China develops revolutionary electric car battery that can charge in 10 minutes

If true, the rest of the EV scene looks obsolete already. Will other countries find themselves rolling out the red carpet for Chinese cars as their own motor industries struggle to survive?
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China has developed a revolutionary car battery that can charge in just 10 minutes and power a car for hundreds of miles before it needs to be plugged in, reports The Telegraph.

A report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) has hailed “remarkable” developments in chemistry that have allowed China to develop new batteries that pack far more energy than existing technologies.

The IEA highlighted EV batteries capable of travelling 250 miles without a recharge. Newer versions announced since the report was written can manage 600 miles.

UK wind power constraint payments cost £920 million in 2023 – and rising

Analysts from an energy storage specialist say £920 million annual cost of ‘curtailment’ could be cut 80% by using existing technologies like battery storage more effectively. But that would obviously require a lot of expensive batteries, and gas power stations could easily do the job on a much more extensive scale. Such is the state of the UK electricity grid thanks to net zero climate obsessions and intermittent wind power dotted all over the place, especially in areas remote from population centres – i.e. the opposite of where that power is most needed.
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Grid capacity constraints added nearly £1 billion of ‘curtailment’ costs to electricity bills for homes and businesses in 2023 as abundant energy from wind farms was unable to be transmitted to areas of demand, says Field Energy.

The majority of this cost was down to a single pinch point in the UK’s electricity grid on the Scottish/English border called the B6 boundary.

Analysis by energy storage developer and operator Field estimates this boundary alone could cause up to £2.2 billion of curtailment costs by 2030 as the UK’s curtailment problem escalates. Overall UK curtailment costs could reach £3.5 billion by that date.

Scientists unlock the secrets of sand for revolutionary energy storage

Sand batteries ahead? It’s no secret that sand holds heat quite well.
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Have you ever raced across a hot beach and noticed how warm the sand gets?

That simple experience hints at a powerful idea that could change how we store energy, says Knowridge.

Researchers are now looking at heated sand as a promising solution to store energy for the future.

Unlike the batteries we usually think of for storing energy, this method offers a new and potentially game-changing approach.

The crews bracing themselves for a rise in electric car fires

Firefighter: “Our preferred approach is to let them burn themselves out”. EV fires ‘create a variety of toxic chemicals’. They ‘have to be “quarantined” away from other vehicles even after the fire appears to have been put out’, in case they re-ignite days or even 2-3 weeks later. Other types of car are still available, but in increasingly restricted numbers due to so-called climate policies.
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Each year, Essex Fire and Rescue Service focuses on one area of “top-up” training for its crews, says BBC News.

In recent years, this has included sessions on firefighting at height and managing hazardous materials.

This year, a new course is being introduced: How to deal with electric vehicle fires. Why?

UN warns against thirsty tech to solve water crisis – ‘carbon’ capture, AI and lithium in the frame

Drought conditions in Northern China

Is lithium more of a problem than a solution? Climate worriers wouldn’t like that as it goes against their visions of a battery-filled future.
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The world needs to better manage its freshwater resources, says AFP (via Phys.org), but thirsty new technologies touted as solutions could lead to “serious problems” if left unchecked, a UN report warned Friday.

Roughly half of the planet’s population is facing grave water shortages, with climate change-linked droughts affecting more than 1.4 billion people between 2002 and 2021, the report for the UN cultural agency UNESCO said.

As of 2022, more than 2 billion people were without access to safely managed drinking water, while 3.5 billion people lacked access to decent toilets, it added.
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The report, titled “Water for prosperity and peace”, called for more water education, data collection and investment to address the crisis.
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It also highlighted the limits of new computer-led solutions.

UK carbon capture strategy ‘outdated and unrealistic’ as costs doubled

The policy was unrealistic even before it became outdated. The costs have already put most climate-obsessed countries off, and the UK can’t avoid that barrier either.
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The UK Government’s energy policy centred around carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) is outdated and unrealistic, a new report has warned.

Think tank Carbon Tracker has today said that cost estimates for deploying CCUS have more than doubled from the £20bn in taxpayer funding initially scoped in December last year, reports City AM.

