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Future of electric canal boats


IanD

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1 hour ago, George and Dragon said:

Meanwhile, I've been looking at various types of lithium cells.

@peterboat is using lithium polymer (Lipo) cells. I have heard these can be pretty unstable if mistreated (not that I'm suggesting anyone on this forum would) whereas LiFePO4 (LFP) are supposed to be much more stable.

Then there's LTO which seem to me to be the way to go although they are much more expensive to buy and their energy density is only about half that of LFP. To me the big plus is they are supposed to be able to both charge and discharge down to -40 degrees C and a 40Ah cell can charge at 400A which is going to be a big advantage for hire fleets who want to turn the boat around in the minimum time possible. They also claim 30,000 cycles as opposed to 500 for Lipo.

 

I would like to see some independent verification of these figures - so far most of what I have comes from one vendor https://shop.gwl.eu/.

Lots of new fabulous battery technologies being proposed, most of them will never see the light of day like all the others that also fell by the wayside -- usual reasons include cost, scarce materials, can't be scaled up for mass production, big fundamental disadvantage of some kind (e.g. LTO have half the energy density of LFP and a quarter of Li-ion).

 

We don't need any of them, the low-cost batteries being developed for cars (Li-ion or LFP) will do us just fine, let cars drive the cost down below $100/kWh (estimate is $60/kWh on 2024) and we'll be laughing ?

Edited by IanD
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2 hours ago, George and Dragon said:

Then there's the question of how much energy a boat needs to carry around and where to store it?

Apart from the question of propulsion there's all the other energy use to consider.

 

Anybody like to come back on any of those? Did I miss anything?

If you mean for things like heating and cooking, then this is the same problem that will be faced by houses, like the government trying to phase out gas CH in favour of electrically-powered heat pumps.

 

So you'd think that whatever solution they use (all 30 million of them) would also be used by 1000x fewer narrowboats, it's the car story all over again. If we guesstimate the heating energy usage for a narrowboat at 30kWh/day (Webasto 5kW running for a quarter the time), a heatpump with CoP of 6 (achievable today for ground/water-source pumps for heating) would consume 5kWh/day, compared to 3kW/4bhp for 1 hour cruising.

 

You can change these numbers any way you like, but I think the conclusion is that heating a boat needs considerably less power (maybe about half?) than pushing it along.

Edited by IanD
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If we all have a water-source heatpump surely it will all go wrong?, especially in London where there are lots of boats, if they all suck 30kWh/day out of the canal will it freeze? ?

 

.............Dave

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2 hours ago, IanD said:

LTO have half the energy density of LFP and a quarter of Li-ion.

On a narrowboat one thing we have room for is batteries. Currently a semi-trad uses about 6 cu m for engine, fuel, batteries. Even if you install a 30kW electric motor and all the control gear that leaves a lot of room for batteries. And do take into account the depreciation - LFP is about 4.5p/kWh/cycle, LTO around 3p. Don't ask about Li-ion; it's eye-watering.

 

2 hours ago, IanD said:

If you mean for things like heating and cooking, then this is the same problem that will be faced by houses, like the government trying to phase out gas CH in favour of electrically-powered heat pumps.

 

Is it? On land I'm connected to the mains supply 24/7. Doing a 2 or 3 week ring from a hire base I'm likely not to be connected very much unless I can find a mooring with charging point. And continuous cruisers are likely to be wanting heat and hot water wherever they are. I think some might be using all those 6 cu m and more...

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On the topic of safety, cheap batteries for cars are proving to be rather expensive for several of the manufacturers at present. Problems with battery  safety looks set to result in fines for failing to meet EC emission targets for new car sales. I believe it's about €95 per car for each gram of CO2 above the target. A million cars sold represents a €95,000,000  fine, and pro rata for a greater target shortfall. BMW are having to follow Ford in withdrawing / recalling their electric vehicles, and at least one other company is affected too. 

 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/hybrid-cars/353474/bmw-recalls-multiple-plug-hybrid-models

 

The problem only seems to lie with batteries from the one manufacturer that supplies both Ford and BMW, so is not a reflection on the safety of electric batteries in general. 

 

A former colleague who used to work on battery research told me that a problem with lithium technology is that, with some types, certain fault conditions can lead to the creation of metallic lithium. Lithium metal is very highly reactive and a fire, once started, is very difficult to put out as, like the old Nitrate cine film, it does not need atmospheric oxygen to maintain combustion. My understanding is that, while the number of fires caused by faulty lithium car batteries is in fact very low indeed, the consequences of a rapid and potentially unextinguishable conflagration are potentially so severe that the manufacturers consider the risk of their use to be unacceptable until the cause of the faults has been positively established and eliminated.

