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Where Will Our Clean Energy Come From?

It just means that a lot of people will go out and buy diesel or petrol powered generators to get their cars charged.
Thus defeating the whole point of an electric car.
 
Maybe then they'll find a way to reduce the voltage or something? Okay so it will mean it takes longer to fully charge but that's okay cos if you have to wait 9 hours to charge up then another hour or two ain't going to worry you is it?
They had to fire up a coal power station recently as the grid couldn’t cope with demand as it is NOW. Also, as I’ve said before, there are many 2 car families out there and in future, they’ll both have to be electric.
 
They had to fire up a coal power station recently as the grid couldn’t cope with demand as it is NOW. Also, as I’ve said before, there are many 2 car families out there and in future, they’ll both have to be electric.
I know. It's ridiculous isn't it.
Anyway, I'm ready - here is my charge point.
1631469967740.png
 
The version of this story that I read (in the Times) said that this would only apply to PRIVATE charging points installed in peoples' homes and workplaces. Public charging points on motorways would be exempt. So I think the projected usage stats probably make more sense than this thread supposes.

Don't believe everything you read in the Daily Mail . . . :)
 
Yup, thats a good answer.

(How efficient is it?)

(I dont believe the DM either)
 
The world's longest under-sea electricity cable, transferring green power between Norway and the UK, has begun operation.

The 450-mile (725km) cable connects Blyth in Northumberland with the Norwegian village of Kvilldal.

At full 1,400 megawatt capacity it will import enough hydro-power to supply 1.4 million homes, National Grid said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-58772572

National Grid Ventures president Cordi O'Hara said it was a "remarkable feat of engineering".

She added: "We had to go through mountains, fjords and across the North Sea to make this happen."

"North Sea Link (NSL) is also a great example of two countries working together to maximise their renewable energy resources for mutual benefit."

National Grid said the €1.6bn (£1.37bn) joint venture with Norwegian power operator Statnett would help the UK reduce carbon emissions by 23 million tonnes by 2030.

It has four other power cables running to Belgium, France and the Netherlands and said 90% of energy imported in this way would be from zero carbon sources by 2030.

Hydropower in Norway and wind power in the UK are subject to weather conditions and fluctuations in demand.

Using NSL, renewable power can be exported from the UK when wind generation is high and electricity demand low, or be imported from Norway when demand is high and wind generation low.
 
Heat pumps are NOT the future.
This man fits them and is telling us how it is, no bullshit:

 
Another interesting video, this time about hydrogen heating systems:

 
Some interesting thoughts about why current 'green' technologies may actually be bad for the environment:

 
Turns out wind turbines are better than most forms of generation,, if we consider CO2 emissions.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christ...ort-tallies-up-the-carbon-cost-of-renewables/
More specifically, they figure that wind turbines average just 11 grams of CO2 emission per kilowatthour of electricity generated. That compares with 44 g/kwh for solar, 450 g for natural gas, and a whopping 1,000 g for coal.

But beating them all is the original large-scale zero-carbon power source, nuclear power, at 9 g/kwh.
So nuclear is by far the best for carbon emissions. But try telling Greenpeace that.
 
Biomass fuel is only green if we immediately grow more forests. That is happening in some parts of the world, but not in others, so we need to factor in transport costs.
 
WOW!


 
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Heat pumps are NOT the future.
This man fits them and is telling us how it is, no bullshit:


Hmmm. The guy admits that heat pumps work well in Scandinavia - even on the coldest days.
So, for those of us who live in fairly well insulated recently built homes in the UK (our bog-standard Barratts' 3-bed semi has triple glazing) a heat pump should do the job for us?

If you're living in an old, draughty house without cavity walls then, fair enough, you should be advised not to go down the heat pump route.
 
Hmmm. The guy admits that heat pumps work well in Scandinavia - even on the coldest days.
So, for those of us who live in fairly well insulated recently built homes in the UK (our bog-standard Barratts' 3-bed semi has triple glazing) a heat pump should do the job for us?

If you're living in an old, draughty house without cavity walls then, fair enough, you should be advised not to go down the heat pump route.
Really, for them to be fully effective, the heat pumps have to be designed into the house and installed when it is built.
His point is that most of the housing stock in the UK is not suitable for the retro-fitting of heat pumps, even the houses that have full insulation. Quite a few houses simply don't have the space for these things.

They work OK in Scandinavia because those houses are built around the heating system. Most of them are new builds or not that old.
 
Another useful fuel, problems solved:

https://phys.org/news/2021-11-chemists-harness-energy-ammonia.html

Chemists discover new way to harness energy from ammonia

A research team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has identified a new way to convert ammonia to nitrogen gas through a process that could be a step toward ammonia replacing carbon-based fuels.

