Nate:
Haven’t Merc had a crack at this again recently?
I’m not sure about “recently” but there’s been quite a lot of
Trolley Truck research done in the past, when you look into it.
I think that the oil will “run out” long before people expect.
Some oil will still be there but oil producers will keep several year’s of
supply for their own use and for their military - it will never see the open market.
Only a fool would sell their last drop . . .
Nate:
Only a fool would sell their last drop . . .
Which is why the Americans have been canny IMO. Although they import quite a bit of oil, (and have indirectly encouraged some ruthless regimes in the process) they have in doing this conserved more of their own supplies, whilst apparently becoming dependent on imports.
As for the future, whether 'tis the environment, war, famine or pestilence or running out of oil which get us, most of us here today won’t have to worry about such things, but hydrogen power, in some form, will come good when required (very low carbon footprint too so I gather).
Snudger:
As for the future, whether 'tis the environment, war, famine or pestilence or running out of oil which get us, most of us here today won’t have to worry about such things, but hydrogen power, in some form, will come good when required (very low carbon footprint too so I gather).
When Tony Blair left office, he said that the future UK cannot
avoid building more nuclear power stations for electricity generation.
I believe him.
Unfortunately true although nuclear power has at least become more efficient since our pioneering days when most of our reactors were built AIUI. Even though the UK is quite windy, it’s not reliable (wind power I’m talking about here, to be clear!)
Whilst we’re feeling doomsdayish, this never happened:- bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13159616
and I predict nor will this: bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16000331
Hydrogen.
There’s already a few cars that run sucessfully on haydrogen, with Honda taking the lead.
We’ve already got trucks running on LPG, won’t be long til they’re running on hydrogen.
cieranc:
Hydrogen.
There’s already a few cars that run sucessfully on haydrogen, with Honda taking the lead.
We’ve already got trucks running on LPG, won’t be long til they’re running on hydrogen.
Isn’t Haydrogen what horses run on?
No worries, won’t run out before December 21 this year 
I’ll tell you something that 99% of you didn’t know.
Of all the oil deposits ever found, drilled, pumped & then consequently abandoned, the most they have ever recovered from those deposits is 35% !
We haven’t yet reached what is called ‘Peak Oil’. Look it up, it’s a fascinating subject.
The world in 300 years time will be totally unrecognisable from the one we enjoy today, just like todays world is if we looked forwards to it 300 years ago.
No one here has yet recognised that steam is a valid option for motive power in the future, why not?
Chas:
The world in 300 years time will be totally unrecognisable from the one we enjoy today.
Yes - They’ll laugh at today’s “modern technology” in the transportation industry.
“Back in 2012 they actually used humans to steer things called trucks.
They didn’t really understand Horizontal Gravitation & JetPax back then.”
Dieseldoforme:
Nate:
Haven’t Merc had a crack at this again recently?I’m not sure about “recently” but there’s been quite a lot of
Trolley Truck research done in the past, when you look into it.I think that the oil will “run out” long before people expect.
Some oil will still be there but oil producers will keep several year’s of
supply for their own use and for their military - it will never see the open market.Only a fool would sell their last drop . . .
If you listen to those in the aviation industry in terms of it’s future or investment etc you never hear about them ever being worried about the oil running out in the foreseeable future and they’re as dependent on the continuing supply of the stuff as anyone else.In addition to oil supplies there’s also coal to gas to liquid technology.The only problem is that the idiots decided to help China to grow it’s economy which is putting a lot more demand into the system than if we’d have left them out in the cold by not investing in the place and not importing loads of stuff from them.
Chas:
No one here has yet recognised that steam is a valid option for motive power in the future, why not?
Well, if you follow the cables back far enough, you’ll find that all electric trains are steam-powered. 
Chas:
No one here has yet recognised that steam is a valid
option for motive power in the future.Why not ?
Too much space taken up by dirty coal and water - less room for a load.
