Could the non-drivers not take a train?

[MikeF]

Yes I agree and that's what I said. Now give me some figures about how much electrical power will be needed to replace the petrol and diesel fuel and how it will be produced. Both of you seem to be missing some fundamental issues here.

8000 miles per year at 4 miles per kwh is 2MW per Year per EV.
10 million EV's is 20,000 GW per Year.
365 days per year is 55GW per day.
Assuming they mostly charge up in the 8 hours at night (smart chargers) that's about 7GWh for those 8 hours.

The grid typically dips 15GWh during the night anyway and this is 10 million cars which is probably a decade away.
A fair proportion of EV owners are likely to get solar, there'll be multiples of the current numbers of wind turbines etc etc.

Not sure why you need me to tell you any of this, the folk running the grid who's job includes working out whether it has or will have the capacity to cope already say it will.
Why doubt them?

That is a similar figure to what I would estimate for 10million cars, but the number of UK cars is 3 times that. Power is MW but energy is MWh so the energy needed in your example is 55GWh or if you count the total number of cars it's 150GWh. Assuming an average power generation of 30GW per day the energy is 720GWh per day. The energy production needed if all cars are electric is significant. At the moment extra demand is met by CCGT which uses natural gas so electric cars are not as green as they might be.
Hence my original question how is this energy being produced?
Obviously how electricity is produced doesn't seem to concern most people.
Edit to correct GW/h to GWh which is what I meant to type.

[Jdsk]

That is a similar figure to what I would estimate for 10million cars, but the number of UK cars is 3 times that. Power is MW but energy is MW/h so the energy needed in your example is 55GW/h or if you count the total number of cars it's 150GW/h. Assuming an average power generation of 30GW per day the energy is 720GW/h per day. The energy production needed if all cars are electric is significant. At the moment extra demand is met by CCGT which uses natural gas so electric cars are not as green as they might be.
Hence my original question how is this energy being produced?
Obviously how electricity is produced doesn't seem to concern most people.

Energy can't be measured in MW/h or GW/h, the dimensions are wrong. It can be measured in GWh etc.

For what date would you like the estimate of sources?

And what fraction of vehicles do you expect to be powered by electricity by that date?

Jonathan

[Carlton green]

@jdsk

We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

Chelsea tractors , even if they are AV are the past.

They still cause congestion
They cause pollution
In cities they are slow and have low average speeds
In cities there is no parking for them
Because of their kinetic energy and poor visibility when they move they are dangerous.

In Cranebridge, although the Greenways are bad, we see the future:
Autonomous small electric vehicles being developed (see Amazon scout)
Disabled riders on electric mobility buggies - remember Stephen Hawkins

I agree that we are also still stuck in the past and the goto vehicle for a Cranbridge girly is a Chelsea tractor so they can kill world famous botanists riding their bike. But this is going to change. Especially when they try to dump 800,000 more cars on the city due to the OxMkCam arc.

If by Chelsea tractors you mean 4x4's I live in an area where there are lots of them. There's at least one on every farm, people with horses usually have one to to tow a horse trailer, vets use them, the Forestry Commission uses them, people who shoot have them, the electricity board use them and even the Environment Agency has them. The reasons why these different lots of people use an off roader won't suddenly vanish so it's highly unlikely the vehicles are the past.

I haven’t read the whole thread and probably won’t, oh well maybe later.

Chelsea Tractors should, IMHO, all be removed from the road with no buts and no ifs. No one but no one actually needs one, having said that I wouldn’t described the old fashioned and no longer made Land Rover as a Chelsea tractor but rather a specialist and commercial four wheel drive vehicle. Chelsea Tractors are luxury vehicles which are far larger than they should be and they are driven in places where four wheel drive is not needed.

I live in a rural area. The farmers use tractors and occasionally quad bikes to get around their (off track) land and ordinary front wheel drive cars and pick-ups for the rest - not necessarily large vehicles either. Horses are transported in small lorries/vans rather than trailers and the local Vets use ordinary cars. YMMV.

In a shared environment such as the U.K. I would question the individual’s right to own vehicles. Freedom of movement is, I think, a reasonable human right but the way it is expressed in action shouldn’t adversely impact on others. As such I question the need for anyone to own and use any vehicle larger than say a small engined Golf. Bigger vehicles than that might be legal to own by special licence, application for which would need to be supported by demonstration of need.

