I don't understand how a Smart meter will save me energy ?

Cobra said:
Blimey Steve, where did you drag that up from? :D

But yes I agree and understand what you are saying.
My £3k car ( + £1K expenses) over 5 years isn't too outrageous IMO.
But then again, you only have to look at some of the "My car" images posted here, that spend far more than that, and way out of my price range, and they could easily afford an electric one, but seems they choose not to.
Click to expand...

I started reading the thread from the beginning :)

I agree that was certainly not an outrageous figure, but despite what we read about the amounts some people are striking for, there is a lot, probably the majority who are on minimum wage, single parents with kids in school, and who have to have a car. Not like years ago, jobs now are not often within walking distance of home, and with the current level of "public transport" could not go without a car.
For them, it is the cheapest thing that will do the job. £3000 would be a real challenge, and being expected to pay £9000 would either make them laugh or puke.

The current aims are unachievable without solving some of the basic problems first, and the current systems are unsustainable, and it seems that all politicians are sticking their heads in the sand, hoping the problems will go away, or they can blame it on their opposition. Its not feature of just one party, so I am not making a political statement :)
 
Ah, I see £9000 came from my 2017 purchase price for my Nissan Leaf.

Nissan Leaf are around £4000 these days: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-se...x&price-to=4500&sort=price-asc&year-from=2013

Plus £1600 I paid for my vehicle-to-home charger install: https://www.indra.co.uk/v2h/

£5600 for whole home battery and local transport solution.

Not only getting cheap local transport, also getting a home battery to essentially time-shift electricity usage to cheapest period. Getting a dedicated home battery is in similar price bracket, as I previously mentioned. That doesn't come with wheels and 5 seats, both would have 5 years ROI.

As I already own the car, I calculated less than 1.5 years ROI for the V2H charger, thanks to local storage capability unlocks more saving potential for my roof top solar.



I get we all got to make hard financial decisions in life. But in many instances green tech are actually cheaper than mainstream solutions. The initial capital expenditure is regained as you use it very cheaply. To only compare initial purchase price is not the whole story.

Back to topic, smart meter is the enabler in all this. It allows you to be billed based on when you use electricity. It incentivise people to time-shift their usage so that the grid doesn't need to undergo huge upgrades, hence cheaper energy for everyone.
 
wyx087 said:
Back to topic, smart meter is the enabler in all this. It allows you to be billed based on when you use electricity.
Click to expand...
Octopus asks me for monthly meter readings, via email,
a couple of days before the billing date.
That way I am billed for what I use.
 
Cobra said:
Octopus asks me for monthly meter readings, via email,
a couple of days before the billing date.
That way I am billed for what I use.
Click to expand...
Indeed, ideally everyone is billed for exactly what they use.
And if everyone is billed for exactly what they use and when they used it, everyone can get energy cheaper with exception of a few hours.

This is the UK energy demand over last 2 days. Today, peak is lower because there was a "saving session" (get paid to uses less). That peak you see yesterday is pushing up everyone's price of electricity.

1701816569813.png
 
wyx087 said:
Ah, I see £9000 came from my 2017 purchase price for my Nissan Leaf.

Nissan Leaf are around £4000 these days: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?advertising-location=at_cars&exclude-writeoff-categories=on&make=Nissan&model=Leaf&postcode=al2 1bx&price-to=4500&sort=price-asc&year-from=2013

Plus £1600 I paid for my vehicle-to-home charger install: https://www.indra.co.uk/v2h/

£5600 for whole home battery and local transport solution.

Not only getting cheap local transport, also getting a home battery to essentially time-shift electricity usage to cheapest period. Getting a dedicated home battery is in similar price bracket, as I previously mentioned. That doesn't come with wheels and 5 seats, both would have 5 years ROI.

As I already own the car, I calculated less than 1.5 years ROI for the V2H charger, thanks to local storage capability unlocks more saving potential for my roof top solar.



I get we all got to make hard financial decisions in life. But in many instances green tech are actually cheaper than mainstream solutions. The initial capital expenditure is regained as you use it very cheaply. To only compare initial purchase price is not the whole story.

