Will the transition from fossil fuels be similar to that from Petrol to Diesel?

[Ultra Motor]

So you're saying that the oil used to make electricity doesn't need delivery, drilling, refining etc?

No, just that when people tend to compare like for like they look at an e-car and talk about all the carbon costs of creating the electricity and then compare it to a petrol car without taking into consideration the carbon costs of producing the fuel that goes into it. If they don't it is an unfair argument

 

[flecc]

What you you mean by peak oil? the time when production level has peaked? or the time when demand outstrips supply so much that it's just too stupid to keep burning fossil fuel to heat our homes and have hot running water? If it's the former, we may still not reach peak oil (or generally fossil fuel) for maybe a hundred years or more but if you go with the latter, e-cars will make economical sense pretty soon.

"Peak oil" is the point in time when the maximum rate of global oil extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. No-one can know when that is until long after it has occurred, and we certainly haven't reached it yet. It's been confidently forecast to be about to happen for almost 50 years now and every forecast has been wrong to date. I don't think it's too far away now, possibly about 20 to 30 years, but the turnover into production decline will be slow so it will be felt in prices more than physical shortage for quite a while. Hence my 50 year forecast for i.c. car dominance.

 

[andyh2]

That 2nd definition of peak oil (demand outstripping supply) seems quite likely to be coming sooner rather than later, with the current high growth rates of some very populous countries. No doubt we'll adapt, but we'll leave it late and so make it more difficult than it needs to be.

E-bikes are great, but it probably would have made more sense to have limited the restrictions to power output and let the market come up with how to achieve that. We've probably missed a whole generation of small, light and efficient vehicles by specifying electric power.

Reduce speed limits and have a vehicle taxation / classification system based on power output and vehicle weight. Perhaps a big hike when power output gets above something like 10kw. That way most folk could travel at up to 40-50mph and it would cost a lot more to get to 60mph. I'm sure Ford, Honda, VW etc could come up with something good.

Unfortunately we've all become very attached to our mobile 100mph living rooms that most of the time and especially when commuting have relatively low average speeds.

Mmmm good job I'm not a politician, don't think I'd get many votes!

 

[lemmy]

No, just that when people tend to compare like for like they look at an e-car and talk about all the carbon costs of creating the electricity and then compare it to a petrol car without taking into consideration the carbon costs of producing the fuel that goes into it. If they don't it is an unfair argument

That just doesn't make sense at all to me. The fuel that goes into the car needs drilling etc just the same as the fuel that goes to an electricity generating plant. So in either case, the fuel that is burnt has the same cost (roughly, obviously), whether it is delivered to the generating station or your local Tesco. Then the energy is subject to losses making steam, turning over generators and travelling along the power lines and ultimately being stored inefficiently in a battery.

The official figures for an electric car running on electricity generated from fossil fuel are about 128gm per 100km, for many cars more than that but for modern small cars considerably less. For my 3 year old Peugeot, 119gm per 100km, for example. But some of the latest considerably better.

Electric cars are toys for rich posers, even with their present subsidy, at the moment and will remain so unless there is some major innovation on the horizon in battery technology. I haven't heard of one but maybe someone has?

As it stands, if half of all cars in the UK were to become electric and charged every other night, we would need to roughly double the number of power station we have now. We aren't building power stations fast enough to keep up with our present needs - what hope of building enough to power our transport too?

 

[trex]

Electricity generation does not use refined fuel, but coal or gas. The additional carbon cost to refine gasoline is quite substantial plus life cycle of all the distribution system.
Carbon cost for travelling by car is in the region of 130mg per km, clearly nowhere near as efficient as ebike! If you have to eat extra food to pedal your bike instead of using the motor, growing the the extra food would have higher carbon cost than generating enough electricity to charge your battery etc.
One point of note, Lithium air battery has about 80% energy/kg compared to gasoline.

 

[flecc]

We've probably missed a whole generation of small, light and efficient vehicles by specifying electric power.

