Electric Cars.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

The theory is that the engine runs at peak efficiency to charge the battery which acts as a reservoir for driving the electric motor(s).  Unlike a conventional engine which has to run at varying speeds and loads with complex sensor monitored controls. 
 

It’s an interesting concept that seems to have value while the electric charge infrastructure is being developed or a better alternative is found.  It does nothing to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.  While there are batteries to carry, I would imagine there are weight savings on a larger engine and transmission to help balance the differences. 

[Erfolg]

Unless society returns to whale hunting I expect that the oil industry will be about for some time. Particularly that much of society makes use of polymers for a whole range of products, ranging from clevis's for model aircraft, electrical insulation materials, and so on.

 

I have thought that many are just opposed to so called Big Oil, Big Pharma, without understanding the potential consequences of them not existing now or in the past. 

 

Yes I was wrong in ascribing the second law (of thermo) to Newton, who ever defined Entropy it was not Newton (confused with his 2nd law, I guess). From the concept of Entropy you come to realise that some claims made are more to do with wishful thinking than reality as to what is possible and how long things will actually last.

 

I vaguely remember I was taught that the Earth has a Carbon oxygen chemistry. That reducing environments etc. were more specialised. But all this was at least 60 years back, as was the Lohner Porsche, even older.

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

9 minutes ago, Erfolg said:

I vaguely remember I was taught that the Earth has a Carbon oxygen chemistry. That reducing environments etc. were more specialised. But all this was at least 60 years back, as was the Lohner Porsche, even older.

I was taught at school that by the year 2000 cars would run on water, as petrol would have all been sucked out of the planet.

[Frank Skilbeck]

3 hours ago, Erfolg said:

Unless society returns to whale hunting I expect that the oil industry will be about for some time. Particularly that much of society makes use of polymers for a whole range of products, ranging from clevis's for model aircraft, electrical insulation materials, and so on.

 

 

Yep but around 75% of the crude produced is turned into petrol and diesel, another 10% kerosine (jet fuel) plus heavy fuel oils (Marine), so stopping burning the stuff will mean a lot less is needed to be produced. At the moment global oil production is around 93 million bbls per day, around 2780 million UK bbls per day.

[Tim Kearsley]

"I have thought that many are just opposed to so called Big Oil, Big Pharma, without understanding the potential consequences of them not existing now or in the past."

 

More to the point, what are the consequences of them carrying on as they are now?  It seems to me there are a huge number of people who are either not capable of, or unwilling to, realise that carrying on putting carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse bases into the atmosphere poses an existential threat to humanity,  i.e. a threat to society existing at all.  I think there's a global pandemic of ostrich-itis, i.e. head in the sand syndrome.  Politicians have no interest in anything beyond the next election, big industry is only interested in profit.  Western society is completely unsustainable but there's no appetite to make the massive changes that are necessary.  After all, why have any concern for the world our grandchildren will inhabit when doing anything about it might entail inconvenience - one less foreign holiday a year or eating less meat?

Edited March 14 by Tim Kearsley

[Don Fry]

Or more to the point, how many machine gun bullets do you need when the population of Bangladesh up sticks, and go somewhere else. Or how hard do you fight, when the next country upriver decide to increase extraction in a drought, and your water supply disappears.

[Tim Kearsley]

37 minutes ago, Don Fry said:

Or more to the point, how many machine gun bullets do you need when the population of Bangladesh up sticks, and go somewhere else. Or how hard do you fight, when the next country upriver decide to increase extraction in a drought, and your water supply disappears.

Yep, history will probably call them the Climate Wars.

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

36 minutes ago, Tim Kearsley said:

Yep, history will probably call them the Climate Wars.

It's already started over here in France, some of the big agricultural farms are building reservoirs to stock water for irrigating crops, mostly filled with rain water, some with rivers (dams) and also a few pumping water up from the water table, but this will of course lower the water supply leaving towns without water, the 'greens' are fighting them, but mostly they get nowhere, money talks.🤢

 

 Opps out of subject,,,

Edited March 14 by Paul De Tourtoulon
Opps

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

Interesting video, the numbers if you haven't the time are after 20 minutes

es in.

Edited March 26 by Paul De Tourtoulon
e

[Cuban8]

On 14/03/2024 at 16:49, Tim Kearsley said:

"I have thought that many are just opposed to so called Big Oil, Big Pharma, without understanding the potential consequences of them not existing now or in the past."

 

More to the point, what are the consequences of them carrying on as they are now?  It seems to me there are a huge number of people who are either not capable of, or unwilling to, realise that carrying on putting carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse bases into the atmosphere poses an existential threat to humanity,  i.e. a threat to society existing at all.  I think there's a global pandemic of ostrich-itis, i.e. head in the sand syndrome.  Politicians have no interest in anything beyond the next election, big industry is only interested in profit.  Western society is completely unsustainable but there's no appetite to make the massive changes that are necessary.  After all, why have any concern for the world our grandchildren will inhabit when doing anything about it might entail inconvenience - one less foreign holiday a year or eating less meat?

All the above can be challenged as either incorrect, misleading, or simply scaremongering by those with other political or social agendas to push.

[Tim Kearsley]

8 minutes ago, Cuban8 said:

All the above can be challenged as either incorrect, misleading, or simply scaremongering by those with other political or social agendas to push.

It's those that challenge those obvious truths that have the political or financial motives, or are unable to understand fairly basic science.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

If we have over the usual rain/sun, it'll affect crop yield, over population, ooh that's bad, drink/eat too much, bad, smokers, terrible people they're polluting my space. Pollution of the air/rivers sea all cleaner than the days of heavy industry, fiction ?

