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With F1 aiming to be running e-fuels and thus keeping their ICEs and from going full electric, will we see other motorsports go the same route and save the glorious sounds of ICEs? Could e-fuels feed into mainstream and topple electric eventually, or would there be supply issues on such a large scale? I really want to continue to hear exhaust sounds!
E-Fuels definitely improve the environmental credentials of ICE engines significantly but the challenge then becomes the sustainable manufacture of the fuels. If that is cracked then it could be an option. Battery EV's cannot be the answer. Batteries are not sustainable or environmentally friendly and just shift the damage done to the environment from the end user to the supply and manufacturing chain and end of life processing and disposition of the used batteries. That whole process could be cleaned up significantly of course but you're still dealing with some unpleasant elements and processes.
I still have high hopes for hydrogen. Seems like a perfect accompaniment to wind and solar power where you can utilise excess energy generated on very sunny and windy days into Hydrogen which then goes to generate power or become a fuel for cars. Not the most efficient process in terms of percentage of energy converted to motive power, but if you've got an abundance of solar and wind energy then so what. It's no less efficient that petrol and diesel.
As for exhaust sounds...well they can be manufactured. they are effectively manufactured in current ICE cars. the sound of engines strangled by turbo's, catalytic converters and other restrictions compromising their design means alot of effort is made to 'tune' the exhaust systems to manufacture a certain sound and create silly pops and bangs on down shifts. So if we're happy with manufactured sounds on ICE cars then why not just pipe exhaust sounds through the speakers of an EV? you could choose the car sound you like off the big silly iPad on the dash board and enjoy.
Could e-fuels feed into mainstream and topple electric eventually,
No. For personal transportation - cars, small vans - electric has won. All the alternatives (synthetic fuels, hydrogen) are much, much more expensive. Electricity -> hydrogen -> synthetic fuel -> ICE -> movement is horribly inefficient. Compare it to electricity -> movement, or even electricity -> battery storage -> movement.
I still have high hopes for hydrogen. Seems like a perfect accompaniment to wind and solar power where you can utilise excess energy generated on very sunny and windy days into Hydrogen which then goes to generate power or become a fuel for cars.
There are some huge hydrogen projects being developed in different regions of the UK. They are going to bundle in CO2 sequestration, fuel, albeit for larger vehicles like trains and even power generation. You're hopes will almost certainly be realised.
I've always thought you could see hydrogen as a battery replacement technology. Ultimately it uses electricity to do I've the wheels so all the electric car drive chain development is still valid.
Batteries are not sustainable or environmentally friendly and just shift the damage done to the environment from the end user to the supply and manufacturing chain and end of life processing and disposition of the used batteries.
I hear this argument quite frequently but I've not been able to find any evidence to support it.
Batteries might be far from perfect, but they're a lot better than current ICE technology in reducing carbon emissions and eliminating local NOx emissions which are so damaging to health.
Even if you could produce e-Fuels in quantities for road cars in an environmentally sustainable way you'd still be left with the pollution caused by burning it in cars which would by that time be more expensive to make, maintain and of lower performance than their battery electric counterparts, it's like saying we'd still have steam trains if we had e-coal.
Hydrogen is dead for road cars purely on the economics for all the same reasons, Scania have even stated that battery is the way forward for their trucks.
the challenge then becomes the sustainable manufacture of the fuels
Aviation and the military will always require some sort of chemical fuel for the energy density and range. Whether it's more efficient to use a fuel cell and electric motors or burn it in an ICE is another question. Alcohol and vegetable oil are the obvious fuels to use as the basis of ICE fuels. Problem is, they are mostly made from stuff that can be used for food so they will end up pushing up food prices and causing pressure for more clearing of forests for farming.
I gather that hydrogen is quite tricky to work with, much trickier than natural gas, so the idea that existing infrastructure can just be switched to hydrogen is probably a bit simplistic. Then, you need a renewable source for the hydrogen, probably involving using solar or wind generated electricity. There will be conversion losses at each step, so it's not obvious that this will really be better than batteries for most purposes. Battery production is ramping up a lot now, so recycling will become much more attractive now that there are hundreds of thousands of tonnes of them to work with.
My prediction is that ICEs will tend to become a niche thing for things like military and aviation use and batteries will replace them for normal vehicles. Also, the world is urbanizing fairly steadily, so most people don't need to own a personal vehicle. Autonomous vehicles will cut a major cost of taxis, so I think that most people living in cities will use public transport and rent a vehicle for hauling heavy stuff.
To me a desire to "save the internal combustion engine" is slightly troubling - hanging on to the past where we should just be aiming for the most environmentally sound methods of transport. But the noise is also linked to the quantity of stuff being burned/emitted. If that's fossil fuel-based it's the worst of all worlds but when it moves to low carbon it's still a relatovely inefficient method of converting energy into motion, compared with the alternatives. I think the affection for exhaust noise is going to become a nostalgic one soon, with its place being a bit like that of racing classic cars.
Rather like in electricity generation though, I suspect the answer will be somewhat "horses for courses" and a mix of BEVs, hydrogen, biofuels etc, alongside a drive for reduction (public transport, infrastructure, cycling, where we build etc etc.). In electricity generation, pretty much regardless of how many wind turbines we build, we still have a need to reduce our consumption.
As for the environmental negatives of eg batteries, while I wouldn't disagree per se I would point out that they need to be considered as a comparison with the impacts of the alternatives, which are currently quite a lot worse. Sadly there is a lack of clear independent quantitative comparison, or at least a lack of reference to it by those making the arguments.
Glorious sound? You only like that sound because of its association with speed, power and thrills. If you took an engine to a remote rainforest tribe and revved it up, I don't think you'd get much love from the locals.
Imagine you live on a street where most the cars are electric and you're the one starting a cold diesel at 6:30am.
