Fashion or necessity?

[PaulW2]

There is a fair bit of discussion here about electric cars versus ICE engines, with a spectrum of opinions and two clear poles.

On the one side those who say things like net zero is oversold, and if anything we should invest more in mitigation of climate change rather than trying to control it. Electric cars are (still) too limited, there isn't enough of an infrastructure, we can't be sure what future tax policy (and energy costs) will be and so forth.

On the other side the end of fossil fuel is inevitable, we need to embrace the change. And we should pollute less and be more concerned about the environment, polar bears and children. Real men eat plants.

And there is obviously a spectrum of opinions in between.

Then - and this is my question - we also have some of the motorhome-related tech changes. We often hear that we should have the biggest possible lithium battery banks, as many solar panels as possible, compressor rather than 3-way fridges, induction hobs rather than gas, and so on.

It is really interesting, but in this case we seem to have a shortage of people on the other side of this debate - I don't notice too many people saying "Well, who needs this new-fangled stuff? My leisure battery may (possibly) now be lithium but I use gas for most things and it works very well, thank you very much. My 3-way fridge gives me good flexibility and works well."

What do you think is going on? Is there a real "business case" for doing as much as possible using batteries rather than gas or is it fashion?

 

[meanders]

I went to a meeting about global warming tonight..One of the things that worries the speaker are the very large conurbations of people in the Ganges basin, lots of South East Asia including China, the Amazon and Nile basins all of which computer projection show will be under water by 2100. Where are those billions of people going to move to? Do we, Europe or North America want them because that's where they will head too along with many from Africa where it will be too hot to survive?

His view, and he was not being racist, was that the world has to work together on this as less of the Earth's surface remains habitable.

 

[Gromett]

Fossil fuel?

 

[L' Hobo]

The process of nature making oil is ongoing, you're right. It's just that 'naturally' it appears to take 1-2 million years...150 yrs of oil exploration doesn't really dent that time period...nature won't be making much fresh stuff while mankind uses that that's already made.
Remind me again...how did they produce the steam?

Just to remind you, .
in the past, it has been fossil fuels, wood, coal or petrolatum BUT, in today's world, had there been the investment our mini steam turbines could run off gas made from our own bio-digesters and Methane Escape from our rubbish tips ( let's face it, we have enough of those), electricity from our own local tidal & river water turbine ( we've had enough rain and Britain has something like, an 8000miles of coastline), solar OR the same 'GREEN' Government sponsored, Canadian wood chips pellets that DRAX use to run their 'GREEN' Power Station.

 

[Carpmart]

I went to a meeting about global warming tonight..One of the things that worries the speaker are the very large conurbations of people in the Ganges basin, lots of South East Asia including China, the Amazon and Nile basins all of which computer projection show will be under water by 2100. Where are those billions of people going to move to? Do we, Europe or North America want them because that's where they will head too along with many from Africa where it will be too hot to survive?

His view, and he was not being racist, was that the world has to work together on this as less of the Earth's surface remains habitable.

When you look at the birth rate in Africa, the increase in life expectancy and the available resources, it simply doesn’t work. 2050 will see Southern Europe more African than European by demographic and the following decades will continue the trend as the African population migration continues.

The world is on a path to self destruction via climate change and population which is unavoidable and inevitable…

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Shrimp]

The world is on a path to self destruction via climate change and population which is unavoidable and inevitable…

My thoughts too, it has happened how many times in the past!?!
We don’t know how many ‘civilisations’ of one sort or another have gone before us!
We dig up our past-Stone age, Bronze Age and so on but just how old is our Little Rock really? It may be that what we call the Big Bang was just a re-hash of life!

 

[DandJ]

Just to remind you, .
in the past, it has been fossil fuels, wood, coal or petrolatum BUT, in today's world, had there been the investment our mini steam turbines could run off gas made from our own bio-digesters and Methane Escape from our rubbish tips ( let's face it, we have enough of those), electricity from our own local tidal & river water turbine ( we've had enough rain and Britain has something like, an 8000miles of coastline), solar OR the same 'GREEN' Government sponsored, Canadian wood chips pellets that DRAX use to run their 'GREEN' Power Station.

