# Did you see the report that boilers sales are to stop 2025



## devonwoody (18 May 2021)

So what can house holders of 90 year pensioners do in 2026?


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## Sachakins (18 May 2021)

Not strictly true.
Gas boilers are to be banned in new build properties from then on.
Existing boilers can and will still be serviceable and replaceable in existing installations.


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## pe2dave (18 May 2021)

And power generation will increase to compensate? Sounds ... odd?


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## John Brown (18 May 2021)

pe2dave said:


> And power generation will increase to compensate? Sounds ... odd?


I think the idea is that people will use ground or air source heat pumps, and that a lot of electricity will be renewable.
I can't say if this is viable or not, but I believe that's the thinking.


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## Spectric (18 May 2021)

This sounds like another government attempt at scoring green brownie points, ideas thought up by nerds in dark corners of government without any input from engineering or reality. If this was a real attemp to reduce greenhouse gases by changing the way we are heating our homes then why are we still building thousands of cheap and nasty houses all over the countryside with paper thin walls to allow them to cram in more per area. If they made the walls much thicker using polysterene insulation blocks and similar construction methods then they could reduce the amount of energy needed to keep them warm, but this would reduce the number of hen coups (houses) they can cram into a field and reduce their profit margins which would upset property developers, who I dare say are government backers when it comes to finance.

So we reduce the amount of gas used in domestic property but need to increase gas usage in power stations to meet the demand in electrical usage from both charging our EV's and heating our homes, one day the government will wake up and realise it is a hopeless situation because the fundamental problem is population growth, leading to more homes, more consumption, more pollution and all whilst natural resources diminish. So once you get to a certain age you wake up and realise this so you know there is no solution and just get on with living, the problem is that many of our leaders are also of this age and know the same so they don't waste their time banging their head against a wall knowing they can in reality do or achieve nothing that can provide a long term solution so accept that the ship will eventually capsize and we go the way of the dinosaurs.


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## eribaMotters (18 May 2021)

Roy you are a bit out on a few points. Modern house building does produce far more efficient houses that need less energy to keep them warm
Electricity production is also moving to greener means. We now produce a lot of our energy without burning fossil fuels and the % is on the rise.
We are going in the correct direction, I just fear the infrastructure will not keep up with the changes being made.

Colin


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## pe2dave (18 May 2021)

I've the same concerns as Colin. Our generation of green energy may not keep up with all the 'green' transitions promised.


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## Spectric (18 May 2021)

They may be more efficient but they are not efficient enough, there are huge improvements that can be made but need to become a legal requirement under building regulations.


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## Sachakins (18 May 2021)

Whenever you set a minimum standard for anything, manufacturers will race to the bottom to meet them.

There should be at least a three standards, with incentives for the higher standards on new build affordable homes.

There is no incentive for builders to do anything more than minimum.

So either tier it or raise the bar a lot higher in the minimum standards.


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## LJM (18 May 2021)

Sachakins said:


> Whenever you set a minimum standard for anything, manufacturers will race to the bottom to meet them.
> 
> There should be at least a three standards, with incentives for the higher standards on new build affordable homes.
> 
> ...



Or simply raise the minimum Standards


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## D_W (18 May 2021)

This is occurring in california here, too. I don't have a real hard thought about it (not just as a badge of being politically independent). California is looking to phase out thermal generation (gas stoves, gas dryers, etc) at the point of use level with the expectation that overall emissions are cleaner and lower if the power is generated centrally and then devices (like a heat pump ground sourced or electric dryer or stove) used at point of use. 

They are probably right, most notably, that leaking of unburned gas and incomplete combustion bits are far higher in point of use appliances than they are at a giant turbine. 

(I have a gas furnace - old one - love it. It's relatively inefficient and here in the states in the northeast/midwest where cold isn't freezing, but 25C below from time to time, it's a dandy contraption. I'm sure it emits more than a gas power plant would, though, and it does a lovely trick that I like - it sends about 15% or so of the heat value up the chimney so that the condensation goes to the atmoshphere and not in the stack or back into a drip pan. I will miss it when it finally gives up. 

Gas is monstrously cheap here, but ground source heat pumps - or geothermal - are similar - just far more expensive to install. Air source heat pumps aren't totally uncommon here, but struggle when it's really cold.


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## Terry - Somerset (18 May 2021)

Banning gas boilers in new builds makes good environmental sense (probably). We are capable technically of designing and building houses which even in the UK can be close to energy neutral.

What is unforgiveable is that councils still approve construction which fails to meet (or even get close to) what can be achieved. Assuming they understand the issue, they are often under pressure from developers keen to minimise costs and maximise revenue.

I have a good friend who is a local councillor. He acknowledges a basic truth - property companies have more clout than the council. 

When push comes to shove the council run scared as they can't (or don't want to) afford the expensive lawyers needed to battle property company expensive lawyers. Roll over and give in is the order of the day!


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## AJB Temple (18 May 2021)

I think the developer / council power imbalance as described above is incorrect. Developers and councils are both under pressure to produce a lot of housing. And for a lot of it to be affordable. Councils have a huge amount of power over new build sites. 

However, making passive houses is a LOT more expensive than a more ordinary house just built to regs. It needs better design, a lot of expensive insulation, very high build quality to achieve absence of air leakage, tends to take more space for the same internal area (insulated walls are thicker), uses more expensive materials that achieve higher insulation values (not all PIR foam is the same), ducting systems that normal houses no not have, much more expensive glazing, and so on. Not viable for affordable housing built for profit and without subsidy.


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## doctor Bob (18 May 2021)

i think it's a good thing.


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## AJB Temple (18 May 2021)

Agree. When I eventually build my next and final house it will be a passive house. No boilers. Pumping gas around the country is pretty daft when you think about it.


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## treeturner123 (18 May 2021)

The issue of how and to what standard housing is built comes under the remit of Building Control whether council or consultant operated. All housing must comply to the Building Regulations. It is therefore down to the Government to update, alter and amend.

The issue therefore is on interpretation and whether the material suppliers are telling the truth or not. This has been amply demonstrated with cladding.

If the government wants to ban the use of gas fired boilers, it will need to amend the relevant part of the regulations. and fairly soon so that all manufacturers know what technical requirements there are.

The main problem with ground source systems is that, at present, any radiators need to be somewhat bigger than at present because the heat of the water in the pipes is lower. This is added to the fact that the space for the equipment externally is greater.

Phil


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## Phil Pascoe (18 May 2021)

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.


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## John Brown (18 May 2021)

“In the space of one hundred and seventy six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over a mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oölitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-pole. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo [Illinois] and New Orleans will have joined their streets together and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”

Mark Twain's view on extrapolation.


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## Warksworker (18 May 2021)

It’s interesting how much electricity is now renewable.









Analysis: UK renewables generate more electricity than fossil fuels for first time - Carbon Brief


In the third quarter of 2019, the UK’s windfarms, solar panels, biomass and hydro plants generated more electricity than coal, oil and gas put together.




www.carbonbrief.org





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


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## Sachakins (18 May 2021)

LJM said:


> Or simply raise the minimum Standards


I did say that at the end.


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## Jake (18 May 2021)

doctor Bob said:


> i think it's a good thing.



I can't see the argument against it really. Unless you are a gas or oil producer.


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## Jake (18 May 2021)

Warksworker said:


> 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.



The trouble with hydrogen is that its promises just cannot keep pace with battery development, so far at least. The cost-efficiency target just keeps outstripping it for most things. HGVs were assumed to be a natural big target market, but those are beginning to look like they will tip over towards batteries on cost-efficiency.


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## Sachakins (18 May 2021)

Ground source heat pump systems

In theory, seemingly great idea, especially if you have the land space.

There is one glaringly obvious problem with them when used enmasse, like entire housing estates.

If you continually extract the ground heat on a large scale, then obviously the ground temp will decrease over time in that area, affecting the local habitat greatly, even to the local extinction of insects first, then the obvious knock on effects.

On earth you don't get something for nothing, see first law of Thermodynamics.

The only energy we can ever use that will have no impact on this planet is that which eminates off planet, ie solar.

Even then the impact on resources to make solar systemd and batteries is still a drain on finite resources.


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## Nigel Burden (18 May 2021)

A colleague of my wife lived in New Zealand for a number of years. The property they lived in had heating provided via a ground heat pump. In her opinion, it just about took the chill off the house.

IIAC, if a developer builds less than four hundred houses, they are not under any obligation to provide any addition to the local infrastructure.

Nigel.


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## gcusick (18 May 2021)

treeturner123 said:


> …..
> 
> The main problem with ground source systems is that, at present, any radiators need to be somewhat bigger than at present because the heat of the water in the pipes is lower. This is added to the fact that the space for the equipment externally is greater.
> 
> Phil



That’s not strictly true, Phil.

About 9 years ago, we built a new house. It’s timber framed, with plenty of foam insulation in the walls, lots of mineral wool in the tiny roof space, but only ordinary double glazing. It’s about 270 m^2 (3000 square feet, in old money). We heat it with a ground-source heat pump (GSHP), but have no radiators! Underfloor heating throughout works perfectly with the GSHP’s output temperature, about 35C. And the UFH was cheaper to install at build time than reasonable radiators.

The problem over the last 10 years is the government’s deliberate move to weaken the regulations, and the effective dismantling of the inspection and enforcement regime. The higher energy efficiency standards proposed in the mid-2000’s for implementation in 2016 were abandoned, and, at one point, there was a suggestion of allowing developers to build “affordable” homes without insulation!

The simple fact is that energy efficiency is pretty cheap to incorporate at build time, but would add little to house prices. So every pound spent on energy efficiency is a pound less profit for Persimmon (or whoever). So, the only way to achieve this is through regulation, and that requires enforcement. Which, in turn, means that it’s a matter for government.


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## doctor Bob (18 May 2021)

My house is heated / hot water via a GSHP, bloody brilliant.


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## Phil Pascoe (18 May 2021)

Nigel Burden said:


> IIAC, if a developer builds less than four hundred houses, they are not under any obligation to provide any addition to the local infrastructure.
> Nigel.


That's why a developer I know owns (with his family) a couple of dozen different companies.

edit - it's one reason.


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## gcusick (18 May 2021)

Sachakins said:


> Ground source heat pump systems
> 
> In theory, seemingly great idea, especially if you have the land space.
> 
> ...


In fact, the energy extracted by a GSHP is principally solar - the sun warms the earth. And large areas are not required. We heat 270m^2 of house off about 300m^2 of garden by using bore holes. Designed properly, the effect on the ground temperature is negligible, as the thermal conductivity of the ground is taken into account when laying out the bore hole locations.


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## Phil Pascoe (18 May 2021)

I read a comment in the Press the other day from someone who said the government is going to have to do something about electricity pricing if they expect everyone to accept electricity instead of mains gas when the standard B. G. tariff for electricity is 19p per kwh and for gas 3.5p per kwh.


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## Phil Pascoe (18 May 2021)

Where I live the bungalow would probably disappear down a hole if I put anything larger than a beanpole in the ground.


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## Spectric (18 May 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> What is unforgiveable is that councils still approve construction which fails to meet (or even get close to) what can be achieved. Assuming they understand the issue, they are often under pressure from developers keen to minimise costs and maximise revenue.


The property developers are only interested in selling a very cheap box for maximum profit and have no interest in the buyer, but why do councils allow them to build on known flood plains! It is true property companies have more clout than the local council, brown envelopes speak and they just destroy whole communities by excessive developement on green fields rather than brownfield sites.


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## D_W (18 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> I read a comment in the Press the other day from someone who said the government is going to have to do something about electricity pricing if they expect everyone to accept electricity instead of mains gas when the standard B. G. tariff for electricity is 19p per kwh and for gas 3.5p per kwh.



A little chuckle here when we decided that we'd make up for high energy costs with lots of caulk. 

ground source heat pump will provide some of the difference in cost there, but it's not inexpensive to install, not always cheap to maintain (there is some lifetime limitation for the ground source wells here and then they need to be relocated), and still more expensive than gas.


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## Sachakins (18 May 2021)

gcusick said:


> In fact, the energy extracted by a GSHP is principally solar - the sun warms the earth. And large areas are not required. We heat 270m^2 of house off about 300m^2 of garden by using bore holes. Designed properly, the effect on the ground temperature is negligible, as the thermal conductivity of the ground is taken into account when laying out the bore hole locations.


Negligible in isolation, but massive when upscaled to 100s of properties in close proximity.
Saying "principally solar" is missing the point altogether. If we remove heat from soil there will be a price to pay environmentally.

Using pure sunlight solar energy is the only way to go, as it is available to excess.

Even onshore wind turbines have environmental impact, if you put enough in place it will eventual impact the environment behind them, if you extract all the wind energy, then the area of habit behind will change, as seeds and pollen will cease to be blown around causing imbalances to insects and everything else up the food chain.

Off shore windfarms don't suffer this, but they do disturb the sea life equilibrium as they introduce a low frequency hum into the water, which affects seaside over large distances.


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## Blackswanwood (18 May 2021)

Nigel Burden said:


> A colleague of my wife lived in New Zealand for a number of years. The property they lived in had heating provided via a ground heat pump. In her opinion, it just about took the chill off the house.
> 
> IIAC, if a developer builds less than four hundred houses, they are not under any obligation to provide any addition to the local infrastructure.
> 
> Nigel.


I’m not sure what IIAC means Nigel but that is not correct. All local councils have the right to apply a Community Infastructure Levy And do. I think it came in from 2010 for developments that add more than 100 square metres of dwelling space. There are exemptions such as when affordable or social housing is included in the development.


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## Blackswanwood (18 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> They may be more efficient but they are not efficient enough, there are huge improvements that can be made but need to become a legal requirement under building regulations.



Things can always be made better but the changes made to Building Regulations over the years have already materially improved the thermal efficiency of properties.


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## D_W (19 May 2021)

I'll tell you what gets us a further measure - heating only part of the living space in winter. Who's going there? My MIL can detect 2 degrees drop in the far corners of a house, no problem, and raise cain. 

I'll bet we use more energy per capita than we did 60 years ago. By far. we pat ourselves on the back all the time with special light bulbs, etc, and then proceed to travel twice or four times as far, climate control ourselves into a tiny comfort range (but we do it with efficiency) and then travel all over the world separate just from work and leisure travel- to take holiday. 

If I didn't live with my wife, I'd be setting records in winter.


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## Ozi (19 May 2021)

Looking for one answer to the problem is unnecessary. We will almost certainly have some hydrogen fueled transport, some hydrogen heating produced when wind energy exceeds demand. Some solar, some tidal etc. Some reduction in consumption, work from home one day a week or work four ten hour days and cut travel cost and pollution by slightly more than 20% due to reduced congestion. (personally I would love to work 4 days a week x ten hours, imagine a three day weekend every week). Also stop heating our homes to 20°C all year round and buy a jumper like we used too. I grew up in a house with single glazing and one gas fire, it wasn't a hardship I'd bet many of you did as well


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## Phil Pascoe (19 May 2021)

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. 
..................................
... "One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”

Mark Twain's view on extrapolation. 



Certainly. It's rather like one that said New York was going to be 2000' deep in horse doodah by 1900.
Nevertheless, it's scary if it's 10% of that.


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## Phil Pascoe (19 May 2021)

Ozi said:


> (personally I would love to work 4 days a week x ten hours, imagine a three day weekend every week).


A large local firm tried to introduce that about forty years ago, the idea being that as most of their people were regularly doing overtime it would allow either a three day weekend or for the overtime to be done on the Friday thus still leaving the weekend. Most of the men (mining machinery, it was virtually all men) though it was a great idea, but the unions involved wouldn't have it.


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## Happy amateur (19 May 2021)

I thought it was only a suggestion by the International Energy Agency (IEA) not a government statement.


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## John Brown (19 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> 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.
> ..................................
> ... "One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
> 
> ...


Turned out they should've said bull dung.


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## AlanY (19 May 2021)

Warksworker said:


> It’s interesting how much electricity is now renewable.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



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.


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## doctor Bob (19 May 2021)

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


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## John Brown (19 May 2021)

doctor Bob said:


> 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


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.


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## John Brown (19 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> 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.


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.


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## Cooper (19 May 2021)

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.


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## bansobaby (19 May 2021)

Sachakins said:


> Ground source heat pump systems
> 
> In theory, seemingly great idea, especially if you have the land space.
> 
> ...


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.


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## John Brown (19 May 2021)

"As I said I hope someone can contradict me."
You're in the right place for your hopes and dreams to come true.


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## Phil Pascoe (19 May 2021)

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.


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## Jacob (19 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> ....... So once you get to a certain age you wake up and realise this so you know there is no solution........



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!


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## Jacob (19 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> 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.


Then go figure an alternative.
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.


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## Jacob (19 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> 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.


You still using dried manure in Cornwall?


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## Spectric (19 May 2021)

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.


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## Terry - Somerset (19 May 2021)

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:

police and fire get ~20% - no problem in principle
the county council (CC) get ~60%
the local council (LC) get ~20%
So the people I know and vote for get 20p in the £ of my money. There are conflicts between the CC and LC - eg: LC approve the housing, CC have the money for road improvements, schools etc. 

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!


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## Jacob (19 May 2021)

Sachakins said:


> ....
> 
> On earth you don't get something for nothing, see first law of Thermodynamics.


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.


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## Jacob (19 May 2021)

bansobaby said:


> What you say is true to an extent, but even solar power has to obey the laws of thermodynamics.


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 (19 May 2021)

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.


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## Spectric (19 May 2021)

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.


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## xy mosian (19 May 2021)

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


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## TominDales (19 May 2021)

devonwoody said:


> So what can house holders of 90 year pensioners do in 2026?


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.


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## Jacob (19 May 2021)

xy mosian said:


> 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


Off to the pub of course! 
Power cuts seem to last just seconds nowadays unless there's a major job on the line somewhere. Had several during recent thunderstorms. No prob except computers switching off


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## Blackswanwood (19 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> 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.


Roy - you seem to have a real downer on new build development and local councils? New builds are built to current Building Regs which make them safer and better insulated than those of previous generations. Local Councils get voted out if they make planning decisions that the electorate don't agree with. My experience is that Local Councils are caught trying to balance the need for more housing supply with a whole host of other pressures. Brown paper envelopes full of cash are not a feature.

I'll declare a conflict - my wife is on the board of a small regional house builder.

Cheers


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## Phil Pascoe (19 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> The world was just about carbon neutral only 200 years ago ...


Yes. Because most of the world lived in tents and huts.


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## Jacob (19 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Yes. Because most of the world lived in tents and huts.


No. Because we had hardly begun using coal and oil.


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## Bojam (19 May 2021)

eribaMotters said:


> Modern house building does produce far more efficient houses that need less energy to keep them warm



Compared to what? Poor quality older housing stock presumably? Well, while that may be true, there is no doubt that house builders could do a lot more to improve energy efficiency of new builds. Passive house standards are probably too much to aim for, but the regs should set much higher standards than currently required. I don't believe it would even add that much cost (some for sure) but would need some substantive changes in building practices.


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## Phil Pascoe (19 May 2021)

Blackswanwood said:


> Brown paper envelopes full of cash are not a feature.



A long time ago my father was a builder. After he died my mother told me he had a list of every town and county councillor in Cornwall, Devon and west Somerset that could be bribed and what they were best bribed with (he was straight as a die and I doubt it was ever used, but he liked to know who or what he was dealing with). An acquaintance had a similar list, but (national) of MPs. I can't imagine things are too different now. I know cases over the last few decades of developments where bribery was undoubtedly a feature but couldn't be proved.


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## Phil Pascoe (19 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> No. Because we had hardly begun using coal and oil.


Precisely.


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## sirocosm (19 May 2021)

The only practical way to get to net zero would be to switch to nuclear power big time. Cluttering up the countryside with windmills and solar panels is an environmental disaster. The tons of plastic required for ground source heat pumps is not much better, and made from fossil fuel by the way.

I bet the "ban" on gas boilers will become a ban on "gas-only" boilers, and they will keep installing them provided they can be switched to hydrogen later. Hydrogen is probably the only practical method to store vast amounts of electricity with today's tech, especially when the underground gas storage caverns run dry.


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## gregmcateer (19 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> 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.



That's nearly ten rolls of Downing St wallpaper!


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## eribaMotters (19 May 2021)

In 2017 we moved into a 1970 bungalow, about 85m2 footprint. Monthly gas standing order for heating and cooking was £90 and we could not get the house warm. Bungalows will always been more expensive to run.
We have added 30m2 to the living space and a 50m2 attached garage/workshop. New regs meant 100mm cavity insulation, 150mm is between the new roof timbers, I've put 350mm in the loft, 1/2 the house has 200mm under the floor, the existing building has been wrapped with 60mm of foam before a re-render and high quality double glazing has been fitted. My standing order now looks like £50 a month. This is a result of newer building regs. 
Whilst not a perfect result this is a giant step forwards and reflects what is achievable, albeit with a higher initial outlay. We will never get things perfect as room for improvement will always exist, but we can make improvements to reduce our energy consumption.

Colin


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## Bojam (19 May 2021)

eribaMotters said:


> We have added 30m2 to the living space and a 50m2 attached garage/workshop. New regs meant 100mm cavity insulation, 150mm is between the new roof timbers, I've put 350mm in the loft, 1/2 the house has 200mm under the floor, the existing building has been wrapped with 60mm of foam before a re-render and high quality double glazing has been fitted. My standing order now looks like £50 a month. This is a result of newer building regs.
> Whilst not a perfect result this is a giant step forwards and reflects what is achievable, albeit with a higher initial outlay. We will never get things perfect as room for improvement will always exist, but we can make improvements to reduce our energy consumption.



Well done! You say "this is a result of newer building regs". So what you did was required or you went beyond the minimum spec?


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## Cooper (19 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> The tons of plastic required for ground source heat pumps is not much better, and made from fossil fuel by the way.


Plastic is amazing stuff and appropriate for all sorts of environmentally sustainable things. What we have a problem with is single use plastic and mountains of un-recycled waste.
Lets have more posts like Colin's about successful ways to leave our children and grandchildren a world fit to live in, not excuses why that is too inconvienient for the time being.


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## sirocosm (19 May 2021)

Cooper said:


> Plastic is amazing stuff and appropriate for all sorts of environmentally sustainable things. What we have a problem with is single use plastic and mountains of un-recycled waste.
> Lets have more posts like Colin's about successful ways to leave our children and grandchildren a world fit to live in, not excuses why that is too inconvienient for the time being.



Plastic is terrible stuff, made from fossil fuel, does not biodegrade, and in most cases there are a much more environmentally friendly alternatives. When those ground source heat pump fields have passed their useful life, is someone going to dig all that plastic pipe up and dispose of it properly? Nope, they'll just trench through it and lay some more. It amazes me how much environmental damage people are willing to do to save some carbon. Like the all the nasties used in the manufacture of solar panels, or electric car batteries, and the cost to the environment to make them. And when those solar panels and batteries die, what are they going to do with them?


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## doctor Bob (19 May 2021)

I wonder if one or two punters are waiting to pounce and hijack the thread for political reasons ............

seems like you give em their own space and yet they still want to mess up good threads over here.
I suppose it's like kids trying to escape from the playpen, and if everyone is like minded (sandals, socks and beards) in the loonies space there is no one to argue with.


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## Just4Fun (19 May 2021)

Ours is a large house built in the 1890s. Our climate is more extreme than the UK - I have known it to be -39C here. We replaced our oil-burning boiler with a GSHP and it heats the house at lower cost than the old oil-based system. We are quite happy with it.

We did not increase the size of our radiators, and the GSHP is not connected to any under-floor heating. Either would work well with the GSHP and might reduce our running costs, but have not proved necessary.


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## Spectric (19 May 2021)

Blackswanwood said:


> Roy - you seem to have a real downer on new build development and local councils? New builds are built to current Building Regs which make them safer and better insulated than those of previous generations. Local Councils get voted out if they make planning decisions that the electorate don't agree with.


I have no problems when development is linked to local economic growth but not when it is linked to a local plan that all councils have had to produce that is generic, not based on actual local needs. The main employment in the area is tourism, cattle farming and retirement, with only retirement increasing and good jobs few and far between so to just keep building is an enviromental disaster and delivers nothing to the local communities. By keeping to smaller numbers of houses on more sites they do not have to assist with infrastructure or amenities which again are already stretched, I have a thirty two mile round trip to a dentist and people bus kids sixty miles to school each day so where is all the sense in this.

We have had five big developments in our area and all had very strong opposition, one on the grounds that there is photographic evidence that it floods very badly and the council actually rejected two but all have gone ahead because the councils decision was over turned. If you really want to find out about building standards do what I did a while back, visit a site but do not look at the show home, instead look at the ones under construction and you may then feel different. 

All these current builds only comply with outdated building regs, they are not the housing of the future and as already said a radical shakeup is urgently needed.


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## Spectric (19 May 2021)

eribaMotters said:


> We have added 30m2 to the living space and a 50m2 attached garage/workshop. New regs meant 100mm cavity insulation,


Imagine if the walls had 400 mm or more insulation and they had Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery systems rather than extractors pumping your warm air out. It is easier and more cost effective to build the insulation in rather than retrofit, just not as profitable.


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## Phil Pascoe (19 May 2021)

If walls had 400mm or more of insulation, people would have rooms the size of a phone box.


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## AJB Temple (19 May 2021)

There must come a point of rapidly diminishing returns with insulation.


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## Jacob (19 May 2021)

AJB Temple said:


> There must come a point of rapidly diminishing returns with insulation.


The inevitable increases in the cost of heating will alter the balance!
Ditto the cost of travel - there are big changes on the way if climate change is to be tackled.


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## Spectric (19 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> If walls had 400mm or more of insulation, people would have rooms the size of a phone box.


Not if you keep the internal size the same and just increase the foot print, but thats the issue as you can no longer cram them into a field to max profit, I have been told it could reduce numbers per a given area by 30%. If we all do nothing then for a shorter period of time you won't need any insulation, just good aircon as the ambient global temperatures sore!


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## D_W (19 May 2021)

How fast do these super efficient houses turn over air?


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## Phil Pascoe (19 May 2021)

AJB Temple said:


> There must come a point of rapidly diminishing returns with insulation.


Yes. if you look at the figures for double glazing the annual energy cost between (eg) A and A+ is minimal, but the cost of the windows often isn't.


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## sirocosm (19 May 2021)

D_W said:


> How fast do these super efficient houses turn over air?



In Canada in the 1980s they developed the R-2000 standard to build houses that were super sealed with thick walls in reaction to the energy crisis of the 70s. I was at a small party at one when it was -30C outside (in Manitoba) and they had to open the windows because it was getting too hot from the people inside. I suppose each person must be 100 watts or so. They ran into lots of trouble with moisture and mold with these houses, so they had to retrofit them with mechanical ventilation with exchangers so they would not lose too much heat.


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## D_W (19 May 2021)

That's what I was thinking - not the party part, but there needs to be some kind of calculated air turnover to get the nasties out of the house even if the nasties are just stink and moisture. Sooner or later, something in the house will get wet even if it's not people moisture, and if it's perfectly confined, it'll do bad things. 

At some point, people living in 3000sf, etc, with two cars a long commute and traveling for business and vacation are going to have to reconcile with the idea that they are bigger polluters than people in poverty in small old inefficient houses. That doesn't seem to get recognized here, but I guess you can market to those folks by telling them they can go anywhere, anytime, all over the place and heat every corner of the house because it's "efficient". I wonder where the cars they turn over super often go.


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## xy mosian (19 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> Off to the pub of course!
> Power cuts seem to last just seconds nowadays unless there's a major job on the line somewhere. Had several during recent thunderstorms. No prob except computers switching off


Yes, I was expecting a quick return to power. This one was quite widespread, as far as I could see from the upper romm windows anyway, PUB out sadly. Without real clock watching I believe it lasted between an hour and an hour and a half. No harm done but it made me think.
xy


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## TominDales (19 May 2021)

pe2dave said:


> And power generation will increase to compensate? Sounds ... odd?


That is the plan.
UK energy policy was all over the place in the years 1998 to 2008 as the government was wrestling with so many vested interests, coal, gas, oil, renewables, nuclear lobby. Since then the debate has settled and a pretty decent energy policy has emerged with a strong decarbonising agenda.
Basically subsides for renewables in solar and wind to kick start the market have paid off and we now have electricity competitively generated by large scale solar and wind and costs falling as industrial scale production ramps up. Solar and Wind will be compatible to other sources of electricity and cost will continue to fall.
Coal is the big polluter and is being rapidly phased out.
Natural gas is a kind of stop gap solution, its emits half the co2 per Giga watt as does coal, so its is a good and quick replacement for coal. But it will have to be replaced. Gas and oil are cheap to produce, so there will be cost issues as they are replaced.








Nuclear is part of the mix. The problem with nuclear is, not so much the hazards of nuclear, but the huge capital cost of of large scale stations eg Hinkley point, it effectively needs government cash to get going. Roll Royce have been pushing the idea of SMRs small modular reactions, they are must more cost effective to build build as they can be build in a factory and then shipped to the power station. The result is a station such as Hartlepool or Sizewell would have dozens of small reactions rather than 3 or 4 huge ones. Its based on their submarine reactor, much easier to install and decommission. They planned this in the 2000 to 2010 period but then it ran into government quagmire and was finally announced as part of the nuclear deal last year with a £500m programme. Projected nuclear generation:






A source of confusion in the UK newpapers, the predomenant dicuson is about electricity going green, but electricity is only about 20% of our energy use, its all the other uses as well - tranport, industry, heating that also have to be replaced. The vast majority of our energy comes from oil an gas.

The biggest CO2 emissions are transport and domestic space heating so they are high up on the governments agenda for Net Zero. This will mean find ways to replace domestic gas heating. This graphic shows the total energy by source and also the source of energy for electricity generation. So whilst Wind, solar and hydro were 20% of electricity generation in 2017 ( 24% in 2020), that is only 20% of 21% so only 4% of total energy supply was renewables in 2017.

So its a massive challenge for the UK to complety replace its dominant energy sources.







This graphs shows government projecting to 2050 , cf 2019,sows coal, oil gas are replaced by hydrogen and electricity.








Energy white paper: Powering our net zero future (accessible HTML version)







www.gov.uk








This final graphic from Bloomberg summarises the past from 2012 and projects the energy mix into electricity generation and I guess space heading to 2040 (its seems to have overlooked oil and diesel!).







So coal in red provided close to 50% of UKs energy needs in 2012 and will be gone by 2025. Gas has grown to fill the gap from coal but it then declines from 2022 onwards, Nuclear declines as old stations come off line, but picks up as new technology kicks in from late 2020 onwards and renewals continue to grow from less than 1% in 2012 to provide 75% of all energy by 2050, nuclear providing the rest. Not sure what happened to oil in this graphic! - edited for typos!


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## John Brown (19 May 2021)

D_W said:


> That's what I was thinking - not the party part, but there needs to be some kind of calculated air turnover to get the nasties out of the house even if the nasties are just stink and moisture. Sooner or later, something in the house will get wet even if it's not people moisture, and if it's perfectly confined, it'll do bad things.
> 
> At some point, people living in 3000sf, etc, with two cars a long commute and traveling for business and vacation are going to have to reconcile with the idea that they are bigger polluters than people in poverty in small old inefficient houses. That doesn't seem to get recognized here, but I guess you can market to those folks by telling them they can go anywhere, anytime, all over the place and heat every corner of the house because it's "efficient". I wonder where the cars they turn over super often go.


That's where the heat recovery ventilation fits in.
I know little about its efficiency - it wouldn't be very feasible for us, living in a fairly old barn conversion ( fairly old conversion, much older barn).


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## TominDales (19 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> This sounds like another government attempt at scoring green brownie points, ideas thought up by nerds in dark corners of government without any input from engineering or reality. If this was a real attemp to reduce greenhouse gases by changing the way we are heating our homes then why are we still building thousands of cheap and nasty houses all over the countryside with paper thin walls to allow them to cram in more per area. If they made the walls much thicker using polysterene insulation blocks and similar construction methods then they could reduce the amount of energy needed to keep them warm, but this would reduce the number of hen coups (houses) they can cram into a field and reduce their profit margins which would upset property developers, who I dare say are government backers when it comes to finance.
> 
> So we reduce the amount of gas used in domestic property but need to increase gas usage in power stations to meet the demand in electrical usage from both charging our EV's and heating our homes, one day the government will wake up and realise it is a hopeless situation because the fundamental problem is population growth, leading to more homes, more consumption, more pollution and all whilst natural resources diminish. So once you get to a certain age you wake up and realise this so you know there is no solution and just get on with living, the problem is that many of our leaders are also of this age and know the same so they don't waste their time banging their head against a wall knowing they can in reality do or achieve nothing that can provide a long term solution so accept that the ship will eventually capsize and we go the way of the dinosaurs.


Plan is to go renewable and nuclear by 2050. I've just posted latest projections. We are paying for the transition to renewals from the levy on our existing gas and electric bills. I suspect in the next few years we will see tax on gas increase to encourage a switch to electric heating. You re tight the the fundamental issue is population size, we are consuming 6 planets worth of resources at present. Projects of world population have it peaking in 2070 at 9bn. We all need to become more frugal consumers if we aren't to go the way of the dinosaurs!


