UK bans sales of gas/diesel powered cars, 2040

Barry, i looked up the numbers on electricity production today and they are 500g/kWh and 6% renewable.
I found on the web that a Tesla uses in between 350 and 500 watts per mile, has a 1kW per day vampire draw from losses and charging is about 85% efficient. This math using the "good" 350 number leads to a usage of 6541kWh for 15000 miles, equaling 218g per mile or 136g per km. This assumes that the power transport is "free", which is fair since it is the same with ICE cars.
That number is actually very close to the average ICE cars sold today. If you use the "bad" number it is actually worse than a lot of ICE cars.
So unless we make a very big change towards renewable energy the math does not justify a transition in my view. Not to mention the cost of that transition in terms of money and CO2 by renewing grids, cars and other infrastructure.

 

Kai: If a government can call the gas in the bubbles of a Coca Cola a pollutant, then its easy to ban or restrict oil no matter how much is still in the ground.

Gasoline can easily be called a toxic substance and be eliminated even though there's plenty of it around.

 

Smart. That would effectively ban all animal and human life on the planet. Good that we don't have Skynet yet protecting our interests.

 

Wrong. UK produces about 25% of its electricity from renewables.

UK Perspectives 2016: Energy and emissions in the UK | Visual.ONS

see section 3.

The current CO2 output is around 250g/kwh. Your figure of 500g/kwh is about 10 years old when coal was a bigger component and renewables were about 5%. So already the running emissions are half of average ICE.

The question around electric cars is more to do with the emissions created during their construction than the running emissions.

 

The BBC is already claiming this is NOT ENOUGH!

Diesel and petrol car ban: Clean air strategy 'not enough' - BBC News

 

How will this be good for the environment? Do they think battery production is a clean process? What about the shipment of those components to make the cars? And then to generate the electricity and the losses through the grid to charge these cars? I don't get it...

This is just a big marketing ploy to make them think they're "saving" the environment. They have no idea what they're doing. It's funny...

 

Worth remembering that the "ban" doesn't apply to hybrid cars just pure petrol/diesel cars.

Must remember to add a LaFerrari to my 2040 shopping list along with a walking frame

 

you have hit the nail on the head sir. Cradle-to-grave emissions for current electric cars are only marginally better than conventional cars because of the production processes. A lot of progress required here, and pretty quickly.

 

250g/kWh? No way! Home energy sources
As for the % of alternative sources, it varies greatly per country. Holland was 6% just a few years ago. It also depends very much on how it is calculated.

 

They are very correct. They need a ban on ALL German cars, especially Volkswagens.

 

I walk to work and I own a sports car for the weekend so I think I'm doing OK for the environment (59k miles in the 14 years of owning the car so not bad). I enjoy debating with my work colleagues on this topic during downtime so I'm' used to presenting different approaches on this subject.

I think a lot of people forget how bad car manufacturing is (regardless if electric or petrol) and that buying a new car every few years compounds that issue. I'm a firm believer of keeping the same car as long as possible to cut down on that and just expenses in general.

That means owning a 250 GTO is good for the environment in that regard. I'd have no problem having that as my only ride the next 50 years while others go through 5-10 cars in the process.

Edit: I am a believer in solar energy to allow one to go off the grid. I've been looking into pricing a home system and it's not too expensive if you make your own ground-based system in the backyard. $1/watt installed is no longer hard to do yourself.

 

Yes way. Like I said earlier, your source is 10 years old. Read your own link - refers to June 2007.
For current emissions:

Live Carbon Dioxide (co2) monitoring of the UK electricity National Grid

gives you an idea, even though it varies a bit over the course of a day, but around 250g/kWh

I did say I was referring to 25% renewables in the UK. I guess Holland is just a long way behind if 6% is still the case.

 

Yup a new car is about 15tons of CO2. Add 4-5 tons for a BEV.
All this focus on CO2 is assuming antropogenic (human caused) GW is happening, is happening because of CO2 and CO2 only, and is considering that to be a bad or dangerous thing for mankind. I am not skeptic, I'm quite unconvinced.

 

2040 in UK means I'll be long dead when the US does it...if ever.
They can't get drugs and guns off the streets here let alone our obsession with cars and trucks.

 

It varies a BIT? You mean it doubles during the day because at night hydro Electric and wind are doing a large portion?
If you add 20% electric demand mostly during night time that will all have to come from additional generation.
The website I cited was updated 2015 so its up to date.
So indeed, 250gr/kWh. : No way.

