Electric Boats

[Wing Mark]

If it falls 1m, surely that's 1 million tonnes..?

If you've got a pool of water and the tide goes out, you sort of weigh off the amount of water you let flow against the height it falls through.
If you extract lots of energy from the water, it won't move so much.

For simple sums, I was saying run the turbine with a 1m height difference, then you might have about 2m worth of tide to work through each way.
Only trying to get a rough idea of the energy involved.

 

[Bigplumbs]

If it falls 1m, surely that's 1 million tonnes..?

I think the issue is in the use of the phrase 1km Square. If he means 1000 m x 1000 m x 1 m fall that is indeed 1 Million Tonnes. If he meant 1000 m2 area then that is 1000 tons. Either way I can see how it is 2 Million Tonnes

 

[Wing Mark]

I think the issue is in the use of the phrase 1km Square. If he means 1000 m x 1000 m x 1 m fall that is indeed 1 Million Tonnes. If he meant 1000 m2 area then that is 1000 tons. Either way I can see how it is 2 Million Tonnes

More like ~300m x 500m looking at the map.

 

[henryf]

I’m not going to question the maths on the basis most of the stuff posted on here is bedroom half truths when you speak to actual people who do it for a living but Chichester pool is a tiny spec on the UK’s tidal map. Is it 12 miles offshore that we own? Chichester pool doesn’t even register as a percentage of what we have on offer. Even the river Severn at Bristol doesn’t register as a percentage of what’s potentially available.

Do your calculation on the Solent. 13 miles long, a couple of miles wide, say 2 metres of tide so 4 metres of usable height difference per 12 hours. And the Solent is only a tiny percentage of what’s available to us. I think the total area of our UK waters, the EEZ is about 770,000 square km. Do your sums on that and I suspect there’s more than enough potential energy to power the whole of the UK. Probably the whole of the world!

 

[Wing Mark]

I’m not going to question the maths on the basis most of the stuff posted on here is bedroom half truths when you speak to actual people who do it for a living but Chichester pool is a tiny spec on the UK’s tidal map. Is it 12 miles offshore that we own? Chichester pool doesn’t even register as a percentage of what we have on offer. Even the river Severn at Bristol doesn’t register as a percentage of what’s potentially available.

Do your calculation on the Solent. 13 miles long, a couple of miles wide, say 2 metres of tide so 4 metres of usable height difference per 12 hours. And the Solent is only a tiny percentage of what’s available to us. I think the total area of our UK waters, the EEZ is about 770,000 square km. Do your sums on that and I suspect there’s more than enough potential energy to power the whole of the UK. Probably the whole of the world!

You do the maths, as you probably wouldn't believe mine, or any of the hundreds of man-years of studies that have gone into tidal energy and produced incredibly little.
English Channel's about 200km wide, 50m-100m deep ranges from 0 to 3 knots? How much energy goes past?

For sure there is a lot of energy swilling back and forth in tidal waters, extracting a significant amount from it ain't easy.
The low-hanging fruit of things like old tide mills are small fruit.

Most of the tide stream in say the English Channel is quite slow (even from a sailing boat perspective).
Extracting energy from water doing 1 knot seems to be difficult . Certain marine instrument companies seem to struggle to even measure it when it's doing less than 2 knots!.

Where nature has provided a few lumpy great islands to speed up the flow to more useful rates, people are playing with 2 Megawatt turbines, which cost millions. If you had to build the islands as well, it would cost trillions,
It's a cash cow for researchers and greenwashing consultants.
Compared to the gigawatts of wind turbines which are self-funding now.

A lot of this stuff seems to have gone nowhere since it was on Tomorrow's World with William Woollard and James Burke?

 

[henryf]

They said landing on the moon was impossible and I can imagine there were one or two hurdles to jump but it happened.

Whilst oil is plentiful and in common use there is little incentive to develop stuff like tide. But the fact remains tidal energy is out there and we are extremely well placed as and when a means of harvesting it becomes available.

As someone who spends a bit of time hovering around the Needles and Hurst castle I see a lot of very easy to measure tidal flow !

 

[Wing Mark]

...

As someone who spends a bit of time hovering around the Needles and Hurst castle I see a lot of very easy to measure tidal flow !

The wave energy around there can be fairly awe inspiring too.

But people struggle to get their heads around the scale of power, whether it's a small nuclear reactor, tidal or something like Battersea power station.
It all seems like a lot, but 'shared among 60 million of us, it don't go far.'

 

[KREW2]

I think I'm on to a financial winner here. I'm going to by an old freighter and fit it out with generators. Then I will patrol up and down mid channel charging extortionate rates for re-charging.

