Electric car thread

[onetrack]

There is no indication, nor can I find any references, to indicate that the CSIRO contracted out research to a consultant on nuclear power generation. The CSIRO did work in tandem with AEMO to produce their GenCost report, which I think was probably a mistake. Its like someone doing a report on the future of car manufacturing and working in tandem with Ford to produce a future plan.

 

The bottom line is, both the CSIRO GenCost report and Duttons Frontier Economics nuclear power report are both flawed, because too many of their figures and estimates are rubbery.

They're rubbery because many of the estimates are just that - in business terms, wild guesses. Dutton insists that Small Modular Reactors are going to be the ducks nuts - when no SMR has even come to fruition yet, and is unlikely to come to fruition, in time to save Australia from a potential energy crisis caused by a lot of politicking, and a serious lack of people in positions of power, who have good foresight.

 

Many of the renewables projections are faulty, with over-estimation of output - especially with wind farms. Much of the estimates are taken up with how many new transmission lines will be needed, an area which increases in cost with nuclear energy, as the power plants are located in one spot and can never be moved, as with coal-fired power stations.

The advantage there with renewables is that they can be located reasonably close to the power user, and more can be built elsewhere as demand rises. They can be easily dismantled, and recycling is easier than with nuclear power.

 

And the bottom line is, nuclear reactors have sizeable community opposition, much more than wind farms and solar farms. They produce nuclear waste, and people are concerned about that nuclear waste. There is lingering concern over potential earthquake damage to a nuclear power plant, there is no area in Australia that is earthquake-free. 

[facthunter]

No details till we are in and it will be funded by taxpayers as private enterprise are not interested.. What DILL would fall for that line of BS? . Nev

[old man emu]

We'd be mugs if we put all our electricity generation eggs in one basket. We should make use of what has proven to be able to produce electricity - solar, wind, gas/coal. Australia is lucky in that it has the open spaces on which to erect solar arrays. More so, in urban areas where most of the electricity is going to be used, there are hectares of roof space. I see the solution as a divide between those two. I'm not overly keen on wind generation, which seems to be overly expensive to set up the generators. Even when commissioned, not all the generators in a unit are working at the same time.

 

The question of transmission lines baffles me. We already have power grids covering a high percentage of users. What prevents the wire carrying the output from a renewable generation site from being connected to an already existing transmission line? 

[facthunter]

They operate when the demand (and wind) are there.  Batteries are the game changers. Buy the EV that can use it's battery to supply peak surges. It  will pay well.  Batteries supply power the quickest way. Nev

[old man emu]

You are correct about batteries being an essential component of the power supply system. Once we conquer the problems currently associated with them (real and imagined) they will greatly reduce the need for other non-renewable generation methods. However, I feel that we should also adopt a belt 'n' braces approach and keep some old style generating system in play for backup.

 

What annoys me about the whole global warming thing is the way protagonists accuse those living in the Southern Hemisphere os being as blameworthy as those in the Northern Hemisphere when southerners do not put anywhere near the actual amount of bad stuff into the atmosphere. 

[facthunter]

NO.. We just sell it. Coal and GAS. WE are right up there.  Mostly OWNED by FOREIGN Companies. Nev
 

[spacesailor]

Recyclable wind generators ! .

None of those. blades are Recyclable  .

They get buried. 

spacesailor

[onetrack]

There are attempts to start recycling of wind turbine blades, but I believe only one U.S. company (Veolia) is doing it at present. Other ways of recycling blades are being thought up, such as cutting them up and re-using the sections for other uses, such as playground equipment. But they sure are a tough recycling issue.

 

https://cen.acs.org/environment/recycling/companies-recycle-wind-turbine-blades/100/i27

 

Edited February 9 by onetrack

[facthunter]

PLASTIC is MORE of a problem. TRUMP is going BACK to plastic straws.  Nev

[old man emu]

4 hours ago, onetrack said:

Other ways of recycling blades are being thought up, such as cutting them up

A while ago I posted somewhere about the boom in the production of balsa. The demand is being created by China which used the balsa for the innards of wind turbine blades. The innards are covered with materials such as carbon fibre, and it is the carbon fibre that makes recycling difficult. I really don't know what they do with the recovered bala. Maybe there should be a revitalisation in the hobby of building flying aeroplane models from balsa.

[facthunter]

Take too long for todays Kids to be bothered..  Nev

[Siso]

And yet the UK are going to build more NPPs.  https://www.gov.uk/government/news/biggest-expansion-of-nuclear-power-for-70-years-to-create-jobs-reduce-bills-and-strengthen-britains-energy-security

[Jerry_Atrick]

So what?

