How much longer will sales of boats with internal combustion engines be allowed?

[flaming]

Not unless they solve the problem of diesel powered shipping first. Not much freight is going to get transported if diesel is banned. Actually you can make diesel from plant oil, so if we have gone all zero fossil fuel by then motorboating can be as green as a wind powered boat.

I can easily see a situation where fossil fuels are banned for personal use but allowed for shipping and aviation. Viable electric cars are, in my opinion, the thing that allows the politicians to make that leap.

And there is also the question of supply. If there is no road diesel, is there enough demand in other uses of diesel for there to be a viable diesel industry?

 

[JumbleDuck]

Not sure I totally agree there. I'm currently looking at an electric car with a range of nearly 300 miles. How many people really need to drive more than 300 miles without stopping for an hour or 2 to charge it up again? For most people having 300 miles "in the tank" at the start of each day from overnight charging would be more than enough.

You are, with respect, answering the wrong question. What most people want most days doesn't matter as much as what most people want some days. Most people, most of the time, don't need to do 300 miles without stopping. However many people want to be able to do that at least some of the time. A car suitable for 95% of journeys will always lose out to a car suitable for all of them.

It's a bit like seats. The overwhelming majority of car journeys are done with nobody in the back seats and most of them are done with nobody in the passenger seat. And yet people still buy four- or five-seaters ...

Then of course there is price. How much is your 300-mile range car going to cost you? Some years ago an acquaintance of mine treated me to a lecture about how stupid I was, and how stupid poor people were, to be spending 12p per mile on fuel when he could recharge his Tesla Roadster for a couple of quid. He didn't recognize that there might be barriers between the poor and a car costing £100,000.

I'd like an electric car. Every week I drive to Lockerbie station in order to take the train to Edinburgh. If the train is cancelled I have to drive, and when I get to Edinburgh there is nowhere convenient to recharge, so I need a range of at least 250 and ideally 300 (roadworks, diversions, weather) 300 miles. By scruffy old Berlingo costs me £525, but I am willing to spend twice that on electric. What are my options?

I expect that electric cars will take over, but I very much doubt that they will do so for long journeys. They are simply too slow and too inconvenient. Furthermore replacing the energy currently consumed in the form of petrol and diesel would require a colossal increase in generating capacity and a complete rebuilding of the distribution system. I think it is far more likely that cars will be used for short journeys only and that a resurgence of rail will deal with long distance. Until that happens, though, electric cars will be very, very niche.

 

[RAI]

Companies like Toyota seem to be going big on hydrogen. If they a right, hydrogen will be the intermediate fuel before batteries get good enough. It also offers ice or fuel cell electric options.
I think it will be a long time before ships and super yachts leave diesel behind, they can get a lot cleaner with AdBlue etc..

 

[JumbleDuck]

And there is also the question of supply. If there is no road diesel, is there enough demand in other uses of diesel for there to be a viable diesel industry?

Sure. It may just cost a bit more, but it will continue to exist as a by-product of the petrochemcial industry.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Would the demand for leisure fuel be enough to support a fuel industry once the demand for road fuel has dropped to almost zero though?

Nobody is proposing to ban IC powered commercial vehicles.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Cars can be optimized to use low power engines to achieve high performance - even ICE has improved vastly over the last few decades. Most of us can remember when 30mpg was a reasonable economy for a family car such s a Fiesta - now it's more like 50mpg. And the capacity of engines has gone down - my little VW UP! has a capacity less than a litre, but it is far more effective at moving the car than the engines of the 1970s! There have been developments in transmission, suspension and body styling all of which mean you need less power to move the same number of people.

