OzAndy and Forrest Gumpp,

You assume that it is possible to expand renewable forms of electricity etc. to power our society (and then with the additional load of electric vehicles on the grid). But you have not crunched the numbers to see if this is actually true. Ted Trainer has and the prospects are not at all good - here is another link to a .pdf derived from his book, "Renewable energy cannot sustain an energy intensive society":

http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/trainer_renewable_sustainable_society.pdf

And remember, when it comes to money, money is only a method for distributing energy. Nothing happens without the energy - no matter how many "dollars" you throw at it. Don't forget also the huge embodied energy cost of building the renewables - at a time when the energy available to do everything else is decreasing. It is easy to say, for example, "all we need is a 20x20km PV grid to power Australia" but to build that would be the largest engineering project in the history of humanity - and then you would have to wash it regularly!

Ozandy says:

"Pure electric vehicles are *almost* there."

and, near the end of his post,

"Given that Australia must rediscover wealth creation in its economy post financial crisis ......., then the shift to the new tech is actually a blessing. Now we need some real leadership."

Yea, a Daniel come to judgement!

Ozandy has said what I had sensed, from some not-so-recent reading with respect to battery technology, was likely to be the case. Although he did not specifically mention it, and I am uncertain as to the automotive applicability of the technology, the development of the flow-battery possibly brings an interesting new aspect to the electric vehicle scene. This is the feature of indefinite rechargeability: lead-acid and other battery technologies have been plagued by the problem of declining rechargeability requiring periodical total replacement of the battery pack. Battery replacement has heretofore effectively become part of the fuel cost, howsoever it may have been dealt with from an accountancy perspective.

It makes it easy to see why 'Big Oil' wants to become 'Big Electricity' and see 'Big Coal' sidelined and branded 'Bad'.

Curmudgeon says:

"[Pope] makes forecasts concerning oil prices which I will let pass on the grounds that any guess by me would be just as silly as any guess by him."

Er, no, he didn't make forecasts or guesses. And the inference that Pope is therefore silly is a put-down, and ..... unkind.

The author stated "...... CSIRO estimates that by 2020, unleaded petrol is likely to cost $8 a litre."

I grant it would have been nice to have had a link to the study that arrived at this estimate, but better late than never. Here it I think is: http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:-A5__HLnz1UJ:www.csiro.au/files/files/plm4.pdf+CSIRO+petrol+price+projections&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au It is the HTML version of a PDF CSIRO paper called "Fuel for thought - The future of transport fuels: challenges and opportunities. June 2008"

How much money is at stake here?

It still comes down to the cost of the additional exotic raw materials - such as nickel and lithium.

There is an additional energy (and financial) cost to mine, refine and transport such materials, let alone dispose of them.

The total energy cost to manufacture batteries for motor vehicles is still greater than the cost savings in manufacturing with older, paid-for technology.

Battery efficiency may improve but they will still result in a nett overall energy loss. You don't get something for nothing.

The range of EV’s, and their proximity to becoming an alternative to fossil fuelled vehicles is of course dependent on availability of batteries/fuel cells able to store/provide sufficient electricity. While http://www.technologyreview.com/biztech/18086 sound a bit too good to be true, a number of articles can be found by googling battery technology. They may be of interest to commentators.

You live in a utopian world, free from laws of physics and full of ideology...

Lets look at the physics

Cars need energy.

Sources of electric energy (loads of it on a commercial basis) are.
=> Hydro
=> wind
=> wave
=> solar
=> coal
=> Nuclear

Lets look at the options:

=> Hydro.. Most sites in Australia have already been developed. The ALP to appease the greens will stifle any future sites.. (Imagine getting the Snowy Scheme through today!!)

=> Solar. Good in an ideal world, but imagine the size of collectors on a car sufficient to replace 100% of the power from a convention engine? Remember the Solar Challenge vehicles, their shape, weight and discomfort level.

=> Nuclear. Apart from the lead time on a nuclear power station being 15 years, it is against ALP policy.

=> Wind. This is an option when the wind blows, but it would be many years before sufficient capacity is installed.

=> Wave. Still in its infancy and tends to be confined to the coast

=> Coal The recent hot spells showed that spare capacity is marginal.. and no where enough to provide generation for electric cars.

So, where to from here??
Battery technology shows little room for quantum changes in energy storage in the foreseeable future. Imagine driving to Sydney... about every 200Km, you would need change-over battery sets at a battery 'servo'. Then, the servo would need to recharge the batteries, coping with the OH & S issues of working with batteries.

The State Government has let us all down with Public Transport alternatives. There is insufficient generation to replace with electric cars. The pollution with electric is mover from one place to another… it is not eliminated. The lack of adequate generation is also a State Government issue.

Recommended Reading
=> Second Law of Thermodynamics.
=> Laws of conservation of energy.
=> Power laws.
=> ALP policy in supporting the greens.

We are between a rock and a hard place. There is no alternative in the foreseeable future…

Good Luck, but the future looks very ordinary.

An interesting thread.
Electric cars are practical but -
Many of the objections made here are real.

First Australia does not have 70% of its own oil.
We used to have about 42% until a new field came on line and we
currently have about 51%. It is depleting at about 4% per year.

Natural gas is a possibility, but some dopey business man contracted
enormous quantities to China for a song for 25 years.
It is needed to supply industry and domestic usage for years into the
future.

Some complained of the range of electric cars; tough, put up with it
and catch the train.
Oh yes, there was a proposal for grid connected cars, quite clever
actually. Batteries only needed to reach a main road.

Country roads will deteriorate for lack of maintenance so you would
not want to drive on them anyway. Bitumen is an oil product.

Biofuels are a dead end. We can not afford the fertiliser, or the
arable land to devote to fuel.
Charging from the grid would be possible there will have to be more capacity.
Solarthermal and geothermal are the great white hopes for electric cars.
Without them or nuclear electric cars will have only a few years
before they will become impracticle.
By the way the world oil production peaked in 2005.