| Transport |
|
|
|
|
Description
Under the 'Island Britain' energy model there would be huge improvements in all forms of public transport. Also, virtually all vehicles would be electrically powered by 2027. With the added capacity to feed into the Grid as well as draw from it. The carbon budget of this strategy demands that within the next 20 years, our entire transport system must be replaced with one that is powered almost completely by renewable energy. The report envisages that battery electric vehicles will be the technology that enables this. Electric vehicles have been feasible for nearly 20 years. Electric motors are 4-5 times more efficient than internal combustion engines, giving an immediate energy saving. They also have lighter motors and other components, producing lighter vehicles and supporting a virtuous cycle of efficiency improvements. Apart form the energy savings themselves, another major incentive to adopt electric vehicles would be a Vehicle to Grid system (V2G), which would allow people to sell the use of their onboard battery storage back to utility companies while they are not being used – helping to overcome some of the variability issues of renewable energy technologies. If the nation’s 27 million cars were entirely replaced by electric vehicles, and their batteries had an average rating of 15kW, they would have a total power of 405GW – more than ten times the average power requirement of the National Grid. Even with optimistic reductions in vehicle ownership, and with only a fraction being plugged in at any given time, it is clear that they could provide much of the extra storage necessary to the Grid for security of supply in a renewable future. Read more summaries...
User reviews
Average user rating from: 3 user(s)
Add new review 0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
PS, Monday, 21 April 2008 Written by David Sterratt http://www.tbus.org.uk
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Wires for public transport, Monday, 21 April 2008 Written by David Sterratt However, one point that could perhaps do with more investigation is the feasibility of battery-powered road public transport vehicles. In contrast to most cars, public transport vehicles spend a lot of their time running, and therefore would require much higher capacity batteries relative to their weight or else would need batteries that could be recharged very quickly (e.g. in about 10 minutes, the time that a bus might spend at the end of its route). An alternative method of supplying buses with electric power, used in over 300 cities worldwide, is overhead cables. The report itself acknowledges this, though more in the context of the motorway network: Coaches would also be battery electric vehicles, of perhaps 100 kW each. It may be sensible to install overhead cables on some sections of the dedicated coach lanes. I would suggest that an early step could be to investigate how likely it is that battery technology will be suitable for public transport. If it is not going to be suitable, a relatively straightforward step would be to electrify public transport in our towns, cities and, in the slightly longer term, on our motorways.
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Motorway Coach Network, Monday, 10 December 2007 Written by Peter MIller See http://cars2coaches.blogspot.com for more information and join the discussion on http://groups.google.com/group/cars2coaches.
Was this review helpful to you?
Powered by jReviews            |
||||||||||
