phasing out of fossil fuels - programme

[IanD]

So let me get this right...

 

Big battery banks like LiFePO4 need internal BMS with top/bottom cell balancing, charge control, under/overvoltage protection, it matters how they've been treated over their lifetime, and the inherent value is several thousand quid -- but this is somehow similar to a steel canister full of gas that costs a few tens of pounds at most and has nothing to go wrong with it?

 

Think about it guys -- you swap in a fresh 30kWh battery bank and a day later it turns out to be knackered, you say it was this way when you got it, they say it was fine when we gave it to you so you must have mistreated it, here's the bill for x thousand quid. It's like dodgy car hire firms ripping customers off for damage that was already there, and the numbers are similar.

 

This is precisely why car manufacturers making BEV have never been able to make this business model work -- if a battery is built-in it can be monitored (Tesla can see the history of individual cells in every battery pack) and it's clear who owns it, who looked after it, , and who is responsible if anything goes wrong. If it's swappable (which means standardised, which means multiple suppliers/network of operators) you're at the mercy of the cowboys, who will for sure pop up because there's a lot of money to be made by passing off cheap dodgy batteries as expensive high-quality ones, and if it bursts into flames and destroys your car/boat just watch them run away...

 

Whenever you're looking at anything like this (e.g. how to power boats with "zero-emissions") the first thing you should do before coming up with hare-brained schemes is to look around and see whether somebody else has already faced the same issues, and spent a lot of time/effort/money working out what the best solution is, compared to the tens of minutes or few hours you've spent thinking about it. The situation with boats is different in some details to road BEV (or CH for houses) but most of the factors are the same; car manufacturers have spent years and many millions (billions?) of pounds on this, and have considered and rejected many schemes for very good reasons, including (but not limited to):

 

-- replaceable batteries (logistical and physical problems)

-- primary cells like Al-air (cost and efficiency, need to replace)

-- hydrogen and fuel cells (cost and efficiency, distribution/storage)

-- wireless charging stations (cost and efficiency -- plugging a cable in is simple, 99% efficient and dirt cheap)

 

Everyone acknowledges that there are many challenges with rechargeable lithium batteries (cost, lifetime, charging time, raw material scarcity, environmental cost of mining) and charging systems (location, cost, power distribution, grid loading) as well as where the green energy comes from in the first place (what happens when there's no wind or sun, matching generation and load capacity, baseline generation, grid capacity, smart metering and payment) and what happens to existing fossil-fuel-based systems (cost of replacement, throwing away stuff with years of useful life left, higher running costs) but the consensus is that these problems can and will be overcome -- and that right now there isn't any better alternative to reducing CO2 emissions and pollution, which has to happen.

 

So I'm curious as to why some people think that somehow all this doesn't apply to boats, and that there is some other magic solution that they can come up with while sitting on a sofa that thousands of skilled engineers worldwide have somehow been unable to find in spite of spending vast amounts of money and years of intensive effort looking for just that...

 

If a better solution does emerge (new batteries, magic fairy dust, whatever) you can bet that it will come out of the car/domestic/renewable energy markets since these are huge and investing massive amounts into finding precisely such better solutions, and that boats will be able to "piggy-back" on whatever they come up with. This is why solar panels have got so much cheaper and more efficient, why the cost of batteries like LiFePO4 has dropped along with electric motor/drive/control systems, why you can buy high-power inverter/chargers at reasonable prices, why low-power LED lighting is now so cheap -- none of this was developed for the (tiny by comparsion) boat market, but we can take advantage of it for free.

 

You can also bet that if magic woo-woo solutions appear in the press which make no impact on these markets (like Al-air batteries, see above), there are very good practical/financial reasons why these haven't been taken up, which are usually ignored in said announcements -- the energy/car industries are desperate for breakthroughs, there's no conspiracy to keep them out, if they really worked and solved the problems the industry would be onto them like a shot and they'd be out there in big volumes.

 

Honestly guys, go and do some reading about all this outside the (narrow)boat world, there's a ton of information out there -- and we (the boating world) doesn't have to solve the big problems like energy generation/distribution/charging because other much bigger much richer players will do this, we just have to figure out how to take advantage of all this for boats and solve the (much smaller) problems that are peculiar to this market.

