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Zero emissions Electric JCB

Thing is it is only as green as the electric used to charge it up
True, where does the coal come from for the power stations.
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All diesel power here,........
 
True, where does the coal come from for the power stations.
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All diesel power here,........
As it happens, many of the huge draglines, face shovels and coal cutters are electrically fed by 6600 volt cables. There’s lots of diesel power though I agree.
 
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Correct, but in recent years we have seen a tread of customers replacing electric rope shovels with diesel hydraulic excavators / shovels due to their flexibility. The 2 main mines where I work produce over 110 million tons of coal a year, but not 1 electric machine in sight.
 
Correct, but in recent years we have seen a tread of customers replacing electric rope shovels with diesel hydraulic excavators / shovels due to their flexibility. The 2 main mines where I work produce over 110 million tons of coal a year, but not 1 electric machine in sight.
I think diesel power has become so efficient, and electricity so expensive, over the past 20 years or so that diesel is outperforming electric power.

Our local tip had a basic electric/hydraulic arm compactor with a rotating drum on the end to compact the skips down. It was a permanent installation that travelled back and forth along the ends of the bins. This disappeared one day and was replaced by a largeish (ok, small by quarry terms) 360 with a rotating grab on the arm and an elevating cab. I asked the attendant about it and he said it had halved their yearly costs which were mostly in electricity.
 
I've seen these advertised for working inside buildings where you don't want the noise or exhaust from an engine but in most situations you just can't store sufficient power to make the sums add up.

The smallest diesel JCB mini digger has a 9kW engine and the electric digger has a battery of just less than 20kW if you go for the biggest battery. I've no idea what the power requirements are when you are digging but let's assume 80% of the available power is used for a six hour day so the diesel digger would consume 43.2kWh of power. This is more than double the capacity of the electric digger i.e. it would last just less than three hours at this work rate.

I'm sure that JCB have done their sums but I think you would have to be selective on the type of job it was put to work on for it to make sense.
 
I've seen these advertised for working inside buildings where you don't want the noise or exhaust from an engine but in most situations you just can't store sufficient power to make the sums add up.

The smallest diesel JCB mini digger has a 9kW engine and the electric digger has a battery of just less than 20kW if you go for the biggest battery. I've no idea what the power requirements are when you are digging but let's assume 80% of the available power is used for a six hour day so the diesel digger would consume 43.2kWh of power. This is more than double the capacity of the electric digger i.e. it would last just less than three hours at this work rate.

I'm sure that JCB have done their sums but I think you would have to be selective on the type of job it was put to work on for it to make sense.
Could it be a case of misguided re-badging of an indoor mini digger as a ‘Zero emissions’ machine? This can only really be virtue signalling because there is absolutely no point h as bing a zero emissions excavator. Why? In the grand scheme of things these are at or near the group of vehicles with the lowest total emissions, they add only a tiny fraction of total diesel emissions even in the busiest cities. It’s like saying we’ll change all the classic vehicles to battery power.
 
I can just picture the Sweet old ladies face as the Lads are Knocking off for the day after Re Grading her Driveway..... Handing her a load of cables to plug in overnight, for the Mini digger, Dumper, Wacker plate, That annoying Makita Radio, Paslode, etc etc ..."See 'ya' in the Morning Missus, 10 o clock Sharp"...:thumbup:
 
Priceless, and so true! If it where being charged with solar it would be a different story?
 
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