Synthetic Fuel

Take that Musk and shove it in your spliff.

Agreed. Government policy directed by virtue signalling. A sign of weak and shallow leadership.

Well, yes.

We need to have him and her both moved on before any more damage is done.

Sounds like a plan. When is Rishi taking over?

I must say any rush towards one measure or type of fuel by a government is folly when the automotive industry is multinational. I can also see how the extraction / mining and process required for battery power will be the next target to attack by those that just don't want people to have personal mobility and / or have us all live like 15th century monks.

The "I can't see the pollution / damage so therefore it's not our fault" mentality that the push for battery power is based on is what makes me grind my teeth.

If only someone would develop synthetic politicians.... more efficient, less pollution, less hot air, less crap that pollutes the environment

Yeah but that's not really the case is it? Even with our current power generation mix you're transferring a very small percentage of that pollution to areas where gas turbines are used. 20% of our electricity comes from nuclear and there are many days when 100% comes from renewables. 

If battery tech moves fast enough and they can find enough rare earth minerals to make all the batteries that will be required, then I agree it is a viable alternative - but can they manage that in a 5 year period?

Yup, that's why I used the term "environmental impact".

I prefer to surround myself with people who tell me what can be done as opposed to people who spend all their time telling you why something can't be done. That sort of negativity results in nothing ever improving.

To drag out a tired old example; when JFK said at the start of the 60s the US would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade he was nearly drowned out by the commentators and experts explaining how this was unachievable. 

I remember my granddad remarking how we gone into the war in 1939 with planes that were one step up from biplanes and could do a couple of hundred mile and hour and 6 years later we had aluminium skinned jet planes and rockets. Or how about all those only a year ago who said that to produce a Covid vaccine in under a year was impossible as it had taken 10 years for previous vaccines? 

If you make synthetic fuel from biomass the eco-loons are up in arms about that. If you make it by the newest way - using water to generate hydrogen and then combining that with carbon from the atmosphere, it is at least much easier to store and utilise than the hydrogen you made in the process would be in a fuel cell. But it's more expensive and less efficient energy wise as there is another process involved once you get the hydrogen. On the other had you don't need a fuel cell, just an ICE to use it.

I can see synthetic fuel being useful as a way of still using ICE way beyond 2030, or powering the ICE part of your hybrid. But hydrogen plus fuel cells probably make more long term sense.

I can't see western governments backing down on the BEV commitment. It took them absolutely ages to realise that diesel was not the holy grail and look where that's ended up. The issue is that they (and most of the civil service) simply do not either have the intellectual capacity or the enquiring minds required to understand anything in enough detail to make their own informed decisions. And then think through the implications and steps required for any policy to work. They are therefore overly influenced by pet advisers and soundbite thinking. And so we march towards whatever the latest "fad" is.

Basically, let's face it, all activity is bad for the earth. Whatever you do consumes resources and has implications. That's be a good place to start a proper conversation about the pros and cns of all available and potential technologies.

That's quite true. But sadly, we'll probably take an awful lot of other species with us as we ravage what we can from the earth's resources. Which is why for me all debates about how we live on this planet ignore the elephant in the room. How many of us there are. 

I'm no eco-loon. But until the eco-lobby start to talk about human population levels, all they are doing is posturing and blaming us all for what we do to survive. 

Having said all that, I'm quite interested in BEV's. From a technological standpoint, I've always wanted to be an early adopter of new technology. I remember buying a Palm Pilot handheld device when they were silly money and feeling very cutting edge.