If that is the case then they are just burning cash money.   It had best be viable considering how long they have been considering it.

 

Best take 20000 cars off London roads now and that will help until the scheme is up and running.

Just buy them off owners at £5,000 a time for Euro 4 Diesel & Petrols and recycle & withdraw their driving licence other than to have a EV while they have a London or suburbs area postcode or workplace.  That is Much Cheapness in the scheme of things.

Edited 30 December, 20196 yr by Roottootemblowinootsoot

8 hours ago, lol-lol said:

Taxation can sort that out ie excise duty on gas used for heating as it is for fuel.  Charge the excise duty at the point of wholesale. 

 

But the direction of travel is that electricity become half and then a quarter of current cost to make and hence gas just get squeezed out economically.  My Octopus energy contract is cheaper this year than last by about 8%, taking inflation in to account, and one should expect this to occur each year on average.

Increasing the tax on gas used for heating won't help people who are already struggling with their heating bills  Plus who would pay for the cost of installing the new electric boiler and the required three phase electricity connection (and all the digging up of roads that would be required)?

 

I wish I could share your optimism about the cost of electricity dropping to a half or quarter of the current cost.

17 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

Increasing the tax on gas used for heating won't help people who are already struggling with their heating bills  Plus who would pay for the cost of installing the new electric boiler and the required three phase electricity connection (and all the digging up of roads that would be required)?

 

I wish I could share your optimism about the cost of electricity dropping to a half or quarter of the current cost.

 

Why would you need 3 phase for electric heating? we arn't in the 1970's now, they aren't planning on installing storage heaters in every home.

6 hours ago, SuperbTWM said:

 

 

This makes me laugh, the only reason they can say that renewables is cheaper than coal is because they have taxed coal to the point of extinction. A coal unit running at 25% efficiency without any carbon tax would be making a killing at £40 mwh. Just think what we could do with modern coal technology.

 

That has now changed.  No carbon fuel burning should be occurring in any form so we slow and reverse climate change.

2 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

That has now changed.  No carbon fuel burning should be occurring in any form so we slow and reverse climate change.

 

Yes, I think its 2023 and we shall be rid of all our coal burning. The only coal units that shall remain will be the Drax units converted to biomass.

 

Roll on the new Gas plants!

2 hours ago, SuperbTWM said:

 

Yes, I think its 2023 and we shall be rid of all our coal burning. The only coal units that shall remain will be the Drax units converted to biomass.

 

Roll on the new Gas plants!

 

As long as they are CCGT and burning recovered gases rather than straight from ground.

Don't even mind a piston engine running on CHP using landfill gases etc. 

Still using natural gas, but the new CCGT at Keadby that SSE are building will be the most efficient in Europe. That has to count for something. 

 

 

10 minutes ago, SuperbTWM said:

Still using natural gas, but the new CCGT at Keadby that SSE are building will be the most efficient in Europe. That has to count for something. 

 

 

 

It is great to see thermal efficiency reaching 60% but it is still pumping masses of carbon in to the air. 

 

• Zeroth law of thermodynamics – If two thermodynamic systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other.
• First law of thermodynamics – Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms. In any process, the total energy of the universe remains the same. For a thermodynamic cycle the net heat supplied to the system equals the net work done by the system.
• Second law of thermodynamics – The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.
• Third law of thermodynamics – As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant minimum.

 

19 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

It is great to see thermal efficiency reaching 60% but it is still pumping masses of carbon in to the air. 

 

If It keeps me in a job for the next 25 years those Polar Bears won’t have died in vain!

 

9 hours ago, SuperbTWM said:

If It keeps me in a job for the next 25 years those Polar Bears won’t have died in vain!

 

 

One can always be retrained from one branch of engineering to another.  I started as a Marine engineer with slow speed 20 MW engines powering 100,000 tonne ships where we had diesecon units with up around 50% thermal efficiency, almost free electricity as long as one was doing at least 16 knots.  Use my engineering to help with working with aerospace, automotive, medical etc companies.

 

Lot of jobs in installing wind and solar and hopefully some more in tidal too and one can have a conscious one is not handing a ball of chaotic weather to our kids.  Unless one believes in Trump thinking that the melting of the Arctic is a good thing so we can have an easier trade route to China and need even less jobs in Europe for manufacturing etc

 

Hopefully 2020 and the decade that follow will be where we do not but any more ICE cars or gas boilers.  ID3 or Zoe looking good and solar panels on the south facing roof for the new year/decade.    

