Electric Cars.

[Erfolg]

I have reservations with respect to many of the retro fit energy saving concepts.

I can understand replacing boilers that are past their do not use date.

Where I have problems is where are the real savings, when others are paying for the energy saving fitments. Does the UK save, or is it more of a way of providing a profit to builders etc?

I will confess to having my previous house retro fitted with insulation as part of a kitchen extension. I have not really been convinced there has been a reduction in energy used. In a way I applaud the NT who sponsored a new build latest energy saving technique estate, where I was living. The sad aspect was not just that green fields were built on, just as depressing was that n energy audit found that the houses performed no better than Building Regulation compliant new build. I am still puzzled as to why.

The boiler in the present house is a Worcester Bosch Greenstar, it does seem to perform well, delivering lower bills than my old (in previous house) Glow Worm, of very ancient vintage. The plus side it never went wrong.

I have this sneaky feeling that my energy saving retrofits have costing more energy than is ever going to be saved. A net loss.

Perhaps my worry is the environmental damage of covering fields with solar panels, all the additional chemicals and gases put into the environment from the manufacture and final decommissioning of all this stuff. Yet I do know that Harold Wilsons Smokeless Zones, the general abandonment of domestic coal fires has improved air quality by a massive amount. No more smog filled winter periods.

[Former Member]

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[Trevor Crook]

A friend had solar pv panels fitted to his roof a couple of years ago. As well as supplying the house and feed in to the grid, they are configured to store any excess they can in his hot water tank via an immersion heater. He reckons that during the summer months he uses virtually no gas as the heating is off, and his payback period will be about 5 years.

[Erfolg]

Tom

It does seem very hard to believe some of what appears to hype with respect to the environment. That is when you consider where I lived, as you say, the Pea Soupers, where the air could almost be cut with a knife, being so dense that you could barely see your hand in front of your face, the atmosphere swirling like a paint that was not mixed well.

Again, the rivers and streams in my area, totally devoid of fish, a chemical drain, for industry.

Whole areas of the inner city being truly "brown fields", not a blade of grass or other living vegetation to be seen.

I guess what we have now is the benefit of de-industrialisation. The most obviously polluting thing today is the stench of Diesel from buses, as they idle in the centre of our township (which is smaller than the so called villages of South Manchester), whilst waiting for the allocated time table departure time to tick into view. For my wife who suffers from Asthma, health threatening whilst gasping for breath, for my self, so unpleasant as i can both taste and smell the acrid black haze that surrounds the general area. The other less obvious and often hotly debated, is the claimed brain tumors from overhead powerlines for those who live in close proximity to them. Yet magnetic resonance scanners seem to cause no issues for those who are subjected to them, and their very high magnetic fields.

[Piers Bowlan]

Posted by Trevor Crook on 24/04/2018 07:29:26:

A friend had solar pv panels fitted to his roof a couple of years ago. As well as supplying the house and feed in to the grid, they are configured to store any excess they can in his hot water tank via an immersion heater. He reckons that during the summer months he uses virtually no gas as the heating is off, and his payback period will be about 5 years.

Official figures for a domestic solar panel installation to recover its cost is about 10 years, depending on which part of the country you live. Many installers claim less, funnily enough! Also the pv panel life is about 15 to 20 years and their efficiency reduces as they age. However, should the cost of electricity production soar (think, nuclear power stations) then those with pv panels fitted will be making greater savings, quicker. The time to recover cost is faster in the US where there is a 30% federal tax credit for those households with pv panels fitted.

[Engine Doctor]

Posted by Erfolg on 24/04/2018 22:07:00:

Tom

It does seem very hard to believe some of what appears to hype with respect to the environment. That is when you consider where I lived, as you say, the Pea Soupers, where the air could almost be cut with a knife, being so dense that you could barely see your hand in front of your face, the atmosphere swirling like a paint that was not mixed well.

Again, the rivers and streams in my area, totally devoid of fish, a chemical drain, for industry.

Whole areas of the inner city being truly "brown fields", not a blade of grass or other living vegetation to be seen.

I guess what we have now is the benefit of de-industrialisation. The most obviously polluting thing today is the stench of Diesel from buses, as they idle in the centre of our township (which is smaller than the so called villages of South Manchester), whilst waiting for the allocated time table departure time to tick into view. For my wife who suffers from Asthma, health threatening whilst gasping for breath, for my self, so unpleasant as i can both taste and smell the acrid black haze that surrounds the general area. The other less obvious and often hotly debated, is the claimed brain tumors from overhead powerlines for those who live in close proximity to them. Yet magnetic resonance scanners seem to cause no issues for those who are subjected to them, and their very high magnetic fields.

