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

[MikeInWimbledon]

Pedant.
Holidays = car use. End of.

As I said, Bank holiday usage is HALF that of normal daily car mileage. The clue is in the name.

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)

Bank holidays can create a temporary peak driving into Walton on the Naze. That means nothing in terms of overall energy consumption

https://www.directlinegroup.co.uk/e...-22-million-people-to-hit-the-roads-this.html

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I am not sure that this is correct.

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

Talk to young Science graduates.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

That's very narrow-minded thinking, Mike.
Actually I'm the one lying down in front of the tree in a dress

Of course ! I'd forgotten that your nickname used to be "Swampy."

Swampy on tunnels, bailiffs and 25 years of protest: ‘We need to stop capitalists destroying the planet’

He became a household name in the 90s, then disappeared from view. But he never stopped protesting. Now the man known as the human mole is busier than ever

www.theguardian.com

 

[Bellow]

As I said, Bank holiday usage is HALF that of normal daily mileage. The clue is in the name.

Why the queues then?

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Why the queues then?

In the first photo it was because of a fatal car crash.

In your second photo it was because of motorway building work.

At Bank holidays, there are queues getting into holiday destinations like Skeggy, Southend, and Brighton. It's a thing.

But the mileage driven on those days is half the average daily mileage from the rest of the year. A better example is queues on the M25 on a Monday morning. (When EV's will have been charged over the weekend at low off-peak rates)

 

[Bellow]

In the first photo it was because of a fatal car crash.

In your second photo it was because of motorway building work.

At Bank holidays, there are queues getting into holiday destinations like Skeggy, Southend, and Brighton. It's a thing.

But the mileage driven on those days is half the average daily mileage from the rest of the year. A better example is queues on the M25 on a Monday morning. (When EV's will have been charged over the weekend at low off-peak rates)

Believe what you want.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Believe what you want.

"Work." Tis the curse of the drinking class. People drive to places for work. It's a thing.

If you really want to worry about Net Zero and Bank Holidays, look at how many people fly off somewhere on Bank Holidays, producing far more CO2 than any mere car.

Five million Brits fly off every Christmas / New Year. Two million every Easter

(And don't blame me, I never fly away for Bank Holidays. And I don't drive to the Coast, either)

 

[markjay]

"Work." Tis the curse of the drinking class. People drive to places for work. It's a thing
..

Take away the compay car park, and you'll find that miraculously people find other ways to get to work.

 

[Dryce]

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?

I've seen a couple of figures for this. One was general figure of 3% loss per 1000km. The other was example of 4% for 600km.

These two figures would give a simplistically calculated range of 7% to 14% loss over 1500 miles.

 

[rf065]

Take away the compay car park, and you'll find that miraculously people find other ways to get to work.

Or change jobs!

 

[Dryce]

Take away the compay car park, and you'll find that miraculously people find other ways to get to work.

Or other places to work or other places to park or resist attending at the place of work and WFH.

Those working in and around cities like London with extensive public transport may find public transport viable for attending a place of work during working hours. But not everybody has access to a dense and flexible public transport network.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Take away the compay car park, and you'll find that miraculously people find other ways to get to work.

That's a stunningly "Central London-centric" view of the world.

Joanna Public still can't get public transport to her clients, suppliers and factories.

And Jo Public still needs to deliver his Computer equipment, and visit his client sites to repair computers, regardless of whether they have an on-site car park.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I've seen a couple of figures for this. One was general figure of 3% loss per 1000km. The other was example of 4% for 600km.

These two figures would give a simplistically calculated range of 7% to 14% loss over 1500 miles.

Which is fine for the "pipe,"

but doesn't reflect the whole end-to-end cycle of taking solar energy to the end-consumer. There'll be further losses at both end.

But nothing as significant as pulling oil and gas out of the sea and delivering it to a St Johns Wood petrol station.

 

[190]

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?

The capital cost must be enormous for 1500km but transmission losses at a little over 5% are not as much as you might think provided they use high voltage DC transmission which only has resistance losses. There would also be some conversion losses at either end.

Conventional AC transmission cable losses would be double because in addition to resistive they also have inductance an capacitance losses.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

And then, of course, there are all the "current" electricity inteconnectors to France, the Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark.

Interconnectors | National Grid Group

By 2030, 90% of the energy imported by our interconnectors will be from zero carbon energy sources. Find out more information about our current and future interconnector projects.

www.nationalgrid.com

And the proposal to put run six cables 3,500 miles under the Atlantic to the States, which enables power to be switched across time zones.

UK eyes US electricity with transatlantic power cable - Energy Live News

Britain is reportedly considering importing electricity from the US through a proposed transatlantic power cable

www.energylivenews.com

 

[Dryce]

And the proposal to put run six cables 3,500 miles under the Atlantic to the States, which enables power to be switched across time zones.

At those sorts of distances you can in effect think of a global grid - and use it to transfer energy across the diurnal cycle, seasonal cycles, and tides.

You'd then think about backing that with massive batteries and pump storage setups (perhaps coastal and related to pump / storage tidal combinations rather than mountains and lakes/lochs).

 

[ALFAitalia]

In the first photo it was because of a fatal car crash.

In your second photo it was because of motorway building work.

At Bank holidays, there are queues getting into holiday destinations like Skeggy, Southend, and Brighton. It's a thing.

But the mileage driven on those days is half the average daily mileage from the rest of the year. A better example is queues on the M25 on a Monday morning. (When EV's will have been charged over the weekend at low off-peak rates)

And the EVs in that jam are using no "fuel" at all....!!!....and only a small amount in stop start where they are much more efficient than ICE cars....even more so than normal.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

At those sorts of distances you can in effect think of a global grid - and use it to transfer energy across the diurnal cycle, seasonal cycles, and tides.

You'd then think about backing that with massive batteries and pump storage setups (perhaps coastal and related to pump / storage tidal combinations rather than mountains and lakes/lochs).

Not sure about the "need" for storage, but storage is implicit in these networks which have already been built and which will be built within the decade.

(And you forgot to include the wind farms which create 43% of UK electricity as I write. Most of these wind farms being less than a decade old)

It's a sea change comparable to the Victorians building the railway network,

or the Elizabethans building the British bit of the worldwide web, accessible by broadband and cellular.

 

[markjay]

That's a stunningly "Central London-centric" view of the world.

Joanna Public still can't get public transport to her clients, suppliers and factories.

And Jo Public still needs to deliver his Computer equipment, and visit his client sites to repair computers, regardless of whether they have an on-site car park.

Yes, this the highly-urbanised view applicable to densly-populated areas only.

The other 20% of the population can continue to drive whatever they want to wherever they want, their overall impact will be minimal once the 'London'-type areas are sorted.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Yes, this the highly-urbanised view applicable to densly-populated areas only.
The other 20% of the population can continue to drive whatever they want to wherever they want, their overall impact will be minimal once the 'London'-type areas are sorted.

No, yours is a "stunningly Central London-centric view."

London being that rare place where "only" a third travel to work by car. (Because it's too slow and expensive to use a car, and because heavily subsidised public transport is available)

Unlike the rest of the UK, where more than two thirds travel to work by car.

Even schoolchildren don't use public transport to get to school: roughly 15% use public transport, a third go by car, although obviously around half of all schoolchildren walk.

Transport Statistics Great Britain: 2022 Domestic Travel

www.gov.uk