Electric cars.

The reality is that there will be a mix of different powertrains going forward. Battery EV's have their place as do hybrids and good old ICE is not going away no matter how hard politicians try to rig things to coerce people and take away their freedom of choice. The reality is that ICE cars running on synthetic sustainable fuels is the optimal solution if there were to be a one solution for all. The fuel can be manufactured from renewable energy sources, transported via existing and conventional fossil fuel infrastructure, can be used in current cars avoiding making millions of cars obsolete overnight, and avoids all the problems of mass battery manufacture, massive global transfer of technology and manufacturing power to China which is a huge security risk that most people seem to ignore or not recognise as a problem.

Stu said:

The oil companies have spent over $2bn on EV propaganda. They use AI to generate headlines.

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Utter nonsense. Oil companies are investing hundreds of billions of pounds inventing new renewable and clean technologies to enable net zero. They are key to achieving net zero and demonising them is shooting yourself in the foot.

Why didn't LPG take off i remember it being installed in a garage here and a few installers popped up but it flopped.

Chippy_Tea said:

Why didn't LPG take off i remember it being installed in a garage here and a few installers popped up but it flopped.

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The nail in the coffin was applying tax to it that killed it.

Was inefficient and had safety risks but made a big gas guzzler almost paletable

LPG is a classic example of a lost opportunity. Gas is alot alot alot cleaner than oil. The US has seen huge CO2 emissions reduction over recent years and it's mostly from their transition from oil to shale gas. Moving to LPG for cars would be a very beneficial interim step and relatively low cost.

Sure you dont get the same energy density from gas....Think people I knew that had dual fuel cars had an LPG tank of around 50 litre capacity, which got them about 150 - 200 miles vs 450 - 500 miles out of about 65 litres of diesel (though my old BMW M2 got about 200 miles from 65 litres) so very manageable for most people. Fill up time, which is what is really important to people, was similar to that of petrol/diesel, cost was comparable.

But I maintain the optimal initial solution for cars is sustainable fuels. We have the technology already, just needs scaling up and productionising (where the 'big bad' oil companies come in), is already being implemented in very very small and niche scales, doesn't consign current global supply chains and cars and infrastructure to the scrap heap overnight, and will provide an indefinitely sustainable transition to whatever technology wins out in the future, wether that be battery EV, hybrid, hydrogen or whatever else. Pushing for battery tech at the pace we are will cause (and is cuasing) such a CO2 debt it will take centuries to pay off once we achieve net zero and cost so much money causing such a devastating affect on our global economic growth that it will be far more harmful to human life and the environment than if we did nothing at all. It's a path that is being pushed by politicians for political reasons, not engineers and scientists charged with fixing a problem - which is what engineers and scientists do well and politicians don't do well at all.

Dacia do a range of bi fuel cars, no i don't have one https://www.dacia.co.uk/dacia-lpg.html

Wow they've come on a bit -

Its a shame Marcel Marceau did the review

Chippy_Tea said:

Wow they've come on a bit -

Its a shame Marcel Marceau did the review

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I had one when mine was in for a service, it was a duster and to be fair i think it was very good, i would consider the bi fuel one

Rodcx500z said:

I said it before and i will say it again electric is the wrong way forward, and no i have no statistics to prove it i just know, i also have a nagging feeling in my head that they ie governments VW volvo know as well, Hydrogen is the way or electric hybrid, take a cateraman they have twin engines with high output alternaters that supply enough power you don't need a generater they supply all the power you need to charge your battery bank for total off shore living.

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Hydrogen is a great local solution and it will have its place. But that place will be recharging EV’s for wider use and fuelling local transport +\- carbon capture in the immediate area. But that technology is a decade away at least.
In the meantime EV’s are a viable functioning alternative to fossil fuelled vehicles. Hybrids make no sense as they’re still dependent on fossil fuels. The carbon footprint of extracting, refining and transport of fossil energy is often ignored when people are talking about this issue. (And I don’t mean just in this thread, I mean everywhere).

I see problem with hybrid is that it give you the complexity of both engine types, hence higher cost of ownership for those of us that can only afford 2nd hand out of warranty vehicles

jof said:

I see problem with hybrid is that it give you the complexity of both engine types, hence higher cost of ownership for those of us that can only afford 2nd hand out of warranty vehicles

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That’s another very valid point
I was thinking just from the environmental perspective.

