Anti-diesel measures in the UK - magazine article

[zardos]

16 hours ago, monkie said:

it does not generate power all the time and it is still a minority contribution to how we generate power in the UK.

A nice map of UK power generation output
https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=GB

[zardos]

2 hours ago, Snagger said:

lack of fluid leaks

Unfortunately Electric cars actual do have fluids in them.
The high performance batteries, electronics and motors need cooling, there are reduction gearboxes with oil and brakes with hydraulic fluid, etc

[Bowie69]

2 hours ago, Snagger said:

There are other costs, like the conversion itself, but those aren't bad, comparable it appears to a high quality engine rebuild.  But once done, motoring costs are very cheap.  So, it becomes a cash flow problem.  Unfortunately, few people are likely to be able to stump up the cash to make that leap, and I can't see a government loan system being made up.  If they offered that in place of scrapage schemes, then that would help.  But the battery cost is still going to be too much.

I reckon you'd be in for the thick end of £15K for a lion setup.

That RRC was very likely that or more, with all the fabrication. 

[Ex Member]

3 hours ago, Snagger said:

So, the 70A was not on the weedy US 110v. 

To briefly explain the US residential power supply....  All homes receive 240 V in a split phase arrangement.  The distribution transformers from the mains use a center tap transformer from one of the medium voltage phases, giving 120V above ground and 120V below ground.  Connecting across both phases gives 240V.  Main panels are a minimum 100 A at 240 V (24 kW) with a branched breakered arrangement.

The generic outlets in the house are 120 V, 15 A, 1800W.  For any larger loads, the 240 V is used in whatever amperage is required.  It is a system that makes a a lot of sense and is much safer than using a base of 240V.

[Gazzar]

1 hour ago, Bowie69 said:

I reckon you'd be in for the thick end of £15K for a lion setup.

That RRC was very likely that or more, with all the fabrication. 

Compared to a new Nissan leaf at £25k. that isn't insane. Depreciation on the leaf would be higher.

[Snagger]

20 minutes ago, Red90 said:

To briefly explain the US residential power supply....  All homes receive 240 V in a split phase arrangement.  The distribution transformers from the mains use a center tap transformer from one of the medium voltage phases, giving 120V above ground and 120V below ground.  Connecting across both phases gives 240V.  Main panels are a minimum 100 A at 240 V (24 kW) with a branched breakered arrangement.

The generic outlets in the house are 120 V, 15 A, 1800W.  For any larger loads, the 240 V is used in whatever amperage is required.  It is a system that makes a a lot of sense and is much safer than using a base of 240V.

Interesting.  I thought that it was all 120.

[Bowie69]

.....and there comes the other kicker......

What do you do with a Nissan Leaf after, say, 8 years, and the batteries aren't within warranty, and are facing replacement, who in their right mind is going to spend £10K on a new battery pack for an 8 year old car....? Second hand car market becomes vapour.

oof, that's gotta hurt.

Truly, cars will become even more disposable than they used to be.

 

 

 

[monkie]

4 hours ago, ianmayco68 said:

I don’t know a lot about this , but I thought hydrogen fuel cells were supposed to be a better option ? Once someone worked out how to fill them up .

Using hydrogen in a car is great..... at the point of use as it just produces water.

But.....In addition to the issues with Hydrogen already pointed out in terms of storage and making it commercially available to the public in a safe and easy to use form - the major problem with hydrogen is how do you produce it on an industrial scale? You either do what we currently do which is to produce it from natural gas and steam or you can pass massive amounts electricity through water which is very energy intensive for the amount of hydrogen you get and brings us straight back to the initial question of where do you get the energy from in the first place to do this? Also from a safety point of view if you use hydrogen in a fuel cell, some designs use some quite hazzardous materials that I wouldn't want in a car.

I realise that I am sounding like Mr negative here; the reality is that our global demand for engergy whether that be for running cars, industry or our homes really isn't a simple problem to sort out by saying get an electric car or fit solar pannels on everyone's house. There are implications, some much more serious than others for what ever solution is put forward.

From my point of view going from evidence I have seen and listened to, I think that long term we (the developed world) need to walk away as quickly as possible from fossile fuels, wind and solar (the latter two often require a fossile fuel back up and largely just confuse the energy mix making it look better than reality) and put some serious R&D into other alternative nuclear powered technologies that are gas or liquid based. The developing world in particular wants cheap energy dense power, renewables simply can't offer this where you need it to so they go for coal and oil instead.

When large parts of the world opt for such carbon dense solutions, it makes our efforts seem almost irrelevant which is why I strongly stand firm in my view of focusing efforts on how we really intend to generate power long term. Instead it would seem that we are demonising diesel cars (I can't imagine petrol will be far behind when most people swing back to it and use dramically shifts again) and making us all feel better by sticking up a few solar and wind farms then patting each other on the back. A cynical view I will accept, but that is how I see it.

