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Swapping from red diesel to HVO fuel


Bosley Dave

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1 hour ago, IanD said:

HVO is the only realistic low carbon/emissions solution for boaters

 

Yes for steel boats, but also for cruising boats of all types and then there are the coastal cruisers and sailing boats that currently use RED. What about other diesel engined site and agricultural machinery?

 

HVO does seem to have huge advantages, but will there ever be enough of it?

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1 hour ago, jupiter1124 said:

Batteries are the problem for the viability of charging points. Both capacity and how quickly you can charge them.

 

And don't dismiss expense, that's is a huge part of whether batteries are viable. To have enough batteries, that charge fast enough, that you can get all of the energy you need for propulsion, domestic use, and cooking & heating(!), is totally out of reach today both in terms of expense and probably bulk, even on a boat.

 

 

In my experience almost everywhere requires a declaration. I don't think I've ever been forced to pay 60/40.

I didn't dismiss expense, quite the opposite -- but that's partly down to the generator which costs a similar amount to the batteries or even more. Even if batteries were free, a hybrid is still more expensive than a diesel because of this.

 

Charging is not a battery problem with LFP, like in EVs they can be charged rapidly, the problem for canals is getting high-power grid connections to where they're needed.

 

Bulk is not an issue either, an LFP battery bank is relatively small -- again, smaller than the generator.

 

A battery-only boat will not be practical for a long time until charging points exist, and at this point a battery similar to an EV one (70kWh or so) will be fine. A hybrid with HVO generator and heating (and solar panels and 35kWh of LFP) is practical today -- I'm having one built -- but expensive.

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29 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I always pay my declared percentage and don't but from companies who try to impose it.

Last month I popped into a marina for RED diesel that last year was happy to sell it for heating and charge accordingly, only to be told that they only now sell white. They told me that the 'new regulations' had shifted the responsibility to them to make sure that the correct duty was being paid: they didn't want the hassle so just stopped selling red.

 

I have no idea if, or how the regulations have changed, but if this is a trend, it is going to adversely affect live-aboards and those who use generators to power electric motors. 

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19 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:

 

Yes for steel boats, but also for cruising boats of all types and then there are the coastal cruisers and sailing boats that currently use RED. What about other diesel engined site and agricultural machinery?

 

HVO does seem to have huge advantages, but will there ever be enough of it?

For the canals, yes -- total demand is at least 1000x less than for cars. For cars, no.

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1 minute ago, IanD said:

For the canals, yes -- total demand is at least 1000x less than for cars. For cars, no.

There may be enough HVO for canal boats, but what about all other boats of which there are far more. And what about tractors and the host of other agricultural and site machinery that needs to be weaned off of diesel? I can't see HVO being reserved for the exclusive use of canal boats given its advantages.

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1 minute ago, IanD said:

A battery-only boat will not be practical for a long time until charging points exist

My guess was that it won't be practical even when charging points exist, without a 10x improvement in battery tech (10 times cheaper, 10 times faster to charge, and/or 10 times smaller, etc).

 

Let me try some napkin maths. If you did all your heating, cooking, hot water, domestic electricity and propulsion all from charging points, how much are you going to need per day?

According to Ofgem the median annual household consumption is 12.5MWh of gas and 3.1MWh of electricity. Total is 15.6MWh/annum or 43kWh/day. No figures for boats obviously but given that they are much poorer insulated plus you have to add propulsion, it's probably about the same? Open to argument on that.

 

Also bear in mind that this is averaged over the year, winter is going to be much higher - let's say you need 80kWh/day in winter.

 

If you charge your LiFePOs between 20% and 80%, then you only have 60% usable capacity, so 80/0.6 means you need 133kWh of batteries.

And discharging your LiFePOs is not going to be 100% efficient, particularly given that you're running at relatively low voltage and putting it through an inverter, unlike land residential supplies... so let's say 90% efficiency? 133/0.9 = 150kWh batteries needed.

