Electricity....why is it still called CLEAN energy?

[Zak33]

This is winding me up a treat now.

CLEAN ENERGY. Electric Cars....electric this...electric that...

Lets face facts people, on the whole we BURN things to make it... we pollute to make it...and THEN we send it via cables over hundreds or trhousands of miles and then even store it in inneficient battery systems!!

Wind Energy....water energy (hydro or wave power)....oh please

Where are the machines built to harness this power? Who smelts thew metals, digs the silicon for the computers that control them?

Solar panels.....do they make solar panels using electricity from solar panels?

Hydro Electric power is probably the best, but dams cost billions to build and then the generators in them need to be built and maintained...huge ultra accurtely made fins/vanes to catch the motion...

huge wind farms....loads of propellors....made of high tech alloys and super efficient dynamo generators, on mammoth pillars, made of the same, with computers controlling them.....made in as factory with power that probably takes years to replace the enrgy from the unit that is made in the first place.

Electric cars..oh please....electricity in cables, batteries in cars...al that waste..all the resistance...all the inneficiancy of electric motors..

I'll get my petrol can and go shall I?

[kushtibari]

You still using full fat 4 star then Zak?

[Knoxville]

Petrol companies will not allow the introduction of electric cars in any major way, the industry is worth too much too them. At the moment governments are still too un-willing to release funds towards hydro-electric and solar because while we're beginning to see the end of coal and oil resources its never gonna happen in their lifetimes so why bother?

I'm waiting for someone to crack cold fusion tbh.

[TiG]

You forget that the national grid loses some stupid amount of energy from the network of cables. Heating the wire with the energy going through it etc, If i remember rightly power losses from transmission accounts for about 30-50% of the amount of usable energy generated, and of that that is only (10-20%) of the energy generated from the item burnt.

Its viewed as clean as it doesn't have an impact on us directly, when i turn on the switch i don't get smog in my house.

Its just another perfect example of how we ignore the root cause of pollution

TiG

[Zak33]

gawd..you all AGREE

[Rave]

Actually transmission losses in the National grid are about 5-10% IIRC. Coal fired power stations have a 'thermal efficiency' (or whatever it's called) of 35-40%.

Hydroelectric and wind power stations do produce considerably more energy over their lifetimes than is used in their construction. Photovoltaic solar panels only became efficient enough to be overall 'energy positive' quite recently though, and overall I personally am of the opinion that they're not really worthwhile using. Solar water heater panels are much cheaper to make and probably much more efficient overall so they almost certainly are worth bothering with.

Zak- I agree that until all our electricity comes from renewable sources, it's not worth bothering with Electric vehicles unless it's as a means of reducing inner city polution.

[BUFF]

Hydro Electric power is probably the best, but dams cost billions to build and then the generators in them need to be built and maintained...huge ultra accurtely made fins/vanes to catch the motion...

I saw a programme the other night which mentioned a huge dam somewhere (can't remember exactly) where they reckoned that it took more energy to build than it would ever produce ...

[Kumagoro]

probably that massive one in china...

[Zak33]

exactly....wind power often falls into that category as it needs mammoth maintenance

[Skii]

Put chavs on treadmills.

You want benefits ? get peddling.

I want 50 Kw out of you today Wayne

Sorted

[iMc]

Skii is onto something there.

We should develop a way to store all the energy we use whilst walking etc. It could be connected to a battery built into our clothes. You could then put these things in car wheels etc...

but its probably impossible

[Rave]

A human can put out a couple of hundred watts at sustainable effort levels (more if they're fit, e.g. Tour de France racers). If you put a chav on a treadmill or exercise bike generator for 8 hours they'd make about 15p worth of electricity provided they didn't slack off.

[poindextermatic]

I think chicken poo is quite efficient and clean, certainly green anyhow.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong...it could be pig poo? I can't remember....

[këö¬t]

We should develop a way to store all the energy we use whilst walking etc.

Trevor Baylis was going to walk across the Namibian Desert and phone Tony Blair using a mobile phone powered by little generators inside his shoes. Blair didn't want to show off UK techonology though.

Electrical Power may be dirty at the moment, but it is merely a transport system. By converting more things to run off electrical power we can utilize new forms of power production when they're invented.

It's also cheaper and easier to make a coal fired power plant with lots of filters to protect the atmosphere than it is to the same thing for thousands of car petrol engines.

[poindextermatic]

Yes, cars are one of THE most single things that polute the most, they are also totally the most unsustainable product - in their current form anyhow.
Mass public transport I say!

[ekundo]

Put chavs on treadmills.

You want benefits ? get peddling.

I want 50 Kw out of you today Wayne

Sorted

Could we just not turn them into matrix-style batteries? put them in their own world, where theres no STD's and ever car's a nova with a spoiler