472 replies to this topic

[pdac]

The prophecy is complete now that Europe makes a enormous u-turn on its "we go full electric by 2035" stance:
https://www.reuters....035-2023-03-21/

The FIA has bet on the right horse. Efuels are here to stay for our generation and F1 will see itself becoming way more relevant than ever anticipated 5 years ago. When the electric lobby marched on towards the European Commission and the world thought that electric was the only "solution".

 

This is the take-home:

 

A study published on Tuesday by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research found that all planned e-fuel projects worldwide would only produce enough fuel to cover 10% of Germany's demand for e-fuel use in aviation, shipping and chemicals in the next few years.

 

[Alfisti]

From what i've seen, the infrastructure to support EV isn't there and is a mile off, the actual route to go is more and more efficient PHEV & MHEV vehicles, the targets governments have set aren't realistic at all.

The more appropriate solution (which I think you have said Ben) would be to ban ICE from major cities and focus on transport such as trams or ride share EV's. But in terms of general adoption it's miles off.

As a side note, i personally don't even think EV is the answer. Hydrogen probably has more legs, need to tackle at source how every national actually generates electricity as well.

With regards to governments trying to speed up EV's... how? The manufacturers are currently making the exact total sum of £0. There is no real incentive for early adopters of EV because of the infrastructure. So without a massive investment of infrastructure, the sales won't be there so the money isn't there to produce actual significant volumes of EV.

Not to mention the global supply issues around lithium, cobalt, copper. The inability to process/recycle lithium batteries. There are so many significant challenges it's really not a case of "pollution bad, electric good, make electric quicker"

This post is correct. Even in the people's republic of Canada, they sneakily allow PHEV under the EV umbrella whenever new ICE are banned in 2035.

The idea that a pure EV will work for people who don't have a home charger is preposterous. It'll take decades to build enough public chargers to satisfy demand from those without their own charger.

[YamahaV10]

This right here will lead to the split up of F1. Similar to the Indycar split.

The environmentalists will keep going down this road. Some teams will go along with it. And others will draw a line somewhere.

Red Bull and Ferrari will say this is enough , and form a break away series. Naturally asperated V10's, the same weight and dimensions as 2008 and tunnel floors. The best of all worlds.

[Beri]

This is the take-home:

A study published on Tuesday by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research found that all planned e-fuel projects worldwide would only produce enough fuel to cover 10% of Germany's demand for e-fuel use in aviation, shipping and chemicals in the next few years.

Well, that shouldn't be an issue when Efuels are the way to go for the upcoming decades to come. Look at hydrogen. Same issues that you've mentioned and scarce like a pink freckled toad some years ago, but nowadays hydrogen plants are being stamped out of the ground in record time.
It's all a matter of supply and demand. Or better the other way around. If the demand is high, the supply will follow as there is money to be made.

This post is correct. Even in the people's republic of Canada, they sneakily allow PHEV under the EV umbrella whenever new ICE are banned in 2035.

The idea that a pure EV will work for people who don't have a home charger is preposterous. It'll take decades to build enough public chargers to satisfy demand from those without their own charger.

And let's simply not forget that no country in the world had a power grid stable or even strong enough to provide power for 40% of its national tally of cars to be electric. And there are countries and major cities that combined make up for half of the earths I habitants that have way less power capabilities than this.

Full electrification has always been an utopia. And this U turn of the EU proves it to me.

[Ben1445]

• And let's simply not forget that no country in the world had a power grid stable or even strong enough to provide power for 40% of its national tally of cars to be electric.
• It's all a matter of supply and demand. Or better the other way around. If the demand is high, the supply will follow as there is money to be made.
• Full electrification has always been an utopia. And this U turn of the EU proves it to me.

Consider the following: 
 
"Vehicles run on e-fuels consume five times more energy than a battery-powered EV, and will be around eight times more expensive to run per kilometer in the future, according to a study commissioned by the German Energy Agency." - Deutsche Welle 
 
Bottom line is that eFuels used in combustion engines are a very inefficient use of energy, and that really limits how useful it will be for decarbonising transportation. You also can't just explain away this problem with 'future development will fix that' any more than you can say 'future battery tech will enable fully-electric transatlantic airliners' - you have to look at the realities. Where is the energy coming from to produce enough eFuel to run all of our vehicles on it? How much of it would we need and what does that mean in practical terms? How does that compare to other options like EVs or public transit? 
 
