Electric, Hybrid or Just Wait

Well the cost will come down eventually, I don't know if it will take 1 year or 100 years but it will eventually.

My question is that the whole planet currently is designed, built, and finetuned for decades around fossil fuel management. These are massive industries involved in one way or the other, with huge and far reaching implications that go beyond the obvious thoughts about company profits, jobs, infrastructure, logistics, service industries, byproducts, government economy etc. This came to my mind from watching a war movie the other day that said the US is spending $21bn every year to protect oil producing areas globally with their military, I mean I don't know if this is true or not but it doesn't sound impossible either. We all think of cutting Govt spending as a good thing, well the reality is sometimes counter-intuitive, it usually just leaves people without income and jobs. And if the Govt spends it somewhere else they're accused of being communists :D

Ofcourse the upside is human life costs, must be millions who have died in history because of fossil fuels.
But what about the countries that oil is their main industry? They will starve.

What I'm trying to say is that even if the whole planet has the best intentions around this, it's a massive shift that needs to happen pretty much everywhere.
And I don't even know if everybody has the best intentions. Not being a conspiracy theorist here, I literally don't know, I can't begin to think whose interests will be affected in what way and what their reaction is going to be. It's just too complicated, fossil fuels are currently weaved into every aspect of human civilisation. Both peaceful and not.

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Originally Posted by Spyro

I can't begin to think whose interests will be affected in what way and what their reaction is going to be. It's just too complicated, fossil fuels are currently weaved into every aspect of human civilisation. Both peaceful and not.

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Spyro

Anybody with a pecuniary interest, whether that is employment, ownership or investment. Not going to be easy.

Regards
Paul

This may be misanthropic, but people and counties that are dependant on unsupportable industries are doomed.

Same as one-trick mining towns here... or coal... or nuclear power... or Holden/gm/ford... or steel making.... wharf automation...

I'm absolutely not US-capitalist, but those who work in these industries and look ashen-faced about "their futures" when the sword finally falls are not deserving of any sympathy. The writing isn't just on the wall, it is being broadcast on 75 TV/radio channels in hi-def 3D smell-o-vision. They are doomed. They know it. It is up to them to plan ahead. Those who don't perish.

It may be hardline, but by Zeus am I sick of seeing all the grizzling whiners complain about how "hard done by" they are when times change.

WhErEs My HaNdOut !!!!

(where am I going to find a low-qualified low-skilled job driving a coal loader being paid 200k a year now?????)

A blind man can see what's happening.


On an aside, I absolutely believe this planet is doomed. Fisheries collapse is real. Mass macrofauna extinction is real. Desertification is real. Sea acidification is real. Massive climate change is real. Humans have done this - that is real. Halving the population would be an excellent start.

Killing the oil industry is an absolute necessity.

The jobs thing is a lie. Whoever solves the battery thing, creates a massive employment opportunity. Don't give handouts to exiting businesses or employees, fund the next gen of industry.

Abbot made a huge mistake by cutting the cord with the car industry subsidies. Could have, should have been...here's some money but only if you commit to a fully electric vehicle by 20xx and it's affordable and ....conditions as you will. It would have made an enormous difference to R&D in this country, we could have been a world leader, but dead dinosaurs.

I don't think we're doomed, we just need to watch the second generation of Dinosaurs die out, and a younger, more pragmatic generation enter politics.

I believe they did provide funding

Hydrogen gives new life to Toyota's Altona car manufacturing plant - Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA)


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I am not overly keen on Government funding for projects like that. Often it is just pitching a convincing story to extract funds from the public purse and it just gets gobbled up in a gravy train.
If there is an idea worth perusing there is plenty of money in the private sector who will cough up the funds if there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

Hi Beardy

I have pitched these stories but they were genuine. I have received funding in the past to help offset what is now a world leading platforms and is been sold to major OEMs.

But

I have also seen your side of the discussion. Companies seemed to apply for grants that were largely self audited to ensure compliance. This has been tightened up over the past 3 years.

I am also reading between the lines, why would Toyota build a hydrogen plant at an old manufacturing plant? Are they entering the energy sector?
I guess time will tell


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There are some specific things that can't be done by leaving them to the free market and they require all of humanity to pool resources to get them done. And the only vehicle right now we have for doing that is governments. For better or for worse (often the latter).

We're been waiting for the free market to sort out the recycling issue for many decades now, and it's still a massive cluster. All it has achieved is figure out ways to make people feel they are recycling so they don't complain.

Personally I wouldn't mind if I got taxed another 10% of my income or more specifically to support recycling and renewable energy, but I don't think humanity is interested enough.
I give us a 50% chance we will exist a few generations from now.

Tasmania's kelp forests feel the impact of industry of climate change - Science - ABC News

Tasmania.

The guy mentioned in the article (Puck), worked his life in kelp harvesting until it was utterly destroyed.

Then moved into the timber mill....


un. Be. Effin. Real.


The Lorax....

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Originally Posted by Beardy

I am not overly keen on Government funding for projects like that. Often it is just pitching a convincing story to extract funds from the public purse and it just gets gobbled up in a gravy train.
If there is an idea worth perusing there is plenty of money in the private sector who will cough up the funds if there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

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They were already subsidising the auto industry. As pretty much any country with an auto industry does. See, the problem is, if you don't off incentives, you get jurisdiction shopping by the private sector for which ever government gives the best incentives/tax treatment. So that argument doesn't hold water.

It's really a matter of policy. Cars now are as clean/economical as they are due in a very large part to Californian clean air laws. One single state in one country on the planet. Policy driven outcomes. Who knew?

Τhere is no way ever the private sector will shift resources towards something simply because it's good for the planet, they don't give a crap. It's not their job to give a crap.
The worst thing however is that they will absolutely pretend to give a crap, because it's important for marketing, and when they pretend they do it very very convincingly.
Been pretending for half a century in recycling.

They are not doing it for the planet they are doing it for the dollar
The benefits to the planet is just a bi product

They're not doing anything, we've had the technology for both recycling and battery cars for ages. They're just both impossible to make money from.

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Originally Posted by Spyro

They're not doing anything, we've had the technology for both recycling and battery cars for ages. They're just both impossible to make money from.

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Not impossible, just previously uneconomic.

That's now changing as technologies develop, plus public opinion accepting higher prices for greener items.

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Originally Posted by Spyro

They're not doing anything, we've had the technology for both recycling and battery cars for ages. They're just both impossible to make money from.

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If people would buy them they would make them it is that simple. They would make cars with square wheels if that is what the consumer wanted
The reality is they are too expensive for the consumer but that is starting to turn.

It is no different to the buy Australian mantra, everyone talks it up but very few are prepared to pay the premium price point