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1 minute ago, eco-boat said:

Running a diesel engine to charge your batteries is not a great thing, but it's no worse than using diesel for propulsion. The advantage of an electric drive is that it gives the possibility of getting free electricity from solar pv, and of course you can also charge them from land electricity, which is what the Dutch do.

 

I don't think you can have had your boat long, have you??!!

 

I've NEVER seen a land electricity charging point on the canals. Where do you mean?

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10 minutes ago, eco-boat said:

Running a diesel engine to charge your batteries is not a great thing, but it's no worse than using diesel for propulsion. The advantage of an electric drive is that it gives the possibility of getting free electricity from solar pv, and of course you can also charge them from land electricity, which is what the Dutch do.

 

Except the conversion losses of charging mean you use more diesel than if you had a direct diesel drive.

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10 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

I've NEVER seen a land electricity charging point on the canals. Where do you mean?

There was one that I knew of 20 years or so at Linford Manor in Milton Keynes.  Would spending each night in a marina give access to charging? Sounds expensive.

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Just now, philjw said:

There was one that I knew of 20 years or so at Linford Manor in Milton Keynes.  Would spending each night in a marina give access to charging? Sounds expensive.

 

No.

 

Marinas usually have only 16a bollards. Totally inadequate I'd guess.

 

How many kWhrs a day will your electric boat use when cruising? 

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15 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

I've NEVER seen a land electricity charging point on the canals. Where do you mean?

Not uncommon on Rivers tho' (regularly provided at visitors moorings alongside locks on the Trent)

A 16A unit will power a big charger for overnight charging.

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30 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:

The thing that always strikes me as being a big advantage with electric propulsion is that, AFAIK, it only consumes power when the boat (car, whatever) is actually moving. All that time spent waiting for locks, and sitting in locks, is not using fuel of any kind and therefore not polluting the atmosphere.

You can of course turn the engine off while you are waiting, assuming you are tied up securely.

 

What does surprise me a little is that you get a discount if the only form of propulsion is from electric.  That seems to ignore that you have a deisel engine providing the electricity, so from an environmental point of view it is no better.  The only mitigating factor is that you could add a battery bank and get at least some of the charge from solar or a hookup, but you don’t need to do that to get the discount.  The discount should be based on the source of the energy used for propulsion, and not just saying that it all ultimately comes from the sun.

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3 minutes ago, john6767 said:

The discount should be based on the source of the energy used for propulsion, and not just saying that it all ultimately comes from the sun.

Diesel comes from oil

Oil comes from the fossils of plants and microscopic animals

Those plants grew because of the sunlight.

 

Diesel is Environmental friendly - its produced by Sunlight.

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1 minute ago, john6767 said:

You can of course turn the engine off while you are waiting, assuming you are tied up securely.

 

I could. And I often do if it looks like I'll be waiting quite a while.

 

For example if there is more than one boat ahead of me waiting for a lock, and I can get to the side in a situation that will allow me to progressively haul the boat towards the lock, then I switch off until the lock is ready. 

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5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Diesel comes from oil

Oil comes from the fossils of plants and microscopic animals

Those plants grew because of the sunlight.

 

Diesel is Environmental friendly - its produced by Sunlight.

That’s what I said, but not that deisel is environmentally friendly!

Edited by john6767
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5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Diesel comes from oil

Oil comes from the fossils of plants and microscopic animals

Those plants grew because of the sunlight.

 

Diesel is Environmental friendly - its produced by Sunlight.

This is what people who burn wood and think they are environmentally friendly don’t understand.

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On 17/07/2018 at 18:22, Robbo said:

This is what people who burn wood and think they are environmentally friendly don’t understand.

Fossil fuels have been deposited by photosynthesising plants over hundreds of millions of years. We're digging these stores up and burning them in a few decades. That's bad.

Wood starts it's life by by growing through the absorption of CO2. When you burn it, you only giving off what the wood has recently absorbed. This is carbon neutral, and is many orders of magnitude better than releasing fossil fuel carbon.

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On 17/07/2018 at 18:16, Alan de Enfield said:

Diesel comes from oil

Oil comes from the fossils of plants and microscopic animals

Those plants grew because of the sunlight.

 

Diesel is Environmental friendly - its produced by Sunlight.

 

On 17/07/2018 at 18:22, Robbo said:

This is what people who burn wood and think they are environmentally friendly don’t understand.