[Dave W]

I suspect that cars will become less something you own and more something you hire/lease. If you start thinking about cars just as a means of transport and then pay a monthly fee for the use of one it becomes a bit like many other "consumer" items these days. Pay a fixed monthly fee, use it while it does the job then get rid at the end of the contract period. It's happening or happened already in so many areas of our lives, TV/media, communications, housing, computer software and so on.

It won't be an issue for those that choose to live in large urban areas where they'll be able to use other forms of transport or have temporary use of one of a pool of cars they pay a monthly fee to access. Those of us that live in relatively low population areas with no other transport options will just have to suck it up.

At some point someone will come up with a DIY electric conversion but it will always come back to the same issue - storing and transporting energy. Traditional fuels offer a really efficient way to transport and store energy. Electricity, by comparison, is difficult and wasteful to store and wasteful to transport. Current batteries are sub optimal and a compromise, weighing a huge amount, wasteful of resources and quick to degrade in capacity.

I'd love to try and build an electric Defender with a motor at each wheel, braking systems similar to F1 cars that use the motors to brake and store the power harvested, swap out the engine and transmission for batteries etc... Every time I look at it though I just get the feeling we're not there quite yet and we may never get there, certainly not at an affordable level.

Our "environmental lobby" have, as ever screwed the whole thing up by not looking at the bigger picture. First they campaign against nuclear power, then coal so we end up with gas as our primary source of electricity. We end up importing much of that gas from Europe, in turn supplied by Russia and Norway and are constantly held to ransom over it's supply. We also import nuclear generated electricity from France because we don't have the infrastructure in the UK to generate our own without exceeding CO2 targets.

They campaigned against leaded petrol and ignored the increased risks to the environment of unleaded (including increased CO2 output). Then they campaign for diesel instead of petrol, based solely on CO2 output, despite many people pointing out the issues with hydrocarbons and particulates but they ignore that and press on regardless.

Now we're changing direction once more with a lobby against diesels and pro electric but our electric generation is high carbon because we didn't invest in nuclear. The batteries that we use and dispose of to power this new generation of cars are causing an environmental disaster that, in around 20 years, will cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst our unwashed, flax wearing "experts".

We'll start to fix that by having "lithium offset" where big companies will fill a big hole in the ground with compressed carbon to offset their lithium use so they can tell everyone how "green" they are and how low their "Lithium footprint" is.

[Peaklander]

6 hours ago, Snagger said:

Lots of risk, though - firstly, it's cryogenic, so a leak could cause serious freezing injuries.

It could only be stored cold (as liquid) with a load of cooling capacity to maintain it at the low temperature which wouldn't be feasible. It would therefore need to be stored under pressure to still allow it to be in the liquid state but at ambient temperatures. It would still need venting to avoid pressure building too high and all the issues of a flammable gas would then come into play.

[Tanuki]

Fuel-cells are a good idea: there are some that use Ethanol as their fuel [make it by fermenting pretty much anything with cellulose in it: wood-pulp, grass cuttings, seaweed...] so there are none of the 'issues' with Hydrogen transport/storage.

For me the big downside of electric vehicles is the battery life and the recharge-time. While something like a Tesla might get 150 miles battery-life in freely-moving traffic (even with the lights and heating on..???.) I'd like to see it achieve 50 miles to a charge when towing a 3.5-ton flatbed over hilly/twisty-road terrain.
Then there's the recharge time: in my Diesel Defender we can do a 400-mile trip towing said flatbed, and only need to stop once for a 5-minute refuel/pee/driver-swap. The 'energy bandwidth' of a rubber pipe carrying Diesel at 50 litres/minute is brilliant - until I can get the same effect (and range) from electric it's not going to be on my radar.

The solution to the slowness of electric recharging is surely a modular-battery system: at the recharge-station you park over an automated 'pit' where a robot drops-out your discharged battery and slots-in a newly-charged one, then you drive off, leaving your dead battery to be recharged in its own time. Whole thing could be done in 30 seconds! You would, of course, need standardisation of the batteries and charge-monitoring across all vehicles using the system, which could prove an issue.

[monkie]

35 minutes ago, Peaklander said:

It could only be stored cold (as liquid) with a load of cooling capacity to maintain it at the low temperature which wouldn't be feasible. It would therefore need to be stored under pressure to still allow it to be in the liquid state but at ambient temperatures. It would still need venting to avoid pressure building too high and all the issues of a flammable gas would then come into play.

At the time when I was studying chemistry about 18 years back when Hydrogen looked like a viable option they were looking at storing it absorbed on to a catalytic surface at a relatively low pressure (similar in principle to how acetylene gas is stored by dissolving it in acetone) rather than cryogenically storing it for the reasons you rightly point out. I don't know how far they got with this, I would imagine the materials cost would make it not commercially viable.

[zardos]

32 minutes ago, Tanuki said:

Fuel-cells are a good idea: there are some that use Ethanol as their fuel [make it by fermenting pretty much anything with cellulose in it: wood-pulp, grass cuttings, seaweed...]

Why bother with fuel cells when it is very easy to run a normal petrol engine on mostly Ethanol.
There are a number of vehicles that will run on e85 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85 ) which is 85% Ethanol .
France and the US have this more generally available.

