Motorhome evolution in a diesel-banned future

Sounds to me that like most things , it hasn't been executed well.. The people in the know , are aware of what needs to happen , but a political agenda means that the things that need to be in place to ensure that stuff actually has a benefit, are ignored.

So we will be paying to turn off stuff, and when we need it , it wont deliver . And then we are going to force people into electric cars .

I can see that being a success.


Jon Ferris, of energy consultants Utilitywise, said the report showed that “the energy system has grown without strategic planning”.

“We have too much inflexible generation for summer demand, [and] dangerously little flexible generation for winter demand,” he said. “Current policy isn’t going to resolve this dilemma, yet the solutions – more interconnectors, demand response, storage and flexible generation - have been known for years.”
 
PhilG said:
This article in the telegraph shows the reality of renewable energy .... paying to turn off wind turbines that we subsidized the building of.
Let that sink in . Paying to not get 'free power' .

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...h-electricity-this-summer-national-grid-fore/
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This is a well known issue and is the reason we are starting to heavily invest in Grid scale storage. This is a very short term issue and nothing more than a growing pain...

With Grid Scale storage excess electricity will be stored, then released when demand is high. This means our effective peak generating requirement is reduced.

Using old school generators like Gas and Coal, there was a similar situation. During peak demand they would all be switched on and generating at maximum capacity. At low demand points during the day they would by wound down or switched off altogether. With Gas and Coal plants though you can't switch them off totally as it takes too long to get them back up to temperature and generating steam.. So they were really inefficient and burnt fuel even when not generating power.

The other advantage of Grid scale storage is that it is installed near demand not near supply. So the problems with transferring power from one area to another is solved by doing it over time rather than in big lumps.

Let that sink in, we have always paid to not get power... There is a solution and it is being rolled out now.

https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/blogs/the_fast_moving_pipeline_of_the_uks_grid_scale_storage
 
PhilG said:
I have had diesel cars since 1985, in 1992 they accounted for 18% of the market , and had been around since the 1980's , and in 2010 they outsold petrol, because the experts of the day said they were safer.

I grew up in world where main roads went through the town centre and lorries used them with exhausts that belched smoke out directly onto the pavement, the air is nothing like that now, and hasnt been for 20 years.

In 2010 diesel was the future , now all of a sudden it isnt, i dont buy it... its a shame that these scientists that seen to be able to blame this stuff on the ICE cant find the link between Autism and excessive vaccinations.. as it stands now, at current rates, by 2025 every other child in the UK will be an Autistic Romanian.

I cant present evidence because they wont bloody tell us , premamture death of 5 years i would worry about , 5 weeks , i'd be pissed off, but it wasnt even days... i will find it.
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Thing is there are a lot more different airborne contaminants now, like microscopic insect parts from UV insecticutors.....I very much doubt stuff like that has been bought into the equation. Also How many of those kids are breathing in cigarette and/ or vaping smoke ???

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PhilG said:
Sounds to me that like most things , it hasn't been executed well.. The people in the know , are aware of what needs to happen , but a political agenda means that the things that need to be in place to ensure that stuff actually has a benefit, are ignored.

So we will be paying to turn off stuff, and when we need it , it wont deliver . And then we are going to force people into electric cars .

I can see that being a success.


Jon Ferris, of energy consultants Utilitywise, said the report showed that “the energy system has grown without strategic planning”.

“We have too much inflexible generation for summer demand, [and] dangerously little flexible generation for winter demand,” he said. “Current policy isn’t going to resolve this dilemma, yet the solutions – more interconnectors, demand response, storage and flexible generation - have been known for years.”
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As I said OFGEM had to impliment its emergency shut down plan last winter for businesses using high amounts of electricity as the grid ran out. Despite all the green talk the reality is the UK in winter is on a supply knife edge and greenwash and greed has got us to this point.
The other important thing to note is that UK nuclear power has been on full chat for almost every day for well over a year, presumably so the UK can appear to be meeting pollution targets, there will be an awful lot of nuclear waste from this that will need dealing with for generations to come. http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk
 
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I note Elsie McSelfie not content with plunging Scotland into recession has now decided to ban the ICE from 2032......has she taken on Theresa Mays ex advisors ??? Ban the fuel from oil that is going to make indipendent Scotland rich beyond its dreams :rofl: Most of the cars I see with SNP stickers on are clapped out pieces of crap :clap2:shes going to alienate even more voters :hi5:
 
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Someone earlier mentioned "Green peace" (spit!). They lost credibility when they made the BIG mistake over the "Brent Spar". Which as I understand it is STILL in a Norwegian fiord rotting quietly, and will cost lives IF anyone has ever the Balls to dismantle It. The best result was (is) still to sink the B1stard in the Atlantic to become a reef for the next generation of Marine life!. It was (is) under those conditions no worse then the vast numbers of Merchant (4000+) and other ships SUNK by the Germans in WW1 and 2.
 
