By Paul Homewood
h/t Mike Rennoldson
Gridserve EV Chargers at Ferrybridge Services
Mike sent me this photo of the charging points at Ferrybridge.
Only one slight problem though! They are all apparently powered by diesel generators!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The generators use HVO, not diesel
‘HVO Fuel UK provides businesses with the ‘next-generation’ low-carbon diesel’
https://hvofueluk.co.uk/
Still diesel although without the chip fat smell associated with earlier efforts perhaps.
In the Telegraph also:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/09/electric-cars-generators-national-grid-ev-charging/
This is fairly normal across most of the country .
The local grid has not got the capability to be able to run many car chargers . So most sites usually have several of them not working at any time .
I don,t know if there was some form of subsidy for installing them all , but in most cases very few will be working at any one time .
It is not only the grid which will stop them from working .
If all cars were EV , then for just 20% of them to charge up at any time would need 100% increase in generation capacity .
So the whole EV propaganda thing is just a load more Green lies .
Why don’t we simply equip every EV with a diesel generator?
Hmm. Got to be more efficient just to burn the HVO in a diesel car.
You can fine-tune the operation of a generator that will be running at a constant load to make it more efficient than the engine in an automobile that operates under changing loads. It’s not a _big_ difference, but it’s there. And it’s probably going to be easier to make sure that large stationary generators are properly maintained than to do the same for a whole bunch of automobiles.
You mean a six cylinder diesel engine? Great idea
I’ve made this point before – they may actually be using diesel generators as it’s cheaper than mains. Diesel has an energy density of about 10.4kWh per litre, a decent unit on steady load will have at least 40% efficiency so 4kWh per litre. Red diesel (if they were allowed to use it, you can in a domestic genny ) is currently 8op a litre so it works out at 20p/kWh. I would have expected this level of use to command a lower price from the mains supply companies but who knows these days. I have heard tales of the Post Office paying 70p/kWh.
I believe most rapid chargers areabout the 75p/kWh mark (may be wrong)
if so still a tidy mark up.
Obviously it makes a complete mockery of EVs but hey, any voluntary EV owner deserves it.
Strewth I cannot believe what I have just discovered. This really is deliberate and they run them on vegetable oil for God’s sake!
https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/gridserve-bypasses-grid-bottleneck-with-old-batteries-and-vegetable-oil
This world really is going mad.
Great find RS! You may have noticed the hum of generators powering the 5G tower in Faversham’s central car park right next to the EV charging points (never seen them in use apart from one EV hire car that seems to be permanently attached and to go nowhere, window dressing probably). The EV chargers are probably connected to the grid so generators are needed for the tower.
‘Toddington Harper, CEO at Gridserve, said …’
Could have been worse I suppose, his parents might have named him ‘Watford Gap’.
Octopus claim up to 13 years to connect renewables to the Grid!
Placing aside any reservations about renewables, the idea that new energy takes 13 years to be plugged in is an absurdity. It also shows how Net Zero targets have no real-world chance of being met.
The targets, both infrastructure and dates, are already impossible to meet not to mention ruinously expensive.
Net Zero 2050 is now a full-blown national security risk. It must be amended or stopped.
Yep. The Grid has been saying for some time now that it could take up to 15 years to connect new unreliables to the network
So they have installed a whole SIX chargers with another lot to make it up to just TWELVE. Why doesn’t anybody mention the herds of elephants in the room of vehicle throughput? If you had 12 fuel pumps, how many vehicles an hour can they serve?
Given maximum ten minutes for refilling with petrol or diesel, that is at least six vehicles per hour for only one pump. The first EV would still be charging and would of course only have half or less of the range of an ICE when it eventually finishes charging.
Extend that to 12 pumps. At least 72 vehicles per hour for ICE and less than 12 for EVs.
>>If you had 12 fuel pumps, how many vehicles an hour can they serve?
No doubt the vegetable oil will have come from crops grown with fertiliser derived from Fossil Fuels. Doubtless it is delivered to the site in diesel-engined tankers.
If the veg oil isn’t taxed then the whole thing is just a tax-dodging scam, isn’t it? Plus, I suppose, subsidy-farming.
Cut out the middle man and buy a diesel car. This is like the diesel generators sitting across the Taw estuary from the Fullabrook wind farm on the site of the old power station.
I think they claim their IC generators are fuelled by vegetable oil! Whether this makes the emissions better or worse, I don’t know.
Greta can see the different types of CO2 and tell good from bad.
Just buy a petrol or diesel vehicle in the first place. Maximum ten minutes to refill with at least double, often three, even four times the range of an EV.
10 minutes! How much fuel does the tank hold?!!!!!!!!!
Sixty litres of diesel equals 750 miles (without a trailer) and certainly more than 600 miles with a trailer. I did write “maximum ten minutes”. It can be less.
And my diesel is several years old. The newer ones have even better ranges.
>>10 minutes! How much fuel does the tank hold?
Reminds me of a story a few years back. Some climate activists were having an outside gathering which included speakers and they needed a sound system of course. It turned out the lighting and sound system was run by diesel generation which was hidden from view round the back of the stage somewhere. A sleuth found if of course. It was probably 5 years or more ago but I can’t remember any other details.
Yes saw that. Germany, Sweden…..? somewhere over there.
At Glasgow cop26, the EVs for the delegates were charged by diesel generators. I despair.
They had to have something reliable for the delegates so diesel it was.
