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Post by ajski2fly on Oct 12, 2022 7:40:04 GMT
I'm talking about a phased migration, giving the electricity industry time to cope. As it is, I have grave doubts that it will. I quite understand that, it is what is planned, it is just the timescale that people do not like because they do not like change, especially ones that happen quickly and impact them. The move to green power production and getting away from fossil fuel use should have been started at least 20 years ago. That was very nearly achieved in the 90’s but was stopped by unprecedented lobbying by oil/gas, coal and related industries using the products from them, vehicles and engine manufacturers being obvious, but there are a host of others. They knew the impact of CO2 and other gases from the products they sold on the planet and global warming, but they decided to rubbish valuable global warming scientific reports, from any angle they could, basically driven by greed and fear of loss of their industry and profits, showing a complete disregard for humankind this planet and everything that lives on it. This rubbish still persists even when we can see massive ice melts in Antarctica and the Arctic, freak flask flooding of large land masses, unprecedented extreme weather causing catastrophic damage across the world and loss of life, unseen global temperature rises resulting in huge fires in areas of the world where they are rarely seen. I could go on but is there any point? If anyone wants to complain about how quickly change is having to happen then they should shout at the petrochemical, gas, coal industries and the weak politicians who failed us all by not making change happen sooner. We as a race no longer have time on our side to pontificate about phased changes from fossil fuels to green energy production and use, for everyone and everywhere the shift needs to happen and bloody quickly. If not then our children and there children, and Al, the other creatures on planet Earth are going to have a very unpleasant and difficult future to face. |
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Post by MartinT on Oct 12, 2022 8:08:30 GMT
The biggest, dirtiest lobbying by oil/coal industries appears to have happened in the US and Australia.
For decades our government have dithered and now finally they have given the green light for one new nuclear power station. To be built by EDF. It's shameful.
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Post by ajski2fly on Oct 12, 2022 9:23:08 GMT
The biggest, dirtiest lobbying by oil/coal industries appears to have happened in the US and Australia. For decades our government have dithered and now finally they have given the green light for one new nuclear power station. To be built by EDF. It's shameful. Yes we are in agreement.  The US lobbying was severe but was primarily aimed at a very important independent study done hear over 25 years by a British University which was recognised by our own government, but they allowed it to be undermined by the US authorities. Ultimately they knew it was a political nightmare and embarrassment for all the industries and politicians involved. The report has been fully vindicated now and it has been proven that EXON and BP had there own investigations into global warming undertaken in the 70-80s, both were suppressed as they confirmed the independent report. Don't talk to me about EDF. I have had a personal battle with them for over a year, and had two Ombudsman cases upheld against them, three written letters of apology and compensation. They tried to charge us for Gas, when we did not have a Gas meter, which they were fully aware off from an electronic transmission sent to then by the company that removed the meter. Wealso had switch completely another supplier. EDF created a fictitious gas account not once but twice based on estimated readings, and finally threatened to take us to court if we failed to pay within 14 days. In the end I wrote to their French CEO who responded and put his head of Customer Support on the case, ridiculous to say the least. It is a farce that EDF own a large amount of our electricity network and generation, this comes from when they applied for grants from the EU commission to expand their business and buy up what they could in the UK, as usual our government at the time failed to listen to warnings and failed to step in, I wonder why that might have been? Still we persist in allowing this to continue. |
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Post by mikeyb on Oct 12, 2022 9:38:39 GMT
We'd love to own an electric vehicle, however I'm no longer working (retired early) and my wife will retire in 2-3years, (early too) is it worth buying another car at £400-£600 a month or just keep the ones we have that are paid for and the only cost is the running of them 😉
She'd be working to pay the car, mmmm don't think so.
She can get a deal through her work by paying for the new car at source so it saves the tax and NI on your salary but even at that, you pay £400-600 a month for the new car and at the end you have to hand it back, I'm sorry but until they become a lot lot cheaper I'll be burning petrol and diesel.
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Post by MikeMusic on Oct 12, 2022 9:41:42 GMT
What we need is a mindset change from the clowns in charge to the punter
Urgent change is vital - now - but incremental.