Couldn't agree more Erflog. When industrial action hits buses in London the air quality improves immensely but private cars are still blamed for the poor air quality even though most private cars entering London these days are modern euro 6 powered models with filtered exhaust(DPF) if diesel  ? Older diesels are now banned for inner london . It appears to me that all the hype is about  about generating money for  Mr Khan's poor council ,JMO of course. Some friends are even changing their new cars even though they only visit cities by train and spend fortunes on a new car that has inferior range ,fuel cosumption and quality than their old cars !

Solar panels ,if they are so good should be fitted on all new builds surely ,saving open fields for food production that will become more important as time goes on with an escalating population.

Overhead power lines need to be researched more thoroughly and cant really be compared to MRI scanners as time in a scanner is short but continuous exposure to magnetic field from overhead line is insidious and long term effects unknown.

Re electric cars as per OP. Where is all the lithium going to come from to power these cars? Have we in the western world given a thought of the environmental disaster in lithium producing areas and has any research been done on effects on weather patterns being affected by the evaporation of millions of gallons of water a day to retrieve the lithium ? Similarly we as a nation do not have anywhere near enough capacity to charge these cars if we are forced Togo all electric.

Fortunately I won't be around to see this vision of the future that environmentalist keep trying to frighten us with unless of course I can beat the recent record of 117 year old lady !

Edited By Engine Doctor on 25/04/2018 10:02:54

[Piers Bowlan]

There have been several large research studies carried out over a period of many years into whether there could be a connection between HT power lines and neurological conditions or cancer. So far they have all failed to find a link, so at least that is one thing we shouldn't have to worry about!

[Erfolg]

Piers, I tend to favour the view that there is no link. Yet I do understand that many of the agencies, do have a political aspect to their operations. An example that may be postulated that any independent body contracted to undertake a study, would be considered safe hands.

What should be an aside although a potential issue is the almost certainly very high sums of money that would be involved if a link were to be found. The options available would be the demolition of properties, the re routeing of overhead lines and the issue of segregation of the public from what would now be considered an hazard.

The EU approach to some perceived unproven risks has been to ban on a precautionary basis, where no risk can be proven, although a suspicion of risk remains. Typically food colourants, some herbicides and pesticides etc.

I was told that Radon was once marketed as a health giving gas, incorporated into some bottled water. Now householders are often required to undertake a Radon investigation as part of home sales, where found actions taken to remove to an acceptable level. This indicates how volatile both views, knowledge and the perception of a risk can be.

Although I am not blase about such things in the case of power lines, I accept that any risk that might exist, is miniscule compared to that of driving a car. Although I would not buy a house near a power line.

Edited By Erfolg on 25/04/2018 14:54:25

Edited By Erfolg on 25/04/2018 14:56:39

[Nigel R]

"Have we in the western world given a thought of the environmental disaster in lithium producing areas "

Of course we haven't. None of those mines are anywhere near here.

[Engine Doctor]

Posted by Nigel R on 25/04/2018 15:04:35:

"Have we in the western world given a thought of the environmental disaster in lithium producing areas "

Of course we haven't. None of those mines are anywhere near here.

Exactly , it's a rhetorical question.

[Frank Skilbeck]

Posted by Nigel R on 25/04/2018 15:04:35:

"Have we in the western world given a thought of the environmental disaster in lithium producing areas "

Of course we haven't. None of those mines are anywhere near here.

Not yet

[Former Member]

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[Former Member]

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[Erfolg]

Percy

Do you ignore the comments from the Chairman  of Ford & Jaguar Landrover (I think that is who they are) and the general thrust in Germany? Diesels are not being dropped at this moment. The UK Government is being castigated for its negativity, that is costing a drop in UK sales of particularly Diesels and also petrol vehicles.

The 2040 date is the sound of the can being kicked up the road. Those who suspect some councils in particular of looking for ways of funding their budgets are possibly correct. As I have said, if the air quality concerns you in the inner city. scrap the old buses, and ensure that new buses that are replacements meet the same high standards as Euro 6 Diesel cars. Perhaps it is not politically acceptable to actively promote electric buses and local delivery vehicles. Partly because of the large sums of money and infrastructure required, that will cause public service providers in transport to squeal,

Listening to and reading the views of vehicle producers many see the Diesel being around for some time, possibly as a milch cow, where hybrids are seen as being in the shorter and maybe the longer term of greater potential.