It comes down to power density. An EV stores something like 50-60 KWh. I don't know what volume that's in, but it's equivalent to the energy in about 4 litres of diesel! The diesel is less efficient - our engines probably manage 30% efficiency - so it's the equivalent of maybe 12 litres of diesel. But the VOLUME of the battery is vastly greater - it's hidden in clever bodywork in an EV, and the EV is designed round the battery . Unfortunately boats - especially sailing boats - don't have the luxury of building a hull round a battery - other factors are important, and batteries must be tucked into the space available. Perhaps next generation boats could be - but even so, they will have vastly restricted ranges compared with diesels. I can EASILY store enough diesel to run my engine for well over 24 hours, and I have used that ability. Without it, I would have taken perhaps 2-3 days to do a passage that took just over 24 hours (the wind was against us!). A boat with a battery like an EV would be able to do maybe a quarter of the distance I could with diesel. Further, I could readily refill with diesel anywhere on the way; there's no prospect of being able to charge an EV style battery as readily.

If electric boats are to become widespread, we need the development of versatile fuel cells. That will happen - a lot of research is going on. But it's probably 5-10 years in the future, and probably won't be able to be retro-fitted to a boat like mine.

 

[RAI]

Maybe we will be burning aviation kerosene in our little boats. Diesels run happy and cleaner on it.

 

[flaming]

Nobody is proposing to ban IC powered commercial vehicles.

Yet....

 

[RAI]

Yet....

Elon has a truck.

 

[flaming]

You are, with respect, answering the wrong question. What most people want most days doesn't matter as much as what most people want some days. Most people, most of the time, don't need to do 300 miles without stopping. However many people want to be able to do that at least some of the time. A car suitable for 95% of journeys will always lose out to a car suitable for all of them.

It's a bit like seats. The overwhelming majority of car journeys are done with nobody in the back seats and most of them are done with nobody in the passenger seat. And yet people still buy four- or five-seaters ...

Then of course there is price. How much is your 300-mile range car going to cost you? Some years ago an acquaintance of mine treated me to a lecture about how stupid I was, and how stupid poor people were, to be spending 12p per mile on fuel when he could recharge his Tesla Roadster for a couple of quid. He didn't recognize that there might be barriers between the poor and a car costing £100,000.

I'd like an electric car. Every week I drive to Lockerbie station in order to take the train to Edinburgh. If the train is cancelled I have to drive, and when I get to Edinburgh there is nowhere convenient to recharge, so I need a range of at least 250 and ideally 300 (roadworks, diversions, weather) 300 miles. By scruffy old Berlingo costs me £525, but I am willing to spend twice that on electric. What are my options?

I expect that electric cars will take over, but I very much doubt that they will do so for long journeys. They are simply too slow and too inconvenient. Furthermore replacing the energy currently consumed in the form of petrol and diesel would require a colossal increase in generating capacity and a complete rebuilding of the distribution system. I think it is far more likely that cars will be used for short journeys only and that a resurgence of rail will deal with long distance. Until that happens, though, electric cars will be very, very niche.

Don't really want to get sidetracked into cars, but the point is that if most car use is satisfied by overnight charging, then you don't need anything like as many fast chargers for those doing longer journeys as you currently need petrol stations. And of course as it's just power any business can install one to offer to its customers whilst they use other services. Currently you definitely make sacrifices in convenience in choosing to own an electric car, but that's coming down all the time as more charging points are installed and range increases.

 

[capnsensible]

Maybe we will be burning aviation kerosene in our little boats. Diesels run happy and cleaner on it.

Not so far fetched. I put this on the climate change forum but that's like posting in a desert...

SAF+ Consortium |

 

[TLouth7]

There are two large industries which are going to fight hard against the complete removal of diesel for some years to come: road haulage, and fishing. This latter is a big part of why many of us can only get red diesel for yachts, in effect the availability of diesel to leisure boats is a side effect of infrastructure put in place for the fishing industry.

All in all, I think we have a few years yet.

 

[DJE]

Maybe we will be burning aviation kerosene in our little boats. Diesels run happy and cleaner on it.

Or LPG? The UK gas grid delivers about three times as much energy as the electricity grid. So that's not going away anytime soon.