 

[Hurricane]

Isn't the maths here irrelevant.
Surely we are talking current flow.
After the water has left a set of turbines or whatever is used to collect the energy, it can flow on to another station and more energy collected.
etc.....

 

[Bigplumbs]

Isn't the maths here irrelevant.
Surely we are talking current flow.
After the water has left a set of turbines or whatever is used to collect the energy, it can flow on to another station and more energy collected.
etc.....

You gotta remember however that energy can neither be created or destroyed only changed from one form to another

 

[henryf]

The wave energy around there can be fairly awe inspiring too.

But people struggle to get their heads around the scale of power, whether it's a small nuclear reactor, tidal or something like Battersea power station.
It all seems like a lot, but 'shared among 60 million of us, it don't go far.'

As I said previously this is just a tiny spec on the UK’s tidal potential. I just happened to mention it because I know it quite well.

 

[GravyStain]

Drifting back to the original point of this thread (pun intended), with the huge shift to EV's, be they car or boat, can anyone demonstrate the environmantal impact of battery creation (be they LiOn or whtaever) as compared to us continuing with the use of ICE's.

Raping the planet for batteries is no more environmentally friendly that raping it for oil (or is it)?

I question whether it is. Oil infrastructure is already in place. This can't be said for the creation of new ways to extract ores / build car plants etc...

Live in a terraced house with no allocated parking - you're buggered
Live in a flat - you're buggered

Oil WILL run out at some point, that's a given. But so will the raw materials to make these batteries, especially when needed on a global scale.

We need the political will to look 30 years into the future and make HUGE investments in renewables / synthetic fuels.
the EV bandwagon is just a step, I get that. But it has become far too diversionary and taken us away from the will to invest in the above.

battery banks are NOT the future, and nor is oil. Both will run out of raw materials at some point and then what?

Just my 2p.

Oh, and have you ever seen an EV on fire? not a pretty sight.

 

[kashurst]

EV batteries are a lot better for the environment than burning oil. The batteries can be reused in other applications and eventually stripped back to their chemical constituents and a new battery made. So we will not "run out" of Lithium etc. Electric cars have less components than IC cars and are easier to make. In a country with a good % or renewable electricity an EV is better than an IC car after about 30K - 40K miles. EVs also last a LOT longer than IC cars. Many Teslas have gone over 300K miles on the original batteries.
There is a big push to try and get rid of Cobalt from the batteries. Already the % needed has been lowered with each new battery design. It's expensive and mining it for the Oil Industry in catalysts has used child labour. EV battery mines do not use child labour. There is loads of electricity in the UK, more renewables coming online all the time. It's over 40% already.
Terrace houses - yes at the moment a problem. But in London there are experiments with lampost charge points. Plus range is going up all the time and charging time is going down. In 5 maybe 10 years it will not be neccessary to have to charge at home. Edit the new Hyundai/Kia's charge so fast you don't really need to charge at home now.

Hydrogen always looks attractive but it is very energy intensive to create and compress so I suspect will only be used in special applications or in Countries with very high levels of renewable energy who can afford to waste a big chunk of their electricity compressing hydrogen. Japan seems very keen on it. And you need a long term government that knows what it is doing - absolutely no chance of that happening in the UK.
Synthetic fuels are interesting but again energy expensive to create so likely to end up in Airplanes and specialist machinery. But if people are happy to pay £6 a litre maybe it will be available for IC cars.
Large scale energy storage systems for power generation and buffering can use other batteries than Lithium Ion. Iron Oxide seems very effective and is very very cheap and easily obtained. No use in a car as they are far too heavy. No problem for a fixed piece of infrastructure.

 

[GravyStain]

The batteries can be reused in other applications and eventually stripped back to their chemical constituents and a new battery made. So we will not "run out" of Lithium etc.

I didn't know this K... Thanks for the enlightenment. If the lithium etc is renewable and isn't too energy intensive to recycle then this removes a part of the argument against...

I'm still keeping my GTS though - they don't do the Taycan in a convertible!

 

[henryf]

EV batteries are a lot better for the environment than burning oil.

Electric cars have less components than IC cars and are easier to make. In a country with a good % or renewable electricity an EV is better than an IC car after about 30K - 40K miles. EVs also last a LOT longer than IC cars. Many Teslas have gone over 300K miles on the original batteries.

It's expensive and mining it for the Oil Industry in catalysts has used child labour. EV battery mines do not use child

On so many levels no, no ,no and no.

