Has UK enough generating power for electric cars , heat pumps and all other requirements

[190]

Well we do not have to worry about the national grid,we live in a age where we are not told the truth,I

This is the essence of the whole net zero debate. We have politicians and eco activists living in some parallel fantasy universe where net zero is an easy thing to achieve. Back in our real world net zero is impossible in the timescales being targeting and the cost would bankrupt the country in the process. We are being wilfully mislead which I think means we have been lied to.

I have worked in electrical distribution as well as rf065 and I have previously pointed out that vast sums of money will need to be spent on upgrading electrical distribution. National Grid only ever said they had sufficient generation capacity not the ability to get it to where it's needed. We have backlogs of several years for things like providing power to new housing estates because existing infrastructure can't cope with heat pump loads and proposed solar farms that can't get connected to the grid. Politicians are talking about nationalising National grid in order to to speed things up but that's just more ignorance about what's possible. National Grid may have announced they are spending huge sums of money but regardless of how many more £billions they spend, there isn't physically the ability to upgrade distribution in the timescale that politicians are suggesting.

Here's an example of the politicians talking through their ar$e at COP 26

We will deliver a green transport revolution to meet our net zero targets by providing free bikes for all children of school age who cannot afford them, removing the majority of fossil fuel buses from public transport by 2023 and creating a greener, more affordable railway. We will phase out the need for new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, two years ahead of our original target.

Needless to say that was the SNP. Anyone with a ounce of common sense can see that Scotland will miss every one of those targets, so is this just colossal incompetence or are we being continually and wilfully mislead ?

I actually care about the environment but ignorance, wishful thinking and down right lies are not going to get us to net zero. Realism, honesty and pragmatism might get us there eventually.

 

[st13phil]

We are being wilfully mislead which I think means we have been lied to.

^ Yup. And the media are - just with another recent global matter - complicit in propagating those lies.

I actually care about the environment but ignorance, wishful thinking and down right lies are not going to get us to net zero. Realism, honesty and pragmatism might get us there eventually.

Ditto.

Wishful thinking never delivers the goods (prime example: HS2); proper analysis, critical thinking, facing hard facts, and properly managed solution selection and implementation does.

 

[Bellow]

I Googled 'bank holiday traffic jam' and found this:



To those who say that EVs will never be recharged overnight all at once, I say think again.

 

[markjay]

National Grid are not the problem, they do not own or operate any plant in towns and cities, that's the private companies responsibility who are working in the same way as the water companies, ie profit first, just look at the water companies to see how it will end.

Do we currently have many residential areas in the UK where the water supply capacity can't meet demand?

 

[markjay]

I am at a conference today and one of the topics is a move from the age of abundance to the age of waste reduction. It's a point that I fully agree with - we need to start looking at energy as a precious resource and ration it rather than encourage people to use more and more of it (be it by generating electricity or burning carbon etc). More specifically regarding this thread, the implications are that ICE or EVs, we need to have less private vehicles, and use them less.

 

[SpikyMikey]

Do we currently have many residential areas in the UK where the water supply capacity can't meet demand?

Ask that question to anyone who is a South East Water customer and then stand well back

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I Googled 'bank holiday traffic jam' and found this:

View attachment 154622

To those who say that EVs will never be recharged overnight all at once, I say think again.

A good example of how a voter can't understand how small EV electrical demand is, relative to the capacity of the network to cover demand at 8am on a Winter's morning.

How many miles are driven on a long bank holiday? 1.4 billion miles

How many miles are driven on a normal four day period by our 34 million cars? 2.6 billion miles. (238 billion miles pa)

(The clue is in the name: people don't work as much on a "bank holiday." Even if people do get stuck on the Colchester by-pass on the way to Walton on the Naze)

https://www.directlinegroup.co.uk/en/news/brand-news/2022/the-great-easter-exodus--22-million-people-to-hit-the-roads-this.html

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I am at a conference today and one of the topics is a move from the age of abundance to the age of waste reduction. It's a point that I fully agree with - we need to start looking at energy as a precious resource and ration it rather than encourage people to use more and more of it (be it by generating electricity or burning carbon etc). More specifically regarding this thread, the implications are that ICE or EVs, we need to have less private vehicles, and use them less.

The sun drops more energy onto the Earth in one hour, than the whole of humanity consumes in a year. ( 173,000 TWh vs 160,000 TWh - 2017 year numbers)

And we "think" we're looking at an energy shortage by moving from fossil fuels to solar and wind energy?

