EV are they worth it?

[Brigadier]

It is true that the risk of an EV self igniting is about the same as the risk of an ICE vehicle self igniting

Iirc, it is about twenty times less likely

 

[carmanmemoranda]

Iirc, it is about twenty times less likely

I've read something similar.

Insurance companies tend to be the best place for risks, it's their job.

Not seen anything about their risk being as mentioned by Bernard. I'm certainly aware of the risk of many ICE vehicles, it's reflected in my Trade insurance cover whilst in my possesion. A list of specific vehicles I can say I don't want cover for if I don't work on them.

 

[flameport]

Agreed, but what did they have to make use of, when the wind didn't blow?

Currently it's mostly gas, which is because that is what we have available.
Wind power today mostly means we use a lot less gas.

If the wind always blew, and wind generation always generated at 100% of its maximum design capacity, then I would call it viable.

The usual trap of 'if it's not 100% perfect in every way we can't use it'.
With that attitude, nothing of any consequence would ever be built or used.

No one is suggesting that wind will magically replace 100% of electricity, or that solar will, or that EVs will become 100% of vehicles overnight. It's not possible to go from nothing to finished in one step.

Wind, solar, EVs, batteries, interconnectors and all the rest are just elements of a lengthy process to remove reliance on oil and gas. It will take decades and a lot of this has only just started. However not to start changing anything at all because it's not perfect already means that nothing will ever change.

 

[morqthana]

It is true that the risk of an EV self igniting is about the same as the risk of an ICE vehicle self igniting.

Is it?

 

[morqthana]

Translate that storage to a concrete block power storage, and a guess of the top of my head - a 100 ton block, raised to the height of a tower cranes, might generate 7Kw on the way down.

100 tonnes @ 26m = 7.1kWh

 

[robinbanks]

Now there's an idea. I reckon a small bungalow is about 100 tonnes, so maybe we can have a system where we winch the entire house up in the air overnight, get a great view in the morning, and then the fall provides the energy for the day

 

[ReganAndCarter]

Now there's an idea. I reckon a small bungalow is about 100 tonnes, so maybe we can have a system where we winch the entire house up in the air overnight, get a great view in the morning, and then the fall provides the energy for the day

Don't tempt the green eco zealot enviro fanatic tree-hugging carbon neutral nazis. They have enough crazy schemes of their own.

 

[Avocet]

Being first, involves massive early adopter costs, and few benefits. Then soon, something better comes along which is better, more efficient, and cheaper.

By no means always. Tesla has done OK for itself! Britain did bloody well out of being the first nation to industrialise. Our problem, historically, is that we've always been complacent. We have a bloody good idea, bring it to market, and then just sit back on our laurels while other people carefully analyse and benchmark our products, fix the weaknesses, make them cheaper... and we wonder why we get left behind...

 

[Avocet]

Agreed, but what did they have to make use of, when the wind didn't blow? If the wind always blew, and wind generation always generated at 100% of its maximum design capacity, then I would call it viable.

There are relatively few days each year when there is no wind, anywhere in the UK. Now that we have several interconnectors with other countries, you'd also be looking at days when there is no wind anywhere in the UK, or in Ireland, or in Norway, or in France, or in the Netherlands, or in Belgium, or in Denmark...

Those are live figures at the time of this post (17.11) 60% renewables, and 6% from abroad through the interconnectors. In fact we're currently exporting to Ireland.

More hydro would be great for lulls in the wind - and more pumped storage, but with 5 year government terms, they're loath to spend money on big infrastructure projects that might give a different government the benefit when they finally come online.

 

[Avocet]

Not having an EV or an inverter on a changeover switch, or any power-exporting apparatus I'm not familiar with the terminology.


What about a rail gun?

A small one...

 

[Avocet]

Now there's an idea. I reckon a small bungalow is about 100 tonnes, so maybe we can have a system where we winch the entire house up in the air overnight, get a great view in the morning, and then the fall provides the energy for the day

Nah... All the folk who currently "might" need to suddenly do a 500 mile non-strop trip in their cars, and therefore couldn't possibly have an EV because that might happen when it's not charged, will be the same ones that "might" need to suddenly go shopping when their bungalow is 100' in the air...

