@PetrolDaveThey have equipped vans and transporters to get EV's charged or to charging places.

Garages & Recovery Companies can do the same where there is a market for that and could do quite well out of it.

Just as 'Mis-fueling' are doing now.

 

Actually many ICE drivers know how to hypermile where filling stations can be scarce or not 24 hour.  

They need to know what to do where weather conditions can require long diversions.     Now that will catch out many using EV's in Winter in Scotland.

https://www.rac.co.uk/business/news-advice/rac-deliver-roadside-boost-for-ev-drivers-with-lightweight-charging-unit

https://www.theaa.com/about-us/newsroom/aa-rolls-out-ev-support-service-in-response-to-increased-demand

 

https://futurenetzero.com/2020/10/09/police-scotland-invests-21m-in-ev-charging-infrastructure

 

 

Edited 19 November, 20205 yr by e-Roottoot

2 hours ago, e-Roottoot said:

 

Actually many ICE drivers know how to hypermile where filling stations can be scarce or not 24 hour.  

... but many more don't, especially those who just see a car as a 'box' that gets them from A to B.

 

It's easy to forget that car forum members have far more interest in, and knowledge of, cars than the majority of Joe/Joanne Public.

@PetrolDave

That is all that many are interested in and they manage A-B perfectly well.

If they get a car that does not suit them then easy enough to change it.   Lots of females are driving EV's & charging them and getting about and seem to like them and have a better understanding of them than males have.

14 hours ago, e-Roottoot said:

If they get a car that does not suit them then easy enough to change it.

Not if your income is low (like most farm workers) and you can't get finance - then you're stuck with what you have.

From BBC 'CLICK' an Item this week on EV's & Hybrids.  If you can sign in.

http://bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pr0y/click-the-electric-vehicle-revolution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 22 November, 20205 yr by e-Roottoot

Is Boris investing in more power generation and transmission lines?

I've not seen those announcements.

 

Without those two things this isn;t going to happen. Oil is energy dug out of the ground and moved in liquid form.

 

'leccy needs made on demand and moved by wire to the battery.

We've no effective way (right now) to store energy other than as fossile fuels.

 

Hydrogen gas is a bit of a red herring, it's easy to make and actually getting easier but it's an absolute ****er to store.

H2 to give the same energy density as petrol needs to be stored at gigantic pressures, potentially making H2 tanks very dangerous in an accident.

H2 also 'corrodes' metal - hydrogen embrittlement.

 

Fuel cells are probably the way of the future as well as battery but I think we'll still be seeing loopholes to allow fossil fueled vehicles for a while yet

Another thing is, the UK has always been relatively friendly towards classic vehicles with our obsession with heritage and tradition etc. How will this way up for classic cars and vehicles? Are they just going to be buried one night? What will happen to all that value in classic cars if they do

Relax @Powerred, this relates only to the sale of new cars.

Politicians, peers and many have Classic Cars as cherished possessions and investments, they are not going to spoil what the UK has with Classic vehicles free of VED or MOTs.

 

@Aspman

Scotland has Hydro power to produce electricity, and pumped storage using hydro as does Wales and elsewhere.

Hydrogen is stored quite well to run the bus fleet, bin lorries etc in Aberdeen and Fife and on the Islands and powering ferries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

^^^^ From 2017.

 

 

Edited 26 November, 20205 yr by e-Roottoot

5 hours ago, Aspman said:

 

Hydrogen gas is a bit of a red herring, it's easy to make and actually getting easier but it's an absolute ****er to store.

H2 to give the same energy density as petrol needs to be stored at gigantic pressures, potentially making H2 tanks very dangerous in an accident.

H2 also 'corrodes' metal - hydrogen embrittlement.

 

 

My understanding is that kevlar tanks have solved those issues...

14 hours ago, Aspman said:

'leccy needs made on demand and moved by wire to the battery.

We've no effective way (right now) to store energy other than as fossile fuels.

Smart home charging, vehicle to grid would be part of that solution. The national grid says "thanks to recent efficiency improvements, we have spare capacity and even if we all switch to EV overnight, it would only increase demand by 10%"

https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted

 

Battery are very effective way to store energy right now: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a34598095/elon-musk-battery-farm-sequel-australia-tesla-powerpack/

Fossil fuel isn't really storing energy in the same sense as storing excess generated by renewables and hydrogen electrolysis: we can't currently easily create fossil fuel. It's more of an energy reserve made by planet Earth over thousands of years. 

