Taxis should all be electric cars

Stupido

They can do it in New York.....why not here?

Government subvention could help (Green Party Policy) with dedicated 'recharging stations' around the city. This would allow a critical mass of electric cars on the road to make the recharging stations commercially viable, and encourage private car users to switch. Power could also be obtained from green energy.

Would reduce emmissions by 20,000 cars a day. Also stop the drivers moaning about cost of fuel, as the energy could be regulated.

Buses can be next.


Thoughts?

veryangryman

Best idea ive heard in years

Stupido, your have risen above your name

Definitely viable in the city. But you know that Dublin wont do anything until London or another big English city does it

We are a nation of copycats. Now, im off to watch the Apprentice :pac:

smog

veryangryman wrote: »

Best idea ive heard in years

Stupido, your have risen above your name

Definitely viable in the city. But you know that Dublin wont do anything until London or another big English city does it

We are a nation of copycats. Now, im off to watch the Apprentice :pac:

Smoking bans ... plastic bag levy ??? I dont think so ...

Good idea. considering most cars on the road in Dublin city are taxis during unsocialable hours

paulm17781

smog wrote: »

Smoking bans ... plastic bag levy ??? I dont think so ...

New york (and probably other parts of America) had the smoking ban before us. France definitely had the plastic bag levy before us. - I like both of these but we were not the fist to introduce them.

L1011

We generate our electricity from fossil fuels for the most part so this would be of zero benefit. The Greens are never going to concede to nuclear...

blahblah06

should have put a cap on licences and there wouldnt be 20,000 carsin the city.

or why not make every car electric in ireland that will cut emmisions completely

paulm17781

MYOB wrote: »

We generate our electricity from fossil fuels for the most part so this would be of zero benefit. The Greens are never going to concede to nuclear...

I used to think this. The most inefficient part of a motor is starting and accelerating, this is where most fuel is burned, with electric this is far more efficient (same with trains).

That said, I wish they would do more with renewable energy, an electric card grid from green energy would be ideal.

Outkast_IRE

Or at least hybirds until a better solution , They are perfect for hybrids around city centers etc.

edanto

MYOB wrote: »

We generate our electricity from fossil fuels for the most part so this would be of zero benefit. The Greens are never going to concede to nuclear...

It's FAR more resource efficient to generate electricity at a power station and then use that to power cars instead of oil.

It's all about the electric cars!

L1011

Are any of you taking transmission losses in to account? As well as the losses incurred with fast charging and other problems. I seriously doubt the difference in efficiency can be described as 'far', if it is not actually negative.

edanto

I admit I'm just repeating something that someone credible told me, as opposed to having a detailed appreciation of the overall system, energy losses etc.

However, as much as you have pointed out transmission losses with grid electricity, I would have to point out the carbon cost of extracting, processing and transporting car-fuel to the point of purchase, on top of the actual emissions.

bk

The problem with this is the vast majority of power in Ireland is generated by dirty coal burning power plants (with some nicer gas fired plants).

Saying things like:

Power could also be obtained from green energy.

is a cheap platitude, what exactly is "green energy", where exactly do we get it?

When you look at the details of so called "green energy" you soon realise that most are completely inadequate and are simply a way for some business people to get rich.

If we had lots of Nuclear power like France (over 80% of all power generated by Nuclear) then it is a good idea, but we seriously need to sort how we generate power before we start looking at very expensive and largely pointless initiatives like this.

BTW it is worth noting that New York gets much of it's power from Nuclear plants, so it makes sense for them.

waraf

blahblah06 wrote: »

should have put a cap on licences and there wouldnt be 20,000 carsin the city.

Yes we really should regulate the taxi industry

Victor

Cue 3:32am Sunday morning all the taxis run out of electricity as they've all been on the go for hours.

dowlingm

Stupido wrote: »

They can do it in New York...

erm... let me stop you there
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/judge-blocks-hybrid-taxi-requirement/

MYOB

MYOB wrote: »

Are any of you taking transmission losses in to account? As well as the losses incurred with fast charging and other problems. I seriously doubt the difference in efficiency can be described as 'far', if it is not actually negative.

Transmission losses will always be an issue, fast charge losses could be mittigated by having a large battery at the charging station that is continually being "trickle charged" at a reasonable current.

As we allknow the real problem with electricity is the generation in the first place.

bushy...

