Thailand's electric vehicle sector to see demand surge amid strong oil prices: DBS

[QballQ]

On 3/16/2022 at 9:30 AM, Hamus Yaigh said:

Those way-point markers are about 2km wide in the image! If you zoom in you'll find few  to none compared to available petrol pumps. Bangkok is only suited to EV's in the outskirts, people should use public mass transport in the city where traffic is jammed already.

 

If you go Thailand wide the situation is much worse for charge points, so people would need two cars, one EV and one petrol. Make sense?!

 

Whatever you buy in EV today will be obsolete in a short time like the evolution of computers and smart phones in the early years. People with money to burn and smug Eco-warriors will buy EV's, for the practical its a trusted ICE for years to come.

The other issue being that a lot of the chargers around are slow chargers. Even if you plug your car in at the supermarket for an hour it is going to be trickling electricity rather than a super charger.

 

I understand MG have charging stations at all garages, the first MG we looked at, when we left I asked the sales person to show me the quick charge point - blocked by two ICE cars, I was told they are employees and all I needed to do was ask them to move to charge my car.

 

That put a stop to my EV dreams in Thailand. 

[placeholder]

28 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

It's difficult to predict how long the development of a new technology will take before the goals are successfully achieved. An example would be the development of Nuclear Fusion to supply energy (as opposed to the conventional Nuclear Fission which has many 'potential' problems).

 

Research into Nuclear Fusion has been going on for many decades with many predictions along the way that success will be achieved within a few years. Here's an article that mentions the latest investments in this research.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-01/commonwealth-fusion-attracts-1-8-billion-in-top-funding-deal

 

"Commonwealth Fusion Systems said it raised $1.8 billion from investors including billionaire Bill Gates and venture capitalist John Doerr in the fusion industry’s largest financing deal."

 

"As for a reliable source of supply there has been huge progress.  The cost per kwh via solar and wind has declined by . So much so, that they are far cheaper than coal plants. In fact the cost of building wind or solar plants is now cheaper than the cost of just running a coal plant."

 

That would only be true if the sun were to shine continuously and the wind were to blow continuously. The intermittency of renewables seems to get ignored when doing cost comparisons.

 

It's going to be horrible to see large tracts of land covered in black solar panels, and scores of noisy Windmills killing lots of birds. How can these 'Green Environmentalists' promote such a concept. There must be something wrong with them. They are ruining nature. ????

Comparing the technological difficulties of creating fusion power to battery storage technology is ridiculous. You think private companies would be investing 10's of billions of dollar in solid state batteries if the technology was decades away? Their investments dwarf that of Gates et alii. 

 

Again what you ignore is the huge advances being made in storage technology. As I pointed out, storage facilities using cheap batteries based on iron oxide are now being built for power companies in the USA. Hydrogen as a means of storage just got a huge boost from an electrolyzer that is 98% efficient in converting electric power to the gas. And these are just a few of the developments making rapid progress.

 

And of course, the fact that a big majority of power plants now being built are renewable kind of argues against your assertions. What do you know that power companies don't?

 

And please stop shedding those crocodile tears for the environment. You are really going to defend the fossil fuel industry on environmental grounds? It is to laugh.  Even discounting the fact that roof-mounted solar panels in countries like Australia are contributing significant amounts of electricity to the grid, the increase in efficiency of solar panels means that only a small portion of land need be dedicated to solar. In the USA, anywhere from 0.7% to 0.32% of land would be required to completely power the country.

 

"According to a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, roughly 22,000 square miles of solar panel-filled land (about the size of Lake Michigan) would be required to power the entire country, including all 141 million households and businesses, based on 13-14% efficiency for solar modules.

Many solar panels, however, reach 20% efficiency, which could reduce the necessary area to just about 10,000 square miles, equivalent to the size of Lake Erie."

So given that the continental USA (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) is about 3112000 square miles, even with old technology that would amount to 0.7% of the continental US land mass. With up-to-date solar technology that amount to 0.32%.

And of course, given  increasing contribution that offshore wind power alone makes, that 0.7% or 0.32% are overestimates.

 

Also, agrovoltaics is a burgeoning field in which crops and solar panels share the land.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192030249X

 

As for killing birds...

