Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

If I lived in a truly urban area, I'd probably have a Smart car, or something like it, or nothing at all. People in urban areas don't care about bumping other cars. You can tell by looking at everyone's bumpers.

Wind and solar simply are not growing anywhere close to fast enough to reduce CO2 emissions significantly.  The trend to NG replacing coal has done more to reduce CO2 emissions in the US.  The numbers don't lie.

We traded our Caddy for the VW GTI which is a nice urban car, and comfortable on the road as well.  I miss the memory seat function though.  The Caddy, while not a Big Car, was too big for around here.  And we're getting better fuel economy, the curb weight is quite a bit less.

I never understood the fuel cell proposition.  Hydrogen is not a primary fuel.  You can't mine it on this planet, you have to make it, so it really is for energy storage.  Batteries are simply better at that.  Maybe somewhere down the road we get to fuel cells, but I don't see it, perhaps in large trucks.  You still have to use a lot of energy to make hydrogen.

I really see no practicable way to reduce human CO2 emissions fast enough to interrupt climate change if the models are anywhere near correct.  Hand waving won't do it.  You need a real plan, with timing and costs, and no one has that.  

I never understood the fuel cell proposition.  Hydrogen is not a primary fuel.  You can't mine it on this planet, you have to make it, so it really is for energy storage.  Batteries are simply better at that.  Maybe somewhere down the road we get to fuel cells, but I don't see it, perhaps in large trucks.  You still have to use a lot of energy to make hydrogen.

The idea of hydrogen is refueling. The biggest knock on electric is the range, and the fact that recharging is much slower than petroleum refueling.
Even the Tesla supercharging stations take 30 minutes or more. What happens when you're on a road trip, get to a charging station (that's full), wait 20 minutes to even start your car, and then have 35 more minutes to get back on the road? Not ideal.

Range is fine, but hydrogen has to be generated, which takes more energy than you get back.  It's merely a fancy expensive battery that requires an enormous infrastructure change.

I don't see it.

Electric motors are famous for low end torque.  Pushing through snow is not an issue.  Loss of range in cold weather can be.

And just happens to be a coincidence that snow is cold,so I'd run into a problem the further down the road I got if there is another snow squall that brings me back to my original point.3-4 yrs back the Great Lakes all froze over 2 straight years,the last time that happened was I believe'93-'94 and before that '77-'78 I think.I happen to live 2 miles from one that's why it would matter for me(us)

Anyway, if you have the numbers and the algorithms, you can plug different scenarios in to see impact on future climate.  Even if we went to zero carbon NOW, the impact continues for decades, and is not good.  If you use aggressive scenarios for replacing coal globally and then NG and petroleum, the numbers are scary bad.  And we won't even do that, not even close.

China and India get a free pass until 2030 and then they "agreed" to limit emissions from there on.  Not nearly enough.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whats-in-a-half-a-degree-2-very-different-future-climates/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sa-editorial-social&utm_content=&utm_term=&sf200219549=1&linkId=58343526

"Preventing a temperature rise of 2 degrees C will be a major challenge, one that the current commitments from various countries will likely be unable to meet. And that is before Pres. Donald Trump pulls the U.S. out of the agreement. But the report says a 1.5-degree C limit is not impossible—although it will require immediate and drastic action, because the current pace of emissions would breach that level between 2030 and 2052. The most likely scenario for achieving that goal may require blowing past it, and then sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to bring temperatures back in line."

It would be much easier to limit CO2 generation in the first place versus pulling it out of the air.  The numbers are very very dire here, with no obvious plan to make them better beyond signing some paper agreements to do stuff later.

That is exactly my point.  I've spent time looking at the numbers and the projections.  If the models are roughly correct, NOTHING is going to keep us from well exceeding a 2°C rise short of massive depopulation by something.  

One can talk about how fast wind and solar are growing, but IT IS NOT NEARLY ENOUGH, and nuclear is simply not happening either.

Just the concept of replacing COAL by 2035 appears unattainable in practicable terms.  The numbers are not remotely close, not even talking about China and India.

I think "we" need a dose of reality here.  It's akin to having terminal cancer and someone says take these pills and you will live 3 extra days and the pills cost a million dollars.