One problem with drop-in, drop-out batteries for cars is the weight. Batteries for electric cars are extremely heavy. One programme I watched where they were converting classic cars to electric suggested weights around 150 kg, and more than one battery pack.
Range on the vast majority of electric cars, particularly smaller cars, is very short as it is and reducing that further would make them even less practical.
Whilst an automated system for battery swap sounds like a good idea, think of the logistics of millions of cars needing to swap out batteries every few days. The infrastructure requirement for battery storage alone would be huge.
Induction charging over the whole road network would cost billions and take many, many years. Any estimated cost would spiral upwards, and timescales slide, just look at HS2 - and that is 'just' a single point-to-point system!
I don't see any way the current planned date for phasing out petrol and diesel will be achieved unless there are fast chargers all along virtually every road in the country, battery range is extended to at least the equivalent of an average fuel tank, and recharging takes no longer than filling a fuel tank.
We have recently returned from a holiday in Scotland. We covered approximately 500 miles on the way home with just short stops for 'comfort breaks' and driver swaps. That took just over 9 hours whereas it would be at least a 2 day trip in current electric vehicles of the type I may be able to afford.
I find all the 'carbon emission' stuff frustrating as hell. My daughter moved into a new build last year - they have a gas boiler (no solar panels at all), even though from what I gather, from 2025 new properties can't have gas. Fine. That got me thinking what the alternatives were - so I asked my local MP (Tory as it happens - so their policy). They passed on the enquiry to Kwarteng who basically sent a bland - '...Google it and check out this gov page...there are loads of different options' type answer. Ground and air source heat pumps require a completely different view on how you heat properties - let alone how you provide domestic hot water.
There seems to be lots of '...we're going green and we'll be carbon neutral by....', but no real detail so far on 'how' (they must have an image of the average house and what changes will be required and ditto for flats) - and then we go from trading across the 22 mile channel to doing deals around the 10,000 mile globe. So it seems the target is to cut emissions unless it impacts our trade deals.
OK, I know some people will charge their new EV on their drive, so the use of refuelling stations will be lessened by fuelling at home. But if you drive around any town at night and see cars parked, a fair percentage don't have drives. And even those that do may need two or three charge points (the UK has 30,000,000 cars on the road) or the owners to rotate parking. Plus what is the impact of all this on the grid? How many extra giga watt hours of electricity need to be generated to cover the move away from oil based fuels?
Anyway, it's a nice start to the day down here, so it's cut the grass and do some tidying up day methinks.
Edited to add: Apologies for linking the two things - home emissions and EV refuelling - but in my warped mind they are connected. I would have thought that ALL new builds (starting 5 years ago!) should have been forced into having at least solar panels/solar tiles given that the Gov wanted to go clean energy and EV's would be a drain on the grid (as will heat pumps)
Just listening to Radio 4 and 'them' talking about electric cars and the need for more charge points. Surely the boffins out there realise that refuelling a car with electricity takes longer than with a fluid? So if you currently have 'n' million pumps at 2-3 mins per fill (that gives a range of say 500miles), how many charge points at 8 hours (at 300 miles range)? But, but, but...I don't recharge the batteries in my torch while they're in situ. I take the batteries out, put new batteries in so I can continue to use the torch, and then recharge the depleted batteries at my leisure.
Why aren't car manufacturers standardising their batteries and having a drop-out old battery, drop-in new battery type replacement? Is that not possible? If it is possible, couldn't that then be automated? Why recharge the old batteries in the car? That seems insane to me given the time and the range (so need for more re-fuelling stops).
And even with batteries - reduce the weight by having shorter range - (assuming electric cars are here to stay) put more money into induction charging as you drive. The battery would only be used when you're then off-grid.
steveTu, there's a lot of misinformation regarding electric cars I recommend you go and visit Robert Llewellyn's (Red Dwarf) youtube channel for some really good explanations regarding electric cars and renewable energy .
'The power of accurate observation .... is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it.
Spent one of my precious days off clearing dining room for new floor which involved moving 100s of books and basically putting the furniture in the back garden then ripped up old carpet and underlay and gripper rods which are now in bags in the very overcrowded garage and at 6pm the floor man texted to say he now won’t come until next Wednesday!! I want to scream!
Ground and air source heat pumps require a completely different view on how you heat properties - let alone how you provide domestic hot water.
Not really. In a new build it will basically be the same except there's a heat pump in the back garden instead of a boiler in the kitchen or wherever. It'll still have radiators. The main difference will be it'll need a hot water cylinder - a lot of developers have ditched them to save a couple of square feet of space.
There seems to be lots of '...we're going green and we'll be carbon neutral by....', but no real detail so far on 'how' (they must have an image of the average house and what changes will be required and ditto for flats)
The Future Homes Standard (due to come in in 2025) has been published in draft. I'm not impressed, for technical reasons I won't bore you with. But it assumes a heat pump and then describes how good the walls and roof and windows will have to be. It doesn't assume you'll have solar panels although, oddly, the interim one (due to come in next year) assumes you do, but it also allows gas boilers.
Many Local Authorities are trying to change the rules so that houses can't continue to be built for the next 4 years with gas boilers that will have to be replaced at a cost to someone (although not the developer, of course). The game that's going on is developers are trying to delay having to change their standard specs as long as possible, so they are making the LAs jump through legal hoops just to use up time until they have to do it anyway. Organisations like the GLA who probably could stand up to them are not doing so at the moment. The upshot will be that they protect their profit margins for the next few years at the expense of people like your daughter, who is likely to find she has to pay for a new heating system within the next 10 years if she wants to be able to sell or rent out the house.