Back to topic, smart meter is the enabler in all this. It allows you to be billed based on when you use electricity. It incentivise people to time-shift their usage so that the grid doesn't need to undergo huge upgrades, hence cheaper energy for everyone.
Click to expand...


You are more fortunate than the majority to have the capital to invest, and obviously off-street parking.

However, on the EV side of it, you don't convince me :)
I have looked quite a few times at costs, the last time was in July, and it would not be advantageous for me to change to electric.
 
Fair enough. It depends heavily on your annual mileage and whether you can charge at home, as you rightly pointed out.

If you do average or higher mileage and you can charge at home. There is huge saving because EV are 2.5p/mile while ICE cars are 12p/mile at best. That translates to £1000 annual saving on fuel alone, for 10k annual mileage.

Of course, to access those EV tariffs, need smart meter. Here is a run down of all the EV tariffs: https://www.speakev.com/threads/list-of-ev-tariff-for-2-5p-mile-motoring.179786/
Cheapest at 7p/kWh or 7.5p/kWh translates to 2p/mile.
 
Sangoma said:
You are more fortunate than the majority to have the capital to invest, and obviously off-street parking.
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When it comes to cars, it does appear to be all about how much tax you can deprive your fellow citizens of, rather than any advantages to the environment. :(
 
Wrong. We have ours purely to keep as much pollution as possible out of the city centre. If we had a petrol car to do the same job, it would have the same VED tax advantage that the EV has.
And, AFAIK, it's the government/exchequer who would be deprived of tax rather than the general public.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
When it comes to cars, it does appear to be all about how much tax you can deprive your fellow citizens of, rather than any advantages to the environment. :(
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You are forgetting solar feed-in tariffs. ;)

Also smart meter install costs are built into standing charges.

I'm sure you are aware of the "stick and carrot". Why refuse all the carrots?

Carrot and stick - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Nod said:
AFAIK, it's the government/exchequer who would be deprived of tax rather than the general public.
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If the money went into the private pocket of the monarch, as was the case a few centuries ago, you'd be quite correct.

However, tax is levied on behalf of the citizens of the country. By cheating the taxman, all the other citizens are cheated.
wyx087 said:
Why refuse all the carrots?
Click to expand...
Because there are many more deserving recipients of any available carrots, than the minority which can afford an electric car.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
If the money went into the private pocket of the monarch, as was the case a few centuries ago, you'd be quite correct.

However, tax is levied on behalf of the citizens of the country. By cheating the taxman, all the other citizens are cheated.

Because there are many more deserving recipients of any available carrots, than the minority which can afford an electric car.
Click to expand...


Neatly (as usual) ignoring the rest of my post.
 
wyx087 said:
In the push to de-carbonise our energy use, how would you distribute this metaphorical carrot to de-carbonise transportation?
Click to expand...
I wouldn't.

If people want to use electric cars let them, but they should pay their full share of the maintainance of the road system.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
I wouldn't.

If people want to use electric cars let them, but they should pay their full share of the maintainance of the road system.
Click to expand...
VED is not road tax and does not directly fund maintenance of the road system.

I see there's no use discussing this type of things with you when you clearly don't see the need to de-carbonise. We've been through climate change previously.
 
wyx087 said:
VED is not road tax and does not directly fund maintenance of the road system.
Click to expand...
You are correct.

Because governments have shown themselves to be terrified by hypothecation, we have no taxes that go directly to where their title suggests. However, as taxes all go into one pot, failing to pay the full amount of the (non-hypothecated) tax, still deprives your fellow citizens of your share
wyx087 said:
...when you clearly don't see the need to de-carbonise.
Click to expand...
Again you are correct.

I know a bandwagon when it blares past me and I doubt that that global heating is either a bad thing or can be influenced by human action.
 
At least you'll probably be dead when it happens, right?
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Nod
Hard to be sure if you're really ignoring me or lying about it...
 
Nod said:
Wrong. We have ours purely to keep as much pollution as possible out of the city centre. If we had a petrol car to do the same job, it would have the same VED tax advantage that the EV has.
And, AFAIK, it's the government/exchequer who would be deprived of tax rather than the general public.
Click to expand...

