mercuryg

These teenagers - how old are they? No offence, but why pay KFC or McD's absurdly high prices when you can buy half a chicken in Tesco's for much, much less? I'm sure the cafe on the market place - Munchie's or whatever its called - willingly serves teens...

It's a trait of mine; left hand gets to teh (sic) e before right gets to the h.

Don;t think i haven;t suggested it - I want the little blighters out of my way!

I stand corrected; I had read recently that Ford was to abandon the hydrogen cell programme in favour of more viable alternative methods - I must have been dreaming. The greenhouse gases point is an entirely different one. If we want to go down that route we can turn back the clock and start again, but this discussion is about electric cars and their viability. I didn;t say it was defeatist; I said stating that there is no viable storage facility for electricity - and none on the horizon - was no more defeatist than stating that oil will one day run out. Both are facts. Tesla make very few, very expensive electric cars that are no more efficient and no more advanced than the mst advanced internal combustion engined car, which brings us full circle to where we began. Your method of discussion seems to be to attempt to 'score points'; I'm not interested in that, but in putting forward what I hav learned from my work in the field. You have chosen to ignore the clear and basic facts that mining for lithium and barium is just as destructive to the environment as non-efficient internal combustion engines are, yet these are basic facts that are part and parcel of teh problem for such materials are necessary parts of the battery construction and will remain so for the foreseeable future. You choose to ignore the fact that we cannot, at present, possibly create enough electricity to charge a nation full of electric cars - neither can many other countries - by renenewable sources, and will not be able to do so for a very long time as putting the infrastructure in place - shoudl it be made to work - will take a long, long time. You choose to ignore that in 100 years of research and development on electric motor cars we are little further forward than we were before, and you choose to ignore that very soon the internal combustion engine, running on synthesized petrol, will be a highly efficient low pollution device that is the acknowledged immediate future of the vehicle (immediate being several decades, not several years.) Why? had you come forward with a case that said 'these guys have developed a super efficient, cheap, battery that is safe and lasts ages, doesn't need recharging, is lightweight and ccreates no pollution without destroying the habitat surrounding the mining of the materials that it requires; I would hold my hand up and say 'hey, that's the future'. You haben't, you've simply reiterated time and time again that the electric car is great and so on. It's not, not yet, and not in teh near future, and this is something - i repeat - that we need to come to terms with. Back in the 1950's Rover experimented with alternative methods of powering cars; they produced a gas turbine car that was revolutionary and very impressive for the time. problem was the immense heat created by it would melt the garage before it emerged. Similar problems, although not as dramatic, attend every single revolutionary new method of powering cars, except the internal combustion engine. This is why the motor industry is spending hundreds of billions developing the next generation, and why electric cars will remain a sideline. It's a fact, and it's not going to change. back to an earlier point you made, perhaps we should all revert to the horse and cart.

Dragged away in the dead of night by Mrs and Mr Vic and fed to the dogs, that's what. Quite right, too. A good deterrent. i mean, how dare anyone voice a dissenting opinion! I like this site for its wide ranging views: Monsta with simple and straight to the point claims, Darn with idealistic romantic visions, Malcolm with an educated view that we should all take more notice of and the G's with their brand of well read opinionism. And me, with a load of nonsense. It works.

I think it's already happened, Malcolm. A few years back I got into a discussion about the Tesco store and was shot down in flames as I seemed alone in proposing that it was, in fact, the worst thing that could happen to the town. Bedlington has no through traffic, and tesco in the market place will never have enough 'draw' to justify its existence in teh long run. tesco opens and closes stores at will - it can afford to - and I remain convinced that the proposed development of the adjacent building will never happen, and that the store itself has a short life ahead of it. people were adamant that I 'didn't understand women' (something I found quite insulting to women) as they would 'flock' to this new store for the sheer excitement of shopping somewhere new. Replying that this was, in absolutel essence, utter b*llocks I was laughed at and told I would be proved wrong. I haven't been proved wrong - where is the megastore selling white goods and so on? Who the hell is going to go out of their way to come to bedlington to buy a fridge freezer? The smaller shops have already been driven away, the presence of tesco can't even justify the presence of one of the countries major banks - wake up bedlington, tesco will be gone by 2012.

Apparently the problem lies not within the school grounds but in teh mains outside, and the work involved in finding and rectifying the problem may be extensive.

