Gagaryn There are no magic bullets - reliance on fossil fuels can’t be negated quickly - it takes time. I agree that currently renewables can’t provide a solution. But without investment in renewables, renewable technologies don’t improve. It won’t happen soon but like many things - improvement will be gradual until it is sudden.
The real problem is that if we want rid of fossil fuels, we guarantee we can’t do it by investing in renewables. We will always need a set % of gas fired (or even worse oil fired power stations) to take up the slack when the sun or wind isn’t enough, or at night if we have significant solar PV. All because nuclear is an on always tech.
Nuclear power has the Xenon decay problem when attempts are made to move reactors to low power e.g. wind starts blowing, so basically they have to be left at high power and the steam allowed to bypass the turbine. Which really means we didn’t need the wind in the first place. So we have to have enough nuclear to ensure we can function in low/no wind/solar, but that means we always have enough power even when the wind blows and the sin shines.
If Nuclear is the way forward, we need to commit to it and stop building new “renewable infrastructure” that a huge % of is just money down the drain in a nuclear fuelled economy.
All because we don’t have a way of storing enough power…not even close with current capacity of 3 minutes energy storage. I see all the new tech being talked about the realistic energy storage density is miniscule. However it’s all glibly trotted out as we can store the power, new tech etc.. etc.. well we can’t and we are putting our energy security in the hands of a gamble that “something will turn up”, or fusion power is 20 years away etc..
Gagaryn Electric cars are a reasonable analogy - 20 years ago they were only viable for the milkman. Now many people deem them good enough despite the excess cost, still real limitations on range and lack of infrastructure. There has been massive investment in what many saw as a dead duck, things progressed slowly until all of a sudden they are viable solutions for many. And as investment continues, the number of people that see them as viable will increase, the infrastructure will improve, they will become more efficient…
Again with the introduction of electric cars, it’s a good example of how they really fecked things up and I speak from experience. If we wanted to move to electric vehicles, there was one sensible way to do it and the current method was wrong headed, all because it had to be totally 0 emissions, as nothing else was really good enough, and something would turn up!
Well it hasn’t cars are having ever larger, heavier batteries. This isn’t the way, but the net 0 target etc.. scuppered that. So now the average car has a 66 or greater kWh battery, for a range of 210 miles if you don’t go over 55 or 60 are light on the foot and it’s not below 10C outside.
These cars usually do an average of 20-40 miles per day, but lug around a battery capable of 210 miles, and you paid for a battery capable of 210 miles (battery being a large part of the cost). These batteries are considered too small, and they are going bigger. The current standard for electric cars seems to be 3.5 miles per kW
The 210 miles range is an illusion, because only a complete numpty (or making a (YouTube video) would go 210 miles and hope the charge station was working and free. So 210 miles becomes 190 miles (keeping 20 miles in hand)
It gets worse on a long journey…when you charge, anything over 80% takes forever (charge rate reduction), so your next charge gives you 170 miles range, of which you will only use 150, before going to a charge station). We have to have absolutely loads of charge stations if everyone goes electric, and we have only a fraction of what’s needed.
Contrast this with the solution that BMW came up with, and killed and the governments didn’t know enough to push. I drive a 2017 i3 REX, range extender. It has a 28kW battery and lightweight carbon fibre body, the lack of battery and body weight means in summer I can get 4.8-5.2 miles per kW. Or about 140 miles and about 100 in winter. But I can use it all, because It has the range extender, a small petrol engine that can power the car. When the Range extender is empty (2 gallon tank), I can whizz in and out of a petrol station and keep going. Very handy if I am only 20m from home. Pretty much all my charging is done at home and I’m not lugging a huge batter around for those few occasions I need to do a really long journey. However, I can go further than any tesla on the rare occasions I need to, because my car wasn’t designed around an all or nothing philosophy of emissions.
The USA was so stupid, it forced BMW too only make the range extender come on at 6% state of charge. As a result the fuel efficiency of the range extender is completely nadgered and the car keeps running into low power mode. Rather than reduce emissions, the idiots that made the decision, actually increased them. At a low state of charge the engine has to rev it’s guts out to maintain it at a level where the car is driveable. Fuel efficiency is reduced by probably 30%
In the UK we can turn on the extender once the state of charge reaches 70%. When you do that, the car never enters low power mode and fuel efficiency is improved by 33%. I checked it and would get around 53mpg when not allowing the battery to run down completely. On any long journey where I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop to charge. I could kick it on at 70%, do enough of the journey to know I could get home on battery alone, then switch it off. In this way I maximised my efficiency and have never needed to charge anywhere but home. Never had range Anxiety.
But the Rex version of the car was killed immediately the government announced the plans for net zero motering and gave the Rex vehicle no considerations similar to the pure electric vehicle, and the REX involved 4K more cost the price cap for road tax and grant reduction, further helped to effectively kill it. When in reality the range extender done well would have eased the adoption of the electric car, especially if it had been mandated.
Result, bigger and bigger batteries, when 95% of the time they are not being used to more than10-15% of their capacity…how does that make sense..
Our problems need to be solved by compromise on net zero and when, and compromise on using Nuclear.
