Welsh Electric Road Trip | Fully Charged

A zero carbon electric road trip through Wales. Hills, sheep, water, mountains, rain and sunshine. And rain.
Total distance travelled 418 miles
Total CO2 output. 0.0
Total fuel cost £0.00p
Links:
westviewguesthouse.com/
www.cat.org.uk/
www.fhc.co.uk/dinorwig.htm
www.ecoguesthouse.co.uk/

[@deansh8506]

I'm a Welsh Leaf owner of only 5 days... And I absolutely love it!!! :-)

[@jamesshanks2614]

Any time you come across a hydroelectric plant and the phone number is for an office in a major city a few hundred miles away, I ask you to think. They have to have someone local to clear the grates that prevent floating debris from entering the pipe. I know this because I used to help a fellow in Franklin, New Hampshire who maintains 5 different hydras all within 1/2 a mile using 2 dams from 1500, 500, 225, . But only the 1500 rated generator is able to produce that power in spring runoff. The rest of the time it generates roughly 700 to 800. The 500 unit is a vertical shaft generator originally installed in the late 1930's. Is runs mostly at 80 percent of capacity. Plus on another close by river is a power utility generator rated at 1.5 megawatt with really good flow until summer when a dam owner upstream releases all his damed water for maintenance. Doesn't refill the dam until fall.

[@Ecoenergy]

Lovely to see people doing instead of talking. well done to the B&B owners. There is a 1Mw pilot plant in Germany running approx. 6 months now feeding a chemical equivalent of natural gas into the European gas grid, generated by wind during over capacity periods and from what I heard it is about 70% efficient. It is better than shutting down turbines which is what currently happens.

[@byrdale]

I agree that there is massive potential for hydro power. This of course is nothing new! Our ancestors built hundreds of water powered mills etc around Britain and Ireland and the remains of these mills still stand today. Perhaps we should look into this much underused resource. It won't solve all our energy needs but it has the potential to produce about 5% of our electricity. It's not a lot, but it is constant and low maintenance (once installed it is 0 emissions) .

[@MrFreddiew1]

Great Video and trip Robert. I too think there is really HUGE potential for what are referred to as MicroHydro stations, howmany weirs are there around where this flowing body of water could be partially harnessed for energy. In my town in Germany there are at least 4 good places where the water really gushes all year round....There are also sewers everywhere with lots of good flow!...

[@FidelKastrat]

but now they are building 2 new nuclear pp in britain! not needed! the britsh islands have such a big potential in wind, offhore wind and waver power. In Scotland even small wind solutions make sense. some solar added some biogas and that's it!

[@greyareaRK1]

LOVED driving through Wales, but I've had great luck with weather in the UK (knock on wood). So, it looks like electrotourism might be a thing? I suppose the takeaway is that almost any given location has potential to generate electricity in one form or another. The only thing missing, as your guest pointed out, is the will.

[@xkitejunkie]

Wow thanks Robert! Another fascinating episode of Fully Charged! I can't wait to visit the C.A.T. in my Leaf too!

[@Travlinmo]

Having been watching your videos this year and mr. KZbin is sending me back in time. I love the old style videos and the new. Thanks much for the videos. In the age of Trump, these are keeping me a smidge sane...a smidge.

[@funnygazman19]

Yes, do more of these, awesome to watch, love the show keep it up

[@NeilCaldwell]

Thanks Robert Llewellyn's Fully Charged for a great video, good to know how this is possible. Would love to see a rough map of the trip with charge points. Also curious about how many charging points were at each charge station.

[@dougowt]

I came across this old gem while trying to avoid the usual tv repeats and the oversupply of cheese and cakes that have magically appeared in the kitchen! About 15+ years ago, when I was working for Devon CC, I contacted Exeter City Council to ask if they had any plans to generate power from the wier on the river Exe in the middle of the city but got a fairly uninspiring response. And while they talk about the billions needed to solve the now infamous Dawlish train line issues, couldn't we build a tidal lagoon off the coast at Dawlish and Teignmouth, that would eliminate the damage caused by the sea and generate power from the solution? But to be in with a chance of better long-term solutions, more than anything else right now, we need a change of direction from those with power and influence, who are still pushing for fracking!! If they showed anything like the same enthusiasm for modern clean energy solutions, we would be 20 years closer to our emission targets and have 10's of thousands highly skilled jobs in a growing sector. With knowledge we could export.

