Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

JKenH

mmmmikey wrote: »

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.

That’s just as well as the IPace can only tow 750kg. The eTron and EQC are 1800kg and the model 3 is 910kg. The model X is 2270kg. I would be interested to know why the IPace and Model 3 have such low limits.

1961Nick

GreatApe wrote: »

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

Oil companies don't care because they have the capital to invest in renewable energy. One thing they definitely aren't afraid of is a large up front cost & a degree of risk ... exactly the sort of business you'd want driving renewables forward.

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/what-we-do/alternative-energy.html

JKenH

GreatApe wrote: »

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

Why not just drop the batteries and save some weight?:) Seriously though, why isn’t there a market for range extenders? They would appeal to me.

JKenH

I apologise if this has been posted before

https://en.reset.org/blog/ep-tender-trailer-helps-electric-cars-cover-long-distances-04032017

1961Nick

JKenH wrote: »

That’s just as well as the IPace can only tow 750kg. The eTron and EQC are 1800kg and the model 3 is 910kg. The model X is 2270kg. I would be interested to know why the IPace and Model 3 have such low limits.

The iPace may be limited by the a/c's ability to cool the interior & the battery simultaneously.

The TM3 uses 2170 cells rather than 18650 ... could that be the reason?

JKenH

1961Nick wrote: »

Oil companies don't care because they have the capital to invest in renewable energy. One thing they definitely aren't afraid of is a large up front cost & a degree of risk ... exactly the sort of business you'd want driving renewables forward.

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/what-we-do/alternative-energy.html

Blatant green washing. How dare you?:)

1961Nick

JKenH wrote: »

Blatant green washing. How dare you?:)

Green washing seems to be an acceptable practice. Just have a look at any site offering 100% green energy.

ABrass

Oil companies put a tiny fraction of their capex into renewables at the moment. I think Total was the leader at around 4% over the last year.

4% is green washing.

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

Why not just drop the batteries and save some weight?:) Seriously though, why isn’t there a market for range extenders? They would appeal to me.

There just aren't many BEVs on the road and there are even fewer people who want/need more than the offered range

But yes I suspect it would be easy to rent a portable towed generator it only needs to be 15KW to allow any BEV to have unlimited range. Or even a 8KW generator can double whatever the EVs battery only range is. 200 miles becomes 400 miles

Long range petrol hybrids are just this
100 mile plug in range
With the petrol kicking in when the battery is say 10%

The days you do less than 90 miles pure electric
The days you do more than 90 miles a mix of the two

I used to think hybrids were silly having two sets of drivetrains and this is true if the hybrid has tiny range but a hybrid with 100 miles, even with just 80 miles, would be very useful. If such a car has a 150,000 mile 20 year life even with just 80 mile range it might spend 140,000 of those miles as electric and just 10,000 miles as petrol.

But why carry all that extra weight cost for a petrol engine....
The mass of a small petrol engine is tiny the cost tiny hence why car companies can build and sell a small petrol car for as little as £8k (In fact that's £6.6k +vat) and that's a whole car so as a guess their engine and powrrtrain is only 10% of that cost.


So yes plug in Hybrids with decent ranges might actually be the best of all worlds
Electric 95% of lifetime miles
No range worries
This might be something you would be more interested in rather than a pure BEV

GreatApe

ABrass wrote: »

Oil companies put a tiny fraction of their capex into renewables at the moment. I think Total was the leader at around 4% over the last year.

4% is green washing.

Why should they put anything in?
They are companies whose goal is to

1 survive
2 look after it's employees
3 make a profit and look after it's shareholders

This is true of any and all companies
It is even true of humans
Your goal is to survive, if you manage that the next step is to look after yourself, if you manage that and have a decent standard of living The next step is to save for your retirement/lean years and look after your family

Highly profitable companies (or companies that can convince highly profitable companies to give them the money) who have 1 2 & 3 sorted can and do take risks to do things that will probably fail but if they succeed it's a brand new market

Anyway software will solve everything
From heath to wealth to fossil fuels