In reply to tony:
> I disagree. Take away the travel and the issue of the fuel source is irrelevant.
Take away the central heating and the issue of the fuel source is irrelevant.
Take away jet travel and the issue of the fuel source is irrelevant.
Take away the internet and the issue of the fuel source is irrelevant.
You see where this is going?
The ability to travel county scale distances at will is one of the key advances that reshaped our society.
> The efficiency of electric cars better than that of ic cars, but even with the higher efficiencies of good CCGT generation, there's still a lot of wasted energy. I'm a big advocate of CHP, but it still doesn't get over the issue that travel still contributes significantly to pollution.
On the flip side, the average household wastes enough energy through poor insulation, old boilers, inefficient old white goods and the like to supply all the energy they would need to do their travel by electric car.
So if you fix wastage in households we can eliminate the pollution associated with our travel patterns, without eliminating the travel.
Only a fraction of businesses can be moved out from central employment locations to peoples houses - consider manufacturing, health care, construction etc, and of those only a fraction of the staff can really work productively in isolation, and of those only a fraction can afford a house with the space to set aside etc. If you can only change a smallish fraction of travel patterns, it's only going to make a small difference, and it's generally recognised that every little really does not help.
Build a couple of PWRs and we can decarbonise all car and motorbike transport. Every BIG helps.