What about our environment?

Just like second hand smoke. Second hand emissions... 

I remmeber - many years ago - I was in London with a good friend. This was the mid 1990's and we were in the street when suddenly I couldn't breathe properly. I said we had to go into a shop because of this. The car exhaust fumes really got to my lungs. I felt so much better in the shop. We cut short our trip in London that day.

This is why I am so glad we now have electric cars. In five years time, petrol cars will be history. Everyone buying a car now is advised to buy an electric car. Because their petrol cars will be obsolete in a few short years time.

I'm sorry I misspelt the word remember: I had not realized.

Petrol stations will have to be greatly modified to live up to the demand electric cars bring. But that is something that will have to be dealt with. It is a problem that WILL be solved. Plus, it is to the advantage of the environment to stop the use of polluting petrol cars. This is why car companies have been pressured by the government to advance the technology of electric vehicles. Petrol cars WILL be phased out completely. I'd give that time period at the least 5 to 10 years time. Because technology is improving every year. Our scientists are learning much more about technology and its functions and so on.

I'm not exactly sure the exact time it'll take to do all this, but it will be done by 2030.

We have to AMP up the electric panel to accommodate my hubby's two EVs. The SF Bay Area is the land of electric car. I would walk into the parking lot and at least half of the cars are EV. My husband told me that the numbers of landscape lightings (me) and the 68 temp inside the house at all time( me again) are more than what we spend on charging his cars.

I read your post with interest, jen: there are so many issues to be dealt with before the world only uses electric cars.

You've written a very informative post: an interesting post.

We have quite a few electric cars in our area the houses here were built between 1920 and 1940 and the electricity grid supply in those houses dates from that time. The council put in several electric vehicle charging points the and the demand on the cables was simply too much and one of the electricity substations overloaded and caught fire resulting in us losing mains power for 3 days while the streets were dug up and cables replaced.
The actual environmental saving on your electric car depends where you charge it. In Norway it would mainly be with green hydroelectric power in Poland it would come from a coal fired power station. As I've mentioned before there are problems with lithium batteries currently used in cars firstly there is not an awful lot of lithium left that is suitable to be mined, secondly the process of mining lithium is extremely filthy and very polluting. It requires vast amounts of freshwater to mine the lithium and if the polluted water escapes it will kill wildlife.
Many years ago Mercedes-Benz developed a hydrogen car but it was scrapped and pushed aside in favour of the more trendy electric vehicle , however the hydrogen car seems to be making a comeback and new vehicles have been designed.

If government push ahead with the electric vehicles I see that cars will become a plaything of the rich, ordinary people who have never had a brand new car will simply not be able to afford electric vehicles because by the time they reach the second-hand market most will be in need of new batteries and the replacement charges are simply unobtainable for most working people.

Well said cassie.

Electric cars are all very well. I drive 75 miles to work, and 75 back. When I am at work, I drive around in between my patient's homes. As they are elderly, they often have no cars, so will never have homes fitted with power points. Where am I supposed to charge?

Also no-one seems to have noticed that the country gets cold in the winter. So battery charge is going to have to warm our cars, and an awful lot for people like me who enters the car 15 - 20 times per day, and exits the car 15 - 20 times allowing all that heat to escape, and need replacing.

Then of course we have wipers, electric windows, fans, air conditioning, radios, heavy duty head lamps for the dark, cigar lighters, interior lights, dashboard lights, mobile phone chargers, indicator lights, and sat navs.

Mickey mouse could have made better plans.

Carrying on from your idea on the car the Dutch government wants every household to be gas free by 20:30. No matter how old your house they want you to have an all electric system for the heating or via a warmth pump.
The problem with warm pumps is that they are big and they are damn noisy they cannot be fitted into lots of these small terraced houses that people still live in.

In my house I have converted every light to an LED bulb I cook with an induction hob and an instant pot so I tried to save energy that way but not everybody can do that and even then my heating/ hot water is on gas.
How ever just suppose every household does convert to it all electric where the hell is all that power going to come from?
There is not enough space for solar panels besides the fact that this is the land of rain.. windmills are great there would need to be a windmill outside almost every house. The government have ruled out coal-fired power stations and obviously they don't want gas ones which leaves only one alternative and that's nuclear...
Is that supposed to be the green alternative?

Jen touched on the methane problem.
This is a huge issue here the Netherlands is a massive producer of fruit vegetables and dairy produce we are one of the biggest exporters of food in the world which is no mean feat for a tiny country of just 17 million people.
The only way we can cut emissions is to cut our dairy herds cut our production of fruit and vegetables cut our exports, but that means other countries will suffer because they will not get the food that we produce and our country will suffer because trade will be reduced , how will that help anyone?

I keep telling myself "They mean well!"

I will definitely look for this article Pris, thanks.

Indeed. I used to live in a three house hamlet. We often lost electricity for a day or two before the generators arrived. We spent a xmas week one year with a generator buzzing across the road. 

Today in a nearby village a lumberyard caught fire.
Of course even though fire crews did their best once the fire took hold in a massive warehouse full of wood there was no stopping it. As yet it's uncertain if the fire was caused by a short circuit and explosion in one of the solar panels that covered the roof or if the solar panels exploded due to the heat of the fire. However over 600 of these panels buckled exploded and have now spread razor sharp shards of metal and debris over neighbouring farmland , the farmers have had to take their cattle and sheep inside while they scour fields on foot looking for the dangerous pieces of debris. Residents were advised to keep their doors and windows closed and to stay indoors in case they were hit by flying metal. The fire brigade have now also made the announcement that several heavy metals and other chemicals that were used in the production of the solar panels have been released into the atmosphere and could cause health problems to anyone coming in contact with them.

So much for environmentally friendly!