This strategy was based on the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee, published in the sixth carbon budget in December 2020.

Britain to harness power of Sahara solar farms using world’s biggest cable-laying ship

‘The project has already been declared one of “national significance” by Claire Coutinho, the Energy Secretary, who has also set a team of civil servants to work on it’, says the story. A claim of ‘near-constant’ electricity supply from one of the project team sounds a tad optimistic. Sandstorms are not unheard of in the Sahara region, for example. [Click on image to enlarge]
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A project to power Britain using solar farms thousands of miles away in the Sahara is moving a step closer to fruition as its backers prepare to commission the world’s biggest cable-laying ship, says The Telegraph.

The 700ft vessel will lay four parallel cables linking solar and wind farms spread across the desert in Morocco with a substation in Alverdiscott, a tiny village near the coast of north Devon.

Once completed, the scheme is expected to deliver about 3.6 gigawatts of electricity to the UK’s national grid – equating to about 8pc of total power demand.

Electric van maker once valued at £10bn collapses into administration

Arrival is departing

Shades of the dot.com bubble. The grand illusions of net zero climate alarmism continue to crumble, but not quickly enough yet.
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A British electric van maker once valued at $13bn (£10bn) has gone into administration after burning through $1.5bn without having sold a vehicle, reports The Telegraph.

Oxfordshire-based Arrival has appointed administrators at EY to find a buyer for the business, blaming “challenging market and macroeconomic conditions”.

Arrival’s Nasdaq flotation in 2021 was the biggest ever for a British company but shares have fallen by 99.98pc as it became clear that the company was unable to service its debts.

EV drivers urged to preheat batteries amid cold weather (aka winter)

Not the latest model

EV owners might want to consider the risks of putting a heat source near a lithium battery. If that goes wrong, it can really go wrong. But if they don’t or can’t preheat their battery in cold conditions, e.g. it’s parked in the street, they can look forward to a significant range reduction, made worse by using the car heater.
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In the wake of the coldest night of the winter in the UK, Edmund King, President of the AA, has issued guidance to electric vehicle (EV) owners, emphasising the importance of preheating their cars and charging overnight, reports Energy Live News.

As the nation grapples with snow and ice that led to the closure of numerous schools, Mr King warns that colder temperatures can adversely affect EV batteries, leading to longer charging times and reduced efficiency.

The AA noted that electric cars may experience a reduction in range ranging from 10% to 20% in colder temperatures.

This is attributed to the diminished efficiency of the lithium-ion battery, exacerbated by drivers activating features like heating.

This advice comes as electric vehicle users in the US, particularly in Chicago, have faced difficulties due to freezing temperatures, with reports of Tesla owners abandoning their vehicles.

Full report here.

Electric double-decker bus erupts into flames in Wimbledon during rush hour

London hybrid double-decker [image credit: buses world news]

Scary. Best wear running shoes when using vehicles powered wholly or partly by lithium batteries (full details not yet reported). — Update: the bus manufacturer is Switch.
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A bus has dramatically caught fire on Wimbledon high street this morning, with residents reporting a loud bang and thick smoke.

Videos and photos showed clouds of smoke billowing from a red double-decker bus on Wimbledon Hill Road and Alwyne Road. ‘We heard a huge bang. We were terrified’ Max Pashley, a local resident, told City AM.

There have been no reported injuries, according to the Met, while road closures and cordons are expected to remain in place for some time. “We thank the local community for their patience and cooperation as emergency services work at the scene,” a spokesperson said.

The EU Is Willing to Go To War Over Lithium?

By Phil Butler
New Eastern Outlook

January 3, 2024

The riddle of unhinged EU support for the Zelensky regime in Kyiv is now solved. Anyone inclined can unravel why the Germans, in particular, backstabbed Russia in the Minsk peace boondoggle. Lithium.

Energy Monitor’s parent company, GlobalData, recently released a report showing that Europe’s biggest lithium reserves lie in the Donbass region of Russia. The former Ukrainian Shevchenkivske field in the Donetsk region and the Kruta Balka block in the Zaporizhzhia region are now part of Russia. These reserves add tremendously to Russia’s humongous Lithium deposits (now 1.5M metric tons) and solidify the country’s top ten position globally. If we consider other BRICS nations’ reserves, including China (2M metric tons), EU industry is at a leverage point.

