The Death Of Fossil Fuels

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by dyqik » Thu Dec 10, 2020 1:29 am

The 41 mile trip from the office to the telescope uses a third of a tank in a Ford Expedition (nominal range ~450-500 miles) going there, and doesn't move the needle coming back.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Gfamily » Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:36 am

Martin_B wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 1:17 am
Gfamily wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:47 pm
This is a point I'd not really considered with regard to range.

A report from a Campervan magazine about someone who took an EV camper through Norway, and up the Trollstegen mountain road.
... this North Cape single-track, with a 12% gradient and split up by 11 hairpin bends - it is very demanding with practically nowhere to stop, let alone turn around in a vehicle 6m long! Starting at the bottom of the Trollstegen with a range of 62 miles, Frank reached the summit with 31 miles of range to spare. After a descent, the remaining range was 56 miles when he arrived back where he started, thanks to regenerative braking recharging the battery on the way back down. "As an electric vehicle driver, you quickly develop a feel for this".
From the bottom to the top of the Trollstegen appears to be about 4 miles (6.3 km). So the EV lost 31 miles of range going up the 4 mile road!
And gained 25 miles of range in descending the same distance. Another source shows the road as being 55km, so I'm not sure of the actual distance travelled.
Probably somewhere in between the two figures.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Grumble » Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:45 am

dyqik wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 1:29 am
The 41 mile trip from the office to the telescope uses a third of a tank in a Ford Expedition (nominal range ~450-500 miles) going there, and doesn't move the needle coming back.
Whereas in an EV the needle would move back up
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by AMS » Thu Dec 10, 2020 9:54 am

bjn wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 9:01 am
The increase in specific energy density and volumetric density means that the supporting structures for a pack can be lighter. Lighter BEVs are more efficient, which means you can have smaller batteries. A lovely set of multiplier effects. Would be nice if it worked outside the lab.

We are already seeing a divergence in battery chemistries. This would be another option used for transport, while the newer more durable liquid electrolyte batteries would be used for storage.
Smaller batteries will also be more practical as interchangeable batteries, helping to answer the long journey problem.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Grumble » Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:24 am

AMS wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 9:54 am
bjn wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 9:01 am
The increase in specific energy density and volumetric density means that the supporting structures for a pack can be lighter. Lighter BEVs are more efficient, which means you can have smaller batteries. A lovely set of multiplier effects. Would be nice if it worked outside the lab.

We are already seeing a divergence in battery chemistries. This would be another option used for transport, while the newer more durable liquid electrolyte batteries would be used for storage.
Smaller batteries will also be more practical as interchangeable batteries, helping to answer the long journey problem.
An 80% charge in less than 15 minutes should reduce the long journey problem anyway.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Martin_B » Thu Dec 10, 2020 11:39 am

Gfamily wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:36 am
Martin_B wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 1:17 am
Gfamily wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:47 pm
This is a point I'd not really considered with regard to range.

A report from a Campervan magazine about someone who took an EV camper through Norway, and up the Trollstegen mountain road.
From the bottom to the top of the Trollstegen appears to be about 4 miles (6.3 km). So the EV lost 31 miles of range going up the 4 mile road!
And gained 25 miles of range in descending the same distance. Another source shows the road as being 55km, so I'm not sure of the actual distance travelled.
Probably somewhere in between the two figures.
55 km is from one town to the next on the road. From the bottom to the top of the Trollstegen hairpin section is 6.3 km.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by dyqik » Thu Dec 10, 2020 11:50 am

Grumble wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:45 am
dyqik wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 1:29 am
The 41 mile trip from the office to the telescope uses a third of a tank in a Ford Expedition (nominal range ~450-500 miles) going there, and doesn't move the needle coming back.
Whereas in an EV the needle would move back up
Yes, obviously. I see the same descending the long hill on Route 2 into Cambridge, where my Prius charges itself a mile or so.

