Use Of Electric Posts Exclusively For Charging Electric Boats.

[RS2021]

10 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

I've just re-read the title of this thread, and the answer is simple. Hire yards and private boat yards are the place for this. All other 24 hour moorings are not.

I think the game changer will be very rapid charging. Say full charge 5-10 mins. Then it's as today with diesel. Fill up/charge in a boatyard and then head to the peace and quiet of a wild mooring for the night.

[NeilB]

2 minutes ago, RS2021 said:

I think the game changer will be very rapid charging. Say full charge 5-10 mins. Then it's as today with diesel. Fill up/charge in a boatyard and then head to the peace and quiet of a wild mooring for the night.

Spot on, but as of a couple of years ago the energy companies could not supply power to run a few fast chargers for an electric bus trial in several uk cities.  The answer was a great big diesel genset at each charging station !!

Bit of a shame as I believe the actual bus was a big success, just let down by infrastructure which has a long, long way to go.

[Islander]

So, do you make a rule that E boats can ONLY moor where electric posts are?

I may be wrong but the production of lithium is far from green or environmentally  friendly.

If you want to charge cars and boats with our current level of generation then we need to stop wasting it on unnecessary luxuries. Just have a look round at home and see just how many items sit on standby for hours on end just so we can have instant whatever or use a remote to switch on various items.

Colin 

p.s. What about heating or are these new boats going to be summer days only.

[MauriceMynah]

I'm afraid that reading so far I get the distinct feeling that RealWindmill has taken on board the concept and has abandoned all other possibilities. It happens all the time. I have no doubt that in time, electric propulsion will be the market leader in most fields. Where I think we will have to agree to differ is if that time has arrived. I think not.

Like self driving cars, the technology  is close, very close, but will the self driving car replace all other cars? I think not. but I can't be sure.

[floydraser]

2 minutes ago, Islander said:

 

If you want to charge cars and boats with our current level of generation then we need to stop wasting it on unnecessary luxuries. 

Isn't a boat an unnecessary luxury?

[Islander]

Just now, floydraser said:

Isn't a boat an unnecessary luxury?

No, I live on mine. 

Colin

[RealWindmill]

2 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

I'm afraid that reading so far I get the distinct feeling that RealWindmill has taken on board the concept and has abandoned all other possibilities. It happens all the time. I have no doubt that in time, electric propulsion will be the market leader in most fields. Where I think we will have to agree to differ is if that time has arrived. I think not.

Like self driving cars, the technology  is close, very close, but will the self driving car replace all other cars? I think not. but I can't be sure.

Just want to save the planet for future generations.

During my working life people sometimes asked me what i did. One of my answers was we went to the most beautiful parts of the world and stuck an oil rig into the ground.

It gave me a decent living but yes , in my dotage , i am  quite anti fossil fuels.

[Mouldy]

6 minutes ago, RealWindmill said:

Just want to save the planet for future generations.

During my working life people sometimes asked me what i did. One of my answers was we went to the most beautiful parts of the world and stuck an oil rig into the ground.

It gave me a decent living but yes , in my dotage , i am  quite anti fossil fuels.

Some urgent realisations need to be made here.  There is no quick fix for this and a knee jerk reaction to a given situation rarely works well.  Chucking all our eggs into an electric cure all is not the way forward.  Electric and battery production issues, together with ecologically sound disposal of spent batteries needs to be looked at first otherwise, in years to come, we'll be loading batteries into containers and dumping them into the oceans to get rid of them.

To every action, there is a reaction.

[JennyMorgan]

When I cast off from my mooring I like to think that I am independent of such fripperies as mains electricity! It would be no holiday if I had to spend all day worrying whether or not I would be able to find a vacant power point or not. Thank goodness for wind, tide, pulling power, petrol, paraffin and candles!  

[grendel]

the real issue with electric vehicles is that currently the entire electrical infrastructure is insufficient to charge them, the nearest charging point is about half a mile from my house, we have a max 64A cutout, not enough for vehicle charging, in my estate there are 16 houses fed off a cable that nowadays we would use to feed 1 electric vehicle charge point, each charge point consumes as much electricity as 11 houses (averaging out the consumption through the day and applying diversity a 3 bed house averages 1.2KVA whereas a single charge point is 16kVA).

so at home i cant charge a vehicle, at work we are on an industrial estate that pretty much maxes out the power for the estate, no spare capacity for electric vehicle charging, the nearest charge point is 5 miles away.

so at present i spend 3 hours a day travelling to and from work, 124 miles, at the limit of range of most electric vehicles, cant charge up at home or at work, thus after 1 trip i limp home with a flat battery, or end up spending an extra 2 hours on the road to get some charge into the car.

other than heading for work, i do a few miles round town, but most trips otherwise are over twice as far as work is, thus for me an electric vehicle is not viable- yet.

the electrical infrastructure of the entire country will need to be replaced before we have enough capacity to supply every household with a vehicle charging point, we will need to quadruple the number of power stations (at least) to supply all these charging points.

converting over to electric vehicles is a government stop gap to reducing our carbon footprint. eventually the vehicles will have to be propelled by some other solution, because electric vehicles isnt the solution, we need hydrogen fuel cells that work, hydrogen will be replacing natural gas as a household fuel over the coming decades, they just have to be able to make the systems idiot proof to stop people blowing themselves up, the existing gas pipes can in most part accommodate hydrogen through them. then if we have fuel cells the cars can be gassed up at your fuel station with hydrogen, straight out of the gas mains.

one thing we complain about with diesels is particulates released into the atmosphere, this doesnt really happen as much with the wet exhaust systems on boats, particles are not released into the atmosphere as much, ok they are released into the water, where they disperse and dissolve, in this form they are relatively innocuous compared to someone breathing them.

