Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

1961Nick

Solarchaser wrote: »

That is VERY interesting.

My company car is due for replacement at the end of the year.
I currently dont use it privately because of the tax being over 3k a year.
Tesla model 3 sounds good to me

I've already specced mine ready for the new tax year.:cool:

GreatApe

Piddles wrote: »

Gosh. It's now even better....

For cars registered from 6th April 2020 the benefit in kind for electric cars and hybrid cars with an electric range of 130 miles goes down to..... zero.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-wltp-and-vehicle-taxes

Can someone explain how this works?

Your company can buy an EV and let you use it without you personally having to pay any tax??
What about the company Does it get to write it down as costs if so at what rate??

How would this work for say one man band companies like contractors

Piddles

GreatApe wrote: »

Can someone explain how this works?

Your company can buy an EV and let you use it without you personally having to pay any tax??
What about the company Does it get to write it down as costs if so at what rate??

How would this work for say one man band companies like contractors

Different rules I believe. That's one for your accountant and your particular circumstances.

"Zero company car tax on electric vehicles" is a much pithier headline for the media, I wonder if that's why they they reduced it from 2% to 0%. Money Box on Radio 4 has already picked it up. 15:00 today. They might have some answers for you there.

[edit]Scrub the bit about Money Box, the trailer didn't live up to the actual content, which was a fairly dumbed-down piece on electric cars generally.[/edit]

Piddles

Someone isn't listening.

"Global investment in clean energy fell to its lowest levels in five years"

https://www.ft.com/content/f415c010-a305-11e9-974c-ad1c6ab5efd1

FT: I'm on a 6 month free trial via Google Pay. It's really good. Much more accessible than expected. The quality of the articles are better than most of the agenda ridden guff you have to wade through on the internet generally which saves so much time. They feed you stuff you tell them you're interested in. The standard trial is 4 weeks for £1. It's an eye watering £5.25 a week after that though. Can't say I'll be paying for it after the trail ends. "You get what you pay for" as the Old Man used to tell me.

Martyn1981

Piddles wrote: »

Someone isn't listening.

"Global investment in clean energy fell to its lowest levels in five years"

But how does the capacity rolled out compare, as the bang for your buck is still growing.

Actually just found this, so capacity deployments seem to have stalled last year:

Renewable Energy Now Accounts for a Third of Global Power Capacity

[Note - that's capacity not generation.]

Martyn1981

Interesting article about car batteries backing up the grid, but it goes wider and gives a brief insight into future energy demands. Note, large scale storage makes it far easier to reach very high penetrations of RE.

Electric cars could form battery hubs to store renewable energy

silverwhistle

A couple of weeks ago I saw an article about the use of large scale freezers and refrigeration as a balancing source for RE: basically turning them off when there are peaks or spikes in demand. There are a number of trials taking place and the potential capacity is large, I'll have a look later and see if I can find the link.

Ah, here we are - not a new idea but getting closer to implementation:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/23/cool-running-supermarket-fridges-could-help-power-uk


I already fill up gaps in my freezer with ice when I have surplus solar, so again a technique that has distributed potential!

Martyn1981

I know this'll sound stupid, but I got very excited in 2017 waiting for the results of the last CfD auction for off-shore wind, that's because there were no end of rumours that prices could tumble, maybe even low £70's. Then we got £57.50/MWh and even the most optimistic were gobsmacked.

Well, now I'm impatiently waiting for the results of this years, opened in May, and expected Septemberish, as the bid caps were lower than that extraordinary price from 2017.

This article takes it one step further and suggests that we could be close to subsidy free (where the winning bids are near to the average wholesale price).

At first (by next auction) I thought they didn't mean this one, but I think this sentence:

The next CfD auction round, the third overall, opened on May 29, and will be backed by a budget of £65 million for projects set to be delivered in 2023/24 or 2024/25.

confirms that next, means the current one, when the results come out. Excellent news.

Next UK Renewable Auction Could See End Of Subsidies

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Interesting article about car batteries backing up the grid, but it goes wider and gives a brief insight into future energy demands. Note, large scale storage makes it far easier to reach very high penetrations of RE.

Electric cars could form battery hubs to store renewable energy

Higher capacity factor offshore wind is a better bet and does more to solve the problems of intermittent supply. GE seems to be claiming their next gen 12MW turbine will get 63% CF

To generate 300TWh from 40% CF offshore wind requires 85.6 GW of capacity
To generate 300TWh from 63% CF offshore wind requires 54.3 GW of capacity

Much easier to integrate 54.3 GW rather than 85.6 GW..... massive 31GW difference

Although having said that GE goes on to say their CF will be 5-7% points better than the competition so perhaps more realistically the next gen turbines will go towards 46% CF.

Piddles

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Next UK Renewable Auction Could See End Of Subsidies

Well, that went over my head somewhat....

But whilst there, I came across:

Researchers In Switzerland Say Zero Emission Society Will Require Seasonal Energy Storage

Errrr, maybe this just me, but isn't that blindingly obvious? Anyway, their solution is to run an extension lead to solar farms in southern Italy. But in true GreatApe style, that got me thinking that as High Voltage Direct Current transmission lines have losses of 3% per 1,000km and it's less than 2,000km from the Sahara to the UK as the crow flies, we should fill the desert up with ever so cheap solar and just have a 6% hit in losses. In fact, run the cables in a north westerly direction as we hit peak demand in early evening, the sun is still shining in the source region. No need for storage.

Bung in these: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48910569 and we can re-green the deserts and suck out all that excess carbon out of the atmosphere.

I have solved the problem of climate change. You're welcome. I'm expecting a load of Thank Yous and a Nobel Prize.

This will make these desert countries energy producers leading to stable democratic governments and raising the standard of living of their people. Countries like Algeria, Libya, Iraq, the Middle East. Hang on..............................