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## TominDales (19 May 2021)

pe2dave said:


> I've the same concerns as Colin. Our generation of green energy may not keep up with all the 'green' transitions promised.


Politicians probably overpromising, but there is huge investments being made in the grid and generation, there is money being made, so there are incentives. But a lot of unknowns, the gas grid has had much more investment than the electricity grid over the past 50 years, so a huge overhaul of the electricity grid. Also there are more losses down the electricity grid than the gas grid, which adds quite a factor in sizing the different technologies. One options being looked at is green hydrogen, but that is fraught with costly technology and inefficiencies in conversion.


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## TominDales (19 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> 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.


It huge but not that huge. Estimates for UK are about 1/10 of that. PWC estimated £40bn per year for 10 years. Infrastructure Investment in Net Zero
Lane and partners latest estimate is £350bn by 2050. https://insight.lcp.uk.com/acton/at...nd energy investment toward Net Zero.pdfThere analysis of investor moneys to fund it is £250bn, so they estimate a £100bn shortfall. That kind of says that we can expect prices to rise to close the funding gap....


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## doctor Bob (19 May 2021)

TominDales, you sound like you know your stuff ............................ someone will be along in a short while to argue as they have a mate down the pub who said..................


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## D_W (19 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> It huge but not that huge. Estimates for UK are about 1/10 of that. PWC estimated £40bn per year for 10 years. Infrastructure Investment in Net Zero
> Lane and partners latest estimate is £350bn by 2050. There analysis of investor moneys to fund it is £250bn, so they estimate a £100bn shortfall. That kind of says that we can expect prices to rise to close the funding gap....



When we get public programs like that in the states, they have to be filled by private contractors. It becomes a two-payor setup and the price goes up. I'd believe their $400Bn cost only after it's implemented. 

Reminds me of a work study that a friend here had - the company that he worked for (former private company bought by a scandi government and then run into the ground to make pension earnings for them) had two locations - they wanted to naturally move engineering to the cheaper location (despite the engineers objecting). 

They got a management consultant (not PWC but one like them) to convince the workforce that half of the engineers would move, and it would be fine as they'd hire to fill in the holes. 

They relocated at a rate of 1 out of each 40. Oops. Cost studies are notoriously oversimplified and the oversimplification is filled in with actual resolution only by experience. 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 is common and then the next contest is who you'll take money away from to get there and it gets worse from there as the program is sold by subsidizing "people who can't afford it".


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## TominDales (19 May 2021)

Warksworker said:


> It’s interesting how much electricity is now renewable.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There are some trials underway. Leeds region is looking at a trial for putting upto 20% hydrogen in the natural gas supply for a trial development. The Northwest hydrogen alliance is building a hydrogen grid linking the producers in Runcorn, Stanlow to the consumers in the region. Large companies have singed contracts including Johnson Matthey the catalyst tech developers and BP.






There is concern as to how fast truly green hydrogen will be as the existing mass routes to blue hydrogen involves CO2 storage. Greener technologies are all being developed. Look at the share prices of ITM power a company developing hydrogen electrolysers past 10 years. Its taken them about that long to develpo the tech and for the market to realise its potential.. Volatile but its shows the demand for green hydrogen.





ITM power share price


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## TominDales (19 May 2021)

doctor Bob said:


> TominDales, you sound like you know your stuff ............................ someone will be along in a short while to argue as they have a mate down the pub who said..................


I work in the chemical sector, there is a lot of excitement about this challenge/opportunity. The last time the industry had such a challenge was changing from coal to oil and gas in the 1950s and 1960s. The worry this time round is that the UK industry does not have some much investment capital especially compared to our competitors in Germany, Japan, US and most of all China.


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## TominDales (19 May 2021)

D_W said:


> When we get public programs like that in the states, they have to be filled by private contractors. It becomes a two-payor setup and the price goes up. I'd believe their $400Bn cost only after it's implemented.
> 
> Reminds me of a work study that a friend here had - the company that he worked for (former private company bought by a scandi government and then run into the ground to make pension earnings for them) had two locations - they wanted to naturally move engineering to the cheaper location (despite the engineers objecting).
> 
> ...


Of course you are right. There are so many variables and unknowns, however this change has been happening for 20 years so some of the big uncertainties are now better known.
There is a lot of mature Solar and wind technology so we can make good projections on them. Battery technology and automotive electrification is also much more predictable than it was a few years ago. The Chemical industry uses lifetime experience curves to estimate the rate of cost reduction due to industrial expansion - the so called learning curve, these are pretty crude but at the macro level stand the test of time. Where these is a lot of uncertainty is with hydrogen, its has always been a difficult technology to get to work cost effectively. 

My worry is not so much the total cost, there will be swings and roundabouts on this as some tech will work better than other. Its the lack of UK intensives for companies to innovate in manufacturing. We are always behind the curve offering technology development programmes so our competitors in Germany, Korea, Japan and more recently China get the tech out the door faster. We do first rate science in the UK, but we have very little incentives to develop it commercially in this country compared to our industrial competitors. The so called valley of death. We tend to wait until others have developed the tech and then just buy it in. The UK was the world leader in wind technology from 1950s though 1970s the Orkneys were grid wind0powered from 1950s onwards with John Brown Ltd. But we then let is go. The current investments are being lead by Siemens, GE. They are building assembly plant in the UK, but in reality we are importing most of the technology.

You are dead right about relocations etc. When I was in ICI, they used to downsize by telling the engineers and chemists they had to move. In one instance they moved a group from Cheshire to Teesside and back within 5 years. Its a way to lose talent, deliberately or otherwise.


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## D_W (19 May 2021)

Thanks for the reasoned response - I think the approach has to be more incremental, but the way we get things adopted is to make them economically competitive or very close - the discretionary purchases are more efficient, then. Some of that is going on in the US, though our solar is behind (it's growing fast now, though - wind has limited potential locations, but we have some much open ag land here that's affordable that solar will be moving up -and I'm a big fan). 

Wind is only regional here on ridges, but we don't have good wind (as a relative of mine who put up a 10kw turbine four decades ago found - it moves some days. Lots of days, it doesn't - it seemed like getting something for nothing at the time ,though). 

At this point, large wind installations are cost neutral vs. nuclear and that will be in the past soon. They are not as reliable as nat gas, but without 1 - 2 cents per kw/hr. the future is coming - i'm just not very impressed with my own government's undertakings when they try to control too many variables at once and budget for things. 

The high speed rail project in california, for example, is appalling. It won't ever provide a net benefit and the maintenance will likely be far greater than any potential revenue plus subsidy. But they cannot let it go - while ignoring routine things on the surface that could improve lives.


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## D_W (19 May 2021)

By the way, I live in a valley that used to be heavy with coal. I have mild asthma, and east of me it was worse in the ridges. As we've switched to gas, my issues with asthma have declined considerably, and as I get bronchitis a couple of times a year, the recovery time is shorter and sometimes without medication (that didn't happen in the past). 

These changes have real benefits. 

At the same time, we have nuke plants in my state (TMI is the most famous, but the others are still running even though TMI isn't). Their cost to operate is enormous because the complement of employees and contractors is about 1200 for a 2.5GW plant. It just doesn't work out in the long run, and for a different reason than was first anticipated. 

It becomes odd when you see power divisions of nuclear and gas not arguing with wind and solar, but with each other, as nuke wants a 2 cent subsidy over gas to keep operating.


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## Blackswanwood (19 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> A long time ago my father was a builder. After he died my mother told me he had a list of every town and county councillor in Cornwall, Devon and west Somerset that could be bribed and what they were best bribed with (he was straight as a die and I doubt it was ever used, but he liked to know who or what he was dealing with). An acquaintance had a similar list, but (national) of MPs. I can't imagine things are too different now. I know cases over the last few decades of developments where bribery was undoubtedly a feature but couldn't be proved.


A long time ago that may have been the case but I would contend that standards of governance and scrutiny will be much higher now. I would also suggest it’s incongruous to claim bribery undoubtedly was a feature but it couldn’t be proved.


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## Spectric (19 May 2021)

Blackswanwood said:


> A long time ago that may have been the case but I would contend that standards of governance and scrutiny will be much higher now. I would also suggest it’s incongruous to claim bribery undoubtedly was a feature but it couldn’t be proved.


It is something that has always been around, once upon a time just accepted but now is frowned upon but still there. Happens at all levels and unfortunately not easily dealt with because as they say everyone has there price. 

The future is certainly not Nuclear fussion, not cost effective when compared to wind farms and always leaves a legacy whereas a wind turbine although a blot on the landscape is temporary. The single biggest solution is to reduce consumption, stop all production of filament and fluorescent lighting and give more incentives to go LED, this will be a good start in the right direction.


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Plastic is terrible stuff, made from fossil fuel, does not biodegrade, and in most cases there are a much more environmentally friendly alternatives. When those ground source heat pump fields have passed their useful life, is someone going to dig all that plastic pipe up and dispose of it properly? Nope, they'll just trench through it and lay some more. It amazes me how much environmental damage people are willing to do to save some carbon. Like the all the nasties used in the manufacture of solar panels, or electric car batteries, and the cost to the environment to make them. And when those solar panels and batteries die, what are they going to do with them?


You are right to highlight the potential 'unexpected consequences of new tech' such has heat pumps, solar panels, electric cars. Its happened before, CFCs were introduced to remove toxic materials like ammonia in refrigeration, compact fluorescent lamps replaced icandecent lamps but contained mercury (current LEDs are benign, although some of the early ones contained cadmium phosphors). Industry has learned from this history and legacy, modern products are more carefully assessed for environmental harm and European legislation under REACH and other stringent regulations requre extensive research into SHE before a new product is introduced into the market

The drive for 'environmentally friendly products has caused industry to do far more due diligence on its supply chain with life cycle analysis. Its pointless developing and selling an EVcar as greener product if its made unsustainably or leads to pollution. Car companies are requiring analysis of the raw materials and the energy that goes into new batteries, hence the recent announcement by JM that there Polish battery plant will use renewable energy.
Its also why the latest generation of batteries are low in cobalt as mining from the DRC is problematic and why recycling of batteries is already being planned. They are virtually 100% recyclable with valuable metals to extract. 

Wind turbines are difficult to recycle, the industry is carrying out extensive R&D on how to do it as it does not want to tarnish its reputation when turbines come to be decommissioned en mass. PV cells are are quite recyclable, they last a long time - design life of 25 to 40 years,the glass, silicon, metal can be recovered. A bigger issue right now is throw away electronics, phones, TVs etc.

Its too much of a generalization to say plastic is terrible stuff.
I know we are woodworkers, but we have to acknowledge that plastic has hundreds of uses, most of which are essential to health and wellbeing. The problem with plastic, is its cheap to make and so useful that it has become ubiquitous. Most applications don't cause a problem, the real issues with single use plastic getting into the environment. 
Plastic is essential for medical and healthcare and for preserving food, so its a vital resource.
In terms of pipes, that is a very good use of plastics, they require little energy to make as they are made at low temperatures, the require little energy in the application and they last for a very long time.
The latest Underground PVC water pipes and pipes for heat pumps have a design life of up to 100 years, it has crept up from 40 years to 70 and now 100 years in use. It has a very low carbon footprint. See bellow for the relative emissions of different uses and industrial materials. 








The highest emissions is space heating of buildings, that is why there is pressure to ban coal, gas and oil heating. Transportation is the next single biggest emitter of CO2, which is why electric cars are so high a priority. When its comes to industrial processes, cement and steel are the big emitters, both of which will be hard to change as carbon is integral to the manufacturing process. There are experiments steel mills trialling use hydrogen to reduced iron oxide (replacing coke) and there is research into low carbon concrete - a very tough nut to crack. Plastics represent 2% of CO2 emissions ( 5% of 36%), less than paper, so its lower down the priority list, however zero net carbon plastics are being researched, also plastics are theoretically almost 100% recyclable, its down to economic and structural reasons why only 9% is recycled. Glass is contained in the other box, but that has a higher carbon foot print than plastic.

The biggest problem with plastics, is not that they come from fossil fuels, but from pollution by discarded plastic. This is a priority in the UK with Unilever and P&G leading the research and engineering efforts to eliminate single use plastic - a plastic packaging research centre has been established on the Wirral to lead this work. Its an absolute scandle that plastic is being flushed into rivers globally and the sooner the industry eliminates it the better in my view. However solutions to several health/medical/food application are needed or we will see an uptick in illness and food shortages.

As for our plastic pipes in a heat pump. Provided they are left in the ground they will come to no harm, they should last 50 to 100 years and could be extracted and recycled if need be.


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

Cooper said:


> 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.
> ...


Its a big worry. 
Part of the problem in the UK is its easier and lower risk to get a return on capital from financial services (the city) and from property investment. UK banks lend by far their largest capital to property. Its been a one-way bet for 60 years ( with a couple of short lived downturns in the 70s, and mid 90s). 
In Germany the government releases land on demand for housing ensuring that there is enough supply. The result is in Germany and Asia, the banks, investors and financial institutions don't have such soft ways to make money and are prepared to support longer term riskier innovation. 
My experience of 35 years in innovation is things are changing for the better in the UK, young employees are up for taking the types of risk and there is more of a supportive culture. But while it remains easy for those with capital to just invest in land and property that is where the bulk of UK capital will continue to go. If we solve the UKs property crisis or have a prolonged property crash, then capital may look for other opportunities such as innovation.
Your are dead right, the UK were leaders in wind energy, we invented the lithium battery in Oxford and licensed it to Harewell (AERA) and Sony. AERA built one small battery factory next to Doonray in Thurso ( making military batteries) whilst Sony and Panasonic made world beating consumer batteries, Panasonic is one of the worlds biggest battery makes (its the cells in a Tesla) whilst AERA made the same battery for 15 years before going out of business - its now owed by the start up AMTE power, who are a millon times smaller than Panason.


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## Phil Pascoe (20 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> UK banks lend by far their largest capital to property. Its been a one-way bet for 60 years ( with a couple of short lived downturns in the 70s, and mid 90s) ...



My wife has worked for banks for nearly forty years - she says there is no such thing here (Cornwall, at least) as banking, just pawnbroking.


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## Phil Pascoe (20 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> It is something that has always been around, once upon a time just accepted but now is frowned upon but still there. Happens at all levels and unfortunately not easily dealt with because as they say everyone has there price.



Reminds me of my late father's favourite joke -
a chap sees a woman he fancies, goes up to her, buys her a drink then asks her if she'll go to bed with him for a £1000. Yes, she says immediately. I'll see you later, he says. He goes back to to her later and says look, I'm still game, but I've checked and I can only afford a tenner. What on earth do you think I am, she says. Oh, we've already established that, we're just haggling over the price.



Spectric said:


> ... give more incentives to go LED, this will be a good start in the right direction.



I'm surprised there hasn't been a subsidised scheme like the one several years ago for CFLs.


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## Jacob (20 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> ...... If we solve the UKs property crisis or have a prolonged property crash, then capital may look for other opportunities such as innovation.
> ......


Ooh politics!
Simple fact of life that the easiest way to get money is to own property/land etc and charge others who want to use it. If you _get_ enough you can buy more property - "_earn_" isn't the right word as you don't have to do anything much.
It is also the world's biggest millstone around the largest number of necks of renters/ tenants of all sorts, and a constraint on development and personal freedom at so many levels.

Politics aside - change is on the way. I wonder about EV and batteries etc. Is "sustainable" mass personal powered transport possible at all? Bearing in mind it has only been with us on any scale for about 70 years - there was one car owner on our street 70 years ago and no cars parked at all, except occasionally, briefly in transit ; it was an event in itself
A massive change in a lifetime - even greater changes to come, in personal behaviour and lifestyles? 
To be adopted voluntarily, before they are forced upon us by rising sea levels and so forth?
Not to mention the rising aspirations of the "developing" world.
This is interesting Top CO2 polluters and highest per capita - Economics Help

Interesting stuff coming from TominDales - thanks for that!


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## TRITON (20 May 2021)

yup, it will be something like electric heating only, maybe storage heaters or that ilk.
And when the law is fully in and the majority have them, watch the price of free to produce renewable electricity skyrocket


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## Stevekane (20 May 2021)

Wow this is an intresting thread and so long now that I dont have the time to read every post so forgive me if this has already been said, we live in an old house that is cold, solid walls and floor. I know that with modern materials its possible to “engineer” a house that takes very little energy to warm it up, some being provided by the people in it giving off heat. Then on the evening news we see people living in terrible conditions, houses where the walls are covered in black mould,,how is it that you can seal up a designer house and its bright and clean and dry without suffering from damp and mould?
Im not knocking them and I would give one a go myself if I could afford it but the two people Im aware of that have tried ground source heat pumps both feel its been and expensive mistake,,Perhaps the installers dont really know how to fit them correctly?


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## Stevekane (20 May 2021)

How wonderful to be able to do without a car, were lucky with a reasonable bus service every 30mins to two big towns but none at all to Southampton, but if I had to buy a ticket I would have to think twice,,very expensive, certainly much cheaper to use the car, and there would be so many things we couldnt do because there are no bus services connecting us to them.
I know this is contensious but is the “Green Belt” around our towns and cities partly responsible? Take for instance London, instead of the great conurbation it presently is, take each borough and have miles of green belt between them, then see how good a transport system you could operate. London has an excellent public transport system that is relatively cheap because its big and joined up, Bournemouth couldn't because its too small with the neighbouring small towns 10 or 15 miles away. All new building should be added to existing large towns.


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## John Brown (20 May 2021)

Stevekane said:


> mould,,how is it that you can seal up a designer house and its bright and clean and dry without suffering from damp and mould?


The heat is extracted from the stale air as it's pushed out, and that same heat is used to hear the fresh air being drawn in.

Obviously, there are losses. I'm no expert, but you could probably Google the efficiency.


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## John Brown (20 May 2021)

Here you go. I've done it for you.

I was curious myself.

*Heat Recovery* for *Ventilation* Systems
Thermal wheel *ventilation* units can deliver a maximum of 80% *efficiency*, and typical values can vary between 65 and 75%. Plate *heat* exchangers offer a maximum *efficiency* of 80% with normal variations between 55 and 65%.


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## Cooper (20 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> Its a big worry.
> Part of the problem in the UK is its easier and lower risk to get a return on capital from financial services (the city) and from property investment. UK banks lend by far their largest capital to property. Its been a one-way bet for 60 years ( with a couple of short lived downturns in the 70s, and mid 90s).
> In Germany the government releases land on demand for housing ensuring that there is enough supply. The result is in Germany and Asia, the banks, investors and financial institutions don't have such soft ways to make money and are prepared to support longer term riskier innovation.
> My experience of 35 years in innovation is things are changing for the better in the UK, young employees are up for taking the types of risk and there is more of a supportive culture. But while it remains easy for those with capital to just invest in land and property that is where the bulk of UK capital will continue to go. If we solve the UKs property crisis or have a prolonged property crash, then capital may look for other opportunities such as innovation.
> Your are dead right, the UK were leaders in wind energy, we invented the lithium battery in Oxford and licensed it to Harewell (AERA) and Sony. AERA built one small battery factory next to Doonray in Thurso ( making military batteries) whilst Sony and Panasonic made world beating consumer batteries, Panasonic is one of the worlds biggest battery makes (its the cells in a Tesla) whilst AERA made the same battery for 15 years before going out of business - its now owed by the start up AMTE power, who are a millon times smaller than Panason.


You mention Germany. Our daughter lives in Munich and her previous flat, a new build and their new home a 1970s house, both are heated by a ground source heat pump, their building standards require a high standard of insulation, even the 1970s, and in their really cold winters they are able to wear T shirts etc indoors. The quality of build seems much better and their energy bills far lower. It can be done, as you say. 
Here we are ruled by short term profit and company share prices determine senior management bonuses (see BooHoo this week). Politicians, if a recent previous PMs is typical, stay for a short while and their priority is their own earning capacity after office and "who case about the green stuff". So we have pretty feeble regulation. Does anyone believe that 2025 will see an end to new gas boilers?
It isn't a choice, preventing more climate change is essential. Even from the most right wing perspective (not that anyone here could be described as such) environmental degradation is going to make current illegal migration look like a Sunday school outing.


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## Spectric (20 May 2021)

Cooper said:


> Does anyone believe that 2025 will see an end to new gas boilers?


No more than Diesel cars by 2030, if you think a Kwh of gas is around 0.02225 and electricity 0.1345 so about six times the cost, there is already a lot of fuel poverty so this will just increase the numbers. These are also only words, so far there has not been any action otherwise we would have seen the beginings of change, ie only building well insulated properties that could be kept warm by an old 100 watt bulb.


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## Jacob (20 May 2021)

Cooper said:


> ....
> Here we are ruled by short term profit


It's known as free market economics. Very much the ideology of the right. Probably going out of fashion though, and about time too!


> So we have pretty feeble regulation....


We voted for feeble regulation. De-regulation was the big issue with Brexit. It was second on the bill after immigration. Some re-assessments going on, perhaps?


> .....Even from the most right wing perspective (not that anyone here could be described as such) environmental degradation is going to make current illegal migration look like a Sunday school outing.


Just a detail but migration and asylum seeking, including entry to the country, are not illegal. They may be treated like criminals but are perfectly legally here until applications to remain are duly processed and refused. It was always an imaginary issue, as the benefits of immigration have always out-weighed the disadvantages.
An odd comparison to make anyway, as climate change could be the greatest disaster to ever hit the human race. Increased migration as a result of climate change may become a bigger issue, arguably it is already underway.


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Reminds me of my late father's favourite joke -
> a chap sees a woman he fancies, goes up to her, buys her a drink then asks her if she'll go to bed with him for a £1000. Yes, she says immediately. I'll see you later, he says. He goes back to to her later and says look, I'm still game, but I've checked and I can only afford a tenner. What on earth do you think I am, she says. Oh, we've already established that, we're just haggling over the price.
> I'm surprised there hasn't been a subsidised scheme like the one several years ago for CFLs.


The subsidised scheme for CFLs was to encourage a switch from incandescent (a 75% reduction in energy use), which preceded an outright ban of the sale of incandescent lights in the EU - at that time. The UK has maintained the ban post Brexit. LED lights are about twice as efficient as strip lights and nearly 3x more so than CFLs, (use about 10% of the power of an incandescent), the prices is such that for most people the payback is a year or so. As the technology is maturing the reliable lifetime of LEDs is rising, I've had some going for 4 years and the failure rate is falling with each new batch, so I guess there is no need to subsidise the switch. The other benefit of LEDs is the new phosphors give out a decent colour light and there is a wide choice of colour temperature. The biggest issue with CFLs was the poor light quality. So I guess there is no need to an incentive. 

Its less clear what will happen in heat pumps. 
At the moment they are expensive, when I looked at our house a few years back it was £5k for a condensing boiler and £20k for a German made heat pump. However the inherent manufacturing processes are not difficult I can see mass production leading to a crash in cost. Also clever ways to install vertical boreholes will be developed lowering that cost (where vertical boreholes are acceptable - not in Ripon due to gypsum issues). 
The other big cost for heat pumps is in the survey, its very important to size the pump correctly or the house will be underheated or the outside pipes can freeze up. At the moment the surveys are done piecemeal by qualified engineers. Over time someone will build smart software that will automate the process enabling a more manufactured solution - not trivial as there are a lot of variables to get absolute right.


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## quintain (20 May 2021)

Nigel Burden said:


> A colleague of my wife lived in New Zealand for a number of years. The property they lived in had heating provided via a ground heat pump. In her opinion, it just about took the chill off the house.
> 
> IIAC, if a developer builds less than four hundred houses, they are not under any obligation to provide any addition to the local infrastructure.
> 
> Nigel.


Nigel, I am very interested in your comment and welcome knowing where it is from "not under any obligation to provide any addition to the local infrastructure."
You can Private message me if you prefer.
Regards
Richard


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## Just4Fun (20 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> No more than Diesel cars by 2030, if you think a Kwh of gas is around 0.02225 and electricity 0.1345 so about six times the cost, there is already a lot of fuel poverty so this will just increase the numbers.


Comparing fuel costs from a purely financial aspect is one approach, and of course many people have no option but to take that approach. However, the comparison is not so simple as just looking at those 2 figures. There are other factors. For example: How efficient is gas heating compared to electric? How often do you have to get gas & electric appliances serviced and what does that cost? What is the realistic lifetime of gas and electric appliances and how do their replacement costs compare? Comparing the 2 fuels is not simple, even before you look beyond the financial aspects.


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

Cooper said:


> You mention Germany. Our daughter lives in Munich and her previous flat, a new build and their new home a 1970s house, both are heated by a ground source heat pump, their building standards require a high standard of insulation, even the 1970s, and in their really cold winters they are able to wear T shirts etc indoors. The quality of build seems much better and their energy bills far lower. It can be done, as you say.
> Here we are ruled by short term profit and company share prices determine senior management bonuses (see BooHoo this week). Politicians, if a recent previous PMs is typical, stay for a short while and their priority is their own earning capacity after office and "who case about the green stuff". So we have pretty feeble regulation. Does anyone believe that 2025 will see an end to new gas boilers?
> It isn't a choice, preventing more climate change is essential. Even from the most right wing perspective (not that anyone here could be described as such) environmental degradation is going to make current illegal migration look like a Sunday school outing.


My experience on continental housing is the same. I worked briefly in the EU (30 years ago so a bit dated) and my experience was that house building for the private sector was done very differently. In the UK largish companies tend to build development in one go ie several fields worth, and build to a budget, on tight prices (partly because land is expensive and in short supply). The home owner then spends years upgrading the initial build - replacing, doors, windows upgrading insulation etc. Whereas in Northern Europe - my experience, most places tend to see organic growth or more architect designed and small scale development in towns and village each year adding to the stock. The quality of the initial build is far superior and needs little upgrading by the owner/tenant. 
That is not to say the France etc didn't build some terrible modernist state build suburbs in the early 1960s.... But the majority of private homes in Northern Europe are built to a very high standard.

I suspect the 2025 deadline will apply to new build homes and start a process of replacement. The UK will be under pressure to make announcements for COP26 later this year. We will of-course import the tech to start with. Worcester is owned by Bosch who have a huge range of heat pumps.


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

Nigel Burden said:


> A colleague of my wife lived in New Zealand for a number of years. The property they lived in had heating provided via a ground heat pump. In her opinion, it just about took the chill off the house.
> 
> Nigel.


That can happen when the system is poorly designed. Heat pumps have to be very carefully designed or you end up with this outcome or at the other extreme end up freezing the soil outside your house. Heat pumps are best at providing constant low grade heat - so a continental type climate where the days are consistently cold in winter and hot in summer works well. . They are best when houses are very well insulated so that the heat does not escape. In a maritime climate like New Zealand the the UK where changes in temperature occur on a daily basis, we may need a direct boost to heating with either a hydrogen boiler or electric rads that can boost the heat output during a cold snap. Its vital that the property is properly surveyed so that the right installation is made as they are costly to install and change.


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## Spectric (20 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> The home owner then spends years upgrading the initial build - replacing, doors, windows upgrading insulation etc. Whereas in Northern Europe - my experience, most places tend to see organic growth or more architect designed and small scale development in towns and village each year adding to the stock. The quality of the initial build is far superior and needs little upgrading by the owner/tenant.


For some reason the builders have this concept that they need to deliver something cheap and neutral because the new owners will want to put their stamp on it, but once mortgaged to the hilt that can be a long way off. House building is like the auto industry in the sixties and seventies when they just built as many cars as they could and people had no choice but to but them, then the japanese came along and started to ask people what they wanted and only made to demand, much more efficient. Smaller developments and getting buyers involved before starting the build would deliver better homes for people so they start paying for what they really want and there is no need to replace anything, got to be more enviromentaly freindly.


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

Sachakins said:


> Ground source heat pump systems
> 
> In theory, seemingly great idea, especially if you have the land space.
> 
> ...


The simple answer to your questions is the ground warms up in summer by extracting heat from the air. This leads to global cooling in the summer, which is a good thing.
In simple terms the solid earth acts as a large reservoir of heat, not unlike the sea provides a reservoir for water to create rain to replenish local reservoirs. The sun provides a huge amount of energy, there is enough solar energy to re-heat the ground each year. ca 170w/m2 of solar energy averaged over the earth - 340 at equator and 72 in Scotland. The UK land mass of 240,000km2 receives enough energy to power the entire worlds energy needs (at 100% efficiency). Essentially the energy is extracted in winter cooling the ground and the ground re-heats up in the summer months. Newtons law of cooling means that the more the ground is cooled the faster it heats up ie it extracts heat faster in the summer if its cooler than when its at normal temperature.

In reality is much more complicated, if the pipes are not sized correctly then you get local freezing of the soil. This can build up over time, so good design is essential for an efficient system. Furthermore if the piping is optimised and benefits from fast solar re-heating the heat pumps are more efficient turning 1Kw of electrical power into 6Kw of heat (theoretically 8kw can be achieved) whereas if the system is inefficient the return is only 2kw of heat for every 1 put in. For example putting the pipes in a pond or lake provides the most efficient system that into certain rock materials. This is so important the the EU is doing geological surveys to provide installers with this information. High thermal conductivity is good. Where we live in Ripon is a a very poor areas for heat pumps as you cant build vertical boreholes (the most efficient) in a gypsum area (due to subsidence) and its heat conduction is poor.





Heat pumps in effect are pumping the summer sun into our homes using the earth as a big storage reservoir. Another factor is air conditioning. In hot countries the heat pump is reversed in summer, heating the ground in return. This means a more compact system can be built as the cooled ground is more efficient as a cool source in summer and vice versa in winter. We wont benefit from this in the UK.
I hope this answers your concern.


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## D_W (20 May 2021)

I can't imagine ground temperature in vertical wells will decrease. I think there's a misunderstanding of how much mass is involved when we're just heating a little bit of air in each home.

(by that statement, I don't mean the aggregate around each well, but the ground in an entire area as a whole - obviously, the aggregate should shoulder some of the thermal burden around the piping).


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## Jacob (20 May 2021)

Very interesing.
Never thought too much about heat pumps, knowing that I can't afford one! 
Presumably as they work with quite small temperature differences in UK they are not appropriate for large power station extraction such as the Icelandic geothermal generators. Is it an entirely different concept or just a matter of scale?
If they produce more energy than is needed to drive them then presumably they could be designed to power themselves?


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> It's known as free market economics. Very much the ideology of the right. Probably going out of fashion though, and about time too!We voted for feeble regulation. De-regulation was the big issue with Brexit. It was second on the bill after immigration. Some re-assessments going on, perhaps?Just a detail but migration and asylum seeking, including entry to the country, are not illegal. They may be treated like criminals but are perfectly legally here until applications to remain are duly processed and refused. It was always an imaginary issue, as the benefits of immigration have always out-weighed the disadvantages.
> An odd comparison to make anyway, as climate change could be the greatest disaster to ever hit the human race. Increased migration as a result of climate change may become a bigger issue, arguably it is already underway.


I don't see a huge difference in party political objectives for the environment between the two main parties in the UK over a long period of time. Yes there are differences over individual issues, and there approach is based on different political philosophies, but when you stand back both main parties were pretty similar on their goals over a very long period of time. Environmental Policy in the 70s through 2000s was pretty medium road - lagging well behind Germany and Northern countries and ahead of the US (excepting California and a few states). Ironically Mrs Thatcher achieved the greatest moves for climate change by initiating and strongly pushing the Montreal protocol and by shutting coal mines, this is an area the UK has led over Germany.

Since 2007 the two parties have both adopted a much greener agenda, Ed Miliband under labour, Ed Davy under the Condemns and then Gove catching the attention of May and then Johnson on the issue. Apart form the extremes there is a general consensus in the UK. We are not at all like the US where there is a huge difference of opinion between the Dems and Republications on this topic. Where I work in Teesside the Tory mayor is as keen on green energy as his labour opponent as they both can see an opportunity to revitalise the economy on the back of this initiative. The Greens are strong top down environmental agenda and the Lib Dems have a strong bottom up environmental agenda but the two biggest parties are really quite similar despite coming at it from very different political perspectives, one tends to look at supply side interventions while the other looks at demand side, but there is general agreement on what needs to be achieved. I don't really see this as that 'political', at least no more than anything else.


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## Sachakins (20 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> The simple answer to your questions is the ground warms up in summer by extracting heat from the air. This leads to global cooling in the summer, which is a good thing.
> In simple terms the solid earth acts as a large reservoir of heat, not unlike the sea provides a reservoir for water to create rain to replenish local reservoirs. The sun provides a huge amount of energy, there is enough solar energy to re-heat the ground each year. ca 170w/m2 of solar energy averaged over the earth - 340 at equator and 72 in Scotland. The UK land mass of 240,000km2 receives enough energy to power the entire worlds energy needs (at 100% efficiency). Essentially the energy is extracted in winter cooling the ground and the ground re-heats up in the summer months. Newtons law of cooling means that the more the ground is cooled the faster it heats up ie it extracts heat faster in the summer if its cooler than when its at normal temperature.
> 
> In reality is much more complicated, if the pipes are not sized correctly then you get local freezing of the soil. This can build up over time, so good design is essential for an efficient system. Furthermore if the piping is optimised and benefits from fast solar re-heating the heat pumps are more efficient turning 1Kw of electrical power into 6Kw of heat (theoretically 8kw can be achieved) whereas if the system is inefficient the return is only 2kw of heat for every 1 put in. For example putting the pipes in a pond or lake provides the most efficient system that into certain rock materials. This is so important the the EU is doing geological surveys to provide installers with this information. High thermal conductivity is good. Where we live in Ripon is a a very poor areas for heat pumps as you cant build vertical boreholes (the most efficient) in a gypsum area (due to subsidence) and its heat conduction is poor.
> ...


