EV chat

Well the Hydrogen buses have hit a "Brick wall"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnv6e5l588jo
"If you do the comparison with an electric bus, an electric bus will go double the distance with the same amount of power as hydrogen."

I guess the other half of the energy in producing the hydrogen disappears as oxygen which is produced during the electrolysis. If the oxygen is just being dissipated into the air, there goes half the energy input.
 
If the oxygen is just being dissipated into the air, there goes half the energy input.
That's a strange idea. The energy (in electrolysis) goes into splitting the bonds, so you can't really say that the O₂︎ carries away half the energy, and even if it did the O₂︎ only represents a third of the atoms. The same amount of energy gets released when the 2H₂︎ recombines with an O₂︎.

But like I said up-thread, availability could trump efficiency.
 
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"They" don't want to get into hydrogen generation and distribution, but they will have to because you're not going to run HGVs, JCBs whatever by battery!
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I have seen on my travels small posts (similar to fire hydrant notices) indicating a hydrogen pipeline. There is one heading towards the (now closed) Nottingham City Airport (previously RAF Tollerton). I don't know whether it passes through or stops there. There are also new plans for a Humber to Notts hydrogen pipeline. It appears that is for industry. Pity it isn't for refuelling stations.
 
I tried to get my head around that National Grid page, a bit confusing BUT the "Transfers" looks like that means imported from other external feeds (countries) so it would seem that we might be struggling to produce enough "home grown"?
 
I believe that on occasions we only just about produce enough energy to keep the National Grid stable.
It is essential to have exactly enough energy to keep the National Grid stable. Too much is as bad as too little. It's a 3 bears situation, it needs to be just right.
 
It is essential to have exactly enough energy to keep the National Grid stable. Too much is as bad as too little. It's a 3 bears situation, it needs to be just right.
What's porridge got to do with it? 😁

What we need is a few more nuclear power stations to be able to over produce combined with multiple expansive LiOn battery storage facilities for storing the excess and if that still fails in Winter we can all keep warm next to the fires at the battery sites! 👿
 
What we need is a few more nuclear power stations to be able to over produce combined with multiple expansive LiOn battery storage facilities for storing the excess and if that still fails in Winter we can all keep warm next to the fires at the battery sites! 👿
I agree entirely about building more nuclear power stations and that is happening. But it is about 3 decades late, going too slowly, and will probably stop before we've built enough of them. We ought to be generating 30% to 40% with nuclear, more than 3 times what we are now.

I am less convinced by large battery storage. It just doesn't feel like a grid scale solution to me. Pump storage is proven technology and we should be building more of that. There is some expansion happening at Cruachan but it isn't enough.
 
I agree entirely about building more nuclear power stations and that is happening. But it is about 3 decades late, going too slowly, and will probably stop before we've built enough of them. We ought to be generating 30% to 40% with nuclear, more than 3 times what we are now.

I am less convinced by large battery storage. It just doesn't feel like a grid scale solution to me. Pump storage is proven technology and we should be building more of that. There is some expansion happening at Cruachan but it isn't enough.
Well, I am not too far from Hinkley C which I understand is using unproven technology, way behind schedule, and massively over budget, there's a thing!

I remember there are already two other builds using the same technology and the one in France has never worked yet (have not checked recently) and they made the point that it was because the top section on those was constructed piecemeal on site whereas the Hinkley C version was fabricated in one piece and then craned on? Not sure if that proves it is all going to work though?

I must admit I have not checked up on the progress for quite a while and the media coverage is now basically zero - a bit like HS2? Try and bury the mistakes I guess.
 
Well, I am not too far from Hinkley C which I understand is using unproven technology, way behind schedule, and massively over budget, there's a thing!
Every large construction project goes massively over budget, at least partly because the contract is awarded to the lowest bidder not the most realistic bidder.

As for unproven, the problem is no nuclear power stations have been built for decades in Europe. The US ones don't meet UK safety standards, the only US design we ever built at Sizewell B needed lots of design updates to meet our standards in the 1980s. So everything is starting from new. Using the new French design was meant to reduce risk, and Flamanville reached full power in December 2025 so may be past its problems.
 
Flamanville reached full power in December 2025 so may be past its problems.
Oh, I was not aware of that, even though I know it was years behind schedule, so there is hope for Hinkley C then.

UK safety standards - I remember years ago I had occasion to visit and work in several of the Nuclear power stations fault finding commercial laundry machines and before I undertook the relevant induction courses I had to be supervised at all times. Quite often I was left on my own with the equipment having been equipped with the relevant PPE and negotiated the barrier as the supervising person had to "nip off"" to tend to something else - leaving me on my lonesome! In the "high risk" locations I would not actually get hands on with the equipment and merely instructed their mechanics how to proceed! I was even asked several times after major repairs whether we could take the huge drum assembly and bearing unit, from a very large washer, back to our depot for rebuilding!

A colleague of mind had quite a nasty time once when the exit scanners detected some residue under a finger nail - he was not happy.
 
Well, that was a good laugh on the news tonight - a hundred or so driverless taxis in China suffered a "technical hitch" and just stopped in fast moving (for China) crowded traffic!

I wonder if the doors stay locked so the passengers can't jump out, in panic, into live lanes either side - must be a terribly frightening experience?

The wonders (or not) of modern technological achievements!

Meanwhile, the cash strapped US of A is launching another space mission - only costing X Billion $ and the NHS is starting to prescribe a very "expensive" new drug for thousands of people with a BMI over 27 but I can't get a new hip as there is a long waiting list - really?

What was that song - "Mad World" by Gary Giles I think, how apt even now
 
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It's a real shame that bullet missed (not that I usually condone such stuff, but in this case I think it's justified).
 
In a land with so many firearms in the hands of the general public and a reputation for more than it's fair share of deranged psychotic people and random mass murders it beggars belief that the tangerine tw@ is still able to steal oxygen.
 
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