I'm trying to get my head round 30 million steam powered vehicles (a la Back to the Future) running off gas, wood chip etc

 

[Northernraider]

The issue is not whether there is any oil left but the damage burning it does. The planet will survive but will it be somewhere fit for us to live?

In an ever increasing selfish world I have to say I'm past caring , and yeah I know it's controversial but I'll be dead.

All the current ideas to solve the "climate crisis " are purely about money .
Which makes me think either there's no real serious threat or those with power take the Same attitude as me that they'll be dead so who cares.

 

[Pausim]

In an ever increasing selfish world I have to say I'm past caring , and yeah I know it's controversial but I'll be dead.

All the current ideas to solve the "climate crisis " are purely about money .
Which makes me think either there's no real serious threat or those with power take the Same attitude as me that they'll be dead so who cares.

I agree about an increasingly selfish world and I too will be dead. Sadly our politicians usually tell us what we want to hear, not what we need to hear, because they like being in power. However I do care because our grandchildren will have to live with the mess we leave behind.

 

[Ray-Vic]

Why does it have to be one or the other?

I think we need to start the discussion by noting what uses the most fossil fuel, with transportation being by far the most at somewhere near 60+%, followed by industry, with electricity production being only around 0.5%. Residential and commercial use, which is the gas we will use in our homes or motorhomes is around 3% each. It certainly seems we should be doing better as far as vehicles are concerned at least, but usage actually in our motorhomes is pretty low in the grand scheme of things. However..........Don't forget we are talking vast quantities here though, with quantities measure in exajoules, which is pretty large amounts (literally the equivalent of many billions of tons of coal each year).

As noted, by definition reserves are finite so will at some point run out considering the earth is (approximately) 4.54 billion years old and the oil we have took millions of years to form. Human life has only been around for (approximately) 200,000 years and we have only been extracting crude oil for around 4,000 years as far as we can reliably establish so I think we can agree that we are using it far quicker than it is ever likely to replenish. Whichever side you sit, I'm afraid the mathematics confirm that we will absolutely run out of fossil fuels at some point. When this will happen is an ongoing debate, but probably not in all our lifetimes.

Personally I believe we should be using a combination of all available fuel sources where and when that particular source works best. ICE/diesel vehicles work undeniably best in some applications for example, such as larger and construction vehicles for example, or vehicles which need to travel longer distances in very rural areas. Electric vehicles work exceptionally well in city and some suburban environments. Some believe that hydrogen is the future. Absolutely undeniable from an emissions perspective, but we still have to mine large amounts of platinum and iridium (to counter the argument often cited about child labour mining lithium for batteries) to make the fuel cells. It is also somewhat more volatile than current fuels, with a far wider ignition range, so storing and using it has its own challenges.

Simply legislating that we all drive electric vehicles by a certain date is a ridiculous idea (and this is from someone who has owned two of them over the last 6 years). Ultimately we could argue that hybrid vehicles, which technically is what our motorhomes are with respects to use when parked, are the best of all worlds, couldn't we?

For some the decision of which fuel is being used either for heating, cooking or travel will be based on cost and for some it will be other reasons such as the efficiency etc but none are wrong as they will all work and in the grand scheme of things the usage is very, very low indeed.

Electricity storage technology is changing rapidly, and with a push towards this method of energy use we will see this develop almost exponentially. It won't take too long before a new and innovative means of storage, enabling us to unreservedly use renewable sources such as solar or ground source heat, will come along and make lithium battery storage seem very much old hat.

I think it's worrying times in some ways, but exciting in others.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[L' Hobo]

Why does it have to be one or the other?

I think we need to start the discussion by noting what uses the most fossil fuel, with transportation being by far the most at somewhere near 60+%, followed by industry, with electricity production being only around 0.5%. Residential and commercial use, which is the gas we will use in our homes or motorhomes is around 3% each. It certainly seems we should be doing better as far as vehicles are concerned at least, but usage actually in our motorhomes is pretty low in the grand scheme of things. However..........Don't forget we are talking vast quantities here though, with quantities measure in exajoules, which is pretty large amounts (literally the equivalent of many billions of tons of coal each year).

