A looming British ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars was thrown into chaos on Tuesday after Brussels watered down its own restrictions amid opposition from the German auto industry.
Experts and politicians warned that British rules due to take effect in 2030 are untenable following the European climbdown, which will allow internal combustion engines as long as they burn carbon-neutral petrol alternatives.
Even as that ban on new ICE fails they’re still managing to get it wrong. Because it’s not the engine that’s the problem nor the engine that needs to be banned. It’s the fuel. Even if we accept all of the toss being bandied about it’s still the fuel. Burning archaic carbon bad. But e-fuels are possible and also at not far off current prices even at the current v early stage of the tech. So, the solution is possible, retain ICE but replace the fuel.
The easy way to do that is declare that e-fuels pay no tax for the next 20 years. Job done.
The amusement being that the solution here is less government, not more.
I thought biofuels had a lower duty in the UK, but I’ve just checked the HMRC website, and biofuels have the same duty as the fuel they replace. Yep, recycled chip fat is taxed the same as distillated petroleum oil.
There’s a lady on the wireless desperately trying to claim that carbon-neutral car fuels are still evil. “It will be hugely expensive. It won’t make any difference. So it must be banned.”
As I have opined before, the greens don’t want us to go green, they want us to go without.
My plan has been to keep using my petrol car. Or diesel, if petrol becomes hard to get, trucks will still need diesel. But the prospect of e-fuels gives the bastards the option of mandating it not just for new production but for legacy petrol cars too. That will seems sensible to the nutcases who run things. But there is no way we can go to all e-fuel in the proposed timescale. It will need a lot of industrial plant and supply lines that don’t exist now.
So it’s not much of a solution, is it?
Further, there’s no way they won’t tax it unless we go to road pricing.
Further still, you are making logical arguments (albeit not very good ones) in a debate that is about religion.
Ah, but e-fuels still spread all that evil CO2, of which there is too much already, so e-fuels Bad, m’kaaayyy..
A lot of people have their Gravy Train invested in banning ICE engines altogether, and they’re already setting up for electric cars…
You’d almost wish they would be right, and there’ll be a major disaster worldwide, etc..
The biggest nutcases are the least equipped to handle something like that, so the problem would …mostly… sort itself out.
I was reading about this in Handelsblatt yesterday with my German teacher and she asked my opinion about whether UK would adopt the same position – not until after the next GE.
I also find it amusing that those against the change in UK are predominantly FBPE types who just don’t get the irony.
Remember about a year ago, when EV’s were finally starting to make inroads into the mass market, and the bansturbators celebrated by prematurely spunking their newest urban legend about the fictional problem of ‘tyre particulates’ all over the MSM?
Gave the game away.
Alternatively, we could stop pretending that carbon dioxide is harming the planet and just leave things the way they are. If the Government stopped interfering in the industry, we could use the fossil fuels we already have and that cars are already set up for, and use them cheaply
Have just seen that the energy density of hydrogen (on the scale of 1 – 10) is a little over 2, whereas petrol and diesel are 10. So what are the range / performance comparison data?
PLUS, hydrogen has to be stored at 700 bar…… 10,000 psi for the Imperials!!!
If this is so (info from the EFuel Alliance website), how many peeps are going to be comfortable sitting on a tank of the stuff?
E-fuels are to chemistryise that H2 up to petrol.
Speaking of imminent green regulations the next phase of MEES (minimum energy efficiency standards) comes into effect at the weekend requiring all ongoing, as opposed to the present system of applying to new or renewal, tenancies of non-domestic properties to have an EPC rating of at least E.
Considering the present government EPC website is about as accurate as a blue state electoral register the implementation should be a sight to behold.
Bye bye rental market
Can’t see that happening given we’ve got the most rapacious, tax hungry government since forever. Should be ashamed to call themselves Tories.
E-fuels are to chemistryise that H2 up to petrol.
Huh?
Most (95%) of hydrogen is manufactured from fossil fuels…
So we’re going to make e-fuel from hydrogen, manufactured from fossil fuels and then re-manufactured into artificial fossil fuels?? Is that going to magically make it environmentally friendly?
Or are we going to massively upscale hydrolysis in the next few years?
Porsche is already making petrol from wind elec, water and atmospheric CO2. Costs around $2 a litre at present. I really do think that’s going to be the answer.
Well, I’m certain it’s going to be for jet planes. Cars, well, maybe….
My current plan is, in 2029 to buy the nearest I can find to a Land Rover Defender that will still run on chip fat.
@ jgh
– I thought biofuels had a lower duty in the UK . . .
E-fuels aren’t biofuels, they’re “renewable electricity” derived synthetic fuels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel
I’m always doubtful about shiny new panaceas, but this really does make a lot of sense because we already have the distribution system nailed and in place. We need to get our skates on before the green-shirts dismantle that system.
– My current plan is, in 2029 to buy the nearest I can find to a Land Rover Defender that will still run on chip fat.
Sorry, Bloke in Wales, by that time the mayor of Londonistan will have expanded his ULEZ zone out beyond the Isle of Man.
Seriously though, I think these twats are reaching peak twat and the tide is turning against them.
Yes, I expect the petrol engine can will be kicked down the road several times yet, as milk floats continue to underperform.
Lump of iron/aluminium and a small plastic tank of fantastically energy dense, easy to transport liquid, of which there is no really foreseeable shortage likely, certainly well into the medium term at the very least.
What are the mooted “alternatives”?
Half ton lithium incendiaries basically kept from overhearing (and catching fire) by software requiring a wholesale reworking of the entire power grid (and a massive increase in actual, reliable power).
Hydrogen pressurised to several thousand PSI, again, with not the first clue as to how all this hydrogen is to be produced, stored and transported.
But I’m an ignorant dinosaur for pointing out reality.