LAs are also acutely aware of the problem of charging EVs in towns and cities where on-street parking is the norm. There are various strategies being implemented. The million mile car battery does exist (in China). I've no idea how soon it'll be a commercial proposition. Many councils have 'zero carbon' targets for their own operations, so their company vehicles and the ones they directly commission (bin lorries and buses, for example) are changing over to either electricity or hydrogen. But it's not sensible to just buy a whole new fleet so in most cases this is happening one vehicle at a time, when it comes up for renewal. How we manage to get electric HGVs on the road is still a problem. Of course if we hadn't trashed the rail network, it would be easier - electric vans to do the local distribution are much more possible. But the heavy freight part of the system is much more difficult. The electricity supply companies are spending money on the networks to get them upgraded but the generation capacity isn't unlimited. We will also have to reduce the amount of energy we use if we're going to avoid either blackouts or the resumption of coal burning power stations. This is why heat pumps are seen as a better option than ordinary electric storage heaters or the like - heat pumps use about 35% of the electricity to give the same amount of heat.
All these things are 'in play' now. But it all moves very slowly when you're relying on legislation rather than market led change. If lots of people like your daughter refused to buy houses with gas boilers and demanded heat pumps, then it would all change very quickly. But as long as business can pass the financial buck, they will.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
The main difference will be it'll need a hot water cylinder - a lot of developers have ditched them to save a couple of square feet of space.
Come to Wales where the mandatory fire sprinkler systems for new homes often need a large water tank as well.
A Freecycle gem this morning: 'Wanted. Long slide for goat activity centre.' From what I can gather the slide is actually for the goats rather than visitors.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
I thought from looking at the stuff on the web re heat pumps that although they can use existing radiators, they need more surface area as the water is heated to a much lower temperature (and the stuff I've seen talks more about underfloor heating)? The temperature - ditto then for the hot water. I thought heat pumps can't currently hit what most people have their hot water set to (mine is currently between 50-60 degrees).
An issue then is the heat loss - the houses have to be all but hermetically sealed (good for Covid eh?!). That's fine for new builds where the building standards are higher and insulation levels are high, but what is the impact on older properties? What about people who actually like having windows open - but still being warm!?
So we're going electric and moving on from gas - but that's then a double whammy on the grid - not only replacing fossil fuel cars, but moving from gas to electric for home heating in an overlapping time period. AND in that period the world is going electric - the web uses an insane amount of leccy (up to 10% of the world electricity is the web - does that sound about right?) and that is getting worse because everything is going on line.. I have more devices in my house (all be it some are more efficient) than I ever have - all going smart and having to be connected to the web. I no longer do a trip to town to do banking, get shopping etc (good), but I'm constantly connected to the net (bad).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against cleaning all the emissions up. What I think I dislike is what appears to be the '...just do it...the market will sort out the mess...' type method of planning how to clean it up. We had mountains of horse manure in Victorian times and replaced the horse with the car. Some one needs to try to take a long term view. Hydrogen or electricity? I got Smart meters when BG was offering them years back. Now my meter ain't smart no more - as it is a version 1 - and although it's apparently just a firmware upgrade to give the tin man it's brain back, my meter still sits in the corner with its thumb in its mouth pretending not to listen or talk to anything. The devil is in the detail always isn't it? And the market only ever cares about profit.
Posts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPzXzKpv1xY
steveTu , there's a lot of misinformation regarding electric cars I recommend you go and visit Robert Llewellyn's (Red Dwarf) youtube channel for some really good explanations regarding electric cars and renewable energy .
'The power of accurate observation .... is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it.
George Bernard Shaw'
The Future Homes Standard (due to come in in 2025) has been published in draft. I'm not impressed, for technical reasons I won't bore you with. But it assumes a heat pump and then describes how good the walls and roof and windows will have to be. It doesn't assume you'll have solar panels although, oddly, the interim one (due to come in next year) assumes you do, but it also allows gas boilers.
Many Local Authorities are trying to change the rules so that houses can't continue to be built for the next 4 years with gas boilers that will have to be replaced at a cost to someone (although not the developer, of course). The game that's going on is developers are trying to delay having to change their standard specs as long as possible, so they are making the LAs jump through legal hoops just to use up time until they have to do it anyway. Organisations like the GLA who probably could stand up to them are not doing so at the moment. The upshot will be that they protect their profit margins for the next few years at the expense of people like your daughter, who is likely to find she has to pay for a new heating system within the next 10 years if she wants to be able to sell or rent out the house.
LAs are also acutely aware of the problem of charging EVs in towns and cities where on-street parking is the norm. There are various strategies being implemented.
The million mile car battery does exist (in China). I've no idea how soon it'll be a commercial proposition.
Many councils have 'zero carbon' targets for their own operations, so their company vehicles and the ones they directly commission (bin lorries and buses, for example) are changing over to either electricity or hydrogen. But it's not sensible to just buy a whole new fleet so in most cases this is happening one vehicle at a time, when it comes up for renewal.
How we manage to get electric HGVs on the road is still a problem. Of course if we hadn't trashed the rail network, it would be easier - electric vans to do the local distribution are much more possible. But the heavy freight part of the system is much more difficult.
The electricity supply companies are spending money on the networks to get them upgraded but the generation capacity isn't unlimited. We will also have to reduce the amount of energy we use if we're going to avoid either blackouts or the resumption of coal burning power stations. This is why heat pumps are seen as a better option than ordinary electric storage heaters or the like - heat pumps use about 35% of the electricity to give the same amount of heat.
All these things are 'in play' now. But it all moves very slowly when you're relying on legislation rather than market led change. If lots of people like your daughter refused to buy houses with gas boilers and demanded heat pumps, then it would all change very quickly. But as long as business can pass the financial buck, they will.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”