HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE OF leasure boating &fuel taxation due to climate change,from sailing

[dunedin]

Depends where you live! Sailing somewhere significantly inferior is probably not that great an idea - it’s the sort of things that make people invent ways to make sailing interesting like racing round the cans rather than travel!

However, you definitely don’t need FAST charging at a marina as people are usually there for prolonged periods. I used to keep a boat at James Watt Dock (Greenock) it has a customer only slow charger inside the compound and a small number of faster chargers in a public car park just outside the gates. The latter would add about 100miles to most cars in the time people spend unloading (or loading) their stuff into the boat. Never a space/capacity issue when I was there.

When we moved the boat to somewhere else I chatted to another marina about options (we ended up with a mooring instead) and they said they had no chargers but we could use the yard infrastructure with a granny cable on a meter - that would be perfect leave it charging, go sailing, come back tomorrow and even from near zero it would be 100%. Actually in summer we can get away without a charge but in winter we fit in food at one of the many chargers we pass on the way.

Fully agree.
Marinas in locations with great sailing (Clyde, Scottish West Coast amongst others) have a lot of boat owners who are happy to travel long distances to get there.
But also like you have seen cars left charging on granny chargers using power connections in the boatyard area, which are often part empty in the main sailing season.

 

[Clash]

Do you bother to read the posts before responding?

No I didn't think so

I could say the same about you.

"It's an incredibly wasteful use of energy" Regardless of what land is used. If you read the article I linked, there is no land that couldn't be used with better efficiency. Even if it's left fallow as a carbon sink.

 

[Boathook]

Marina car parks don't really need charge points because most people using them are generally coming from short distances. Only the very hard of thinking would use a marina hundreds of miles from their home.

Between 90 and 100 miles one way for me, or if particular roads are bad 120 miles. Being doing this run to indulge in my past time for over 40 years.

 

[Clash]

Between 90 and 100 miles one way for me, or if particular roads are bad 120 miles. Being doing this run to indulge in my past time for over 40 years.

So not hundreds of miles then. Clearly within the fully charged range of most modern EVs for the round trip.

 

[Boathook]

So not hundreds of miles then. Clearly within the fully charged range of most modern EVs for the round trip.

Modern EVs yes, but it is only in the last couple of years that the range for a cheaper EV has become acceptable in my view.

My latest petrol car purchased 1 1/2 years ago cost £27k. Equivalent electric was near £50k plus I live in a flat. All these 2nd hand.

My next car, when ever that is, may be electric but I want to see improvement in charging points and the price they charge per kW. Local shell garage still hasn't got the ev chargers working after installing them over 3 years ago as they mucked up the planning permission !

 

[Clash]

My latest petrol car purchased 1 1/2 years ago cost £27k. Equivalent electric was near £50k plus I live in a flat. All these 2nd hand.

Not doubting your numbers, but there's not enough information there to know. There were certainly plenty of EVs available 18 months ago second hand for less than 50k. VW ID4, ID3 and possibly ID5, Polestar 2, Hyundai (most models), Tesla M3 and Kia EV6 to name a few. Many of them coming in under 50k new.

 

[Boathook]

Not doubting your numbers, but there's not enough information there to know. There were certainly plenty of EVs available 18 months ago second hand for less than 50k. VW ID4, ID3 and possibly ID5, Polestar 2, Hyundai (most models), Tesla M3 and Kia EV6 to name a few. Many of them coming in under 50k new.

I needed an estate car able to take a roof rack and maybe a tow hook in future. The lack of suitably priced local charging points is / was off putting at the time. EVs are good for towns but I'm still not sure outside of major areas.

 

[Seastoke]

I have noticed the chargers on motorway service stations there always to be spare chargers , but on closer inspection they are the slow chargers and peeps are waiting for the fast chargers.

 

[bedouin]

I could say the same about you.

"It's an incredibly wasteful use of energy" Regardless of what land is used. If you read the article I linked, there is no land that couldn't be used with better efficiency. Even if it's left fallow as a carbon sink.

