Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

An article simply bursting with positivity. Simply put, the economics of RE, BEV's etc are approaching the tipping points where their deployment is better (economically), and we could see a rise in their deployment, and a drop in FF consumption, that is much faster than the current slow(ish) rise might suggest.

Rise of renewables may see off oil firms decades earlier than they think

Some extracts, but it's not too long, and worth a full read.

The world’s rising reliance on fossil fuels may come to an end decades earlier than the most polluting companies predict, offering early signs of hope in the global battle to tackle the climate crisis.

The climate green shoots have emerged amid a renewable energy revolution that promises an end to the rising demand for oil and coal in the 2020s, before the fossil fuels face a terminal decline.

The looming fossil fuel peak is expected to emerge decades ahead of forecasts from oil and mining companies, which are betting that demand for polluting energy will rise until the 2040s.

But energy experts are adjusting their forecasts as clean energy technologies, including wind and solar power, emerge faster than predicted and at costs that pose a direct threat to coal-fired electricity and combustion-engine vehicles.

Within the energy industry, experts believe the rapid rise of renewable energy in recent years may soon seem glacial compared with the changes to come.

Michael Liebreich, the founder of the research group Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), says the substitution of old technology with new is always “like waiting for a sneeze”.

“The first 1% takes forever, 1% to 5% is like waiting for a sneeze – you know it’s inevitable but it takes longer than you think – then 5% to 50% happens incredibly fast,” he says.

By 2030, BNEF expects demand for road fuels to peak, while coal is expected to peak by 2026. DNV GL, a global energy advisory, believes that by the same year oil will no longer be the world’s biggest energy source, and by the end of the 2020s the world’s demand for crude will begin to fall.

“It provides a lot of hope,” says Seb Henbest, the lead author of the BNEF report. “It provides a counterbalance to the doom and gloom we face, partly because it includes up-to-date data which tells a slightly different story.”

It is a cautionary tale for fossil fuel companies that believe the world’s demand for polluting energy will continue to rise until the middle of the century. It is also a new narrative of hope, he says.

“We’re a lot further on than we were. And yes, we need to go faster. And yes, it’s difficult and complicated. But at the same time we now live in a world where two-thirds of the global population live in a country where wind and solar power is the cheapest form of new electricity capacity. We have the tools to do this,” he says.

Martyn1981

Good news, but a possible sting in the tail from the Government:

Half of councils beating out national policy on building standards as Future Homes Standard slammed

Around half of local authorities have higher building standards than national requirements, the Solar Trade Association (STA) has found.

Data from Freedom of Information requests submitted by the STA found that 51% of local authorities have higher standards and 17% have ‘leading’ policies in terms of ambition, scope and integration of renewables.

The government last week released a consultation on its Future Homes Standard, the mechanism to improve the energy efficiency of new UK housing.

One option – to improve fabric standards - would result in a 20% reduction in carbon emissions, whereas the other, which the government said was its preferred option, would see a 31% reduction through fabric standards and renewable technologies such as solar PV.

However, Polly Billington, director of UK100, however, warned that the Future Homes Standard could limit local authorities from setting higher standards.

“The government is proposing to limit the ability of local authorities to help the UK meet its net zero target by setting national standards as a ceiling when they should be a floor.

My bold at the end, but seriously, setting a ceiling ..... WHY WHY WHY?

JKenH

1961Nick wrote: »

I can’t see why a caravan shouldn’t share the load as it has a significant impact on the tow vehicle’s range. 30kWh of battery power might also be handy when there isn’t a nearby hook-up. If that’s not enough, V2C could add some extra kilowatts.

Caravans are heavy enough as it is. Ideally the weight of the caravan should be no more than 85% of the tow car. Caravans have got heavier and you need a decent sized car to tow one already. A lot of the combinations we see on the road are already dangerous. Adding a battery means heavier caravan which means heavier tow car. Range would be considerably reduced so much longer journey times and more expensive fill ups on motorways.

Here is an example from a US user of towing a very light van - 43% of journey time spent charging.

https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/club-together/discussions/information-technical-tips-advice/towcars-towing/tesla-model-x/

Here is a summary of a US model X user towing a teardrop van of 573Kg possibly 750Kg laden

Towing distance: 1,003 miles (1,033 total)
Number of Supercharger stops: 11
Average stop time: 1 hour, 34 minutes
Average Energy consumption: 612 Wh/mile
Travel time: 40.25 hours (23.02 hours driving, 17.23 hours charging)
Average travel speed: 24.9 mph

So EV's have a long way to go in my opinion, a decent battery would help!