The discovery of this technique, which uses a metal catalyst and releases—rather than requires—energy, was reported Nov. 8 in Nature Chemistry and has received a provisional patent from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

"The world currently runs on a carbon fuel economy," explains Christian Wallen, an author of the paper and a former postdoctoral researcher in the lab of UW-Madison chemist John Berry. "It's not a great economy because we burn hydrocarbons, which release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We don't have a way to close the loop for a true carbon cycle, where we could transform carbon dioxide back into a useful fuel."
 
... So nuclear is by far the best for carbon emissions. But try telling Greenpeace that.

Regardless of the prospects for nuclear energy generation for the long term, the well-meaning shutdown of certain nuclear plants has contributed to a rise in CO2 emissions for the immediate future.
3 states with shuttered nuclear plants see emissions rise

New York passed a law in 2019 requiring the state to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 2040. But over the last two years, the exact opposite has happened: CO2 from power plants has climbed nearly 15 percent, according to EPA data.

New York’s experience is hardly unique. In neighboring New England, where six states are united by a single electricity market, power emissions are up 12 percent over the last two years. And in Pennsylvania, emissions from electricity generation have grown 3 percent.

The rise in emissions follows the closure of three nuclear facilities in Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania since 2019. While all three states have expanded their renewable energy generation, natural gas has largely filled the void left by shuttered nuclear facilities, prompting emissions to rise.

The increase is further fueling a raging debate within climate circles over the role of nuclear power in the transition to a zero-carbon grid. Some researchers argue nuclear provides a reliable source of emissions-free power that can complement wind and solar.

“If the goal is that we’re moving to 100 percent zero carbon electricity,” said Melissa Lott, director of research at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, “closing zero-carbon resources doesn’t make a lot of sense. We’re just digging the hole deeper.” ...
FULL STORY: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/...ed-nuclear-plants-see-emissions-rise-00009034
 
This looks like a nice fairly low-tech device designed to provide hot water in poorer/less developed countries where otherwise you’d have to burn fuel. Useful for personal hygiene/showers, washing dishes, clothes.

It needs a cold water feed to operate.

Flat-Pack Water Heater

1646494388773.png
 
I'm glad we don't have to rely on that here in England - I'd only get a warm shower on 4 days during July!

It does look like a simple and efficient design though. I expect the output could be considerably increased with a parabolic reflector of some sort placed behind it so that the 'shade' side get's sunlight onto it too.
 
No such thing as clean energy, just relative levels of dirty. Renewables require infrastructure which is built and disposed of with probably more energy than they will ever generate, just as the vast majority of 'dirt' in vehicles is in their manufacture and disposal rather then their actual use - even more so as the life span of the average vehicles seems to become ever shorter.
 
Don't worry about your flight to Crete; Greek Salad waste will fuel the plane.

It’s a painful truth for people who fly: Airplanes are climate killers. Air travel is among the most carbon-polluting human activities. A round trip from New York City to London emits nearly 1000 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) per passenger, more than an average person in Burundi, Nicaragua, or 47 other countries emits in a year. Annually, airplanes spew some 920 million tons of CO2, accounting for roughly 3.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

Derek Vardon is hoping a yellowish, foul-smelling liquid will help change that. The fluid is a collection of short, chainlike molecules called volatile fatty acids (VFAs) from decaying food waste, such as chicken primavera and Greek salads. (The same types of molecules give manure its stench.) In a process he and colleagues developed, the VFAs are vaporized, then percolate over a bed of white, marble-size pellets of zirconium oxide, which knit the VFAs into longer chains called ketones. After condensing into a sweet smelling, clear liquid, the ketones are piped to another reactor where gray platinum pellets link them together and strip off oxygen atoms to make kerosene, aka jet fuel.

Vardon, a chemist who spent most of the past decade at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), is betting this food-to-fuel process and others that convert different forms of waste “biomass” into fuel represent the future of air travel, and the world’s best hope for dramatically reducing the greenhouse gases it generates. In March 2021, he and his colleagues detailed the technology in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences along with calculations revealing the resulting jet fuel could be nearly as cheap as the petroleum-based version. Because the carbon it contains originated in plants, which drew it from the atmosphere, the net emissions from bio-based jet fuel would only be a fraction of those from fossil fuel. ...

https://www.science.org/content/article/can-farm-and-food-waste-power-tomorrow-s-airplanes
 
Ketones! Those damn things nearly killed me last year!
No to ketones.
 
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