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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2020 9:21 pm
by Sciolus
Two months...
In other news, a proposal for an offshore windfarm off Kent has been
refused because it would be a hazard to navigation. Although there are several more developments in the pipeline, it looks like we might be approaching capacity for offshore wind:the North Sea is getting full and all the easy sites have been taken.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2020 10:04 pm
by Grumble
Sciolus wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2020 9:21 pm
Two months...
In other news, a proposal for an offshore windfarm off Kent has been
refused because it would be a hazard to navigation. Although there are several more developments in the pipeline, it looks like we might be approaching capacity for offshore wind:the North Sea is getting full and all the easy sites have been taken.
Some of the biggest wind farms in the North Sea have planning permission but haven’t yet started construction, or are part way through. Hornsea Project 1 has been commissioned and is fully operational, currently the UK’s biggest. Hornsea 2 is in pre-construction and Hornsea 3 is in planning. For example. So even with no more sites getting permission there will still be a big increase in offshore wind generation with the sites that are in the pipeline.
For a more comprehensive look here’s a good resource:
https://www.4coffshore.com/offshorewind/
Of course the recent change to make it easier to construct onshore wind is a game-changer. Onshore wind is the cheapest way to generate electricity bar none.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 10:56 pm
by bjn
I've been meaning to do this for a while, but haven't had a chance to sit down and do it. Below is a simple python model I've put together estimating the CO2 emissions and cost to operate a battery electric articulated lorry. I've done a low/high estimate for the figures that are still to be clear, other figures are referenced in the comments. The low estimates are what I've seen come out of Tesla, the high figures are me adding some generous fudge factors.
One thing to make clear, I'm not a Tesla fan boy, I wouldn't buy a car from them, not the least for their anti-union stance. However, what they have done is demonstrate what is possible with BEV vehicles.
The main things to note,
- this is over the stated one million miles life span of a battery and motors,
- which is around 16 years on the road in the UK given typical mileage,
- there has been a big revision of the CO2 costs to make lithium batteries (see link), the lower bound of that (61kg/kWh) is going to be what Tesla is hitting due to their carbon neutral factories,
- a big chunk of that CO2 cost is in mining and initial refinement, something like 50kg/kWh
- recycling estimates I've seen are around 15kg/kWh to turn old batteries into new, but given that there is no large scale recycling yet, that could be all over the place, in either direction,
- I've not factored in the carbon costs to make any other part of either truck,
- however I have factored in the CO2 cost to make the diesel consumed, so called 'well to tank' emissions,
- I've used the lower bound of 1.8kWh/mile that Tesla has announced and more than doubled that as an upper bound,
- given a 500mile range and the stated consumption, plus widespread internet speculation, I've assumed the battery is between 1000kWh and 1200kWh,
- ICE artic tractors are on the order of 15 tonnes or so, with several tonnes of engine, exhaust, transmission, fuel etc... 5/6 tonnes of battery swapped for all that won't eat overly into the payload weight, a small fraction at most. Given that something like 80% of journeys are below 80% of full weight, meh (I've lost the link for that reference sorry). Note that there is also a lighter 300 mile version being built,
Results are below, values in as [a, b] are low/high values...
- battery mass 4,831 <-> 5,797 kg
- battery co2 production cost 61,000 <-> 127,200kg
- kms that a diesel truck would drive to emit a battery's worth of CO2 38,745 <-> 80,793 km
- co2 emissions for BEV truck, battery + electricity 570,400 <-> 1,485,600kg
- diesel only emissions for same distance 2,519,040kg
- CO2 savings 77 <-> 41%
- Fuel cost saving 69 <-> 16 %
In short, a BEV tractor is much more carbon efficient than an ICE tractor, even with reasonable worse case scenario for Elon lying. The best case has it being stunningly better. As grids continues to decarbonise, a BEV will also drop in emissions over it's lifetime, so my CO2 figures will be an over estimate, your ICE truck is going to be stuck belching out CO2 at the same rate while it is still on the road for the next 20 years or so.
