Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

GreatApe

We may find low range EVs become acceptable if cities and countries ban diesel and petrol.
Acceptable because people won't be able to afford the higher range versions

What is needed is something like a ford fiesta class vehicle with 100 mile range
20KWh battery pack and 0-60 in sub 12 seconds for under £15k

Realistically such a vehicle would have a 60 mile useable cycling between 20-80% but that would be fine if there were charging points everywhere and there could be because electricity is everywhere

Even a 3KW wall outlet would be fine charging up around 15 miles per hour.
Charge at work charge at home charge in a shopping centre car park
More or less anywhere and everywhere

So 100 miles would be okay
Long range trips over 80 miles will need super charging
While inconvenient not the end of the world
And of course those that can afford £30k can pay for a £30k 200 mile range model

Martyn1981

Simple title, but far more info, looking at ASHP, GSHP, WSHP and even geothermal* sources to heat towns and cities.

*Fun fact - In the US they also refer to GSHP as geothermal sourced energy, when it's typically solar sourced.

Underground line to heat up London homes during winter

The tube project could pave the way for district heating schemes across the capital to warm homes with cheap, low carbon heat from underground lines.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) estimates there is enough heat wasted in London to meet 38% of the city’s heating demands.

Tim Rotheray, director of the Association for Decentralised Energy, said district heating schemes were mushrooming across the UK as a low-cost tool in tackling the climate crisis.

This vid is a bit old (Feb 2018), but it looks at the potential of large scale WSHP's in the UK, since almost all towns and cities are based on the coast or large rivers:

Star Heat Pumps | Fully Charged

ed110220

JKenH wrote: »

The technology is being developed to enable this to be rolled out on a large scale with the byproduct being synthetic fuel.

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/08/16/David-Keith-Carbon-Removal-Moonshot/

Very interesting technology. Could be very useful for niches such as long distance flight that can't be electrified.

michaels

GreatApe wrote: »

We may find low range EVs become acceptable if cities and countries ban diesel and petrol.
Acceptable because people won't be able to afford the higher range versions

What is needed is something like a ford fiesta class vehicle with 100 mile range
20KWh battery pack and 0-60 in sub 12 seconds for under £15k

Realistically such a vehicle would have a 60 mile useable cycling between 20-80% but that would be fine if there were charging points everywhere and there could be because electricity is everywhere

Even a 3KW wall outlet would be fine charging up around 15 miles per hour.
Charge at work charge at home charge in a shopping centre car park
More or less anywhere and everywhere

So 100 miles would be okay
Long range trips over 80 miles will need super charging
While inconvenient not the end of the world
And of course those that can afford £30k can pay for a £30k 200 mile range model

My second hand leaf can do all of the above and is for sale for only 9k. 4 years old but with so many fewer moving parts it will no doubt last longer than a petrol car.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

My second hand leaf can do all of the above and is for sale for only 9k. 4 years old but with so many fewer moving parts it will no doubt last longer than a petrol car.

I'm not sure what your point is

We need EVs at price point of about £12k brand new aka the price of a ford fiesta the best selling UK car. And we need 3 year old versions selling for £6k and 6 year old versions selling for £3k

EV savings are mostly fictional and based on tax accounting tricks
A ford fiesta costs 10p a mile in fuel but actually that is wrong it costs 3-4p a mile in fuel and 6-7p a mile in tax. An EV also costs about 4p a mile for fuel and in due course 6p a mile tax will be added to EVs

Petrol is affordable more so than electricity
Local station is 125p a litre
104p before VAT
46p before fuel duty
A litre of fuel gets you about 12 miles in a fiesta so the true cost of fuel is only 3.8p/mile in a petrol fiesta the other 6-7p a mile are all taxes on the fuel

A model 3 gets 4.2 miles per KWh but realistic home charge of 80% efficiency is closer to 3.4 miles per KWh out of the outlet. 15p electricity works out to 4.4p a mile so actually more expensive than the 3.8p/mile for the fiesta

Sure you can charge at cheaper night time rates but with a national EV fleet there won't be 'night time rates'

EVs might last a little longer but the first buyer typically keeps their car only 3-4 years
I think the last car I bought in the first 4 years I spent a whole £55 on maintenance beyond tires

Simply put, EVs have to reach price parity with petrol cars we won't be able to sell accounting tricks indefinitely

But I think it can be done

I mean taking the most extreme case perhaps a ford fiesta class model with just 15KWh and 75 mile range might be okay so long as there are 'rapid' chargers everywhere. A 15KW charger could charge up 50% in half an hour which is plenty food enough and 15KW isn't particularly hard to deliver

