Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

silverwhistle

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I'm also guessing that the size is a demo, otherwise physics is the limiting factor, not the 'cleverness' of their invention. Let's just keep hoping for a successful urban WT in the future, that'd be nice.

I've since seen a direct reference to that fact that the prize will help them experiment with different sizes/materials, although can't remember where I saw it.



Presumably smaller sizes they could even injection mould which would be good for costs and volumes?

Martyn1981

Article I posted on an EV motoring thread, but thought it deserves to be on here too, as it is really big news ticking green, ethical, energy and moneysaving boxes.

Dirty Reality Catching Up With Fossil Fuel Vehicles

This week marks an important transitional step away from the obsolete technology of dirty fossil fuel vehicles and in favor of electric vehicles that can run on clean energy. The Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) has come into force in the EU from 1st of September 2018, leading to much hand-wringing by the traditional fossil fuel vehicle OEMs, whose cars have always been highly polluting, and are now running out of road. The old fig leaf of the 1990s NEDC (New European Driving Cycle) testing regime is being replaced by the updated, more realistic WLTP testing regime, along with its onroad-emissions-testing counterpart, the Real Driving Emissions test (RDE). While still imperfect, these new testing regimes do track real world emissions performance much more closely.

As a consequence, the current generation of fossil fueled vehicles (FFVs) are now officially earmarked by lawmakers as being more polluting in particulates, carbon dioxide, and other harmful emissions. A higher bar is set for their entry on to the market, which will require expensive and complex technology to achieve. They will also be taxed at higher levels than before, and will cost consumers more to purchase.

Let us be clear that FFVs have always been inherently inefficient, dirty, and polluting, but have not been appropriately sanctioned for their pernicious effects in the past. The previously weak regulatory environment was what allowed, for example, the diesel emissions scandal to occur, and other ways of gaming the system to become part of the culture of the industry. The new stricter regime takes things a step in the right direction for the health of our societies and environment. Several previously popular model variants of FFVs have already fallen foul of their own stink, and either been cancelled outright, have not yet passed the new higher testing regime bar, or have had to be modified to produce lower power than previously, to lower their real world emissions.

EVs are better AND less costly all round

The ever increasing costs of purchasing and owning FFVs only go to make EVs look relatively more attractive. As the cost of FFVs gets ever more expensive (both environmentally, and on your wallet), the cost of EVs is getting ever less expensive. Batteries and other powertrain components are quickly getting cheaper as manufacturing and know-how scales, and electricity production is turning increasingly to renewables, making the exact same EV less damaging to the environment over time. Meanwhile all FFVs belch out more pollution as they age (and get more expensive to maintain).

JKenH

Will we now see real life range figures for EVs and PHEVs under the WLTP regime?

silverwhistle

Probably more accurate than the ICE MPG figures we get!


What is interesting is if you go on Honest John's Real MPG website and see the wide divergences between manufacturer's figures and the range different people get from the same model. When you see how some people drive it becomes more understandable, and that won't change with a different power source.

Dave_Fowler

silverwhistle wrote: »

Probably more accurate than the ICE MPG figures we get!


What is interesting is if you go on Honest John's Real MPG website and see the wide divergences between manufacturer's figures and the range different people get from the same model. When you see how some people drive it becomes more understandable, and that won't change with a different power source.

Driving style certainly makes quite a difference, and for BEVs the temperature also has a large effect. Hyundai say that the Ioniq car has a range 'up to' 170 miles. The best I've had is 164 miles in the summer which drops to 120 in the winter.

Dave F

JKenH

silverwhistle wrote: »

Probably more accurate than the ICE MPG figures we get!


What is interesting is if you go on Honest John's Real MPG website and see the wide divergences between manufacturer's figures and the range different people get from the same model. When you see how some people drive it becomes more understandable, and that won't change with a different power source.

Good point. I think a lot of us on here might drive (at least some of the time) with economy in mind and should be able to get somewhere near manufacturers' quoted figures. I have certainly been able to achieve 74mpg from my Euro 6 Golf tdi and VW are supposed to be the Devil incarnate when cheating on emissions and mpg.

I am not anti EV. I ordered a new Golf GTE, but after waiting more than 6 months I cancelled the order. While awaiting delivery I spent most of those months reading EV forums and it became apparent that PHEV figures are a total work of fiction both in terms of mpg and range. With a real world range of 20 miles on electric I wondered if I could be bothered to mess around in the pouring rain with charging cables to save a few pence every time I wanted to use it and meanwhile incur a hefty penalty in mpg on a long run lugging the extra weight of the batteries around.

We will still be getting an EV at some time in the future but probably not a hybrid.

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Article I posted on an EV motoring thread, but thought it deserves to be on here too, as it is really big news ticking green, ethical, energy and moneysaving boxes.

