John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
Turned out they should've said bull dung.
Did you see the report that boilers sales are to stop 2025
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AlanY
Established Member
It’s interesting how much electricity is now renewable.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysi...-electricity-than-fossil-fuels-for-first-time
I did read an article a week or two back about converting to hydrogen gas. We can use excess electricity to generate hydrogen, store it, use it to replace methane.
Imagine, hydrogen to your home. Now how about replacing your petrol (or electric as I have) with a hydrogen cell. Starts to make sense to me.
Wonder how many remember the conversion from town to natural gas in the early 70‘s. Wonder if we will go through that again
Hindenburg, anyone?
And I cannot see the UK ever being so energy rich that it would have excess 'green' electricity. I think we are rapidly heading towards a time when 'brown-outs' will become commonplace and rolling power cuts will become the norm (ah, how I miss the 70's).
I wonder if the above carbonbrief mentioned the percentage of electricity generated by nuclear power stations? I also read the other day that Rolls Royce are involved with the manufacture of small nuclear reactors which (I assume, because I got bored reading it) are intended for electricity generation. Every town can have its own nuclear waste dump, folks!
Most of all, I wonder if anyone has calculated what difference to global 'climate change' it will make if the UK goes entirely 'carbon-neutral'? Not a lot one might suspect. Unless the big polluters (China, India, Germany, Russia, USA) go green (and, although they will say this is their intention, they won't actually do it, of course). the planet is forked anyway.
I hate Wednesdays.
doctor Bob
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saw bit coin mining uses more electricity than Argentina, surely the end of bit coin is around the corner if we live in such a green focused world rather than greed ...... Hmmmmmmm
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
That's a massive downside of Bitcoin.
I don't know how it compares with other crypto currencies.
However, I'm not convinced that greed was the original motivation for Bitcoin. I believe it was more about having a way of exchanging funds that wasn't totally in the hands of the perceivedly corrupt banks.
I also seem to remember that Bitcoin is limited to a finite number of units. I wonder if the power budget will reduce, when or if that limit is reached? Maybe the ongoing Blockchain housekeeping is a big energy drain as well.
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
Ok. Apparently Bitcoin is limited to 21 million units, but it's estimated that the final bitcoin will be "minted" in 2140. That's a long way off...
Ethereum, apparently, will transition from "mining" to "staking" soon, which will dramatically reduce its power budget.
Cooper
Established Member
I hope that this contribution will be contradicted by someone with more than anecdotal evidence but!
When I was a student in 1970 Friends of the Earth was becoming a big thing in my college, a chap called John Symore publish books on self sufficiency, Rachel Carson had published Silent Spring, the need for recycling of materials from waste was well documented by Buckminster Fuller and Victor Papernak was touring design colleges, in this country and the US promoting Designing For The Real World. All of these sources were predicting an energy and environmental crisis. We had coal strikes, power cuts and trouble in the middle east disrupting oil supplies. There was plenty of evidence that we could get far more energy for the whole planet's needs from the Sun, though the issue would be distribution. Governments of either colour had plenty of good advice about what course they should take, but here we are 50 years later only just thinking seriously about heat pumps in passive houses. Industries in other countries, notably Germany, the US and even little Denmark were not so slow, more recently China. So if you want a ground source heat pump you probably have to buy a German or American one. If you want to build a wind farm the licences are snapped up by companies from those countries, if you want battery storage you have to get it from Elon Musk. Where is the large scale manufacturing of these things in our country? Even the insulation on Grenfell Tower was imported!
As I said here we are more than 50 years later, a forum of people with more than average practical talent, discussing if its fare to require new homes to have carbon free heating, how practical public transport is or electric vehicles and still sending our recycling to pollute the roadside veges of Turkey. What is wrong with us? As a country that bangs on about being the home of innovation we are a load of ostriches heads in the sand and only worried about short term profit and risk adverse.
As I said I hope someone can contradict me.
When I was a student in 1970 Friends of the Earth was becoming a big thing in my college, a chap called John Symore publish books on self sufficiency, Rachel Carson had published Silent Spring, the need for recycling of materials from waste was well documented by Buckminster Fuller and Victor Papernak was touring design colleges, in this country and the US promoting Designing For The Real World. All of these sources were predicting an energy and environmental crisis. We had coal strikes, power cuts and trouble in the middle east disrupting oil supplies. There was plenty of evidence that we could get far more energy for the whole planet's needs from the Sun, though the issue would be distribution. Governments of either colour had plenty of good advice about what course they should take, but here we are 50 years later only just thinking seriously about heat pumps in passive houses. Industries in other countries, notably Germany, the US and even little Denmark were not so slow, more recently China. So if you want a ground source heat pump you probably have to buy a German or American one. If you want to build a wind farm the licences are snapped up by companies from those countries, if you want battery storage you have to get it from Elon Musk. Where is the large scale manufacturing of these things in our country? Even the insulation on Grenfell Tower was imported!
