Energy Matters Global and Domestic

[Gibbo2286]

Stop burning stuff has started the fight back.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... r-minerals

[Peter.N.]

My main gripe is that I can't get to the north of Scotland without recharging at least twice and that would be pretty nearly a full charge each time, assuming you can find a working and not already in use charger and that there are no other cars being charged on the same bank at the same time which will considerably increase the length of time you have to wait. In addition they can charge getting on for £1.00 per Kwh. I can get there and about a third of the way back on a tankful of diesel for considerably less cost.

Don't get me wrong, I am not completely opposed to electric cars, but its horses for courses. As a second car for doing the school run and shopping they are ideal and if charged at home very cheap to run, but not for long journeys.

Peter

[mickthemaverick]

I am quite pleased at this month's consumption, given that my bedroom radiator was blasting out heat almost continuously for 2 weeks until I replaced the TRV. Despite that it is still the best performance in 5 years and the overall pattern is good and validated my energy device purge. There is not much else I can do so I expect future consumption to follow a similar path to this year and I will be watching but I think I'll make this my last post about it on here!!

MTMO

[NewcastleFalcon]

I always prefer yes we can, to it's a disaster can't be done

I'm not going to embed this video, watch it if you want to, its from Matt Ferrell, from his undecided channel. Very much in the mould of Dave Borlace and his justhaveathink channel, thorough well researched, informative, calm!

The subject What really happens to used Solar Panels.

I'll give you my nutshell from the vid, no vouching accuracy of the numbers from me (as if I could!)

New solar panels are now manufactured at huge volume, 90% of which are made in China, with the price/Watt to manufacture coming down from 10$ a Watt 30 years ago to 0.30$/Watt today.

Scrapping a Solar Panel costs less than 5$, recycling costs-15$ to 45$ at current volumes and current processing, but solar panels manufacture currently consumes 15% of the global supply of Silver, and used solar panels contain useful recyclable materials.

The video features a Texas firm Solarcycle which currently recycle panels at 15$-18$ per panel with clever machinery, and an ability to recover the valuable metals and other materials in a form for processing by other industries as raw materials including the recovery of silver.

Clearly the cost of scrapping and cost of recycling equation needs rebalancing for the recycling industry to flourish. On the recycling side volume and economies of scale, and increasing value for some of the recycled materials brings the unit cost down. Scrapping is a poor option, and its current and former easy way out of cheapness is likely to be a policy that would be actively discouraged and become increasingly uneconomic.

If you want to watch it its here

Spoiler: show

Matt Ferrells undecided channel is here if you want to explore https://www.youtube.com/@UndecidedMF/videos

What really happens to used solar panels? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCtEWveySsA

Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I liked this presentation of this summing up !!

[myglaren]

Hard to listen to presenter but possibly interesting if you can get past that.

[Peter.N.]

As he says 'interesting' but certified figures. is what we need.

Peter

[Gibbo2286]

Couldn't decide best place to put this EV podcast but here it tis.

https://player.captivate.fm/episode/faa ... 152748c46d

[mickthemaverick]

I gave it a go Gibbo but basically I got bored. I've never been a fan of Quentin Wilson's speaking style so that didn't help!! At the end of the day there appears to be a debate on the virtue of EV's going on with both sides publishing various information which may or may not be true. I don't care, I'll make my own judgement based on my education, training, experience and situation!!

[bobins]

Whilst I am no fan of him, JayEmm made some good points on a recent Youtube of his making. The EV evangelists have their point of view, the EV naysayers have theirs. The truth lies somewhere in between and no one side holds all the cards. He also made the point that EVs don't suit everybody, but they do suit some people. He did make one excellent point though - what measures are in place for people with additional needs (less abled, disabled, etc, etc) to get their cars charged ? An awful lot of traditional garages have a system in place where assistance can be summoned in one way, shape or form - there appears to be no widespread system for the spread of EV charging sites

[myglaren]

Honda and Mitsubishi are to test the feasibility of powering a datacenter with fuel cells taken from electric vehicles, using hydrogen produced as a byproduct of an industrial process.

The project is scheduled to run for two years from March 31 in Shunan City, Japan. It aims to assess any reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from datacenter ops by powering a "distributed datacenter" run by Mitsubishi from a stationary fuel cell power station that Honda is developing, using fuel cells repurposed from the EVs.

Hydrogen for the fuel cell power station will be provided by a third Japanese company, Tokuyama Corporation, as a byproduct from its salt water electrolysis business, which manufactures about 50,000 tons of sodium hypochlorite each year.

The project was proposed by Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), which promotes the research, development and adoption of industrial, energy and environmental technologies.

More on The Register

[Peter.N.]

I still don't see how they can produce hydrogen economically and cleanly. The only way, unless I am wrong, of producing it greenly is by electrolysis and the amount of power required to produce it would be way in excess of the cost of ICE fuel plus it has to be distributed and is all that electricity ever going to be available at any cost?

Peter

[myglaren]

In the instance above it is a by-product of desalinating water to extract Sodium.

"Hydrogen for the fuel cell power station will be provided by a third Japanese company, Tokuyama Corporation, as a byproduct from its salt water electrolysis business, which manufactures about 50,000 tons of sodium hypochlorite each year".

[Peter.N.]

Sorry I didn't read that properly, perhaps someone can give an explanation of how the same power can be used for desalination and the production of hydrogen?

Peter

[RichardW]

https://prodoseltd.com/what-is-the-elec ... 20released.

The hydrogen is a by-product, presumably normally just vented to atmosphere.