Electricity Supply

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Another issue that will be significant if and when the transport system goes all electric will be how will these vehicles be taxed, currently a colleague of mine who has just bought a new Range Rover, pays £1200 a year road tax whereas a significant number of similarly ice powered vehicles pay £140 per year. One would expect the taxation levels to be equalised which means that we should expect to pay similar amounts, the current system charges the owner according to how polluting their vehicle is, all electric will have to have a differently based taxation scheme. I think we can expect the levels of taxation to go only one way, that is up. Taxation could therefore be used as means of regulating who has access to transport, that would be a form of social regulation because those at the lower end of the social scale would struggle to afford access to vehicles. It will be interesting to see how those in charge “sell” their ideas to us the consumers.

Dave W

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

The cost figures are unarguable. But…cost per KW battery has dropped from nearly 300US towards100US over the last few years with lighter packs and greater energy density. Doubtless there will be further improvements. Tesla claims (obviously exaggerated and unsubstantiated) that their latest creation is designed for 1,000,000 miles on powertrain and battery pack is rebuildable. Servicing is now claimed not to be at any given interval but only 'when you think something needs doing'. Brake wear is so low that the biggest issue is lack of use of the calipers.

Granted model3 costs 3x a cheap IC to buy and even gets into luxury car tax brackets on road fund licence. My only real joy with my even more outrageously priced one is that now I've got the thing i happily use it for the most unnecessary journeys on free power ( as in drive an extra 10 miles to save £1 on cost of milk) – doubtless it's costing on tyre wear. It is a joy to drive though with the instant power and torque.

I offered before for anyone who wants to come out here to the sticks to play with it .. they really are that good to drive.

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Nobody has out together the requirement for adequate electricity generation (by any means) to power all these future EVs and trucks. Please do not just say renewables, frankly the grid will not cope in its present state.

Oh I forgot, our brilliant MPs (of all parties) think smart meters are the answer, best used to determine who to switch off.

Edited By KWIL on 09/06/2019 12:44:20

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

So here am I with my year 15 Passat with a class 6 engine and only pay £20 tax a year, the carbon output is low and I get maybe in town about 32 mpg.

Needless to say i will not be giving up my diesel very soon. The car is comfortable and the engine has 190 bhp and I have had it upto 124 mph for a few moments.

Furthermore, the possible crash of the electricity supply just as coronation street starts will soon raise a few outcries.

The carriage of heavy goods is going to be a problem, will they have half way battery replacement to get anywhere?

All this without any further development is all pie in the sky and it will come home to roost with quite a bang, I see the deadline for carbon fuel vehicles being pushed back many years. there is no alternative.

One thing is that they say diesel gives micronic particles that are breathed in, ok, the cleaner manufacturer/develeper came up with a cyclone exhaust attachmnet that caught the particles, did it catch, did it hell! Maybe now is the time to come back with it.

The other thing is you cannot price out the pollution, having to pay higher price to enter London only means it goes somewhere else.

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Anyone who is interested in the facts around energy production and use and their effects on the climate should read the ebook by Sir David MacKay FRS, former professor in the engineering department at Cambridge University.

**LINK**

Unfortunately the author has died and the book is a little out of date now but the science still works.

Russell

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 09/06/2019 13:53:40:

…All this without any further development is all pie in the sky and it will come home to roost with quite a bang, I see the deadline for carbon fuel vehicles being pushed back many years. there is no alternative.

…

Two entirely separate problems to be solved: Pollution, and energy shortages because fossil fuels are approaching exhaustion.

Even if it were proved conclusively that burning fossil fuels isn't causing climate change, that would alter nothing because carrying on filling up at the pump isn't sustainable. It's a bust. Mankind has to find alternatives.

We've been fortunate to live at a time when coal, oil and natural gas were plentiful and dirt cheap. Maybe that's lulled folk into a false sense it will last forever. Unfortunately fossil fuels are a limited natural resource and demand for them is rising rapidly across the globe when it's improbable that new sources will be found. They aren't renewable – when they're gone they're gone.

Prices are going to rise, and rise, and rise. Who will be driving a petrol car when fuel costs £30 per litre? Difficult to predict when petrol and diesel are going to come unstuck, 15 to 20 years is my guess. In 1990 running out of fossil fuels was at least 50 years off, no problem. Now it's 2019 and the shadow is much, much closer.