Chippy_Tea said:

Can you still get LPG

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Yes they sell it at Morrisons near me, but it is only a penny cheaper than unleaded

Problem with hydrogen, just like batteries, is energy density. Energy density trumps efficiency any day. BMW did a demonstration vehicle to show what a hydrogen car of the future might be...they took a BMW 7 series, a pretty large vehicle, took out the back seats reducing such a huge vehicle to a two seater so they could fill the space with fuel tank. such is the difference in energy density between diesel/petrol and hydrogen to get similar mileage from a 'tank'. Also with hydrogen is because its the smallest molecule in the universe its impossible to seal so that make transporting it via pipes and tanks tricky without accepting a reasonably large amount of losses via leaks in the system.

Just to compare energy densities again...the uk has just spend many billions of pounds on the largest battery farm somewhere in the UK....it stores the same amount of energy as a typical fuel bowser you might see at an airport that contains enough Jet A1 fuel to fill up an A320...the type of aircraft you might fly on to your holidays...so flies 230 or so passengers upto 4 hours or 2000 miles or so. So all that energy, for all the inefficiencies of a combustion engine (actually about 45% efficient), fits into a non-articulated lorry. The many billions of pounds of battery farm that is roughly the same energy storage capacity takes up 5 acres of land....and such is the consumption of electricity would only provide power for a small town for a matter of minutes. OK the point of a battery farm is not to provide 100% of the power to a town, but to buffer the energy of the nearby solar farm that takes up another several acres of land, but you get my gist. Electricity might be efficient, but thanks to the inefficiencies of the renewable generation and the poor energy density of electricity sotreag, at a systems level it is not efficient...solar panels at best can only convert about 20% of the energy that falls on them to electricity so you need many many many acres of panels to get any meaninflull energy. And wind turbines are not much better.

By comparison synthetic sustainable fuel has an energy density much much closer to diesel and petrol, so by running your car off it, you might achieve about 20-30% lower mileage from a full tank for the same performance level. And you can run other vehicles from it like aircraft, tractors, mining equipment, boats, ferries and large vessels etc from it with minor modifications which are all basically impossible to electrify, but are so crucial to our modern way of life.

hoppyscotty said:

OK the point of a battery farm is not to provide 100% of the power to a town, but to buffer the energy of the nearby solar farm that takes up another several acres of land, but you get my gist. Electricity might be efficient, but thanks to the inefficiencies of the renewable generation and the poor energy density of electricity sotreag, at a systems level it is not efficient...solar panels at best can only convert about 20% of the energy that falls on them to electricity so you need many many many acres of panels to get any meaninflull energy. And wind turbines are not much better.

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That first one is a pretty bloody major point.

And at least with renewables the starting energy arrives free in the UK so it's a lot less important if 80% is not used. Compare that with hydrocarbons that have to be bought from (or at least have the marginal price set by) Russia and/or the Middle East. We've already seen how volatility from Russia can eg push unsubisidised gas prices over £1/unit, do you have a plan to ensure peace in Russia and the Middle East?

hoppyscotty said:

By comparison synthetic sustainable fuel has an energy density much much closer to diesel and petrol, so by running your car off it, you might achieve about 20-30% lower mileage from a full tank for the same performance level. And you can run other vehicles from it like aircraft, tractors, mining equipment, boats, ferries and large vessels etc from it with minor modifications which are all basically impossible to electrify, but are so crucial to our modern way of life.

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Trouble with synthetic fuel is that it combines the inefficiency of hydrogen production with the inefficiency of ICE combustion. And all that inefficiency ensures it will always be relatively expensive compared to batteries. There will be a handful of applications where the energy density is going to be crucial - heavy aviation is likely one of them but we're already seeing all-electric light aircraft and it looks like that may extend into some smaller passenger planes. But since you like system thinking, try this (it's from 2017 so the EV numbers are rather out of date, EV's are now in the mid-80s% rather than the 75% implied here) :

Northern_Brewer said:

And at least with renewables the starting energy arrives free in the UK so it's a lot less important if 80% is not used. Compare that with hydrocarbons that have to be bought from (or at least have the marginal price set by) Russia and/or the Middle East. We've already seen how volatility from Russia can eg push unsubisidised gas prices over £1/unit, do you have a plan to ensure peace in Russia and the Middle East?


Trouble with synthetic fuel is that it combines the inefficiency of hydrogen production with the inefficiency of ICE combustion. And all that inefficiency ensures it will always be relatively expensive compared to batteries. There will be a handful of applications where the energy density is going to be crucial - heavy aviation is likely one of them but we're already seeing all-electric light aircraft and it looks like that may extend into some smaller passenger planes. But since you like system thinking, try this (it's from 2017 so the EV numbers are rather out of date, EV's are now in the mid-80s% rather than the 75% implied here) :

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Volatility in Russia is not the cause of pushing up energy pricing. Especially when 80% of what we pay is tax and we pay huge levees and subsidies for renewables - if renewables are so cheap then why are we paying huge subsidies and levee's? The energy market has always been volatile and we've managed perfectly well over the years and energy prices have continued to trend down over time, until recently. The US has reduced its reliance on importing energy and its energy prices have plummeted as a result. We're moving in exactly the opposite direction, relying more and more on energy imports.