 

Which mainly means how to get the required power to boats to recharge them, in enough locations and at reasonable cost, and what this implies for changes to boats and lifestyles.

 

It's going to happen sooner or later like it or not, and surely it would be better for everyone to try and come up with positive solutions that work for boaters instead of spending so much time providing "alternative facts" or objecting to why these changes are bad or won't work for them or poor boaters or will make the grid melt. Shouldn't it?

Edited December 18, 2020 by IanD

[magpie patrick]

7 hours ago, IanD said:

Think about it guys -- you swap in a fresh 30kWh battery bank and a day later it turns out to be knackered, you say it was this way when you got it, they say it was fine when we gave it to you so you must have mistreated it, here's the bill for x thousand quid. It's like dodgy car hire firms ripping customers off for damage that was already there, and the numbers are similar.

 

Totally agree with you Ian - No comebacks but when I worked for a large organisation in the earlier days of corporate IT this was a major problem - they'd service your laptop and it would come back with a different battery in it, one that hadn't been looked after, and for someone on the road a lot this was a pain - I ended removing the battery before it went to Team IT, when they questioned it I pointed they obviously took it out anyway so what was the problem? 

 

If battery swap were the way forward, someday you'll swap at a motorway service station and find yourself on the hard shoulder within a mile

There are many parts in cars that are designed to last as long as the car - I don't see why batteries shouldn't be one of them

[Mike Todd]

15 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

You are describing Calor's retail business model:

 

swapping in hundreds of kg of batteries gas bottles is a logistical and safety nightmare, how do you know the battery gas bottle hasn't been damaged by misuse and who pays for it, who is liable if it then damages your boat, everyone has to use a standardised shape/size battery gas bottle

 

I'd say it's exactly like gas bottles - except batteries aren't full of explosive gases! 

 

In fact someone like Calor are probably the best placed to do this as they already have everything in place except the batteries.  If the batteries are owned by Calor (like the gas bottles are) then testing, certifying and replacing is all down to Calor. 

 

The damage to boat thing only applies if you are thinking of the big battery pack swapping machines - I'm thinking more of a gas bottle size/weight battery that you would connect and disconnect personally.  

How frequently do you change your gas bottles? For us and almost every boat I have seen, changing a gas bottle is a bit of a faff, not least because it is usually allocated the least wanted space! It is OK to do once in a while but not every day or so. To be practical it would need a radical re-think about battery storage location and access in order to avoid too many bad backs amongst boaters! Since there are likely to be more batteries than at present the task is not insignificant. Also, if not placed low enough in the hull they may well affect stability let alone trim.

[IanD]

2 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

Totally agree with you Ian - No comebacks but when I worked for a large organisation in the earlier days of corporate IT this was a major problem - they'd service your laptop and it would come back with a different battery in it, one that hadn't been looked after, and for someone on the road a lot this was a pain - I ended removing the battery before it went to Team IT, when they questioned it I pointed they obviously took it out anyway so what was the problem? 

 

If battery swap were the way forward, someday you'll swap at a motorway service station and find yourself on the hard shoulder within a mile

There are many parts in cars that are designed to last as long as the car - I don't see why batteries shouldn't be one of them

I don't think there's any issues with batteries lasting the life of the car/boat so long as they're treated and protected properly -- some Teslas (which do this) are up to 500000 miles, and projected lifetime for the next generation of batteries is a million miles. The proposed swapping is to try and avoid sitting waiting for charging, but it makes even less sense for boats than it does for car drivers in a tearing hurry.

 

The way forward on the batteries is to do what Tesla and BYD do -- build in a properly designed (by the battery manufacturer) robust BMS and make this the master for battery charging. This costs money compared to a cheapskate flimsy unreliable solution, so the answer is to have batteries in the biggest possible "chunk" per BMS so the cost is spread over the largest number of kWh, instead of a lot of small batteries.

 

This is exactly the approach that BYD have taken with the 15.4 LVL battery (51.2V 300Ah); a proper high-current rated (250A continuous= 12.5kW) BMS with CANbus interface which allows multiple batteries to be linked together (up to 64 to get ~1MWh) and appear as one huge battery with all the charge sharing and control sorted out between the internal BMSs. When linked via CANbus to a Victron inverter/charger/MPPT system this allows the battery BMS to take over control of all the charging currents (including MPPT, shore mains and generator), which guarantees that the batteries are treated precisely how the manufacturer intends to maximise life and protect them. They do weigh 160kg each and are more than half the size of a fridge, which is another reason not to try swapping them in and out...

