A lot has been said in favor of Electric Vehicles, the one subject that has not been mentioned is the cost of charging the batteries now and more to the point in the future when there is one in every driveway, What you are not being told is that the cost of up grading the power distribution network and how it will impact the electricity demand and supply costs.
Forget the off peek charging the demand will be 24/7 the increased size of the cables necessary to charge a street full of these eco ev's will be an enormous cost every house hold will have to bare, at the moment peak costs are around 24-26c per kwh, some people get bill shock now running heaters or air conditioners.
Forget investing in battery technology that changes as fast as the wind, if you want an investment that will sky rocket go for Copper and Aluminium without these there can be no electric motors or transmission or up grades, as for lower carbon emissions there are not enough solar panels or wind turbines to run a mining operation let alone a smelter to produce these eco friendly EV's, Ever seen the pollution from a copper smelter or the pollution from mining operations in tailings dams, or know the massive consumption of electricity a aluminium smelter requires? then there is the plastic components to be recycled?? like in land fills?
The way I see it there is nothing remotely green or any thing in EV's that will reduce carbon emissions now or in the future, all that is going to change is the type of pollution and more of it, out of sight out of mind.
Whenarewethere said
09:44 AM Nov 13, 2021
About 16kWh/100km & smart networked chargers like air conditioners in some States. Problem solved.
Rob Driver said
10:00 AM Nov 13, 2021
Welcome mysterytour
Yet another observation for all to consider.
While I believe we should be exploring alternative methods to satisfy our need for fossil fuel powered vehicles, the reason of reducing pollution is not one that will provide the answer.
As indicated above and was highlighted in other recent posts is that in basic terms, we wont be able to afford the infrastructure let alone the power bills and no one yet has factored in the taxes (federal and state) required to at least equal the current amounts taken for every litre of fuel. No government or corporation will give us this infrastructure and subsidised cost of power, particularly on a personal level. We all remember the tax that was placed on LPG for for use in vehicles.
How convenient that this tax was placed on the fuel well after a huge take up of that option for powering their vehicles.
Do we remember the claims of cleaner fuel bla, bla, bla, etc
The manufacturing of the vehicle will have a similar if not worse affect on pollution as we have now. The sourcing and mining of necessary materials and the disposal or recycling of batteries will not help.
Plant trees, reduce plastic use and production, solar development for private static use (powering homes) decentralise populations with housing AND employment, improved public transport systems are just a few things that we could do to assist in the reduction of pollution without us all being hell bent on driving battery powered cars which are yet to prove any real advantage when it comes to pollution.
From another article recently posted on this forum, Toyota and Honda who are reportedly the largest manufacturers, are reluctant to drop everything and support electric vehicles and GM are only considering a part fleet of vehicles in the USA. These decisions are based on the very real fact that worldwide, none of us have the infrastructure to support the operation of this type of vehicle.
The design and use of electric vehicles on a huge scale needs a lot more research and development world wide to be truly successful in achieving any goals with any relation to pollution levels.
dogbox said
10:07 AM Nov 13, 2021
at present we have a tax on all fuel sold supposedly to fund road upgrades/repairs how will that be funded ?
will all roads become tollways under a user pays scheme to cover roads/power grid upgrades, maintenance ect ?
Rob Driver said
10:23 AM Nov 13, 2021
Whenarewethere wrote:
About 16kWh/100km & smart networked chargers like air conditioners in some States. Problem solved.
You are completely missing or at least ignoring the fact that any govt that maintains roads need the money to do so.
100 kilometres traveled by a vehicle on a road requires the same road maintenance wether it is running on petrol, electricity, or processed urine.
It wont matter how economical Mr Manufacturer will make these vehicles run, the simple fact is for ever 100 kilometres, the govt responsible for maintenance of the road infrastructure will want, demand, and charge the required amount and that amount is called Tax.
Apart from that you seem to gloss over the fact that none of us have the infrastructure to charge these vehicle on a scale that is anticipated.
We aren't charging the family members mobile phones here, we will require some serious power to recharge these vehicles. There will be no off peak periods.
People are annoyed when they arrive home and cant use their air conditioners now, so just imagine when they want to drive home and their car is not charged.
Coupled with all of this this, power cant come from any renewable source unless that renewable source is connected to a method for storage.
At this time we have a very long way to go before us driving electric cars will solve the problem of pollution for the next generation.
Go outside, plant a tree, lobby for a serious reduction in the use an manufacture of plastic and when your block of units in Manly develops into a state of disrepair, lobby to knock it down and restore the land to a park and decentralise those tenants to a country town.
You may frown, laugh or even get angry at my suggestion but that suggestion is no where near as difficult as building an electric car on mass and expecting that to make the planet a better place for the next generation.
Peter_n_Margaret said
10:35 AM Nov 13, 2021
Talk about selective comparisons :)
Every km driven by an EV will use 1/3rd of the fuel energy compared with an ICE.
Even if the petrol and diesel previously used in ICE cars was burned to make electricity, the EV would still be more efficient than an ICE.
The uptake of home solar and regional renewable power generation actually reduces the demand on the grid because power is generated much closer to where it is used than previously.
The energy to produce an EV is substantially less than that required to produce an ICE due to the dramatic reduction of complex and expensive mechanical parts. Just consider the number of parts and complexity of the ICE engine and gearbox, neither of which are required in the EV. The electric motor is a simple devise by comparison with vey few moving parts.
Batteries will reduce in size and weight rapidly in the next couple of decades.