As noted, by definition reserves are finite so will at some point run out considering the earth is (approximately) 4.54 billion years old and the oil we have took millions of years to form. Human life has only been around for (approximately) 200,000 years and we have only been extracting crude oil for around 4,000 years as far as we can reliably establish so I think we can agree that we are using it far quicker than it is ever likely to replenish. Whichever side you sit, I'm afraid the mathematics confirm that we will absolutely run out of fossil fuels at some point. When this will happen is an ongoing debate, but probably not in all our lifetimes.

Personally I believe we should be using a combination of all available fuel sources where and when that particular source works best. ICE/diesel vehicles work undeniably best in some applications for example, such as larger and construction vehicles for example, or vehicles which need to travel longer distances in very rural areas. Electric vehicles work exceptionally well in city and some suburban environments. Some believe that hydrogen is the future. Absolutely undeniable from an emissions perspective, but we still have to mine large amounts of platinum and iridium (to counter the argument often cited about child labour mining lithium for batteries) to make the fuel cells. It is also somewhat more volatile than current fuels, with a far wider ignition range, so storing and using it has its own challenges.

Simply legislating that we all drive electric vehicles by a certain date is a ridiculous idea (and this is from someone who has owned two of them over the last 6 years). Ultimately we could argue that hybrid vehicles, which technically is what our motorhomes are with respects to use when parked, are the best of all worlds, couldn't we?

For some the decision of which fuel is being used either for heating, cooking or travel will be based on cost and for some it will be other reasons such as the efficiency etc but none are wrong as they will all work and in the grand scheme of things the usage is very, very low indeed.

Electricity storage technology is changing rapidly, and with a push towards this method of energy use we will see this develop almost exponentially. It won't take too long before a new and innovative means of storage, enabling us to unreservedly use renewable sources such as solar or ground source heat, will come along and make lithium battery storage seem very much old hat.

I think it's worrying times in some ways, but exciting in others.

An interesting and balanced post BUT, I am surprised that vehicles use 60+% of fossil fuel.
When one thinks about how many homes around the world are heated, directly or indirectly by fossil fuel, of one description or another, while some have no cars?

I some cold countries, like Canada & Alaska, homes must be heated most of the year, 24/7?
I know mine is in the winter and Britain has a 'temperate' climate.

 

[Ray-Vic]

An interesting and balanced post BUT, I am surprised that vehicles use 60+% of fossil fuel.
When one thinks about how many homes around the world are heated, directly or indirectly by fossil fuel, of one description or another, while some have no cars?

I some cold countries, like Canada & Alaska, homes must be heated most of the year, 24/7?
I know mine is in the winter and Britain has a 'temperate' climate.

Yes they are surprising but unfortunately factual figures. Electricity production is actually surprising low as more renewable sources are used for this purpose.

Many very cold (Nordic for example) countries use ground source heating methods such as geothermal, which is brilliant, and very cost efficient from both an ecological and financial perspective.

 

[hja]

An interesting and balanced post BUT, I am surprised that vehicles use 60+% of fossil fuel.
When one thinks about how many homes around the world are heated, directly or indirectly by fossil fuel, of one description or another, while some have no cars?

I some cold countries, like Canada & Alaska, homes must be heated most of the year, 24/7?
I know mine is in the winter and Britain has a 'temperate' climate.

Britain has more poorly insulated homes than most of the western world. So even though some other countries may need to heat their homes for longer periods of time, they not be using more energy.

 

[PaulW2]

I'm trying to get my head round 30 million steam powered vehicles (a la Back to the Future) running off gas, wood chip etc

It's an exciting future

 

[Ray-Vic]

Sorry just to explain my post, I did say transportation. That isn't just cars, that includes planes, trains and automobiles.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[L' Hobo]

Yes they are surprising but unfortunately factual figures. Electricity production is actually surprising low as more renewable sources are used for this purpose.

Many very cold (Nordic for example) countries use ground source heating methods such as geothermal, which is brilliant, and very cost efficient from both an ecological and financial perspective.

Yes, I remember when I lived in Sweden and visited my girlfriend's old uncle in a VERY isolated island farm, even his fairly basic farmhouse had TRIPLE GLAZING!

He had just screwed 3 wooden framed windows together on all the windows.

As he said, kept him cooler in the very hot summers and warmer in the very cold winters where draughts were the killer!