90 miles between charges!



That is a very light aerodynamic caravan. A lot of UK vans are nearing twice that weight and have the aerodynamics of a shed.

It would also mean more people (basically anyone under about 40) would have to upgrade their licence for towing as the combination could exceed 3500 kg. This alone might deter a lot of younger caravaners to avoid EVs as anything certified to tow would likely be heavy enough to push them over the towing limit for the combination on a standard licence.

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

Oil companies are being held hostage by Extinction Rebellion. Instead of running away when confronted by climate change activists, it is time the industry’s top executives from companies such as BP, Shell and Total provided these campaigners with some hard economic facts about how oil markets work.

The green movement is a large number of different types of groups, one of the smallest groups is the actual group who want to reduce fossil fuel useage and promote sensible options and understanding it's a 30+ year game (in fact a 50-60 year game if you assume we started 2000 and will mostly be there by 2050-2060)

It's mostly lefties hating that free market capatilism works so they need to pretend and make up problems with the current system. No longer can they cry bosses Vs workers because a HUGE number of workers are their own boss and because a HUGE number of people already work for the state.

The argument for unions falls flat on its face when something like 30% of the workforce is self employed. 15-20% work for the state. And half of what remains work for micro companies often owned run by the themselves or their direct relatives or close friends. So the idea that bosses are screwing their workers is some 50-100 year old myth that doesn't ring true anymore. Even when I was employed by a big corporation I didn't feel resentment at all. I was happy with my job with my conditions of course I would have liked higher wages but that is true of everyone.

With the old paradigm dead Totally dead when are the lefties to do?
Well invest a new type of envy instead of workers Vs bosses let's invent the 99% Vs the 1% and pretend the 1% are all billionaires who got there by screwing over the 99%
The problem here is no group identifies with 99% of the population
The biggest tribes we have are left//right, liberal conservative and even then it's more like 40%/40%

Another story they have to create is the green movement
Corporations are killing the planet
A message more people can get behind left or right
And use this as a platform for changing the economic system from something that works very very well to something that in their minds will be utopia :rotfl:

They have some success in this so the conservatives should take the lead and just accept the price of higher energy costs to deploy wind/PV/efficiency is worth the cost of keeping the loonies away from power


So in short the movement is comprised about 10% of people who care and want workable real solutions. I think I fall under this category. I want fossil fuel useage to drop but am under no illusions that a 2025 deadline is anyttht but ridiculous. Same for any time frame before 2040 and likely 2050-2060

Also you have the Preachers which will preach about the evils of fossil fuels and totally ignore the health life economic benefits of fossil fuels. Marty falls under this category. Ignore the fact that natural gas saved millions of lives and hundreds of millions of sick I'll days by allowing affordable heating of homes. Pretend coal is so damaging to health it costs billions to the NHS but when we close the coal plants we see no NHS surplus.

Anyway the world moves forwards as long as humanity is free to make and create
Wind and solar will become large significant primary energy sources
Some time over the next 20 years software will become great at things like self drive cars and advanced highly automated manufacturing and infrastructure building. As this happens everything will get cheaper and the result is the world will be able to deploy and afford non fossil alternatives

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

Caravans are heavy enough as it is. Ideally the weight of the caravan should be no more than 85% of the tow car. Caravans have got heavier and you need a decent sized car to tow one already. A lot of the combinations we see on the road are already dangerous. Adding a battery means heavier caravan which means heavier tow car. Range would be considerably reduced so much longer journey times and more expensive fill ups on motorways.

Here is an example from a US user of towing a very light van - 43% of journey time spent charging.

https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/club-together/discussions/information-technical-tips-advice/towcars-towing/tesla-model-x/

Here is a summary of a US model X user towing a teardrop van of 573Kg possibly 750Kg laden

Towing distance: 1,003 miles (1,033 total)
Number of Supercharger stops: 11
Average stop time: 1 hour, 34 minutes
Average Energy consumption: 612 Wh/mile
Travel time: 40.25 hours (23.02 hours driving, 17.23 hours charging)
Average travel speed: 24.9 mph

So EV's have a long way to go in my opinion, a decent battery would help!

90 miles between charges!



That is a very light aerodynamic caravan. A lot of UK vans are nearing twice that weight and have the aerodynamics of a shed.