I have been having a bit of a think about some of the complaints about electric cars and renewable energy and I think I have a solution that means you won't have to pay for them in any way...

How about we price up all externalities of all means of energy production and transport. Then the companies and users have to pay for those externalities.

For instance lets make a mathematical calculation of how much global warming will cost everyone in the country. Let's err on the side of caution and use minimal figures. Then charge each power station and car by the amount of CO2 they emit. We can do the same for other pollutants. For instance, let's charge plastics companies based on how much plastic is released into the environment etc etc. Lets price in all externalities that have a national or global impact.

This will have two effects. It will push companies to pollute less. Secondly and more importantly this raise money for clean ups, the health service and to subsidise clean producers and vehicles until they have reached mass market scale. The money could go into things like grid scale storage as well to make the grid more stable.

This means that we don't need to ban diesel or petrol cars, so those who refuse to believe electric vehicles can be made to work can continue to use petrol/diesel but will pay their share of the damage they are doing.

The externalities of energy production and transport are costs borne by all of use that invisibly subsidise carbon intensive industries... Let's make them pay their share :p

Now obviously I am not serious about this idea. It was just a bit of a giggle, but it may make some people look at the 2040 ban in a better light :p :D

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funflair said:
Im not sure how well some of those panels will work? what with those on the door, locker doors and awkward corners/areas being stick on photographs of real panels.

Martin
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I can't see that any amount of solar would be anything like enough to power the motive battery. But that seems to be what the article is claiming. Maybe a spoof, it doesn't pay to believe everything you see on t'internet!
 
On a constitutional note?. Maybe "crowdfunding" a legal challenge to UK Government, to the effect that what they are doing is denying a freedom of choice to the population, by arbitrarily banning the usage of Diesels?. Penalising a percentage of the Populous who do not have the means to afford this change. It`s Akin to moving the Retirement age, which in my view was also a Breach Of Contract as is Underfunding the NHS too!:whistle2::whistle2:
 
PeteH said:
On a constitutional note?. Maybe "crowdfunding" a legal challenge to UK Government, to the effect that what they are doing is denying a freedom of choice to the population, by arbitrarily banning the usage of Diesels?. Penalising a percentage of the Populous who do not have the means to afford this change. It`s Akin to moving the Retirement age, which in my view was also a Breach Of Contract as is Underfunding the NHS too!:whistle2::whistle2:
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I thought they were talking about banning the sale of new diesel powered rather that "the usage of Diesels"

Martin

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Mr Chrysalis said:
I can't see that any amount of solar would be anything like enough to power the motive battery. But that seems to be what the article is claiming. Maybe a spoof, it doesn't pay to believe everything you see on t'internet!
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What happens at night or in northern latitudes of Scotland in winter when it can be dark and/or no sun for weeks ???? With OFGEM having to implement emergency grid use shutdowns at present in UK winters how on earth are millions of vehicles going to be charged through the grid ??????
 
campa cola said:
Same thing....
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Not at all, sale of new and usage of old are two completely different scenarios, and if you read what they are actually saying it will be Petrol and Diesel "only" so hybrids will still be sold I think, so what % needs to be electric to a be a hybrid?

Martin
 
campa cola said:
What happens at night or in northern latitudes of Scotland in winter when it can be dark and/or no sun for weeks ???? With OFGEM having to implement emergency grid use shutdowns at present in UK winters how on earth are millions of vehicles going to be charged through the grid ??????
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Don't underestimate our capabilities. Imagine we'd just invented the internal combustion engine. How on earth are we going to suck oil from a mile deep ocean floor. Turn it into a viable fuel.and that's just the start How will we ship enough it to evey country in the world and even then have an outlet on most every street corner. Sounds impossible. But in just one generation it happened :D
 
PeteH said:
On a constitutional note?. Maybe "crowdfunding" a legal challenge to UK Government, to the effect that what they are doing is denying a freedom of choice to the population, by arbitrarily banning the usage of Diesels?. Penalising a percentage of the Populous who do not have the means to afford this change. It`s Akin to moving the Retirement age, which in my view was also a Breach Of Contract as is Underfunding the NHS too!:whistle2::whistle2:
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They have given us 23 years notice of the ban. Not really a hardship...


campa cola said:
What happens at night or in northern latitudes of Scotland in winter when it can be dark and/or no sun for weeks ???? With OFGEM having to implement emergency grid use shutdowns at present in UK winters how on earth are millions of vehicles going to be charged through the grid ??????
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A couple of points here. Scotland generates more electric than it uses.. It is a net exporter of electric. It is well on it's way to becoming a fully renewable powered nation.
OFGEM implement those grid shutdowns not due to a lack of electricity but due to electricity not being in the right places.. The regional interconnects cannot handle the transfer of power from those areas producing an excess to those with a deficit. They need to do two things to fix this, grid scale storage rollout which is happening and improved regional transfer capacity...