Solar energy

A revised and updated version of this post is at Opportunities for solar energy In this post I’ll talk about some of the science behind this interesting fact and I’ll also discuss how solar energy…

explainingscience.org

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I expect that people said at the time that switching from candlelight to electric lightbulbs was nonsense because if everyone switched on their Christmas tree lights all at once then the electric supply wouldn't be able to cope. And they were probably right - at the time.

Love your suit in that Christmas photo, @markjay. Very dapper !

 

[markjay]

What's that stat: "the sun drops more energy onto the Earth in a day, than the Earth can currently use in the course of a year?"

And we "think" we're looking at an energy shortage by moving from fossil fuels to solar and wind energy?

The issue with most resources isn't that they are in short supply (water, food, etc), it is almost always a question of distribution.

Famine, for example, doesn't mean there's not enough food to feed everyone, just that there are some places where the food isn't getting through, and sadly people starve to death. The famine issue in Sudan, for example, won't be solved by producing more food on the other side of the planet.

Same applies to energy. You can cover the entire of the Sahara desert in solar panels, or put a hydro power plant on every river in Nordic countries, but how do you share the energy around the world? That's the reason that we can never have unlimited energy everywhere.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I Googled 'bank holiday traffic jam' and found this:

View attachment 154622

To those who say that EVs will never be recharged overnight all at once, I say think again.

EV's won't eliminate queues after a fatal crash on the M6 on Christmas Day 2012.

M6 motorway crash

www.mirror.co.uk

 

[Bellow]

EV's won't eliminate queues after a fatal crash on the M6 on Christmas Day 2012.

M6 motorway crash

www.mirror.co.uk

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Same applies to energy. You can cover the entire of the Sahara desert in solar panels, or put a hydro power plant on every river in Nordic countries, but how do you share the energy around the world? That's the reason that we can never have unlimited energy everywhere.

Which is why the UK is planning to take, as a first step, "just" 10.5 GWatts (8% of its annual electricity consumption) from a solar farm in Morocco.

(Being built by a French energy company, of course)

Xlinks Capturing and Connecting the Power of Nature

xlinks.co

'I've put every penny I have into this': Xlinks chief claims $25bn Morocco-UK cable plan can change green power for ever | Recharge

High-risk project could ‘spearhead whole new industry’ claims CEO of plan newly backed by oil giant TotalEnergies

www.rechargenews.com

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

View attachment 154625

EV's won't eliminate motorway construction delays, either. (see the sign on the left)

EV's will still be briefly charged off peak, obviously.

 

[markjay]

Which is why the UK is planning to take, as a first step, "just" 10.5 GWatts (8% of its electricity consumption) from a solar farm in Morocco

Xlinks Capturing and Connecting the Power of Nature

xlinks.co

'I've put every penny I have into this': Xlinks chief claims $25bn Morocco-UK cable plan can change green power for ever | Recharge

High-risk project could ‘spearhead whole new industry’ claims CEO of plan newly backed by oil giant TotalEnergies

www.rechargenews.com

View attachment 154624

And transfer electricity to the UK via a 1,500 miles long high-voltage cable, running underwater in part? What would be the energy losses over this distance?

 

[Bellow]

EV's won't eliminate motorway construction delays, either. (see the sign on the left)

EV's will still be briefly charged off peak, obviously.

Pedant.
Holidays = car use. End of.

 

[markjay]

Love your suit in that Christmas photo, @markjay. Very dapper !

That's very narrow-minded thinking, Mike.

Actually I'm the one lying down in front of the tree in a dress

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

And transfer electricity to the UK via a 1,500 miles long high-voltage cable, running underwater in part? What would be the energy losses over this distance?

Exactly.

Far less than the energy loss and wastage in taking oil and gas out of the ground, shipping it thousands of miles, refining and storing it along the way to your local petrol station.

It's not rocket science.

 

[markjay]

EV's won't eliminate queues after a fatal crash on the M6 on Christmas Day 2012...

This:

.....ICE or EVs, we need to have less private vehicles, and use them less.

 

[markjay]

Exactly.

Far less than the energy loss and wastage in taking oil and gas out of the ground, shipping it thousands of miles, refining and storing it along the way to your local petrol station.

It's not rocket science.

I am not sure that this is correct.

But I don't have the figures to prove or disprove it.