Very good and informative article.
However, we would still have an impact on the ecosystem in the vicinity and around the GSHP source, since we would be altering the ground temperature outside its normal limits, thus imbalancing nature's habitat.

Personally I would prefer sustainable development of purely solar energy extraction, which I see has having minimal if any impact on our ecosystem. The current problem is the designs require much use of finite resources to manufacture.

Maybe the answer is to collect solar energy in space, how we get that back to earth is beyond my comprehension, but does not mean it will remain impossible, but its a thought process that negates having to extract anything from our planet.

Maybe a mathematically simpler solution would be for population redistribution to areas where the clean energy is plentiful?
Or the massive input into countries ideal for solar generation to build supersized generating plant, then redistribute the energy around the world?

I think the last one is less likely to happen than my space theory, too much conflict, insurmountable trust in nations etc.


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## Jacob (20 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> ..... Ironically Mrs Thatcher achieved the greatest moves for climate change by initiating and strongly pushing the Montreal protocol and by shutting coal mines, this is an area the UK has led over Germany.
> .....


Perhaps because she was unusual in having had a scientific education.
Coal mines had to go, pity it wasn't been done with more grace! Should have been a proactive opportunity to revitalise the regions.


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## Spectric (20 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> Where I work in Teesside the Tory mayor is as keen on green energy as his labour opponent as they both can see an opportunity to revitalise the economy on the back of this initiative.


But is this not because they can see an economic gain rather than because it is the right thing to do, would they be so keen if there were not local incentives their attention is on an investment to make wind turbines and another for batteries.


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## Bojam (20 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> But is this not because they can see an economic gain rather than because it is the right thing to do, would they be so keen if there were not local incentives their attention is on an investment to make wind turbines and another for batteries.



Perhaps. But does it matter really? The net effect (a shift to renewable energy sources) is the same whether the primary motivation is purely environmental or driven by economics/job-creation. Economic incentives are always going to be a key driver of change.


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## Jacob (20 May 2021)

Bojam said:


> .... Economic incentives are always going to be a key driver of change.


But not necessarily for the better, as we see with climate change.


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## Phil Pascoe (20 May 2021)

But is this not because they can see an economic gain rather than because it is the right thing to do?

Yes, they know there'll be massive subsidies.


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## Spectric (20 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> Perhaps because she was unusual in having had a scientific education.


I doubt Mr Scargill would have accepted that she was closing the coal mines because she was an enviromentalist, and I think she has got many titles and names but an enviromentalist is not on the list.


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## Bojam (20 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> But not necessarily for the better, as we see with climate change.



Ok. Care to elaborate?


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## Spectric (20 May 2021)

Bojam said:


> Economic incentives are always going to be a key driver of change.


That is where change is needed, we need to accept a much longer period for returns on our investments rather than short term. If it is the right thing to do then we should do it even if there are no economic gains for a while, long term investment is often more stable and better overall returns.


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## Bojam (20 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> That is where change is needed, we need to accept a much longer period for returns on our investments rather than short term. If it is the right thing to do then we should do it even if there are no economic gains for a while, long term investment is often more stable and better overall returns.



Agree on the need to take a longer-term perspective on investments. Still, this doesn't invalidate my point. We can economically incentivise the shift to renewables and couple it with other investments in the "Green Economy" which promote local employment and a more environmentally sustainable future.


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## Jacob (20 May 2021)

Bojam said:


> Ok. Care to elaborate?


Isn't it obvious?


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## Bojam (20 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> Isn't it obvious?



Your statement is too vague to infer what you really want to say.


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

D_W said:


> I can't imagine ground temperature in vertical wells will decrease. I think there's a misunderstanding of how much mass is involved when we're just heating a little bit of air in each home.
> 
> (by that statement, I don't mean the aggregate around each well, but the ground in an entire area as a whole - obviously, the aggregate should shoulder some of the thermal burden around the piping).


My understanding from reading around is its a local thing. The ground around the pipes freezes causing problems in a poorly designed system. The other problem, is for the pumps to work efficiently you needs a temperature gradient. ie ground that is warmer than the water entering the pipes. If the ground is not a good heat conductor - see the above graphic eg tuffstone or gypsum it cools down and is too slow to warm up so the pump becomes inefficient and the cost of running it goes up. 
I've not heard of whole neighborhoods freezing, and, not done the math(s), but suspect the volume of earth that would need to freeze is orders of magnitude higher than anything remotely likely. Its would be a good question to set GSCE physics /chemistry students when they study heat capacity.


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## D_W (20 May 2021)

Right on those, but it's not a matter of someone "sucking" the heat out of the ground entirely for a whole area when it comes to residential - it's an individual system problem. 

It gets very cold here, not generally at long stretches, but you may see a day or two with highs around 15C and lows touching ten below that and stretches often where it doesn't thaw during the day. No issues that I'm aware of with systems freezing, but would guess also that the fluid in systems here isn't something that freezes that easily. 

If someone were talking about cooling ground under a dense city environment with ground source, I could see that - I guess - never really thought about it as it's not done here. GSHP is a rural and suburban thing here where gas is not available cheaply. There may be some forward looking folks putting houses in with it now (I'm in the middle of the marcellus shale, gas will dominate for a long time here unless there's a political issue), but we don't see much of it. Further east where my in laws live - same state, but no gas layer - much of the rural suburb style development is in areas where gas mains don't branch off to developments - they run cities only and to powerplants. GSHP is popular there. GSHP combined with solar is also getting more popular as the net metering allows for solar to be a "$0 cost option" on a lease (as in, it can be privately installed for less than the cost of net offset electricity and then a private installer sells the payment to a finance company as asset backed credit and keeps the difference. The house inhabitants then fail to understand that they could've just had the system installed for less - all they see is they can switch to solar for "no cost" an get a rate guarantee as per terms of the credit. 

The wells here have aggregate around them in a sleeve or similar setup to get liquid contact with the piping, and then that outer layer exchanges heat with the earth (or cool) - I'm assuming that all are generally set up the same way when closed loop. If gypsum fails to transfer thermal energy efficiently, it would be a big surprise to find that it somehow freezes through and through in a neighborhood, too!! Those two things would be at odds.


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> I doubt Mr Scargill would have accepted that she was closing the coal mines because she was an environmentalist, and I think she has got many titles and names but an environmentalist is not on the list.


I'm sure you are right, that is what I see as the irony, whilst she would have been aware of the greenhouse effect (widely discussed by scientist in her day) and other pollution aspects of coal, I doubt those were high up on her priority list. And as Jacob has pointed out, it could have been done with more grace and sympathy to those affected.

However she did push for the Montreal protocol on environmental grounds. The UN was stuck and she shifted opinion and persuaded other leaders on the right to support it. 
There were probably several factors at play in the debate, firstly the science, she was often persuaded by that (eg DNA finger printing, she pretty much pushed the home office to implement it). Secondly it was the British Antarctic survey that observed the Ozone hole so there was prestige from British science. A big concern was what to replace CFCs with, they are vital for refrigeration and several other health-giving reasons - flame proof degreasing etc. A key moment came when ICI said they had found a viable replacement, from that moment on she ran with the it with her characteristic full on approach until she had got it through the UN. I've heard it said the protocol is the most successful environmental treaty in history.


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## D_W (20 May 2021)

(to further beat the GSHP dead horse here where the average temp is probably a little lower than England - east of here where my inlaws are, avg daily temp in winter is somewhere around 30F - avg daily in summer is probably something like 80-85F but with a lot of sunlight (so radiant heat on the house roof and walls - most is reflected or sent back into the atmosphere, but attic areas are always hot so some gets transferred to the house). 

Extreme temps below 0F in winter not uncommon (at night), a couple of days per year, and temps in the 90s in summer are common - probably more like several weeks of those. 

Heating options there are 
* air source heat pump inexpensive, no gas or oil needed, but struggles in extremes - not sure about service life, but better than it used to be. Would guess heat/AC combo in new construction is about $7500
* propane heat / air source A/C - probably about the same cost as heat pump. Propane hauled in is expensive, slightly more than oil, but easy on equipment so some trade off in equipment service - also about $7500
* oil heat (generally water boiler and circulation) / Air source A/C - becoming uncommon and wasn't offered in inlaws development. Don't know why. 150k btu oil boiler is probably not cheap, and annual cleaning is necessary (which is filthy). I think some of the reason this wasn't offered as it doesn't work well with air heat exchange and the HVAC setups are all in one with air. Variable speed fans have gotten rid of the old time myth that forced air heating leaves the temperature bobbing up and down. I have a single speed household and have never actually noticed this, and neither have my parents (who are sure that the temp looks like sine wave with air heat, but have also had a very expensive A/C system installed to complement the circulated water heat, and have never mentioned bobbing temperatures with the A/C - ...anyway
* GSHP - $15-20k, generally in combination with GSHP water tank (slow) which usually results in a reserve water tank (so 160 gallons of hot water on hand instead of 50-80). 

FIL's bills show about a $75-100/month reduction in cost despite having a spouse who is my spouse's mother - which means far corners variations of 2 degrees are decried loudly and all rooms must be fully heated or cooled at all times  Along with the OWT that if you allow a room to get warm for three days and cool it later that it will take more energy than it would have taken to keep it cool the entire time.

For new construction, unless someone doesn't have the means to afford another $10-12k in their loan, the other combinations don't make any long-term sense. 

for retrofit where boiler heat is in place without ducting, not sure - BIL retrofit forced air and GSP in a brick house that had circulating water, but I'm sure it added a lot to the cost. 

HVAC companies here have taken to the game of "servicing" the GSHP systems each year for $300 or so. The service appears to be in proportion to the cost of the system, but time spent is about the same. FIL is hunting around for someone who doesn't charge $300 for 45 minutes of sitting in the basement after changing the air filter. The fact that it costs more for someone to review the GSHP system records and change the air filter vs. a filthy job of cleaning fuel oil boiler tubes, etc (which is an actual hour of nasty work in a large system) is kind of confusing.


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

D_W said:


> Right on those, but it's not a matter of someone "sucking" the heat out of the ground entirely for a whole area when it comes to residential - it's an individual system problem.
> 
> It gets very cold here, not generally at long stretches, but you may see a day or two with highs around 15C and lows touching ten below that and stretches often where it doesn't thaw during the day. No issues that I'm aware of with systems freezing, but would guess also that the fluid in systems here isn't something that freezes that easily.
> 
> ...


Hi DW, I've not been very clear in the explanation. GSHPs when installed properly don't cause the ground to freeze, They extract heat from the ground and there is so much thermal mass below the ground that it has no impact on neighboring property or neighborhoods in cities. Widely used in German cities without a problem.
However there have been cases where the engineer got their calculations wrong and basically put in too small a borehole with pipes for the size of heat pump. The result is the small pipes caused the aggregate lining to freeze-up rendering the pump useless and in some cases breaking the system. There were quite a few instances of this happening early on as the calculations are quite tricky.


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## D_W (20 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> But not necessarily for the better, as we see with climate change.



We don't personally see a whole lot of impact at this point - we speculate on what the future impact would be, and it's not as if economic decisions were made to "make climate change occur".


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## D_W (20 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> Hi DW, I've not been very clear in the explanation. GSHPs when installed properly don't cause the ground to freeze, They extract heat from the ground and there is so much thermal mass below the ground that it has no impact on neighboring property or neighborhoods in cities. Widely used in German cities without a problem.
> However there have been cases where the engineer got their calculations wrong and basically put in too small a borehole with pipes for the size of heat pump. The result is the small pipes caused the aggregate lining to freeze-up rendering the pump useless and in some cases breaking the system. There were quite a few instances of this happening early on as the calculations are quite tricky.



OK, that makes more sense to me in terms of the freezing - I'd figured you meant there was some error but wasn't sure what it would've been that could cause freezing. If the exchange points are where the freeze occurs due to poor calculations, that's understandable. 

I asked my FIL how often he'd have to change the heat pump as the rule of thumb here in colder areas was that a main source heat pump would go for about 5-7 years (this being decades ago when they showed up with an induction booster and then blasted away all winter here). He said the installers suggested the pump part of the system has a longer life now. 

AT the same time, energy efficiency rules have substantially shortened the lifetime of our gas furnaces and created stack problems with condensing gases (most now are vented through plastic pipe at a lower level here, but they still have drip back of condensation - which is stupid). I have a near-40 year old gas furnace that I will miss when it's gone. 

So the enormous difference in reliability is getting erased quickly. My father still has a large oil boiler (180k btu or so) that requires annual cleaning, but his father heated with hand stoked coal, so to him, paying someone to clean the oil furnace once a year and arranging for oil delivery is no big deal. I would consider it a pain - my furnace has been serviced twice in 15 years (it has a heat exchanger design that is antiquated now, but makes it very easy to see if there's a breach - having seen oil furnaces, the inside of an older gas furnace is a delight - just the very lightest layer of dust on some internals). 

But back to GSHP for individuals - I can't imagine that it won't become economically dominant -but more so here due to the distances, large houses and the now crack-addict-like dependency on A/C due to high summer temps.


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## Bojam (20 May 2021)

D_W said:


> We don't personally see a whole lot of impact at this point - we speculate on what the future impact would be, and it's not as if economic decisions were made to "make climate change occur".



Right, from an environmental perspective there have certainly been peverse economic incentives. But the primary driving rationale until recently has been economic prosperity - i.e. improving living standards (even if we take issue with the distributional elements of this process). Making fossil fuels cheap and accessible allowed all sorts of things that made people's lives better. But this incurred an enormous environmental cost. 

Moving forwards, we can disincentivise fossil fuels if we choose to. And incentivise other forms of energy and, more broadly, alternative "green" economic activities based on a more environmentally conscious agenda.


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## Bojam (20 May 2021)

D_W said:


> We don't personally see a whole lot of impact at this point



BTW, I disagree with this part of your statement. I think the impact of climate change is evident. In many places (and for many people) it is alarming.


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## D_W (20 May 2021)

Bojam said:


> Right, from an environmental perspective there have certainly been peverse economic incentives. But the primary driving rationale until recently has been economic prosperity - i.e. improving living standards (even if we take issue with the distributional elements of this process). Making fossil fuels cheap and accessible allowed all sorts of things that made people's lives better. But this incurred an enormous environmental cost.
> 
> Moving forwards, we can disincentivise fossil fuels if we choose to. And incentivise other forms of energy and, more broadly, alternative "green" economic activities based on a more environmentally conscious agenda.



It's a little odd to me to see armchair blowhards (you not included in this) blasting people who spent their lives solving real problems so that we could live in relative comfort, health and prosperity, but in doing so, they're talking about potential problems and describing them as if they're worse than the real problems were. 

Global warming is a problem to be solved, but it will be solved by the same problem solvers as those who brought us prosperity. The "you can't" crowd has always made noise from the sideline and little contribution.

When it is a real problem and imminent, we won't be flying for leisure. Until governments describe long commutes, large houses and airlines as a hindrance to long term quality of life, I'm out.


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## D_W (20 May 2021)

Bojam said:


> BTW, I disagree with this part of your statement. I think the impact of climate change is evident. In many places (and for many people) it is alarming.



My statement isn't to say it's not observable - it is. Of course, it is. How imminent it is compared to malaria, unexplained disease and war is not leaning toward global warming being a bigger crisis, though. It could become that in the long term, but we're working on what is a hallmark of anxiety - attempting a forced solution to a later problem when we don't have the full menu of options. And our assumption is that we either do all or none right now or everyone will die later ...or not, depending on what we do. It is a slow progression with observation and adjustment. Nothing else will be accurate or feasible.


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## D_W (20 May 2021)

(until then, I'd suggest anyone complaining about their neighbors' insulation and then flying to another continent for vacation should probably shut their trap).


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

Stevekane said:


> Im not knocking them and I would give one a go myself if I could afford it but the two people Im aware of that have tried ground source heat pumps both feel its been and expensive mistake,,Perhaps the installers dont really know how to fit them correctly?


I've heard similar complaints on cost from a housing estate in Ripon, complaints to the local council about the electric bill. My guess is the same as yours they haven't been installed correctly or mis sold. Its quite a new technology in the UK. If the ground geology isn't right they don't work that efficiently.

The issue is that electricity is 5 or 6 times higher price than gas. Heat pumps tend to be 2 to 6 times more efficient than gas - up-to 8 in some cases, but average is about 3times, depending on the installation and ground type. With such high variation you either see a reduction in bill of 25% or an increase in bill or upto 200%. I'm tempted to wait for the technology to mature a bit more before going for it.
I have a colleague from work who is very into green tech and he insulated his house and installed a Ground source heat pump (GSHP) and his utility bills are 25% of what they were, so it is possilbe.


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## Jacob (20 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> I've heard similar complaints on cost from a housing estate in Ripon, complaints to the local council about the electric bill. My guess is the same as yours they haven't been installed correctly or mis sold. Its quite a new technology in the UK. If the ground geology isn't right they don't work that efficiently.
> 
> The issue is that electricity is 5 or 6 times higher price than gas. Heat pumps tend to be 2 to 6 times more efficient than gas - up-to 8 in some cases, but average is about 3times, depending on the installation and ground type. With such high variation you either see a reduction in bill of 25% or an increase in bill or upto 200%. I'm tempted to wait for the technology to mature a bit more before going for it.
> I have a colleague from work who is very into green tech and he insulated his house and installed a Ground source heat pump (GSHP) and his utility bills are 25% of what they were, so it is possilbe.


25% of not very much is not very much.
My total energy bill is about £1000 - house and workshop, quite a large space but heavily insulated. Saving £250 p.a. is peanuts. Even double glazing not remotely cost effective for me
Energy is too cheap. It needs annual incremental tax increase so that people can get used to the inevitability of it and learn to adjust life and technology accordingly. And it could be reinvested in alternative technology and R&D.
PS the gas heating and hot water is about half £500 ish so a heat pump would save hardly anything - until they are much more efficient and can reach hot water temperatures etc


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## Just4Fun (20 May 2021)

D_W said:


> HVAC companies here have taken to the game of "servicing" the GSHP systems each year for $300 or so. The service appears to be in proportion to the cost of the system, but time spent is about the same. FIL is hunting around for someone who doesn't charge $300 for 45 minutes of sitting in the basement after changing the air filter.


I am puzzled by this. Our GSHP does not require any annual maintenance so what do these HVAC companies do? I assume the air filter is on some kind of forced air ducting system, which we don't have, and changing that filter is a maintenance overhead on the heat distribution system, not the GSHP, and that cost applies reardless of the heat source.



D_W said:


> I asked my FIL how often he'd have to change the heat pump as the rule of thumb here in colder areas was that a main source heat pump would go for about 5-7 years (this being decades ago when they showed up with an induction booster and then blasted away all winter here). He said the installers suggested the pump part of the system has a longer life now.


We would certainly not have installed our GSHP if we thought it would have such a short life. We installed ours in 2007 and I expect it to go on for a good few years yet.


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## Woody2Shoes (20 May 2021)

AJB Temple said:


> I think the developer / council power imbalance as described above is incorrect. Developers and councils are both under pressure to produce a lot of housing. And for a lot of it to be affordable. Councils have a huge amount of power over new build sites.
> 
> However, making passive houses is a LOT more expensive than a more ordinary house just built to regs. It needs better design, a lot of expensive insulation, very high build quality to achieve absence of air leakage, tends to take more space for the same internal area (insulated walls are thicker), uses more expensive materials that achieve higher insulation values (not all PIR foam is the same), ducting systems that normal houses no not have, much more expensive glazing, and so on. Not viable for affordable housing built for profit and without subsidy.


I think that:

1) The building industry generally is conservative (with a small 'c') and averse to change (unless change brings profit, perhaps, e.g. by de-skilling construction activities);

2) The oil & gas lobby is enormously powerful and ubiquitous.

3) A decent house ought to have a lifetime of many decades - for example, a large part of our housing stock is over a century old. Over the lifetime of a house, the additional incremental costs of good design (both aesthetic - some stuff getting built these days looks hideous) and "eco" (including where to build - not on a floodplain - and how, in terms of thermal performance etc.) is really a very small proportion - especially when you do this at some scale (there are very definitely economies of scale as the Chinese have demonstrated with solar panel production, for example). The costs of retro-fitting these eco-goods are generally significantly greater, which is problematic re. our existing housing stock!

4) While we rely solely on "Mr. Market" to provide new homes, almost nobody is going to volunteer to deplete their profit margin by paying the extra for decent design. Hence, we should have proper "rules" in place (e.g. laws which are actually enforced - it appears that safely cladding tower blocks is even now completely optional!) to force better design (this is where the pervasive lobbying driven by my points 1 and 2 comes in!).

I am not optimistic that change, of the right sort, will happen.


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## Billy_wizz (20 May 2021)

bansobaby said:


> 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.


The whole energy and global environment issue is fully understood by absolutely no one! And most of the people who think they know the most actually know far less than they think


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## Bojam (20 May 2021)

Billy_wizz said:


> The whole energy and global environment issue is fully understood by absolutely no one! And most of the people who think they know the most actually know far less than they think



How do you know?


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## John Brown (20 May 2021)

Billy_wizz said:


> The whole energy and global environment issue is fully understood by absolutely no one! And most of the people who think they know the most actually know far less than they think


Does that mean we can just sit on our hands, or should we be trying to find solutions?


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## Billy_wizz (20 May 2021)

Bojam said:


> How do you know?


Because it's such a complex problem that to think you know the whole answer is just proof of how little you know!


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## Billy_wizz (20 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> Does that mean we can just sit on our hands, or should we be trying to find solutions?


We should always try to find better solutions but to think we know everything about it is foolish to the extreme!


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## Jacob (20 May 2021)

Billy_wizz said:


> We should always try to find better solutions but to think we know everything about it is foolish to the extreme!


But we do know a little!
Well I think we do.


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## Bojam (20 May 2021)

Billy_wizz said:


> Because it's such a complex problem that to think you know the whole answer is just proof of how little you know!



I never claimed to know the whole answer. It is indeed a complex problem. Not sure there's any need for your condescending tone however. And your post contributes nothing meaningful. Do you even have a worthwhile point to make?


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## D_W (20 May 2021)

Just4Fun said:


> I am puzzled by this. Our GSHP does not require any annual maintenance so what do these HVAC companies do? I assume the air filter is on some kind of forced air ducting system, which we don't have, and changing that filter is a maintenance overhead on the heat distribution system, not the GSHP, and that cost applies reardless of the heat source.
> 
> 
> We would certainly not have installed our GSHP if we thought it would have such a short life. We installed ours in 2007 and I expect it to go on for a good few years yet.



Figure that the mechanical systems companies set up here cleaned oil furnaces (which were dominant) once a year. That gave them a chance to come, clean the furnace, touch base with the customer, etc. They get revenue stream from that and they don't want to give it up. They suggest looking at a gas furnace and A/C here every year if you ask them, but they're looking to collect $185 or something to just browse over stuff with a flash light and they're also looking for work. When there's a heat exchanger involved, there is one safety issue there - that the exchanger is cracked and the breach allows CO into the ducted system. 

For the GSHP, I asked my FIL what they did for $279 the first year and he said "not much". There's some kind of exotic air filter in the system that probably costs a mint, but other than that, they're just looking through it. If you are willing to keep paying them, they will keep coming. 

I don't call them except once in a great while - why? because if the system needs replacing or there are issues, most of them I will notice (I am lucky to have a furnace design at this point that will flicker the flame in a visible way when the fan comes on if any significant heat exchanger breach...so I check it once or twice a year when it comes on). Other than that, by the time you roll $4k into 20 years of "inspections", you can buy another unit. I'll just buy another unit when it needs replacing. 

I haven't asked FIL about this - he convinced the oil furnace service man in his prior home to show him what he was doing and describe the tools, and then he cleaned the boiler tubes and remainder of the furnace each year instead of hiring it done. I'm sure he's cut back to some extent with the GSHP. 

I don't remember the quotes for system life - something like 50 years for the ground bits, but I can't remember exactly what they said about the heat pump other that "they will last a lot longer than the older ones did". 

Forced air has become the standard here by a long way as I'm guessing that flexible ducting is installed in new homes (so no tinner to pay, and no tin to buy). Most of the home products seem to have two aims - take the cost of materials out, and take the skill out. If both of those aren't met, then most products don't get wide adoption). 

When I see planned communites in the US on slabs like "the villages" and the houses are $350K for 2k square feet above ground and they're frame/drywall/roof/tons of MDF trim, and modular kitchen and bath products, I don't really get there the cost is in them, but I guess that's the point.


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## Billy_wizz (20 May 2021)

Bojam said:


> I never claimed to know the whole answer. It is indeed a complex problem. Not sure there's any need for your condescending tone however. And your post contributes nothing meaningful. Do you even have a worthwhile point to make?


The comment wasn't aimed at you the original post said few had all the answers and I was pointing out that no one has all the answers and that in thinking you have all the answers is a block on finding better answers


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> 25% of not very much is not very much.
> My total energy bill is about £1000 - house and workshop, quite a large space but heavily insulated. Saving £250 p.a. is peanuts. Even double glazing not remotely cost effective for me
> Energy is too cheap. It needs annual incremental tax increase so that people can get used to the inevitability of it and learn to adjust life and technology accordingly. And it could be reinvested in alternative technology and R&D.
> PS the gas heating and hot water is about half £500 ish so a heat pump would save hardly anything - until they are much more efficient and can reach hot water temperatures etc


Sorry by 25% I meant his bill is 25% of what is was ie a 75% saving, which is quite an incentive, although his motivation is environmental.

Your are right that energy is too cheap, in historical terms its probably cheaper than its ever been. I suspect carbon taxes will rise across Europe that will bring the gas price up to that of electricity. The issue for governments is fuel poverty, this has to done carefully as there will be people left behind, another round of 100% grands for insulating old homes would probably help, uptake of past schemes was always low when energy was cheap.
My guess is renewable electric costs will fall and gas taxes will raise to incentivise consumers to switch away from gas.
In terms of water heating, most heat pumps will provide hot water at 55c, this is hot enough for a bath or shower, but it requires a bigger storage tank as gas C/H water is heated to 65c and then diluted with cold, so you need a bigger reservoir, I presume legionella protection is a bit different, but don't know.
I expect heat pumps will fall in price to become affordable as mass production takes hold, but subsidies would probably be needed to replace the entire national stock of gas boilers.


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## TominDales (20 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> Very interesing.
> 
> If they produce more energy than is needed to drive them then presumably they could be designed to power themselves?


Yes they can, but no-one has come up with a commercially viable system. As you point out working with very small temperature gradients makes electricity generation inefficient with high capital cost. I've seen the odd working example in academia. Such as this one using the thermoelectric effect, its aiming to remove the pump - a source of mechanical failure, use thermoelectric effect to directly generate electricity.




__





A Totally New Take On Heat Pumps


Scientists in Norway have designed a new heat pump without moving parts to produce heat and electricity by building tiny pumps and assembling large arrays.




newenergyandfuel.com




As far a I know, nothing has been commercialised - at least not for domestic use. Thermoelectric mainly used in high temperature applications and can use exotic metals.


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## Phil Pascoe (20 May 2021)

I did listen to someone one morning on the radio extolling the virtues of air source as being better than ground source ... (little wooden spoon symbol?  )


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## John Brown (20 May 2021)

According to my father, who sometimes got things wrong, The Festival Hall, when it was built in 1952(?), the year before I was born, was intended to be heated in the winter, and cooled in the summer, by heat exchangers using water from the Thames.

I believe it didn't work out, and they had to add additional heating/cooling systems.


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## Rorschach (20 May 2021)

I am certain the way to solve the housing crisis is to make houses more difficult and more expensive to build. 
Instead of not being able to afford a poorly built inefficient house now I won't be able to afford a nicely built energy efficient house.


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## Bojam (20 May 2021)

Billy_wizz said:


> The comment wasn't aimed at you the original post said few had all the answers and I was pointing out that no one has all the answers and that in thinking you have all the answers is a block on finding better answers



Apologies then - I misunderstood.


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## John Brown (20 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> I am certain the way to solve the housing crisis is to make houses more difficult and more expensive to build.
> Instead of not being able to afford a poorly built inefficient house now I won't be able to afford a nicely built energy efficient house.


It's for the greater good, Rorschach, take some comfort from knowing that your inability to purchase a house is a consequence of trying to avert a global warming disaster.


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## Spectric (20 May 2021)

Maybe we are approaching this from the wrong angle, we tend to forget that central heating is a relatively new concept and now people want to walk around their house in almost nothing and feel hot, what about the days when you had no central heating, a fire in the living room and took a hotwater bottle to bed, waking up with frost on the inside of your windows. So we could reduce our expectations by wearing thermals and reducing the temperature in our homes and they would still be warmer as we now have plastic double glazing and not single panes of glass retained by putty.


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## Cooper (20 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> I am certain the way to solve the housing crisis is to make houses more difficult and more expensive to build.
> Instead of not being able to afford a poorly built inefficient house now I won't be able to afford a nicely built energy efficient house.


You may indeed be right Rorschach but it is the profit being made from speculating on a limited amount of land that pushes prices up. If more homes were built by the public sector and let out at affordable rents, prices across the board would come down. Developers/Speculators don't want this but I'm sure the firms that do the actual building would go for it as there wouldn't be the stop go we have now. Council homes built after the war had dreadful thermal properties but other standards i.e. size of rooms set a bench mark that speculative builders had to better or no one would want their product. If local authorities built highly energy efficient homes that would lead the way. We could learn a lot from the Netherlands and Germany where build quality and energy efficiency is far better than here and prices are about the same or lower and pressure on space is possibly greater.


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## Rorschach (21 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> It's for the greater good, Rorschach, take some comfort from knowing that your inability to purchase a house is a consequence of trying to avert a global warming disaster.



Oh well that will help me sleep at night then while I line the pockets of those unaffected by "global warming".


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## TRITON (21 May 2021)

Electric cars, non gas heating,renewable energy, aiming for carbon neutral, all very good on paper.

But we'll be importing a great deal of foodstuffs from places like south America or Australia, consumer goods from Asia. Diesel powered container ships sailing thousands and thousands of miles.


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## devonwoody (21 May 2021)

re Tomin Dales comment. Paste The subsidised scheme for CFLs was to encourage a switch from incandescent (a 75% reduction in energy use), which preceded an outright ban of the sale of incandescent lights in the EU - at that time. The UK has maintained the ban post Brexit. LED lights are about twice as efficient as strip lights and nearly 3x more so than CFLs, (use about 10% of the power of an incandescent), the prices is such that for most people the payback is a year or so. As the technology is maturing the reliable lifetime of LEDs is rising, I've had some going for 4 years and the failure rate is falling with each new batch, so I guess there is no need to subsidise the switch. The other benefit of LEDs is the new phosphors give out a decent colour light and there is a wide choice of colour temperature. The biggest issue with CFLs was the poor light quality. So I guess there is no need to an incentive. 
I read the above quote, I run 4 x 60watt CFLs old light bulbs in our main living room on a dimmer switch for convenience with no other lighting, but can I run a dimmer switch on those modern bulbs you mention?


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## John Brown (21 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> Oh well that will help me sleep at night then while I line the pockets of those unaffected by "global warming".


Hmmm. Why do those inverted commas not surprise me?


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## Rorschach (21 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> Hmmm. Why do those inverted commas not surprise me?



Because the current phrase is climate change, global warming is a boomer phrase.


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## John Brown (21 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> Because the current phrase is climate change, global warming is a boomer phrase.


Interesting.
I looked it up.
Turns out they are both current terms, one encompasses the other.
But I am a boomer. So you're right about that.


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## SDev (21 May 2021)

New to the forum but here goes. An interesting thread. Firmly believe the solution is more low tech than heat pumps etc. We just refurbed our 120 year old home by upgrading insulation (200mm all round) airtightness (<3 air changes per hour) and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. We looked at heat pumps but were advised, correctly I think, that with mains gas and an efficient boiler it was uneconomic. Having lived there for 6 months it’s amazing - the boiler hardly ever comes on. No need to ban something that is so infrequently used. The house feels warm and fresh at 20C as there are no draughty or cold spots. Hot water 70% from solar thermal. On the downside: 1. not cheap and will take years to recoup costs if I live that long. 2. Most components had to be imported (German). 3 We were unable to access any “green” funding from government schemes which are pathetic, badly thought out and derided by those who know. 4. Few tradesmen understand the ideas, especially airtightness - I often had to stop people whacking holes in walls. Solutions. 1. Zero VAT for refurbishment of this type. 2. Regulate properly to force new builds down this route instead of pandering to the big builders bottom lines. 3. Long term commitment to educating the public and trades rather than promoting ill thought out schemes whose main purpose is political.


