Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

Post by Dormouse »

bobins wrote: 25 May 2021, 19:27
*-there's no indication of how long it would actually take to switch all of Britain's cars over to electric, or, indeed, if that's the actual plan.
IMHO there is no way electric cars for mass usage will ever occur. Given the current growth in car ownership/usage, there will never be a point where electric car usage will satisfy this upward growth. A complete change in the way we utilise personal transport is the probable answer.
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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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Right now, I think I have very much retreated into valuing personal transport.

I have two cars one ICE, one electric both of which do nothing for 22 hours plus, out of every 24. My little element of the national fleet is very much under utilised. The purported developments in personal transport, not owning a car and summoning one when you need one, being part of a shared use club, renting your car out when you are not using it, just don't appeal.

Then there is public transport...ride hailing, ride share (taxis and private hire) buses/trains/metro/underground/trams/easy hire city cars/electric bikes/scooters...personal car is my preference every time.

Undoubtedly changes are on the way, but as you survey any car park anywhere in the UK you can see the mix of the existing fleet, wall to wall ICE. A very long way to go for even a 50/50 EV/ICE mix.

Norway is a prime example where new EV Sales are now over 50% and the ICE proportion of the fleet is being eaten into, but ICE currently dominates.

The overall Norway fleet before 2010 (as everywhere) was basically 100 % ish Petrol and Diesel. The fleet make up changes with increasing sales of EV's, but a large legacy fleet of petrol and diesel vehicles, and years when the EV proportion of new sales was less than 50% means ICE dominates the mix for many years. So the chart does show that the leading Country in the world for EV's per head of population, still has an 80% ish fossil fuel fleet.
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Norweagian stock of passenger cars by type of powertrain 2018
Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
I am quite happy for the disappearance of the exhaust pipe to occur, and for the conditions policies and strategies to facilitate that to be put in place. At the moment I would say its more likely to happen than not, many similar policy objectives coming together across the globe. Innovation will overcome many of today's forecast problems... and yes BEV may not be the technology that wins through in the end, (H2 on the back of its ubiquitous supply may still be in the running :-D ). I do think if resources need finding they will be found. Already Cobalt isn't needed for the Li Iron Phosphate Batteries. (LiFPO4) used by many auto manufacturers.

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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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Ever driven past one of the hundreds of new housing developments and tried to spot a single solar panel in 2021 :?:
Rare as a Contera MD1 in Northumberland/Tyneside.

Simple answer....money talks....high cost of land/build as cheaply as possible/ sell for the most profit. Maybe there is even a bit of the look of solar panels roof after roof in an estate might put off buyers. (TESLA have gone down the route of Solar Tiles which just look like a conventional roof).

If the owners want solar let them retrofit it seems to be the attitude, but it has to be better to install it when the house is constructed. There are plenty of tools to mandate local energy generation on new developments, and tools which could have been applied years ago.

I listened to a discussion on the radio with the Guest who had written this article in the Guardian.
Britain has promised net zero – but it’s on track to achieve absolutely nothing

"At the current rate of installation, the UK’s homes will be equipped with low-carbon heating in a mere 700 years."

"...we were promised that all new homes would soon be green ones. It still hasn’t happened, and the date has been pushed back yet again, this time to 2025. Rubbish homes are still being built, which will either require a much more expensive refit or will lock in high emissions for the rest of their lives."
Surprisingly, and remember it was on Jeremy Vine I heard about this, I was thinking, less talk more action, and just get a move on.

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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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NewcastleFalcon wrote: 28 May 2021, 09:51 Ever driven past one of the hundreds of new housing developments and tried to spot a single solar panel in 2021 :?:
Rare as a Contera MD1 in Northumberland/Tyneside.

Simple answer....money talks....high cost of land/build as cheaply as possible/ sell for the most profit. Maybe there is even a bit of the look of solar panels roof after roof in an estate might put off buyers. (TESLA have gone down the route of Solar Tiles which just look like a conventional roof).

If the owners want solar let them retrofit it seems to be the attitude, but it has to be better to install it when the house is constructed. There are plenty of tools to mandate local energy generation on new developments, and tools which could have been applied years ago.

I listened to a discussion on the radio with the Guest who had written this article in the Guardian.
Britain has promised net zero – but it’s on track to achieve absolutely nothing

"At the current rate of installation, the UK’s homes will be equipped with low-carbon heating in a mere 700 years."