Our lack of energy independence is what is pushing up pricing and the fact politicians wont leave the energy markets alone and keep intervening and cocking it up making it more expensive for everyone. We have the capacity to be completely energy independent for hundreds of years. We are a very unusual country in the world...one of the few that has the capacity to be 100% energy independant. We have deliberately chosen not to be and have decided to reduce our overall generating capacity and import more and more from Norway (100% renewable), France (about 60% renewable/nuclear) and the Netherlands (still mostly Gas imported from Norway and ME and not so long ago Russia), and LNG from the Middle East, and converting old Coal powered stations to wood pellets....imported from Canada!!! (cant make this stuff up!!). And we pat ourselves on our backs telling ourselves we're reducing CO2 emissions and wag our fingers disapprovingly at other nations when all we're doing is offshoring it between the way we generate power, import it and with massive de-industrialisation, which is condemning the UK to a future of decline. So yay for us!! We're a net importer of energy and importing more and more of our energy needs and are becoming more exposed to international events...and cyber attacks, not less. Look around the world at those nations that are net importers of energy...not sure you'd want to live in any of those.

You don't need to create hydrogen to make sustainable fuels, but sustainable fuel production is very electricity hungry, as is battery , solar panel and wind turbine manufacture, but so what. We have an abundance of energy around us...more than we can use or will ever need so can stomach inefficiencies and renewables are no more efficient than fossil fuels....There are massive inefficiencies in all of this stuff.

So everything involving the conversion of energy is inefficient at some point in the chain, but it matters not when it comes to making sustainable fuels....because all that energy can be generated cleanly and sustainably by nuclear and that energy from renewables that you're already dumping...far better way to buffer energy than batteries. Batteries are just **** precisely because of their energy density....and when you take into account making the infrastructure associated with ICE redundant overnight and having to replace it with brand new massive levels of eyewateringly expensive (i.e. unaffordable) and resource hungry infrastructure to electrify everything, then you're just digging deeper into that CO2 debt/deficit not to mention making us politically more exposed to China, because China builds most of this stuff and builds it from.... dirt cheap energy generated mostly from coal. So worried about a volatile world? then why jump out of the frying pan and into the fire?

Energy density trumps efficiency every time. There are no transformative battery technologies coming any time soon, small nip and tuck improvements here and there, but nothing that will improve energy density anywhere near the level it needs to be. When a battery far is reduced to the size of a truck then we might be getting somewhere, but that ain't happening, not this century anyway. Don't believe the media on new battery technologies any more than their suggestions we're on the brink of nuclear fusion...every year we're just a decade away!

hoppyscotty said:

Energy density trumps efficiency every time.

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I'm not sure I agree - the economics have to come in to it too.

If you trust the graphic from @Northern_Brewer above then you need nearly 5x the energy input to go as far in a car powered by synthetic fuel as you would an EV, and that will be the cost that consumers see when fuelling their car, and that hasn't even costed in the emissions.

What we need is for planners to stipulate that new builds have solar and energy storage. If every new home was mostly self sufficient in power then it takes the pressure off the network to find solutions to variations in generation and consumption.
Eg a mate of mine has solar, a power bank in the garage and an EV. During the day he generates enough to top up the batteries and when that's done he decides whether to use the excess power to heat the hot water or charge the car - or both - then at night the house uses the stored power in the garage. He barely spends anything on energy nowadays.

We're not far off getting an EV, with solar being on the to-do list as well.

Madhouse said:

What we need is for planners to stipulate that new builds have solar and energy storage. If every new home was mostly self sufficient in power then it takes the pressure off the network to find solutions to variations in generation and consumption.
Eg a mate of mine has solar, a power bank in the garage and an EV. During the day he generates enough to top up the batteries and when that's done he decides whether to use the excess power to heat the hot water or charge the car - or both - then at night the house uses the stored power in the garage. He barely spends anything on energy nowadays.

We're not far off getting an EV, with solar being on the to-do list as well.

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that fine if you can afford it for me the cost is crippling and would take decades to recover.

I love the idea and I think it should go further EVs and home batteries should feed into the grid when needed and take when surplus.

If every new build was mandated to have battery storage and operate as above it would take a huge strain off the grid

It's ok for planners to say all new builds must have solar and storage, it's the numptys you need to worry about the ones who think it is ok to have 10 plug extentions all over the house