Dave

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

A really good book on energy is "A cubic mile of oil"

Not cheap though

There is some free info here http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195325546/

The short term future for cars is clearly hybrids. My peronal vuew of the ideal is an electric drive train with a high efficiency IC engine running at it's peak efficiency load point driving generator. Maybe a tiny gas turbine runnnng on LP or even better hydrogen. Generator only needs to be big enough to give range extension, around te average power used by the car.

Robert G8RPI.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I notice how everyone talks of "fossil fuels".

Crude oil, and to a lesser extent, coal, are not fossil "fuels" per se although you can burn both as they are. They are indeed fossil materials, but are resources for many chemicals as well as fuels. Unfortunately the politicians, Press and campaigners either forget, ignore or frankly, do not know this. Or do know but want us to ignore it.

No-one stops to think, what would really happen when the oil, the greater resource for these, runs out.

Yes, we might have cracked the problem of generating gigantic quantities of electricity, of producing and using hydrogen in a non-polluting way*, etc.

We might have solved or accepted the huge social upsets brought about by it all….

But we have NOT solved the problem of replacing sensibly, the chemical feed-stock from petroleum necessary for a vast array of materials we take for granted, and on which all these absurdly-called "renewable energy" systems rely. And once used, unlike metals, most of these materials cannot be salvaged for re-use. Coal might supply some of these, but not all, but that will run out too, eventually.

Wind turbines? You could use vegetable oil derivatives for their lubrication and hydraulic controls, but what of the synthetic resins used in making their blades, the marine-grade paint protecting their steel columns, insulating the cables, cooling the transformers?

Solar panels? From what are the panels actually made, as well as the opto-sensitive ones?

Electrical distribution; and electrical equipment in homes, businesses, transport, public-services, etc ? Does the world have enough rubber and gutta percha for insulation, and lead for cable-sheathing?

Building? No lead for flashing because that's all gone to make cable sheathing. No PVC window-frames, fascias, rainwater goods, plumbing….

We'd still have metals, which are recoverable… Yes, but these take enormous amounts of heat energy, usually at very high temperatures to process from ore or from scrap; ores are usually nowhere near end-use so need transporting… etc.

And concrete. Oh, another non-recoverable use of enormous amounts of clay, limestone and fuel; and their transport. The most you can do with used concrete is crush it to aggregate and hard-core.

'

Ah yes but it's offset by more local working, working at home thanks to the Internet, etc. Really? THINK! Only a fraction of the whole spread of employment can be carried out by home-based loners for a start. Sitting in your lounge, tapping a keyboard, won't make others' food or your clothes, build their homes, make them better when ill or injured, etc. The most you might do is provide them with passive entertainment while you buy and sell their money for you.

Further, the vast amount of electricity being taken by the increasing rise in modern telecomms – yes including social fora- is itself now being seen as much a problem as the obvious areas like transport and heating buildings. It comes in both diffuse consumption (the home PC, the so-called "mobile" phone) and the prodigious concentrated use by the huge Internet servers.

So we still need transport then. Yes – even if becomes a rare luxury for most people – but see above.

Right, so more isolated communities, less transport. More local manufacturing and food production? Yes, if we still have anyone with the skills to make objects and grow foodstuffs 'cos as we all know, we are officially a so-called "service economy" in which we need plumbers and hairdressers, but no-one actually to make the pipe-fittings and hair-scissors…. Pipe-fittings, err. See above.

'

Also see above re exhaustion of the non-re-useable raw materials for the equipment itself, especially in profligate societies that encourage the "ever-new, always-latest, never-repair" mentality.

'

Pretty bleak outlook then? YES! Whatever people like that naive Swedish girl tell equally naive politicians who can't see what's wrong in catch-phrases like "zero carbon", "renewable energy" and "saving the planet"; bleak indeed because such naivety shows THEY DO NOT THINK.

The foremost problem at present IS of pollution and waste, but that is NOT the only one at all.

All right, do I have the answers? I can suggest only partial solutions at best, partly implicit in some of my remarks above, but many of those paid to understand it seem not to do even that. They ignore the scientists and engineers who do think, when it's easier to hide behind comfortable catch-phrases, pat answers and quick results.