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## Phil Pascoe (21 May 2021)

TRITON said:


> Electric cars, non gas heating,renewable energy, aiming for carbon neutral, all very good on paper.
> 
> But we'll be importing a great deal of foodstuffs from places like south America or Australia, consumer goods from Asia. Diesel powered container ships sailing thousands and thousands of miles.



Worse - not diesel, bunker oil. I did read that the thirteen largest supertankers kick out the same amount of pollution as the world's motor vehicles.


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## Phil Pascoe (21 May 2021)

devonwoody said:


> I read the above quote, I run 4 x 60watt CFLs old light bulbs in our main living room on a dimmer switch for convenience with no other lighting, but can I run a dimmer switch on those modern bulbs you mention?



You can buy LEDs that are dimmable, but not all are. You will pay a bit of a premium.


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## Just4Fun (21 May 2021)

SDev said:


> We looked at heat pumps but were advised, correctly I think, that with mains gas and an efficient boiler it was uneconomic.


That is a very valid view. Cost data is OK but is much more useful if you have alternatives to compare with. Mains gas is usually very competitive if you have it. We don't, and a heat pump was cheaper than, say, oil which we had before.



SDev said:


> Having lived there for 6 months it’s amazing - the boiler hardly ever comes on. No need to ban something that is so infrequently used.


Another valid point, different to the direct cost comparison. A Rolls Royce would use little fuel if you only went down to local shop once a week.



SDev said:


> On the downside: 1. not cheap and will take years to recoup costs


I looked at improving insulation like that when we installed our heat pump. Costs prevented that but cost was not the only issue. Our house is wooden and I coud not find anyone who I was confident knew enough to be sure that additional insuation would not lead to rot or mold problems later on.


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## John Brown (21 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> You can buy LEDs that are dimmable, but not all are. You will pay a bit of a premium.


Added to which, you need the right sort of dimmer, which is also currently more expensive.
The good news is, they do work with incandescent lamps as well.


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## Cooper (21 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> the current phrase is climate change, global warming is a boomer phrase


This boomer is of the belief that it is a climate emergency, the cosy phrases global warming and climate change went out a long time ago. The Stern report was published in 2006. Stern Review - Wikipedia and we are still talking as though change was a choice. As a world, we have slowly got into action about the pandemic, that is yet to be the case for the far bigger problem, that will effect your life long after the likes of me have shuffled off our mortal coils. Technology has solutions and we should embrace and exploit them, not whinge about the relatively small costs they impose. (I'm sure with the right strategy you will become a property owner.)


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## Jacob (21 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> I doubt Mr Scargill would have accepted that she was closing the coal mines because she was an enviromentalist, and I think she has got many titles and names but an enviromentalist is not on the list.


Of course he wouldn't - his job was to protect workers rights, which he certainly worked hard at! 
Thatcher was more into attacking union power than looking after the environment - climate change was hardly on the agenda, which is interesting as it was only 35 years ago - some things really have changed!


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## Jacob (21 May 2021)

SDev said:


> New to the forum but here goes. An interesting thread. Firmly believe the solution is more low tech than heat pumps etc. We just refurbed our 120 year old home by upgrading insulation (200mm all round) airtightness (<3 air changes per hour) and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. We looked at heat pumps but were advised, correctly I think, that with mains gas and an efficient boiler it was uneconomic. Having lived there for 6 months it’s amazing - the boiler hardly ever comes on. No need to ban something that is so infrequently used. The house feels warm and fresh at 20C as there are no draughty or cold spots. Hot water 70% from solar thermal. On the downside: 1. not cheap and will take years to recoup costs if I live that long. 2. Most components had to be imported (German). 3 We were unable to access any “green” funding from government schemes which are pathetic, badly thought out and derided by those who know. 4. Few tradesmen understand the ideas, especially airtightness - I often had to stop people whacking holes in walls. Solutions. 1. Zero VAT for refurbishment of this type. 2. Regulate properly to force new builds down this route instead of pandering to the big builders bottom lines. 3. Long term commitment to educating the public and trades rather than promoting ill thought out schemes whose main purpose is political.


Did similar here, not quite to the same extent. Chapel conversion 100+mm insulation all round inside external walls down to 50mm in deep window reveals. 200 to 300mm Kingspan plus rockwool in attic ceilings. Careful avoidance of all holes through, with wiring etc surface mounted on external wall inner faces, no gaps, no cold bridges.
Big low tech success is "Passivent" air extraction - duct in each of two upstairs bathrooms open and close according to humidity and keep them dry, no fan required, also drawing air from rest of building. You can see them open up if you have a shower, half hour later a very steamy room is now bone dry and the vents closed to trickle gap.
We looked at wood burning bio mass with hot water storage but it was very expensive - and you'd need continuous supply of very dry stuff and to employ a full time stoker! Instead went for simple wood burner as near middle as possible, which heats a huge space very quickly if you have enough dry stuff on hand, including all sawdust and shavings. Also have conventional gas boiler for hot water and CH - gas bill about £500 p.a.


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## TominDales (21 May 2021)

devonwoody said:


> re Tomin Dales comment. Paste The subsidised scheme for CFLs was to encourage a switch from incandescent (a 75% reduction in energy use), which preceded an outright ban of the sale of incandescent lights in the EU - at that time. The UK has maintained the ban post Brexit. LED lights are about twice as efficient as strip lights and nearly 3x more so than CFLs, (use about 10% of the power of an incandescent), the prices is such that for most people the payback is a year or so. As the technology is maturing the reliable lifetime of LEDs is rising, I've had some going for 4 years and the failure rate is falling with each new batch, so I guess there is no need to subsidise the switch. The other benefit of LEDs is the new phosphors give out a decent colour light and there is a wide choice of colour temperature. The biggest issue with CFLs was the poor light quality. So I guess there is no need to an incentive.
> I read the above quote, I run 4 x 60watt CFLs old light bulbs in our main living room on a dimmer switch for convenience with no other lighting, but can I run a dimmer switch on those modern bulbs you mention?


Good question, There are plenty of sparkys on this forum who can give you a fuller or simpler answer than me. LEDs sold today tend to say on the box if they can be dimmed or not, so start there. I've found by buying one or two and trying them out is the simplest way to find out. If you have a long string of lights on the same circuit you can often find that leaving one traditional bulb will help stabilise the dimmer controller.

There is an issue with dimming, traditional dimmers work by trimming the voltage down on mains ac, its called leading edge trimming. Mains power is ac so is a wave form and this is modified by the dimmer to reduce the voltage and hence the power. This works well for incandescent and halogen lights but not so well for CFLs and LEDS, can casue flicker or buzzing noise. However the manufactures of LEDs and CFLs have build in compensation circuits to allow to back compatibility with older switching gear, it will say on the packet if this is the case. 
Here is a link to a company selling lamps with an simple explanation How To Dim LED Lights - The Lightbulb Co. UK

This blog is more in depth on the topic. Using Dimmer Switches With LED Light Bulbs | Lightbulbs Direct.

I buy LEDS from regular stores (eg mr bazos's ) or the supermarket that say they are dimmable. Over time I'll probably uprate the dimmers. I read Amazon reviews where the odd person says there light buzzed or flickered whereas other reviews don't see it, one of the reasons is LEDs draw so little power that dimmers don't control them well. I've found where we have a string of lamps in our bookcase and kitchen is to replace all the bulbs bar-one with LEDS and keep one traditional lamp in the circuit that stops the flicker as it provides enough load for the controller. 
Some of our lamps were low voltage halogen with a simple transformer - installed donkeys years ago. These seem to work perfectly with LEDS. The other thing I've noticed with some of our low voltage lights, the cost of an LED transformer is only about £3 so it was a simple upgrade.
You may want to start replacing your CFLs in non dimming circuits to stat with and see how you get on with LEDs.

A few things to watch out for.
- very cheap ones don't last that long - the ballast tends to wear out, so go for ones with good reviews of sold by a reliable shop, also the colour rendering is poor ie the type of white isn't that pure due to cheap phosphors so they can look greenish or orange.

- choose the colour temperature that your household like, most traditional bulbs have a colour temp in the Uk of about 3000k, in Europe colour temperature varies in the south eg Itally its high at 4000k and in Scandinavia it was low at 2700k. With old bulbs you weren't offered much choice apart from the odd specialist 'real home fire effect lights'. 
LEDs are manufactured on a global scale we are offered a huge choice in colour temperature. In my experience 2700k to 3000k look a bit too yellow. I've tended to settle on 4000k as that slightly higher temperature seems to give a similar quality of light to what we were used to, slighly less yellow. I now find 3000k is quite yellow and 6000k is quite blue. One thing to get right is keep them all the same in one room, it looks odd if you mix an match in the same room. You may want to have your kitchen in the 4000k range for a clean look but the sitting room at a lower temp for a more relaxed look.

Like you I still have a box of CFLs, the mother in law was given a job lot by the council before she died, I'm using them up in the kids bedrooms, but they last for ages.
Hope that helps.


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## mikej460 (21 May 2021)

Although I wholeheartedly support reducing pollution I'm concerned that all the current and proposed heating technology, transport of every type etc needs electricity to operate. If gas, coal and wood is being phased out for electricity generation we are left with wind turbines and nuclear power stations. Trials are underway to test small scales nuclear stations that will replace existing regional power stations which could result in a plethora of nuclear stations across the country.


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## mikej460 (21 May 2021)

I looked at ASHP a few years ago to replace our decrepit oil boiler. We live in an old stone cottage with modern but poorly insulated extentions. After substantial heat loss calcs were carried out we were quoted £12k for an ASHP that could cope plus replacing existing rads with larger ones designed for low heat levels. It just didn't make financial sense even with RHI so we bought a wood pellet boiler under the RHI scheme for £4k. This pays for our pellets for 7 years but then we will be left with hefty fuel bills as the price of pellets has shot up over the past 5 years so we are now contemplating replacing the wood pellets boiler in 2 years time with whatever is cheaper to run. And I might add, complete the house insulation to a high spec.


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## Jacob (21 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> Although I wholeheartedly support reducing pollution I'm concerned that all the current and proposed heating technology, transport of every type etc needs electricity to operate. If gas, coal and wood is being phased out for electricity generation we are left with wind turbines and nuclear power stations. Trials are underway to test small scales nuclear stations that will replace existing regional power stations which could result in a plethora of nuclear stations across the country.


n.b. "Pollution" as such is just a trivial detail - climate change is an imminent threat to our life on this planet. 
I agree with you about nuclear power - another similar threat!


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## Spectric (21 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> Trials are underway to test small scales nuclear stations that will replace existing regional power stations which could result in a plethora of nuclear stations across the country.


In this very unstable world with all sorts of nutters and terrorist then this could be a very bad idea, each one having the potential to become a dirty bomb.

The issue remains that we are chasing moving targets, population growth, global warming, dwindling resources so much more difficult to solve, in essence we are slowly blowing up a ballon, just a few little puffs here and there but eventually we all know what happens to that ballon.


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## Cheshirechappie (21 May 2021)

How much is all this 'decarbonisation' going to cost the average person? From this article by Steve Baker MP, it seems Whitehall's estimate is about £100,000 per household.

It’s alright for some | Steve Baker | The Critic Magazine 

As for global warming, I've just come back from doing my mum's weekly shop. Everybody I saw was muffled up in woolies and winter coats - and it's damn near the end of May. I can't recall a colder spring for many a long year. If the climate is in run-away warming mode, it's doing a pretty good job of hiding it - I can detect precious little evidence of it.

As far as 'scientists say' - yeah, I've looked in some depth at climate science, and once you get past the media rhetoric, there's not much evidence of runaway warming there, either. The climate warmed until the late 1990s, since when it's rate of warming has slowed almost to flat - which does seem to bear out personal experience.

I suspect that all this government zeal is one of those establishment fashions that's about to reach 'peak w*nk'. When the Red Wall voters discover that they'll be expected to pay about £100,000 a household for all this fancy climate mitigation stuff, there will be loud rumblings - and Whitehall and government will have to have some pretty convincing evidence to back up their policies. From what I've seen of climate science, I don't think that evidence exists.

Matthew Goodwin (political scientist and commentator) said a few months ago that post Brexit, he thought the next big political theme would be policy around climate. I think he may be right.


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## mikej460 (21 May 2021)

Cheshirechappie said:


> How much is all this 'decarbonisation' going to cost the average person? From this article by Steve Baker MP, it seems Whitehall's estimate is about £100,000 per household.
> 
> It’s alright for some | Steve Baker | The Critic Magazine
> 
> ...


Global warming doesn't just cause an increase in global temperatures it creates extremes in weather patterns. We've all seen reports of 'the driest/wettest/coldest month on record. Last May we were enduring the hottest May on record, last month was the driest. The world is seeing increases in droughts, wild fires, floods etc etc it makes the film 'The Day After Tomorrow' look a worrying possibility.


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## mikej460 (21 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> n.b. "Pollution" as such is just a trivial detail - climate change is an imminent threat to our life on this planet.
> I agree with you about nuclear power - another similar threat!


Yes wrong choice of words- I should have said climate change


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## D_W (21 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> n.b. "Pollution" as such is just a trivial detail - climate change is an imminent threat to our life on this planet.
> I agree with you about nuclear power - another similar threat!



You're neurotic Jacob. Thinks like malaria, dengue, covid, etc, are imminent threats to our life on this planet. Global warming is not. It's a threat of future suffering.


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## Jacob (21 May 2021)

Cheshirechappie said:


> How much is all this 'decarbonisation' going to cost the average person? From this article by Steve Baker MP, it seems Whitehall's estimate is about £100,000 per household.
> 
> It’s alright for some | Steve Baker | The Critic Magazine
> 
> ...


Not many climate change deniers left! Congratulations CC, ahead of the curve as ever, I'm so relieved!


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## D_W (21 May 2021)

Ahh...I know how you create a false argument of something being imminent. Avoid discussing actual measurable things that will happen in the near future and put other people on teams ("you're on the denier team"). Both sides can make catastrophic comment and we can tell the person who fell over from malaria that they're lucky that they didn't live to see the effects of climate change (at most ages, they wouldn't have, anyway, except the people barking in their face about imminent death and scorching temperatures and polar vortexes and bigger hurricanes).


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## D_W (21 May 2021)

Cooper said:


> This boomer is of the belief that it is a climate emergency, the cosy phrases global warming and climate change went out a long time ago. The Stern report was published in 2006. Stern Review - Wikipedia and we are still talking as though change was a choice. As a world, we have slowly got into action about the pandemic, that is yet to be the case for the far bigger problem, that will effect your life long after the likes of me have shuffled off our mortal coils. Technology has solutions and we should embrace and exploit them, not whinge about the relatively small costs they impose. (I'm sure with the right strategy you will become a property owner.)



This is the essence of what cognitive behavioral therapy is about -gnashing teeth over something as yet undefined as if we will float through decades or centuries of time doing nothing to mitigate the problem, and don't forget, we have to act in the next five years or it's all over. 20 years ago we had to act in the next 2 (why are we still acting in the next 5 now?). 

When the problem becomes more significant, it will be addressed. It's not as if it will not be possible to address it - that's nonsense. For all of the folks decrying the disaster that's to come, for each one of us, our footprint could be lowered to near zero - and I don't mean by political schemes. I mean that you could spend your time as an individual finding extremely low consumption electronic devices and minimize use of the internet (as enormous amounts of energy are used putting together and sorting the data that you're accessing all the time), cease driving, cease going on vacation (absolutely do not fly - period), and share your experiences with something feasible. If it is that big of a problem, you can do that. Going on vacation (flying anywhere...period) and traveling in large vehicles that haul you as a very small % of the load) and heating more than an essential living space in a house - anyone decrying just how big the problem is and not doing those things, I'm not buying the explanation. 

Solving problems is a specific thing - complaining that other people aren't solving problems isn't solving problems.


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## TominDales (21 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> Although I wholeheartedly support reducing pollution I'm concerned that all the current and proposed heating technology, transport of every type etc needs electricity to operate. If gas, coal and wood is being phased out for electricity generation we are left with wind turbines and nuclear power stations. Trials are underway to test small scales nuclear stations that will replace existing regional power stations which could result in a plethora of nuclear stations across the country.


My understanding is that scenario is extremely unlikely due to local planning and security concerns. What is being looked as is replacing the existing huge reactors at existing sites such as Hartlepool, Sizewell with dozens of small modular ones - ie the turbine hall at Harlepool would have dozens of smrs in it rather than 4 mega reactors. 

Rolls Royce has been working on this for about 20 years - its a modification of their well established and reliable submarine reactor. it addresses the problem that current nuclear reactors are too big to build. The current manufacturing method is to build these huge reactors that need to be constructed on site this is very costly. Also the huge size means they take years to build which adds capital risk resulting in the cost of capital being 3 or 4 times what it could be. The idea of SMRs is to factory build them similar to Henry Fords idea of mass production, that way every one is identical, with the same safety protocols the same operating guidelines etc so that you get quality control, safe systems and lower manufacturing costs. Similarly for decommissioning the reactor and be taken back to a factory as with sub reactors and decommissioned. The decommissioning of sub reactors is pretty efficient and on a wholly different scale to that of the fixed plant. The likely sites for these are where nuclear is already established. If it works well, I could image them being rolled out further in years to come, but that is probably 30 years off as they will need to establish a long run of safe operation and decommissioning before confidence is established in this approach.

You make a perceptive observation about the rise of electric. Its a popular vector for powe,r because it can be generated from many sources and used for many applications. But we have never tried it on this vast scale. In addition to wind, there is also solar, the latest solar farms are about as cost effective as wind. There is an Australian scheme to build a huge combined wind and solar farm in western Australia and export the power by cable to south east Asia, solar and wind are quite complementary in hot climes as the sun compesates for windless days and vice versa.
Other vectors are being researched, the main one being hydrogen, Ammonia is being considered (electrify, hydrogen and air being the raw materials), and turning electricity and hydrogen into some sustainable hydrocarbons using CO2 sequestered from the air, .aviation fuel being a likely early use. The overall concern is about storing energy in the form of electricity in batteries, pump storage etc and how to power ships across the oceans. You need enough storage to cope with unusual weather events when there is less wind or sun, hence the nuclear options.


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## TominDales (21 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> According to my father, who sometimes got things wrong, The Festival Hall, when it was built in 1952(?), the year before I was born, was intended to be heated in the winter, and cooled in the summer, by heat exchangers using water from the Thames.
> 
> I believe it didn't work out, and they had to add additional heating/cooling systems.


Very interesting. Looks like they did a year long trial for the Festival of Britten and then it was ripped out by the incoming Churchill government. They seemed determined to bury the festival of Britten as quickly as they could dumping a fair amount of it direct into the Thames - skylon etc.




__





Ground & Water Source Heat Pumps – Royal Festival Hall | Claverton Group


This article below is incorrect, given that water source heat pumps have been used in Britain since 1945, with the Royal Festival Hall in London being heated by a heat pump taking heat from the River Thames in 1951.: Excerpt from David Banks, Introduction to Thermogeology: Ground source heating...



claverton-energy.com


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## Spectric (21 May 2021)

D_W said:


> When the problem becomes more significant, it will be addressed.


But what if at that point the problem is so large and out of control it cannot be addressed. It is like catching a forest fire as it starts in a campsite rather than waiting for it to engulf a few acres before attacking it.


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## D_W (21 May 2021)

No, it's not like that because the situation doesn't change in minutes and we will be more motivated to act base on discomfort. But I think we'll act long before then, anyway. What if scenarios that are only negatively biased with catastrophic uncontrollable outcomes are the hallmark of cognitive traps with anxiety. Ask me how I know this. They can prevent you from taking positive measure action or even understanding what it should be because measured pragmatism and rationality is never as attractive.


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## TominDales (21 May 2021)

TRITON said:


> Electric cars, non gas heating,renewable energy, aiming for carbon neutral, all very good on paper.
> 
> But we'll be importing a great deal of foodstuffs from places like south America or Australia, consumer goods from Asia. Diesel powered container ships sailing thousands and thousands of miles.


Good point. Sea freight is actually very efficient so its not top of the priority list for decarbonising in transport. This graph form the IEA shows the comparative emissions. Cars and trucks are the top priority as they account for 2/3s of all emissions. However aviation and shipping will account for most by 2050 is nothing is done about it. 







Lloyds of London - who have a research station in Southampton, sponsored by the big shipping lines are doing research into shipping and the big lines are trialing various alternatives fuels such as hydrogen, ammonia and sustainable diesels. Electric ships are being tried in ferries where there is a short journey and defined ports to recharge. The London stretch of the Thames has some trials going on with plans to electrify the ferries and barges. Amsterdam has an electric fleet.

The other big issue you mention if food - food production - mainly meet - is responsible for about 25% of all emissions, so expect to read about reduced meet and lab/factory grown meets to hit the press......


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## John Brown (21 May 2021)

D_W said:


> No, it's not like that because the situation doesn't change in minutes and we will be more motivated to act base on discomfort. But I think we'll act long before then, anyway. What if scenarios that are only negatively biased with catastrophic uncontrollable outcomes are the hallmark of cognitive traps with anxiety. Ask me how I know this. They can prevent you from taking positive measure action or even understanding what it should be because measured pragmatism and rationality is never as attractive.


Sorry, but a lot of people(scientists) disagree with you. It's an old and tired analogy, I know, but you can't wait until the last minute to stop a super-tanker. Unless crashing it into the shoreline is acceptable.


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## TominDales (21 May 2021)

Cheshirechappie said:


> How much is all this 'decarbonisation' going to cost the average person? From this article by Steve Baker MP, it seems Whitehall's estimate is about £100,000 per household.
> 
> It’s alright for some | Steve Baker | The Critic Magazine
> 
> ...


This article from Steve Baker seems very dated in its details. Firstly the myth that the rate of warming has slowed almost flat. This came out about 10 years ago when there had been four years of little increase in global temperature. However analysis showed that el nino accounted for it. It caused a high for a couple of years that exaggerated global warming and then the La nina caused a cooling, once that's taken into account global warming was comprehensibly shown to continue and 10 years later all the temperature measurements show it. here are the actual measurements from the well respected US National data, (US goverment).







Steve Baker is right to highlight there will be costs to consumers in adapting to climate change, but his figures are way out. Projections for EVs and heat pumps show that when the change is compulsory ie by 2030 to 2035 the costs will be in line with existing technology. Today with low production numbers its expensive new tech. Remer the cost of TV in 1952 and how its fell, same with all tech as its industrialised the cost falls.

As for the weather, the warming atmosphere does not lead to uniform rises in surface temperature in the UK or anywhere. Its really extra energy in the systems and this extra energy causes more water vapour and more violent wind. Our current weather is a consequence of the extra energy in the atmosphere compounded with a low pressure systems in the Atlantic. expect more cold and wet summer months and heat waves as the system gets more energetic. Why has May been so wet? - BBC Weather

Politicians on both side of the climate debate tend to pick data to suit their arguments, which makes it hard for us to follow. Its best to look for the consensus scientific arguments that do get into the mainstream media. The advantage of this is the scientific review method weeds out biased data sets. This topic is quite fast changing so quite hard to follow.

The commentator Matthew Goodwin is spot on, with the UK government hosting COP26 in November these topics will be in the new from now until then. If BJ thinks he can emulate Thatchers tour de force at the UN Montreal CFC conference expect a lot of publicity on this topic. _To quote from the UN write up on the Protocol: 't and then prime minister of the UK, Margaret Thatcher, of the situation’s severity. The speech she made to bring the world together on this issue is still worthy of the most globally-minded eco-warrior today. “We carry common burdens, face common problems and must response with common action,” she told the UN General Assembly in 1989, when the agreement was on the brink of disaster.
The resulting Montreal Protocol not only banned CFCs but also ensured that rich nations would help developing countries to pay for the greener alternatives_. The cynic in me suspects there will be similar grand words from the current government. 

The Montreal protocol has some similarities to todays debate, The alternative to CFCs were about 10 times the cost of CFS in 1986 when they were first developed, but since they were industrialised the cost of fridges are hardly risen despite the complexity of the new refrigerants. The latest generation of wind turbines produce electricity that is cheaper than coal fired generation. So yes there will be costs, but £100k is way over.


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## Rorschach (21 May 2021)

You all might find a listen to Bjorn Lomberg very interesting.


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## D_W (21 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> Sorry, but a lot of people(scientists) disagree with you. It's an old and tired analogy, I know, but you can't wait until the last minute to stop a super-tanker. Unless crashing it into the shoreline is acceptable.



Perhaps they should spend their efforts working on sequestration, or are they chasing money right now? I don't care if they disagree with my assessment - the narrative for near 20 years now has mirrored cognitive thinking traps. The idea that we cannot innovate as AI becomes more common and a larger menu of options becomes available, I'm not buying it.

I don't think you could show me a reliable source showing that personal energy consumption differs significantly on a per capita basis based on what each group believes, either, and I think that is an enormous problem. Who is leading the way?

Also, don't confuse me with a denier. I am not and never have been. I'm an observer. I solve problems for a living and don't have a lot of patience for people who can't define problems well enough to solve them and won't lead the way.


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## mikej460 (21 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> Other vectors are being researched, the main one being hydrogen, Ammonia is being considered (electrify, hydrogen and air being the raw materials), and turning electricity and hydrogen into some sustainable hydrocarbons using CO2 sequestered from the air, .aviation fuel being a likely early use. The overall concern is about storing energy in the form of electricity in batteries, pump storage etc and how to power ships across the oceans. You need enough storage to cope with unusual weather events when there is less wind or sun, hence the nuclear options.


The problem with hydrogen is that you need electricity to split it from water and the only proposed solution to this is to use night time generated electricity from wind turbines or solar parks but you need to be close enough to these sources to make it viable - or am I missing something?


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## D_W (21 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> The problem with hydrogen is that you need electricity to split it from water and the only proposed solution to this is to use night time generated electricity from wind turbines or solar parks but you need to be close enough to these sources to make it viable - or am I missing something?



It's far off. It's cheaper to reform hydrogen from methane at this point than it is to use electrolysis. As in, natural gas is the feed stock of hydrogen.


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## mikej460 (21 May 2021)

D_W said:


> It's far off. It's cheaper to reform hydrogen from methane at this point than it is to use electrolysis. As in, natural gas is the feed stock of hydrogen.


or the local waste tip or biodigester


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## D_W (21 May 2021)

wherever you can get methane. Methane capture has been used for electricity generation here for a long time (at least that I can remember 15 years or more). I googled to find out how many dumps (most of the dumps here are regional and large unless they are a community dump - for building materials, etc - those probably just charge a premium to then haul to a regional dump). 

Without spending more energy, there were 455 dumps generating electricity in the US in 2008. It must be more now. Methane here at well sites is often flared off - not sure if that's still the case as I live in gas territory, but not oil territory - there is pipeline infrastructure here so that younger wells don't have to flare off gas and capture only oil.


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## Jameshow (21 May 2021)

TRITON said:


> Electric cars, non gas heating,renewable energy, aiming for carbon neutral, all very good on paper.
> 
> But we'll be importing a great deal of foodstuffs from places like south America or Australia, consumer goods from Asia. Diesel powered container ships sailing thousands and thousands of miles.



Add in biomass for drax from USA/ Canadian forests!!


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## D_W (21 May 2021)

biomass is getting the negative press it deserves here. It's not energy dense enough and the particulate emissions from it are terrible. It leads to a decline in air quality and an increase in respiratory problems. 

Unfortunately, our school districts and other public buildings have been incented to install biomass instead of burning natural gas or oil, and they get a particulate or emissions waiver (for no good reason). I'm sure, as mentioned above, enormous amounts of fossil fuels are used to harvest and haul and handle the stuff.


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## John Brown (21 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> The problem with hydrogen is that you need electricity to split it from water and the only proposed solution to this is to use night time generated electricity from wind turbines or solar parks but you need to be close enough to these sources to make it viable - or am I missing something?


But isn't that the whole point? Utilizing wind or solar generated electricity to produce hydrogen (and oxygen of course) is seen as a viable way to "store" that power.


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## John Brown (21 May 2021)

d_W said: "I don't care if they disagree with my assessment "
I'm prepared to bet that they don't give a tinker's cuss, either.


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## mikej460 (21 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> But isn't that the whole point? Utilizing wind or solar generated electricity to produce hydrogen (and oxygen of course) is seen as a viable way to "store" that power.


Yes I agree with the logic but apparently there are practical hurdles which result in hydrogen power being only available to certain regions. This confuses me as my understanding is that renewable power is added to the grid and monitored so surely any additional or 'spare' night time electricity could be used to produce hydrogen in any region?


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## mikej460 (21 May 2021)

Ignore hype over hydrogen heating, government told - BBC News


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## John Brown (21 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> Yes I agree with the logic but apparently there are practical hurdles which result in hydrogen power being only available to certain regions. This confuses me as my understanding is that renewable power is added to the grid and monitored so surely any additional or 'spare' night time electricity could be used to produce hydrogen in any region?


I take your point, and confess that I missed it initially. I don't understand that either. Maybe someone will be along shortly to explain...


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## TominDales (21 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> The problem with hydrogen is that you need electricity to split it from water and the only proposed solution to this is to use night time generated electricity from wind turbines or solar parks but you need to be close enough to these sources to make it viable - or am I missing something?


That is what is being considered, experimental contracts have been let in Humberside and Teesside to test out exactly this concept. Hydrogen will be generated by electrolysis of water either on-shore where the power comes ashore, or even offshore. Its one reason ITM power has been in the headlines as they have one of the most efficient electrolysis going. At present during periods of low electric demand the 'government' (actually its through the grid market) pays producers not to produce electricity. In effect it creates a system where there is surplus supply in the system for when its needed. At present the goal and gas suppliers turn down during these times. Nuclear cant so continues to run and they pay a price for this.
In the future the idea is that nuclear, (solar during the day) and nuclear would continue to run at high rates and the surplus turned into hydrogen (or stored in batteries). This hydrogen could then be converted by into electricity during peak consumer demand or turned into chemicals etc.
Its also why nuclear is seen as more attractive than it was. During periods of low electric demand the power can be sold to hydrogen electrolysers by the nuclear industry.
There is still quite a bit of uncertainty about the economics of doing these things at scale hence the large pilot schemes. ITM power claims that in a few years time cheap wind power and their efficient electrolysis will make the cost of green hydrogen compatible to conventional hydrothermal methane derived hydrogen (often called grey hydrogen in environmental speak).


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## John Brown (21 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> Ignore hype over hydrogen heating, government told - BBC News


Thanks. That's interesting.


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## Spectric (21 May 2021)

The process is electrolysis, two electrodes in water with a current flowing and you get hydrogen from the negative electrode and oxygen from the positive one. A very explosive mixture and any plant undertaking this will not be cheap as its construction comes under the ATEX regs in order to meet the requirements of DSEAR.


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## John Brown (21 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> The process is electrolysis, two electrodes in water with a current flowing and you get hydrogen from the negative electrode and oxygen from the positive one. A very explosive mixture and any plant undertaking this will not be cheap as its construction comes under the ATEX regs in order to meet the requirements of DSEAR.


Thanks. I can't speak for everyone, but I've known about electrolysis for 60 years or so. I believe one has to add something to the water, as pure water is not a good conductor. Is that right? I think in my "The boy electrician" book, it was sodium chloride, and chlorine was an undesired side effect.


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## TominDales (21 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> Yes I agree with the logic but apparently there are practical hurdles which result in hydrogen power being only available to certain regions. This confuses me as my understanding is that renewable power is added to the grid and monitored so surely any additional or 'spare' night time electricity could be used to produce hydrogen in any region?


The big regions for hydrogen are where the existing infrastructure is ie around the big petrochemical complexes and also near to power sources. Electricity losses down power cables mean its best to make hydrogen as close to the generator as possible. At the moment hydrogen pipelines are costly, this is because hydrogen being a small molecule penetrates steel and embrittles it so specialist steels are needed. Hydrogen also permeates plastic pipes, so research is ongoing into special linings for pipes. The first areas considered for hydrogen networks are, Cheshire - near the old Shell Thornton refinery - hydrogen is made by reforming and used to modify petrochemicals and the Old ICI / Ineos Chloralkai cell rooms (hydrogen is a by-product), in Grangemouth in Scotland - Ineo ex BP and ICI sites, Redcar - Wilton (ex ICI) and Humber - Saltend, Philips refinery and Equinor.
There is talk of a hydrogen pipeline/ grid, but that is still speculative due to many techno economic uncertainties. The UKs biggest pipeline was between the ICI plants in Billingham where methane is reformed and the petrochemical complexes in North Tees and Wilton I seem to remember it cost £1m per miles to build. That is just one of the challenges.


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## Spectric (21 May 2021)

Pure water still conducts but requires a lot more energy, I think you would use either seawater or add something to increase conductivity.


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## TominDales (21 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> Thanks. I can't speak for everyone, but I've known about electrolysis for 60 years or so. I believe one has to add something to the water, as pure water is not a good conductor. Is that right? I think in my "The boy electrician" book, it was sodium chloride, and chlorine was an undesired side effect.


People generally use caustic soda as the electrolyte as you dont want chlorine in the system. The UK has generally lagged behind Germany and Japan in this technology, but we do have a winning company in this area ITM power. ITM Power | Energy Storage | Clean Fuel


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## D_W (21 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> Thanks. I can't speak for everyone, but I've known about electrolysis for 60 years or so. I believe one has to add something to the water, as pure water is not a good conductor. Is that right? I think in my "The boy electrician" book, it was sodium chloride, and chlorine was an undesired side effect.



