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currently it's really just not practical to charge a car where I have to park it.
Yes.. *currently*.. we are talking about the future and what we need to do in it.
Not entirely sure you'd be able to sell that to consumers.
Fast change happens in minutes, not hours currently (although you do need a box of ticks and a 3phase supply) - we are also talking 10-20yrs in the future here so battery and charging tech will no doubt improve further by the time any ban of sale on traditional fuel cars.
Also I believe it's been talked about that you would either get paid for any energy taken out by the national grid, or be signed up to a discount service for any personal consumption as way of compensation (also see below next point)
If everything goes electric, power generation needs to be scaled up massively. Nuke power really is the only solution unless every square mile of the country is to be filled with windmills, and we invest massively in battery storage.
Not with the option previously discussed - the battery storage solution is already in your car... Trickle charge or fast charging would be smart controlled by your (intelligent) car so it would learn your habits and charge accordingly or sync with your calendar on your phone etc to be fully charged when needed.
However that said, personally, until batteries dont rely on heavy chemicals I won't be buying one. The strip mining in Canada and China is huge at the moment, with demand for electric vehicles going up its only going to get worse.
until batteries dont rely on heavy chemicals I won't be buying one
Or until mining practices improve?
The strip mining in Canada and China is huge at the moment
And oil production and burning is any better?
No- but a modern second hand car is still more environmentally friendly than any electric car from a show room just because of the environmental impact of the battery's.
fifeandy - Member
however if there were 20million electric vehicles and 50% were smart connected to the national grid this would be a solution.Not entirely sure you'd be able to sell that to consumers.
*Arrives home on a Friday night and puts car on charge for trip to trail centre Saturday morning*
*Unfortunately, unknown to me its national cook a turkey dinner at 3am day*
*Wake up to find car only half charged because grid decided to use my car to cook Mrs Jones's turkey*
*Drives half charged car to showroom to exchange for a petrol powered version*
Or, to replace your last point for 2040,
*Drives half charged car to showroom, finds petrol powered version is no longer made*
No- but a modern second hand car is still more environmentally friendly than any electric car from a show room just because of the environmental impact of the battery's.
Indeed, but remember we are talking about 2040 here.
monkeyboyjc - Member
No- but a modern second hand car is still more environmentally friendly than any electric car from a show room just because of the environmental impact of the battery's.
Except for the 15,000+ people a year dying and the other illnesses caused by particulates and NOx emissions from road vehicles...
Problem is, we can't all just wait until 2040 and then suddenly we all buy electric. It's a long way off but that's to finally kill petrol & diesel (though I'm not sure if hybrids will still be allowed).
We need the infrastructure and massive improvements in battery technology and charging actually in place and financially viable and affordable long before that.
I still have a feeling that batteries and charging is a dead end due to charge time and range in particular, and no I don't think swapping batteries at a swap station is the answer either, nor is very fast charging which is more likely to result in very low life span of batteries and a lot more demand to dig up the resources needed to make more of them. Especially with lithium, which is a finite resource.
This has to be a short term solution with something better on the horizon, or we give up travel beyond short distances.
How do these batteries & indeed greener transport modes make there way to our island, & how many miles do they need to travel via that power source?
Battery's need to be made, mainly halfway around the world away, they still don't last the life* of the car, they need to be disposed of carefully.
*unless we only expect a car to last 5-10 years, in which case how much energy is used to make these new cars & will that save on pollution?
Some very interesting points - it'd be fun to re-read this thread in 23 years time!
The major stumbling block we need to overcome is generation. I heard on the radio (R4, so it must be true) that the average petrol station transfers a similar amount of calorific energy as a medium sized power station. Extrapolate for every fuel situation in the UK and it becomes clear that we will need more power. Much more power.
We really need to incentivise cycle use to reduce short car journeys. I can cycle son's nursery in not much less time than driving, but I'm not prepared to have him in the cycle carrier along half a mile of busy A road, so I drive. How many drivers are in a similar position nationwide? Scrap HS2 and plough the money into building decent segregated cycle paths and e-bike charging infrastructure.
nor is very fast charging which is more likely to result in very low life span of batteries
With today's tech, maybe. But this is the kind of thing that will improve. Toyota certainly seem to think so.
But I reckon flow batteries are the best solution.
Scrap HS2 and plough the money into building decent segregated cycle paths and e-bike charging infrastructure
No - build HS2 AND cycle infrastructure.
Seems like we will be scrapping trident (we can't afford it), so in the event of a general strike we'll be powering the country via the diesel-electric locos rather than by nuclear subs.
it is fine for there to be absolutely no interest in electrifying the rail network and all new trains to be electric.
It's not that there's no interest, it's that the costs of upgrading 150 year old mainline infrastructure is horrendous, because of awkward things like bridges, tunnels a couple of miles long, embankments getting on for half to three-quarters of a mile long, little inconveniences like those...
Some lovely old bridges from Brunel's time have been destroyed and replaced with shitty sheet steel structures bolted together and painted a vile bright green, to the fury of locals, especially as the new bridge parapets are structurally weaker than the substantial stone one it replaced, and the road closures are substantial; one close to me lasted eighteen months, that was one small bridge carrying a narrow lane, then there's a bridge at Royal Wootton Bassett that needed an entire new road built for the duration of the bridge reconstruction, otherwise the entire town would have been almost completely cut off from the west, unless a diversion of miles was used.
