Heated Argument Awaits -

[Bill]

Here’s my simple sums on the subject.

There are currently about 33 million cars in the UK and if these were all electric with an average battery capacity of 50 kilowatt hours, that would equate to 1650 Gigawatt hours and that’s nearly five times the total that we currently use.  

Of course, all the batteries wont always be fully charged but don’t forget about all the used repurposed batteries that will be available by then. So with so much capacity, there’s never going to be an issue of it leaving your car with a flat battery.

At the moment our wind and solar is a bit like a hydro system that only works when it rains but the battery technology effectively creates a reservoir that the wind and solar just has to keep topped up. We’re going to need a lot more of it though if we’re ever going to charge all these batteries, not to mention moving home heating from gas.

 

Bill 😊

[Observer II]

Glad we won't see it !     💀

[Bill]

Well, you’d better close your eyes then Obs because it’s already happening. The vehicle to grid technology (V2G) has already been rolled out and people who are using it are making about £800 a year by letting their car charge at cheap rate and then selling it back when demand is high.

The whole process is completely automatic and uses a special two-way charger that unfortunately not many people have yet. So, the amount of storage at the moment isn’t great, but it’s a bit of a no brainer not to do it this way so people will change.

 

Bill 😊

[asperity]

Not me, I won't be getting a car that I neither want or need.

[Bill]

I've just taken my big gas guzzler out to stretch it's legs, so thinking about it, you're probably doing more than me to save the planet.

 

Bill

[Observer II]

Bill, your talking a decade or two before all this gets adopted by all.    

[Bill]

It’s going to take time for sure but given most car makers have brought their electrification plans forward and reduced their deadlines for stopping manufacturing internal combustion, I think we’ll see all this happening very much sooner than later.

At the moment, the vast majority of charge points are simple one-way devices so we’re not really benefiting from the storage but that will change as the economic benefits of electric car feed in becomes more widely known.

I’ve not done the sums but it might even be possible for those that don’t own a car to simply invest in a used battery and a smart charger and make money.

Time to take Mrs Green to have her 18 stiches out.

 

Bill 😊

[asperity]

I take my used batteries to the Asda for recycling................................................

[Bill]

I’ve just been reading up a bit more about this feed in process and it seems that domestic solar can be made to work in a similar way but only when used with batteries. Normally home-grown solar power feeds directly into the home so that you draw less from the grid but if you’re using no power, the solar panels still keep generating so the energy flows into the grid and your meter runs backwards reducing your bill.

That all looks good but without any control, power could be being sent back to the grid at the wrong time when it’s not particularly needed, and when feedback tariffs are at their lowest. Adding a battery and some clever software allows energy to be stored and used only at peak times when electricity is most expensive, then if there’s any left over, sell it back to the grid, again only when needed and the feedback tariff is high.

 

Bill 😊

[Confused52]

4 hours ago, Bill said:

I’ve just been reading up a bit more about this feed in process and it seems that domestic solar can be made to work in a similar way but only when used with batteries. Normally home-grown solar power feeds directly into the home so that you draw less from the grid but if you’re using no power, the solar panels still keep generating so the energy flows into the grid and your meter runs backwards reducing your bill.

That all looks good but without any control, power could be being sent back to the grid at the wrong time when it’s not particularly needed, and when feedback tariffs are at their lowest. Adding a battery and some clever software allows energy to be stored and used only at peak times when electricity is most expensive, then if there’s any left over, sell it back to the grid, again only when needed and the feedback tariff is high.

 

Bill 😊

The Feed-in tariff is not time-dependent, The operators have to buy it even if they do not need or want it. It therefore displaces the amount of supply from spinning generators thus reducing their cost-effectiveness. This tends to make the grid unstable. These feed-in ideas are dangerous and should be dropped. What you suggest would be slightly less dangerous but lead to price inflation at the period of highest demand (think Texas) which would be applied through smart meters which would have to turn off equipment when the user runs out of budget. Is this stupidity even worth considering when the answer is so clearly sensible centralised Nuclear stations without the the costly pricing strategies and market destabilisation. The Feed in nonsense is why the price of nuclear went up because there was priority given to renewables and so the demand for nuclear output could not be certain. We really cannot afford to follow this green stupidity as a society.

[Bill]

It’s not green stupidity Con, it’s 100% certain that all cars will go electric and in doing so create a storage capacity nearly five times that of the entire national grid and you can’t have that much stored power and not use it.

