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Diesel Vs Electric


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13 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

Trouble is for every Kw of wind or solar you need a Kw to back it up, No wind and the panels covered in snow means no electricity

 

Absolutely not a problem. Nobody was suggesting 100% renewable electricity for 100% of the time -- any sensible energy policy has a 'mix' of sources in case one dries up or becomes too expensive. At present the UK has over 30% renewables and the proportion is growing steadily.  

 

ETA: according to Gridwatch it's 26% renewables at this moment, but over 30% if you add in biomass generation. It isn't very windy. That's still a huge amount of emissions 'saved'. 

 

 

Edited by Machpoint005
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I've no idea if this is true or not...

https://www.exponentialinvestor.com/energy/a-single-container-ship-produces-more-pollution-than-all-the-cars-in-the-uk/

but if so does rather make a mockery of everything else. Briefly it states that 28 cargo ships produce as much pollution as all the cars in the world.

 

Why does everyone keep bashing London btw?

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5 minutes ago, Johny London said:

I've no idea if this is true or not...

https://www.exponentialinvestor.com/energy/a-single-container-ship-produces-more-pollution-than-all-the-cars-in-the-uk/

but if so does rather make a mockery of everything else. Briefly it states that 28 cargo ships produce as much pollution as all the cars in the world.

I think you have to consider the word "pollution".

Yes, a badly set up container ship could produce a lot of nasty NOx type chemicals and others as it is burning the heavy end of the barrel of oil which will contain mainly aromatic and napthenic type compounds with virtually no hydrogen atoms. That NOx etc could be more than all the cars in the UK but those emissions are spread all across the oceans. Are those emissions hurting the planet? They will be dilute enough not to be breathed in by people.

The problem with headlines like this though is people will assume it relates also to green house gas emissions which is largely CO2 emissions (yes NOx is an issue but I worry more about CO2 and methane). The CO2 emissions from a container ship are in proportion to the tonnage of fuel burnt (ie 3tes ish CO2 per tonne burnt) so will be a a very small fraction of the total number of cars.

If you are worried about NOx then what about biomass plants?

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15 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

The problem with headlines like this though is people will assume it relates also to green house gas emissions which is largely CO2 emissions (yes NOx is an issue but I worry more about CO2 and methane).

. Absolutely, it's a typical case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. To quote Epictetus (55-135 CE) "It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows".

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2 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Absolutely not a problem. Nobody was suggesting 100% renewable electricity for 100% of the time -- any sensible energy policy has a 'mix' of sources in case one dries up or becomes too expensive. At present the UK has over 30% renewables and the proportion is growing steadily.  

 

ETA: according to Gridwatch it's 26% renewables at this moment, but over 30% if you add in biomass generation. It isn't very windy. That's still a huge amount of emissions 'saved'. 

 

 

I often wonder about the biomass claims, we have a digester in the next village and when you take into account all the diesel used in preparing the ground, growing the crop, harvest and then transport it to the digester let alone the amount used at the digester just how green is it.

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9 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I often wonder about the biomass claims, we have a digester in the next village and when you take into account all the diesel used in preparing the ground, growing the crop, harvest and then transport it to the digester let alone the amount used at the digester just how green is it.

The same argument should be remembered and used for every wind turbine. Add up all the CO2 created in planning the site, connecting the site to the grid, building each individual component and delivering to the site. Then assembling and erecting the turbine. How many years to repay the CO2?

Getting hold of a contract between the developer and the land owner is an instructive bit of reading too. If you can get hold of one, it’s not easy.

ETA and who actually wants to live next door to a turbine?

 

On diesel versus electric cars, again, take into account all the CO2 created in building a new electric car, and balance that against me driving my old Galaxy diesel till it dies of old age, and the costs to the environment are probably nearer to the same than most green proponents would like to admit.

Edited by Stilllearning
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I agree with the line of thought that all too often only the output from the newer, greener item is considered, and not for example the premature scrapping of something that a lot of energy went into creating in the first place. Still, it's a quick way of getting better stats :(

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On 04/02/2019 at 13:15, dor said:

As well as the many tens of thousands of boats on inland waters, and all the sea-going boats, there are hundreds of thousands of tractors, other farm machinery and then there is all the diesel engines used in the construction industry.  None of these have a particularly big turnover, so even if they were included in the ban on IC engines, there will be a huge number that will need to keep going for many years after any IC ban is put in place for cars.

 

Whatever the environmentalists and the idiot hard of thinking section of the media says, there will still be a demand for diesel fuel for many years to come.

 

There are also hundreds of thousands of diesel generators supporting hospitals, communications, data centres, the banking industry, then there are millions of diesels providing power for sea, road and road transport.

