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Downsizer Forum Index -> Energy Efficiency and Construction/Major Projects

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Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 15 1:54 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

And thinking about this some more, I've been looking at plug in hybrid cars. Not a sports car or anything large, just a super mini sized thing. To make the investment worth while it would have to cover at least 100 miles on the battery and there still isn't anything about that fits the bill. The Prius has been around for 18 years and what progress has been made?

Progress is slow because the big money is still in oil & with regards to renewable electricity generation coal & nuclear.
People are starting to lobby large investors to get out of fossil fuels & it's starting to have an impact.
If investment & pension funds refuse to put their money into existing technology then we will see a difference, & at a much more rapid rate IMHO.

Graham Hyde

Joined: 03 Apr 2011
Posts: 365

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 15 2:02 pm Post subject:
How much is electricity in the UK now for the private consumer?

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45520
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 15 2:03 pm Post subject:

Tavascarow wrote:

Ecologist article on the new Drax biomass burner.
Apparently it will only be burning 15% wood pellets, the rest coal.

better than coal and molybdenum infested pet coke .

if they want to sue me they can try but i will win

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 15 3:49 pm Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

Treacodactyl wrote:

The Prius has been around for 18 years and what progress has been made?

Shed loads more charging stations.

Rather pointless if your hybrid can't be plugged in. And general grid charging points will increase the base load requirement.

What I'm after would be a car with a decent capacity battery that could be charged from a home solar array. It would reduce the need for a base load, or at least not raise it.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 15 5:17 pm Post subject:

Tavascarow wrote:

Treacodactyl wrote:

A few links I've picked up recently.
UN back fossil fuel divestment.
Students occupy Oxford university in fossil fuel divestment protest
Guardian petition recieves 60,000 signatures.
Not just in the UK. One good thing about George & Daves freeing up of pension pots is we might be able to convince some that for the sakes of their Grandkids they need to invest them ethically.

Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4563
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 15 9:43 pm Post subject:
Food for thought, Ed Davy`s backing of the Deinvestment is a worrying point, Unless your happy for the fracking boom to take over.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 15 10:50 pm Post subject:
Last time I checked shale gas was a fossil fuel.

Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4563
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 15 11:31 pm Post subject:

Maybe Ed Davy thinks different,

Have you read his comments?

Asked whether it was compatible to issue these kinds of warnings and yet give short-term subsidies to keep coal plants open, support fracking and continue to give tax breaks to North Sea oil companies, Davey said coal had to be treated more urgently than oil or gas even though, for energy security reasons, the UK needed some coal-fired power plants for the very short term.

“I have been clear that coal assets are very risky but you are not going to get rid of cars and gas heating systems overnight and so we are going to need quite a lot of oil and gas. The question is would you like that to come from Russia and Qatar or locally where it is well regulated, gives us jobs and provides tax revenues.”

OtleyLad

Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 15 6:38 am Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

OtleyLad wrote:

I'm not convinced by the 'base load' argument.

Probably because you don't understand it. With your list, tidal is not local to many places, on a still night you don't have wind or solar and we currently have little way of storing energy in England. So, you need the base load to be provided by nuclear and fossil fuels and we will need it for year to come.

You can't dismiss this so easily. I specifically said the mix would vary across the country. Tidal would be very useful for some generation - we're surrounded by tidal waters after all (and not everything has to be done on a large scale); wind & solar can clearly be used more widely. Solar thermal is underused too.
We've barely touched hydro and pumped storage in the UK as well, but there is a grwoing interest in small scale hydro projects. It's true that electricity storage is in its infancy but we should be looking at long term solutions - not putting off their development because they don't work now.
Nuclear is no longer a viable option (see the Hinkley mess).
So in the short term maybe we have to keep burning stuff - but fossil fuels should be seen as a stop-gap within a longer term strategy to be rid of them as quickly as possible.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 15 7:04 am Post subject:

OtleyLad wrote:

Treacodactyl wrote:

OtleyLad wrote:

I'm not convinced by the 'base load' argument.

So in the short term, i.e. 20 years or so, we still need a base load provided by nuclear and fossil fuels. Of course we could reduce the need for this if everyone cut back their usage but no one really wants to.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15600

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 15 7:43 am Post subject:

Ty Gwyn, I have never understood why gas and oil are better than coal either, especially as we have good reserves of coal. Oil can contain just as much sulphur as coal after all.

Otley Lad, as you say, methods of production of electricity will vary depending on where in the country you are. Round here, tidal is an option, but hydro isn't as our hills are dry and the coastal plain flat. Some areas, such as flat parts of the midlands have a real problem though; few hills, no tidal power, inconsistant wind and sun.

Battery development has come on a long way in the last 40 years, but there is still a problem with storing large quantities of electricity. It also has to be remembered that storage and long distance transport are inefficient as there will be power loss.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 15 11:03 am Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

Gas is cleaner burning. Less particulates, virtually zero sulphur & nitrogen compounds. It produces no more or less CO2 though.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 15 11:20 am Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

It also has to be remembered that storage and long distance transport are inefficient as there will be power loss.

Power loss is pretty small really: it's proportional to the inverse square of the voltage and they run at, what? 100,000 volts.

A far more significant waste is the heat loss from the power stations: they have to losew a lot of heat, but why don't they put it to some good use? CHP plants are few and far between.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 15 11:22 am Post subject:

Tavascarow wrote:

Gas... produces no more or less CO2 though.

Marginally less CO2: methane has more hydrogen than higher hydrocarbons.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 15 11:23 am Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

Battery development has come on a long way in the last 40 years, but there is still a problem with storing large quantities of electricity. It also has to be remembered that storage and long distance transport are inefficient as there will be power loss.

It is likely battery storage will be dispersed i.e. local storage on a per property or small local community. Tesla is actively working towards this. I don't know whether this will scale but there's no reason why it shouldn't.

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