Arguments from incredulity are all well and good, now go find where I've got something wrong.
Python Code below...
Code: Select all
import typing
# Battery size in kwh
# low and high estimate
batterySize = [1000, 1200]
# CO2/kwh emisions to make a battery, high and low, estimated
# https://www.ivl.se/download/18.14d7b12e16e3c5c36271070/1574923989017/C444.pdf
batteryManufacturingEmissionsPerKwH = [61, 106] # lowest and higest from above paper
# kgs of CO2 emitted to make each battery,
# low estimate and high estimate
emisionsPerBattery = [batterySize[i] * batteryManufacturingEmissionsPerKwH[i] for i in range(2)]
# battery pack energy density kwh/kg, based of real world Model 3 figures
# https://insideevs.com/news/338105/tesla-model-3-battery-cell-has-worlds-highest-energy-density/
energyDensity = 0.207
batteryMass = [bs/energyDensity for bs in batterySize]
# Litres/100km for a 40t diesel truck + trailer
# https://www.volvotrucks.com/content/dam/volvo/volvo-trucks/markets/global/pdf/our-trucks/Emis_eng_10110_14001.pdf
dieselTruckFuelConsumption = 48
# co2 kg/litre for burning diesel
# https://carbonpositivelife.com/co2-per-litre-diesel/
dieselBurningEmisions = 2.64
# well to tank CO2 emissions per litre of diesel
# https://innovationorigins.com/producing-gasoline-and-diesel-emits-more-co2-than-we-thought/
dieselProductionEmissions = 0.64
# total emissions per litre of diesel
totalDieselEmissions = dieselBurningEmisions + dieselProductionEmissions
# co2 per km for 40t truck
dieselTruckEmisonsPerKm = dieselTruckFuelConsumption * totalDieselEmissions/100
# how many kms would a diesel truck drive to emit
# the same amount of CO2 emitted in the manfacture of the battery
equivKmsPerBattery = [e/dieselTruckEmisonsPerKm for e in emisionsPerBattery]
# kg CO2 per kWh for UK electricity
# https://www.rensmart.com/Calculators/KWH-to-CO2
co2PerKwH = 0.283
# lifetime range, in km
totalRange = 1600000
# kwh consumed per km, low/high estimate
# Tesla orginally stated 1.8kWh per mile, fudging to 3
kwhPerKm = [1.8/1.6, 3]
# co2Emissions
co2EmmissionsForElectricityUsed = [totalRange * co2PerKwH * k for k in kwhPerKm]
# BEV emissions over million miles
bevTruckCo2Emissions = [co2EmmissionsForElectricityUsed[i] + emisionsPerBattery[i] for i in range(2)]
dieselTruckCo2Emissions = totalRange * dieselTruckEmisonsPerKm
fractionalCO2Savings = [100 - 100 * e/dieselTruckCo2Emissions for e in bevTruckCo2Emissions]
# commercial electricty prices, as a small business
# https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/875777/QEP_Q4_2019.pdf
pencePerKwh = 15
bevCostPerKm = [pencePerKwh * k for k in kwhPerKm]
# cost of diesel per litre (RAC)
# https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/fuel-watch/
dieselPrice = 112
dieselCostPerKm = dieselPrice * dieselTruckFuelConsumption/100
costSavingPerKm = [100 - 100 * b/dieselCostPerKm for b in bevCostPerKm]
def fmtList(l: typing.List[float]) -> str :
return " <-> ".join([f"{v:,.0f}" for v in l])
print(f"battery mass {fmtList(batteryMass)} kg")
print(f"battery co2 production cost {fmtList(emisionsPerBattery)}kg")
print(f"kms that a diesel truck would drive to emit a battery's worth of CO2 {fmtList(equivKmsPerBattery)} km")
print(f"co2 emissions for BEV truck, battery + electricity {fmtList(bevTruckCo2Emissions)}kg")
print(f"diesel only emissions for same distance {fmtList([dieselTruckCo2Emissions])}kg")
print(f"CO2 savings {fmtList(fractionalCO2Savings)}%")
print(f"Fuel cost saving {fmtList(costSavingPerKm)} %")
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 1:17 am
by Bird on a Fire
That's very impressive, both the work that's gone into it and the conclusion! Have you thought about doing a mini write-up to be spread more widely?
