On 22/04/2011 19:57, Tim Watts wrote:
Huge wrote:

On 2011-04-22, wrote:
responding to
http://www.homeownershub.com/uk-diy/...la-701863-.htm
DA wrote:

Donwill wrote:


Interesting little snippet I came across:



http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01...r_shenanigans/

The truth will out :-)
Don

Which truth? That UK (and everyone else) lacks charging stations?

Even if there were charging stations every 50 yards, the technology is
insufficiently mature. Or, in more, er, aggressive terms, it sucks.


But to be fair to a new technology, steam vans and early IC cars sucked
rocks through very tiny straws when they were invented.

I expect there were plenty of people who said stuff like: "I don't have to
get up 2 hours before I need to travel to heat up my horse" and "where will
I get a load of coal or cleanish water on my way to the next distant big
town" (when there was a fine infrastructure of inns with stabling
facilities).

That not to say I'm putting my bets on battery powered cars specifically -
there are other choices, but I do see electric cars coming to maturity at
some point, and the road to there can only be achieved by going through the
evolutionary period first like most other things.

I used to think bio-diesel was a good idea until it appeared to be the case
that it displaces too much food producing land.

I am a firm believer in nuclear power which tends to imply (mostly) that
electric cars are a good thing to be developing. As to whether battery
technology will get there (at least it is a well researched area thanks to
the proliferation of portable electronics) or whether it will be hydrogen
fuel cells or even remain with IC engines but powered by alcohol from algae
farms all remains to be seen. But someone has to be trying new stuff, and
like the first "personal computer" and "mobile phone", the prototypes will
expensive and sucky.

Cheers

Tim


I heard what I thought was a bright idea the other day. The problem with
solar energy sources like wind and light is that they vary a lot and so
don't always produce when the energy is needed. PV leccy is produced
during the day but needed at night and so on, and many posters have
pointed out that we do not have means of storage at sensible cost. If
there were lots of electric cars with batteries that charged reasonably
quickly, they could act as a huge reservoir of electrical energy.

Lots of scenarios present themselves. As an example I might have a home
PV array and a car. During the day the car charges when I'm not using
it. During the night, I can use some of the energy to power my home or,
if there is a surge in national demand, a modest amount of electricity
is bought from each car connected to the system, and then sold back if
needed later. Another example. I'm making more PV elec during the day
than I need. The system buys it and sells it to cars charging at work
for the trip home. The idea thrives on intelligence and variation of
generation and use. I can't see that it's beyond our technology now.

Clearly we'll continue to need a base of steady generation but to me an
idea like this looks promising.

I agree with Tim about algae. The efficiencies they are already
achieving in trials, and the fact that food-growing land is not
required, makes this a very promising bio-fuel.

Peter Scott