EVs... no one wants them!
Discussion
plfrench said:
DJMC said:
Invest here: https://www.zero.co
Do you not keep tabs on what's going on in the world?
E.g.:
Here: https://www.zero.co/news-media/boeing-and-zero-pet...
Bargain, I'll get some for the TVR - @ £2,500 per litre it'll only cost me £568.75/ mile at 20mpg Do you not keep tabs on what's going on in the world?
E.g.:
Here: https://www.zero.co/news-media/boeing-and-zero-pet...
DJMC said:
yes i do. but i have a good bulls
t filter 
tamore said:
yes i do. but i have a good bullst filter
In all seriousness could I just ask if you really think that the making of petrol/diesel from air and water is bullst filter t, i.e. a fallacy?Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
DJMC said:
In all seriousness could I just ask if you really think that the making of petrol/diesel from air and water is bullst, i.e. a fallacy?
Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
making? no problem. making at scale? nonsense due to the physics. t, i.e. a fallacy?Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
and 'they hope'……. like hoping we crack fusion.
DJMC said:
In all seriousness could I just ask if you really think that the making of petrol/diesel from air and water is bullst, i.e. a fallacy?
Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
Where is the energy coming from to capture carbon from the air and manufacture it into fuel?t, i.e. a fallacy?Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
Renewables? Nuclear?
If so, why not just stick that energy straight into your car? Then it’s not a just cost equivalent to fossils fuels, its considerably cheaper.
Whilst synthetic fuels are likely to be manufactured for things such as jet aircraft, where batteries are not (yet) feasible, there’s no way on earth they’re going to be cost effective to run private passenger vehicles on. It’s exactly the same problem hydrogen has.
Synthetic fuels also don’t solve the problem of carbon in the atmosphere. We need to reduce it, not just keep recycling the same carbon, or increase it slower. If you’re going to go the hassle of capturing it, keep it captured. Ideally in a tree.
tamore said:
DJMC said:
In all seriousness could I just ask if you really think that the making of petrol/diesel from air and water is bullst, i.e. a fallacy?
Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
making? no problem. making at scale? nonsense due to the physics. t, i.e. a fallacy?Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
and 'they hope'……. like hoping we crack fusion.
CheesecakeRunner said:
Synthetic fuels also don’t solve the problem of carbon in the atmosphere. We need to reduce it, not just keep recycling the same carbon, or increase it slower. If you’re going to go the hassle of capturing it, keep it captured. Ideally in a tree.
Oh yeah, because producing massive batteries by the hundreds of thousands of tonnes is really reducing CO2 in the atmosphere...DJMC said:
In all seriousness could I just ask if you really think that the making of petrol/diesel from air and water is bullst, i.e. a fallacy?
Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
In 10 years time though, so many people will have EVs and have gotten used to them that they’ll not want to go backwards to ICE, so the market opportunity for such a fuel will be shrinking rapidly. It would never be viable cost wise for the masses, just the very wealthy to keep their supercars and classics going. t, i.e. a fallacy?Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
Clearly £2,500 per litre has a long way to drop, but even if it managed to reach parity with fossil fuels (very unlikely), you’d still be looking at a fairly niche and shrinking market.
robcollingridge said:
EV's are the future! I have vowed never to buy another ICE car again. This is my next EV 
It's going to be lighter as an EV, more involving to drive, nearly double the power and three times the torque
And I can charge it for free using the solar panels on my roof.
Have you got an insurance quote yet?It's going to be lighter as an EV, more involving to drive, nearly double the power and three times the torque
And I can charge it for free using the solar panels on my roof.DJMC said:
tamore said:
yes i do. but i have a good bullst filter
In all seriousness could I just ask if you really think that the making of petrol/diesel from air and water is bullst filter t, i.e. a fallacy?Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
Did you pass your GCSE science?
Plenty of public charging stations having their cables cut and stolen where I live. Can only assume this is a national thing? I guess this was always going to happen.
Do EV’s come with a cable applied? Should the public charging stations just have a connector socket for drivers to use their own cable or can’t it work like that?
Do EV’s come with a cable applied? Should the public charging stations just have a connector socket for drivers to use their own cable or can’t it work like that?
The Gauge said:
Plenty of public charging stations having their cables cut and stolen where I live. Can only assume this is a national thing? I guess this was always going to happen.
Do EV’s come with a cable applied? Should the public charging stations just have a connector socket for drivers to use their own cable or can’t it work like that?
up to 7Kw, that wouldn't be a problem. if you want quicker than that then its tethered cables only.Do EV’s come with a cable applied? Should the public charging stations just have a connector socket for drivers to use their own cable or can’t it work like that?
tamore said:
DJMC said:
In all seriousness could I just ask if you really think that the making of petrol/diesel from air and water is bullst, i.e. a fallacy?
Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
making? no problem. making at scale? nonsense due to the physics. t, i.e. a fallacy?Paddy Lowe, ex-Williams, is the man behind Zero Petroleum and featured on Panorama a few months ago at the Zero plant where he explained the process of making hydrocarbons from water (hydro) and air (carbon - CO2 stripped from the air).
They hope to bring the cost of their e-fuel down to fossil fuel prices within ten years. That's not soon enough of course, but it gives me hope for the ICE future, especially when they're partnering with such firms as Boeing and RR.
and 'they hope'……. like hoping we crack fusion.
Sun + co2 + h20 ~ hydrocarbon biofuel.
And others doing it with solar focussed light alone (low volumes)
This zero company.
There are lots of working ideas being refined, and a lot of money on the table to justify the R&D.
Imagine a co2 neutral fuel that uses sunlight to make it.
