If Only...

If only there were more days like yesterday: where Solar and Wind generation exceeded fossil fuels (for a short while).

The Gridwatch.co.uk graph for the day looks like this:

Sadly this is an exceedingly rare event. 

Both gas AND solar exceeded the output around 1pm. After that? Well, it's back to gas filling the void as the weak autumn afternoon sunshine peters out. 

The grey band of Nuclear seems to be consistently providing baseband throughout the day. There's hardly a day it's offline.

And this is where I looked at having an all-electric system on my boat which seems to be the latest fad at the boat shows: electric propulsion and induction hobs.

I looked into the energy consumption. Basically doing a few miles of travelling and then stopping and using electricity for heating and cooking. Hopefully the heat from the water-cooled electric motor can go into a calorifier to heat the water while cruising.

In summer the power generation was enough to exceed the supply of the energy budget. But in the winter I'd need at least to triple the amount of summer solar power to compensate for the shorter days and the weaker sunshine. 

To do that I'd have to devise some sort of solar sail that could be hoisted on a mast that could be raised and lowered easily. There's no way I could have a fixed solar array of sufficient size on the boat.

And that's the problem with solar at UK latitudes. At best we get around 12 hours of usable sunshine to generate power in the winter, but that's cut to around 4 hours in winter if it's not cloudy. There could be days where there is next to no sunshine at all and it's cloudy. It could go on for weeks. Yes, I know solar panels do generate power in cloudy weather, but it's a fraction of the energy provided by direct sunlight. 

So you end up in winter with a fraction of the time providing usable sunshine compared to summer and you have constant cloud, which then provides a fraction of the sunshine that could be available. 

If you are relying on solar, that's a problem. 

I wouldn't rely in a solely solar setup for a boat. I'd go for a hybrid solution, so you've always got the option of sparking up the generator to charge the batteries. 

Renewables: still not good enough to rely on.

First the War Against the Motorist, Now the War Against the Homeowner...

 Just as there is now a war between the establishment and the motorist, there is soon to be a war between the establishment and the homeowner. 

The latest net zero laws being proposed aim to make it a criminal offence if you don't comply with net zero regulations regarding your home, or make an incorrect or inaccurate statement on any compliance documentation.

The war against the car has been going on for over a decade now and it's never more clear than the proposals around ULEZ, the utter failure of the London ULEZ to make the air around London any clearer and the ever increasing taxation of the car, especially cars deemed "unnecessary" by the people that see themselves as our overlords. They have made it more difficult to own a car and will continue to make it more difficult until the majority of us give up and settle in our 15 minute cities.

Now the establishment are coming for your house. During the Blair years we had the decree that only condensing boilers could be installed. There was no opposition. Then they said that we will only be allowed to install heat pumps instead of gas boilers. Despite the majority of UK housing stock not being compatible with heat pumps, they are making it law.

Now we have the Net Zero legislation being proposed to make criminals out of homeowners that cannot afford to make the required changes to their home.

In other words, they are making it more difficult to own a house, such that eventually you'll give it up.

I'm sure the government will have something akin to the Car Scrappage Scheme where they take ownership of your home. and then rent it out. Not necessarily to you of course, because you couldn't afford to comply you'll be deemed not worthy of house occupation. A retired couple? Nah, off to the government-owned home for you. I say "home": what I mean is "processing facility" where all the old, useless unproductive people go to be "reclaimed". In other words killed and made into compost. 

And you thought raising the pension age was a stand-alone thing? Don't be stupid.

Produce & consume, or else. Serve your corporate masters, consume their output. Accept the credits they give you that allow you to consume, but don't ever think of saving those credits to be able to better your position. Those credits are calculated by A.I. in order to keep you nourished just well enough to serve in the factory. If you do not use your allowance you will be malnourished and will be deemed unproductive and sent off for reclamation.

If you think this is a bit far fetched, I'm only joining the dots and seeing the trend that has been in place for over two decades.

Remember the WEF statement "You Will Own Nothing and Be Happy"? Well, the first part of that is in play. They are making it so difficult to own a car, travel and now own a home, you'll be begging the government to take them off your hands. 

Vote for Labour, or Conservatives or Liberal Democrats at the next election and you'll get more of the same. Another 5 years of oppressive diktats from  whichever government gets in power.

UNLESS YOU VOTE FOR SOMEONE ELSE!

The EV Charging Dance.

 I've just recently purchased (with the help of family) a plug-in Hybrid Prius. Lets not dwell on the lacklustre performance, only to say it's ideally suited to snotting round town picking up fares and will not win any prizes as a grand tourer. 

The other week I went from Leek to Buxton and the car almost ground to a halt on the hills. It is not performance-oriented.

Anyway, lets get to the title. 

Being a plug-in EV, the car obviously can run on Petrol or can be charged up and run for a short time in EV-mode just off the battery.

The battery needs to be charged up (obviously), but having no facilities to charge at home, I'm now becoming an expert on the public EV charging network.

In a nutshell, it sucks. 

The reasons are many, but the one big factor is the lack of consistency. You have a variety of charging sockets as well as a number of different applications to enable a charge at said socket. 

So, first hardware: first you have to know if your car will charge using AC or DC. Then you can move on to the various sockets, charging rates and enabling applications.

Lets just say, you have a number of different connectors for both AC and DC, you then have a number of different suppliers installing charging machines with different interfaces on the machines and different enabling applications. If it sounds complicated, then it is.

If you have a basic smartphone with not a lot of memory, you'll be filling that memory mostly with charging applications.

The uncertainty of compatibility between the charger and the car and the requirement to have internet access ends up in the Owner doing the EV Charging Dance, where the owner goes to the charger, does something, then plugs into the car, then returns to the charger, then logs onto the app to enable charging, then looks at the charger, then goes to the window of the car and peers through the window to see if the dashboard indicates a charge, then back to the charger, then back to the car several times until at some random point both the car and the charger agree that electrons are moving down the cable in sufficient quantity to enable a charge. 

Then the owner can waste a half hour at the nearby Starbucks. Actually the Greggs mega charge site near Salford Quays looks like a bloody good idea, at least you can eat yourself into a food coma while you wait. 

Finally, my favourite charging supplier at the moment is PodPoint. Their 7KW charging posts at Supermarkets just work. The posts start charging immediately and the app gives you 15 minutes to verify the charge. It just works. No EV charging Dance for me. EV owners with bigger batteries tend to shun the smaller charge posts, so I can normally get a slot and charge.