Dirty Reality Catching Up With Fossil Fuel Vehicles

An additional EV adds to marginal load so when doing a comparison you should not use the average grid CO2 and other pollution but the marginal grid Co2 & pollution

In that UK that is primarily natural gas but for 3-4 months coal so any UK EV is effectively around 70% natural gas and 30% coal powered. No nuclear or wind etc as they are not marginal producers.

Also as the grid greens the same EVs do not get greener for the very same reason that they are marginal load

The good news is that if the switch to BEVs happen on mass then the nation and the world can incorporate a LOT more solar PV into the grid. The UK with a fleet of 32++ million BEVs could incorporate 50-60GW more solar than without BEVs assuming no vehicle to grid output. If you do two way from vehicle to grid then the UK could add 200GW more solar.

100GW offshore wind + 200GW solar PV + BEVs could get the UK towards 90% renewable for transport and electricity leaving only seasonal heating to solve

That would be a good aim.
1.5GW offshore wind per year in the 2020s. 3GW offshore wind and 5GW solar per year in the 2030s and 6GW offshore wind and 10GW solar per year in the 2040s so by 2050 the UK would have ~100GW offshore wind and ~200GW of solar PV

Gona need a more robust grid than today despite the ideas of people abandoning the grid we are going to need to upgrade the grid to move many more GW of distributed wind power into the cities and towns to charge EVs and heat homes in the winter.

michaels

GreatApe wrote: »

An additional EV adds to marginal load so when doing a comparison you should not use the average grid CO2 and other pollution but the marginal grid Co2 & pollution

In that UK that is primarily natural gas but for 3-4 months coal so any UK EV is effectively around 70% natural gas and 30% coal powered. No nuclear or wind etc as they are not marginal producers.

Also as the grid greens the same EVs do not get greener for the very same reason that they are marginal load

The good news is that if the switch to BEVs happen on mass then the nation and the world can incorporate a LOT more solar PV into the grid. The UK with a fleet of 32++ million BEVs could incorporate 50-60GW more solar than without BEVs assuming no vehicle to grid output. If you do two way from vehicle to grid then the UK could add 200GW more solar.

100GW offshore wind + 200GW solar PV + BEVs could get the UK towards 90% renewable for transport and electricity leaving only seasonal heating to solve

That would be a good aim.
1.5GW offshore wind per year in the 2020s. 3GW offshore wind and 5GW solar per year in the 2030s and 6GW offshore wind and 10GW solar per year in the 2040s so by 2050 the UK would have ~100GW offshore wind and ~200GW of solar PV

Gona need a more robust grid than today despite the ideas of people abandoning the grid we are going to need to upgrade the grid to move many more GW of distributed wind power into the cities and towns to charge EVs and heat homes in the winter.

By your logic every new thing that is plugged in should count as extra marginal load - in some weird way existing leccy use has 'grandfathered all the renewable generation' and new use is therefore all going to use non-renewables...but at the same time future solar generation will be hypothecated to charge EVs - I'm afraid that whilst I think a lot of what you say about turning a supertanker and the time required before new greener tech can make an appreciable impact is true, in this case I think your logic is fallacious.

Suppose my kettle that I have had for years breaks - presumably it used to use 'average mix' electricity. Then I take a week to get a replacement, this is now a new use and therefore uses only peak fossil fuel energy?!

EricMears

GreatApe wrote: »

An additional EV adds to marginal load so when doing a comparison you should not use the average grid CO2 and other pollution but the marginal grid Co2 & pollution

Mine certainly doesn't !

If I should happen to have 10 amps of solar power 'spare' when I'm not driving somewhere, I'll use it to charge the EV. Otherwise, I charge only at night during E7 hours; the only reason that the E7 tariff is low is because it doesn't cause any marginal generation.

Martyn1981

michaels wrote: »

By your logic every new thing that is plugged in should count as extra marginal load

Yes, this is one of those spin arguments, start with a basic fact - what you add on top will come from demand following generation such as gas then ...... stop!

In reality as you point out, things get much more complicated. EV charging adds more demand to our future predictions allowing us to push up the roll out of new RE proportionately, it will increase demand, meaning less curtailment of intermittent RE, and will on a demand side basis encourage RE rollout as seen in the UK and internationally with a correlation between EV and PV ownership.

The biggest point though is that EV's could solve a huge chunk of a nation's leccy storage problem. The UK will need around 12hrs storage to get into the 90-100% RE range with gas filling any gaps (ideally bio-gas from longer term leccy storage).

That means we need about 500GWh of short term leccy storage. That's quite a big number, and will require a lot of supply side capital investment but 30m EV's would be around 1,500GWh, and with smart charging and V2G could meet most of our daily energy storage balancing - and with no supply side CAPEX.

The one thing that should be clear about EV's is that they are very much part of the solution, and most crticisms are simply spin.