All plastics are not inherently the polluting danger they are made out to be by some. The problem plastics are single use containers and agricultural plastics that degrade before recycling is possible. Plastics in cars are easily collected and recycled when the car is crushed at end of life.
The uptake of EVs will proceed according to how the public assess the factors of cost and convenience. We are at "the KODAK moment".
Cheers,
Peter
Peter_n_Margaret said
10:39 AM Nov 13, 2021
dogbox wrote:
at present we have a tax on all fuel sold supposedly to fund road upgrades/repairs how will that be funded ? will all roads become tollways under a user pays scheme to cover roads/power grid upgrades, maintenance ect ?
Several States have already established a road tax of 2.5c per km for EVs. To start in a couple of years.
That is a fraction of the running cost savings for the owners.
Cheers,
Peter
peter67 said
10:52 AM Nov 13, 2021
Rob Driver wrote:
Whenarewethere wrote:
About 16kWh/100km & smart networked chargers like air conditioners in some States. Problem solved.
You are completely missing or at least ignoring the fact that any govt that maintains roads need the money to do so.
100 kilometres traveled by a vehicle on a road requires the same road maintenance wether it is running on petrol, electricity, or processed urine.
It wont matter how economical Mr Manufacturer will make these vehicles run, the simple fact is for ever 100 kilometres, the govt responsible for maintenance of the road infrastructure will want, demand, and charge the required amount and that amount is called Tax.
Apart from that you seem to gloss over the fact that none of us have the infrastructure to charge these vehicle on a scale that is anticipated.
We aren't charging the family members mobile phones here, we will require some serious power to recharge these vehicles. There will be no off peak periods.
People are annoyed when they arrive home and cant use their air conditioners now, so just imagine when they want to drive home and their car is not charged.
Coupled with all of this this, power cant come from any renewable source unless that renewable source is connected to a method for storage.
At this time we have a very long way to go before us driving electric cars will solve the problem of pollution for the next generation.
Go outside, plant a tree, lobby for a serious reduction in the use an manufacture of plastic and when your block of units in Manly develops into a state of disrepair, lobby to knock it down and restore the land to a park and decentralise those tenants to a country town.
You may frown, laugh or even get angry at my suggestion but that suggestion is no where near as difficult as building an electric car on mass and expecting that to make the planet a better place for the next generation.
Very well summed up. To have a realistic chance at organising an orderly shift to EV's in the city you would need politicians to speak as you have and drop all the point scoring BS, fat chance.
Edit.
Some are claiming here that there is far less maintenance for EV's, not true.
-- Edited by peter67 on Saturday 13th of November 2021 10:56:01 AM
I think to have a quality debate we do need to use selective comparisons on both sides. :)
In summary of my thoughts, I am not against the development and use of electric vehicles, in fact I find it interesting and in complete reality one day fossil fuel will be a thing of the past.
My thoughts are more along the line of a bunch of old farts ( me most definately included ) are using their spare time to create a perfect world for our offspring. Nothing wrong with that.
Where I differ from some others is that this is happening without full research and as a result I am concerned that the end or even the ongoing result may not be sustainable to any but maybe the fortunate rich.
My concerns lay with the fact that apart from my personal thoughts the biggest vehicle manufacturers are remaining very reserved when it comes to investing their money on a large scale in this technology.
For me to address world pollution my thoughts are to keep it simple, take care and modify my own actions within my life to achieve an improvement.
Trees and vacant land in the form of parks for personal recreation is a good start.
Whenarewethere said
11:47 AM Nov 13, 2021
The 42.7c/l is a federal tax which goes into consolidated revenue the same as coins tossed into war memorials. Local Councils fix a good portion of our roads.
mysterytour said
11:57 AM Nov 13, 2021
Hi'Rob, Good to see some one with a bit of fore sight, and you are correct, about the LPG part, I had a mate heavily involved in fleet (TRUCKS) Testing of LPG combined with diesel fuel
at the start to the final outcome both from costs, installation, pollution maintenance and overall viability, the results far out weighed any other alternative source of powering big fleets of trucks.
To say it was a success is an understatement, Costs of installation along with interlectual property were the biggest hurdle to overcome, how ever that would have quickly come down as truck manufacturers adopted the technology, the death came in the way of taxes, and vastly increased costs of LPG doubled then doubled again, and still very much on the rise, bare in mind our Government has sold our natural gas supplies and is doing battle with the off shore owners just to keep the costs domestically affordable.
The tax payers research funding for the project also out the window, It may not have been the perfect answer but it certainly reduced quite significantly the exhaust emissions without loss of power and that was twenty years ago.
Governments job is to make the country prosperous for it's citizens not to screw the life out of its consumers by selling its assets off , this technology could have been tweeked and also was tested for the use of our abundant natural gas supplies that further investments were required for the infrastructure, it's hear now but we don't own it.
I am not in to politics but in this case Barnaby Joice would prefer us running around in coal powered steam cars and Scummo has to go along with it as recently demonstrated because neither party could ever win an election in their own right, the blind leading the dum to stay in power, Seriously?
Bye the way the tests carried out were not just on one truck it was a fleet of over 150 new trucks of different makes and also included were diesel work utes, plant and equipment that took over two years of testing.
You don't need a flux capacitor powered Delorian to see where EV's will end up.