 

Too many I.C vehicles pumping out chemicals the planets struggling to deal with ? Don't be daft, you're woke, a snowflake, have an agenda. Yep the agenda is to clean up our act.

 

Planets had ice ages and hot periods before, it's natural ? Nope, they were caused by what was occuring on the planet at the time, causing large amounts of chemicals to be released into the atmosphere via an over abundance of volcanic activity, dominant plant species giving off emmisions of certain gases etc, etc.

 

Scientists ? What did they ever do for us ?

[Cuban8]

Obvious truths?

I suggest that folks have the 'Daily Sceptic' sent to their inbox where many of those 'truths' are looked into and examined closely. 

 

[Zflyer]

Arr the glorious vagaries of being human.

The entrenched positions.

The unwillingness to recognise the arguements and the stupidity to seek compromise.

 

Gia anyone. Lol

[Tim Kearsley]

1 hour ago, Cuban8 said:

Obvious truths?

I suggest that folks have the 'Daily Sceptic' sent to their inbox where many of those 'truths' are looked into and examined closely. 

 

The Daily Sceptic?  Really?  I read science articles not the ramblings of a right-wing, anti-vax conspiracy theorist.  If rather have hot needles stuck in my eyeballs than have that rubbish pop up in my inbox.

[Tim Kearsley]

The website mediabiasfactcheck.com summarises The Daily Sceptic thus:

 

"Overall, we rate the Daily Sceptic a far-right biased quackery level pseudoscience website that frequently publishes false and misleading information regarding covid-19 and science in general."

 

Full article here.

[Erfolg]

I watched the video of the Ev testing. It can be said it seems to reflect the findings of reports in newspapers, of others undertaking similar tests.

 

What doe sit indicate to me, that the claimed ranges are all over estimated, by a margin. Enough for me to just about undertake my most frequent longer journey. The occasional (at the moment) trip, would require a charge, maybe two (for the return.

 

One of my concerns, which I have frequently noted here, is the need for a significant re-enforcement of the UK (electric) distribution grid. This is coming with a very high financial cost, plus there will be distribution losses (as most points of generation are distant to points of consumption).

 

A wind farm is being constructed just of shore to where I live, it requires a sub sea set of cables, any one who has seen them, will know, the cost of them (when I worked for BICC, we made them). Plus a significant distribution system.

 

All of these costs we will have to pay, as part of the standing charge, even if government subsidies are available, we still pay.

 

Unfortunately for some the situation is not recognised or even in denial. All comes at a cost, where a audit of the various aspects, may indicate what the various costs and benefits actually are.

 

For me there is no magic easy solution. A reduction in the planet population may help, although apparently not a realistic goal, all is jam tomorrow.

[Frank Skilbeck]

Yes, but the grid costs are more to do with connecting wind power to the grid, not charging electric vehicles. If anything as Vehicle to Grid is rolled out EVs will assist in balancing the grid, Octopus are currently trialling a scheme where they buy back electricity from your car and then recharge your car for free later, https://octopus.energy/power-pack/ But when we rolled out nuclear originally the power stations were all by the sea (for cooling water) and would have required distribution upgrades to connect them at the time.

 

BTW regarding range, one of the car magazines tested the new X Power MG4 against a Seat Cupra petrol, the MG4 was 17% down on it's official range and the Cupra 20% below the official mpg.

[Tim Kearsley]

"What doe sit indicate to me, that the claimed ranges are all over estimated, by a margin."

 

We seem to go over the same point again and again and again ad nauseum.  All the quoted ranges (for EVs) or mpg (for ICE vehicles) are overstated, usually substantially.  The WLTP is essentially a lab-derived value, intended mainly as a comparison between vehicles, not as a measure of real-world range or consumption.

[Ron Gray]

I would suggest listening to those who actually own EVs for ranges they have achieved.

[Learner]

I see zapmap are quoting 85p kW for some rapid chargers

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Yes, rapid chargers are expensive - how much of this reflects their installation and running costs, I wonder, and will increasing competition reduce prices?  On the very rare occasions that I fast charge (3 partial recharges - typically 40% of battery capacity i.e. @ 25kWh - in 15 months of ownership) it reduces the economy to somewhere in the region of the equivalent of 30 mpg for that amount of the energy used on the journey.

[Erfolg]

A number of Nuclear Stations were located adjacent to significant eclectic power consumers, such as Aluminium smelter, or a large factory installations, (perhaps not obvious to all) etc They were and are connected to the  grid. What is being proposed is a step change in numerous ways. Both the generation of power, and maintaining a balanced grid, has become an increasing issue. There have been fudges suggested to alleviate the issues, although they remain as they are.

 

One concern is switching the green levy from electric bills (in there various forms) to other forms of funding. Personally, I believe that us electric users should be paying for what electric costs, no fudging. Why should anyone else pay for me, be it via the general tax system.

 

 

 

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

11 hours ago, Erfolg said:

I believe that us electric users should be paying for what electric costs, no fudging. Why should anyone else pay for me, be it via the general tax system.

I second that, anything up to 6.000€ subsidies for EV's and a few bob more for your personal charging point in France and some free parking

here and there.

 Not forgetting that we are taxed at 64% on fuel, whereas electric is only 20% !.

[IDD15]

I see the Telegraph is reporting this morning that the taxpayer is going to have to pay for cleaning up Shell's oil rigs in the North Sea. They only made how many £££Billion last year???