More importantly, choice. You can today in many countries buy electricity from a variety of suppliers, including niche suppliers. Gas stations are mostly in the hands of a small number of big boys who cultivate a cartelesque understanding of competition. The niche and small suppliers are effectively being kept outside.

Back to Global Warming

Iceland has had a warm February. It was recently 10.2 deg C.

That is 0.1 deg C warmer than in 1835 and 1942, so no big changes there,

http://www.newsoficeland.com/home/en...y-in-reykjavik

About "how long do these modern vehicles maintain that level of efficiency and low emissions" - basically a lifetime - the emissions are measured & controlled by computer - if the level of efficiency and low emissions changes then a little light comes on telling the driver to get it fixed. Now in Switzerland it is an offence to ignore this little light.

About "Or at a street side terminal much like a parking meter" I agree but this means ripping up all the pavements worldwide where people park to install metered electricity outlets & their infrastructure. Not a difficult problem to solve but does not sound like an exercise that is good for the environment & who will pay for this work? - eventually the motorist.

About "The new Tesla Model S motor has outperformed the BMW M5 in a drag race" I know but what has this to do with efficient use of the energy source?

Finally as I asked before "Where will all this additional electricity come from?". UK & Germany are already talking about possible power cuts due to the various restrictions on power production. Are you proposing we build a lot more fossil fuel or nuclear power stations?
It is commonly quoted that motor vehicles use about 260 billion US gallons per year of petrol & diesel. One US gallon is roughly equivalent to 36KW/h. I suppose you could say that the electric vehicles are more efficient than the internal combustion ones so you need less electricity than a straight equivalent of 260Bn gallons. On the other hand you get transmission losses with electricity which will be amplified if you start shipping electricity to every steet parking place? Either way the amount of extra electricty needed is mind boggling!

Much the same sort of argument was heard when it was first predicted that every household would have internet access involving higher speeds than a 56kb/s phone modem. That would involve digging up streets, laying cables and spending a lot of money. Eventually, it all happened, and few people would wish to go back to how things were before. Of course it didn't happen overnight and there were early adopters and midstream adopters and stragglers and sceptics and luddites. It will probably be the same with electric cars.

This is probably the biggest problem here, and one where planners are not being entirely honest. More demand for electricity will drive up prices because electricity production will not be able to keep up, even in an optimistic scenario. That's why you're being pressurised by government into installing new fangled light bulbs and other power saving devices into your home. You need to reduce your consumption so that there will be power for cars, and as a thank you they're going to hike the prices.

The problem is that if you decide not to take part and stick with your old fashioned light bulbs and seek to live in your own bubble, its not going to work, because the price hike is going to hit you anyway.

But how long is the lifetime of these cars? Having to get the car fixed is a huge maintenance expense, and largely for this reason even modern cars have a very limited lifetime. And even with 'low' emissions from a modern car, there are still plenty of fumes coming out of those tailpipes. The amount of energy needed to manufacture new cars is huge as well, and therefore we would be much better off if we could make cars that are functional for 3,4, 5, 10 times as long. Add to that the public health savings from not having to breath the exhaust in urbanized areas.
The infrastructure costs would be (at least partially)offset by the fuel and maintenance savings...We'd never have to take the electric cars to the garage to pay for the emissions test to begin with, for example. And even with 'low' emissions from a modern car, there are still plenty of fumes coming out of those tailpipes.
Im just saying that electric motors can operate efficiently and without the performance loss that many perceive.
No, rather that we swap out millions of miniature power stations (internal combustion automobiles) for far fewer centralized stations.
There would be transmission losses on one hand, but never having to go to a gas station on the other(another savings). With either system, the amount of power needed to meet rising global energy demands is mind boggling, agreed.
I have a love/hate relationship with cars. I have worked as a mechanic off and on for the last 10 years.. My largest possession(sitting in a garage back in the states) is a 1941 Mercury 4 dr. Town Sedan, purchased 20 years ago and carefully and lovingly dismantled and restored with my own hands. I would love to be able to drive it around, but it's so irresponsible to do these days that it'll never make it out of the garage very often. I'm now waiting for the development of electric conversion kits (though i'm pessimistic that it'd ever be easy to efficiently power such a huge hulk of steel)...

I'm going to invent a battery which works by burning oil. There's loads of that.

While approx. 2/3 of electricity is produced by fossil fuels anyway.

Higher prices!
@22rp per Kwh we are already looking at circa 8CHF per US gallon; say 2CHF per litre.....
& that is before the Swiss Govt want to recover their lost fuel tax revenue by adding 150% tax?

As finite supply will never keep up with exponentially increasing demand, the prices are going to increase no matter what we do.

About "We'd never have to take the electric cars to the garage to pay for the emissions test to begin with" -most countries including CH have dropped the requirement for these tests.

Even so, the exhaust still come from the tailpipes. Many countries have never required an emissions test at all, including parts of the US...

And seeing you cannot differentiate between electricity used to charge the car and the rest of electricity, that price hike is going to hit all consumption.

Power stations are much more efficient at turning fossil fuels into energy.

Solar would be the obvious choice.

Temperatures *have* risen. Just not *as fast*.

Your premise is broken.

Say, at least as long as the trend in rising temperatures - a century or two, perhaps ?

Not when you consider the land ice, and thus the overall ice volume, is decreasing.

Ah, yes. Climate change is just a great big conspiracy that's been around for fifty-odd years (at least) that the vast majority of the world's scientists have subscribed to.

There is very little in the science that is either a) disputable, or b) disputed.

This is a straw man argument.

As is this.

Not so far as I know.

You don't know anything about my "core philosophy".

Hypocrite.

I don't recall ever having "apologised" for the "Environmental Movement" (whatever you might believe that to be).

Sure. It's the same list of rubbished "research" that denialists parrot all the time.

They don't even need to be centralised (and, indeed, shouldn't be). Solar power will play a HUGE part in the decentralisation and democratisation of power generation for non-industrial use.

Really ? How much power does the original engine produce ? I bet it would have struggled to hit a triple-digit-horsepower rating.

Sure you can. Same principle as "off peak" power.

Which, obviously, will never change.

In actual reality, rather than alarmist-world, cars like the Nissan Leaf have 24kWh batteries that will comfortably travel 100-150km in normal usage.

So even if you were doing an American-esque ~25,000km/yr, annual electricity cost (@ CHF0.22/kWh) will be in the CHF900 - 1300 ballpark.

In comparison, a Golf with a 2L diesel engine (~3.75L/100km) and ca. CHF1.65/L diesel fuel, will cost you about CHF1500/yr in fuel.