[Marty_d]

1 hour ago, Siso said:

And yet the UK are going to build more NPPs.  https://www.gov.uk/government/news/biggest-expansion-of-nuclear-power-for-70-years-to-create-jobs-reduce-bills-and-strengthen-britains-energy-security

Uk don't have vast quantities of sunlight and lots of room to collect it

[Siso]

They have plenty of offshore wind turbines and is a smaller country so don't need the 1000'a of km of transmission to be built. They are also interconnected to France and Norway, but still want to build their own NPPs

[Jerry_Atrick]

So.. that was a policy launched over a year ago by a different (conservative) government. At the moment they are focusing on SMR technology on existing plants as part of this policy. I don't think there has been any movement  in HALEU. 

 

That notice was flawed the day it was written,by a desperate government looking for a soundbite. there are two HALEU producers in the US and they are used in reactors for medical isotope generation.

 

Instead, the new government is pursuing fusion: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plan-for-change-to-deliver-jobs-and-growth-in-uk-leading-fusion-industry

 

Rather than pursuing dated technology.  I think you will find that original announcement was a non starter from day 1. 

 

Also the UK has an existing nuclear power generation industry and can harness home grown talent and know how. So it won't be starting up a brand new industry. 

[facthunter]

They still have old plant they haven't gotten around to decommissioning yet.  Nev

[Siso]

We could go back to the old saying, fusion has been 20 years away for the last 50 years

[Jerry_Atrick]

Definitely, but there has been progress, and this is the first time I know of a government  actually funding the development of a siter designed to get it over the line for power generation. There's no such thing as a free lunch. I haven't read too much about the engineering challenges of fusion, let alone the physics and chemistry challenges, but there's no such thing as a free lunch. If Fusion provides virtually limitless power off the smell of an oily rag, the cost is embedded somewhere.. and my guess is it will all be in engineering. The extrreme temperatures will either require massive advances in materials science and/or lots of maintenance of the plant.. the heat to manage is in the millions of degrees - and at that magnitude, it is little difference if it is Kelvin or Celcius.

 

So, for now, the question is still should Australia go nuclear or not? There are advantages and disadvantages - that is for sure. It depends on how one sees them. Personally, I would love Australia to go nuclear - I am still in touch with my old contacts and the software likely tp be selected would be what I used to work on; and because it's so specialised, there aren't a lot of people who know it. So, for me, I would have a ready made income stream and then part time consulting well into retirement (like what a people who I know are doing now).

 

But, looking at the economics to the country, it doesn't stack up. Securoty of supply also doesn't stack up. It is far easier to sabotage a few central power stations than a distributed generation network. Conversly, of course, it is harder to protect a distributed generation network than a few central generation stations, but self-sufficiency, even at the industrial level more than compensates that.

 

Others see it differently; that is OK.. I am actually quite happy either way, but if it were my money or I had a fiduciary responsibility with other peoples' money (something governments seem to have lost sight of, if they ever had sight of it), then I would not be going nuclear in Australia. Even the new build my daughter is working on could hardly be called cost-efficient.

 

 

 

 

[octave]

Here is a picture of a modification my son made to his car.  I was amused when he said it had  lost value because of  "heil damage"

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Yes, the internet is awash with similar photos.

 

BTW, although small and probably designed to drive up sales for the auction house, a study has found battery life to be better than claimed, so used BEVs may not be a bad idea, after all. I guess the RACV/Q/NRMA and other state auto clubs could devise as part of their car inspections, a way to measure battery condition (if they haven't already)?: https://www.drive.com.au/news/electric-car-batteries-lasting-longer-than-expected-according-to-new-study/

 

[Marty_d]

9 minutes ago, octave said:

Here is a picture of a modification my son made to his car.  I was amused when he said it had  lost value because of  "heil damage"

 

Lot of those about.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/275656132532?srsltid=AfmBOoqHDHc0nFD15n1e-fO0mETuvnhDZloW4qjF2wqX_DEn3P3u_W45

[octave]

Yep.  We are going to visit him in a few weeks (in NZ) and he always lends us a car. I am thinking this time I take the other car. 

[kgwilson]

CATL are now providing between 1 & 2 million km warranties on their EV batteries. The chemistry and longevity is improving all the time and solid state batteries will be available for some Chinese EVs before the end of this year. The MG4 I bought now has a 10 year 250,000 km warranty on both car & battery. In China the MG4 called the Mulan has a lifetime warranty on the battery transferable to new owners. 

 

Honda & Toyota have been promising solid state batteries for over 5 years but have not been able to crack the technology while CATL the worlds largest battery manufacturer said nothing & quietly achieved it.

 

There is still a lot of misinformation and disinformation about EV batteries supported by fossil fuel companies & the right wing press though they are slowly losing any credibility they had.

 

While Teslas are great cars I'm glad I didn't buy one purely because of madman Musk who now looks to be a malignant narcissist like his orange mate.

Edited February 11 by kgwilson