 

For most of these, electric or petrol e vines are simply not viable. I think once the Government realise this, then there will be a rapid about turn on demonising diesels. Also see my thread on diesels making a short-term comeback.

 

 

Edited by cuthound
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On the subject of meat... I'm not a vegetarian and, despite accepting that meat production is a major contributor to global warming (which worries me not for myself, having been lucky enough to have already had most of my life during what I believe has probably been the best time to be alive, at least in the developed world, but for my children and grandchildren), I have no plans to give up eating meat.

 

I am trying to cut down a bit though, particularly beef and lamb which are now a rare treat. Chicken and pork, whilst I have cut down a bit, concern me less. That is supported by the chart that appears if you use the calculator at the bottom of the BBC article below. It shows that lamb production generates more than twice as much greenhouse gases as pork and chicken while beef produces nearly four times as much. I can still continue going to   https://www.bing.com/search?pc=DOWI&form=AMZNS2&q=the+pig+place+oxfordshire  occasionally without feeling too guilty!

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46611132

 

Back to the subject of cars... I've been thinking about switching to an electric car for some time. Whilst electricity production still uses a high percentage of fossil fuel, albeit decreasing all the time, at least the pollution from it is not as bad for the many people living, working or schooling near busy roads as that produced by passing ICE vehicles. Also the majority of all-electric cars are charged at home overnight when the national grid is running well below capacity (hence Economy 7 etc) and the dirtiest fuels make up a smaller proportion of the total. Admittedly solar production is not contributing anything during that time but wind and hydro are.

 

In the last week or so I have been doing a lot of research on the subject with the intention of buying an all electric car later this year, possibly 2nd hand, more likely new. I have now decided to hold on for another 2 or 3 years. The main reason is that whilst I can easily afford to a new  EV they are just too expensive from me to justify to myself let alone to Mrs LR. I have ruled out the Renault Zoe (too small, too many hidden costs, too much French unreliability) whilst the other two on my shortlist (Nissan Leaf, VW e-Golf) are roughly double the price of the nearest ICE equivalent. I'll wait until the new VW ID is launched and then think about it again.

 

I also ruled out S/H as the supply/demand imbalance means they are also far too expensive. It appears EV depreciation over the last 12 months has been approximately zero!

 

For now I'm going to stick with my >13 year old diesel. I've had it from new, had no trouble with it (so far) and it is still low mileage. If it fails me in the next 2 or 3 years I may take the plunge into EVs or I may buy a cheap petrol car to ride me over for a year or two until, hopefully, EV prices start to come down, possibly driven by VW 's forthcoming major expansion of EV production from their new factory (factories?) dedicated to high-volume production of the first ID model at (they say) a similar price level as the Golf.

 

 

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On 04/02/2019 at 17:44, Loddon said:

Many canal boat engines can run on bio-diesel/modified veg oil, so no problem with making fuel.

Most cars however will need to have been built before 2001 or so to use bio.

 

 

 

Indeed, and Rudolph Diesel's first engines ran on peanut oil, so there is no reason why they cannot be developed to do so again.

 

However it won't get rid of the Nox issues, because that is produced from the nitrogen in the air sucked into the engine to assist combustion.

Edited by cuthound
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By definition all the backup diesel generators in the country contribute a tiny fraction of total emissions -- compared to cars, trucks, planes and ships -- because they hardly ever run. The same applies to narrowboat engines because there are hundreds of times fewer than cars, they run (on average) for much shorter hours and at lower power output. Put both together and I doubt you'd get as much as 1/1000 of the emissions from UK cars. So putting restrictions on either of these from an emissions point of view makes literally no sense.

 

The problem with cars/buses/taxis in particular is not just the total amount of crap they put out but *where* they put it out, which is mostly where people live and work and where poor air quality has the biggest effect on health -- hence the fact that air pollution levels in many UK towns greatly exceeds legal limits, and it now thought to be one of the big causes in the rise of various breathing disorders including (but not limited to) asthma. This is one big drive behind trying to move these vehicles away from diesel (and petrol) and onto cleaner propulsion methods like batteries -- and yes I'm well aware of the problems of doing this and the fact that the power has to come from *somewhere*, but even if it comes from fossil fuels it's better to be burned in a power station somewhere out in the country than in the middle of a town.

 

All the arguments about total lifetime energy consumption including building new BEV and the wind turbines to power them ignores this issue -- these are obviously relevant to global warming (which I'm not saying isn't a big problem because it is), but air pollution -- especially NOx and PM, which diesels are especially bad for -- is killing thousands of people per year today in the UK, and it's the thing governments are most worried about because they can be sued for allowing it to continue.