Something that strikes me with trucking is that pauses are already a necessity due to tachy breaks, which might make top-up charging more plausible? I'd guess that range with a heavy load might still be an issue?
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:18 am
by bjn
Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 1:17 am
That's very impressive, both the work that's gone into it and the conclusion! Have you thought about doing a mini write-up to be spread more widely?
Something that strikes me with trucking is that pauses are already a necessity due to tachy breaks, which might make top-up charging more plausible? I'd guess that range with a heavy load might still be an issue?
Thanks! I've not thought about disseminating it further, and I'd want some to look over it before I did. I think I've possibly made a mistake with the battery weight assumptions, but I can't see what it is.
The current generation of Tesla batteries can go from 20% to 80% charged in about 30 minutes, so yes, top up charging during mandated breaks would be a thing. That 60% would be around 300 miles, which is 5 hours driving for an artic on a motorway at 60mph. Destination charging would also be a thing, plugin in while you load/unload.
The mileage Tesla have given out appears to be when hauling 80,000lbs. Motorway driving fuel consumption is mainly air resistance, which is independent of weight. Stop start traffic gives you regen for a BEV and lots of inefficient gear changes for an ICE.
I can't find figures for the UK, but something like 80% of freight journeys in the USA are below 250 miles.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:41 am
by bjn
There will be devils in a bunch of details there, but if I've got my basic sums right, those devils will have to be very very large to affect the overall conclusion.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 10:52 am
by bjn
One mistake is that I should have derived battery size from desired range and kWh/mile, rather than plucking figures out of the air. Doing that, and using 1.8kWh/mile as the best case, and double that as the worse case, I get....
- lifetime range, 1 million miles
- range on full charge, 500 miles
- battery size 900 <-> 1,800 kWh
- battery mass 4,348 <-> 8,696 kg
- battery co2 production cost 54,900 <-> 190,800kg
- kms that a diesel truck would drive to emit a battery's worth of CO2 34,870 <-> 121,189 km
- lifetime co2 emissions for BEV truck, battery + electricity 564,300 <-> 1,209,600kg
- diesel only emissions for same distance 2,519,040kg
- CO2 savings 78 <-> 52%
- Fuel cost saving 69 <-> 37 %
The main discrepancy over the previous model was that the efficiency worse case was hard coded as 3kWh/km, ie: 4.8kWh/mile, this one I've set it to be double the best case. This model also has a heavier battery for the worse case which would eat more of the cargo weight.
ETA: for lifetime CO2 emissions to be equal with an ICE, elonLyingFactor needs to be around 4.15 which gives also you an 18 tonne battery, obviously not feasible as a BEV. So what really makes or breaks this is really down to how far out the kWh/mile is from the originally states 1.8kWh/mile, we'll find out by the end of the year.
Code is...
