Swapping the A2 for a BMW i3 - thoughts please

[PlasticMac]

Renewable energy powered transport, (although it's not the energy that's renewable is it), is evolving, and so not wise to sign up to today's tech, imo.
Just read about Aberdeen's Council buying around 12 million pounds worth of hydrogen buses, in 2015, which have been parked up for years, as there's no hydrogen filling point. There was, but the facility has failed, and can't be repaired, obsolete before it's time). By the time a new production and filling point is available, I suspect the buses will be time expired.
ICE technology is mature. Non IC technology is nowhere near maturity, still in it's infancy. And so current tech will never break even on the life time scale, imo.
Mac.

 

[rotifer II]

Mass produced combustion engine car
Ford model T
Year 1908
Mass produced electric motor car
General Motors EV1
Year 1996

88 years between them

EV1 1996 until now 2025
Years 29
Thats fosil fuel inertia for you.
I don't have a point to make I was just looking at the figures.

 

[ULP]

What’s all this about swapping?

 

[3wheeler]

As long as your A2 is on the road, grave phase is not reached

If someone can sort out the electronics and source some of the unobtainable spares, then it never will be.

 

[George Hogg]

Renewable energy powered transport, (although it's not the energy that's renewable is it), is evolving, and so not wise to sign up to today's tech, imo.
Just read about Aberdeen's Council buying around 12 million pounds worth of hydrogen buses, in 2015, which have been parked up for years, as there's no hydrogen filling point. There was, but the facility has failed, and can't be repaired, obsolete before it's time). By the time a new production and filling point is available, I suspect the buses will be time expired.
ICE technology is mature. Non IC technology is nowhere near maturity, still in it's infancy. And so current tech will never break even on the life time scale, imo.
Mac.

Renewable energy powered transport, (although it's not the energy that's renewable is it), is evolving, and so not wise to sign up to today's tech, imo.
Just read about Aberdeen's Council buying around 12 million pounds worth of hydrogen buses, in 2015, which have been parked up for years, as there's no hydrogen filling point. There was, but the facility has failed, and can't be repaired, obsolete before it's time). By the time a new production and filling point is available, I suspect the buses will be time expired.
ICE technology is mature. Non IC technology is nowhere near maturity, still in it's infancy. And so current tech will never break even on the life time scale, imo.
Mac.

Yes that’s my council. Like the snp administration in Edinburgh they are more concerned about greenwash and wokism than value for money and doing the right thing.
Like you say this non ice tech is in its infancy and net zero is killing off our industry. We are exporting our manufacturing to countries that have much more pollution per unit. Like China which is still building low tech coal powered electric generation.

 

[PlasticMac]

Yes that’s my council. Like the snp administration in Edinburgh they are more concerned about greenwash and wokism than value for money and doing the right thing.
Like you say this non ice tech is in its infancy and net zero is killing off our industry. We are exporting our manufacturing to countries that have much more pollution per unit. Like China which is still building low tech coal powered electric generation.

And China is supplying virtually all of the electric buses and coaches, (half a million plus, a pop), some get bodied in UK, but most come in ready to go. Apparently we can't build buses.
We did once, and had electric local delivery vehicles 80 years ago ...
Yes, net zero as it's being managed, has killed off our industry and invention.
Mac

 

[Alan_uk]

And China is supplying virtually all of the electric buses and coaches, (half a million plus, a pop), some get bodied in UK, but most come in ready to go. Apparently we can't build buses.
We did once, and had electric local delivery vehicles 80 years ago ...
Yes, net zero as it's being managed, has killed off our industry and invention.
Mac

I think you are being a bit harsh. If you been to places like Bath you will smell the fumes from the buses including the tourist and the taxis who now keep their engines running in both winter (to keep warm) and summer (to keep cool). First Bus Bristol & Bath is now taking delivery of electric buses. I used EV P&R buses in Cambridge recently and it was a great experience.

There was an attempt to build a battery factory in the north of England (Britishvolt) but it failed. Let's hope the one in Bridgewater, Somerset fair's better. The UK doesn't have a good track record for large capital investment projects. I think the Bridgewater ones are destined for cars. Tata is behind that factory. It will cost £4bn. As another example, the cost of a factory making integrated circuits (chips) is about $20bn to $30bn and takes at least 5 years to build and reach productive yields and needs 1,000s highly skilled workers. Way beyond a small country like the UK.

If you take the Sc**thorpe steel factory rescue that was stated to be loosing £700m per day (probably overstated but half that would still eye-watering). If it keeps going who is going to buy the steel other than Network Rail that is now state owned? A high cost for rails will increase fares making less people willing to use rail. Getting people to buy less stuff but more expensive home built stuff is hard. I tried to buy a non Chinese battery storage system and was prepared to pay more, but gave up. It will be illustrative to see if bringing industry back home works in the USA, at least they have 300m population to buy the stuff.