Washing soda is the backyard additive here for rust removal. Not done in confined spaces for obvious reasons. But I'm not aware of anything done commercially other than reforming methane. 

I'll believe it's economically feasible as a large source free of nat gas when I see it. The folks here who want to push hydrogen fuel cells tend to be federal program leeches who otherwise hate green energy (as in the corn lobby hoping to somehow tag on with ethanol use).


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## John Brown (21 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> People generally use caustic soda as the electrolyte as you dont want chlorine in the system. The UK has generally lagged behind Germany and Japan in this technology, but we do have a winning company in this area ITM power. ITM Power | Energy Storage | Clean Fuel


Thanks. It is a pleasure to have someone who knows their stuff contributing to this.thread.


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## mikej460 (21 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> People generally use caustic soda as the electrolyte as you dont want chlorine in the system. The UK has generally lagged behind Germany and Japan in this technology, but we do have a winning company in this area ITM power. ITM Power | Energy Storage | Clean Fuel


Fascinating, you clearly know your stuff and it's very encouraging to see the progress being made for an alternative energy


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## TominDales (22 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> Ignore hype over hydrogen heating, government told - BBC News


As is quite often the case, UK academics have been getting over-excited about hydrogen, this article is some welcome skepticism. Hydrogen as a fuel/vector/chemicals has been around a very long time. It is expensive to process. ICI spend £500m+ in the late 1970s and early 1980s trying to find better ways to use its surplus hydrogen generated in Runcorn and Teesside, it even built a salt cavern under the Cheshire plane to store it. These old salt caverns store most of the UKs natural gas supply (replacing the old manometers) as well as exotic gases such as ethylene.
The UK and US has had on/off enthusiasm for hydrogen technology over the years, with investment following energy prices, so investment has yoyoed in the UK and US, whereas the Japanese they continued with steady development of the technology, and are quite advanced in terms of hydrogen cars. 

The big issue in all this new technology is how do you get a market going, if all the infrastructure has to be build at once that is a huge battier to entry and so hold back risk capital. The beauty of EVs and heat pumps is the electricity infrastructure exists so you can just add to existing markets. The problem with hydrogen is there is no grid so most hydrogen is in captive areas such as Teesside and Humberside where there are local producers and consumers of H2.

So you have a classic chicken and egg problem. Hydrogen producers wont build plant until there are consumers. Consumers wont build plant until there is reliable supply. So to break this knot the industry is proposing incremental technology development ie use hydrogen from conventional technology to get the market going.
It is for this reason that the industry is proposing different types of hydrogen greenness. They give them colour names.
Grey hydrogen - is traditional reforming of methane with CO2 emissions.
Blue - is methane reforming but with CO2 capture and storage CCU and CCUS. In CCU the co2 is used in a process such as fizzy drinks or making chemicals in CCUS its pumped into long term storage - plan is to re-fill the old North sea oil caverns with CO2 (and Liverpool/Morecombe bay).
Green - is electrolytic hydrogen
Pink is nuclear
Yellow is direct solar t hydrogen

To get hydrogen schemes going, industry is constructing the first blue hydrogen stations at full scale, the technology of methane reforming is well developed so its investable now. BP and JM have announced a big blue hydrogen scheme in Cheshire. This then allow numerous innovative companies to start building hydrogen infrastructure and usage. For instance the glass industry in St Helens/Latham is building a pilot plant to use hydrogen as fuel for making glass instead of the existing oil and gas fuels.

The green lobby worry that these schemes for blue and grey hydrogen may not lead to downstream green developments so they are getting alarmed. This is a legitimate worry as the technology is still very new. However in my view these pilot schemes should be supported as we need to try them out and lower the risk. If they don't work then we try something else. The green lobby is naturally skeptical that government and industry wont use these schemes to talk out the 'climate debate'. Personally I don't see that as such a big worry, the scientific data on climate is very robust and largely accepted by the chemical, petrochemical and manufacturing industry - in the UK at any rate, BP, Shell all have huge developments in this area. Even Saudi Aramco is looking at what to do with its oil post the petrol age.

To give you an idea of how serous this is, I sit on four committees looking at how to decarbonise UK manufacturing, about half my week is spent attending meetings on this topic. Of our 2000 employees across the UK about 200 are full time employed looking at this issue. We are working with others in industry to provide the government with good data on viable options. Its complicated, there are loads of studies being done across every sector.
A lot is at stake, by getting the technology wrong companies will go out of business.
 Do nothing and we will be overtaken by legislation, as is happening to companies who make ICE engines components who did not see EVs coming.
Get in too early like ICI and BASF did introducing bio plastics in the 1980's when the consumer would not spend the extra to use them and those business went bust.
Most chemical companies lost a fortune developing hydrogen in the 1980s ICI reputably spend between £500m and £1bn on it.
Get it right and you will make money - vis Tesla.
Make wrong technology choices and disaster. In 1990s the EU adopted diesel as its policy choice for low co2 transportation and regular emissions detectives required continuous improvement on diesel engines and European auto did fanatically well. However in Japan they looked at alternatives such as hydrogen, hybrids and EVs as a result Asia, Japan, followed by China and Korea dominate the battery and hydrogen car market. Europe is playing catch up and we have diesel gate - a major loss in consumer confidence. JLR had virtually 100% diesel engines in 2015 and has been in desperate straits trying to catch up.

Ensus is a warning.
The EU adopted a biofuels directive in 2005, the UK put this into legislation requiring increased % of biofuel to be added to diesel over the period to 2010, bio ethanol and bio diesel. Ensus built the largest bio ethanol plant in Europe to feed this new market investing £400m on Teesside at Wilton. Pundits got nervous about crop based fuels and the slow rise of 2nd gen biofuels ie those from waste, so the UK did not enforce its legislation despite it being in law. Ensus had to shut down production due to low demand, its now runs in campaign mode when demand is there. They ran out of cash and were bought by Germen company for £50m in 2011. That company went out of business, its one is 3rd or 4th owner. The bio directive is now being implanted but the delay cost Ensus its shirt. As an aside, bio-fermenters give of very pure food grade CO2, because Ensus was such a big producer and was mothballed during 2018, when the fizzy drink/bear shortage emerged, it restarted to provide Europeans with fiz for their bear in the world cup.


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## TominDales (22 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> Fascinating, you clearly know your stuff and it's very encouraging to see the progress being made for an alternative energy


Fortunately/unfortunately a big chunk of my day job is trying to work out strategies for UK manufacturing to become net zero. You wont believe the number of industry committees looking into this topic, covering everything we manufacture from, planes, jet engines, chemicals, pharma, plastics, cars, ships, rails even housing and construction. Its the biggest challenge I've seen in 35 years in the industry. What is nice about it, is industries are talking to each other, no-one has the full picture so we are co-operating to share information on the issue. I've not seen that behavior in the UK before - its more of a continental culture. Industry was generally quite skeptical of getting too involved 20 years ago as they had lost money in this area, but opinion has shifted in the past 15 years. I don't know of a major manufacturing company that has not got a climate change team looking at this issue.


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## mikej460 (22 May 2021)

I guess we will adapt and develop hybrid solutions. With home heating it's the same conundrum we have now with off electricity/off gas areas but it's trickier with road transport as you say the supply network has to be there. Having said that the EV network is expanding rapidly so maybe it needs more gutsy legislation because if you leave it to consumer demand it will never happen. Also maybe a total rethink on home heating generation is required e.g. community power systems producing small scale hydrogen?


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## Suffolk Brian (22 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> You can buy LEDs that are dimmable, but not all are. You will pay a bit of a premium.


And because the load is different, you don‘t get the same “sweep” of brightness change as you do with filament lamps. A particular type of dimmer switch perhaps?


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## John Brown (22 May 2021)

Suffolk Brian said:


> And because the load is different, you don‘t get the same “sweep” of brightness change as you do with filament lamps. A particular type of dimmer switch perhaps?


Which is probably why the LED dimmers we have are programmable. You can set the max and min levels.


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## Pineapple (22 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> I am certain the way to solve the housing crisis is to make houses more difficult and more expensive to build.
> Instead of not being able to afford a poorly built inefficient house now I won't be able to afford a nicely built energy efficient house.


The biggest cost in building a house is consumed by the (inflated) price of the land. - If less of our "precious" land was reserved for grouse-moors and national-trust parkland there would be plenty of space for Every-one to build their own home. - It's always the (obscenely) wealthy trying to (mercilessly) hang on to their wealth that makes life intolerable for the rest of us.


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## Billy_wizz (22 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> This article from Steve Baker seems very dated in its details. Firstly the myth that the rate of warming has slowed almost flat. This came out about 10 years ago when there had been four years of little increase in global temperature. However analysis showed that el nino accounted for it. It caused a high for a couple of years that exaggerated global warming and then the La nina caused a cooling, once that's taken into account global warming was comprehensibly shown to continue and 10 years later all the temperature measurements show it. here are the actual measurements from the well respected US National data, (US goverment).
> 
> View attachment 110969
> 
> ...


It was pointed out a while ago that a lot of data regarding temperature is irrelevant as the data test stations historically where built outside of towns and have now been encompassed by the town and the temperature change in these stations is well within the margin of increase expected due to it relative environment! Also there is historic evidence of temperature increases in excess of what where seeing now when man was running round the Forrest with spears so while I'm not so whilst I do believe we are having an affect I believe there is far more in play than we know about!


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## John Brown (22 May 2021)

Earth Temperature Timeline







xkcd.com


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## Phil Pascoe (22 May 2021)

[QUOTE="Pineapple, post: 1478877, - If less of our "precious" land was reserved for grouse-moors and national-trust parkland there would be plenty of space for Every-one to build their own home.
[/QUOTE]

Where there are no jobs, so no one would choose to live there anyway. You are Jacob, and I claim my £5.


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## sirocosm (22 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> At present the goal and gas suppliers turn down during these times. Nuclear cant so continues to run and they pay a price for this.



Modern reactors are capable of load following, although I suppose that comes with some wear and tear, as with any process. So it is always going to be better to run them full tilt and covert the excess to hydrogen.

In the 60s a reactor called the SLOWPOKE was developed in Canada by AECL. I believe its power output was in the 10s of kilowatts for the early ones which they then increased to a few megawatts for use as a district heating. They were passively cooled, used light water, and had several other inherent safety features, such as the reaction slowing if the water gets too hot or forms voids. They were designed to run unmanned.

Despite meeting all their design goals, they didn't sell many, so they are mostly used for research.


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## Cooper (22 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> Hydrogen will be generated by electrolysis of water either on-shore where the power comes ashore, or even offshore.



My chemistry is very limited but I'm sure in school we made bleach by the electrolysis of salt water or has the 60 year interval distorted my memory?

On a rather more important point
The doubters about the climate emergency should watch yesterday's unreported world Unreported World: Unreported World - On Demand about the long term drought in Central America, driving the farmers off their land and making them head for supposed relief in the USA. Nearer to home the thousands from Sub Saharan Africa who crossed from Morocco into Spanish Ceuta this week. They are desperate people being driven by climate to extreme solutions. These people did not cause the problem, our use of hydrocarbons did and does. The slight inconvenience the doubters are grumbling about, to our very comfortable lives, is nothing compared to what is forcing the climate refugees to abandon their homes. As the leavers liked to point out in the referendum, these unfortunate people may soon be knocking at our door.
Technology and modest lifestyle changes provide solutions.


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## Spectric (22 May 2021)

The one thing needed is big change and the one thing a lot of people dislike are big changes, and the older you get the less you like change but the more you can see it is urgently needed. I have read that the system is upto a point self regulating, nature will at some point intervene but will this still be true when nature is not looking at natural changes but man made events. The normal corrective measure seems to be to go into an ice age which stabilises everything then slowly emerge.


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## Terry - Somerset (22 May 2021)

The evidence now accumulated leaves little doubt that the climate is changing. There are some gaps and anomalies in the data but to use these as confirmation of denial is ill founded - eg: the proximity of some weather observations to expanding urban areas is a known issue.

Climate over millenia and longer has constantly changed. There is no good reason to to assume that the climate datum used (currently 1981-2010, sometimes pre-industrial) should be an optimal constant.

It is simply the base upon which the bulk of human development has taken place. Speed of change is the problem, not the change itsself.

The problem is compounded by the exponential growth in populations over the last 200 years. Humans exploit the natural environment and resources both for survival, and often simple indulgence - eg: fossil fuels are being consumed ~1 million times the rate at which they were laid down through natural processes.

Actions to defeat climate change through carbon zero may slow, but not eliminate the inevitable. Homo sapiens are little different to animals which overwhelm their habitat or food supply.

The only differences are that (a) earth is our whole habitat, and (b) we know explicitly what we are doing where animals only experience the consequences!


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## Spectric (22 May 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> It is simply the base upon which the bulk of human development has taken place. Speed of change is the problem, not the change itsself.


But surely the end result is the same, we would just have more time to watch and do even less. It is like development where they say it is only a few houses so no impact but in reality the end result is like filling a fifty gallon tank either with a spoon or a bucket, either way it will end up filled.


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## TominDales (22 May 2021)

Billy_wizz said:


> It was pointed out a while ago that a lot of data regarding temperature is irrelevant as the data test stations historically where built outside of towns and have now been encompassed by the town and the temperature change in these stations is well within the margin of increase expected due to it relative environment! Also there is historic evidence of temperature increases in excess of what where seeing now when man was running round the Forrest with spears so while I'm not so whilst I do believe we are having an affect I believe there is far more in play than we know about!


A healthy skepticism is necessary, this is a complex topic.
However climate change is such a threat to global economics, with so much at stake, that a huge amount of very reliable data is available, funded by governments that need to know the facts. The data published by NOAA (US government) is based on precise satellite measurements. A whole series of satellites have been specifically launched to measure climate change including sea level radar measurements. Over the past 20 years teams of researchers have pored over past data, collating different data sources, such as direct measurements made by squires in Rutland in the 18th century to tree ring data, ice core samples and geological beds of flora and fauna. Ice cores from the artic have been taken to measure past CO2 concentrations. This corpus of data is now pretty robust. Bear in mind this is tough for governments, they are having to spend tax £/$ on the problem and they would rather not, so there is a lot riding on getting a consensus round the underlying data.

There are solid reasons to trust the data, however the models of climate change are an interpretation of the data and so judgement is needed on how robust the various modeling and predictions are. Scientific models improve with time as more factors get considered. Over the past 10 years the climate models have developed considerable, the big gap until 2010 was properly modeling the energy absorbed by the sea. Understanding how the sea absorbs and emits energy during the seasons and el nino cycles. That is better understood now and the models fit the data pretty well in terms of temperature.

A big uncertainty and my biggest worry is how to related temperature rise with ice melting and sea rise. There is still uncertainty about it. I saw a lecture by a geologist who had rock samples from millions of years ago when CO2 levels were about what they are today, and the sea was 30 metres higher than today. A worry is that we are seeing a lag in sea level rise due to inertia, or hysteresis, its like when you defrost your fridge, nothing happens for a long time as the air warms the ice and all of a sudden it melts in a big flood. This aspect of climate change is still poorly understood, and we may be in for a terrible shock if the sea continues to melt even after we have stabilised the temperature.

I think we as citizens should be questioning of what we read on climate change, in my experience there tend to be too extreme reactions - those who worry about potential future catastrophe and want immediate early action as a precaution - the early adopters, and the extreme laggards who remain skeptical until they see it with their own eyes. Governments and society have to pick their way through this complex issue sifting good data from amongst a blizzard of options and vested interests. Personally I think we are pretty good at it in the UK


----------



## D_W (22 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Modern reactors are capable of load following, although I suppose that comes with some wear and tear, as with any process. So it is always going to be better to run them full tilt and covert the excess to hydrogen.
> 
> In the 60s a reactor called the SLOWPOKE was developed in Canada by AECL. I believe its power output was in the 10s of kilowatts for the early ones which they then increased to a few megawatts for use as a district heating. They were passively cooled, used light water, and had several other inherent safety features, such as the reaction slowing if the water gets too hot or forms voids. They were designed to run unmanned.
> 
> Despite meeting all their design goals, they didn't sell many, so they are mostly used for research.



Presumably their power generation wasn't particularly cost effective, just as we're seeing with the mature nuclear industry in the United states?


----------



## Billy_wizz (22 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> A healthy skepticism is necessary, this is a complex topic.
> However climate change is such a threat to global economics, with so much at stake, that a huge amount of very reliable data is available, funded by governments that need to know the facts. The data published by NOAA (US government) is based on precise satellite measurements. A whole series of satellites have been specifically launched to measure climate change including sea level radar measurements. Over the past 20 years teams of researchers have pored over past data, collating different data sources, such as direct measurements made by squires in Rutland in the 18th century to tree ring data, ice core samples and geological beds of flora and fauna. Ice cores from the artic have been taken to measure past CO2 concentrations. This corpus of data is now pretty robust. Bear in mind this is tough for governments, they are having to spend tax £/$ on the problem and they would rather not, so there is a lot riding on getting a consensus round the underlying data.
> 
> There are solid reasons to trust the data, however the models of climate change are an interpretation of the data and so judgement is needed on how robust the various modeling and predictions are. Scientific models improve with time as more factors get considered. Over the past 10 years the climate models have developed considerable, the big gap until 2010 was properly modeling the energy absorbed by the sea. Understanding how the sea absorbs and emits energy during the seasons and el nino cycles. That is better understood now and the models fit the data pretty well in terms of temperature.
> ...


To be fair I've not looked at it for quite a few years now! I stopped looking when climate alarmists refused to share the source data they where working from! Unfortunately you have the 2 extremes climate alarmists and climate deniers then you have the cautious middle! unfortunately the 2 extremes are all we hear from!I wonder how much of an affect the huge explosion of brick and concrete heat banks have had on warming in general!


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## Terry - Somerset (22 May 2021)

> end result is like filling a fifty gallon tank either with a spoon or a bucket, either way it will end up filled.



The spoon/bucket parallel is a good one - but it assumes that with a spoon you would still continue to fill the tank. 

However you may reflect, as you did it, why you would want to carry on if you realised after careful analysis that the end result of your labours was futile - the tank would overflow anyway (the "tipping point"). 

If the "tipping point" were (say) 500 years away I may not now be bothered. Sadly, although it won't greatly affect me, it may very likely affect my children, and almost certainly impact on my grandchildren.

We now know the impact of our abuse of the environment. If the population had grown at a more moderate rate to (say) 2.0bn today, we would be thinking and implementing of ways to modify behaviours etc for the long term.

Global population now ~8.0bn
Global population 1950 ~2.5bn
Global population 1800 ~1.0bn
Global population 2000 years ago ~0.3m

We are now faced with crisis management. Not so different to covid in its own way although timescales are different - had we had decent contingency plans, adequate stocks of PPE, clear policy goals etc etc the impacts would have been far less profound.


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## TominDales (22 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Modern reactors are capable of load following, although I suppose that comes with some wear and tear, as with any process. So it is always going to be better to run them full tilt and covert the excess to hydrogen.
> 
> In the 60s a reactor called the SLOWPOKE was developed in Canada by AECL. I believe its power output was in the 10s of kilowatts for the early ones which they then increased to a few megawatts for use as a district heating. They were passively cooled, used light water, and had several other inherent safety features, such as the reaction slowing if the water gets too hot or forms voids. They were designed to run unmanned.
> 
> Despite meeting all their design goals, they didn't sell many, so they are mostly used for research.


Interesting, I didn't know that. 
Canada was a leader in nuclear power post ww2, the Candu reactor was inherently safe, with low vulnerability to terrorism as it could use natural (unconcentrated) uranium. Before the Manhattan project the UKs atomic programme - called Tube alloys was moved to Canada at the outbreak of WW2, the team then moved to the USA under the Quebec agreement with the US government to kickstart the US project. Canada retained leading knowledge on atomic power. Its Candu offered a solution for less stable states to have nuclear power without the bomb. I don't know much about the history of the Candu, but I suspect it was not widely adopted as most countries were interested in bomb technology and nuclear power was a side branch at that time.


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## sirocosm (22 May 2021)

The Candu design was a bit of an accident. At the time they lacked the tech to make the large pressure vessels required for the standard designs of the day, so they opted for a large low pressure hiigh volume calandria design. As you say they used unenriched fuel, so less danger of nuclear proliferation, I am sure Iran is not interested in this kind of reactor, and somehow that never enters the discussion. One downside of the Candu was is that the required a large amount of heavy water as an up-front capital cost, but they can be refueled online and have very little downtime in service. I read somewhere Japan was considering them for Fukushima (not sure if this is true), but if they had used Candu, that accident would not have happened. They have a very large thermal mass so they are much safer in that kind of situation, and can go quite some time on gravity circulation. Recall with Fukishima, the reactors shut down fine, but they couldn't keep their fuel cool, as they require mechanical circulation for quite some time after they are shut down.

The latest Candus can use gravity circulation indefinitely once shut down, however they no longer run on unenriched fuel. This has the benefit of allowing them to run on reprocessed material from the waste of the previous generation reactors. I think this changes the discussion of nuclear waste. Had we put it in the ground as was planned in Canada, next think you know we'd be digging it up again to use as fuel.


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## TominDales (22 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> I guess we will adapt and develop hybrid solutions. With home heating it's the same conundrum we have now with off electricity/off gas areas but it's trickier with road transport as you say the supply network has to be there. Having said that the EV network is expanding rapidly so maybe it needs more gutsy legislation because if you leave it to consumer demand it will never happen. Also maybe a total rethink on home heating generation is required e.g. community power systems producing small scale hydrogen?


I agree with you, I think the most practical thing for UkWorkshop members it the strategy adopted by many on this forum, practical incremental solutions. Starting with good insulation - the Ellen MacArthur foundation recommend start with reduce, then prolong use, then re-use. Insulation means we don't use energy in the first place, that is the simplest and best solution. The technology exists and is affordable. Switching to heat pumps or other tech can follow as the technology matures. Extended use will be important, bear in mind that EVs have a huge amount of embedded energy in them, there will need to be intensives to keep the new technology running for longer periods of time. This will be a challenge for business models based on fast turnover of consumer goods. My feeling is the instincts of this forum will be to conserve, reduce, prolong.


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## TominDales (22 May 2021)

Cooper said:


> My chemistry is very limited but I'm sure in school we made bleach by the electrolysis of salt water or has the 60 year interval distorted my memory?


You are spot on.
In Runcorn salt from the Cheshire salt strata is electrolysed to make chlorine and caustic soda. The chlorine goes into bleach (with the soda) and into making PVC while the caustic soda is basic chemical commodity used in bleach, smelting and loads of processes. Hydrogen is a by-product and is either burned in the power station or burned with Chlorine to made Hydrochloric acid another base chemicals. The Runcorn plant uses as much electricity as the city of Liverpool about 2% of UKs power. its is a major swing plant for balancing power supply in the Northwest, when there are electric shortages they can turn the cell rooms off a the flick of as switch. They get paid to do that. Various schemes have looked at better uses for the Runcorn hydrogen.


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## sirocosm (22 May 2021)

D_W said:


> Presumably their power generation wasn't particularly cost effective, just as we're seeing with the mature nuclear industry in the United states?



In the US, like most other places, nuclear power has been made artificially expensive by governments, mostly in reaction to the media scaring people off nuclear power. Force a pipeline to undergo an infinite number of impact studies and gas would become expensive too. Some countries did better than others, for example France, where nuclear power is cheap, and they make a ton of cash exporting it.


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## Bojam (22 May 2021)

D_W said:


> No, it's not like that because the situation doesn't change in minutes and we will be more motivated to act base on discomfort. But I think we'll act long before then, anyway. What if scenarios that are only negatively biased with catastrophic uncontrollable outcomes are the hallmark of cognitive traps with anxiety. Ask me how I know this. They can prevent you from taking positive measure action or even understanding what it should be because measured pragmatism and rationality is never as attractive.



The issue is one of complex dynamic systems and thresholds or tipping points. Once a change in the state of a system occurs it can be irreversible. Climatic systems and eco-systems are both undergoing rapid change and we don't know for sure how this will affect us (likely different effects for different localities and societies) but modelling work suggests it will make life more complicated for humans in a variety of ways. We can take action now to try to mitigate the risks. Or not.


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## Spectric (22 May 2021)

TominDales said:


> A big uncertainty and my biggest worry is how to related temperature rise with ice melting and sea rise. There is still uncertainty about it. I saw a lecture by a geologist who had rock samples from millions of years ago when CO2 levels were about what they are today, and the sea was 30 metres higher than today. A worry is that we are seeing a lag in sea level rise due to inertia, or hysteresis, its like when you defrost your fridge, nothing happens for a long time as the air warms the ice and all of a sudden it melts in a big flood. This aspect of climate change is still poorly understood, and we may be in for a terrible shock if the sea continues to melt even after we have stabilised the temperature.


This is a good reason to react before we reach the point where there is massive change rather than lets wait a bit longer and see. This effect is seen in glaciers, nothing seems to happen then a lot disappears because the initial melt is from below, similar to a river undercutting the river bank.


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## Spectric (22 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> In the US, like most other places, nuclear power has been made artificially expensive by governments, mostly in reaction to the media scaring people off nuclear power. Force a pipeline to undergo an infinite number of impact studies and gas would become expensive too. Some countries did better than others, for example France, where nuclear power is cheap, and they make a ton of cash exporting it.


This all comes down to risk assesment, what is the worst thing that can go wrong and what is the likelihood of it happening. A gas pipeline could rupture and cause an initial explosion following by fire until it is shutdown, local issues, potentially deaths in the vicinity and low cost for repair and compensation. A nuclear plant goes wrong, big explosion, a large release of radioactive material and contamination over a large area, people need evacuating if they survive and a global issue with huge cost implications, look at Chenobyl where just the initial cost of the emergency response and decontamination of the area was over $18 billion. The new dome added a further £2 billion and it will take around another 100 years to fully clean up not to mention the cost in human lives which is ongoing globally. In 2005, the total cost over 30 years for Belarus alone was estimated at $235 billion so evaluating a nuclear plant the same as a gas pipeline is really not a good idea, because even with all that risk evaluation and careful design things still go wrong.


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## sirocosm (22 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> This all comes down to risk assesment, what is the worst thing that can go wrong and what is the likelihood of it happening. A gas pipeline could rupture and cause an initial explosion following by fire until it is shutdown, local issues, potentially deaths in the vicinity and low cost for repair and compensation. A nuclear plant goes wrong, big explosion, a large release of radioactive material and contamination over a large area, people need evacuating if they survive and a global issue with huge cost implications, look at Chenobyl where just the initial cost of the emergency response and decontamination of the area was over $18 billion. The new dome added a further £2 billion and it will take around another 100 years to fully clean up not to mention the cost in human lives which is ongoing globally. In 2005, the total cost over 30 years for Belarus alone was estimated at $235 billion so evaluating a nuclear plant the same as a gas pipeline is really not a good idea, because even with all that risk evaluation and careful design things still go wrong.



Fun fact, more people are killed by wind turbines every year, than are killed in the nuclear industry. Your argument is like airplanes. Sure if one crashes, which they still do, then hundreds of people die. And yet it is a statistical reality that you are safer traveling in a plane than almost any other mode of transport. The same is true for power generation. All are more costly than nuclear in terms of human life.

Deaths per 1000 tWh are as follows: gas - 4,000, hydro - 1,400, solar - 440, wind - 150, nuclear - 90 (Mortality rate globally by energy source 2012 | Statista). And yet most of our electricity comes from gas, and almost everyone would prefer hydro over nuclear, but yet dams also fail.

As bad as it was, there were few deaths from Chernobyl (less than 100) and no (nuclear) deaths from Fukushima, although 19,000 were killed in the Tsunami. Doom and gloom about the long term effects are overblown, again part of the fear mongering. After all, they did keep the other reactors online there for some 20 years afterwards. Today it is a tourist site, and the exclusion zone has essentially become a nature reserve.

You talk about risk, and the "worst thing that can go wrong". Well according to current thought, the world is going to suffer dire consequences that is going to cost us 100s of trillions or more if we don't do something, and if the world had mostly switched to nuclear power 30 years ago, it wouldn't be an issue, and our power bills would now be lower.

So I would suggest that nuclear power is cheaper, safer, and less risky than any other form of power generation with today's tech.


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## Rorschach (22 May 2021)

@sirocosm very interesting stats there. 

Deaths are almost always used as a way to push an agenda rather than economy as deaths seem worse, even if the economic cost also causes deaths in the long run.

Deaths from climate change are always bandied about, thousands will die from rising sea levels etc which is nonsense as it assumes people will just stand there for decades as the sea rises around them and finally just succumb. Deaths from natural disaster are falling every year thanks to technological advances despite an increase in extreme weather events.


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## Cooper (22 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> Deaths from climate change are always bandied about, thousands will die from rising sea levels etc which is nonsense as it assumes people will just stand there for decades as the sea rises around them and finally just succumb. Deaths from natural disaster are falling every year thanks to technological advances despite an increase in extreme weather events.


There are more ways to die than by drowning. Bangladesh is loosing large tracks to the rising sea-level, displacing thousands onto already crowded hinterland (many to East London). In Europe, parts of East Anglia, Kent and The Netherlands are at or below sea level. These are some of the most crowded places. You often mention the difficulty of purchasing a home, and you have my sympathy, it will be a lot harder still if you have to compete with your displaced neighbours. Of course the real risk to life from climate change is in wars for water or the need for large populations to migrate into their neighbours territory. Let's try and use our technology to avert this.


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## alanpo68 (23 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Fun fact, more people are killed by wind turbines every year, than are killed in the nuclear industry. Your argument is like airplanes. Sure if one crashes, which they still do, then hundreds of people die. And yet it is a statistical reality that you are safer traveling in a plane than almost any other mode of transport. The same is true for power generation. All are more costly than nuclear in terms of human life.
> 
> Deaths per 1000 tWh are as follows: gas - 4,000, hydro - 1,400, solar - 440, wind - 150, nuclear - 90 (Mortality rate globally by energy source 2012 | Statista). And yet most of our electricity comes from gas, and almost everyone would prefer hydro over nuclear, but yet dams also fail.
> 
> ...



You don't immediately die from exposure to radiation though. 

The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates between 4,000 and 27,000 people died as a result of the disaster, where as Greenpeach places the figure much higher at between 93,000 and 200,000. 

Then you have the problem of how you dispose of Nuclear waste without it impacting on the environment.


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## Cheshirechappie (23 May 2021)

There are clearly some well-informed people posting on this thread.

May I ask a question? (And this is a genuine question - I'm not trying to set anybody up or take the mick. I genuinely don't know what the answer to my question is.)

Let's suppose we push ahead with the UK's current environmental agenda; we all but eliminate use of IC engines, we replace gas heating boilers with other forms of heat, we find other ways to power aircraft and ships that by using oil-derived fuels, and we decarbonise the UK economy by 2050.

What happens to the climate?


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## Rorschach (23 May 2021)

Cheshirechappie said:


> There are clearly some well-informed people posting on this thread.
> 
> May I ask a question? (And this is a genuine question - I'm not trying to set anybody up or take the mick. I genuinely don't know what the answer to my question is.)
> 
> ...



An effect so small we wouldn't be able to measure it. The economic damage however would be catastrophic.

As I have said before, check out Bjorn Lomberg.


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## Blackswanwood (23 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Fun fact, more people are killed by wind turbines every year, than are killed in the nuclear industry. Your argument is like airplanes. Sure if one crashes, which they still do, then hundreds of people die. And yet it is a statistical reality that you are safer traveling in a plane than almost any other mode of transport. The same is true for power generation. All are more costly than nuclear in terms of human life.
> 
> Deaths per 1000 tWh are as follows: gas - 4,000, hydro - 1,400, solar - 440, wind - 150, nuclear - 90 (Mortality rate globally by energy source 2012 | Statista). And yet most of our electricity comes from gas, and almost everyone would prefer hydro over nuclear, but yet dams also fail.
> 
> ...


I do not doubt that you are right regarding the number of deaths. Chernobyl was however a near miss that if it were not for the brave actions of a few of the people who did die (or were deliberately sacrifice) it would have looked very different.


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## Jacob (23 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> The one thing needed is big change and the one thing a lot of people dislike are big changes, and the older you get the less you like change but the more you can see it is urgently needed. I have read that the system is upto a point self regulating, nature will at some point intervene but will this still be true when nature is not looking at natural changes but man made events. The normal corrective measure seems to be to go into an ice age which stabilises everything then slowly emerge.


There is no normal corrective measure but there are steady states where things balance out, such as our current "Holocene" era which is only 11000 years old. We live in a brief window of opportunity which was preceded by 2 million years of ice age. 
The danger is that one steady state can tip quickly into another which may not suit us at all - could even be the end of life on earth and we go the same way as Mars. Nobody knows, except that things _are_ changing, as they have in the past.


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## Jacob (23 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> An effect so small we wouldn't be able to measure it. The economic damage however would be catastrophic.
> 
> As I have said before, check out Bjorn Lomberg.


