Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Piddles wrote: »

In the Financial Times over the weekend there were a couple of pieces showing how that is going turn around completely over the next couple years:

The price of lithium-ion batteries should go down to $100 per kWh in the next year (from $10,000 per kWh in the early 1990s...). The US Department of Energy calculates that once battery costs fall below $125 kWh, owning and operating an electric car will cheaper than a petrol-power car in most parts of the world.

A huge spike of over a hundred new electric models around the world in the next two years. More choice, more competition.

This sudden spike in choice is at least partially down to the EU reducing the average allowable car emissions to 95 grammes of CO2 per kilometre by 2021, with punitive fines for failure. It could cost the industry €30bn in fines. The average figure was 121g of CO2/km in 2018, surprisingly a four year high because the rise in SUVs and falls in diesel. There is potential for electric cars to be sold at a significant loss to offset the emissions of the more profitable gas guzzlers (or they may just stop selling the worst gas guzzlers, it's just too early to say).

It looks like the start of 2021 is the time to plan to buy that first electric car....

The Americans will solve EVs with software, hell software solves gas cars too if EVs dont work

The problem with cars is they are designed for peak needs. Same is true for Vans and HGVs. All becuase humans are expensive drivers

Once self drive software is here, which is likely within 5 years certainly within 10 years then taxi EV fleets will dominate. But instead of something like a tesla model 3 we will have half sized EVs that use half the energy and require half the costly batteries

Imagine a tesla model 3 but cut in half
Instead of 185 cm wide perhaps only 85 cm wide and seats upto 3 passengers. One at the front one in the middle one at the back. No wing mirrors and more aero efficency = 10 miles per kWh

This means instead of needed a 50KWh battery pack you only need a 25KWh battery pack and can have a 250 mile range car

Actually even that is overkill. Just have a 10 kWh battery pack so the car only has 100 mile range but that is no problem for a self drive EV it just goes and recharges at a supercharger whenever needed

Imagine a robo taxi EV in London.
Each trip is perhaps average 6 miles.
It can do 10 trips so 60 miles which is easy on its 100 mile range battery
Then go supercharge for 20 mins and out again to serve 10 customer trips
Then repeat
Easy

The advantage to these half sized robo EVs is significantly less electricity needed (10 miles per kWh rather than 4.5) and significant smaller battery packs (10KWh rather than 50kWh) which means a 80% reduction in batteries thus a 80% reduction in battery pack costs.

If you need a robo taxi for a longer trip, say London to Edinburgh which is 400 miles the fleet would send you a long range model. Say one with a 50KWh battery and 500 mile range. Said 3 person vehicle could also pick up two other passengers in London that want to go to Edimburgh meaning only 40KWh of energy to transport 3 people 400 miles. Very energy efficient!

Battery factory limits also go away
A giga factory able to churn out 50GWh a year is capable of supplying 1 million current long range EVs with 50KWh packs. The same 50GWh a year giga factory can supply 5 million robo EV fleet taxis with 10KWh batteries and each robo EV can displace probably 5x the mileage of private owned EV mileage

so one giga factory able to churn out 50GWh of batteries to produce 1 million human driven EVs displacing 10,000 each in oil miles becomes the same 50GWh batt factory but able to produce 5 million robo EVs capable of displacing 50,000 miles each = a factor of 25 x difference

So if you need 25 giga factories for human driven EVs, you only need 1 giga factory for the equivalent mileage to be covered by self drive robo EVs

This is a huge difference and means robo self drive EVs can very rapidly displace human driven oil cars
One giga factory with capacity to produce 50GWh/yr is able to displace 25 million vehicles worth of mileage
The world would only need just 10 such giga factories to allow 100% switch to electrify transport

It also means car manufacturing can go from ~100 million cars per year towards 20 million robo EV taxis per year but with average mileage per year of the cars going up 5x

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I know the rule is 'don't feed the trolls', but is it safe to assume that the new thread on this board is yet more of the same anti renewables arguments ...... the same ole same ole, from the same ole poster.

Unless the title is being deliberately sarcastic, then we have approx 35% RE and 20% nuclear heading for 7% nuclear (closures plus HPC) ........ now my maths ain't great but ........ ?

He seems to be making the argument that in 2027 the UK grid will roughly be
~18% domestic nuclear
~25% imports
~28% offshore wind power (24GW @ average 45% CF by 2030)
~9% onshore wind power
~3% PV
~2% UK hydro
~15% combination of Biomass and Natural Gas

That we do not need to build more mass nuclear or pv or onshore wind becuase what is under construction and committed to (30GW offshore wind) already decarbs the UK grid. Doing more doesn't decarb much further and mostly ends up curtailing other non fossil fuels or itself.

He sounds like he knows what he is talking about
plus his math is great