'

* Burning hydrogen in air as some suggest doing, produces no CO2, but still produced nitrous oxides.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Farmboy on 09/06/2019 10:45:46:

However you juggle the figures around, the UK apparently uses about 1 million tonnes of petroleum per week for all transport. plus almost another half million for other uses (according to Gov't figures)

Someone will no doubt be able to work out the electrical equivalent, but that sounds like a lot of gigawatts to me

Think I might start breeding horses

Farmboy,

You could easily do the sums from internet facts! Petroleum transport will be virtually all car usage. Petrol car engines are not much better than 25% efficiency – the very rough rule of thumb for any engine is 1/3 out the exhaust, 1/3 through the radiator and 1/3 useful mechanical energy. Diesel is more thermodynamically efficient than petrol fuel (simply higher compression ratio, for a start).

Now look at electrical generation. Coal – a bit over 40%? Natural gas combined cycle – about 60%. Renewable energy – no fuel cost for the generated power (ignore those that want to include manufacturing costs as they are just a red herring tactic!)

Anyone should be able to clearly understand that the electric battery vehicle (even with charge/discharge efficiency losses) is streets ahead of any liquid fuel car as regards efficiency of the energy source.

That simply means that 1 million tonnes of petroleum fuel could be replaced with 660 thousand tonnes (or likely far less) if used efficiently. The only advantage of a liquid fuel is portability, as I see it.

That equates to about an extra 20% electricity generation. Easily accommodated for most of the year with extra night-time generation. This is not considering commercial vehicles, of course, but you should be able to understand the simple facts.

People worry about too many non-issues. Another ten years will see much of these ‘potential issues’ addressed and confined to the non-event box. Those that will want to charge their vehicles at peak demand periods will be lining the pockets of the more savvy vehicle-to-grid BEV owners who supply these people with really high unit costs, then recharge their own batteries at off-peak rates.

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Bob Brown 1 on 09/06/2019 10:58:20:

Posted by pgk pgk on 09/06/2019 10:26:48:

The greatest EV uptake in europe is in Norway… not a member of the EU. Globally the largest amount of EV's are US and soon China. That's not to detract from the EU intentions to move to EV but they aren't leading yet. And you donlt have to be in the EU to make the move to EV. Norways success has been down to the level of subsidy and (I think) free recharging en route. The limiting factor for EV production is battery manufacture and what technology method is used.

Norway is not a good example as most of their power generation is hydro and the cars there are imported, also they had massive incentives to change to EV no doubt funded by fossil fuel. The UK would be in a similar position as we have no large scale battery manufactures or EV car manufacturers.

They also only have a population of 5.2 million in an area 3 times as large as England, which makes a big difference. London is about 8.2million

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

The ultimate answer is that clearly we will need a Planet B, and Mars at the moment doesn't quite look like it; so we'll need FTL travel at some point even to begin exploring.

[John Duncker 1Participant @johnduncker1]

All the easy oil and gas in the world has pretty much been found. Now comes the harder work in finding and producing oil from more challenging environments and work areas.

— William J. Cummings, Exxon-Mobil company spokesman, December 2005^[73]

It is pretty clear that there is not much chance of finding any significant quantity of new cheap oil. Any new or unconventional oil is going to be expensive.

— Lord Ron Oxburgh, a former chairman of Shell, October 2008^[74]

World oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s

The peak of world oilfield discoveries occurred in the 1960s^[16] at around 55 billion barrels (8.7×10⁹ m³)(Gb)/year.^[75] According to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO), the rate of discovery has been falling steadily since. Less than 10 Gb/yr of oil were discovered each year between 2002 and 2007.^[76] According to a 2010 Reuters article, the annual rate of discovery of new fields has remained remarkably constant at 15–20 Gb/yr.^[77]

^{The people who made the above statements were not loonie save the planet beardy weirdies but top people in their fields.}

A major world wide energy crunch is coming, probably around 2030. Unfortuneatly a major world wide food crunch is also coming around the same time.The water crunch is here now in some places and will be spreading world wide maybe around 2030.

I was in Utah earlier this year and filled my fuel tank for 2.27$ a gallon. Why is it so low well the American govrnemnt subsudise the search for oil and the development of new production sources. We are talking billions.

The American leaders know that there is a short term gain for their economy and their popularity at the polls if they keep fuel prices low.

