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[Rods2]

Committee of MP's want sale of new fossil fueled car ban brought forward 8 years to 2032.

UK currently uses about 53Gwh of electricity per day.

We use about 1,559,000 barrels of oil per day where around 70% (USA percentage) is used by motor vehicles and there are on average 1,700kwh of energy in a barrel of oil. So in this new era of electric cars we will be using 1,559,000 x 0.7 x 1,700,000Wh = 1,855,000,000,000wh or 1855Gwh with our current peak generating capacity of about 60Gwh, so current generating capacity is 1/31 of what is going to be required in 25 years time, so nothing to see here, no problems with coping with the extra demand, oh no.

In 25 years time almost all fossil fueled cars will have be remanufactured into beans cans. With UK's impressively fast planning and infrastructure building record and power companies being reluctant to invest in new generating capacity, everything should be just fine here, so nothing to worry about.

[tunnie]

If 3.2 blows up tomorrow, I really must get a V8 before big engines are locked down for your average driver.

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

Where is Guy Fawkes when we need him ? 
If Im still around I will be 73, and possibly still driving. I really wanted this to happen after it couldn't possibly affect me. 

[Kevin Wood]

Committee of MP's want sale of new fossil fueled car ban brought forward 8 years to 2032.

UK currently uses about 53Gwh of electricity per day.

We use about 1,559,000 barrels of oil per day where around 70% (USA percentage) is used by motor vehicles and there are on average 1,700kwh of energy in a barrel of oil. So in this new era of electric cars we will be using 1,559,000 x 0.7 x 1,700,000Wh = 1,855,000,000,000wh or 1855Gwh with our current peak generating capacity of about 60Gwh, so current generating capacity is 1/31 of what is going to be required in 25 years time, so nothing to see here, no problems with coping with the extra demand, oh no.

In 25 years time almost all fossil fueled cars will have be remanufactured into beans cans. With UK's impressively fast planning and infrastructure building record and power companies being reluctant to invest in new generating capacity, everything should be just fine here, so nothing to worry about.

These are mere implementation details that politicians can hand wave away. Power stations will be more efficient by then. And windmills. 

Besides, they'll all have retired to the Brussels gravy train by then, so won't get held to account.

[LC0112G]

Committee of MP's want sale of new fossil fueled car ban brought forward 8 years to 2032.

UK currently uses about 53Gwh of electricity per day.

We use about 1,559,000 barrels of oil per day where around 70% (USA percentage) is used by motor vehicles and there are on average 1,700kwh of energy in a barrel of oil. So in this new era of electric cars we will be using 1,559,000 x 0.7 x 1,700,000Wh = 1,855,000,000,000wh or 1855Gwh with our current peak generating capacity of about 60Gwh, so current generating capacity is 1/31 of what is going to be required in 25 years time, so nothing to see here, no problems with coping with the extra demand, oh no.

In 25 years time almost all fossil fueled cars will have be remanufactured into beans cans. With UK's impressively fast planning and infrastructure building record and power companies being reluctant to invest in new generating capacity, everything should be just fine here, so nothing to worry about.

Whilst I agree with your general point, you're several orders of magnitude out somewhere. The two obvious errors are that "motor vehicles" includes busses and lorries, and AIUI the govt is only talking about passenger cars. And the second is that battery vehicles should be significantly better at using the energy than an internal combustion engine is. But that still doesn't account for the differences to the figures I worked out :

Lets look at something else. https://www.licencebureau.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/road-use-statistics.pdf

Page 8 says cars accounted for 244.4 billion vehicle miles in 2014. That's 670 million per day, or almost 28 million per hour (on average).

The Leaf and Tessla battery/range figures indicate you can expect to get about 3 miles per kWh of battery charge

This means that if/once all cars were electric/battery, the grid would have to supply an average of  an extra 9.3 Million kW every hour. The difference between night time and daytime energy generation in the UK is currently about 10GW, but if you restrict charging to between 8pm and 8am then you're going to need to generate an extra 18.6 GW during that time. So you still have to find 8.6GW of extra capacity from somewhere.
http://gridwatch.co.uk/

Basically 3 extra Hinkley point C's coming online from 2040 onwards will do it. Is the planning permission in place yet? 

[Doctor Gollum]

Planning permission would, by definition, imply a degree of, er, planning...

It will never catch on as a concept 

[BazaJT]

AIUI the sale of hybrids would still be allowed,so would that not then throw out the calculations for electricity generation/usage?

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

Wouldn't  we be better off long term with hydrogen fuel cell rather than electric cars ...............which have been about since the end of the Victorian era?

Fortunately Brexit is running smoothly so we may not even notice the transition.

[LC0112G]

AIUI the sale of hybrids would still be allowed,so would that not then throw out the calculations for electricity generation/usage?