Haven't read Lomberg but he may have a point - that there are other (more?) pressing issues.
Overcrowding gets seen as causing increased demand on resources and stress but may it be the other way around - it's our _species_ survival mechanism kicking in.
In the natural world "over" population ensures survivors when the going gets tough.
Evolution adapts to protect the species not the individual - we all die, whatever the quality of life around us.
Hence birth rates leap in stressed societies. From which a simple conclusion can be drawn!

When climate change kicks in there may be massive destruction but a few niches for survival, for me hopefully in the limestone caves and mines of Derbyshire!


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## Adam W. (23 May 2021)

Just my uninformed observation.

New Zealand and Greenland are suffering extreme glacial retreat and Antarctica has recently created, in a year, two of the largest icebergs ever recorded.

Tinkering around the edges with a boiler here and a new battery there is not going to do much, as we still have to mine the materials and use fossil fuels to create the new products which are supposed to save us.

My advice, buy a house on a hill.


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## Jacob (23 May 2021)

Adam W. said:


> J...d use fossil fuels to create the new products which are supposed to save us.
> 
> My advice, buy a house on a hill.


Or check out a few caves. One cheering detail is that we won't be entering a new stone age as there will be millions of tons of scrap metal lying about. 
Freehand sharpeners will inherit the earth!


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## Cooper (23 May 2021)

Cheshirechappie said:


> There are clearly some well-informed people posting on this thread.
> 
> May I ask a question? (And this is a genuine question - I'm not trying to set anybody up or take the mick. I genuinely don't know what the answer to my question is.)
> 
> ...



An even more ignorant reply! I suspect that as we are repeatedly told, we are (or were) the 6th largest economy in the world. I presume that means we also consume a lot and therefore our impact or reduction of it will be significant. 
Thinking that our individual contributions can't make a difference is a bit like the chap who throws his fag packet out of the window of his car as its only one bit of card but if we all did it we would disappear under piles of rubbish. As the Tesco ad puts it "Every little helps"
You can see I spent 40years as a D&T teacher!!


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## sirocosm (23 May 2021)

alanpo68 said:


> You don't immediately die from exposure to radiation though.
> 
> The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates between 4,000 and 27,000 people died as a result of the disaster, where as Greenpeach places the figure much higher at between 93,000 and 200,000.
> 
> Then you have the problem of how you dispose of Nuclear waste without it impacting on the environment.



It takes a lot of radiation to kill you, and it is very difficult to determine if an exposure has "pushed you over the edge" so to speak, and you get cancer, so I am not sure if these numbers can really be known with any certainty.

Greenpeace is an absolute disgrace for their anti-nuclear stance, they are more interested in environmental PR then the actual environment.

Far more people likely die from exposure to any one of the thousands of chemicals that are everywhere, in our food, all our products, even the construction materials that we use to build our houses. I worry about that funny smell when I cycle past the chemical plant on my way to work, and when I get stuck in traffic behind some stinky diesel. Many things that we think of as "safe" are like you said above, things that don't kill you right away, but rather add up over time.

There are thousands of toxic waste sites from various industrial processes, mines, chemical plants, factories, dumps, and forget half-life, some of them never break down, the so-called "forever chemicals". Slowly they are all leaching into the environment, mostly through groundwater. And like Chernobyl, it is very tough to prove they were the cause of one's cancer when it comes.

The media has managed to convince the public that radiation is some kind of super poison, when radiation is all around us, and always will be. The other point that seems to escape discussion is that radiation is super easy to detect, even at background levels. This means that if air or water in an area become polluted for some reason, we know it, and can do something about it. This is mostly not the case for all the other industrial nasties that we are exposed to.

To put things in perspective, the amount of radiation released into the environment from the atomic testing in the 50s and 60s is estimated to be between 100-1000 times that of Chernobyl. 

Like I said previously the idea of "nuclear waste" is becoming outdated. Today's reactors can run on re-processed fuel from the previous generation, in other words they can burn nuclear waste. Only a few percent of the possible energy is extracted from the fuel, so it is not really "waste" per se.


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## Fergie 307 (23 May 2021)

Surely the ultimate answer is for us to master fusion. I am sure we could crack the problem of how to build a fusion reactor if it was given sufficient priority, and funding, by governments. I think it was Brian Cox who observed that we spent more on mobile phone ringtones than on research into nuclear fusion. Tragic when this could potentially solve our energy needs by effectively creating our own mini suns in the form of fusion reactors.


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## Cheshirechappie (23 May 2021)

Cooper said:


> An even more ignorant reply! I suspect that as we are repeatedly told, we are (or were) the 6th largest economy in the world. I presume that means we also consume a lot and therefore our impact or reduction of it will be significant.
> Thinking that our individual contributions can't make a difference is a bit like the chap who throws his fag packet out of the window of his car as its only one bit of card but if we all did it we would disappear under piles of rubbish. As the Tesco ad puts it "Every little helps"
> You can see I spent 40years as a D&T teacher!!


OK - everybody 'does their little bit', and the UK decarbonises by 2050 (or something close to it).

What happens to the climate?


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## Cheshirechappie (23 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> An effect so small we wouldn't be able to measure it. The economic damage however would be catastrophic.
> 
> As I have said before, check out Bjorn Lomberg.


It may only be your opinion, but at least you gave me a straight answer to my question!

I agree about Bjorn Lomberg. He does seem to be one of the more thoughtful, informed and pragmatic contributors to the climate debate.


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## sirocosm (23 May 2021)

Fergie 307 said:


> Surely the ultimate answer is for us to master fusion. I am sure we could crack the problem of how to build a fusion reactor if it was given sufficient priority, and funding, by governments. I think it was Brian Cox who observed that we spent more on mobile phone ringtones than on research into nuclear fusion. Tragic when this could potentially solve our energy needs by effectively creating our own mini suns in the form of fusion reactors.



Agreed, but if something is to happen in the here and now, then fission is our only choice, and when we transition from fission to fusion later, the infrastructure would already be there. Can you imagine what our electrical grid would look like now if we had transitioned to nuclear power 30 years ago? 

France built most of their reactor fleet in less than 15 years, and there is no reason, other than politics, that we couldn't do the same with small modular reactors in 10 years. But 10 years from now we'll still be whinging that reactors take too long to build.


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## Rorschach (23 May 2021)

Cheshirechappie said:


> It may only be your opinion, but at least you gave me a straight answer to my question!
> 
> I agree about Bjorn Lomberg. He does seem to be one of the more thoughtful, informed and pragmatic contributors to the climate debate.



And that's why he is often ignored, as usual, his stance is reasoned and sensible, which doesn't fit the narrative and get headlines for the MSM.


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## John Brown (23 May 2021)

Cheshirechappie said:


> OK - everybody 'does their little bit', and the UK decarbonises by 2050 (or something close to it).
> 
> What happens to the climate?


Maybe the answer is that nobody is certain what happens.
However, there is massive concensus about what happens if we don't.


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## Spectric (23 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Fun fact, more people are killed by wind turbines every year, than are killed in the nuclear industry. Your argument is like airplanes. Sure if one crashes, which they still do, then hundreds of people die. And yet it is a statistical reality that you are safer traveling in a plane than almost any other mode of transport. The same is true for power generation. All are more costly than nuclear in terms of human life.


Thats the whole point, the balance of how bad is the potential hazzard and what would happen if it occured, so if it is really bad then you have to reduce the risk of it actually happening to a low probability by implementing suitable safety systems irrelevant of how much they cost. Hence why wind turbines may kill more people during an average period of time than the nuclear industry. Now think of how many have died as the result of nuclear incidents and wind turbines are now very low risk, they may kill a few on a steady basis but high hazzards like nuclear kill an awfull lot every now and again.



sirocosm said:


> As bad as it was, there were few deaths from Chernobyl


That should read as a direct result from the incident, if you have watched the documentary where actual people from the time were interviewed then this was only the starting point and deaths are continuing along with many other medical issues, and when you realise that there were more than 500,000 involved in the initial cleanup which by the way probably saved the northern hemisphere, then you can see why the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency estimate that the number of premature deaths associated with the disaster is approximately 4,000, and the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates between 4,000 and 27,000 people died, but Greenpeach puts this figure much higher at between 93,000 and 200,000. The human cost globaly is the real concern, in 1995 the World Health Organization linked nearly 700 cases of thyroid cancer among children and adolescents to the Chernobyl disaster.

Don't think we escaped either, almost 9,000 British farms were affected by restrictions brought in on the movement and sale of sheep and parts of Cumbria, Scotland and Northern Ireland were impacted, with North Wales hardest hit, here sheep were still failing radioactive tests 10 years after the accident in 1996 and the restrictions on sheep in the UK were only lifted in 2012, 26 years after the meltdown. 

This disaster should have an official commemoration day because people need to be reminded of just how close we came to the end, as incidents go it was worse than Cuba because we had lost control.


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## Spectric (23 May 2021)

Adam W. said:


> My advice, buy a house on a hill.


A house on a hill today but a house on an island in the future!


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## Jacob (23 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> And that's why he is often ignored, as usual, his stance is reasoned and sensible, which doesn't fit the narrative and get headlines for the MSM.


He tends to be ignored because he is not a climate scientist, nor a scientist of any sort, unless you include "political science".
His stance "doesn't fit the narrative" because he is ignoring the science and the best/most informed opinion.


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## Cheshirechappie (23 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> Maybe the answer is that nobody is certain what happens.
> However, there is massive concensus about what happens if we don't.


I would be inclined to agree with your first sentence. The second - emphatically not. There is considerable debate about that, amongst scientists studying matters pertaining to climate, and amongst concerned commentators. That's why having a sound, evidence-based answer to the question of what effect on the climate the proposed mitigation measures will have is so important.

Why would we beggar ourselves if there is no benefit? Why would we beggar ourselves if the benefit is uncertain and unquantifiable, as you suggest in your first sentence?


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## sirocosm (23 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> The human cost globaly is the real concern, in 1995 the World Health Organization linked nearly 700 cases of thyroid cancer among children and adolescents to the Chernobyl disaster.



Sure, and they link how many cancers to sausage and salami? used to be they told us butter was bad, and that margarine was healthier.

They take some study based on very thin evidence and large pile of assumptions, and then treat it as fact.

The reporting about nuclear disasters in the power sector is almost universally overblown.


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## Rorschach (23 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> Maybe the answer is that nobody is certain what happens.
> However, there is massive concensus about what happens if we don't.



Really? I don't think so.


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## Rorschach (23 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> He tends to be ignored because he is not a climate scientist, nor a scientist of any sort, unless you include "political science".
> His stance "doesn't fit the narrative" because he is ignoring the science and the best/most informed opinion.



It's ok, anyone can be anything they like now.


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## Jacob (23 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> .....
> 
> The reporting about nuclear disasters in the power sector is almost universally overblown.


You should watch the film "Chernobyl" which is a realistic reconstruction. It emphasises what an absolute disaster this could have been to the whole of Europe if the wind had been different, and to the whole of the Mediterranean if radiation had entered the river.
No reason to think this wasn't true.


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## D_W (23 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> Maybe the answer is that nobody is certain what happens.
> However, there is massive concensus about what happens if we don't.



It's a little bit warmer and sea levels rise a foot by 2100?


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## sirocosm (23 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> You should watch the film "Chernobyl" which is a realistic reconstruction. It emphasises what an absolute disaster this could have been to the whole of Europe if the wind had been different, and to the whole of the Mediterranean if radiation had entered the river.
> No reason to think this wasn't true.



It is hard to imagine a worse outcome then an out of control core exposed to the atmosphere in a large reactor, and basically all they did was dump sand on it. That reactor should not have been operating in the first place, it was a very dangerous design, it had no plan in case of an incident, and it didn't even have a containment building.

I remind you that the movies are entertainment, and panic sells.


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## D_W (23 May 2021)

I'd venture to guess the shortened lifetime of liquidators involved many thousands. The scientists who studied it and thought they were relatively safe had drastically damaged dna. At least one of them died young due to heart attack.


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## Valhalla (23 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> the fundamental problem is population growth, leading to more homes, more consumption, more pollution and all whilst natural resources diminish


This is a favourite rant of mine....I've been saying it for years. Ultimately finite/infinite is a universal constant - it doesn't go. The ever prevailing capitalist ideal of bigger, better, faster, more should be consigned to the dustbin....it just doesn't work. There needs to be a global mind-set adjustment with regards to global population - it needs to be scaled back to a level that this planet can sustain - what that number is needs to be determined.

Now this might blow a few minds, but I think the single most problem threatening this planet, and paradoxically the solution are.......women!! (puts on tin hat and waits for barrage)..

Women are THE ONLY WAY humans can get on this planet......it is women that have ultimate control over the size of the population....the future of mankind is in their hands.....and I don't think they totally realise it......


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## Terry - Somerset (23 May 2021)

Is spending huge sums on a green energy revolution going to impoverish us all or make the world safer from the spectre of damaging climate change. The answer to both is no!

The UK alone will make only a trivial difference to global climate change. It accounts for a little over 1% of greenhouse gas emissions. It needs major polluters to join the game - China, US, India and Russia account for 50% of the global total.

If the UK unilaterally implements its own green revolution:

GDP and growth is about economic activity. It matters little whether that activity arises from running a hairdressing salon, building cars, processing food or building wind turbines. They all create wealth which is (mostly) spent in the economy.
the UK economy is dominated by the services. Forcing a green agenda may have some impacts - eg: imports of construction materials, shift employment from services to building solar arrays, reduce unemployment etc. This is complex and the impacts uncertain
if the UK takes the lead in a "green revolution" and associated technologies it creates an opportunity to sell expertise and knowedge to the rest of the world if they later follow.
If others don't follow, the UK still has the benefit of no longer being reliant on imported fuels (the North Sea is almost dry!). The economics of green energy are already approaching parity with fossil fuels.
There is a risk to committing to "green". But in my view the risk of ignoring the opportunities are far greater.


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## Rorschach (23 May 2021)

Valhalla said:


> Women are THE ONLY WAY humans can get on this planet......it is women that have ultimate control over the size of the population....the future of mankind is in their hands.....and I don't think they totally realise it......



The problem is women are naturally disposed to wanting to have children, it's literally a biological urge for (the vast majority) of them and at the same time we incentivise having children.


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## Valhalla (23 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> The problem is women are naturally disposed to wanting to have children, it's literally a biological urge for (the vast majority) of them and at the same time we incentivise having children.


Agreed, but I'm not saying they shouldn't have children, but less of them. Evolution has decreed that only one of the human species has the ability to give birth (although I'm sure science - and the Chinese will find a way around this in time), but as has been so often said - great power comes with great responsibility and women need to exercise great responsibility with regards to the population increase - dealing with this ticking time-bomb is much more urgent that a ticking biological clock


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## Spectric (23 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> The reporting about nuclear disasters in the power sector is almost universally overblown.


If you have ever worked the sector then you would appreciate the concerns. It could be that the numbers are just so big and yet it is an invisable killer, but unlike electricity and steam that are also invisable they can be controlled and turned off, radioactive material can be lethal for fifteen to twenty thousand years. It is like some immortal beast that we have unleashed and cannot control, we can only try and keep it in a cage because otherwise it will kill. Even today in places at chernobyl you could get a dose over 300 Sv/hr which is a lethal dose in around a minute. To compare, Fukushimia site in 2011 was around 1 Milli Sievert and for a CT scan you get around 10 m/Sv so I would say that the reporting is in context, people have a right to know the legacy we are leaving for at least the next 100 generations, what will they think and how will they judge us?


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## sirocosm (23 May 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> Is spending huge sums on a green energy revolution going to impoverish us all



The short answer to this question is yes. 

I just moved here from Germany, where they pay over 30 cents per kWh for electricity, most of which is green tax. Meanwhile the media scared them into shutting their reactors after Fukushima, so they are replacing them with .... coal!

To make matters worse, since politically they cannot build new ones, they are looking for ways to extend the life of older, more dangerous reactors. It is all around a lose-lose situation, and yet the world points to them as the leaders, so I suppose it will continue.

I am pushing 60, and have moved around all my life, so I don't have much for retirement. If current trends continue, I will suffer energy poverty in my last years, as is currently happening to people in Germany.


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## Spectric (23 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> and it didn't even have a containment building.


The containment was the reactor casing just like most reactors, and works fine until breached at which point you are in trouble. At chernobyl due to a chain of events they got thermal runaway and the cooling water boiled, the 1000 tonne reactor cover just lifted, then an explosion and the core was exposed and burning sending radioactive material into the atmosphere.


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## Phil Pascoe (23 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> He tends to be ignored because he is not a climate scientist, nor a scientist of any sort ...



Nor is Greater Thunderbird.


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## Phil Pascoe (23 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> You should watch the film "Chernobyl" which is a realistic reconstruction. It emphasises what an absolute disaster this could have been to the whole of Europe if the wind had been different, and to the whole of the Mediterranean if radiation had entered the river.
> No reason to think this wasn't true.


could have ... if ... if


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## Spectric (23 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> I am pushing 60, and have moved around all my life, so I don't have much for retirement. If current trends continue, I will suffer energy poverty in my last years, as is currently happening to people in Germany.


Energy poverty is going to impact an awful lot of people, myself included because although we talk about global warming I seem to have the heating on for more months of the year than ever before and if we have to go electric then it will be freeze or starve.


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## D_W (23 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> The containment was the reactor casing just like most reactors, and works fine until breached at which point you are in trouble. At chernobyl due to a chain of events they got thermal runaway and the cooling water boiled, the 1000 tonne reactor cover just lifted, then an explosion and the core was exposed and burning sending radioactive material into the atmosphere.



Absolutely catastrophic. I'm sure the health effects of it were understated, but then again, the government allowed local residents to stay in pripyat (wasn't it for DAYS?) and get dosed while they decided how much they would admit. 

I grew up just west of TMI and live just downwind from another power station now. I don't feel at all unsafe, but as a matter of sensibility, I do keep a box of IOSAT (potassium iodide) tablets on hand for my kids. They are extremely cheap and don't have to be replaced very often.


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## Spectric (23 May 2021)

Valhalla said:


> Women are THE ONLY WAY humans can get on this planet......it is women that have ultimate control over the size of the population....the future of mankind is in their hands.....and I don't think they totally realise it......


And I thought it took two to tango! I suppose these days men are surplus because you can probably buy the required fertiliser ready to go from Amazon, they do sell everything else.


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## Phil Pascoe (23 May 2021)

I was born a mile from a nerve gas factory - we didn't even think about it.


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## Spectric (23 May 2021)

D_W said:


> I grew up just west of TMI and live just downwind from another power station now. I don't feel at all unsafe, but as a matter of sensibility, I do keep a box of IOSAT (potassium iodide) tablets on hand for my kids. They are extremely cheap and don't have to be replaced very often.


Thats a start but I would also want a full face mask with the correct canisters so I could evacuate safely and not get dosed up in the evac.


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## Valhalla (23 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> ready to go from Amazon


Aren't they women as well.......doh oh sorry - they were Amazonians


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## Valhalla (23 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> I was born a mile from a nerve gas factory - we didn't even think about it.


has that constant head shake and twitchy eye gone away now?


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## Jacob (23 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> could have ... if ... if


The point is - what if similar thing happened elsewhere, as it will, and if we weren't so lucky.


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## Jacob (23 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Nor is Greater Thunderbird.


She is a publicist and campaigner FOR the scientific consensus, he is not and he thinks he knows better than the experts


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## Valhalla (23 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> The point is - what if similar thing happened elsewhere, as it will, and if we weren't so lucky.


We'll need the last person to turn the lights out


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## ivan (23 May 2021)

Bear in mind current generation is only just able to cope with bad weather demand.
A quick trawl of google returns will give you the annual sales in billions of litres of fossil fuel from garage pumps. Similarly you can find the energy content, of which about 35% is used to make the vehicle travel along. That has to be replaced by an equivalent amount of electricity, allowing for about 80% recovery from the battery and 95% efficiencey of the electric motor. It equates to the output of around 6 very large nuclear installations. A modern design (not producing bomb material) leaves about a car sized lump of nasties for long term storage. At present we are not capable of building one such in 20 years.
Can you imagine the noise from the huge fans in air heat pumps - small estate houses will not have large emough gardens for ground extraction...
Long term the only answer to this, and our heating requirements, would seem to be hydrogen - fuel cells for cars, tanks quick to refill, and combustion for heating. Again, long term, something for the current fuel rich countries to change over to, having unlimited sunshine, to photocell seawater to oxygen and hydrogen.
Maybe by then we'll have perfected fusion and energy will be unlimited etc. etc . as they said about nuclear in the 1950's.


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## sirocosm (23 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> The containment was the reactor casing just like most reactors, and works fine until breached at which point you are in trouble. At chernobyl due to a chain of events they got thermal runaway and the cooling water boiled, the 1000 tonne reactor cover just lifted, then an explosion and the core was exposed and burning sending radioactive material into the atmosphere.



There was no containment building as would be installed on any western-built reactor.


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## Spectric (23 May 2021)

If the reactor in any plant gets into thermal runaway then whatever is protecting it from the weather will not contain the blast or the radiation, that is why it is essential to maintain full control of the reactor and not enter the non operational zone.


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## D_W (23 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> Thats a start but I would also want a full face mask with the correct canisters so I could evacuate safely and not get dosed up in the evac.



I'm about 15 miles downwind. It would take exceptional odds for the fallout to go up and then come down right on me. iosat gets us time to go the opposite direction of the wind without the kids getting a thyroid dose. There'd be worse stuff in a real disaster (cesium, etc?) but I wouldn't be thinking about sticking around and riding it out.


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## Rorschach (23 May 2021)

ivan said:


> Bear in mind current generation is only just able to cope with bad weather demand.
> A quick trawl of google returns will give you the annual sales in billions of litres of fossil fuel from garage pumps. Similarly you can find the energy content, of which about 35% is used to make the vehicle travel along. That has to be replaced by an equivalent amount of electricity, allowing for about 80% recovery from the battery and 95% efficiencey of the electric motor. It equates to the output of around 6 very large nuclear installations. A modern design (not producing bomb material) leaves about a car sized lump of nasties for long term storage. At present we are not capable of building one such in 20 years.
> Can you imagine the noise from the huge fans in air heat pumps - small estate houses will not have large emough gardens for ground extraction...
> Long term the only answer to this, and our heating requirements, would seem to be hydrogen - fuel cells for cars, tanks quick to refill, and combustion for heating. Again, long term, something for the current fuel rich countries to change over to, having unlimited sunshine, to photocell seawater to oxygen and hydrogen.
> Maybe by then we'll have perfected fusion and energy will be unlimited etc. etc . as they said about nuclear in the 1950's.



SIL lives on a new build estate, all houses use air source heat pumps. No complaints about noise.


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## Phil Pascoe (23 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> She is a publicist and campaigner FOR the scientific consensus, he is not and he thinks he knows better than the experts


She is a publicist and campaigner FOR the scientific consensus her parents, advisors etc. believe. Ftfy.

You did say consensus not facts, though, I'll give you that. it was scientific consensus a few decades ago that we'd be living in an ice age by now.


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## D_W (23 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> SIL lives on a new build estate, all houses use air source heat pumps. No complaints about noise.



They're not noisy like they used to be. I think most are scroll type instead of (not certain, but FIL's Geo pump makes less noise than my gas furnace fan does). Scroll type may be why they have a normal expected service life now, too.


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## Jacob (23 May 2021)

"Consensus" is agreement about the interpretation of the facts


Phil Pascoe said:


> ... it was scientific consensus a few decades ago that we'd be living in an ice age by now.


No it was not.
It was a speculative theory, amongst many. And also in fact was the great white hope - that natural forces would reverse the heating of the atmosphere. by increase albedo as snow surfaces spread from the poles and increase reflection of sunlight and heat.
The fear now is that what will halt climate change will be the changes which stop us increasing our carbon footprint whether we want to or not, if we don't do it fast enough ourselves.


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## ivan (23 May 2021)

Well that's good news.
Bloke who bought my parents house recently got a grant for an air source pump which was fitted in a brick lean to. Fan must be about 900mm dia. Can hear it indoors, _next door_. I can hear the fan of my neighbours CH boiler in my bedroom. Fortunately he does not run it at night.
Heat pump heat is pretty low grade, so the air source pump and thus fan runs more or less continously (I am told by installers). We are all electric with storage radiators in all rooms (on 220V 3 phase) which is passably similar in cost to liquid gas (no mains gas here). After talking to installers re cost benefit / noise (esp. now no grant) ground source looked possible but expensive, so we decided to stick with off peak for a new extension.
Retired, we may well do more continental motor homing in future winters...


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## Phil Pascoe (23 May 2021)

My electrician told me he's installing more and more Economy 7 (many areas around here haven't mains gas.)

Ironically (unless it's been changed) it doesn't work with Smart Meters. I would have thought one of the main objectives of smart metering would be ultimately to introduce variable charging.


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## Spectric (23 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Ironically (unless it's been changed) it doesn't work with Smart Meters. I would have thought one of the main objectives of smart metering would be ultimately to introduce variable charging.


Smart meters, like smart phones are not really that smart, an awful lot of hype around smart meters and the story I like is that they will save you energy and so reduce your bills, how do they do that? The only way to save is to use less, so unless you want to sit in the dark and turn off a lot of electrical appliances then you won't save a penny but the supplier will because he can automatically read the meter and reduce his cost which they will not pass any back onto you.


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## Phil Pascoe (23 May 2021)

I reported that advert to the ASA. They came back that they had had so many complaints they would not reply individually. I notice now the ads say iirc user input required.


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## D_W (23 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> Smart meters, like smart phones are not really that smart, an awful lot of hype around smart meters and the story I like is that they will save you energy and so reduce your bills, how do they do that? The only way to save is to use less, so unless you want to sit in the dark and turn off a lot of electrical appliances then you won't save a penny but the supplier will because he can automatically read the meter and reduce his cost which they will not pass any back onto you.



They're "convenience" meters, but their real purpose is just to collect data and sell it. I'm sure there are groups of people who are oblivious and who would leave their thermostat set identically (high energy use) all the time, but when I saw a potential schedule for a smart meter (this is sans spouse now), it was less conservative than what I would do at the time (which is not to turn the heat up in the morning, and not to turn it up while at work, and only turn it up when arriving home (not before so that home was "comfortable" then). Same with my parents, who allow half of their house's heat to turn *off* in the winter while the other half (where there is more plumbing) drops down drastically. The half that turns off is the half they're in (the upper floor). 

The only selling point I could possibly think of would be turning your heat back up on the ay home from a trip, etc. 

My household thermostat is still 100% analog and we flip it on the way to bed and on the way out in the morning.


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## Artiglio (23 May 2021)

ivan said:


> Well that's good news.
> Bloke who bought my parents house recently got a grant for an air source pump which was fitted in a brick lean to. Fan must be about 900mm dia. Can hear it indoors, _next door_. I can hear the fan of my neighbours CH boiler in my bedroom. Fortunately he does not run it at night.
> Heat pump heat is pretty low grade, so the air source pump and thus fan runs more or less continously (I am told by installers). We are all electric with storage radiators in all rooms (on 220V 3 phase) which is passably similar in cost to liquid gas (no mains gas here). After talking to installers re cost benefit / noise (esp. now no grant) ground source looked possible but expensive, so we decided to stick with off peak for a new extension.
> Retired, we may well do more continental motor homing in future winters...


Just as the requirements for energy conservation have changed over the years so have the regs in respect of acoustic insulation and the passage of sound ( my first house , 1900 two up two down) the neighbour had a rotary dial phone on the party wall, you could clearly hear when they were dialling). 
More recently i was given a” rough quote“ for a 20kw borehole ground sourced heat pump and was told not to expect much change from 50k. Plus i’d need 3 phase power to run it another 12k to bring it in plus the trebled standing charge. As the building has gas it was an easy choice as to what to do.


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## D_W (23 May 2021)

I'm guessing 20kw is with preheater coil? Otherwise, that's something like 300k+ btu continuous heat and cool. 

150k btu-ish system installed here (heat and cool, with probably three vertical boreholes is about $20k in prior construction if nothing funny - as in, if gas or propane heat and A/C already installed).


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## timk5163 (23 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> My electrician told me he's installing more and more Economy 7 (many areas around here haven't mains gas.)
> 
> Ironically (unless it's been changed) it doesn't work with Smart Meters. I would have thought one of the main objectives of smart metering would be ultimately to introduce variable charging.


Yes, things have changed: see Octopus Energy's "AgileOctopus" tariff that changes rates every 30 minutes to follow the wholesale prices. They can sometimes pay you to use excess energy (EV charging, etc.)


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## Trainee neophyte (24 May 2021)

I don't have a boiler, so ignored this thread until Saturday - it's taken me until now to get up to date!

I'm not going anywhere near the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Emergency debate, as that is a proselytising relegion, not science. 

Regarding ground heat, as I understand it the heat actually comes from inside the earth, not from the sun. A trivial point, but the ground radiates heat from the mantle into space - your heat pump is just borrowing some of that heat - moving it a few metres is another way of looking at it.

What hasn't been looked at is how much oil we have left - oodles of it, obviously, but all of it expensive to extract. The energy required to extract it has a bearing on our economic wellbeing, and currently we average I believe 15 barrels of oil produced for every barrel consumed producing it. This sounds like a healthy margin, but it is right on the cusp of being enough to allow growth of the worldwide economy. It is only going to get worse from here, as old, cheap wells come to the end of their life, affecting the balance. 

With our insane money system that requires infinite growth to continue, things are looking shaky. The coronavirus hiatus means lots of oil wells were mothballed, and it is not possible to just switch them back on as the demand rises, so we may have both high oil prices and shortages by the end of the year. An oil price over $70 per barrel = world recession, so this could be fun.

If you are of a pessimistic frame of mind then you may want to take control of your energy supply sooner rather than later. Insulation to reduce energy consumption and power from wood, methane, solar, wind as a last resort. Small hydro is fabulous if you are lucky enough to own a stream. Most of that presupposes you don't live in a city. Fuel shortages means everything shortages. Fingers crossed everything will be fine, and it is all just hype and fear to push the oil price up and make some people rich(er).


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## Jacob (24 May 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> ....
> 
> I'm not going anywhere near the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Emergency debate, as that is a proselytising relegion, not science.


No it's the science. 
The religion is in the naive faith that it's all nonsense and everything will be alright somehow, god willing, or that it's a cunning plot to make more money. 
Or both, as in your last paragraph 


> Fingers crossed everything will be fine, and it is all just hype and fear to push the oil price up and make some people rich(er).


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## Rorschach (24 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> No it's the science.
> The religion is in the naive faith that it's all nonsense and everything will be alright somehow, god willing, or that it's a cunning plot to make more money.
> Or both, as in your last paragraph



Ahh "The Science" my favourite phrase of the last 12 months, totally meaningless of course.


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## Trainee neophyte (24 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> No it's the science.


No, it's The Guardian. As I said, not going there.


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## Jacob (24 May 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> No, it's The Guardian. As I said, not going there.


Too late - you've gone there! 
These things don't go away if you just pretend they aren't happening.


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## John Brown (24 May 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> I'm not going anywhere near the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Emergency debate, as that is a proselytising relegion, not science.


Except that by saying that, you did go there. I'm not interested in arguing the point, as I'm pretty certain neither you, or any of the usual sneerleaders, will shift your position one degree, but it's dishonest to hit and run like that.


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## Steve_Scott (24 May 2021)

Cheshirechappie said:


> OK - everybody 'does their little bit', and the UK decarbonises by 2050 (or something close to it).
> 
> What happens to the climate?



Very little in the grand scheme, but the UK (or by that time, a group of bickering insignificant nations) become(s) the leader(s) in alternative technology and sells it to the rest of the world and perhaps then the economy grows and a significant impact to the climate can be made. However... it might well all be offset by an ever increasing population, which I have always maintained is the biggest problem.


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## Trainee neophyte (24 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> Except that by saying that, you did go there. I'm not interested in arguing the point, as I'm pretty certain neither you, or any of the usual sneerleaders, will shift your position one degree, but it's dishonest to hit and run like that.


Which is exactly why I see no point in getting bogged down in an irrelevant, and extremely heated debate on an off topic subject. Let's talk about energy, oil and how to replace it, and what the near future holds economically. When the sea level rises substantially, we can talk about that, too but until then, let's all keep on topic. What say you?


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## Jacob (24 May 2021)

Steve_Scott said:


> Very little in the grand scheme, but the UK (or by that time, a group of bickering insignificant nations) become(s) the leader(s) in alternative technology and sells it to the rest of the world and perhaps then the economy grows and a significant impact to the climate can be made. However... it might well all be offset by an ever increasing population, which I have always maintained is the biggest problem.


Over population is the solution - it increases the chance of survivors post apocalypse. It's nature's way!
The problem is over consumption.


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## sirocosm (24 May 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> What hasn't been looked at is how much oil we have left - oodles of it, obviously, but all of it expensive to extract. The energy required to extract it has a bearing on our economic wellbeing, and currently we average I believe 15 barrels of oil produced for every barrel consumed producing it. This sounds like a healthy margin, but it is right on the cusp of being enough to allow growth of the worldwide economy. It is only going to get worse from here, as old, cheap wells come to the end of their life, affecting the balance.



