12 Dec 2015

Climate change - NOT amateur radio

So all the countries at the Paris climate summit have reached agreement. This is just the start, but it shows a willingness to work towards a world which does not have dangerous warming. As someone pointed out on BBC TV this morning, the cost of choosing a non-carbon path has significantly reduced, so it is less burdensome to choose clean energy.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35084374 .

UPDATE 2315z: A new challenge will be non-carbon fueled cars.  As someone who had a fair bit to do with rechargeable batteries, I do not see the electric car as the answer, unless there is staggering breakthrough in battery technology allowing 300+ mile ranges between charges. Somehow I doubt this will happen. Maybe the answer will come in fuel cells, or low cost anytime storage of renewable energy? We need efficient storage of wind, solar and tidal energy so the energy generated can be used later.  Maybe the answer is partly power in the roads, with the car picking up this inductively? This way the weight of cars could be dramatically reduced? The car would only need a smaller battery to use when in-road power is not available?

2 comments:

PE4BAS, Bas said...

What most people forget is that producing batteries for cars produces more pollution then driving a conventional car. So indeed I agree till now a electric car is not the solution. Your idea of induction is a nice one :-) But very hard to construct. 73, Bas

Roger G3XBM said...

I agree Bas. We need far greater ranges on a charge and the energy HAS to be from a renewable source. Making expensive batteries from non-renewable sources makes no sense at all.