(PH)EVs: I'm sold!
Discussion
I'll admit: when the hybrid car first emerged (back in 1997 thanks to the PH article) I was _massively_ sceptical. And during my 30-odd years on this earth, I've seen electric car "fads" and theories come and go. I recall watching numerous episodes of Tomorrow's World as a kid saying "One day we'll have electric cars than can do X, be charged Y and drive like Z..."
Yeah yeah, one day. I'll believe it when I see it. And hybrids? Meh.
Until yesterday.
My work has given me a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, as a work wagon, to get from site to site to site. And, after just a couple of days with it, it all starts to make sense. Id even go so far as to say it's bloody fabulous. I'll be the first to admit there are _some_ shortcomings, particularly with economy (although much of that is down to me not getting the best from it rather than a fault with the car), but they can be easily worked around and/or tolerated.
Firstly, there's the simple concept of the thing. Why do we have to piss away all that energy as heat via the brakes? It's just wasteful! As a billy-no-mates cyclist, where I'm used to being the power source/generator, I'm acutely aware of the importance of not wasting energy, so harvesting energy under braking to use later makes sense.
Secondly, driving an electric car is wonderful. Effortless, quiet and smooth. Who needs an IC engine chugging/thrashing away when there's no need for a bazillion BHP, MPH etc?
Thirdly, and following on from the above, why do we need an IC engine chucking crap into the air in built-up areas (not to mention the noise) when there's a cleaner (at point), quieter alternative?
I'm really quite taken by this car and the whole concept. I still love mad, screaming IC engines as much as anyone else, but I'm also happy to admit I was so, so wrong about the alternatives. Tomorrow's World is here now, and I'll be in it when I drive to work on Monday...
Yeah yeah, one day. I'll believe it when I see it. And hybrids? Meh.
Until yesterday.
My work has given me a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, as a work wagon, to get from site to site to site. And, after just a couple of days with it, it all starts to make sense. Id even go so far as to say it's bloody fabulous. I'll be the first to admit there are _some_ shortcomings, particularly with economy (although much of that is down to me not getting the best from it rather than a fault with the car), but they can be easily worked around and/or tolerated.
Firstly, there's the simple concept of the thing. Why do we have to piss away all that energy as heat via the brakes? It's just wasteful! As a billy-no-mates cyclist, where I'm used to being the power source/generator, I'm acutely aware of the importance of not wasting energy, so harvesting energy under braking to use later makes sense.
Secondly, driving an electric car is wonderful. Effortless, quiet and smooth. Who needs an IC engine chugging/thrashing away when there's no need for a bazillion BHP, MPH etc?
Thirdly, and following on from the above, why do we need an IC engine chucking crap into the air in built-up areas (not to mention the noise) when there's a cleaner (at point), quieter alternative?
I'm really quite taken by this car and the whole concept. I still love mad, screaming IC engines as much as anyone else, but I'm also happy to admit I was so, so wrong about the alternatives. Tomorrow's World is here now, and I'll be in it when I drive to work on Monday...
Jimbo. said:
…a cleaner (at point), alternative?
This is the point. Most of our electricity comes from fossil fuel power vstations. "Renewables" are all intermittent and incapable of following demand. They are, therefore useless. In the UK we don't have the topography for any reasonable amount of hydro and our nuclear fleet is coming to the end of its life. I can't see any issue in France where they have plentiful clean electricity from nuclear and hydro, but not in this country where we have suffered from a lack of energy policy for years.
Edited by rolando on Saturday 22 August 17:16
rolando said:
This is the point. Most of our electricity comes from fossil fuel power vstations. "Renewables" are all intermittent and incapable of following demand. They are, therefore useless. In the UK we don't have the topography for any reasonable amount of hydro and our nuclear fleet is coming to the end of its life.
I can't see any issue in France where they have plentiful clean electricity from nuclear and hydro, but not in this country where we have suffered a lack of energy policy for years.
It's not ideal I'll admit, and merely transfers the soot 'n' muck elsewhere, but locally at least, it's nice knowing you're not blasting diesel fumes into the high street I can't see any issue in France where they have plentiful clean electricity from nuclear and hydro, but not in this country where we have suffered a lack of energy policy for years.