[@computerbob06]

I think Robert should volunteer to have his house flooded with a wall around it, to show just how much potential energy reserves we have in flooding old villages around the UK!!

[@HubertSavelberg]

Wirtzfeld Valley Guest House in Belgian Ardennes offers also free overnight charging. Keep driving!

[@TheoGregoire]

Excellent episode.

[@rawmark]

Love all of your videos Robert. Thank you.

[@OllieJonsson]

Great episode! Enjoyed it very much.

[@maxwe789]

Loved this one. Such a lovely feel to it.

[@GrantThomas]

So great to see the video of the blog from many months back. I last went to the Center for Alternative tech nearly 30 years ago. I'm planning a return trip in a Nissan LEAF in a few weeks. Starting from the South Coast via a couple of hops on the way. Like you I'll be using a modified Commando to J1772 box!

[@NeilCaldwell]

Thanks fullychargedshow for a great vid!

[@Alastairkay01]

Fantastic video. Really amazing to see that road trip.

[@favcrispBBQ]

Loved the video! Very interesting

[@ryanyon3397]

I can't believe wales have more charging stations than most of Scotland, bloody ridiculous in the whole of Aberdeenshire there is one charging station that I know of and it's in Aberdeen city

[@4wheelsgood]

Roger Bamforth I have a Leaf and I would say that the free ICE rental success depends on your dealer. I've used it twice now and my dealer has made the process so easy. I go sign a form and take the car. So far I've had a Note Tekna and at the moment I'm on holiday and they gave me a X trail Tekna.

[@Turtytreeandaturd]

Love these films and love the waffle...... Rain in Wales? Nooo

[@knoxieman]

Wonderful video! been looking forward to seeing this one since you mentioned it on Twitter, Interesting point made about using the surplus wind energy although I would love to see smart grid tech with the car batteries as the back up and plugged in EV do that, we need a few more cars on the roads yet.

[@DLonergan]

Great idea. Would love to do that one day

[@megamef]

Superb! I like how you spent £0 on your road trip if you discount the bed and breakfast as you were using those services anyway.

[@JonOW98118]

Nicely done road trip. Beautiful country seems very similar to western part of the state of Washington U.S.A. Where about 92% of all electricity comes from hydro and another 6% from nuke, solar, & wind.

[@TheShaneLockwood]

That little Renault caught my eye.

[@benpaynter]

Great episode. Whilst I believe the science behind climate change and believe that ev's represent the future of travel I can't help feeling pessimistic about our efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. I moved from the UK to OZ 4 years ago and have worked on new open cut coal mines and am currently working on the construction of a new LNG development in Darwin. This one project is going to access 12 trillion (yes trillion) cubic feet of natural gas as well as 527 million barrels of condensate (LPG). Now I don't know the CO2 emissions of that but its massive. All over this part of the world fossil fuels are being accessed at an ever greater rate, a rate that far outstrips cuts in emissions occurring in Europe. I think we need to come to terms with the fact that we're going to access pretty much all the fossil fuels we can technologically get our hands on and therefore should switch our attention to mitigating the impacts of climate change and preparing for falling supplies of oil and other fossil fuels. But forget about stopping climate change as we're totally failing and I can't see that changing.

[@SpeedKreature]

Hydroelectric power is very feasible, but only in areas where the communities don't consume more water than can be supplied to the reservoir. Hoover dam has paid for itself several times over but is in danger of no longer being in service in the next decade because of water consumption upstream in Arizona, from Las Vegas and Clark, NV (and further down stream), and the changing (drying) climate in Colorado. As always, brilliant video. Living in the oil capital of the US, I can but wish for an electric car but they simply aren't feasible here for the distance I have to drive daily with the lack of charging stations available. I'd love for someone to prove me wrong.

