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[Viral_Jim]

I was stuck at home yesterday dog-sitting the new pup and got to reading/watching some stuff on renewable energy, an industry which the UK Gov't are doing their damnedest to kill incidentally.

The interview was with the head of on-shore wind for General Electric and he was making the point that EV's are likely to play a key role in renewable energy as a way to load balance the network (a key criticism of renewable energy in general). His view was that the technology is coming down the track to allow 2 way communication between the national grid, EV chargers and EV cars. This will allow the grid to vary the rate of charge on EV's (or even draw a small amount of power back from them) to balance loads on the grid.

Currently load balancing is done either by cranking up or down fossil power stations or by Hydro Electric storage. Even further down the track (20yrs+), he suggested that excess electricity could be used to split water to make hydrogen to fuel vehicles less suited to electric (like HGV's). This process apparently already goes on to feed gas into the grid in some parts of the world.

I guess what I found most interesting is that it was the first time I'd heard someone talk sensibly and credibly about renewable energy in a way that "hung together" rather than just some disjointed ideas about being "kinder to the environment". 

[Marks DTM Calib]

Oh great, which wind bag at our company was it?

[Viral_Jim]

A guy called Charles Haworth - Operations Leader for Onshore Wind.

[Marks DTM Calib]

A guy called Charles Haworth - Operations Leader for Onshore Wind.

Sales and Marketing man for Renewables UK......enough said 

A few hard facts are that renewables are a joke without energy storage, that said, it will be a tough challenge to get car chargers backing off charge rates when it risks them not being fully charged when needed.....plus it ages the owners battery if you then grab a bit of power from them and who pays for that.....then there is the question of who pays for the transmission quality inverter to transform the battery DC back to AC....

Get some Nuclear built!

[Sir Tigger KC]

Get some Nuclear built!

And start digging some bloody deep holes to hide the waste for future generations to deal with. 

[Kevin Wood]

Yep, it seems to me that the battery is already limiting what an electric car can do in a massive way, and always will. To put the additional burden of balancing the grid onto it makes that problem much worse.

I suppose if you're talking really short term injection of only a few percent of the charge into the grid, it might work without disadvantaging the car owner too much once electric cars are widespread (but how much will the extra cycling wear the battery?).

However, that's not what the grid needs. The grid needs a couple of dozen more Dinorwigs, and that's patently not going to come from electric cars happen.

So yes, build some nuclear and scrap all the giant desk fans.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Get some Nuclear built!

And start digging some bloody deep holes to hide the waste for future generations to deal with. 

Plenty of redundant oil wells out at sea.......plus there is no other real alternative available at the moment.

[Viral_Jim]

I can't get on board with nuclear. The cost of the latest one would have funded the Cardiff tidal lagoon project twice, with a £bn or two in change. Meaning we could have powered most of Wales with clean energy, not created a vile problem for future generations to deal with and also not handed over key pieces of infrastructure to the Chinese  .

My fundamental problem with nuclear is that it follows the 3000 year old model of digging stuff up, burning it and creating foul byproducts to get our energy.

I'd agree that batteries are a seriously limiting factor, but very little had been done with them in the 20-30yrs since Mr Goodenough invented the lithium ion battery in the 70's. The past 5-10yrs has seen big advances and will continue to do so. Battery life for EV's is already set to outlast the realistic life of the car, particularly as these lives are getting shorter all the time.

[Marks DTM Calib]

I can't get on board with nuclear. The cost of the latest one would have funded the Cardiff tidal lagoon project twice, with a £bn or two in change. Meaning we could have powered most of Wales with clean energy, not created a vile problem for future generations to deal with and also not handed over key pieces of infrastructure to the Chinese  .

My fundamental problem with nuclear is that it follows the 3000 year old model of digging stuff up, burning it and creating foul byproducts to get our energy.

I'd agree that batteries are a seriously limiting factor, but very little had been done with them in the 20-30yrs since Mr Goodenough invented the lithium ion battery in the 70's. The past 5-10yrs has seen big advances and will continue to do so. Battery life for EV's is already set to outlast the realistic life of the car, particularly as these lives are getting shorter all the time.

I was on the side lines of the Swansea bay project team (awaiting government approval), its generating capability is 320MW peak....just over half a single genset at Drax

Cardiff Bay is a peak of 3GW which is just less than the Drax output.

Trouble is, none of them can run continuously at peak.....and you don't want to be turning cities off for an hour or two during slack tide.....

From memory Wales consumes about 80,000 GWh per year which is 2-3 times more than Cardiff can supply alone!

Forget batteries, the laws of physics mean the capacity will never get to where we really need it, Hydrogen fuel cells are a much better bet!

[zirk]

When I come into Power, Im going to insist every Household has a Zirk Eco Fan^TM fitted to their Toilet, basically its a fan fitted below the Waterline which is mechanically linked to a Generator, so that everytime the Loo is flushed it feeds Volts back to the National Grid System.

Its still in its development stage at the moment but when its finished I reckon the Shit really will hit the Fan.

[Kevin Wood]

Are you going to include a stick for when it gets jammed?

[henryd]

When I come into Power, Im going to insist every Household has a Zirk Eco Fan^TM fitted to their Toilet, basically its a fan fitted below the Waterline which is mechanically linked to a Generator, so that everytime the Loo is flushed it feeds Volts back to the National Grid System.

Its still in its development stage at the moment but when its finished I reckon the Shit really will hit the Fan.

 

[zirk]

Are you going to include a stick for when it gets jammed?

Ah, you see your one step abead of me here Kevin, Stick and Plunger (Zirk Anti Blockage System^TM) will be optional extras, or available for hire. Now thats where the real money is. 

[Sir Tigger KC]

Are you going to include a stick for when it gets jammed?

Ah, you see your one step abead of me here Kevin, Stick and Plunger (Zirk Anti Blockage System^TM) will be optional extras, or available for hire. Now thats where the real money is. 

Where thas muck thas brass lad! 

[scimmy_man]

how hard can it be to dam up a few upstream valleys? it stops flooding as it holds back the peaks of flow, and can be opened up as corrie finishes and everone puts the ketttle on.

or when the tidal barrage hits slack water?