You're looking to introduce a new fuel where you have limited infrastructure, is more expensive to build than an electric car (battery prices going down, tech going up), more expensive to run and more enviromentally damaging so will incur extra charging for that. Why are you so keen to implement an excessively expensive answer to not many questions?
All that is equally true for hydrogen, plus you get the massive problems with safety compared to petrol
Thols sums it up nicely. tricky is an understatement with hydrogen
Sooner the ICE is gone, the better.
Lithium mining is not a pretty or environmentally friendly process...
More reading for those who think Lithium and EV battery production is environmentally sustainable...
Lithium Mining Environmental Impact
There is no "environmentally friendly" process that allows most of the population to transport themselves around in 2 ton vehicles.
But electric vehicles are an order of magnitude better than ICE
This only looks at one aspect but illustrates a point
I do reckon that the ICE has still got a long future in front of it, albeit with e-fuels. That combined with eletric hydrogen will be the likely future once they get mass production sussed out.
I belive electric cars with batteries are a dead end because its unsustainable. Simply because unless there's a massive change in battery composition/design, there isn't enough rare earth metals to turn every car on the road to electric.
I have heard somewhere that if you didn't use these metals for any other industry (i.e phone/laptop batteries etc), we'd only be able to manufacture enough li-ion batteries for every car in the uk before exhausting natural resources. That's it. Wouldn't be anything left for the rest of the world. Even with improved battery recycling it would be unsustainable.
Problem is, they are mostly made from stuff that can be used for food so they will end up pushing up food prices and causing pressure for more clearing of forests for farming.
Only if you use primary crops, there are plenty of secondary crops out there that can be grown on marginal land and improve soil as they grow, even primarily cellulose based crops can be converted to ethanol (see acid hydrolysis and steam explosion)
Hydrogen is dead for road cars purely on the economics for all the same reasons
All that is equally true for hydrogen
In what way do you imagine burning hydrogen is environmentally damaging? Aside from nitrogen oxides which can be cleaned up in a catalytic converter. There is no CO2, sulphur or any hydrocarbons in the emissions, it's literally water.
Of course you can use it to manufacture synthetic gas but that's still far cleaner than petrol or coal.
As for safety, it's no less safe than LPG which has been used for years now.
Sooner the ICE is gone, the better.
What do you propose to use for converting landfill and digestor gas to energy or powering aircraft and ships then? That's an easy statement with complicated implications. There are still avenues to "clean" fuels that at least keep the carbon in a cycle rather than adding to net output. They are not the only solution but they are A solution.
This only looks at one aspect but illustrates a point
That'll be accounting for the recycling infrastructure which doesn't exist as it's not commercially proven. And also these laughable statements:
In the fossil engine/battery calculations, “we excluded the raw material needed to produce the electricity and the [fossil] fuel because this is contingent on factors such as national electricity mixes and fuel extraction efficiency.
“When it comes to raw materials there is simply no comparison,” said Mathieu. “Over its lifetime, an average fossil-fuel car burns the equivalent of a stack of oil barrels 25 storeys high. If you take into account the recycling of battery materials, only around 30kg of metals would be lost – roughly the size of a football.
So not accounting for fuel usage when it suits them, how about the fuel usage based on the generation mix? Is that equivalent barrels of oil or barrels of petrol/diesel? It wouldn't hurt to show what the worst case barrel of oil equivalent (thats a thing) would be for various generation sources, excluding renewables obviously.
Now I realise that these are essentially meaningless soundbites designed to stir interest (hell it annoyed me enough to pull the proper report) but it's crappy reporting (not gonna call that journalism) that gives people ammo to use when people don't bother checking the sources. I'll take a gander at the report later as I'm sure it actually has some good reading, I'm already impressed by it's referencing which craps all over the National Infrastructure Assessment I've had to [s]read[/s] endure recently.
Rather like in electricity generation though, I suspect the answer will be somewhat “horses for courses” and a mix of BEVs, hydrogen, biofuels etc, alongside a drive for reduction (public transport, infrastructure, cycling, where we build etc etc.). In electricity generation, pretty much regardless of how many wind turbines we build, we still have a need to reduce our consumption.
Very much this.
I live the other side of some woods from a set of dual carriageway traffic lights.
The sooner the glorious sound of the full throttle pops and bangs brigade is dead and burried the better. Judging by the frequency they manage to take out the crash barriers in a 40mph limit the owners will be too.
Battery EVs will be the only option to buy in 10 years, So F1 will inevitably follow suit as manufacturers will want to race what they sell (c.f. Diesel at Le Mans). If they don't then in 10 years time F1 will still exist in it's current state, but the big money Sunday afternoon event will be Fomula-E.
More than anything else, ICE cars are slow! You can drool over an Audi RS4 with a bike rack all you like, but in 15 years time your nan will be driving a Tesla that's faster. It'll look old-fashioned like those steam cars in museums.
I hope we'll see biofuels rolled out as an alternative. But mostly because I think it would be a shame fkr them to end up as museum pieces (And ethanol/veg oil arent that expensive as a base).
MILLENIAL SNOWFLAKES ARE KILLING THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE INDUSTRY. WHY CANT WE HAVE VROOOM VROOMS?
look mate, I'm just trying to make sure I don't have to swim to work in 30 years and that my children don't have to fight the the Resource Wars of 2050-2061.
WAAH LITHIUM MINING IS NOT VERY NICE
Because oil is so much better?
Plus we don't just burn the lithium and once the car is end of life it can be recycled.
JAG's going to be very upset once he finds out where aggregates come from!
More than anything else, ICE cars are slow!
F1 cars are much faster around a circuit than anything else. Thing is, most people don't want performance cars, they want something cheap and reliable to pick the kids up from school, go shopping in, etc. Teslas are expensive luxury toys for wealthy fanbois, that's not the future of the car industry.