Box Tunnel was an engineering nightmare, because when they removed the Victorian track ballast, it was solid rock underneath and they had to drop the rail-bed nearly two meters, IIRC, in order to get the space above the trains for the wiring and pantographs.
If you believe the meeja, electrification of the GWR stops at Chippenham; this is clearly bollocks, because I can see a bunch of big grey steel posts along the top of the railway embankment at the bottom of my road, which is to the west of Chippenham station, and which would also have meant the huge amount spent on the bridge at Thingley, and Box Tunnel would have been redundant.
What's actually happening is it'll stop at Bath Spa for a time, before carrying on to Bristol, which is a relatively short distance.
No - build HS2 AND cycle infrastructure.
Let's suggest they alter the route of HS2 right through Mols house, then...
It's vanity project that will do nothing to 'fuel the Midlands powerhouse' or whatever hyperbollock bullshit they use to try to support it, better and newer rolling stock with more carriages and greater capacity would do far more to benefit commuters.
And cycle infrastructure won't benefit anyone needing to travel fifty to sixty miles for business or whatever, most ordinary folk won't ride more than maybe four or five miles to work, if that; [i]you[/i] might, but I don't know a single person who'd be happy to do more than ride into town, let alone five, six or seven miles from an outlying village or nearby town, none of which have roads that could easily accommodate a separate cycle path - some are on the Sustrans network, but very few, and even that involves a fair bit of 'quiet country road' use... yeah, right they're quiet.
Trident is tricky. We don't need it and can't afford it, but we do need it for jobs (even Corbyn admits this saying he'd keep it for the jobs but never use it 😆 ), and need it to keep hold of Scotland as they value it, for the jobs.
It's complex though. Trident we already have. The fuss is over a project to renew it with latest equipment, i.e. the submarines. It's actually not a project to create/replace nukes etc. We rent the nukes off the US, and require their assistance/permission to launch them, which we'd 99% likely never would and in the 1% case we would it would be too late or ineffectual.
Let's suggest they alter the route of HS2 right through Mols house, then...
Fine. They can pay me more than market value for it, I'll be laughing. HS2 might not be the right route, but we definitely need more rail infrastructure.
most ordinary folk won't ride more than maybe four or five miles to work, if that;
True, but that alone would get rid of a lot of traffic.
You're full of moan, CountZero - what would you suggest we do?
deadkenny - MemberTrident is tricky. We don't need it and can't afford it, but we do need it for jobs
No we don't, we could spend the same amount on something else and create a shitload more jobs. If we gave the same money to Rolls Royce to develop SMRs for power generation...
Create jobs in its place, but reskill the existing workforce?
Ideally yes, but more like they'll end up stacking shelves in B&Q.
As said above there's an issue making diesel locomotives Euro IIIb compliant within the UK railway loading gauge. Don't know about multiple units.
Canning electrification in the provinces but saying there's money to fund Crossrail 2 is a massive political betrayal IMHO.
Electrification misses an opportunity, they should go for double deck trains. If they are going to replace rolling stock, reconfigure track beds and rebuild bridges the the delta is worthl considering.
The major problem is the nr of tracks and platform lengths which limit the nr of trains and frequency of service. Improved performance of the rolling stock and signalling infrastructure adds capacity but more is needed.
We rent the nukes off the US, and require their assistance/permission to launch them
At the risk of derailing this even further, bollocks.
RR already have SMR's in development, not that they are much good for powering trains which this topic was supposed to be about.
Electrification misses an opportunity, they should go for double deck trains. If they are going to replace rolling stock, reconfigure track beds and rebuild bridges the the delta is worthl considering.
Re-digging tunnels for double decker would be far harder than lowering track beds for electric wires I reckon.
Increasing the gauging on Victorian railways would basically shut the network for 3 or 4 years.
What we do need to do is ensure that new infrastructure is built to European gauges so that rolling stick can be interchangeable, also the double container trains that they use in europe could help to take goods traffic off the roads.
Electrification works on the Bath (Chippenham to Bristol Temple Meads) line is deferred indefinitely - however a lot of the heavy civils works have been (or are being) completed. This will mean that when it does get restarted there'll be significantly less work required.
How about hydrogen fuel cell trains?
Alstom Coradia iLint
The challenge of enlarging the small nr of tunnels clearly depends on the geological conditions of each location and for some routes would be prohibitive
None of this is a single solution situation. Pressures will result in social change and technology change. I hope utility cycling can be part of the solution for many short journies. Add in electrical assist cargo bikes and this could be very useful in mid size towns and bigger. But it will require significant investment and a central push as people don't like the idea of loosing road space.
I like trains but I don't see a massive infrastructure push for rail. Maybe some local tram systems but we have had practically zero rail investment outside London for too long and are too far down the individual transport route. Multi modal could work well. Not just bike train but car train. I think this could be improved with just better management in many cases. In HK the octopus card (like the Oyster card) pays for trains, bus tolls and carparks. Little things like this helps make the entire process of swapping modes easier IMO.
The challenge of enlarging the small nr of tunnels clearly depends on the geological conditions of each location and for some routes would be prohibitive
It's not really the cost (although that is an issue) - its about the disruption to services whilst you're doing the works. That's part of the reason for building HS2 as the disruption to current rail users would be so enormous in order to upgrade the existing lines.
For these kinds of projects it makes it quicker and easier to deliver if built "off-line" ie adjacent to existing whilst not disrupting current operations rather than doing bits here and there to the existing.