The EV problem.

[Zeezeebaba]

I heard somewhere (I think it was on the radio) that there is an upcoming leap in the efficiency of solar tech. The program was about the use of carbon based elements integrated with silicon in solar panels (something like boron but don't quote me on that) that maximises the energy received from the sun as currently loads is wasted.

Surely with regards trickle charging during the day a super efficient solar roof panel would assist this?

Edited June 10, 2017 by Zeezeebaba

[Aashenfox]

Think you mean graphene Zee, but correct me if I'm wrong. Graphene is the future, invest if you can find a way.

[Zeezeebaba]

Possibly mate I don't know without looking it up. The program was about silicon and it's use in PV products. They were basically saying most of the energy from the sun is wasted on conventional panels and they were experimenting with combining a carbon based substance which traps and then transfers more solar rays to the panel. I'm no scientist but it was an interesting program and if successful it would make the solar panels ridiculously more efficient at harnessing the energy.

Edited June 10, 2017 by Zeezeebaba

[Zeezeebaba]

Perovskite/silicon tandem panels, there you go

[Zeezeebaba]

They reckon no more than five years before super efficient tandem layered panels go mainstream. The substance can be used on its own but is subject to degradation and damage. Once perfected even glass trim on a vehicle could be harnessing the power of the sun.

Quite an exciting prospect to be fair all that free clean energy helping to charge the cars of the future.

Edited June 11, 2017 by Zeezeebaba

[gangzoom]

Quite an exciting prospect to be fair all that free clean energy helping to charge the cars of the future.

 

Becareful what you say next....We wouldn't want other forum members to accuse me of hacking into your account .

[gangzoom]

http://www.argusmedia.com/news/article/?id=1474697

 

https://www.energy-charts.de/price.htm

 

Negative 'trade price' for electricity due to an excess of wind generated electricity... I wonder which country in the Europe gets plenty of wind

 

Add in solar PVs for the few hot but not windy days I would say the UK is actually pretty sorted for future energy supply, just a shame the government still wants to waste spending billions on a foreign designed foreign owned nuclear kettle.

 

You can see the mayhem renewables are going to and is causing in the energy market. How can an energy company keep paying staff to keep a power plant running if the 'trade price' of electricty drops down to £0 or even negative values more and more often. Once you reach a certain threshold it will simply become uneconomical to NOT deploy more wind/solar generators as everything else will simply be too expensive. You will still need a 'strong and stable' base load but it's going to become increasingly hard for a company to make a profit in the energy sector, which ironically will mean higher energy bills for consumers despite dropping generation costs.

Edited June 11, 2017 by gangzoom

[Zeezeebaba]

I need to hook up with my old mate Mark, he runs a company called "The solar shop".The guy has been banging on about solar power since I first met him in 96

He made a mint marketing solar powered street lighting in SA.

Don't worry gangzoom no accounts hacked

I think the solar revolution on the horizon with regards efficiency has sparked a new interest in the topic of EV vehicles for me.From cars to street furniture and even roads generating power my concern over charge times on EVs are dissipating.

[Jay84]

They reckon no more than five years before super efficient tandem layered panels go mainstream. The substance can be used on its own but is subject to degradation and damage. Once perfected even glass trim on a vehicle could be harnessing the power of the sun.

Quite an exciting prospect to be fair all that free clean energy helping to charge the cars of the future.

I also heard...or imagined that sky scrapers were going to start being fitted with translucent panels instead of all that glass, which I think is a great idea.

[coldel]

What you need to be looking at are the levelised costs for energy production - every government produces reports on it based on case studies etc. which tell you the cost of production of energy per mwh much more accurate than the random links above it would seem. Obviously it varies by country because different countries can produce energy in different ways more efficiently. In the US for instance natural resource burning is much cheaper to produce energy per mwh over the lifetime of the equipment than say off shore wind farms. Thats not true in the UK though being a smaller island state with plenty of wind energy available. Actually H Class gas turbines are one of the cheapest most efficient ways of producing energy in the UK.

