Electric cars

bigadaj

Martyn1981 wrote: »

You keep referring to Nimbyism but many folk also like WT's. I think you missed the point of what I posted, objections to wind are falling as wind rolls out as the the reality turns out to be fine, not the terrible monsters destroying the countryside that some believed.

As to the reason why energy prices have gone up being due to renewables, what energy price increase, they've gone down the last few years.

Yes you need back up capacity for intermittent renewables, but we already have that as demand can vary from 20GW to 55GW, so it's nothing new. Also, you need back up capacity for nuclear as the unexpected loss of a single reactor can be a serious problem for the National Grid. NG estimate the lifetime costs of back up for HPC at around $12bn.

So all of these issues have swings and roundabouts. Plus wind (on or off shore) is essential as the greater the mix of renewables we have, the more the package works as a whole since they support each other via their differing generation profiles. The best example of this is PV and on-shore wind, which are an almost perfect seasonal pairing.

Regarding tidal, have you been following the news about Swansea, it's looking really good. It's an expensive project coming in at around HPC costs, but possibly needing 60yrs of support, however, the 12 lagoon package should be far cheaper than HPC, especially the Cardiff scheme which is 10x the size of the Swansea 'test' lagoon.

Well worth a read of the Hendry report, or at least a quick scan of Fig 5 page 178.

I'm familiar with Swansea bay, applied for a job a couple of years ago but they were struggling for funding and just goes to show how long these things take.

I'm agnostic about nuclear and again have applied for jobs on the new generation, in that case soemthing better came up more locally. I think they should be part of the mix but not at the costs currently being touted.

A full Severn barrage should have been explored more thoroughly, large capacity depending on which option was chosen and the ecological impacts were considered to be far less than originally touted. It's scale that is needed to get value and that's my concern about most forms of renewables, we all know generation rates for wind for example are well below that originally touted, I've seen the data going into planning documents.

Im terms of energy prices there is still large subsidy, or tax if you prefer on carbon alternatives, and we've had a large amount of press coverage about fuel poverty in recent years. Prices would have been far lower without the tax or subsidy. This also of course makes high energy industry uncompetitive in the uk, you may consider this a price worth paying but it's certainly an issue of concern to many.

Opposition on individual no farms is still significant, just look at the correspondence around any new or proposed development. These are often backed by green groups, whether this be local wildlife trusts, friends of the earth, Green Party etc

Martyn1981

bigadaj wrote: »

I'm agnostic about nuclear and again have applied for jobs on the new generation, in that case soemthing better came up more locally. I think they should be part of the mix but not at the costs currently being touted.

Nuclear is a head ache for me. I'd rather we didn't have it, if we can get away without it, but ........

It's low carbon and cleaner than coal (as long as it doesn't go bang). And around 2010 I supported nuclear (just). By 2012 I was about 70:30 against as there were plans to cut coal, and the HPC 35yr CfD was announced at £92.50/MWh with on-shore wind already slightly cheaper, and the cost trends for PV looking extremely good.

By 2015, when the £80/MWh for 15yr PV and onshore wind CfD's were announced, we'd already seen coal generation in the UK start to drop.

Today (well 2016 monies) we have HPC at £102/MWh, PV and on-shore wind at £83/MWh, coal dropped from 31% of generation in 2014 to 24% in 2015 and 9% in 2016. The NAO revised their subsidy figure for HPC up from £6bn in 2013 to £30bn.

We have recent European auctions at 25% less again for onshore wind and PV than the 2015 CfDs. We have Dutch offshore wind at €50/MWh [Note these are simpler installs, nearer the shore and exclude infrastructure connection costs (perhaps 30% more)]. We have all parties expecting sub £100/MWh contracts for off-shore wind in the UK before 2020, possibly this Apr.

We have tidal lagoons that could supply 10-12% of our leccy at sub HPC prices. We have Ice-Link the interconnector to Iceland that could supply around 3% of our leccy baseload at sub HPC costs.