It’s been known for years that mass energy storage could solve many of our supply issues, but the cost of dedicated storage is prohibitively expensive. But this way, the public are providing this storage capacity for free. This will happen whether you’re a tree hugger or the biggest climate change sceptic on the planet.

I can’t understand how you think that a feed in system will destabilize the grid when the whole idea of storage is to provide stability at times of high demand. The technology will evolve not to turn off appliances in the home but to make additional power available from millions of cars sitting in driveways and it’ll be done instantly by intelligent algorithms with zero spin up times. The feed in btw won’t occur if they don’t need it and that too will be defined by the algorithm, so the grid gets stability, and the only variance is the charge in millions of car batteries.

 

Bill 😊

 

[Bill]

Sorry, missed the nuclear bit. The problem as I see it is that just to get a single nuclear station up and running would take at least ten years and then we’d actually have to start thinking of building it. 😊

By that time, we’d effectively have the equivalent of the world’s biggest hydro power scheme that didn’t cost the government a penny and what’s more, it’ll have been supplying the grid in ever increasing amounts from day one rather than waiting twenty years.

We’re currently getting 25% of our power from renewables compared to 17% from nuclear and as more wind and solar are added almost daily, these ratios will continue to increase. We already have enough gas powered stations to meet our current needs so in 20 years’ time when the nuclear plant is just coming online, we’ll have the majority of gas fired stations sitting completely idle on standby.  

 

Bill 😊

[Confused52]

26 minutes ago, Bill said:

Sorry, missed the nuclear bit. The problem as I see it is that just to get a single nuclear station up and running would take at least ten years and then we’d actually have to start thinking of building it. 😊

By that time, we’d effectively have the equivalent of the world’s biggest hydro power scheme that didn’t cost the government a penny and what’s more, it’ll have been supplying the grid in ever increasing amounts from day one rather than waiting twenty years.

We’re currently getting 25% of our power from renewables compared to 17% from nuclear and as more wind and solar are added almost daily, these ratios will continue to increase. We already have enough gas powered stations to meet our current needs so in 20 years’ time when the nuclear plant is just coming online, we’ll have the majority of gas fired stations sitting completely idle on standby.  

 

Bill 😊

No Bill they will not be sitting idle, that yields no revenue. They will have been decommissioned and we wil have an unstable grid. THAT is the green stupidity!

[Confused52]

1 hour ago, Bill said:

It’s not green stupidity Con, it’s 100% certain that all cars will go electric and in doing so create a storage capacity nearly five times that of the entire national grid and you can’t have that much stored power and not use it.

It’s been known for years that mass energy storage could solve many of our supply issues, but the cost of dedicated storage is prohibitively expensive. But this way, the public are providing this storage capacity for free. This will happen whether you’re a tree hugger or the biggest climate change sceptic on the planet.

I can’t understand how you think that a feed in system will destabilize the grid when the whole idea of storage is to provide stability at times of high demand. The technology will evolve not to turn off appliances in the home but to make additional power available from millions of cars sitting in driveways and it’ll be done instantly by intelligent algorithms with zero spin up times. The feed in btw won’t occur if they don’t need it and that too will be defined by the algorithm, so the grid gets stability, and the only variance is the charge in millions of car batteries.

 

Bill 😊

 

That is how you would like it to work but it is not like that at the moment and the current participants like it the way it is. Now how do we change to your more sensible vision?

[Bill]

It’s not a case of me liking it this way Con, I’m simply stating a fact that’s 100% certain to happen. It’s all going to happen so slowly that nobody is going to notice. People are buying electric cars and feed in has already started but I don’t hear anyone complaining and why should they?

As for decommissioning gas turbine stations and replacing them with nuclear, that doesn’t make any sense. Forgetting about the phenomenal difference in decommissioning costs, gas turbines are more suitable for stop start situations as supply and demand fluctuates and nuclear just can’t do that.

Bottom line is that we’ll need more power for both the cars and electric home heating and I reckon it’s going to end up being predominantly none fossil renewables together with the existing nuclear and a lower number of standby gas turbines.  

 

Bill 😊

[Confused52]

1 hour ago, Bill said:

It’s not a case of me liking it this way Con, I’m simply stating a fact that’s 100% certain to happen. It’s all going to happen so slowly that nobody is going to notice. People are buying electric cars and feed in has already started but I don’t hear anyone complaining and why should they?