Well I've never owned anything cheaper or more reliable than my Leaf... electric absolutely wipes the table there.
Amazing how many people seem threatened by a change to what power unit pushes their car forwards, I've been driving the affordable end of EVs for 6 years and guess what, they are just cars.
Plus we don’t just burn the lithium and once the car is end of life it can be recycled
Heavy lifting.
MILLENIAL SNOWFLAKES ARE KILLING THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE INDUSTRY. WHY CANT WE HAVE VROOOM VROOMS?
look mate, I’m just trying to make sure I don’t have to swim to work in 30 years and that my children don’t have to fight the the Resource Wars of 2050-2061.
WAAH LITHIUM MINING IS NOT VERY NICE
*sigh* and it was going so well
Amazing how many people seem threatened by a change
Amazing how many people seem threatened by challenge.
MILLENIAL SNOWFLAKES ARE KILLING THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE INDUSTRY. WHY CANT WE HAVE VROOOM VROOMS?
look mate, I’m just trying to make sure I don’t have to swim to work in 30 years and that my children don’t have to fight the the Resource Wars of 2050-2061.
WAAH LITHIUM MINING IS NOT VERY NICE
Lithium mining still produces CO2 emissions and uses machinery that runs on ICE. Also, lithium is a limited resource much like fossil fuels are.
Well I’ve never owned anything cheaper or more reliable than my Leaf… electric absolutely wipes the table there.
Yes, exactly. It's the opposite of a Tesla. It's not fast or glamourous, it's affordable and practical. In a decade or two, cities will be full of cars like the Leaf, not luxury performance cars like Teslas.
In what way do you imagine burning hydrogen is environmentally damaging?
It's not the burning. It's the relatively large amount of energy required to produce, transport and then burn the hydrogen deliver a given amount of energy at the wheels.
Lithium mining still produces CO2 emissions and uses machinery that runs on ICE. Also, lithium is a limited resource much like fossil fuels are.
We should be talking in relative terms. The argument being made is not that BEVs are perfect or their impact is zero, it is that their relative impact is lower so they are a significant step in the right direction. Lithium mining is pretty bad for our world, and it's not just lithium. Similar implies to some of the other ingredients of batteries. But the same applies to a greater extent to the materials and fuels in manufacture and operation of ICE cars, mainly the fuel. The extraction, refinement, transport and burning of oil required for a mile travelled has a far larger environmental footprint. (Unless you ask those with a vested interest in the oil industry, who tend to ignore the upstream aspects, compare big EVs with small ICE cars and apply a much dirtier than UK energy mix.)
Doesn't lithium come from salt flats in Chile? The bad mining is other materials like cobalt etc, no? And there are many options for those that are continually being worked on.
So, if batteries are bad now, doesn't mean they will always be bad. And with lots of battery cars on the road there will be a commercial imperative to diversify and improve. Judging by the number of news stories on phys.org about battery tech there are a lot of people working on this.
Burning fossil fuel on the other hand is always going to result in dangerous emissions. But, if we get emissions down to say 5% of their current levels then CO2 will once again be regarded as not dangerous.
It’s not the burning. It’s the relatively large amount of energy required to produce, transport and then burn the hydrogen deliver a given amount of energy at the wheels.
But the argument for doing it is that it's an energy sink for otherwise unused renewables which will be needed for proper grid balancing. Plus you don't have to necessarily burn it, fuel cells are far more efficient. It's an undisputed fact that energy conversion incurs losses and hydrogen production is intensive but if it's otherwise free energy then it becomes somewhat less of an issue.
Also, lithium is a limited resource much like fossil fuels are.
Lithium extraction is at about the stage of the Texas oil rush if you compare with the oil industry. Only the very easiest to exploit has been taken so far. And recycling techniques are improving all the time with the latest procedures yielding battery quality lithium. Unlike fossil fuels it doen't just go up in smoke.
The cost in terms of CO2 of producing lithium is tiny compared with the CO2 produced by an ICE in it's lifetime, any you're forgetting that the ICE takes CO2 to manufacture too.
Anti-EV propaganda comes from the sources you'd expect, ICE specialists such as Aston Martin and the oil majors, don't fall for it.
Personally I read the stuff from the likes of the Fraunhofer institute and concluded the EV wins hands down on CO2 where I live. As a bonus you get quieter vehicles that don't stink. So I bought one and liked it so much I replaced it with another.
Consider how the quality of your life would improve if everyone who can't use public transport or their legs used an EV. You might not join the thousands of premature deaths caused by ICE pollution for a start.
Lithium mining still produces CO2 emissions and uses machinery that runs on ICE. Also, lithium is a limited resource much like fossil fuels are.
Except, unlike fossil fuels, you don't need an unlimited amount.
~63kg in a Tesla.
~16-40million tonnes available for mining.
Or 700,000,000 cars (there's currently 1 billion on the road, but I suspect Lithium availability isn't the stumbling block to getting the Hilux with a machine gun on the back off the roads).
And like oil, the price will go up, people will go off exploring for it, more will be found and better ways of mining.
When the car was invented we were still rendering whales for oil*............
*Maybe not fuel for cars, but the fossil fuel oil industry grew up to meet the demand for oil. And in a rather grim reality whaling fleets now use whale oil as fuel 🤢
I buy a synthetic fuel called Aspen. I use it in my petrol stove; it's cheaper than Coleman fuel but still about £4/litre, much more expensive than normal petrol.
But the argument for doing it is that it’s an energy sink for otherwise unused renewables which will be needed for proper grid balancing. Plus you don’t have to necessarily burn it, fuel cells are far more efficient. It’s an undisputed fact that energy conversion incurs losses and hydrogen production is intensive but if it’s otherwise free energy then it becomes somewhat less of an issue.