QED as I made quite plain several times I was not talking about using good arable land (unlike say solar farms) but a more industrial process using e.g bacteria (E-Coli is reported to be good at that) for what might be called "artifical photosythesis"

Plenty of projects have proved that this is scientifically feasible but they have not yet scaled to industrial levels

 

[Clash]

I needed an estate car able to take a roof rack and maybe a tow hook in future. The lack of suitably priced local charging points is / was off putting at the time. EVs are good for towns but I'm still not sure outside of major areas.

I just drove 5,500 km across four countries in Europe in one. No problems anywhere.

 

[Clash]

QED as I made quite plain several times I was not talking about using good arable land (unlike say solar farms) but a more industrial process using e.g bacteria (E-Coli is reported to be good at that) for what might be called "artifical photosythesis"

Plenty of projects have proved that this is scientifically feasible but they have not yet scaled to industrial levels

Are these not manufactured from feedstocks and other waste products in order not to compete with food? Which by definition makes it a finite source. Never mind the production costs and emissions. How efficient is this process exactly?

 

[westernman]

I needed an estate car able to take a roof rack and maybe a tow hook in future. The lack of suitably priced local charging points is / was off putting at the time. EVs are good for towns but I'm still not sure outside of major areas.

I have the Electra+ app. In France and Spain there are a ton of chargers - 350kW and 400kW.
There are plenty of other apps such as ChargeMap which covers most of the major charging companies.
You can download that and give yourself an idea of the number of chargers available.

The full price/kWh is 0.54 Euros. If I have a monthly contract (which can be canceled at anytime) for 5 euros a month, the price is 0.39 Euros, if I pay 20 euros a month, the price is 0.29 Euros. Whenever I am doing a longish trip, I will be signing up for one or the other of those monthly contracts and cancelling it immediately after. And you can also reserve your charging bay in advance.
Even 0.54 Euros works out cheaper than diesel.

I checked out the charger availability on the major holiday route Paris <-> Montpellier <-> Barcelona during the "black" days last week (when the whole of France is on the A9 autoroute and on the road to Barcelona), there were loads of traffic jams, but all the Electra high speed chargers had plenty of free bays. There are loads of electra charger locations in France and Spain.

The new EV I have ordered can charge from 10-80% in 15 minutes. I won't have enough time to pee.

I did the trip Barcelona to Montpellier on a "black" day a few years back and it took me 2 hours to get out of the petrol station at Figueras and another hour to do the next 12 kms.

So I not at all concerned about recharging.

I currently pay 0.20 euros at home at the moment. I can get it as cheap as 0.15 euros if I change leccy contract. But the price goes up to 0.26 euros during day time hours. Last time my accountant did the sums counting charging the plugin hybrid Mercedes each night, it worked out cheaper to stay on the 0.20 euros. We consume a fair bit of leccy during the day time for airconditioning/heating, pumping water out of the well to supply the house and also for the swimming pool pump so having cheaper refills for the car was not enough to compensate. Having a fully electric car is not going to change the sums.

In France and Spain EV charging is solved. It is not a problem.

 

[ducked]

It's a non-runner. The land used for bio fuel in the EU could feed 120 million people daily and 2.5% of it is enough to provide the same energy through solar farms. Incredibly wasteful use of energy.

This assumes the market is not only globally rational but also globally humane.

Bit of a stretch.

(and that bio fuel produced from food rather than, say, waste products, is the only non-fossil diesel alternative, but thats a separate, more technical argument)

 

[flaming]

It's not logical to travel hundreds of miles to a marina without charging on the way. If you need a destination charger at the marina, you probably need to rethink your marina needs.

Personally I wouldn't be bothered having a boat if it took hours of driving to get to it every weekend.

But as @ylop says above, a few AC chargers would be all that are needed. Same as in most hotels.

Oi! Stop giving my wife evidence that I'm illogical!

 

[Clash]

This assumes the market is not only globally rational but also globally humane.

Bit of a stretch.