[Jay84]

Have they got around these causing issues with aviation radar yet? We have 2 near where I live in derby but they can't use them often as it intefears with East mids airport radar. I had heard that the of shoe ones integrated with MOD radar bu I assume that's sorted now. I am all for wind turbines going up. Some day they're a blight on the countryside, but they said the same about pilons. I think we can be our own worst enemy in this country for things like that. Hindered improvement because of aesthetics or because we've always had it or its a listed monument. We have a bridge hear that is always being repaired and is to narrow for modern cars, but because it's listed they keep chucking millions keeping it going.

[Jetpilot]

^^^ So true, there was a great plan for wind turbines in my area out to sea, everyone was up in arms as it "would ruin their view", so you can scrap those from the equation because of their intrusive nature.

[Zeezeebaba]

I read an interesting article today about battery production. It would seem the average Tesla battery from mining raw material to the completed item is responsible for the same amount of CO2 emissions as driving a modern petrol car for 8 years! I need to find a link to the article.

[Zeezeebaba]

Huge hopes have been tied to electric cars as the solution to automotive CO2 climate problem. But it turns out the the electric car batteries are eco-villains in the production process of creating them. Several tons of carbon dioxide has been emitted, even before the batteries leave the factory.

 

IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute was commissioned by the Swedish Transport Administration and the Swedish Energy Agency to investigate litium-ion batteries climate impact from a life cycle perspective. There are batteries designed for electric vehicles included in the study. The two authors Lisbeth Dahllöf and Mia Romare has done a meta-study that is reviewed and compiled existing studies.

 

The report shows that the battery manufacturing leads to high emissions. For every kilowatt hour of storage capacity in the battery generated emissions of 150 to 200 kilos of carbon dioxide already in the factory. The researchers did not study individual brand batteries, how these were produced, or the electricity mix they use. But if we understand the great importance of the battery here is an example: Two common electric cars on the market, the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S, the batteries about 30 kWh and 100 kWh.

 

Even before buying the car emissions occurred, corresponding to approximately 5.3 tons and 17.5 tons of Carbon Dioxide. The numbers can be difficult to relate to. As a comparison, a trip for one person round trip from Stockholm to New York by air causes the release of more than 600 kilograms of carbon dioxide, according to the UN organization ICAO calculation.

Another conclusion of the study is that about half the emissions arising from the production of raw materials and half the production of the battery factory. The mining accounts for only a small proportion of between 10-20 percent.

 

The calculation is based on the assumption that the electricity mix used in the battery factory consists of more than half of the fossil fuels. In Sweden, the power production is mainly of fossil-nuclear and hydropower why lower emissions had been achieved.

 

The study also concluded that emissions grow almost linearly with the size of the battery, even if it is pinched by the data in that field. It means that a battery of the Tesla-size contributes more than three times as much emissions as the Nissan Leaf size. It is a result that surprised Mia Romare.

 

[coldel]

...which actually means that the faster we switch to renewable energy production the better, the key thing in the calculation is that fossil fuels are burnt to create the batteries. But yes as you say, if the above is true to sit in an EV now and claim you have no environmental footprint would be incorrect.

[Zeezeebaba]

Agreed we need to get moving with renewable sources of energy ASAP.

[Zeezeebaba]

Air travel moving forward with a green revolution will be interesting to watch as it unfolds.

[Aashenfox]

I've known that the production techniques for lithium batteries are more environmentally destructive than driving a mid sized car for many years.

 

It's slightly moot though, because as adoption increases, better more efficient methods will be found to produce the batteries, new less harmful substrates, etc.

 

For the Prius, there was a further issue, the problem that they were all made in Japan and then shipped round the world in fossil fuel burning mega container ships, meaning that each car had effectively already produced 30,000 miles of C02 by the time it reached the showroom.

 

Anything that changes the way we do things fundamentally cannot be cost effective in the start, but the capitalist nature of people will make it more efficient over time.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Aashenfox

[Richf]

 

For the Prius, there was a further issue, the problem that they were all made in Japan and then shipped round the world in fossil fuel burning mega container ships, meaning that each car had effectively already produced 30,000 miles of C02 by the time it reached the showroom.

 

 

 

Bit like the 350z then and many many Japanese built cars sold in Western Europe or for that matter all cars sold outside their country of manufacture

[Richf]

Huge hopes have been tied to electric cars as the solution to automotive CO2 climate problem. But it turns out the the electric car batteries are eco-villains in the production process of creating them. Several tons of carbon dioxide has been emitted, even before the batteries leave the factory.