 

[flaming]

Cars can be optimized to use low power engines to achieve high performance - even ICE has improved vastly over the last few decades. Most of us can remember when 30mpg was a reasonable economy for a family car such s a Fiesta - now it's more like 50mpg. And the capacity of engines has gone down - my little VW UP! has a capacity less than a litre, but it is far more effective at moving the car than the engines of the 1970s! There have been developments in transmission, suspension and body styling all of which mean you need less power to move the same number of people.

It comes down to power density. An EV stores something like 50-60 KWh. I don't know what volume that's in, but it's equivalent to the energy in about 4 litres of diesel! The diesel is less efficient - our engines probably manage 30% efficiency - so it's the equivalent of maybe 12 litres of diesel. But the VOLUME of the battery is vastly greater - it's hidden in clever bodywork in an EV, and the EV is designed round the battery . Unfortunately boats - especially sailing boats - don't have the luxury of building a hull round a battery - other factors are important, and batteries must be tucked into the space available. Perhaps next generation boats could be - but even so, they will have vastly restricted ranges compared with diesels. I can EASILY store enough diesel to run my engine for well over 24 hours, and I have used that ability. Without it, I would have taken perhaps 2-3 days to do a passage that took just over 24 hours (the wind was against us!). A boat with a battery like an EV would be able to do maybe a quarter of the distance I could with diesel. Further, I could readily refill with diesel anywhere on the way; there's no prospect of being able to charge an EV style battery as readily.

If electric boats are to become widespread, we need the development of versatile fuel cells. That will happen - a lot of research is going on. But it's probably 5-10 years in the future, and probably won't be able to be retro-fitted to a boat like mine.

I was just looking at this electric car, and the literature was talking about the ban in sales in 2035 (proposed) and it got me thinking about boats. There's no doubt that you are right in what you say about energy density etc. But I think it is coming, it's inevitable that if we as a society decide that fossil fuels are not to be used in cars, then it's a very small leap to say "oh, and boats too."

To me the big question then is what an all electric boat looks like designed from the bottom up. And what advantages you could get as well. I've seen one, that you could have 2 drives in a mono for very minimal weight penalty. You can also say that recharging from either solar or hydro-generators when sailing should take away most range worries. With only making progress in a flat calm then an issue.

Your example about motoring for 24 hours because the wind was against you is interesting. In an age of no fossil fuels on boats, would you choose to own a boat that was better at going to windward, or choose to go somewhere else?

 

[Skylark]

If the message comes from our government, we can be sure of two things. Firstly that it is an ill-informed, ill conceived piece of propaganda and secondly, that it would require a very joined-up, integrated transport strategy for it to happen successfully. Governments rarely do joined-up thinking.

That said, the villification of the ICE seems unstoppable. Looking back at vehicle related technological advancements over the last 25 years, or thereabouts, suggests that future technologies will continue to evolve at apace. Extrapolating pure electric vehicle technology suggests to me that it will not be the long term winner. Newer and better solutions to replace ICE need to emerge as viable alternatives.

 

[MarkCX]

How long would it take a reasonable sized solar array to charge a battery that would be good for say 5 hours at 4 knots on your boat?

I currently have 2x40watt panels that on a really good day produce 300Wh but usually half that. Difficult to find somewhere to put any more solar, although I have an idea for another 80W panel, but that would be partially shaded a lot of the day. How much power do I need to replace my 16hp inboard?

 

[JumbleDuck]

Yet....

Indeed,

Elon has a truck.

We shall see. Tesla has a habit of announcing new concepts every time it has problems with an existing product.

Don't really want to get sidetracked into cars, but the point is that if most car use is satisfied by overnight charging, then you don't need anything like as many fast chargers for those doing longer journeys as you currently need petrol stations. And of course as it's just power any business can install one to offer to its customers whilst they use other services. Currently you definitely make sacrifices in convenience in choosing to own an electric car, but that's coming down all the time as more charging points are installed and range increases.