I appreciate that Utility Companies do sometimes have genuine need for a vehicle that can cover rough terrain, they also have need for something rugged too. The old Land Rover met that need and there is not an obvious alternative, but my suspicion is that people elsewhere in the World are finding ways to manage similar tasks with simpler vehicles - where there is a will there is (almost always) a way. That’s just as well because the old Land Rover is no longer manufactured.

As for the trial. Trials are needed and they have to take place somewhere. In the bigger picture the pollution that they add is so minor as to be of relatively minimal importance, there are better issues to consider. The route and traffic density match the needs of the trial and to be honest opposing the advance of such helpful technology is counterproductive. Society and the environment will mostly reap benefits from driverless vehicles, like all things there will be some downsides but one must look to the bigger picture.

[Cyril Haearn]

The lada four-wheel drive vehicles are perfectly adequate, robust and very cheap

Not been changed much for decades, must have been right at the start

[Carlton green]

The lada four-wheel drive vehicles are perfectly adequate, robust and very cheap

Not been changed much for decades, must have been right at the start

Lada, tough as old boots but too polluting - they stoped importing then to the U.K. because of emissions. As with many other cars of that era Zibarting stopped then rusting to death. Rear wheel drive on the standard Lada cars but they got about in snowy Russia ... where there’s a will there’s usually a way.

Suzuki make small four wheel drive vehicles and the Swiss PO use four wheel drive Pandas. Subaru are famous for their four wheel drive cars and front wheel drive cars with mud and snow tyres go many places all through the year. Rally cars are raced down tracks on front wheel drive, as I said where there’s a will there’s a way.

We digress though. Trials of driverless vehicles are needed and the chosen route has merit.

[Carlton green]

That is a similar figure to what I would estimate for 10million cars, but the number of UK cars is 3 times that. Power is MW but energy is MW/h so the energy needed in your example is 55GW/h or if you count the total number of cars it's 150GW/h. Assuming an average power generation of 30GW per day the energy is 720GW/h per day. The energy production needed if all cars are electric is significant. At the moment extra demand is met by CCGT which uses natural gas so electric cars are not as green as they might be.
Hence my original question how is this energy being produced?
Obviously how electricity is produced doesn't seem to concern most people.

Energy can't be measured in MW/h or GW/h, the dimensions are wrong. It can be measured in GWh etc.

For what date would you like the estimate of sources?

And what fraction of vehicles do you expect to be powered by electricity by that date?

Jonathan

There’s an easy confusion here.

I wouldn’t use it (it’s not correct) but I can see GW/h being a notional rate rate of energy production (GW is the actual rate) whilst GWh is a summation of energy produced (or used). We pay for domestic electricity by the KW hours we use.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt

I’m of the opinion that the generation source and distribution infrastructure needed to replace vehicle fossil fuel power with electric power hasn’t really been sorted out. Unlimited supply on demand is the norm for domestic electricity consumers but some electric vehicle chargers demand supply at much more than historically typical domestic levels - I question how that supply on demand can be accommodated and/or managed.

[Jdsk]

EDITED: Quoted post has changed since I quoted.

[Jdsk]

Energy can't be measured in MW/h or GW/h, the dimensions are wrong. It can be measured in GWh etc.

There’s an easy confusion here.

GW/h is a notional rate rate of energy production (GW is the actual rate) whilst GWh is a summation of energy produced (or used). We pay for domestic electricity by the KW hours we use.

You can measure power in GW.
You can measure energy in GWh.
You could measure rate of change of power in GW/h. It isn't relevant to this discussion but could be used to describe how quickly a power station could increase its output.

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

GW/h is a notional rate rate of energy production (GW is the actual rate)...

This gets the metrology backwards. The property, eg power, is the property. Units such as GW are used to measure the property. Other units are available.

It really is easier to get this right if the language is used that way round. (See also torque.)

Jonathan

[kwackers]

That is a similar figure to what I would estimate for 10million cars, but the number of UK cars is 3 times that. Power is MW but energy is MW/h so the energy needed in your example is 55GW/h or if you count the total number of cars it's 150GW/h.

The UK uses aproximately 300TWh of electricity per year. (reference)
30 million cars is 30,000,000 * 8000 / 4 * 1000 = 60TWh. (num cars * average mileage / miles per kw * 1kw)

That's 60 extra TWh on top of our current 300TWh (a few years ago we used 350TWh).
So 1/5th of our current use - and that's 1/5th supplied mainly during times of low demand when those turbines are producing power nobody wants.
Plus 30 million cars are about 20 years away.

Lots of new turbines planned, storage and other forms of energy generation.

