Electric Boat Charging

[High6]

a few years back I read up on some smaller nuclear generation, it used molten salt as the coolant, and was set up so that if an emergency shutdown was needed it dumped the molten salt into a hopper, where the radiation was contained within the now solid salt.
Not heard of any progress on those recently. They were good because they only had a small size and output, so they could be sited closer to the place they supplied, thus reducing the losses in the network..

Possibly even more interesting, though further off, are small-scale or modular reactors (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/24/mini_nuclear_reactors_for_british_power/) not dissimilar to those used in submarines. Planned for district power and heat, built on an assembly line and shipped on the back of a lorry.

Maybe one day for Broad Ambition?

Doug

[ranworthbreeze]

1 hour ago, LondonRascal said:

What I think we should explore more is tidal and wave power generation because it is predictable and constant unlike wind or sunshine.

I am totally with you regarding wave power solutions and make more of hydro electric systems on lakes & loch's.

Regards

Alan

[marshman]

Evening Rascal - thats a great website link for saddos - even I have bookmarked it!!!!!!!!!

[JennyMorgan]

Us boaters have had the answer for years!

[grendel]

21 minutes ago, marshman said:

Evening Rascal - thats a great website link for saddos - even I have bookmarked it!!!!!!!!!

its been bookmarked and passed around the office - but then we are all in the electricity supply business

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

Us boaters have had the answer for years!

Yep the power of steam , beautiful traditional , sound great and look wonderful , what's not to like 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, High6 said:

Possibly even more interesting, though further off, are small-scale or modular reactors (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/24/mini_nuclear_reactors_for_british_power/) not dissimilar to those used in submarines. Planned for district power and heat, built on an assembly line and shipped on the back of a lorry.

Maybe one day for Broad Ambition?

Doug
 

, please not  that god forbid the last thing the broads needs is nuclear reactor's on boats regardless of the boat !! 

[grendel]

6 minutes ago, Ricardo said:

Yep the power of steam , beautiful traditional , sound great and look wonderful , what's not to like 

I know someone who made a model of that one. I would absolutely love one of those Peter, even though I would probably need to tow a barge of coal around, finding one I could afford on the other hand....

[JennyMorgan]

45 minutes ago, grendel said:

I know someone who made a model of that one. I would absolutely love one of those Peter, even though I would probably need to tow a barge of coal around, finding one I could afford on the other hand....

Perhaps the BA should install coaling points at all of their moorings?

[marshman]

PW - now you're talking!! And with a boat like that you could "bare away" with impunity as you would be very important!!! But would that alone spare you from prosecution for a lewd act, even if you had had one or two over the top? Indeed would the police even bother to chase you or call the lifeboat out, given that the police would have to doff their caps to one of such seniority!  ( Please note the clever inerlinking of various topics to confuse everyone, just in case the Mods notice! )

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

Perhaps the BA should install coaling points at all of their moorings?

What a cracking idea , especially for those who realised a very long time ago that diesel fired heating systems are both expensive to maintain and run n not the most reliable method know to man , sure gas fired ones  work if you like lifting gas bottles about , you get nothing for free but steam launches ain't exactly cold and in winter that pretty much s bonus  

[Guest]

Just now, marshman said:

PW - now you're talking!! And with a boat like that you could "bare away" with impunity as you would be very important!!! But would that alone spare you from prosecution for a lewd act, even if you had had one or two over the top? Indeed would the police even bother to chase you or call the lifeboat out, given that the police would have to doff their caps to one of such seniority!  ( Please note the clever inerlinking of various topics to confuse everyone, just in case the Mods notice! )

Not a mod by I noticed  take more than that to confuse me 

[High6]

Is this the look for boats in the future?

https://www.victronenergy.com/blog/2017/08/26/dethleffs-electric-drive-motorhome-with-victron-onboard/

Doug

[Hockham Admiral]

A fascinating read, Doug, thanks.    

[LondonRascal]

I have been watching this chap in the US convert a coach to a luxury motor home - it is taking him so long and costing so much but my the results are nice. This is what a $50,000+ Victron Lithium 24vDC set up looks like.

 

[Malanka]

Anyone who wants to believe battery based electric anything is even remotely green has been sniffing way to much of the bar maids apron . Where do the rare earth metals that are essential for the lovely lithium batteries ( not the lithium itself) and electric motors come from. Where does the copper come from, where does the aluminum come from, where does the glass fibre resin come from, where does the glass fibre come from ? With regard to the metals it's actually from a Chinese Brokerage company via the DRC where little boys dig it out of the ground for not much at eight years old. 

