Another sad day

[Buckman]

Probably - there's a significant minority of drivers determined not to buy an EV by that date so there's likely to be a flood of IC purchases in 2029 and car makers are likely to start 2030 with minimal inventory of IC cars - and the demand for used IC cars will go up as the target EV % ramps up and car makers either restrict IC sales or increase prices of IC cars to cover the fines.

It's already clear that many buyers are holding on to their used IC car much longer than normal, presumably with the intention of buying one more IC car before the ban comes in.

In the mean time, China will continue flooding the UK and EU markets with cheap, subsidised EVs - which will undercut UK and EU manufacturers driving some of them out of business - then the price of Chinese EVs will shoot up!

Our Energy Secretary justifies the mad dogmatic dash to decarbonise our national electricity grid by claiming it will free us from dependence on the fossil fuels of foreign dictators. The only dictatorship from which we import a reasonable amount of gas is the Gulf state of Qatar, nominally a friend? We import a lot of gas from the US?

In fact, far from freeing us from the need to cosy up to nasty autocrats to keep our homes warm and our appliances running, the dash to decarbonise the grid by 2030 will put us in hock to the biggest dictatorship of all which is China.

Certainly is a very big worry.

 

[Buckman]

Reading an article already the cost of second hand cars is increasing. The cost of a second hand Renault Captur and the Prius + has risen by over 17% in the past year. Several other models have also seen prices rise by up to 14%. Data supplied by Cap HPI data.

 

[Dustydog]

Our Energy Secretary justifies the mad dogmatic dash to decarbonise our national electricity grid by claiming it will free us from dependence on the fossil fuels of foreign dictators. The only dictatorship from which we import a reasonable amount of gas is the Gulf state of Qatar, nominally a friend? We import a lot of gas from the US?

In fact, far from freeing us from the need to cosy up to nasty autocrats to keep our homes warm and our appliances running, the dash to decarbonise the grid by 2030 will put us in hock to the biggest dictatorship of all which is China.

Certainly is a very big worry.

Fully agree

And most bits for our green solar panels come from China who can still boast one new coal fired power station a week!

Shipping gas across the Atlantic ? What a joke 😡

We are doing so well keeping clean at the expense of others!

We really need to be doing things to be self supporting and. clean.

 

[otherclive]

Fully agree

And most bits for our green solar panels come from China who can still boast one new coal fired power station a week!

Shipping gas across the Atlantic ? What a joke 😡

We are doing so well keeping clean at the expense of others!

We really need to be doing things to be self supporting and. clean.

Agree as there are comments coming from the US that if more gas isn’t purchased tariffs may be imposed.

“We really need to be doing things to be self supporting and. clean.“

Isnt that what wind, solar, renewables and nuclear are aiming to achieve?

 

[Dustydog]

Isnt that what wind, solar, renewables and nuclear are aiming to achieve?

Absolutely . Just a shame a lot of it still adds to pollution elsewhere .

 

[otherclive]

Isnt that what wind, solar, renewables and nuclear are aiming to achieve?

Absolutely . Just a shame a lot of it still adds to pollution elsewhere .

I would say that it’s virtually impossible to develop major infrastructure programmes that are non polluting during construction. But with responsible management such pollution can be reduced and the lifetime benefits will accrue. I wonder how many give thought to the global pollution’s that their use of fossil fuels has created, notwithstanding carbon dioxide emissions.

 

[Buckman]

Agree as there are comments coming from the US that if more gas isn’t purchased tariffs may be imposed.

“We really need to be doing things to be self supporting and. clean.“

Isnt that what wind, solar, renewables and nuclear are aiming to achieve?

Sadly a couple of days like we saw recently with zero wind and sun probably meant no power into the network.

 

[otherclive]

Sadly a couple of days like we saw recently with zero wind and sun probably meant no power into the network.

But as more progress is made there will be, plus supplemented by nuclear and don’t forget the multi connectors from Europe and Ireland.

 

[Buckman]

But as more progress is made there will be, plus supplemented by nuclear and don’t forget the multi connectors from Europe and Ireland.

However we are still importing;

“We really need to be doing things to be self supporting and clean.“

 

[Dustydog]

I would say that it’s virtually impossible to develop major infrastructure programmes that are non polluting during construction. But with responsible management such pollution can be reduced and the lifetime benefits will accrue. I wonder how many give thought to the global pollution’s that their use of fossil fuels has created, notwithstanding carbon dioxide emissions.