Bicyclecamper said
12:07 PM Nov 13, 2021
The local taxi company uses hybrids, and they replace the batteries at a cost $4000, every 5 years, after the travelling of a million km per vehicle. The vehicle runs 24/7, never off the road. Now I have been told it is dearer for a hybrid replacement battery then a normal EV. I asked them if it works out financially for them, and they told me, they would never go back to a normal ICE vehicle. So hybrids and EV's are the favoured vehicle for the taxi industry, and this should be enough quantified information for people to trust going with a EV for future car ownership. As for doing distance trips, their is also a Tesla here as a taxi, and he does the out of town trips, and his average out of town round trip is 500km. It is a Vet. Affairs run. It is the cheapest vehicle he has ever run as a taxi before, including the cost of buying it..
-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Saturday 13th of November 2021 12:28:13 PM
Whenarewethere said
12:21 PM Nov 13, 2021
mysterytour wrote:
... would prefer us running around in coal powered steam cars ...
Coal powered cars were built & I am surprised that our Government hasn't handed out money for more development.
Rob Driver said
12:42 PM Nov 13, 2021
mysterytour wrote:
Hi'Rob, Good to see some one with a bit of fore sight, and you are correct, about the LPG part, I had a mate heavily involved in fleet (TRUCKS) Testing of LPG combined with diesel fuel at the start to the final outcome both from costs, installation, pollution maintenance and overall viability, the results far out weighed any other alternative source of powering big fleets of trucks. To say it was a success is an understatement, Costs of installation along with interlectual property were the biggest hurdle to overcome, how ever that would have quickly come down as truck manufacturers adopted the technology, the death came in the way of taxes, and vastly increased costs of LPG doubled then doubled again, and still very much on the rise, bare in mind our Government has sold our natural gas supplies and is doing battle with the off shore owners just to keep the costs domestically affordable.
The tax payers research funding for the project also out the window, It may not have been the perfect answer but it certainly reduced quite significantly the exhaust emissions without loss of power and that was twenty years ago.
Governments job is to make the country prosperous for it's citizens not to screw the life out of its consumers by selling its assets off , this technology could have been tweeked and also was tested for the use of our abundant natural gas supplies that further investments were required for the infrastructure, it's hear now but we don't own it.
I am not in to politics but in this case Barnaby Joice would prefer us running around in coal powered steam cars and Scummo has to go along with it as recently demonstrated because neither party could ever win an election in their own right, the blind leading the dum to stay in power, Seriously?
Bye the way the tests carried out were not just on one truck it was a fleet of over 150 new trucks of different makes and also included were diesel work utes, plant and equipment that took over two years of testing.
You don't need a flux capacitor powered Delorian to see where EV's will end up.
Thank you for providing examples of how easily disastrous this could all end up.
After reading your post I was reminded of the SA govt who also invested a great deal of money into research and eventually had a portion of their fleet of buses and cars operating on LPG.
I wouldn't trust any side of govt in this country with a button cell battery let alone any investment that would be dead and buried at the whim of a party that will need to win the next election.
There is no guarantee from any government at any time and lets be real, the oil companies still control all governments and until the supply becomes a threat we will hear clean green rhetoric but nothing will change, except maybe the bank balances of investors including the bloke next door with his shiny ne Tesla.
The present summit has turned into a debarcle with none of them agreeing with one another.
At this meeting we are at the whim of a govt representative that may not be there within 4 years or sooner and then we are at the whim of the next one who will arive with a complete new plethora of supporters and those wanting to get rich quick.
Heaven help our grandkids..
Rob Driver said
12:57 PM Nov 13, 2021
Bicyclecamper wrote:
The local taxi company uses hybrids, and they replace the batteries at a cost $4000, every 5 years, after the travelling of a million km per vehicle. The vehicle runs 24/7, never off the road. Now I have been told it is dearer for a hybrid replacement battery then a normal EV. I asked them if it works out financially for them, and they told me, they would never go back to a normal ICE vehicle. So hybrids and EV's are the favoured vehicle for the taxi industry, and this should be enough quantified information for people to trust going with a EV for future car ownership. As for doing distance trips, their is also a Tesla here as a taxi, and he does the out of town trips, and his average out of town round trip is 500km. It is a Vet. Affairs run. It is the cheapest vehicle he has ever run as a taxi before, including the cost of buying it..
-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Saturday 13th of November 2021 12:28:13 PM
Local and more to the point the majority of taxi companies in Australia used LPG powered vehicles until with the stroke of a pen the taxes were changed on the fuel which caused the demise of those vehicles.
Of course hybrids and electrics are the favoured cheap vehicle to operate if we are using fuel costs.
A good portion of the fuel cost is electricity which is being dispensed from a source which has not yet had the tax applied to make it compete with standard fuels.
Read mysterytours post above which highlights just how easily this tax can be applied to any fuel.
Your local taxi company is making a choice of vehicle based only on operating cost.
To state that that company wont go back to an ICE vehicle is a no brainer. Buy a car, run it as cheap as possible and make the most profit from it. Go ask the same bloke what will he do if the operating costs equal a vehicle with an ICE.
Actually you have given us all 4000 reasons why he would go back to an ICE if he wasn't receiving a subsidised price in electricity.
When you pay your power bill I hope you are pleased that you are compensating that taxi company with its operating costs.
Whenarewethere said
01:34 PM Nov 13, 2021
Bicyclecamper wrote:
It is the cheapest vehicle he has ever run as a taxi before, including the cost of buying it..
