Batteries are not the Solution, Synthetic Fuels maybe
Discussion
Pepperpots said:
Right up until the EU realises that economies are going to crash, then it'll be quietly reinstated. Germany wants it, Germany will get it.
Nah, it's over.More importantly the same people who can't afford fuel and complain about the high prices at the pumps are the same people who magically think they can fill their shed with £6/l synthetic fuel and afford that. If it comes to market it won't be for average Joe
Edited by D4rez on Wednesday 1st March 13:15
Pepperpots said:
Right up until the EU realises that economies are going to crash, then it'll be quietly reinstated. Germany wants it, Germany will get it.
That's what will drive the relaxation. EFuels are not credible as a solution for the EU or U.K. Firstly because the 2035 ban comes in ahead of any true eFuels or remotely viable volumes will ever come into existence. Secondly because other industries facing even heavier tax penalties will outbid any retail car punter all day long for that supply and thirdly, they will be hugely expensive and the whole problem of the switch off in 2035 would be due to the poorest motorists not being able to afford to switch to the cheaper EV solution that ran on just one of the raw ingredients of eFuels.
Same end issue with biofuels, one isn't going to surrender thousands of Sqkm of farmland to producing petrol for poor people when that will spike the price of food for those poor people.
The only single solution in 2035 if the EU and U.K. face economic issues from banning the sale of ICE because it halts the mobility of the poorest car users is petrol. It's as simple as that. Petrol is the only solution. What you need to ensure is that as few people as possible are permitted to use it and that they use as little as possible. Claus in Frankfurt and Pierre in Paris can walk, cycle, roll or thumb a lift but their country cousins, Herman and Louis will need to be allowed to still purchase a new ICE if needs be and use petrol.
If people cannot switch for genuine economic reasons then they very obviously can't start using Dave Richard's magical unicorn princess juice.
And on the corporate side, there isn't a car conventional manufacturer in Europe that can survive a multi year slump in European sales as we approach these cut off dates and a large part of the consumer market simply stops buying new and holds onto old. Especially not while also investing in the near impossible net zero, having to buy more and more carbon credits and worst of all, trying to keep out cheaper, more competitive Asian manufacturers.
It is very likely that something will give but almost certainly not for the vast majority of us so it doesn't serve as any hope to most for getting new ICE etc.
As said, any relaxation will be in the form of a temporary reprieve for small ultra efficient ICE vehicle with low emissions. These will be vastly inferior to EV equivalents but will offer an affordable if basic alternative. EVs will be seen as a luxury for those with both the funds and charging resources to service them.
Wealth will allow access to luxury as is always the way.
What you (rightly) won’t be buying is a petrol or diesel executive saloon or hot hatch as these will have been legislated out of existence.
Wealth will allow access to luxury as is always the way.
What you (rightly) won’t be buying is a petrol or diesel executive saloon or hot hatch as these will have been legislated out of existence.
The fundamental issue is that you can't instantly provide access to e-fuel for everyone.
Electricity is already available to everyone, and at a cost per unit energy that is (arguably) relatively affordable.
Batteries on the other hand are not, so EV adoption is essentially controlled by the rate at which new and used battery affordability can evolve.
If you were to try the same approach with e-fuels, how does the controlled adoption happen? Do new cars have an e-fuel only mechanism that prevents them from being fuelled by fossil fuels? And the price of entry for a new car is more expensive fuel.
Decarbonisation relies on two fundamental things:
1. A wholesale move towards renewable energy, AND
2. A significant reduction in the energy needed to carry out the task at hand.
E-fuels completely fail to address the second requirement, so that rate at which the decarbonisation happens is far slower and the new plateau eventually reached will most likely be much higher.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars do go some way towards addressing point 2, because ultimately they are a hybrid electric car, but it's all a bit too little, too late for that particular approach now. There are also some fundaments technical hurdles to overcome.
If you do choose to go with the e-fuel decarbonisation approach for passenger cars, because the sector is so damn large, the ONLY way to address requirement 2 is to massively curtail usage, either by reducing the number of cars on the road, or by limiting individual mileage.
When will the penny drop that EVs are the ONLY decarbonisation option for passenger cars that can achieve both requirements without substantially curtailing use?
