2035

[richy_rich]

Mate of mine bought a bunch of UPS (uninterruptible power supply) batteries from his work.  The workplace had to replace them regularly (every few years) as part of routine maintenance, but they were fine.  I don't think he had any particular use for them, but they were cheap... We used one once to try and get a barn-find running, just hooked it up in place of the car battery and cranked on it all day (on and off) and it was amazing, never seemed to run out of juice..  Anyway, if you're looking for cheap decent (but quite big) batteries, I'm sure these things must come up at auction/salvage etc. if companies are constantly renewing them.

[2.5piman]

Hello all,

 a lot of opinions but I don't think anyone mentioned that today, electric cars are charged with fossil fuel, mainly gas. The reason being that nuclear, wind and solar are always at maximum available output and the difference between demand and those three types of generators' output is made up by what are called dispachable power generators, These are gas, coal, diesel and hydro. So until there is (and there won't be for technical reasons) an excess of non CO2 emitting generated power the whole reason for going electric is false. There is, of course, some gain as far as air quality in dense traffic but no gain as far as reducing CO2.

I believe the government are using a flat average CO2 per Megawatt of total demand as their basis for calculation of CO2 emissions for EVs but this is false accounting. as it is obvious that the push for evs will increase demand and that puts up CO2 emissions by that amount of extra load met by, as I say, mainly gas.

Nick,

you mention hydrogen; I assume you are familiar with the practice of 'snifting' compressed gas bottles before fitting a regulator? If you get a hydrogen regulator it states very clearly that you must not snift the cylinder before fitting it, as there is a good chance the hydrogen will self ignite in air. It also burns with a colourless flame. That and the property hydrogen has to seep through various materials , (not leak),  due to it's molecular properties. It does make for an increased danger in my view, that, and it's relatively low energy density as it is so light.

Alec

 

 

[mattius]

Big buisness' buy the old EV batteries and create power walls to store their green energy, 

Eventually though enough cells become depleted that the whole pack is useless, then it goes off to be recycled, is the idea.

 

I remember talking to the electricians in one of the power stations, apparently computers and the likes are the worst, you isolate a board and all the computers have capacitors which still maintain power on the circuits.

I know they were trying to get auto cut-offs installed in every house by the main fuse, but i don't think it ever got anywhere. My neighbour has loads of Solar panels, the electricity company threatened to break in unless he got a smart meter fitted, cause his spinny disk meter was spinning backwards most of the summer!

 

James May on Youtube is doing an interesting comparison to owning an EV vs. and HEV, the Hydrogen cars range is pitiful compared to an electric car and there is next to no where to fill up hydrogen.

[PeteStupps]

14 hours ago, mattius said:

Haha was discussing that the other day, it creates an interesting problem people having home batteries!

There is no way currently of isolating them from the grid remotely, so say for instance they need to work on the main power cable to your street, currently they can cut the power and mostly the power is gone, if you have a big battery, feeding your house, it then can feed back to the grid! hence suddenly the cable in the street is live!

I believe Tesla have solved this with their power walls, but again $$$$ 

I believe that you're supposed to fit a G59 or G99-compliant relay between your battery and the incoming supply, as for solar panels etc, which opens an isolator if it detects a significant change in supply frequency (ROCOF protection) so this should not generally be a problem. Things aren't always installed correctly of course...

 

[mattius]

2.5piman:

true about nuclear and solar, however wind turbines can be turned on and off depending on demand, but you can't rely on the wind or the sun so they aren't used for balancing the grid.

As you say mainly hydro and gas are used for this.

Interestingly its all based of the frequency of the grid, when more power is drawn the frequency will drop, the national grid can request power stations can go into frequency control mode, where the control computers monitor the frequency of the grid and adjust power to ensure it stays at around 50hz.

[PeteStupps]

13 minutes ago, 2.5piman said:

... So until there is (and there won't be for technical reasons) an excess of non CO2 emitting generated power the whole reason for going electric is false. There is, of course, some gain as far as air quality in dense traffic but no gain as far as reducing CO2.

I believe the government are using a flat average CO2 per Megawatt of total demand as their basis for calculation of CO2 emissions for EVs but this is false accounting. as it is obvious that the push for evs will increase demand and that puts up CO2 emissions by that amount of extra load met by, as I say, mainly gas.

