Author Topic: Electric cars  (Read 695277 times)

culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #180 on: September 15, 2017, 09:27:32 PM »
But once we have cheap renewable energy that we can "waste"!

Solar and wind technology, after 50 years of subsidies, produces less than 1 percent of the world’s energy

there is installed capacity to provide about 7%,  but as we have seen with wind and solar  'installed capacity' bears no relation to actual power produced.  Nuclear provides more energy than renewables, and over 90% of world energy still comes from fossil fuels - renewables are not even keeping up with the increase in world energy requirements,  let alone making even a dent in the basic requirements.

Just underlines that 'there is no fuel like an old fuel' .............

Government (read - 'taxpayer') subsidies of renewables are muddying the water on the economic case,  much like the French farmers made a lot of money from EU Common Agricultural Policy by just owning a farm (whether it produced any food was neither here nor there) people are building renewables and in most cases they would not make economic sense without subsidies - nuclear is still the cleanest most reliable energy source but is being stifled by the skewing of the energy market that subsidies always produce.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2017, 08:21:54 AM by culzean »
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Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #181 on: September 16, 2017, 08:37:00 AM »
And you don't think nuclear is subsidised? Or oil, gas and even coal? The oil industry has just gone to Mrs May this week, asking for more government (taxpayer) handouts.
And according to the World Bank data, in 2014 renewables were at 22%, and rising rapidly.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.RNEW.ZS?view=chart
With the UK at 19%.

sparky Paul

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #182 on: September 16, 2017, 09:12:36 AM »
I have always thought that the answer is tidal energy, it is an immense and largely untapped source of energy. Wind may come & go, but you can't turn the moon off.

They are currently testing a single 2MW floating tidal rig in Orkney that has produced 116MWh over the period of a week, 7% of Orkney's total electricity consumpton. Estimates vary, but most agree that there is enough energy in the Pentland Firth to produce at least 50% of Scotland's electricity needs, some say over 100% with improving technology.

culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #183 on: September 16, 2017, 09:44:30 AM »
I have always thought that the answer is tidal energy, it is an immense and largely untapped source of energy. Wind may come & go, but you can't turn the moon off.

They are currently testing a single 2MW floating tidal rig in Orkney that has produced 116MWh over the period of a week, 7% of Orkney's total electricity consumpton. Estimates vary, but most agree that there is enough energy in the Pentland Firth to produce at least 50% of Scotland's electricity needs, some say over 100% with improving technology.

My thoughts exactly,  wind and solar are too reliant on things that are not reliable enough to power our energy hungry society - the wind is not at all reliable or predictable, and turbines only operate in 'goldilocks' too little wind (below about 15 mph) = no power,  too much (over about 40mph) = no power as the turbine blades have to be feathered to protect the turbine.   Solar is too variable as well,  daytime cloud can reduce output to less than 10% of rated capacity, and in winter we only get at most 7 hours of daylight,  and only about 4 hours of that is useful to generate energy.   All the variability of renewables is making controlling the grid very challenging, making sure voltage and power levels are within legal useable values.

here is another source of fossil fuels yet to be tapped
http://e360.yale.edu/features/the-world-eyes-yet-another-unconventional-source-of-fossil-fuels-methane-hydrates
« Last Edit: September 16, 2017, 12:16:23 PM by culzean »
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Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #184 on: September 16, 2017, 03:48:33 PM »
The opening paragraph kind of says it all.
Vast quantities of methane hydrates — frozen deposits of natural gas on the sea floor — exist worldwide. But as experimental drilling moves forward, many experts question the wisdom of exploiting a costly, environmentally risky trove of fossil fuels that will accelerate global warming.
Regarding wind turbines. The current designs of commercial wind turbines operate up to 55 mph. I live near a wind farm and there is very little time that one or more of them is not working. Usually when a turbine is stationary it is either down for maintenance of surplus to requirements (enough energy being delivered by generators that cannot be shut down quickly).
Tidal is definitely the way to generate a steady supply of electricity. The Solway Firth, Morecambe Bay area is the best for large tides. The Forth is very good too. The Pentland Firth and Orkney area is actually rather poor. Their popularity is probably because variations in height, between low and high tide, are not too extreme. After all, it is still in its infancy, relatively speaking.

madasafish

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #185 on: September 16, 2017, 07:26:51 PM »
Tidal power is great, but it is a unique energy source which can be frequently totally destroyed for years due to natural events which were considered extreme when the installation was designed..  (eg 200 mph hurricanes, force 7 gales etc...)

sparky Paul

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #186 on: September 16, 2017, 07:49:25 PM »
The Solway Firth, Morecambe Bay area is the best for large tides. The Forth is very good too. The Pentland Firth and Orkney area is actually rather poor.

I was always under the impression that The Pentland Firth was potentially one of the best sites for tidal power, the tidal race through the Firth is one of the fastest in the world.

Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #187 on: September 16, 2017, 08:52:38 PM »
It depends on the type of tidal generator. A turbine type works great in a fast current (Pentland Firth). For the rise and fall type of generator you want a large variation between high and low tide (Solway Firth)

sparky Paul

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #188 on: September 16, 2017, 09:59:07 PM »
I think that turbines are the thing up there, they are playing with floating rigs and seabed anchored types.

peteo48

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #189 on: September 16, 2017, 10:02:02 PM »
I think the points Culzean makes about the ability of the grid to handle the variable power that come from the current crop of renewables are valid but, in my view, that is not an argument for not using them. It's an argument for a mixed economy in energy generation and that will include nuclear.