 

The system is designed this way because it's targeted at things like off-grid installations and backup power where there isn't an attentive knowledgeable operator to watch over them and take care of all this, so it has to be reliable and idiot-proof and work unattended. The benefit for an application like a boat is that all this has already been dealt with by BYD and Victron (the combination is officially supported), you connect everything up and it just works -- and the battery has a multi-year guarantee because of this. It also means that these systems will be made and installed in big volumes which not only helps find any bugs/reliability issues but also will drive the price down, they're already comparable or cheaper per kWh than less well-designed systems.

 

All this has been developed for and is used by the off-grid/backup market, which is *far* bigger than the (narrow)boat market -- if you look on the Victron community forums this is where all the comments and questions come from, and it's also obvious from the Victron support documents, an array of inverters and batteries to provide >100kW is impressive to say the least.

 

The cost of a system like this for a boat is still fairly high but the battery cost in particular will continue to fall, driven by the economies of scale of the off-grid market as well as the general LiFePO4 global price drop.

 

All of which is great for new boats (which still need a diesel generator today until charging points appear) but an expensive (maybe unaffordable...) option for retrofitting into existing narrowboats, especially for people who are liveaboards on a tight budget like retired people, and let's not even mention the "crusty boaters" who raise so much ire. It's difficult to see what option they'll have if diesel propulsion is banned, unless there's some kind of government subsidy to help with the cost of changeover -- which I'm sure would raise protests of "I'm not paying to have crusty boats upgraded"...

 

The charging point issue remains a bone of contention and has to be solved, but they seem to be making this work in France so it's obviously not impossible ?

30 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

How frequently do you change your gas bottles? For us and almost every boat I have seen, changing a gas bottle is a bit of a faff, not least because it is usually allocated the least wanted space! It is OK to do once in a while but not every day or so. To be practical it would need a radical re-think about battery storage location and access in order to avoid too many bad backs amongst boaters! Since there are likely to be more batteries than at present the task is not insignificant. Also, if not placed low enough in the hull they may well affect stability let alone trim.

I don't think this is the biggest problem (though it is a big one, with a 160kg battery a bad back is the least of your problems), the issues about ownership/control/safety/supply of batteries from cowboy suppliers is, see post #777...

 

[wow, this really *is* a subject that's got people talking]

Edited December 18, 2020 by IanD

[peterboat]

12 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

Re #771, and that is why trade marks are so valuable to companies. It allows them to sell consumer goods at a higher price because the customer will pay for what they perceive to be something with a good reputation because they associate the name with quality. A couple of decades ago a Korean electrical company that wanted to enter the UK market paid Rank Bush Murphy £1,200,000 for the BUSH trade mark. Although the owners hadn't used it themselves for many years, surveys showed that the UK public associated the name with high quality products.  Calor is a well-known registered trade mark that people know and trust, so are prepared to pay the asking price.

 

The more discerning customer will appreciate that, where pure hydrocarbons are concerned,  butane is butane, propane is propane, and different names on the cannister shouldn't mean that the contents are different. That is because the product is a pure hydrocarbon. Conversely, I don't put supermarket petrol in my car because it is a different (lower) quality to branded stuff. Although for some types of engine it doesn't matter, performance engines are unlikely to run well on cheap petrol.   

They arnt reputable they are ripoff merchants who charge the maximum for everything! They have been buying out the opposition to up their profits. I have had years of dealing with them and the trade association they own bunch of crooks they are along with UK LPG 

[Ronaldo47]

I did say "perceive to be something with a good reputation". 

 

It is a recognised phenomenon in business that you can sell things too cheaply: many people are prepared to pay over the odds for something they believe is superior, regardless of whether or not it actually is, and a business will normally charge what the customer is prepared to pay.  

