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Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

dspp
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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#396713

Postby dspp » March 18th, 2021, 12:07 pm

"The UK government has cut grants for electric car buyers, to the horror of the automotive industry as it tries to rapidly shift away from fossil fuels. The maximum grant for electric cars has been reduced to £2,500 with immediate effect on Thursday, from £3,000. The government has also lowered the price cap for cars eligible for the subsidy from £50,000 to £35,000. The cut is likely to be controversial, only a fortnight after the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, extended a generous implicit subsidy for petrol and diesel car drivers by freezing fuel duty."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... le-support

1. Anyone would think that this should have been announced in the very recent budget.

2. Talk about mixed messaging to consumers and industry. Is this the return of "cut the green crap" from the Cons.

regards, dspp

PeterGray
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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#396728

Postby PeterGray » March 18th, 2021, 12:37 pm

I agree with 1. And partly with 2, certainly the continued freezing fo fuel duty is a farce.

However, the reduction on price cap from £50k to £35K is welcome, though perhaps still too high? BEVs will never be mass market if they are expected to cost £50k+, and even £35k excludes a lot of smaller BEVs. And encouraging the use and manufacture of large cars (BEV or ICE) is not environmentally beneficial. I'd think overall this could lead to an increase in grant expenditure.

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#396871

Postby PeterGray » March 18th, 2021, 6:13 pm

I'm afraid I got the wrong end of the stick there! I'd assumed it meant that previously BEVs costing more than £50K got the benefit, now those costing more than £35K. In fact they are are now cutting out subsidy for all cars over £35k!

I can see some logic, smaller BEVs are becoming more commonplace, and relative costs should be expected to drop a bit. But it does tend to support your second point, dspp.

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#400208

Postby 88V8 » March 29th, 2021, 10:40 pm

The notion of Sustainable moves up a level; The first charging point powered by the tide.
On Shetland.

"Tidal turbines in the Shetland Tidal Array supply the energy that is converted into electricity for the charge point. Each 100-kW turbine could provide enough electricity to charge two 50-kWh battery Teslas in an hour."

There are 4x100-kW turbines in the Shetland Tidal Array, the output routed to onshore Tesla battery banks. There is a six hour tidal cycle, with a short gap inbetween as the tide turns. Storage during peak generation and export during slack periods allows for constant baseload delivery to the local grid.

Jolly good.
Not go9ng to do much mileage on Shetland.
Never mind, it's the thought that counts.
https://www.novainnovation.com/news/new ... -net-zero/
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obgP1PRaj8s

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88V8
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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#407081

Postby 88V8 » April 26th, 2021, 12:39 pm

Magic fuel to make (net) emissions go away.

It's going to take decades to get aviation, shipping and long-haul transport down to zero emissions. The technology is embryonic right now, and some of these big vehicles are still in service 30 years after they're first delivered, so even once the tech is ready, the transition is going to be painfully slow.
But there's an interim solution, set to hit the market soon, that will allow these big polluters, as well as fleets of smaller vehicles, to totally decarbonize their transport operations – instantly, without so much as laying a spanner on their existing engines.


Greenwash writ large...?

Some interesting comments.
https://newatlas.com/energy/infinium-electrofuels-zero-carbon-fuel/

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88V8
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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#414443

Postby 88V8 » May 23rd, 2021, 4:40 pm

Wabtec Corporation .... battery electric freight loco with 2.4Mwh of l-i batteries in 18,000 cells. Total loco weight 191 tons, max speed 75mph. To be clear, all-battery, not a hybrid.
With the loco operating in a freight configuration sandwiched with two conventional diesel locos, the overall fuel consumption of the train was reduced 11% during three months and 13,000 miles of operation on the Barstow/Stockton route, saving 69 tons of CO2 emissions.

A 6Mwh version is now to be developed.

The loco was built and operated as part of a $22,000,000 grant from the California Air Resource Board, whose Joaquin Valley has air quality below national standards.
Whether it would be economic without State subsidies remains to be seen.
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/05/20210518-wabtech.html

After two dismal years, Wabtec will be hoping so https://www.freightwaves.com/news/wabtec-sees-a-future-producing-battery-electric-locomotives but so far cash-strapped railways are sitting on their hands.

Whether the US non-grid could support the charging of too many such behemoths, plus EVs, plus electric aircraft, also remains to be seen.

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#414450

Postby tramrider » May 23rd, 2021, 5:15 pm

88V8 wrote:Wabtec Corporation .... battery electric freight loco with 2.4Mwh of l-i batteries in 18,000 cells. Total loco weight 191 tons, max speed 75mph. To be clear, all-battery, not a hybrid.
V8


That seems a rather small battery for a freight loco. My early Nissan Leaf has 24kWh of battery, 1% of the loco, and weighs 1.4 tonnes. After 7 years, it can still do about 85 miles. I wonder how far the loco goes? :roll:

Tramrider

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#414471

Postby 88V8 » May 23rd, 2021, 8:06 pm

tramrider wrote:I wonder how far the loco goes?