Yes and that is the point people just will not accept about electric and indeed hybrid cars it is about keeping pollution out of the most polluted areas not out in the boonies where most of the smell is BO and Cow Poo
 
Mr Bump said:
Yes and that is the point people just will not accept about electric and indeed hybrid cars it is about keeping pollution out of the most polluted areas not out in the boonies where most of the smell is BO and Cow Poo
Click to expand...

Wrong, People like me don't give a damn what you drive. If an EV works for you then I'm happy for you. What people like me can not accept is the blanket approach of banning ICE cars and trying to force people into cars that they either don't want to drive, cant afford to driver or are simply impractical because they live in the "boonies". What people like you will not accept is that we do not all live it big towns or cities and do not have a pollution problem. You also fail to accept that we just don't consider them as environmentally friendly as you make them out to be.

As for the Cow poo and BO, Cow poo smells great and I'll assume the BO is just another snide jibe at those who have a different opinion to yourself.

Anywho, I'm sure this tread was about smart metes. I'm sure we've already done the EV thing last month.
 
I was sent this the other day, I doubt if the figures are 100% accurate, but I have seen similar in other places


An example of ‘net zero’ madness

This is a Tesla battery. It takes up all of the space under the passenger compartment of the car.

To manufacture it you need:
--12 tons of rock for Lithium
-- 5 tons of Cobalt minerals
-- 3 tons of mineral for nickel
-- 12 tons of copper ore

You must move 250 tons of soil to obtain:
-- 12 kg of Lithium
-- 30 pounds of nickel
-- 22 kg of manganese
-- 15 pounds of Cobalt

To manufacture the battery requires:
-- 100 Kg of RAM chips
-- 200 kg of aluminum, steel and/or plastic

The Caterpillar 994A is used for the earthmoving to obtain the essential minerals. It consumes 264 gallons of diesel in 12 hours.

Finally you get a “zero emissions” car.

Presently, the bulk of the necessary minerals for manufacturing the batteries come from China or Africa. Much of the labor for getting the minerals in Africa is done by children! If we buy electric cars, it's China who profits most!

BTW, this 2021 Tesla OEM battery is currently for sale on the Internet for $4,999 not including shipping or installation.

Update: What’s very interesting about a public post is the sheer number of ‘sparse’ or dead accounts that come out of the woodwork in ‘support’ of such an industry and then start saying how bad the petrol and oil industry is.

Now let’s get this straight, the oil industry is not squeaky clean and there are very obvious downsides but these electric vehicles are NOT the answer.
 
Here's an interesting report.


TL;DR
  • Building wind turbines and solar panels to generate electricity, as well as batteries to fuel electric vehicles, requires, on average, more than 10 times the quantity of materials, compared with building machines using hydrocarbons to deliver the same amount of energy to society.
  • A single electric car contains more cobalt than 1,000 smartphone batteries; the blades on a single wind turbinehave more plastic than 5 million smartphones; and a solar array that can power one data center uses more glassthan 50 million phones.
  • Replacing hydrocarbons with green machines under current plans—never mind aspirations for far greater expansion—will vastly increase the mining of various critical minerals around the world. For example, a single electriccar battery weighing 1,000 pounds requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of materials. Averaged over a battery’s life, each mile of driving an electric car “consumes” five pounds of earth. Using an internalcombustion engine consumes about 0.2 pounds of liquids per mile.
  • Oil, natural gas, and coal are needed to produce the concrete, steel, plastics, and purified minerals used to buildgreen machines. The energy equivalent of 100 barrels of oil is used in the processes to fabricate a single batterythat can store the equivalent of one barrel of oil.
  • By 2050, with current plans, the quantity of worn-out solar panels—much of it nonrecyclable—will constitute double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste, along with over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plasticsfrom worn-out wind turbine blades. By 2030, more than 10 million tons per year of batteries will become garbage.
Click to expand...
 
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Sangoma said:
...but these electric vehicles are NOT the answer.
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I agree.