Oil Tanker Fire Sparked by Lithium-ion Battery Explosion, says NTSB

Not much new except maybe the guilty device in the official explanation of this damaging on-board ship fire last year: an exploding battery cell. CCTV evidence of the incident here (snapshots). For caption, see linked report.
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The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Thursday cited thermal runaway of a cell within a handheld radio’s lithium-ion battery as the cause of a fire on an oil tanker docked in Baton Rouge, La., reports MarineLink.

The Liberian-registered oil tanker S-Trust was docked at the Genesis Port Allen Terminal on November 13, 2022, when a fire on the bridge was sparked by one of the cells in a lithium-ion battery for an ultra-high-frequency handheld radio exploding, the NTSB’s investigation found.

The batteries and chargers for the handheld radios were located on the communications table on the bridge.

By the time the vessel’s crew extinguished the fire, the S-Trust’s navigation, communication and alarm systems were damaged beyond use.

UK government drops support for controversial deep sea mining as it backs temporary pause

Seabed mining

The report explains that the driver for a supposedly ‘greener energy future’ faces an expected global shortage of ‘critical’ raw materials. The problem of course is that just like so-called fossil fuels all these minerals have to be extracted from somewhere, so somebody is inevitably not going to like it. Plus they won’t be relying on renewable power to do the work.
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The UK has for the first time come out in support of a pause in highly controversial mining of the deep sea bed, having previously supported it, reports Sky News.

On Monday, the government added its name to a group of countries seeking a moratorium on new licences to exploit minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt – vital for green energy – from the deep sea.

The environment department said the precautionary pause is designed to protect the world’s ocean from such projects, which involve heavy machinery scraping deposits from the world’s largest habitat, until more evidence on the impact is available.

Electric cars risk becoming uninsurable

BMW i3 electric car plus battery pack [image credit: carmagazine.co.uk]

Over-sensitive and unpredictable lithium-based batteries continue to be a headache, for various reasons. Is the EV industry really ready for prime time, as government ‘net zero’ mandates take hold?
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Electric cars risk becoming effectively uninsurable as analysts struggle to put a price on battery repairs, the researcher for the car insurance industry has said. — The Telegraph reporting.

Jonathan Hewett, chief executive of Thatcham Research, the motor insurers’ automotive research centre, said a lack of “insight and understanding” about the cost of repairing damaged electric car batteries was pushing up premiums and resulting in some providers declining to provide cover altogether.

Electric cars can be particularly expensive to repair, costing around a quarter more to fix on average than a petrol or diesel vehicle.

Experts have previously warned electric vehicles are being written off after minor bumps because of the cost and complexity of fixing their batteries.

Volkswagen cuts jobs as demand for EVs plunges

VW ID.3 [image credit: Alexander Migl @ Wikipedia]

Subsidies, wealthy buyers and niche markets only get EV makers so far, it seems. The old problems are still there – initial cost, range anxiety, slow charging, battery life etc. Moaning about humans supposedly having adverse effects on the weather turns out to be a weak selling point for the mass market.
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Volkswagen is cutting almost 300 roles at a factory in Germany as demand for electric cars dwindles, reports The Telegraph.

The redundancies are being carried out at the car giant’s plant in Zwickau, where a further 2,000 temporary workers are also at risk of losing their jobs.

Volkswagen’s Zwickau factory only produces electric vehicles, which have fallen in popularity due to high inflation and faltering government support. [Talkshop comment – is that crutch expected to go on forever?]

London’s electric nightmare as batteries ignite

Attending an e-bike fire in London

‘Cheap’ lithium batteries and DIY amateurs prove to be a risky pairing, as more people try to keep their travel costs down by any available means. Unsupervised charging not advisable.
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A sharp increase in e-bike and e-scooter fires has raised significant safety concerns in London, as firefighters grapple with more incidents in 2023 than during the entirety of the previous year, says Energy Live News.