In my area there are a lot of EVs. Residents mostly walk or use a bike as it is even more convenient.
dabbler said
02:23 PM Nov 13, 2021
Like many Australian households, we own several vehicles. We use our EV (Nissan Leaf) for every day trips including Bne-GC return. Solar on the roof charges our EV and still delivers to the grid. We don't expect the EV to tow the camper and have a Hilux kitted out for touring. My local govt rates, not Fed or State pay for upkeep on most the the roads we travel with the EV. But it's a myth that fuel taxes cover road upkeep. Fuel usage per km has been dropping for decades and govt knows the general revenues pay for roads not fuel. Now, you can carry on about EV myths and the costs involved but the reality is EV are here stay, ICE are heavily subsidized anyway and the vast majority of Australians only think they drive long distances.
Peter_n_Margaret said
03:07 PM Nov 13, 2021
These are the current limits for the Battery and Drive Unit Tesla Warranty:
Model S and Model X: 8 years or 150,000 miles Model 3 and Model Y Standard Range or Standard Range Plus: 8 years or 100,000 miles Model 3 and Model Y Long Range or Performance: 8 years or 120,000 miles
(with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity)
When the batteries get tired and the range is down to half, I will be lining up for a cheap 10 or 12 year old second hand EV. :)
Cheers,
Peter
-- Edited by Peter_n_Margaret on Saturday 13th of November 2021 03:10:54 PM
orid said
03:45 PM Nov 13, 2021
What I would like to know , is how much pollution is made by airplanes, I think I read somewhere a 747 jumbo uses enough fuel on one takeoff to run a medium family car for over100 yrs , now thats pollution , electric planes , dont think so , large tanker ships also are these required to meet pollution refs like car manufacturers?
orid said
03:55 PM Nov 13, 2021
Jumb uses 19000 Ltrs on takeoff
Rob Driver said
04:38 PM Nov 13, 2021
dabbler wrote:
Like many Australian households, we own several vehicles. We use our EV (Nissan Leaf) for every day trips including Bne-GC return. Solar on the roof charges our EV and still delivers to the grid. We don't expect the EV to tow the camper and have a Hilux kitted out for touring. My local govt rates, not Fed or State pay for upkeep on most the the roads we travel with the EV. But it's a myth that fuel taxes cover road upkeep. Fuel usage per km has been dropping for decades and govt knows the general revenues pay for roads not fuel. Now, you can carry on about EV myths and the costs involved but the reality is EV are here stay, ICE are heavily subsidized anyway and the vast majority of Australians only think they drive long distances.
Hi dabbler,
I think you have the perfect example of how an EV should be used and probably will be used well into the future. A commuter car needs to be compact and economical and because most of them will operate in areas of high population the less emissions emitted the better off we all are. To charge at home with your own solar is great and could be even better with anyone that has their own battery bank for storage contained within their system. Having a storage battery bank at home would eliminate any load from the grid when charging the vehicle in times of peak demand from other non EV consumers.
The emissions produced with the manufacture and disposal of EVs could very be be a different story and the same would apply for the battery bank. This may easily negate any gain made while driving. As the OP stated, these vehicles still require many raw materials which involve mining and production activity.
Quoting fuel tax that is currently applied to motorists who use petrol or diesel was mine and others simplistic way of indicating that there is a tax that is not on electricity used for EVs. Governments certainly spread our hard earned taxes over many uses as general revenue but regardless of where the money is allocated it is money that is still required to balance the budget. As the use of EVs becomes higher in numbers the revenue lost from not buying petrol or diesel will be felt and it will be difficult for any government to permit the discount by not collecting revenue from EV users. The very same thing happened to LPG vehicle owners.
Let the development of these vehicles naturally progress covering anomalies in infrastructure, disposal, and confirming that the manufacturing will be *green* as it may develop but to promote these vehicles as being the solution to the industrial smog of the world and to make outlandish claims by some governments that we all will be using this technology within a time frame of 14 years as stated by some political partys is nothing short of ridiculous.
Until the governments can actually get out of the Oil Companys bed on a world wide level, EVs will only be practically used for local commuting.
Whenarewethere said
04:53 PM Nov 13, 2021
& underground mining vehicles.
Peter_n_Margaret said
06:12 PM Nov 13, 2021
orid wrote:
What I would like to know , is how much pollution is made by airplanes, I think I read somewhere a 747 jumbo uses enough fuel on one takeoff to run a medium family car for over100 yrs , now thats pollution , electric planes , dont think so , large tanker ships also are these required to meet pollution refs like car manufacturers?
Aircraft and ships are highly polluting.
They will both become electric, fuelled by hydrogen. With big aircraft there will be a bonus of significantly reduced noise.
There are already small aircraft running battery/electric.
Mining vehicles and trains are currently diesel electric. Changing them to hydrogen electric will happen quite quickly. Already happening with mining vehicles I reckon.
Cheers,
Peter
mysterytour said
10:12 PM Nov 13, 2021
Hydrogen is by no means a clean fuel, The manufacturing processes of which there are several different methods all have one thing in common, the residue is extremely toxic and dangerous, it requires very little energy to produce, the waste disposal is a totally different kettle of fish requiring huge amounts of energy, any one can make crude but effective hydrogen in your back yard it's basic science, materials are cheap and plentiful being obtained at any grocery shop, the cost of producing hydrogen is in the safe disposal of the reacted chemicals. it's certainly not a new concept and dates back to it's most famous use in lighter than air, air ships from around 1911.
