So in what way does that mean that electric cars are not saving the planet? After all, they must be consuming nuke power, and if that's saving the planet then so are electric cars in your view.
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Corbyn's days (very) numbered?
- Thread starter GlennB
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I was once very close to buying a cargo bike for the school run, but i would still need a car for other times.
Days out/holidays, visiting in-laws, moving large items for DIY etc. A car is so useful.
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You misunderstand what I thought was a pretty clear post. My point is that it's pointless driving an electric car powered by coal and gas energy. I actually agree with you. Renewable energy first, then replace petrol powered cars.
I dislike Corbyn, and think he grandstands. His pronouncements are likely to turn people against sensible renewable energy policies.
I'm a bit baffled. Are you stating that Corbyn is limiting his proposals for non-nuclear and non-fossil energy to 25% of total demand? Or that he doesn't think these sources can be expanded to meet a greater proportion of the demand?
Is this an example of the "rule of so" ?
I was trying to point our the basic confusion in Corbyn's message. He's anti-fossil fuel but his opposition to nuclear power means that he's also against the UK's only non-fossil fuel large scale baseload generation method.
I'm trying to point out that Corbyn, like so many Student Union politicians takes mutually incompatible positions because his collection of beliefs are not compatible with the real world.
He wants to ban the sale of fossil-fueled vehicles but the alternative, electrically powered vehicles will either be overwhelmingly powered by electricity generated from sources he is anti (fossil fuels and nuclear) or there will be a huge gap between generating capacity and demand - especially when it comes to baseload.
If Corbyn wants to ban the sale of fossil-fueled vehicles then IMO it's also up to him to define proposals for the generation of the electricity that will fuel them.
No. It's a question beginning with that word.
You are saying then, that renewable sources cannot be expanded to meet these requirements?
Do you really want to base Government policy on technology that doesn't actually exist at the moment? Time and again, we have seen promises for technology that don't actually deliver. What we need is policy based upon what we know we can achieve, not what we might achieve technologically in the future.
catsmate
No longer the 1
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It's weird but I see more EVs and charging stations in Dublin than in London.
catsmate
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No yet anyway. But in the post-Brexit world who knows?
I disagree, IMO it was an gross extrapolation of what lionking actually wrote and as such was a so-prefaced strawman.
It would appear not, in the United Kingdom. Especially when large-scale schemes such as the Severn Barrage which could provide large scale pseudo-baseline capacity are also out of favour.
Of course some new and/or improved source could emerge to replace fossil-fuel and nuclear generated baseline capacity. In the UK we don't have the geography for enough hydroelectic generating capacity to contribute much beyond the current level (a little over 2% of capacity, a little under 1.5% of generation) so we'll need to find another way. Tidal power could be an option but there are (understandable) environmental concerns about large-scale schemes.
Almost half?
According to here:
http://euanmearns.com/uk-electricity-supply-september-2015/
The UK national grid has 23% nuclear, 6% wind, and 5% other (nearly all probably biomass).
A strange version of "almost half".
Here is even worse (live update):
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
At the time of typing was 17.16% nuclear and 4.04% wind.
And there is controversy over biomass, as the bulk of it comes from the US and burned in Drax. The trees are felled, released greenhouse gases not just on combustion, but when the roots decay in the ground, so the carbon balance isn't so great.
There was an announcement to faze out coal power stations, which is good, but much of that could be replaced with gas in the short to middle term unless we build more nuclear quite quickly. And interconnections with Norway and France, which while they will be low carbon sourced, will not be ideal for our self reliance.
There has been talk of other technology replacements in the future to combat climate change. The DailyFail reported that the Government proposed fazing out domestic gas boilers, but again, we would need a viable alternative. I can envisage the end of gas cookers/hobs though, with induction being so popular among those who have them.
The main barrier (pardon the pun) to the Severn Barrage last time was that it would be a one off project, and not something that could be rolled out else where in the UK. One the advantages of the nuclear, is that while you might struggle to get a new design on stream, the more you build them, the quicker it should get.
AFAIK there were lots and lots of reasons, cost, environmental impact, technical feasibility
You'd imagine so. Of course you have the major issues of public acceptance and of funding the thing but from my perspective, nuclear is currently the only non-fossil fuel alternative to supplying UK baseline power needs.