Except you've still got to make all those extra solar panels, wind farms etc to overcome that inefficiency, and the same problem is solved far more efficiently by just plugging your car in and letting the grid use it for ballancing.
I buy a synthetic fuel called Aspen. I use it in my petrol stove; it’s cheaper than Coleman fuel but still about £4/litre, much more expensive than normal petrol.
Diesel is about 25-30p/l before tax. White Spirit is about £2.50/l. Most of the cost is in sticking it in a small bottle and shipping it. As a comodity ethanol (a viable alternative to petrol) is about 30p/l (and that's 40% higher this year).
Will Efuels make it to other motorsport applications – yes.
Can Efuels have a positive impact in the general population – yes
Is there enough capacity at the moment to achieve the above – NO
Is a lot of money and resource being put into the above – YES
Is there a huge amount of misinformation going around from very influential think tanks – YES
Like who – committee for climate Change (CCC), Transport and Environment (TnE)
Articles in the press which are put forward from CCC and TnE are not helpful, they lack a lot of very pertinent information around GHG’s and where they accumulate, where they are then disposed of they should always be treated with a pinch of salt. It’s no secret im “in the industry”, but at a much more research focused end of it. Quite simply electric is not a silver bullet, it should absolutely be used as part of the solution, but not in place of technologies that can be used now, and in later years will help fix the issue the of the legacy car/truck parc.
Also, the term “Efuel” is la little disingenuous to some of the technologies on the market and there is no-one definition of what constitutes an EFuel. Point to note. Lithium only contributes a small amount to a LION battery - approx. 160grams perkWH – or 11kg’s in a 450kg battery (its not the same for all, but roughly that), there is then ~60kgs rest of a Lithium Carbonate equivalent.
There is a lot of talk about these new EFuels using up lots of energy resource which would otherwise be better transferred straight to motors via batteries. In the whole you’d argue yes, however the design of the technologies is that they would sit within locations and infrastructure utilising their own energy sources from sustainable sources and not tapping into existing grids. Some technologies that may arguably sit out of the Efuel definition, also use very little electricity as they have exothermic reactions powering themselves. Also, transporting energy in a liquid state is by far the most efficient means for its size vs weight vs ability, nothing else comes close to its energy density. The picture is not as clear cut as some with very invested interests will try to tell you. The main thing is you must start somewhere.. Carbon will be a circular economy, yes it will burn, but the capture of that is possible, there are exhaust technologies looking to capture that at source!
There are now a number of scientifically driven studies and articles coming out that are worth reading, such as;
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261921001562
they are worth a read
Greybeard
Full Member
I buy a synthetic fuel called Aspen. I use it in my petrol stove; it’s cheaper than Coleman fuel but still about £4/litre, much more expensive than normal petrol.
it's not strictly synthetic, it's just alkylate and is fossil derived. it does however have very low aromatics (<5%) which makes a "clean burning" fuel so is OK to be around in small engines for hours a day.
Except you’ve still got to make all those extra solar panels, wind farms etc to overcome that inefficiency, and the same problem is solved far more efficiently by just plugging your car in and letting the grid use it for ballancing.
Sui answered this well.
Relying on cars for grid balancing is a risky strategy IMO, for day to day stuff it's probably fine but if you need a rapid start you absolutely need something that has everything ten minutes ago. Thats where you can fling a peaking plant running a gas turbine on hydrogen into the mix, it can generate its own fuel and then when full just sell the excess. Odds are it would mostly sit at standby but thats ideal.
Lots of references to lithium - if this really was so limited, and likely to be a bottleneck, what would the price be doing? Whilst in reality it's at a 10 year low and still drifting down.
Lots of references to lithium – if this really was so limited, and likely to be a bottleneck, what would the price be doing? Whilst in reality it’s at a 10 year low and still drifting down.
Uh huh, bring up the ten year trend for crude, last year it hit a ten year low. What does that say about the relationship between limited resources and commodity trading?
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil
Your assertion is also wrong, lithium is on a rapid rise and has been since December.
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium
Thats where you can fling a peaking plant running a gas turbine on hydrogen into the mix
Not sure I’d regard a gas turbine, peaking or otherwise, as a truly fast response. Not from idle anyway. Spinning reserve possibly, but then you’re burning fuel all the time. Inertia, then water, then spinning, then GT isn’t it - or have I got that wrong?
At the moment we’re playing around (conceptually) with supercap, battery, fuel cell, GT - flexibility is in there somewhere and the order might well change depending on how you operate them.
Hydrogen is not efficient, but it can be effective. Hydrogen plug-in hybrids are interesting but potentially expensive. I’m already talking to train manufacturers about battery hybrid trains (not hydrogen interestingly).
There will be many solutions which will all have to work together to make the future work.
PS - inter-seasonal storage. Summer energy harvesting and winter heat and light. That’s the big one I think and that feels more hydrogeny.
hydrogeny.
trademarked..
will we see other motorsports go the same route and save the glorious sounds of ICEs?
what role does the sound play in the competition? Are there points for noises? How is it judged?
If lithium were limited in supply then I don't think major manufacturers would be planning to switch their production to EVs requiring lithium. Pretty sure someone would have thought of that.
Sui
hydrogeny.
trademarked.
Did you ever hear their first album? 😉
it’s not strictly synthetic, it’s just alkylate and is fossil derived
Thanks, I'd misunderstood that. They say it's synthetic, but I don't think it was clear, last time I looked, that it's synthesised from fossil materials.
Greybeard
Full Member
it’s not strictly synthetic, it’s just alkylate and is fossil derivedThanks, I’d misunderstood that. They say it’s synthetic, but I don’t think it was clear, last time I looked, that it’s synthesised from fossil materia
it's splitting hairs tbh, but compared with "efuel" or "bio", it's not, though you are smashing different molecules together, normally C4-C6 in an alkylation unit to get the alkylate. in theory you could take a bio-lpg (where the C4-C6 molecules sit) and get a bio-alkylate, but it's expensive to do it.