If the EU proposal being considered here is to allow the sale of ICE vehicles in future provided that they are technologically restricted to using eFuels, frankly I'm not seeing this as big news. The main consequence I see would be that manufacturers like Porsche and Ferrari will still be able to offer ICE performance vehicles within their range - vehicles which aren't sold in large enough volumes on their own to pose a problem for either eFuel production capacity or concentrated urban air pollution, whilst the people who are able to buy such vehicles are likely to be able to afford the high costs associated with eFuel's inefficient production and distribution.

Edited by Ben1445, 22 March 2023 - 09:04.

[Beri]

When there is a choice between an inefficiënt fuel or one that simply isn't available at all, the inefficiënt one wins it. Also that study confines itself to the current situation and not when Efuels are available to the masses and will be enhanced over time.

And yes, in the end electric propulsion is always the most efficient mean. And ofcourse electric propulsion is likely to always be the most environmentally friendly option.

Yet it isn't a full on solution that caters every corner of the earth. And with all due respect, Efuels will be. For now at least. It will be infinitely more easy to deliver a truckload of Efuels to the rural areas of China, Africa or India rather than have a power grid installed that can suffice all the cars and motorbikes driven around there. And that is ofcourse the short future. Because in the end, there will be a solution to that as well. But not in our lifetimes. And that is why I still am a firm believer in Efuels.

[pdac]

This is my prediction:

 

• The world will not make anywhere near the changes required to avert or even delay the effects of climate change very much.
• As deadlines for policies to be enacted, the bigger economies in the world will start to postpone, defer or water down those actions.
• As the effects of climate change start to be felt and turmoil starts to hit the world as a whole, those nations not immediately hit hard will start to look at ways to protect their societies against the inevitable.
• Part of those moves to protect themselves will result in abandoning any actions to avert change (realisation that it is inevitable).

I don't see any way to avoid this. People are altruistic when they are not unduly affected by anything. But once the effects are felt by all, most abandon altruism and become increasingly selfish and protective of themselves and their families. Those that don't are forced to become protective.

[PayasYouRace]

Since when has government policy made sense? But, of course, the future is not millions of cars being plugged into the grid. The future is millions of people no longer owning a car. The days of personal transport as we understand it are limited.

That’s not the future. People will always want the freedom of owning their personal transport.

[pdac]

That’s not the future. People will always want the freedom of owning their personal transport.

 

But they won't get it. That's all I'm saying. It is the future, whether people like it or not.

[PayasYouRace]

But they won't get it. That's all I'm saying. It is the future, whether people like it or not.

Why won’t they get it?

[Ben1445]

When there is a choice between an inefficiënt fuel or one that simply isn't available at all, the inefficiënt one wins it. Also that study confines itself to the current situation and not when Efuels are available to the masses and will be enhanced over time.

Do you see how efficiency and availability are linked? The inefficiency of producing eFuels is such that there isn't the existing capacity to produce enough of it to meet today's demand, and on the way to reaching that capacity you will enable other, more efficient options to become viable and available. 
 
Using some ballpark figures for the UK as an example, petrol and diesel demand into fuel tanks is equivalent to roughly 400 TWh of energy annually, of which something like 100 TWh is actually delivered through the wheels to the road. Let's start with the following baselines/assumptions:

• The UK's current annual electricity demand is around 300 TWh.
• To replace petrol/diesel demand with EVs, you need to source/provide around 120 TWh of of annual energy production towards vehicle charging.
• To replace petrol/diesel demand with eFuels you'd need to source/provide around 600 TWh of annual energy production towards production of the fuel. 

So let's say the UK goes hell for leather on harnessing its domestic renewable natural resources (as all nations should) and over time manages to add an extra 500 TWh of renewable electricity production on top of fully replacing the existing 300 TWh.
 
You could allocate all of this extra 500 TWh towards eFuel production entirely for domestic road travel but, in this long term example, it is only enough to cover about 80% of current demand. Any additional transport and industrial fuel demand would then have to be imported, hopefully from a friendly, non-hostile country with even more excess renewable energy than the UK. Failing that  -which is likely, at least in the short term - you'd need to turn to fossil fuels (really not an option) or restrict how much people travel (very unpopular with the voters). 
 