In this country there is no commitment to excellerate lowering carbon emissions by this present government, so we will still be exporting coal to China under contract where they will be manufacturing components for EV's to supply the demands of the world whilst reducing their fossil fuel dependence including coal. the biggest break throughs with EV's will come from China simply because there is no such thing as interlectual property or patients in the PRC they will steal it if they can more likely develop their own through their own network of colaberation, whilst the rest of the world are to a larger extent tethered to the one eyed Tesla CORP, which by the way have already bought out and shut down several other competative manufacturers one of the best known was Maxwell industries the No1 world leaders in battery storage technology and power supplies.
By the way just being my skeptical self, the Victorian government has just given me totally free of charge two heat pump water heaters with a total capacity of 315L at a cost of nearly $6000 to the tax payers fully installed to cut my miserable power consumption, and it has done that by around 60% the old heater was off peek 320L capacity , they also wanted to replace all light globes with LED's but I did that at my cost several years ago after I saw the huge savings from LED lighting in my workshop with far better lighting than the old fluro lights .also would have been free of charge.
Makes you wonder why? my house hold bill has never been over $200,I don't have solar panels, I have also heard rumors of charging feed back fees for those who have solar panels feeding back to the grid, it had some thing to do with the infrastructure not being up to handling the feed back loads with the ever increasing amount of solar feed back.
Any way if you live in Victoria and own your own property check out Eco Alliance Dynaheat you might be able to get a new totally free hot water heater and LED's it's a replacement so you have to have one installed in the first place, they also render your original water heater useless by drilling holes in it and noting the serial numbers so you can not use or sell it or claim again.
Again What do they know that they are not telling us about future electricity costs? I did not ask or enquire about the water heaters they came to my door and offered it free of charge they also did the same next door we both checked them out and its all a legitament Victorian government incentive.
Whenarewethere said
10:55 PM Nov 13, 2021
They work well those heat pump hot water systems. My parents installed one back in the early 1980s. Those days the evaporator coil was around the outside of the tank. It lasted about 14 years.
Peter_n_Margaret said
11:02 PM Nov 13, 2021
I think you are misinformed. Maybe some links please?
From Wikipedia. Environmental impact As of 2020 most of hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, resulting in carbon dioxide emissions.[92] This is often referred to as grey hydrogen when emissions are released to the atmosphere, and blue hydrogen when emissions are captured through carbon capture and storage (CCS).[93] Blue hydrogen has been estimated to have a greenhouse gas footprint 20% greater than burning gas or coal for heat and 60% greater when compared to burning diesel for heat, assuming US up- and mid- stream methane leakage rates and production via steam methane reformers (SMR) retrofitted with carbon dioxide capture.[94] The use of autothermal reformers (ATR) with integrated capture of carbon dioxide allow higher capture rates at satisfactory energy efficiencies and life cycle assessments have shown lower greenhouse gas emissions for such plants comparted to SMRs with carbon dioxide capture.[95] Application of ATR technology with integrated capture of carbon dioxide in Europe has been assessed to have a lower greenhouse gas footprint than burning natural gas, e.g. for the H21 project with a reported reduction of 68% due to a reduced carbon dioxide intensity of natural gas combined with a more suitable reactor type for capture of carbon dioxide.[96]
Hydrogen produced using the newer non-polluting technology methane pyrolysis[97] is often referred to as turquoise hydrogen. High quality hydrogen is produced directly from natural gas and the associated non-polluting solid carbon is not released into the atmosphere and can then be sold for industrial use or stored in landfill.
Hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources is often referred to as green hydrogen. There are two practical ways of producing hydrogen from renewable energy sources. One is to use power to gas, in which electric power is used to produce hydrogen from electrolysis, and the other is to use landfill gas to produce hydrogen in a steam reformer. Hydrogen fuel, when produced by renewable sources of energy like wind or solar power, is a renewable fuel.[98] Hydrogen produced from nuclear energy via electrolysis is sometimes viewed as a subset of green hydrogen, but can also be referred to as pink hydrogen.
Estimated costs of production are $1-1.80/kg for grey hydrogen and blue hydrogen,[99] and $2.50-6.80 for green hydrogen.[99]
Cheers,
Peter
Jaahn said
08:41 AM Nov 14, 2021
Whenarewethere wrote:
They work well those heat pump hot water systems. My parents installed one back in the early 1980s. Those days the evaporator coil was around the outside of the tank. It lasted about 14 years.
Hi
Great in theory yes. But long lasting has not been a lot of peoples experience in more recent times. The Australian made ones give up early from what i found. Generally over priced and over sold. IMHO. Cashing in on the current trend. A great pity really because you can get a good fridge that lasts for a very long time without loosing its gas.
Jaahn
-- Edited by Jaahn on Sunday 14th of November 2021 08:42:23 AM
Buzz Lightbulb said
12:31 PM Nov 14, 2021
I'm under the impression that most car manufacturers are going fully EVs and many by 2035. Suck it up.
The manufacturers dump their ICE on Australia because they can make o big profit on old technology and still bring down their overall CO2 commitments.
Europe will apply a suitable carbon tax on Australian products because this government doesn't care about the environment. I wish it would happen now instead of 2025.
Australia is the laggard country when it comes to climate change and it doesn't seem surprising from the many comments here. There's no hope for the future with these attitudes.
Whenarewethere said
12:50 PM Nov 14, 2021
Jaahn wrote:
Whenarewethere wrote:
They work well those heat pump hot water systems. My parents installed one back in the early 1980s. Those days the evaporator coil was around the outside of the tank. It lasted about 14 years.
Hi
Great in theory yes. But long lasting has not been a lot of peoples experience in more recent times. The Australian made ones give up early from what i found. Generally over priced and over sold. IMHO. Cashing in on the current trend. A great pity really because you can get a good fridge that lasts for a very long time without loosing its gas.