The reason I put those numbers in is just to illustrate how much a long hill changes the estimated range in an ICE vehicle - going up we get 1/5 of the specced fuel economy, coming back we get something close to 4 times the specced fuel economy. And that includes 7 miles of rough dirt road each way.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by bjn » Thu Dec 10, 2020 12:22 pm

AMS wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 9:54 am
bjn wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 9:01 am
The increase in specific energy density and volumetric density means that the supporting structures for a pack can be lighter. Lighter BEVs are more efficient, which means you can have smaller batteries. A lovely set of multiplier effects. Would be nice if it worked outside the lab.

We are already seeing a divergence in battery chemistries. This would be another option used for transport, while the newer more durable liquid electrolyte batteries would be used for storage.
Smaller batteries will also be more practical as interchangeable batteries, helping to answer the long journey problem.
I honestly can't think of any significant use case that interchangeable batteries solve for regular cars. They add to the cost of the vehicle because you need to make the battery removable, they add to the systemic cost because you will need more than one battery per vehicle, they add to the cost as you need to be able to track the things and deal with issues around liability of costs for wear, tear and damage. They solve one problem only, which is if you can't wait for 20 minutes after having driven for several hours.

Possibly for long shipping, where you swap drivers and batteries at depots so you can keep the rigs moving and maximise your use of the capital invested in the rest of the rig. Whether that is cost effective is moot.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Gfamily » Thu Dec 10, 2020 12:27 pm

AMS wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 9:54 am
bjn wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 9:01 am
The increase in specific energy density and volumetric density means that the supporting structures for a pack can be lighter. Lighter BEVs are more efficient, which means you can have smaller batteries. A lovely set of multiplier effects. Would be nice if it worked outside the lab.

We are already seeing a divergence in battery chemistries. This would be another option used for transport, while the newer more durable liquid electrolyte batteries would be used for storage.
Smaller batteries will also be more practical as interchangeable batteries, helping to answer the long journey problem.
Back in the day, radios used to be powered by batteries that were taken to the radio store to be recharged, similar to gas bottles today.
A similar model for a universal lightweight battery pack that gave you 20/30 miles of instant top-up might be an option. If concerned about range, you can give yourself an extra 15-20% spare in 5 minutes rather than adding 20 minutes for a 'recharge' stop to your journey.

As I often say, if ICE was the new technology replacing EV, there would be huge complaints about having to drive to a specific site which might be miles away to be able to 'fill the tank'.
Let alone scare stories about tankers full of highly flammable liquids being driven around on our roads.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by dyqik » Thu Dec 10, 2020 1:59 pm

bjn wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 12:22 pm
Possibly for long shipping, where you swap drivers and batteries at depots so you can keep the rigs moving and maximise your use of the capital invested in the rest of the rig. Whether that is cost effective is moot.
The long shipping problem is already solved, using shipping containers on trailers that detach from the engine/cab/fuel tank.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by bjn » Thu Dec 10, 2020 2:39 pm

dyqik wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 1:59 pm
bjn wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 12:22 pm
Possibly for long shipping, where you swap drivers and batteries at depots so you can keep the rigs moving and maximise your use of the capital invested in the rest of the rig. Whether that is cost effective is moot.
The long shipping problem is already solved, using shipping containers on trailers that detach from the engine/cab/fuel tank.
It does mean parking the rig while it charges, and rigs are more expensive than trailers (but not necessarily the cargo). So you aren't making money while it sits there if it could be moving delivering cargo instead. However, if you charge a rig in 20 minutes, then it's not really a problem.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by bjn » Thu Dec 17, 2020 7:23 am

Even in Australia, land of subsidised coal extraction, coal is getting kicked in the teeth by renewables. A coal fired power station in Western Australia, less than 10 years old, has just had $1.2Bn written off its value, it’s now worth nothing.

Expect many more stranded assists like this to surface as markets take note and start exiting coal with a vengeance.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Grumble » Thu Dec 17, 2020 8:21 am

bjn wrote:
Thu Dec 17, 2020 7:23 am
Even in Australia, land of subsidised coal extraction, coal is getting kicked in the teeth by renewables. A coal fired power station in Western Australia, less than 10 years old, has just had $1.2Bn written off its value, it’s now worth nothing.