There is a huge amount of oil in tar sands in Albert and other places, but it takes a large amount of energy to extract it. In Alberta they are planning to build nuclear reactors to generate the steam required to extract the oil. I am sure David Suzuki will have a bird. Of course the environmental damage left behind from the tar sands extraction will be much worse than the reactors.


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## Fergie 307 (24 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> The containment was the reactor casing just like most reactors, and works fine until breached at which point you are in trouble. At chernobyl due to a chain of events they got thermal runaway and the cooling water boiled, the 1000 tonne reactor cover just lifted, then an explosion and the core was exposed and burning sending radioactive material into the atmosphere.


I think the point he was making is that the Russian s didn't put the reactor inside a further containment building, as we do. Whether this would have been able to contain the explosion I have no idea.


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## doctor Bob (24 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> Over population is the solution - it increases the chance of survivors post apocalypse. It's nature's way!



but there would be more zombies...........


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## Rorschach (24 May 2021)

doctor Bob said:


> but there would be more zombies...........



Plenty of them now.


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## Spectric (24 May 2021)

Fergie 307 said:


> I think the point he was making is that the Russian s didn't put the reactor inside a further containment building, as we do. Whether this would have been able to contain the explosion I have no idea.


It was inside a building upto when it went bang, these buildings around reactors are really just to protect from the enviroment and provide a working space for the operators, often no more than steel frames and cladding. The idea is that the reactor should not explode and release any radioactive material, if it does then you are in trouble.


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## sirocosm (24 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> It was inside a building upto when it went bang, these buildings around reactors are really just to protect from the enviroment and provide a working space for the operators, often no more than steel frames and cladding. The idea is that the reactor should not explode and release any radioactive material, if it does then you are in trouble.



The buildings (reinforced concrete domes, typically) built around western reactors are designed to withstand such an explosion. The reactor vessel itself is much smaller.

Of course there is debate as to whether a proper containment building would have withstood that explosion, but if it had, there would have been no deaths, and little mess.


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## Jacob (24 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> It is hard to imagine a worse outcome then an out of control core exposed to the atmosphere in a large reactor, and basically all they did was dump sand on it. That reactor should not have been operating in the first place, it was a very dangerous design, it had no plan in case of an incident, and it didn't even have a containment building.
> 
> I remind you that the movies are entertainment, and panic sells.


No the movie is rated for being a realistic dramatisation true to the events.


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## Spectric (24 May 2021)

The only contaiment provided by the outer building and this also applies to any other nuclear facility is that during normal operations a negative pressure is maintained within to ensure no radioactive release and that the radioactivity is removed via large filter banks. Also a lot more is put into the foundations in order to comply with seismic regs. Take a look at any of our current severn sites and you will see the buildings are not substantial, because it has not been accepted during the design process that a reactor can explode, a reactor breach is something not visualised, does that remind you of other places.


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## Jacob (24 May 2021)

Better news here Trials to suck carbon dioxide from the air to start across the UK


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## sirocosm (24 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> The only contaiment provided by the outer building and this also applies to any other nuclear facility is that during normal operations a negative pressure is maintained within to ensure no radioactive release and that the radioactivity is removed via large filter banks. Also a lot more is put into the foundations in order to comply with seismic regs. Take a look at any of our current severn sites and you will see the buildings are not substantial, because it has not been accepted during the design process that a reactor can explode, a reactor breach is something not visualised, does that remind you of other places.



Perhaps a picture would help. Now imagine replacing (1) with a structure like (9), which is pretty much what Chernobyl had. Although to be fair, (9) is probably better than what the Chernobyl had, since it is likely designed for the scenario that (10) flies apart.


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## Spectric (24 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> No the movie is rated for being a realistic dramatisation.


Forget the movie and watch the documentary in which the actual people that were there are telling their story and it will hit home, in fact it is the most frightening horror story ever told and you soon realise just how lucky we are to be alive and only having to deal with a Covid pandemic rather than a nuclear holocaust. If this had happenened in the UK we would all be dead, it is only the Russian culture and those miners who saved the day and we should never forget the sacrifices those guys made. In this documentary is a nurse who talks about a guy who looks like he has no eyes just blackness and he looks like a zombie, he spent six minutes in a high dose location and she tells him all will be ok to comfort him, but she knows he will die like all the others and yes he dies that day.


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## Spectric (24 May 2021)

Do you really believe that structure would contain a blast that lifted a 1000 tonne steel and concrete lid?


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## sirocosm (24 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> Do you really believe that structure would contain a blast that lifted a 1000 tonne steel and concrete lid?



I believe I said the jury was out on that:



sirocosm said:


> Of course there is debate as to whether a proper containment building would have withstood that explosion, but if it had, there would have been no deaths, and little mess.



but that dome on the HPR1000 is designed to withstand the impact of a commercial jetliner, and the A380 must weigh around 600 tons or so. And there is second one made of concrete and stainless inside of that.

That Chernobyl reactor had a dangerous design. It had a positive void coefficient, which means if cooling is lost the reaction increases. Most western reactors are negative. On top of that it was moderated with graphite, so if the reaction gets away on them, the graphite will catch fire and the whole mess will fuse together and there is no way to stop it. Again not possible when the moderator is heavy water, for example.

This the problem with the nuclear fear industry, they operate on the mantra that all reactors are the same, and that what happened in Chernobyl could happen at any reactor, and that is not the case.


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## Spectric (24 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> This the problem with the nuclear fear industry, they operate on the mantra that all reactors are the same, and that what happened in Chernobyl could happen at any reactor, and that is not the case.


Not always, many who work that sector also realise what a fine line we tread.


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## sirocosm (24 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> Not always, many who work that sector also realise what a fine line we tread.



Did you know that you can hold a fuel pellet from a Candu reactor in your hand? They are little cylindrical objects that feel like a ceramic of some kind. After use in the reactor, they become about as radioactive as the original uranium ore in a few hundred years. This is much better than most other reactors where storage is required for 1000s or 10000s of years. The idea in Canada was to bury them in stainless canisters that should last a least a few hundred years, and because they are ceramic, they would not really dissolve anyway. 

You would think with these numbers that the world would have switched to Candu years ago, but they don't largely because people believe that all nuclear reactors are the same.


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## Jacob (24 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> I believe I said the jury was out on that:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The nuclear fear industry is based on a degree of common sense, knowing that all humans make mistakes, not just Russian communist states. 3 mile Island, Fukushima for starters.
Even if mistakes were not made something simple and unexpected like a new unknown virus could knock out the staff and leave the thing completely uncontrolled.


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## sirocosm (24 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> The nuclear fear industry is based on a degree of common sense, knowing that all humans make mistakes, not just Russian communist states. 3 mile Island, Fukushima for starters.
> Even if mistakes were not made something simple and unexpected like a new unknown virus could knock out the staff and leave the thing completely uncontrolled.



No deaths from either. And with logic like that, I am surprised we didn't ban airplanes back in the day.

Fukushima probably would not have happened if they were using Candu.


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## Jacob (24 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> No deaths from either. And with logic like that, I am surprised we didn't ban airplanes back in the day.
> 
> Fukushima probably would not have happened if they were using Candu.


A few at Fukushima but at both a high probability that there were more incidents as side effects not directly attributable.
But the point is - mistakes will be made, events will occur.


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## sirocosm (24 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> A few at Fukushima but at both a high probability that there were more incidents as side effects not directly attributable.
> But the point is - mistakes will be made, events will occur.



Yes, and people die from all other forms of power generation tech. So far nuclear has the track record of the fewest deaths per terawatthour, with the smallest impact on the environment. And this is with tech mostly developed in the 60-80s.


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## Rorschach (24 May 2021)

Lets just go back to good old coal, you knew where you were with coal!


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## D_W (24 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> Lets just go back to good old coal, you knew where you were with coal!



In the house with asthma here, but coal generation was pretty big here and if you lived in a valley, the air quality reflected it. 

Nat gas has made a huge difference (only a few large coal generation plants left here in my region and they're east and ride the wind away rather than toward - more west of me, but far fewer than 20 years ago). 

Valley asthma rate (diagnosis and prescription rate for steroid and bronchodilators) was extremely high and has declined as coal has gone offline. Economically, areas that were coal dependent are in bad shape, though - other areas have fared better with gas (net positive)


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## D_W (24 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Yes, and people die from all other forms of power generation tech. So far nuclear has the track record of the fewest deaths per terawatthour, with the smallest impact on the environment. And this is with tech mostly developed in the 60-80s.



it probably also claims the largest number of acres where people aren't allowed to live.


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## sirocosm (24 May 2021)

D_W said:


> it probably also claims the largest number of acres where people aren't allowed to live.



That is so silly, oil alone be would several orders of magnitude more.


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## Spectric (24 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> Even if mistakes were not made something simple and unexpected like a new unknown virus could knock out the staff and leave the thing completely uncontrolled.


There was a documentary some time back where there had found that the human race has crossed a line, before this line there was a high probability of the human race surviving and eventually recovering from a major catastrophe such as an asteroid strike or a very bad pandemic but now we probably would not. The reason is that you cannot just ignore the worlds nuclear sites, either power generation, fuel reprocessing or decomisioning sites for a long period of time before they start to contaminate the planet, they all require very high levels of maintenance so if all the operators were gone!


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## D_W (24 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> That is so silly, oil alone be would several orders of magnitude more.



Well, there's some truth to that, but oil is what we'd think of as a stationary energy supply. AT least not since about 1930 or in remote places. If we're going to start mixing in motor fuels, this gets confusing.


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## D_W (24 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Fukushima probably would not have happened if they were using Candu.



That's only a relevant comment if you talk about the actual cost of the reactor and ongoing function. In the western world ,those reactors can't generate enough power to cover their costs and employees.

Last project quoted on google was $24-26BB for 3.2GW in Canada (project was scrapped). Given the high cost, it would seem to be a better idea in second and third world countries where building and labor are far lower in cost.


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## sirocosm (24 May 2021)

D_W said:


> That's only a relevant comment if you talk about the actual cost of the reactor and ongoing function. In the western world ,those reactors can't generate enough power to cover their costs and employees.
> 
> Last project quoted on google was $24-26BB for 3.2GW in Canada (project was scrapped). Given the high cost, it would seem to be a better idea in second and third world countries where building and labor are far lower in cost.



Recent nuclear projects in Canada have been scrapped mostly for political reasons, not economic reasons, although the two are often intertwined. I am going to guess you are talking about Darlington.

Interesting story that, the anti-nuke lobby managed to get the government to double the cost of the Darlington station by imposing construction delays for studies and consultations after construction had started. And those studies didn't accomplish anything, it is not like they changed the design of the final product, they just wasted time and money, and that was their goal. Ontario power consumers pick up the tab for that, BTW. Currently they pay around .1CAD/kWh (around 6p/kWh), with 60% of Ontario's power nuclear.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is a crown corporation, ie government owned, and after pressure groups got them to nix plans to expand Darlington with a 4 unit 4.8GW project in 2011, they are now planning to go ahead and build a small modular reactor there, although methinks they have plans for a few more.

Small reactors are a great idea. They are cheaper to build than big ones, last just as long, are less dangerous, and reduce the financial risk from government meddling.

Nuclear energy would be cheaper than gas if it wasn't for nuclear fear mongering.


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## Spectric (24 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Nuclear energy would be cheaper than gas if it wasn't for nuclear fear mongering.


Do you have shares in EDF or some other company with a vested interest in nuclear?

Nuclear can never be cheap because it has to obtain a government site license in order to operate, this license consist of many parts that have to be fully complied with and met, one of the most expensive is the safety case which is a massive live document, this alone is already costing the tax payer an absolute fortune in the legacy plants because if you change anything from the original design the safety case needs to be updated, it is cheaper to get obsolete parts re-manufactured rather than change the paperwork.

The other issue is security, again anything involving a nuclear materials comes under scrutiny and security provided by the CNC, then all the ongoing vetting of the workforce so the cost just keeps on rising and so much cheaper to build offshore windfarms, even though they could reach a size that impacts our weather patterns.


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## sirocosm (24 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> Do you have shares in EDF or some other company with a vested interest in nuclear?
> 
> Nuclear can never be cheap because it has to obtain a government site license in order to operate, this license consist of many parts that have to be fully complied with and met, one of the most expensive is the safety case which is a massive live document, this alone is already costing the tax payer an absolute fortune in the legacy plants because if you change anything from the original design the safety case needs to be updated, it is cheaper to get obsolete parts re-manufactured rather than change the paperwork.
> 
> The other issue is security, again anything involving a nuclear materials comes under scrutiny and security provided by the CNC, then all the ongoing vetting of the workforce so the cost just keeps on rising and so much cheaper to build offshore windfarms, even though they could reach a size that impacts our weather patterns.



And yet Ontario generates 60% of its power from nuclear, exports power, and charges 6p/kWh, and that is on top of the nuclear fear mongering cost, which is a probably a few p.

Wind farms are just virtue signalling cast in concrete, and will never power the UK in any meaningful way, just like they don't really power Germany. For every gigawatt built, there will need to another gigawatt of backup technology, and in Germany that means coal. In the end they are an environmental disaster, and an ugly blight on the countryside, future generations will look back at us and laugh. Can't wait for the day when they start pulling them down.


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## D_W (24 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Nuclear energy would be cheaper than gas if it wasn't for nuclear fear mongering.



If the reactor cost half as much and took less to maintain, it would still cost more than gas. Reactors already in place in the states cost more than gas just with ongoing benefit costs for the complement of workers required to meet spec. 

Beaver Valley near me has a complement of 1000-1200. natural gas labor needs are about 30 full time employees per gigawatt. Nuclear is 600+. The average wage and benefit cost is probably around $100k for each per year (or more). Former employees generally add more legacy costs, perhaps bringing the nuclear facility employee cost to $100MM more more per year.


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## Jacob (25 May 2021)

Seems to me that the more dependent we would be on nuclear the greater the catastrophe when that fails too. Not to mention the many minor catastrophes which would be inevitable if there were lots of generators. The advantage seems to be that we could carry on much as we are, still extravagant and wasteful but with an even bigger shock awaiting us when it fails.
On the other land low-tech is low risk and sustainable. That includes a lot of things from wind power to peat regeneration, perhaps insulation top of the list, but more than anything big changes in how we live.
Heat pumps look like a flash in the pan (if you are lucky!) and EV maybe just a dream. Trolley buses/trains with power pick-up lines/rails makes more sense.
Bring back the horse and the sail! And the woodworker of course.


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## AlanY (25 May 2021)

Steve_Scott said:


> Very little in the grand scheme, but the UK (or by that time, a group of bickering insignificant nations) become(s) the leader(s) in alternative technology and sells it to the rest of the world and perhaps then the economy grows and a significant impact to the climate can be made. However... it might well all be offset by an ever increasing population, which I have always maintained is the biggest problem.


It will make no difference whatsoever to the climate. All it will achieve is putting the majority of the UK population into fuel poverty and the usual few richer. As for the technology, we have all heard the 'we will become World Leaders in Renewables' nonsense, which just means that, as usual, the expertise and manufacturing will go to China and, thus, make all the sacrifices in the UK meaningless. 

World population is the real problem. Needs to get back down to a sustainable level, but it never will.


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## Jacob (25 May 2021)

AlanY said:


> .....
> 
> World population is the real problem. Needs to get back down to a sustainable level, but it never will.


It will!
Either by our own efforts or by climate change severe enough to take us back to the stone age.
First thing to consider is what are the factors which keep populations down in various parts of the world. Some places falling population is seen as a problem. Population decline - Wikipedia
".......However, almost all societies experience a drastic drop in fertility to well below 2 as they grow more wealthy....."
Hence; could worldwide UBI (plus peace and stability) lead to reduction in population?


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## Terry - Somerset (25 May 2021)

Energy is far too cheap. A large part of that consumed is simply squandered unnecessarily. With relatively trivial changes, consumption could be reduced by 50% or more without materially impacting any lifestyles - some examples:

cars limited to 750kg instead of ~1500kg. Engines limited to 1.0L or EV. There is no need for them to exceed more than (say) 90mph.
reduce distances travelled - smaller and more numerous schools, hospitals, surgeries, shopping centres. 
make it easier to relocate closer to work, positive encouragement for work from home
home insulation improvements to say 90% of what is theoretically achievable. Wear a jumper, turn thermostats down 2C.
decent and complete cycle lanes to properly encourage cycle and scooter use - not the current excuse which mostly passes for a network
tax food miles to encourage eat local
Some of these changes would need legislation, but many would happen simply through market forces were the tax regime radically changed. Imagine income tax at 10% and energy taxes on direct usage and embedded energy increased to compensate.

All this is unlikely to happen as almost every interest group would find some element of such a strategy worthy of protest. A political party seeking election on the back of such a strategy would get but a handful of votes - cue the Green Praty!!


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## AlanY (25 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> My electrician told me he's installing more and more Economy 7 (many areas around here haven't mains gas.)
> 
> Ironically (unless it's been changed) it doesn't work with Smart Meters. I would have thought one of the main objectives of smart metering would be ultimately to introduce variable charging.


Yes it does, but it is a relatively recent bit of functionality. Smart metering now works on single rate and multi-rate regimes. But they are still not there for folk who have solar and export to the grid. So much for smart renewables, eh?

Does anyone actually believe that, with the coming massive increase in electric vehicle charging and electric central heating, the national grid generation capacity of the UK will cope? Renewables is a bit of a joke in my eyes simply because there will be insufficient power for the country every time the UK is engulfed in high pressure and no wind. The only real solution is to do a France and go all nuclear. But we all know the problems associated with that.


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## Phil Pascoe (25 May 2021)

... smaller and more numerous schools, hospitals, surgeries ...

Ha bloody ha.
Some of my hospital appointments take a 120 mile round trip and a day. That's OK, apparently, as Plymouth is plenty close enough to serve Cornwall.


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## Phil Pascoe (25 May 2021)

AlanY said:


> Does anyone actually believe that, with the coming massive increase in electric vehicle charging and electric central heating, the national grid generation capacity of the UK will cope?


Not me, for one.


AlanY said:


> Renewables is a bit of a joke in my eyes simply because there will be insufficient power for the country every time the UK is engulfed in high pressure and no wind.


Or too much wind? Or have they stopped switching them off when it's windy?


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## Jacob (25 May 2021)

AlanY said:


> .....
> 
> Does anyone actually believe that, with the coming massive increase in electric vehicle charging and electric central heating, the national grid generation capacity of the UK will cope? Renewables is a bit of a joke in my eyes simply because there will be insufficient power for the country every time the UK is engulfed in high pressure and no wind..........


But there will be adaptations and new technologies coming along. 
Or old technologies in the case of gravity storage for instance. Gravity Storage - a new technology for large scale energy storage.
Also high pressure no wind usually means clear skies so solar energy takes more of the load.
Adaptations could be as simple as everybody having a bit of a holiday when the sun shines.
I reckon EV will be unsupportable on the personal level.


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## Artiglio (25 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> And yet Ontario generates 60% of its power from nuclear, exports power, and charges 6p/kWh, and that is on top of the nuclear fear mongering cost, which is a probably a few p.
> 
> Wind farms are just virtue signalling cast in concrete, and will never power the UK in any meaningful way, just like they don't really power Germany. For every gigawatt built, there will need to another gigawatt of backup technology, and in Germany that means coal. In the end they are an environmental disaster, and an ugly blight on the countryside, future generations will look back at us and laugh. Can't wait for the day when they start pulling them down.


It’ll be interesting to see what happens when all the subsidy backed generation comes to the end of its payment contracts, will the generators be expected to carry on in the real world or will the nation be blackmailed by producers who say they’ll stop energy production unless they get another round of handouts. Should be interesting in 15 years or so, all the micro generation schemes revolving around biomass, wind, solar etc surely can’t be truly efficient financially and will have been built largely to just last a bit longer than their subsidy period.


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## AlanY (25 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> Lets just go back to good old coal, you knew where you were with coal!


I love this post! Made me laugh out loud.

I never understood why the greenies were so upset by coal in the UK. Yes, there is the CO2 issue (but the eggheads are talking about extracting it from the air now anyway) and yes, there is the acid rain issue (but the prevailing winds took that east-ish so, since we are no longer in the clutches of the EU, not our problem, really). But look on the good side: we have plenty of it, it would keep whole communities employed, if we want to wind up the miners (and who wouldn't?) we can import the stuff from Poland and Australia and, best of all, it would reintroduce a bit of lost culture to our daily language ('going down t'pit', for example). Ah, those were the days.


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## Spectric (25 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> and an ugly blight on the countryside,


That is something that cannot be argued, it is more of an issue when they blight our AONB's but they tend to be the more windy places so stick um out to sea.


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## Spectric (25 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Or too much wind? Or have they stopped switching them off when it's windy?


I think if they are asked to switch off as to much capacity they still get paid which is completly stupid. They also use heaters in really cold weather for frost protection so also a consumer.


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## AlanY (25 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> But there will be adaptations and new technologies coming along.
> Or old technologies in the case of gravity storage for instance. Gravity Storage - a new technology for large scale energy storage.
> Also high pressure no wind usually means clear skies so solar energy takes more of the load.
> Adaptations could be as simple as everybody having a bit of a holiday when the sun shines.
> I reckon EV will be unsupportable on the personal level.


Jacob, I am beginning to understand that you are a 'glass half full' sort of guy!
I know this particular example is still at the 'we have patents, just need a sucker to buy it' stage, but storage technologies like this (pumped storage) provide relatively high amounts of energy, but for a relatively short period of time. For example, the Dinorwig power station in beautiful Wales can provide something like nine gW over a period of five or six hours. So, great for covering short periods when electricity demand is high, but not much use for anything above six hours. 
Also of note is that the business model for such storage is based on charging very high prices when generating, but recharge using low priced energy. Very important when considering that the recharge takes more energy than the facility can generate. We no longer live in times where there is any such thing as 'off-peak' electricity available so to recharge spent storage will put a great strain on a renewables-based system. It would not surprise me to see the cost/benefit analysis for pumped storage diminish as fossil-fuelled generation plant is decommissioned.


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## Jacob (25 May 2021)

AlanY said:


> Jacob, I am beginning to understand that you are a 'glass half full' sort of guy!


Well yes but we have no alternative but to look for ways out of the hole we've dug for ourselves (literally in the case of coalmines!)


> I know this particular example is still at the 'we have patents, just need a sucker to buy it' stage, but storage technologies like this (pumped storage) provide relatively high amounts of energy, but for a relatively short period of time. For example, the Dinorwig power station in beautiful Wales can provide something like nine gW over a period of five or six hours. So, great for covering short periods when electricity demand is high, but not much use for anything above six hours.


Another gravity suggestion Full Page Reload Winching up weights and lowering them on demand - is much more efficient than pumped hydro electric, is cheaper to build and run, can be set up on any scale in almost any environment. One location suggested has been vertical mine shafts, of which we have miles in the UK. I know it sounds a bit Heath Robinson - but you never know!


> ...... It would not surprise me to see the cost/benefit analysis for pumped storage diminish as fossil-fuelled generation plant is decommissioned.


All has to be set against the cost benefit analysis of not doing anything.


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## Spectric (25 May 2021)

AlanY said:


> We no longer live in times where there is any such thing as 'off-peak' electricity available so to recharge spent storage will put a great strain on a renewables-based system.


As the population continues to grow and we want more 24/7 then the problem is higher consumption and more continous demand, so are we really just looking for the hen that lays golden eggs. There are probably solutions but these would require drastic change at all levels and no government is going to take that step as it would become very unpopular and people just would not accept it so we carry on. I believe it is not a case of meeting demand but drastically reducing demand, yes lifestyle changes required.


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## D_W (25 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> Well yes but we have no alternative but to look for ways out of the hole we've dug for ourselves (literally in the case of coalmines!)Another gravity suggestion Full Page Reload Winching up weights and lowering them on demand - is much more efficient than pumped hydro electric, is cheaper to build and run, can be set up on any scale in almost any environment. One location suggested has been vertical mine shafts, of which we have miles in the UK. I know it sounds a bit Heath Robinson - but you never know!All has to be set against the cost benefit analysis of not doing anything.



Surely, this comment is in jest.


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## D_W (25 May 2021)

Let's do some calculations - one horsepower moves 33,000 pounds one foot per minute (for lift). 746 watts with perfect efficiency.

If someone has a 750 watt draw (let's round) for ten hours, all they need to have for that period of time is a 33000 pound weight *for each user* traveling 600 feet.

That's funny....except the average draw (not peak, just long term average) in the US is 1.2kw per household.


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## AlanY (25 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> Well yes but we have no alternative but to look for ways out of the hole we've dug for ourselves (literally in the case of coalmines!)Another gravity suggestion Full Page Reload Winching up weights and lowering them on demand - is much more efficient than pumped hydro electric, is cheaper to build and run, can be set up on any scale in almost any environment. One location suggested has been vertical mine shafts, of which we have miles in the UK. I know it sounds a bit Heath Robinson - but you never know!All has to be set against the cost benefit analysis of not doing anything.


Sorry, Jacob, but I think the gravity suggestion is a nonstarter. Renewables is never going to satisfy demand. The only thing left is nuclear. Perhaps it is time to recognise this and simply commit to increasing our nuclear generation capacity five-fold? But we should do this ourselves and it should be in public ownership, rather than rely on China (a country that I would not trust as far as I could throw it) to finance and build the stations. Reliable capacity plus a massive increase in UK employment. Yup, that is what I would do.


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## Spectric (25 May 2021)

Nuclear over the entire product life cycle is not carbon neutral and as Hinkley has shown a massive engineering challenge with great financial risk, you don't get a license to operate after the build is completed you have to jump through many hoops and provide a massive pile of documentation and hence why the cost runs into billions. If we start today we will not have much in ten years time except a huge financial investment, so lets put a lot more effort into improving efficiency of electrical equipment and making it more cost effective to run.


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## sirocosm (25 May 2021)

France built 56 reactors in around 15 years in response to the oil crisis of the 70s. They now export power, nuclear is more than 70%, and have less than 10% of generation from fossil fuel. And their power rates are cheaper than the UK, despite a healthy 31% tax. Cheaper and greener.


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## Phil Pascoe (25 May 2021)

France built 56 reactors in around 15 years in response to the oil crisis of the 70s ...

yes, that's when we should have built them.


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## sirocosm (25 May 2021)

I hate to say it, but sometimes the French know what they are doing. They also have cleaner air than their neighbors. Nuclear power probably saves them over 1000 deaths per year from particulate matter from fossil and bio fuels, although they still have to deal with the dust blowing in from Germany.

They are also currently building a big nuclear fusion research site.

The sad thing about France is that the renewables brigade is starting to make inroads there as well, which is already starting to push up prices.


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## Jacob (25 May 2021)

False solution: Nuclear power is not 'low carbon'


Claims that nuclear power is a 'low carbon' energy source fall apart under scrutiny, writes Keith Barnham. Far from coming in at six grams of CO2 per unit of electricity for Hinkley C, as the Climate Change Committee believes, the true figure is probably well above 50 grams - breaching the CCC's...




theecologist.org


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## dizjasta (25 May 2021)

D_W said:


> Let's do some calculations - one horsepower moves 33,000 pounds one foot per minute (for lift). 746 watts with perfect efficiency.
> 
> If someone has a 750 watt draw (let's round) for ten hours, all they need to have for that period of time is a 33000 pound weight *for each user* traveling 600 feet.
> 
> That's funny....except the average draw (not peak, just long term average) in the US is 1.2kw per household.


Just for some additional calculations. To achieve your average US draw of 1.2kw per household the weight required on the basis of what you mention would need to be increased to 52977.61 pounds. So it seems that it is possible to supply energy by falling weights, Do you think wind power could provide the motive force?


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## D_W (25 May 2021)

dizjasta said:


> Just for some additional calculations. To achieve your average US draw of 1.2kw per household the weight required on the basis of what you mention would need to be increased to 52977.61 pounds. So it seems that it is possible to supply energy by falling weights, Do you think wind power could provide the motive force?



Not locally here. Possibly solar. The idea that this is more practical than a recycled 100kwhr battery is very suspicious, though.


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## AlanY (25 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> France built 56 reactors in around 15 years in response to the oil crisis of the 70s. They now export power, nuclear is more than 70%, and have less than 10% of generation from fossil fuel. And their power rates are cheaper than the UK, despite a healthy 31% tax. Cheaper and greener.


I remember back in the 70's having a discussion with the manager of Wilfa power station and he said something that has stayed with me all these years. We were talking about the life of nuclear stations and I asked how we planned to decommission Wilfa at the end of its life. "Beggared if I know. Best guess is we will remove the fuel rods and cover the reactor chambers with a mountain of concrete". His answer sent a chill down my spine. We now know a bit more about decommissioning as a process, as a risk and as a cost. Hugely complicated, very dangerous and mind-blowingly expensive. And France has 56 of these things to do at some point! As I recall, Wilfa had two magnox reactors, but I do not know what the French stations are.


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## sirocosm (25 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> False solution: Nuclear power is not 'low carbon'
> 
> 
> Claims that nuclear power is a 'low carbon' energy source fall apart under scrutiny, writes Keith Barnham. Far from coming in at six grams of CO2 per unit of electricity for Hinkley C, as the Climate Change Committee believes, the true figure is probably well above 50 grams - breaching the CCC's...
> ...



Nuclear power currently has a lower carbon footprint than wind, and it always will. And just because they mine and transport the materials needed for both with diesel today, doesn't mean they can't do it with electricity tomorrow. But there is a limit as to how much they can reduce the carbon footprint of concrete, and it is a simple fact that wind power uses considerable more, and did I mention that wind turbines are ugly?


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## Woody2Shoes (25 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Nuclear power currently has a lower carbon footprint than wind, and it always will. And just because they mine and transport the materials needed for both with diesel today, doesn't mean they can't do it with electricity tomorrow. But there is a limit as to how much they can reduce the carbon footprint of concrete, and it is a simple fact that wind power uses considerable more, and did I mention that wind turbines are ugly?


I think that wind turbines are beautiful - the Rampion farm is really something to see and provides enough power for half the homes in Sussex. I think you need to be clear about the lifetime cost (not just in carbon, either) of these two different power sources. We have world class offshore wind and tidal resources and we should be exploiting them much more.


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## Phil Pascoe (25 May 2021)

... the Rampion farm is really something to see and provides enough power for half the homes in Sussex when the wind is blowing ...

Ftfy.


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## sirocosm (25 May 2021)

A man walks into a bar and a heated discussion is going on about wind vs nuclear. The nuclear guy keeps referring to the turbines as windmills. Frustrated, the wind guy says "What's the matter with you, don't you even know the difference between a windmill and a wind turbine?"

The nuclear guy says, "Sure I know the difference, a wind turbine is ugly!"


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## doctor Bob (25 May 2021)

I quite like them, load near Newmarket along with fields of solar panels.


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## Rorschach (25 May 2021)

I don't have an aversion to wind on aesthetic grounds, I hate them for other reasons lol.


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## Phil Pascoe (25 May 2021)

They shouldn't use fields for solar panels until every roof on every industrial estate has them.


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## Rorschach (25 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> They shouldn't use fields for solar panels until every roof on every industrial estate has them.



I would be inclined to agree but it's not a terrible thing to have them in fields, makes them easy and safe to clean and maintain and it doesn't do any damage to the land unlike putting in a wind turbine.


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## Cooper (26 May 2021)

AlanY said:


> I never understood why the greenies were so upset by coal in the UK.


You obviously didn't live in London and go to school in the 50s. We used to put a scarf over our nose and mouth (which were covered in muck where we breathed through) and truly there were smogs where you couldn't see 4 meters in front of you on the way to school (though we talked in yards, in those days) . 
Insulation of every house would do a lot to reduce fuel poverty, which I think is the only legitimate grumble. It would also create proper jobs. I cannot understand why the green deals are turned on and then off, just when installers are trained and companies have a full order book. We benefited from a green deal grant to insulate the walls of our maisonettes, massively increased the comfort of our tenants, ended the condensation and mould in the cold corners and dramatically reduced their energy bills. (They never even said thank you!)
When we were in school our science teacher was a nuclear skeptic, he said if every home had a thatched roof we wouldn't need nuclear power.


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## Rorschach (26 May 2021)

Cooper said:


> You obviously didn't live in London and go to school in the 50s. We used to put a scarf over our nose and mouth (which were covered in muck where we breathed through) and truly there were smogs where you couldn't see 4 meters in front of you on the way to school (though we talked in yards, in those days) .
> Insulation of every house would do a lot to reduce fuel poverty, which I think is the only legitimate grumble. It would also create proper jobs. I cannot understand why the green deals are turned on and then off, just when installers are trained and companies have a full order book. We benefited from a green deal grant to insulate the walls of our maisonettes, massively increased the comfort of our tenants, ended the condensation and mould in the cold corners and dramatically reduced their energy bills. (They never even said thank you!)
> When we were in school our science teacher was a nuclear skeptic, he said if every home had a thatched roof we wouldn't need nuclear power.



You are talking about the use of coal in a totally different way though.


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## Spectric (26 May 2021)

AlanY said:


> Wilfa had two magnox reactors


Always a great combination, radioactive magnesium swarf from fuel reprocessing, god help us if that burns.