A lot has been said in favor of Electric Vehicles, the one subject that has not been mentioned is the cost of charging the batteries now and more to the point in the future when there is one in every driveway, What you are not being told is that the cost of up grading the power distribution network and how it will impact the electricity demand and supply costs.
Forget the off peek charging the demand will be 24/7 the increased size of the cables necessary to charge a street full of these eco ev's will be an enormous cost every house hold will have to bare, at the moment peak costs are around 24-26c per kwh, some people get bill shock now running heaters or air conditioners.
Forget investing in battery technology that changes as fast as the wind, if you want an investment that will sky rocket go for Copper and Aluminium without these there can be no electric motors or transmission or up grades, as for lower carbon emissions there are not enough solar panels or wind turbines to run a mining operation let alone a smelter to produce these eco friendly EV's, Ever seen the pollution from a copper smelter or the pollution from mining operations in tailings dams, or know the massive consumption of electricity a aluminium smelter requires? then there is the plastic components to be recycled?? like in land fills?
The way I see it there is nothing remotely green or any thing in EV's that will reduce carbon emissions now or in the future, all that is going to change is the type of pollution and more of it, out of sight out of mind.
About 16kWh/100km & smart networked chargers like air conditioners in some States. Problem solved.
Yet another observation for all to consider.
While I believe we should be exploring alternative methods to satisfy our need for fossil fuel powered vehicles, the reason of reducing pollution is not one that will provide the answer.
As indicated above and was highlighted in other recent posts is that in basic terms, we wont be able to afford the infrastructure let alone the power bills and no one yet has factored in the taxes (federal and state) required to at least equal the current amounts taken for every litre of fuel. No government or corporation will give us this infrastructure and subsidised cost of power, particularly on a personal level. We all remember the tax that was placed on LPG for for use in vehicles.
How convenient that this tax was placed on the fuel well after a huge take up of that option for powering their vehicles.
Do we remember the claims of cleaner fuel bla, bla, bla, etc
The manufacturing of the vehicle will have a similar if not worse affect on pollution as we have now. The sourcing and mining of necessary materials and the disposal or recycling of batteries will not help.
Plant trees, reduce plastic use and production, solar development for private static use (powering homes) decentralise populations with housing AND employment, improved public transport systems are just a few things that we could do to assist in the reduction of pollution without us all being hell bent on driving battery powered cars which are yet to prove any real advantage when it comes to pollution.
From another article recently posted on this forum, Toyota and Honda who are reportedly the largest manufacturers, are reluctant to drop everything and support electric vehicles and GM are only considering a part fleet of vehicles in the USA. These decisions are based on the very real fact that worldwide, none of us have the infrastructure to support the operation of this type of vehicle.
The design and use of electric vehicles on a huge scale needs a lot more research and development world wide to be truly successful in achieving any goals with any relation to pollution levels.
will all roads become tollways under a user pays scheme to cover roads/power grid upgrades, maintenance ect ?
You are completely missing or at least ignoring the fact that any govt that maintains roads need the money to do so.
100 kilometres traveled by a vehicle on a road requires the same road maintenance wether it is running on petrol, electricity, or processed urine.
It wont matter how economical Mr Manufacturer will make these vehicles run, the simple fact is for ever 100 kilometres, the govt responsible for maintenance of the road infrastructure will want, demand, and charge the required amount and that amount is called Tax.
Apart from that you seem to gloss over the fact that none of us have the infrastructure to charge these vehicle on a scale that is anticipated.
We aren't charging the family members mobile phones here, we will require some serious power to recharge these vehicles. There will be no off peak periods.
People are annoyed when they arrive home and cant use their air conditioners now, so just imagine when they want to drive home and their car is not charged.
Coupled with all of this this, power cant come from any renewable source unless that renewable source is connected to a method for storage.
At this time we have a very long way to go before us driving electric cars will solve the problem of pollution for the next generation.
Go outside, plant a tree, lobby for a serious reduction in the use an manufacture of plastic and when your block of units in Manly develops into a state of disrepair, lobby to knock it down and restore the land to a park and decentralise those tenants to a country town.
You may frown, laugh or even get angry at my suggestion but that suggestion is no where near as difficult as building an electric car on mass and expecting that to make the planet a better place for the next generation.
Every km driven by an EV will use 1/3rd of the fuel energy compared with an ICE.
Even if the petrol and diesel previously used in ICE cars was burned to make electricity, the EV would still be more efficient than an ICE.
The uptake of home solar and regional renewable power generation actually reduces the demand on the grid because power is generated much closer to where it is used than previously.
The energy to produce an EV is substantially less than that required to produce an ICE due to the dramatic reduction of complex and expensive mechanical parts. Just consider the number of parts and complexity of the ICE engine and gearbox, neither of which are required in the EV. The electric motor is a simple devise by comparison with vey few moving parts.
Batteries will reduce in size and weight rapidly in the next couple of decades.
All plastics are not inherently the polluting danger they are made out to be by some. The problem plastics are single use containers and agricultural plastics that degrade before recycling is possible. Plastics in cars are easily collected and recycled when the car is crushed at end of life.
The uptake of EVs will proceed according to how the public assess the factors of cost and convenience. We are at "the KODAK moment".
Cheers,
Peter
Several States have already established a road tax of 2.5c per km for EVs. To start in a couple of years.
That is a fraction of the running cost savings for the owners.