I would love an electric vehicle, after all I work in the electricity supply industry, twenty years ago I was telling my bosses, that if we wanted electric vehicles we had to start installing charging points everywhere we could, 15 years of building the infrastructure to accommodate electric vehicles were wasted by a lack of foresight on the parts of the energy supply companies, there was a chicken and egg moment that was missed, because it would have required an up front investment in the charging points, then they would have owned those charging points, and gained the income from them.

now its too little too late and we dont have the infrastructure to achieve the desired end.

[Smoggy]

Could an electric car not have a huge array of solar panels on the roof that could be raised to provide propulsion when the wind is in the right direction?

No, scrub that idea!

I've seen what the wind propelled idiots get up to on the broads....

[Timbo]

I'm afraid that where boats are concerned, any pro-environmental points scored with electric propulsion would be eradicated unless your boat is made of biodegradable materials. Every time I see that pink painted plastic yacht they keep dragging to eco-demonstrations in London, I can't help but wonder at the damage that thing is doing to the environment in being towed to and from, not to mention the paint flaking off the thing when it eventually goes to landfill.

[MauriceMynah]

9 hours ago, RealWindmill said:

Just want to save the planet for future generations.

During my working life people sometimes asked me what i did. One of my answers was we went to the most beautiful parts of the world and stuck an oil rig into the ground.

It gave me a decent living but yes , in my dotage , i am  quite anti fossil fuels.

RealWindmill, That first statement is really offensive. the implication being that anybody with a different view is hell bent on destroying the planet.  I for one am not.

I disagree with the generalisation and perception of your second statement. Very few of the places where oil is pumped up are beauty spots and as for your third statement, well it says it all. " i am  quite anti fossil fuels. "  Yes we can tell.

Being anti fossil fuel is futile. Being anti mass fossil fuel usage is far more effective. We have to accept that fossil fuels will be used for at least a couple of generations to come. It is the extent to which they are used which will determine the future of whatever life forms survive if the human doesn't.

Oh and lets be perfectly clear about one thing. Earth is safe. There is no action mankind can do that will destroy Earth. It is Mankind which is in danger, some other species may become extinct, but the Earth is safe. The best thing Mankind can do to improve the Earth is to become extinct ourselves. This is counter productive to "saving the planet for future generations."

Just out of interest I ask... 

We know that renewable energy accounts for a significant amount of the electricity consumed in this country.

What is that percentage and where does the rest come from?

What is that percentage world wide?

What progress is being made world wide for the adoption of electrically propelled vehicles?

I do not say for one moment that our progress should not carry on just because our contribution would be insignificant, far from it. Leading the way is a fine goal to aim for, but I'm not so keen to have zealots in charge of that progress.

[trambo]

Deleted as question answered.

[RS2021]

9 hours ago, NeilB said:

Spot on, but as of a couple of years ago the energy companies could not supply power to run a few fast chargers for an electric bus trial in several uk cities.  The answer was a great big diesel genset at each charging station !!

Bit of a shame as I believe the actual bus was a big success, just let down by infrastructure which has a long, long way to go.

In 2010 there was virtually no photovoltaic (Solar) generation in the UK, in 2017 there was over 13GW which is roughly 3 1/2 times the size of the new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point which is taking years to build. They said it couldn't be connected, but it has been. In the 1950s & 60s electricity consumption was doubling every 10 years and the infrastructure was built to handle it. We then had many decades of slow growth, so those in the electricity sector (and I am one) got used to not building things quickly. If there is a market and the technology is there it can be done and it will happen. However, at present there are limitations to electric propulsion. I agree with Grendal that hydrogen is an alternative, but there are limitations with that at present. Many people are working on both hydrogen propulsion and electric propulsion and one day - it will probable be soon - there will be a game changing break through. Which horse will win (or an outsider sneek up on the rails) I don't know.

[grendel]

the other thing to remember is that the diesel engine was originally designed to run on peanut oil, diesels will run on infinitely renewable vegetable oil, they actually run cleaner on veg oil than they do on fossil fuel, why isnt all of our diesel vegetable, well the oil industry is trying to retain an ever more tenuous  grip on their monopoly, ok modern diesels have been tuned to high grade fossil fuel, but they could as easily be optimised for plain veg oil by the manufacturers.