 

The popular Winston Thundersky LiFePO4 cells are about 175 GBP for 0.48kWh. To make 150kWh you will need 313 of them. That's 55 grand's worth of batteries

 

That you have to charge EVERY DAY.

 

I only cruise once or twice a week, particularly in winter, so triple that at least if I want to maintain my fossil fuel lifestyle where I can be out in nature for a few days at a time. That's nearly 1000 cells (5.8 metric tonnes).

 

Assuming chargers are as spaced out as water points... this is a lot of cruising... which of course needs a lot more power too! I don't know what the spec of the chargers on the Thames are, but let's say they're about the same as the "level 2" chargers for EVs, which I think are up to 80A @ 240V, which is about 20kW. So that sounds like about 6 hours of charging every day?

 

Maybe this is pessimistic, I just made up these numbers so I'm happy to be corrected. In summer it would be great, consumption is much less plus you'll get solar, but in winter I just don't see it. Boaters in winter need to burn something until the tech improves quite a bit I reckon.

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It would be VERY useful to know where we stand BEFORE we plan to fill up, especially if there is no great choice of suppliers within range.  This 'flexibility' which allows suppliers to limit the %ages which they will accept actually undermines the responsibility – which falls on the boater – to accurately declare the %ages which they use.  Effectively, the suppliers' limited acceptance of different %ages forces the boater to break the law, which can't be right.

I should have thought that the 'administrative burden' falling on the supplier would be very simply handled by appropriate software.  Only need to enter the relevant %ages declared and the computer would work it all out!

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2 hours ago, Lady C said:

Also, you are allowed to adjust your declaration next time - this is how the boater can avoid breaking the law. 

Are you sure. I thought when you bought it the percentage was for your intended use. not what you used before.

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18 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Are you sure. I thought when you bought it the percentage was for your intended use. not what you used before.

Just out of interest, has anyone ever heard of a NB's tank being dipped and their paperwork examined for the correct declaration?

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3 hours ago, jupiter1124 said:

My guess was that it won't be practical even when charging points exist, without a 10x improvement in battery tech (10 times cheaper, 10 times faster to charge, and/or 10 times smaller, etc).

 

Let me try some napkin maths. If you did all your heating, cooking, hot water, domestic electricity and propulsion all from charging points, how much are you going to need per day?

According to Ofgem the median annual household consumption is 12.5MWh of gas and 3.1MWh of electricity. Total is 15.6MWh/annum or 43kWh/day. No figures for boats obviously but given that they are much poorer insulated plus you have to add propulsion, it's probably about the same? Open to argument on that.

 

Also bear in mind that this is averaged over the year, winter is going to be much higher - let's say you need 80kWh/day in winter.

 

If you charge your LiFePOs between 20% and 80%, then you only have 60% usable capacity, so 80/0.6 means you need 133kWh of batteries.

And discharging your LiFePOs is not going to be 100% efficient, particularly given that you're running at relatively low voltage and putting it through an inverter, unlike land residential supplies... so let's say 90% efficiency? 133/0.9 = 150kWh batteries needed.

 

The popular Winston Thundersky LiFePO4 cells are about 175 GBP for 0.48kWh. To make 150kWh you will need 313 of them. That's 55 grand's worth of batteries

 

That you have to charge EVERY DAY.

 

I only cruise once or twice a week, particularly in winter, so triple that at least if I want to maintain my fossil fuel lifestyle where I can be out in nature for a few days at a time. That's nearly 1000 cells (5.8 metric tonnes).

 

Assuming chargers are as spaced out as water points... this is a lot of cruising... which of course needs a lot more power too! I don't know what the spec of the chargers on the Thames are, but let's say they're about the same as the "level 2" chargers for EVs, which I think are up to 80A @ 240V, which is about 20kW. So that sounds like about 6 hours of charging every day?

 

Maybe this is pessimistic, I just made up these numbers so I'm happy to be corrected. In summer it would be great, consumption is much less plus you'll get solar, but in winter I just don't see it. Boaters in winter need to burn something until the tech improves quite a bit I reckon.

