Electric cars

stator

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Yes the nuclear powerstations can produce hydrogen when demand is low, but why wouldn't you use excess leccy from RE being produced at around £40-£60/MWh rather than excess leccy from nuclear at £100/MWh.

I said from the beginning that the purpose of using nuclear power was not the cost of the electricity but the supply of extremely high temperatures. Extremely high temperature electrolysis is much more efficient so your cost per mwh of electricity is irrelevant since you will be using less electricity to generate your hydrogen in a nuclear/hydrogen plant.

I'm out of this thread. Far too many EV owners blind to the fact that they are a tiny drop in the ocean compared to most motorists, who are still shunning EVs.

redux

stator wrote: »

I'm out of this thread. Far too many EV owners blind to the fact that they are a tiny drop in the ocean compared to most motorists, who are still shunning EVs.

Oh, but maybe they are coming up. After ages of 730 to 750 electrics out of 430 or 450,000 secondhand cars on Autotrader, they have recently leapt over 800. That's close to 0.2%, 1 in 500.

Just imagine what it would be like at 5%, all the snobby Tesla owners whingeing about too many facilities for other electric cars. I've already seen this on their forums, when Tesla chargers were removed from Sainsburys car parks.

redux

AdrianC wrote: »

I don't think anybody would say that rail fares are anything but excessive.

£2.30 advance for 30 to 40 miles. £9 for 50 miles return

Annual season ticket to London about 17 pence a mile, assuming 4 days a week (which is most of them around here)

(What I don't understand is parking £10,000 to £30,000 cars at/near the station for 12 hours a day.)

AdrianC

Tesla owner banned from driving for 18 months for using Autopilot on the M1... and moving to the passenger seat, then putting his hands behind his head.


Guilty of Dangerous Driving, so he'll have to take an extended driving test before getting his licence back. Remorse? No, he said he was just the "unlucky one"...



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-43934504

AnotherJoe

Despite the absence of oil then, some Tesla's do have a dipstick.

Martyn1981

From the public transport side, this article appears to suggest that for city buses, EV's are already cheaper (more economical), so we might be at the start of a switch over.

No Need To Wait: Electric Buses Are Cost-Competitive Transit Buses Today

Breaking that down into more digestible metrics, electric buses, like those offered by Proterra, are simply more efficient than their fossil fuel counterparts.

“The buses we offer get over 20 miles per gallon equivalent. When you compare that with a traditional diesel bus, you’re saving more than 80% of the energy that you would have used and maintenance costs are proving out to be significantly better than with fossil fuel powered vehicles. The savings long-term that customers are able to achieve are what is pushing this market to adopt as fast as it is. It’s surprising everybody in transit how quickly electric vehicles are being adopted as best practice in the industry.”

The proven savings and efficiencies of electric buses are even more attractive when the extreme pricing fluctuations of diesel and CNG are taken into account. In contrast, electricity prices are extremely stable and can even essentially be purchased up front by installing a solar system or wind turbines to provide electricity for a fleet.

Martyn1981

Each week I get a Carbon Commentary newsletter from Chris Goodall, this week's had an interesting item regarding H2 and a move away from electrolysis in the long run. This seemed timely given the medium to long term suggestion of building out nuclear + electrolysis suggested on here, which I'm doubtful of given the large inefficiencies and loss of high value leccy that could simply be used to directly charge a BEV fleet plugged in to smart chargers.

3, Solar production of hydrogen. In the long run, the world will not use electrolysis to make hydrogen. Technology will evolve to directly produce the gas from absorbing the energy of light to split water atoms. So far, the problems with this approach have been the high cost or toxicity of the catalysts used. Two recent academic studies show promise because they utilise low cost materials. Scientists at CNRS in France used tiny quantum dot, or 'ternary chalcopyrite nanocrystals' in the jargon. Those in Exeter, UK, employed an electrode composed of a coral-like structure to split the hydrogen from water. These studies are a very long way from showing that light can be used commercially to directly produce hydrogen. However 'solar fuels' should be a high priority for governmental research funding around the world. Cheap hydrogen directly produced from light - alongside ever better solar and wind prices - will solve the world's energy needs completely. (Thanks to Thad Curtz).

almillar

Extremely high temperature electrolysis is much more efficient so your cost per mwh of electricity is irrelevant since you will be using less electricity to generate your hydrogen in a nuclear/hydrogen plant.

Can you put a number on that?

I'm out of this thread. Far too many EV owners blind to the fact that they are a tiny drop in the ocean compared to most motorists, who are still shunning EVs.

That's not what *I've* been arguing over, and not what you've been talking about either. Everyone is just going over your grand claims about hydrogen producing nuclear power stations being a good solution. You keep banging on about it, but you aren't providing much substance. What's that got to do wit EVs being a drop in the ocean?

silverwhistle

I may have expressed here or elsewhere my opinion on the current government's ability to organise a p**s up in a brewery, and their inability to improve infrastructure but on that topic this seems relevant to the thread:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/30/ministers-400m-plan-for-electric-car-charging-infrastructure-delayed.

Martyn1981

Why is it always the UK?

Article here about the way on-street charging points are being installed, and how they can be done well, or, as seems to be a particularly UK thing ..... badly.

This is an issue close to my heart as Wifey and I board guide dogs in training, or when owners are on holiday, and it's really opened my eyes (no pun intended) to just how often the pavement is obstructed by cars to less than the width of a person + dog, something that will also cause problems for those with pushchairs, or wheelchairs too.

There's also a PR issue. We don't want any side effects from EV's that might cause animosity from others, whilst EV's remain a small percentage of road vehicles.

Highly charged: complaints as electric car points block city pavements