 

Wind v fossil fuels

A study published in 2009 looking at the US and Europe estimated that wind farms were responsible for about 0.3 bird deaths for every 1GWh of electricity generated, compared with 5.2 deaths per 1GWh caused by fossil-fuelled power stations.

It said this would equate to the deaths, every year, in the US, of about 7,000 birds caused by wind turbines, 300,000 by nuclear plants and 14.5 million by power plants using fossil fuels...

Another study in 2012 came to a similar conclusion, finding that fossil-fuel powered plants killed birds during mining, through onsite collision, electrocution with plant equipment and poisoning.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48936941#:~:text=Wind v fossil fuels,by fossil-fuelled power stations.

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1 hour ago, placeholder said:

Comparing the technological difficulties of creating fusion power to battery storage technology is ridiculous. You think private companies would be investing 10's of billions of dollar in solid state batteries if the technology was decades away? Their investments dwarf that of Gates et alii. 

 

Again what you ignore is the huge advances being made in storage technology. As I pointed out, storage facilities using cheap batteries based on iron oxide are now being built for power companies in the USA. Hydrogen as a means of storage just got a huge boost from an electrolyzer that is 98% efficient in converting electric power to the gas. And these are just a few of the developments making rapid progress.

 

And of course, the fact that a big majority of power plants now being built are renewable kind of argues against your assertions. What do you know that power companies don't?

 

And please stop shedding those crocodile tears for the environment. You are really going to defend the fossil fuel industry on environmental grounds? It is to laugh.  Even discounting the fact that roof-mounted solar panels in countries like Australia are contributing significant amounts of electricity to the grid, the increase in efficiency of solar panels means that only a small portion of land need be dedicated to solar. In the USA, anywhere from 0.7% to 0.32% of land would be required to completely power the country.

 

"According to a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, roughly 22,000 square miles of solar panel-filled land (about the size of Lake Michigan) would be required to power the entire country, including all 141 million households and businesses, based on 13-14% efficiency for solar modules.

Many solar panels, however, reach 20% efficiency, which could reduce the necessary area to just about 10,000 square miles, equivalent to the size of Lake Erie."

So given that the continental USA (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) is about 3112000 square miles, even with old technology that would amount to 0.7% of the continental US land mass. With up-to-date solar technology that amount to 0.32%.

And of course, given  increasing contribution that offshore wind power alone makes, that 0.7% or 0.32% are overestimates.

 

Also, agrovoltaics is a burgeoning field in which crops and solar panels share the land.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192030249X

 

As for killing birds...

 

Wind v fossil fuels

A study published in 2009 looking at the US and Europe estimated that wind farms were responsible for about 0.3 bird deaths for every 1GWh of electricity generated, compared with 5.2 deaths per 1GWh caused by fossil-fuelled power stations.

It said this would equate to the deaths, every year, in the US, of about 7,000 birds caused by wind turbines, 300,000 by nuclear plants and 14.5 million by power plants using fossil fuels...

Another study in 2012 came to a similar conclusion, finding that fossil-fuel powered plants killed birds during mining, through onsite collision, electrocution with plant equipment and poisoning.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48936941#:~:text=Wind v fossil fuels,by fossil-fuelled power stations.

Just another note on the threat posed to birds by wind turbines. The studies I cited are 10 and 13 years old. The size of wind turbine blades has increased greatly since then. The kwh capacity of a wind turbine is the square of the length of the blade. So the power output increases geometrically the larger the blades get. Which means that less birds are going to be killed per unit of power output as blades get bigger. So those figures cited above now greatly exaggerate the death toll inflicted on the avian population. Also, systems are being put in place to detect the presence of birds (and bats) in order to shut down the turbines when necessary.

[Enoon]

On 3/16/2022 at 6:16 PM, placeholder said:

The message being to disregard your opinion on the subject.

All such opinions may be disregarded, and no time or effort should be spent in disputing them

 

EVs are here to stay.

 

That is unqestionable and indisputable.

 

 

[VincentRJ]

9 hours ago, placeholder said:

"According to a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, roughly 22,000 square miles of solar panel-filled land (about the size of Lake Michigan) would be required to power the entire country, including all 141 million households and businesses, based on 13-14% efficiency for solar modules.

