GigaFactory

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

It’s getting hard to find a sea view without an array of wind turbines.

Mike

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by ChrisH on 15/07/2021 18:30:48:

The problem to consigning a sector of the public to use public transport rather than their own cars for mobility is that public transport for those in rural areas is not good, services are few and far between.

Public transport may be OK in cities but for folk living in the sticks its not much good if getting to town is on a Tuesday but the bus back is not till Friday.

…….

Chris

Never mind cities, I live in a largeish town, if I get back to the main railway station after 8:30pm I would have to walk home. OK it's only about 3 miles, but I won't be able to do that for many more years. People who live in metropolises, shouldn't make pronouncements when they know nothing about how the rest of us live.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

One might imagine the public transport companies investing in all the tradee they are going to pick up as fewer and fewere people are able to own cars.

Well, we can imagine, but…

I live in a town whose local bus services provision is very uneven in coverage, with some outlying but large and growing areas having far fewer buses each day,and stopping ealier in the evenings, than others of similar size and distance from the town centre.

Oddly, the bus company, First, has been bringing in vehicles from Southampton (about 80 miles away) and Birmingham (some 170 miles away); still in their home liveries. It also runs our rail services, to London and to Bristol (the latter giving connections run by, among others, the German state, to much of the rest of the country). It doesn't paint "First" on the coach sides of course, but camouflage-names. Recently First has been cutting its services on both routes.

Its web-site's "Investors" page is illuminating. A couple of weeks ago, it proclaimed a price of £82 a share – eighty-two! It also carried a sentence, which when translated into real English seemed to suggest First plans to sell or close large chunks of its business for its so-called "investors".

I think a lot of areas of this country are going to be level in one respect… all equally isolated for any but their wealthy residents and the second-homers from Canary Wharf.

[Anthony KendallParticipant @anthonykendall53479]

Posted by Dave Halford on 15/06/2021 12:08:03:

The alternative may be a trip back to a rural 1960 when you could pump your water out of the well by hand. Lights were paraffin and you walked to the end of the lane and paid to get your glass lead acid batteries charged by someone who had power. The Elsan got emptied into the midden. Personally I would rather not.

Like you Dave, having experienced it all – including a mile walk to a telephone, I'd rather not either.

The collective response from the forum then is to give up on emerging technologies.

[Anthony KendallParticipant @anthonykendall53479]

Posted by duncan webster on 15/07/2021 20:07:41:

Never mind cities, I live in a largeish town, if I get back to the main railway station after 8:30pm I would have to walk home. OK it's only about 3 miles, but I won't be able to do that for many more years. People who live in metropolises, shouldn't make pronouncements when they know nothing about how the rest of us live.

Well said Duncan. I would take it one stage further and keep naive townies from influencing what happens in the countryside.

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

+1 Duncan

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

I think the points made several times about infrastructure are significant, especially in my case. My house, built about 1960, along with about 150 others in the street, has an electric meter rated at "MAX 40 amps". I would assume that the input fuse to the house and the supply cable are similarly rated.

Would this be able to supply electric heating + charge a car + supply the normal domestic load. I think a major up grade will be required, especially if all the other houses in the street are the same.

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

Antony – sounds like your street power supply is that peice of wet string I was talking about……..!

But actually I was thinking of streets and power supplies made earlier than that – although in fairness many would have been supplied by overhead cables maybe, that have long been upgraded. But your 1960's house – that is getting too close for comfort in terms of time. If power supply cables are overhead then that is a relatively easy upgrade, but if they are buried and not in conduit which I suspect, but don't know for sure, many would be, then that is a much more expensive and disruptive job to be upgraded.

It also needs a strong will and a certain amount of money to implement – I'm not holding my breath.

Chris

[J HancockParticipant @jhancock95746]

To those who believe 'NATIONAL Grid ' have a plan.

Yes, but if you listen it is FBR's .

Too late for that AND FBR's are notoriously unreliable anyway.

Good luck with that one lads.

Old tech PWR's it has to be, but even that is too late now.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Anthony Knights on 16/07/2021 09:29:57:

I think the points made several times about infrastructure are significant, especially in my case. My house, built about 1960, along with about 150 others in the street, has an electric meter rated at "MAX 40 amps".

…

Would this be able to supply electric heating + charge a car + supply the normal domestic load. I think a major up grade will be required, especially if all the other houses in the street are the same.

No it wouldn't, which is why this is a 'THINK BIG' problem. There will have to be large scale upgrading of infrastructure, but don't panic, it's been done before. Laying wires in trenches and between poles, rewiring houses, replacing meters, and transformers is all bog standard stuff, and – sooner or later – 1960's electrical installations have to be upgraded anyway. The infrastructure aspect doesn't worry me at all, other than people haven't grasped the need to get on with it.

More difficult is where electricity will come from. In one sense this isn't a problem either because the world is awash with energy, and it's all free! Nothing in engineering is ever easy, and here the hard part is how to collect and store electricity. Good progress has been made on collecting, to the extent that renewables already meet about 30% of UK energy needs: not bad considering this was thought 'impossible' 20 years ago, and there are chaps on this forum who still don't believe it!