Methinks there will be plenty of choice for a new real car around 2027 or so.
Non-domestic properties? HTF do I stop my tenants leaving the shop door open and the windows up to invite customers in? If BigCo hadn’t already killed it, that would be my brother’s greengrocer’s exterminated.
I’m starting to wonder if the whole “German Automobile Industry” protest is a bit of Song-and-Dance…
I’ve just been flipping through a report on the latest meeting on the dutch commision for energy bruhaha, which include the assaciation of grid managers.
They flat-out state, in Politician of course, that 2035, let alone 2030 is technically and economically impossible, even if they’d be mostly exempted from the whole permission circus ( including NOx and CO2 limitations).
Thing is that there is no way to procure the necessary materials in the amount needed to upgrade the grid for an electricity-only economy to have the throughput capacity for the increased demand.
And that’s even before any other country tries to get their stuff to do the same “seriously” and the inevitable price spike as demand maxes out production capacity..
And that’s for a small, compact little country like Clogland… I don’t even want to know what nightmare UK, Germany, etc.. will present.
And that’s just the main grid.. Up to the local transformers, not the “low-voltage” stuff ( yes.. different definitions what’s high, mid, and low in that business..) we get out of our wall sockets..
In 50 years, using the standard maintenance/replacement/upgrade cycles? yes.
In slightly over 10 years? Replacing and doubling up on everything? Forget it….
Not unless you buy up China, and completely ignore the Greenies.
I’m starting to wonder if the whole “German Automobile Industry” protest is a bit of Song-and-Dance…
It’s cute that Germany thinks they’re still going to have industries by 2035.
They’ll get Moslems instead.
To give peeps an idea about the cloggie situation: One example was about a standard substation.
Takes two years to build and make operational.
Takes 8 years to get through the planning/permission circus to get to that building stage.
With the currently planned nitrogen and CO2 circus extra, they estimate to add another two years to the planning/permission stage. A rough estimate, because the whole “Greenies litigate until they drop” factor is not known yet, because there isn’t enough precedence, and what there is allows the idiots to block any building near-indefinitely.
So any substation or expansion of a substation planned right now, could at best be expected to be operational in, oh wait.. 2033.. If there isn’t any delay…
“Takes two years to build and make operational.
Takes 8 years to get through the planning/permission circus to get to that building stage.”
As I get older, and the passage of time accelerates, it increasingly amazes me that the entirety of WW2 happened within a 6 year period. Within that short timeframe all the combatants managed to mobilise stupendous amounts of men and material to wage war across entire continents and oceans, pretty mcu from scratch. And yet we can’t build so much as a bypass in that sort of time.
“I thought biofuels had a lower duty in the UK, but I’ve just checked the HMRC website, and biofuels have the same duty as the fuel they replace. Yep, recycled chip fat is taxed the same as distillated petroleum oil.”
Which shows the entire sh*tshow is nothing to do with CO2 and everything to do with £££ and control………….
H2 turned into petrol? But it’ll still emit CO2.
I know: let’s turn the H2 into ammonia or even better, hydrazine. That’ll make grand car fuels. Whoosh!
Grikath: I’m not sure even a 50 year upgrade cycle would do it. We are talking about doubling the capacity for just the vehicles, and at least doubling it again for a completely electric future.
The opposition is starting too. There is a plan to cover East Anglia with 400kV pylons & cables for North Sea windfarms and general increased capacity and the locals are really getting pissed off. We’re not at the pitchfork stage yet but I don’t think it will be long.
– H2 turned into petrol? But it’ll still emit CO2.
The CO2 used in the manufacturing process will be captured from the atmosphere so the emissions won’t matter.
So, in 2030 all of Britain will smell like a McDonald’s.
Now that’s climate change.
@TG I was assuming a serious effort there, not unlike the WWII/postwar era where a lot of stuff had to be (re)built. In a hurry.
Sort of a minimum time, maximum effort thing. Which would include building a nuke in Groningen to fire up that aluminium factory gathering dust there again. And stuff, like parking a cable factory right next to Tata Steel in Ijmuiden to have a reasonable chance at local supply.
Y’know.. Stuff.
Doing things seriously and thoroughly for a change over the course of a minimum of 13-ish elections.
And yes… Maximum Optimist there… 😉
Grikath’s comment about Greenies objecting till they drop reminded me that they’ve just started objecting to Musk’s battery factor because it uses a lot of water.
Meanwhile, in a street in Berlin they’ve been objecting to the building of electric car charging points because they’re too close to the pavement.
Was in the Yukon recently and really don’t see how moving to electric would be at all feasible, especially given reduced capability in cold weather. They don’t have an electric by year xxxx law in place but are very concerned about where they will be able to source new ICE vehicles from if everyone around them is all electric. The drive from Whitehorse to Dawson is over 500km and there’s one electric quick charging point at a gas station the entire way and I’m not sure I want to sit in a car for any length of time waiting for it to charge when it’s -50 outside. Just refuelling with petrol wasn’t fun last time I did it.
*One thing they aren’t short of is external power points in populated areas as you have to plug your car in to keep it warm enough to start the next day so lots of parking spots outside buildings have power, the distance between places that actually have electricity that’s the issue, I assume as you are using some power to keep the car/battery warm that’s going to slow down charging as well. It’s not uncommon outside the Whitehorse to see pickups with an extra external tank so the vehicle can be left running for extended periods if you can’t plug it in to run the block heater and people stopping at a store or for a short stop will leave their car running
Given that the entire purpose of everything is to have more government, not less government, I don’t see your idea as likely to turn heads in London, Brussels, Berlin, or anywhere else.
Surely under the Windsor framework the UK has to align with the EU 2035 and exemption for efuels
Or is the application more pick a mix style