You don't think the fastest growing renewable source even rates a mention?
In 2015, 40.4 TW·h of energy was generated by wind power, and the quarterly generation record was set in the three-month period from October to December 2015, with 13% of the nation’s electricity demand met by wind. 2015 saw 1.2 GW of new wind power capacity brought online, a 9.6% increase of the total UK installed capacity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_KingdomNot in the context of baseline, no. For sure there is likely so be some wind blowing somewhere around the UK so the amount of electricity will be more than zero but then again if it's geographically unbalanced it gives the grid a huge headache and the unreliable nature of wind power means that it needs to be backed up by highly available fossil fuel sources - gas turbines are ideal for the role.
That is not to say that wind power doesn't have a role in the UK's renewables mix but it isn't the solution to the UK's baseline electricity generation issues.
edited to add...
Here's a link that allows the amount generated to be displayed. For sure contributes significantly at times but at other times it's near zero
http://www.ukpowergeneration.info/site/hourly
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It cannot be expanded to meet baseload demand if that's what you mean. When you get above about 20% of the grid capacity on intermittents, you need some serious storage or lots of interconnections. Denmark is a good example of this, as while they love having lots of wind, they need the connections with other countries. The obvious drawback is that they have some of the most expensive electricity in Europe.
https://www.sust-it.net/europe-energy-costs.php
With the expansion of the off shore wind farms off the East coast near where I live, we run the risk of just this issue (although I'm all for them, as its giving good quality jobs to this area, and I'm in favour of wind turbines in general). Norway could be an essential link for sending excess energy at windy times for pumped storage, and importing at other times.
During the big freeze of 2010, demand was extremely high, but wind dropped owing to the nature of the freezing conditions. Consequently, wind and solar would be little use at this time, when days are short and wind was low.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2011/01/coal-takes-the-strainagain.shtml
P.J. Denyer
Penultimate Amazing
If there were no practical zero emission cars on the road I'd completely agree but based on the progress made in the last few years it seems a sensible deadline, electric cars and vans are on the roads and have reasonable range and price points, it seems reasonable to assume that development will continue, obviously the rate of development may increase or decrease but the imposition of a deadline would be a spur to developers. Surely it's better to plan ahead for this change and have a plan for putting infrastructure in place?
If Labour won in 2020 and immediately passed this legislation on day one it would still be 2030 before the deadline for new sales, that's ten years in which legislation could if necessary be amended if it became obvious that the target could not be realistically met. It is also not as if on day one every petrol or deisel engined car disappears, it's new car sales only that are effected, cars and vans bought the day before will still have their working lives in front of them.
Also I think it's worth clarifying that the proposal is that all new vehicles would have to be zero or low emission, not specifically electric cars, I don't know what the low emission threshold would be, but it may include clean producing petrol engines.
Part of my work is to do with biomass burning power stations in the UK. Most of the engineers involved will tell you 'off the record' that it's not really a green thing to do and is mostly a way of meeting arbitrary targets.
Most of the biomass that's burned comes from the Americas: it's transported by rail, then ships, then rail again to reach the power stations. When meeting the targets there's no need to account for all the fossil fuel burned in the production, handling, and transport of the biomass.
Nuclear seems to still be a ludicrously expensive way of providing base load. There's still some doubt whether the new Hinkley Point power station will ever be completed. Even if it is, it will be many years late and we'll most likely need to build temporary gas-fired power stations to fill the gap as existing aged nuclear stations go off line but the new one isn't ready to operate. There's also the ever-present risk of accidents. Nuclear professionals keep telling us that such accidents are one-in-a-million-years rare, but so far we've seemed to suffer a fairly bad one every twenty years or so. The disasters haven't resulted in that many deaths so far - but the costs are staggering. Look up the latest estimates of cost and timescale for cleaning up after the Fukushima disaster.
The long term handling of the nuclear waste is one of those 'not invented yet' technologies. If we don't come up with a cheap and safe way of disposing of the waste then the true cost of nuclear stations is staggering and unaffordable in the long run. Imagine that we were still today having to devote sites, personnel, equipment, and power to handling the waste left over from building the pyramids or Stonehenge - those are the timescales over which high level nuclear waste have to be stored and monitored. A power station with an operating life of thirty years, followed by a decommissioning phase of thousands of years is clearly an economic joke.
