Many of the responses on this and most discussion sites are mired in “more of the same”(MOTS) mentality. I am reminded of the colonial mind set when speak to a person from another language “if at first they don't understand (agree in OLO) repeat it LOUDER” or in some cases be rude.
I would suggest that MOTS is counter productive to both discussion and understanding.

In a recent article the author lamented that “plug in” vehicles were simply moving the emissions to the power grid and therefore coal power stations. Therefore in the MOTS mind set it unequivocally meant we need to go nuke. I ask why?

To me I wonder why some bright entrepreneur hasn't latched onto and designed a home alternatively powered power source to fill up the car. Imagine for a moment say $4000 for a cars lifetime of free vehicle fuel? The market would be immense! Talk about profit potential and captive market! The gov. could subside their research even sales for the poor. New endless industry.

In Qld that have a system of water monitoring and if a client uses beyond the acceptable limits they are progressively monitored until in extreme cases their pressure is reduced.

There are also meters that monitor your power usage prompting the client to turn off the unnecessary power. There was even a TV show on the topic where people SAVED heaps for a little thought.

I wonder why not combine this technologies to lower grid consumption and create 3-4 new sunrise industries these would clearly reduce our consumption of non renewable resources and who knows less CO2 and more jobs.

We need to stop looking for a single silver bullet solution particularly ones that require creating a trillion ton vampire (big is not necessarily the answer to everything.)

I guess my point for discussion is other issues that may be solved by small or local solutions.
Comment and suggest yours or improvements in mine.

You my friend are going to be taken out by a very expensive hitman, he will be jointly paid by several rather large corporations.

Did you watch "Who Killed The Electric Car"? I suspect these little local productive power saving industries make good television and always will but for these ideas to spread, to grow, to be nutured and to finally overtake our local money hungry producers of even more chronic material consuming and expensive products...

Well that just wont do. Wrong planet you see.

Part of the problem, examinator, is that the energy has to come from somewhere.

The typical home and car use an *awesome* amount of energy. Somewhere between 1 and 5 kW of solar cells may balance your household usage which may average 5 to 10kWh per day (ish). That means that the few hours of an evening you have your kids in front of the telly, the kitchen appliances on here and there, the lights, the computer etc, the fridge and the hot water, which easily add up to a couple of thousand watts, chew up in short order a whole days solar production from a reasonable installation (5kW is a big one for me to even attempt to afford).

Your car probably produces several hundred kilowatts. You possibly commute for half an hour a day. You just used a *hundred* kilowatt hours. To get the same from the grid is not cheap. Check your last power bill.

Thats a *lot* of solar cells or one *hell* of a big million dollar windmill.

Affordable home-based renewables that also cover personal transport require an absolute nation-wide adherence to commuting by electric MoPed.

Joe cannot expect to drive to work in his own Commodore. He cannot live further from work than he is willing to walk if his MoPed is broken. He does not have the (in my opinion conspicuously) extravagant luxury of sending his kids to a religious school 25 km away if a state school is around the corner.

Yes buses etc are more efficient, but still big-ticket. That 200 litre fuel tank (or equivalent) has to be covered by fares. That electric train needs a lot of power to be generated, not just when it is accelerating, but all the time. Economising helps too, but can you dispense with 90% of your consumption?

I agree with you, we need it, but there is no easy answer. Watts are Watts, WattHours are lots of Joules and Joules are a defined unit of energy that no smarty pants can make smaller. It is not just a case of innovation.

Dear examinator,

Nobody to date has discussed or analyzed
on this Forum the potential of hydrogen-powered
cars. They are experimental, they do work, by
extracting hydrogen from water and exhausting
oxygen into the atmosphere.

The question is,
how soon will the motor-car industry seriously
pursue this potential?

To date the oil companies have dictated what type
of energy will drive the car. Electric cars today
rely on coal/hydro powered energy which is proliferated
by hydro and coal industries. Hydrogen power would
come from water and does not appear to be of interest
to big business.

Interesting examinator.

I remember in 'Who Killed the Electric Car' that many people recharged their batteries from a solar panel mounted just for that purpose.

The problem back then with older technology was the limited distance EVs could run before needing recharging. I think it was only about 100km but the technology is improving all the time. Now I believe, but don't quote me, there was talk of going up to at least 300km on one charge-up.

There are some pretty resourceful people out there and I am sure as we become more renewable savvy we will design better and more efficient energy alternatives.

Domestically governments could encourage households to supplement with solar. Even 1000s of households using solar combined with smarter energy consumption can reduce dependency on coal. At the moment energy companies who pay for energy via feed-in from householders offset this cost by increasing fixed charges (Grrr..!!).

Foxy, the energy has to come from somewhere.

To power a car with hydrogen, the hydrogen has to be produced from water. To break the chemical bond in water takes energy. In a perfectly efficient system, the amount of energy to break water is the exact amount you get by using it as a fuel in a perfectly efficient engine/fuel cell/turbine. The only advantage in using hydrogen would be the saved weight of batteries, and only of you carry the hydrogen directly, rather than converting it on the run, which needs *at least* as many batteries as just running the car electrically in the first place. The saved weight of the batteries is probably exceeded by the actual inefficiencies of hydrolysis of water and of using the hydrogen as fuel.

There are absolutely no *magic* innovations that just make a car use far less fuel or to extract energy from thin air.

Please check the chemistry and thermodynamics textbooks in your library.

Rusty.