The modern world is a very complex world and we wont sort it on this thread!

 

[George Hogg]

Net zero is bad for uk industry and super high electricity costs are killing business. Germany pays half the price we do.

 

[AudA2Numpty]

Net zero is bad for uk industry and super high electricity costs are killing business. Germany pays half the price we do.

Afaik, high electric costs are due to this outdated method of charging energy at which ever is the highest single national wholesale unit cost of energy source is at the time.

Wind farms in Scotland are not able to give the energy they make back to the grid so they shut them down.
We live in Inverness, an area filled with wind farms, our local communities get given hand outs for the excess energy used which the government pay the wind farm to not produce energy. Our local communities fund is in the millions.
This is one of many community funds. I think zonal pricing would be the best way to go. They have that in Sweden, when we lived there and our energy prices were low.

British Gas, when it was privatised in 1986, I think, was given a golden opportunity not to take the piss. That’s all they have done since.

 

[congo]

And China is supplying virtually all of the electric buses and coaches, (half a million plus, a pop), some get bodied in UK, but most come in ready to go. Apparently we can't build buses.
We did once, and had electric local delivery vehicles 80 years ago ...
Yes, net zero as it's being managed, has killed off our industry and invention.
Mac

Wright bus in Northern Ireland builds buses, supplies London double deckers too I believe.

 

[ULP]

And China is supplying virtually all of the electric buses and coaches, (half a million plus, a pop), some get bodied in UK, but most come in ready to go. Apparently we can't build buses.
We did once, and had electric local delivery vehicles 80 years ago ...
Yes, net zero as it's being managed, has killed off our industry and invention.
Mac

Net zero isn’t killing our industry, decades of policy and the lack of long term investment this supports has done that. We can blame Thatcher in the 80’s, putting pensions on the balance sheet by Brown under Blair thus overnight eliminating the benefit of long term investment and many policies that sit around these, short term decision making over the last 15 years and so on including Osbourne’s ridiculous fiscal rules which the current chancellor has bought into.

Net zero is a fantastic opportunity, as the dearly departed Maxi Jazz eruditely described “You don’t need eyes to see, you need vision”.

 

[George Hogg]

I’d have to disagree with you on this. NetZero makes everything more difficult for industry and power generation and we export our emissions from our closed factories and power stations and now we import so much from China. It also puts up all electricity costs in the uk.

 

[PlasticMac]

I’d have to disagree with you on this. NetZero makes everything more difficult for industry and power generation and we export our emissions from our closed factories and power stations and now we import so much from China. It also puts up all electricity costs in the uk.

Until Mr Ed's home grown, clean energy, (electricity), is available at a similar price per kW to gas, UK's Industry, and Consumers will struggle.
Mac.

 

[ULP]

I’d have to disagree with you on this. NetZero makes everything more difficult for industry and power generation and we export our emissions from our closed factories and power stations and now we import so much from China. It also puts up all electricity costs in the uk.

I appreciate your perspective but the evidence simply don’t support this. It’s simply a popularist argument that plays into human prejudice where a simple answer aligns with a complex question, after blaming our relationship of the EU for all the UK’s ills, a new ‘enemy’ needs to be found, and Net Zero sits tidily with that because it allows conflation of facts (which are true) to create a rhetoric when pieced together (that is not).

Net zero as a policy was introduced as an output of the 2015 Paris Agreement; the loss of the UK industrial capacity, as a result of policy, pre-dates this. The reduction was settled with mismanagement in the 70’s which government policy of the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s very much drove the decimation of. Yes we have outsourced our emissions, but that’s not because of Net Zero.

Electricity costs are high in the UK but as noted by a contributor above, this is due to the way our ‘market’ is structured where peak gas price drives the cost of electricity; this is an outdated model created to support decarbonisation when investing in gas (rather than coal) as part of that programme; it’s been successful and the wholesale market for electricity needs to be re-engineered again, it’s not that complex to achieve but political parties of all flavour have completely ignored it for the past decade or so as the grid has been decarbonising. Many countries have cheaper electricity from a greater proportion of net zero sources than we do, it’s not net zero that drives the high cost, and whatever you think or believe, that’s an absolute fact.

Below are the production of electricity from different sources, France v the UK; you’ll see the French rely heavily on Nuclear which is traditionally more expensive than gas, despite that the French have lower electric bills - not for the reasons you often hear about from the uninformed (they own our energy sector and we subsidise them…) they simply had a strategic investment in nuclear and that’s paid off over the long term and don’t have an electric price inflated by a 15-20 year old cost in replacing coal with gas:

 

[Alan_uk]

Lots of graphs here of EU countries and some non EU countries but not UK. Consistently consumers (2.5MW-5MW pa - €0.2889 per KWh in 2024) pay more that industry (500MW-2000MW pa - average €0.1867 per KWh in 2024). France is average at €0.28 for consumers and slightly cheaper for industry at €0.17. Low cost countries include Denmark (huge amounts of wind turbines), Sweden (lots of hydo in NW and N), Spain (lots of wind turbines and solar). Don't know why Bulgaria is low. Some countries may prefer to subsidise using money from general taxation). Norway is low (hydro again) but their consumer costs per KWh is twice industry!