So I'm 100% against HPC, which is utterly insane, the most expensive building in the world, with the first 3 reactors elsewhere proving to be disastrous on cost/build out, and now about 90% against all new nuclear unless it can come in at around £70/MWh or less.

But 'other' new nuclear is going to struggle too. Just 3 days ago Toshiba announced a massive review and may pull out of new nuclear completely.

Toshiba meltdown puts nuclear project at risk

Plans for a new nuclear power station in Cumbria are at risk from the financial crisis engulfing the developer, Toshiba, after the Japanese company announced that it was putting its entire overseas nuclear business under review.

Toshiba owns 60 per cent of Nugen, the venture working on plans for a plant at Moorside, near Sellafield. The project would involve three AP1,000 reactors designed by Westinghouse, the US company that Toshiba bought in 2006.

bigadaj wrote: »

Im terms of energy prices there is still large subsidy, or tax if you prefer on carbon alternatives, and we've had a large amount of press coverage about fuel poverty in recent years. Prices would have been far lower without the tax or subsidy. This also of course makes high energy industry uncompetitive in the uk, you may consider this a price worth paying but it's certainly an issue of concern to many.

I'm sorry this is a myth. There has not been a large increase in prices, so they couldn't "have been far lower without tax or subsidy".

I believe the impact of wind and solar subsidies on our energy bills is about £40pa, or perhaps 3%. I'm happy to be corrected if you have a reference/link?

As I've already mentioned, to see this issue in context then you have to include costs that don't impact our energy bills, such as pollution from FF, which hits us as shortened lives and NHS costs, or current nuclear subsidies and decommissioning costs which are in general taxation.

Some may still disagree with the science of AGW, but most accept that dealing with the impacts of CO2 on our climate will require huge expenditure, so subsidies for RE or carbon taxes on FF are simply a shifting of this expenditure, not an addition.

The addition of RE to our energy mix has had a substantial impact on electricity spot prices, bringing the average down. So whilst our bills may go up with additional levies, they also go down (partly) due to reduced generation costs:

Net cost of renewable subsidies nearly two-thirds less than LCF states, claims Good Energy report

Lastly, you mentioned fuel poverty. Well the levies we pay on top of our energy prices include funds for helping those in distress, but of serious note is the fact that around 15-20% of domestic PV installs were on council/social housing properties, and this was expected to grow to 20-25% but was stopped when the govt cut the subsidy too far in 2016. The beauty of PV installs on social housing, is that whilst the occupants pay nothing for the install, they will still see the annual savings on their leccy bills of around £100 (£60 - £140).

So all of these issues and arguments need to be viewed in context.

gzoom

We've had our Leaf now for nearly 2 years, it's not perfect, public charging is not good enough yet, but we've done 13k miles with no issues.

We have no doubts EVs are 100% the future, and coming much quicker than people think.

We are so convinced EVs are the future we are putting our hard earned cash down on a Tesla to replace the Leaf. Its the most expensive car we have bought by several folds, and we would never spend this kind of cash on a non EV and we are using longterm savings we previously discussed didn't want to touch, but its not often in life you get the chance to experience the start of a revolution, so we're willing to pay premium required to be one of the earlish adopters.

Once prices for the Model 3 is announced (hopefully half the cost of the Model X) we'll most likely be replacing my wifes car for one, so by 2020 we'll have a totally combustion engine free driveway.....I cannot wait for that day to come, for our family we have already bought our last petrol/diesel car

Gloomendoom

gzoom wrote: »

We are so convinced EVs are the future we are putting our hard earned cash down on a Tesla to replace the Leaf. Its the most expensive car we have bought by several folds, and we would never spend this kind of cash on a non EV and we are using longterm savings we previously discussed didn't want to touch, but its not often in life you get the chance to experience the start of a revolution, so we're willing to pay premium required to be one of the earlish adopters.

Early-ish is about right.

