Could it possibly be Hybrid?

It may well happen more quickly than that... especially with hybrids ensuring good range until batteries and solar become more efficient. I can't see any reason not to embrace it.

Although I have no idea where the power is going to come from with 40 million vehicles plugged in. Nuclear or coal initially I suppose, which is concerning. Would be great to hear from someone with the knowledge about potential supply and demand metrics in the future.

Is generating enough power going to be cleaner and more efficient than fossil fuel powered vehicles?

The roll out of solar, wind and storage is going fast enough now that they should cover electric vehicle power and the retirement of old coal plants. The world isn't going to 100% electric vehicles overnight, of course. Nuclear power plants take far too long to build and cost vast amounts so don't expect any to be viable for Australia, at least in the next 30 years or so.

Unless of course you go for a Thorium plant instead. Much smaller, simpler, safer and quicker to build.

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Originally Posted by cripesamighty

Unless of course you go for a Thorium plant instead. Much smaller, simpler, safer and quicker to build.

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Link please to a working thorium reactor if you would be so kind.

I'm pretty sure they had one working in Germany for a time during the 1980'/90's as a working concept. Even though it would take development, it would be a lot easier getting that to work than the pipe dream of 'cold fusion'. Personally I can't see us getting away from our current fuels (on a mass scale) for the foreseeable future.

Nuclear and renewables together is how we get enough clean cheap energy, quickly enough, to displace fossil fuels and stabilise the climate while supporting the developing world and maintaining a modern civilisation.

Renewables alone makes no sense. Not using renewables also makes no sense. We need well designed energy systems that take advantage of all our assets. I have a bunch of PV on my roof and I run a heat pump hot water system during the day, which means using solar energy when the sun is shining and capturing heat when there’s the most of it around. On cold grey weeks... I am very grateful to have the grid connected. My home puts into the grid more energy than it consumes (both from local PV generation and from grid, combined). But that doesn’t cover my cars, or the industries which produce the goods I buy.

There’s a huge amount of investment and engineering going into mass-produced small modular nuclear reactors in the 50-500MW range. As with everything else, scale and consistency is the key to low cost and quality. There are also larger 4th generation reactor designs that fit more directly into the existing regulatory environment and consume existing nuclear “waste” (fuel rods which have had only 2% of their energy extracted). From an engineering and technology point of view, as well as licensing and regulation, the nuclear sector is really busy right now.

I still think we’ll be using liquid fuels for off-road vehicles for a long time. Those may shift from being petrol and diesel to ammonia and dimethyl ether, both of which can be produced from non-fossil feedstocks using the heat from a nuclear reactor as the energy input.

ecomodernism.org
brightnewworld.org

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Originally Posted by TB

... .... ...
I have a bunch of PV on my roof and I run a heat pump hot water system during the day, which means using solar energy when the sun is shining and capturing heat when there’s the most of it around
... .... ..

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Did you fit a timer switch for the HWS?
I planned to do the same thing so that the heat pump only operated during the day so that I could use my own electricity instead of bought electricity at night.
I asked the company that sells my heat pump HWS about that and was told that the system needed to be continuously connected and needed to come on three times a day.
I find that hard to believe. I understand that they are normally connected full time and that it might be common for them to switch on three times a day, but surely it isn't compulsory.
Maybe it was just a sales person rather than a technician who answered my email.

I think I read somewhere that the earth receives enough energy from the sun in a day to power human civilization for a year, or something like that. We just have to get smarter at storing what we need for when the sun isn't shining.

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

I think I read somewhere that the earth receives enough energy from the sun in a day to power human civilization for a year, or something like that. We just have to get smarter at storing what we need for when the sun isn't shining.

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You could be right, you could be wrong, I wouldn't know, but it's a fact that many things "are easier said than done",...like generating power from the sea/waves etc?
Pickles.

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Originally Posted by vnx205

Did you fit a timer switch for the HWS?

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The unit I bought has an electronic timer built in. I have it set to switch on at 11AM.

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