No they don't, and neither do they have a hydrogen programme at the moment. Honda has a Hydrogen fuel cell car on the market right now as a trial. Spyker is a surprisingly forward thinking company that has a very high tech research unit. Barium is not a safe material. It's recovery is just as damaging to the environment as that of Lithium. It's not defeatist at all Monsta, no more so than declaring we'll run out of oil in XYZ years. It's fact. They're in development, not in general use. Narec is a stunning example, an excellent research centre that is at the forefront of research and one that we should be proud of. It's a research cedntre, however, and one that is bringing new ideas to the market. Ideas are all very well, but the simple fact remains that in over a hundred years of tryin we have still to come up with a method of storing electricity in a manner that will enable us to run cars efficiently. Darn's constant assertion that its all about money has some bearing - everything needs money - but there is more to it than that. We need to face facts - batteries are not efficient at the moment; they may become so in the future, but when? Not in ten years, not in twenty, not unless something absolutely radical comes to fore, and that hasn't happened in a hundred years - why now? This 'radical change is needed' is th problem: we see it, also, with the current hot air meeting in Copenhagen that is discussing a premise known to be scientifically flawed, we see it with many areas of industry that are politically charged. We're destroying this planet: yes, we are, we live on it, that's why. We reap its minerals (like lithium and barium and oil and coal) to a degree that leaves it damaged beyond repair - and for what? for our convenience. The answer lies, if there is one, in changing the way we view transport; we don't all need a car, but we do need to get from A to B. For now, the car remains, and it will do so - for our lifetime - as primarily a combustion engined device that is much, much more efficient than any electric version can be.

I don't claim to be an expert, but a coupel of years bacck I had the great privelege of researching and writing a piece on the future of electric vehicles for inclusion in the publicity material for the Spyker car company and F1 team ( I was, for a short period, their UK press officer.) It involved talking to the CEO - Muller - and a number of his engineers about future engine technology, and about the pros and cons of battery technology over the IC engine. To a man, while each engineer harboured a desire to seek the future of efficient battery technology, they all agreed that the immediate - foreseeable - future for everyday, mass produced cars (and supercars) lay in the super efficient internal combustion engine that is to be seen on teh market within the next few years. This wasn;t because of the pressure of teh oil companies, or because of a fear of change (indeed, Spyker had a hydrogen fuel cell prototype running at teh time - not sure if they still do) but because all research shows that it is the way forward. The technology you mention above is, quite clearly from that article, very much in its infancy; as a writer and journalist i can see the trepidation and concern between each line. What's more, the technology relies on something even more worrying than Lithium - Barium! Bloody hell that's dangerous stuff! This is the problem - each and every way of harnessing electric power for vehicles that are not connected to a direct supply is faced with one problem: storage. This isn't a myth, and it isn't something that can be overcome in a short time - it's a fact. It always has been, ever since that record breaking run a century ago. We are still, one hundred and more years later, facing immeasurable problems with storing electricity efficiently in a manner that is necessary to adequately power personal motor vehicles. Furthermore, super efficient barium batteries or not, we are faced with another problem: generating enough to charge them all, all the time, every night. It is simply not possible - not now, and not within the next twenty, thirty years. I'm not saying the electric car is not a viable proposition for future generations of drivers - it is; but that's in the future - a long way in the future, well beyond our lifetime. Should we cease development? no, of course not, we should keep at it, and hard. But we have to accept that, if we want to own cars and drive them at will, we need to focus on making the current method more efficient, more viable. We need to take what we have and make it better, and that is what is happening. It's no myth, Monsta - 'unlimited' electricity is a thing of pure science fiction. Why aren't we all utilising the sun, the wind, the waves? It's simple - because we can't, because we cannot get enough that way.Perhaps the answer lies in us revising how we live (I don't drive a car - i'd love to, but I don;t need one at the moment; how many others could live like me but choose not to?) but at the moment it doesn't lie in electric cars.

Some of the synthesized petrols are made from a concentrated method of distilling oil. Others are being developed that are chemically created in laboratories. No, they are not unlimited, and neither are the substances that we need to make batteries. Over half of the Lithium deposits known to exist are in a particular part of Bolivia. this area has now been ripped to shreds to the poin that no life can exist there, the local infrastructure is ireeversibly poisoned, and so on. The concept of 'unlimited' electricity is a myth; renewable energy sources exist, but we are a long, long way from developing methods of creating enough via these sources to power our country (and others) let alone our cars.