In my opinion there is never one answer to any big problem. We need a diverse range of power sources to meet different needs, just as we need different cameras to satisfy different purposes.

Monocultures, going by history, never end well.
 
ecoleman said:
Wrong, People like me don't give a damn what you drive. If an EV works for you then I'm happy for you. What people like me can not accept is the blanket approach of banning ICE cars and trying to force people into cars that they either don't want to drive, cant afford to driver or are simply impractical because they live in the "boonies". What people like you will not accept is that we do not all live it big towns or cities and do not have a pollution problem. You also fail to accept that we just don't consider them as environmentally friendly as you make them out to be.

As for the Cow poo and BO, Cow poo smells great and I'll assume the BO is just another snide jibe at those who have a different opinion to yourself.

Anywho, I'm sure this tread was about smart metes. I'm sure we've already done the EV thing last month.
Click to expand...

All you are mate is a classic Climate Denier wether its, EV cars, Hybrid, Clean Power, Wood Burners, Oil Burners all these things.

Smart Meters just another thing you resent
 
Mr Bump said:
All you are mate is a classic Climate Denier wether its, EV cars, Hybrid, Clean Power, Wood Burners, Oil Burners all these things.

Smart Meters just another thing you resent
Click to expand...

Correct(ish). Well done!

I don't deny climate change. The climate has been changing since day dot. That's FACT!

I also don't just move my relatively small "carbon footprint" to another part of the world and proudly declare how I am saving the planet. I'm just not that deluded or narcissistic.
 
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Sangoma said:
-- 100 Kg of RAM chips
Click to expand...
Hang on, 100 kg of RAM chips. What is this for exactly? Why would battery need random-access-memory?

A Model 3 battery weighs around 400 kg, apparently.
So that list is saying a forth of the battery consist of RAM chips?!?

I've no knowledge of other statistics. But work with RAM in my day job and I am 100% sure it doesn't go into batteries.



It's all well and good reading stuff like that and think they have a point. But please do have a think, try to verify its content before sharing on social media.

This is fact checking article I now like to link. It is full of references to sources of its claims.
www.carbonbrief.org

Factcheck: 21 misleading myths about electric vehicles - Carbon Brief

Carbon Brief factchecks 21 of the most common – and persistent – myths about electric vehicles.
www.carbonbrief.org www.carbonbrief.org
 
ecoleman said:
Here's an interesting report.


TL;DR
Click to expand...
1701871229351.png
Don't forget to buy his book and watch his videos.

Good debunking article about his video:
arstechnica.com

Pure nonsense: Debunking the latest attack on renewable energy

What a terrible anti-renewable-power video reveals about the US energy market.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
  • Mills complains that our best solar technology is only 26 percent efficient. But that's only true for silicon panels; our best, most expensive panels can clear 40 percent efficiency. The focus on efficiency, however, is also a distraction, because solar panel efficiency is already high enough for solar farms to be economical.
  • The same issue arises when Mills complains about the efficiency of wind turbines. Is it as high as we would like? No. But who cares? Wind turbines already generate power economically. Improvements would be terrific, but they aren't necessary to make wind and solar work cheaply in the real world.
  • Mills suggests that the only solution to the peaks and troughs (or "intermittency") of wind and solar is batteries. But there are plenty of additional options, like compressed air storage, pumped hydro, or even fossil fuel plants with carbon capture.
  • Mills focuses all his attention on what he considers to be the limitations of lithium batteries. But there is plenty of research on other battery chemistries that use different metals entirely.
  • Mills argues that the lack of batteries is why wind and solar power aren't producing more than three percent of the world's power. Note that he's using "power" to get this figure. If instead he used "electricity," wind and solar now produce over 10 percent globally, starting from zero a few decades ago.
  • Mills claims that lithium and cobalt are rare earth elements. They are not. This isn't important to his argument, but it's extremely sloppy.
  • Mills then says he has environmental concerns about the resource extraction needed to build solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. This a valid concern to have! But it ignores the massive environmental damage caused by fossil fuel extraction and the production of equipment to burn it.
  • Mills does a similar thing with human rights abuses in places where these materials are sourced. Again, a worthy concern. But it remains a problem for fossil fuels as well.
  • Mills acts like it's not possible to recycle any of the hardware involved in wind, solar, and batteries. This is an area where work remains to be done, but as a blanket statement, it's certainly not true.
  • Mills calls our fossil fuel supply "almost inexhaustible." Come on. This is just obviously not true.
  • Mills compares the rate of oil extraction to the rate of power generation by wind turbines... for no obvious reason whatsoever.
Click to expand...
 
wyx087 said:
Hang on, 100 kg of RAM chips. What is this for exactly? Why would battery need random-access-memory?

