Hydrogen vs Batteries to power EVs

Excellent video comparing Hydrogen and Batteries as the energy storage method for electric vehicles:

Electric Vehicle charging comes to the Borough

It's taken a long time, but soon Havant Borough Council owned car parks will have 48kW EV rapid chargers installed. The chargers will be a part of the Genie Point network:

https://www.cpsgenie.com/dis/

I believe these will charge a car to about 80% in 30 minutes, which is probably reasonable for a car park scenario. Ah it makes a change to post some local news and something positive!

An American Tesla Model 3 experience

An American Tesla Model 3 owner describes his experience trying to explain his car to his business clients!

Fully Charged Live Highlights

Looks like 'Fully Charged Live' was a success:

Fully Charged Live at Silverstone

Roberts Fully Charged project is having a Live event at Silverstone racing circuit on the 9th and 10th June this year. You can register for tickets now. Apparently they have a lot of companies showing their electric cars, bikes, low carbon energy systems like solar energy, batteries and other stuff and there will be talks and other great things.



http://www.fullychargedshow.co.uk/fully-charged-live-event

Shell start installing EV chargers

Latest Electric Vehicle News

Robert Llewellyn and his new co-host Jonny discuss the latest news in
renewable energy and electric vehicles, months ahead of the BBC and The Sun:

Murray Energy (Coal) sue John Oliver (British comedian)

The dying American coal industry (avid funder of Donald Trump) has decided that one man, John Oliver, and HBO are responsible for their woes, as a result Murray Energy and others are suing John Oliver for defamation.

Amusingly the legal document which Murray Energy is submitting has a lot of ranting in it appealing for the sympathy vote rather than any substantial legal claim.

The sad fact is many wealthy business folk think they are important beyond any reality just because they have wealth. Anyone who has watched John Oliver knows that he has a go at people, nations and businesses in a satirical manor which is very amusing and democratic.

The  reality is that renewable energy employs many times more people in America than the coal industry, it could employ many more including ex-coal workers!

This video posted by a lawyer deconstructs the Murray Energy lawsuit:

 Added 24/06/17...

It should also be noted John Oliver actually defames himself in the same broadcasted show! So maybe he should sue himself as well. Oh, wait a minute John Oliver has a sense of humour.

Note this video may not work for long:

03/07/17
Oh dear. Youtube removed the video. Told you so!


Links:

https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-robert-murray-coal-mining-lawsuit-sued-hbo-a7802266.html

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/06/22/coal_baron_robert_murray_is_suing_john_oliver_over_his_segment_featuring.html 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/06/22/coal_baron_robert_murray_is_suing_john_oliver_over_his_segment_featuring.html

Upgraded street lamps become EV charging points

A German company has developed street lighting technology that allows Electric Vehicles to be charged at adapted street lamps. When street lighting is upgraded to low energy LED technology, the cables that supply the lamps with power are effectively under used. This is where the EV charging technology comes in. Ubitricity can install the EV charging technology in any style of lamp post, retro or modern.

Once a street lamp is installed all an EV owner has to do is to sign up with Ubitricity, the owner then receives a special cable from Ubitricity which monitors electricity usage of the owner. The user is then debted the cost of the electricity. The cable has an inline small box with buttons and a display, so I presume that it is password protected to prevent possible mis-use. However I assume that if the cable were stolen, it could be reported and the account suspended until a new cable were supplied.

No additional load is put on the local electricity cables because they were originally designed to take a bigger load than the LED lighting puts on the system.

Robert L explains in this video how it works and interviews the local council that has installed the lamps as well as a representative of Ubitricity.



https://www.ubitricity.com/en

Designer 'Edison' light bulbs

Not sure what the legality is regarding the sale of high wattage designer filament bulbs.

But the fact is you can get low power LED versions I bought this one for £12 in IKEA.
1.8 watts as opposed to 40 or 60 watts for an incandescent filament lamp.

Now I am not sure where to put it!

June 2017 Election Manifesto Analysis

Lets have a look at the main issue that the manifestos cover:

Liberal Democrats 

The Liberal Democratic manifesto commits to 60% renewable energy by 2030. Similar to Labours commitment (see below). Unlike the Conservatives and Labour, they explicitly commit to restoring onshore wind energy and solar energy to our supported energy mix.
.

Conservatives

The Tories manifesto states that the party does not believe that more onshore wind energy is right for England and oppose large scale onshore wind projects, but supports continued investment in offshore wind energy.
But Hampshire does not have any wind farms, even small ones! Hampshire has land and wind resources, but no wind farms harnessing those resources. Not only that but Hampshires nearest offshore wind energy project was cancelled. So the Conservatives are applying ideological reasons for not pursuing onshore wind as well as putting their wealthy rural supporters before the nation and the planet.
They also commit to low cost energy, which economically and technically must mean more onshore wind and solar energy, so they have contradicting statements in their manifesto

Labour

Labours manifesto is even less detailed than the Conservatives but commits to 60% zero carbon or renewable energy by 2030.
What is zero carbon energy??
All energy has at least a small carbon footprint.
They don't however say what technologies will make up this new commitment, they don't mention onshore wind or solar energy.

Green Party

Like the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party are commited to removing the Conservatives effective ban on onshore wind energy projects. They also want to scale up offshore wind and marine energy projects.

UKIP

The party has a record of denying mainstream climate science so it is not surprising that they wish to remove 'subsidies' from wind and solar energy projects. To be honest in a few years time they won't need such a policy because even in the UK government encouragement won't be needed. Solar and wind are becoming cheaper than the old school fossil fuel sources that we became to dependent on.


Well that's the analysis of the main policies of the locally relevant political parties. Energy and the environment are the key issues.