Expect many more stranded assists like this to surface as markets take note and start exiting coal with a vengeance.
Good to see. The rate at which coal disappears from the scene entirely is only limited by how fast renewables and storage can be built, as far as I can see.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Little waster » Thu Dec 17, 2020 9:35 am

Grumble wrote:
Thu Dec 17, 2020 8:21 am
bjn wrote:
Thu Dec 17, 2020 7:23 am
Even in Australia, land of subsidised coal extraction, coal is getting kicked in the teeth by renewables. A coal fired power station in Western Australia, less than 10 years old, has just had $1.2Bn written off its value, it’s now worth nothing.

Expect many more stranded assists like this to surface as markets take note and start exiting coal with a vengeance.
Good to see. The rate at which coal disappears from the scene entirely is only limited by how fast renewables and storage can be built, as far as I can see.
I think we should all take a quiet moment to express our gratitude to the various well-funded climate change numpties who've spent the last 30 years dishonestly fighting the inevitable to the point we'll now almost, but not quite, manage to avert the upcoming climate chaos.

Good job lads, you absolute a..eholes!

I hope their names are remembered for generations to come.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Martin_B » Thu Dec 17, 2020 11:21 pm

bjn wrote:
Thu Dec 17, 2020 7:23 am
Even in Australia, land of subsidised coal extraction, coal is getting kicked in the teeth by renewables. A coal fired power station in Western Australia, less than 10 years old, has just had $1.2Bn written off its value, it’s now worth nothing.

Expect many more stranded assists like this to surface as markets take note and start exiting coal with a vengeance.
The owners may have written off the plant's value, but it's still operating and generating electricity. It's an economic tool to make it easier for the owners to flog the plant (which is making a loss) to someone willing to continue operating it. In order for the new owners to make money, though, they're going to have to either generate more electricity (which the market doesn't want or need) or cut costs (and so presumably reduce safety).

The alternative is that the plant shuts down and is decommissioned, but that costs money too, and who will want to buy the site just to spend money to shut it down with no income?
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by bjn » Thu Dec 17, 2020 11:51 pm

The plant still has bags of debt associated with it which got sold off at a huge discount to some vulture funds. While the plant is till operating at the moment, servicing that debt may make the operation insolvent. The coal mine that feeds it is running at a huge loss, if that folds, the opex for the plant will go up, which won’t make anything easier.

Regardless, no investor or provider of debt in their right mind is going to fund a coal fired power station in circumstance vaguely similar to this. Current holders of similar debt and capital will be looking to exit their positions, which will just drive the price of such assets down. Hopefully into a virtuous spiral of capital destruction that puts the end to coal burners permanently.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by sTeamTraen » Fri Dec 18, 2020 12:37 am

bjn wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 12:22 pm
I honestly can't think of any significant use case that interchangeable batteries solve for regular cars. They add to the cost of the vehicle because you need to make the battery removable, they add to the systemic cost because you will need more than one battery per vehicle, they add to the cost as you need to be able to track the things and deal with issues around liability of costs for wear, tear and damage. They solve one problem only, which is if you can't wait for 20 minutes after having driven for several hours.

Possibly for long shipping, where you swap drivers and batteries at depots so you can keep the rigs moving and maximise your use of the capital invested in the rest of the rig. Whether that is cost effective is moot.
The Renault Zoe is sold on the basis that you lease the battery (about €70 a month, including unlimited charging at any Renault dealer) and if it goes below 70% of its original capacity they change it for you. So it's presumably designed to be swapped out, but not F1 pitstop-style.