Would be useful if we had the stages discussed and then mapped out
This by 2030 or 2040 is just not real and most people think that is a long way off. Not so of course.
2022 now.
We need a solid target for 2023, 24, 25 etc which can point to a huge difference in 2030 or 40
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Post by MikeMusic on Oct 12, 2022 9:48:21 GMT
We'd love to own an electric vehicle, however I'm no longer working (retired early) and my wife will retire in 2-3years, (early too) is it worth buying another car at £400-£600 a month or just keep the ones we have that are paid for and the only cost is the running of them 😉 She'd be working to pay the car, mmmm don't think so. She can get a deal through her work by paying for the new car at source so it saves the tax and NI on your salary but even at that, you pay £400-600 a month for the new car and at the end you have to hand it back, I'm sorry but until they become a lot lot cheaper I'll be burning petrol and diesel. Has to be VFM. £400-600 a month is huge I still have to be persuaded on solar and heat source. Big capital cost with payback many years into the future, or pay monthly, more expensive overall You have alternatives. When my car became close to impossible to fix I didn't replace it. Do you absolutely need 2 cars - could be you do - I'm happy to do without my very own motor. Slight restrictions every now and again. Grab a taxi if dead urgent |
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Post by ajski2fly on Oct 12, 2022 11:19:18 GMT
We'd love to own an electric vehicle, however I'm no longer working (retired early) and my wife will retire in 2-3years, (early too) is it worth buying another car at £400-£600 a month or just keep the ones we have that are paid for and the only cost is the running of them 😉 She'd be working to pay the car, mmmm don't think so. She can get a deal through her work by paying for the new car at source so it saves the tax and NI on your salary but even at that, you pay £400-600 a month for the new car and at the end you have to hand it back, I'm sorry but until they become a lot lot cheaper I'll be burning petrol and diesel. Has to be VFM. £400-600 a month is huge I still have to be persuaded on solar and heat source. Big capital cost with payback many years into the future, or pay monthly, more expensive overall You have alternatives. When my car became close to impossible to fix I didn't replace it. Do you absolutely need 2 cars - could be you do - I'm happy to do without my very own motor. Slight restrictions every now and again. Grab a taxi if dead urgent I can give you all the facts and figures on Solar/Battery, and Air source Heat Pump, and EV running costs, I am one of those sad people who do this sort of stuff. Our house it totally electric, their is no gas, coal or wood burning, all heating is from the Air Source Heat Pump. Solar/Batteries are saving us at least £3.5K per year at the current capped rates, if we are comparing like with like. the spreadsheet below is real world from our system not made up or estimates but the real deal. The system will pay for itself in just under 5 years, with no further electricity price increases taken into account.  As for EV, we purchased a 9 month old Tesla Model 3 long range for £8k less than new price, with 2905 miles on it, same price as a new Kia EV6, or a similar BMW/Merc ICE car. As for cost of ownership, there is NO service schedule, swap wheels front to rear every 1Okm(6750mile) and replace tyres when worn out(£600-700 currently), every 18-22K miles as reported by most owners, replace the cabin air filters every, a do it yourself job cost £20, Oh and top up the washer bottle as needed. If you get an issue reported by the on board software you book a service at either at Telsa service centre or have a home/work visit at a pre-arranged date time, they will notifity you if this has to be at a service centre and will ask you for a date/time to fit with you. Fuel costs and savings to date are as below, these are REAL, you can work out costs if you were paying for electricity and did not have Solar to charge the EV. By they way if we did 10K miles a year in the Tesla then we would be saving around £1800 on fuel costs alone compared to an ICE vehicle, if paying for electric at would be about £1000 a year saving. Blue indicates initial home charging from grid, Red is supercharging when on log runs, the rest is home charging off Solar, we have just started topping up on cheap rate Inteligent Octopus if we need to at 7.5p/kwh overnight, but this is rare as the car sits in the garage 90% of the time and when there is spare Solar charges from this, but may become more off of Octopu through the winter, still cheap though equivalent to £0.75 for 40 miles (4 miles per Kwh s the average, therefore 10Kwh*7.5p= £0.75 for 40 miles).  Finally £40-55K for a car is not cheap but than most ICE cars with of similar size and spec are not far short of that and the gap is getting less. However there are some very good lower priced and practical EVs out there the newly release MG EV4 short or long range is obvious, starting at £25K and a very good car all round. Also there are good used EVs out there with low mileage and at more sensible prices, so you can avoid the big outlay if you wish and still get the benefits, we all know buying a new car cost more money and outlay, that applies whether it is an EV, Petrol or Diesel. By the way residual values on used EVs are better then ICE vehicles, certainly at present. I hope some of you find this useful and informative. |