It may at the user end upset the environment less than other forms of locomotion. What goes into getting it there is a fair trade scandal of huge proportions that is only just now being discussed . 

Put it this way,  Rare Earth Metal mining was banned in the USA as being way too toxic to the environment. Doh! You can't make this stuff up. 

[TheQ]

This is the system my Elysian is roughly based on. http://worcesternb.blogspot.co.uk/

My boat is unlikely to go to Lithium batteries I don't think there is a need for lithiums on a motorboat, hiding conventional batteries with their size/weight on a motor boat, is not a problem.

At the moment I use  conventional lead acid traction batteries. I'd probably go for advanced Glass mat, Odyssey batteries if I were to change at the moment. http://www.odysseybattery.com/

To My knowledge my Elysian was not moored at Dilham, I bought it about 16 years ago from NYA Horning and it's remained in Horning for Mooring ever since.

[rightsaidfred]

 

[High6]

Anyone who wants to believe battery based electric anything is even remotely green has been sniffing way to much of the bar maids apron . Where do the rare earth metals that are essential for the lovely lithium batteries ( not the lithium itself) and electric motors come from. Where does the copper come from, where does the aluminum come from, where does the glass fibre resin come from, where does the glass fibre come from ? With regard to the metals it's actually from a Chinese Brokerage company via the DRC where little boys dig it out of the ground for not much at eight years old. 
It may at the user end upset the environment less than other forms of locomotion. What goes into getting it there is a fair trade scandal of huge proportions that is only just now being discussed . 
Put it this way,  Rare Earth Metal mining was banned in the USA as being way too toxic to the environment. Doh! You can't make this stuff up. 

Totally agree, but typically our Government is seemingly putting our hard-earned into experimental extraction of lithium from rising steam from hot rocks in Cornwall. Could be a problem with disposal of the rocking horse s***t.

[Malanka]

Presumably powered by fairy dust fed Unicorn farts too.

 

Simply ask the political numpties to do the enegery in energy out equations .... errrmmm wot dat den ???

Two Scientist / Engineers in the whole of the lower house.

 

Graham Stringer being the best of them.

[Malanka]

On ‎25‎.‎08‎.‎2017 at 11:35, LondonRascal said:

To be honest, it does annoy me when with this ongoing view that electric cars are somehow no better off overall to run for the environment than traditionally powered cars be them fueled by petrol, diesel or even bio-fuels.

Some will tell you that electric cars have higher emissions when they are built than a ‘normal car’ production line. Then they will say that electric cars also use electricity that has its own carbon footprint and pollution and when you put these two together these factors are somehow something of a hidden secret that people like Tesla would rather hush because if it was really known it would negate any climate benefit of electric cars.

Rubbish.

One of the most irritating things when discussing electric car emissions is the way it’s always very black and white.  In one corner you have the ‘zero emissions’ brigade and in the other the ‘worse than combustion engine’ people. But real life comes in shades of grey. Yes making an electric car has a bigger footprint so far as emissions go it is all about the fuel mix of the power you use.

Using coal powered electricity electric cars do nothing to cut emissions, using natural gas electricity they’re like a top hybrid and using low carbon power they result in less than half the total emissions of the best combustion car - manufacturing included.

You can find a wealth of details online about how manufacturing in different countries use different amounts of power – India and China are awful places to have stuff made because the power that runs their factories is coal based.  This means building an electric car there has a bigger impact than one built in the likes of France who has a big nuclear powered grid.

Now from where  I am in London and being told how bad the air pollution is on a local level borough by borough worries me and is very much on my doorstep. Yet out in sunny Hertfordshire they have things better so increasingly it is not just about what emissions are made on a countrywide scale but on a local scale and that is where zero emission cars (and even now single and double decker buses in London) make a big difference to the locality even if their 'juice' was generate by burning coal which on a larger countrywide scale added more emissions to the atmosphere.

Electric cars are relatively new at a commercial scale at least, and are dealing with issues of cost, range and charging speed. Despite this they offer real hope for reducing carbon emissions and improving local air quality and limiting noise too. Electric cars are far from perfect (and I don’t just mean in terms of range - having sat in a Tesla Model S, their build quality is not quite up with a large car company) and I agree  there are plenty of valid ways to have a dig at electric cars generally.  But let’s not pretend that a petrol or diesel car can compete with an electric car in terms of emissions.  It’s just not a contest.