I bet there’s plenty of rich Chinese coalmen 😉

 

[otherclive]

However we are still importing;

“We really need to be doing things to be self supporting and clean.“

At present of a demand of 31.6gw 70% is carbon neutral, 58% is renewables, only 12% is gas. So what percentage of that gas is UK produced, coming via interconnections or possibly LNG from Europe, Middle East or USA. I don’t know but historically we import 50% of our gas from supposedly friendly countries. There isn’t sufficient gas production in the UK economic area for us to produce the remaining 50% of our needs. To be more self reliant we could extend our pitifully small storage reserves to something like Germanys. But at the end of the day the call for greater self reliance is never answered by an answer that leads to self reliance and lower carbon dioxide emissions. Many make the call, but few offer alternative solutions.

 

[otherclive]

I bet there’s plenty of rich Chinese coalmen 😉

Or even Australian, Indonesian, Russian and Brazilian ones too. I posted this Wikipedia article a while back which describes Chinese coal usage compared to other energy sources. There is progress and they are on track for their declared target of CO2 emissions reductions. Very much a glass half full or half empty depending on a point of view. But like it, or not, they aren’t going to go away.

Coal in China - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[GUMPY]

Sadly a couple of days like we saw recently with zero wind and sun probably meant no power into the network.

I .managed to get through those high prices, £1kWh at peak times, by using my battery.
Tonight as it's windy the price doesn't go above zero for seven hours and they will pay me to use electricity.
Bring on more wind power and storage as far as I am concerned.

 

[Buckman]

I .managed to get through those high prices, £1kWh at peak times, by using my battery.
Tonight as it's windy the price doesn't go above zero for seven hours and they will pay me to use electricity.
Bring on more wind power and storage as far as I am concerned.

Don't those turbines shut down in strong winds?

 

[otherclive]

Don't those turbines shut down in strong winds?

You asked the same question in another thread “Is it too windy to tow”. Answer is still “yes” the turbines can turn into wind and blades can be feathered. Lots of info on the net on their design capability wrt weather. Clearly in Gumpys case it wasn’t too windy and he reaped the benefit.

 

[Buckman]

You asked the same question in another thread “Is it too windy to tow”. Answer is still “yes” the turbines can turn into wind and blades can be feathered. Lots of info on the net on their design capability wrt weather. Clearly in Gumpys case it wasn’t too windy and he reaped the benefit.

I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday and you expect me to remember what question I asked a week or so ago? 🤣

 

[GUMPY]

Tonight will mark three nights on the trot of negative pricing. All with wind speeds of over 40mph, even in the last big storm with all the damage we saw negative pricing so I guess that the turbines don't shut down unless it's above 75mph otherwise why pay us to use electricity.
20 kWh used last night and they paid me the glorious sum of 18p.
The more usual reason for shutting down is that there is not enough capacity in the grid to transport the electricity to where it's needed.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Isnt that what wind, solar, renewables and nuclear are aiming to achieve?

Absolutely . Just a shame a lot of it still adds to pollution elsewhere .

Virtually every human activity produces some form of pollution, and it would be lovely to be able to prevent any emissions whilst maintaining the functionality of the activity. Essential, the best we can do is to reduce emissions or convert the activity to produce less of the most harmful emissions by improving efficiencies or eliminating low efficiency systems.

The UK and other countries have progressively been eliminating the most polluting sources and converting to less polluting methods.

EV's are a great example of this. Obviously zero tailpipe emissions at th e vehicle, but also the amount of energy consumed to move the vehicle over a given distance is significantly lower compared the energy value of the fossil fuels used in an ICE vehicle.

This also means that even where fossil fuel is used to generate electricity the amount of fuel burnt at th e generator will still be less than if the fossil fuel need by an ICE vehicle to do the same work.

By looking at, and improving efficiencies we can reduce the net emissions in tho the environment. But in the case of transport there are additional benefits. When fossil fuel is burnt in and ICE, the high pressure combustion process produces a range of more toxic emissions than the same quantity of fossil fuel burnt in a modern generating plant. Not only does running an EV reduce energy wastage, the flue gasses are less harmful than those produced in an ICE vehicles exhaust gasses.

The fact that we are shifting location of where the emissions are produced is still concerning, but even that is being addressed with the roll out of renewable sources such as wind, sun and hydro etc.

Complacency is the nemesis of improvement and innovation.