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Post by ajski2fly on Mar 29, 2023 9:10:05 GMT
WHAT A DISGUSTING AND ABSOLUTE FARCE, POLITICIANS WITH NO CONSCIENCE OR ANY CARE FOR THE FUTURE OF THE PLANET digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/1292/reader/reader.html?#!preferred/0/package/1292/pub/1292/page/2/article/NaN The article basically states that the EU are to pull out of commitments to stopping sales of Petrol and Diesel cars by 2035, primarily siting that EU manufacturers in Germany are losing out to EV competitors. The article goes on to state the UK politicians are also pushing for a similar move. All because BMW, Merc , Skoda and others are way behind the likes of Tesla, Xpeng, Kia, BYD and Hyundai and the industry analysts are predicting some of these EU major manufacturers will go to the wall. What the EU governments need to do is support and incentivise their car manufacturers to move to Electric rather than cave in to powerful lobbying. The same applies to some of our politicians, but then they likely have some BP, Shell, and British Gas, or major EU car manufacturers shares so have a short term view based on their pockets. Bio fuel powered vehicles is a joke, it’s about as green as an oil powered ship trundling across the ocean pumping out black smoke. They cut vast swaths of forests down to plant grain to make Ethanol, which takes more energy to produce one litre of it than a litre of petrol. It’s complete and utter bollx that the oil companies have invested in to maintain their infrastructure and power base. Time to plan for a very hot planet and loads of people migrating from the central earth belt to Northern climbs that still supports life. No land left for food and a massive concrete cities, sounds like the Expanse was not far from the truth.   |
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Post by HD Music & Test on Mar 29, 2023 10:33:42 GMT
As a person who works on new EV power designs I have some views here. The original 2030 crictal mass date was a knee jerk reaction to passify the global concern with the damage we are doing to the plant which I agree with 100%, something had to be seen to be done. So EV was touted as the next saviour of the planet, but there were a few issues withn this, MONEY/WORKERS/JOBS/INFOSTRUCTURE/ETHOS. IF you dig really deep into the PURE energy useage of producing EV's and the drain that will happen on the electrical grid plus the servicng cost of E-trons (ask Brooky about this LOL). Its going to se shortish term sort of a gain but a long term drain imho (I get paid for helping produce them!) All emmisisons have to change YES everyone has to do there bit, but its not that simple and saying that 2030 is d-day for the ICE well as I said KNEE JURK. JCB have been producing ALL engines in their vehicles with their own designed hydrogen engines since Xmas, they have worked around the fuel cell issues. We are going to need various platforms of zero emmissions to help combat and strat to reverse the damage we have caused in the last 180 years but EV isn't the real answer imho
I recently flew back into the UK from Europe over ceratin north sea wind farms while it was quit 'blowly' on that occassion only a few of the turbines were active, all well being able to produce it, buit storing it, thats another matter!
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Post by ajski2fly on Mar 30, 2023 13:32:39 GMT
On what basis is it Knee Jerk? If the global temperature raises above 1.5C then there is probably no going back and the consequences will be dire for everyone. Not my words but various well respected organisations of scientists around the world. A stake has to be put in the ground somewhere so people can work towards it, whether some like it or not. in this case 2030 no more ICE cars to be sold as an example.
Yes removing the burning of Petrol and Diesel to lower nasty CO2 emissions is just one part of the equation, but sitting on the fence and doing nothing is not a serious option. We can all point the finger and say the rest of the world is not doing anything so why should we, but once again someone has to lead the way, not us I would say, but probably Norway, although they were already in a much better position due to their existing electricity power generation infrastructure.
