Energy infrastructure

Genuine question but how much KWH would the average house use per day?

So taking the higher numbers at 20KWH, if you had a Tesla or ID4 etc you could get 3 days backup from the car at full charge!

That’s interesting

You cannot restrict one form of transport where the alternative is poor to non-existent. One thing that will be key in our strategies on all fronts is to avoid short-sighted diktats and summarily banning things. In the absence of clear and obvious solutions it will be quite an eclectic mix of resources being fed into our grid for quite a long while.

"It is a fallacy to think that the replacement of every ICE car with an EV will do anything for the environment - what is needed is a reset of habits and attitudes."

How so? Road traffic is responsible for nearly 20% of emissions. Total lifetime emissions per km is about 2/3rds less for an EV compared to ICE. And that's just the benefit in 2022 - as renewables continue to expand displacing fossil fuels for electricity generation, the EV becomes even less CO2 intensive automatically. In other words, replacing an ICE vehicle with an EV will cut emissions immediately by about 2 thirds in 2022. The very same vehicle, if still on the road, could end-up representing a 90% reduction in 8 years time if the 2030 goals for electricity production are met.

The hypothetical scenario you raise, where every ICE vehicle were replaced by an EV, would IMMEDIATELY reduce global emissions by about 15% - which is hardly "doing nothing for the environment".

And the other benefits - no more poisoning people with particulates and NOx emissions and slashing dependence on loathsome oil and gas exporting regimes - while also stabilising the grid.

EV sales are growing exponentially - on average by 50% a year since 2015. Just letting this process continue will mean almost the complete elimination of new ICE vehicles sales by 2030. All we have to do is sit back and not get in the way of technological progress.

Your suggested alternative - the elimination of the private car - is completely infeasible in these sort of timescales. It would require a complete reconfiguration of society and settlement patterns - a huge chunk of our housing stock would have to be abandoned (about 30% is one-off housing according to last census) - as PT simply cannot meet the transport needs of those living isolated housing. Doing all this may be desirable in itself, but we just don't have time.

Massive recession looming,car sales dropping both new and used, average car age is 9years old, still lots of 15-16 year old vehicles on the road, lots of even older 4x4s. Massive number of vintage vehicles and tens of thousands of 40 plus year old tractors that aren't going anywhere.

ESB auctioning off 5 year old Land-rover Defender 130s and replacing them with electric Nissans that aren't fit for purpose shows how idiotic a lot of this Green bunkum is

This company is soon going to have a commercial Sodium battery available this year. Interestingly they make different battery types (with different chemistry's) and they currently see the market for Sodium batteries as static electrical power back-up's.

The companies have teamed up to deliver one of the world’s first solar-powered energy storage units to bring electricity to remote sub-Saharan African communities.

They are currently a heavier than Lithium but they do not have the potential thermal overload issues.

The key element to this chemistry is the fact that it has a safer thermal structure, now fast becoming a key factor to its predicted success, along with its ability to operate in a broad temperature range, and it is safe to transport.

I got the impression from RandomViewer that the ESB had replaced a vehicle with reasonable off road and towing capabilities (Land Rover Defender) with a vehicle that didn't have those capabilities. I don't know if he meant a Leaf, but I'm not aware of any off-road Nissan. Easily forgotten by us city dwellers, but an awful lot of ESB infrastructure is off road, down farm tracks or in fields.

All that being said, the bigger issue here is why they had Defenders in the first place. As the Australians say, "If you want to go into the bush, buy a Land Rover. If you want to come back from the bush, buy a Land Cruiser."

Could you clarify, is your problem with the vehicle form factor, or the fact that it uses an electric power train?

And how do you know they're not fit for purpose? As news article about the purchase:

ESB does not expect any restrictions in everyday life either. “We have conducted market research as well as extensive trialling to ensure that we are not compromising daily range nor our load capacity,” says Paul Mulvaney, Executive Director, ESB Networks.

Now you may claim this is rubbish and yer man doesn't know what he's talking about but to prove it, tell us about the trialling and research you've done to be so sure of yourself?

Claiming modern EVs are in anyway related to century-old lead-acid golf carty vehicles is simply daft. It'd be like pointing at a Wright brothers' era biplane and saying "sure those things could never fly people between countries - passenger airplanes are not fit for purpose".

EVs are not superior in EVERY possible way (just like horses, in some aspects are better for getting around than motorcars) but they are superior in enough ways (performance, cost of ownership, non-polluting, noise, ride quality, etc.) that the global ownership and price trends are clear - ICE is a dead man walking in terms of vehicle technology.

Story was their leasing the white diesel vans and buying the electric ones