(and that bio fuel produced from food rather than, say, waste products, is the only non-fossil diesel alternative, but thats a separate, more technical argument)

No, I appreciate that agricultural waste products and other non-food derived products can be used. But it's still a finite amount and can't come close to replacing dino juice. Even if it was economical to do so. Which is also in doubt given the availability of other, more efficient methods of producing energy.

 

[ducked]

No, I appreciate that agricultural waste products and other non-food derived products can be used. But it's still a finite amount and can't come close to replacing dino juice. Even if it was economical to do so. Which is also in doubt given the availability of

It's a non-runner. The land used for bio fuel in the EU could feed 120 million people daily and 2.5% of it is enough to provide the same energy through solar farms. Incredibly wasteful use of energy.

My point was a critique of your assumption that the market cares about a 120 million people that could be fed, or that it cares about energetic efficiency.

If there is a future niche demand for diesel/kerosene replacement, for aircraft or boats, and those demanding it have more purchasing power than the hungry hypotheticals, then the demand for energy in that form (rather than electricity) will be met, as long as the frequent flyers can outbid the infrequent eaters.

Thats the way the market works.

Its likely to be expensive, whch may encourage electric boat deployment, but AFAIK long range electric planes (I suppose something like a Super Constellation, only quieter) arent in prospect. Hydrogen does work for planes though, I think the Sovs ran a Tu155 airliner partly on it towards the end of the USSR, but thats a big shift.

Re "finite amount": Perhaps a finite feasable annual production, but not (in contrast to fossil fuel) a finite total amount. But then the demand is also finite, and is currently guaranteed to be limited by the mandatory end of IC passenger car sales in the UK and Europe. I think aviation is something like 2.5-3% of global carbon, so enough to justify investment which leisure boating could potentially piggy back on

 

[Clash]

My point was a critique of your assumption that the market cares about a 120 million people that could be fed, or that it cares about energetic efficiency.

If there is a future niche demand for diesel/kerosene replacement, for aircraft or boats, and those demanding it have more purchasing power than the hungry hypotheticals, then the demand for energy in that form (rather than electricity) will be met, as long as the frequent flyers can outbid the infrequent eaters.

Thats the way the market works.

Its likely to be expensive, whch may encourage electric boat deployment, but AFAIK long range electric planes (I suppose something like a Super Constellation, only quieter) arent in prospect. Hydrogen does work for planes though, I think the Sovs ran a Tu155 airliner partly on it towards the end of the USSR, but thats a big shift.

Re "finite amount": Perhaps a finite feasable annual production, but not (in contrast to fossil fuel) a finite total amount. But then the demand is also finite, and is currently guaranteed to be limited by the mandatory end of IC passenger car sales in the UK and Europe. I think aviation is something like 2.5-3% of global carbon, so enough to justify investment which leisure boating could potentially piggy back on

Don't disagree with any of that. Hydrogen could also work for shipping, although it's also very inefficient. But I would challenge what you said here.

My point was a critique of your assumption that the market cares about a 120 million people that could be fed, or that it cares about energetic efficiency.

I didn't make any assumption and certainly not that one. I quoted the numbers as an illustration of what the trade off was against bio-diesel production in the EU.
"The market" isn't one amorphous blob. The market for energy has many different needs and use cases. From the motor boat owner to the commuter. There isn't a one size fits all product. Some of it absolutely cares about efficiency.

 

[westernman]

the demand for energy in that form (rather than electricity) will be met, as long as the frequent flyers can outbid the infrequent eaters.

Nicely put.

 

[westernman]

Don't disagree with any of that. Hydrogen could also work for shipping, although it's also very inefficient.

Ammonia makes more sense for shipping - more bang per buck than hydrogen.
Hydrogen makes sense for planes - more bang per kg than ammonia or anything else.

Fuel consumption of a plane depends on its weight and that of the fat slobs sitting in it.

 

[Clash]

Ammonia makes more sense for shipping - more bang per buck than hydrogen.
Hydrogen makes sense for planes - more bang per kg than ammonia or anything else.

Fuel consumption of a plane depends on its weight and that of the fat slobs sitting in it.

With pressure up to 700 bar, hydrogen would definitely give more bang per kg. Not sure I'd be comfortable in one of those.