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Electric cars


FredTransit

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We already have petrol stations though, so why couldn't the hydrogen be sold through petrol stations? The electric charging points have to be offered too, and I can't see how they would ever be commercial if a car is going to be there for about 4 hours. I can't see there ever being commercial charging stations if it takes that long, so if the electric cars ever became common, petrol stations would miss out, cos they would have to be charged at home or on street when parked (like on a parking meter). Like colc said, they won't be viable until the charging speed is reduced by a lot.

The problem with selling hydrogen at petrol stations is that the tankers delivering it would float away like the Hindenburg! :wink:
Only if the tankers were made of lighter composite materials though.
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Here's my street.

 

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Now the building I live in has eight flats and street frontage thats about the length of two cars. Most of central Aberdeen (and many other cities) look like this. Plug in electric cars are not a practical solution for most urban dwellers, especially as current planning regulations only require "car parking for 80% occupancy" (although this assumes one car per dwelling - 10 x 2bed flat = 8 parking spaces).

 

 

Hydrogen can be made efficiently from seawater using solar power. Scotland's main petrochemical refinery is located on a tidal estuary. Petrol and diesel are then carried by tanker to petrol stations which have large, reinforced undergound storage tanks.

Producing hydrogen this way could be made to work.

I saw a working Hyundai Sante Fe running on hydrogen in New York a few years ago. Chatting to the Hyundai people (who were very interested in my lpg'd Range Rover, big 4x4 running on compressed gas...) revealed the range wasn't great on hydrogen but they were experimenting with greater compression in storage and a few other things to improve this.

The technology is there, it can all work but somehow it seems to be suppressed...

 

Speaking of solar power, the sun is about eleventy brazillion* miles away yet you can still feel its heat on your face on a warm day but you can't feel the heat from a two story bonfire from a 100 feet away.

Anybody else think thats a massive amount of FREE energy we're just wasting?

Now there is a race across Australia every year for solar powered vehicles. I believe Honda (a rather talented bunch) have been successful in the race driving a car about the size of a cricket pitch, running on bicycle tyres, carrying one person with no aircon at just above walking pace across the desert.

W T F ?

Why is nobody funding research into improving the efficiency of solar cells?

Or building a solar powered bus? Think of a bus with a roof covered in solar cells and a huge amount of batteries below the floor driving an electric motor.

Now think of a fleet of those buses(expensive to buy but nearly fuck all to operate) running around smog-ridden Los Angeles.

 

A wave-power (tides driven by the gravitational pull of celestial bodies - MASSIVE source of free energy) research program which created a 90% effecient electricity generator was shut down by the government 28 years ago thanks to some secret meetings and some spurious figures.

 

I think the oil companies are burrying a lot of things behind the scenes.

 

 

 

*Not actual number.

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This is my subject so I'll bite and clear a few things up, despite it making me horrifically unpopular every time it happens.

 

Petrol car is between 5-10% efficient from petrol. Power station to home delivery of electricity is about 65% efficient and an electric car is about 90% efficient. 65% x 90% = 58.5% efficient. That makes them massively less carbon intensive than petrol cars. End of.

 

One of the main problems about electric cars is what happens if they do catch on? We're already being told that the country's dilapidated electricity generating network is almost at full capacity now, so what happens if 5 million G-Wizzes get plugged in every night?

Indeed. The grid can currently support some electric cars plugged in overnight but it won't be able to cope if everyone has them, in its present state. Infrastructure change is needed.

 

The main problem is actually the resources needed. It's questionable if there's enough neodymium, tellurium and indium to go round, all of which are needed for ev's. National economic dependence shifts from oil to lithium, that means a shift from relying on oil-rich nations to lithium-rich nations like China and Bolivia. That should make interesting politics.

 

Good point about the electricity grid issues. I already reckon that the government's plea for us to save energy is chuff all to do with the environment, and more a panicked plea for us to stop pushing the grid to the limits.

Nope. Oil is drying up. Real fact.

 

It's having to be drawn out of increasingly difficult sources, quality of crude is going down and it's becoming more expensive to refine. No coincidence that the pump prices have been going up for some time despite no increase in the cost of crude and no significant increases in taxation.

 

Hydrogen can be made efficiently from seawater using solar power. Scotland's main petrochemical refinery is located on a tidal estuary. Petrol and diesel are then carried by tanker to petrol stations which have large, reinforced underground storage tanks.

Producing hydrogen this way could be made to work.

Not on the scale that would be needed though.

 

Speaking of solar power, the sun is about eleventy brazillion* miles away yet you can still feel its heat on your face on a warm day but you can't feel the heat from a two story bonfire from a 100 feet away.

Anybody else think thats a massive amount of FREE energy we're just wasting?

Yep, agree with that. But nobody wants to put a solar panel on their roof despite the fact that it's cheap now, reliable and puts out a hell of a lot of power. The govt just increased its feed-back rate from 14p/kwh to 22p/kwh. For a 3KW cell on the roof operating for 8 hours a day I make that about £2500 per year it'll be paying you back.

 

Why is nobody funding research into improving the efficiency of solar cells?

There's plenty of funding and plenty of research going on. The EPSRC pumps huge amounts of government money into environmental projects. I think we have 5 or 8 fuel cell projects here and there's lots of pv stuff about to start.

 

A wave-power (tides driven by the gravitational pull of celestial bodies - MASSIVE source of free energy) research program which created a 90% effecient electricity generator was shut down by the government 28 years ago thanks to some secret meetings and some spurious figures.

