (1000-2000 years) well before the syncrete breaks open or decays.  (trivia:  Roman concrete has lasted in the elements for over 2000 years; modern syncrete mixtures have a potential life of 10,000 years)

A very clever scientist had the idea of putting a few nuclear reactors in the Northern Territory to harvest monsoon rains, pump the water over the mountains into Hydro-electric facilities which would feed the Murray Darling, bringing new life to drought-stricken Australia.  This is the kind of thinking Australia needs for the future, as our populations head for the 50 million mark.

J-banger says:

01:33pm | 10/08/09

Captain Planet flies

watty says:

02:04pm | 10/08/09

Hi Pete .Dufus No.2 here.

You really should get your facts straight before you launch into an attack on those who support nuclear energy as PART of our electricity supply.

I think you will find that coal royalties to State Governments help tokeep the budget from disappearing up it’s own rectum.

Perhaps a touch of envy about the McMansions (which I dislike for a different reason)

Onya for living with solar and windpower (with backup gennie) for 12 years.What do you use now?

Not going to enter the old and tired argument about coal being subsidised or subsidising.

Enough to say cities and towns like Newcastle Cessnock Maitland wouldn’t even exist if not for coal.

M says:

02:23pm | 10/08/09

Pete sounds like a dinosaur.

rufus dufus says:

03:36pm | 10/08/09

I think Pete’s right. The supporters of nuclear energy often deride renewable energy on cost grounds, yet ask them to provide a full cost of providing nuclear energy and some important things mysteriously disappear from the balance sheet. I reckon baseline grid consumers would be paying, big time, for the introduction and operation of nuclear energy. The main argument for nuclear energy in Australia always comes back to the availability of uranium. I don’t think that’s a deciding factor. if it were, then we also have plenty of sunshine, tidal water and wind.

Dan Cass says:

06:01pm | 10/08/09

Pete and rufus dufus you are spot on. It is quite possible the new energy economy will be economically superior in the long run. 

And yes it is good that Obama has extended the cash for clunkers programme - http://bit.ly/HSQnO. Note that of the top ten sales in the programme, Prius ranks 4th and has the best mileage. http://bit.ly/HgdFC

Zeta, Bill, Eric, Rationalist, watty etc - have you noticed that in the old days you types were jovial about green things but now that you are being proved wrong again and again, your sense of humour has become rather endangered?

Seriously fellas, the Captain Planet video is funny - lighten up. If you insist on being dinosaurs, at least enjoy it!        http://bit.ly/HLou3

PS Any pro-nuclear complainers can get solace from conservative American extremists (http://bit.ly/xZEzA) who are also outraged that Obama is closing the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository, seemingly marking the beginning of the end of the nuclear industry

pete davies says:

06:27pm | 10/08/09

@watty @shinsengumi 1. You bleat on about how safe nuclear is yet no insurance company will touch a reactor. Do they know something you faith based Nuclear parrots don’t? Hell yeah!  Who has to take the risk and cover up any cleanup costs?  Yep the sucker taxpayers. Great profit model - all profit, no risk 2. And Bollocks to the power used in manufacture and shipping of solar and wind equipment, outweighs what the units produce in electricity. You made that up. I got 12 years easy , worth of an low to mediums households power requirements out of my setup.

Eric says:

06:28pm | 10/08/09

Pete is obviously a bit out of touch. And Dan Cass too.

Interesting how these anti-carbon zealots also want to condemn the best source of greenhouse-clean energy. I think they’re driven by superstition rather than logic.

Back to the 14th century for you guys—the rest of us will go on to the future.

Dan Cass says:

08:20pm | 10/08/09

Pete, stay out of touch with this blast from the Bush past:
‘Liberal scientists and godless tax-raisers are trying to make me look bad by using such things as facts…’
http://bit.ly/9C3En

Kevin Murray says:

10:38am | 11/08/09

Time to start an alternative Formula One based on green machines. They can be judged not only on how fast they go but how little fuel they use at the same time. Just have to work on how to make the hybrid cars noisier and smellier.

Pete Davies says:

02:59pm | 12/08/09

@dan @eric Conveniently sidestepping the insurance question hey dudes? The insurance industry is a sharp, profitable 21st century business that knows how to make money out of hedging risks and when to bet on risks. Repeat: They won’t touch nuclear. Checkmate dinosaurs!

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ClubPenguinCheats says:

11:41am | 23/04/10

But that can be fixed by building nuclear power stations. We have one third of the world’s uranium, and we ought to use it.
club penguin cheats

Christina says:

06:55pm | 02/08/10

Might electronic cars also need to burn coal or oil to provide better electricity.. online degree

LC says:

05:17pm | 25/04/11

I’ll drive electric cars/hybrids, when they start making electric cars/hybrids which are affordable and enjoyable to drive.