 

[Avocet]

Don't tempt the green eco zealot enviro fanatic tree-hugging carbon neutral nazis. They have enough crazy schemes of their own.

Yes, but the good news, is that despite your sentiments, they're actually paying off...

 

[Avocet]

If you investigate the graphs, and look at the windmills, the weather - then wind and amount of sun, are very variable. Not a problem if our consumption could vary to suit, but is cannot. That's why we have to provide expensive backup. The backup cannot instantly come online, so we have it running, and ready to pick up the load. Running and ready, consumes almost as much as it would, when the capacity is used on the network.

So the cost of green generation sources, is the cost of the green sources + the cost of running backups.

...which has always been the problem with traditional, centralised generation. You can't, as you say, bring a coal, oil or gas powered power station online quickly, so they just sit there, ticking over, wasting a lot of the energy that you put into them, "just in case". That used to happen even before we had any renewables. We really need to find a better way...

 

[Avocet]

I feel like you're not quite getting my point or you're bringing past experience from "how things were done in power generation" in inappropriately for the point I'm trying to make..

We want to use energy because it's fun, and there is all this energy kicking around in the environment and we are constantly working out ways to harvest it. A coal power station running your laptop so you can have fun posting on DIYnot is purely a conversion device harvesting stored energy from coal which came to be from millions of years of vegetation being a conversion device storing energy from the sun. Capturing energy while it's available in one form now and storing it in something that we can later process to recover some of it later is an idea as old as the earth, more or less

There are huge inefficiencies in that approach, but traditionally we (primitive man) didn't really appreciate it, and it didn't matter because there weren't enough of us for the waste to pile up noticeably

Now, there are a lot of us all wanting to use energy to have fun, and we need to be a lot more focused on doing more with less rather than just finding more ways to produce more so that we can consume more - that means using less of it, and losing less when we convert it.

One day there probably won't be this notion of "20 million people switch a kettle on during the corrie ad break, get that coal power station revved up an hour before so that all those muppets can just carry on flippantly burning energy like they always have", it'll be more like "electricity during the corrie ad break costs £5000/kWh, if you want to pay £150 for a cuppa go right ahead, or invest in some storage system that means you can make it through the wind lulls and still have your cuppa. Or forego your cuppa"

Energy generation/demand mismatches will always occur, but there is always something that can be done to mitigate, and that may include human compromise

No reason at all why it should need to be that drastic. In time, pretty much every house will have such a battery, parked right outside. A battery that wouldn't even notice the "tenth of a mile loss of range" caused by using it to boil the kettle in the Corrie ad break!

(...or in Nutjob's case, he can just put his kettle on the roof and wait for it to set itself on fire, because as everybody knows, very few EVs will go a full episode of Corrie without setting themselves on fire... )

 

[Avocet]

It is true that the risk of an EV self igniting is about the same as the risk of an ICE vehicle self igniting.

Actually, that's not true...

The differences are
(1) how to extinquish the fire
diesel and petrol fires can be extinquished by preventing thier access to oxygen
lithium batteries produce their own oxygen so cannot be extinguished by conventional methods.

Putting EV fires out, is relatively easy. However, for about 100 years now, firefighters have been putting ICE fires out by sprinkling water on top of them. Some o the smarter ones (in Sweden) have worked out that when the fire is in a very strong, very waterproof metal box, sprinkling water on it, doesn't do a right lot of good... (what with it being waterproof & all that...)

So along comes a smart guy with a water jet cutting lance, wanders up to the EV, blasts a hole in the top of the battery pack, fills it with water, 15 minutes later, job done, with less water than it takes to put an ICE fire out!

(2) radius of damage / harm
diesel and petrol fires create an area where high temperature air and/or liquids are the only hazards and these can be managed.
lithium batteries can eject material at high temperature and high velocity ( red hot bullets ) over a large area.

So... what went wrong with the Luton and Liverpool car park fires then?

Oh... Yesterday's ICE fire, by the way...

https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2024-10-19/all-traffic-held-on-m62-due-to-car-fire

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=3866588410222926