 

Personally, I have stopped drinking Pellegrino and Perrier water because they release harmful C02 emissions into the atmosphere.

 

My prediction by 2040 Electric cars will be far cheaper than they are today
And will bring about the end of gas cars just on competitive grounds alone
without having to be mandated. Plus maintenance is pittance compared to gas

 

lol. Actually the transport of bottled water is a not insignificant contributor to CO2

 

What's the difference? A fuel system and the engine are the only differences. Gas cars are extremely reliable for at least the first 150k miles and often far more up to double or triple that. If I were a Tesla owner I would dread the day the battery replacement hits far more than engine trouble in an ICE.
EDIT: I do agree they may well win on economic grounds. Which in my view is also the way it should play out. Let the market run its course.
It does not mean ICEs will disappear. You can still get hay for horses you will also be able to get gas in 50 or 100 years time.

 

I will spell it out for you, but reading your own link first would be helpful.

It says:
The CO2 emission factor used is 0.527 kg / kWh [Defra, 14].

and reference #14 is

[14] DEFRA (June 2007) Act on CO2 Calculator: Public Trial Version Data, Methodology and Assumptions Paper

So it is OLD. Since then renewables have grown and coal has shrunk as a input source. Hence the drop.

As for the the rest, I think you are confused. The CO2 output per unit of electricity varies by a few % during the course of a 24 hour day. It does not double during the day. Remember sun shines during the day? So, the renewables proportion actually increases during the day. BTW, we don't have hydroelectric generation in the UK.

 

The sun shines but the added percentage is what, 10%? So it in no way compensates for the fact that electricity usage more than doubles during the day.
UK does not have hydro electric? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_the_United_Kingdom
And anyway the world is bigger than the UK. For most countries those numbers are still very real. Look them up for Texas, just for a laugh.

 

Fair points but you are assuming steady demand spread over the day. There will be some peak periods where drain will be huge, hence the reason why charge station manufacturers are making their chargers 'smart' so they can be switched on an off at will.

In fact the national grid have just stated on BBC news that they will pay high users to reduce their usage to accommodate the demand. Hardly reassuring.

You are also assuming that the domestic network can deal with the loads. Standard homes don't have 3-phase supplies, have a fairly modest current limit and 70Amp fuses. Factor in aged inefficient cabling, sockets etc. It wouldn't take much existing load in a standard home plus 2 or 3 electric cars being charged at once to cause problems. Then there are the substations and low voltage network which will really suffer under such loads.

We'll have to agree to differ, but it will be interesting, that's for sure! ;-)

 

The beginning of the end is already here. Jaguar & Mercedes investing heavily in electric car racing instead of sports/saloon car racing? Hybrid hypercars so complicated that almost nobody can work on them? Self-driving everyday vehicles? No hydrocarbon vehicles sold in England in 22.5 years? All of these trends are, unfortunately, consistent.
I'm concerned about the environment as well, but the politicians voting on this issue in 10-15 years will not be people who grew up fascinated by cars, racers, designers, or the romance of Aston Martin fenders being hand-hammered over wooden bucks, Enzo Ferrari starting his own company, or Colin Chapman gazing at a DeHavilland (sp?) warplane and then sketching the Lotus Elise. If you, like me, find all of the above fascinating and you enjoy looking at a vehicle and figuring out how (or sometimes, if) it works, then yes, you are going to lament the golden past. On the other hand, in 22.5 years many of us will be out to pasture and it will be the next generation's world. They have the right to perpetuate it, improve it, or ***k it up just like every previous generation. I hope they choose well.

 

You are still confused. Clearly the consumption varies significantly through the day (and peaks around early evening). What we are taking about is that emissions varies through the day as the mix of production varies, and is typically around 250g/KWh. If you go to the live tracking website link I posted earlier, you can see that. e.g. currently 23.2GW produced with 5409tonnes of CO2/hr - so around 230g/KWh.

UK has negligible hydrolelectric production

Since you now want to change the country of discussion, Germany on 30 April 2017 produced 85% of all its electricity from renewable sources. Just for a laugh....

 

I think generating the electricity required may not be such a big issue, but I agree with you that the smoothing of peak demand/ need for potential storage etc are big issues, not to mention old infrastructure at the end of the grid i.e. homes/ substations you mention. If we think how far technology has come in the last 20 years, I have to believe these problems will get solved (at least that's what the optimist in me believes!)