Electricity is already available to everyone, and at a cost per unit energy that is (arguably) relatively affordable.
Batteries on the other hand are not, so EV adoption is essentially controlled by the rate at which new and used battery affordability can evolve.
If you were to try the same approach with e-fuels, how does the controlled adoption happen? Do new cars have an e-fuel only mechanism that prevents them from being fuelled by fossil fuels? And the price of entry for a new car is more expensive fuel.
Decarbonisation relies on two fundamental things:
1. A wholesale move towards renewable energy, AND
2. A significant reduction in the energy needed to carry out the task at hand.
E-fuels completely fail to address the second requirement, so that rate at which the decarbonisation happens is far slower and the new plateau eventually reached will most likely be much higher.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars do go some way towards addressing point 2, because ultimately they are a hybrid electric car, but it's all a bit too little, too late for that particular approach now. There are also some fundaments technical hurdles to overcome.
If you do choose to go with the e-fuel decarbonisation approach for passenger cars, because the sector is so damn large, the ONLY way to address requirement 2 is to massively curtail usage, either by reducing the number of cars on the road, or by limiting individual mileage.
When will the penny drop that EVs are the ONLY decarbonisation option for passenger cars that can achieve both requirements without substantially curtailing use?
Archie2050 said:
As said, any relaxation will be in the form of a temporary reprieve for small ultra efficient ICE vehicle with low emissions. These will be vastly inferior to EV equivalents but will offer an affordable if basic alternative. EVs will be seen as a luxury for those with both the funds and charging resources to service them.
Wealth will allow access to luxury as is always the way.
What you (rightly) won’t be buying is a petrol or diesel executive saloon or hot hatch as these will have been legislated out of existence.
Agree. Wealth will allow access to luxury as is always the way.
What you (rightly) won’t be buying is a petrol or diesel executive saloon or hot hatch as these will have been legislated out of existence.
Interestingly, this raises the age old question as to why when we started off down this road over a decade ago we didn't do things like removing the finance from ICE vehicles over a certain value and/or set out on a steady cc reduction for ICE. Ergo, both reducing pollution, not needing to subsidise EVs and bringing the U.K. BoP back in our favour.
For perspective, new cars in the UK will get through 1 billion litres of fuel in their first year.
The energy consumed to produce 1 litre of e-fuel is being kept close to chests for some reason, let's call it 30 kWh for now.
That makes it 30 TWh of input energy to produce e-fuel for just the new cars each year, i.e. 5% of the cars of the road.
The whole of the UK's 11 thousand or so wind turbines produce about double that, so that's the scale of what we are talking about to save 3 million tons of fossil fuel CO2 output from those cars.
Does anyone know what is the carbon footprint of 30 TWh of wind turbines and e-fuel production plant to produce 1 billion litres a year? Obviously it depends quite a bit on where you site it.
This is the problem in more graphical terms.
The energy consumed to produce 1 litre of e-fuel is being kept close to chests for some reason, let's call it 30 kWh for now.
That makes it 30 TWh of input energy to produce e-fuel for just the new cars each year, i.e. 5% of the cars of the road.
The whole of the UK's 11 thousand or so wind turbines produce about double that, so that's the scale of what we are talking about to save 3 million tons of fossil fuel CO2 output from those cars.
Does anyone know what is the carbon footprint of 30 TWh of wind turbines and e-fuel production plant to produce 1 billion litres a year? Obviously it depends quite a bit on where you site it.
This is the problem in more graphical terms.
GT9 said:
The fundamental issue is that you can't instantly provide access to e-fuel for everyone.
Electricity is already available to everyone, and at a cost per unit energy that is (arguably) relatively affordable.
Batteries on the other hand are not, so EV adoption is essentially controlled by the rate at which new and used battery affordability can evolve.
If you were to try the same approach with e-fuels, how does the controlled adoption happen? Do new cars have an e-fuel only mechanism that prevents them from being fuelled by fossil fuels? And the price of entry for a new car is more expensive fuel.