Storage is far more difficult. Here, I think mankind will have to get used to energy costs vayring hour by hour, and consumers will have to be careful about when they consume power. But that's not beyond the wit of man, and the technology needed to manage variable tariffs already exists. It's an extension of Economy 7.

I hate change because it means something is wrong. We've been fortunate to live at a time when fossil fuels made energy literally dirt cheap. Sadly, like it or not, that party is ending. Climate Breakdown and rapidly rising energy costs are both clearly on the horizon. The outlook is bleak unless humanity rises to the challenge: I think the technology is there, what's lacking is our will to adapt to new realities. It's always been thus…

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 16/07/2021 11:07:24

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Bah! Humbug!

It'll never catch on. We'll always need the stables and the farriers.

In a way, it's a good thing that those who practice model engineering tend towards the old and decrepit, because many of the posts on this thread seem to think that progress is totally impossible.

I'm 63, when I was a kid, on average only one in four households had a motor car. if one wanted to drive from one end or side of the country to the other, it was quite probable that one would be travelling on the Fosse Way, Watling Street or Ermine Street etc. for some or all of the trip.

Things move on. The world can't afford for us to keep burning fossil fuels at increasing rates as if there were no consequences to such actions.

If you can't accept the change, stay out of the way!

Edited By Mark Rand on 16/07/2021 11:23:10

[Peter Ellis 5Participant @peterellis5]

No-one has mentioned gas for cars. My Hyundai Santa Fe runs on propane at circa 50p/litre. It is popular here, with no shortage of gas pumps. It might be a practical interim solution.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Peter Ellis 5 on 16/07/2021 14:07:51:

No-one has mentioned gas for cars. […]

.

Probably because gas is on the naughty-list

MichaelG.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Posted by Mark Rand on 16/07/2021 11:21:53:

Bah! Humbug!

It'll never catch on. We'll always need the stables and the farriers

I'm 63, when I was a kid, on average only one in four households had a motor car. if one wanted to drive from one end or side of the country to the other, it was quite probable that one would be travelling on the Fosse Way, Watling Street or Ermine Street etc. for some or all of the trip.

Exactly.. there's the problem.. far too many of the lower orders with access to cars clogging up my roads

I can recall catching the 'railbus' from village to school before Dr Beeching put a stop to it…the same short sighted money saving of scrapping the trolley bus and tram in favour of diesel.routemasters…

pgk

[Stuart BridgerParticipant @stuartbridger82290]

Posted by Anthony Knights on 16/07/2021 09:29:57:

I think the points made several times about infrastructure are significant, especially in my case. My house, built about 1960, along with about 150 others in the street, has an electric meter rated at "MAX 40 amps". I would assume that the input fuse to the house and the supply cable are similarly rated.

Would this be able to supply electric heating + charge a car + supply the normal domestic load. I think a major up grade will be required, especially if all the other houses in the street are the same.

Not just the fuse rating (100A is normally recommended), but some older buildings have a "looped service". This is where the main incoming supply cabling is daisy chained in and out of properties along the street. This you can tell if you have two big cables coming into the fuse block. If this is the case you will not not be allowed to connect an EV charger until the looped service has been upgraded to a conventional star type feed. This means running in a new cable.

[Roger BestParticipant @rogerbest89007]

Posted by Anthony Knights on 16/07/2021 09:29:57:

I think the points made several times about infrastructure are significant, especially in my case. My house, built about 1960, along with about 150 others in the street, has an electric meter rated at "MAX 40 amps". I would assume that the input fuse to the house and the supply cable are similarly rated.

Would this be able to supply electric heating + charge a car + supply the normal domestic load. I think a major up grade will be required, especially if all the other houses in the street are the same.

That meter belongs in a museum, possibly with the rest of your electrics.

My house had a 100A supply from many years ago, you have been short changed. My house is older than yours, late 40s, it has been updated some time with white wiring, probably in the 1990s.

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

I definitely have an old system. There are FUSES in the consumer unit. There is a recently installed metal housing fitted with a circuit breaker which supplies the central heating boiler. It has to be metal because circuit breakers have been known to catch fire when they fail. That's progress I suppose.

If they wanted to update my house (and all the others on the street) to 100amps, they would have to dig up the road and fit bigger supply cables which could take the load.

[VicParticipant @vic]

My place was built in the 1930’s and has a 100A supply.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Yes Vic you may have a 100 amp supply but what about all the other premises on the same supply line, could the cabling cope with everybody drawing close to 100 amps, I fear not. Cabling in most locations would need to be updated to cope with the projected loads, this will all take time, which I fear has not been programmed into the timescale that is proposed. I see a similarity here to the upgrading of computer systems in many public departments that went horribly over budget and time and cost billions more than was budgeted. Dave W

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Peter Ellis 5 on 16/07/2021 14:07:51:

No-one has mentioned gas for cars. My Hyundai Santa Fe runs on propane at circa 50p/litre. It is popular here, with no shortage of gas pumps. It might be a practical interim solution.

