OT: grid upgrade?

[Tim Streater]

Or, perhaps more simply, I said 49 billion litres/year. At 10 units/litre, that's 490 bn kWh each year. And these would be EXTRA, IN ADDITION to the 320 bn kWh you quote.

[Pancho]

I suspect that is installed wind turbine "capacity" as opposed to the amount of power required.

I suppose we should thank Mr Putin for focusing politicians on the need for nuclear.

[charles]

The Yanks do like their air-con

[The Natural Philosopher]

The sums here are rather difficult, as there are conversion efficiencies, driving styles and so on to be taken into account as well as the overall massive use of road fuel to transport goods.

When I did the calculation for ALL fossil fuel usage it came out at around 300GW - ten times upscale.

With better efficiencies when used for motion power it should be around

200GW. Naturally this isn't just private cars, its all road transport, air transport, industrial and domestic heating, and manufacturing as a feed stock and energy source..

That is the reality of 'net zero ' No f****ng point in leccy cars if you are burning huge amounts of gas to make concrete and bricks to build eco homes or fertiliser to grow food.

And transport all your amazon purchases to you door and food to your supermarket.

Net Zero is just hand waving virtue signalling nonsense, desinged to win elections. It is impossible to achieve with existing technology at a price that will not kill more uk citizens than climate change ever could.

The only possible option is nuclear power on a massive sale - that may generate te primary energy, but there still issues about e.g. how you make cement and fertiliser using nuclear power,

[newshound]

+1.

Although my guess is that politics will get in the way of "massive" nuclear, we'll bumble along with reducing populations and living standards, still build renewables, try to pick up shortfalls with fracking, and quietly make net zero to a "long term goal".

Haber process could be done with electricity. Cement too for that matter, the other issue with that is that you'd need carbon capture for the CO2 displaced from the limestone. If you are daft enough.

[Chris Hogg]

The weasel word is 'net'. There's no way that we will achieve 'zero' CO2 production, but the govt will claim that by planting squillions of trees and buying 'carbon credits' or 'carbon offsets' or whatever they're called, they will juggle the numbers and apply a complicated formula designed from the start to come up with zero whatever the input.

It'll all be fudged, just wait and see.

[Colin Bignell]

They were the only figures I could find, but electric motors are only

85%-90% efficient and there will be losses in getting the power from the grid into the batteries, so 77% efficient does not sound far off.

[Tim Streater]

So would you if you lived there - anywhere except a few spots.

If we take petrol cars as 30% efficient, and electric cars as 80% efficient, then we have 56 x 0.3 x 1.25 -> 21GW needed. A lot less, but still 10 large power stations plus the grid and distribution points. They'd have to be nuclear, of course (the power stations, not the distribution points).

[Dave Plowman (News]

Since when have 'tree huggers' been in power?

Many have seen the fossil fuel crisis coming for years. It's not like we've not experienced it being used for political purposes before, either.

It is successive governments who have just kept their heads in the sands. As with so much else.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Of course not. Their motors may come quite close, but charging a battery, not.

[Dave Plowman (News]

On an EV, is that much less efficient than the heaters needed in the UK?

[Colin Bignell]

Unless, of course, we get the cars nuclear powered.

[Andrew]

A combination of more+better insulation and newer electrical stuff (*) could easily give you that 20% saving, but most people have spent the last 40 years spending their excess money on luxury living, holidays, cars, cruises and sweet FA on insulation.

Even worse are the numpties who have bought old houses/cottages and ripped off all the internal lime plaster for that 'cool, exposed stone/brickwork effect'. Now that 'cool' effect means they can choose between paying £thousands every year to heat the place, or freezing.

(*) Sister and I are sorting out Dads stuff. His TV is a Panny TX32LMD70A which weighs 18 Kg and even though it is only 32 inch it looks huge and uses double the power of a modern 43 inch set, which also probably weighs less.

[Andrew]

Since Pricess Nut Nuts moved into 10 Downing St.

A stopped clock also shows the correct time twice a day too.

Have extinction rebellion noticed that we have a population crisis (which is the root cause of every other 'issue') ?

[Andrew]

Except -

You lose electricity because of transmission losses, and it's not an insignificant amount, whereas hardly any petrol, diesel or natural gas is lost between refinery/import terminal and end user. if any natural gas leaked, transco would be on the case pdq.

So that just leaves inefficient burning of fossil fuels, whereas

1Kw of leccy gives 1Kw of heat/energy.

[Andrew]

My neighbour still thinks we could use electricity to 'turn' the windmills when there is no wind, and use the generated wind to generate electricity. Yes really. And he can vote too, alarming !!!.

[newshound]

Two good reasons not to. Tiny reactors need highly enriched fuel, hence have a proliferation risk. And scaling laws mean the weight of shielding becomes prohibitive. Can work for shipping, probably not for trains or goods vehicles.

[charles]

You forget the tanker between the refinery an thnrefuelling place.

[Paul]

Heat pumps work best... when you have heat to pump.

Don't forget, that the magic "heat source" has to come from somewhere. Just because you put lekky in a compressor motor, does not "guarantee a return on your investment".

In Canada, with *air-source* heat pumps, the output is zero at around -15C ambient. A neighbour down the street has had a heat pump for some time, and for the last few years, it's never switched on any more (not worth the bother).

If you can find any sort of ground source thermal reservoir with better performance than that (outdoor air), then you can expect at least some heat from the thing, all heating season.

If I wanted to run a connection to the local river and extract water, suck the heat out of it, and send the waste water back, I would be told "No!". And this is part of the game.

Some of the performance numbers are going to depend on what kind of reservoir you're pumping down.

"... constant ground temperatures of 42 °F ? 57 °F year-round ..."

Well, maybe. There must be a flux limit, to how fast the constant ground temperature recovers from your pumping on it.

It would be interesting, to see what sort of "pipe field" would be needed, for a reasonable COP value.

Paul

[Paul]

The battery scheme is not 100% efficient.

Just the HVAC system running through the battery pack, while it charges, should tell you that. The battery may be heated, at the beginning of the charge process, then cooled, near the end of the charging process.

The motors on the other hand, can be very good.

And regeneration capabilities (some working all the way down to zero miles per hour), reduces the waste of using just friction-braking. With a BEV, you're paying for wheel resistance and drag coefficient. This is why they even bother with putting covers over the wheels.

Paul