More on electric cars.

In Sept 2011 it was announced that shale gas reserves in Lancashire alone can provide the UK with an estimated 64 years worth for the UK. It never came with a media hype of wonderment for some reason. The country was moving to phase out cheap natural gas (which rose considerably in price recently), now it will reverse.

The problem with shale gas is the fracking to extract the gas. A small earthquake (a very minor tremor which no one felt) near Blackpool, where fracking is being done, was blamed on the fracking process which involved forcing high pressure chemicals/water/mud down pipes into the gas layer to extract it from rock/sediment. Shale gas finds in the US meant gas prices around NY dropped. I can't see that immediately in the UK, as they would use it to bring down the deficit. They hope to have it on-line by 2013. Shale gas resereves drop right down from the North, Midlands and into the the top of southern England.

In Texas fracking has meant gas seeps into ground water. Lancashire gets its water from lakes further north so no great problem.

A Resource & Pollution tax will reduce demand and encourage clean burning. But it has to come from all angles to solve the energy problem.

1. More renewable energy usages,
2. Tax pollution,
3. Make appliances more efficient.
4. Smaller local (district) power stations.

Internal combustion engined vehicles are an efficiency joke - the makers have done little to improve/replace these old crocks. Some condensing gas boilers (furnaces) are up to over 95% efficiency - burning natural gas at point of use (in the homes) is highly efficient. Having smaller, local, cleaner, natural gas power stations, again is far more efficient as there are less line losses - also waste heat can be piped to local homes (Combined Heat & Power). In Scandinavia, locals stations are about 90% efficient as the waste heat is used. One uses an underground heat store, to store heat in summer for winter use.

We could be all electric, inc cars, buses and trains, using the abundance of fracked gas to fuel the power stations.

A long extension lead.

But it needn't be that long, as the average UK domestic solar panel array will only give you enough power to drive about twenty miles per day, averaged over the whole year.

Your solar panels and associated control gear and wiring etc were free?

Lessened, not fixed.

You have a very short memory. You *claimed* to have one long before the MkII came out. And then sang the praises of the improvements on that.

The drugs have obviously stopped working again.

I never had a Mk 1. This man is senile.

knowledge. That it was bought by a 'leading academic' in any science field is truly staggering.

Still it's probably more eco friendly than the Prius that is the biggest consumer of rare earth metals in the world.

and it's made by Dinky - do they allow metal objects in your secure facility?

Harry doesnt go out.

Harry...

Do you think that we'll have enough ground area to put all the solar panels that will be needed if that idea might have a chance to work?..

Have you done any calculations at all?..

Interesting .. thats more or less an internal combustion engine powering the car, perhaps a step in the right direction to an alternative to conventional motive power;!...

We do have a way to go yet...

If this is the way forward the national grid and distro system is going the need a very serious upgrade!...

harry wrote: [snip]

Excellent idea you can charge it overnight. Oh, hang on.

I take it that you never read the blog of the guy who converted a Bedford Rascal to LiIon cells and a custom wound electric motor? Even he admitted that on solar it would take a week to charge.

Which spookily enough, is not that far away from the average number of miles travelled by a UK motorist (according to the AA)

Can't beat a proper car with a real engine though, one that takes two or three minutes to refuel, and you then drive until you need a rest, not the car.

I'd sooner take the bus, or walk, than drive an ugly shitbox like a Prius.

Where the f*ck is that?

don't be silly.

harry doesn't do sums.

lets do it for him.

at 30% efficiency on the PV that's about 150 watt hours per meter per day. (None at all by night)

No the battery to do about 60 miles is, on a poxy 4 wheeled electric bicycle, about 15kWh he says.

So he needs 100 sq meters of panels to - on average, charge that up in the winter. On sunny days it will work,. On gloomy overcast says he will need at least 8 times more than that.

So to RELIABLY make a trip of 30 miles there, and 30 miles back EVERY DAY harry will meed 800 sq meters of panels. And of course, that's only if he travels at night and charges by day.

The cost will be a little bit shy of a million quid.

Of course in summer he will simply throw the power away, because there is no way he can use it.

In summer he might generate 80 times as much.

When no one needs it or wants it.

well exactly.

Road fuel usage is at least the same amount of energy as all the electricity we currently use.

And all electric Britain requires at least a tripling of grid capacity. I did that calc years ago,

Leaving aside issues of storage and so on it came out to about 150 nuclear power stations of pretty decent size.

Dont even think about what it means in terms of windmills.