Maybe UK govt are not crazy

joefizz

1961Nick wrote: »

All we'll need are a few more gas turbines & inter-connectors for when the wind doesn't blow.

Crossed the irish sea yesterday (and sunday) and none of the offshore turbines were turning (as far as I could see).
This winter will be interesting because it will give the first really good data set on ev usage and the grid due to the takeup of purely ev vehicles. The previous data sets were based on percentage of plug in hybrids charging from the grid and were wildly overestimated using historical data rather than assuming usage.
Solar will be pretty much negligible for the next couple of months so we'll get a good idea going forward when the data is published march/april time.



Depends on how cold/warm the winter is though as an overly cold winter might have ramifications for continuation of the EV/heatpump subsidy/rollout (although more from a political view, depending on who gets in).

GreatApe

Ectophile wrote: »

You seem to be finding all the problems with EVs and ignoring their advantages.


They are easier on brakes, because of regenerative braking. They have fixed ratio gears, so no gearbox to go wrong. No clutch or flywheel. Replacing a dual-mass flywheel on an old diesel can cost over £1000. Servicing is cheaper in general as there are fewer fluids to replace.


The reason you won't find a sub-£1000 EV is that they are in such demand. Some people are even finding that their vehicles are going up in value.


At the moment, the only rival to EVs is hydrogen, and that has completely failed to take the market. The infrastructure to support hydrogen vehicles would cost too much.

Hydrogen isn't a rival to BEVs
It's petrol and diesel and in some places in the world ethanol or methane

For now BEVs are not competitive or even close to mass market sales. They are okay in the premium end but not the middle or low end. Toyota average price $24,000 and they make a profit. Tesla average price closer to $55,000 and they will very likely make another loss this year this is despite very generous direct and indirect subsidies for BEVs and very heavy taxation of ICEs

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I'm not sure anything you've said is true, but for fun I'll take a look at your 30 nuclear powerstations claim for cars alone. You seem to be making quite a specific statement, so I would of course be interested in seeing your calculations, but here are mine.

So assuming there is no reduction in car numbers, or car use, we can use today's figures of approx 30m cars and an average annual mileage of 7,900m pa.

That gives us 237,000,000,000 miles, which at 4m/kWh equals 59,250,000,000kWh, or 59.25TWh. [The UK currently consumes roughly 350TWh pa.]

If we divide that energy figure by days and hours, we get 6.76GW power. [The UK currently averages ~38GW.]

So that's roughly twice the power of Hinkley Point C (3.2GW). So 2 v's your 30 figure.

If you meant reactors, then that's 4 v's your 30 figure.

But, we aren't there yet. That 6.76GW is a gross figure, not net, we also have to consider the energy savings, and since refining a gallon of petrol/diesel consumes around 6kWh, then the gross figure (~+18% of current UK leccy demand) falls to approx +10%, or roughly 4GW, which is roughly one HPC v's your 30 figure, or two reactors v's your 30 figure.

Obviously a far better solution to the additional energy demand would be RE. It's also important at that point to compare the gross energy being replaced, since cars are only about 10-25% efficient, so the gross energy consumed, the energy in the petrol/diesel is vastly greater than the net energy received, so RE leccy energy production at the RE powerstation is a tiny amount compared to the oil energy production at the well.

6KWh per gallon sounds like made up fake news

UK refined the equivalent of 43 million gallons of oil per day last year

Using your figure it means refineries used 260GWh per day of electricity.
Since they are 24/7 operations they are using 10.8 GW of electricity all the time

This is clearly nonsense because it means half of night time electricity consumption would be from this

So your 6KWh per gallon of refined oil is nonsense

Just like the 10 calories of oil to produce 1 calorie of food is a nonsense internet fact

GreatApe

https://www.cfr.org/blog/do-gasoline-based-cars-really-use-more-electricity-electric-vehicles-do

This seems much more reasonable which says

The Department of Energy estimates that refiners used 47 TWh of electricity in 2001 to produce refined products from 5.3 billion barrels of oil. Assuming that you get 42 gallons of refined products from each barrel of oil, this works out to about 0.2 kilowatt hours of electricity used for each gallon of gasoline produced.

Probably even less electricity used per gallon of refined oil because like all manufacturing the remaining process has certainly gotten more efficient since 2001!

