Buying a diesel car nowadays

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how likely is it that wind doesnt blow for weeks and we have no power generated from solar plants?

even during december where we had a cold snap and very low wind speeds, even on the worst days there was wind generation:

Wind Generation in Ireland December 2022 and full year

No records were broken in December for wind generation in Ireland or for the year as a whole. While wind output for 2022 was higher than 2021 it didn’t reach the record year of 2020 in term of either GWhs generated or share of demand reached but it was, however, the second highest year for both.
www.linkedin.com
 
Blackrock1 said:
what do you mean at full drawdown batter storage can only last an hour?
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At full constant load like a power station. If you Google the poolbeg battery facility it says it can provide 75MW for up to 2 hours, it covers 1.5 hectares, that's a hell of alot of battery.
The small Midlands power station in edenderry is rated at 130MW maximum output , Moneypoint has an output of 905MW.
You can see from those figures that no battery facility can replace conventional power stations
 
you still aren't being clear as to what point you are making and no one ever said a batter would replace a conventional power station, it is for storage not to replace production. Battery technology will improve over time as well.

anyway this thread has gone the way of the rest about EVs we are back to talking about nuclear power.... or why renewables cant work,
 
The SEAI data gives renewables at 11.6% of the total enegry we used in 2021. Wind made up 50.9% of that with Solar accounting for less than 2% so the SEAI date says that wind generated less than 6% of what we consumed in 2021.
That's the total energy we used, not the electricity we generated. It includes home heating, transport, industry etc. Those are the figures that matter. That's the energy we need to replace with something other than hydrocarbons. Are we going to have 20 times as many wind and solar farms?
Nuclear requires an average of 0.3 m2 per MWh generated. Dense Wind farms, where turbines are close together, require 8 m2 per MWh, farms where agriculture is carried out between them can require close to 200 m2 per MWh. Solar requires around 20 m2 per MWh and that's probably higher in Ireland.
 
Blackrock1 said:
you still aren't being clear as to what point you are making and no one ever said a batter would replace a conventional power station, it is for storage not to replace production. Battery technology will improve over time as well.
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It can only store power for hours. It is useful for level loading but not as a reserve of back-up power.
Blackrock1 said:
anyway this thread has gone the way of the rest about EVs we are back to talking about nuclear power.... or why renewables cant work,
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The attraction of EV's is that they are better for the environment. They are if the power they consume is generated using clean sources. Given that renewables contribute around 30% to the existing generation capacity and 40% of the power generated is lost in the transmission network it is debatable as to whether EV's are any better for the environment than ICE's.
I'm a strong believer in climate change and I do regard it as the biggest threat the world faces so I with the above wasn't so.
 
One benefit for EVs over ICE cars is that they move the harmful emissions away from urban areas to sparsely populated areas (where the power generators are located), so you would imagine that lots fewer people would die from / suffer from respiratory illnesses.
 
Burning solid fuels in domestic fires produce more harmful emissions than car exhausts in Ireland. Car exhaust produces far more greenhouse gases.
 
Purple said:
Burning solid fuels in domestic fires produce more harmful emissions than car exhausts in Ireland. Car exhaust produces far more greenhouse gases.
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diesel particulates arent great for the lungs and unfortunately due to government policy we had an outsized no of diesels on the road.
 
are we going to have 20x wind and solar farms, i would say yes we are.
 
Purple can you please be specific about what you think is debatable? There are umpteen scientific studies that show the tipping point for when EVs are cleaner than ICE vehicles was surpassed years ago in places like Ireland. I don’t understand what you think is debatable unless you feel you know more than these researchers?

Some articles to get started -



An online tool where you can compare using the latest data from Ireland’s grid and use a Chinese made battery for comparison -

How clean are electric cars?

How much CO2 can electric cars really save compared to diesel and petrol cars? To answer this question we have developed a tool (see below) that compiles…
www.transportenvironment.org
 
I'm aware of those studies but what I don't see is an allowance for the energy loss through the transmission grid. That needs to be factored in for the comparison to be meaningful. Assume a conservative 30% loss, and wind is a far more dispersed method of generation and is generated further away from population centres so for wind that figure could be much higher. That means that EV's need around 140% of the power they consume to be generated. That matters.

Petrol cars only convert around 25% of the energy stored in the fuel into energy so that's bad but how efficient are the power stations that generated the 70% of the electricity that comes from hydrocarbons?

I've not seen the full data and it seems that most of the information is coming from people with a dog in the fight.



If we can move to renewables and have a surplus of power then energy loss doesn't matter but at a global level we are increasing our energy consumption faster that we are decarbonising it. Therefore it doesn't matter whether we use our limited amount of renewable energy to light and heat our homes or to run our cars. Either way it's used up and the majority of the rest is generated by burning Hydrocarbons. Therefore decarbonising the energy grid is what really matters.

The information linked from that article is very interesting. There are lots of assumptions, and how could there not be in a forward looking article, but it does seem optimistic.
The table showing Life-cycle carbon intensity of electricity sources is also very interesting.
gCO₂e per KWh for Coal is 997. For Gas it's 434. For Onshore wind it's 12 (offshore is 14) but for Nuclear it's 5. Nuclear is by far the most environmentally friendly method of energy generation.

For most of us who want to make a change to help the environment reducing your meat consumption by 50% would have a bigger impact than getting rid of a perfectly good petrol or diesel car and buying a new electric one. But if you do need a new car (as opposed to a second hand one) then by all means do buy an EV.

If it's the environment you are concerned about then Reduce your meat consumption, Reuse your existing car and Re-cycle your bicycle.
If all you do is buy an EV even though your existing car is working fine then you are just virtue signalling.
 
T McGibney said:
Is it not a self-evident concept?

Put it this way, every time there is word of windfarm development in (1) a scenic area, or (2) close to existing population settlements, there tends to be uproar.
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we have plenty of suitable locations for wind farms and plenty of scope for offshore wind as that tech improves, put it this way people would prefer to have a wind farm proximate to them than a nuclear or coal plant.
 
Blackrock1 said:
we have plenty of suitable locations for wind farms and plenty of scope for offshore wind as that tech improves, put it this way people would prefer to have a wind farm proximate to them than a nuclear or coal plant.
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I'd have no problem with a Nuclear plan near me. I'd have a big problem with a coal plant. I think wind turbines are beautiful but I wouldn't like to hear one or have it casting an shadow flicker on my house.
 
T McGibney said:
Okay, list three of them that are sufficiently suitable so as to be unlikely to be protested or objected to by either local residents or conservationists.


Red herring.
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List three locations suitable for wind farms? you do realise there are dozens of windfarms in various states of development with planning etc?
 
Blackrock1 said:
List three locations suitable for wind farms? you do realise there are dozens of windfarms in various states of development with planning etc?
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I know that. You claimed "we have plenty of suitable locations for wind farms" . (I'd assumed you had meant currently undeveloped locations.) If your claim is correct, surely you must know of at least three examples that won't be protested?
 
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T McGibney said:
I know that. You claimed "we have plenty of suitable locations for wind farms" . (I'd assumed you had meant currently undeveloped locations.) If your claim is correct, surely you must know of at least three examples that won't be protested?
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i think you are being argumentative for the sake of it, lets put it this way, do you think there won't be any more windfarms developed outside the ones currently in the pipeline? If yes, you are wrong, if no what point are you trying to make?

People object against everything, but stuff still gets built.
 
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