Cheers,
Peter
Very well summed up. To have a realistic chance at organising an orderly shift to EV's in the city you would need politicians to speak as you have and drop all the point scoring BS, fat chance.
Edit.
Some are claiming here that there is far less maintenance for EV's, not true.
-- Edited by peter67 on Saturday 13th of November 2021 10:56:01 AM
Please explain.
Here is a comparison. It is US where petrol is CHEAP.
Batteries have longer warranties that petrol engines and replacement cost is not dramatically different.
Selected at random....
www.greencars.com/post/what-does-it-cost-to-maintain-an-electric-car
www.compare.com/electric-cars/guides/maintenance-and-repair-costs
www.canstarblue.com.au/vehicles/electric-car-servicing/
Cheers,
Peter
I think to have a quality debate we do need to use selective comparisons on both sides. :)
In summary of my thoughts, I am not against the development and use of electric vehicles, in fact I find it interesting and in complete reality one day fossil fuel will be a thing of the past.
My thoughts are more along the line of a bunch of old farts ( me most definately included ) are using their spare time to create a perfect world for our offspring. Nothing wrong with that.
Where I differ from some others is that this is happening without full research and as a result I am concerned that the end or even the ongoing result may not be sustainable to any but maybe the fortunate rich.
My concerns lay with the fact that apart from my personal thoughts the biggest vehicle manufacturers are remaining very reserved when it comes to investing their money on a large scale in this technology.
For me to address world pollution my thoughts are to keep it simple, take care and modify my own actions within my life to achieve an improvement.
Trees and vacant land in the form of parks for personal recreation is a good start.
The 42.7c/l is a federal tax which goes into consolidated revenue the same as coins tossed into war memorials. Local Councils fix a good portion of our roads.
at the start to the final outcome both from costs, installation, pollution maintenance and overall viability, the results far out weighed any other alternative source of powering big fleets of trucks.
To say it was a success is an understatement, Costs of installation along with interlectual property were the biggest hurdle to overcome, how ever that would have quickly come down as truck manufacturers adopted the technology, the death came in the way of taxes, and vastly increased costs of LPG doubled then doubled again, and still very much on the rise, bare in mind our Government has sold our natural gas supplies and is doing battle with the off shore owners just to keep the costs domestically affordable.
The tax payers research funding for the project also out the window, It may not have been the perfect answer but it certainly reduced quite significantly the exhaust emissions without loss of power and that was twenty years ago.
Governments job is to make the country prosperous for it's citizens not to screw the life out of its consumers by selling its assets off , this technology could have been tweeked and also was tested for the use of our abundant natural gas supplies that further investments were required for the infrastructure, it's hear now but we don't own it.
I am not in to politics but in this case Barnaby Joice would prefer us running around in coal powered steam cars and Scummo has to go along with it as recently demonstrated because neither party could ever win an election in their own right, the blind leading the dum to stay in power, Seriously?
Bye the way the tests carried out were not just on one truck it was a fleet of over 150 new trucks of different makes and also included were diesel work utes, plant and equipment that took over two years of testing.
You don't need a flux capacitor powered Delorian to see where EV's will end up.
The local taxi company uses hybrids, and they replace the batteries at a cost $4000, every 5 years, after the travelling of a million km per vehicle. The vehicle runs 24/7, never off the road. Now I have been told it is dearer for a hybrid replacement battery then a normal EV. I asked them if it works out financially for them, and they told me, they would never go back to a normal ICE vehicle. So hybrids and EV's are the favoured vehicle for the taxi industry, and this should be enough quantified information for people to trust going with a EV for future car ownership. As for doing distance trips, their is also a Tesla here as a taxi, and he does the out of town trips, and his average out of town round trip is 500km. It is a Vet. Affairs run. It is the cheapest vehicle he has ever run as a taxi before, including the cost of buying it..
-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Saturday 13th of November 2021 12:28:13 PM
Coal powered cars were built & I am surprised that our Government hasn't handed out money for more development.
Thank you for providing examples of how easily disastrous this could all end up.
After reading your post I was reminded of the SA govt who also invested a great deal of money into research and eventually had a portion of their fleet of buses and cars operating on LPG.
I wouldn't trust any side of govt in this country with a button cell battery let alone any investment that would be dead and buried at the whim of a party that will need to win the next election.
There is no guarantee from any government at any time and lets be real, the oil companies still control all governments and until the supply becomes a threat we will hear clean green rhetoric but nothing will change, except maybe the bank balances of investors including the bloke next door with his shiny ne Tesla.
The present summit has turned into a debarcle with none of them agreeing with one another.
At this meeting we are at the whim of a govt representative that may not be there within 4 years or sooner and then we are at the whim of the next one who will arive with a complete new plethora of supporters and those wanting to get rich quick.
Heaven help our grandkids..
Local and more to the point the majority of taxi companies in Australia used LPG powered vehicles until with the stroke of a pen the taxes were changed on the fuel which caused the demise of those vehicles.
Of course hybrids and electrics are the favoured cheap vehicle to operate if we are using fuel costs.
A good portion of the fuel cost is electricity which is being dispensed from a source which has not yet had the tax applied to make it compete with standard fuels.
Read mysterytours post above which highlights just how easily this tax can be applied to any fuel.
Your local taxi company is making a choice of vehicle based only on operating cost.
To state that that company wont go back to an ICE vehicle is a no brainer. Buy a car, run it as cheap as possible and make the most profit from it. Go ask the same bloke what will he do if the operating costs equal a vehicle with an ICE.