11 hours ago, Powerred said:

Another thing is, the UK has always been relatively friendly towards classic vehicles with our obsession with heritage and tradition etc. How will this way up for classic cars and vehicles? Are they just going to be buried one night? What will happen to all that value in classic cars if they do

 

11 hours ago, Wino said:

Relax @Powerred, this relates only to the sale of new cars.

But with newer vehicles eventually going to all EVs the market for petrol & diesel will virtually disappear so filling stations as we know them will also disappear meaning that owners of classic vehicles will need to find some other place to purchase fossil fuels - probably at a much higher price.

 

To me the crazy thing is we'll still be needing lubricants for EVs (grease and lubricating oil for bearings etc.) so we'll likely still be digging up fossil fuels which means the refineries will have to find something to do with the then unwanted fractions that are currently sold as petrol, diesel, heating oil etc. I know they can adjust the cracking process to reduce those fractions, but they can't eliminate them totally - so will those fractions then just be flared off, causing something new for the eco-warriors to complain about?

Edited 26 November, 20205 yr by PetrolDave

41 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

eventually

I won't live long enough to see that; and TBH it's plenty of time to get used to the idea and adapt if you are young enough.

Oil and gas will be getting brought to the surface of the earth or sea for a long time or extracted from the earth / oil sands etc.

But then it will not just get burned as road fuels or to warm homes.

 

As to filling stations many get fuel from Bunkered Fuel yards and the likes, and Diesel & Gasoline is produced as part of the Petrochemical Refining process and petrochemicals are going to still be getting produced.

 

As to Flaring off, that is a rather serious issue to those near and not so near where it is happening, but then the Governments have let the industry get away with this and surely as China goes collecting Space Rocks the Oil & Gas sectors can get a move on with some new technology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We'll need oil and gas for a long time yet. For plastics, pharmaceuticals, roadbuilding as well as generating all that 'leccy for cars.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53238512

 

Reasonable little article.

 

H2 for heavy vehicles and batteries for cars

1 hour ago, wyx087 said:

Smart home charging, vehicle to grid would be part of that solution. The national grid says "thanks to recent efficiency improvements, we have spare capacity and even if we all switch to EV overnight, it would only increase demand by 10%"

https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted

 

Battery are very effective way to store energy right now: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a34598095/elon-musk-battery-farm-sequel-australia-tesla-powerpack/

Fossil fuel isn't really storing energy in the same sense as storing excess generated by renewables and hydrogen electrolysis: we can't currently easily create fossil fuel. It's more of an energy reserve made by planet Earth over thousands of years. 

 

I'm quite cynical about 'smart' solutions, often they're just covering up cracks in the short term until the consultant has moved on when the 'smart' goes dumb and everything falls down.

Luckily I think most people are swithching to more energy efficient tech for basic tasks like lighting which has probably done more to lift the load.

 

Current battery tech isn't great. Musc is leveraging his own tech to build battery farms which is not really about using the best possible solution but using the best available solution.

George pointed out pumped hydro, that actually works really well, the potential energy in a couple of million tons of water is quite significant but  pumped storage only works in a few areas, and flooding massive areas of land to act as pumped storage isn;t very eco or popular, just ask the people affected by the Three Gorges Dam in China.

 

As understand it there are a lot of novel solutions to energy storage for renewables coming along soon, molten salt, high speed flywheels and others

Where there is muck there is brass, and where there are locations for wind turbines there is loads of dosh to be made.

Sadly there are community owned turbines on UK Islands that the Grid no longer is taking their electricity from and Community Projects funded by that income are closing.

 

 

Paid to produce electricity and paid when told not to.

https://www.theferret.scot/cayman-tax-haven-ventient-wind

 

Scotland has it's Hollow Mountain as well, and more planned.     England needs more storage of Water as there will be a crisis as the old structures need replacing.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 26 November, 20205 yr by e-Roottoot

7 minutes ago, Aspman said:

Current battery tech isn't great. Musc is leveraging his own tech to build battery farms which is not really about using the best possible solution but using the best available solution.

