End of diesel Volvos.

[Prufrock]

Volvo CEO, Hakan Samuelesson has recently - very recently - announced that Volvo will not be developing any new diesel engines as the cost of reducing tailpipe emissions (of Oxides of Nitrogen) is too high.

Jon.

[cheshired5]

Originally Posted by Prufrock

Volvo will not be developing any new diesel engines.

Why does that mean the end of diesel Volvos as per your thread title?
Did he also say that they will never fit a diesel engine made by other manufacturers, like they do currently?

[Baxlin]

Re the title, I hope my diesel Volvo will go on for years yet!

[57RKL]

Originally Posted by cheshired5

Why does that mean the end of diesel Volvos as per your thread title?
Did he also say that they will never fit a diesel engine made by other manufacturers, like they do currently?

What diesels are being bought in? I'm obviously out of touch.

[kenny]

Originally Posted by 57RKL

What diesels are being bought in? I'm obviously out of touch.

I have only ever had D5 engined volvos so more than happy to be corrected but I understand The 1.6 is French the 2 ltr is a Ford.

[Clan]

Originally Posted by kenny

I have only ever had D5 engined volvos so more than happy to be corrected but I understand The 1.6 is French the 2 ltr is a Ford.

The 2 litre was dropped several years ago and the 1.6 Diesel went 2 years ago .

Volvo have a new ultra modern diesel in 2 litre 120 to 235 bhp form since 2015, that should see them into the full electric / petrol hybrid car era nicely .

[volvo always]

Petrol/electric hybrid is fine, but would we have enough power generation for them if everyone had to eventually have one? Would it be green anyway as how is the power station fuelled?

I'm sure I read that air to water heatpumps were being stopped from being installed in some countries as not really green if being fed from a coal fired power plant.

The whole energy and conservation needs looking into as a whole.

I quite liked the French system where you had a choice on the KW input coming into your house. Ie 3,6, 9kw being standard with a higher charge the more KW coming in. We found 6kw fine. It made you think about what you could have on at each time like the electric cooker ceramic hob, oven etc and made you more energy conscious.
I also liked there chauffe eau. As very efficient at retaining heat and the hot water lasted days on an overnight charge of electricity and mains pressure of 3 bar!!

New builds built to passive house standard. Use rainwater for flushing loos garden etc. LED lighting. Solar hot water and photovoltaic solar electricity. Natural lighting, solar orientation and building airtightness.

James

[Grimble]

My next Volvo diesel is probably on the road already. Unless there is a big financial advantage to use an alternative fuel, I'll stick with my oil-burner thank you.

[I-S]

Originally Posted by volvo always

Petrol/electric hybrid is fine, but would we have enough power generation for them if everyone had to eventually have one? Would it be green anyway as how is the power station fuelled?

Yes. The entire UK consumption of petrol is equivalent to adding about 4.5-5GW of constant load to the national grid. Since electrical power consumption in the UK has declined quite significantly (peak demand in 2007 was 61.5GW - by 2015 that had fallen to 52.7GW) and there is huge new offshore wind capacity coming online (about another 1.5-2GW this year) which is located in areas with more consistent wind.

Even if the electrical power were to come from gas, it is still less environmentally damaging. CCGT plants are around 60% thermally efficient, compared to low 40s at best for a diesel powered car, to say nothing of the key benefit for local air quality in cities.

New builds built to passive house standard. Use rainwater for flushing loos garden etc. LED lighting. Solar hot water and photovoltaic solar electricity. Natural lighting, solar orientation and building airtightness.

Yes, and battery grid storage, so that peaks in renewable output can be stored and output at lower generation times (on a very simple basis, generate solar in the day, use the battery power at night).

The real missing part is the huge number of industrial buildings in this country - business parks, industrial estates, etc - Kingsway Business Park in Rochdale is a prime example where JD sports have a 600000sqft warehouse, across the way from Asda's 550000 sq ft distribution centre. These buildings are not pretty and their aesthetic value will not be harmed in the slightest by being plastered with solar panels, and in the scheme of sites like those the space for a utility-scale battery pack (eg Tesla PowerPack: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/powerpack ) is trivial. Thus the planning committees should mandate that the maximum possible area of solar array is installed on the roofs of these buildings.

If the entire roof of the Asda distribution centre were covered with solar panels, it would be an 11MW peak installation, and would likely generate over 8GWh per year. Or to put it another way, enough to power 1600 average homes for an entire year. Or enough to drive a Tesla Model S approximately 24 million miles.

And that's from a single building. ONE BUILDING.

I calculated recently that in order to capture enough energy to provide electrical power to the UK for an entire year would require solar panels covering an area of 1200 sq km - about the same as greater manchester. Sounds a lot and ridiculous, but when you consider the area of this country covered by buildings already it's actually not that much - if we could get even half of that area it would have huge and far-reaching implications for our electricity generation. When combined with wind power we could easily become an energy exporting nation.

[Harvey1512]

I-S, we have a huge amount of new house building going on in my town, frankly the whole county. Not just 20 house here or there but 250 here, 750 there. Every single one should have solar panels on the roof. They should be compulsory for all new builds. Not one has them. Maybe the home owners will put them on later but only a small fraction. It is a real missed opportunity. It would be very simple to bring in legislation and it would make a real difference.