Jimbo. said:
I'll admit: when the hybrid car first emerged (back in 1997 thanks to the PH article) I was _massively_ sceptical. And during my 30-odd years on this earth, I've seen electric car "fads" and theories come and go. I recall watching numerous episodes of Tomorrow's World as a kid saying "One day we'll have electric cars than can do X, be charged Y and drive like Z..."
Yeah yeah, one day. I'll believe it when I see it. And hybrids? Meh.
Until yesterday.
My work has given me a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, as a work wagon, to get from site to site to site. And, after just a couple of days with it, it all starts to make sense. Id even go so far as to say it's bloody fabulous. I'll be the first to admit there are _some_ shortcomings, particularly with economy (although much of that is down to me not getting the best from it rather than a fault with the car), but they can be easily worked around and/or tolerated.
Firstly, there's the simple concept of the thing. Why do we have to piss away all that energy as heat via the brakes? It's just wasteful! As a billy-no-mates cyclist, where I'm used to being the power source/generator, I'm acutely aware of the importance of not wasting energy, so harvesting energy under braking to use later makes sense.
Secondly, driving an electric car is wonderful. Effortless, quiet and smooth. Who needs an IC engine chugging/thrashing away when there's no need for a bazillion BHP, MPH etc?
Thirdly, and following on from the above, why do we need an IC engine chucking crap into the air in built-up areas (not to mention the noise) when there's a cleaner (at point), quieter alternative?
I'm really quite taken by this car and the whole concept. I still love mad, screaming IC engines as much as anyone else, but I'm also happy to admit I was so, so wrong about the alternatives. Tomorrow's World is here now, and I'll be in it when I drive to work on Monday...
Welcome to the club!!Yeah yeah, one day. I'll believe it when I see it. And hybrids? Meh.
Until yesterday.
My work has given me a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, as a work wagon, to get from site to site to site. And, after just a couple of days with it, it all starts to make sense. Id even go so far as to say it's bloody fabulous. I'll be the first to admit there are _some_ shortcomings, particularly with economy (although much of that is down to me not getting the best from it rather than a fault with the car), but they can be easily worked around and/or tolerated.
Firstly, there's the simple concept of the thing. Why do we have to piss away all that energy as heat via the brakes? It's just wasteful! As a billy-no-mates cyclist, where I'm used to being the power source/generator, I'm acutely aware of the importance of not wasting energy, so harvesting energy under braking to use later makes sense.
Secondly, driving an electric car is wonderful. Effortless, quiet and smooth. Who needs an IC engine chugging/thrashing away when there's no need for a bazillion BHP, MPH etc?
Thirdly, and following on from the above, why do we need an IC engine chucking crap into the air in built-up areas (not to mention the noise) when there's a cleaner (at point), quieter alternative?
I'm really quite taken by this car and the whole concept. I still love mad, screaming IC engines as much as anyone else, but I'm also happy to admit I was so, so wrong about the alternatives. Tomorrow's World is here now, and I'll be in it when I drive to work on Monday...
6 months ago I was ready to drop £4k on hybrid turbos for my BMW 335i, now I wonder why did I waste so much time and money on ICE cars when EVs have been around for a few years now.
If you like the Outlander PHEV wait till you try a 'proper' all battery EV....My Tesla test drive is booked in a few weeks, I've never looked fowards to the prospect of parting with £50k+ so much before
Is a PHEV a Pistonheads Electric Vehicle? 
I'm a recent convert and share your views exactly. I went to test drive the Golf GTE PHEV and came away thinking, 100%, that id be placing an order the following day but my Wife suggested we have a look round the BMW showroom to see what they might have.
Well a 24hr test drive later (plus a few days 'thinking time') and I've ordered an i3 REX!
That's very unlike me to have never really bothered about them and then thinking they're brilliant!
I can't quite justify a stretch to a Tesla but I imagine that I'll replace it with either the forthcoming cheaper Tesla or some sort of BMW halfway house between i3 and i8.
Can't wait!
I'm a recent convert and share your views exactly. I went to test drive the Golf GTE PHEV and came away thinking, 100%, that id be placing an order the following day but my Wife suggested we have a look round the BMW showroom to see what they might have.
Well a 24hr test drive later (plus a few days 'thinking time') and I've ordered an i3 REX!
