OT: and back to a traditional debate! UK to set new emissions target

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its the 5% that aren't that mean you have to have a second car.

Because it works out cheaper to have one car, that does everything

[The Natural Philosopher]

That is no barrier to eventual adoption. We can extend the grid slowly to keep pace with demand.

And build nukes to power it.

All this is eminently doable.

What we cant do is a decent battery.

[Chris Hogg]

Quite, but not by 2032.

[harry]

They are normally recharged by night when there is excess generating capacity.

[harry]

I have another car for occasional long journeys.

[harry]

Mark

Which toxic chemicals are those?

and when they transfer the source of pollution from

Most electric car owners charge them by night so enabling power stations to run more efficiently.

Talking bollocks as usual.

[Chris Hogg]

But you can only do that because there aren't many electric cars about. There wouldn't be any excess if everyone had an electric car and wanted to charge them at night. Quite the opposite, in fact: the grid, as presently configured, wouldn't be able to cope.

[charles]

only if it comes from Nukes, Other stations can reduce output, and do, at night.

[harry]

Quite right. Or even own one.

[harry]

We need no extra capacity. Most electric cars are charged by night.

[The Natural Philosopher]

So in fact can nukes, but there isn't a commercial reason to do that.

[DJC]

From the grid now, Lots Road is now a housing estate.

>

[Steve Walker]

Not much use when you've just driven home from work from close to maximum range and then you get a phonecall that a friend or relative needs your help urgently; your child is stranded and needs to be picked up; or even you've run out of a few things and your wife wants you to go straight back out and she can't sort the meal out 'til you do.

How about even, there is an accident on the way home from work and you need to make a big diversion, on a cold night when you need to use your lights, wipers and heater?

Life is unpredictable and a fossil fueled car has both the range and rapid refillability to cope with the unexpected. You can even carry an emergency can of fuel with you.

Electric cars are getting better, but until they can at least get close to the range and recharge times that fossil fuels offer, they are too limited.

The limited life and very high cost of batteries also means that a 10 year-old petrol car is still useful and can even be sold on, whereas a similar aged electric car will soon be needing a battery that costs multiples of the remaining value of the car.

[Steve Walker]

And many people struggle to have somewhere to park even a single car.

[Andy Burns]

Some talk (a few years ago) of them refurbing Greenwich power station for combined heat to housing and power to the underground, rather than just be used for standby. Dunno if it's going/gone ahead ...

[whisky-dave]

Why can;t we get even cheaper imigrants from outside teh EU tio replace those immigrants from the EU. We could replace all our eastern europeans with darker skinned immigrants from the commonwealth or anywhere else.

[whisky-dave]

Where does the excess generating capacity come from ?

[NY]

It's because generating capacity is roughly the same over 24 hours but demand decreases overnight, so there is an excess of capacity over demand at night.

[whisky-dave]

Where do you get that info from ? Can you answer the actual question or are you training to become a politition.

I'll try again where does the 'excess' power come from.

[Chris Hogg]

I presume you're aware that electricity demand is lower at night than it is during the day. As a regular follower of this group, you'd have difficulty not knowing that.

The present electricity supply capacity is around 53GW

page 2. (It used to be much higher a few years ago, but closure of many coal-fired power stations in recent years in response to environmentalist's demands has reduced the capacity significantly). In the summer, daytime demand does not get that high, but in this coming winter it's estimated that there will be no excess capacity at all, page 3 of the link above.

ATM, night-time demand falls to around 20-25GW, but in the winter it only falls to about 35GW. Nevertheless, both figures are lower than the 53GW maximum capacity. Ergo, there is spare capacity at night. See Gridwatch

.

It's not possible for most generators simply to be switched off for periods of a few hours at times of low demand, and switched on again when demand picks up. The furnaces have to be kept hot and the turbines kept spinning, even if they're not actually generating electricity, which is where the excess capacity comes from. It makes sense to take advantage of that unused generator capacity wherever possible, to reduce the over-all cost, fuel and capital, of generating the electricity.