One day the french will have to decommision all those reactors, then they will lose all the gains in being low carbon .


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## sirocosm (26 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> Always a great combination, radioactive magnesium swarf from fuel reprocessing, god help us if that burns.
> 
> One day the french will have to decommision all those reactors, then they will lose all the gains in being low carbon .



The "French" don't have to pay for it, the EDF does, and they have to set aside money for it, which is already in the price of the electricity.


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## Jacob (26 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> The "French" don't have to pay for it, the EDF does, and they have to set aside money for it, which is already in the price of the electricity.


Sounds perfect in every way! What could possibly go wrong?


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## sirocosm (26 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> Sounds perfect in every way! What could possibly go wrong?



Well, they could get shutdown prematurely because the of the renewables brigade. If that happens, the additional cost should really be factored into the cost of wind and solar.


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## mikej460 (27 May 2021)

Have a read of this call from Centrica to the government for hybrid boilers (gas and air source heat pump).








British Gas owner calls for mass rollout of hybrid boilers across the UK


The UK’s largest gas supplier has called on the Government to introduce a “Retrofit Fund” to transition consumers from gas boilers to hybrid heating systems, which use both gas and electricity.




eandt.theiet.org


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## AlanY (27 May 2021)

mikej460 said:


> Have a read of this call from Centrica to the government for hybrid boilers (gas and air source heat pump).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If British Gas are taking the lead on this I expect it to be a complete SNAFU. I plan to change my boiler to a gas combi in 2024 and, hopefully, that will see me out and I won't have to worry about this green rubbish.

Also, I have an air source heat pump to heat the pool and, as much as I enjoy its efficiency, it can be a tad noisy. Okay for the pool which is at the end of the garden so the heater cannot be heard, but I would hate to have that blinking great fan going right next to the house. To be fair, my heat pump is getting on now. Maybe modern ones are quieter?


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## Terry - Somerset (27 May 2021)

Glass half full vs glass half empty! Things we could do do reduce consumption:

better insulated homes
put on thermals
improve heating and ventilation controls
improve public transport
reduce travel by more local schools, hospitals, etc
drive smaller cars
Things we could do to modify demand to help match variable "green" capacity:

back up generators in industry
hydrogen production and storage to be used when demand exceeds supply
water or weights falling
web connected home appliance which only switch on if supply is there
integrate EVs into power supply network
Things that are profoundly daft:

dig up coal, burn it, then put it back into the ground (at great cost)
assume that when oil and gas run low, a solution will somehow present itsself 
 Things that we have a choice over:

nuclear power providing a base load - green until it leaks
offshore/onshore wind - offshore is more expensive but less intrusive
If unconcerned about the future because you don't care, are soon going to a (well equipped, Festool decorarted) heavenly workshop, are happy to leave future generations to their fate, you've wasted two minutes reading this!

We need an intelligent debate, not preconceived biases. There is no perfect solution, only compromises. Delay and prevaricate will not (unsurprisingly) speed things up.


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## D_W (27 May 2021)

AlanY said:


> I remember back in the 70's having a discussion with the manager of Wilfa power station and he said something that has stayed with me all these years. We were talking about the life of nuclear stations and I asked how we planned to decommission Wilfa at the end of its life. "Beggared if I know. Best guess is we will remove the fuel rods and cover the reactor chambers with a mountain of concrete". His answer sent a chill down my spine. We now know a bit more about decommissioning as a process, as a risk and as a cost. Hugely complicated, very dangerous and mind-blowingly expensive. And France has 56 of these things to do at some point! As I recall, Wilfa had two magnox reactors, but I do not know what the French stations are.



it's expensive enough and complicated enough that in the US, stations are required to be bonded (or pre-funded) so that they can't be abandoned - if a power company decides to shut down a station, the pre-funded bits come into play covering the shutdown costs. 

I don't know that there's any solution for the waste, though - IIRC, most has stayed on site and will continue to (including shutdown power plants). 

Though that could be out of date. The contentiousness here re: the waste is that in order to move it, you have to haul it somewhere and nobody wants it hauled through their area.


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## D_W (27 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Nuclear power currently has a lower carbon footprint than wind, and it always will. And just because they mine and transport the materials needed for both with diesel today, doesn't mean they can't do it with electricity tomorrow. But there is a limit as to how much they can reduce the carbon footprint of concrete, and it is a simple fact that wind power uses considerable more, and did I mention that wind turbines are ugly?



Here in pennsylvania, we just love the look of the cooling towers.  I keep iosat on hand in case the station upwind from me has an issue and there's an emergency. I don't keep anything preventive in the house for wind turbine failures.

I don't actually have any real problem with nuclear except that it's not cost effective and that's unlikely to change. New levelized cost here for pretty much anything else is way lower. For ongoing, levelized new installations are less than *ongoing* nuclear, though most of that nuclear money goes to staff and that's good in general for the local economy near a station (that's such a big issue that many of the plants receive state subsidies to stay online so as not to put 1200 people out of work in a single area).


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## Jacob (27 May 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> Glass half full vs glass half empty! Things we could do do reduce consumption:
> 
> better insulated homes
> put on thermals
> ...


And go veggie. Eat less meat: UN climate-change report calls for change to human diet


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## Rorschach (27 May 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> Glass half full vs glass half empty! Things we could do do reduce consumption:
> 
> better insulated homes
> put on thermals
> ...



You make some great points however this section is problematic, why? Because poor people already do this and still live in relative fuel poverty.
Our flat isn't going to get anymore insulated, we do wear more clothes in the winter to keep warm, we do regulate our thermostat and run a dehumidifier to keep the air dry rather than opening windows (which is a waste of time in the South West in winter anyway), we do shop at our local supermarket/shops and we drive a car that we can afford. Our fuel consumption is about as low as we could make it and we are not alone, indeed I consider us to be reasonably comfortable compared to some people I know and some of our neighbours. In our last flat which luckily we only lived in for 18 months (but did 2 winters including a very cold one for our location) we got by with no running hot water and no central heating.


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## Trainee neophyte (27 May 2021)

A big snippet from Upsetting a delicate balance

The issue facing humanity – both in energy and climate terms – has never been getting people to give up petrol cars. If it was, state-subsidised public transport and the increased use of electric trams and trains would be a far more effective alternative than electric cars. The problem has always been the power-to-weight problem in attempting to shift from diesel to batteries for heavy machinery, large trucks, ships and aeroplanes. Just as coal remains the only _economically viable_ basis for producing essentials like steel and cement – and less essential solar panels – diesel will remain the only economically viable power source for mining, industry, agriculture and transport for decades into the future.​​The planned shift away from petrol – which is _planned_ by governments, unlike the unplanned way in which the economy developed to this point – threatens the delicate balance in pricing between the most essential oil products – diesel, aviation fuel and bunker fuel (35% of a barrel) – and waste products like petrol (43% of a barrel). The present set up allows the essential products to be subsidised by the sale of largely non-essential petrol. If the proposed shift to hydrogen and batteries goes ahead, the price of the essential fuels – which we have no choice but to keep on using – _must_ increase to account for the lost revenue from the non-essentials. At the same time, the price of petrol will be lowered to a point where enough people who still drive petrol vehicles are prepared to grow its use once more – most likely by shifting light goods transportation to petrol-powered vehicles.​
I recommend the entire article - in fact all his writing is very well thought out, and not the usual economic postulating. It is, however, a bit depressing. This article would sit just as well on the electric vehicle thread, but we are going green on both, apparently.


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## Cooper (27 May 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


>


I'm no chemist but a friend, who worked for ESSO told me, when I raised a similar point, that the crude oil could be "cracked" to produce almost whatever was wanted to match demand. The graphic says how crude is used currently.


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## Spectric (27 May 2021)

AlanY said:


> I plan to change my boiler to a gas combi in 2024


Fit a system boiler and it may well see you out, they are just a basic condensing boiler unlike combi's with pumps built in and more complex systems to go wrong. Also they can be more efficient as they leisurely heat up a tank of water rather than having to go through thermal shock to generate enough heat for instant hot water.


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## Spectric (27 May 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> always been the power-to-weight problem in attempting to shift from diesel to batteries for heavy machinery,


Some of the worlds biggest excavators are so big that they cannot even use a diesel engine so no chance of becoming battery powered when they use a high voltage supply and consume 16.56 megawatts.


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## Jake (27 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> Some of the worlds biggest excavators are so big that they cannot even use a diesel engine so no chance of becoming battery powered when they use a high voltage supply and consume 16.56 megawatts.



Doesn't sound like they need to, they stay wired then.


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## Suffolk Brian (28 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> I would be inclined to agree but it's not a terrible thing to have them in fields, makes them easy and safe to clean and maintain and it doesn't do any damage to the land unlike putting in a wind turbine.


Yes, but; land covered in solar panels is land not available for food production. You cannot eat a dead solar panel.


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## Devmeister (28 May 2021)

Omg And here I thought the crazy yanks had a corner on this market. Last summer, we were evacuated twice as beetle kill standing wood burst into forest fires. I just installed a 188,000 BTU Buderus boiler burning propane along with a hydronic wood burning boiler interfaced into six zones with grundfoss alpha 2 circ pumps using vintage 1950 cast iron baseboard. I burn beetle kill pine, old wood scraps, pallets and trash in the boiler. The environmentalists can kiss by back side if they have issues. I am not freezing when it dips to minus 20 F.


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## Rorschach (28 May 2021)

Suffolk Brian said:


> Yes, but; land covered in solar panels island not available for food production. You cannot eat a dead solar panel.



Yes, but not all land is suitable for food production nor is all suitable land used.


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## Phil Pascoe (28 May 2021)

It's large fields used around here, not 100s of acres of mine dumps.


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## Blackswanwood (28 May 2021)

Devmeister said:


> Omg And here I thought the crazy yanks had a corner on this market. Last summer, we were evacuated twice as beetle kill standing wood burst into forest fires. I just installed a 188,000 BTU Buderus boiler burning propane along with a hydronic wood burning boiler interfaced into six zones with grundfoss alpha 2 circ pumps using vintage 1950 cast iron baseboard. I burn beetle kill pine, old wood scraps, pallets and trash in the boiler. The environmentalists can kiss by back side if they have issues. I am not freezing when it dips to minus 20 F.



If I'm reading your post correctly I'm a bit surprised that you see this discussion as a hot bed of environmental extremism. The rules in the UK are simply changing so new build properties will use heating that lessens our impact on the environment. IMHO it's actually quite a healthy debate on what works best going on and no one is expecting anyone to freeze or kiss anyone's bottom  

Your individual situation sounds very different to the UK. Whether domestic burning of trash is a good thing I don't know. If we all did it in the UK though I suspect it wouldn't be.


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## Rorschach (28 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> It's large fields used around here, not 100s of acres of mine dumps.



Are they fields that were used for food production and now no longer are?


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## Phil Pascoe (28 May 2021)

Usually.


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## Rorschach (28 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Usually.



Ok that seems rather silly then.


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## Droogs (28 May 2021)

Suffolk Brian said:


> Yes, but; land covered in solar panels is land not available for food production. You cannot eat a dead solar panel.


That statement is just totally incorrect. Learn more here or here or here or even here (this one is a PDF)


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## sirocosm (28 May 2021)

Droogs said:


> That statement is just totally incorrect. Learn more here or here or here or even here (this one is a PDF)



I don't think it is totally incorrect. Those pictures make for nice PR, but I don't see how you are going to run any kind of machinery to work around all those poles. Might work on land suitable only for grazing.

A much better idea would be this sort of thing:
Solar Tiles | Spirit Energy

This also solves another problem with solar panels. Like wind turbines, solar panels are not very nice to look at, and they spoil both the country and the villages.

Solar roof tiles are crazy expensive now, but like nuclear, the price would come down if they came into widespread use.


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## Droogs (28 May 2021)

@sirocosm the tile you point to would be great if all new roofing or replacements where mandated to be made of this. That would bring the prices down , but the biggest factor for making a difference would be to mandate decent levels of insulation (double the R value now) and only triple glazing. This should be lead by a massive investment in building new social housing projects that provide decent homes. That way the overinflated market prices fall and by setting building taxation based on environmental impact as well as financial value then perhaps that would incentivise those who choose to live in inefficient homes to improve them. All of which would reduce demand for power and therefore emissions and waste.


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## sirocosm (28 May 2021)

Droogs, you are totally correct about new builds, but the problem is that it is not so easy for some of us. I live in a detached 30s house. It has cavity wall downstairs and 2 wythe solid up. I can easily upgrade the loft insulation, but there really isn't much I can easily do about the walls.


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## Spectric (28 May 2021)

sirocosm said:


> Droogs, you are totally correct about new builds, but the problem is that it is not so easy for some of us. I live in a detached 30s house. It has cavity wall downstairs and 2 wythe solid up. I can easily upgrade the loft insulation, but there really isn't much I can easily do about the walls.


But your house will probably have provided a home for people for a lot longer period than many of these new builds will and it will remain standing for a lot longer than many of the new builds so therefore it will have been a more sustainable build.


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## Droogs (28 May 2021)

I know how you feel, i live in an 1850s early Victorian terrace ground floor flat. The walls are solid granite and the ceiling is the up neighbours floor, not a lot I can do other than fit better windows. Unfortunately when we did ours about 5 yrs ago all we could get was double glazed but would have preferred triple. We are slowly ripping out the lathe and plaster walls and replacing with frame and plasterboard with dp and insulation as we eventually redecorate each room. We only got GCH around a year ago up until then the only heating was a wood stove in the living room and oil radiators in the bedroom. But you do what you can as you can.


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## Rorschach (28 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> But your house will probably have provided a home for people for a lot longer period than many of these new builds will and it will remain standing for a lot longer than many of the new builds so therefore it will have been a more sustainable build.



Why do you think a new build house will not last as long as an older house? The basic structural materials are not really any different.


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## Jacob (28 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> You make some great points however this section is problematic, why? Because poor people already do this and still live in relative fuel poverty.
> Our flat isn't going to get anymore insulated, we do wear more clothes in the winter to keep warm, we do regulate our thermostat and run a dehumidifier to keep the air dry rather than opening windows (which is a waste of time in the South West in winter anyway), we do shop at our local supermarket/shops and we drive a car that we can afford. Our fuel consumption is about as low as we could make it and we are not alone, indeed I consider us to be reasonably comfortable compared to some people I know and some of our neighbours. In our last flat which luckily we only lived in for 18 months (but did 2 winters including a very cold one for our location) we got by with no running hot water and no central heating.


The point is we are ALL going to have to live like 'poor' people. This is problematic because so far most of the debate has been about how to get by without being inconvenienced. People are looking forward to whizzing about in EVs and having cheap heating from ground source heat pumps which cost £50k. In fact many have been buying them already. 
We are just at a very early phase of adjustment. The phony war, before the s**t really starts hitting the fan.


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## Spectric (28 May 2021)

New builds are thrown up just to make big profits for the property developers, did you see the one show the other evening talking about Persimon houses, the standards were non existent with snaging list like encyclopedia's. Not just minor niggles but walls leaning and structural issues. Some people buy them to take advantage of offers just to get on the property ladder and then a year later sell and buy a more established property that they wanted in the first place. 

Read what architects are saying, Most new housing so poorly designed it should not have been built, says Bartlett report

There are now companies undertaking proper build inspections to give the new owner a truthful snag list to hit the builder with.,





__





Snagging Surveys | Snagging Inspections – House Scan


A Snagging Survey is designed to ensure that everything is right in your new home. We create a comprehensive, in-depth report for every aspect of your house




www.housescan.co.uk








__





MDR Home Inspections | Professional Snagging Reports for New Build Homes and Commercial Premises







www.mdrhomeinspections.co.uk





Further reading









Why are Britain’s new homes built so badly?


We compare UK construction standards to those abroad – and talk to buyers deeply disillusioned by their experiences




www.theguardian.com








__





Disadvantages Of Buying A New Home


The many drawbacks of buying a brand new home. Smaller rooms, premium prices, a bare rear garden, proximity to social housing, lack of privacy and insufficient parking..........




www.brand-newhomes.co.uk





I was talking with a heating engineer who was having to rectify issues for some new build customers for a builder who had cut cost by getting the plumbing installed by a moon lighting taxi driver on the basis that it was just a case of simpling pushing it together, the biggest mistake was that the gas had been done in pushfit as well.


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## Droogs (28 May 2021)

@Jacob should that not be - we are going to have to live not like spoiled brats and more like normal people


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## Phil Pascoe (28 May 2021)

I believe a common misapprehension nowadays is that someone's being qualified equals their being conscientious and good at their job. Some of the best builders I knew didn't have a qualification and a fair part of my working week was often taken up trying to sort out the messes that supposedly qualified people had made.


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## Spectric (28 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> The point is we are ALL going to have to live like 'poor' people.


Look at history, everything that goes up eventually comes down, Greek empire, Roman empire, British empire so in reality it is an early phase of adjustment but heading into more of a third world status. America is going to have to accept China becoming the worlds biggest super power and not start another cold war with them. Maybe China will have more luck in global stabilisation because I think they don't bend the rules like the west just to suit a situation, ie Mr Hussain is a despot with invisable weapons of mass destruction so we end up at war yet Mr Nettyyahoo leading a fanatical religous sect gets away with genocide as he is currently in bed with Mr Biden, who is openly supplying weapons to kill civilians. We are going to have to accept huge changes in the way we live or just accept extinction is inevitable, this will feel like poverty if nothing else but then could lead to a better quality of life long term.


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## Spectric (28 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Some of the best builders I knew didn't have a qualification and a fair part of my working week was often taken up trying to sort out the messes that supposedly qualified people had made.


That is because once upon a time your qualification could be the work you produced, ie a skilled bricky would have a decent wall for people to see at the end of the day, there is his qualification. These days you have to go to uni for a degree just to become a florist or bog attendant, we need to bring back streaming where for certain jobs an academic qualification like a degree is required but for others who are better with their hands then technical colleges and apprenticeships where doing a job takes preference to getting a bit of paper.


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## Jacob (28 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> That is because once upon a time your qualification could be the work you produced, ie a skilled bricky would have a decent wall for people to see at the end of the day, there is his qualification. These days you have to go to uni for a degree just to become a florist or bog attendant, we need to bring back streaming where for certain jobs an academic qualification like a degree is required but for others who are better with their hands then technical colleges and apprenticeships where doing a job takes preference to getting a bit of paper.


In the old days the qualification for many was a successfully completed apprenticeship.
We need strong unions to protect workers rights and also to be big players in training, apprenticeships and quality control, as was the case with Guilds.


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## Phil Pascoe (28 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> That is because once upon a time your qualification could be the work you produced, ie a skilled bricky would have a decent wall for people to see at the end of the day, there is his qualification.



I worked years ago with a young patissiere who went for an interview at a (very) top London restaurant. I asked her how she got on and she said the interview itself wasn't bad, but at the end the interviewer pulled two bags of ingredients out from under the table, pointed to the kitchens, told her the ovens were hot and to go and cook. Cook what? she asked. You're the chef, came the answer, up to you. 
She got the job. I thought that was as good a way as any of sorting the wheat from the chaff.


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## Selwyn (28 May 2021)

Am I the only one who is not bothered in the slightest by climate change?


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## Just4Fun (28 May 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> at the end the interviewer pulled two bags of ingredients out from under the table, pointed to the kitchens, told her the ovens were hot and to go and cook. Cook what? she asked. You're the chef, came the answer, up to you.


It is strange. Whenever I have interviewed job applicants I have given them a practical test, yet I have rarely been given such a test when I have been interviewed for jobs. I do not understand that.


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## Rorschach (28 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> The point is we are ALL going to have to live like 'poor' people. This is problematic because so far most of the debate has been about how to get by without being inconvenienced. People are looking forward to whizzing about in EVs and having cheap heating from ground source heat pumps which cost £50k. In fact many have been buying them already.
> We are just at a very early phase of adjustment. The phony war, before the s**t really starts hitting the fan.



I got news for you, no-one wants to live like poor people, especially poor people. It's all well and good talking about these targets now but when people start to feel their standard of living go down things will change.


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## Spectric (28 May 2021)

To change is to break that economic circle where the few get richer at the expense of the rest. It is like climbing a ladder except you have no idea about how long or what happens at the last rung. Prices go up, cost of living goes up and so we get a payrise that may narrow the gap, this cycle repeats but pay falls behind so the gaps between rich, poor and homeless just get wider. The economy cannot be the main objective for living, if we had a system where we all shared or got out a percentage of what we put in then things may improve in the right direction but right now the system is broken, things are out of proportion and earnings not related to any meaningful agenda, ie how can you earn more kicking a ball than improving and saving lives being a consultant surgeon.


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## RobinBHM (28 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> You make some great points however this section is problematic, why? Because poor people already do this and still live in relative fuel poverty.
> Our flat isn't going to get anymore insulated, we do wear more clothes in the winter to keep warm, we do regulate our thermostat and run a dehumidifier to keep the air dry rather than opening windows (which is a waste of time in the South West in winter anyway), we do shop at our local supermarket/shops and we drive a car that we can afford. Our fuel consumption is about as low as we could make it and we are not alone, indeed I consider us to be reasonably comfortable compared to some people I know and some of our neighbours. In our last flat which luckily we only lived in for 18 months (but did 2 winters including a very cold one for our location) we got by with no running hot water and no central heating.



The government and I guess the energy suppliers are forcing people to make energy efficiency decisions simply by raising prices, mainly: green and social taxes + smart meter rental.

The big problem is UK housing stock is all pretty old and not energy efficient. The cost of retrofitting insulation to floors, walls, roof, new central heating, solar panels etc is so high there is no worthwhile payback period for most people.


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## Spectric (28 May 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> The big problem is UK housing stock is all pretty old and not energy efficient.


And they are still building thousands of houses that are no where as energy efficient as they could be because it is not cost effective for the developers. To me this gives a clear message that the government is full of words and no action, just trying to score points as politicians always do.


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## RobinBHM (28 May 2021)

Selwyn said:


> Am I the only one who is not bothered in the slightest by climate change?



I'd guess you are a right wing libertarian, probably a Trump and Brexit supporter.....which are all linked

I bet you dislike Greta Thunberg?

Libertarian groups such as the Koch foundation fund climate change denier think tanks that push out misinformation and campaign for fossil fuel interests.






Brexit and Climate Science Denial: The Tufton Street Network – Byline Times


Mat Hope , of DeSmog, maps the shadowy network of lobbyists and politicians working together to push for environmental deregulation — all in the name of Brexit.




bylinetimes.com


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## RobinBHM (28 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> And they are still building thousands of houses that are no where as energy efficient as they could be because it is not cost effective for the developers. To me this gives a clear message that the government is full of words and no action, just trying to score points as politicians always do.



Part L for new builds is quite energy efficient.

Property developers won't exceed building regs as that would just eat into their profits.

Virtually all passivhaus builds are self builds


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## Rorschach (28 May 2021)

Careful Robin, you dropped your bias card and your prejudice is showing


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## D_W (28 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> ... a fanatical religous sect .....



well, then - let's just dance around what that comment is.


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## Terry - Somerset (28 May 2021)

The government is entirely capable of bringing in mandatory standards of construction for new builds that improve energy efficiency and longevity of new buildings.

They are also entirely able to change the tax and subsidy regime to make it more economic for people to retrofit improvements - although in some cases this will not be feasible.

That they do neither with great commitment is disappointing.


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## D_W (28 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> And they are still building thousands of houses that are no where as energy efficient as they could be because it is not cost effective for the developers. To me this gives a clear message that the government is full of words and no action, just trying to score points as politicians always do.



imagine doing what people used to do - only heating and cooling the part of the space you're in. That would halve energy consumption. How do I know? When my wife isn't here, I heat only the area of the house I'm in and not the entire house - quite comfortably, I must say - the consumption numbers by date range show up on my bills - they're about half adjusted for temperature differences. That's without changing comfort - I just can't go expect the part that's not being temperature controlled to suddenly be as comfortable as the part that is.


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## Rorschach (28 May 2021)

D_W said:


> imagine doing what people used to do - only heating and cooling the part of the space you're in. That would halve energy consumption. How do I know? When my wife isn't here, I heat only the area of the house I'm in and not the entire house - quite comfortably, I must say - the consumption numbers by date range show up on my bills - they're about half adjusted for temperature differences. That's without changing comfort - I just can't go expect the part that's not being temperature controlled to suddenly be as comfortable as the part that is.




Umm some of us do that by necessity now. It really is surprising that the vast majority of members here really do live in a (quite comfortable and well off) bubble.


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## Spectric (28 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> Umm some of us do that by necessity now. It really is surprising that the vast majority of members here really do live in a (quite comfortable and well off) bubble.


That could be that most have either earned a living from woodworking or taken up woodworking to make a change from another trade or skill base, in other words they have earnt what they now have by learning that skill in the first place. Too many expect everything to be handed out on a plate these days and with a giant airbag under them incase they take a fall, hard work and education never killed anyone directly.


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## D_W (28 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> Umm some of us do that by necessity now. It really is surprising that the vast majority of members here really do live in a (quite comfortable and well off) bubble.



I guess before we start reacting to what's by necessity, we'd have to understand the living space. My main living space is about 1500 square feet. I have another 800sf of below ground partially heated area, and I do nothing to supplement what it is (it's cool in the summer and cool in the winter). When the mrs. is out, I shut about half of the house off and only use a single area A/C (this isn't England so you'll see temps here in the summer, and sun intensity that you may not see there - touching 100F sometimes, and perhaps a few weeks over 90F each year. That said, as a child, I lived without A/C and while I didn't like the heat, I don't remember minding it much. The summer I first worked here, I had no A/C and it resulted in soggy book pages and a leather coat (long time ago) that grew mold - some book pages did, too, from the humidity - but I didn't lose sleep (just used a fan, and certainly had to wash sheets more often). 

I'd be willing to bet more than half of the households here and there generally don't have much in terms of uncomfortable spaces. 

That said, if my parents talked about zoning the house, their first floor is the same as my total living space. They do zone their living space (no heat in the upstairs except for two three hour swaths at night and in the morning, which means temps in the middle of the night could be in the mid to low 50s F - they sleep through it and so did I.....but their "half house" heat and air bill is more than my total bill with the Mrs. here, sometimes close to double. 

The floor plan of newer houses here is generally open except for perhaps an office and a couple of bedrooms. A typical one floor house will have three bedrooms, one separate small washroom area and then the living room, kitchen and dining room have decorative dividers, but only one room and the ceilings are high to make the area feel open. The bedrooms are about 500SF of around a 2000SF total - there's nearly no chance to zone anything. 

I'm guessing the doors in older houses were there to facilitate heating only a couple of rooms. My parents' house is old (Despite being large) and in any doorways that there was no interest in having swinging doors, there were pocket doors, and the areas that didn't require a locking door had sprung "Swingers". 

Of course, they removed all of that and the addition to the house is a single large room with a vaulted ceiling and radiant heating in the floor (and a separate A/C).....to get an "open and light extra living space".


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## D_W (28 May 2021)

this sort of goes along with the light bulb thing. My dad hates CFL and LED bulbs. He won't use them. When he's here and find that my spouse leaves lights on all over the place, as I walk around and turn them off, he puts his head in his hands. I have to remind him that they're 9 watts each. 

His living room will burn 800 watts if all of the lights are on. An insane amount of current. 

but he grew up the child of farmers and those lights are literally only on if there is company, and that's for an hour or two every week. When he (and my mother) are in the house themselves, there is never more than the light next to you on, and then only if you're reading or need it. I have all LED bulbs, and I'm sure he uses less current than I do. We no longer stay at their house as they have a reflex of turning lights off and the kids get lost (and cannot stand sleeping in a 50F room). Dad will over around you if you have a light on next to you while you're watching TV and wait to confirm you're not reading anything (sitting in a pitch black room and watching TV isn't something I'm used to).


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## Rorschach (28 May 2021)

Spectric said:


> That could be that most have either earned a living from woodworking or taken up woodworking to make a change from another trade or skill base, in other words they have earnt what they now have by learning that skill in the first place. Too many expect everything to be handed out on a plate these days and with a giant airbag under them incase they take a fall, hard work and education never killed anyone directly.



Got it, too stupid and lazy to have any money, cheers.


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## RobinBHM (28 May 2021)

Rorschach said:


> Got it, too stupid and lazy to have any money, cheers.



I think all people wanting to get on the housing ladder these days would like is a similar first time buyer affordability that previous generations had.

"Average *house prices* are currently 7.6 X *the* annual *salary*, official figures show that *the*average *price* paid for a home jumped 259% *between* 1997 and 2016 while *earnings* rose a measly 68% by comparison"

Add in the risk adverse high deposit that lenders have required since the financial crash, it's no surprise house ownership is out of reach for many.


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## D_W (29 May 2021)

Those numbers in the US, I heard Clark Howard relay several years ago - well, probably around 2008 or so thinking back. 

(apologize for the poor word order above - it's a brain problem). 

But in the 1950s, houses were typically purchased with a loan value of about 2x salary. In general, they were also smaller and less well fitted out (my house was 50s - but the simplicity is wonderful for someone who wants to do most of the work on their own house. there's still a power garage door, and still a cast iron toilet drain stack with two stems off, and a third bathroom in the basement - but everything to work on except for where the garage ceiling is plastered...everything other than that is right in front of you.....

..back to non tangent - it was about 2x my salary when I got it, I've spent a little on it ( another third of its purchase price over 15 years)....

11x for a loan....11x, I just can't fathom that. 



11 times salary for a house loan. How do people sleep?


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## John Brown (29 May 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> I think all people wanting to get on the housing ladder these days would like is a similar first time buyer affordability that previous generations had.
> 
> "Average *house prices* are currently 7.6 X *the* annual *salary*, official figures show that *the*average *price* paid for a home jumped 259% *between* 1997 and 2016 while *earnings* rose a measly 68% by comparison"
> 
> Add in the risk adverse high deposit that lenders have required since the financial crash, it's no surprise house ownership is out of reach for many.


On the other hand, when I got my first mortgage, the interest was pushing 17%.
Doesn't exactly balance the scales, but significant, none the less.


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## Rorschach (29 May 2021)

D_W said:


> 11 times salary for a house loan. How do people sleep?



They sleep in a house they don't own.


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## Rorschach (29 May 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> I think all people wanting to get on the housing ladder these days would like is a similar first time buyer affordability that previous generations had.
> 
> "Average *house prices* are currently 7.6 X *the* annual *salary*, official figures show that *the*average *price* paid for a home jumped 259% *between* 1997 and 2016 while *earnings* rose a measly 68% by comparison"
> 
> Add in the risk adverse high deposit that lenders have required since the financial crash, it's no surprise house ownership is out of reach for many.



You got all it all wrong Robin, it's all our fault, we spend too much money on fancy coffees and avocado toast.


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## RobinBHM (29 May 2021)

John Brown said:


> On the other hand, when I got my first mortgage, the interest was pushing 17%.
> Doesn't exactly balance the scales, but significant, none the less.


Oh I appreciate getting on the home ownership ladder has always been difficult in the past.

The problem now is rent is so much higher than a mortgage, people get trapped in renting - as they can't save for a deposit.


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## John Brown (29 May 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Oh I appreciate getting on the home ownership ladder has always been difficult in the past.
> 
> The problem now is rent is so much higher than a mortgage, people get trapped in renting - as they can't save for a deposit.


Agreed. Removing the tax breaks on buy to let mortgages was a good thing. Should've happened sooner.


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## Jacob (29 May 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Oh I appreciate getting on the home ownership ladder has always been difficult in the past.
> 
> The problem now is rent is so much higher than a mortgage, people get trapped in renting - as they can't save for a deposit.


Varies. 1960s there were bits of run down housing going for £50 - mate of mine bought one. When we were at school we started a whip round to buy a local farmhouse on the market for £50, but we couldn't quite make it. I think we got to something like £4.7.6d.
I bought my first house for £3500 in 1974. It had previously changed hands at £500.
Housing in Britain is a major political failure on the part of all, especially Thatcher who kicked off the current round.


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## RobinBHM (29 May 2021)

Jacob said:


> Varies. 1960s there were bits of run down housing going for £50 - mate of mine bought one. When we were at school we started a whip round to buy a local farmhouse on the market for £50, but we couldn't quite make it. I think we got to something like £4.7.6d.
> I bought my first house for £3500 in 1974. It had previously changed hands at £500.
> Housing in Britain is a major political failure on the part of all, especially Thatcher who kicked off the current round.


having looked into the housing crisis in detail, it seems the only solution is for the govt to build houses.

the private sector building more houses will never solve the problem -especially as they control the availability of land (by land banking)


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## Selwyn (29 May 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> I'd guess you are a right wing libertarian, probably a Trump and Brexit supporter.....which are all linked
> 
> I bet you dislike Greta Thunberg?
> 
> ...



Oh god, stop following me around. You know nothing about me you wet lettuce of a man


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## CornishWoodworker (30 May 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Oh I appreciate getting on the home ownership ladder has always been difficult in the past.
> 
> The problem now is rent is so much higher than a mortgage, people get trapped in renting - as they can't save for a deposit.


Rent only higher than mortgage due to interest rates. 
My first house mortgage much higher than rent as interest rate was 16%.
Great for savers, lousy for borrowers.
Savings rate at that time was 10.5%


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