Since the vast majority of trips are below 75 miles it should work okay for probably 99% of all trips done. Can do a 140 mile trip with just one stop or a 200 mile trip with two stops. People would soon get used to it and it's rarely people do more than 75 miles. I think in the last two years I've done it twice so one stop per year to supercharge hardly a huge trouble

Invent a simple way so you can plug your car in anywhere and the car gets charged the cost
So even plug into your neighbors sockets or work or hotel or friends house anywhere and the car talks to the grid and the juice is charged to the owner of the car not the socket

Martyn1981

Quick reminder - In the US, tough (for them) vehicle emission standards were set going forward. But the new administration decided to roll them all back.

But the US has a problem, California, as they have a legal loophole, and set tougher standards, and because the market is so large, companies tend to build to their standards, to save building two different cars/vehicles. So that law is being revoked too, or at least it's in the courts.

But, 22 States have now signed up to the higher standards anyway, and a growing number of car companies are also signing up to them, since they need longer term stability so they can plan their vehicles.

Nearly two dozen governors join California’s push for more efficient cars and trucks

Nearly two dozen governors, including several Republicans, are imploring the Trump administration to embrace more aggressive gas mileage requirements for the nation’s cars and pickup trucks, saying the White House’s effort to weaken existing requirements could hurt consumers, automakers and the environment.

So, going forward, the new administration is calling in the Automakers and trying to pressure them not to build to the higher standards!

Tyrant Trump Terrorizes Car Company Execs With Emissions Rollback Threats

Ford, Volkswagen, Honda, and BMW have concluded their own separate peace with California recently. Mercedes Benz has indicated it is considering throwing its lot in with them as well. And according to the New York Times, one of the three who attended the White House meeting says privately it may ignore the president’s entreaties and join them as well. Mike Manley, Fiat Chrysler’s chief executive, said of the California pact recently, “We are absolutely going to have a look at it and see what it means.”

“I don’t think there is any precedent for a major industry to say, ‘We are prepared to have a stronger regulation,’ and to have the White House say, ‘No, we know better,’” William K. Reilly, who headed the EPA in the George H. W. Bush administration, tells the Times.

JKenH

Interesting article in today’s Daily Telegraph.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/08/26/british-start-up-beats-world-holy-grail-cheap-energy-storage/

markin

I hate Paywalls...

"beats world to Holy Grail of cheap energy storage"
"one gigawatt (GW) plant comes in “way below” $100 per MWh."

Whats the actual cost? Where can i find the efficacy of it?




June 2018 https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/highview-power-completes-uk-liquid-air-storage-plant#gs.ymtwga

The test

Highview Power completed commissioning for a 5-megawatt/15-megawatt-hour demonstration project in the Manchester area. The U.K. government provided £8 million ($10.7 million) to fund this effort, which builds on an earlier 350-kilowatt pilot.

The project took longer to complete than originally planned: When GTM covered the company's partnership with GE in 2014, the demo was expected to begin operations in spring 2015. Issues with some of the components caused the delays, but now everything is performing as expected, Brett said.

.............................

How to not fail

Highview has already survived 12 years, which puts it ahead of numerous short-lived long-duration storage startups.
Its continued survival will hinge on avoiding the traps of this particularly challenging branch of the storage industry.
Liquid air storage most closely evokes compressed air energy storage (CAES), which has been achieved in underground caverns at massive scale. There hasn't been much action on that front recently, because it's hard to find the right spot.
“The holes in the ground are never quite where you want them to be," Brett said.
Some teams have tried to replicate that process in smaller, aboveground tanks, but this has not proven successful. SustainX gave up on its aboveground approach and merged with General Compression, and the buzzy LightSail Energy ran out of cash without achieving much beyond a fancy tank.
Highview’s technology doesn’t rely on special geological formations, so it’s more adaptable than underground CAES. By storing at low pressure in insulated tanks, it avoids the hurdle of maintaining infrastructure at high pressure.

