Study finds up to half of all electric-car owners considering a switch back to petroleum power
Approximately half of the people who already own an electric car are considering a switch back to petrol or diesel power for their next vehicle – unless they own a Tesla.
According to a US study from S&P Global Mobility, first reported on by website Electrek, three-quarters of electric vehicle owners say that would buy another battery-powered car – but that number falls to about half once Tesla owners are removed from the statistics.
On average, the study found households with an electric vehicle are only 52.1 per cent likely to buy another for their next purchase – whether that's as a second car or as a replacement – citing pricing, charging infrastructure, and driving range as their reasons against another zero-emissions car.
However, with Tesla owners included, that figure increases to 72.6 per cent – an increase of almost 25 per cent over the past three years.
Households with an electric Nissan said there was a 63.2 per cent chance of them buying another battery-powered car – though 14.3 per cent said they would consider a Tesla Model Y next time, while 12.4 per cent would choose a Nissan Leaf.
"The [car companies] are spending huge amounts of money to develop [electric vehicles]," associate director for loyalty solutions and industry analysis at S&P Global Mobility Tom Libby said in a written statement.
"So the last thing they want is for an [electric-vehicle] owner to go back to [car with a petrol or diesel engine]."
Among luxury brands, Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar saw electric-vehicle preference increase by more than 30 per cent over three years to 56.6 per cent each.
Porsche saw the least amount of growth among luxury marques over the same period, with less than 37 per cent considering another electric car, and while it remains ahead of Porsche, BMW went backwards – with 45.9 per cent agreeing, compared to 46.6 per cent three years ago.
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Yet another well-intentioned green folly
In the small town of Kalkar in Northern Germany, there is an amusement park with an unusual ‘Alpine Experience’ climbing wall that looks like a power station cooling tower … because that is exactly what it is, or rather was.
The decision to build a prototype fast breeder power station in 1972 was taken because this type of reactor would be powered by the plutonium produced in conventional nuclear power stations, and would therefore produce more fuel than it consumed.
This sounds too good to be true because plutonium is extremely radioactive, and when not used to make atomic bombs, must be stored securely for some 200,000 years.
Despite the obvious environmental benefits of such technology, green ignorance stopped the commissioning of the plant simply because it was ‘nuclear’. The explanations for stopping it were all mistaken, as I hope to show. This is crucial as we have a similar non-scientific, feelings-based fear driving our irrational Net Zero panic.
The mistakes were driven by a series of false assumptions and misunderstandings about the risks and problems of nuclear power generation, which will become obvious as we examine the underlying causes.
Built between 1972 and 1991, at a cost of over €3.5 billion (US $4 billion), the Kalkar 327-megawatt nuclear reactor was never commissioned because of green opposition. At the time, this was caused primarily by the fear generated after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident which made any nuclear power plant seem like bad news.
That’s understandable, I hear you saying, but the facts suggest otherwise. Mistake number one led to a series of bad decisions based on misinformation which has since hindered the development of an alternative source of cheap and reliable power to satisfy the apparent need to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
The Russian conventional water-cooled reactor at Chernobyl exploded during routine testing because of a serious design fault. Radiation then spread over much of Europe because the builders cut costs by omitting the concrete containment walls and pressure vessels that were installed around similar reactors worldwide. That was mistake number two.
The Kalkar reactor was different to Chernobyl, producing more fuel than it consumed by converting plutonium to uranium, surely a win-win situation. Mistake number three…
A fast breeder reactor produces significantly more heat than Chernobyl-type, uranium-fuelled, water-cooled reactors. This excessive heat is cooled with liquid natrium (sodium) which, in turn, is cooled by water, creating the steam to drive normal turbines to make reliable, stable, and cheap electricity. The steam is condensed as it passes through the turbines and the resulting hot water is pumped to the top of the cooling tower, cooling as it falls like rain to the tower floor where it is collected and recycled to again cool the liquid sodium. Some of the steam escapes from the top of the cooling tower as clouds of white water vapour, which alarmists mistakenly imply is evidence of the CO2 pollution created by all such forms of power generation such as coal and gas. Mistake number four.
France generates 80 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power because, unlike much of Europe, it lacks sufficient oil, gas, coal, or uranium. For the last 50 or so years it has safely used fast breeder technology to produce sufficient fuel reserves for the next 250 years. Using a technology that eliminates the need to store conventional plutonium waste for over 100,000 years is surely a sensible and sustainable way to generate fossil fuel-free electricity. Mistake number five.