Code: Select all
import typing
# kwh consumed per km, low/high estimate
# Tesla orginally stated 1.8kWh per mile, worst casing it to twice that
elonLyingFactor = 2
kwhPerMile = [1.8, elonLyingFactor*1.8]
kwhPerKm = [k / 1.6 for k in kwhPerMile]
# stated range in miles
bevRange = 500
# Battery size in kwh to achieve stated range
# low and high estimate
batterySize = [bevRange * k for k in kwhPerMile]
# CO2/kwh emisions to make a battery, high and low, estimated
# https://www.ivl.se/download/18.14d7b12e16e3c5c36271070/1574923989017/C444.pdf
batteryManufacturingEmissionsPerKwH = [61, 106] # lowest and higest from above paper
# kgs of CO2 emitted to make each battery,
# low estimate and high estimate
emisionsPerBattery = [batterySize[i] * batteryManufacturingEmissionsPerKwH[i] for i in range(2)]
# battery pack energy density kwh/kg, based of real world Model 3 figures
# https://insideevs.com/news/338105/tesla-model-3-battery-cell-has-worlds-highest-energy-density/
energyDensity = 0.207
batteryMass = [bs/energyDensity for bs in batterySize]
# Litres/100km for a 40t diesel truck + trailer
# https://www.volvotrucks.com/content/dam/volvo/volvo-trucks/markets/global/pdf/our-trucks/Emis_eng_10110_14001.pdf
dieselTruckFuelConsumption = 48
# co2 kg/litre for burning diesel
# https://carbonpositivelife.com/co2-per-litre-diesel/
dieselBurningEmisions = 2.64
# well to tank CO2 emissions per litre of diesel
# https://innovationorigins.com/producing-gasoline-and-diesel-emits-more-co2-than-we-thought/
dieselProductionEmissions = 0.64
# total emissions per litre of diesel
totalDieselEmissions = dieselBurningEmisions + dieselProductionEmissions
# co2 per km for 40t truck
dieselTruckEmisonsPerKm = dieselTruckFuelConsumption * totalDieselEmissions/100
# how many kms would a diesel truck drive to emit
# the same amount of CO2 emitted in the manfacture of the battery
equivKmsPerBattery = [e/dieselTruckEmisonsPerKm for e in emisionsPerBattery]
# kg CO2 per kWh for UK electricity
# https://www.rensmart.com/Calculators/KWH-to-CO2
co2PerKwH = 0.283
# lifetime range, in km
totalRange = 1600000
# co2Emissions
co2EmmissionsForElectricityUsed = [totalRange * co2PerKwH * k for k in kwhPerKm]
# BEV emissions over million miles
bevTruckCo2Emissions = [co2EmmissionsForElectricityUsed[i] + emisionsPerBattery[i] for i in range(2)]
dieselTruckCo2Emissions = totalRange * dieselTruckEmisonsPerKm
fractionalCO2Savings = [100 - 100 * e/dieselTruckCo2Emissions for e in bevTruckCo2Emissions]
# commercial electricty prices, as a small business
# https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/875777/QEP_Q4_2019.pdf
pencePerKwh = 15
bevCostPerKm = [pencePerKwh * k for k in kwhPerKm]
# cost of diesel per litre (RAC)
# https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/fuel-watch/
dieselPrice = 112
dieselCostPerKm = dieselPrice * dieselTruckFuelConsumption/100
costSavingPerKm = [100 - 100 * b/dieselCostPerKm for b in bevCostPerKm]
def fmtList(l: typing.List[float]) -> str :
return " <-> ".join([f"{v:,.0f}" for v in l])
print(f"battery size {fmtList(batterySize)} kWh")
print(f"battery mass {fmtList(batteryMass)} kg")
print(f"battery co2 production cost {fmtList(emisionsPerBattery)}kg")
print(f"kms that a diesel truck would drive to emit a battery's worth of CO2 {fmtList(equivKmsPerBattery)} km")
print(f"co2 emissions for BEV truck, battery + electricity {fmtList(bevTruckCo2Emissions)}kg")
print(f"diesel only emissions for same distance {fmtList([dieselTruckCo2Emissions])}kg")
print(f"CO2 savings {fmtList(fractionalCO2Savings)}%")
print(f"Fuel cost saving {fmtList(costSavingPerKm)} %")
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 3:58 pm
by AMS
With solar panels dropping substantially in cost, is there much mileage (pun intended) in covering the tops of the trailers in them, to generate a bit of extra power? Won't be anywhere near enough to power the truck, but it is basically a flat surface pointing at the sky.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 4:13 pm
by bjn
AMS wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 3:58 pm
With solar panels dropping substantially in cost, is there much mileage (pun intended) in covering the tops of the trailers in them, to generate a bit of extra power? Won't be anywhere near enough to power the truck, but it is basically a flat surface pointing at the sky.