 

14 hours ago, SuperbTWM said:

 

Why would you need 3 phase for electric heating? we arn't in the 1970's now, they aren't planning on installing storage heaters in every home.

Check out the specifications for electric boilers for a wet radiator system (the simplest and cheapest  replacement for the wet radiator heating systems in the vast majority of houses), the majority of sufficient output for a typical 3 or 4 bedroom house need a three phase feed.

2 hours ago, PetrolDave said:

Check out the specifications for electric boilers for a wet radiator system (the simplest and cheapest  replacement for the wet radiator heating systems in the vast majority of houses), the majority of sufficient output for a typical 3 or 4 bedroom house need a three phase feed.

Yes but we are not talking about that old rubbish. The only thing that will compete with gas is heat pump technology.

 

An air source heat pump produce about 3kw of heat for every kw of electrical power.

Edited 31 December, 20196 yr by SuperbTWM

33 minutes ago, SuperbTWM said:

Yes but we are not talking about that old rubbish. The only thing that will compete with gas is heat pump technology.

 

An air source heat pump produce about 3kw of heat for every kw of electrical power.

While working in ROI earlier this year there was a discussion on the radio regarding proposals to convert all the houses to heat pumps from gas boilers. As in the UK new houses won't be allowed to install gas boilers after a certain date. One caller quoted the costs of converting to a heat pump and I think he said the average costs per house was 20,000 euros and improved insulation was essential.  

Just now, moley said:

While working in ROI earlier this year there was a discussion on the radio regarding proposals to convert all the houses to heat pumps from gas boilers. As in the UK new houses won't be allowed to install gas boilers after a certain date. One caller quoted the costs of converting to a heat pump and I think he said the average costs per house was 20,000 euros and improved insulation was essential.  

 

Yes, its very expensive at the moment and they are ideally suited to very new ways of building where houses are air tight and lose very little heat already otherwise I don't think a heat pump system would keep up at all.

 

But if you look into the future to a time when everybody has huge solar installations and battery storage, a way to use all that power most effectively is to use it to heat our homes rather than gas.

4 hours ago, SuperbTWM said:

Yes but we are not talking about that old rubbish. The only thing that will compete with gas is heat pump technology.

 

An air source heat pump produce about 3kw of heat for every kw of electrical power.

Agreed that heat pumps are the choice for much better efficiency, but....

 

On a high housing density modern estate the noise from air source heat pumps isn't exactly going to be good for being on friendly terms with ones neighbours.

3 hours ago, SuperbTWM said:

But if you look into the future to a time when everybody has huge solar installations and battery storage, a way to use all that power most effectively is to use it to heat our homes rather than gas.

Adding solar plus battery storage to the bulk of the existing housing stock is going to be a LONG time in the future, what is needed is a solution that wrks for the existing housing stock in the next 10-15 years.

3 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

On a high housing density modern estate the noise from air source heat pumps isn't exactly going to be good for being on friendly terms with ones neighbours.

 

True, but an unfortunate placement of a combi boiler flue is just as noisy as a fan on a condenser, you can hear our neighbours while sat in our conservatory quite loudly

6 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

Adding solar plus battery storage to the bulk of the existing housing stock is going to be a LONG time in the future, what is needed is a solution that wrks for the existing housing stock in the next 10-15 years.

There isn't one that I can see, we have already been through the free cavity wall insulation rubbish 

 

 

16 hours ago, SuperbTWM said:

There isn't one that I can see, we have already been through the free cavity wall insulation rubbish 

Then the target date for hugely reducing emissions from the existing housing stock is not achievable without a solution that currently doesn't exist - time for some proper research instead of vague promises and commitments that mean nothing.

For over 40 years in the UK there has been 'Insulate your home advertising', Insulate you home grants, Job creation schemes, companies coming and going.

The duff insulation that has now been getting removed and replaced.  Then the Solar Schemes, the John Prescott promoted crap condensing boilers that fail to work in winter.

Decade after decade the UK has Insulation stories, schemes, people freezing, energy poverty, and decade after decade crap standard housing is built.

Billions wasted in the UK and yet all older homes are not well insulated, and lots of the rubbish ones that were are demolished and replaced with the current sub standard ones.

