Fast E.V. Charging.

Certainly an interesting analysis Roger, and in principle I agree with your figures. However you have included a huge diversity assumption, because you have integrated the consumption evenly across your numbers. I would suggest that cars and trucks are more like 30% overall efficient, huge improvements have been made in this area, although some of them are lost due to severe emission rules.  As electricity supply must be available (unless one envisages huge demand controls) at all times, a considerable over supply capability must be available, with a range of start up times. There is a complete incompatibility between nuclear generation and widely varying load, and storage in significant quantity is an impossible dream, both on economic and technical grounds. Realistically a few more nuclear stations would be all that can be managed, and gas usage is unlikely to fall.


The question still remains, exactly what are we attempting to achieve? At this time the overall goal is not at all clear, and as the UK is such a tiny part of global energy consumption, but a large part of the world economy the question has to be "is it economically justified?". A larger use of energy is space heating, and this is very difficult to reduce without replacing most of our built environment, but again many people are suggesting that we use electricity in place of gas or oil, but this is crazy, as well as impossibly expensive. The present "cause celebre" is pollution levels in cities, although the statistics often quoted have very little scientific support. "So many people die of air pollution"  is entirely false, there has never been a death certificate with the cause as being "air pollution". The toxicology of NOx products does not support the present limits from the EU, and it is likely we are "tilting at windmills" in more ways than one! The London ULEZ is a great way to add to taxes, but will seriously increase costs in London, and I would expect the NOx levels to only change slightly. A much bigger effect would come from a minimum speed limit of 30MPH and traffic design changed to suit, it is slow and stationary transport that causes the problem, not traffic per se.


The point is that there is no simple or cheap solution, and I am not sure that electric transport is the right one. A much smaller population is one solution which is obviously not acceptable, so perhaps we should just let natural selection take its course?

Certainly an interesting analysis Roger, and in principle I agree with your figures. However you have included a huge diversity assumption, because you have integrated the consumption evenly across your numbers. I would suggest that cars and trucks are more like 30% overall efficient, huge improvements have been made in this area, although some of them are lost due to severe emission rules.  As electricity supply must be available (unless one envisages huge demand controls) at all times, a considerable over supply capability must be available, with a range of start up times. There is a complete incompatibility between nuclear generation and widely varying load, and storage in significant quantity is an impossible dream, both on economic and technical grounds. Realistically a few more nuclear stations would be all that can be managed, and gas usage is unlikely to fall.


The question still remains, exactly what are we attempting to achieve? At this time the overall goal is not at all clear, and as the UK is such a tiny part of global energy consumption, but a large part of the world economy the question has to be "is it economically justified?". A larger use of energy is space heating, and this is very difficult to reduce without replacing most of our built environment, but again many people are suggesting that we use electricity in place of gas or oil, but this is crazy, as well as impossibly expensive. The present "cause celebre" is pollution levels in cities, although the statistics often quoted have very little scientific support. "So many people die of air pollution"  is entirely false, there has never been a death certificate with the cause as being "air pollution". The toxicology of NOx products does not support the present limits from the EU, and it is likely we are "tilting at windmills" in more ways than one! The London ULEZ is a great way to add to taxes, but will seriously increase costs in London, and I would expect the NOx levels to only change slightly. A much bigger effect would come from a minimum speed limit of 30MPH and traffic design changed to suit, it is slow and stationary transport that causes the problem, not traffic per se.


The point is that there is no simple or cheap solution, and I am not sure that electric transport is the right one. A much smaller population is one solution which is obviously not acceptable, so perhaps we should just let natural selection take its course?