That's very unlike me to have never really bothered about them and then thinking they're brilliant!
I can't quite justify a stretch to a Tesla but I imagine that I'll replace it with either the forthcoming cheaper Tesla or some sort of BMW halfway house between i3 and i8.
Can't wait!
rolando said:
This is the point. Most of our electricity comes from fossil fuel power stations. "Renewables" are all intermittent and incapable of following demand. They are, therefore useless.
Except of course, they aren't!Even with a totally fossil fuelled based energy generation infrastructure an EV is significantly better than an ICE for the following reasons:
1) High powertrain efficiency at ALL road speeds (Doesn't really matter is you are parked, doing 1mph or 100mph, the electric powertrain is efficient at all those speeds. Unlike an ICE powertrain
2) They can recapture KE! Every time you brake in an ICE you are wasting energy. Follow the average driver these days and watch how much they brake, even seemingly driving in a straight line at 70 mph on the motorway!
3) When you sell say an EU6 emissions level car, that car is always an EU6 emissions level car for it's entire life time. You have to buy a new car (which in itself is hugely energy wasteful) to get say an EU7 vehicle. An EV "automatically" upgrades itself, as it is energy agnostic. It doesn't know, or even care if the electricity it is charged with comes from a coal burning station or a wind turbine. So, as the generation infrastructure evolves so does your car! (at no direct cost to the end user)
4) France has a lot of nuclear generation capacity, the Scandinavians have a lot of hydroelectric generation, The Netherlands a lot of wind. By running cables under the channel and northsea we have access to this power! In fact, we already import a significant amount of it to "load level" our National Grid. Once you've laid the cable, it is pretty green, unlike the fleet of supertankers needed to keep bringing oil and gas to our shores!
5) Once the EV fleet gets to a significant size, its energy storage capacity can be used to load level peak demands! IE the car you drive itself becomes part of the solution to renewables being somewhat indeterminate.
6) Removing or negating harmfull pollution is easier and more cost effective to do at "source". It is much more financially viable to upgrade a few powerstations with flue scrubbers (for NOx, CO2, THc, Sulfates or whatever) than it is to attempt to do the same thing to a vast fleet of privately owned passenger cars
rolando said:
This is the point. Most of our electricity comes from fossil fuel power vstations. "Renewables" are all intermittent and incapable of following demand. They are, therefore useless. In the UK we don't have the topography for any reasonable amount of hydro and our nuclear fleet is coming to the end of its life.
I can't see any issue in France where they have plentiful clean electricity from nuclear and hydro, but not in this country where we have suffered from a lack of energy policy for years.
The efficiency of a Gas power-station can be upto 60% whilst your petrol engine is about 35% (at best). Both have further losses due to transmission, and transportation but it doesn't change the bigger picture.I can't see any issue in France where they have plentiful clean electricity from nuclear and hydro, but not in this country where we have suffered from a lack of energy policy for years.
Edited by rolando on Saturday 22 August 17:16
However, I agree on many points. Our renewables will never replace the baseline power supply from Coal/Nuclear/Gas, but they do allow us to throttle back at time of high renewable output.
Let's not forget though, there will be a time when it's dark, still and slack tide, and that's what we need enough Nuclear/fossil to fill the gap.
I love the idea of EV's but this week I went to Peterborough and back, around 90 miles each way.
AIUI I'd either have to find a charging station and wait around the place for several hours, or be driving home with an eye on the remaining range.
Seems awfully limiting for what isn't really a special journey.
AIUI I'd either have to find a charging station and wait around the place for several hours, or be driving home with an eye on the remaining range.
Seems awfully limiting for what isn't really a special journey.
rolando said:
So what's the point in wasting money on wind generators and solar powerstations when you say we need nuclear/fossil?
Let me explain as briefly as possible...Traditional energy generation is effectively from two types of sources, baseline and peak. Baseline is constant, peak responds to demand. See link.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Baseline is often generated by expensive or difficult to throttle power stations, like Nuclear and Coal. Peak is often provided by energy like gas, oil and hydroelectric (pumped storage).
Energy production from wind/solar/tidal can top up the power from baseline energy during low supply, and at times it can replace the need for traditional peak power sources. This is good, because we are an importer of gas and oil on a huge scale, and as such we are at the mercy of foreign politics and international economics.