Long-duration storage startups also struggle to gain the confidence of large, conservative customers looking for assets to last decades.
Highview addresses this by sourcing from established suppliers like GE and Siemens, and partnering with established companies for engineering, procurement and construction. Earlier this year, Highview partnered with SNC-Lavalin for EPC services in the North American market, hinting at future expansion across the pond.
Then there's the pricing. Unconventional battery companies have staked out low price points for longer-duration storage, only to have the commoditized lithium-ion muscle them aside faster than anyone expected. Aquion, Alevo, ViZn and many others can attest to the risks of making that bet.
With all the heavy equipment involved, liquid air storage looks a lot more like building a traditional power plant than plopping some battery-filled containers on an empty lot. That likely means a higher capital expense upfront.
At the 50-megawatt scale, Highview can deliver a "compelling" upfront price, Brett said. But the technology really shines on the levelized cost of energy, he added, because it stays strong over a much longer lifetime than current batteries. Even at the end of life, the metal equipment is much easier to recycle than lithium-ion batteries.
Ever larger amounts of renewable generation call for cheap bulk storage on the grid — or lots of gas peakers. Highview still has a lot to prove before it can fulfill that need, but at least there isn't a clear long-duration competitor blocking its lane.

EDIT: I found it.

Mar 2014 https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ge-partners-with-highview-for-liquid-air-energy-storage#gs.ymzy3n

Highview’s technology is an ideal fit for gas peaker plants, but can also be used with liquefied natural gas and industrial waste heat sites, according to Matthew Barnett, head of business development for Highview.
The technology requires some form of waste heat to increase its round-trip efficiency, which is the measure of how much energy comes out of the process compared to how much is put in. Heating liquid air by itself has a round-trip efficiency of only about 50 percent, CEO Gareth Brett told Greentech Media in 2012, but that figure gets closer to 80 percent when combined with waste heat from a power plant or industrial process.

For peaker plants, the storage technology makes the plants even more flexible, allowing them to both absorb and supply energy. LAES does not have the extremely fast ramping time of batteries or flywheels, but can improve the startup time of a peaker plant, cutting it from about ten minutes to about two to five minutes.

EDIT: JUNE 2019 ... https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/06/28/highview-power-unveils-multi-gigawatt-cryogenic-energy-storage-tech/

The company claims a 200MW facility could achieve a levelised cost of storage of $140/MWh (£110.5) and claims it would be equivalent in performance to a fossil fuel power station.

Martyn1981

This is more news about 'a man', but his (and his brother's) influence on US FF's is infamous. Perhaps with his passing we will enter a new era of truth and honesty, but sadly I doubt it. It looks like economics are going to have to win this battle, not morality, but at least that's on our side too.

Death and destruction: this is David Koch's sad legacy

Not only did Koch help unleash countless metric tons of greenhouse gases from the earth, he was a key funder of climate change denialism, stiff-arming scientists in order to further plunder the earth he was destroying. Revelations in Christopher Leonard’s new book, Kochland, show that Koch played an even greater role in funding climate change denialism than we previously knew. As we careen towards a climate catastrophe that seems more and more likely to happen within the next 11 years, we can rightly pin a portion of the blame on David and his brother.

With Charles, David funded and participated in a network of free-market think tanks that produced academic literature in support of slashing taxes and gutting regulations in order to aid mega-corporations like Koch Industries. These ideological centers include the Cato Institute, which the Kochs founded and where David was a long-time board member; the American Enterprise Institute, where he was a member of its National Council; George Mason University’s Mercatus Center and the Institute for Humane Studies; and the Heritage Foundation. Now alumni of the Koch academic and policy network have become government administrators, regulatory officials, political advisers and lifetime judges.

Martyn1981

markin wrote: »

I hate Paywalls...

"beats world to Holy Grail of cheap energy storage"
"one gigawatt (GW) plant comes in “way below” $100 per MWh."

Whats the actual cost? Where can i find the efficacy of it?




June 2018 https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/highview-power-completes-uk-liquid-air-storage-plant#gs.ymtwga

Dotted around this thread and others you should find lots of references to LAES and Highview. Here's one old one:

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Just remembered, that I'd forgotten ...... ?

To mention some liquid air energy storage (LAES) news.

Highview have now built a larger test plant to prove their technology, this one is 5MW and 15MWh.

The next step would be a 50MW/200MWh plant, and they've even suggested in the past that they could build 200MW/1,200MWh storage.

This technology at around 60-75% efficiency would be used for longer term storage than batteries and pumped hydro, and if used to mop up very cheap excess RE generation could complete the circle for RE + storage. Efficiencies can be even higher if partnered with a source of waste heat, or waste cold.

Some news items:

Highview Power Completes UK Plant to Test ‘Liquid Air’ Storage Technology

Highview Power has successfully designed and built the world's first grid-scale liquid air energy storage (LAES) plant in the UK.