Eventually the UK will be ALL-ELECTRIC . . . There is no alterntive.
No more petrol/diesel engines and no more gas fires or gas boilers.
The question is how will electricity be generated and
how will it be delivered to end users.
Why not have a small nuclear reactor (under the drivers seat) I should be able to adapt one to pull 44t.
I am off to my shed right now, see you later, all glowy…
Dieseldoforme:
Chas:
No one here has yet recognised that steam is a valid
option for motive power in the future.Why not ?
Too much space taken up by dirty coal and water - less room for a load.
Eventually the UK will be ALL-ELECTRIC . . . There is no alterntive.
No more petrol/diesel engines and no more gas fires or gas boilers.
The question is how will electricity be generated and
how will it be delivered to end users.
I think you’re forgetting what’s going to happen to the price of it if/when transport becomes totally reliant on it not forgetting that all the current taxation put on road fuel will be transferred onto electricity with no way of differentiating electricity used for domestic purposes or road use at least in the case of charging battery type vehicles.In addition would then be the cost of batteries on top.
The fact is the oil isn’t going to run out in our lifetimes or a lot more generations in the future at which point it will be their problem to sort out not ours.Which is exactly how the aviation industry sees the issue because an electric powered airliner would never get off the ground and there’s no way that the oil companies could economically keep providing aviation fuel without also having a market for all the other oil based products. 
Siemens came up with that idea, but I don’t understand, why they did not used the system that we have in place for years that it is used by troleybuses?
This system allows the vehicle do change lane and still be attatched to the overhead wires, it allows it to go through the roadworks, go around broken down vehicle etc…
The other option could be compressed air cars:
And then we always have option to fit individual nuclear reactors to each truck - the technology is here, the only problem is people’s fear…
But I agree with Harry - it would not concern us, the robots will drive these toys.
Carryfast:
The fact is the oil isn’t going to run out in our lifetimes, or a lot more
generations in the future, at which point it will be their problem
to sort out not ours.
I believe that there are people alive today who will not see oil and
oil products available for commercial sale.
UK will be all electric before September 2099. We better get building more
nuclear generators or the lights will be going out.
Dieseldoforme:
Carryfast:
The fact is the oil isn’t going to run out in our lifetimes, or a lot more
generations in the future, at which point it will be their problem
to sort out not ours.I believe that there are people alive today who will not see oil and
oil products available for commercial sale.UK will be all electric before September 2099. We better get building more
nuclear generators or the lights will be going out.
So the future of the aviation industry is measured in decades 
.Which doesn’t seem to be the case with international policy towards future growth and investment in that industry.
There was a thing on today about this ‘backyard inventor’ running engines on liquid air.Cooled to -190 it then expands and that expansion will power an engine.He has got one powering a Vauxhall Corsa and it seems very slow and noisy.Same as the early internal combustion engines.I don’t have a link to this unfortunately.The crunch question is though IMO -how do the Arabian states imagine tourists are going to be able to travel to their mega resorts if oil runs out as soon as we’re made to believe?
This site makes for some interesting reading
As has been mentioned, if you really believe that all vehicles will be electric in the near future, you’d better start thinking of ways to tax them.
Sir +:
There was a thing on today about this ‘backyard inventor’ running engines on liquid air.Cooled to -190 it then expands and that expansion will power an engine.He has got one powering a Vauxhall Corsa and it seems very slow and noisy.Same as the early internal combustion engines.I don’t have a link to this unfortunately.The crunch question is though IMO -how do the Arabian states imagine tourists are going to be able to travel to their mega resorts if oil runs out as soon as we’re made to believe?
Yeah, there are some ideas about creating vehicles that use very low temperature gases to run… The basic idea is that it works like a steam engine, except that the surrounding temperature is enough to make it running. Recently Technical University students in my town have build something that runs on liquid nitrogen…
Well, it works and it maybe fun if you are bored student, but it makes no sense: to run this car costs almost four pounds per minute…