Particulates in urban areas aside, you’ve got your wonder-fuel for a TVR right there
Im baffled at the negativity of these working concepts on a forum for Pistonheads!
Mr Whippy said:
I have to raise it again, but isn’t someone doing this with algae under sunlight?
Sun + co2 + h20 ~ hydrocarbon biofuel.
And others doing it with solar focussed light alone (low volumes)
This zero company.
There are lots of working ideas being refined, and a lot of money on the table to justify the R&D.
Imagine a co2 neutral fuel that uses sunlight to make it.
Particulates in urban areas aside, you’ve got your wonder-fuel for a TVR right there
Im baffled at the negativity of these working concepts on a forum for Pistonheads!
Which is exactly what petrol and diesel are, ie plants plus H20 and sunlight (albeit millions of years ago). Weird to think our vehicles are propelled by the sun's energy from millennia ago...Sun + co2 + h20 ~ hydrocarbon biofuel.
And others doing it with solar focussed light alone (low volumes)
This zero company.
There are lots of working ideas being refined, and a lot of money on the table to justify the R&D.
Imagine a co2 neutral fuel that uses sunlight to make it.
Particulates in urban areas aside, you’ve got your wonder-fuel for a TVR right there
Im baffled at the negativity of these working concepts on a forum for Pistonheads!
Mr Whippy said:
Im baffled at the negativity of these working concepts on a forum for Pistonheads!
I don't think it's negativity for the sake of it.It's more about living in the real world where laws of the universe and economics are not breakable 'because piston'.
All alternatives to fossil fuels are essentially about someone, somewhere, making money.
The people behind efuels/biofuels are hoping to make money from their idea.
Some of these ideas rely on ignorance of what is actually possible.
I'm sure you and I have been through the economic, mathematical and physical principles.
If what I post is wrong let's call it out, but if it's not, then why choose to just ignore it?
The battery electric pathway for powering an entire nation's worth of cars is economically and physically viable.
Unfortunately the other pathways are either impossible or near impossible in a timeframe (and at a cost) that matters.
It all comes back to how much energy each pathway has flowing through it.
The output energy is determined by how many total miles are covered, and to some degree, at what average speed.
Unless these things change, we have to find a way to power 30 million cars to travel 240 billion miles.
The input energy is thus defined by the pathway's end-to-end efficiency.
This is not negotiable.
Battery electric propulsion has an end-to-end (wind turbine to wheel) efficiency of around 70%.
This is mostly due to the use of an electric motor to turn the wheels, and the ability of the motor to reverse the flow of energy during braking to regenerate energy back to the battery.
The e-fuel end-to-end pathway to power a combustion engine is around 10% efficiency.
That means 90% of the electricity used to produce the e-fuel goes to waste before it does anything useful.
There is no way you can build an entirely new energy infrastructure that wastes 90% of the energy with the time and money we have available.
I've quantified the cost of the battery electric pathway previously, roughly speaking, the cost of the wind turbines (or equivalent), the upgrades to the grid and the battery chargers to supply around 30 million cars is in the up to £100 billion range.
Timewise, its a multi-decade thing, somewhere around 25 years to implement.
The problem with e-fuel is that it not only needs 7 times as many wind-turbines (or equivalent), it also needs the same magnitude of plant and equipment to convert that electricity to hydrogen, capture CO2 from the air, and blend it into a long chain hydrocarbon.
The very low efficiency makes the magnitude of all of this generating and conversion plant incomprehensibly large.
The unavoidable fact is that you now need to find over £1 trillion to pay for it all, and something like 50-100 years to install it.
The only way around this problem is to produce the hydrogen and the CO2 from fossil fuel sources.
Obviously that defeats the object, however, if you can disguise the source of hydrogen and CO2 by gaming the system globally, then there are huge commercial opportunities to make money from selling 'e-fuel' that the buyer thinks is renewable.
That is the problem with all of the stuff, once you know that it's far quicker and simpler to cheat, the cynicism creeps in.
To quantify the task at hand, the electricity to power 1 million EVs is around 1% of today's grid demand.
At 30 million cars, that's 30% increase in demand.
For the e-fuel pathway, the number is around 7% per million cars.
At 30 million cars, that's over 200% increase in demand.
Just for cars...
What about HGVs, aviation, shipping, home heating, industrial electrification, all the other sectors.
It's simply not practical or viable to put such a large increase in electrical demand on the grid.
Yes, we can offshore it, but then we just perpetuate the reliance on foreign energy supplies, and I can guarantee we will not be buying it cheaply, unless it's a fossil fuel dressed up to be something else.
As for biofuels, the energy yield per unit of land area is about 100 times lower than solar for example, which in itself is a low yield renewable per unit area.
Again, you then have to ask exactly what these things actually mean for us.
If for example, you were to produce enough biofuel for all of the UK's cars, it would require 50% of the entire UK land mass to be given over to the production of these fuels.
Jut for cars...
It should go without saying that is hardly a viable option for mass adoption?
As for the solution, for the UK, I believe we have no option (or need) for anything other than petrol and battery electric in some combination, including a hybrid of the two.
The risk I see with getting too carried way with the romance of e-fuel or biofuel is that we lose access to the petrol option too soon because we are being distracted by the magic trick.
Then once the reality of e-fuel is laid bare, either the lack of availability and/or the true nature of the source, we are left without anything viable for combustion engines.
Not a good outcome for Pistonheaders.
The risk I see with getting too carried way with the romance of e-fuel or biofuel is that we lose access to the petrol option too soon because we are being distracted by the magic trick.
Then once the reality of e-fuel is laid bare, either the lack of availability and/or the true nature of the source, we are left without anything viable for combustion engines.
Not a good outcome for Pistonheaders.
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