Doom: Energy Price Cap

[SueEllen]

There are not enough raw materials in the world to manufacture the batteries nor to produce the electric motors let alone supply the electricity plus there is also the short lifespan of the car itself. Hydrogen fuel cells are doable but not for all vehicles. What is needed instead is good public transport, good international railways, less flying and a ban on those f'ing cruise ship monstrosities.

What do we do with people who live in rural areas?

[Paddy]

What do we do with people who live in rural areas?

Good point, in rural France the decimation of public transport has been a disaster and ruined local shops and services such a doctors. The fact that the French village people have cars has not bridged the gap. Conversely, in Eastern Europe (and Russia Ukraine etc) there are still mini bus services running in villages, they are cheap and connect to the train stations and bus stations. Going back to the UK in the 90s, we were promised deregulation to allow mini busses and shared taxis, this never happened because of lobbying by big transport companies.

[d000hg]

There are not enough raw materials in the world to manufacture the batteries nor to produce the electric motors let alone supply the electricity plus there is also the short lifespan of the car itself.

Based on what?

[d000hg]

What do we do with people who live in rural areas?

Why do we have to 'do' anything to them? An emphasis on public transport in/between urban areas will have a huge impact in green terms, we don't need to have a one size fits all solution and try to force isolated areas to rely on the bus.

[Whorty]

damn agreeing with warty again!

Painful isn't it? I have to go and scrub myself down whenever I agree with you

[BlasterBates]

Based on what?

Based on the fact that EVs are a tiny proportion of the cars manufactured globally and wind/solar generation is about 3%. Roughly you are going to have a hundredfold increase in the demand for copper and nickel. I own a lot of copper mines, so I don't have a great problem with the ambitions of renewable energy . Existing mines are already at full capacity.

Your first problem is find the copper deposits. I suspect the massive increase in Copper smelting might actually drive fossil fuel demand.

[WTFH]

Based on the fact that ... wind/solar generation is about 3%.

Is that globally?

UK it's around 25% (actually 35.6% right now)

[BlasterBates]

Is that globally?

UK it's around 25% (actually 35.6% right now)

25% is for electricity generation in addition there is transport and heating. According to this source 80% of UK energy was from fossil fuels in 2020, globally the percentage I believe is higher:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy..._mix_of_UK.svg

[d000hg]

Based on the fact that EVs are a tiny proportion of the cars manufactured globally and wind/solar generation is about 3%. Roughly you are going to have a hundredfold increase in the demand for copper and nickel. I own a lot of copper mines, so I don't have a great problem with the ambitions of renewable energy . Existing mines are already at full capacity.

Your first problem is find the copper deposits. I suspect the massive increase in Copper smelting might actually drive fossil fuel demand.

The original statement was "there are not enough raw materials in the world" - that's not a statement about mining. How much of this stuff is there to mine in the first place and are mines likely to be exhausted, or do we have more than we could realistically hope to need?

[BlasterBates]

The original statement was "there are not enough raw materials in the world" - that's not a statement about mining. How much of this stuff is there to mine in the first place and are mines likely to be exhausted, or do we have more than we could realistically hope to need?

As this graph points out all known sources of copper will not satisfy the increased demand. Production will not be able to keep pace with a relatively flat demand curve and there will be a significant shortfall by 2030.