"...we were promised that all new homes would soon be green ones. It still hasn’t happened, and the date has been pushed back yet again, this time to 2025. Rubbish homes are still being built, which will either require a much more expensive refit or will lock in high emissions for the rest of their lives."
Surprisingly, and remember it was on Jeremy Vine I heard about this, I was thinking, less talk more action, and just get a move on.

Regards Neil
My Wife's cousin's husband works for a well known Scottish house builder in their planning and design department and while they will build in all the wiring ducts for electric car chargers to be retrofitted and even offer them as an option, no provision has ever been planned for solar power/heating and it is not offered. He is saying, however, that they are planning for Heat Pumps.
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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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Tony Seba has some interesting ideas and forecasts of the future of energy, and a reasonable track record of being right. Solar Wind and Battery which he refers to as SWB, are even now a disruptive technology which will, on economic grounds alone, out-compete all other forms of electricity generation whether nuclear/gas/hydro and the mostly ditched now coal. His recommendation is to build a fully solar wind battery energy system and get on with it.

Another of his videos focuses on the current over-valuation of revenue streams from Nuclear/Gas power plants, to the point of them being a bubble larger than the sub-prime mortgages overvaluation. Energy generators investing in gas/nuclear energy will have to compete with generators producing electricity from solar and wind at a considerably lower cost. The cost per MWh gap is widening year by year in favour of solar wind battery.

I wouldn't say Tony was a particularly good presenter, but always worth a listen, and make your own mind up as ever as to whether there a bit of sense in his view.



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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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I don't underestimate the task of actually coming up with coherent strategy on Energy. Lots of variables are changing. As of now this is probably the most comprehensive statement issued in this white paper in December 2020.

Powering our Net Zero Future

On the nuclear front this is the intention
We will aim to bring at least one large scale nuclear project to the point of Final Investment Decision (FID) by
the end of this Parliament, subject to clear value for money and all relevant approvals.
That is Sizewell C, unless they move at the speed of lightning and come up with another. "Clear value for money" is the difficult bit, bearing in mind how the costs of Wind and Solar generation are already less than half of the price of Hinkley Point C's guaranteed price/MWh. Increasing scale/ and further tech improvements are, according to some, to see a further 70% drop in Solar/Wind/Battery system costs by the end of the decade, further diluting a clear value for money case for further new nuclear.

This programme aired last night late on on BBC2, available on I-Player here. Interesting partners involved. EDF, our old friends Electricite de France (owned by the French State); China General Nuclear Power (CGN owned by the Chinese State); together with another key player, who reduces the risk for the French State and the Chinese State, and allows all electricity produced by the plant to be sold at a start-point of £92.5/MWh. Yes the UK Govt securing "clear value for money" on behalf of the UKTP (UK Taxpayer).

I haven't watched it yet but I hope it isn't just a sea of EDF hard hats, and time lapse photography of it being built, and there is a touch of investigative journalism to tell the whole story so far.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wnn4

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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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NewcastleFalcon wrote: 04 Jun 2021, 14:16 I haven't watched it yet but I hope it isn't just a sea of EDF hard hats, and time lapse photography of it being built, and there is a touch of investigative journalism to tell the whole story so far.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wnn4

Regards Neil
Interesting enough, but lightweight as I expected on the hard hitting journalism so the first episode glossed over the whys and wherefores, the finance and the value for money, and the waste, and just oohed and aahed about the size, the logistics, and the concrete. They loved the concrete....
temp3.png
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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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Here's the track record so far of the "European Pressurised Water Reactor"

One Supplying electricity in China
Two Incomplete sites in Finland and France, suffering immense cost overruns and delays
One under Construction at Hinkley Point C suffering cost overruns

One carbon copy proposed for Sizewell C awaiting Full Investment Decision subject to all necessary approvals and clear value for money.

I think I would put the decision off on Sizewell C until Hinkley Point C is up running at capacity and proving itself reliable.

From the show...
screenshot
screenshot
Regards Neil

Flamanville 3 startup pushed back to 2024 (12 years late)
Olkiluoto-3 Finland 10 years late and over budget. Electricity production at the unit is to start in October 2021, when the plant is connected to the national grid and regular electricity production is to start in February 2022.
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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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Could have done with this for the hour the leccy was off this morning :-D

One of America's greatest pick-up's new USP's

2022 Ford F-150 Lightning is an electric pickup that can power your house for days
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/2022 ... wer-house/
...arguably, this EV's most significant innovation is its ability to run your entire home during a blackout.