You know, in some ways I would love electricity to be the answer to all, but it comes at a price. The price is energy used for the generation process, the distribution and the increasingly almost bizarre energy storage systems (from batteries of various configurations and types, spinning tops, pumped hydro and so on). We are in many cases looking at the old woman who swallowed a fly syndrome.

If electric cars make sense, market forces, driven by practicality and cost will be the driver. As every successful change has been from the bronze age, industrial revolution, the age of steam/coal, oil has developed independent of Government. Where Governments have attempted to drive change by rigging the systems it has been a failure. From Government CAD, withdrawing tax relieve on pension funds, all result in failure, in one form or another.

Edited By Erfolg on 25/04/2018 20:38:30

Edited By Erfolg on 25/04/2018 20:39:17

Edited By Erfolg on 25/04/2018 20:41:01

[Former Member]

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[Erfolg]

Apparently Porsche have not stopped production of all Diesels, the new Cayenne is available as a Diesel. In the case of Toyota, apparently they sold very few Diesels in the first place. As for the others, they say they are stopping, not as yet stopped. Yet it says more about the political pressures and lack of sales, than necessarily about the damage or otherwise of Diesels in cars. If they all stop production of Diesels and Petrol vehicles, that is what happens. It will give me no more joy, than if and when electric vehicles follow the milk float into history, as is the way of all things.

Percy I am a little surprised about the tone of some of your statements.

I personally I am less interested in a particular agenda, although the consequences, implications and opportunities are of interest. Of course a major issue such as energy, requires more discussion and explanation than by simple superficial cliches.

[Former Member]

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[Don Fry]

Couldn't find a brushless motor to convert it.

[ken anderson.]

it looks as though the bosch tech is going to throw a spanner in the works...might be time to get rid or cancel the electric jobs..to much hassle setting up a complete new infrastructure...up to the political lads....where they go decide/we must follow......bearing in mind our votes mean more than anything else.....

ken Anderson...ne...1...... motoring dept.

[Peter Christy]

Posted by Tom Sharp 2 on 25/04/2018 23:23:14:

Rover had a Gas Turbine car at one time , wonder what happened to that?

The problem with gas-turbine cars was two-fold (and Chrysler had one almost ready for production).

First up was poor part throttle economy. A gas turbine is very clean running, but thirsty when operated at part throttle. The second was "turbo-lag" - the time between planting your right foot and anything actually happening!

Chrysler had mostly solved the second problem, and partly solved the first. What killed the Chrysler car was its inability to run on leaded fuel (all that was generally available at the time) closely followed by the oil crisis and subsequent escalating fuel costs.

**LINK**

Though that doesn't tell the whole story - more details here:

 

What makes a lot more sense is to use a turbine as the generator in a hybrid. This overcomes the throttle lag issue, and the turbine is much smaller and lighter than a reciprocating engine of equivalent power. It is also cleaner running in its "raw" state, and can be designed to run at its optimum fuel economy, as it will never need throttling.

 

I posted a link a while back to a British company proposing just such a power system. I can't understand why none of the "big boys" have taken it up. It certainly makes much more sense than either the current hybrids or pure electric vehicles.

 

--

Pete

 

P.S. The design of the Rover T4 (the final gas turbine car they made) was converted from front-wheel drive to rear and fitted with a piston engine. It was better known as the Rover 2000!

 

Edited By Peter Christy on 26/04/2018 09:16:12

Edited By Peter Christy on 26/04/2018 09:18:54

Edited By Peter Christy on 26/04/2018 09:19:22

[Frank Skilbeck]

Like the one Jaguar showed as a concept car

The idea though would probably make more sense on HGVs and buses, ability to run on a variety of fuels and lots of torque for setting off and no need for a complicated gearbox. Plus Turbines are great when they are left running, frequent stop starts shorten the time between overhauls, so they make more sense in something that is regularly doing long distances.

But the risks of being the first to put one in production maybe too high.

[Erfolg]

Frank, I do not think that the concept will go down with electric vehicle purists. Again the concept is not new the Lohner-Porsche of the 1900s has many similarities, other than style.

In what is now the distant past, I worked alongside an ex-Ford design engineer. What I found interesting, is particularly relevant today, is that the design brief was specified via an internal process, which did not involve the design team. Typically the engine unit would be specified, suspension units and so on, making use of existing manufacturing capacity. Now when I consider the implications of the existing manufacturing investments of major manufacturers, it provides a clue as to why some strategies differ markedly from others.

