Climate Bolloxolgy.

I'd stay well clear of these Hybrids unless you are doing alot of city driving

Can't stomach that one - one of Ryan's closest lieutenants and from what I hear from those working on the frontlines of conservation in this country, entirely insincere and simply parrots empty greenwash lines from the likes of Coillte and BNM.

That would be my experience too - I currently operate a Kona diesel for the day job and I must say am well pleased with it in terms of the drink. Funnily enough a lad who does hoof work on our equines said the exact same as you about that Toyota CHr as he bought one early last year but is not best pleased with its MPG.

Great saving on running costs - but only if you can charge it at home - not such a great saving on purchase price, though.

Before Gormley and the Greens deliberatly increased the countries pollution and made petrol owners pay higher motoring costs so diesel owners could pay lower taxes while they polluted more, we were looking to buy a car so ran the numbers on 3 different car brands comparing diesels with petrols, matched for acceleration performance. Because of the higher initial purchase price, even though they got higher milage, the diesels didn't break even in cost until around or past 100,000 km driven. Didn't even factor in higher servicing costs either.

Bolloxology indeed: https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/world-s-first-hydrogen-ship-docks-in-australia-raising-hope-for-a-new-industry-20220120-p59prg.html

"The world’s first carrier of liquefied hydrogen has arrived at Victoria’s Port of Hastings to pick up its inaugural cargo and transport it to Japan, marking a major milestone for the emerging industry.

The Suiso Frontier’s upcoming voyage carrying super-cooled liquid hydrogen from a Japanese-Australian consortium’s $500 million pilot project in the Latrobe Valley to Kobe in Japan will be the first worldwide to transport liquid hydrogen by sea to an international market."

All good so far...except:

"The Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) pilot project, led by a consortium including Japan’s J-Power, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Shell and AGL, is demonstrating the conversion of Latrobe Valley brown coal into hydrogen gas."

You couldn't make it up.

Sure this is a good thing? There's centuries worth of coal reserves in the world and by gasifying it and capturing the CO2 you get Hydrogen, the cleanest fuel possible. There are a couple of stumbling blocks at the moment, one of which is the cost of producing hydrogen which makes it a lot dearer than oil or gas. But if we could make hydrogen work it would actually be a game changer.

What kinda driving would they be doing Brian?

I mean, would it be rural, motorway, city, etc...

Going by what I have heard, and what posters above have said - its harder to get the benefit out of the hybrid if you aren't doing urban driving / cruising along at a slow speed...

Maybe 60-80km round trip for work and then whatever weekend stuff with 4 kids, all Cavan/Monaghan roads

No, they'll be fine if you leave the heating off, and cover up in a big wolly blanket, much like if you were in a pony and trap. Difficult to keep the wi dows defrosted, but maybe the head out the side window would suffice for the type of distance you'd be going anyway..

Not really. The obviously sensible way to generate H2 is by using solar energy, which Australia has an abundance of, to electrolyze water into H2 and O2. Australia's richest person, Andrew Forrest, has some very large scale plans to do just that on a huge scale which has the Germans salivating at the prospect of importing.

Using coal is just crazy given the available and obvious alternative. A huge problem is the ultra low temperature required to keep H2 liquid at - way colder than for natural gas. All the refrigeration and insulation gear leaves not a lot for the hydrogen and that ship seems to me to carry a ridiculously small quanity for it's size and cost.

I once tried to calculate the range of that ship if powered by it's cargo, and while I forget the precise figure, it was not very far in ship terms.

Hybrids are usually a bit heavy , have a large engine 2lt +, and have poor mpg. Some are plug in. Alot state they do 30/40 miles on a charge when they only do 20. They are probally more polluting (energy wise/efficiency) than your average petrol.

The only good thing you can say about them..and this is generally what they are designed for...is they can switch to battery in town thus lessening the toxic emissions levels in cities. As time goes by these and full electric vehicles will be the only ones left in to cities.

Mmmm. I hadn't thought about what exactly! Emissions certainly is a good place to start. Has it also forced a change to a less-carbon alternative? Or was it, as I suspect, just another money raising exercise. Wasn't the money supposed to be ring fenced for certain green projects? Did that happen? I recall farming organisations, or maybe TDs going bananas about the recent increase and not putting the money where it was promised