 

Planes (and ships) are also big polluters on a global scale, but most of their emissions are not right in people's faces, they're out at sea or in the upper atmosphere -- so these are a problem for global warming and emissions, but so not much locally which is where the biggest problem is right now. Planes also have a problem that there's little prospect of anything much cleaner replacing the jet engine because of the overwhelming need for high power and low weight, and there's not much improvement on the table for jet engines. Ships and boats have more options but also have the problem that there aren't many other ways to generate the 100,000hp that big container ships need to ship the vast quantities of cheap manufactured junk from China that society demands...

Edited by IanD
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33 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:

For now I'm going to stick with my >13 year old diesel. I've had it from new, had no trouble with it (so far) and it is still low mileage. If it fails me in the next 2 or 3 years I may take the plunge into EVs or I may buy a cheap petrol car to ride me over for a year or two until, hopefully, EV prices start to come down, possibly driven by VW 's forthcoming major expansion of EV production from their new factory

 

You could always buy a newer second-hand diesel - they are going to be cheap as chips and are still environmentally the best option overall -- if you avoid usign them in town.

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Electric cars - yes in theory, though it is unnerving to be wandering around town and suddenly get shocked by some goit in an EV honking their horn behind me, cos I’ve not heard them. Still, they were Parisians, so one makes allowances.

The real practical problem seems to me to be the recharging. We have a town house, no garage etc, so would have to plug in on the street, and who will pay the eye watering costs of setting up this network of cabling etc? Also, it occurs to me that in a town that is one large historic monument, everything listed, how does a planner set up a system that the historic monument people can live with?

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2 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I often wonder about the biomass claims, we have a digester in the next village and when you take into account all the diesel used in preparing the ground, growing the crop, harvest and then transport it to the digester let alone the amount used at the digester just how green is it.

 

The answer is that it's a great deal greener than transporting the waste somewhere else and distributing it over fields, where nasties can get into the rainwater run-off.  The typical AD plant drives a 500kW diesel generator, which is a lot of fossil gas or oil being saved. 

 

Biomass also includes thermal power stations burning straw (including rape straw - lots of vegetable oil in that!) and woodchip, all stuff that would otherwise go up in smoke, get ploughed back into the land and require the additional use of chemicals and fertilisers, or simply rot in landfill. The green balance is heavily in its favour.   

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1 minute ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

You could always buy a newer second-hand diesel - they are going to be cheap as chips and are still environmentally the best option overall -- if you avoid usign them in town.

Good point, and I would consider this if my current one gives up, but most of what little driving I do these days is around town so I'm keen to avoid adding to the pollution from diesel fumes. Until it gives up, or I until I can switch to an EV at a sensible price, I'll try and get as much use as I can from my current car.

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2 minutes ago, Stilllearning said:

Electric cars - yes in theory, though it is unnerving to be wandering around town and suddenly get shocked by some goit in an EV honking their horn behind me, cos I’ve not heard them. Still, they were Parisians, so one makes allowances.

The real practical problem seems to me to be the recharging. We have a town house, no garage etc, so would have to plug in on the street, and who will pay the eye watering costs of setting up this network of cabling etc? Also, it occurs to me that in a town that is one large historic monument, everything listed, how does a planner set up a system that the historic monument people can live with?

I can see that how quiet they are can be a concern for pedestrians. Howeve, modern ICE cars can be pretty quiet too so I reckon it's safer to rely on eyes rather than ears. As long as one is not visually-impaired of course.

 

Regarding charging, fortunately I have a drive as do most houses in my area. Clearly there is a problem for occupiers of terraced houses, flats etc but as cars have increasingly higher ranges, and the network of public chargers (albeit costlier to use and not benefiting from off-peak electricity) in the UK is getting more extensive by the day ( https://www.zap-map.com/statistics/  ) having an EV is becoming more viable even without off-road charging at home. If only they weren't s till so bloody expensive to buy! 

 

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3 hours ago, Stilllearning said:

The same argument should be remembered and used for every wind turbine. Add up all the CO2 created in planning the site, connecting the site to the grid, building each individual component and delivering to the site. Then assembling and erecting the turbine. How many years to repay the CO2?

Getting hold of a contract between the developer and the land owner is an instructive bit of reading too. If you can get hold of one, it’s not easy.

ETA and who actually wants to live next door to a turbine?

 

On diesel versus electric cars, again, take into account all the CO2 created in building a new electric car, and balance that against me driving my old Galaxy diesel till it dies of old age, and the costs to the environment are probably nearer to the same than most green proponents would like to admit.

We had an engineer who calculated it was more environmentally friendly for us just to throw empty 205 lt oil drums over the side than send them back ashore. We didn't do it.