EV battery manufacturers have this notion that old inefficient batteries will be used in other applications. Who wants to base these alternative technologies around failing batteries with ever decreasing capacity. It’s like a game of pass the parcel where the last person holding the baby has to dispose of the thing. There are EVs sitting in fields that no one wants or is able to recycle.


IC engines are simple to produce, cheap to produce - I remember speaking to a chap years ago who told me a Fiesta engine cost around $100 to produce at cost. They are totally recyclable, metal is probably the most recyclable material we have. Take a look on Youtube for splitting a Tesla motor. Loads of electronics, masses of components, really hard to separate and recycle. Also VERY EXPENSIVE to produce.

The battery ages much faster than an IC engine. You might get a 5 or 10 % deterioration over 20 years with an IC engine but it’s not a given. ANY new car can do high milages. That’s really easy. The harder part is getting cost and longevity of total life, say 20 years. Teslas haven’t been around long enough yet to quote this figure. Given how tightly Tesla are trying to control after market service and parts supply the cars will quickly reach a non economic value and be removed from circulation.

You can’t just say the oil industry uses child labour but battery manufacture doesn’t That is not true, there have been lots of reports showing child labour in the battery raw material supply chain.

 

[Bigplumbs]

On so many levels no, no ,no and no.

EV battery manufacturers have this notion that old inefficient batteries will be used in other applications. Who wants to base these alternative technologies around failing batteries with ever decreasing capacity. It’s like a game of pass the parcel where the last person holding the baby has to dispose of the thing. There are EVs sitting in fields that no one wants or is able to recycle.


IC engines are simple to produce, cheap to produce - I remember speaking to a chap years ago who told me a Fiesta engine cost around $100 to produce at cost. They are totally recyclable, metal is probably the most recyclable material we have. Take a look on Youtube for splitting a Tesla motor. Loads of electronics, masses of components, really hard to separate and recycle. Also VERY EXPENSIVE to produce.

The battery ages much faster than an IC engine. You might get a 5 or 10 % deterioration over 20 years with an IC engine but it’s not a given. ANY new car can do high milages. That’s really easy. The harder part is getting cost and longevity of total life, say 20 years. Teslas haven’t been around long enough yet to quote this figure. Given how tightly Tesla are trying to control after market service and parts supply the cars will quickly reach a non economic value and be removed from circulation.

You can’t just say the oil industry uses child labour but battery manufacture doesn’t That is not true, there have been lots of reports showing child labour in the battery raw material supply chain.

I am with Henry on this one.

 

[John100156]

I foresee battery stores at the back of our garages, to store PV energy generated when we are all out to work during the day, and release it to serve high efficiency lighting and power chargers, just this afternoon I had an email from a scientist that wants some equipment in a recently completed battery test lab, that requires regenerative energy produced to be taken back to the grid - no idea what's required yet, await the spec on the equipment he intends to use.

Batteries and storage capacities, like mobile phone batteries, will reduce in size and increase in energy stored - remember the bricks we used to carry to show off we had a mobile phone - not that long ago....!

Fun debate - been busy today at work but I do agree with some posts above about tidal energy, allow water to run in to very large volume stores, and then release and generate energy on fall.

 

[John100156]

Isn't the maths here irrelevant.
Surely we are talking current flow.
After the water has left a set of turbines or whatever is used to collect the energy, it can flow on to another station and more energy collected.
etc.....

As you know, energy cannot be destroyed, it just transfers from one form to another, so once kinetic energy (mass times acceleration squared) used to generate electrical energy via the turbine, will have less power (mass will be constant save only a tiny change in density ) as it moves on, mind you, there is a hell of a lot of it ...!

 

[Reality61]

There was an article on a Hybrid design boat which has a range extender and can do 35 plus knots, they did a lot of GPS tracking of peoples boats and worked out that most journeys are below 2hrs at a time.

The boat does look stunning but until there are better Hydrogen options this may suit the eager to go electric speeders among us ! This is not a plod plod !! and is made of a new material not GRP which is eco friendly.

Furyan Marine Technology - Furyan Marine Technology

The designer is a boater and also designs current racing cars and is connected with Hydrogen fueled designs as well moving forward.

Take a look !

 

[John100156]

I know we are not there just yet, as we cannot store enough energy to drive a decent size EB for any length of time, but I do like the thought that if you run out of diesel you're stuffed, by with an EB once the hook is dropped, the next day, PV starts to fill the tanks.....!

IT WILL HAPPEN - IT MUST As you may have gathered, I love old electrickery and new photons of light and hydrogen technologies, hope I am around long enough to see a P67 converted to EB....