East coast fuel shortage

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Sinned
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

Post by Sinned »

Anthony, my thoughts on electric cars are that they are still very much an unknown. The technology is new, the batteries are new, indeed technology is still in its infancy and new lithium/metal batteries are in development that are projected to be the next step forward. There are insufficient charging points and the cost structure of those is not settled. No plans yet for what happens when a new battery is needed and there are only vague ideas as to how long a battery will last. There are vast differences between the cheapest and dearest tariffs. The cars themselves are far too much for me and my sub-£1000 limit. Even servicing of the cars hasn't been settled as there will be thousands of mechanics who will need to be trained - who will pay for this? So no, it'll be a long time, if ever, before I own an electric car.
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denimini
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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Granted it is early days for electric cars. The distances where I live are presently a stumpling block; I couldn't go shopping without a recharge somewhere. However the time will come, especially as new battery technology come on line (not reliant on lithium).
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Dust
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

Post by Dust »

Electric cars are a niche market for folks who commute short distances and have another car for their household. They install a charging station at their house to recharge each night, so no need for other charging locations most of the time. Also, some cities have HOV lanes that also allow all electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids. This perk is in some cases the biggest one, depending on where you live and work.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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Other than in towns or cities, I don't see electric vehicles being a practical option in the UK for a long time yet, in cities as most people live in apartments they mostly could not charge their vehicles at home. Public charging points? I know of 2 within 15 miles of my house (I am in the country). 2 for the whole peninsula? I believe that in the UK you have 5 or 6 different companies running their own individual charging networks, you need to join each one and install their own apps on your phone, you then need to hope the limited number of chargers are working, are available, are compatible with your mottley collection of apps and do not keep on tripping out, oh, and are in range.
Also if you need to tow a trailer, or run out of electrickery, your problems are bigger, because most hybrids and pure electrics cannot tow anything significant and apparently should not/cannot be towed.
Imagine your battery letting you down on one of the UKs new "intelligent" motorways, where there is no hard shoulder, you stop in the traffic and cannot just pour a few litres of electric into the battery, you sit there, all you can do is wait for a recovery truck to get to you and lift your vehicle onto the back and take you to safety and a charging point. While you are waiting, you are in the traffic, blocking a lane and vulnerable to being run into by traffic.
Oh and then there is time, charging is slow, so if some one is on a charging point you have a lot of waiting to do, then you have to wait while your vehicle charges.

Then, what happens to old electric cars? I have seen people test an old Leaf, the range had dropped to 30 miles, of course cold temperatures reduce range, bad weather will reduce range because of wipers, demisting etc. Every one I have seen on YouTube testing EVs has discovered that they never get anywhere near the range stated in specifications, not even in brand new vehicles. The cost of replacing batteries is probably as high as the cost of replacing the vehicle (Don't know, wild and pessimistic guess!). and how do you recycle used lithium based batteries that do seem to like exploding?

Oh and where do we get all the electricity from? our power network is creaking at the seams as it is, so add millions of electric cars all topping up over night, that's gotta hurt!

Oh and rare earth metals- used in wind turbines, chemicals used in batteries, rare earths used in the electronics of phones you need just to get the charger to start as well as the IT inside the charger. All these resources have to come from somewhere and that somewhere can charge what they want. It is already happening, with people stealing catalysts from fossil burners because of the price they can get.

I would like to see hydrogen fuel cells become a practical alternative, I would be happy to run a gas powered car and make water. But again, there is no infrastructure and hydrogen contains much less energy per gram than distilled fossil, so you would either need much larger tanks of explosive gas or a lot of new filling stations.

I am kind of glad I am not going to live forever, to see how humanity completes the destruction of the only planet we have to live on!

This has been an early morning rant, now back to work!
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

Post by Kirbstone »

Ah B&B,
The Cavalry have been spotted on the horizon and headed our way, with Elon Musk playing the part of John Wayne. He wants to load up an X15 or similar with volounteers to take a one-way ticket to that Red Planet out there.

Re: the creaking grid...A clever engineer bloke who rows with me waxed lyrical on the logistic nightmare/impossibility of installing a good sized bank of say, 12 charging points for EVs. The cabling for starters would have to be like that used in the London underground and the (Irish) grid as it is just couldn't support it. That's just ONE such facility.