Reduce speed limits and have a vehicle taxation / classification system based on power output and vehicle weight. Perhaps a big hike when power output gets above something like 10kw. That way most folk could travel at up to 40-50mph and it would cost a lot more to get to 60mph. I'm sure Ford, Honda, VW etc could come up with something good.

Yes, we could easily halve the amount of fuel used by cars with a more sensible strategy like this. Most of the saving would come from the much higher mpg figures, the rest from the reduction in the longer journeys that high speeds encourage.

 

[Mussels]

have a vehicle taxation / classification system based on power output and vehicle weight. Perhaps a big hike when power output gets above something like 10kw.

That's pretty much what we have now, it has little to do with the environment and lots to do with jealousy. To encourage people to burn less fuel then tax the fuel more, what could be simpler?

 

[eTim]

Consumers are mainly driven by cost, environmental considerations are out the window when spending money is concerned. The general public are not going to buy an evehicle that costs more than twice the cost of a new equivalent oilburning vehicle and only provides 1/5th the performance in range and is slower. The majority couldn't care less about the environment, as long as they can get to work, to the shops, to the cinema and McDonalds. We are a consuming culture not a conserving one and the rest of the world is catching us up fast.

As for the Chinese, well if they can produce cheap oilburning and ecars for their own market, costing a fraction of cars in our own market, then why aren't the West importing and buying their cars also? Because we are stuck in a premium market where the badge is king and owning a premium powerful branded item is worth the money and marks you out amongst your peers. All the electric cars produced so far, with the exeception of the very expensive sports versions, are equivalent to the old granny shopper ebikes of the past, they are not sexy, cool, powerful or useful, will not mark you out as 'special' on the roads and are therefore not worth their premium price.

 

[andyh2]

That's pretty much what we have now, it has little to do with the environment and lots to do with jealousy. To encourage people to burn less fuel then tax the fuel more, what could be simpler?

A basic car like a C1 has a power output of 50kw and VED of only £20 year. I'm thinking that 50kw could have a much higher road tax.

E-bikes are a great example where the legal restrictions actually work pretty well. Bikes are great but less so uphill or with a headwind. Adding the e-assist overcomes those factors to a large degree but the restrictions ensure that the good bits of bikes are retained without the negative impacts that vehicles getting bigger and more powerful entail.

We can still indulge our tendency to want something 'better' and buy a more expensive model if we want / can afford. But the utility basically remains the same once we get above around £1,500-£2,000.

Cars on the other hand is an area where we've been sold / bought into buying bigger better, faster and the utility for most people, especially in cities, does not improve. Once you're out of the rain and not having to rub shoulders with other human beings on public transport we just end up paying more / consuming more for no benefit other than fitting in with, or showing off to, our peers.

 

[eclectic_bike]

My only regret is that I won't be around to drive up in my petrol car in 2060 to say "I told you so!"

Or indeed eat humble pie. In the early 70's global warming was not generally considered likely as the view then was that the pattern of glacial and interglacial periods would continue. However, as new data became available from ice cores it became clear that contemporary increases in CO2 were way above geologic norms. Data and understanding improves and the evidence for global warming is now overwhelming. That of course does not stop a very vocal minority from wishing it was otherwise.

This is similar to Peak Oil where data is now also greatly improved and more accurate assessments of oil field yields and probable reserves now conclude that Peak Oil is either imminent or has already happened. No-one seriously believes that oil will be plentiful in 50 year's time. It will, at best, be restricted and very expensive.

Even if these conclusions are wrong it makes no difference to the need to de-carbonise transport to mitigate climate change. At the moment EVs appear to be the best feasible option of de-carbonising transport. There are significant problems but these can be overcome with universal charging points and battery swapping. The problem of generator capacity is overstated as most charging will take place overnight when capacity is under utilised. This is particularly true for wind turbines that will carry on generating regardless of demand.