A Model 3 battery weighs around 400 kg, apparently.
So that list is saying a forth of the battery consist of RAM chips?!?

I've no knowledge of other statistics. But work with RAM in my day job and I am 100% sure it doesn't go into batteries.



It's all well and good reading stuff like that and think they have a point. But please do have a think, try to verify its content before sharing on social media.

This is fact checking article I now like to link. It is full of references to sources of its claims.
www.carbonbrief.org

Factcheck: 21 misleading myths about electric vehicles - Carbon Brief

Carbon Brief factchecks 21 of the most common – and persistent – myths about electric vehicles.
www.carbonbrief.org www.carbonbrief.org
Click to expand...
I did say "I doubt if the figures are 100% accurate," obviously you missed that.
There are lots of figures, some just plain wrong, and others wrong by wishful thinking, or using selected facts to support a wider statement

I doubt if there are RAM chips, but there will certainly be a lot of silicon chips of some type, and probably some ROM


Nothing as green as an electric car
1car.jpg
 
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Sangoma said:
Nothing as green as an electric car
Click to expand...
What a great idea, carry a generator in the boot, "Just in case" rather like carrying a Jerry can full of petrol in the boot,
"Just in case" (y)
:D
 
Sangoma said:
I doubt if there are RAM chips, but there will certainly be a lot of silicon chips of some type, and probably some ROM
Click to expand...
No, there are no electronics in a battery. The battery management system imminently outside of battery is similar size as modern day ICE control unit (ECU).

Glad you are fully aware of the type of information you are spreading. It's good to declare not accurate as you've done. But it's better to not share unless you know it's reasonably accurate to the best of your knowledge.
 
wyx087 said:
But it's better to not share unless you know it's reasonably accurate to the best of your knowledge.
Click to expand...
Hmmmm.

Is that the online equivalent of placing one finger in each ear and saying "Nya nya n-na-ya" at the top of your voice?

Asking for a friend...
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Hmmmm.

Is that the online equivalent of placing one finger in each ear and saying "Nya nya n-na-ya" at the top of your voice?

Asking for a friend...
Click to expand...
That is certainly something you are best at.

No, it is the online equivalent of telling the guy down the pub to stop talking BS.
 
972f8c6644d4c6b8d3d6785b10979d434ebe0591.jpeg
 
One man's "well respected expert" is another man's "blithering idiot"....

...and vice versa. :tumbleweed:
 
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Rolling them out in Greece now , had an email from ΔΕΗ to say would i like one, yes please !!!
 
wyx087 said:
View attachment 408506
Don't forget to buy his book and watch his videos.

Good debunking article about his video:
arstechnica.com

Pure nonsense: Debunking the latest attack on renewable energy

What a terrible anti-renewable-power video reveals about the US energy market.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
Click to expand...

Thank you for taking the time to critically respond to this video.

AndrewFlannigan said:
One man's "well respected expert" is another man's "blithering idiot"....

...and vice versa. :tumbleweed:
Click to expand...

In the circumstances of this thread, and the problem of global warming generally, this post is laughable. But we've come to expect that......
 
jerry12953 said:
In the circumstances of this thread, and the problem of global warming generally, this post is laughable. But we've come to expect that......
Click to expand...
Actually, the smart meter thing is a bad joke, so a few more bad jokes are neither here not there.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Actually, the smart meter thing is a bad joke, so a few more bad jokes are neither here not there.
Click to expand...
What is “the smart meter thing” and why is it a bad joke?
 
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