Probably the line of least resistence is to hold tight where you are and continue to fill up your Dinosaur with Fossil. That's what I intend doing, for one!

Tom
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

Post by denimini »

There has been misgivings about all new technologies.
Image

Oh well..... maybe hydrogen .......... what possibly could go wrong.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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Big and Bashful wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 7:12 am Other than in towns or cities, I don't see electric vehicles being a practical option in the UK for a long time yet,
I'm totally in agreement with you, the whole idea is impractical and I don't know anyone with an engineering or science background who thinks it has the slightest chance of happening.  At a rough calculation, the electrical energy consumption of just cars and vans (not lorries or buses) will result in a 35% increase in U.K electricity demand; we haven't got the infrastrucure to cope with that.  Perhaps we could convert our gas-burning power stations to run on the petrol and diesel we would have burned more efficiently in our vehicle engines?

The whole 'eco' thing has been taken over by ignorant zealots who think that by chanting the right mantras, the impossible will come true.  Worse still, they have now got control of governments around the World.  Yes, we do need to do something about man-made climate change, but that 'something' has to be realistic and has to make the situation better, not worse.
I would like to see hydrogen fuel cells become a practical alternative,
Nobody has explained where all this hydrogen is coming from    ...Oh, of course, from the petrol and diesel we would have burned more efficiently in our vehicle engines
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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denimini wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 11:47 amThere has been misgivings about all new technologies.
Thank you for that one Anthony. It gave me a much-needed laugh.
Oh well..... maybe hydrogen .......... what possibly could go wrong.
Hydrogen is good, but expensive to make by electrolysing water and even though it's the single most abundant element in the universe is rather hard to find here save as a component in other compounds (e.g. water and petroleum products).

And, before somebody lights off the nightmare of the Hindenburg [2], I'll point out that more folks survived that than perished, and, no, it did not explode, it burned with most of the energy going upwards. Explosions and deflagrations are two different things.


[1] This space intentionally left blank.
[2] Yes, that was a bad pun.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

Post by Dust »

There are other ways of producing hydrogen. There was a design put together on paper (never built) for a nuclear power plant that would use chemical reactions and the heat from the reactor to produce hydrogen directly without using electrolysis. I believe it was designed at Westinghouse...
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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Dust wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 3:55 pmThere are other ways of producing hydrogen. There was a design put together on paper (never built) for a nuclear power plant that would use chemical reactions and the heat from the reactor to produce hydrogen directly without using electrolysis. I believe it was designed at Westinghouse...
Given the power of the fossil-fuel industry in the US, and years of propaganda, there's practically no way that anything nuclear will get much acceptance on these shores.

I'm not a big fan of the fission process because of the risks of it in the hands of profiteers and the lethality of the waste products, but accept that it needs to be on the table if we're to get away from burning carbon.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

Post by rode_kater »

pelmut wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 2:19 pm
Big and Bashful wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 7:12 am Other than in towns or cities, I don't see electric vehicles being a practical option in the UK for a long time yet,
I'm totally in agreement with you, the whole idea is impractical and I don't know anyone with an engineering or science background who thinks it has the slightest chance of happening.  At a rough calculation, the electrical energy consumption of just cars and vans (not lorries or buses) will result in a 35% increase in U.K electricity demand; we haven't got the infrastrucure to cope with that.
Fifty years ago we didn't have the infrastructure we do now. We built it. It's not a question of is it possible. It's a question of if we want to do it. And we are upgrading here, for the UK I wouldn't know.

Note: the US has a special position here in there it can produce its own fossil fuels. As such it is a money earner. For continental Europe fossil fuels are an import. Which means we have to produce other stuff to pay for the fuels. In particular, we have to pay money the Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran for the stuff. I hope you can agree this is not a good thing. Hence one of the goals of energy taxes (and thus higher prices) it to drive efficiency and reduce energy usage.

This has been a concern a lot longer than the whole climate crisis has been around.

So while in America you can afford to burn the stuff without care, over here, every litre of burned petrol is part of another bomb in Saudi Arabia's army, or another dollar spent oppressing Russia's opposition. It's nice to say electric vehicles not practical, but the alternatives aren't great either.