As I have said multiple times before. The figures for recharging is that 90% of people charge over night. This demand will actually help balance the grid. Secondly the remaining 10% don't all charge at once during the day. With local battery storage installed to buffer peaks in demand and grid scale storage to handle frequency balancing this will not be an issue. Remember we have 23 years to resolve this issue. It is not insurmountable and is really only a technical detail in the grand scheme of things.

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Gromett said:
Last winter...

http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...able-energy-power-national-grid-a7517066.html

This July
http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...omes-118-per-cent-of-households-a7855846.html
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Like I have always said this is smoke and mirrors. I think it was Xmas 2014 and the UK wind power system was producing NOTHING, which means that all those thousands of large turbines on their cold weather maintainence cycle were taking power out of the grid, in a cynical misrepresentation of the facts.
The German press is full of the same hokum, but what isn't said is that despite all the thousands of wind turbines and solar panels across Germany they still rely on a sulphur coal backbone much of the time and will do so for decades.

In the UK nuclear power and gas is the main reason coal is not online, and nuclear has been on full capacity 24/7 for well over the last year, as soon as the wind reduces down and demand is high coal is back on line (wind only produces 25-28% of the time without any calculation for maintenance cycles). The UK (as far as I know) has no long term nuclear waste facility, so basically CO2 is being exchanged for nuclear waste which will be around for generations to deal with, that is the reality at present.
From the most recent figures for Scotland it seems use of gas is the MAIN reason for reduced emissions not renewables. http://www.ref.org.uk/press-releases/339-how-green-was-2016-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ream-requires-a-huge-cheque-from-England.html
 
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campa cola said:
Like I have always said this is smoke and mirrors. I think it was Xmas 2014 and the UK wind power system was producing NOTHING, which means that all those turbines on their cold weather maintainence cycle were taking power out of the grid, in a cynical misrepresentation of the facts.
The German press is full of the same hokum, but what isn't said is that despite all the thousands of wind turbines and solar panels across Germany they still rely on a sulphur coal backbone much of the time and will do so for decades.

In the UK nuclear power is the main reason coal is not online, and nuclear has been on full capacity 24/7 for well over the last year, as soon as the wind reduces down and demand is high coal is back on line (wind only produces 25-28% of the time without any calculation for maintenance cycles). The UK (as far as I know) has no long term nuclear waste facility, so basically CO2 is being exchanged for nuclear waste which will be around for generations to deal with, that is the reality at present.
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The UK has never seen a period of zero wind across the whole country I don't believe. I have also said in the past that we are only just starting to get wind power going in the last decade. It won't happen overnight. We have gone from practically nothing (1.5%) of our total electricity produced by wind in 2008 to over 12% of our total electricity produce by wind in 2016. The rate of growth is accelerating so in another 10 years I wouldn't be surprised to see 30%... As for wind not producing enough.. That is what grid scale storage is all about.

I also point out that I am not a proponent of Wind only. We have to have solar and tidal energy as well as other renewables. Grid scale storage, demand management and variable pricing all have their part to play.

Absolutely no one is saying wind on it's own is the answer...

PS: Wind capacity factor is determined by location and size. Good locations have a capacity factor of up to 45% and more recent (more efficient) ones are usually in the 35-40% range not the 25-28% range you quote. The annual average including the old less efficient ones is currently 37%...
 
Gromett said:
The UK has never seen a period of zero wind across the whole country I don't believe. I have also said in the past that we are only just starting to get wind power going in the last decade. It won't happen overnight. We have gone from practically nothing (1.5%) of our total electricity produced by wind in 2008 to over 12% of our total electricity produce by wind in 2016. The rate of growth is accelerating so in another 10 years I wouldn't be surprised to see 30%... As for wind not producing enough.. That is what grid scale storage is all about.

I also point out that I am not a proponent of Wind only. We have to have solar and tidal energy as well as other renewables. Grid scale storage, demand management and variable pricing all have their part to play.,

Absolutely no one is saying wind on it's own is the answer...