 

You need to use figures from boats, not households -- yes they're poorer insulated but also *much* smaller and with fewer power-hungry appliances For example a typical domestic boiler is something like 12kW-15kW, a typical boat one is 4kW-5kW. But if powered by electricity it would make far more sense to use a heat pump, a water-source one big enough to heat a boat (5kW) draws about 1kW of electrical power.

 

If you do a proper power audit including heating (heat pump) and propulsion and solar, I expect you'll come up with a net energy requirement of something in the region of 15-20kWh per day, maybe more in winter (30kWh/day?) when there's less solar and more heating.

 

An EV-sized battery (70kWh) will therefore mean you need to recharge every 2-3 days, and put 60kWh back in. If this is too short, a bigger battery will be needed, and more energy per recharge. Like for EVs, if charging is done overnight fast charging isn't needed, if you want to charge up quickly during the day then EV-style fast chargers are needed. Standard LFP batteries can already be charged at C (1 hour), EV ones faster than this, so the fast charger sets the limit not the batteries.

 

Don't get me wrong, pure electric does have issues even with charging points, charging up the boat becomes a regular necessity like filling up the water tank -- and the longer you want to go, the bigger the batteries have to be. Right now this is very expensive because the LFP batteries (e.g. Winston) are *far* more expensvie per kWh than EV batteries, but this will change in future -- and battery prices will continue to drop, EV ones are already heading towards $100 per kWh and newer technologies promise to reduce this further over time. Not in the next couple of years, but certainly by the time charging points might be installed.

 

You can't look at the feasibility of this using today's technology and prices, you need to think what is likely to exist by then -- absolute minimum of 5 years away, more likely 10 years or more. Extrapolate the battery prices and capacity forwards to then and it all becomes feasible, and more affordable than today -- though still not as cheap as a dirty old diesel... 😉

 

All this is much less of a problem (*much* smaller battery needed) with an HVO-fuelled diesel generator on board, but that also puts the cost through the roof (at least £10k or so) -- and unlike batteries there's so sign of their prices dropping, or indeed any reason they should do so.

Edited by IanD
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13 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:

Just out of interest, has anyone ever heard of a NB's tank being dipped and their paperwork examined for the correct declaration?

No point in dipping, its going to be rebated fuel anyway, its impossible  to check paperwork as there is no requirement to keep any.

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18 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

No point in dipping, its going to be rebated fuel anyway, its impossible  to check paperwork as there is no requirement to keep any.

We all sign declarations when we buy red diesel, so the authorities must have some way of checking, don't they?

 

But has anyone ever been inspected?

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With civil service cutbacks and the government philosophy of value for money and performance targets, I suspect that manpower would only be diverted from existing tasks  to investigate something different, where there was a reasonable chance of discovering a financial irregularity that would result in recouping enough money to cover the cost of the investigation. 

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36 minutes ago, Lady C said:

The seller of the diesel is required to keep the declarations and may be inspected.

 

But if the boat owner isn't required to keep paperwork, then an inspector couldn't prove that the fuel in the tank hadn't been purchased fully duty paid from another supplier or forecourt.

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However, keeping a record would help the boat owner prove that their declarations were accurate if there was an investigation.  Don't forget that this arrangement was originally a fudge in response to the EU decision that Belgium could dictate what British boat owners used in their boats in the UK.  Subsequently, unfortunately, hijacked by green initiatives though usefully protecting against enforced use of white diesel.  

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11 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:

We all sign declarations when we buy red diesel, so the authorities must have some way of checking, don't they?

 

But has anyone ever been inspected?

 

3 hours ago, Rose Narrowboats said:

Yes - twice.

Presumably as an RDCO, and not as an end user? 