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26 minutes ago, Stilllearning said:

 

The real practical problem seems to me to be the recharging. We have a town house, no garage etc, so would have to plug in on the street, and who will pay the eye watering costs of setting up this network of cabling etc? Also, it occurs to me that in a town that is one large historic monument, everything listed, how does a planner set up a system that the historic monument people can live with?

This is the BIG problem that seems to get overlooked when politicians spout on about electric vehicles.  They make most sense in towns, where charging is the most difficult.  My son lives in Bristol, in one of the many tens of thousands of Victorian terraces.  He is keen to get an electric car, but there is absolutely no way he would be able to charge it.  The prospect of tens of thousands of charging points being installed on these streets is just laughable (and even if they were put in, would you be happy leaving your electric car plugged in to a socket on the street?  Being in a "nice area" doesn't help when some drunken yobs go past, like when they smashed windows in about 20 cars on his street a year ago.

 

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2 hours ago, dor said:

This is the BIG problem that seems to get overlooked when politicians spout on about electric vehicles.  They make most sense in towns, where charging is the most difficult.  My son lives in Bristol, in one of the many tens of thousands of Victorian terraces.  He is keen to get an electric car, but there is absolutely no way he would be able to charge it.  The prospect of tens of thousands of charging points being installed on these streets is just laughable (and even if they were put in, would you be happy leaving your electric car plugged in to a socket on the street?  Being in a "nice area" doesn't help when some drunken yobs go past, like when they smashed windows in about 20 cars on his street a year ago.

 

This is a problem, but there are solutions for many people. Charging while parked at work would be OK for many, and companies will have to install charging points -- which is far easier to do in most car parks than some houses and streets.

 

Everyone is always ready to point out the problems with BEV -- so OK, what's *your* solution to the pollution/emissions problem? Yes the easy and convenient answer is to do nothing and carry on just like today, which is exactly why we're in this mess...

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2 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

Everyone is always ready to point out the problems with BEV -- so OK, what's *your* solution to the pollution/emissions problem? Yes the easy and convenient answer is to do nothing and carry on just like today, which is exactly why we're in this mess...

Whenever anyone mentions something that is (partly) to blame for producing pollution/greenhouse gases someone will come along to defend it as being only x% of the total and/or to blame something else. 

 

Surely what's needed is a reduction from all sources, not just the worst one (whatever that is).

 

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4 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

You could always buy a newer second-hand diesel - they are going to be cheap as chips and are still environmentally the best option overall -- if you avoid usign them in town.

 just got 2013 honda diesel  88 mpg 

euro 5 so cant take to lunun. Good dont like cities. Drove cheaply to switzerland france italy for 2 weeks avoided strong desire to go to london on way..

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2 hours ago, Lily Rose said:

Whenever anyone mentions something that is (partly) to blame for producing pollution/greenhouse gases someone will come along to defend it as being only x% of the total and/or to blame something else. 

 

Surely what's needed is a reduction from all sources, not just the worst one (whatever that is).

 

That's like all the articles in papers saying that if everyone in the country unplugged their phone chargers we'd save enough energy to power [xxx] houses. Which sounds like a big number, until you compare it to the [xx] million houses that we have, and realise it's maybe 0.001% of our home energy consumption. Nobody should be worrying about this, fix the big things first, then the medium sized things, by the time you've done all this you don't have a problem any more and can justifiably ignore the really small things.

 

So yes we need a pollution reduction from all *significant* sources including cars, taxis, trucks, planes, ships and trains, and as you say they all need looking at. What can be ignored -- unless you *really* enjoy pointless arguments -- is things that contribute probably 100x less pollution than the sources I mentioned earlier, which includes narrowboats and standby generators.

 

If you want some numbers, there are about 30 million cars and 30 thousand canal boats in the UK, so a thousand cars for every boat. Fuel used per year in the UK is about 12MT (million tonnes) for petrol cars, 12MT for diesel cars and taxis, 12MT for vans/trucks/coaches, 12MT for planes, 4MT for ships, 1MT for rail -- so it should be obvious where we have to look first out of this ~50MT total. A narrowboat used for fairly intensive cruising (3000 miles per year) uses about 1T of fuel (1000l) per year, but given how many boats are essentially stationary or hardly move at all I'd be very surprised if all the boats in the UK use 5000T of diesel between them -- which is 10000 times less than the big culprits mentioned above.

 

You could also say there's no excuse for having a smoky old engine chucking out clouds of stinky exhaust fumes, since this is a local pollution hazard to the nose if nothing else -- however it's unlikely to contribute anything to global warming or lung disease, unless you connect a mask to the exhaust with a length of hose...

Edited by IanD
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