Those bio fuels are not what i'm talking about, and are another red herring. I'm talking about synthesised petrol, which can be made in different ways. One is by a form of effectively concentrating the amount of oil needed to make the fuel, thus reducing vastly the amount of oil needed to create petrol and the rest are pure, synthetic, fuels using other basic ingredients. Furthermore, your picture of the orang utan is great and has a point (albeit one that missed the target) but have you seen the damage to the environment the extraction of Lithium (which, incidentally, will also run out - like oil - what then?) causes? It creates deserts where there were non before, making the environment devoid of life, it's just as destructive. Why haven't you highlighted that? Why has that escaped your comments? I'm not having a go at you - far from it, it's a viable and interesting discussion - but to throw up the plight of the orang utan and miss the fact that the mining of a substance essentual to th viable future of the electric car poses one of teh greates ecological rapes this planet has seen is somewhat curious. e

They are. their uncles aren't.

I wouldn't hesitate to agree that battery technology has advanced greatly in recent years, and will continue to do so, but we're talking about batteries to power personal road vehicles for everyday use, all the time, by the vast majority of the population. Electric cars didn't stall because people were only interested in the alternative, but because the alternative was - and still is - vastly superior in every way, shape and form. The idea o cars fitted with solar panels has been tried - it doesn't work. Fitting windmills is a classic idea - but how do you then incorporate the extra weight and gubbins that come with the charging devices? Has it occured to you - and I mean anyone touting the electric car as the future - that these ideas have all been broached by some very bright and forward thinking people, over a great deal of time? There is an inherent problem in political thinking that seems to think radical change is the answer to roblems such as this; why not concentrate on what we have - the increasingly efficient (and with the technology upcoming ever more so efficient) internal combustion engine but using synthetic fuels? most everyday cars now run with synthetic oil as a lubricant and, as I've said, synthetic fuels are well on the way to being readily available. If the alternative is to change the entire fuelling infrastructure of our cars to accomodate electronic charging points and/or Mr darn's battery exchange stations, what's th point in spending all that extra when we can simply switch fossil fuel for a synthesised variety? It makes no sense.

It's a lovely idea, and one that would make things much more viable, but still doesn't get away from the fact that simply 'dropping a battery in place' is a far cry from what is needed. Have you any idea how many batteries these things actually use? There is some truth in this, but when taken in the context of the 100 years it doesn't add up. Granted, these days the fuel companies have a stranglehold - but the reason is more that they have something essential, not that they are stifling the development of alternative fuels. When Jenatzy made his breakthrough in 1899 there were no major fuel companies with their hands around the necks of alternative fuel proponents. If you take that further, the power that the fuel comapnies now hold over us did not manifest in any serious way until the middle of the 1960's. Despite people's ignorance to the matter the electric car has been a subject of great interest for all of that time, and was particularly during the period 1930 to 1950 when serious problems with accessibility to fossil fuels were very real indeed. Some of the technological advances that took place in that time (particularly during the war years) were quite astonishing and developed much, much faster than they should have. The electric car, or electric propulsion systems in general got where? Nowhere. There ar many reasons, not least the inherent reliability on inefficient, expensive and difficult to store battery dependant electricity. Shot yourself in the foot a bit there, mate; the ban on smoking in pubs has resulted in a colossal reduction in tobacco sales. That's a different matter, though.

A good point, but one that needs greater scrutiny. Transporting electricity across the grid is not efficient at all, and never will be. A great proportion of it gets 'lost' along the way. As a demonstration, build yourself a massive scalextric set or electric railway, and you will need to boost the power at various points around the circuit as it does not travel well. The same happens with power lines - it dissipates with distance. This is a point that will always be with us, however, for we no other methods of transporting electricity - bar batteries, which have the same problem and more! The idea for more 'advanced' power generation techniques is great, but what are they, where are they, and what do they cost?

I wouldn't be telling Mrs Vic to Get Them Off; she probably will.

You are joking? You don't have to buy floor mats; you need the charger. Come on, get sensible mate! But you ARE being stung for a new battery every 50,000 miles (probably less.) That is the biggest cop out i've ever read. How can you say that how the the power is generated is 'another conversation'? It's not! It's an integral part of the problem. Far from being 'non polluting' electric cars use 1)batteries that contain very dangerous pollutants and 2) need electricity, which needs to be generated, and which cannot be entirely generated by non-polluting means. Far from being very efficient, it's not efficient at all - what it needs to achieve its prupose is far in excess of even a standard internal combustion engine, never mind an advanced one: even the industry acknowledge this. This is getting a bit boring with just you and me batting things around, and I wish others would pitch in because it's an important argument; we DO need to look at the future, but we need to recognise when something is not the answer and stop pursuing expensive dead ends. Electric, battery powered cars are very much a dead end, which is why - despite a hundred years of development - they have got absolutely nowhere. Here's a clue; the first car to pass 100kmh was driven by a pioneer of motoring, Camille Jenatzy, in 1899. That's 110 years ago. It was electric, for back then even the great minds were looking for ways to superceded the internal combustion engine. he did 65 mph and took the then world land speed record. 110 years ago, and where has the electric car gone since then? Into oblivion, that's where. What needs to be looked at, as has already been said, is the advancement of synthetic fuels for IC engines (these exist already in basic forms) for these WILL be non polluting, and willenhance the efficiency of the already efficient IC engine. There are enough problems with generating sufficient electricity worldwide without having to tax ourselves by adding tens of millions of motor vehicles to the list! It's a non starter.