There are even now ICE manufactures out there spouting bollX about E-Methanol and how clean it is, what total crap that is, all because their existing ICE base is threatened long term and they don't have the vision to adapt to it or take there existing customer base with them, I expect they will go to the wall, and the prime instigator of this even produces EVs, a token gesture I suspect.
Apart from Car, Vans, Lorry and Buses, Ships and Planes need to be sorted in parallel. As well as generally cleaner power generation around the whole world.
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Post by ajski2fly on Apr 2, 2023 8:21:58 GMT
The possible future of affordable cars
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Post by Clive on Apr 2, 2023 8:56:21 GMT
We are in a deep hole environmentally. EVs are just one piece of mitigation. There isn’t enough we can do to fix the environment…we can only slow the rate of deterioration. The real issue is that the planet is overpopulated and we consume too much of everything. We can help with the latter but the former… It’s too hard to come up with a viable solution. It might have been Covid but it wasn’t, it might be Putin and nuclear war but that trashes the planet anyway. I can’t think of a humane and acceptable way to halve (or more) the population of the planet.
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Post by MikeMusic on Apr 2, 2023 9:24:56 GMT
Typical American family uses the same amount of resources as a village in Ethiopia
Or pick almost any country 'out there'
I'm doing what I can
What staggers me is the majority of people I know are still doing what they used to do
Fixing Climate change is for others
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Post by nicholas on Apr 2, 2023 12:12:57 GMT
What staggers me is the majority of people I know are still doing what they used to do Fixing Climate change is for others I think that India, Russia and China along with most of the Southern Hemisphere countries fall into the "Fixing Climate change is for others" classification. It is very difficult to impossible for a few Western countries to make significant progress without enormous economic cost and other assorted privations. |
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Post by ajski2fly on Apr 2, 2023 12:19:49 GMT
We are in a deep hole environmentally. EVs are just one piece of mitigation. There isn’t enough we can do to fix the environment…we can only slow the rate of deterioration. The real issue is that the planet is overpopulated and we consume too much of everything. We can help with the latter but the former… It’s too hard to come up with a viable solution. It might have been Covid but it wasn’t, it might be Putin and nuclear war but that trashes the planet anyway. I can’t think of a humane and acceptable way to halve (or more) the population of the planet. Yes halving the population would have dramatic impact on food needs, fuel, using us resources etc, but as you infer it is not a practical solution. One thing is certain if we do not stop the rise in the global temperature then people the population will drop as people die from starvation, lack of water(droughts), flash floods, fires etc, so their may be a natural cull. It will impact the less fortunate and the poorer countries first, but the countries in the more vulnerable climate regions will also be hit quickly, primarily across the middle 1/3 off the planet around the equator. There are some key issues globally I believe, stop population increase, stop burning stuff that produce greenhouse gases, make plans for impacts that will happen over the next 20 years to support people across the world how are directly impacted and are forced into migration/starvation. Primarily it needs a united global effort. |
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Post by MartinT on Apr 2, 2023 13:12:17 GMT
I can’t think of a humane and acceptable way to halve (or more) the population of the planet. I can: limit the number of children per family. It's the only way and I don't want to hear the religious and "it's my right" bollox from those who are too selfish to consider the needs of everyone. |
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Post by MikeMusic on Apr 2, 2023 14:08:41 GMT
What staggers me is the majority of people I know are still doing what they used to do Fixing Climate change is for others I think that India, Russia and China along with most of the Southern Hemisphere countries fall into the "Fixing Climate change is for others" classification. It is very difficult to impossible for a few Western countries to make significant progress without enormous economic cost and other assorted privations. Russia and India do what they please from what I see China is doing well at least by some criteria. Expecting someone else to do their bit while not doing our bit as much as we possibly can is not the answer If we all do what we can it will make a difference Investment out of fossil fuels (fools) and into renewables will help I'm about to have a go at my pension people who appear to be ploughing money into new fossil projects America can do a great deal to cut back. Treating 'SUV's as trucks thus avoiding normal car tax would be a good start GB can bin the idiot idea of heat pumps and get draught proofing and insulation into the very poor housing stock. Worst in Europe |
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Post by ajski2fly on Apr 2, 2023 16:47:15 GMT
Mike I agree with most of what you say but not the Air Source Heat Pump(ASHP) bit, we have an 8Kwh Ecodan which is very efficient, it is 3.5 times as efficient as a Natural Gas Boiler for the same power burn, plus it is one step towards not burning stuff(GAS).