Trump can't stop progress

It is now inevitable that electric road vehicles, boats and even aircraft will replace our fossil fuel transport. I really don't think anything can stop it now, certainly not the ignorant Trump.
Bloomberg this week reported on research about battery technology reducing in price in the next 4 years to the point that Electric Vehicles will likely be cheaper than diesel or petrol engined cars.
Cheaper maintanance as well, with so few moving parts in EVs.
Robert in this video says a company is installing super fast chargers in the UK that have the capacity to charge the batteries of a suitable EV in 5 or 10 minutes. An Israeli company has developed batteries that might take that charge.


Anyway here is Roberts latest video:

The future is bright and it's electric

Robert Llewellyn takes a look at 2016 and the future.
Don't mention Brexit or Trump...
2017 will see a huge number of electric vehicles being launched, plus they will get closer to a 300 mile range.

I like classic cars, especially when they are electric

A classic car:

National Grid boss gives the thumbs down to old school energy

A few days ago the new energy boss in charge of the nations national electricity grid surprised the Victorian old school (many of whom are probably UKIP supporters) by announcing that the future is distributed energy generation and 'smart' use of electricity (the smart grid).

This idea has long been proposed by this blog and many educated peeps that understand these things.

According to the BBC article Nicola pointed out that more people are generating their own electricity via solar and that technological advances reduce the need for conventional power stations. People and businesses are changing the way they use electricity with the help of software and computers.

Unfortunately unions (yes the 'left') are not helpful. The left bullshit just as much as the right when it comes to facts about cutting carbon emissions and the environment. They put political ideology before the environment. The Farmers Union is just as guilty in this respect when it comes to agricultural practices and food production.

The GMB union wants Hinkley Point C to be built purely on the basis of supporting members jobs and harking back to the 1950s and the great socialist dream of nationalised centralised power generation.

BBC article on the subject:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37220703

Blog posts:
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/p/wind-energy.html
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/my-electric-avenue.html
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/big-brother-fridges.html
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/fareham-based-isentropic-how-their.html 
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/lovedean-solar-farm-installed-and.html
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/how-national-grid-works.html
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/tokar-street-eco-house.html

More subsidies for fracking in the pipe line

The media today write about the proposals by Theresa May for additional financial support for fracking on top of existing financial support for fracking drilling operations.
It's not to hard to see the hypocrisy in the governments energy policies fueled by fears that votes will be lost if rural home owners are upset when a wind turbine is built within 100 miles of their home.

The government has cut ROC support for onshore wind farms and solar energy, both of which are crucial in cutting CO2 emissions and reducing energy costs for home owners.

The so called problem of intermittent renewable energy supply is a problem that is being solved by engineers and scientists. This year global energy storage capacity has doubled, it's a market that is growing rapidly and only ignorant Daily Mail writers think it's unsolvable.

World leading Fareham based energy storage company:
http://www.isentropic.co.uk/

As well as this increased support for Fracking (and carbon emissions) Mays government has been quick to scrap the Climate Change cabinet position and close down the Department of Energy and Climate Change as a separate entity.

It seems that Climate Change are forbidden words within government despite it being a costly problem that needs real technology solutions.

Meanwhile global temperatures this year are already close to breaking the limits set by the Paris climate agreement intended to limit temperatures to a 1.5 degrees C increase. Ed Hawkins (University of Reading) has shown that this year temperatures increased by about 1.4 degrees:

http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2016/spiralling-global-temperatures/

Robert Llewellyn talks about Passivhaus (Low Energy Homes)

Something that this government and large developers say would be to expensive, which is a lie of course especially in the context of long term economics and damages caused by Anthropogenic Climate Change.

Renewable energy does the job

Robert highlights some facts:

Portugal is almost self-sufficient in renewable energy and manages a few days on renewables only.
UK manages without coal power stations for a number of hours.
Germany has so much capacity that electricity suppliers had to give money back to customers.

Robert does a better job of explaining it though...

Wind Turbines and Hugh McNeal

According to a Telegraph article this weekend "England not windy enough, admits wind industry chief".

The wind industry chief is Hugh McNeal. So what does the article actually say?

1. McNeal thinks that there is a case for more onshore wind farms in parts of the UK despite withdrawal of financial support via ROC (Renewable Obligation Certicates that the Telegraph refers to as subsidies).
2. Without ROC further onshore wind farms in England are probably not viable.
3. Wholesale electricity prices are to low to invest in new generation, but the government is subsidising gas rather than supporting onshore wind energy to build new generation.
4. Wind energy is the cheapest form of new electricity generation in the country.

So basically the headline does not reflect McNeals comments or views. The government according to the Telegraph is subsidising gas despite onshore wind energy being cheaper. Even without ROC system support, onshore wind farms can be built and would be cheaper than any gas fired power station.

Plus this doesn't even take into account that new technology and economies of scale reduce costs further.

And then there is the Climate Change factor. The Telegraph does not include the 'energy' costs of dealing with Climate Change damage. Although economists, politicians and journalists like to keep things simple because their poor old brains will hurt if they are overloaded, the fact is the damage that Climate Change will have should be factored into the equation of whether wind farms are economical or not.

There is a cost to doing nothing or not doing enough about Climate Change. Something that the owners of the Telegraph  probably don't care about in their island fantasy home.

Wellington Park - Urban Park Project

A nice example of Pinus Pylonus behind the Urban Park Project sign.

There has been a lot of tree and shrub planting next to the Wellington Park housing development recently. This magnificent Pinus Pylonus is near the road and I managed to take this superb photo while the Sun was out. This isn't the tallest I have seen, but it is a good specimen for the area and it's great that the council and developers decided to keep it. You can see to the rear and right of the photo an area of shrubs has been planted.