Dunno.
The route it's running is 350 miles. It can only recharge at base. No interim charge stations.
It's pulling a train up to 5,000 ton. To what extent it hitches a ride from the diesels I don't know.
I've read that it develops 4,400hp and will run at full output for c40 minutes.

The range I guess partly depends on opportunities for regen braking.

But on the whole, dunno.

V8

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#422830

Postby 88V8 » June 27th, 2021, 12:26 pm

Wind.. free energy... could be used to propel ships... a novel idea.

Michelin are developing inflatable sails in a joint project with two Swiss inventors.
The wing/sail system would augment the engines...
At the push of a button, the sail inflates into full, puffy airplane wing-like using an air compressor and a rising telescopic mast, and collapses like an accordion over top of the deck when not in use.

The project featured at this month's Movin' On global sustainability summit. Michelin has built a 1100-sq-ft prototype and plans to finish testing atop a sailboat with help from French sailor and racer Michel Desjoyeaux. From there, it will run a trial atop a merchant ship in 2022 ahead of planned production.

They estimate a 10/20% fuel saving.

It all sounds a bit pie in the sky to me, but here's a video puff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No6qTbn0J4s

V8

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#422888

Postby 88V8 » June 27th, 2021, 4:23 pm

88V8 wrote:Wabtec Corporation .... battery electric freight loco ....

As in post above.... now General Motors have announced that they will work with Wabtec to develop rail versions of GM's batteries and hydrogen fuel cells
https://investor.gm.com/news-releases/news-release-details/wabtec-and-gm-develop-advanced-ultium-battery-and-hydrotec

No cash yet, just a Memorandum of Understanding.

Another small brick in the greening wall.

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#425938

Postby 88V8 » July 8th, 2021, 5:56 pm

Electric Vertical Takeoff & Landing aircraft... air taxis... a lot of hot air around these as an investment... interesting article on the potential costs of certification https://newatlas.com/aircraft/interview ... 6-92456261
Clue... it's a lot.

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#425979

Postby GrahamPlatt » July 8th, 2021, 8:27 pm

88V8 wrote:Wind.. free energy... could be used to propel ships... a novel idea.

Michelin are developing inflatable sails in a joint project with two Swiss inventors.
The wing/sail system would augment the engines...
At the push of a button, the sail inflates into full, puffy airplane wing-like using an air compressor and a rising telescopic mast, and collapses like an accordion over top of the deck when not in use.

The project featured at this month's Movin' On global sustainability summit. Michelin has built a 1100-sq-ft prototype and plans to finish testing atop a sailboat with help from French sailor and racer Michel Desjoyeaux. From there, it will run a trial atop a merchant ship in 2022 ahead of planned production.

They estimate a 10/20% fuel saving.

It all sounds a bit pie in the sky to me, but here's a video puff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No6qTbn0J4s

V8



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship

“In 2021, Norsepower installed five tilting rotor sails onto a Vale-operated iron ore carrier to allow maneuvering (sic) below bridges.”

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#429340

Postby Hallucigenia » July 21st, 2021, 3:22 pm

Bavaria will be piloting a hydrogen train from Siemens from 2023 :
https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/new ... a-siemens/

Alstom had previously done a deal for a battery version of the trains they had sold to Saxony, again due in 2023 :
https://www.alstom.com/press-releases-n ... ns-germany

I can't find the original paper now, but this is a Powerpoint about it, where 469 diesel lines in Bavaria were modelled :
https://elib.dlr.de/121661/1/Railways%2 ... 0lines.pdf

Although the longest route was 445km, 75% were <93km, and 77% had a longest stretch without electrification of <80km. So on the face of it in the real world, you don't get to take advantage of the longer range of hydrogen on most routes. That doesn't factor in the need for refuelling, but where they seem to be heading is that for most commuter routes, they'll end up with electrification on the central core of the network, and run on batteries at the quieter ends, and recharge the batteries eg whilst stopped at stations in the core. Hydrogen trains will have their place, but will be relatively niche.