Edited by Ronaldo47
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3 hours ago, George and Dragon said:

On a narrowboat one thing we have room for is batteries. Currently a semi-trad uses about 6 cu m for engine, fuel, batteries. Even if you install a 30kW electric motor and all the control gear that leaves a lot of room for batteries. And do take into account the depreciation - LFP is about 4.5p/kWh/cycle, LTO around 3p. Don't ask about Li-ion; it's eye-watering.

 

Is it? On land I'm connected to the mains supply 24/7. Doing a 2 or 3 week ring from a hire base I'm likely not to be connected very much unless I can find a mooring with charging point. And continuous cruisers are likely to be wanting heat and hot water wherever they are. I think some might be using all those 6 cu m and more...

 

22 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

On the topic of safety, cheap batteries for cars are proving to be rather expensive for several of the manufacturers at present. Problems with battery  safety looks set to result in fines for failing to meet EC emission targets for new car sales. I believe it's about €95 per car for each gram of CO2 above the target. A million cars sold represents a €95,000,000  fine, and pro rata for a greater target shortfall. BMW are having to follow Ford in withdrawing / recalling their electric vehicles, and at least one other company is affected too. 

 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/hybrid-cars/353474/bmw-recalls-multiple-plug-hybrid-models

 

The problem only seems to lie with batteries from the one manufacturer that supplies both Ford and BMW, so is not a reflection on the safety of electric batteries in general. 

 

A former colleague who used to work on battery research told me that a problem with lithium technology is that, with some types, certain fault conditions can lead to the creation of metallic lithium. Lithium metal is very highly reactive and a fire, once started, is very difficult to put out as, like the old Nitrate cine film, it does not need atmospheric oxygen to maintain combustion. My understanding is that, while the number of fires caused by faulty lithium car batteries is in fact very low indeed, the consequences of a rapid and potentially unextinguishable conflagration are potentially so severe that the manufacturers consider the risk of their use to be unacceptable until the cause of the faults has been positively established and eliminated.

Yes I can assure you that a motor and batteries dont take up much room at all, If I was building from scratch I would do things differently on my widebeam, If it was a narrowboat I would go for a large stern trad with a motor room, its an easy way to keep the batteries and electric dry and warm.

Batteries can be very long lived if you dont go beyond 80% full it increases cycle life dramatically Tesla arnt wrong on this neither is GM,

as for battery safety I dont think we will ever put batteries under the pressure that cars do I in two years havent its just not needed after all it a leisure thing done at slow speeds isnt it?

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13 hours ago, George and Dragon said:

On a narrowboat one thing we have room for is batteries. Currently a semi-trad uses about 6 cu m for engine, fuel, batteries. Even if you install a 30kW electric motor and all the control gear that leaves a lot of room for batteries. And do take into account the depreciation - LFP is about 4.5p/kWh/cycle, LTO around 3p. Don't ask about Li-ion; it's eye-watering.

 

Is it? On land I'm connected to the mains supply 24/7. Doing a 2 or 3 week ring from a hire base I'm likely not to be connected very much unless I can find a mooring with charging point. And continuous cruisers are likely to be wanting heat and hot water wherever they are. I think some might be using all those 6 cu m and more...

I didn't say LTO energy density was a problem for narrowboats, I said it was a disadvantage which had to be balanced against the claimed advantages. Unfortunately for LTO, in the vast majority of storage battery markets (basically, cars and trucks, and probably ships) energy density is absolutely crucial because they have to fit a lot of energy in a small space, and lasting for 10x as many cycles isn't going to make up for this -- if Li-ion/LFP cells last 10 years, LTO lasting 100 years is pointless. At the moment Li-ion looks favourite for high density, LFP for low cost (which is why Tesla and CATL are rolling them out in China -- also note claimed life in a car of 2 million km).

 

So any company developing LTO batteries is going to have to face up to the fact that they can only address a much smaller market (including narrowboats...), which usually means much higher costs -- and may mean they never get commercially rolled out at all, except for a few specialist applications at very high margins -- there are loads of examples of technologies where this has happened.

 

I provided some figures which estimated that heating using water-source heat pumps (having a big cold thing next to you is really helpful) for CH probably consumes about the same amount of energy per day on a narrowboat as 2 hours cruising; change the numbers I used and this will change, but it suggests that propulsion is the biggest problem, not heating.

Edited by IanD
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10 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

On the topic of safety, cheap batteries for cars are proving to be rather expensive for several of the manufacturers at present. Problems with battery  safety looks set to result in fines for failing to meet EC emission targets for new car sales. I believe it's about €95 per car for each gram of CO2 above the target. A million cars sold represents a €95,000,000  fine, and pro rata for a greater target shortfall. BMW are having to follow Ford in withdrawing / recalling their electric vehicles, and at least one other company is affected too. 