Not sure I’d regard a gas turbine, peaking or otherwise, as a truly fast response. Not from idle anyway. Spinning reserve possibly, but then you’re burning fuel all the time. Inertia, then water, then spinning, then GT isn’t it – or have I got that wrong?
Yup, wrong. Peaking plant can be run up from idle in a couple of minutes, there's no water involved, it's essentially an aero engine.
If lithium were limited in supply then I don’t think major manufacturers would be planning to switch their production to EVs requiring lithium. Pretty sure someone would have thought of that.
If oil was limited in supply then I don’t think major manufacturers would be planning to continue their ICE production. Pretty sure someone would have thought of that.
See how silly it looks when you turn it around? And of course it's limited! It's not renewing itself so by definition it's a finite resource. There is more to the price than just scarcity of the resource, I'd have hoped that would be obvious. I'm just saying that "if it's that rare why is it so cheap" is a terrible start to base your argument on*, not to mention faith in manufacturers not just thinking with the bottom line (hint: we're talking about capitalism here).
*look at the price vs total world reserves of helium
When cars first started it was touch and go as to who would win, steam or petrol. What would the world be like now if steam had won?
I guess the gulf states would still be desert.
But the argument for doing it is that it’s an energy sink for otherwise unused renewables which will be needed for proper grid balancing.
Sure, but you're describing a battery so the question is why you'd use hydrogen instead of grid-scale lithium-based batteries.
Hydrogen undoubtedly has a role to play in some circumstances: heavy goods transport and steel production for example.
I love "turn it around" arguments, Squirrelking.
Imagaine all cars are currently EVs and someone comes up with ICE technology and then people realise they're going to be poisoned with NOx, NO2 and fine particles, have two or three times the noise pollution, greenhouse the planet 20% faster (don't quote me on the number), pollute many areas with hydrocarbons, increase cancer rates, increase the death rate due to heart and lung disease, need three pedals rather than two in most cars, have ridiculously expensive and regular service intervals, have a stinking object in your garage/on your drive, have poor performance from a standing start, have so many things to go wrong breakdowns are regular, have explosive liquids stored in all sorts of inappropriate places, have tankers spilling these substances with appalling effects on eco-systems... .
If oil was limited in supply then I don’t think major manufacturers would be planning to continue their ICE production.
It's pretty obvious why manufacturers are continuing with the status quo: there's no prospect of oil supply constraining to the point that fuel will become unaffordable in the medium term, so their existing business models will continue to make their expected return. Then there's vast quantity of sunk capital and assets that would become stranded and worthless overnight. Really, you're comparing apples with oranges by comparing an established technology and infrastructure, with an emerging alternative. The better comparison is between two competing alternatives, e.g. hydrogen vs. EV.
Yup, wrong. Peaking plant can be run up from idle in a couple of minutes, there’s no water involved, it’s essentially an aero engine.
Yes I know a GT is similar to, and often derived from an aero engine.
I think I need to explain myself more carefully.
The power balance in an integrated electrical system is maintained in a number of ways.
1) inertia or more correctly the kinetic energy in rotating generators. As you use this frequency drops.
2) water - typically hydroelectric plant designed and built for maintaining power balance and thereby frequency.
3) spinning reserve - this is stuff that is already running at system frequency and you can open the governor / throttle on
4) offline GTs - your aero engine
Now obviously any rotating plant can be 1 or 3, including a GT, but the GT specific bit is the fourth one I think. I’m pretty sure water (hydro) comes on line faster than a GT.
Nowadays you can throw in batteries, but they tend not to get the contracts due to price, CLASS (posh version of playing with voltage) and DSR / flexibility (which is yet to reach its potential)
OC6 (typically voltage controlled) load reduction is also in the mix, but down the line I think.
PS the data I’ve got, which won’t be exhaustive suggests 10 minutes startup to full load for a GT and 30 minutes for a CCGT. The latter of which I find seriously impressive. Neither are going to be good enough for fast response if those figures are anything like right.
Sure, but you’re describing a battery so the question is why you’d use hydrogen instead of grid-scale lithium-based batteries.
Because you can only charge a battery so far, after that you have to shut down the charger. By dumping the power into electrolysis you can use that energy usefully. You could equally dump into heat storage, hydro pumping and whatnot, it's not really important but if the capacity is there why not use it? When the energy is essentially free it doesn't really matter, after a certain point, how inefficient the conversion process is. Also bear in mind that petrochemicals don't begin and end with engine fuel, with synthesised feedstocks we can continue to produce other products without depleting natural resources (if properly managed, thats the key).
It’s pretty obvious why manufacturers are continuing with the status quo: there’s no prospect of oil supply constraining to the point that fuel will become unaffordable in the medium term, so their existing business models will continue to make their expected return. Then there’s vast quantity of sunk capital and assets that would become stranded and worthless overnight. Really, you’re comparing apples with oranges by comparing an established technology and infrastructure, with an emerging alternative. The better comparison is between two competing alternatives, e.g. hydrogen vs. EV.
I think you were missing my point which is to say that the price of a commodity isn't a reliable indication of its reserves. As you say the prospect of suppy constraining to the point of unaffordability in the medium term is unlikely and yet most countries have a Reserve/Production ratio of less than 20 years. Yes lithium is abundant but there doesn't seem to be anything readily accessible that breaks down reserves by known, conditional and hypothetical. Most of the worlds lithium is in concentrations too small to extract using todays technology, there's shedloads of it but unfortunately it's all in the oceans.
I love “turn it around” arguments, Squirrelking.
Imagaine...