This is a good point except for one element - the contrast between efficiencies of internal-combustion engines compared to CCGT generators means that you're still better off using a fossil-fuelled grid to charge an EV than you are burning petrol in an engine - in terms of CO2 emissions anyway. I'll try and dig out a reference when I get home, but this a point that  I came across a few years ago doing power systems at university. 

Diesel and petrol engines are shockingly inefficient at converting hydrocarbons into motion, it turns out. Average something like 10% in real world conditions I seem to recall. Better in winter as the waste heat is useful.  Generators can do better because you can run them at a fixed speed. 

[Neil T]

Well I have a Hybrid 4x4 average mpg 57 and tows 1650kg then drops to 31 they have moved on big time and battery warranty 10 years

[PeterC]

6 hours ago, Neil T said:

Well I have a Hybrid 4x4 average mpg 57 and tows 1650kg then drops to 31 they have moved on big time and battery warranty 10 years

The beauty of the engine in a hybrid is it always works at peak thermal efficincy: around 3500rpm, wide open throttle. It only has to generate ca 20hp so can be  rather light and compact.  By contrast a conventional ic engine runs most of the time at a thermal effci 2 or 3 fold worse ( throttling really hits TE). it weighs lots more for those rare events called overtaking, and needs a heavy gearbox.

Porblem is our politicians dont know that.

[PeterC]

7 hours ago, PeteStupps said:

This is a good point except for one element - the contrast between efficiencies of internal-combustion engines compared to CCGT generators means that you're still better off using a fossil-fuelled grid to charge an EV than you are burning petrol in an engine - in terms of CO2 emissions anyway. I'll try and dig out a reference when I get home, but this a point that  I came across a few years ago doing power systems at university. 

Diesel and petrol engines are shockingly inefficient at converting hydrocarbons into motion, it turns out. Average something like 10% in real world conditions I seem to recall. Better in winter as the waste heat is useful.  Generators can do better because you can run them at a fixed speed. 

But CCGTs dont take to being ramped up and down according to the vagaries of wind and sun: the steam cylcle condemns them to baseload. OCGTs are quick to take up the slack but their TE is not much better than a petrol engine in a PHEV, and there are transmission losses in  the grid.

The more wind a solar gets fed into the grid the less the suges in their supply. eg when wind falls in Irush sea it can be blowing a gale in North sea.etc etec. So as more renwables come on line the fewer times GC are needed. either for base laod or topping up. That makes those plant less attractive to investors who righlt demand a higher price per MWh. And then comes a beast from the east: subzero temps, no wind, snow-clouds, and b8888r all renewables at all and high demand. It means we have to build and maintian a fossil-fuelled grid supply that works flat-out only for a couple of weeks every few years. Expensive. And if all our cars depend upon the grid...even more expensive. Worse: gas heating is to be replaced with..electric. Brrrrrrrrr.

 

[mattius]

Actually CCGT is doing most of the frequency control on the UK Generation network,  you can see the stats here:

https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=generation/fueltype

 

In a dream world we would all have a large power wall batteries and solar panels to charge it during the day, this would then charge your EV at night.

This needs investment and encouragement by the government though and currently they are doing the opposite, only last year they stopped the payments for private solar generation!

 

[PeterC]

13 hours ago, JohnD said:

The life of an EV's battery is currently (sorry about that) 6-7 years.  After that, output and range start to decline rapidly.   

I've heard that a market in used EV batteries is already developing, for people to use to back up their domstic solar and wind generation.     You can house half a dozen old EV battery packs in a small shed or basement, and their degradation doesn't matter.

J.

But catching fire does matter....well, to me it does !

[PeterC]

3 hours ago, mattius said:

Actually CCGT is doing most of the frequency control on the UK Generation network,  you can see the stats here:

https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=generation/fueltype

 

In a dream world we would all have a large power wall batteries and solar panels to charge it during the day, this would then charge your EV at night.

This needs investment and encouragement by the government though and currently they are doing the opposite, only last year they stopped the payments for private solar generation!

 

Apologies for my error.

Maybe this battery will one day be used for grid  backup: 1 MWh, shipping contianer size, no moving parts, MIT  spin out:

https://ambri.com/technology/

I first came across it 4 years ago, so soemthing is holding it back....cost?

[Nick Jones]

Is it real...... if it's all true, they should be conquering the world.......  I reckon it's still at the "soaking up millions of other peoples dollars fine tuning the details" stage!

[RogerH]

Hi Pete,

they do sound impressive.  A better answer than we have at present.