Yes, but hybrids may make the pollution problem worse. Why? Because most hybrids burn petrol, to charge batteries, which then power electric motors. For that to be better than the engine just powering the wheels, the battery charging, draining and electric motors have to be more efficient than the direct drivetrain in a normal car.

[Nick W]

Wouldn't  we be better off long term with hydrogen fuel cell rather than electric cars ...............which have been about since the end of the Victorian era?

Fortunately Brexit is running smoothly so we may not even notice the transition.

you need to research how hydrogen is separated into a usable fuel. Just like electricity and fossil fuel, there is a massive infrastructure that the end user doesn't see. And doesn't currently exist. The overall energy use isn't any better than those two either.


Arguing about which fuel that we actually use to power our stuff is a minor issue that diverts attention away from the real problem: we use far too much energy from irreplaceable sources both extravagantly and unnecessarily. No politician is ever going to say that unless a bigger disaster makes it obvious. I hope that's at least 30 years in the future so I don't live to see it.

[2boxerdogs]

The government is superb at everything they do I am sure it will all go very smoothly.😉😀😁

[Doctor Gollum]

The government is superb at everything they do I am sure it will all go very smoothly.😉😀😁

Meanwhile, in this reality...

[Lizzie Zoom]

Committee of MP's want sale of new fossil fueled car ban brought forward 8 years to 2032.

UK currently uses about 53Gwh of electricity per day.

We use about 1,559,000 barrels of oil per day where around 70% (USA percentage) is used by motor vehicles and there are on average 1,700kwh of energy in a barrel of oil. So in this new era of electric cars we will be using 1,559,000 x 0.7 x 1,700,000Wh = 1,855,000,000,000wh or 1855Gwh with our current peak generating capacity of about 60Gwh, so current generating capacity is 1/31 of what is going to be required in 25 years time, so nothing to see here, no problems with coping with the extra demand, oh no.

In 25 years time almost all fossil fueled cars will have be remanufactured into beans cans. With UK's impressively fast planning and infrastructure building record and power companies being reluctant to invest in new generating capacity, everything should be just fine here, so nothing to worry about.

Whilst I agree with your general point, you're several orders of magnitude out somewhere. The two obvious errors are that "motor vehicles" includes busses and lorries, and AIUI the govt is only talking about passenger cars. And the second is that battery vehicles should be significantly better at using the energy than an internal combustion engine is. But that still doesn't account for the differences to the figures I worked out :

Lets look at something else. https://www.licencebureau.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/road-use-statistics.pdf

Page 8 says cars accounted for 244.4 billion vehicle miles in 2014. That's 670 million per day, or almost 28 million per hour (on average).

The Leaf and Tessla battery/range figures indicate you can expect to get about 3 miles per kWh of battery charge

This means that if/once all cars were electric/battery, the grid would have to supply an average of  an extra 9.3 Million kW every hour. The difference between night time and daytime energy generation in the UK is currently about 10GW, but if you restrict charging to between 8pm and 8am then you're going to need to generate an extra 18.6 GW during that time. So you still have to find 8.6GW of extra capacity from somewhere.
http://gridwatch.co.uk/

Basically 3 extra Hinkley point C's coming online from 2040 onwards will do it. Is the planning permission in place yet? 

Somewhere in all that I would also add that our, often, stationery thirsty internal combustion engined cars (like my 3.2!! ) continue to burn fuel just idilling. With all electric cars they only use significant power when actually in motion.  They are therefore considerably more efficient in that sense along with everything else to be considered

[Rods2]

Generally, the better your politicians are, the better a country's economic success, abundant natural resources can make a country's life easier but don't guarantee success where Venezuela has the biggest global oil reserves. I look at GDP PPP per capita as a rough politician/government league table and the UK at number 24-30 depending upon the calculation method. In football terms our politicians/government aren't in the premier league but a mid-table Championship side. A comparable European country that does much better than us is Switzerland, Ireland and The Netherland's figures are distorted by low corporation tax and Rotterdam respectively. Office junior May, Corbyn, Abbott, Soubry and alike would IMO struggle to get a game in the average Sunday league team where they are universally useless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

[Rods2]

Although electric cars' energy at point of use is better than internal combustion engines as a considerable percentage of our electricity will still be from fossil fuel generation, at best gas generation is only about 50% efficient (much less when spun up on standby, for smoothing gusts of wind and cloud masking sunshine) and the local small diesel generators the National Grid have installed and will continue to install in increasing numbers to do the same with for local grid stability, which will have very poor efficiency. What they will succeed in doing is moving city centre pollution to more rural pollution which will affect much smaller numbers of people.

For intermittent energy sources to be practical you need massive worse case reserves which for basic foods to prevent famines is 12-24 month reserve. This summer we had months of lighter than average winds so windmill electricity was much lower than normally expected and reserves are needed to cover such common eventualities.