 

That's an interesting calculation, but I can't find that comment in the report. Can you quote it for me?
It's not clear to  me whether the 22,000 square miles of solar panels that are sufficient to power the whole of the USA, do so only when the sun shines. Is battery storage included in that calculation? If so, then the solar panels would have to produce far more than the energy consumption of the entire country when the sun shines, in order to provide the energy to charge the batteries for use when the sun doesn't shine. That adds enormously to the cost. Imagine the consequences of several days of overcast and cloudy skies.

 

Energy supplies are a fundamental necessity for any civilization to flourish, and the cost of that energy is directly related to our living standards. Striving to produce clean, reliable and affordable energy is a very worthy goal. 
I have no objection to spending money to develop new and cleaner sources of energy, but if such energy is more expensive, then the average standard of living will fall, which is why India and China are still building new coal-fired power plants.

 

"A study published in 2009 looking at the US and Europe estimated that wind farms were responsible for about 0.3 bird deaths for every 1GWh of electricity generated, compared with 5.2 deaths per 1GWh caused by fossil-fuelled power stations."

 

That's a good point which I haven't given sufficient consideration. There are many causes of bird deaths in our modern societies. Birds frequently crash into the windows of buildings, possibly because they see their own reflection and think it's another bird, and that gives them the impression they are flying into an unobstructed path.

 

They also crash into solar panels. So, I agree that bird deaths from wind and solar energy should not be touted as a negative to their development. I always admit that I'm wrong when the evidence suggests that I am, although I suspect that the stated numbers are not accurate because of the difficulty of observation. The following site, not as outdated as your linked study of 2009, explains the difficulty of accurately determining the number of bird deaths around Solar Panel Farms.

 

"Too much to do At the moment, the only way to track bird deaths at solar panel facilities is to have a human walk around and collect the bodies. This prevents researchers from collecting a valuable amount of data. That’s why Szymanski and his colleagues are working on a means to automate the process."
https://sciencenode.org/feature/Save the birds.php#:~:text=Billions of birds die annually,flying into an unobstructed path.

[Golden Triangle]

And my mrs told me this morning that electricity prices were due to rise pretty soon.

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28 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

That's an interesting calculation, but I can't find that comment in the report. Can you quote it for me?
It's not clear to  me whether the 22,000 square miles of solar panels that are sufficient to power the whole of the USA, do so only when the sun shines. Is battery storage included in that calculation? If so, then the solar panels would have to produce far more than the energy consumption of the entire country when the sun shines, in order to provide the energy to charge the batteries for use when the sun doesn't shine. That adds enormously to the cost. Imagine the consequences of several days of overcast and cloudy skies.

Well, it's probably derived from the weighted average of how many acres it takes to produce 1 GWh per year. On page 4.1 that average is calculated to be 3.1 acres.  Then I guess that would be divided into how many TWh per year the USA uses or rather used in the year that report draws its data from. Since it was published in 2013 I'm guessing that year would be either 2011 or 2012. Anyway if you divide the total usage in TWh in 2012 which is 3832 TWH by 1  3.1 (acres) and then further divide that that by 640 (number of acres in a square mile), that comes to 18561.25 square miles. But since that TWh figure was for production, rather than consumption, and there is some loss of transmission. I think the average transmission loss is about 15%. So if you take that into account the number of square miles comes to 21836.

As for the question of reliability. The larger and more intelligent the grid, the less likely it is for there to be a shortage. There are complicated algorithms to figure this out. One figure that stands out is how cheap energy storage would have to be to make 100% renewable possible

"To provide baseload, intermediate, bipeaker, and peaker electricity at $0.10/kWh with an optimal wind-solar mix, energy storage capacity costs must reach approximately $30–70/kWh, $30v90/kWh, $10–30/kWh, and $10–30/kWh respectively."

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/8/9/20767886/renewable-energy-storage-cost-electricity

This seemed like a distant possibility when this article was last updated in Sept 2019. However, as has consistently been the case with energy storage, expectation have been way too pessimistic. As I've noted above, batteries using iron oxide look like they can meet that price point. And new electrolyzers make it look like hydrogen generated by electrolysis will also be economical enough.

[WorriedNoodle]

On 3/16/2022 at 11:44 AM, motdaeng said:

a list of ev charging station (sept. 21):

So 2280 charging points. There are at least 28,000 fuel stations in Thailand (data from 2018 available by Google) with multiple pumps at each taking 4 minutes to refuel. Some way to go yet - not at the tipping point yet.

[Doctor Tom]

8 hours ago, Enoon said:

EVs are here to stay.