 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/hybrid-cars/353474/bmw-recalls-multiple-plug-hybrid-models

 

The problem only seems to lie with batteries from the one manufacturer that supplies both Ford and BMW, so is not a reflection on the safety of electric batteries in general. 

 

A former colleague who used to work on battery research told me that a problem with lithium technology is that, with some types, certain fault conditions can lead to the creation of metallic lithium. Lithium metal is very highly reactive and a fire, once started, is very difficult to put out as, like the old Nitrate cine film, it does not need atmospheric oxygen to maintain combustion. My understanding is that, while the number of fires caused by faulty lithium car batteries is in fact very low indeed, the consequences of a rapid and potentially unextinguishable conflagration are potentially so severe that the manufacturers consider the risk of their use to be unacceptable until the cause of the faults has been positively established and eliminated.

Lithium fires are indeed difficult to put out, though there's a lot of work going on to reduce this problem and new chemistries (if they come along) don't suffer from it. But to bang the same drum yet again, this is a problem that *will* be solved for cars because the entire world auto industry is betting its trillion-dollar future business on it, so we don't have to worry about solving it for narrowboats ?

 

Also as you say the overall risk (number of such fires) is very low even of they can be *very* nasty when they do happen; petrol isn't exactly safe, and there are a lot more car fires (or explosions, in the movies...) due to this even as a percentage, and we all live happily with that risk -- and the guarantee of global warming. No new technology is risk- or disadvantage-free, the question is -- is it better on balance (including side-effects on health and the planet) than what we have now? That's clearly the case with electric cars/trucks/boats vs. diesel.

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27 minutes ago, IanD said:

I didn't say LTO energy density was a problem for narrowboats, I said it was a disadvantage which had to be balanced against the claimed advantages. Unfortunately for LTO, in the vast majority of storage battery markets (basically, cars and trucks, and probably ships) energy density is absolutely crucial because they have to fit a lot of energy in a small space, and lasting for 10x as many cycles isn't going to make up for this -- if Li-ion/LFP cells last 10 years, LTO lasting 100 years is pointless. At the moment Li-ion looks favourite for high density, LFP for low cost (which is why Tesla and CATL are rolling them out in China -- also note claimed life in a car of 2 million km).

 

So any company developing LTO batteries is going to have to face up to the fact that they can only address a much smaller market (including narrowboats...), which usually means much higher costs -- and may mean they never get commercially rolled out at all, except for a few specialist applications at very high margins -- there are loads of examples of technologies where this has happened.

 

I provided some figures which estimated that heating using water-source heat pumps (having a big cold thing next to you is really helpful) for CH probably consumes about the same amount of energy per day on a narrowboat as 2 hours cruising; change the numbers I used and this will change, but it suggests that propulsion is the biggest problem, not heating.

which of course was once true of the technology currently in electric vehicles.

12 minutes ago, IanD said:

Lithium fires are indeed difficult to put out, though there's a lot of work going on to reduce this problem and new chemistries (if they come along) don't suffer from it. But to bang the same drum yet again, this is a problem that *will* be solved for cars because the entire world auto industry is betting its trillion-dollar future business on it, so we don't have to worry about solving it for narrowboats ?

 

Also as you say the overall risk (number of such fires) is very low even of they can be *very* nasty when they do happen; petrol isn't exactly safe, and there are a lot more car fires (or explosions, in the movies...) due to this even as a percentage, and we all live happily with that risk -- and the guarantee of global warming. No new technology is risk- or disadvantage-free, the question is -- is it better on balance (including side-effects on health and the planet) than what we have now? That's clearly the case with electric cars/trucks/boats vs. diesel.

As I have said before, it is not to cars that we should be looking but trucks. That is where our present systems come from (including heaters such as eberspacher) and the demands are closer.

Edited by Mike Todd
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1 hour ago, Mike Todd said:

which of course was once true of the technology currently in electric vehicles.

As I have said before, it is not to cars that we should be looking but trucks. That is where our present systems come from (including heaters such as eberspacher) and the demands are closer.

Yes of course all technology advances, but there are always winners that get adopted and losers that don't. Right now LTO looks like a loser, regardless of the (irrelevantly long) lifetime -- if LFP lasts in a car for 2 million km (CATL figures, Li-ion is already at ~500k km), LTO lasting for 20 million just gets you pointless bragging rights, like having a 24-bit DAC in your hi-fi.

