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!

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

Robert and Jonny talk electric vehicles and rapid charging

Robert Llewellyn and Jonny discuss the Geneva car show and rapid charging EVs.
Have to say that Fully Charged has grown from a small niche video channel into a mainstream automobile video channel, with Rob and Jonny getting invites to discuss and review Electric Vehicles and low carbon tech all over the world. It is amazing how electric vehicle technology has developed in the 11 years this blog has run. Technically it was inevitable, but politcally it is surprising how much has changed. The main problem is Trump and his nationalist policies to desperately prop up the outdated American car industry. But I think (and pray!) that it will be a minor moronic glitch.

Anyway, here is the video:

Shell start installing EV chargers

Progress tackling climate change?

So many good things have been achieved over the period since I started blogging. The fact is humanity is brilliant at finding technological solutions to problems that climate science throws our way, including solar energy, wind energy, energy storage, electric road vehicles, electric aircraft and electric everything!  However politicians and vested interests do what they can to slow down the inevitable technological change. We are going through such a period now. Political Luddites try to reverse policies that achieved great things all in order to support an unsustainable economy and gratify voters that have been lied to by political ideologists and propagandists.

The fact is the science remains the same, the planet that we live on is warming at a faster rate because of human produced greenhouse gases. The Arctic is warming at the fastest rate which is exactly as predicted by mainstream climate science. There are literally thousands of other signs and facts that support mainstream science, yet there are people that choose to find alternative theories or more often than not they do not even know (or want to know) that the world around them is changing.

So what has been achieved?

Electric Vehicles

This is a growing success story. The revolution probably started around 2000 when Toyota started getting serious about hybrid cars (Prius), then around 2008/2009 Tesla started producing the Roadster. Since then the pace has picked up, with huge improvements in last few years in battery development and vehicle design. This development is also linked to automation features in new vehicles, such as self driving cars.

One unexpected path has been the growing field of electric car racing, including drag racing, Tesla car racing and the more formal yearly Formula E season. There is a long way to go, but the fact is 'range anxiety' is gradually fading and the incredible performance of electric vehicles along with low maintenance costs means the future is bright for electric road transport. Worldwide there are about 50 electric models on sale in 2017 and Tesla are launching their first electric truck later in the year.

Solar Energy

Another success story, largely driven by common sense and foreign uptake of the technology. The success of solar photovoltaics is largely due to automated mass production capabilities, enabling economies of scale. The more installations there are across the world, the cheaper the technology gets.

This is why solar energy is predicted to be cheaper than coal and other fossil fuels, these old (Victorian) technologies can not compete with the reliability, low maintenance costs and low life cycle/energy costs of solar energy.  

Wind Energy

Wind energy has been more controversial as a result of lies and myths (many discussed on this blog) regarding wind farms. There have been campaigns to discredit wind energy for purely political purposes and to prop up ailing fossil fuel energy businesses. Nearly all of the British countryside is industrialised by agriculture, so the idea that a wind turbine is going to industrialise natural habitats is largely a result of a poor understanding of the British landscape.

Energy Storage

This is a growing area for investment and it is sad that Fareham based company Isentropic went into administration. However the good news is that the development of their Pumped Heat Energy Storage (PHES) system continues with the support of Newcastle University at the Sir Joseph Swan Centre and work continues at the Fareham site. According to the new web site the grid scale demonstrator is being commisioned and will be going through performance testing this summer.

Apart from Insentropic the current popular technology is the battery and the improvements in this area as a result of electric vehicle development is spilling over into grid and domestic energy storage.
Tesla is again a leader in this field although there have been many other companies less well known that have been developing battery technology for a number of years. Energy storage will help to remove power stations from the grid, allowing renewable energy to be stored when there is excess and to be distributed when there is shortage.

I think Elon Musk the founder of Tesla, Space X and Solar City deserves a mention. Musk is a modern day Thomas Edison which is ironic considering he named his company after Nikola Tesla a rival of Edison (Teslas AC electricity distribution system was superior to Edisons DC system, but Tesla ended gained little for his efforts). Musk is a visionary engineer and business man, he cofounded Pay Pal, sold his share and used the money to revolutionise road vehicles and the space transport industry. He knows that climate change is a serious problem caused by our carbon emissions.

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.

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

Electroflight - high performance electric racing aircraft

This is a great video where Robert talks to engineers developing a demonstration racing aircraft (Electric Lightning P1 E). What is impressive is the positive attitude they have. They point out the advantages electric power has for future development of aircraft including high altitude flying, fast acceleration and light weight power plant.

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.

Riversimple - now for something completely different

Interesting company rethinking car design and ownership:

Robert test drives the BMW i3 REx.

This car is electric with the addition of a small engine (647cc) that is used as a generator to charge the batteries and extend the range of the vehicle. There is no direct drive from the engine to the wheels and for most driving it can be operated as an electric vehicle.

Lightsail

Looks like energy storage company Isentropic near Fareham has some competition in the shape of Californian company Lightsail Energy.

Lightsail are developing energy storage using compressed air and intend to overcome the problem of the waste heat energy it produces by turning the heat into a useable energy product. They claim a potential 90% roundtrip efficency.

www.isentropic.co.uk
www.lightsail.com
daniellefong.com

Fareham based Isentropic - how their energy storage system works

The brilliant Isentropic have posted this educational video about their new energy storage invention:



Remember though, if you vote UKIP, you are effectively voting against British innovations like this. A shut down of renewables development will see this type of innovation go elsewhere, like countless other British projects in the past.

Interesting interview with the CEO of Fareham's Isentropic

Here's a link to an interview with James Mcnaughten, CEO of energy storage company Isentropic.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1000709/

Isentropic are developing a revolutionary method of storing large amounts of energy using relatively common materials. The idea being to store energy produced by renewable energy when the ouput is higher than the demand, thus smoothing out the variability when renewables are used on a larger scale. Because the materials used are not exotic, the costs are predicted to be similar to hydro-electric pumped storage systems.

Take a look at My Electric Avenue

This is a really interesting video by Robert. He investigates a new project that is looking at how the electricity grid at a local level can handle the increasing use of electric cars, solar panels etc.
The use of Smart Grid technology allows local substations to monitor local use and 'smart' car charging points in homes can be turned off for short periods when demand for cooking and other energy uses is high.
Basically it is energy management that avoids impacting on everyday life and the cars still get their batteries charged, in fact the cars have the potential for storing energy from the grid when there is an excess of supply.

The project involves a number of volunteer 'clusters' around the UK. For example a street of families (a cluster) would all have the use of a Nissan Leaf while the project is running and have the special car charging points installed at their homes.

Here's the video:

Robert test drives the Tesla S

Waterlooville Solar Farm

Apparently the big solar farm planned on the Southwick Estates got approval.
Been busy so not had the opportunity to blog much as I moved into full-time work.

Hope to get some photos of the solar plant when it is finished.
It's great news and it's difficult to believe that Hampshire has quite a few solar farms now.

Meanwhile a team at Harvard Uni has improved flow battery design, one of a number technologies that are important in large scale energy storage.

As Cameron recently linked the storms to climate change (well done!) there is a call for more money to fund research into an attribution system to test the links between climate change and extreme weather frequency.

Flow battery based on water

Looks like progress in developing higher energy density batteries is improving. Spotted a gem today about research conducted by the engineering giant General Electric and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory which has resulted in a flow battery development that might be produced for about 75% less than a lithium-ion battery pack. They believe the battery could power a car for well over 240 miles which is the benchmark the US Department of Energy has set.

It's early days yet, they have a long way to go before they have a car powered by one.

Links:
Marketwatch
Cleantechnica