 

Tahat is unqestionable and indisputable.

It is questionable and it is disputable.  EVs are at best an interim solution, until hydrogen, (the most abundant element in the universe and highly accessible), technology improves,  Now that is unquestionable and indisputable  and is more of the future than EVs.  

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1 hour ago, VincentRJ said:

Energy supplies are a fundamental necessity for any civilization to flourish, and the cost of that energy is directly related to our living standards. Striving to produce clean, reliable and affordable energy is a very worthy goal. 
I have no objection to spending money to develop new and cleaner sources of energy, but if such energy is more expensive, then the average standard of living will fall, which is why India and China are still building new coal-fired power plants.

I don't know where you get the idea that solar and wind are more expensive than coal. In countries with free market economies and low levels of corruption, coal has long since been abandoned because it's just not cost competitive.

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/

In fact, as the Lazard Freres report show, computing the Levelized Cost Of Electricity, it's actually cheaper to build a solar or wind power generating facility than it is merely to keep a coal plant running.

The reason that China keeps on investing in coal plants has nothing to do with the market and everything to do with government intervention in the free market system. A certain amount of cash is doled out by the central government to provinces and local government. Those governments are under pressure to spend the money in order that what it produces show up in the GDP. What could be better than a capital intensive project like a coal- powered electricity plant in a province that has coal resources to burn?

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3094098/chinas-coronavirus-recovery-drives-boom-coal-plants-casting

https://voxeu.org/article/china-overinvested-coal-power-here-s-why

 

As for India

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/coal-king-india

[VincentRJ]

13 hours ago, placeholder said:

I don't know where you get the idea that solar and wind are more expensive than coal.

Haven't you noticed the significant rise of electricity prices in countries that are relying more and more on solar and wind for their energy supplies. Germany is an example, with the highest electricity prices in the world, and that was before the current problems resulting from the Ukrainian war.

 

As I've mentioned before, the biggest drawback to Wind and Solal energy is the intermittency of supply. Battery storage in itself is a very expensive way of addressing this problem because it would require enormous amounts of batteries to deal with those occasions when there is little or no wind and sunshine for several days, and the entire electricity supply in a particular region has to come from batteries. In other words, there would have to be a large amount of excess supply just sitting there, waiting for the few occasions when there's little wind or sunshine for several days, and, of course, as we should all know, weather is very difficult to accurately predict.

 

However, in these circumstances, fossil fuels come to the rescue. It's much cheaper to have gas or diesel generators sitting idle than billions of dollars worth of batteries. Of course, the energy from such fossil fuel generators is also more expensive than it could be, because they are not being used most of the time.

 

I appreciate there are other solutions, but they are expensive and would require an increase in the use of fossil fuels to create the infrastructure. In my view, the ideal situation to achieve complete reliance upon renewable energy, is for all countries, and states within those countries, to be interconnected with UHVDC cables, which have a low transmission loss. At any given time, the sun is shining and the wind is blowing somewhere on the planet.

 

Some time ago I came across a study which calculated if the entire Sahara Desert were covered in solar panels, the amount of electricity created each day would be about 20x the total world consumption of energy. That would suggest if numerous deserts and arid regions around the world, a fraction of the size of the Sahara desert in total, were covered with solar panels, then the entire world could get it's electricity supply from solar, provided all countries were connected to these solar farms with UHVDC cables.

 

Unfortunately, the cost of laying these cable, undersea and underground, would be enormous, and would take many decades, involving the use of fossil fuels to dig the trenches and produce the enormous amount of copper required for the cables. Such cables could also be the target of attacks during wars and conflicts. I think most countries would prefer to be 'energy independent'. The gas pipeline from Russia to Germany is an example that should be noted.
 

[KhunLA]

6 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

Haven't you noticed the significant rise of electricity prices in countries that are relying more and more on solar and wind for their energy supplies.

Why would any of us, notice, or care about, the cost of utilities in countries we don't live in ? 

 

All I do know, or care about, is electric is a lot more expensive here in Thailand, compared to last place I live (TN / TVA provide hydro) in the USA, but not where I lived (Philly metro) most of the time spent there.

 

I know having solar installed here is much cheaper than NY/PA/NY, USA, tri-state area, or anywhere in the USA probably.  But just as reference, and aside from making me feel better ... who cares.