You mean the one on the Severn Bore tide right? I think you'll find it was Greenpeace (or similar) who stopped that one, not government. But I'm happy to be proved wrong. Would have been a massively amazing project but there's no way it'll ever happen. Too many profligate "environmentalists" who aren't educated enough to see the bigger picture.

 

I think the oil companies are burying a lot of things behind the scenes

Ok.
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There is only one realistic medium term solution, which the cheese eating surrender monkeys were astute enough to realise 40 years ago, which is , of course, nuclear power. With all other forms of energy, the UK will always be reliant on importing energy, wether it be coal, gas, oil, or whatever.In the short term, the electric car is not viable until they crack the range / re charge problems. Hydrogen support infrastructure is decades away. The internal combustion engine will, IMHO, hold sway for at least the next 20 years. By then, I think the electric car will be a far more viable prospect. However, to support this , we need nuclear power stations, [at least 4 years to build one from scratch] and we need to start building them now.

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To be honest I don't know. All sources say 65% average so I take that as some are higher and some are lower and the mean is 65%. Don't forget coal stations sit there on idle spin most of the time to take up sudden demands in the grid, which reduces their efficiency somewhat.If it were 40% average then electric cars are 3 times less carbon intensive in use than a petrol carIf it were 65% average then electric cars are 5 times less carbon intensive in use than a petrol car.

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But nobody wants to put a solar panel on their roof despite the fact that it's cheap now, reliable and puts out a hell of a lot of power. The govt just increased its feed-back rate from 14p/kwh to 22p/kwh. For a 3KW cell on the roof operating for 8 hours a day I make that about £2500 per year it'll be paying you back.

I would cheerfully have the roof covered in them, but the neighbour's one cost four grand and the price puts me off. i don't call four grand cheap.
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Don't forget coal stations sit there on idle spin most of the time to take up sudden demands in the grid, which reduces their efficiency somewhat.If it were 40% average then electric cars are 3 times less carbon intensive in use than a petrol carIf it were 65% average then electric cars are 5 times less carbon intensive in use than a petrol car.

Coal and nuke provide the baseload and are run as close to maximum power as possible to maintain maximum efficiency, they don't sit idle - that's the job of the hydro-electric stations especially pumped storage to provide the extra current at peak times. Hence the coal and nuke will be providing the electricity at night because of the need to run them hard to maintain efficiency, and the time it takes to cool them off and heat them up again - there's a lot of wasted heat in doing that.It's also incorrect to compare carbon emissions between different types of fossil fuel as not all fossil fuels have the same carbon content - for example, coal releases vastly more carbon dioxide than oil, and more again for natural gas, for the same amount of heat energy.Colc is correct though, the only medium term solution to CO2 emissions is nuclear power. There are tonnes and tonnes of excess plutonium from the Cold War that could be used as fuel in these stations, which would help solve the problem of how to stop so much plutonium getting into the wrong hands.
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It seems to me that a lot of the resistance to alternative power sources which is generated by people who don't want wind turbines and other things nearby is stifling development. I'm damn sure they wouldn't want to live next to a nuclear power station which does seem one of the most viable options.I'm only voicing my opinion here rather than from educated information but I suspect that the proliferation of viable electric cars, which would be a good thing if the energy was generated from clean sources, is going to be slower than hoped for due to this resistance as it will keep prices high. In the meantime it defeats the object if everyone has to have a second car for longer journeys too.If you live in a city it would be better to use public transport surely because electric cars whilst clean, are still contributing to congestion. More investment in alternatives to using a car in the first place would be a good idea I reckon.On the subject of oil rescources, I'm led to believe that Libya is sat on vast reserves and that is the reson we've been pally with them of late. Is this correct, those in the know?

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Coal and nuke provide the baseload and are run as close to maximum power as possible to maintain maximum efficiency, they don't sit idle - that's the job of the hydro-electric stations especially pumped storage to provide the extra current at peak times. Hence the coal and nuke will be providing the electricity at night because of the need to run them hard to maintain efficiency, and the time it takes to cool them off and heat them up again - there's a lot of wasted heat in doing that.

I've been told different to that. Nuclear runs in the background because it can't ramp up and down quickly, gas and oil runs flat out and the coal ones sit at idle until needed because they are the highest carbon intensity.

It's also incorrect to compare carbon emissions between different types of fossil fuel as not all fossil fuels have the same carbon content - for example, coal releases vastly more carbon dioxide than oil, and more again for natural gas, for the same amount of heat energy.

Yes, but we get our power from a mix of all of those, not from just coal. Coal only makes up about 30% of that, maybe less now, something like 40% gas and the rest is nuclear and renewables.
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Just a point with regards to commuting that I like to bring up every so often - we could save a fortune on the transport network just by making it so people don't need to make pointless journeys.By that, I mean that there should be huge incentives for employers to set-up home working where feasible. We've got so many office jobs in this country and I reckon the vast majority would be a doddle to do at home. My job only really needs a phone and a computer, both of which I have, but for some reason I have to drive to a completely different town to use theirs. It's a waste of time.Bonus: You could convert the now-empty office blocks into fancy studio apartments for people with expensive haircuts (who in an ideal world would lead a life riddled with misfortune, bother and grief).

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Even more pointless is the commuting to take children to a school that's miles away from the closest one; a friend's niece goes to school 17 miles from where her parents live, but there's a good school within half a mile. Crazy.I see it on the estate I live on, a woman leaves her house at 8am to walk her child to school at the other end of town because she couldn't get a place at the CoE school 1/4 mile away.

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