 

News stories have old people in cold un-insulated homes, but forget totally that 40, 30, 20 years ago they were not so old.

Maybe not listening to the news and adverts on Insulating homes though.... Maybe fitting rubbish Aluminium or PVC windows or getting ripped off by the Government Funded Companies that were installing insulation.

 

Never trust Government Ministers and new tech, and never expect an apology.

 

Edited 1 January, 20206 yr by Roottootemblowinootsoot

From 2012 and this waste of space got Knighted is still a MP and then has his nice we earner with Energy companies.

 

 

 

 

Edited 1 January, 20206 yr by Roottootemblowinootsoot

http://plugshare.com

 

I found the crowd sourced information on plugshare doesn't seems as up to date as zapmap, near where I live. Your mileage may vary.  

 

Abetterrouteplanner is also a great tool when planning routes, it gives most valuable elevation information. Though it's quite conservative on my car's range. 

WattsUp is an app-based alternative, originated in UK too. 

 

For me, I simply use Google map to plan the route in one tab, Zapmap to check charger location in another tab. Also use Abetterrouteplanner as reference. 

The Service Engineer for the areas i want to go says he monitors it for where he is responsible for, and does not use Zapmap.

I will see how it goes, but really only the chargers i will be using or 2nd choices are what i am going to be checking.

I might be off mark here, but why are car companies trying to all pump out a car that runs on electricity that needs to be plugged, in to charge?

 

Why the ****, are they not working on cars with built in solar panelled bodywork? Surely this MUST be feasible? 

Saab did it to a concept car back in the Eighties, I think.  It then only had a solar panelled roof, which ran the A?C system, which in turn, cooled the car down due to the extra heat the glass roof accumulated (DOH)! 

 

Surely now, around 30-40 years later, better solar technology and perhaps using some sort of polymer solar power absorbing bodywork, would allow ENOUGH power to actually RUN the whole vehicle? 

 

If I can think of this, so can others and so can those who need to invest and develop this tech... Surely its the way forward? You would be charging whilst parked and even when driving at least, during the day. The charge would remain fairly high/optimal, with the obvious over-charge prevention added for safety. Add a plug socket for the odd time you drove too long and needed to charge from the mains and surely Bob is your parents sibling?

 

I really find it baffling as to why the PTB, always seem to try to improve ever-so-slightly, technology that is already available, instead of taking the HUGE leap to do the job properly. Normal plug-in electric vehicles are going to take decades to become the norm and then, decades more to become obsolete whilst a solar powered vehicle will be future-proofed for the remaining century and beyond. You can't charge cheaper then for free! (Perhaps this is why no-one wants this as where is the future of profits)? 

 

In addition, IF electric powered vehicles ARE the future, why are they so much more expensive then their fossil fuelled forecourt partner and why are the special discounts from retailers, always for the gas/oil burners and not the plug-ins? 

You can't really say its due to the technology as if they only now made charge-up-jobbies and not wet-fuelled cars, the tech used would only be relevant and economics would kick in. Why develop petrol and diesels any further, why not stop NOW with this development and focus just on electric cars? 

 

Bear in mind, the so-called Boris busses, of which originally, just 8 were made, cost a million each to build. This was due to the tech... Now they are much, much more common, the cost per-vehicle will have been slashed beyond the point of stupidity, whilst in the beginning, people were berating said Mr. Johnson, for having commissioned the first 8! This will and should now be happening to electric cars yet anything that can travel more then 200-od miles per charge, seems to be north of £33,000, WITH the discount from the Government (Read here, other taxpayers, who still cannot afford a halfway decent new car costing half that). Yep, that rich guy up the street with the big house, who just sunk £60-odd grand on a Tesla, got a nice few grand of taxpayers hard-earned, to "Help" Him pay for it! Oh, and most likely scrapped a £1500 Ford and got a further £4K discount, scrappage!  ( I wonder how many people just in the UK, cannot even afford the rusty old scrapper, which by scrappage rules, usually has to be road-worthy!

 

Me? I have a now-ten year old oil burner, which I was told was the best bet for the future and now, I am giving kid's asthma and destroying the planet at a colossal rate, every time I switch on the engine! Can't afford something newer, won't be able to afford to drive it late next year as I am within the A406!

It will come.  Many things will come, but currently just getting cars affordable is their main object.