Something that would put me off buying a different EV is the risk that you carry with the battery. On the Nissan Leaf I think you can change some part of the cells, still for a couple of grand a pop, but on the e-Golf the unit of replacement is apparently the entire battery pack, €16,000 to you sir. This does not make it attractive as a second-hand buy. (A Renault salesman told me that even the Zoe, which doesn't have this risk problem, has very poor resale value. We're still at the stage where an EV is a shiny new status symbol, albeit with a touch of green to that status; the kind of people who want a second-hand car don't want an electric one, and vice versa.)
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by dyqik » Fri Dec 18, 2020 2:35 am

Even a Prius battery is not hard to change. It's connectorized, and just bolts in under the back seat. About $2k each, although obviously not as modern or capacious as an EV battery.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Martin_B » Fri Dec 18, 2020 3:04 am

sTeamTraen wrote:
Fri Dec 18, 2020 12:37 am
bjn wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 12:22 pm
I honestly can't think of any significant use case that interchangeable batteries solve for regular cars. They add to the cost of the vehicle because you need to make the battery removable, they add to the systemic cost because you will need more than one battery per vehicle, they add to the cost as you need to be able to track the things and deal with issues around liability of costs for wear, tear and damage. They solve one problem only, which is if you can't wait for 20 minutes after having driven for several hours.

Possibly for long shipping, where you swap drivers and batteries at depots so you can keep the rigs moving and maximise your use of the capital invested in the rest of the rig. Whether that is cost effective is moot.
The Renault Zoe is sold on the basis that you lease the battery (about €70 a month, including unlimited charging at any Renault dealer) and if it goes below 70% of its original capacity they change it for you. So it's presumably designed to be swapped out, but not F1 pitstop-style.

Something that would put me off buying a different EV is the risk that you carry with the battery. On the Nissan Leaf I think you can change some part of the cells, still for a couple of grand a pop, but on the e-Golf the unit of replacement is apparently the entire battery pack, €16,000 to you sir. This does not make it attractive as a second-hand buy. (A Renault salesman told me that even the Zoe, which doesn't have this risk problem, has very poor resale value. We're still at the stage where an EV is a shiny new status symbol, albeit with a touch of green to that status; the kind of people who want a second-hand car don't want an electric one, and vice versa.)
My sister's just bought a second-hand Corolla hybrid, about 3 years old. She asked about the batteries, and was told Toyota guarantee their batteries for 20 years, with free replacement. That's pretty much the lifetime of the car, especially seeing as the UK is going to phase out even hybrids in ~20 years.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by FlammableFlower » Fri Dec 18, 2020 7:11 am

sTeamTraen wrote:
Fri Dec 18, 2020 12:37 am
bjn wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 12:22 pm
I honestly can't think of any significant use case that interchangeable batteries solve for regular cars. They add to the cost of the vehicle because you need to make the battery removable, they add to the systemic cost because you will need more than one battery per vehicle, they add to the cost as you need to be able to track the things and deal with issues around liability of costs for wear, tear and damage. They solve one problem only, which is if you can't wait for 20 minutes after having driven for several hours.

Possibly for long shipping, where you swap drivers and batteries at depots so you can keep the rigs moving and maximise your use of the capital invested in the rest of the rig. Whether that is cost effective is moot.
The Renault Zoe is sold on the basis that you lease the battery (about €70 a month, including unlimited charging at any Renault dealer) and if it goes below 70% of its original capacity they change it for you. So it's presumably designed to be swapped out, but not F1 pitstop-style.

Something that would put me off buying a different EV is the risk that you carry with the battery. On the Nissan Leaf I think you can change some part of the cells, still for a couple of grand a pop, but on the e-Golf the unit of replacement is apparently the entire battery pack, €16,000 to you sir. This does not make it attractive as a second-hand buy. (A Renault salesman told me that even the Zoe, which doesn't have this risk problem, has very poor resale value. We're still at the stage where an EV is a shiny new status symbol, albeit with a touch of green to that status; the kind of people who want a second-hand car don't want an electric one, and vice versa.)
Renault stopped the battery lease thing on the Zoe last year. Technically it was still an option when I got mine in Feb this year but the dealer didn't even bother to mention it.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Grumble » Fri Dec 18, 2020 7:14 am

FlammableFlower wrote:
Fri Dec 18, 2020 7:11 am
Renault stopped the battery lease thing on the Zoe last year. Technically it was still an option when I got mine in Feb this year but the dealer didn't even bother to mention it.
I was just coming to say this. Also the warranty on the battery is longer than the warranty on the car - 8 years as opposed to 5 - because the real life experience shows the batteries are more robust than anyone originally thought.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by bjn » Fri Dec 18, 2020 8:27 am