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#434569

Postby Hallucigenia » August 13th, 2021, 1:38 pm

Don't think this has been posted before, a report from March by Mott Macdonald, RAND and others on the options for decarbonising UK transport. TLDR - there's a lot that's feasible but not easy particularly given the timescales, the last 10% will be difficult.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... admaps.pdf

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#435228

Postby Hallucigenia » August 16th, 2021, 9:04 pm

Approved, awaiting publication :
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-142022/v1

"Nearly all locomotives in the U.S. are propelled by an electric drive that is powered by a diesel generator...Given that locomotives already have an electric drive, converting them to battery-electric primarily requires a battery car, which can be connected directly to the drivetrain. We examine the case for a battery-electric U.S. freight rail sector and find that one heavy-duty battery car can power a typical locomotive for 450 miles, three times the average daily distance travelled by U.S. freight trains. We find that battery-electric trains can achieve cost parity with diesel trains with electricity charging costs under 6 cents/kWh. We illustrate how these costs can be achieved with access to wholesale electricity rates. Converting the fleet to battery-electric would remove 37 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and generate total sector cost savings of $250 billion over 20 years"

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#435305

Postby 88V8 » August 17th, 2021, 10:06 am

Hallucigenia wrote:"Nearly all locomotives in the U.S. are propelled by an electric drive that is powered by a diesel generator......we find that one heavy-duty battery car can power a typical locomotive for 450 miles, three times the average daily distance travelled by U.S. freight trains. "

And without the costs of network electrification.
I wonder if that would play in the UK?

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#435349

Postby AJC5001 » August 17th, 2021, 12:27 pm

88V8 wrote:
Hallucigenia wrote:"Nearly all locomotives in the U.S. are propelled by an electric drive that is powered by a diesel generator......we find that one heavy-duty battery car can power a typical locomotive for 450 miles, three times the average daily distance travelled by U.S. freight trains. "

And without the costs of network electrification.
I wonder if that would play in the UK?

V8

Battery-powered trains part of Merseyrail expansion planhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-57853592

Is this of any interest?

Adrian

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#435355

Postby Hallucigenia » August 17th, 2021, 12:47 pm

I think what's coming out of the train studies is that what works is incredibly dependent on the nitty-gritty of the route and the timetable.

Just generally electricity is going to be preferred to hydrogen except where range is critical, due to the lower cost from its much greater wind-wheel efficiency, and the fact that it needs bolt-on infrastructure rather than a whole new infrastructure from scratch. And the railways already have a lot of electric kit, so they will naturally head in that direction.

So where we seem to be heading is that obviously full electrification is the ideal from an efficiency and long-term cost POV, at least for busy lines. But you'll see a lot of lines where the busy "core" has overhead lines or 3rd rail, and the quieter "ends" have self-contained power, and as long as those "ends" are relatively short, it will be some kind of battery, either built-in or as a battery car. And only if it's a "long" end will they go hydrogen, but it may be easier to fill in some of the gaps with lines to allow batteries to recharge en route, or switch battery cars, and just have a single fleet with no hydrogen infrastructure.

Whilst there are advantages, I guess the argument against a battery car is that it takes away some load capacity - but that wouldn't be an issue either for the massive trains across the prairies or eg the little passenger trains through the Highlands which are only 2 cars anyway. But in Europe the distances tend to be fairly short and overhead lines widespread, so the balance is probably different.

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#435368

Postby Hallucigenia » August 17th, 2021, 1:25 pm

AJC5001 wrote:Battery-powered trains part of Merseyrail expansion planhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-57853592


I think that's typical of where we're at - we've gone beyond the proof-of-principle manufacturer trials, and they're now getting them out into the hands of train operators to work out the exact details of how they work in practice, how many units of which type they need and so on. The Wikipedia article on the Class 777 goes into more detail - they've been disrupted by the pandemic so ended up queue-jumping and using a smaller, 138kWh battery intended for Transport for Wales which will be good enough for testing if not full service - presumably this is the one that the BBC refers to as giving "a range of up to 20 miles on a single charge".

But that Merseytravel map gives a good idea of what it looks like in the real world - although there's talk of (overhead) electrification, they'll be using batteries for "gaps" like Ormskirk-Preston for the foreseeable, which at <20 miles could be done twice as return trips without any recharging by a battery train of a plausible 80-mile range. The 777's are based on the Berlin underground trains, so I imagine don't have the range of some of the competition, but are good enough for what's needed here.

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Re: Transportation matters (re energy investment etc)

#436544

Postby 88V8 » August 21st, 2021, 8:41 pm

Looser regulations can be rather helpful when one is trying to get a new airframe approved, so a company we've never heard of is likely to beat every major manufacturer in the world to volume production.

In the eVTOL air taxi world, eHang is an outlier. Where most operations are painstakingly doing thousands of unmanned flight tests, eHang is merrily flying people around, including its own CEO and even members of the public – and in autonomous mode, no less – a stark contrast to nearly every other major company, which will start out as piloted services. Where others are dotting every i and crossing every t to ensure they can attain commercial certification in multiple markets, eHang is going into production before anyone's got certification anywhere.

Of course, when you have a domestic market the size of China's you can pretty much thumb a nose at what the rest of the world might think.

https://newatlas.com/aircraft/ehang-pro ... 7-92456261

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