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It remains to be seen if mass production will result in significant reductions in the cost of batteries. Mass production can certainly result in cheaper prices where the cost of raw materials is low and the initial selling price reflects the need to recoup the initial.costs of making the tooling and other equipment needed for manufacture, as well as the cost of development. Once these overheads have been paid for, the price charged to the customer can (but not necessarily will) be reduced. 

 

My understanding is that the current types of EV battery require relatively expensive raw materials that are not exactly abundant, and have to be imported, often from countries whose politics and human rights performances  we do not entirely agree with.  High demand for products  that are in short supply is not exactly a recipe for lowering their cost, and it is a fundamental principle of business that you charge what the customer is prepared to pay.  After all, traditional lead-acid battery technology has been around for more than a century but mass production has not seen a dramatic fall in their cost, a reflection of the relatively high scrap value of lead. 

Edited by Ronaldo47
typos
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15 hours ago, IanD said:

You need to use figures from boats, not households

Yeah, I did note that I didn't have good figures for boats in my calculation. But...

15 hours ago, IanD said:

maybe more in winter (30kWh/day?)

I'm very skeptical of this figure. Even your 1kW (!?) heat pump will use 24kWh per day leaving you with only 6kW for all your cooking, propulsion and domestic use? I guess that might be doable...?

 

 

 

15 hours ago, IanD said:

a water-source one big enough to heat a boat (5kW) draws about 1kW of electrical power.

I don't know enough about them and I know that heat pumps are highly rated, but is it really possible to get 500% efficiency when you're transferring heat out of a frozen canal? At that kind of efficiency I start to wonder if it might be more efficient to run a diesel genny to power a heat pump, rather than an Eberspacher? It feels like the long arm of the law of thermodynamics might be looking for me for that comment!

 

15 hours ago, IanD said:

You can't look at the feasibility of this using today's technology and prices

Anyway, this was exactly my point (batteries need to 10x before powering our lifestyle from charging points only becomes feasible) so it feels like we're on the same page, even if my calculation was unduly pessimistic out of ignorance.

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19 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

It remains to be seen if mass production will result in significant reductions in the cost of batteries. Mass production can certainly result in cheaper prices where the cost of raw materials is low and the initial selling price reflects the need to recoup the initial.costs of making the tooling and other equipment needed for manufacture, as well as the cost of development. Once these overheads have been paid for, the price charged to the customer can (but not necessarily will) be reduced. 

 

My understanding is that the current types of EV battery require relatively expensive raw materials that are not exactly abundant, and have to be imported, often from countries whose politics and human rights performances  we do not entirely agree with.  High demand for products  that are in short supply is not exactly a recipe for lowering their cost, and it is a fundamental principle of business that you charge what the customer is prepared to pay.  After all, traditional lead-acid battery technology has been around for more than a century but mass production has not seen a dramatic fall in their cost, a reflection of the relatively high scrap value of lead. 

 

All the forecasts of EV battery prices from respected industry analysts (which the multibillion dollar car industry is basing its entire strategy on) show then continuing to fall for the foreseeable future, even with existing technologies like NMC and LFP. LA production has not really increased for the past 50 years, EV battery production is going up by something like 50% per year so the price continues to drop.

 

There are new technologies like solid-state, lithium metal, sodium-ion, sodium-sulphur in the labs which promise to reduce costs further and avoid scarce raw materials. They won't all make it to production, but I'm pretty sure at least one of them will in the next 5 years or so.

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6 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

All the forecasts of EV battery prices from respected industry analysts (which the multibillion dollar car industry is basing its entire strategy on) show then continuing to fall for the foreseeable future, even with existing technologies like NMC and LFP. LA production has not really increased for the past 50 years, EV battery production is going up by something like 50% per year so the price continues to drop.

 

There are new technologies like solid-state, lithium metal, sodium-ion, sodium-sulphur in the labs which promise to reduce costs further and avoid scarce raw materials. They won't all make it to production, but I'm pretty sure at least one of them will in the next 5 years or so.

Solid state sulphur was going Into production for one Chinese company according to Google this morning, I can't find the link but if its true they were brilliant 

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