Give an electric car the right sort of power generated in the right sort of way and it crushes combustion engines completely. This sort of thing is happening, over and over with farmers now turning not to harvesting Wheat but power with acres of solar panels.  We have more wind farms than ever and so slowly but surely we are moving towards a more sustainable way to generate power.

Talking of which this cleaver website shows the status in real time of the UK National Grid and how much and where the power is coming from: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Hi Rascal, you are almost fully correct. Electirc cars (the model studied was a tesla) will save carbon dioxide, many studies have been done to illustrate the point. They are all scientifically based with the correct null hypothesis and results statistically valid at a reasonable 95 % confidence interval.

The issue particularly in the US where the governments, both state (particularly CA) and federal, subsidises the manufacture / sale of every vehicle so in effect this subsidy is equivalent to the cost of the carbon being saved. The study was done in the US where the cost of electricity is many pounds per KwH lower than ours (yours, we have tons of hydro here) and generated with less Carbon dioxide emmissions too.

In the US the agreement is to subsidise the manufacture of the first  80,000 electic cars from every manufacturer. Tesla now has sold over 70,000 vehicles so they in deep doo doo quite soon. California has said they will pick up the subsidy when the fed withdraws theirs, I'm not sure my tax paying colleagues in Sorrento Valley will like that idea.

Bjorn Lomborg a well known guy in the field calculated the tons of carbon saved vs a gas (not diesel) powered SUV of the type so prevalent in the US car sales figures. This is all good and very nice, the issue is that the current price of a ton of carbon is less than 50 dollars US, an offset for which you can trade internationally. The current subsidy to the company via the user from the Gov is around 10,000 dollars US per car. So the carbon saved effectively costs 10,000 dollars. The real kicker is over the lifecycle of the vehicle, including the scrappage and disposal costs the total ammount of carbon saved is a very modest 1.0 ton.

If this was every car in the world that's a huge and quite effective reduction. However 50 dollars vs 10,000 dollars. It works, yes very true but it's a damn expensive way to make a point about electric cars when alternatives such as Hydrogen fuel cells require less subsidy than that, and have a much bigger carbon lifetime saving than electric ones. From my perspective I want to save but not at any cost when alternatives are clearly available right now. I really don't understand why we don't invest in reseach into hydrogen based fuels rather than carbon based fuels, all the H but none or very little of the C. All I can think of is that as you put it the source of the electricitty is everything which is very true but if we all drive hydrogen powered cars and the generation of the hydrogen is centralised rather than plug in down the road then reliable consistent 24/7 sources of electricity are required. Renewables are great but require backup and reliable currently less so. 

I spoke about scandals earlier I know with your mind you love to dig and discover, have a look at STORR (Government emergency back up electricity generation plans and sources) and post what you think of what you find. I was appalled. No sense from Government but hey should I have been surprised.

By the way, the Pay Pal idea guy (Ellon Musk) his companies are currrently into the US taxpayer for subsidies (wait for it) of over 6.0 BILLION  dollars. Never turned a profit in his life from a manufacturing enterprise and won't yet reveal the costs / losses from his Space X adventure. Some private investors are in for a shocking wake up. I'm glad I passed on that one.

[grendel]

Malenka, do you have any links for STORR, none of my searches so far has borne fruit (either that or its all hidden well away from view in plain sight).

[grendel]

Its STOR, not STORR, so I have found out what they are up to -

We have wind farms, we have solar farms (fields full of solar panels) and now we have diesel generator farms, I can see what you mean Malenka. they say they cannot block these from STOR as they are a valid solution falling within the terms of the process, surely they could add a line about acceptable emissions.

[grendel]

I would still be very wary about using lithium batteries on a boat, lithium and water are a bad mix.

give me simple lead acid technology any day, a boat can replace some of the ballast for banks of lead acid batteries - well known and simple technology compared to the problems you can get from lithium.

that and the carbon footprint for lead acid is better, and if your battery should be immersed, then at worst you will get diluted acid in the water, not flaming gobs of lithium.

the lithium may be the slower of the reactions (Lithium, sodium, pottassium) but still gets there eventually

[rightsaidfred]

Apart from all the different battery technologies etc there is one element in electric car charging unavailable to boats, regenerative braking.

Fred