I watched a very good "Fully Charged" video on the work being done on Orkney. The 2 guys Robert Llewellyn was speaking to were not tree huggers but serious engineers. They opined that the current grid couldn't cope with more than about 25 to 30% renewables. It could cope with more if battery storage was part of the mix and more again if tidal (a largely unvariable renewable source) was deployed.

Another interesting point arose from some new houses being built there. Each house came with a Tesla power wall as standard. They also had a small solar array on the roof. The reason it wasn't larger was there was so much wind power on Orkney that the grid there simply couldn't cope with all the renewable energy being produced. On top of that, insulation standards were so high that the houses were only just below "passive house" standards - ie properties that required no heat.

We don't need to be burning stuff - time to move beyond the stone age. Fossil fuels have made a huge contribution but their time is gone. Oil is needed for other stuff - let's not keep burning it.

culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #190 on: September 17, 2017, 09:27:22 AM »
I think the points Culzean makes about the ability of the grid to handle the variable power that come from the current crop of renewables are valid but, in my view, that is not an argument for not using them. It's an argument for a mixed economy in energy generation and that will include nuclear.

Due to variability of wind power, some countries use it for pumping water up into storage dams so they can use the hydro as and when they need it. They don't even try to wind directly to feed into grid.

here is an extract from an article on wind power..........

The main drawback in the use of wind energy for the generation of electricity is the intermittent nature of its source. Wind is extremely variable and there is no guarantee that it will blow when it is most needed.
For this reason, large scale integration of wind is a threat to the stability and reliability of utility grids hosting wind energy conversion systems. Moreover, wind power does not help in providing any of the ancillary services such as regulation reserves, voltage control and frequency control and therefore requires a substantial capacity of conventional energy generation that can provide regulation reserve to follow the wind power.
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Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #191 on: September 17, 2017, 10:19:58 AM »
I think, that as storage becomes cheaper and more efficient, this will become less of a problem. As I said earlier, often when you see turbines stationary it is because they have no use for the energy they could be producing. More and better storage would mitigate this. And we are not necessarily talking about Tesla Powerwalls here. Molten salt is used to store solar energy, but there is no reason why it could not be used to store energy produced by wind. Nowhere near as efficient, but if the energy is produced cheap enough then efficiency becomes less of an issue. They have even been used compressed air storage (since 1978), and flywheel storage! Options that become more attractive as the cost of generation goes down.
China is investing billions in renewables, and to recoup those billions they will want to sell to the rest of the world.

sparky Paul

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #192 on: September 17, 2017, 01:24:40 PM »
Another interesting point arose from some new houses being built there. Each house came with a Tesla power wall as standard. They also had a small solar array on the roof. The reason it wasn't larger was there was so much wind power on Orkney that the grid there simply couldn't cope with all the renewable energy being produced. On top of that, insulation standards were so high that the houses were only just below "passive house" standards - ie properties that required no heat.

Orkney is a net exporter of electricity, but the cable to Scotland is often running at capacity, and there is no sign of any investment to improve the link. There are a number of options being explored to prevent (expensive) forced turbine shutdowns when the grid is unable to accept the electricity generated, such as the experiments with hydrogen production for the ferries, and heating initiatives on the North Isles to dump excess electricity into domestic storage heaters at discounted rates.

Orkney has a relatively high requirement for domestic heating. Although most new build is of high quality and very energy efficient, there is also a large stock of traditional housing which is very poor thermally.

The problem with the abundance of energy in places like Orkney, and to some extent some off shore wind, and even nuclear generation, is the transmission distances required. The electricity is simply not where it is needed, and transmission losses can be very significant with current technology. It is no accident that coal fired generation was built in a pattern radiating out from major population centres.

As Jocko said, the answer to wind/solar is storage. However, the grid and generation facilities are now being built around these unreliable renewable sources of electricity, and vast amounts of money are being poured into accommodating long term supply contracts for peak demand supply. I live near two 2GW coal fired power stations slated for closure soon, a new gas fired station of similar capacity has been built behind one, a new fast response gas station is being built now, and plans are emerging for another fast response gas station on the same site.

culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #193 on: September 17, 2017, 03:12:43 PM »
Another interesting point arose from some new houses being built there. Each house came with a Tesla power wall as standard. They also had a small solar array on the roof. The reason it wasn't larger was there was so much wind power on Orkney that the grid there simply couldn't cope with all the renewable energy being produced. On top of that, insulation standards were so high that the houses were only just below "passive house" standards - ie properties that required no heat.
a new gas fired station of similar capacity has been built behind one, a new fast response gas station is being built now, and plans are emerging for another fast response gas station on the same site.

I don't understand why gas is used to make electricity (except as a cheap and quick short term 'patch'  to build replacement for other 'dirtier' fossil fuels),  conversion efficiency of gas to electric energy is about 40 to 45%  and then transmission losses.  You can burn that same gas in a domestic condensing boiler at over 90% efficiency - pretty much double the efficiency, even a 'low tech' gas boiler will get over 80% -  what a waste of gas.......................................
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #194 on: September 17, 2017, 07:19:01 PM »

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