It would also mean more people (basically anyone under about 40) would have to upgrade their licence for towing as the combination could exceed 3500 kg. This alone might deter a lot of younger caravaners to avoid EVs as anything certified to tow would likely be heavy enough to push them over the towing limit for the combination on a standard licence.

Very high range vehicles will be available

If the $100/KWh on the pack level can be achieved that is $10,000 for 100KWh or 400 miles additional range. Charge time would be the same just connect up two super charger cables to two independent batteries

Maybe even future caravans can have their own batteries. A 50KWh pack which can keep the car and caravan on the road more miles. And when not used to feed the cat the batteries can be used to power the caravan. Do a supercharge just a few miles out from your destination and use the car and caravan battery as energy for your 10 days or whatever holiday.

But that's a small market


More importantly is to deploy BEVs for high mileage vehicles
Buses HGVs vans taxis
Buses and HGVs can be 4 independent batteries and motors with each pack charged by one super charger with internal electrics to balance out charge if necessary. They can use the same charging infrastructure as cars but instead of one cable charge use four cable charges.

Especially buses seem so perfect for battery technology
Average speed of 9.5 miles per hour in London
250 mile range would be fine for a 18 hour useage pattern
Use for 18 hours during the peak bus demand times
Charge for 6 hour downtime
Or even 125 miles with a 30 minutes super charge after 9 hours to be used for another 9 hours then a slow night charge and repeat

1961Nick

JKenH wrote: »

Caravans are heavy enough as it is. Ideally the weight of the caravan should be no more than 85% of the tow car. Caravans have got heavier and you need a decent sized car to tow one already. A lot of the combinations we see on the road are already dangerous. Adding a battery means heavier caravan which means heavier tow car. Range would be considerably reduced so much longer journey times and more expensive fill ups on motorways.

Here is an example from a US user of towing a very light van - 43% of journey time spent charging.

https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/club-together/discussions/information-technical-tips-advice/towcars-towing/tesla-model-x/

Here is a summary of a US model X user towing a teardrop van of 573Kg possibly 750Kg laden

Towing distance: 1,003 miles (1,033 total)
Number of Supercharger stops: 11
Average stop time: 1 hour, 34 minutes
Average Energy consumption: 612 Wh/mile
Travel time: 40.25 hours (23.02 hours driving, 17.23 hours charging)
Average travel speed: 24.9 mph

So EV's have a long way to go in my opinion, a decent battery would help!

90 miles between charges!



That is a very light aerodynamic caravan. A lot of UK vans are nearing twice that weight and have the aerodynamics of a shed.

It would also mean more people (basically anyone under about 40) would have to upgrade their licence for towing as the combination could exceed 3500 kg. This alone might deter a lot of younger caravaners to avoid EVs as anything certified to tow would likely be heavy enough to push them over the towing limit for the combination on a standard licence.

The additional weight would be around 200kg which would lower the COG & could be placed over the axle(s). That might actually improve the towing dynamics in a cross wind? A BEV is typically heavier than it's ICE counterpart, so that weight ratio(car:van) would be similar.

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Good news, but a possible sting in the tail from the Government:

Half of councils beating out national policy on building standards as Future Homes Standard slammed

My bold at the end, but seriously, setting a ceiling ..... WHY WHY WHY?

Why because it's ridiculous to expect 400+ councils to all act reasonably
They have a ridiculous incentive to pander to the most vocal

Already most councils are super duper green because they just turn down planning permission
There you go -100% fossil fuel useage

Surely you know this, make wind farm planning permission purely local and few would get built as the vocal people lobby for the council to turn it down. Allow local decisions for power lines and few will get built and your wind projects have no grid capacity a la Germany

Infrastructure ruels and regulations should be national not local else we would never get anything built

mmmmikey

JKenH wrote: »

Caravans are heavy enough as it is. Ideally the weight of the caravan should be no more than 85% of the tow car. Caravans have got heavier and you need a decent sized car to tow one already. A lot of the combinations we see on the road are already dangerous. Adding a battery means heavier caravan which means heavier tow car. Range would be considerably reduced so much longer journey times and more expensive fill ups on motorways.

Here is an example from a US user of towing a very light van - 43% of journey time spent charging.

https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/club-together/discussions/information-technical-tips-advice/towcars-towing/tesla-model-x/

Here is a summary of a US model X user towing a teardrop van of 573Kg possibly 750Kg laden

Towing distance: 1,003 miles (1,033 total)
Number of Supercharger stops: 11
Average stop time: 1 hour, 34 minutes
Average Energy consumption: 612 Wh/mile
Travel time: 40.25 hours (23.02 hours driving, 17.23 hours charging)
Average travel speed: 24.9 mph

So EV's have a long way to go in my opinion, a decent battery would help!