That's an interesting point about fast charging. The motorway system would need the same overall energy supply system, and since it takes 60 minutes to put the same number of miles into an electric car as a petrol/diesel pump can manage in 3 minutes, that suggests 20 times as many charging points as there are pumps. Not impossible, if a lot of the car park had fast chargers. I think the overnight charging will actually be harder, because many, many people live where a completely new infrastructure would be needed. Towns. basically. Perhaps the car club model will prevail and actually owning a car will be quite rare.

There is some boating relevance here. The puniest Nissan Leaf has a 40kWh, which is over ten hours' of charging from a 16A socket (this is why I had an external 32A socket fitted when my house was rewired). How many marina power supplies could cope with every visiting yacht drawing a full 16A simultaneously? That would 1.6kA for Lymington ...

None of it is impossible, but maintaining current ownership and use patterns is going to be a lot more disruptive and expensive than many people think. Last year the UK used 16.9bn litres of petrol. At 34 MJ/litre that's 0.57EJ, which averaged out over the year is 18GW. Halving that for the higher on-the-road efficiency of electric means an average of 9GW generation, but if most of that charging happens overnight it could easily mean 20GW. Replacing diesel as well would treble that

At the moment the national grid is supplying 32GW; last night it was 20GW. Installed capacity is 80GW, which is only just enough in the winter as it is ...

 

[flaming]

I currently have 2x40watt panels that on a really good day produce 300Wh but usually half that. Difficult to find somewhere to put any more solar, although I have an idea for another 80W panel, but that would be partially shaded a lot of the day. How much power do I need to replace my 16hp inboard?

Depends on how much range you're comfortable with I guess.
SHAFTDRIVE 5 - Oceanvolt

Oceanvolt think that for roughly the same HP, you can get 20nm range from 7.6kWh of battery. So I guess you'd need a bit more solar...

 

[JumbleDuck]

I currently have 2x40watt panels that on a really good day produce 300Wh but usually half that. Difficult to find somewhere to put any more solar, although I have an idea for another 80W panel, but that would be partially shaded a lot of the day. How much power do I need to replace my 16hp inboard?

In a normal year I get through about 50 litres of diesel, tops, in a 14hp engine. That's 1.9GJ, which is 540 kWh. An electric systems should be twice as efficient, so I could probably get away with 250kWh, which is just 3600 days of average output from your panels.

 

[flaming]

Indeed,

We shall see. Tesla has a habit of announcing new concepts every time it has problems with an existing product.

That's an interesting point about fast charging. The motorway system would need the same overall energy supply system, and since it takes 60 minutes to put the same number of miles into an electric car as a petrol/diesel pump can manage in 3 minutes, that suggests 20 times as many charging points as there are pumps. Not impossible, if a lot of the car park had fast chargers. I think the overnight charging will actually be harder, because many, many people live where a completely new infrastructure would be needed. Towns. basically. Perhaps the car club model will prevail and actually owning a car will be quite rare.

There is some boating relevance here. The puniest Nissan Leaf has a 40kWh, which is over ten hours' of charging from a 16A socket (this is why I had an external 32A socket fitted when my house was rewired). How many marina power supplies could cope with every visiting yacht drawing a full 16A simultaneously? That would 1.6kA for Lymington ...

None of it is impossible, but maintaining current ownership and use patterns is going to be a lot more disruptive and expensive than many people think. Last year the UK used 16.9bn litres of petrol. At 34 MJ/litre that's 0.57EJ, which averaged out over the year is 18GW. Halving that for the higher on-the-road efficiency of electric means an average of 9GW generation, but if most of that charging happens overnight it could easily mean 20GW. Replacing diesel as well would treble that

At the moment the national grid is supplying 32GW; last night it was 20GW. Installed capacity is 80GW, which is only just enough in the winter as it is ...

Really interesting stuff, thanks.