But it can not go on forever.

Sure we can switch to electric cars and trucks but where are the new power stations and what will fuel them?

A back of a fag packet calculation shows we can only generate enough for a small fraction of todays trucks and cars.unless we build a shed load on nuclear power plants like the French.

By 2050 it is pretty clear that supplies of oil and gas will be declining rapidly, this will lead to world wide famine which will hit China and India hardest. Both countries have nuclear weapons.

The fall of civilisation is 4 square meals away

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

A terrifying prospect, John.

Not only are new reserves harder to find they are also, unsurprisingly, in areas harder physically to exploit.

I wonder if China's massive international investments now, are in advance of these threats?

It won't want nuclear war if it can get what it wants without fighting, because it knows what would happen to it in return; but everything else it is doing points to a very carefully planned strategy for self-preservation with economic development and political influence as part of that strategy. Its leaders may be a bunch of ruthless old die-hard dogmatists, but they are not fools…

Somehow I am glad I am 66 not 16.

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

Just looked on the internet. Most sites give the energy equivalent for one litre of petrol as 9.1Kwhr. I pay over £5 for a litre of petrol and about 16 pence for a kilowatt hour (ignoring the standing charge). Electricity is clearly cheaper 9.1 x £0.16 = £1.45. (I should explain to the nit pickers among you that the above figures are only approximate). Of course, a large proportion of the petrol price is made up from government imposed taxes. As other people have already pointed out, the government will have to find a way to replace the lost revenue when we all go electric.

[doubletopParticipant @doubletop]

From Transpower the NZ grid network owner

**LINK**

" We will see the mainstream commercialisation of distributed solar, electric vehicles and energy management systems. These will start to significantly change the profile of demand and operation of the system with solar and batteries as well as other distributed energy resources enabling load to be partially flattened within a day but also adding additional intermittency. Despite growth in distributed supply, there will also be significant growth in grid energy demand. In the short and medium term we do not expect these batteries and distributed energy resources to be sufficient to flatten the daily or annual load curve, however it has an important potential to shave off peaks and it is critically important that it doesn’t accentuate existing peaks and troughs."

and

"Many of our existing assets will need significant investment in the next couple of decades. The assets of greatest concern are the conductors on some of our key 220 kV lines, many of which are built over urban areas. We need to sequence them carefully to manage our and our contractors’ resources, to avoid volatility in our transmission charges and to ensure sufficient capacity headroom to enable the grid outages required for the work.

Further future opportunities exist. New tools leveraging our data using learning algorithms such as artificial intelligence will increasingly play a role in managing the network as a complement to the distributed energy resources in individual homes and businesses. The increasing storage in the network could eventually create a network with extensive storage in which the grid’s role shifts."

 

 

Edited By Doubletop on 10/06/2019 03:54:09

Edited By Doubletop on 10/06/2019 03:55:09

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

Sorry guys. My last post was a complete load of rubbish. I managed to confuse litres with gallons and got totally the wrong answer. At £1.20ish per litre, the price seems comparable with electricity. That what comes from computering in the middle of the night. Bit about tax is still right I think.

I will now read the latest posts and see how severely I've been reprimanded. By the way I can still remember when a GALLON of petrol did cost £1.20.

Edited By Anthony Knights on 10/06/2019 06:05:36

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

Regarding the supply of oil, I have vague memories of a TV program in the early 70's which predicted we would already have run out by.now.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Anthony Knights on 10/06/2019 05:46:05:

Sorry guys. My last post was a complete load of rubbish. I managed to confuse litres with gallons and got totally the wrong answer. At £1.20ish per litre, the price seems comparable with electricity. That what comes from computering in the middle of the night. Bit about tax is still right I think.

I will now read the latest posts and see how severely I've been reprimanded. By the way I can still remember when a GALLON of petrol did cost £1.20.

Edited By Anthony Knights on 10/06/2019 06:05:36

How can you possibly claim that £1.20 for a litre of petrol is equivalent to electricity? Electricity can cost from zero to about 16p for one unit, depending on source and taraiff. Mine would cost about 10p.

12 units of electricity could carry me me well over 36 miles. How many miles would you get from one litre of petrol in your car? Energy cost might be equivalent, but do remember that 75% of the petroleum energy is simply lost as heat, either out of the exhaust or via the radiator, etc.