PS: Wind capacity factor is determined by location and size. Good locations have a capacity factor of up to 45% and more recent (more efficient) ones are usually in the 35-40% range not the 25-28% range you quote. The annual average including the old less efficient ones is currently 37%...
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OK I well thanks for that information, I will accept those figures, but only if transmission losses etc have been accounted for and turbine maintainence cycles involving taking taking electricity from the grid are included and accounted for also:ROFLMAO:o_OI would really like to accurately estimate that amount of electricity used for that purpose as it interests me.......:) I do know turbines have to be run up to full power during routine maintainence Checks. Also the big ones need to powered up a lot from grid electricity in cold/freezing conditions, which in Scotland and at sea is often during the winter, to stop fluids freezing and blade icing.
If we have another winter like in 2009/10 in much of Scotland there would be a major issue with wind turbines. In that winter it was sub zero up north for 2 months with little wind as a high pressure was often dominant, -22 where I was, Plenty of frozen precipitation as well. So those Scottish wind turbines at the time where on maintainence cycles much of the time whilst producing little energy when it was most needed. If that happens again or something like it, wind again would be useless and worse taking a lot of energy to run!

I have toured a lot around Germany and much of rural East Germany is a mess compared to just a few short years ago in IMHO.....thousands of wind turbines and a choking mono culture of rape seed affecting the ecology in both a physical and in the whole food chain as well. Impacting greatly on bats owls etc who all digest insects full of rape seed and are also being killed at an alarming rate by hitting turbines (so are Baltic bats being killed by German turbines as well there is a report on that) . The East Germans have now supplemented what was left from Stalin's 'war on the countryside' with west Germany's power requirements. What worries me is that this is how many politicians want parts of Scotland to end up like that.

BTW the nuclear waste part is a serious issue as a part of the way the grid is being run. Also I believe some of these plants are due for decommissioning in the next decade. So there will be a big reliable energy gap there that will need filling with something big and reliable......
 
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All the problems you specify also happen to normal power stations. Gas power stations when not generating suck a lot more power out of the grid to keep the ancillary gear running, heaters and lights for staff etc etc. A lot more power is sucked by a traditional power station than a wind turbine. As for maintenance cycles, they are not as often as you appear to have been led to believe.... Maintenance happens once per year and the length of time varies per manufacturer. But from what I have read 3-5 days to do all the tasks with only 1 day with any interruptions to production.. This is not a full day, just a period during one day where maintenance activities require the blades to not be turning.

I agree with you to a point on what Germany is doing. They are stopping nuclear and going to soft coal because of Fukashima and have put in place a renewables law that is going to be expensive and hard to achieve... In the meantime they are using soft coal at a rate of knots.

As for nuclear. The amount of waste by volume is manageable when compared to the damage done by Global Warming from the CO2 we are spewing out into the atmosphere.

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Gromett said:
There is 22 years left until the ban. Batteries fell in price last year by 40%...
Tesla say they are aiming to drop the price of batteries by 30% when their Gigafactory opens fully.

Historically they have fallen by half every 10 years but this is ramping up now due to mass production caused by demand and the cartel has now been busted.

So the cost of batteries won't be an issue in the future...

On the weight front, When you remove the Diesel engine, transmission, gear box, diesel tank and the rest of the drive train and replace with electric you lose one hell of a lot of weight. This is offset by the weight of the batteries to a degree. However the weight difference currently is around 100KG in the examples I have seen.

Manufacturers will work to get rid of that 100KG excess as demand builds. Lighter braking systems is one example..

For motorhomes.. We won't need to carry leisure batteries any more in a fully electric vehicle so that is 40-80KG of weight loss there already.

I think for most people a 200 mile range will be enough as there will be super chargers everywhere... A 200 Mile range electric motorhome is practical now. By 2040 they will be easily practical and cost effective. I personally would be ok with a vehicle capable of 100-150 Miles as I don't drive for more than 2 hours without taking a coffee/toilet break. Half an hour on charge every 2 hours would suite me just fine.

I honestly don't think hybrids are a workable solution for motorhomes as the added weight of a petrol engine sufficiently powerful enough to move a 3.5T motorhome would make them impractical from a payload point of view. It will either have to be fully electric or full petrol/LPG..
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There are a number of issues in this whole Electric car business which needs solving first.

1. Fast and super fast charging kills batteries (even Lithium)
2. Super fast charging has a much higher loss of energy than slow charging - no accurate data that I can find, Superfast is the only way it can practically deliver a usable system for roadside re charge.
3. Availability of Lithium: Teslas plans alone for Electric Cars and massive storage batteries reduce the know reserves of Lithium (this years consumption rate) from 300 odd years to 14 years. That includes the know reserves and the estimated known and unexploited reserves.

At least I will probably be dead by the time the ban comes in!!!

Note that Angela Merkel has stated publically that Germany does not agree with an end date to the diesel!

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