I reckon charging (a large number of centrally controlled ) batteries would be ideal with nuclear power . Reactors would nice n happy looking after a steadyish load. Would beat having to increase/reduce power output of other stations to keep the reactors at a steady pace.

Capt'n Midnight

electric cars would mean an end to 1995 corollas

if we move to more renewables then the taxis will be greener

taxi in the city centre is start stop so electric good, but for trips to the airport and longer runs would electric be good / fast enough ?

Petrol Hybrids are a waste of time as the resources needed to make the car outweigh the savings compared to a diesel. A diesel hybrid on the other hand would be interesting especially when you take into account that diesels work most efficiently at constant load so you would run them at an optimal charging rate.

lostexpectation

MYOB wrote: »

We generate our electricity from fossil fuels for the most part so this would be of zero benefit.

its as much about getting fumes (and noise) out of city centers as it about reducing all over pollution

Capt'n Midnight

How do you know if and electric car is a taxi ?

You can still hear the whining after the engine is turned off.

thebman

lostexpectation wrote: »

its as much about getting fumes (and noise) out of city centers as it about reducing all over pollution

Agreed and noise pollution. Dublin is a very noisy city (and ranked as such if I remember correctly).

I agree with nuclear power but try to get it built FFS

bk

bushy... wrote: »

I reckon charging (a large number of centrally controlled ) batteries would be ideal with nuclear power . Reactors would nice n happy looking after a steadyish load. Would beat having to increase/reduce power output of other stations to keep the reactors at a steady pace.

Batteries like that simply don't exist at the scale of power plants and they are terrible for the environment (lots of nasty chemicals involved).

The ideal is to use Nuclear for your base load generation (the steady power that is always required), which typically is roughly 80% of the max required.
Then you use hydro (dams, etc.) for your very fast spine up generation (hydro basically work like a battery) and a little gas for medium spine up. Also use a little wind and solar to keep people happy and sell to the UK.

In the longterm, the ideal solution is to use Nuclear (eventually fusion) to produce hydrogen to be used in hydrogen powered cars.

paulm17781

bk wrote: »

In the longterm, the ideal solution is to use Nuclear (eventually fusion) to produce hydrogen to be used in hydrogen powered cars.

I'd disagree, hydrogen is being led by oil companies, to keep their revenues up. I don't think it's really a solution.

Here's a question, please let me know if I'm wrong. If we're going to be using hydrogen powered cars, is this going to water shortages? All that hydrogen has to come from somewhere? If you have some useful info for me to read, please post.

Terrontress

Surely it isn't feasible for taxis to be wholly electric. They are already complaining about lack of rank space as it is. Can you imagine the complaints if they couldn't get in to a charging rank!

Maybe if they had a taxi charging station somewhere that they sell breakfast rolls instead of on the rank they might do better.

petergfiffin

Looking at rough figures your average (if not best) electric car can go 160km before having to refuel. A Toyota Avensis Diesel (pretty average taxi) has a range of 1200km (5 l/km * 60l tank). This means your electric taxi driver will have stopped 7 times before your diesel counterpart has to do his first topup, I don't know how long these electric cars take to charge but if it's 30 mins you've lost nearly half a day's potential earnings out of your working week. I know these are very rough figures but you get the idea.

Stupido wrote: »

They can do it in New York.....why not here?

Taxis in NY are run by a smaller number of very large companies, in Ireland you would have to engage with either the union or individual taxi drivers (good luck on both counts!!)

Stupido wrote: »

Government subvention could help (Green Party Policy) with dedicated 'recharging stations' around the city. This would allow a critical mass of electric cars on the road to make the recharging stations commercially viable, and encourage private car users to switch.

Where will this money come from? Who will operate them and profit from them? Will we offer incentives to take the existing taxis off the road??

Stupido wrote: »

Power could also be obtained from green energy.

Yes, it could be but for probably the next 10-15 years it won't be given our performance to date

Stupido wrote: »

Would reduce emmissions by 20,000 cars a day.

This has to be offset against the extra electricity which has to be generated which as many have pointed out will be generated in fossil fuel powered stations.

Stupido wrote: »

Also stop the drivers moaning about cost of fuel, as the energy could be regulated.

Given the way energy has been regulated in this country they will (rightly) just be complaining about the price of electricity instead of petrol

Capt'n Midnight

bk wrote: »

Batteries like that simply don't exist at the scale of power plants

Pumped storage like Turlough Hill

Pumped storage with compressed air, but to get maximum benefit you use the air in a jet engine rather than a passive turbine.