 

[banbury frank]

Hi

The answer is within 12 months fuel will be just under £ 2 per liter .Increasing Every week by 1p or 2 p

Diesel now in Banbury £1.43p 52 weeks at 1P per week So Soon £1.99p per liter

Also 30 million cars in the UK . You will see cars dumped at the petrol pumps

when the payment off £150 / £200 on Credit card Fails

3 million cars scraped every year in the UK

If you go back 40 years ago and compare wages then and the cost off petrol

with wages now and fuel today the price is similar

when i was 16 . I used to buy petrol 1/2 gallon at a time it was so expensive

when i was 17 I had a NSU 50 cc moped 1/2 a gallon got me to work for a whole week

Frank

 

[Ultra Motor]

That just doesn't make sense at all to me. The fuel that goes into the car needs drilling etc just the same as the fuel that goes to an electricity generating plant. So in either case, the fuel that is burnt has the same cost (roughly, obviously), whether it is delivered to the generating station or your local Tesco. Then the energy is subject to losses making steam, turning over generators and travelling along the power lines and ultimately being stored inefficiently in a battery.

The official figures for an electric car running on electricity generated from fossil fuel are about 128gm per 100km, for many cars more than that but for modern small cars considerably less. For my 3 year old Peugeot, 119gm per 100km, for example. But some of the latest considerably better.

Electric cars are toys for rich posers, even with their present subsidy, at the moment and will remain so unless there is some major innovation on the horizon in battery technology. I haven't heard of one but maybe someone has?

As it stands, if half of all cars in the UK were to become electric and charged every other night, we would need to roughly double the number of power station we have now. We aren't building power stations fast enough to keep up with our present needs - what hope of building enough to power our transport too?

Hi Lemmy.

OK, to try and make it easier to digest

1. Fossil fuelled cars emissions are mesured at Point of Use (when it is running) and takes no consideration to refining the fuel.

2. Electric car emissions are NOT measured at point of use, they are measured by the carbon cost of producing electricity.

For a fair example a fossil fuelled car should be measured base on A)carbon cost of refinning and delivery fuel + B) emissions produced when operating the car.

E-cars are already measured by A & B, fossil fuelled cars are only meausred based on B yet A is far more harmful.

Hope that makes sense

 

[Mussels]

Consumers are mainly driven by cost, environmental considerations are out the window when spending money is concerned. The general public are not going to buy an evehicle that costs more than twice the cost of a new equivalent oilburning vehicle and only provides 1/5th the performance in range and is slower. The majority couldn't care less about the environment, as long as they can get to work, to the shops, to the cinema and McDonalds. We are a consuming culture not a conserving one and the rest of the world is catching us up fast.

As for the Chinese, well if they can produce cheap oilburning and ecars for their own market, costing a fraction of cars in our own market, then why aren't the West importing and buying their cars also? Because we are stuck in a premium market where the badge is king and owning a premium powerful branded item is worth the money and marks you out amongst your peers. All the electric cars produced so far, with the exeception of the very expensive sports versions, are equivalent to the old granny shopper ebikes of the past, they are not sexy, cool, powerful or useful, will not mark you out as 'special' on the roads and are therefore not worth their premium price.

Environmentally friendly is a premium badge in itself and ecar consumers are probably those with a premium badge sat on their driveway.
If I was to commute by car I would be driving an extra 9,400 miles a year, at a leisurely pace that would use 783 gallons of petrol at a cost of £5000. It's not hard to see that having an ecar makes a lot of sense for some people.

What I'm most unsure about is how they are in winter, a cold misted up car isn't going to make many friends. Maybe you could fit an oil fired heater in the boot?

 

[Straylight]

A lot of the spec sheets I've read say that e-cars have electric heaters (quelle surprise), some even have a feature where you can preset a warm-up time, so it will be nice and toasty when you set off on a cold winter morning. The advantage being that it warms up while still being powered from the mains.