So for the time being renewables are vital in reducing our need to suckle at the teat of foreign oil producers, but as yet are in no position to fully replace them.
Max_Torque said:
Except of course, they aren't!
Even with a totally fossil fuelled based energy generation infrastructure an EV is significantly better than an ICE for the following reasons:
1) High powertrain efficiency at ALL road speeds (Doesn't really matter is you are parked, doing 1mph or 100mph, the electric powertrain is efficient at all those speeds. Unlike an ICE powertrain
2) They can recapture KE! Every time you brake in an ICE you are wasting energy. Follow the average driver these days and watch how much they brake, even seemingly driving in a straight line at 70 mph on the motorway!
3) When you sell say an EU6 emissions level car, that car is always an EU6 emissions level car for it's entire life time. You have to buy a new car (which in itself is hugely energy wasteful) to get say an EU7 vehicle. An EV "automatically" upgrades itself, as it is energy agnostic. It doesn't know, or even care if the electricity it is charged with comes from a coal burning station or a wind turbine. So, as the generation infrastructure evolves so does your car! (at no direct cost to the end user)
4) France has a lot of nuclear generation capacity, the Scandinavians have a lot of hydroelectric generation, The Netherlands a lot of wind. By running cables under the channel and northsea we have access to this power! In fact, we already import a significant amount of it to "load level" our National Grid. Once you've laid the cable, it is pretty green, unlike the fleet of supertankers needed to keep bringing oil and gas to our shores!
5) Once the EV fleet gets to a significant size, its energy storage capacity can be used to load level peak demands! IE the car you drive itself becomes part of the solution to renewables being somewhat indeterminate.
6) Removing or negating harmfull pollution is easier and more cost effective to do at "source". It is much more financially viable to upgrade a few powerstations with flue scrubbers (for NOx, CO2, THc, Sulfates or whatever) than it is to attempt to do the same thing to a vast fleet of privately owned passenger cars
When I said useless, I meant this to describe "renewables".Even with a totally fossil fuelled based energy generation infrastructure an EV is significantly better than an ICE for the following reasons:
1) High powertrain efficiency at ALL road speeds (Doesn't really matter is you are parked, doing 1mph or 100mph, the electric powertrain is efficient at all those speeds. Unlike an ICE powertrain
2) They can recapture KE! Every time you brake in an ICE you are wasting energy. Follow the average driver these days and watch how much they brake, even seemingly driving in a straight line at 70 mph on the motorway!
3) When you sell say an EU6 emissions level car, that car is always an EU6 emissions level car for it's entire life time. You have to buy a new car (which in itself is hugely energy wasteful) to get say an EU7 vehicle. An EV "automatically" upgrades itself, as it is energy agnostic. It doesn't know, or even care if the electricity it is charged with comes from a coal burning station or a wind turbine. So, as the generation infrastructure evolves so does your car! (at no direct cost to the end user)
4) France has a lot of nuclear generation capacity, the Scandinavians have a lot of hydroelectric generation, The Netherlands a lot of wind. By running cables under the channel and northsea we have access to this power! In fact, we already import a significant amount of it to "load level" our National Grid. Once you've laid the cable, it is pretty green, unlike the fleet of supertankers needed to keep bringing oil and gas to our shores!
5) Once the EV fleet gets to a significant size, its energy storage capacity can be used to load level peak demands! IE the car you drive itself becomes part of the solution to renewables being somewhat indeterminate.
6) Removing or negating harmfull pollution is easier and more cost effective to do at "source". It is much more financially viable to upgrade a few powerstations with flue scrubbers (for NOx, CO2, THc, Sulfates or whatever) than it is to attempt to do the same thing to a vast fleet of privately owned passenger cars
Re your point 5, does this mean you have to go out for a drive to use up the stored energy so that you can then plug your car in to balance the grid when next needed. This seems to me rather like the tail wagging the dog!
Point 6: I agree that it would be good to upgrade power stations with flue scrubbers.
MagicalTrevor said:
Out of interest, Ecotricity is 100% renewables so if you change supplier then your EV journeys are going to be powered by renewable energy
That's not the way it works.You might very well buy your electricity from Ecotricity, but that doesn't mean that the electricity coming out of your socket is from those windfarms - or even renewable. It's called the National Grid.
