EV Charging

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Deletef

[Macolm]

On Macolm Said:

I await a fully credible renewable technology.

…

I doubt all this will end well.

 

No benefit in waiting for a fully credible technology, because there is no such thing.  Humanity always has to compromise.

I hope no-one thinks fossil fuels have a credible future! Though fossils did us well in the past, that party is ending. Fossil fuels aren’t limitless, they won’t always be cheap, and burning them has serious side-effects, up to and including destroying civilisation.

Big trouble if we don’t fix this pronto.

Dave

Dave

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Most electric or gas warm air systems have been taken out by now.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Only in domestic situation, where I worked the offices were heated/cooled by a warm air system which worked fine once they got it balanced.

[David George 1Participant @davidgeorge1]

My father was involved in a few projects and inventions in the past like positive boyant oil drilling rigs for deep water drilling, a system of altering the exaust on a well known supersonic aircraft to quitern the noise with Rolls Royce , and a proposed barrier across the severn estuary. It was to use a path across by using a chain of islands which are there naturaly and using a peculiar material called Pykrete which my father was involved in during the second world war. It is a mixture of paper wood pulp and frozen water which when frozen would be kept frozen by a system of refrigeration with electricity suplied by a small amount of exess electicity made by the turbines in the dam.  Pity he is not around now.

David

[IanT]

On IanT Said:

On Tony Pratt 1 Said:

My son is in the process of buying a ‘new build’ house and it proudly boasts a heat source pump. It will be interesting to see the truth of the matter regarding these systems.

Watch this space.

Tony

Well there are 4,500 new homes about to be built just south of us and the planning application clearly states that the new estates will NOT be connected to the gas grid (with oil etc strictly prohibited) – so the homes will be ‘Electric Power Only’.  Whilst apparently heat pumps are three times more efficient than gas boilers, i’m currently paying four time more (per Kw hour) for my electricity than for my gas.

So those new homes had better be very well insulated or no one’s going to buy them.

Regards,

 

IanT

A heat pump is more efficent becuase it’s a pump and most of losses are heat which come into the house. Air to water ones are not as efficent as air to air that easily reach 4 times the energy put in. They can also be used to cool which is why you don’t get any subsidy for them.

 

[Robert Atkinson 2]

On Robert Atkinson 2 Said:

A heat pump is more efficent becuase it’s a pump and most of losses are heat which come into the house. Air to water ones are not as efficent as air to air that easily reach 4 times the energy put in. They can also be used to cool which is why you don’t get any subsidy for them.

 

Possibly, to reduce the summer time use of air-con, using electricity that could be stored for evening use), but more likely/sensibly because air-to-air heat pumps do not replace energy required for domestic hot water.

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

I hope no-one thinks fossil fuels have a credible future! Though fossils did us well in the past, that party is ending. Fossil fuels aren’t limitless, they won’t always be cheap, and burning them has serious side-effects, up to and including destroying civilisation.

 

We agree on something. Sooner or later fossil fuel will run out, or be far too difficult or expensive to extract. Once we make the decision to stop using it we can think of advancing to a Type I Civilisation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

 

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Not sure how useful the Types of Civilisations are actually. They seem to be based only on energy extraction and not sustainability.

Type 1 pushes for utilisation of all sources on the planet which would include stored sunlight in the form of Coal. Galactic energy, fissile material from exploding stars would seem to be encroaching on type 3, but is also an on planet resource.

All a bit messy and probably one of those things that get thrown out at a science conference almost as a joke and then gain traction.

We do however need to reverse away from a climate catastrophe and the solution is going to be a mix of many things.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I wonder how much of the blandly-reported lower demand in recent years is simply due to a run of relatively mild Winters and sheer cost. I don’t see or hear much of those connections made publicly, but the corollary is that it partially camouflages the future need for far more electricity than we presently use between us.

Regarding the arguments about the fickle nature of wind and solar power, the allegation is true enough but partly met by filling lots of shipping-containers with batteries and inverters. One solar / battery scheme the energy-speculators wanted to build near Weymouth would have covered something like six to eight square miles of farm-land – for customers in London, about 130 miles away!

The type and quantity of materials these installations need, is another aspect not much mentioned in polite society, but the whole problem seems to be one of the end justifying the means with as little consideration as possible of the means.

Not surprisingly, because the means raise all sorts of Very Awkward questions of their own.

Given that the possibility of anthropocentric climate-change was raised some 100 years ago, based on the projected use of coal that was still the nearly-universal fuel of the time, many tins have been kicked down many roads since, initially perhaps because that was in the Era Of Optimism for science and engineering “taming Nature”. Now we know Nature can’t be tamed and if bitten she bites back, hard, perhaps it’s time the tins were “recycled” (‘orrible word).

[howardbParticipant @howardb]

“The suggestion that renewables are more expensive isn’t correct, renewables produce almost free electricity and we now see that in most countries it is impossible to fund or build fossil thermal plant. The exceptions are places where the standard of living (and per capita energy consumption) are far below western norms”

https://davidturver.substack.com/p/debunking-cheap-renewables-myth

Conclusion to that article.

“I hope it is clear to all now that renewables are not cheap and are never going to be”

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

4500 new homes. No gas ! EVs !

All your eggs in one basket comes to mind ?

Would a wise man( or woman ) buy a generator and learn how to use it to best advantage ? Noel.

[noel shelley]

On noel shelley Said:

4500 new homes. No gas ! EVs !

All your eggs in one basket comes to mind ?

Would a wise man( or woman ) buy a generator and learn how to use it to best advantage ? Noel.

It would not particularly bother me.  Up to about 50kWh of storage could keep me going for several days, if really necessary.  Plenty left to top it up again, unless the whole region was off-line.

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

Have you seen the reports that idealism has come up against reality. It is being reported that Labour are going to ditch the 2035 ban on gas boilers, most people cannot afford to install and then run a heat pump system.

Soon it will hit them that EVs are not a solution for many people in a country where 50% live in accommodation with no possible way of charging at home and rocketing electricity prices make running an EV using public charging more expensive than an ICE vehicle. Add in the possibility being considered that vehicle tax may be weight based in the future since more weight means more wear and tear on the road network.

Martin C

[Martin Connelly]

On Martin Connelly Said:

 

Soon it will hit them that EVs are not a solution for many people in a country where 50% live in accommodation with no possible way of charging at home.

Martin C

We’ve had this discussion before, it’s not 50%. Apparently 65% of UK motorists have their own drive and another 10% have access to off street parking. Perhaps the real issue will be the disparity in cost between home charging and those that would need to rely on public chargers in supermarket and other car parks etc.

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