RE: Interesting article in The Times yesterday16 Jul 2024 10:51
To add, to what Toneman has said:
If every house switched to a Heat Pump and every driver to an EV car (assuming 2 cars/household).
Heatpump/year for 3-4kw Heat approximately 2700kW
EV average annual consumption in the UK according to figures from DoT of 11.87miles/day distance for every driver and using an average of 0.32kW/mile to charge, approcimately 1300kw/year x 2 for 2 cars = 2700kW.
The average medium single rate user, uses around 2700 per household.
So based on that, just to meet domestic transportation and heating through electrification it is reasonable to assume that domestic electricity (which is roughly a third of total consumption annually) will need to triple - including electrification across industry as well an assumption of at least double to triple capacity is reasonable.
The infrastructure expansion to support that in terms of solar/onshore/offshore wind generation capacity is enormous and then the transportation/distribution costs to move that against known capacity constraints is phenomenal. You'd think a professor of engineering would factor that into efficiency assessments.
The National Grid plans for bootstraps (interconnetors) from the North Sea to the South East both at sea and pylons across East Anglia towards London and the Midlands are very expensive.
My neighbour has just had to have 3-phase supply installed to support their heat pump and EV. The retrofit for that if everyone did it is not costed.
Producing Hydrogen close to renewable electricity source and using for large scale industrial use (such as smelting raw Iron ore to produce Iron, which cannot be electrified but needs a reducing gas), and other EII use (metal smelting, glass production etc) is more sensible from a holistic perspective.
Hydrogen can also be used via Haber-Bosch to produce ammonia for fertiliser to maximise food prodcution from the reduced land available (as it has otherwise now has pylons/solar panels or wind turbines on it).
Using it for heating either as Hydrogen or using Sabatier to produce methane could instead reduce the transportation/distribution infrastructure need by re-using existing north sea gas pipework.
We then as a country would be able to produce our own Iron and more of our food which is more sustainable then the proposal from electrification advocates.
If all the above is progressed as logically it should be - using Hydrogen for transportation is then a value add.