And you ask me if i'm for real? beyond reading about the Tesla and ogling over its admittedly great looks, have you actually considered the implications of running an electric car? You full charge on $5 is at US electricty prices; given the average day/night kw/h price over there is currently around 8.5c, and ours is around 11p, you can see where the problems set in. Furthemore, you clearly haven't got much idea about the battery situation. Very few electric cars come complete with batteries because they are very, very expensive: instead the norm is to lease them. You pay for them, in other words, on a monthly basis. This costs anywhere between £60 and £100 (or more, depending on your vehicle, considerably more in the case of the Tesla!) per month. That's a minimum of £700 quid a year. Given that the saving on fuel costs alone - at current US rates, not UK - is estimated at around £800, the chances are your electric car is going to cost more, not get you as far, and be more expensive to purchase than its equivalent in the first place. In addition, your 230 (miles or kilometres?) is at an optimum speed, just as mpg figures are quoted as an average. In addition, if you want a fast charging point - not everybody, after all, can get all their journeys in in one go - it will cost you at the bare minimum £2000; for the three and a half hour quoted charging time for the Tesla it's at least three times that. The conversation we are having here simply highlights how little the genral populace know about electric cars; you accused me of towing the oil compaines line (then later informed me BP are pessimistic about its future) while blindly take in all teh information about running costs and efficiency of electric cars without questions? They're not efficient, they are not 'non polluting', thy are not cheap. Electricity, in its current battery form, is a blind alley; if you want to look to the future try investigating the hydrogen fuel cell method, but even that is littered with major problems. For the meant8ime, we're stuck with the ICE, and making it as efficient as possible is the way forward for now.

This I agree with, and sorry I seemed to skirt around your point earlier. i won't name my business advisor for that would be unfair - he has been absolutely excellent in the help he has given me and so on - but he was, quite clearly, a man from the 'old school'. No disrespect to him for that, for it's to be expected to an extent, but his job involves talking to schoolkids and such about going into business, and the intention is to inspire youngsters to look at alternative employemnt -self employment -in the future. he fully admitted to me that he had absolutely no idea what I was on about when I went to him with my proposal; the internet, and it's commercial power, had clearly not permeated the world of Go Wansbeck to a sufficient degree. The majority of his business start ups were, after all, hairdressers, painters and decorators, and the like - traditional businesses and, if I may say without insult many of you, very 'northern' too. He has, I must say, many successful start ups in these areas, but I did broach with him the merit of forwarding funds to yet another hairdresser; off teh record, he agreed, but it's not his choice, it's the choice of a board and his job is simply to mentor these new businesses. Not knocking hairdressers - I have a cousin who's been in teh business in this town for decadeas and does very well - but there are only so many heads! If there's anyone out there who wants to look at starting in businss i'm more than willing to advise them on the route to take; I would also advise them to do it NOW for funding is likely to be gone in two years, thanks to the new council shake up, and with no visibl plans to replace Go Wansbeck (just as Wansbeck works has gone by the wayside). If you have an idea, it's worth pursuing; mine is low overheads (a computer, broadband, office) and relatively high profit. The future may not be entirely internet based, but when you consider that global advertising expenditure on the net overtook the traditional methods for the first time this year you have a clue. feel free to contact me if you need advice - i'm up for helping any prospective hairdressers, painters, or undertakers (now there's a profession that will never die....)

Oh it's pretty, Monsta, but what does it cost, and why does it cost that? How far does it go? What's it's annual running cost? Where does that electricity come from? The tesla is less efficient than a future IC engine will be; it's a red herring, as all electric cars are.