Your vague memory is wrong. Peak oil or reducing output may have been mentioned by a few forward thinking brains. North sea gas was accepted as running out by now, back then. It is still struggling on, but could not supply energy needs of the UK, now. That is for sure. We rely on the Russians for supplies.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Anthony Knights on 10/06/2019 05:46:05:

By the way I can still remember when a GALLON of petrol did cost £1.20.

.

I still remember my Dad pulling into the local garage [pre 'self-serve' fuelling] and asking for a pound's worth of petrol.

The shocked attendant cried "a motorbike won't hold a pound's worth!" but Dad then explained that his had a five gallon tank.

MichaelG.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 10/06/2019 07:36:07:

Posted by Anthony Knights on 10/06/2019 05:46:05:

By the way I can still remember when a GALLON of petrol did cost £1.20.

.

I still remember my Dad pulling into the local garage [pre 'self-serve' fuelling] and asking for a pound's worth of petrol.

The shocked attendant cried "a motorbike won't hold a pound's worth!" but Dad then explained that his had a five gallon tank.

MichaelG.

Me too, my dad filled up his Ford Anglia for a pound. Of course back then a pound was worth 20 shillings…

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Posted by not done it yet on 10/06/2019 06:45:22:

Posted by Anthony Knights on 10/06/2019 05:46:05:

 

I will now read the latest posts and see how severely I've been reprimanded. By the way I can still remember when a GALLON of petrol did cost £1.20.

Hi, I can remember when My elder brother filled up his car the price of a gallon of petrol was one shilling and nine pence, that's £0.0875 (8.75 pence) in todays money and there was an outcry when it jumped up to one shilling and eleven pence, that's £0.095833 (9.58 pence) a rise of 0.83 pence in todays money. Today that would put the price of petrol at the pump @ about 2 pence per litre.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 10/06/2019 11:14:02

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

Thrid time trying..very trying

Rolec charge points 32A single or three phase

Let's say 7680watts( assume cos phi near 1)

Assume 80-90 percent conversion in charger and battery

6144 watts

Modern showers worse than that

Tesla model 3—60 kwhr

So that's overnight

All do able

Apart from when everyone is doing it and your kerbside parking is not near your house tonight…not all have drives

And just imagine all those charging leads across the pavement?

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

The world will adapt.
Lampost chargers now available in some areas so no need for wires across the pavement.

One can speculate re parking meter chargers, all car-parks being required to install systems progressively to all bays. New builds havng to allow for the same. Many EV's can use a simple 32A Commando socket or even 13A (albeit v slow charge rate on latter). If one accepts that city/town cars only need 100mile range for commute, kids to school, shopping then 30KW battery is enough so even at 3A overnight.

Wherever folk park can be converted over time.

I noted today that we now have two sites with 350KW CCS chargers UK – all we need is a vehicle capable of accepting that rate (Porsche have made such a future claim).

It's the car that controls the charge rate.

Any change to full EV will take at least 15yrs with a hyrid mix meantime. By then the dream of genuine autonomy may even have happened and folk just order up a car as needed…..

According to today's news the dangers of tyre and brake particles also significant. I havenlt figured out how they're gonna manage without tyres but regen braking reduces dust markedly…..just those iron rims are going to make for a bumpy ride…we need to train coopers again.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

New buildings… The ones that will in future also have to be heated entirely by electricity?

Chargers on lamp-posts would surely mean having to install extra supplies, but they will only be any good to those who can park right by the post, and there are very many areas that not only have on-street parking only but also the street-lamps are a long way apart.

What might usefully happen is the many rural garages forced by commercial and fiscal pressure to stop selling fuel and concentrate on servicing and sales, will find it worthwhile fitting chargers on the former pump-islands. Until the Government slaps corresponding tax rates on vehicle electricity so making this service in turn, uneconomical for small businesses to provide.

The dream of autonomy… Just how many cars, and parked where, will be needed to make it even slightly useful? It might work for the occasional shopping-trip, but not much else.

I think in future, car ownership will revert 100 years to the luxury of the wealthy.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

In another 100 years, car ownership may be bygone necessity. Long overtaken by other means of transport or readily available, for all, at the press of a few buttons on whatever the mobile phone metamorphoses into over that period of time.

[Author]

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