 

[Ray-Vic]

Yes, I remember when I lived in Sweden and visited my girlfriend's old uncle in a VERY isolated island farm, even his fairly basic farmhouse had TRIPLE GLAZING!

He had just screwed 3 wooden framed windows together on all the windows.

As he said, kept him cooler in the very hot summers and warmer in the very cold winters where draughts were the killer!

I like his ingenuity

 

[Northernraider]

Yes, I remember when I lived in Sweden and visited my girlfriend's old uncle in a VERY isolated island farm, even his fairly basic farmhouse had TRIPLE GLAZING!

He had just screwed 3 wooden framed windows together on all the windows.

As he said, kept him cooler in the very hot summers and warmer in the very cold winters where draughts were the killer!

My very first flat I made my own double glazing . Single glazed windows and I made perspex hinged panels with draught excluder round them that I could open and close lol. It did the trick as I couldn't afford new windows at the time

 

[Jonno1103]

Extremely difficult.

Even recycling via plasmolysing it is extremely expensive.

If we get to having to use recycled lithium at scale, it's likely that very few will be able to afford a car

When you consider an entry level new VW ID 3, about the same size as a Golf is over £35k I'd argue that even now EV's are becoming unaffordable. Their depreciation is no better than ICE, a 3 year old model is less than £23k.

For me I can see petrol being phased out as it produces far more CO2 than diesel & oil burning ICE can now run on alternatives such as HVO. Scandinavia already has Hydrogen at the pump for HGV's.

In terms of leisure batteries, Lithium is an evolution, a natural progression which has huge advantages of traditional wet lead acid & AGM. Greater discharge, faster charging, longer periods between charging need & far lighter. 4 x 110 Ah lithium weigh the same as 2 traditional lead acid. Power at your finger tips.

Advantages? Easily capable of powering a 2000 - 3000w inverter meaning less burden on the grid, lower dependancy on sites etc.

Gas? Yes it has it's place but it's the least energy efficient fossil fuel around. We're already seeing a huge cull across the UK in terms of refillable tank provision and slowly but surely new leisure vehicles are built to only accomodate smaller bottles.
What's the future for gas? LPG, not so much... the less oil refining we do the less LPG there is... fact of life... and as more stringent type approval regs are brought in year on year there will come a time when pressurised gas bottles will be deemed unsafe.

Flogas are currently designing small lightweight BioLNG tanks which will be cooled by nitrogen canisters. LNG is different, it's liquified using coolant rather than pressure which means a damaged tank full evaporates rather than exploding.

The arguement to this is that LPG is more energy efficient than LNG meaning in order to offset this deficancy an LNG tank will need to be larger in order to offer the same gross output as LPG.

Let's be honest though, regardless of what is actually available now or in the short term there must be a viable price point for alternatives and for us on the ground that's probably over a decade away.

 

[PaulW2]

When you consider an entry level new VW ID 3, about the same size as a Golf is over £35k I'd argue that even now EV's are becoming unaffordable. Their depreciation is no better than ICE, a 3 year old model is less than £23k.

I would be quite interested to see the stats on the service life of these vehicles - how long the batteries last, cost of battery replacement, how many miles the chassis lasts and so on.

This would provide a measure of utility which can be compared.

The question of depreciation is a function of the market - second hand cars are worth a great deal in some countries and not others. I expect that the relative second hand values of EVs in the UK are probably a function of supply and demand and market sentiment rather than residual utility.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Northernraider]

I would be quite interested to see the stats on the service life of these vehicles - how long the batteries last, cost of battery replacement, how many miles the chassis lasts and so on.

This would provide a measure of utility which can be compared.

The question of depreciation is a function of the market - second hand cars are worth a great deal in some countries and not others. I expect that the relative second hand values of EVs in the UK are probably a function of supply and demand and market sentiment rather than residual utility.

When I buy a car it costs about £1 - 1.5k that's it. I can't see ev's ever getting that price with a battery that still works.

There are millions of drivers who also only run cheap runabout cars and you will never convince them to switch to evs. Which is why instead we are slowly being forced. It's yet another think that affects people with lower incomes far more than those with higher.

 

[L' Hobo]

When I buy a car it costs about £1 - 1.5k that's it. I can't see ev's ever getting that price with a battery that still works.