Alternatively, you could allocate 150 of that 500 TWh towards charging EVs, and then have 350 TWh more to play with. In that case, why not commit that extra 350 TWh towards producing green hydrogen and eFuels? It's estimated that replacing the UK's aviation fuel demand with green hydrogen fuel for aircraft would require around 250-300 TWh of electricity, so in this scenario you could also meet that domestic aviation demand and then still have 50-100 TWh left over. Perhaps you can use that as an energy export industry, either by direct electrical interconnects to close neighbours or though further production of hydrogen/eFuels. 
 
For these reasons - whilst I do think that eFuels have a place in the mix - I really do not believe them to be a miracle transition technology of the medium-term future. 

[Sterzo]

But they won't get it. That's all I'm saying. It is the future, whether people like it or not.

Not sure whether they will or won't, but you're essentially right: they shouldn't expect to.

 

When I was a child, streets were for playing in, and there was only a handful of cars on our estate. (Yes, I'm that old). History doesn't give us many intelligible lessons, but one certain one is: things don't have to be the way they are today.

[Ben1445]

That’s not the future. People will always want the freedom of owning their personal transport.

What I want is freedom to go where I want, when I want. I also want that to be reasonably stress free and for it not to cost me too much of my money.

That doesn’t necessarily mean I want to own my own personal transport. That desire only manifests itself if owning my own personal transport provides the best option for meeting those requirements.

Edited by Ben1445, 22 March 2023 - 12:08.

[PayasYouRace]

What I want is freedom to go where I want, when I want. I also want that to be reasonably stress free and for it not to cost me too much of my money.

That doesn’t necessarily mean I want to own my own personal transport. That desire only manifests itself if owning my own personal transport provides the best option for meeting those requirements.

That’s a fair assessment. For example I can imagine not owning a car if I lived and worked in London. But I couldn’t be without one in the West Country.

But what I object to is the claim that, without a huge change in where we live, our habits for personal transport will suddenly change. Unless we suddenly all moved to well connected cities, roughly the same amount of people will desire personal transport.

[Beri]

Do you see how efficiency and availability are linked? The inefficiency of producing eFuels is such that there isn't the existing capacity to produce enough of it to meet today's demand, and on the way to reaching that capacity you will enable other, more efficient options to become viable and available. 
 
[Snip]

I do get that. But let's be fair, this is the same excuse used by the anti hydrogen community as well. Which at the moment is true. Yet there is valid reason to believe that this is about to change as there are more companies committing to hydrogen and thus demand will likely to be met in the near future.
On Efuels there is the same issue. At the moment it is a process that is not anywhere near as efficient as anyone would want it to be. It won't be available to the masses. But then there is this hard date within 10 years from now. And this is a deadline that all the petrochemical companies can develop against to iron out the processes and invent new technologies to improve the efficiency on that matter. It's not set in stone that it will remain inefficiënt. It is set in stone that it will always be less efficient than electric propulsion. But Efuels will find its way onto the consumer market in 10 yeats. And perhaps it will cost a fortune to fill up your car when the first Efuels arrive, but that is a choice then to keep on driving your car at a premium.

[Ben1445]

I do get that. But let's be fair, this is the same excuse used by the anti hydrogen community as well. Which at the moment is true. Yet there is valid reason to believe that this is about to change as there are more companies committing to hydrogen and thus demand will likely to be met in the near future.
On Efuels there is the same issue. At the moment it is a process that is not anywhere near as efficient as anyone would want it to be. It won't be available to the masses. But then there is this hard date within 10 years from now. And this is a deadline that all the petrochemical companies can develop against to iron out the processes and invent new technologies to improve the efficiency on that matter. It's not set in stone that it will remain inefficiënt. It is set in stone that it will always be less efficient than electric propulsion. But Efuels will find its way onto the consumer market in 10 yeats. And perhaps it will cost a fortune to fill up your car when the first Efuels arrive, but that is a choice then to keep on driving your car at a premium.

I guess what I don't understand then is why you have optimism in abundance for eFuels and the possibility to work around some (really quite fundamental) barriers to widespread adoption and therefore  predict that they will be the answer to our problems over the next few decades, whilst also saying that widespread adoption of EVs are a utopian pipe dream which can never happen? Why is there no valid reason to believe that EVs cannot also overcome some of these barriers? That doesn't feel fair and balanced to me. 

