The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Are you sure?
I did a quick'n'dirty check because I wondered if that was really it.
# of cars on the road in UK = 33.5 million Average mileage of cars in UK = 7000 per year. This gives an average distance per day per car of 19.2 miles; at about 3 miles per kWh gives an average of 6.4 kWh per car per day in the UK.
Looking at fuel consumed by type of vehicle (an imperfect proxy for the amount of electricity needed), we have 23 million tonnes per year by cars and a total of 12.5 million tonnes per year for LGVs plus HGVs, so call it 1.6x the amount of energy needed by cars for all ICE vehicles.
6.4 kWh x 33,500,000 cars x 1.6 = 342.7 GWh per day needed. Call it 350GWh; more than that is very false precision.
This comes out at 350GWh*365 = 127.8 TWh per year. Current electricity consumption as at 2023 in UK = 266 TWh per year. Rather than tripling, it looks like we'd need about 50% more (rather than 200% more).
Also, peak electricty consumption was in 2005 = 357 TWh per year (so the grid could cope with that), which is three-quarters of the difference between last year's consumption and the needed consumption if everything switched overnight.
Of course, this is very quick and dirty - did I miss something obvious (always very possible)? Or possibly I pulled the wrong data in a hurry.
Wonder if the 3x is used energy rather than produced. If you look at energy use (in terms of energy in the petrol/diesel) rather than useful energy realised by the ICEs then you might get close?
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Are you sure?
I did a quick'n'dirty check because I wondered if that was really it.
# of cars on the road in UK = 33.5 million Average mileage of cars in UK = 7000 per year. This gives an average distance per day per car of 19.2 miles; at about 3 miles per kWh gives an average of 6.4 kWh per car per day in the UK.
Looking at fuel consumed by type of vehicle (an imperfect proxy for the amount of electricity needed), we have 23 million tonnes per year by cars and a total of 12.5 million tonnes per year for LGVs plus HGVs, so call it 1.6x the amount of energy needed by cars for all ICE vehicles.
6.4 kWh x 33,500,000 cars x 1.6 = 342.7 GWh per day needed. Call it 350GWh; more than that is very false precision.
This comes out at 350GWh*365 = 127.8 TWh per year. Current electricity consumption as at 2023 in UK = 266 TWh per year. Rather than tripling, it looks like we'd need about 50% more (rather than 200% more).
Also, peak electricty consumption was in 2005 = 357 TWh per year (so the grid could cope with that), which is three-quarters of the difference between last year's consumption and the needed consumption if everything switched overnight.
Of course, this is very quick and dirty - did I miss something obvious (always very possible)? Or possibly I pulled the wrong data in a hurry.
Wonder if the 3x is used energy rather than produced. If you look at energy use (in terms of energy in the petrol/diesel) rather than useful energy realised by the ICEs then you might get close?
It was a multiple given to me by a friend who is more capable of calculating this than me. I am not sure how he reached it to be honest.
Pity the true believers who invested their nest eggs at £70.
So the shares are only overvalued now by a factor of 100 or so?
Depends how you look at it. What are the shares worth if Trump loses? Probably zero. What are the shares worth if Trump wins and behaves within or close to democratic norms? Probably zero.
But what are the shares worth if Trump wins and goes full on autocrat? Quite a lot. What would Putin or Xis private media company be worth?
Now plenty will say Trump successfully being a full on autocrat is a neglible chance, but I dont think it unreasonable to think it is a 10% or so chance that he succeeds in that, and in those circumstances it would have a good shot at becoming a valuable business. I don't think it is a ridiculous hedge against a Trump win and the economic shocks from that even though I would expect it to fairly quickly tend to zero over 90% of the time.
This site (https://grid.iamkate.com/) has fossil fuels at 2.6% atm. That's the lowest I've ever seen it. I'm not sure whether it's practically possible to drive it any lower.
OK, today is pretty much perfect of renewable generation. But taken over the last year, we've got more electricity from renewables than from fossil fuels;
The current stats are the lowest I've ever seen for fossil fuel generation. The app I look at it showing 0.7gw of gas and 0.2 of coal, and that's it. Plus 27.2gw of renewables.
We need much more renewable generation but we also need much more interconnectors (domestic and cross border), more smart use of grid resources during low and high demand periods, and more storage.