Fuel cells can also be used to store electricity but too costly to do on such a scale. Not sure if it's energitically worth while storing hydrogen in caverns or old oil/gas wells for use in natural gas, you would not use it to generate electricity but rather to reduce imports of fuel.

KevR

bk wrote: »

In the longterm, the ideal solution is to use Nuclear (eventually fusion) to produce hydrogen to be used in hydrogen powered cars.

paulm17781 wrote: »

I'd disagree, hydrogen is being led by oil companies, to keep their revenues up. I don't think it's really a solution.

Here's a question, please let me know if I'm wrong. If we're going to be using hydrogen powered cars, is this going to water shortages? All that hydrogen has to come from somewhere? If you have some useful info for me to read, please post.

If oil companies are leading this research then they must think there's money to be made from it in the future; and if they think it, they're probably right.

I thought I saw something on tv a while back that the only emissions from hydrogen cars would be water vapour - meaning water used in hydrogen production wouldn't be lost, it would return to the atmosphere. I could be totally wrong with that though and am more than happy to be corrected.

I wonder if it's possible to manufacture hydrogen from sea/salt water. Would be much better if it was possible. Better to use sea water and leave our fresh water in rivers and lakes.

The ideal solution in my opinion would be to produce hydrogen from nuclear, wind, wave, hydroelectric, solar (not really Ireland as such) electricity. It's no good producing it with electricity from coal, oil and even gas power plants.

bk

paulm17781 wrote: »

Here's a question, please let me know if I'm wrong. If we're going to be using hydrogen powered cars, is this going to water shortages? All that hydrogen has to come from somewhere? If you have some useful info for me to read, please post.

Hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the Universe. On earth it is rarely found on it's own, but can be found as part of water (H20). It can be extracted from water using just electricity. And yes it can be extracted from salt water (sea water) so it is pretty damn abundant. Also water is the product of the end of the process, so very little water is actually lost.

You are right, oil companies are interested in it as it requires the continued use of petrol stations (converted to hydrogen) and much of the oil industries infrastructure, versus electric batteries, which don't need the oil industry.

However electric batteries have their own disadvantages (short mileage and long recharge times) so the ideal is a hybrid electric/hydrogen vehicles. Basically use the battery first and then switch to hydrogen store when the battery runs low.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Pumped storage like Turlough Hill

Pumped storage with compressed air, but to get maximum benefit you use the air in a jet engine rather than a passive turbine.

Yes Turlough Hill is very impressive, but not particularly useful on a large scale. I read an interesting report done in the UK, that looked at what would happen if they tried switching to 100% wind power, with pumped storage as a battery. They found that you would need to cover every green field in the UK with wind turbines, plus flood something like 4 counties in order to meets the UK's power needs, not very realistic unfortunately.

Heroditas

bk wrote: »

The problem with this is the vast majority of power in Ireland is generated by dirty coal burning power plants (with some nicer gas fired plants).

The vast majority of electricity in Ireland is produced by gas ... then coal ... then oil.

Capt'n Midnight

bk wrote:

Yes Turlough Hill is very impressive, but not particularly useful on a large scale. I read an interesting report done in the UK, that looked at what would happen if they tried switching to 100% wind power, with pumped storage as a battery. They found that you would need to cover every green field in the UK with wind turbines, plus flood something like 4 counties in order to meets the UK's power needs, not very realistic unfortunately.

Then again our whole country only uses as much electricity as Birmingham so a huge difference.

and 100% wind power would be madness

And we have plenty of scope for wave power
tidal turbines are good since we have some of the highest tides in the west and a double tide along the east
we could also use coppicing to fuel regional turf type stations
and we could use the interconnector to store electricity , just like the UK do with french electricity for the kettles after corrie.

In fact with our wet climate we could make a small industry of growing biomass, and turning it into charcoal, the gases being used for electrity or fossil fuel or pharma or what have you and the charcoal being buried so we can sell carbon credits

BendiBus

bk wrote: »

I read an interesting report done in the UK, that looked at what would happen if they tried switching to 100% wind power, with pumped storage as a battery. They found that you would need to cover every green field in the UK with wind turbines, plus flood something like 4 counties in order to meets the UK's power needs, not very realistic unfortunately.

Who were they? And nobody anywhere is suggesting 100% wind power with pumped storage! Not a very realistic report unfortunately.