 

Long-haul trucks typically have 400bhp engines and want >600mile ranges, needing batteries anything up to a MWh, and with drivetrains expected to cost >100k. Not much like a narrowboat, then.

 

Small electric town cars are an almost exact fit to the propulsion needs of electric narrowboats, both in engine power (~40bhp), battery capacity (~40kWh) and required cost for the system (<10k), so that's where the propulsion technology will come from.

 

The heaters probably won't come from trucks in future because they don't really care about efficiency (power is tiny compared to a 400bhp engine), they'll use whatever is small and light and cheap, maybe not even heat pumps (air source) but plain old electric heating. We need higher output and are *way* more bothered about efficiency (and have a big cold wet heatsink available) so it's much more likely that boat heating will used scaled-down versions of domestic ground-source heat pumps -- the total market for these worldwide including lumpy water boats is quite high but still nowhere near cars, however boat-sized systems will be needed for small dwellings so they should come along "free".

Edited by IanD
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3 hours ago, IanD said:

Yes of course all technology advances, but there are always winners that get adopted and losers that don't. Right now LTO looks like a loser, regardless of the (irrelevantly long) lifetime -- if LFP lasts in a car for 2 million km (CATL figures, Li-ion is already at ~500k km), LTO lasting for 20 million just gets you pointless bragging rights, like having a 24-bit DAC in your hi-fi.

 

Long-haul trucks typically have 400bhp engines and want >600mile ranges, needing batteries anything up to a MWh, and with drivetrains expected to cost >100k. Not much like a narrowboat, then.

 

Small electric town cars are an almost exact fit to the propulsion needs of electric narrowboats, both in engine power (~40bhp), battery capacity (~40kWh) and required cost for the system (<10k), so that's where the propulsion technology will come from.

 

The heaters probably won't come from trucks in future because they don't really care about efficiency (power is tiny compared to a 400bhp engine), they'll use whatever is small and light and cheap, maybe not even heat pumps (air source) but plain old electric heating. We need higher output and are *way* more bothered about efficiency (and have a big cold wet heatsink available) so it's much more likely that boat heating will used scaled-down versions of domestic ground-source heat pumps -- the total market for these worldwide including lumpy water boats is quite high but still nowhere near cars, however boat-sized systems will be needed for small dwellings so they should come along "free".

Don't over-focus on detail but look at the bigger picture: my point about heaters was not about how the heating is achieved but rather the general trajectory of technology into canal boats.

 

I also suspect that it is not so much the actual power of truck engines, but more to do with their robustness in a less kind environment. Car engine spaces have evolved to a situation in which they need very specialised equipment and skills to do anything, even changing a headlamp needs a degree! Of course trucks are also pretty sophisticated but they typically have usage patterns that have long runs, over several hours, whilst cars are much shorter in the main - and post-Covid it seems that that trend will continue to widen. The damp context for boat engines is relatively harsh.

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The energy needed for heating does need to be considered, especially given the peculiarities of the English weather.  Several inches of  snow is not unknown at Easter, as we found out a few years ago on the Oxford canal. The hire boat's instructions were that the diesel: powered central heating could only be used for I think 8 hours when not cruising to avoid running down the batteries that provided the electric power to run it. A boat hired in the late 1980's that had gas-fired central heating had no such limitation. 

IMGP3224.JPG

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1 hour ago, Ronaldo47 said:

The energy needed for heating does need to be considered, especially given the peculiarities of the English weather.  Several inches of  snow is not unknown at Easter, as we found out a few years ago on the Oxford canal. The hire boat's instructions were that the diesel: powered central heating could only be used for I think 8 hours when not cruising to avoid running down the batteries that provided the electric power to run it. A boat hired in the late 1980's that had gas-fired central heating had no such limitation. 

IMGP3224.JPG

Eh?

8 hours if you don't run the engine?

Gas? Use it for heating and get through a bottle in about 3 days? Phenomenally expensive.

Edited by system 4-50
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Typo in previous post: it was late 1970's, not 1980's. I suppose gas was cheaper 40 years ago. It was an 8 berth boat with at least 2 gas bottles and we did hire in warm weather.  The later diesel heating had a timer that switched itself off after the  specified time.  We did try switching it on again but it must have had a battery voltage sensor as it didn't stay on for long.

 

For our second wedding anniversary in 1983 (another cold Easter) we did the Four Counties Ring in a week in a rather basic boat. It got its hot water from the engine, and the only heating was a solitary catalytic radiant gas fire in the rear cabin.  I don't suppose they are allowed now. We always made sure our boats had central heating after that. My wife is not a happy bunny when she is cold!

Edited by Ronaldo47
Typos, clarification
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