Decarbonisation relies on two fundamental things:
1. A wholesale move towards renewable energy, AND
2. A significant reduction in the energy needed to carry out the task at hand.
E-fuels completely fail to address the second requirement, so that rate at which the decarbonisation happens is far slower and the new plateau eventually reached will most likely be much higher.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars do go some way towards addressing point 2, because ultimately they are a hybrid electric car, but it's all a bit too little, too late for that particular approach now. There are also some fundaments technical hurdles to overcome.
If you do choose to go with the e-fuel decarbonisation approach for passenger cars, because the sector is so damn large, the ONLY way to address requirement 2 is to massively curtail usage, either by reducing the number of cars on the road, or by limiting individual mileage.
When will the penny drop that EVs are the ONLY decarbonisation option for passenger cars that can achieve both requirements without substantially curtailing use?
Something to consider when looking at say why Germany has become transfixed by hydrogen and eFuels is that their cultural nature is to to try to engineer their way forward, ie to get a message over a river their first response is to build a bridge where another nation might just telephone the person on the other side to relay the massage but more importantly, while the U.K. is worried about how to deal with the excess renewables that will come about as a result of our domestic program and from a position of gas self sufficiency, Germany is worried about how to get enough energy now let alone ever having any kind of excess. Electricity is already available to everyone, and at a cost per unit energy that is (arguably) relatively affordable.
Batteries on the other hand are not, so EV adoption is essentially controlled by the rate at which new and used battery affordability can evolve.
If you were to try the same approach with e-fuels, how does the controlled adoption happen? Do new cars have an e-fuel only mechanism that prevents them from being fuelled by fossil fuels? And the price of entry for a new car is more expensive fuel.
Decarbonisation relies on two fundamental things:
1. A wholesale move towards renewable energy, AND
2. A significant reduction in the energy needed to carry out the task at hand.
E-fuels completely fail to address the second requirement, so that rate at which the decarbonisation happens is far slower and the new plateau eventually reached will most likely be much higher.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars do go some way towards addressing point 2, because ultimately they are a hybrid electric car, but it's all a bit too little, too late for that particular approach now. There are also some fundaments technical hurdles to overcome.
If you do choose to go with the e-fuel decarbonisation approach for passenger cars, because the sector is so damn large, the ONLY way to address requirement 2 is to massively curtail usage, either by reducing the number of cars on the road, or by limiting individual mileage.
When will the penny drop that EVs are the ONLY decarbonisation option for passenger cars that can achieve both requirements without substantially curtailing use?
They have no gas, no oil, barely any coastline for offshore wind, barely any unformed or unforrested land for onshore wind. And to boot, an economy reliant on heavy industry and low tech manufacturing.
This is mainly why their engineering firms are in places like Chile trying to work out how to import energy. The situation with Russia has merely supercharged this issue as it's taken cheap gas off the table and highlighted the huge energy shortfall that is looming along with the big net zero issues.
GT9 said:
DonkeyApple said:
They have no gas, no oil, barely any coastline for offshore wind, barely any unformed or unforrested land for onshore wind.
Have they tried solar panels installed on foreign sunbeds?Edited by GT9 on Wednesday 1st March 15:18
DonkeyApple said:
Something to consider when looking at say why Germany has become transfixed by hydrogen and eFuels is that their cultural nature is to to try to engineer their way forward, ie to get a message over a river their first response is to build a bridge where another nation might just telephone the person on the other side to relay the massage but more importantly, while the U.K. is worried about how to deal with the excess renewables that will come about as a result of our domestic program and from a position of gas self sufficiency, Germany is worried about how to get enough energy now let alone ever having any kind of excess.
They have no gas, no oil, barely any coastline for offshore wind, barely any unformed or unforrested land for onshore wind. And to boot, an economy reliant on heavy industry and low tech manufacturing.
This is mainly why their engineering firms are in places like Chile trying to work out how to import energy. The situation with Russia has merely supercharged this issue as it's taken cheap gas off the table and highlighted the huge energy shortfall that is looming along with the big net zero issues.
They've found space for a lot of solar and onshore wind, according to Wiki:They have no gas, no oil, barely any coastline for offshore wind, barely any unformed or unforrested land for onshore wind. And to boot, an economy reliant on heavy industry and low tech manufacturing.
This is mainly why their engineering firms are in places like Chile trying to work out how to import energy. The situation with Russia has merely supercharged this issue as it's taken cheap gas off the table and highlighted the huge energy shortfall that is looming along with the big net zero issues.