[@z00h]

interesting episode dude

[@JuAanvanderPoll]

I WOULD LOOOOOOVE TO SEE YOU DO THE SAME TRIP IN SOUTH AFRICA! I drove a Leaf at the Johannesburg Motor Show last year, DAMN GOOD CAR! But we have no infrastructure to drive electric cars. Towns can be 200km apart. Hybrids even struggle to sell. People in South Africa generally drive VW of Ford diesels for fuel economy. The lack of knowledge doesn't help either! But, I'm in love with tech! I want to drive a Hybrid or even an electric, but I am still a student, so money I still a problem!

[@optej]

That's brilliant the British Zaero Carbon Plan. I am a volunteer for Beyond Zero Emissions in their Public Engagement area. BZE have also developed a Zero Carbon Australia plan - which is a 10 yr transistion plan to a zero carbon economy. As the gentleman in the video said - we have all the technology we need. What is needed is social - and therefore - political will. Check out the BZE solutions at BZE.org.au. And love the show

[@lucasskywalker]

Looks like Kansas. No wonder KS is so full of Welsh folk.

[@HesteBremse]

Good Vid ;D

[@jackphillips1953]

I like what I hear about using excess solar into hydrogen. I wish I knew how to do that and a way to use it. Besides a 10kw system I have, I also have 2 panels that supply power to our swimming pool pump in summer. They sit wasted most of the year.

[@brennigmaier]

It's great to see this charging/car-rantal-networks pop up around the world! We have something similar in Bavaria its called E-Wald. I'm thinking about making a road-trip in Ireland this summer. Does anybody know a good electric-car-rental over there?

[@Rooneysithmaster]

Long way to go to make it viable for the masses.

[@electrictroy2010]

I drove across the entire continent (Philadelphia to Los Angeles) in only 2-and-a-half days. The idea of taking several days to go across Wales is foreign to me. That's equivalent to New Jersey, and it only takes 3 hours .

[@msyin9]

I was confused as to why you thought the trip took him 7 days to get to where he was going but when I looked again it was 7 top up charges while driving to and from. It was a weekend trip. If that distance took a week in an electric car, it wouldn't be feasible so happily, that was not the case.

[@neatodd]

I read the 'Zero Carbon Britain' paper - laughed out loud on a number of occasions at the assumptions the authors were making. Fantasy.

[@fullychargedshow]

I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. Just as well you are grounded in so much 'common sense' and such a 'realistic approach.' Just what the world needs right now.

[@neatodd]

fullychargedshow Don't get me wrong Robert, I'm all in favour of renewable energy and energy conservation but, as David Mackay said, I'm also in favour of arithmetic: www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables.html The Zero Carbon Britain figures are risible because they are assuming *huge* reductions in energy demand and huge gains in renewables. They may wish it, they may wish it *really hard*, but that isn't going to make it happen.

[@rogerhudson9732]

I also downloaded the pdf , read all 214 pages and found it very sensible, the societal change that needs to drive politics is what we need, i'm also in favour of nuclear generated base load generation not the old style stations that had to produce nuclear bomb material as well. More could be done in tying in agriculture.

[@weaselmcweaselson1543]

lol his hair! like he stuck his finger in a socket lol

[@RogerBamforth]

I enjoyed that Rob, but what were you plugging in to at CAT and the first B&B? Were they commando sockets? How does that work? Do you just have a commando to 3-pin plug adaptor and use the 3 pin EVSE?

[@RogerBamforth]

I mean CAT and the power station, not the B&B. Apparently I can't even remember what I've seen five minutes after I've seen it.

[@DanFrederiksen]

Is the bed and breakfast off grid? I guess not.

[@SamBaughTV]

9:42

[@HorzaPanda]

You make hydro sound great, but from what I've read we don't have a huge capacity. www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c8/page_55.shtml Suggests a rather meagre 1.5 kWh/d/person, has he got his numbers wrong? :X Also, pumped storage is great, about 70~75% efficient, though we only have about 30 GWh of it at the moment. Would be very interesting to see the results of the modelling that guy you were talking to is doing, last estimates I looked up for how much storage we'd need to keep us going were at the 1000 GWh level, would be nice to see how more detailed analysis would affect that estimate.