All true. And there is more we can do to not use energy in silly shoddy ways. But I'm a physicist, and the numbers now line up within an order of magnitude- even when you consider the need to electrify transport. That's not "job done", but it is "job doable".
Plus the great geopolitical reward of not having to take cowboy nations seriously because they happen to be sitting on a pile of fossil fuels. Won't that be glorious?
Fuck yeah. HMG should be thinking in terms of zero fossil fuel imports. How soon might that be achievable?
And how soon if you don't count gas imports from Norway?
I think there's a lot that a government could do ober the next four years to bring that date forward quite dramatically.
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Are you sure?
I did a quick'n'dirty check because I wondered if that was really it.
# of cars on the road in UK = 33.5 million Average mileage of cars in UK = 7000 per year. This gives an average distance per day per car of 19.2 miles; at about 3 miles per kWh gives an average of 6.4 kWh per car per day in the UK.
Looking at fuel consumed by type of vehicle (an imperfect proxy for the amount of electricity needed), we have 23 million tonnes per year by cars and a total of 12.5 million tonnes per year for LGVs plus HGVs, so call it 1.6x the amount of energy needed by cars for all ICE vehicles.
6.4 kWh x 33,500,000 cars x 1.6 = 342.7 GWh per day needed. Call it 350GWh; more than that is very false precision.
This comes out at 350GWh*365 = 127.8 TWh per year. Current electricity consumption as at 2023 in UK = 266 TWh per year. Rather than tripling, it looks like we'd need about 50% more (rather than 200% more).
Also, peak electricty consumption was in 2005 = 357 TWh per year (so the grid could cope with that), which is three-quarters of the difference between last year's consumption and the needed consumption if everything switched overnight.
Of course, this is very quick and dirty - did I miss something obvious (always very possible)? Or possibly I pulled the wrong data in a hurry.
Wonder if the 3x is used energy rather than produced. If you look at energy use (in terms of energy in the petrol/diesel) rather than useful energy realised by the ICEs then you might get close?
Makes sense - but the increase in the grid we'd need would be the calculated one, which is far more achievable.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
Yeah i saw that yesterday. I didnt find his arguments convincing. Ultimately its down to manpower. In WW1 lines were static so it came down to who has more men which the allies did. Germany population was 67 million at start of WW1 and they held the lines 4 years before collapse. But ukraine only has 39 million population much less than Russia with many having fled which means its unlikely the lines will hold much longer than 2 and a half years.
It'd be good if you could answer the first question: too many people talk about 'winning' without defining what they mean.
Your comment also ignores Ludendorff's Paris offensive in sprint 1918, when the Germans came very near potentially winning the war. But for other examples: the Russian adventure in Afghanistan.
When things break, they can break fast/
The Ludendorff Offensive might have broken the lines, but the Germans didn’t have the reserves or the logistics to actually win.
What it did manage, rather splendidly, was to use up the lions share of what Germany had left. Setting up for the Hundred Days offensive the other way…
Some argue that the Ludendorff Offensive was more a political operation - designed try and get a political win from the Allies (better terms) and (more importantly to the German military) convince the German people that the German Army was still Winning There. Bar charts not included.
Comments
After all, anything divided by zero is the same.
NEW THREAD
But what are the shares worth if Trump wins and goes full on autocrat? Quite a lot. What would Putin or Xis private media company be worth?
Now plenty will say Trump successfully being a full on autocrat is a neglible chance, but I dont think it unreasonable to think it is a 10% or so chance that he succeeds in that, and in those circumstances it would have a good shot at becoming a valuable business. I don't think it is a ridiculous hedge against a Trump win and the economic shocks from that even though I would expect it to fairly quickly tend to zero over 90% of the time.
And how soon if you don't count gas imports from Norway?
I think there's a lot that a government could do ober the next four years to bring that date forward quite dramatically.
What it did manage, rather splendidly, was to use up the lions share of what Germany had left. Setting up for the Hundred Days offensive the other way…
Some argue that the Ludendorff Offensive was more a political operation - designed try and get a political win from the Allies (better terms) and (more importantly to the German military) convince the German people that the German Army was still Winning There. Bar charts not included.