 

Roger

[PeterC]

It is genuine MIT spin out technology. A few years  back prototypes had sealing issues related to the high temperature. Hence the delay maybe.

I cant see any boxes they dont tick, unless it is cost.

Peter

 

 

[PeteStupps]

15 hours ago, PeterC said:

... and there are transmission losses in  the grid.

 

Just on this point, there are indeed losses all the way through your electricity generation, distribution, and end-use, but there are also 'losses' getting fuel from the oil field to your inlet manifold. If you tott them all up in terms of CO2 equivalent impact, my understanding is that electricity is comfortably the cleaner option. 

You're right to point out all the issues though, it's not going to be easy or cheap. I work in electricity distribution and was slightly involved in early stage design of the UK's first (allegedly) proper grid-scale battery a few years ago (see https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/ukpn_puts_landmark_leighton_buzzard_battery_up_for_sale). The main thing holding these back here seems to be regulation / cost; the first couple of years of operation it was able to pay for itself but then they (Ofgem I presume) slashed the rates for providing services (like fast-frequency response) to National Grid. Hence it's not really financially viable at the moment, without the right sweeteners from UK PLC. It's still operating though, and interestingly the degradation of the batteries has been much less than expected - like less than half what the manufacturers told us. This is an important finding from the project, because it improves the business case for large-scale lithium batteries. 

[PeterC]

The cheapest option, and definitely the greenest, will be to do without. It remains to be seen whether Hannah and Extinction Rebellion accept that enthusiastically as they grow older and become a significant electoral influence. I dont see a widespread move towards make do and mend amongst the young, although FoE run a scheme.

Interesting that enthusiam for on-line streaming and internet connectedness now accounts for  4% of global CO2 - equal to Belgium's - and rising at 8% pa.

[JohnD]

We should remember that as an energy converter, the ICE, especially in as old a design as the Triumph family, cannot rise above 40%, the rest being lost as heat and noise.    Electrical transformers can be 95% efficient.

J.

 

[John I]

But transformers do not make the sweet sound of a 6 cylinder triumph.

[RogerH]

..but they can drive a pair of KT88's   hmmmmmmmm.

 

Roger

[PeterC]

1 minute ago, RogerH said:

..but they can drive a pair of KT88's   hmmmmmmmm.

 

Roger

Roger, You must have an earth loop somewhere, they're not supposed to hummmmmmm. Peter

[John I]

All electric modes of transport should be fitted with them so you can hear them coming!

[PeterC]

2 hours ago, JohnD said:

We should remember that as an energy converter, the ICE, especially in as old a design as the Triumph family, cannot rise above 40%, the rest being lost as heat and noise.    Electrical transformers can be 95% efficient.

J.

 

Scrapping the Triumph and buying a ecar to drove afew thousand miles per year has debatable benefits CO2 wise.

Ecar CO2 to build around 15-20 tons, CO2 cost of driving depends upon grid mix and in UK is XXX g per mile. CO2 cost of replacing the worn out batteries: not yet known, assume 7 year usable life and Z tons to replace.

Triumph. CO2 cost of building: zero ( historical). CO2 cost per mile YYY g per mile. battery replacement: zero.

CO2-breakeven mileages over the lifetime of an ecar say 15 years ? Bearing in mind the CO2 for building the ecar is released and acts a GHG before  it  turns a wheel, the Triumph will not be too far behind the ecar. Especially if e-power is cheaper than petrol and the ecar is then driven more.

 

[PeterC]

This is a real killer for 2035:

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/june/we-need-more-metals-and-elements-reach-uks-greenhouse-goals.html

What a cock-up by the government comittee on climate change , chaired by that expert on prions in beef John Gummer.

Peter

 

[mattius]

I love the technology that goes into the power networks and stations, only work on Nuclear, but some of the things in other areas are so ingenious.

likes of the HV cables being oil cooled, the oil also helps them pinpoint a break as there is a pressure drop in the cable. sod going near them though, even using the test sticks (which don't look like they would do much) i wouldn't go near the 11KV stuff, that scares me!

Even on the cars battery degradation is a hell of a lot lower than they ever expected, hence all manufacturers are able to push them a bit harder. I think one of the other problems is the size a grid battery would need to be in current technology is massive!

But definitely the best solution is to be more efficient with the electricity we use, if we can make what we have go further it can only be good especially with the rising population.