Imagine what you like. Your argument doesn't concern me in the slightest because it's complete whataboutery, that's not the situation now, much as I would prefer it was. I'm not arguing against BEV's, I'm not arguing against lithium either, what I am arguing against is that it's some sort of limitless resource and that 100% reliance on lithium batteries is in any way sustainable. And as pointed out so many times it's not yet commercially viable to recycle it so your flip round world could be strip mined to kingdom come or poisoned with brine for all we know.
I think I need to explain myself more carefully.
Yes. Okay I get you now.
I'm just going by manufacturers figures which suggested 2-4 minutes for something that fits in an ISO container, I'd certainly hope our 3.3kV essential short break turbines at other stations started up in that time! Dunno what data you have though but it sounds a bit more substantial than mine. Saying that 6-8 minutes from hitting the bars to full load doesn't sound unreasonable once you consider load raising. Am I teaching my granny to sook eggs here?
When cars first started it was touch and go as to who would win, steam or petrol. What would the world be like now if steam had won?
Steam is an external combustion engine, they are generally still fueled by hydrocarbons of some sort. Coal or gas fired power stations using steam turbines are also an external combustion engine, but you can also use gas turbines as internal combustion engines. It's just a matter of whether it's more efficient to burn the hydrocarbons within the engine or outside it.
One criticism of electric cars is that they still require electrical generation, most of which is still fossil fuel powered. What they are doing is moving the combustion from the car engine to a remote location, but they aren't strictly carbon free. However, it is more efficient to burn the hydrocarbons in a large powerstation and use that to power elective vehicles than to have an ICE in each vehicle. Of course, some electricity comes from renewable sources, but EVs increase the demand for electricity and renewables aren't enough to meet total electricity demand, so the extra demand of EVs requires burning of fossil fuels to meet the shortfall. If EVs suddenly disappeared, fossil fuel electricity generation would decrease, but ICE vehicle fossil fuel usage would increase. This means that EVs might be reducing fossil fuel usage overall, but they are still shifting fossil fuel burning to somewhere out of sight rather than eliminating it completely.
I thought this was about lithium batteries and the melting of the polar ice caps... 😯
Am I teaching my granny to sook eggs here?
Not at all. I now a little but I don’t work for the ESO or a generator and I’m certainly no expert in that area.
Of course, some electricity comes from renewable sources, but EVs increase the demand for electricity and renewables aren’t enough to meet total electricity demand, so the extra demand of EVs requires burning of fossil fuels to meet the shortfall.
True almost all the time, but not all any more.
This website gives some interesting data. Sadly it appears to be in hour averages not half hour averages these days. We certainly spent a little time with no fossil fuel on the grid last year (just don’t ask me when).
Also the orange bit is CCGT that should be running in the 50-60% efficiency range and cars are nowhere near that. Gas boilers are though (and the rest at 90% plus for most of the stuff in use and higher still for a new one)so the question around low carbon heat is more interesting.
Of course, some electricity comes from renewable sources, but EVs increase the demand for electricity and renewables aren’t enough to meet total electricity demand, so the extra demand of EVs requires burning of fossil fuels to meet the shortfall.
True almost all the time, but not all any more.
There's a strong argument to say any additional use is causing carbon emissions at the marginal rate but other factors mitigate that to some extent. Timing and also planning the grid and generation mix over time to suit demand.
On simple timing it's to be hoped, and I think one could reasonably expect, that a fair bit of battery charging already be done at times of high renewable generation and/or lower demand, because it can, it doesn't matter to the user's convenience. I set mine to charge in the early hours of the morning, and I often have a look at our country's grid carbon usage to time charging at lowest emission times. I use the app GridCarbon. So it's not automated, but hopefully smarter charging timing devices aren't far away. To an extent they are out there already.
I accept that most of the time I charge we are still burning some gas, so marginal emissions are still gas, but certainly if you add more of me to the demand profile you don't need to add new gas stations to the supply. And we are in any case adding more low carbon generation all the time. The chances of my car being on charge at a moment there's coal on the grid are slim and that's been the case since well before I got it.
I accept that most of the time I charge we are still burning some gas, so marginal emissions are still gas, but certainly if you add more of me to the demand profile you don’t need to add new gas stations to the supply.
One of my main points was that it is still better to use an EV even if the electricity is coming from burning fossil fuels. It's just that many people seem to assume that they don't contribute at all to carbon emissions, which is not the case.
Because you can only charge a battery so far, after that you have to shut down the charger. By dumping the power into electrolysis you can use that
Except you cant. Hydrogen is an absolute PITA to store.
There is already a worldwide excess of hydrogen produced as a product of fossil fuel refining that would be going up in smoke if it wasn't for the fact it burns with a white/clear flame and no smoke.
Its fiendishly expensive to buy though inspite of that because it's even more of a PITA to transport than it is to store.
We were talking about hydrogen fuel cells being the next big thing in the 60's. Some very clever people have been trying to solve it for 60 years and we're still at the stage of "well it works, for a short range, in parralel with a battery, but it's expensive and slow".
thols2
Free Member
I accept that most of the time I charge we are still burning some gas, so marginal emissions are still gas, but certainly if you add more of me to the demand profile you don’t need to add new gas stations to the supply.One of my main points was that it is still better to use an EV even if the electricity is coming from burning fossil fuels
Not for all occasions, and not unless you ignore life cycle analysis, this is a big factor in all of the report s you read that is convientently left off. There are so many studies now that show the pay back time, even when using a hgih % of renewable electricity, does not come in until at least 50K km's, a mix grid is min 90K and then fossil grid is some 150k. Some coutries are obviously in a better position for this due to acces of hydro, wind and solar, but the vast majority are not.
So what how do you make use of that renewable electricity that you cannot transport in its current state???? You convert it into something that you can transport - liquid.
Another point to note, there is and will continue to ne a lot of waste generated by society, and the best place to put that waste is into efficient fuelling. No-one i ssuggesting that this will be the very long term answer as eventually you wont have enough waste - but thats a GOOD THING, by this point other technologies will have evolved.