It's not where it comes from that renders it "environmentally friendly" or not, it's what is left over after you have done with it.

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9 minutes ago, eco-boat said:

Fossil fuels have been deposited by photosynthesising plants over hundreds of millions of years. We're digging these stores up and burning them in a few decades. That's bad.

Wood starts it's life by by growing through the absorption of CO2. When you burn it, you only giving off what the wood has recently absorbed. This is carbon neutral, and is many orders of magnitude better than releasing fossil fuel carbon.

It's carbon neutral over a period of time just like oil, but that period of time isn't short (it's many decades to replace) and has no real affect on reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.  Burning wood isn't environmentally friendly as it shoves alot of pollutant in the air and not really sustainable for use on mass.

Edited by Robbo
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5 hours ago, eco-boat said:

Fossil fuels have been deposited by photosynthesising plants over hundreds of millions of years. We're digging these stores up and burning them in a few decades. That's bad.

Wood starts it's life by by growing through the absorption of CO2. When you burn it, you only giving off what the wood has recently absorbed. This is carbon neutral, and is many orders of magnitude better than releasing fossil fuel carbon.

 

You really do suck up the technically illiterate tripe the govt pump out don't you!

 

CO2 isn't the only 'environmental concern' from burning stuff, is it? 

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Burning wood is anything but carbon neutral and environmentally friendly.  The growers are releasing all the carbon that would have stayed locked up in the trees etc when clearing the forests to grow fast growing trees, they use lots of diesel to process the wood and in the case of wood chips dry it before loading it in to ships to carry it over the sea.  More diesel for local distribution and then release lots of cancer causing chemicals and particulates into the community when it’s burnt it in an inefficient wood burner.

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13 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

You really do suck up the technically illiterate tripe the govt pump out don't you!

 

CO2 isn't the only 'environmental concern' from burning stuff, is it? 

What 'tripe' are you referring to?

Or was that just a general insult?

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12 hours ago, Chewbacka said:

Burning wood is anything but carbon neutral and environmentally friendly.  The growers are releasing all the carbon that would have stayed locked up in the trees etc when clearing the forests to grow fast growing trees, they use lots of diesel to process the wood and in the case of wood chips dry it before loading it in to ships to carry it over the sea.  More diesel for local distribution and then release lots of cancer causing chemicals and particulates into the community when it’s burnt it in an inefficient wood burner.

Burning wood certainly isn't a perfect environmental fuel, but none are, and the discussion is about comparing it with diesel. It does beat diesel from an environmental POV.

The fact of the matter is that once a tree has grown, the carbon within it is destined to end up in the atmosphere by one way or another, so it may as well be used to displace fossil fuel in your boat.

Picking up dead branches from the canal side has got to be an environmentally better fuel than diesel.

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16 minutes ago, eco-boat said:

Picking up dead branches from the canal side has got to be an environmentally better fuel than diesel.

Apart from that dead wood been burnt on a inefficient stove will pollute the local air more than a efficient diesel burner and still release the same amount of carbon.  Leaving the wood to rot will still release the same amount of carbon but the local wildlife and soil will benefit from the rotting wood.

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The most ecological option for any self-respecting eco-warriors to take however, is to not have a boat built in the first place. How much pollution is created smelting 25 tonnes of steel, rolling it into flat sheets, welding it together, casting and machining some of it into an engine and electric motor?

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1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

How much pollution is created smelting 25 tonnes of steel, rolling it into flat sheets, welding it together, casting and machining some of it into an engine and electric motor?

Loads.

 

Don't forget post #8

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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14 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Loads.

 

Don't forget post #8

 

Funny you should say that. I was going to point out next how eco-warriors all seem to conveniently overlook the environmental impact of manufacturing all those batteries. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 17/07/2018 at 12:19, Alan de Enfield said:

Then why not save £5000 (?) and don't fit an engine. 

Fit a generator to keep the batteries topped up for the 9 months of the year when Solar won't be enough to keep you moving.

In my mind there can be no other interpretation of 'sole means of propulsion'.

 

From my research into building a hybrid narrowboat, my guess is that you either spend that £5k on an engine or a cocooned diesel generator. They will cost roughly the same, give or take. So my view is its best to have that diesel burner able to propel my boat as well as charge my battery bank (in addition to my solar). That's why I've decided to go parallel hybrid rather than full electric. I'll miss out on about £200/yr discount on my licence fee, but I think that's a small price to pay for peace of mind.

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