 

I'm not anti-eFuels, and I'm not anti-hydrogen. I'm not in favour of flat-out banning them from being used for cars. I just don't think they're nearly as useful as some people want to believe, and I would like to think that my posts here have outlined why. 

 

That’s a fair assessment. For example I can imagine not owning a car if I lived and worked in London. But I couldn’t be without one in the West Country.

But what I object to is the claim that, without a huge change in where we live, our habits for personal transport will suddenly change. Unless we suddenly all moved to well connected cities, roughly the same amount of people will desire personal transport.

I do get it - I bought myself a car because it was the best way to give me that freedom to travel out from a village environment. 

 

However, what is also true is that I now frequently drive past what used to be the village railway station in order to get to the very same towns that the branch line once served. I have also seen local bus services steadily cut down in coverage, connectivity and frequency. Also, our village Post Office closed.. and a pub.  

 

So in many ways I'm with Sterzo here that things do not have to be the way they are today, even for more rural settings.

Edited by Ben1445, 22 March 2023 - 13:35.

[cbo]

The only thing new here is that the EU consider a proposal to let passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (vans) drive on the same stuff as heavier vehicles is supposed to drive on in the future.

And consider doing so, not because it makes sense, but because the German auto-industry think it needs this subsidy to survive.

Rather than a vindication of certain points of view regarding electric cars, this is a worrying sign that German industry is even more behind than we thought.

But I look forward to the possibility of being able to tow a caravan to France after 2030 without having to charge every 150-200 km 😁

[PayasYouRace]

We should just ban caravans. Just use a hotel like a civilised person. /s

[pdac]

Why won’t they get it?

 

Legislation or changes in the market.

[cbo]

We should just ban caravans. Just use a hotel like a civilised person. /s

I have no intention to masquerade as a civilized person - also, I would probably suck at it 😁

[pdac]

I'm convinced that the UK announcement is purely about trumpeting to the world that Britain is a place to sell EVs and, as such, manufacturers might want to build factories in the UK and employ British people and, therefore, grow the UK economy - i.e. it has nothing whatsoever to do with trying to reduce emissions or be environmentally friendly.

 

Also, I'm quite convinced that, as the date draws nearer, they will postpone it - unless there are manufacturing facilities in the UK.

 

Looks like it might be starting even sooner than I thought.

 

https://www.bbc.co.u...litics-66857551

Edited by pdac, 20 September 2023 - 12:59.

[BCM]

 Look at hydrogen. Same issues that you've mentioned and scarce like a pink freckled toad some years ago, but nowadays hydrogen plants are being stamped out of the ground in record time.
It's all a matter of supply and demand. Or better the other way around. If the demand is high, the supply will follow as there is money to be made.

 

 

They're being built by petroleum companies because they have a vested interest in trying to keep their business model alive., not because there's demand there. Electrification doesn't support that model.

 

I'm in mining in Australia and hydrogen which was being spruiked as the replacement for diesel for mining equipment like shovels, excavators and haul trucks is dead. Just doesn't stack up. Everyone is firmly headed down the full electrification path. We're working on projects with a number of the majors now. Even Andrew Forrest who owns one of the iron ore majors FMG, and who bought Williams Advanced Engineering a few years back has given up on the idea of hydrogen fuel cell trucks. They're going full steam ahead with BEV haul trucks.
 

[J2NH]

The argument against ICE at this point is fairly weak.  Sorry.  You certainly can make the CO2 claim but then when you look at the alternatives, specifically EV's, the argument falls apart do the sourcing of the raw materials.  EV's are not carbon neutral.  I've seen numbers from 20K miles to significantly higher before an EV emits less carbon than an ICEV thanks to primarily the batteries.  It comes down to mining raw materials that aren't necessarily rare but they are scarce which means lots of mining, energy and environmental damage, and very low returns.  As demand grows the scarcity increase and more mining, energy and environmental damage, is required for the raw materials.  

 

I for one am not convinced that mining the crap out of third world countries, mining that would never be allowed in first world countries, to satisfy our need for personal transportation is the way forward.  

 

I would be curious to know if the milage a Formula E car does in a year produces less CO2 than a similar powered ICE race car would produce given the relatively low milage and the front loading of CO2 in battery production.  Wouldn't that be something?