That featured in Jeff Gibbs film produced by Michael Moore. Planet of the humans
A year or so ago there was an eco-loon stand erected in the centre of Carlisle and the activists were bellowing “just stop oil” at passers by, using a loud PA system. I was curious about how this was powered and, sure enough, round the back was a diesel generator. The crazy thing is, these eco loons don’t seem to see the absurdity of this.
Everything and everyone concerned with the scam is costly, fake and/or mendacious.
Cart before the horse…get the infrastructure in place before rushing down the electrical track. Considering an EV’s 5 yearly carbon footprint isn’t far behind the average ICE vehicle, using fossil fuelled generators for charging could be classed as stupid…
You have to laugh.
Except this is all too serious.
It is what you get when you have Oxford liberal arts grads (mainly PPE) running the economy.
I have long suggested that electric cars should be
I have long suggested that electric cars should be sold with a trailer consisting of a large fuel tank and a generator.
Then there is no range anxiety.
This is a neat looking version of that idea, self propelled and incorporating space for camping gear. That Fiat 500 EV weighs nearly as much (about 25kg less) as a Jaguar Mark 2!
https://www.wired.com/2010/11/range-extending-trailer-charges-your-ev-carries-your-gear/
That article was published in 2010! No sign of the trailer ever being available on the market. There are though several series hybrid vehicles that incorporate a petrol or diesel generator as part of the cars power train.
Yes indeed, still a neat looking idea. Fiat 500 EV kerb weight 1405 kg, Jaguar Mark 2 1440 kg (so 35 kg difference, nor 25 kg, sorry about that).
Meantime, re transport,
‘CalMac has issued travel warnings while bringing in a rigid inflatable boat after the breakdown of the world’s first sea-going hybrid ferry.’
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23777109.only-travel-necessary-calmac-warning-raasay-ferry-incident/
Damn!
You’ll love this – how the US Energy Secretary’s EV Camper van trip goes horribly wrong
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/family-calls-police-energy-department-staffer-as-jennifer/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=family-calls-police-energy-department-staffer-as-jennifer
It isn’t a camper van but a caravan of battery cars intending to show how good they are. It was always destined to go wrong but with somebody as stupid as Granholm there is no cure.
Labour Party Conference 1985, Bournemouth: Kinnock speech extract:
“I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council – a Labour council – hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers”
Cut to Derek Hatton shouting “liar”, Eric Heffer flounces off stage left…
“I’m telling you, no matter how entertaining, how fulfilling to short term egos…I’ll tell you and you’ll listen…I’m telling you, you can’t play politics with people’s jobs and with people’s services.”
I will leave others to think how this truth bomb can be adapted and used against the current militant (Woke, Blob et al ) tendencies – Kinnock was a windbag but he spoke to truth here, with anger and passion. (imho)
Going back to the link here https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/gridserve-bypasses-grid-bottleneck-with-old-batteries-and-vegetable-oil
1. ” powered by an microgrid system that uses second-life batteries in conjunction with vegetable oil generators. It features a 150kWh battery pack, made from used electric car car batteries,”
I’m seeing old car batteries (where from? crash damaged vehicles?) alongside flammable material and generators so I would be very interested in the fire safety officer that passed that in such a public place. However, I bet it never has been inspected.
2. “Gridserve claim these produce 90% less carbon emissions than traditional generators,” Outright lie. They will produce the same or possibly more. This long term renewable claim from bio products is just BS in real time.
Yes, 90% is really taking the ****, Drax BS is at least a bit more subtle even if the old growth forest destruction is not.
No the carbon in vegetable oil is extracted from the atmosphere. So in theory is carbon neutral.
Also, if this is waste vegetable oil, then it would have to be disposed of somehow if not used for purposes such as this.
Problem is, there is only so much waste vegetable oil.
If you then use vegetable oil grown specifically for fuel, you are using fertilizers and agriculture, which uses fossil fuels. So that would need careful analysis to see if it was truly lower in total emissions.
The vegetable oil could be burned in a waste to energy plant at greater efficiency.
https://www.veolia.com/en/resources/circular-economy/converting-household-waste-energy
My engineering degree from Trinity (CU, 1971) helps me understand this stuff. I’ve followed the BS with increasing incredulity (and sadness, my alma mater appears to have succumbed too) for 30+ years.
On the efficiency question, the facility apparently uses a 150kWh battery as a buffer between the generator and the charger.
That means you have TWO charging/discharge losses to take into account, not just one.
What those charging losses are seems to be impossible to really tie down but let’s be generous and say only 5%.
So 40% generation efficiency x 0.95 x 0.95 x 0.86 vehicle efficiency = 31% overall efficiency.
I’ve got to say, that is quite comparable to a diesel ICE vehicle real-world efficiency, is it not ?
They will also produce NOx and particulates. I don’t know how generators compare to diesel cars but, even if they are the equivalent of Euro 6, there will be some emissions alongside the CO2 output.
That makes a mockery of one of the big claims for EVs – no air pollution.
Only in America (or maybe not)…
You gotta be kidding me! That’s utterly outrageous!
You gotta love the Green Mafia; charging EVs with diesel generators out in the middle of nowhere. I hope these suckers packed a lunch, have a few hours to spare, and have a fire extinguisher close at hand. Range anxiety is for losers and fools.
Another example of the piffle-absurdly expensive nonsense-of substitutes for fossil fuelled equipment and means of energy supply.
Maybe not only arithmetic but also common sense are lacking from the wasters, dullards and chancers infesting green/adverse climate opinions.
Think of EVs, Windmills, Heat pumps and Net Zero-losers all, but at costs ruining our nation at least.