Electric Boat Charging

[rightsaidfred]

Another problem with all electric boats is the supply of hot water which would require an additional power source, battery technology and charging points are not the only issues here.

Fred 

[JennyMorgan]

3 hours ago, Jonzo said:

The reason that all the car manufacturers have given up on Hydrogen Fuel Cells (and they have) is that a filling station costs between £500K and £5M to install. There are 8,500 filling stations in the UK. That's a lot of money. And you've still got to have tankers.

Daimler (Mercedes 'group' if you like) has just put £500M into batteries, and between them BMW, Ford, Daimler and VW Group are building a charging network with a common connector and up to 350KW charging. I don't believe they're doing that in the belief that electric isn't going to take off.

I doubt very much that said companies are doing it for anything other than their bank balances!

[ChrisB]

If someone had said to me twenty years ago that the car that I would most like to own would be electric, I would have laughed at them.

Yes, the car I would buy if my ship came in would be the top of the range Tesla Model X with the 100kWh spec. A full £30K cheaper than the 550hp Range Rover. And faster, just.

[MauriceMynah]

50 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

If someone had said to me twenty years ago that the car that I would most like to own would be electric, I would have laughed at them.

If 30 years ago anyone had said to you that Diesel cars would be common place, you would have laughed at them too.

Back in the early 80s there were very few diesel cars about, few garages sold derv to anybody but lorry drivers. Look at it now!  Who was the driving force behind that change?

Don't get me wrong I am not against the idea of electric boats/cars WHEN WE HAVE THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY. and that aint yet!

[WherryNice]

Ah, there is/was a centre cockpit Elysian moored up at Dilham which says something about it being electric powered on the transom, in a sorry state now though, wondered if you had resurrected her thats all

Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

[rightsaidfred]

Electric cars will need to become a lot cheaper and have a far greater range something in excess of 250 miles before I consider one, meantime back to topic where will all the charging points be between Yarmouth and Scandinavia or the Continent or dare I say it the Med.

Fred

[LondonRascal]

I am not for saving the planet, frankly I think we (as a civilization) have missed the boat already and all we have any hope of now is to try and slow down the inevitable.

I am however for things that help reduce local generated pollution but I am by no means a 'tree loving environmentalist' far from it but I do like the idea that modern technology means a power system on a boat minus the need for a generator to annoy my local neighbors moored up with noise and fumes.

Electric cars have come a long way in a short space of time and how many people honestly hand on heart drive more than 200 miles in 24hrs? Sure some do and many more will like the freedom to do a 300 mile trip in one hit but for most of the time and for most people a car that drives and 'feels' like their typical 4 cylinder run-about will do just fine - the issue is cost. It is all very well stating how much the car might save you in tax and insurance and running costs but that is all added up over the average lifetime of ownership and people want things far more quickly.

Just as this has jumped forward the debate and push for more electric cars so we can take this into consideration about boats and power.  You might like to read this paper The future of automotive lithium-ion battery recycling: Charting a sustainable course but this is a lot of the issue to - lots of studies and counter studies into every aspect of this sort of thing and who is right and what is best but frankly, the average Joe will not give much of a damn. If we did we would care more about where things comes from and how they are produced but we don't, we just like the end price.

You can now buy disposable lithium batteries in a package to re-charge a dead phone. Single use, charge the phone and throw away the battery - despite the fact the battery could be used many hundreds of times over it has now got to the price point where these small batteries are now seen as disposable. Then there are the many power banks now available for £1.00 in Poundland and Poundworld. Do you really think people will stop and think about how the chemicals used in these affected those community's who minded them? Of the labor that went into their production in a factory in a Chinese province on tiny wages? No of course not, it just is a cheap way to extend their phones battery and stay on Facebook longer.

So once you get over the larger picture and environmental issues and accept things as being  basically screwed whatever you do, then I say go and embrace this sort of technology on the basis of convenience and life feels a whole lot better.

[PastorsDayOff]

There is a greener solution to all this. What you do is put a big stick in the middle of your boat, from which you hang some big bits of cloth, and the same wind that is used to drive these wind farms that charge all these batteries can drive your boat instead. Cut out the infrastructure altogether. Could catch on! 

[Malanka]

Sorry for the extra R. 

 

Sorry rascal I don't accept your inevitable conclusion. Many people underestimate the ingenuity of the human species. I am not one of them.  Supply demand and the human spirit have taken us from tallow lamps to tesla vehicles in not very long.