 

A couple of years ago  we stayed with a friend who had a severe problem with mould on  the walls of her spare  bedroom. Her house had been rented out to a tenant while she had been working abroad. The tenant  had evidently been drying washing in that room without opening the window. She had spent tens of pounds on expensive  products alleged to get rid of mould, all to no avail. We simply washed and scrubbed  the walls with a dilute solution of cheap household bleach, and then dried them with a fan heater. The mould has never returned. 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Ronaldo47
Typos

[Mike Todd]

4 hours ago, IanD said:

I don't think there's any issues with batteries lasting the life of the car/boat so long as they're treated and protected properly -- some Teslas (which do this) are up to 500000 miles, and projected lifetime for the next generation of batteries is a million miles. The proposed swapping is to try and avoid sitting waiting for charging, but it makes even less sense for boats than it does for car drivers in a tearing hurry.

 

The way forward on the batteries is to do what Tesla and BYD do -- build in a properly designed (by the battery manufacturer) robust BMS and make this the master for battery charging. This costs money compared to a cheapskate flimsy unreliable solution, so the answer is to have batteries in the biggest possible "chunk" per BMS so the cost is spread over the largest number of kWh, instead of a lot of small batteries.

 

This is exactly the approach that BYD have taken with the 15.4 LVL battery (51.2V 300Ah); a proper high-current rated (250A continuous= 12.5kW) BMS with CANbus interface which allows multiple batteries to be linked together (up to 64 to get ~1MWh) and appear as one huge battery with all the charge sharing and control sorted out between the internal BMSs. When linked via CANbus to a Victron inverter/charger/MPPT system this allows the battery BMS to take over control of all the charging currents (including MPPT, shore mains and generator), which guarantees that the batteries are treated precisely how the manufacturer intends to maximise life and protect them. They do weigh 160kg each and are more than half the size of a fridge, which is another reason not to try swapping them in and out...

 

The system is designed this way because it's targeted at things like off-grid installations and backup power where there isn't an attentive knowledgeable operator to watch over them and take care of all this, so it has to be reliable and idiot-proof and work unattended. The benefit for an application like a boat is that all this has already been dealt with by BYD and Victron (the combination is officially supported), you connect everything up and it just works -- and the battery has a multi-year guarantee because of this. It also means that these systems will be made and installed in big volumes which not only helps find any bugs/reliability issues but also will drive the price down, they're already comparable or cheaper per kWh than less well-designed systems.

 

All this has been developed for and is used by the off-grid/backup market, which is *far* bigger than the (narrow)boat market -- if you look on the Victron community forums this is where all the comments and questions come from, and it's also obvious from the Victron support documents, an array of inverters and batteries to provide >100kW is impressive to say the least.

 

The cost of a system like this for a boat is still fairly high but the battery cost in particular will continue to fall, driven by the economies of scale of the off-grid market as well as the general LiFePO4 global price drop.

 

All of which is great for new boats (which still need a diesel generator today until charging points appear) but an expensive (maybe unaffordable...) option for retrofitting into existing narrowboats, especially for people who are liveaboards on a tight budget like retired people, and let's not even mention the "crusty boaters" who raise so much ire. It's difficult to see what option they'll have if diesel propulsion is banned, unless there's some kind of government subsidy to help with the cost of changeover -- which I'm sure would raise protests of "I'm not paying to have crusty boats upgraded"...

 

The charging point issue remains a bone of contention and has to be solved, but they seem to be making this work in France so it's obviously not impossible ?

I don't think this is the biggest problem (though it is a big one, with a 160kg battery a bad back is the least of your problems), the issues about ownership/control/safety/supply of batteries from cowboy suppliers is, see post #777...

 

[wow, this really *is* a subject that's got people talking]

But Genningham's Tesla has had 2 battery packs and 3 drive unit replacements - and he drives 600km a day - on average! He says it is a hobby . . .  how about getting a life.

[IanD]

1 hour ago, Mike Todd said:

But Genningham's Tesla has had 2 battery packs and 3 drive unit replacements - and he drives 600km a day - on average! He says it is a hobby . . .  how about getting a life.

600km a day, he must live in his car...

 

https://electrek.co/2019/11/30/tesla-model-s-1-million-km/

 

"The good news is that the most recent battery pack is going on almost half a million kilometers (310,000 miles) with very little battery degradation.

Tesla also finally figure out the problem that would cause issues to the drive unit in early Model S vehicles and now, Gemmingen’s latest drive unit has over 680,000 km on it."