So stop propagation this nonsense Marty boy you've done it multiple times it's nowhere near 6KWh electricity per gallon of oil it's closer to 0.2KWh of electricity for a gallon of refined oil

Using the same department of energy statistics and scaling for UK oil refining it brings total UK refinery electricity useage at 4TWh a year which seen reasonable unlikely your propaganda which works out as refineries using half of all electricity at some points which is clearly nonsense. Things are more efficient today so it's probably below 4TWh/Yr and that's for all oil refined from jet fuel to tarmac to petrols & diesel used in everything not just cars

GreatApe

Having said this charging cars isn't a problem for the UK grid which will need repalcemen and new CCGTs as the nukes and coal plants are closed but CCGTs are affordable to build and cheap to fuel thanks to the yanks shale gas output

The only problem with BEVs is that they are too expensive for acceptable range version
Toyota average ICE $24,000 sold at a profit
Tesla average BEV more than $50,000 company still making a loss

If a model 3 was $24,000 rather than $40,000 it would be a true full solution
But costing $16,000 more and more to insure and having to accept a lower 240 mile range (less in winter less over the years as the battery degrades less if you do the more normal motorway speeds of 80-90mph rather than stick to the granny speed of 65mph Vs a 500+ mile ICE car which can be refueled to full in five minutes

So BEVs are acceptable they work well they just need to be cheaper
The world's best selling car ever is the Toyota Corolla sold more than 50 million copies over the decades and you can get that for $20,000 it's about the same size as a model 3

almillar

The world's best selling car ever is the Toyota Corolla sold more than 50 million copies over the decades and you can get that for $20,000 it's about the same size as a model 3

It's smaller than a Model 3, and it starts at £24,140 according to Toyota, you might need to click on 'new cars'.


https://www.toyota.co.uk/#

leviathan

Ectophile wrote: »

You seem to be finding all the problems with EVs and ignoring their advantages.

I'm beaing realistic on the issues they present. Dont thnk I'm anti EV, I will have one as soon as it makes financial sense for me but it's simply not happening yet verses driving an ICE.

The reason you won't find a sub-£1000 EV is that they are in such demand. Some people are even finding that their vehicles are going up in value.

You do find sub 1000 examples but they are often early gen using nimh packs. The current gen battery packs are stil worth significant amounts even when the rest of the vehicle is where you'd expect an ICE car value to be at. I agree that since they are fashionable it's also keeping the price high. But people are parting them early life again for hobbists it's a fashionable "hot rodding" thinkg to be doing EV builds and also for battery backups.

At the moment, the only rival to EVs is hydrogen, and that has completely failed to take the market. The infrastructure to support hydrogen vehicles would cost too much.

Overhead cables on motorways like the old trolley buses to give range, batteries for around town and country.

joefizz

leviathan wrote: »

Overhead cables on motorways like the old trolley buses to give range, batteries for around town and country.

Coincidently (or maybe not ;-)) a research request for exactly this arrived in my inbox this week. Mostly around trucks/public transport but at least some people are seriously looking at it...

leviathan

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I'm not sure anything you've said is true, but for fun I'll take a look at your 30 nuclear powerstations claim for cars alone. You seem to be making quite a specific statement, so I would of course be interested in seeing your calculations, but here are mine.

No problem.

leaf battery - 40-62 kWh --> https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=leaf+battery+pack

Lets say 40kWh is required nightly. As a UK average. I think I'm being generous to the EV cause as not everyone driving an ICE has a small car.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-licensing-statistics-2018
At the end of 2018, there were:
38.2 million licensed vehicles in Great Britain.
Dig into the report and it's 33million ICE cars.

Let's say only 1 million of them need a charge every night.
Again being somewhat generous I fear.
40kw * 1,000,000 = 40GW


You said::
[The UK currently averages ~38GW.]
Hinkley Point C (3.2GW)

40 / 3.2Gw = 12.5 Hinkley points, not 30.
Yeah. I think you got me, it's a trival problem... :cool:


PS: your calculations and mine dont include losses in the grid for distribution and power conversion. Add another 10-15% overhead.


PPS: the cost of building nuclear power stations and the subsidies for the price per MW also dont factor. If we are serious we need to stop all that crap and nationalise power production and charge at cost. Nuclear should not be run for profit, no energy should. Dont even start on RE which is a transfer of wealth exercise and has nothing greeen about it other than virtue signalling. Same as FiT's and solar PV.

GreatApe

almillar wrote: »

It's smaller than a Model 3, and it starts at £24,140 according to Toyota, you might need to click on 'new cars'.

https://www.toyota.co.uk/#

That's the RRP and in the UK no one pays the RRP except for Tesla buyers

Here is the USA price
The base 2020 Corolla sedan will start at $20,430. The Corolla LE will rise by $815 to $20,880 and pricing on the Corolla SE will increase by $1,305 to $22,880. All prices include a $930 destination charge. Toyota said the first-ever Corolla hybrid will start at $23,880, including shipping.

Does anyone know if the USA is the same as the UK where you get 10-25% off RRP just for asking?

By comparison model 3 is $39,490+$1,200 destination fee = $40,690

Anyway it's $20,430 Vs $40,690

4,630 mm L x 1,780 mm W x 1,435 mm H. Toyota
4,694 mm L x 1,849 mm W x 1,443 mm H. Tesla
Tesla is fractionally bigger 5.9% by volume if you multiply all three dimensions like a cuboid
But really I doubt it because the Batteries will eat up about 6% of the height dimension so it's probably about the same. Tesla is about 300kg heavier


So twice the price costs more to insure
Sure it's a better car but not a lot of people have twice the cash to throw away on a better car
MC Donald's outsells the local premium restaurants 100:1 so it's not about premium it's about affordability