However, at Kalkar, emotional consensus and ideology triumphed over science yet again, and the Fast Breeder Reactor was closed down in 1991 without a trial. The reactor building and cooling tower were sold after partial demolition for €2.5 million and symbolically converted into an amusement park which was a pointless and super-expensive taxpayer-funded monument to green folly.
The loss was further compounded by the futile attempt to replace what would have been 327 MW of reliable, year-round, cheap electricity with intermittent and unreliable wind and solar power (which the once intensely green, tree-hugging, environmental lobby, now claim is the cheapest form of power). They studiously ignore the fact that fossil fuel and nuclear power plants cover just a few hectares of land, produce power >90 per cent of the time, come rain or shine, and last for 60 plus years. Heavily subsidised renewables sterilise hundreds of thousands of hectares of countryside and need replacing every 20 or so years. They also need kilometres of powerlines to get the power to where it is needed. Mistake number six.
Renewable supporters claim that renewable power is cheaper than fossil fuels, yet our power bills keep going up. The claim is based on wrongfully using the so-called levelized cost of renewables (LCOR) which is a deceitful accounting sleight of hand. The real cost of unreliable renewables, must also include the subsidies and the stand-by cost of fossil, hydro, or nuclear fuel power stations or batteries that are needed when the wind doesn’t blow at the right speed and the sun doesn’t shine enough. A traditional power station that is kept on subsidised care and maintenance until needed as backup can only make a loss, unless subsidised. Mistake number seven.
In Queensland where roof-top solar has been widely accepted and installed, wind farms are paid not to produce electricity on sunny days, another invisible subsidy, that adds to the real cost of household and industrial electricity. Mistake number eight.
The Kalkar Fast Breeder Reactor was designed to generate fossil fuel-free electricity and to eliminate the production of dangerous long-lived radioactive waste that would need to be safely stored for half the lifetime of homo sapiens. The history of humanity for just the last 10,000 years would suggest that safe storage for as little as one generation would be an impossibility. Now that renewable electricity has proved itself incapable of supplying Germany’s power requirements, coal-fired power stations are being brought back online. Something that should be thought of in Australia, where decommissioned coal-fired power stations are immediately demolished.
Kalkar-type Fast Breeder Reactors could have been used to supply the deficiencies inherent in power produced by intermittent wind and solar, removing at least partially, the need for fossil fuel-powered generation. Fear of nuclear accidents is as understandable as the fear of coal mine disasters and oil and gas well blow-outs, but both are extremely rare and have usually been caused by design faults. Any attempt to improve the living conditions of the majority of people living on the planet carries risks. The unsinkable Titanic hit an iceberg and sank, but shipbuilding did not stop. Many motor cars, trains, aeroplanes, and spaceships have suffered similar fates, but we continue to build them as each accident makes a repeat far less likely, and the benefits these inventions bring, far exceed the losses.
The nuclear power industry has grown steadily more reliable, as is evidenced by the lack of accidents in nuclear-powered countries like France, or in the many nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers that constantly sail the seas. It was an unnecessary but perhaps understandable mistake to terminate the Kalkar experiment in the 1970s, but ‘the times they are a changing’ and the world needs to move on, particularly if emissions need to be cut.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/yet-another-well-intentioned-green-folly/
*************************************************Britain is turning its back on one of the major successes of this decade
It is the biggest deal in the oil industry for a decade. It will consolidate production. And it will put renewed pressure on the rest of the industry, not least the two British giants Shell and BP. With its acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources for almost $60bn (£50bn), ExxonMobil will cement its grip in the oil industry.
But if the US has been able to create a $60bn company out of the shale oil and gas boom, of which Pioneer was one of the leaders, why couldn’t Britain? There is no reason why the UK should not have developed a whole series of shale giants like Pioneer – and we still could, if we only developed the political will to exploit our own energy resources.
The deal may or may not get finalised, but if it does it will help to consolidate ExxonMobil’s grip on the oil market.
It emerged on Friday that it is in talks to acquire Pioneer, a $50bn business, and if a deal goes through it is likely to have to pay a significant premium, sending the final price up to $60bn, or possibly even higher. It would be Exxon’s biggest corporate move since the merger with Mobil that created the company in 1999.