As of the end of August, the London Fire Brigade reported battling 104 e-bike fires and 19 e-scooter fires, surpassing the 116 total incidents recorded in 2022.

Three individuals have lost their lives this year in fires believed to be caused by lithium battery failures, with an additional 51 people suffering injuries.

Biden’s crazy electric car plan means grid collapse, probably this decade – Telegraph

EV charging station [image credit: InsideEVs]

The numbers just don’t add up. Net zero-style mandates from climate obsessives don’t take reality seriously. Firstly, the ageing electricity grid can’t take the strain. Secondly, new transmission lines take many years to approve, let alone build. Thirdly, a shortage of transformers – which take a long time to make and can’t be mass-produced – also precludes rapid progress. That’s without even discussing the unpredictable intermittency of renewables.
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Policies enacted by the Biden administration and the previous, Democrat-controlled Congress are set to plunge the USA into a serious energy crisis in the coming years, says The Telegraph.

It all has to do with the Biden government’s decision to try to force mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) before either the market or the power grid can adjust to meet the whopping new demand for power generation or to supply the critical minerals needed to make the batteries that power the cars.

Democrat members of Congress and Biden’s appointed officials are coordinating an effort to force EV adoption on reluctant consumers via a classic carrot and stick approach.

End of the line: first adopter of hydrogen trains last year opts for all-electric future

German hydrogen train [image credit: Euractiv]

Being known as the misery line didn’t help the case for hydrogen trains, with a third of the train drivers resigning amid various operational difficulties. One German state estimated hydrogen trains would be 80% more expensive to run than electric over a 30-year period.
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The state-owned public transport company responsible for introducing the world’s first hydrogen-only railway line last year has effectively ruled out using any more H2 trains, saying that battery-electric models “are cheaper to operate”, reports Hydrogen Insight.

LNVG, which is owned by the government of Lower Saxony, had invested more than €93m ($85m) in 14 hydrogen fuel-cell trains, which began operating in August 2022.

The federal government also contributed a further €8.4m — €4.3m of which was spent on the world’s first H2 train refuelling station, built by Linde in the town of Bremervörde.

Matt Ridley: I’ll buy a new petrol car in 2029

The rush to electric vehicles risks killing our car industry, shackling us to China and bumping up our taxes to reduce global emissions by just 0.044%. That’s why I’ll be buying a brand new petrol car just before the 2030 ban

Daily Mail July 8

BMW i3 electric car plus battery pack [image credit: carmagazine.co.uk]

Britain’s electric vehicle transition and the ban on petrol car sales from 2030 are a slow-motion car crash. The technology is not ready, the cost will be vast, the logistics are forbidding, the reliance on China is worrying and the backlash from the public is likely to be harsh.

Worst of all, the benefits are derisory at best and may not even exist.

Yes, you read that right. It is possible that we could replace all of Britain’s cars and vans with electric vehicles and still find that carbon dioxide emissions are higher, not lower. Cost-benefit, hello?

More hydrogen hype as new British truck unveiled

Credit: Scottish Power

‘Could a truck that’s powered by hydrogen and only emits water help in the climate change fight?’ – asks Sky News. Two problems there – ‘only emits water’ doesn’t tell the whole story as unwelcome nitrogen oxide comes into play, and ‘climate change fight’ belongs to mythology. Another difficulty (quote): ‘hydrogen still has problems as a power source. Making it from green electricity is currently expensive and far less energy efficient than plugging a battery into a charging point.’ Also (quote): ‘a switch to hydrogen would need 35.6GW of electricity to make it’ – over three times more than needed for comparable battery charging, according to the report.
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Summary: The vehicle can be fuelled up with hydrogen in just 15 minutes and gives drivers 600 miles of range, the company behind it says, with the gas being stored in high pressure tanks designed to withstand impact.
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British trials have started of a heavyweight truck powered by a gas that’s lighter than air – and emits nothing but water.

Sky News was given exclusive access to the first British designed and built heavy goods vehicle (HGV) to be fuelled by hydrogen as it was driven around the Horiba Mira test track in Warwickshire.

The Scottish manufacturers, HVS, say the truck could help decarbonise the road freight industry, which produces more than 21 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year in the UK alone.