Geez, IMJN, you've just debunked the AGW hypothesis with one fell-post! I look forward to your forthcoming paper on the subject.

And dear ol' LL with, "Australia, being the first nation to get rid of the carbon tax, is a world leader." Leader?!! Australia needs a climate policy that is informed and genuine, and a government pro-active about it.

What a waste of money will be "direct action" if, in fact, a dollar is ever actually spent. More tax must be raised to find the money for it, which will go down like a lead balloon.

imajulianutter, it is very easy to answer your question. On Tuesday night:

Brisbane experienced weather.

Just in case you missed it, here it is again:

Brisbane experienced weather.

Global warming tells us that the average temperature of the Earth has increased. It does not predict that Brisbane will not have any cold nights. Weather does not equal climate, no matter how much you want to conflate the two.

Luciferase, I do not think battery change over was a weight problem.
The system was adopted by Renault and seemed OK. It did need a large
capital expenditure however for the battery station.

Blade Industries when they were in Sydney and had to deliver a car to
Melbourne had a small trailer with extra batteries and a petrol generator.
Quite effective I was told. Quite small from memory, about 5ft x 3ft wide.

Hydrogen has one unsurmountable problem.
You cannot park them in underground car parks.
Bus depots where they have been used on an experimental basis have
had to have their roofs redesigned with special exhaust systems.

There is always a catch 22, but the cost of converting underground
car parks would stop that until the majority of cars used hydrogen.

Bazz, mate. Please don't wish trailers on us. One of the ladies in my family just might be able to park a car in a parallel parking space, but back a trailer, you've got to be kidding. Why do you think retailers have parking areas, with drive in, back out bays. Without them ladies just don't shop there.

Then it would be little trailer, impossible to see out the back of the car. Even I could not back my fathers VW Kombi camper van, with a tinny behind, until I lashed a broom upright to the outboard, so I could see where the thing was. It is very hard to reverse a trailer you can't see.

Surely we have enough trouble on the road, without turning trailer towing ladies lose on them.

Please let us just convert to gas, if petrol runs out, at least until I'm no longer driving.

Hasbeen, I think you are pulling my chain.
His business was converting new Diawa cars to electric.
When he sold one in Melbourne that was how he got the car there.
Don't know how he got the trailer back.
He did a very nice neat conversion job.
He moved the business to Melbourne as he sold more cars there.

Don't worry, petrol won't run out, your pension might just not run to buying it.

BTW, saw the display shop setup in Pennant Hills to explain the North
Connex tunnels to the plebs.
Asked the question, did they take into account what the price of fuel
might be after it is finished and the effect on the traffic count.
Surprise surprise, they didn't !

Coming up another motorway for the receivers.

"Hydrogen has one unsurmountable problem.
You cannot park them in underground car parks"

Alloy substrate storage is even safer than high pressure storage. A rethink on the above will occur.

Anyway, bottom line, unless H2 is produced by nuclear or solar energy, what's the environmental point of any of it, and that goes for electric vehicles too, IMO. Burning coal or hydrocarbons or reacting these with steam to form hydrogen ultimately ends up putting the same amount of CO2 into the air.

On current technology, home energy could rest on solar energy for both immediate electrical needs and electrolysing water with the excess electricity, producing hydrogen that can be safely alloy-stored ready for fuel-cells after sundown. Alternatively this could be done at the grid level. What incentive exists without a carbon price to get this going and with coal-subsidies in place?

I still believe, however, that the biggest kick-along needed is nuclear.