On 16/03/17 11:44, GB wrote:
On 16/03/2017 11:30, Chris Hogg wrote:

But we're not a million miles apart. The key point is that one can't
just switch over to an all-electric transport system simply by
plugging in ones car into the socket in the garage to charge it
overnight on the assumption that the electricity is always available,
which I'm sure a lot of people imagine will happen. We're on a knife
edge with electrical supplies in winter as it is, and any increase in
consumption without a corresponding increase in supply and
distribution facilities will just not work.


I'm sure that's right. There may be some overall saving in fuel and
hence pollution, as power stations are more thermodynamically efficient
than ICEs. (Actually, I'm just assuming that, so I'll wait to be
engulfed in flames.)


Coal probably not - 36-38% when running baseload with modern
supercritical plant. Gas CCGT up to 60% is possible.
Real goodness of leccy is it doesn't idle, and regenerative braking gets
a lot back.

However, we don't need to build lots of power stations just yet. At
least, not for that reason. At Dec-2016, we had 90,000 electric vehicles
on the road, out of a total of around 37 million licensed vehicles. So,
it's not exactly happening overnight.


--
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Mark Twain