Twenty years ago that might have found some traction. But the number of filling stations that supply LPG has fallen dramatically over the last couple of years; so much so, that a number of advocates of LPG I know no longer use it because it's impractical

[Roger BestParticipant @rogerbest89007]

Posted by Anthony Knights on 17/07/2021 06:38:54:

I definitely have an old system. There are FUSES in the consumer unit. There is a recently installed metal housing fitted with a circuit breaker which supplies the central heating boiler. It has to be metal because circuit breakers have been known to catch fire when they fail. That's progress I suppose.

If they wanted to update my house (and all the others on the street) to 100amps, they would have to dig up the road and fit bigger supply cables which could take the load.

Get in quick then. Who wants to be last in that queue!

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

SOD's perception of free energy for the taking is not quite there. I have been involved in a project to green up marine transportation for the last two years. Yes there is technology available however it is not equivalent to diesel in terms of asset utilisation or in capital cost and the vast savings predicted in running costs are not coming through either when considered over the life of the equipment. Battery prices have come down proportionate to performance coming up but most of the big battery manufacturers I have spoken too agree this has reached equilibrium and won't change significantly now until solid state batteries are perfected and marketed potentially still 10 years off (their words not mine)

Power supplies where they are needed are also not there, massive capital cost to extend them to POU. You can argue that can be written down over many years but the cost of power is also important when compared to existing fuels. The change to green needs huge investment and that cost is going to filter down to you and me like it or not. Investors only invest to make returns!

There is a lot of smoke and mirrors in the energy business, none of this is going to be anywhere close to free!

Paul.

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

Posted by Roger Best on 17/07/2021 20:44:09:

Posted by Anthony Knights on 17/07/2021 06:38:54:

I definitely have an old system. There are FUSES in the consumer unit. There is a recently installed metal housing fitted with a circuit breaker which supplies the central heating boiler. It has to be metal because circuit breakers have been known to catch fire when they fail. That's progress I suppose.

If they wanted to update my house (and all the others on the street) to 100amps, they would have to dig up the road and fit bigger supply cables which could take the load.

Get in quick then. Who wants to be last in that queue!

Try asking your power supplier to upgrade your supply and see how much they quote you! BIL has just had a green car imposed on him by his employer, house has 100a incoming, on that he was limited to a 3.2kW charger (will take between 4 and 5 hrs to charge the vehicle), it's a plug in hybrid and has a range of 40m tops on electric including on the run top up from regen brakes. Car not rated to use fast chargers in any case so had he been able to have a larger one at home the vehicle won't take it and no opportunity for a fast top up at the supermarket or other fast charging station. Cheapest energy deal he found is 4p / kWh between midnight and four am. However to get that the standing charge is significantly higher (he didn't share how much or I wasn't listening) he has evaluated the costs between his old and the new vehicle. Sure he will make a saving in fuel if he can get a full charge at 4p / kWh (which isn't exactly that as you have to factor in the higher standing charge and he can't get it long enough for a full charge) but at average domestic electricity prices and if he had to factor in costs of ownership such as eventual battery replacement it doesn't look so rosy! One question, with all the cheap renewable energy now out there has anyone seen their electricity bill decrease year on year unless you are making your own?

Paul.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Presumably some specific reason why he's limited to 3.2KW charging – such as just plugging into a 13A wall socket? Most home chargers are 7.4KW unless there's access to 3 phase (and the car can use it).
I have no chance of a 'smart' meter with zero mobile phone signal out here so my best tariff is 16p/KWH but with an average summer/winter range of 240 miles on a full 100KW battery pack that's better than 80 miles per gallon equivalent on a large car. The model3 does that on 75KW battery and the newer version of my model will do 300 mile average on it's 100KW pack. Granted depreciation of a new expensive vehicle is a big drop so it comes down to annual mileage and how long one keeps the car. Few new car owners keep them for 8+ years which is the battery warranty.
I also only have a 100A supply from which a 60A line goes to my hobby shed and 50A to the barn where charger is and the house itself. It’s a matter of common-sense not to have the car charging at the same time as immersion heater, kettle, cooker, welder all running at the same time. For most folk it'd be a rare day they need a full battery recharge every night but would have access to 8-10hrs of low domestic use.

pgk

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

I can't remember what they are called, but I have seen several houses over here in France where the demand of the house is limited to the supply line by a relay device in the fuse box. When the house demand reaches the supply limit, all electric heating is "Throttled back". The electric heaters have 2 positions on them – Confort and Eco. Wiring to the radiators have 2 live wires, one for comfort and one for eco plus the normal neutral and earth. The switch is independent of the live supply and allows the user to manually throttle the radiator back.

I see no reason why the car charging point couldn't be fed by such a device as domestic demand is usually less at night.

Bob

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