 

[banbury frank]

Hi

To pass a sva test in the UK it must have a windscreen demister

You can use a small self contained heater like the fit in caravans or lorry cabs

NO duty on the Diesel just VAT

Espar Ltd - Products - Eberspacher and Ardic Specialists - Caravan Heating Diesel fired, air heaters

Frank

 

[flecc]

This is similar to Peak Oil where data is now also greatly improved and more accurate assessments of oil field yields and probable reserves now conclude that Peak Oil is either imminent or has already happened. No-one seriously believes that oil will be plentiful in 50 year's time. It will, at best, be restricted and very expensive.

The problem of generator capacity is overstated as most charging will take place overnight when capacity is under utilised. This is particularly true for wind turbines that will carry on generating regardless of demand.

I haven't said plentiful, just that the known and prospects are ok for 20 to 30 years and the slow turnover into decline will bring us to 50 years usage, Frank above is quite right, petrol is not expensive now, it cost far more as a proportion of people's incomes when I first hit the roads motorised 60 years ago.

Charging overnight assumes people will be restricted to the e-car's inadequate ranges which is an excellent way of preventing e-car sales. As for wind turbines, what happens when there's no wind? Are you old enough to remember 1976 and the year of the national long hot summer, months of still air as a high pressure sat motionless over the country.

The downsides of wind power will be seen soon enough as witness the recent announcement of the completion of a field of 100 offshore turbines. One was just about turning, another trying to stir and all the rest motionless while the commentator was telling us how many thousands of homes they were to power (not).

 

[eclectic_bike]

I haven't said plentiful, just that the known and prospects are ok for 20 to 30 years and the slow turnover into decline will bring us to 50 years usage, Frank above is quite right, petrol is not expensive now, it cost far more as a proportion of people's incomes when I first hit the roads motorised 60 years ago.

Charging overnight assumes people will be restricted to the e-car's inadequate ranges which is an excellent way of preventing e-car sales. As for wind turbines, what happens when there's no wind? Are you old enough to remember 1976 and the year of the national long hot summer, months of still air as a high pressure sat motionless over the country.

The downsides of wind power will be seen soon enough as witness the recent announcement of the completion of a field of 100 offshore turbines. One was just about turning, another trying to stir and all the rest motionless while the commentator was telling us how many thousands of homes they were to power (not).

The problems of intermittent supply from wind turbines can be eased by linking them together over a large scale grid, giving a smoothing effect by geographical dispersion. The larger the scale, the greater the smoothing effect. see: http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CFsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ewea.org%2Ffileadmin%2Fewea_documents%2Fdocuments%2Fpublications%2Freports%2FGrids_Report_2010.pdf&rct=j&q=wind%20power%20grid%20eu&ei=vyP7TbenJ5OBhQezzvGnAw&usg=AFQjCNHqxDTFo-oEocWTi_GztMLkdD_1Og&sig2=L-9D30e22jw2GjkKWHzIOw&cad=rja

This can resolve most of the problems but of course other renewables, such as solar and tidal, can plug the gaps with more traditional power generation being on standby to cope with troughs (as already happens).

Interestingly EVs themselves can be incorporated into the grid to enable storage of power for which EV owners can be compensated. See : http://www.ecogeek.org/automobiles/3533-denmark-to-pay-ev-owners-for-their-battery-power?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EcoGeek+%28EcoGeek%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

The more power that can be generated by renewables the less CO2 is emitted and the less we are dependent on unstable countries for oil and gas.

 

[flecc]

Agreed on all that Eclectic_bike, but the costs to get there are immense and the total output a drop in the ocean of our current need, without adding the burden of charging 26 million cars. Even the most optimistic wouldn't forecast us reaching 25% of current needs from renewables within 30 years, but for e-cars to succeed we need to double our current production, making the renewable contribution smaller yet.

But it's those renewable capacity creation costs that are the real crunch point. The electricity user will have to meet them, but the social and political situation means that continuing as as we are will be the expedient cheaper option for decades yet. That's why we are running out of generating capacity now, it's been easier for politicians to sit on their hands and ask us to economise in our usage than take big enough unpopular and expensive decisions.

