When will fossil fuel useage peak a general discussion

ABrass

At a certain point the steady decrease in fossil fuel use will render the remainder less affordable. Gas will go the same way as Coal but faster as the scale of RE capacity production is so much larger.

With the steady decrease in battery costs, razor fine margins thanks to competitive industries, and plentiful RE sources it's likely to be a fairly sharp transition.

I'm going 2020s.

GreatApe

ABrass wrote: »

At a certain point the steady decrease in fossil fuel use will render the remainder less affordable. Gas will go the same way as Coal but faster as the scale of RE capacity production is so much larger.

With the steady decrease in battery costs, razor fine margins thanks to competitive industries, and plentiful RE sources it's likely to be a fairly sharp transition.

I'm going 2020s.

For the UK we are already on the way down primarily because we peaked during a time of lower efficiency housing appliances cars etc so efficiency has played a big part. Both in consumption and generation. A 100 watt lightbulb powered by a coal station uses 300 watts of thermal power. That was replaced by a 10 watt LED powered by a CCGT station using overall less than 20 watts of thermal power. So we have gone from 300 to 20 watts thermal fossil fuels for lighting. Massive improvement.

But globally a lot of humanity is still poor
Plus world population is going to increase by another 2 billion people
So a peak in the 2020s is unlikely imo

The only chance of the peak happening in the 2020s is if software greatly increases efficiency and combined with BEVs perhaps we could see a peak in the late 2020s. This would probably require self driving BEVs which may or may not happen in time

ABrass

BEVs won't kill gas. Building regs banning new gas boilers will kill the domestic market and batteries outside cars will kill the plants.

GreatApe

ABrass wrote: »

BEVs won't kill gas. Building regs banning new gas boilers will kill the domestic market and batteries outside cars will kill the plants.

How long do you think those building regs will last when people start dieing of cold because they can't afford a £5-15k heat pump system fitting? Or can't afford to pay 15p a unit for electricity rather than 3p a unit for gas in a resistance heated system?

How long will a gas ban reversal take when our remaining manufacturing is crippled having to pay 10p electricity for high temp processing rather than 2p for NAT gas?

What happens to the 5 million or so social homes which might need £50 billion spending to install the heat pumps? Who's Gona cough that up. Tooth fairy?

Martyn1981

ABrass wrote: »

BEVs won't kill gas. Building regs banning new gas boilers will kill the domestic market and batteries outside cars will kill the plants.

Yep, and the ban comes in, in 2025, and I assume sometime soon we'll here about a ban for replacement GCH boilers, but I'm sure that will have some flexibility in it, and be far(?) off, maybe 2035+.

Using cheap rate leccy the heat pump will beat gas on a kWh(t) price (perhaps 2p/kWh(t)) even before including the externalities of FF's.

1961Nick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Yep, and the ban comes in, in 2025, and I assume sometime soon we'll here about a ban for replacement GCH boilers, but I'm sure that will have some flexibility in it, and be far(?) off, maybe 2035+.

Using cheap rate leccy the heat pump will beat gas on a kWh(t) price (perhaps 2p/kWh(t)) even before including the externalities of FF's.

Care to explain how Hammond's 2025 GCH ban will work? From what I've read this date was nothing more than a pipe dream to buy a few 'green' votes. The technology currently doesn't exist to do this affordably...and more affordable housing is also very high on the government's agenda.

An ASHP is fairly cheap, but the COP varies enormously & is likely to be poorest at times of high demand. Without a substantial solar contribution, not easy on a starter home with a small roof, it's likely to cost considerably more than gas heating.

GSHP's are still prohibitively expensive & require a considerable amount of land to install them. That becomes a problem for tightly packed social housing.

A far more sensible approach would be to look at part L of the building regs & start to incrementally increase the required level of insulation. One huge step isn't a good idea because it could wipe out the building industry like the ending of FIT did to the solar industry.

Banning gas hobs should be done immediately.

Martyn1981

1961Nick wrote: »

A far more sensible approach would be to look at part L of the building regs & start to incrementally increase the required level of insulation. One huge step isn't a good idea because it could wipe out the building industry like the ending of FIT did to the solar industry.

Yes that's what was done over 8yrs, with the final step cancelled by the government in 2015 when they also 'took out' the PV and on-shore wind industries.

UK scraps zero carbon homes plan

Housebuilders, planners and green groups have condemned the government for scrapping plans to make all new UK homes carbon neutral.

The zero carbon homes policy was first announced in 2006 by the then-chancellor Gordon Brown, who said Britain was the first country to make such a commitment.

zeupater

1961Nick wrote: »

Care to explain how Hammond's 2025 GCH ban will work? From what I've read this date was nothing more than a pipe dream to buy a few 'green' votes. The technology currently doesn't exist to do this affordably...and more affordable housing is also very high on the government's agenda.

An ASHP is fairly cheap, but the COP varies enormously & is likely to be poorest at times of high demand. Without a substantial solar contribution, not easy on a starter home with a small roof, it's likely to cost considerably more than gas heating.

GSHP's are still prohibitively expensive & require a considerable amount of land to install them. That becomes a problem for tightly packed social housing.

A far more sensible approach would be to look at part L of the building regs & start to incrementally increase the required level of insulation. One huge step isn't a good idea because it could wipe out the building industry like the ending of FIT did to the solar industry.

Banning gas hobs should be done immediately.

Hi

Probably a case of gas powered Co-gen boilers then - sized properly the generated electricity would work fine with heatpumps! ... very similar solution to how hybrid technology & pure ICEVs will be treated, so it's not as if there's no precedent to reference!

Regarding ASHP COP in various operating conditions, have a read through the solar PV+ASHP thread and look for the link to the Daiseikai engineering databook which provides a comprehensive set of performance figures for various ambient conditions, but you'll need a calculator! ...

HTH
Z

1961Nick

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Probably a case of gas powered Co-gen boilers then - sized properly the generated electricity would work fine with heatpumps! ... very similar solution to how hybrid technology & pure ICEVs will be treated, so it's not as if there's no precedent to reference!

Regarding ASHP COP in various operating conditions, have a read through the solar PV+ASHP thread and look for the link to the Daiseikai engineering databook which provides a comprehensive set of performance figures for various ambient conditions, but you'll need a calculator! ...

HTH
Z

The calculator indicated that the range was roughly 2.5 - 5.0. At current energy prices, a COP of about 4.5 would be needed for parity with gas....assuming no solar contribution of course.

Some of those units in the databook were surprisingly efficient at around zero degrees. I wonder if the COP includes the defrost cycles?

Martyn1981

1961Nick wrote: »

The calculator indicated that the range was roughly 2.5 - 5.0. At current energy prices, a COP of about 4.5 would be needed for parity with gas....assuming no solar contribution of course.

But, if a suitable carbon price is added to the FF gas, or bio-gas (costing a bit more) is used, the numbers should add up better. Also with better insulation (using the rule - first insulate, insulate, insulate) the heating part of our bills should reduce.