[@1981therealfury]

1.5kwh per person per day is actually a pretty massive amount of untapped zero emission energy generation. according to the energy regulators for the UK the average household consumption is 10.41kwh/d so that not per person, that's per household (My smart meter tells me am slightly under average at 9.67kwh per day average.) so that would be a staggering 15%+ of the average household electrical energy use coming from hydro if we were to tap it. I do aggree that pumped storage is miniscule here in the UK. We need to vastly increase that.

[@HorzaPanda]

I guess compared to electricity use only it's not bad, he just makes it sound terrible by comparing it to all energy usage ^^"

[@David-bl1bt]

what happened to zerocarbonroadtrips.com? ... i cannot connect to this site.

[@ST11W]

Still no getting away from the fact 418 miles and 7 charges or put another way, a charge every 60 miles. The development is there but a minimum of 1/2 hr charge every 60 miles and assuming someone has not already got their car on charge when you get to a charge station still limits it's use. To and from work ok but a simple day trip out ?????

[@mattsfarm01lives01]

Who needs shell bp and esso when you can fill your car up for FREE with electric car chargers and an electric car , where have we been going wrong all these years

[@magna59]

Nice to see this ....... Rob . The tag line a little mixed ...... fuel cost £0 ( so you did not mull over breakfast with their fuel bills to find the devils in the details , how much imported , how much produced ) ..... OK , so they rolled the cost into the BB cost ( how did they compare with the market price ) & the CO2 cost ..... what ? the shipping of panels from china ( OK OK the middle east is not local ... and the human rights levels are very similar ? ) ........ and most of the rest of it , a couple of % onto the grid . Please don't green wash to hard ...... put up the detail , so we can make a value judgement ...... we get enough dross info from the other side ........ push up the value to the info , invest in the detail ..... we don't need green Lawsonisations .

[@magna59]

If you want to look at interesting green tech get to Cragside ( www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cragside/‎ ) hydro electric & hydro drive spit roast .... and a speech in 1863 over " peak coal ".. but then if you build a lot of kit for wars , there is a lot of space cash for green !

[@sim6699]

Great videos, which could be improved with more editing to cut out some of the waffle.

[@fullychargedshow]

That's one of the more cutting if interesting comments. I cut this episode do0wn for nearly an hour, trying to cut out the 'waffle.' Obviously I should just shut up and keep episodes to 45 seconds Just joking, not really offended.

[@1981therealfury]

fullychargedshow Personally, i watch your shows to hear you waffle, i laughed when you mentioned the "choo choo train out the back". Feel free to Waffle on as far as I'm concerned and above all, keep em coming. Take care.

[@Wildeheart79]

fullychargedshow A lot of us love the 'waffle' Robert. I understand the need to capture the audience especially in these heady internet days where attention spans can often be measured in picoseconds. However never be afraid of a bit of waffle, for your more interested audience we're happy for you to go all out on content! Just another opinion of course.

[@sim6699]

I have no intention to offend you because your videos are entertaining and informative. While raising important issues. If you look at more popular you tuber's you may see the angle i'm coming from, however if you and most of your audience prefer your style of deliverance, carry on.

[@robinyellow]

You still need a petrol car if you have an electric car. But why not rent a petrol car when you need it? If only there was someone who would deliver a petrol car to your house the night before.

[@RogerBamforth]

Nissan will lend you an ICE car free for two weeks a year. www.nissan.co.uk/GB/en/vehicle/electric-vehicles/leaf/discover/owner-benefits.html Not tried it though, I suspect that there are lots of hoops to jump through and in the end you get a Micra courtesy car.

[@robinyellow]

Roger Bamforth my Nissan dealer didn't mention this to me when I bought my Leaf. Perhaps they don't participate? Thanks for the tip.

[@RogerBamforth]

They didn't mention it to me either but I found out about it on the SpeakEV forum.

[@Rooneysithmaster]

Long way to go to make it viable for the masses.