Yes, but. I challenge you to show that we could generate enough renewable electricity to run even a fraction of the millions of vehicles we use at present. Never mind the investment in (and consumption of) expensive cabling to supply the necessary charging stations. Will there be electric lorries as well as cars? If we phased out fossil fuels for transport as well as grid-power generation we would be running everything on wind, hydro, tide and nuclear. Is that feasible within our geographical limits?

There are many things we take for granted now that 20 or 30 years ago were still in the realms of science fiction. These changes won't happen next year, or maybe not even in the next 5 years, but once deadlines are set then business will respond and the technology will be developed. One thing is for certain, we cannot go on burning carbon in the way that we have for the past 200 years. For one thing it will run out or get too expensive, and for another the atmosphere can only absorb so much CO2 before we all get fried.

First to clear up one myth. We won't need any more power stations if we all go over to electric cars. Why? Because, in a sense, we already all drive electric cars, That electricity is used in the refining process to 'crack' crude oil into petrol, diesel and other products. An electric car apparently doesn't use any more electricity than would be used to refine the fuel to drive an equivalent petrol car about the same distance.

If you do a bit of searching on the internet you can find stats that demonstrate this.

Edited by Sofa Spud on 09/07/2017 at 22:53

That electricity is used in the refining process to 'crack' crude oil into petrol, diesel and other products. An electric car apparently doesn't use any more electricity than would be used to refine the fuel to drive an equivalent petrol car about the same distance.

If you do a bit of searching on the internet you can find stats that demonstrate this.

Are you saying that refineries are powered largely by electricity? Better give us a link to those stats you mention.

helpadude.com/gas-cars-use-more-electricity-than-e.../

greentransportation.info/energy-transportation/gas...l

www.cfr.org/blog-post/do-gasoline-based-cars-reall...o

It seems I wasn't quite right - it's probably the ENERGY used in the refining process rather than just electricity - presumably mostly natural gas. But the argument still stands, since that gas could be used to generate electricity instead of heating the cracking columns.

It's a development of the old claim that it takes about as much energy to produce a gallon of petrol as you get back from burning it as fuel.

Edited by Sofa Spud on 10/07/2017 at 11:31

If we could store the power from renewables ( also jnown as the unreliables ) for use when it was needed would be a solution.

If solar panels had nearby batteries, perhaps as part of the walls of the house, we could. And why don't wind turbine towers contain a stack of batteries?

"If solar panels had nearby batteries, perhaps as part of the walls of the house, we could. And why don't wind turbine towers contain a stack of batteries?" Batteries are inefficient, costly and damaging to the environment to manufacture and rapidly degrade. The only effective way to store electrical power is via hydro power schemes where spare capacity is used to pump water into reservoirs then its later used when demand requires it to drive turbines. There's plenty of space up here in sunny Scotland for more but there's too much short term thinking for that to happen. We've now reached a stage where Scotland regularly produces all of our power from wind but we waste most of our off-peak production by having little storage.

Hydro-generation and pumped storage suits mountainous regions with low populations like Norway with high rainfall and plenty of steep valleys to build dams - that's why Norway is planning to be the first country to ban the sales of I/C cars - but it's not a plan transferrable to other countries.

"Hydro-generation and pumped storage suits mountainous regions with low populations like Norway with high rainfall and plenty of steep valleys to build dams - that's why Norway is planning to be the first country to ban the sales of I/C cars - but it's not a plan transferrable to other countries." We're working on it... www.google.co.uk/amp/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/390803...5

Back in the early '70s I worked up in Aberdeenshire, before the oil boom got going properly - but the Central Belt still had much heavy industry for which power had to be "imported" from England to cope with peak demand - one winter the power lines in the Scottish Uplands were brought down by heavy snow - result was a day-long black-out over most of Scotland.

Having been on holiday in the Highlands recently, the plethora of windfarms are a major blot on the landscape which can only harm Scotland's valuable tourist industry.

On another forum that I frequent there was a discussion regarding the new Tesla 3 - is it going to be a game changer as regards EV use, or (if it is really popular) is it just going to lay bare the problems - that you'd need acres upon acres of charging bays, which would be empty 99% of the time, for example.

One thing that did strike me was this - whilst a Tesla can be charged from a home charger, if you're unfortunate enough to have to plug it into a 'normal' socket (rather than an industrial-type blue socket or a dedicated Telsa charge point) then it gains charge at roughly 6 miles range per hour. Or about 36 hours to get a full charge.

They're also extortionately expensive to 'service', considering no oil, spark plug, engine filter changes. Annual / 12.5k mile (whichever comes first), and the first 4 'services' cost £2250.

Another power storage option would be the production of Hydrogen, which could then be used in fuel cells to produce electricity or burnt as fuel.

There are lots of ways of moving away from carbon based fuels, it just needs the impetus to get it going. It was suggested by academics some years ago that the best way to do this would be for governments to set a cut off date of about thirty years hence for a complete ban on using fossil fuels.

Storing power from a wind farm in batteries is not viable in any way. Output from a single turbine is over 16000 KWh per day on average so even storing one days worth would take something like 150 Tesla batteries. A high rise tower block for every wind farm and the electricity would be so expensive you could not buy it and the batteries would only last a few years.

There was an artical in a magazine about someone who went to live on a remote Scottish island and erected a large domestic wind turbine conected to batteries. They were car batteries stored in a shed, dozens of them, two banks both sides of the shed. He said it gave him power for lights, fridge / freeze and TV but no heating or hot water and he had to be carefull in calm weather not to let the batteries go below their minimum.

Battery storage for renewable energy - wind, solar etc. is already being developed on an industrial scale. Technology has moved on from lead-acid car batteries - like the difference between an electric milk-float and a Tesla Model S - literally! See: . . .

www.nottinghampost.com/europe-s-largest-community-...l

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-304...1

www.oref.co.uk/orkneys-energy/innovations-2/

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/tesla-sou...l

Edited by Sofa Spud on 13/07/2017 at 00:03

Battery storage for renewable energy - wind, solar etc. is already being developed on an industrial scale. Technology has moved on from lead-acid car batteries - like the difference between an electric milk-float and a Tesla Model S - literally!

Moved on maybe but still a long way to go - a Tesla battery pack and motors weigh TWICE the weight of an equivalent power I/C powertrain and fuel system

The Tesla doesn't seem to suffer any ill effects from having a heavy battery pack. Since it's in the form of a flat slab underneath the floor, it gives the car a very low centre of gravity, which by all accounts gives it excellent handling.

Storing power from a wind farm in batteries is not viable in any way. Output from a single turbine is over 16000 KWh per day on average so even storing one days worth would take something like 150 Tesla batteries. A high rise tower block for every wind farm and the electricity would be so expensive you could not buy it......

The turbine towers are already there - empty! I think they could be designed to accommodate at least the equivalent of 150 Tesla batteries.

Once we all have our electric cars and dont need petrol or diesel our dear government will loose bilions in tax. Something like 2/3 of the cost of fuel is tax, petrol is a very cheap fuel its the tax that makes it dear. So the government will have no choice but to tax the electricity or some other random thing to maintain its income. Look what happend to road tax when we all went down to £30 a year, we cant win.

Pie in the sky but if all furure electric cars had compatable removed/installed battery packs then perhaps you would just drive in a service station, your discharged battery pack changed for a recharged one. Range then not too much of a problem and HMG could put loads of lovely tax on the process.