From what I read of small UK businesses, electricity costs are extremely high. If steel switches to carbon-arch will it be viable with the high UK electricity prices? The only UK aluminium smelter in Lochaber, Scotland is directly plugged into a hydro-electric station that they own.

 

[ULP]

Lots of graphs here of EU countries and some non EU countries but not UK. Consistently consumers (2.5MW-5MW pa - €0.2889 per KWh in 2024) pay more that industry (500MW-2000MW pa - average €0.1867 per KWh in 2024). France is average at €0.28 for consumers and slightly cheaper for industry at €0.17. Low cost countries include Denmark (huge amounts of wind turbines), Sweden (lots of hydo in NW and N), Spain (lots of wind turbines and solar). Don't know why Bulgaria is low. Some countries may prefer to subsidise using money from general taxation). Norway is low (hydro again) but their consumer costs per KWh is twice industry!

From what I read of small UK businesses, electricity costs are extremely high. If steel switches to carbon-arch will it be viable with the high UK electricity prices? The only UK aluminium smelter in Lochaber, Scotland is directly plugged into a hydro-electric station that they own.

French domestic rates are currently a shade over €0.2 per kWh (18p) on the single rate tariff. It’s slightly higher if on the dual rate tariff which gives 8 hours off peak a day (peak is about another cent, off peak is about €0.16, about 14p).

As I note, it’s completely viable, but only if we change the wholesale electric price calculator.

 

[PlasticMac]

The way the daily price is set, at the highest price source, (gas fired), I assume the cheaper, renewable producers, do very well, getting a large profit margin.
If the daily price was set using the lowest cost sources, electricity would be cheaper, but so would the profit margin for the renewable producers ...

Mac.

 

[SamT]

The way the daily price is set, at the highest price source, (gas fired), I assume the cheaper, renewable producers, do very well, getting a large profit margin.
If the daily price was set using the lowest cost sources, electricity would be cheaper, but so would the profit margin for the renewable producers ...

Mac.

My understanding is that the government takes a levy from suppliers when they benefit from higher marginal prices

 

[PlasticMac]

My understanding is that the government takes a levy from suppliers when they benefit from higher marginal prices

If so, that might explain why the government appears in no rush to change the pricing mechanism.
Any changes would have to maintain the generator's and treasury's, income.
Mac

 

[Alan_uk]

The way the daily price is set, at the highest price source, (gas fired), I assume the cheaper, renewable producers, do very well, getting a large profit margin.
If the daily price was set using the lowest cost sources, electricity would be cheaper, but so would the profit margin for the renewable producers ...

Mac.

It is called "Contracts for Difference". Since 2004 I've been with Green Electricity (now called 100% Green). They were one of the pioneers in renewal electricity supply and also in last 10 years or so provided "green" bio gas. Both are sightly more expensive tariffs but I was happy to support green energy. They have excellent customer service.

You can email the CEO and get a personal reply, sometimes quite long. I wrote to him in 2016 and this is part of his reply. I don't think the situation is much different today except we now have more renewables (now 50%).

The increased use of fixed price generation capacity in the form of Contracts for Difference and Feed In Tariffs becomes more of a determinant of wholesale prices and in turn will reduce volatility.

This year renewables delivered 25% of the nation’s electricity in the first quarter. The amount of electricity generated by renewables climbed by 6.4% year-on-year to 23.2TWh.

The real issue is intermittency and delivering energy when there is a demand not when there is not.

The issues then and now are volatility and ensuring sufficient supply for peaks whilst moving the country off gas generation. CfD are an incentive for companies to build and operate renewal generation by reducing risk given the huge capital investment and returns over many years. If companies wont take the risks then governments need to take on the risk to bring about change.

At some point when we have approaching 100% renewables and battery storage the market pricing model can change. The sooner the better! And it is possible now with some companies to have tariffs where the consumer takes more pricing risk. People with battery storage are more likely to do that but I suspect most consumers would not like that.

My main disappointment is the current setup encourages fields of PV arrays with the need for transmission links (and taking farmland and being unsightly) whilst an absence of PV on large buildings (schools, hospitals, supermarkets, factories and warehouse). These would use the electricity on-site but need to be integrated into the distribution network to handle peaks and troughs (else equipment will get damaged!).

For live electricity generation mix and demand this 1 page website with lots of dials is interesting https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/