Incidentally, I see businesses offering charging of electric vehicles as an employee perk. Businesses pay less per kWh for electricity so it's doesn't cost them much.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

Post by Big and Bashful »

rode_kater wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 1:34 pm
pelmut wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 2:19 pm
Big and Bashful wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 7:12 am Other than in towns or cities, I don't see electric vehicles being a practical option in the UK for a long time yet,
I'm totally in agreement with you, the whole idea is impractical and I don't know anyone with an engineering or science background who thinks it has the slightest chance of happening.  At a rough calculation, the electrical energy consumption of just cars and vans (not lorries or buses) will result in a 35% increase in U.K electricity demand; we haven't got the infrastrucure to cope with that.
Fifty years ago we didn't have the infrastructure we do now. We built it. It's not a question of is it possible. It's a question of if we want to do it. And we are upgrading here, for the UK I wouldn't know.

Note: the US has a special position here in there it can produce its own fossil fuels. As such it is a money earner. For continental Europe fossil fuels are an import. Which means we have to produce other stuff to pay for the fuels. In particular, we have to pay money the Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran for the stuff. I hope you can agree this is not a good thing. Hence one of the goals of energy taxes (and thus higher prices) it to drive efficiency and reduce energy usage.

This has been a concern a lot longer than the whole climate crisis has been around.

So while in America you can afford to burn the stuff without care, over here, every litre of burned petrol is part of another bomb in Saudi Arabia's army, or another dollar spent oppressing Russia's opposition. It's nice to say electric vehicles not practical, but the alternatives aren't great either.

Incidentally, I see businesses offering charging of electric vehicles as an employee perk. Businesses pay less per kWh for electricity so it's doesn't cost them much.
Businesses offering on site charging, yes, that would make EVs a bit more palatable, in the UK there are moves to try and charge or tax parking spaces at workplaces, which would make charging at work more awkward. Haven't heard anything about that since the times BC (before Covid) so maybe they have given up on that as a bad idea. I think this last year or so has shown us that the whole idea of commuting to a central workplace is something that many people no longer need to do. Today I packed my laptop into my nice little bag, drove 16 miles to work, sat there for the morning unable to work because the network was broken, along with the external phones. So some filing later, I drove another 16 miles to get home to where I could have been working productively all day. A gallon of fossil juice burnt and got less done than if I had stayed home, the joys of working for the Government! Still, I found that a favourite cafe of mine had survived the lockdowns and had some of the best cullen skink I have ever had and a very nice chees + bacon burger with home meade chips, home made coleslaw and a pretty good coffee, so the day wasn't a complete waste of time!
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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At least in the US EV charging stations can be found - both at businesses (free and paid), and Tesla has set up charging stations around the country. These are usually urban areas. I really like the idea of electric vehicles - from a technology perspective - but they aren't yet practical for long-distance trips. Hybrid solutions that use an internal combustion engine are particularly interesting because you can get the benefits of electric (high torque, instant power, etc...) while optimizing the engine for constant power generation and extend their range. I worry a bit about the demand on the grid if everyone went to electric TODAY - but that's not going to happen unless they outlaw the internal combustion engine - and even then they'd have to outright ban gas vehicles.

As for Hydrogen - one problem I've heard about it is transporting and containing it - since hydrogen is so "small" and the pressures in tanks so high, leakage and loss through cracks is bound to occur and there are challenges associated with this.

Personally, I hope my next vehicle can be electric but I'm not rushing out to buy one. My holdout is battery technology - I'm hoping for better storage options - like super capacitors - as charge times on those could be significantly faster if the general concept holds out.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

Post by Big and Bashful »

Hydrogen storage? it's not impossible, we store it under very high pressure, very very high pressure, for years. However, having it in a container were you can use it on demand and refill is a different matter! I think the lower energy density will be a limiting factor when compared to petrol or diesel, however compared to batteries, which are so heavy and hold so little energy, I think hydrogen will be a much more practical option. Yes ok, it explodes a bit, so you need to have really good storage, but then again as the Hamster proved, crash a car full of lithium cells and they can burn, keep on relighting and are a right bugger to put out!
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

Post by trainspotter48 »

I've worked in the power industry where the main generators have an internal hydrogen atmosphere, and my experience is that while it's all working OK - fine.
If/when it goes wrong it will cause a lot of damage!
I am also minded of an incident on a motorway near me which was OK until a propane fuelled 'fridge truck got involved - the subsequent fireball accounted for a number of deaths.
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