Ecotricity own wind farms. 59 windmills, 71MW of capacity. They're building another 82MW, and planning a further 287MW, but - right now - they have a total theoretical maximum of 71MW. The equivalent of 36,000 houses! Woo!
https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green-energy/our-...
At this very minute, less than 31MW is being generated. So, going by that ratio of capacity to houses, they can currently supply just under 16,000 houses.
https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green-energy/our-...
Small problem. They have more than ten times that number of residential customers.
http://utilityweek.co.uk/news/ecotricity-hits-1500...
So - even if it was possible for them to point the electricity they generate to your sockets, they ain't making anywhere near enough of it.
BTW, as one of those 150k customers, I hope you're happy about them giving nearly £1.70 of your money to the Labour party's general election campaign this year.
http://utilityweek.co.uk/news/ecotricity-to-fund-l...
Completely off topic. Sorry.
Point 6 is a valid argument but for some only when it suits obviously. It made far more sense to clean up the emissions of a few pf thermal power stations than to deal with the emissions from millions of smaller users, heating boilers and the like. But because that argument didn't suit the green blob we went down the dash for gas , used wantonly the clean fuel and ditched the potential for real development and use of modern high efficiency pf (eg coal) burning supercritical and ultra super critical thermal stations. Simultaneously making us in the long term more dependent on imported fuel from areas that aren't that politically stable and completely stuffed the balance of the power generation fleet across a number of viable technologies.
But now because the argument suits re EVs then it's valid apparently.
Point 6 is a valid argument but for some only when it suits obviously. It made far more sense to clean up the emissions of a few pf thermal power stations than to deal with the emissions from millions of smaller users, heating boilers and the like. But because that argument didn't suit the green blob we went down the dash for gas , used wantonly the clean fuel and ditched the potential for real development and use of modern high efficiency pf (eg coal) burning supercritical and ultra super critical thermal stations. Simultaneously making us in the long term more dependent on imported fuel from areas that aren't that politically stable and completely stuffed the balance of the power generation fleet across a number of viable technologies.
But now because the argument suits re EVs then it's valid apparently.
TooMany2cvs said:
That's not the way it works.
You might very well buy your electricity from Ecotricity, but that doesn't mean that the electricity coming out of your socket is from those windfarms - or even renewable. It's called the National Grid.
Ecotricity own wind farms. 59 windmills, 71MW of capacity. They're building another 82MW, and planning a further 287MW, but - right now - they have a total theoretical maximum of 71MW. The equivalent of 36,000 houses! Woo!
https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green-energy/our-...
At this very minute, less than 31MW is being generated. So, going by that ratio of capacity to houses, they can currently supply just under 16,000 houses.
https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green-energy/our-...
Small problem. They have more than ten times that number of residential customers.
http://utilityweek.co.uk/news/ecotricity-hits-1500...
So - even if it was possible for them to point the electricity they generate to your sockets, they ain't making anywhere near enough of it.
BTW, as one of those 150k customers, I hope you're happy about them giving nearly £1.70 of your money to the Labour party's general election campaign this year.
http://utilityweek.co.uk/news/ecotricity-to-fund-l...
Of course, understand how the National Grid works!You might very well buy your electricity from Ecotricity, but that doesn't mean that the electricity coming out of your socket is from those windfarms - or even renewable. It's called the National Grid.
Ecotricity own wind farms. 59 windmills, 71MW of capacity. They're building another 82MW, and planning a further 287MW, but - right now - they have a total theoretical maximum of 71MW. The equivalent of 36,000 houses! Woo!
https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green-energy/our-...
At this very minute, less than 31MW is being generated. So, going by that ratio of capacity to houses, they can currently supply just under 16,000 houses.
https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green-energy/our-...
Small problem. They have more than ten times that number of residential customers.
http://utilityweek.co.uk/news/ecotricity-hits-1500...
So - even if it was possible for them to point the electricity they generate to your sockets, they ain't making anywhere near enough of it.
BTW, as one of those 150k customers, I hope you're happy about them giving nearly £1.70 of your money to the Labour party's general election campaign this year.
http://utilityweek.co.uk/news/ecotricity-to-fund-l...