Not really, you won’t be able to position the panels optimally, and you won’t get much out of it for the small surface area. Better off putting them somewhere else.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 7:01 pm
by Grumble
When you say CO2 emissions for battery + electricity the bottom end of CO2 emissions for electricity should be 100% renewables at about 0.026 kg per kWh (wind and hydro). It is possible for businesses to specify 100% renewables and I feel like a business that is going to invest in a Tesla lorry is more likely to do that.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 7:23 pm
by bjn
Grumble wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 7:01 pm
When you say CO2 emissions for battery + electricity the bottom end of CO2 emissions for electricity should be 100% renewables at about 0.026 kg per kWh (wind and hydro). It is possible for businesses to specify 100% renewables and I feel like a business that is going to invest in a Tesla lorry is more likely to do that.
The purpose of the model was to show the broad outline of CO2 and cost savings with a BEV HGV, without having to special case it for super bestest electricity generation mix. I could add another dimension for the emissions according to source and make the model properly multi-dimensional, but that was too hard and went beyond the scope of what I wanted to achieve. But for shiggles, I ran the numbers you suggested and got CO2 savings of 96% <-> 89%.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 7:37 pm
by Grumble
bjn wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 7:23 pm
Grumble wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 7:01 pm
When you say CO2 emissions for battery + electricity the bottom end of CO2 emissions for electricity should be 100% renewables at about 0.026 kg per kWh (wind and hydro). It is possible for businesses to specify 100% renewables and I feel like a business that is going to invest in a Tesla lorry is more likely to do that.
The purpose of the model was to show the broad outline of CO2 and cost savings with a BEV HGV, without having to special case it for super bestest electricity generation mix. I could add another dimension for the emissions according to source and make the model properly multi-dimensional, but that was too hard and went beyond the scope of what I wanted to achieve. But for shiggles, I ran the numbers you suggested and got CO2 savings of 96% <-> 89%.
It would be interesting to see if Octopus or Bulb or ovo give a CO2 output/kWh score for their customers. I’ll go and see if they do.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:25 pm
by jimbob
bjn wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 4:13 pm
AMS wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 3:58 pm
With solar panels dropping substantially in cost, is there much mileage (pun intended) in covering the tops of the trailers in them, to generate a bit of extra power? Won't be anywhere near enough to power the truck, but it is basically a flat surface pointing at the sky.
Not really, you won’t be able to position the panels optimally, and you won’t get much out of it for the small surface area. Better off putting them somewhere else.
Yup. You can assume solar insolation at about 1kW per sq metre (maybe 50% overall) and 20% for solar cells, so that's about a 100W per square metre. so 30 - 40 hours per square metre per kilometre.
But for trickle charging, and maybe keeping aircon etc going, maybe.
As an aside, a colleague worked on designing LEDs in a previous company and although they are efficient, at the sort of brightnesses they're used in cars, they're only about twice as efficient as halogen bulbs. They do produce a fair amount of heat, which he tells me is sometimes used by EVs for heating in winter.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:41 pm
by Bird on a Fire
Also, if you're driving faster you catch more photons from the air and thus create more electricity.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 6:30 am
by bjn
jimbob wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:25 pm
As an aside, a colleague worked on designing LEDs in a previous company and although they are efficient, at the sort of brightnesses they're used in cars, they're only about twice as efficient as halogen bulbs. They do produce a fair amount of heat, which he tells me is sometimes used by EVs for heating in winter.
But in summer that would be excess heat you don’t want, and might possibly use aircon to dump out of the car. Strikes me as you’d want to use lights that are as efficient as possible and heating that is as efficient as possible and only use them when appropriate.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 8:09 am
by jimbob
bjn wrote: ↑Tue Jun 16, 2020 6:30 am
jimbob wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:25 pm
As an aside, a colleague worked on designing LEDs in a previous company and although they are efficient, at the sort of brightnesses they're used in cars, they're only about twice as efficient as halogen bulbs. They do produce a fair amount of heat, which he tells me is sometimes used by EVs for heating in winter.