Windmills, tidal power, solar panels are all viable ways of generating power - but we need some large scale means of storing the generated energy to allow us to continue using power overnight or for those occasional weeks of long, dark, windless days we get in winter. Such storage is another, 'yet to be invented' technology - certainly there are already storage methods but none that can be scaled up to anywhere near the capacity required.
Most of the biomass that's burned comes from the Americas: it's transported by rail, then ships, then rail again to reach the power stations. When meeting the targets there's no need to account for all the fossil fuel burned in the production, handling, and transport of the biomass.
Nuclear seems to still be a ludicrously expensive way of providing base load. There's still some doubt whether the new Hinkley Point power station will ever be completed. Even if it is, it will be many years late and we'll most likely need to build temporary gas-fired power stations to fill the gap as existing aged nuclear stations go off line but the new one isn't ready to operate. There's also the ever-present risk of accidents. Nuclear professionals keep telling us that such accidents are one-in-a-million-years rare, but so far we've seemed to suffer a fairly bad one every twenty years or so. The disasters haven't resulted in that many deaths so far - but the costs are staggering. Look up the latest estimates of cost and timescale for cleaning up after the Fukushima disaster.
The long term handling of the nuclear waste is one of those 'not invented yet' technologies. If we don't come up with a cheap and safe way of disposing of the waste then the true cost of nuclear stations is staggering and unaffordable in the long run. Imagine that we were still today having to devote sites, personnel, equipment, and power to handling the waste left over from building the pyramids or Stonehenge - those are the timescales over which high level nuclear waste have to be stored and monitored. A power station with an operating life of thirty years, followed by a decommissioning phase of thousands of years is clearly an economic joke.
Windmills, tidal power, solar panels are all viable ways of generating power - but we need some large scale means of storing the generated energy to allow us to continue using power overnight or for those occasional weeks of long, dark, windless days we get in winter. Such storage is another, 'yet to be invented' technology - certainly there are already storage methods but none that can be scaled up to anywhere near the capacity required.
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Cars have to be charged from baseline supply? Where is this idea coming from? And there are no storage proposals intended to address this issue?
We are talking about the replacement of fossil fuels by batteries in cars. That is feasible. This baseline stuff has been introduced as another issue, and is being repeated ad nauseam in response to every observation, so that anyone concerned about fossil fuels can be depicted as a student loony.
We are talking about the replacement of fossil fuels by batteries in cars. That is feasible. This baseline stuff has been introduced as another issue, and is being repeated ad nauseam in response to every observation, so that anyone concerned about fossil fuels can be depicted as a student loony.
Cars are (at present) mostly charged overnight when solar energy is absent and wind energy is normally less. Yes, the wind usually blows stronger in the daytime than at night.
But lots of battery cars is one way of having extra storage capacity. A smart charging system could fully charge batteries when excess power is available but only top up the batteries to the level actually needed when power is in demand. And when power is in really short supply, the electricity for your house could be temporarily provided from your car battery when your car is connected up to the 'charger' outside.
Even if all existing cars were replaced by battery ones, that's still nowhere near enough energy storage capacity to allow the UK to run just from windmills and solar.
If we can't come up with a sufficient capacity energy storage solution, another answer would be a true world-wide power grid system. The sun is always shining and the wind is always blowing somewhere on earth. If it could be built, such a grid would also allow solar panels to be built in places where there's plenty of space and plenty of sun.
Unfortunately, such a world-wide grid is another yet-to-be invented thing. With current technologies it would cost too much, even in those places where it could be built.
But lots of battery cars is one way of having extra storage capacity. A smart charging system could fully charge batteries when excess power is available but only top up the batteries to the level actually needed when power is in demand. And when power is in really short supply, the electricity for your house could be temporarily provided from your car battery when your car is connected up to the 'charger' outside.
Even if all existing cars were replaced by battery ones, that's still nowhere near enough energy storage capacity to allow the UK to run just from windmills and solar.
If we can't come up with a sufficient capacity energy storage solution, another answer would be a true world-wide power grid system. The sun is always shining and the wind is always blowing somewhere on earth. If it could be built, such a grid would also allow solar panels to be built in places where there's plenty of space and plenty of sun.
Unfortunately, such a world-wide grid is another yet-to-be invented thing. With current technologies it would cost too much, even in those places where it could be built.
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