There are millions of drivers who also only run cheap runabout cars and you will never convince them to switch to evs. Which is why instead we are slowly being forced. It's yet another think that affects people with lower incomes far more than those with higher.

And when all the ICE cars are banned, they will wonder why there is a spike in stolen EV's.

 

[meanders]

why there is a spike in stolen EV'

If it's a big enough 'spike' it will kill the on board computers and the car will stop!

 

[Ray-Vic]

I would be quite interested to see the stats on the service life of these vehicles - how long the batteries last, cost of battery replacement, how many miles the chassis lasts and so on.

This would provide a measure of utility which can be compared.

The question of depreciation is a function of the market - second hand cars are worth a great deal in some countries and not others. I expect that the relative second hand values of EVs in the UK are probably a function of supply and demand and market sentiment rather than residual utility.

Servicing costs are one of the very good things about them. I had my first Tesla for 4 years, and in that time I had a pollen filter changed for £47, and they came out to me to do it. Apart from tyres that was it, for 4 years. Other makes differ and some do have set intervals etc. Vic had a Fiat 500 electric and questioned the cost of a service and was told in writing that this included the cost of an oil change!!!

Batteries, depending on vehicle, come with very good warranties. Tesla is 8 years - 150,000 miles, which is pretty reasonable. The last time I asked about a battery swap it was £7k, done by Tesla, but that may have changed as that was about 5 years ago.

 

[PaulW2]

Vic had a Fiat 500 electric and questioned the cost of a service and was told in writing that this included the cost of an oil change!!!

Hilarious!

Reminds me I need to get my van to the farrier for some winter footwear.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Barriesimpson]

In an ever increasing selfish world I have to say I'm past caring , and yeah I know it's controversial but I'll be dead.

All the current ideas to solve the "climate crisis " are purely about money .
Which makes me think either there's no real serious threat or those with power take the Same attitude as me that they'll be dead so who cares.

I agree with you, I'll be dead too. I really couldn't give a damn and I realise that is not politically correct, but I really couldn't.

 

[Plynchy]

Nobody has mentioned aviation, shipping etc. Surely 2 of the biggest consumers of oil?

Take a look on flight radar or marine traffic and the amount of traffic is staggering. Why?
Stop buying plastic crap from China would be one solution to some of it, possibly the biggest CO2 producer on the planet, but why do we need so much air and sea traffic constantly?

 

[Barchetta47]

If only we had seen the light earlier. The electric Porsche I saw earlier today

 

[meanders]

The expert yesterday (Chris Bell UEA and WeatherQuest) said aviation does have an effect but it's tiny compared to worldwide road traffic, heating and cooling, and industry. He also pointed out that it's easy to be critical of some of the less developed countries, but that the resistance of many tin the West to helping those countries to get to where we currently are doesn't help. He also pointed out the logic that a fully loaded plane uses only a tiny amount more fuel than a near epty one as the fuel is used in overcoming drag, and it's the forward motion that creates the lift. The drag does not increase one the aircraft has left the ground as everything is inside the aircraft. One of the issues is water vapour in the atmosphere. Aircraft at height ice up and return that ice to lower altitudes when they come down and the ice then melts. He did not discuss shipping.

 

[Gromett]

Fossil fuel?

Nobody has mentioned aviation, shipping etc. Surely 2 of the biggest consumers of oil?

Take a look on flight radar or marine traffic and the amount of traffic is staggering. Why?
Stop buying plastic crap from China would be one solution to some of it, possibly the biggest CO2 producer on the planet, but why do we need so much air and sea traffic constantly?

I read but can't remember where that the majority of long distance shipping is for bulk goods and predominantly fossil fuels, oil, diesel, coal and gas.
Long distance shipping is likely to see a massive fall in usage.

The remaining long distance shipping will readjust to having to stop to charge. It will take a long time and customers will have to get used to longer lead times for shipping.
When oil demand collapses as it will, a lot of long distance shipping will disappear making the problem less of a thing.

As I say I can't remember where I read it so I asked ChatGPT. you can believe this or not. PLEASE NOTE. This is specifically talking about long distance shipping.
Short and medium distance can be electrified and it already is in some markets.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Plynchy]

So we use loads of oil to move......loads of oil.