Take a look at the future of car charging stations, not only is it carbon neutral but it sells energy back to the grid. It also helps balance the grid by buying in cheap energy when the wind blows and selling it back during high demand by virtue of the 5MW battery it has.
The guy that created this has plans for another 100 and presumably he's not alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoN4WCpuxHY

[Carlton green]

Energy can't be measured in MW/h or GW/h, the dimensions are wrong. It can be measured in GWh etc.

There’s an easy confusion here.

GW/h is a notional rate rate of energy production (GW is the actual rate) whilst GWh is a summation of energy produced (or used). We pay for domestic electricity by the KW hours we use.

You can measure power in GW.
You can measure energy in GWh.
You could measure rate of change of power in GW/h. It isn't relevant to this discussion but could be used to describe how quickly a power station could increase its output.

Jonathan

Agreed, though I’d have thought that seconds would be the correct time unit for measuring rate of change. I’m really not sure how quickly or not power stations can increase there rate of power output and would have thought that the type of Generator driver the key factor here.

Hydro Electric is very quick, Diesel is quick but I know of no large units, Gas Turbine I’d have thought a bit slower, Steam Turbine from Fossil Fuel is likely to take hours and from Nuclear Reactor days if at all (the ones used in this country are base load generators). Wind is anybody’s guess but I’d have thought rapid was possible provided that the wind was there to utilise and the same for solar but with sunlight (making the assumption that theses things could be turned on and off / disconnected at some will).

Personally I prefer the green options - particular off shore wind and solar - but until mass energy storage is a reality that’s capable of supplying National needs we will need Nuclear and (thinking about it) some ‘Gas’ too. I haven’t considered biomass for large scale generation as to me the mass harvesting of timber to feed the likes of Drax doesn’t seem green.

I’ve always thought Eigg to be a wonderful showcase of what us possible using (almost exclusively) green power: http://isleofeigg.org/eigg-electric/
Note that they limit on demand electricity supply rates to each premises (just 5Kw per house at anyone one time), there is logic to it and I believe that we need to take a similar supply restriction route.

Anyone for driverless cars?

[Carlton green]

I copy from the reference source listed above:
“Consumption of electricity in the United Kingdom has generally declined after hitting a peak of 357 terawatt hours in 2005 and dropping to 301.76 terawatt hours in 2019.” Note the use of the hours unit.

The video about electric vehicle charging was interesting, many thanks for posting that. I think that the bloke is onto a winner, but he’s worked a lot of stuff out and structured his particular operation well. We don’t need a new car right now, we plan to make the older ones we have suffice for quite some time. However, provided that the economics look reasonable enough at the time, the next one is almost certainly going to be electric. The economics will have to take into account several things including battery replacement; for a new electric car to match a petrol one I’m seeking a near twenty year life cycle and currently the original set of batteries won’t last that long. Of course the ability to economically charge the vehicle is an essential requirement too.

[kwackers]

I copy from the reference source listed above:
“Consumption of electricity in the United Kingdom has generally declined after hitting a peak of 357 terawatt hours in 2005 and dropping to 301.76 terawatt hours in 2019.” Note the use of the hours unit.

In this case the use of 'hour' suffix doesn't make much difference.

We used 300TW of energy.

If we used it all in a single hour it'd be 300TW/h.
(Which is about 34GW/h average over the year).

[atlas_shrugged]

Please note: GWh would be correct units to measure energy NOT GW/h

Energy = Power X time

GW/h would be power / time and I am not sure what that measures.

It is not possible to use 30TW of *energy*. You would be consuming 30TW of power and in one hour at this power consumption this would be 30TWh of energy and in 2 hours this would be 60TWh of energy.


It would be just as confusing to say I travelled 50mph distance. But travelling 100 miles at 50 mph in 2 hours is possible.

[Phileas]

I copy from the reference source listed above:
“Consumption of electricity in the United Kingdom has generally declined after hitting a peak of 357 terawatt hours in 2005 and dropping to 301.76 terawatt hours in 2019.” Note the use of the hours unit.

In this case the use of 'hour' suffix doesn't make much difference.

We used 300TW of energy.

If we used it all in a single hour it'd be 300TW/h.
(Which is about 34GW/h average over the year).

I’m sorry but this isn’t correct as has been pointed out several times upthread.
Power can be measured in Watts which is Joules per second, i.e. energy divided by time.
Therefore a quantity of energy is given by power multiplied by time e.g. Watt x hours or Wh, GWh etc.
TW is not a quantity of energy, is a rate of energy usage.