[Tanuki]

Running a petrol engine on E85 (or higher concentrations of Ethanol) is thermally not very efficient: a good petrol-engine may get 45% efficiency, the rest gets wasted as heat. I know they used Ethanol as a fuel in Brazil in the 1970s/1980s (fermented sugar-cane waste...) but it had some significant water-absorption and fuel-system-corrosion issues.
I'd have hoped an Ethanol fuel-cell would get higher efficiency than that. My ideal Ethanol approach would be a fuel-cell backed-up by a battery (or a supercapacitor) so the fuel-cell keeps the battery/supercap charged and ready to provide serious urge for short duration acceleration.

I like the idea of electric all-wheel-drive: a flat 'pancake' motor in each hub, with some decent electronics to provide slip-sensing and torque-vectoring would be rather fun. And remember the big advantage of electric-motors: full torque available from zero RPM!

[Snagger]

I

[Snagger]

 I don't know how accurate that article is, but it seems reasonable.  Overall chemical pollution would be far worse for the electric vehicle due to the batteries, of course.

[reb78]

I was going to post that article. It appears to be doing the rounds as my other half forwarded it to me the other day. 

[CwazyWabbit]

Anybody mention about electric car fires and the difficulties in extinguishing them yet? (Lithium ones as opposed to NiMH)

I'm curious as to whether this will become a problem or if it is just more noise.....

[GW8IZR]

1 hour ago, CwazyWabbit said:

Anybody mention about electric car fires and the difficulties in extinguishing them yet? (Lithium ones as opposed to NiMH)

I'm curious as to whether this will become a problem or if it is just more noise.....

The fire issue was sufficiently real for all Tesla cars to be banned from underground car parks in Oslo, I'm not sure if it was the entirety of Norway or just some local fad and this was in 2013,. Not sure if it still the case but I know their fire fighters were told not to attempt to stop them burning but to concentrate on limiting collateral damage.

[=jon=]

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-car-battery-reignited-days-after-fatal-model-x-cr-1825929302

There was a report in some US motoring mag a few years back that worked out the 'green-ness' of cars over their lifetime - the worst was a Prius (this was pre-Tesla) due to the nastiness of the Li-Ion packs, the amount of plastics, non recyclable stuff and that it wouldn't last very long. The best was an old Jeep Wrangler - it was simple, lasts a long time, very few plastics and mainly metal construction so easy to recycle.

 

[Bowie69]

Thing is, the benefits to towns and cities is not about co2 or overall emissions, it is air quality for the inhabitants - less filthy particulates, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. That is what makes it so horrid to be in London for everyone and is causing huge respiratory problems among its residents, as well as other health problems.

Making a car is going to be bad for the environment, however it is powered, limiting the impact on humans is the current goal, either that or we all go back to push bikes, and walking.

[monkie]

3 hours ago, Snagger said:

 I don't know how accurate that article is, but it seems reasonable.  Overall chemical pollution would be far worse for the electric vehicle due to the batteries, of course.

Yes, the article mentions a study from Australia where they burn a lot of coal to produce much of their power. It comes back to that "flippant" picture I posted - I agree it is an over simplification, but there is truth in it.

Sorting out air quality in towns and cities is important and Bowie69 makes a good point above, but I see that as a very short term solution. It's just moving the problem away from one place and dumping it in another.

[Bowie69]

Go nuclear and renewable and emissions become a non-issue.

[monkie]

1 minute ago, Bowie69 said:

Go nuclear and renewable and emissions become a non-issue.

100% agree. There are lots of promising nuclear technologies that would solve the problem worldwide and allow us to stop wasting time and money on wind/solar which require gas as a backup. This is why I get quite angry about various governments forcing us through taxes and wasteful scrappage schemes to go down a particular route while they simultaneously do next to nothing about the above suggestion which would fix the problem long term.

[GW8IZR]

11 hours ago, monkie said:

100% agree. There are lots of promising nuclear technologies that would solve the problem worldwide and allow us to stop wasting time and money on wind/solar which require gas as a backup. This is why I get quite angry about various governments forcing us through taxes and wasteful scrappage schemes to go down a particular route while they simultaneously do next to nothing about the above suggestion which would fix the problem long term.

politicians and policy deciders depend on popularity to remain in office, most have little 'real' knowledge of the policies they steer. This means they generally choose the popular direction. Standing tall and saying 'hang on, this doesn't seem correct' is unpopular, particularly with a society that has been told a lot of nonsense by the press and media.

Someone earlier mentioned that solar / wind energy wasn't significant in the UK, if we cast our minds back just a few short months to a weather event which the press called 'the beast from the east' its worth remembering that at that time our power network generation was at 100% load, it wasn't nearly at full capacity it was at almost 50GW demand. That included almost 25% of it being generated from wind and solar. The bought in from abroad pipes were at maximum.

If at that time there had been no wind there would have been people without lights.

Adding the charging of electric cars to that without major improvements to the generation network... yep that's going to be fine.