As for decommissioning gas turbine stations and replacing them with nuclear, that doesn’t make any sense. Forgetting about the phenomenal difference in decommissioning costs, gas turbines are more suitable for stop start situations as supply and demand fluctuates and nuclear just can’t do that.

Bottom line is that we’ll need more power for both the cars and electric home heating and I reckon it’s going to end up being predominantly none fossil renewables together with the existing nuclear and a lower number of standby gas turbines.  

 

Bill 😊

Unfortunately the existing nuclear fleet is past end of life and cannot just carry on. They are operating on special conditions with inspections at an increased rate. That is why we need new ones. Unless the gas turbines are used other than for standby, without any guarantees of funding, they will close down too. Renewables get a free ride on standby and that is what cannot carry on. When car manufacturers are asked where the power is coming from they always just answer that it is government's problem. I agree it is certain to happen and to go wrong. New nuclear can do stop-start by the way.

[Bill]

If we gradually loose half of the nuclear capacity over the next decade, it’s not the end of the world as during that time more renewables will be coming online and the gas turbines have enough reserves to meet any shortfall. Ultimately, a combination of renewables and mass storage will be our main source of energy, until of course I manage to crack the fusion issue. 😊

 

Bill 😊

[asperity]

Unfortunately Bill, your scenario depends on all the ICE vehicles being replaced by EVs. However that isn't the plan. The plan is to get rid of the ICE vehicles while making EV's too expensive for the plebs to buy and forcing them on to buses and trains. The great and the good, of course, will be riding round in their autonomous EV's, probably in Zil lanes, because they are just too important to rub shoulders with the plebs. Without so many EV's requiring charging there will be just enough leccy to keep the lights on and TV for us non-entities. I'm in the happy position of being old enough that I won't be around for this to affect me 😉

[Observer II]

Me neither; if this is their brave new world, they can keep it.    

[Davy51]

Will this future scenario enable lithium rich Afghanistan to hold the world to ransom while all the present major oil producing countries slip into poverty?

[Bill]

Blimey such doom and gloom maybe we should all just slash our wrists and have done with it.

It’ll happen Asp and hopefully most here will still be around to see the changes. I don’t think you even need to understand the technical issues involved to see the direction and speed we’re moving at.

New electric cars are more expensive than their petrol equivalent so if your rich you buy a new one otherwise you do what most of us plebs do and buy a good second hand one. I’ve only ever bought one new car, it cost £26K in 2006 (about £35k in todays terms) If I spent that much today, it’d get me a car that’d outperform my Alfa, run for next to nothing and not break down quite as often so it’s not all bad.

The power demand for these cars will increase steadily but hopefully this will be matched by a similar increase in wind and solar over the same time. The press has the figures for this all over the place so it’s difficult to say for sure just how things will work out. But if there’s more demand for power then there’ll certainly be a push to generate more, creating new jobs and opportunities here in the UK so put that Stanley knife away.

 

Bill 😊

[asperity]

Don't worry Bill, I've no intention of slashing my wrists. If I want to do away with myself I'll watch the DVD of the collected Kier Starmer speeches and die of boredom.

[Observer II]

Well HMG has knocked 15 years off their net zero target, so we're due a cluster of these eco-initiatives - think my current car will see me out, and I'll carry on with the gas C/Heating; plus I'll still be eating meat. I won't be flying though, so the sky high charges will just affect the rich elite, while the peasants are loaded onto over-crowded trains.    

[Confused52]

2 hours ago, Bill said:

The power demand for these cars will increase steadily but hopefully this will be matched by a similar increase in wind and solar over the same time. The press has the figures for this all over the place so it’s difficult to say for sure just how things will work out. But if there’s more demand for power then there’ll certainly be a push to generate more, creating new jobs and opportunities here in the UK so put that Stanley knife away.

 

Bill 😊

I suspect that part of your analysis is less likely than the rest. Adding these sites is already costing us a great deal in green network enhancement charges. Must of the capacity is in Scotland and an independent Scotland will try and support itself by hiking the rates for exporting wind power. I expect England to respond by turning it off and starving the Scots; this will be faster than the rollout of electric vehicles and the government will be able to blame te SNP for scuppering its green plans. - result.

[Bill]

Interesting to see this afternoon that 25% of our electricity was shown coming from grid based solar and given that the grid can’t show power from domestic panels of which there are even more of, then today, solar probably accounted for more than half the total energy needs of the entire country. Not bad for April and a pity we don’t get more sunny days like this.

 

Bill 😊