"Germany had the world's largest photovoltaic installed capacity until 2014, and as of 2021 it has over 58 GW. It is also the world's third country by installed total wind power capacity, 64 GW in 2021[1] (59 GW in 2018[2]) and second for offshore wind, with over 7 GW."
This capacity causes grid management problems when output is high - for Germany and its neighbours. They have set up a deal whereby they pay Norway to take their excess power and then pay again to import power back when solar and wind output is low.
Wrt hydrogen, Germany already has significant infrastructure due to its large industrial capacity in chemicals, fertiliser, ammonia, etc.. This is all grey hydrogen, of course, but it's understandable that they are seeking to keep things going by adopting green hydrogen despite the huge cost and practicality issues.
DMZ said:
Germany wants climate-neutral fuels to power cars.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-27...
That’s that then. What Germany wants Germany gets. It was only a matter of time anyhow.
Germany, home to some of the biggest car makers in the world.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-27...
That’s that then. What Germany wants Germany gets. It was only a matter of time anyhow.
No surprises then, as they begin to stamp their feet and throw a tantrum unless they get their way
https://www.euractiv.com/section/transport/news/ge...
NMNeil said:
DMZ said:
Germany wants climate-neutral fuels to power cars.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-27...
That’s that then. What Germany wants Germany gets. It was only a matter of time anyhow.
Germany, home to some of the biggest car makers in the world.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-27...
That’s that then. What Germany wants Germany gets. It was only a matter of time anyhow.
No surprises then, as they begin to stamp their feet and throw a tantrum unless they get their way
https://www.euractiv.com/section/transport/news/ge...
Germany has huge clout in European politics and multi-national motor corporations such as Ford. They are born to lead.
Euractiv said:
German EU lawmakers are the most influential in the European Parliament, in addition to holding the presidency of the European Commission, according to new research. The delegation of 96 German MEPs is the most influential overall and also one of the best performing proportionally to its size, said the research platform EU matrix. This is primarily because of the number of senior positions in the parliament administration, political groups and committees held by German MEPs, and because they have a significant presence in all of the Parliament’s main groups.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/ger...
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/ger...
bigothunter said:
NMNeil said:
DMZ said:
Germany wants climate-neutral fuels to power cars.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-27...
That’s that then. What Germany wants Germany gets. It was only a matter of time anyhow.
Germany, home to some of the biggest car makers in the world.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-27...
That’s that then. What Germany wants Germany gets. It was only a matter of time anyhow.
No surprises then, as they begin to stamp their feet and throw a tantrum unless they get their way
https://www.euractiv.com/section/transport/news/ge...
Germany has huge clout in European politics and multi-national motor corporations such as Ford. They are born to lead.
Euractiv said:
German EU lawmakers are the most influential in the European Parliament, in addition to holding the presidency of the European Commission, according to new research. The delegation of 96 German MEPs is the most influential overall and also one of the best performing proportionally to its size, said the research platform EU matrix. This is primarily because of the number of senior positions in the parliament administration, political groups and committees held by German MEPs, and because they have a significant presence in all of the Parliament’s main groups.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/ger...
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/ger...
NMNeil said:
So when you cut through all the BS rhetoric it comes down to the fact that Germany wants to put profits before the environment.
Not capitalist profit in American style with stock market prices continuously scrolling across TV screens.Power and prosperity matter to the German nation. High living standards and freedom to do what they want. Money is a great enabler.
DonkeyApple said:
NMNeil said:
So when you cut through all the BS rhetoric it comes down to the fact that Germany wants to put profits before the environment.
That's just corporate v state. Nothing to do with any nationalities. Wasn’t someone developing an algae or something that created hydrocarbon fuels using sunlight and atmospheric co2?
I suspect with time/inclination and money thrown at the need, we could just have big desert like countries pumping fuels from huge beds of algae.
Sun > fuel makes most sense.
Solar > electric is kinda sensible but not so good without vast storage systems.
I suspect with time/inclination and money thrown at the need, we could just have big desert like countries pumping fuels from huge beds of algae.
Sun > fuel makes most sense.
Solar > electric is kinda sensible but not so good without vast storage systems.
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