The single biggest mistake policy makers, marketing fanbois and think tanks ar making is to assume that what we do right this second, is what we should be doing in 20, 30, 40, 50 years time. The notion that you can not have a trnasition and fix other issues on the way is lost on them as it doesn't get the soundbites they need. There is also the point that convientently forgets that by buying another new vehicle, instead of keeping existing ones going is a. expensive, and very few people can do this, and we are simply not in a scoety that can dump individual transport quickly, and b. adding to the problem of more manufacturing and thus emissions. The best thing we can do at this moment, is to use up the carbon we've already removed from carbon sinks (oil mainly) in it's many guises and put it back into a circular economy.
One criticism of electric cars is that they still require electrical generation, most of which is still fossil fuel powered
That's no longer true:
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/electricity-generation-mix-quarter-and-fuel-source-gb
And as pointed out so many times it’s not yet commercially viable to recycle
Despite the fact I've linked videos about two French factories that are operating viable recycling, one with Lithium of battery grade, Squirrelking.
Do keep up guys, the world is changing, don't use yesterday's arguments today.
you could choose the car sound you like off the big silly iPad on the dash board and enjoy.
Ripe for hacking.
Imagine inflicting upon your sworn enemy, the opening strains of Yakkety-Sax with every acceleration away from traffic lights.
Delicious.
There is also the point that convientently forgets that by buying another new vehicle, instead of keeping existing ones going is expensive, and very few people can do this
I don't think it's fair to say this point is forgotten. To effect change the key personal decision making point in time is when the consumer who would buy (or otherwise support the manufacture of, by eg leasing or whatever) a new car chooses between more Vs less environmentally damaging options. This is what drives the manufacture and supply of vehicles onto the road and over time, reflecting the life of a vehicle, the mix of vehicles on the road. So discussion and policy necessarily focusses on it. That doesn't blame people for buying older fossil cars or fail to recognise that long life of the manufactured asset is important for its environmental impact. But cars of a certain age only exist if they were being built that long ago, and that doesn't excuse resistance to a change in the mix of new ones coming into use.
A lot of policy affects the same decision point. But the elephant in the room remains fuel duty, as at this budget left flat in nominal terms for 11 years. More than a decade of no rises alongside inflation in everything else AND an increased recognition of the harm AND the introduction of both more efficient ICE vehicles and viable alternatives. Yes, they've been reducing the tax on burning fossil fuels for car travel for 11 years in real terms. Seems to me the longer they leave this policy the harder it is to change.
One of the nice things about EVs from a low carbon energy system point of view, is that having a potentially huge flexible and dispatchable load makes the use of PV and wind, and the balancing thereof, easier and cheaper.
Not enough generation for the demand at the moment? Fire up extra generation? No just ask the cars to charge a little more slowly. Too much generation? Offer a deal to charge a bit more.
However that future only works properly if a good proportion of the cars are grid connected while at rest and not normally charged to 100%.
If we go down the superfast chargers and electric petrol stations route it falls over. But I don’t think we will - I bow to the mainstream EV owner’s experiences though.
I have no guilt about buying a new EV now and then, at some point down the chain it means another ICE powered old heap will go to the breakers. My asthma will benefit. I'd happily buy a second-hand EV too knowing the previous owner has probably replaced it with another EV and again I'd be pushing another ICE into the breakers at the bottom of the chain.
When cars first started it was touch and go as to who would win, steam or petrol. What would the world be like now if steam had won?
Battery cars were also in the mix. Bit milk float like, but you know, for around town, even back then in the dawn of time when there was no traffic, you didn't need a Tesla to get to your appointment at the tailors on time.
Then the oil guys did the whole FUD thing about range and speed, and battery cars lost.
Steam is an external combustion engine, they are generally still fueled by hydrocarbons of some sort. Coal or gas fired power stations using steam turbines are also an external combustion engine, but you can also use gas turbines as internal combustion engines. It’s just a matter of whether it’s more efficient to burn the hydrocarbons within the engine or outside it.
It's far more efficient to get steady state burn, such as turbines or steam engine boilers or home heating gas boilers. As I understood it.
Except you cant. Hydrogen is an absolute PITA to store.
You pressurise it and tank it, where's the problem? It's no more problematic than many other gases and certainly a hell of a lot less of a pain than CO2.
There is already a worldwide excess of hydrogen produced as a product of fossil fuel refining that would be going up in smoke if it wasn’t for the fact it burns with a white/clear flame and no smoke.
Its fiendishly expensive to buy though inspite of that because it’s even more of a PITA to transport than it is to store.
That'll be why there's 1600 miles of hydrogen transport pipelines in the US then? And hundreds of kilometers of it in Europe. But that aside, Sui once again nails it:
So what how do you make use of that renewable electricity that you cannot transport in its current state???? You convert it into something that you can transport – liquid.
And we're back to using the hydrogen as feedstock for biofuels.
We were talking about hydrogen fuel cells being the next big thing in the 60’s. Some very clever people have been trying to solve it for 60 years and we’re still at the stage of “well it works, for a short range, in parralel with a battery, but it’s expensive and slow”.
342 mile range, 111mph max speed and 0-60 in 9.2 seconds? Granted at £66k that's getting close to Model S territory but economies of scale play a large role here too.
That’s no longer true:
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/electricity-generation-mix-quarter-and-fuel-source-gb
/blockquote>Still a third gas and that's only the UK, what does the grid look like elsewhere? US, China etc.
Despite the fact I’ve linked videos about two French factories that are operating viable recycling, one with Lithium of battery grade, Squirrelking.