The most realistic forecast now for our electricity generation need over 30 years is that there'll be some nuclear build and renewable resource construction, both too small and late to cope, and the shortfall will be made up by hastily constructed gas turbine stations running on expensive imported gas. This is similar to what we've done previously, the easy cop-out.

Meanwhile we'll carry on using the ample flow of petrol/diesel from all those new resources I listed before which are larger than the new resources that appeared over 40 years ago and still producing now. Expensive yes, but nowhere near as expensive as renewables.

We'll deal with the global warming issue as before, international conferences with resolutions but no firm agreed targets. After all, global warming is opening up those important northern waters, slashing navigation costs and accessing vast new oil reserves. This is a gift horse which will not be kicked in the mouth as witness the scramble to claim rights in that area by those powerful countries who want the ice to melt

 

[lemmy]

If you look at an e-car and a petrol or diesel car like for like on emissions the e-car emits 0 and the petrol or diesel emits 60/70g/km minnimum

I take your point about the drilling and so on but there seems to me to be an absurdity in the 0 emissions statement. People are now being led to believe that electric cars will solve our emission and future energy problems. Wow! No emissions! We can all drive as big a car as fast as we like and there is no penalty! We can all be green!

In the UK, we cannot even agree what type of power stations we will build, let alone build them. To maintain our present electricity supplies we need to invest £200bn over the next ten years. If we add electric cars into the equation, the power demands increase to a level that we could not meet even if the will was there.

Also, when the government starts losing revenue - it collects the best part of £30bn in fuel tax - how long before it imposes a levy on the juice for electric cars.

I don't think the transition from diesel/ petrol to electricity is a logical one at all. The inadequacies of the battery stymie it. What we need is to avoid the sort of quasi-religious argument that we Brits seem to love, the 'petrol bad electricity good' mode. Neither petrol nor electricity have the long term answers to our personal transportation needs as they stand.

My personal feeling is that the answer lies much more in changing our habits than in scrambling around for technology to maintain the status quo.

The people on this site, using low power electrics combined with pedal power are using a truly modern solution to at least part of the problem and its that kind of intelligent solution that is the future in my book.

 

[indalo]

As nearly every amateur scientist amongst our membership has offered suggestions and explanations regarding future transport type and power generation, I might as well provide my view.

Perhaps in the future when so much of our countryside and shoreline vistas have been completely bespoiled by wind farms, solar panels and tidal power stations, people will realise that we still can't produce enough energy to meet demand. That's the day when people will begin to appreciate how wonderful and cheap nuclear power really is. Of course nuclear power generation is scary stuff but no more so than heart disease or the vast number of cancers the human species can fall victim to and did, long before anyone got round to splitting the atom.

Today, we have over half a century's experience of managing atomic power generation and dealing with its waste product. Britain, France and the US lead the world in all things nuclear and it's easy to forget sometimes that for many years now, there have been warships and submarines sailing the oceans, fuelled by nuclear power plants. We don't normally see them nor come into contact with them so we don't think about them.

However, mention a new nuclear power station is to be constructed on the Suffolk coast or indeed, any coast around the country and people get all upset and form themselves into action groups to resist any attempt to provide cheap fuel. Some probably even understand the necessity of it but it's a case of "not in my backyard!"

It all seems a bit Luddite to me but we're a curious lot in Britain. For example, I can understand why there was such a commotion over a new runway at Heathrow. What I can't understand though is, if we really must have extra flight provision in SE England, why do people object to another runway at Stansted? I can't imagine a more appropriate place for airport enlargement, however I digress.

For me, it seems that in the future, the vast majority of land transport will be electrically driven and our demand for electric power will increase enormously. The beauty of nuclear energy is that it is instantly switchable at source enabling it to meet and deal with the peaks and troughs of consumer demand. Fortunately, I'm not alone in my view as politicians have been convinced after listening to all the arguments and construction of a series of new nuclear stations is imminent.

Meanwhile, I'm off to look out my boots and battle fatigues in case the Argentinians invade the Falklands again.....or perhaps even invade us! That clown Cameron may be a politician but he's certainly no diplomat.....plonker!

Indalo