Catastrophy predicting models don't frighten me they give me opportunities. I'm sorry you don't feel the same.  

When you give up hope you have already admitted  defeat. Remind me to play poker with you sometime.

you and I don't share the same view of the world but then I grew up under the shadow of nuclear annihilation and believe me if fealt real. If you chose to investigate go read a book entitled beneath the city streets. 

My locale was scheduled for 80% casualties and my uncle had a nuclear ticker in his home so it was very real. 

I have three fully empowered children gifted enough to make a real difference in the world. Our society as you describe us is not over by a long way and nothing is inevitable , I really don't know how anyone thinks like that  I really don't.

M 

 

 

[LondonRascal]

It is fine Martin, and you'd need to teach me how Poker is played to begin as I can never get my head around it

We are doing a great deal nationally and locally in this country along with many others in Europe and and I am not saying it does not help overall - it does . Further, it inspires others to do more especially a generation of people who will int he next few years be heading out to work themselves and able to continue contributing to a more sustainable future of themselves and their children. but while we are trying to do more to pollute less, I don't see the same really happening in India, Russia and China or even my area of north London where recycling bins have all but been given up upon because so many residents just don't care and use them as they should be.

This is why my way of thinking comes about, and because there are many many people like me it means those in power or those with the  positive drive to make change need to do a lot to convince me to. I am not predicating the world will end in a fire ball neither am I saying that a lithium batteries will be our downfall. No, it is far more simple: I am frankly to lazy to think too deeply into it all so take the 'what will happen will happen' approach.

[Malanka]

Hi Robin

 

That's a very good idea and actually very close to my own motivation too. One of the issues is precisely as you describe it. China India, Indonesia, Brasil,  all building coal stations (in the case of China commissioning one per week) and going hell for leather for industrialisation and expecting the developed world to help pay for it. I thought that's what the sale of goods and services did, it paid for our industrialisation, now we are expected to pay twice. Doesn't add up to me.

I was also pointing out that someone's idea of green is another persons, thousands of miles away and hidden, nighmare of exploitation if they (the manipulators) can get away with it. OK hundreds of years ago the manipulators were us (uk and Europe) but now we are just to sit back and let it happen again? We have two hybrid cars and finding out where some of the materials came from made me feel very sick. Windfarms use the same materials also by the way.

We only have to look at our beautiful Broads to see what reducing pollution can achieve. Cormorants and Heron used to be a very rare thing in the seventies, now they are tuppence a bucket as my Dad would have said. That's also a lesson in things can change too. My son has been in India for the past two months and I can't wait to hear of his work adventures (he was working there). I have been myself but quite a few years ago now (2005), even then it was going ballistic with development all over the place and now boasts the most expensive house (Mumbai) in the world and a population of over 50-75 million that earn above the EU average. The number in China with the same is over 100 million.  

 

Things can change and the curve for life expectancy shows just how far some have come in a tenth of the time it took us to achieve the same things. Mainly because we invented a lot of stuff they now use routinely but the points the same. I can't wait for that more equal world and I hope I live long enough to experience it.

With regards to Poker I am more of a bridge man myself, and yes I possess slippers too. No pipe though..

M  

[LondonRascal]

As ever Martin, you make for fascinating, factual reading and leave me enlightened. There has however always been something in me that wanted to have a pipe - wing back armchair the whole nine yards but then recently I found you can buy 'Electronic Pipes' nothing is sacred these days, there is always somebody thinking of a way to make it techy.

 

[Malanka]

Hi Robin,

Thank you for the compliment I really appreciate it. In my job I get to sit and read, then read some more , read again, then every now and again make a decision, do some planning, adjust a budget or two, then go back to the reading. So my days consist of constant learning and reading about many things (I can't just read medical papers all day I would expire from boredom). The figures I gave for India and China are actually very conservative and in fact both countries have populations larger than the one in the EU that earns above average EU wages. The numbers come from my ex-company (so are out of date now by a big margin but are the only ones I knew of) and of course are for market penetration and sales purposes.

 

I was also very lucky to spend 6 years at Uni (almost as much time as Timbo the nun) so I have a diverse range of interests which my work allows me to indulge to some degree. I still lecture on the european circuit in a field I am no longer active in, mainly because with some colleagues we published best practice papers for the industry to follow. Vienna in 6 weeks is the next venue so I must crack on and write the presentation...OOOps.   After Vienna is floating time again...

[TheQ]

did someone mention electronic pipes?