And perhaps more significantly, it would consolidate its presence in the sprawling Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, where Pioneer is one of the strongest players.
For Exxon, it may well prove a smart move. For all the investment in green energy, oil is still above $80 a barrel, and the price has been strong all year. As much as they are hated, fossil fuels are going to be a vital part of the energy mix for many years to come, and there will be plenty of money to be made from extracting oil and gas and delivering it around the world. ExxonMobil was already the largest Western oil company, and if it can drive this acquisition through, it is likely to remain so for many years to come.
Viewed from this side of the Atlantic, however, the interesting question is surely this. Why don’t we have any companies of the size of Pioneer? Founded by Scott Sheffield in 1997, Pioneer is the company that drove the development of the fracking industry in the US.
Along the way, it made the country self-sufficient in energy for the first time in a generation, with surpluses to help out Europe when the Russian gas was turned off, and created vast wealth for the country. A $60bn price tag is a testament to the value of the industry.
The contrast with the UK is painful. The amount of shale oil and gas in the UK is open to debate. After all, it is hard to know for sure until you start drilling. The British Geological Survey put the reserves at 150bn cubic meters. According to a study by Warwick Business School, it could be enough to meet up to 22pc of the UK’s annual energy consumption up to 2050. There are a range of different figures. And yet whichever estimate you take, one point is clear. It is a lot.
The problem is that we have refused to develop it. A bizarre coalition of local protest groups, the same kind of people that stop houses being built, or roads constructed, have joined forces with the kind of extreme environmentalists who object to any kind of fossil fuels being extracted, together with a handful of conspiracy theorists, to bully ministers into banning the UK industry.
It is hard to understand why. Companies such as Pioneer have been developing the technology for a quarter of a century now, and funnily enough Texas does not seem to have been convulsed by earthquakes (and neither has Alberta, the centre of the Canadian shale gas industry).
Neither has there been a huge rise in the number of deformed babies, another favorite scare story of the anti-fracking brigade. Instead, huge new companies such as Pioneer have been created, and ones that are solid and stable enough to be acquired by the giants of the industry.
It is a scandal of epic proportions that the UK has squandered the opportunity to create the same kind of shale businesses in this country. In reality, we should have started this industry seriously when the first licences were handed out fifteen years ago.
By now, we would have major players in the business, with proven expertise, and a record of consistent production. It would be BP or Shell buying a UK fracking giant for billions, instead of an American company buying another American company to consolidate its lead in the industry.
Along the way, we would have created a huge number of jobs, lots of tax revenues, and vastly improved our balance of payments, while securing our own energy supplies, and making sure we were protected from prices dictated by Russia or Saudi Arabia. It was a huge industrial opportunity to turn down simply on a few scare stories about earth tremors that have proved to have no basis elsewhere. If fracking were as dangerous as its opponents argue, Exxon Mobil would not be buying Pioneer.
We could still start if we wanted to. The resources are there, and the technology is well established.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/10/08/britain-reap-rewards-of-shale-energy/
******************************************************High-quality gas reservoir discovered in southern North Sea
Dana Petroleum, the UK subsidiary of Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC), has discovered high-quality gas in the North Sea through exploratory drilling in the 42/27 exploration block.
Dana Petroleum acquired a 50% stake in block 42/27 in the southern North Sea through international bidding in 2020 and secured independent operating rights.
The company started full-scale exploratory drilling this July after deriving a “promising structure” and excavated to a final depth of 3,198 meters at the end of September, discovering gas in the target layer at the Earn prospect.
Following the discovery, Dana is carrying out evaluation drilling to accurately assess the amount of resources and to obtain additional data for future development.
The Earn prospect structure is located approximately 4 kilometers west of the company’s producing Tolmount Main prospect.
Dana is a 50% partner along with operator Harbour Energy in the Tolmount Southern North Sea gas development and its net share is around 20,000 boepd.
The project was given the go-ahead in August 2018. Dana and Kellas Midstream formed a 50:50 infrastructure joint venture to finance the platform and pipeline, known as the Humber Gathering System, and the modifications to Centrica’s Easington terminal to which gas is exported. First gas was achieved in April 2022.
Well clean-up and testing of the Tolmount East development well has been completed including the installation of the Xmas tree and protection structure. The well is now suspended for future tie-in to the subsea infrastructure which will facilitate production via the Tolmount platform.
The project is expected to achieve first gas at the end of this year.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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