Alternative Fuel Cars

[TimberWolf]

You think we're going to build something that runs for 10,000 years?

It'll need maintenance. The Hoover dam is expected to be one of the last structures standing, were civilisation to fail. There are probably mills still existing that are centuries old. How hard can it be to infill concrete with earth?

[d000hg]

Pyramids are just stone structures and most of them are fallen apart or in great disrepair after only a couple of 1000 years. Even decent stone buildings fall apart after a while, normally a couple of centuries of wind & rain will do the trick, let alone tidal forces.

So to get it to last 10k years there's that big building cost, spread over 10k years, plus additional costs every year for 10k years. I hardly think those additional costs will be small.

[TimberWolf]

Pyramids are just stone structures and most of them are fallen apart or in great disrepair after only a couple of 1000 years. Even decent stone buildings fall apart after a while, normally a couple of centuries of wind & rain will do the trick, let alone tidal forces.

So to get it to last 10k years there's that big building cost, spread over 10k years, plus additional costs every year for 10k years. I hardly think those additional costs will be small.

Some trees last longer than 1000 years and plenty of man made structures that old exist today. Heck, even local churches are older than that and they still look brand new. Earth filled dams can't be that hard to maintain surely. Sedimentation is probably limits the life span, though I'm not sure why that can't be dealt with efficiently.

[Spacecadet]

Pyramids are just stone structures and most of them are fallen apart or in great disrepair after only a couple of 1000 years.

You'll find that most of the ancient structures suffered from later people stealing the ready cut stone from them. The later, larger pyramids were clad in harder wearing stone than the interior was built from.
The outer lime stone cladding was stolen and the inner stone is more susceptible to weathering in the desert.

[kandr]

The Parthenon in Athens is over 2000 years old and still standing, the reason it is in bad shape is through bombing in wars. If we use the materials we have available to us now then we can easily build something that lasts that long.

[TimberWolf]

The Parthenon in Athens is over 2000 years old and still standing, the reason it is in bad shape is through bombing in wars. If we use the materials we have available to us now then we can easily build something that lasts that long.

There's a whole list of ancient UK buildings here, though admittedly the ones that are 4 thousand or so years old probably lost their roofs at some point.

[Dearnla]

Do the panel have any experience in looking at 'green' energy vehicles?

As a taskforce recommends the UK to plan for another massive hike in Oil prices in the future, and bearing in mind oil is running out, would a Plan B be an alternative vehicle business?

There are some hybrid cars, electric cars etc, but does anyone own one and has anyone researched this/test driven?

Back to the subject in hand - I have second hand experience of Electric vehicles. I work for National Grid and they have given Mitsubishi EV's to a couple of staff. I think the basic premise is - don't plan a journey longer than 25 miles, as the range-o-meter plummets to the red, regularly inducing panic. And in the winter, half that as you have to turn on the heater, blower and electric rear window. Oh, and the car costs £37k and the batteries will last 5 years - if you're lucky. Replacement sets will cost 5 figures....
So, as an alternative to a shopping car for the missus - maybe. But you could afford to buy half a dozen Ford Ka's for the money AND throw them away after 5 years.....

[DimPrawn]

Back to the subject in hand - I have second hand experience of Electric vehicles. I work for National Grid and they have given Mitsubishi EV's to a couple of staff. I think the basic premise is - don't plan a journey longer than 25 miles, as the range-o-meter plummets to the red, regularly inducing panic. And in the winter, half that as you have to turn on the heater, blower and electric rear window. Oh, and the car costs £37k and the batteries will last 5 years - if you're lucky. Replacement sets will cost 5 figures....
So, as an alternative to a shopping car for the missus - maybe. But you could afford to buy half a dozen Ford Ka's for the money AND throw them away after 5 years.....

How much CO2 goes into making all those batteries every 5 years? How much pollution does handling all these materials (lithium for example) cause?

FFS, get over this bulltulip about oil and gas running out, it will outlast all of us and probably our children too.

Anyway, there's always a nice green diesel car

Jeremy Clarkson Audi Q7 V12 TDI quattro review | Driving - Times Online

[Paddy]

You'll find that most of the ancient structures suffered from later people stealing the ready cut stone from them. The later, larger pyramids were clad in harder wearing stone than the interior was built from.
The outer lime stone cladding was stolen and the inner stone is more susceptible to weathering in the desert.

The pyramids fell into disrepair because the outer stones were stolen and used to build houses in Cairo. The same happened to Roman roads in the UK. Stones from Catholic Churches and monasteries were also used to build houses.