...this battery-powered truck can really power your house when the lights go out, and better still, doing so won't require a rat's nest of extension cords or even a portable generator. What Ford calls Intelligent Backup Power enables this all-electric rig to feed power from its enormous battery pack through its hardwired wall charger directly into your home's electrical system.
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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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Embryonic Days of Vehicle to Grid (V2G), this is a little introduction of a pilot scheme run by Octopus Energy, which does a decent enough job of explaining some of the practicalities.

The battery on the vehicles are never taken to below 30% state of charge, and the car is recharged to whatever level desired to a timetable of the owners choosing, in general overnight. In the pilot participants are required to make the car available for V2G 12 times in a month. The pilot is being run with a number of partners including NISSAN who warrant their traction battery for the V2G operation.

Early days but as with the Ford iconic pick up truck, and other electric vehicle manufacturers/energy suppliers both private cars and commercial fleets, V2G and smart tech "is a win-win" proposition for the grid and owners/operators of the large capacity battery storage devices on wheels, that are electric vehicles.

10 minute play but informative enough. Extract from it what you can.



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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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Watched the second part of the Hinkley Point C Documentary.

Of course the documentary couldn't follow the complete construction, because it hasn't happened, and its not finished. Huge bit of skipping over what was left to be done at the end. As time went on in the documentary I got less and less interested in the scale of the concreting, tunnelling, sea defences. big cranes lifting and placing stuff etc etc.

The most telling screenshot from the entire 2 part documentary was this.
temp2.png

They probably didn't have time to squeeze in the chequered and continuing history of the financing :)

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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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What would the back of fag packet calculations be for a green energy solution to provide 'up to 3260 MW' of electricity day and night, and how much land would that take up - both for the energy generation and battery storage for (pluck a figure out of the sky) 3 weeks of 'up to 3260MW' battery supply* ?
* - Alternatives to battery supply welcome, the storage just has to be able to supply 'up to 3260MW' day and night for 3 weeks. V2G storage perfectly OK for this exercise, it just needs to be in place within a few years.
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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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bobins wrote: 14 Jun 2021, 18:25 What would the back of fag packet calculations be for a green energy solution to provide 'up to 3260 MW' of electricity day and night, and how much land would that take up - both for the energy generation and battery storage for (pluck a figure out of the sky) 3 weeks of 'up to 3260MW' battery supply* ?
* - Alternatives to battery supply welcome, the storage just has to be able to supply 'up to 3260MW' day and night for 3 weeks. V2G storage perfectly OK for this exercise, it just needs to be in place within a few years.
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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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bobins wrote: 14 Jun 2021, 18:25 What would the back of fag packet calculations be for a green energy solution to provide 'up to 3260 MW' of electricity day and night, and how much land would that take up - both for the energy generation and battery storage for (pluck a figure out of the sky) 3 weeks of 'up to 3260MW' battery supply* ?
* - Alternatives to battery supply welcome, the storage just has to be able to supply 'up to 3260MW' day and night for 3 weeks. V2G storage perfectly OK for this exercise, it just needs to be in place within a few years.
Hydro pumped storage a la Cruchian springs to mind which is only one of several pumped storage schemes already available and don't really affect the environment to any massive degree as well as being easy to replicate to a larger or smaller scale to suit. Anything we do will have an effect on the environment somewhere along the line.
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Re: Energy Matters Global and Domestic

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mickthemaverick wrote: 14 Jun 2021, 18:27
bobins wrote: 14 Jun 2021, 18:25 What would the back of fag packet calculations be for a green energy solution to provide 'up to 3260 MW' of electricity day and night, and how much land would that take up - both for the energy generation and battery storage for (pluck a figure out of the sky) 3 weeks of 'up to 3260MW' battery supply* ?
* - Alternatives to battery supply welcome, the storage just has to be able to supply 'up to 3260MW' day and night for 3 weeks. V2G storage perfectly OK for this exercise, it just needs to be in place within a few years.
Planning a new music festival bobins? :-D

I've been contacted by a Mr Hotblack Desiato, front man for the band Disaster Area, he says he wants to put on one of his concerts and they need enough power for it :rofl2:
Disaster Area gig - HHGTTG
Disaster Area gig - HHGTTG
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