Actually you have given us all 4000 reasons why he would go back to an ICE if he wasn't receiving a subsidised price in electricity.
When you pay your power bill I hope you are pleased that you are compensating that taxi company with its operating costs.
In my area there are a lot of EVs. Residents mostly walk or use a bike as it is even more convenient.
(with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity)
When the batteries get tired and the range is down to half, I will be lining up for a cheap 10 or 12 year old second hand EV. :)
Cheers,
Peter
-- Edited by Peter_n_Margaret on Saturday 13th of November 2021 03:10:54 PM
Hi dabbler,
I think you have the perfect example of how an EV should be used and probably will be used well into the future. A commuter car needs to be compact and economical and because most of them will operate in areas of high population the less emissions emitted the better off we all are. To charge at home with your own solar is great and could be even better with anyone that has their own battery bank for storage contained within their system. Having a storage battery bank at home would eliminate any load from the grid when charging the vehicle in times of peak demand from other non EV consumers.
The emissions produced with the manufacture and disposal of EVs could very be be a different story and the same would apply for the battery bank. This may easily negate any gain made while driving. As the OP stated, these vehicles still require many raw materials which involve mining and production activity.
Quoting fuel tax that is currently applied to motorists who use petrol or diesel was mine and others simplistic way of indicating that there is a tax that is not on electricity used for EVs. Governments certainly spread our hard earned taxes over many uses as general revenue but regardless of where the money is allocated it is money that is still required to balance the budget.
As the use of EVs becomes higher in numbers the revenue lost from not buying petrol or diesel will be felt and it will be difficult for any government to permit the discount by not collecting revenue from EV users. The very same thing happened to LPG vehicle owners.
Let the development of these vehicles naturally progress covering anomalies in infrastructure, disposal, and confirming that the manufacturing will be *green* as it may develop but to promote these vehicles as being the solution to the industrial smog of the world and to make outlandish claims by some governments that we all will be using this technology within a time frame of 14 years as stated by some political partys is nothing short of ridiculous.
Until the governments can actually get out of the Oil Companys bed on a world wide level, EVs will only be practically used for local commuting.
& underground mining vehicles.
Aircraft and ships are highly polluting.
They will both become electric, fuelled by hydrogen. With big aircraft there will be a bonus of significantly reduced noise.
There are already small aircraft running battery/electric.
Mining vehicles and trains are currently diesel electric. Changing them to hydrogen electric will happen quite quickly. Already happening with mining vehicles I reckon.
Cheers,
Peter
In this country there is no commitment to excellerate lowering carbon emissions by this present government, so we will still be exporting coal to China under contract where they will be manufacturing components for EV's to supply the demands of the world whilst reducing their fossil fuel dependence including coal. the biggest break throughs with EV's will come from China simply because there is no such thing as interlectual property or patients in the PRC they will steal it if they can more likely develop their own through their own network of colaberation, whilst the rest of the world are to a larger extent tethered to the one eyed Tesla CORP, which by the way have already bought out and shut down several other competative manufacturers one of the best known was Maxwell industries the No1 world leaders in battery storage technology and power supplies.
By the way just being my skeptical self, the Victorian government has just given me totally free of charge two heat pump water heaters with a total capacity of 315L at a cost of nearly $6000 to the tax payers fully installed to cut my miserable power consumption, and it has done that by around 60% the old heater was off peek 320L capacity , they also wanted to replace all light globes with LED's but I did that at my cost several years ago after I saw the huge savings from LED lighting in my workshop with far better lighting than the old fluro lights .also would have been free of charge.
Makes you wonder why? my house hold bill has never been over $200,I don't have solar panels, I have also heard rumors of charging feed back fees for those who have solar panels feeding back to the grid, it had some thing to do with the infrastructure not being up to handling the feed back loads with the ever increasing amount of solar feed back.
Any way if you live in Victoria and own your own property check out Eco Alliance Dynaheat you might be able to get a new totally free hot water heater and LED's it's a replacement so you have to have one installed in the first place, they also render your original water heater useless by drilling holes in it and noting the serial numbers so you can not use or sell it or claim again.
Again What do they know that they are not telling us about future electricity costs? I did not ask or enquire about the water heaters they came to my door and offered it free of charge they also did the same next door we both checked them out and its all a legitament Victorian government incentive.
They work well those heat pump hot water systems. My parents installed one back in the early 1980s. Those days the evaporator coil was around the outside of the tank. It lasted about 14 years.
I think you are misinformed. Maybe some links please?
From Wikipedia.
Cheers,
Peter
Hi
Great in theory yes. But long lasting has not been a lot of peoples experience in more recent times. The Australian made ones give up early from what i found. Generally over priced and over sold. IMHO. Cashing in on the current trend. A great pity really because you can get a good fridge that lasts for a very long time without loosing its gas.
Jaahn
-- Edited by Jaahn on Sunday 14th of November 2021 08:42:23 AM
I'm under the impression that most car manufacturers are going fully EVs and many by 2035. Suck it up.
The manufacturers dump their ICE on Australia because they can make o big profit on old technology and still bring down their overall CO2 commitments.
Europe will apply a suitable carbon tax on Australian products because this government doesn't care about the environment. I wish it would happen now instead of 2025.
Australia is the laggard country when it comes to climate change and it doesn't seem surprising from the many comments here. There's no hope for the future with these attitudes.
Stieblel Eltron might be worth a look at.
https://www.stiebel-eltron.com.au/heat-pumps