Scrutable

Yeah, I don't know how much potential there is for regenerative agriculture in semi-arid zones themselves. Some of that water will be coming from natural wetlands that could presumably be restored, but IIRC lots is coming from aquifers, which don't do much carbon sequestration.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ply-crisis

Good job there's not going to be any issues with the electricity supply which doesn't depend on gas or anything.

shpalman wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 7:26 pm https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ply-crisis

Good job there's not going to be any issues with the electricity supply which doesn't depend on gas or anything.

That's pretty encouraging.

I had a power cut today but nonetheless there wasn't a queue of cars on my driveway. That I noticed.

EVs have plenty of free time to recharge. It's rare to get a power cut of more than a few hours, in the UK at least.

lpm wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:36 pm EVs have plenty of free time to recharge. It's rare to get a power cut of more than a few hours, in the UK at least.

Don't try to charge your EV this way.

lpm wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:36 pm

shpalman wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 7:26 pm https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ply-crisis

Good job there's not going to be any issues with the electricity supply which doesn't depend on gas or anything.

That's pretty encouraging.

I had a power cut today but nonetheless there wasn't a queue of cars on my driveway. That I noticed.

EVs have plenty of free time to recharge. It's rare to get a power cut of more than a few hours, in the UK at least.

It’s rare to get a power cut of more than a couple of minutes in the U.K.

A couple of minutes?! Maybe in cities.

It was about half an hour this morning. About 5 or 6 power outages a year. Up to a couple of hours. It's a bit of a notorious area, we were warned before we moved in.

An electric car should be able to act as a back up battery for a few house with the correct electronics.

Provided you’ve got it plugged in that is.

Which brings up the whole vehicle to grid thing.

I think that's a way off. EVs need to keep it simple for now to keep costs down. Two way flow is going to cost. Battery management systems are being developed to protect car and battery, perfecting that is the priority.

My one is going to have a 58kWh battery. If it was charged to 80% and I used it for the house down to 20% that's 38kWh. No idea how much house for how long that would be. Two or three days? A week if avoid running the washing machine etc?

The backup power thing is how Ford is marketing the F150 Lightning. I think it's an option, plus a specialized charger.


I average something around 20kWh a day, with three fridges (beer...), an electric dryer, two people working from home, and central air conditioning/heat pump.

sTeamTraen wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:32 pm

lpm wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:36 pm EVs have plenty of free time to recharge. It's rare to get a power cut of more than a few hours, in the UK at least.

Don't try to charge your EV this way.

I once tried to charge an EV using a lightning strike.

I ended up back in 1955 snogging my mother ...

lpm wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:38 pm I think that's a way off. EVs need to keep it simple for now to keep costs down. Two way flow is going to cost. Battery management systems are being developed to protect car and battery, perfecting that is the priority.

My one is going to have a 58kWh battery. If it was charged to 80% and I used it for the house down to 20% that's 38kWh. No idea how much house for how long that would be. Two or three days? A week if avoid running the washing machine etc?

2.65 days for me going by my last 12-months use.

lpm wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:58 pm A couple of minutes?! Maybe in cities.

It was about half an hour this morning. About 5 or 6 power outages a year. Up to a couple of hours. It's a bit of a notorious area, we were warned before we moved in.

You can check what kinds of power cuts there are here: https://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/power-cut/list - there's quite a few.

lpm wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:38 pm I think that's a way off. EVs need to keep it simple for now to keep costs down. Two way flow is going to cost. Battery management systems are being developed to protect car and battery, perfecting that is the priority.

My one is going to have a 58kWh battery. If it was charged to 80% and I used it for the house down to 20% that's 38kWh. No idea how much house for how long that would be. Two or three days? A week if avoid running the washing machine etc?

About 3.5 days. According to https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy ... a-home-use average UK household use is 3731 kWh/year which is just over 10kWh/day.

V2G is meant to act as a short term buffer, in the range of hours not days. 31 million cars in the UK, a few kWs for an hour at most is quite a few GWs.

Can’t find it now, but some districts in the US are buying electric school buses with the intention of using them as V2G during their very long down times.

I use my car less than a school bus is used.

car shares and better public transport are the actual solutions. “I will keep things as they are but greenify my widgets” needs to only be for the mega rich. Sorry.

Which is the obvious answer. Convincing the ex-urban types to give up their cars will not really fly, though it is already working in dense urban areas with things like Zip-car and Uber. Uber can’t last though, without the magic of self driving cars.

So much of the suburban life requires a car. Few people live within walking distance of their place of employment anymore, and there isn't the public transport to move them around (reduced due to cut-backs, partly because as more people bought cars they had less need for buses, etc).

There might be a local corner shop/mini-market, but they won't have a full range and they tend to be more expensive than supermarkets. For efficiency amenities like hospitals, schools, etc have gotten bigger and more centralised. Shopping has moved from town centres to big out-of-town malls. Suburban life became a positive feedback loop where greater car ownership pushed an urban planning system which required greater car ownership.

The last four places I've lived (Aberdeen, Macclesfield, Woking, Perth) I've lived just about within walking distance of the town/city centre (certainly they wouldn't be far enough out to be considered suburban), and while Aberdeen and Perth both have reasonable public transport into the city centre getting about any of those places to anywhere else other than the city/town centre required a car or a substantial change to my lifestyle in terms of what I could do and where I could go (eg, no trips to the countryside for a hike).

If EVs brought about better public transport and a decent car share scheme where you could book a car with reasonable expectation that it would be available, clean and not thrashed to bits by the previous hirer, I might be persuaded to give up my car, but that involves changing public mindsets.

bjn wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:29 pm An electric car should be able to act as a back up battery for a few house with the correct electronics.

All the people with range anxiety now about not having a full tank when there might be a family emergency a couple of hundred miles away and queues at the petrol station... imagine going out to find your car discharged because it's been "balancing the grid".

There are already cars that can get 200 miles of charge in 15 minutes, although not that many chargers around that can deliver it. Range anxiety won't exist in 10 years, well before any time when we realistically need to store all these GW being churned out by renewables.

shpalman wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 7:58 am

bjn wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:29 pm An electric car should be able to act as a back up battery for a few house with the correct electronics.

All the people with range anxiety now about not having a full tank when there might be a family emergency a couple of hundred miles away and queues at the petrol station... imagine going out to find your car discharged because it's been "balancing the grid".

It’s a matter of a few kWhs, not the entire battery. Having it as an opt-in system would be sensible.

Solar power from Morocco is on!

https://electrek.co/2021/09/27/the-worl ... to-the-uk/

Grumble wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 10:28 am Solar power from Morocco is on!

https://electrek.co/2021/09/27/the-worl ... to-the-uk/

Woah cool!

Maybe not as tricky as I thought then.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 10:46 am

Grumble wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 10:28 am Solar power from Morocco is on!

https://electrek.co/2021/09/27/the-worl ... to-the-uk/

Woah cool!

Maybe not as tricky as I thought then.

I’m a little bit confused as to why we’re building a 10.5GW installation and cables to carry 3.6GW. Surely we want all the power?