But in summer that would be excess heat you don’t want, and might possibly use aircon to dump out of the car. Strikes me as you’d want to use lights that are as efficient as possible and heating that is as efficient as possible and only use them when appropriate.
Yes, it's more that they are a significant source of heat, and in winter it's actually worth using.
I can't remember whether he was designing LED driver ICs or the LEDs themselves, but be was looking at them down to very low currents. They are certainly visible in the microamp range, I think he said the tens of nanoamps. By the time you get up to the levels needed for car lamps though, the current and the forward voltage drop is significant. Several volts, not the about 1 Volt you might be used to.
It was a coffee break chat though
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 9:51 am
by shpalman
The most efficient white LEDs are basically blue ones plus something fluorescent to fill in the rest of the white. But this is still more efficient than making white from three different colours, since green ones are particularly inefficient. There's significant technological effort aimed at closing this "green gap".
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 10:07 am
by FlammableFlower
shpalman wrote: ↑Tue Jun 16, 2020 9:51 am
The most efficient white LEDs are basically blue ones plus something fluorescent to fill in the rest of the white. But this is still more efficient than making white from three different colours, since green ones are particularly inefficient. There's significant technological effort aimed at closing this "green gap".
There's a Japanese company (Kyocera) that has made a
lot of claims in the area of more nature spectrum-like white LEDs. I'd like to get my hands on some (for a pet research project) but they've been really unhelpful.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 2:54 pm
by bjn
Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 1:17 am
That's very impressive, both the work that's gone into it and the conclusion! Have you thought about doing a mini write-up to be spread more widely?
Something that strikes me with trucking is that pauses are already a necessity due to tachy breaks, which might make top-up charging more plausible? I'd guess that range with a heavy load might still be an issue?
Not sure how I'd go about spreading it more widely, or what kind of write-up you'd suggest. Either way I've put the model up on github....
https://github.com/bjnsock/hgv_bev/blob ... /README.md
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 10:16 am
by MartinDurkin
Darren Grimes wrote:Since we must use coal, why import it all – when we could instead create jobs by mining it in the North-East?
Apparently not a parody.
https://www.conservativehome.com/thecol ... -east.html
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 10:30 am
by TopBadger
Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:41 pm
Also, if you're driving faster you catch more photons from the air and thus create more electricity.
You don't catch more photons - thats daft!
What you need to do is put the solar panel on the front of the truck and drive really fast, then the photons seen become blue shifted and from E=hf therefore have higher energy = more electricity.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 10:37 am
by Grumble
A bit late for the Tories to come out in favour of coal mining communities.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 10:15 pm
by El Pollo Diablo
f.cking heritage railways. Jesus.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2020 3:08 pm
by TopBadger
Grumble wrote: ↑Wed Jun 17, 2020 10:37 am
A bit late for the Tories to come out in favour of coal mining communities.
Also demonstrates no understanding of economics? I thought one of the reasons (the main one) that coal mining stopped in the UK was because it was uneconomic compared to importing?
Same thinking seems to be going on now with Farming - where the Tory position seems to be 'we can grow all the food we need at home' and 'we can open up the UK to cheap food imports'. They don't seem to get you can't expect to open yourself up to cheap imports and also maintain home production. Just because you have the capacity to do something doesn't mean its profitable.
Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels
Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2020 4:32 pm
by El Pollo Diablo
The main expense involved in running a heritage railway isn't buying imported coal, it's all the other f.cking stuff. You've basically got a giant broiling pressure vessel of steam and fire, made of obsolete parts, running on possibly the most expensive bit of infrastructure attached to the earth, also made of obsolete parts, and kept going by men whose knees stopped working in the 90s. If it weren't for the fact that Network Rail keeps trying to get rid of its old shite, most of them would've gone bust years ago.
He said cynically. Nice day out though.