Edited December 18, 2020 by IanD

[Momac]

''Over the course of 1 million km (621,000 miles), it had 2 battery packs and 3 drive unit replacements''

 

A comparable test on a Skoda achieved the same mileage on its original engine

https://www.carscoops.com/2013/07/german-owner-drives-skoda-fabia-diesel/

.

 

[peterboat]

1 minute ago, MartynG said:

''Over the course of 1 million km (621,000 miles), it had 2 battery packs and 3 drive unit replacements''

 

A comparable test on a Skoda achieved the same mileage on its original engine

https://www.carscoops.com/2013/07/german-owner-drives-skoda-fabia-diesel/

.

 

But they will be banned! Also the model S was new technology fresh out of the box the skoda's wasn't 

[IanD]

1 hour ago, MartynG said:

''Over the course of 1 million km (621,000 miles), it had 2 battery packs and 3 drive unit replacements''

 

A comparable test on a Skoda achieved the same mileage on its original engine

https://www.carscoops.com/2013/07/german-owner-drives-skoda-fabia-diesel/

.

 

But a 50+ year old petrol Volvo has done more than 3 million miles so surely that must be even better, which means we should all drive old petrol cars?

 

https://www.everlance.com/blog/10-highest-mileage-vehicles/

 

What's the point you're trying to make -- that BEV are less reliable or have shorter lifetimes than ICE?

 

Because all the real-life evidence (as opposed to freak cases like these) says otherwise ?

[peterboat]

1 minute ago, IanD said:

But a 50+ year old petrol Volvo has done more than 3 million miles so surely that must be even better, which means we should all drive old petrol cars?

 

https://www.everlance.com/blog/10-highest-mileage-vehicles/

 

What's the point you're trying to make -- that BEV are less reliable or have shorter lifetimes than ICE?

 

Because all the real-life evidence (as opposed to freak cases like these) says otherwise ?

I have a VW Type 3 it's had 2 gearboxes and I have just fitted its second engine at 136K miles, yes its diesel but this second engine is a modern 1.9 TDI unit so might last a bit longer.  I do have plans for an electric motor for it but that's a job for later 

[Momac]

26 minutes ago, IanD said:

But a 50+ year old petrol Volvo has done more than 3 million miles so surely that must be even better, which means we should all drive old petrol cars?

 

https://www.everlance.com/blog/10-highest-mileage-vehicles/

 

What's the point you're trying to make -- that BEV are less reliable or have shorter lifetimes than ICE?

 

Because all the real-life evidence (as opposed to freak cases like these) says otherwise ?

Obviously you know best .

[Dr Bob]

1 hour ago, MartynG said:

Obviously you know best .

The bloke two boats down from us took his Jaguar SUV for its first year service last week and it cost £500+. I'm not taking my tesla for a first year service this year......as it doesnt need one!

[George and Dragon]

On 16/12/2020 at 17:10, peterboat said:

Heat pumps are very efficient I have a number of friends with it installed, if I was on reliable mains I would install it on the boat without a second thought 

They are efficient but in the properties I've been in the heating runs 24/7 during the season since the circulating water is much cooler (20 degrees or more) than in a typical gas CH system. This contributes to the efficiency...

[Momac]

1 hour ago, Dr Bob said:

The bloke two boats down from us took his Jaguar SUV for its first year service last week and it cost £500+. I'm not taking my tesla for a first year service this year......as it doesnt need one!

I don't doubt the running costs for an electric car are less than for a car with an ICE. 

[IanD]

3 hours ago, MartynG said:

Obviously you know best .

Not me, the facts ?

36 minutes ago, MartynG said:

I don't doubt the running costs for an electric car are less than for a car with an ICE. 

So what was the point you were trying to make?

[Dr Bob]

1 hour ago, MartynG said:

I don't doubt the running costs for an electric car are less than for a car with an ICE. 

My point was not about cost......more about not needing a service as less to maintain...hence I assume less to go wrong!

[Ronaldo47]

4 hours ago, George and Dragon said:

They are efficient but in the properties I've been in the heating runs 24/7 during the season since the circulating water is much cooler (20 degrees or more) than in a typical gas CH system. This contributes to the efficiency...