I would anticipate if you make very few sales of a particular engine type, particularly if the engine units etc are bought in, you will be eager from a manufacturing perspective of production simplification, stock control, general money saving to drop such vehicles from your range. In such circumstances being able to make a Press Announcement that you will be dropping that particular unit type as being virtuous would be like manner from heaven,

Then there is the issue for manufacturers when going for a change of power unit. What do you do with the old plants, if not past their sell by date? Where is the money coming for a new plant. Will there be mass redundancies for some, devastated communities?

Then there is the issue of introduction of something that has a high degree of novelty, respective to your current knowledge, of how do you manage it.

The Jaguar solution of hub driven motors, has the virtue of apparent simplicity. Yet from a performance standpoint, it has what has been considered a major flaw, in a much larger than necessary unsprung mass. Although I do now note that modern F1 cars have abandoned inboard brakes, that were once fashionable. Also again the issue of the motors being exposed to the worst of the roads elements.

The other solutions will have their own issues, be direct drives, via gear boxes, degree and manner of electronic interventions with the drive train.

For electric vehicles, the potential for major changes in how the concept is introduced is significant.

The hybrid vehicle does avoid the present issue of the National Grid, capacity, robustness of electric power generation. In twenty or thirty years time, all of todays issues could have been favourably resolved. Although the present situation of Large Nuclear seems less than certain, nor are the cost implications evidently great when seen from todays position. I have also wondered about the proposed future fuel rod disposal route, which never seems to be made public. Some are opposed to dedicated gas powered generation plants, both for base load and peak demand.

[Peter Christy]

Erfolg makes some very salient points, not least of which is generating capacity. With Britain already running near the peak that the National Grid can supply in winter, little is left in reserve for daytime charging of large numbers of electric vehicles.

One thing on the plus side is that nuclear power stations cannot be throttled back, and produce electricity at a constant rate - even when its not needed (ie: at night!). Using night time electricity to charge vehicles might solve the commuting problem, but the distance traveler still has issues. And then there is the problem of disposing of nuclear waste, for which there is currently no solution.

Part of the problem of nuclear waste is the incredibly long time (centuries!) it has to be stored before it can be considered safe. Fusion power - the ultimate solution - has been twenty years in the future since I was a kid (anyone else remember Project Zeta?).

A better solution would be building fission reactors that use Thorium instead of Uranium. Thorium is cheaper and more readily available than Uranium. A Thorium reactor can't suffer from "meltdown" in the event of a power failure (as at Fukushima). Like a petrol engined car, if you turn the power off, it just stops!

Yes, it produces nasty waste, but the half-life is measured in decades rather than centuries. So why aren't we building them? Simple! Its very hard to use the by-products to produce nuclear weapons!

Someone mentioned Windscale a while back. Windscale never produced (nor was it intended to produce) electricity. Its sole purpose was to provide enriched Uranium and Plutonium for nuclear weapons.

If we had decided to use Thorium instead of Uranium for the new Hinckley power plant, we could have had a design which we could have sold to developing nations around the world, without fear of it being used for weapons. Instead we have chosen an expensive and unproven design, which will be a millstone around the neck of future generations. There are only two other reactors being built to the same design. Both are way behind schedule, way over budget and being re-designed on-the-fly to overcome inherent flaws. Whoever took that decision, well, boiling in oil is too good for them!

And in case anyone thinks that Thorium reactors are unproven, the Americans ran one for years - only switching it off because the by-products were useless to the military!

Rant over!

--

Pete

[Frank Skilbeck]

While everybody seems to focus on electric cars overloading the grid, there are other schemes being tested where electric cars can be seen as mobile batteries, and provide an input to the grid at peak demand times then charging up when there is excess capacity.

As regards Thorium, I'm with Peter on this one, it does look a good solution, never developed before as nuclear power adopted that developed by the military. But maybe this time fusion power is really only 10 years away, there are a lot of commercial companies now pursuing this.

[Alan Jarvis]

Peter Christy.-

With the creation of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) in 1954, ownership of Windscale Works passed to the UKAEA. The first of four Magnox reactors became operational in 1956 at Calder Hall, adjacent to Windscale and across the River Calder, and the site became Windscale and Calder Works

Calder Hall, first connected to the grid on 27 August 1956 and officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 17 October 1956,[40][41] was the world's first power station to generate electricity on an industrial scale (four 60 MWe reactors) from nuclear energy; supplied to the National Grid.