Every single car in this 1915 photo is electric... bar one.

gzoom

^ Absolutely, what Ford managed in 1915 was cheap mass production, apparently at one point 50% of cars in the world was the Model T. The biggest problem with electric cars at the moment is the cost of the battery.

Tesla are the only EV manufacture who going to have access to their own battery supply via their battery factory. If only I had the foresight to buy Tesla share a few years ago

AdrianC

gzoom wrote: »

Tesla are the only EV manufacture who going to have access to their own battery supply via their battery factory. If only I had the foresight to buy Tesla share a few years ago

Tesla do the same as everybody else - they assemble battery packs from other people's cells. The only difference is that Panasonic are partners in the factory, so will be assembling cells on-site. Every other car manufacturer has strategic component suppliers locally, for just-in-time delivery. No difference once EV production scales up.

Nissan Sunderland are no different.
http://insideevs.com/nissans-battery-plant-in-sunderland-to-produce-next-gen-ev-batteries/

Strider590

NigeWick wrote: »

The storage problem is solved staring with batteries. They are rapidly coming down in price. Then there will be a battery car to grid partial solution. Charge on economy 7 and release at peak times. I don't think most people understand how rapidly advancements are being made in the technologies of solar & wind generation and power storage.

Someone said that to me about newer high performance cars, specifically regarding multi-plate clutches, I questioned why it took 40 years to transfer that "new technology" from Tractors.

The advancements you speak of are largely marketing BS and you have to be very careful what you believe, PV cells are very simple, wind generators are very simple, it's just propeller attached to a device not unlike a car alternator.

Solar roadways is one the latest things and it's been thoroughly debunked, yet people still bang on about it. It takes a while for the people who believe the hype, to actually come down to earth and read the facts.

Martyn1981

AdrianC wrote: »

Tesla do the same as everybody else - they assemble battery packs from other people's cells.

Actually that's not true, and gzoom is absolutely right. Tesla are building the Gigafactory in Nevada to produce batteries.

When it was planned it alone would have doubled the world's capacity for Li-on battery production, however, demand for their cars and domestic/commercial storage is so high, that they've already been granted two increases to the factory size, before it's even finished.

Production of batteries has now started there, and it's located next to the salt flats so that they can mine the lithium, 'shove' it in one end and have the batts come out the other.

When completed the PV roof will supply 120% of their electricity consumption.

Tesla starts mass production of new ‘2170’ battery cell at the Gigafactory, will be used in Model 3 in Q2

Martyn1981

Strider590 wrote: »

Solar roadways is one the latest things and it's been thoroughly debunked, yet people still bang on about it.

Whilst PV is now the cheapest form of generation in the world, hitting sub $25/MWh, and is (surprisingly) one of the cheapest forms of generation in the UK, I for one can't get my head around the solar roadways idea. It seems plain nuts!

PV is very cheap, and it's easy to install, and there is no shortage of places to stick it. So why anyone wants to make it tough enough for traffic to drive on it, is beyond me.

AdrianC

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Actually that's not true, and gzoom is absolutely right. Tesla are building the Gigafactory in Nevada to produce batteries.

When it was planned it alone would have doubled the world's capacity for Li-on battery production, however, demand for their cars and domestic/commercial storage is so high, that they've already been granted two increases to the factory size, before it's even finished.

Production of batteries has now started there, and it's located next to the salt flats so that they can mine the lithium, 'shove' it in one end and have the batts come out the other.

When completed the PV roof will supply 120% of their electricity consumption.

Tesla starts mass production of new ‘2170’ battery cell at the Gigafactory, will be used in Model 3 in Q2

They've always assembled the battery packs - which use thousands of cells.
http://hackaday.com/2014/09/13/tesla-model-s-battery-teardown/

Until those new 2170s came on-stream, the packs were built from utterly generic 18650 cells.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LF6HG36/

It won't be long before the 2170s are similarly generic.
https://electrek.co/2017/01/09/samsung-2170-battery-cell-tesla-panasonic/