I have no idea what Veolia's economics look like nor what their actual output looks like. Papers don't seem too consistent either. It is viable, whether or not it is right now is another question but long term it's not really an argumemt worth having IMO.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479720304345
I have no guilt about buying a new EV now and then, at some point down the chain it means another ICE powered old heap will go to the breakers. My asthma will benefit. I’d happily buy a second-hand EV too knowing the previous owner has probably replaced it with another EV and again I’d be pushing another ICE into the breakers at the bottom of the chain.
And that's fine, nobody is asking you to feel guilty. Nobody is denying the localised benefits BEVs bring but that cannot be looked at in isolation.
However that future only works properly if a good proportion of the cars are grid connected while at rest and not normally charged to 100%.
If we go down the superfast chargers and electric petrol stations route it falls over.
Exactly why I wouldn't be relying on it.
Then the oil guys did the whole FUD thing about range and speed, and battery cars lost.
Lead-acid batteries are not competitive performance wise with petrol. Aircraft only became possible with the power to weight ratio and energy density of petrol engines. If electric vehicles were practical back in the early days, military technology would have focused on it. Petrol won because it had massively better performance than early EVs.
Exactly why I wouldn’t be relying on it.
As an individual, we don’t need you to. It’s about societal consensus choices - individuals swimming against the stream will make little difference.
We need to understand the societal choice. If the incentives are there for home charging, work charging etc, then the financial benefits will follow and most people will vote with their wallets against fast charging in favour of connected at rest.
The few that don’t? Well they’ll pay significant premiums for a less convenient arrangement. (Why is this reminding me of Brexit? Oh dear)
And on storing and transporting hydrogen, the smart money is on liquid solution based or power solution based systems rather than pressure. We’re aware of a powder based system that gets energy densities similar to diesel - not yet commercial but promising. The powder is reusable, only water as a waste product.
squirrelking
Free MemberYou pressurise it and tank it, where’s the problem?
Volume, basically. And location, but mostly volume. Not an unsolvable problem of course but solvable problems can still be very very big.
PS if it helps add a little colour, electricity networks often use small diesel generators to restore supplies to homes while they make repairs after small faults.
We’ve been trialling the use of vans carrying battery inverter units - they’ll do a house for 3 days or three houses for one day.
They more expensive than diesel generators to buy but are cheaper to run, can cope far better with domestic solar, can be used places diesel can’t and are quicker to set up than a diesel unit.
The Field Ops guys love them.
ICE ain’t dead yet, but it is dying.
However that future only works properly if a good proportion of the cars are grid connected while at rest and not normally charged to 100%.
If we go down the superfast chargers and electric petrol stations route it falls over. But I don’t think we will – I bow to the mainstream EV owner’s experiences though.
I think we will, Hyundia are launching a mainstream car this year with much faster charging 20%-80% SoC in 18mins, Ionity are installing 350kw chargers across the country, we're already on the way.
However, I think you're mixing up home / work charging with destination charging (and the poor sods who can't home /work charge). 60% of the population have a driveway apparently and you can safely assume that they will charge at home for convenience and cost. I also think chargers at work will become normal for the big employers. So whether superfast DC chargers and electric petrol stations happen or not, in my mind it's separate to home / work AC charging and it's potential to be used to balance the grid.
If we go down the superfast chargers and electric petrol stations route it falls over. But I don’t think we will – I bow to the mainstream EV owner’s experiences though.
Indeed. Going somewhere to "fill up", whether that's 10 minutes of smelly expensive diesel or 45 of expensive fast charging and a crap coffee (compulsory stw coffee snobbery!), is not a particularly attractive proposition compared with sleeping through the night in your own bed while your car quietly charges on the cheap. So I think those stations will only account for a small minority of charging.
Doesn't work for terraced houses yet but that's not an unsolvable problem in the timescales one would expect we'll take to get to that level of BEV fleet.
The Lithium mine images are a bit misleading. Most lithium comes from the Lithium Triangle in South America (About 75% of the world's reserves are there) and it is mostly not mined at all but evaporated in salt ponds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Production
Veolia
The unit recycling to battery grade isn't Véolia. I linked to the replay a while back.
As an individual, we don’t need you to. It’s about societal consensus choices – individuals swimming against the stream will make little difference.
We need to understand the societal choice. If the incentives are there for home charging, work charging etc, then the financial benefits will follow and most people will vote with their wallets against fast charging in favour of connected at rest.
The few that don’t? Well they’ll pay significant premiums for a less convenient arrangement. (Why is this reminding me of Brexit? Oh dear)
That's a lot of joined up thinking. It's do-able, certainly, but yet to come to fruition. Can imagine the backlash when people get their "free" charging taken away from them too. But as already alluded to that's the choice between everyday and destination charging, I'd pay a bit more if I could charge my car fast and continue a journey after a rest break.
And on storing and transporting hydrogen, the smart money is on liquid solution based or power solution based systems rather than pressure. We’re aware of a powder based system that gets energy densities similar to diesel – not yet commercial but promising. The powder is reusable, only water as a waste product.
Yup, liquid solutions are the key as I've said. That powder sounds interesting though.
The unit recycling to battery grade isn’t Véolia. I linked to the replay a while back.
Not on this thread, do you have it handy without making me fight the horrific search system? Bearing in mind I don't speak a word of French.
TES has a site, Recupyl near Grenoble and is opening a new factory with the technology in Singapore:
Google translate to get to English.
I don't think that's the one I saw on TV though, the name doesn't ring any bells.
When cars first started it was touch and go as to who would win, steam or petrol.
Or electric
Porsche's first cars were electric - they were making them in the 1890s
The earliest land speed records were set by electric cars too
I’d pay a bit more if I could charge my car fast and continue a journey after a rest break.
Of course you would. And so would everyone else. But given a decent EV will do well over 100 miles on a “tank” (Edukator, educate us) and average mileage is 30-40 miles a day (tops - some folk reckon 20), how often are you going to pay 3 or 4 times more to fill up. And if your smart the differential will be more than 3-4 times.