Grumble wrote:
Fri Dec 18, 2020 7:14 am
FlammableFlower wrote:
Fri Dec 18, 2020 7:11 am
Renault stopped the battery lease thing on the Zoe last year. Technically it was still an option when I got mine in Feb this year but the dealer didn't even bother to mention it.
I was just coming to say this. Also the warranty on the battery is longer than the warranty on the car - 8 years as opposed to 5 - because the real life experience shows the batteries are more robust than anyone originally thought.
Which is why Tesla are considering using battery packs as structural components in their next $25k cars*. It will lower the cost of the car, but raise the cost of any battery repair. Which is moot if the batteries last longer than the rest of the thing.

*So much for BEVs just being ”rich men’s toys” as stated by another member of this parish a while back.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by bjn » Fri Dec 18, 2020 8:32 am

Meanwhile, yet another study showing achieving 100% renewables in the US is achievable and affordable, this one from folks at MIT. Sadly behind a paywall. The main conclusion is that you need nationwide interconnects and coordination between the states to do that. Nukes only get a look in if the various grids are not interconnected.
Here, using a co-optimized capacity-planning and dispatch model over 7 years of hourly operation, we show that inter-state coordination and transmission expansion reduce the system cost of electricity in a 100%-renewable US power system by 46% compared with a state-by-state approach, from 135 $/MWh to 73 $/MWh.
Nice that the EU is progressing with a range of interconnects to help with that sort of thing on this side of the Atlantic.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by FlammableFlower » Fri Dec 18, 2020 9:26 am

sTeamTraen wrote:
Fri Dec 18, 2020 12:37 am
bjn wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 12:22 pm
I honestly can't think of any significant use case that interchangeable batteries solve for regular cars. They add to the cost of the vehicle because you need to make the battery removable, they add to the systemic cost because you will need more than one battery per vehicle, they add to the cost as you need to be able to track the things and deal with issues around liability of costs for wear, tear and damage. They solve one problem only, which is if you can't wait for 20 minutes after having driven for several hours.

Possibly for long shipping, where you swap drivers and batteries at depots so you can keep the rigs moving and maximise your use of the capital invested in the rest of the rig. Whether that is cost effective is moot.
The Renault Zoe is sold on the basis that you lease the battery (about €70 a month, including unlimited charging at any Renault dealer) and if it goes below 70% of its original capacity they change it for you. So it's presumably designed to be swapped out, but not F1 pitstop-style.

Something that would put me off buying a different EV is the risk that you carry with the battery. On the Nissan Leaf I think you can change some part of the cells, still for a couple of grand a pop, but on the e-Golf the unit of replacement is apparently the entire battery pack, €16,000 to you sir. This does not make it attractive as a second-hand buy. (A Renault salesman told me that even the Zoe, which doesn't have this risk problem, has very poor resale value. We're still at the stage where an EV is a shiny new status symbol, albeit with a touch of green to that status; the kind of people who want a second-hand car don't want an electric one, and vice versa.)
On the second part of the second hand market - it's a new market in terms of EV vs ICE, but it does exist a bit. The main one is as you say: people taking old Leafs and upgrading the batteries. Although that is more that battery technology and capacity (and therefore range) has increased so much as opposed to the batteries wearing out.

Although as long as governments do commit to the ending of ICE sales, then worrying about it is redundant - as that is just going to be how it is.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Grumble » Fri Dec 18, 2020 1:27 pm

Today we’re running at over 13GW from wind power, and set a new record of over 13.8GW(at least according to gridwatch.co.uk).

Earlier this week we declined 21.5 GWh of wind over 12 hours because we couldn’t use or store it. We need to ramp up storage in a big way. I can’t wait for the North Sea Interconnector to start working, that should alleviate a chunk of it. The interconnectors we have currently don’t link to big hydro afaik.
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