Biggest advantage for the planet is sodium is available from sea water, lithium is mined and causes environmental issues
also with extracting the sodium from sea water, you get drinkable water, and the possibility of hydrogen extraction for use in heavy vehicles
trying to battery power trucks is a non starter, besides the weight of the batteries around 5 tons, you get a reduced max payload, and driving to Eastern Europe will require several lengthy recharges. The final obstacle for electric trucks is the Giga Watts of electricity you meed to run all the trucks.
no one has explained where the extra electricity will be generated from in 2030 when we have 2 million cars, 4 million trucks, hundreds of HS2 power hungry trains and thousands of local busses to charge up
final obstacle is the grid interconnection is not capable of adding the solar farms and wind farms currently built but not cant operate as the wait is 5-10 years for some areas to get hooked up
Agree and hopefully there will be a few more switching to heat pumps as well. There will need to be a lot more storage in whatever form it may be. I would not get too worried in terms of capacity, plenty of wind not being explored...
Now hydrogen is typically produced from methane and still expensive to handle. Unless there's a better way to store it, my money would probably go onto sodium batteries for grid scale storage, if I had any lying around.. 😉
@agentgeorge Back to the Future with the flux capacitor!!
Grant Aerona 290 15.5kW, Grant Smart Controller, 2 x 200l cylinders, hot water plate heat exchanger, Single zone open loop system with TRVs for bedrooms & one sunny living room, Weather compensation with set back by room thermostat based load compensation
One of the biggest obstacles to EV take up I see is properties where a home charger is not practical so the user is restricted to more expensive commercial charging
Local Councils have the clout to do something about that problem... if they are enlightened enough.
Bristol City Council has a very high proportion of on-street EV chargers for example. They've understood that a city with rows of terraced housing will need to take action if they want to see more EVs on the road.
it's a couple of years since they installed my GivEnergy + solar system and I asked him how the market was developing. He said they don't install GE any more as the support for installers has deteriorated.
There's another significant reason why GivEnergy installers and consumers are upset at the moment.
GE has changed its product design strategy to migrate to 'high'-voltage batteries. These have been made available only for the All-in-One product range, which is where they're now focusing. The earlier batteries are incompatible, and there's not yet a clear route forward for customers with separate inverters and batteries.
The high-voltage approach is now the dominant system being supplied from Chinese manufacturers. That means GE are currently vulnerable to a rush of cheap imports.
From a software perspective, the way GE's All-in-One product range is developing makes good sense. They recruited a new product development manager in 2023, and he has successfully eradicated the problematic functionality.
Power outages can be a real pain, apart from occasionally blowing up the odd device
That sounds like you have no surge/lightning suppression, and/or current running through earth wiring, which it shouldn't do of course.
Have a look at what I wrote here about surge suppression a couple of years ago. You'll need to spool back through the topic to understand what the original issues were.
no one has explained where the extra electricity will be generated from in 2030 when we have 2 million cars, 4 million trucks, hundreds of HS2 power hungry trains
Fortuitously, they have 😀
I spoke with a senior manager for National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) a couple of years ago at a briefing seminar about NESO and the path to Net Zero.
He told me that NGET had calculated the energy increases which would be required on the Transmission Grid (275kV and 400kV) as we attain electrification of transport.
If GB (England, Wales and Scotland) were to switch from cars with ICE (internal Combustion Engines) to EVs overnight, the additional electricity required would be only 10%. That's already achievable for much of the country.
Adding yet more connections for generation sites wouldn't significantly affect the energy modelling. The two issues aren't directly related.
But what is proven (reservoirs, batteries, etc) can still go a long way..
Last month I attended a briefing from a senior scientist involved in Fusion Research.
UK is leading the world in this field, and is actively seeking to recruit more graduates.
The European fusion research project has been based at Culham in Oxfordshire. However the next stage is to build a fusion reactor at West Burton, the old coal-fired generation site in Nottinghamshire.
That places it within the connection zone for all four of the major transmission lines which supply London and SE England.
Power outages can be a real pain, apart from occasionally blowing up the odd device
That sounds like you have no surge/lightning suppression, and/or current running through earth wiring, which it shouldn't do of course.
Have a look at what I wrote here about surge suppression a couple of years ago. You'll need to spool back through the topic to understand what the original issues were.
Thanks, the worst blow up was before we installed the new board with SPD to protect the bulk of the circuits. A few calls and emails and the DNO admitted it and I believe put us on a priority circuit. But we still had the odd smart plug going off and it coincided with triggering of a few house alarms in the neighbourhood at the same time. Perhaps it was not a blackout but whatever it was is something we could do without...
But what is proven (reservoirs, batteries, etc) can still go a long way..
Last month I attended a briefing from a senior scientist involved in Fusion Research.
UK is leading the world in this field, and is actively seeking to recruit more graduates.
The European fusion research project has been based at Culham in Oxfordshire. However the next stage is to build a fusion reactor at West Burton, the old coal-fired generation site in Nottinghamshire.
That places it within the connection zone for all four of the major transmission lines which supply London and SE England.
That's great news, I hope the push for coal and oil the other side of the pond will push some talent this way..
But do you mean graduates in West Burton? From what I hear, Physics graduates continue to be in demand for ML/AI and city salaries..