The particular unit I'm using whilst watching the F1 is unlikely to be from a renewable source but for every unit that I do use then Ecotricity are providing the National Grid with a renewable energy unit. So in the grand scheme of things, I am using 100% renewables.
I wasn't aware of the contribution to Labour though, that's interesting. I may well investigate further.
BTW, I'm extremely pro-nuclear and my reasons for buying an electric car are in no way environmental. I just think that there needs to be a balance (nuclear vs renewables) and that has to start an increase in demand for renewable energy.
Edited to add - when we first went '100% renewable' with them then it was a mix of UK produced renewables and renewables bought in from the continent. It then went 100% from the UK.
Interesting if it's gone back to being a mix
Edited by MagicalTrevor on Sunday 23 August 14:19
Evanivitch said:
Let me explain as briefly as possible...
Traditional energy generation is effectively from two types of sources, baseline and peak. Baseline is constant, peak responds to demand. See link.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Baseline is often generated by expensive or difficult to throttle power stations, like Nuclear and Coal. Peak is often provided by energy like gas, oil and hydroelectric (pumped storage).
Energy production from wind/solar/tidal can top up the power from baseline energy during low supply, and at times it can replace the need for traditional peak power sources. This is good, because we are an importer of gas and oil on a huge scale, and as such we are at the mercy of foreign politics and international economics.
So for the time being renewables are vital in reducing our need to suckle at the teat of foreign oil producers, but as yet are in no position to fully replace them.
I am well aware of baseline and peak generation and of the gridwatch site. Wind, solar and tidal are all intermittent, only the latter in a predictable way. They are unreliable and unable to follow demand. Renewables, aka Unreliables, are not vital to the needs of our industry and commerce who rely on a demand led electricity supply.Traditional energy generation is effectively from two types of sources, baseline and peak. Baseline is constant, peak responds to demand. See link.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Baseline is often generated by expensive or difficult to throttle power stations, like Nuclear and Coal. Peak is often provided by energy like gas, oil and hydroelectric (pumped storage).
Energy production from wind/solar/tidal can top up the power from baseline energy during low supply, and at times it can replace the need for traditional peak power sources. This is good, because we are an importer of gas and oil on a huge scale, and as such we are at the mercy of foreign politics and international economics.
So for the time being renewables are vital in reducing our need to suckle at the teat of foreign oil producers, but as yet are in no position to fully replace them.
MagicalTrevor said:
but for every unit that I do use then Ecotricity are providing the National Grid with a renewable energy unit.
No, they aren't. They can't. On their figures, they're a factor of five off being able to do that.MagicalTrevor said:
So in the grand scheme of things, I am using 100% renewables.
You do realise they'd be generating that exact same electricity if you weren't their customer, right? They don't go "Oooh, Trev's turned the kettle on - take the brakes off a windmill!"Ecotricity's 30MW (0.03GW) isn't even a drop in the ocean of total wind generation for the UK, either.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
4GW - 15% - is currently coming from wind. More than from coal. Only nuclear and gas are higher. Mind you, Sunday afternoon is about the low point in demand - 27.5GW vs peaks of mid 30s.
And wind isn't the only renewable, either - right now, in the UK, there's almost as much hydro electricity feeding into the grid as Ecotricity's wind. And that's less than 1%. There's 1.7GW of biomass being generated right now, too - and that ignores any feed-in from domestic solar <looks out window - yeh, right...> or wind.
MagicalTrevor said:
Not entirely sure why this is upsetting you so much.
I'm not upset. I'm merely attempting to correct your utter misunderstanding.MagicalTrevor said:
I know, broadly speaking, how it all works
That's my point. You don't.MagicalTrevor said:
I've explained my understanding of them getting the units off the continent.
Ecotricity don't import electricity. The National Grid does - quite a bit of it, currently 1.5GW from France and 0.75GW from NL, via the under-sea interconnects. The National Grid's also currently exporting 200MW to Ireland.France is 90% Nuclear. NL is almost entirely fossil, but imports a reasonable chunk from neighbouring countries.
So of that net ~2GW imported, a rough rule of thumb would say 4:2:1 Nuclear:Fossil:Other, including renewable - and that ain't going to change whether you buy your electricity from Ecotricity or anybody else... No matter what the nice salesman made you think.
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