As I said here we are more than 50 years later, a forum of people with more than average practical talent, discussing if its fare to require new homes to have carbon free heating, how practical public transport is or electric vehicles and still sending our recycling to pollute the roadside veges of Turkey. What is wrong with us? As a country that bangs on about being the home of innovation we are a load of ostriches heads in the sand and only worried about short term profit and risk adverse.
As I said I hope someone can contradict me.
bansobaby
Accustomly titled
What you say is true to an extent, but even solar power has to obey the laws of thermodynamics.
If you use panels to absorb the energy, it is no longer absorbed (fully) by the ground beneath. This, if done on a large enough scale would affect the weather. Admittedly, we have more than enough sunny areas on the planet to power the entire world, hopefully without creating some kind of Armageddon wether event.
One other point, ground source heat pump systems, which are being mentioned, can, if not designed properly, lead to permafrost.
There are case studies on line showing this.
In my humble opinion, the whole energy and global environment issue is fully understood by very few people, of whom precisely none are in government.
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
"As I said I hope someone can contradict me."
You're in the right place for your hopes and dreams to come true.
You're in the right place for your hopes and dreams to come true.
Twenty years or more ago I read an article on unforeseen and unintended consequences, one of which was a story from somewhere in India.
It was decided that the burning of cow manure for cooking fires was polluting, so someone thought that a methane producing digester was the answer - the villagers could bring the cow pats in. They of course were reluctant to part with their fuel source, so a small payment was deemed to justified. The consequence of this, of course, was that they had to charge for the gas so produced to cover their initial expenses. The villagers, who had never paid for fuel before, refused to buy the gas but were still being paid for the cow pats so took another option - they cut all the local trees down to burn.
Sometimes things don't work as planned.
It was decided that the burning of cow manure for cooking fires was polluting, so someone thought that a methane producing digester was the answer - the villagers could bring the cow pats in. They of course were reluctant to part with their fuel source, so a small payment was deemed to justified. The consequence of this, of course, was that they had to charge for the gas so produced to cover their initial expenses. The villagers, who had never paid for fuel before, refused to buy the gas but were still being paid for the cow pats so took another option - they cut all the local trees down to burn.
Sometimes things don't work as planned.
Jacob
New Luddism. Wake up and resist.
If you wake up a bit more you might be able to get to grips with all the moves worldwide towards sustainable energy.
Just one detail here for instance: Wind power in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia
Or get the bigger picture: Sustainable energy - Wikipedia
Sorry if this is a bit of the dreaded "wokeism" but there do seem to be a lot of people nodding off at the back!
Jacob
New Luddism. Wake up and resist.
Then go figure an alternative.The aim is to be carbon neutral by 2050. Apparently the only in depth study and costing of this has been done by New Zealand, and extrapolating these figures to suit our much larger population, this will cost the UK £440,000,000,000 every single year until then. Go figure.
I doubt the figure anyway. The world was just about carbon neutral only 200 years ago and we now have an incredible level of technological skill and scientific knowledge to help us along. The problem is more political than technical.
Jacob
New Luddism. Wake up and resist.
You still using dried manure in Cornwall?
You have highlighted the issue brilliantly, a lot of people doing very little in the grand scheme of things. These are aimed at giving people hope and for the government to say look at how wonderful we are when in reality we are still charging towards extinction because the human race cannot work as a single entity, a global crisis needs a global solution, look at how that worked in dealing with Covid but that is such an obvious crisis no one can argue with, global warming and enviromental damage are not as openly accepted because they will impact countries from a financial aspect.
Terry - Somerset
Established Member
The reason why improving the quality and energy efficiency of new build is so important an issue is that we will otherwise have to live with the sub-optimal for the next 60-100 years.
It is also the case that incorporating the higher standards on new build is cheap compared to the cost of retrofit (even if this is possible).
Even leaving aside "brown envelope" corruption (which may happen occassionally, possibly not routinely), councils are ill equipped to deal with property developers spurred on by a profit motive.
Local democratic accountability is not effective. To illustrate - local authority collects ~£2000 council tax for each property. We assume all this goes to the local council. Wrong:
Both are limited in the money they can raise, and the way in which it can be spent depending government policy, regulation and mandated standards.