 

IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute was commissioned by the Swedish Transport Administration and the Swedish Energy Agency to investigate litium-ion batteries climate impact from a life cycle perspective. There are batteries designed for electric vehicles included in the study. The two authors Lisbeth Dahllöf and Mia Romare has done a meta-study that is reviewed and compiled existing studies.

 

The report shows that the battery manufacturing leads to high emissions. For every kilowatt hour of storage capacity in the battery generated emissions of 150 to 200 kilos of carbon dioxide already in the factory. The researchers did not study individual brand batteries, how these were produced, or the electricity mix they use. But if we understand the great importance of the battery here is an example: Two common electric cars on the market, the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S, the batteries about 30 kWh and 100 kWh.

 

Even before buying the car emissions occurred, corresponding to approximately 5.3 tons and 17.5 tons of Carbon Dioxide. The numbers can be difficult to relate to. As a comparison, a trip for one person round trip from Stockholm to New York by air causes the release of more than 600 kilograms of carbon dioxide, according to the UN organization ICAO calculation.

Another conclusion of the study is that about half the emissions arising from the production of raw materials and half the production of the battery factory. The mining accounts for only a small proportion of between 10-20 percent.

 

The calculation is based on the assumption that the electricity mix used in the battery factory consists of more than half of the fossil fuels. In Sweden, the power production is mainly of fossil-nuclear and hydropower why lower emissions had been achieved.

 

The study also concluded that emissions grow almost linearly with the size of the battery, even if it is pinched by the data in that field. It means that a battery of the Tesla-size contributes more than three times as much emissions as the Nissan Leaf size. It is a result that surprised Mia Romare.

 

A link to the actual article with some good soundbites yet questionable statements

 

https://www.thegwpf....-electric-cars/

 

The fact backed up by many many studies is that over their lifetime EV's and even hybrids more than make up their higher production footprint with significantly lower co2 and other emissions

Edited June 21, 2017 by Richf

[Aashenfox]

For the Prius, there was a further issue, the problem that they were all made in Japan and then shipped round the world in fossil fuel burning mega container ships, meaning that each car had effectively already produced 30,000 miles of C02 by the time it reached the showroom.

 

 

 

Bit like the 350z then and many many Japanese built cars sold in Western Europe or for that matter all cars sold outside their country of manufacture

 

A 350Z would have higher emissions than an EV wherever it was manufactured. Yes, all cars get shipped to the countries where they're sold, but only EVs claim zero emissions.

[gangzoom]

Agreed we need to get moving with renewable sources of energy ASAP.

 

Am actually amazed at how effective our relativly small solar panels are in our new house. Clearly the crazy sun/heat is helping but I've just submitted our meter readings and we've used on average 15kWh per day from the grid INCLUDING charging up the Tesla over the last 2 months. That also includes using zero gas over the last 2 months because all the hot water is also heated up by solar!!

 

Some of that is distorted because we have been doing alot of moving around, but it shows just how easy it is for localised solar PVs to generate electricity and take demand/strain off the grid.

Edited June 21, 2017 by gangzoom

[Jetpilot]

I am having to install pv to meet the latest sap calcs for building regs in my new build, circa £2k which is a trade deal, i cant wait to find out how effective they are and make savings......In about 20 years

[Richf]

Every little bit helps we fitted triple glazing and a new front door and reckon we saved £300-£400 per year in heating alone wished we had done it years ago

 

But just think if everyone did it !

[Jay84]

We've got PVC doors, cavity wall and extra loft insulation, and all doors leading outside go to a pvc doored passageway or porch before getting outside and the huse is never cold in winter. We got a new boiler last year and our bills more than halved. I am interested in getting solar roof panels but we want to move out in a year or 2.

Its an interesting point about transporting the prius from Japan all round the world as we do with other cars, and we berate the carbon cost of building an EV car, but i wonder how it compares to building a fossil fuelled car. Is a really economical diesel healthier for the environment at the minute?

My solution would be to have live wire mesh above motorways and duel carriageways like dodgems, wont cost much to implement at all

 

Edit: A bit like the underground cars in the ace Super Mario Bros film

Edited June 21, 2017 by Jay84