An interesting observation. I wonder if this is true of all the heat pump systems that the government would like us to use? Lower water temperature can be a real problem, as I have found when an old gas boiler has been replaced by a condensing one. In order for condensing to happen, the  circulating water temperature  must be cooler than the temperature for which the old system was designed. When installing  central heating in my first house  in 1976, I designed it using one of the DIY books that were available then which explained how to calculate the heatng requirements of each room based on the type of wall, outside temperature,  temperature of adjacent rooms etc, from which the size of radiator needed could be established.  Nowadays you can do this with a spreadsheet or a ready-made program but I had to do the calculations manually.The required radator size depended on the temperature of the circulating water, and as (from memory)  the heat output varies approximately as the square of the temperature difference between the water and the specified room temperature, a small reduction in water temp results in a much larger reduction in heat output. (Radiator maufacturers suppied tables showng heat output versus water temp for their radiators.)  In the interest of  economy in radiator cost, the desirabity of having them occupy as small a space as possible and to keep the thermal mass of circulating water to a minimum, the design temperature of the circulating water of a gas-fired system was usually at the high end of the range, say 170°F. 

      When the  council repaced the  conventional boiler of my mother's council house with a modern condensing one, she complained that she couldn't get warm. I saw that the boiler thermostat had been set to a temperature where condensing  could take place. By turning it up to a much higher temperature, the heating performance of her old system was restored, but the  boiler was no longer working in condensing mode, which rather defeated the object of fitting it.  Another factor, especially with older people who are less able to reguate their body temperature, is that comfort depends not so much on (easily measured)  air temperature, but on the (more difficult to measure) balance between the heat radiated from your body and the radiant heat received from your surroundings. Hence you can bask in the sun in comfort in an alpine  skiing resort when the air temperature is well below zero.  In mum's case she was relying on radiant heat from the radiator for her comfort rather than its convected heat that warmed the air. The condensing water temperature was simply too cool for her comfort, and before I reset the boiler thermostat, she had had to resort to using both her central heating and the radiant gas fire that fortunately the counil had not removed when central heating had been installed. 

 

  It would therefore seem that, when replacing a gas boiler by a heat pump that is unable to produce the original boiler's water temperature, it is possible that the boiler is not the only thing that would need to be replaced: new, larger,  radiators would also be needed to maintain the original heat output, and even then the lower circulating water temperature might result in less comfort.   

Edited December 19, 2020 by Ronaldo47
Typos

[Dalesman]

Can anyone tell me are the HGV, farm tractors , mobile cranes , railways, sea going ships etc all going to be electric powered..? I don't think so

[Murflynn]

7 hours ago, Dalesman said:

Can anyone tell me are the HGV, farm tractors , mobile cranes , railways, sea going ships etc all going to be electric powered..? I don't think so

 

plus:

- most things used on a construction site  - portable generators, compressors & pumps, excavators and bulldozers

- standby generators for hospitals and vital infrastructure

[Alan de Enfield]

8 hours ago, Dalesman said:

Sea going ships etc all going to be electric powered..? I don't think so

 

Maybe not directly electric but, by 2030 no new "non-zero emission" propulsion boats will be built, and by 2050 no "non-zero emission" propulsion boats will be allowed in UK waters (inland and at sea)

 

I have posted the details from the Government Policy documents enough times, everyone must be getting sick of them.

 

An example of the alternative power sources (from the "Marine 2050 Zero Emission Shipping" planning document) 

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by Alan de Enfield

[Momac]

10 hours ago, IanD said:

 

So what was the point you were trying to make?

I believe  it was claimed earlier that EV's would last longer the ICE cars .

I provided evidence of cars lasting 1 Million km on its original engine

Evidence of and EV lasting 1Million km but it had replacement batteries and motors 

 

Both types of vehicle are equally capable of very high mileage .

.

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by MartynG

[Momac]

10 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

My point was not about cost......more about not needing a service as less to maintain...hence I assume less to go wrong!

Less that is required to be serviced. 

It's the zero emission claim that I object to.

[TheBiscuits]

35 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I have posted the details from the Government Policy documents enough times, everyone must be getting sick of them.

 

You could always post the link to the document instead of a screenshot ...

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/clean-maritime-plan-maritime-2050-environment-route-map