[MauriceMynah]

10 hours ago, RealWindmill said:

People on horseback probably said the same thing about them new fangelled car things. 

Actually, that's a damned good example as to how it should be done.

There were no government statements saying that horse breeding would be phased out in twenty years. The horse was gradually replaced by the car as and when the cars improved. there were certain applications where the horse was still the better solution for many years after the car was developed. Milk carts and rag & bone men spring to mind.

[grendel]

 

11 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

What is that percentage and where does the rest come from?

https://gridwatch.co.uk/

[grendel]

currently renewables account for 52% of electricity production

 

[grendel]

18 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

What is that percentage world wide?

https://ourworldindata.org/energy

[Cheesey69]

ok now im home from work.

When I deal with EV and hybrid cars at work its with a sense of trepidation and special tools.

Now your not just connecting to a row of batteries to an electric motor, no your going through an inverter that knocks it up to around 600v, the batteries have cooling like a car radiator and unless you know where the main "fuse" is you have to consider the whole effort live.

That's when they go wrong or after a crash.

The whole effort is controlled by some hefty computers.

Retro fitting this to a craft will never be cost effective. Last time I checked, you leased a battery from the maker at about a grand a time.

The last time I looked when training the main battery was made up of about a thousand "AA" cells!

Most EV and hybrids have harvesting of power on braking which extends charge periods but this could be made up through solar panels.

Total Electric boat I dont think would work over the long run due to battery life, a size of craft we generally see on The Broads still weights a fair amount, has high electrical demand.

Plus, our usage patterns are way off for a healthy battery. These batteries don't like very cold weather or very hot weather hence their own cooling system

How far does a liter of diesel go? remember that diesel has much more energy stored in it than the same weight of batteries. 

Hybid is the way to go, either genset or shared electric motor like a sub.

But in effect, you are doubling the complexity and space having two systems.

And you can forget DIY. My lads have laptops supplied by the companies and the software ranges into the high hundreds to buy, the tools have to be classified for high voltage. Nope. not diy.

And you must think about the water mix. These batteries resting can reach 300v DC.

Sailing vessels are prime for this but remember that these cut through water, weigh less and even then are secondary to sail.

Lastly, the first gen of hybrids are getting on a bit. replacement batteries and contrary to belief, electronic components do degrade over time, leading to circuit board replacement on parts that was only made for that car can cost, really cost.    

These cars are being scrapped early. really too early.

We tend to keep our boats for a long time

[RS2021]

8 hours ago, Smoggy said:

Could an electric car not have a huge array of solar panels on the roof that could be raised to provide propulsion when the wind is in the right direction?

No, scrub that idea!

I've seen what the wind propelled idiots get up to on the broads....

https://futurism.com/new-ship-rigid-solar-sails-harnesses-power-sun-wind-same-time

[MaceSwinger]

Recently we saw a thread on what happens to GRP boat hulls at end of life and I can't help but think of similar issues with thr battery arrays needed on EVs. The extraction process for the minerals and metals needed to make batteries is hardly green, and then slapping them into a giant piece of plastic seems a bit odd to me. It was proven conclusively (excuse the lack of a citation here, but I'll dig one out if I need to) that early hybrids were far and away more environmentally damaging than by big, hairy, diesel Jag over their respective lifetimes.

As for the mooring question; that's every bit as daft as a recent suggestion I saw on Faceplant that private boats should get priority on BA moorings over hire boats. Imagine that: busy evening at Ranworth and a conventionally engined cruiser has gone in early to guarantee a spot. Someone sidles up in the electric boat close to sunset and tells the diesel boat to sling their hook. I can say with absolutely certainty the response would only be 2 words comprising 7 letters, 3 of which would be 'F'.

And finally, with regard to being 'ICEd', I travel a hell of a lot, and l know most of the main services between Catterick and Portsmouth very well. I can't think of a single time I've seen an ICE vehicle blocking spaces on a charging point.

I genuinely believe that electric will become the norm on the road, but there is a hell of a long way to go yet. As for boats? An electric day boat I encountered last month had a 9 hour hire and the batteries were down to 25% having only cruised Ranworth to Wroxham. There are cleverer people than me above who have out numbers to the problem, and it spells it out very clearly.

Sorry, but the whole thing whiffs a little bit of smug elitism to me.

Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

[rightsaidfred]

I hate to be a spoil sport but most of this thread is largely irrelevant, at the moment given the shortest cut off date announced for new and the average life span of existing diesel cars they will still be around long after many of us are alive and kicking, multiply that by the average life span of boats and diesel will still be a significant means of propulsion for many decades to come, conversion of existing diesel boats will not be commercially viable in most cases.

With regard to electric cars and the availability of charging options, the part of London I live in has a population in excess of 240,000.00 we have 67 slow and 21 rapid public charging points and a high volume of car ownership often 2 or 3 to a household, somehow the maths don`t really work.

Fred

[grendel]

49 minutes ago, Cheesey69 said:

The last time I looked when training the main battery was made up of about a thousand "AA" cells!

those will be the standard 18650 cells