It all needs radical reform!
It is also the case that incorporating the higher standards on new build is cheap compared to the cost of retrofit (even if this is possible).
Even leaving aside "brown envelope" corruption (which may happen occassionally, possibly not routinely), councils are ill equipped to deal with property developers spurred on by a profit motive.
Local democratic accountability is not effective. To illustrate - local authority collects ~£2000 council tax for each property. We assume all this goes to the local council. Wrong:
- police and fire get ~20% - no problem in principle
- the county council (CC) get ~60%
- the local council (LC) get ~20%
Both are limited in the money they can raise, and the way in which it can be spent depending government policy, regulation and mandated standards.
It all needs radical reform!
Jacob
New Luddism. Wake up and resist.
Except for solar heat of course, not to mention volcanic heat, bringing us millions of times the amount energy compared to what we feebly generate.
Jacob
New Luddism. Wake up and resist.
You are so right. Only 5 billion years to go apparently. It doesn't bear thinking about!
Start worrying now!Seriously though - one welcome change is that there are few climate change deniers any more.
They've mutated into sustainability sceptics, as we see in this thread. That's progress though!
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John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
I think there are sooo many factors involved. Such as:
As Bansobaby said, no-one in government understands this stuff. Even if they did, most of them don't really care - they only care about the next election.
There are powerful lobby groups working on behalf of organisations whose interests are not in greener energy.
There is a tendency for people to say, what's the point? We can't make a lot of difference, it's that other crowd who have to change. That's a good way to end up doing nothing.
We all probably need to use a lot less power. Trying to use more renewable energy is laudable, but we, in the west, are now accustomed to central heating at over 20 Celsius, and, in many places, air conditioning in the summer. My American nephews and nieces sit around in their underwear in sauna temperatures, when there's a foot of snow outside. It's crazy.
You can't leave this stuff up to the individual. There has to be legislation, but it's political suicide for the government.
And probably a hundred other things...
On the other hand, I know there are a lot who don't believe in global warming, or at least don't believe that it's anthropogenic.
That problem seems truly insoluble.
As Bansobaby said, no-one in government understands this stuff. Even if they did, most of them don't really care - they only care about the next election.
There are powerful lobby groups working on behalf of organisations whose interests are not in greener energy.
There is a tendency for people to say, what's the point? We can't make a lot of difference, it's that other crowd who have to change. That's a good way to end up doing nothing.
We all probably need to use a lot less power. Trying to use more renewable energy is laudable, but we, in the west, are now accustomed to central heating at over 20 Celsius, and, in many places, air conditioning in the summer. My American nephews and nieces sit around in their underwear in sauna temperatures, when there's a foot of snow outside. It's crazy.
You can't leave this stuff up to the individual. There has to be legislation, but it's political suicide for the government.
And probably a hundred other things...
On the other hand, I know there are a lot who don't believe in global warming, or at least don't believe that it's anthropogenic.
That problem seems truly insoluble.
Terry has some good points, we need improvement now which means change is needed now otherwise these developers will have thrown up thousands more sub standard inefficient hen coups we will have to live with for decades, the radical reform is needed right now, not years of thinking followed by years of talking and then still only minor tweaks.
I can see how a local council just see's income from these developments, each one is not a house but revenue so the government cuts their budgets which gives them more incentive to just allow more building.
I can see how a local council just see's income from these developments, each one is not a house but revenue so the government cuts their budgets which gives them more incentive to just allow more building.
xy mosian
Established Member
Sorry I haven't read the whole post.
We had a power cut in my part of Bradford the other day. Thank goodness for the GAS cooker. At least we could have a pot of tea.
Yes the heating was off, but at least we had a small supply of hot/warm water in he tank.
What happens with Electric only properties?
xy
We had a power cut in my part of Bradford the other day. Thank goodness for the GAS cooker. At least we could have a pot of tea.
Yes the heating was off, but at least we had a small supply of hot/warm water in he tank.
What happens with Electric only properties?
xy
As others have said, this will be for new builds to start with, but shortly after that natural gas will be phased out probably on the 2035 timescale. Alternative domestic space heating will include, traditional electric, electric heat pumps (air and ground source) and maybe hydrogen space heating will be required. There will probably be grants to help pensioners convert.
This is a huge change as the country grapple with climate change and become net zero carbon by 2050.
I expect we will see increased climate levy tariffs applied to natural gas to make heat pumps equivalent cost by 2025/2030.
Expect a lot more press headlines as we approach the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow and the UK government shouts off about it.