Yes, i'm for real. What is the average range, fully charged, of an Electric car these days? When were they first developed? How much electricity does it take to power one? How many batteries are needed? How long do those batteries last? What materials are needed to make the batteries? How do we create the power to charge up a country full of electric cars? How is it possible to use alternative energy sources to power a country full of electric cars when its well known we can't power the countruies homes that way? Why, after so long, has the electric car not become de riguer as, after all, the oil companies make billions supplying the fossil fuels for our power stations? It's not as simple as 'Oh, great, we'll all build electric piowers and charge them up by windmill' - I wish it was, but it's not, and it never will be. When I finished school in, let me see, 1982 I was told that there would be no oil left in thirty years. Now we're told there will be no oil left in thirty years, or twenty, or fifty, or a hundred, depending on who you read. Furthermore, the hyper efficient IC engine does not necessarily need out-of-the-ground oil; there is already a prevalence of synthetic oil for lubrication, and the oil companies are working hard to produce synthetic fuels for the later range of efficient internal combustion engines. meanwhile, the electric car of nowadays is no more efficient, cheap, or less polluting than those of fifty years ago. We haven't moved on since the milk float, and until - unless - someone comes up with a super efficient battery storage system that is big and powerful enough to power a car, doesn't involve the use of expensive exotic materials, and so on - and lets face it, they've been trying for a hundred years - we are not going to move on from the milk float. The electric car is a red herring, which is precisely why the current raft of 'energy efficient' vehicles are hybrids.

With respect, I think that a misguided response. Ideas do not simply become workable businesses without means, and many people do not have the means. Granted, this doesn't explain why we have a glut of hairdressers (although the lack of smaller retail units is easily explained by the ugly behemoth on the market place). "If you go into any of these business advisory services like Business Link help is usual only available if you can provide business plans, five year forecasts and case studies." Of course it is; someone comes to you and says 'i've got this great idea, it's going to make loads of money' and you give them it, do you? Come on, be real. I began my own business this year, in March. It's something completely at odds with the usual local start ups, and to be absolutely honest the advisors at Go Wansbeck and Wansbeck Works didn't quite understand what I was intending. They helped me - for nothing - to draft a businss plan (simple, really, it's just what you are going to do, who is going to buy it, and how much it will cost and sell for, and when) and put my project to their relevant boards. I needed £1500 - I got it. I didn't need a five year plan, and I didn't need case studies. Help is there if you want it, but it follows that the likes of Go Wansbeck (WW no longer exists) will be more willing to finance straightforward ideas - such as hairdressers - rather than off the wall ones.

"we need somewhere where we can 'hang out' without being moved," But you can do that outside anywhere so long as you're not causing bother! The problem is that the minority you mention DO cause bother. "Most of time, its people rebelling." This is wht I don't get, though - rebelling against what? "back when you were younger, the roads were safer so we could play football, now lunatics go speeding around" I was brought up in an area with much more traffic and a much bigger population than this as it happens, but that's beside the point. "that answer relies on providing these people a better alternative to where they are and what they are doing now!" Partly, yes, but it also lies partly in trying to restore the values that the older generations were imbued with. An example, and this ties in with the comments about graffitti and such in another thread: yesterday, Sunday afternoon, I watched a few youngsters on bikes on the new market place. I know they're not meant to ride there, but I wasn't complaining, they were'nt causing any bother, they were keeping out of the way and the place was dead. What struck me was this - despite hem all, four or five, sitting on these bikes right next to the new benches and bins they all proceeded to drop their crisp packets or whatever on the ground. Why? Why not put them in the bin, right next to them? Where does that attitude begin? How has it come about? Does it cost anything to use the bin? Is there some sort of social stigma attached to using a bin? It makes no sense to me whatsoever, and while to you (and Monsta) it may seem like a trivial think, it's not, because this is where the sort of breakdown in social attitude begins - with minor, simple things that to me and my kin would have seemed at odds. I was no angel, and neither were my friends, but to be frank we'd have thought someone deciding to drop rubbish on the floor when stood next to a bin a bit stupid! The incident makes me ask this: we give those kids somewhere to go, to hang out, without being moved, whatever, and would they look after it? When they can't even be bothered to move six inches and use a bin? "P.S. there is only 1 social every 2 months, and its because people like those who hassle Jester go there that i dont." fair enough: i'm not getting at you personally, understand, just replying to your posts.

Afraid it's not. Electric cars are inefficient, expensive to make and completely reliant on power being generated from alternative means. They are, in truth, no less polluting than modern petrol or diesel vehicles. There is a very good reason why the internal combustion engine still holds sway: because it's the best way of powering road going vehicles. Rather than concentrating on heavy, battery laden electric vehicles which ahve been proven time and time again to be a red herring, the motor industry is - somewhat quietly - looking towards super efficient small capacity engines that include high tech supercharging methods; these are very impressive in terms of CO2 output (so little will emerge that all the trees will die) and don't need plugging in to charge up every night, thus causing a massive surge in electricity requirements when ten million people replenish their batteries every night (try building enough wind farms to deal with that, then.)

I'm not sure that's the problem: how many types of viable businesses can someone who wants to be self employed conceivably set up these days?