 

As understand it there are a lot of novel solutions to energy storage for renewables coming along soon, molten salt, high speed flywheels and others

That's engineering isn't it? Making use of best available solution. 

 

We can't afford to wait for the best possible solution, the next best thing. We need to stop relying on burning stuff right as quickly as possible! 

 

Pumped hydro is great as massive energy storage, but it's slower to react. The key is having a good mix of all types of solutions and having systems smart enough to predict the load and manage all that. 

 

1 minute ago, e-Roottoot said:

Paid to produce electricity and paid when told not to.

https://www.theferret.scot/cayman-tax-haven-ventient-wind

Problems like this can be solved with "smart" solutions, imagine every car plugged in can be told to slow down or speed up its charging based on wind/solar. I know my Leaf was plugged in 2pm yesterday to 9am today but was only charging 1am to 4am, so if I can set it to be ready by 6am, I don't care how slow/quick it gets charged. Basically, batteries help make using more renewables possible today, when all available solutions are combined. 

 

I'm already doing something like it at home with home automation: 

If excess solar > 50w, turn on cordless vacuum charger, 

if excess solar > 300w, turn on my gaming PC and start CPU BOINC work 

if excess solar > 300w again, turn on GPU mining 

if excess solar < 10w, progressively turn off above in reverse order 

Pumped Hydro is not slow to react.  It powers the National Grid as kettles go on during TV adverts or at the End of Strictly.

2 minutes ago, e-Roottoot said:

Pumped Hydro is not slow to react.  It powers the National Grid as kettles go on during TV adverts or at the End of Strictly.

Takes seconds rather than microseconds compared to battery. Slower to react. 

 

Electricity to stay at 50 Hz need giant turbines. When moving to renewables, to keep this synchronous nature, a certain mass of battery storage is needed to do microbalancing. 

Which is why Octopus / OVO are paying customers to plug in and charge EV's and use electricity during off peak times to help balance the grid.

 

It is lots of sources of electricity generation making up what the UK uses in the way of electricity from many places and lots of money paid to be ready to provide when required, 

and many expensive suppliers while cheap sources are not being used.  That is what happens with commodities. 

http://gridwatch.co.uk

 

The Octupus Agile smart tariff is actually just trying to encourage consumer usage pattern to avoid peak times and use during off-peak.

 

Batteries are used to balance the grid at 50Hz examples can be seen here:

 

https://www.energy-storage.news/news/undeniable-success-south-australias-129mwh-tesla-battery

[quote]Using fast frequency response (FFR) services, HPR was able to stabilise grid frequency to within the accepted range of 0.15Hz either side of 50Hz.

 

In addition to frequency regulation, the system also participates in AEMO and ElectraNet’s System Integrity Protection Scheme (SIPS), which offers protection against the loss of the locally-sited Heywood Interconnector if multiple generators fail. ....... It is required to discharge up to 100MW in under 150ms.

[/quote]

(Hydro storage not have started turning within 150ms. But after that burst, a more sustainable source is needed, like hydro storage)

 

 

So yes, a good mix is needed. No single right answer. But one thing is for sure, EV and batteries are important part of overall future energy.

There is still very dirty Electric generating going on @ Peterhead in Scotland and Nuclear Generation that might need stopping very soon at Hunterston so it is high time that some new facilities are started that are going to be able to have Scotland taking advantage of its renewable capacity and getting that to the National Grid.

http://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53063990

 

http://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-38687835

 

 

http://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-51546611

 

 

Edited 26 November, 20205 yr by e-Roottoot

So the UK Government could help those that want to go Green or Low Emissions and not scrap the car just the ICE engine.

Maybe as a start drop the VAT on the Conversion or the parts.

Also help businesses get started doing conversions and get young and old trained up to be ready for the near future, like in the next decade and for 2030 on.

 

Keep the Independent Garages and Mechanic / Technicians, Engineers, Designers etc  working and do not just throw

money the way of the Global Car Manufacturers / dealerships & the scrap merchants as there could be money to go around to those that are just getting by or not getting by.

 

 

 

Edited 28 November, 20205 yr by e-Roottoot

 

 

 

 

Edited 5 December, 20205 yr by e-Roottoot