90 miles between charges!



That is a very light aerodynamic caravan. A lot of UK vans are nearing twice that weight and have the aerodynamics of a shed.

It would also mean more people (basically anyone under about 40) would have to upgrade their licence for towing as the combination could exceed 3500 kg. This alone might deter a lot of younger caravaners to avoid EVs as anything certified to tow would likely be heavy enough to push them over the towing limit for the combination on a standard licence.

You beat me to it with these points. None of this is saying that BEVs are a bad thing, merely making the point that for anyone towing a caravan they aren't a viable option yet.

Worth remembering too that caravanners don't go home every night so public charging infrastructure is essential, both en route and at point of destination. Destination is easy enough as most sites have electric hook ups and its just a question of progressively upgrading this to meet increased demand - although this will take time and cost money. Charging en route has the additional challenge of needing charging points that you can pull alongside with a caravan, and the ones I've seen at motorway services don't allow this - I'm not sure if this is the case everywhere. Not an insurmountable problem but something else to factor in.

Just done a few quick sums and by my rough and ready calculations a family of four living in London could tow a caravan to the Lake District and back with an ICE car 10 times for the same CO2 emissions as flying to Alicante just once.

As soon as BEVs become viable for caravan towing I'll be in the queue for one. For me viable doesn't mean they have to cost the same as an ICE, and I'm happy to put up with a bit of inconvenience around charging. I'll be happy to pay a premium to reduce emissions, but I can't stretch to a £50k Jaguar.

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

An article simply bursting with positivity. Simply put, the economics of RE, BEV's etc are approaching the tipping points where their deployment is better (economically), and we could see a rise in their deployment, and a drop in FF consumption, that is much faster than the current slow(ish) rise might suggest.

Rise of renewables may see off oil firms decades earlier than they think

Some extracts, but it's not too long, and worth a full read.

Oil companies don't care

Their assets are naturally declining fields

If demand is lower than they expect they will just naturally invest a bit less into exploration and development

There is an obvious and clear path out of oil and gas for them

Even if a perfect energy solutions is found and starts being deployed today so that today is peak and every year from now to 2050 is -3% that's fine too they can maintain profitability on capital invested deployed during that whole time

And to assume oil companies would be unprofitable with less demand is silly
What would happen to oil companies if demand was 10mbpd lower?
Would they be screwed? Well let's look at a period where demand was 10 mbpd lower.....2008... We're the oil companies unprofitable basket cases in 2008? No they made record profits

But the reality is there is no alternative which will decrease oil demand to even 2008 levels anytime soon


The magic bullet to everything is software
Self drive software will reduce oil demand as it makes BEVs 5-10x more productive
Software that allows rapid cheap grid expansion will reduce natural gas demand
Software that allows mini bots to build infrastructure will make nuclear wind and solar rapid to deploy and cheap to produce
The same bits will allow refurbishment and building of houses in very rapid times at lower prices

£100k to make an old house EPC grade A and build an extension with humans...no thanks
£20k for the same with 1 human and 5 driod helpers....where do I sign

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

The lengths people are expected to go to to overcome the impracticalities of BEVs. You have to admit that in a world of BEVs if someone invented the ICE they would be hailed a messiah. I’m all for BEVs in the right application, i.e. within travelling range of home but battery trailers - seriously? The thieves will love them.

You'd probably just put in a petrol generator in their trunk which would charge while driving

https://www.amazon.co.uk/B%C3%B6hmer-AG-Electric-Generator-9000W-10-5KVA/dp/B07KKL4B61/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?keywords=10kw+generator&qid=1571135728&sprefix=10kw+gener&sr=8-6

Sub £600 retail for 8KW constant output
It would turn a 310 mile range Tesla into a 470 mile range Tesla
It would turn a 240 mile range Tesla into a 365 mile range tesla

Make it easy to put one inside a BEV and just hire them at a petrol station for your trip
In fact hire a 15KW generator and you have infinite range (or until your petrol and batteries run out)


More likely is super chargers will just get better and better so people would be happy with a 300 mile range plus a 20 mins 60% top up giving them another 180 mile range to complete their once a year more than 300 mile trip