Much uninformed and totally wild opinions here!
This one is true -
I think that we all know that cars are only a small part of the problem yet every time the Chancellor stands up to punish diesel users he exempts buses and all other polluters too
But these are total nonsense -
Diesel drivers are likely to pay bigger repair, because of the complexity of the engine and its components compared to petrol vehicles.
Dams take two years to build, last for ever. Free rocks and materials already right there at the site. No maintenance needed.
Dams take at least ten years to build and the UK has almost no dam building know-how. The Glendoe Dam at Loch Ness was built by the German company Hochtief and has required considerable maintenance and repairs in the few years it has been there.
The UK has the highest tides in the World around the Severn Estuary. Tides are totally predicable and are as reliable as the movement of the moon.
Sea currents can supply regular power around the country, far more than windfarms and power known to the nearest 10 min after years of observations.
Actually, it is just seven minutes!
The real problem is electricity supply. What exactly is going to happen when 20m cars are put on 'charge' at 7pm? Where is all this extra electric energy going to come from? Simple arithmetic tells me that we would require three times the generation capacity and double the grid capacity. The 'National Grid' in its present structure cannot be doubled and the generation of THREE TIMES what we use today would require a new and very large nuclear power station to be built in almost every county.
Given the levels of environmental awareness (or NIMBY-ism, if you prefer) non of the above is going to happen. Nobody will want giant 400kV lines near their houses (the Beauly-Denny line was held up for years, as a result of protests) and the building of nuclear power stations takes about 25 years or more and even longer to dismantle.
Putting a giant dam across the Severn Estuary could provide the South of England with much power, but would cause howls of anguish from all sides and take about 25 years to build.
Given all the above, the wholesale move to electric cars cannot happen. Even if the load, poor efficiency rates and weight and size problems are solved, we cannot access the electricity.
And before anybody starts shouting about hybrids, they use the same amount of fuel as regular cars. For example, the popular Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV claims some bonkers 150+ mpg, but the reality is (Emission Analytics figures for 2015+ models) 46mpg. That's a good figure for a Diesel SUV, but hardly groundbreaking - many Diesel-only SUVs use less!
It's time we got real and started facing facts. There is no magic solution. Not electric. Hydrogen is still a few decades away.
We have been sleep-walking into this problem for decades, caused almost entirely by idiot politicians refusing to see past their noses and the next election. The real problem is the massive pollution in cities. I don't live in a city - but those of you who do, will be choking to death on fumes from cars, trucks, busses, coal-fired power stations and trains.
Our dirty trucks and busses cannot be sold off cheaply to Eastern Europe, as the steering wheel is on the wrong side and the government is refusing to grasp the nettle of forcing the issue.
In the Winter of 1952-3 I experienced the Great London Smog in which 1,000 tonnes of smoke particles, 140 tonnes of hydrochloric acid, 14 tonnes of fluorine compounds, and 800 tonnes of sulphuric acid were poured into the London air EVERY DAY!
Today, the pollutants are just as dangerous, but less visible - Enjoy!!!