Our house is not old, old stock, but it is an early 70s bungalow so not built for thermal efficiency, with 350mm of insulation in the roof and insulation in the cavity, and when we moved in the 30 year old PVC double glazing was replaced as was shot with new, which is A+ rated.
So in the evening our house temp is set at 21c from 16:30 until 21:30, if it drops to 10C outside then this ASHP will come one about once and hour for 15-20 minutes as the house temp will have dropped to 20C. After 21:30 the the lowest the the house if is allowed to get to is 17C, with outside dropping to 6C it takes 6 hours for the house temperature to drop to 19.2c. Even when the outside is 0C it rarely gets to 17.5C before the ASHP kicks in to pre-heat the house at around 5:30.
The maximum that the ASHP took in power in one day last year was when it was around 0C all day and dropped to -10C over night, which was about 28kwh, but that is extreme, the average in Dec and January per day is 14-16kwh, so to heat the house and hot water, around £180/month at capped electricity rates. We are lucky and pay no where near this as we store 20Kwh in our batteries which are topped up from Solar in the day or charged from the grid from 23:30 to 5:30 at 7.5p/Kwh. We have no GAS appliances.
Our total electricity usage for the past year was 8000Kwh, that is for heating, hot water, all cooking and charging the EV through the winter (only about 500Kw or 2000 miles worth), so at 0.41p/Kwh the electric bill would have been £3624 inclusive of VAT and standing charge, £302/month which I think is pretty average for a 3 bed detached nowadays. Our actual electricity bills for the last year were a total of £445.80 + standing charge(£180) = £625.80 but that is offset by exported 3200Kw and got paid £0.041/Kwh = £131.20 , so actual cost is £494.60. But this is because we have 22 390w solar panels and 2 9.7Kwh batteries. We have just reached the point yesterday when we generate enough power to not import from the grid at all, so the house runs itself, the only days this will not be the case until about mid Oct, or if we have fog or very dense cloud, but as temps rise we need much less power.
What is my point of the above, well ASHPs if installed properly, and as you say, with a properly insulted house and the radiators are specified to meet the correct delta heat loss point for each room then it will be efficient and keep the house comfortable. It wil be as good as a GAS or Oil boiler if not better and is cost effective, especially as they are coming down in price quite rapidly.
If the house can support some PV Panels and at least 10Kwh battery then there are big gains to be made, and it is cleaner and better for the planet, and hopefully will become even more so as more renewables come on stream in coming years. If anyone thinks gas or oil will come down to previous levels then they are being the proverbial Ostrich, forget it, they are much more likely to go up over the coming years.
We are likely to put in for planning permission for an ultra quiet Cylindrical multi-blade wind turbine later in the year, it will reside on top of the garage roof, 8m from the boundary and the road. It is only 1.2m tall and 0.4m diameter, and will produce 1kwh with just 8mph of puff(a light breeze), and will go up to 4kwh, at full chat it is 45dB so very quiet, this is likely to take us mto near self sufficiency, around 96% based on wind pattern data here, but we will generate more power than we need, especially in the winter, so this will easily offset the minimal grid electricity purchased.
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Post by MikeMusic on Apr 2, 2023 20:25:07 GMT
Thought you had rads and pipework renewed when you moved in
The crux of it for a redo
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Post by ajski2fly on Apr 3, 2023 14:46:59 GMT
Thought you had rads and pipework renewed when you moved in The crux of it for a redo Yes, the old stuff was working but at the end of it life, and the pipes under the floor were the main issue. The new radiator were virtually the same size as the originals in each room in terms of surface area. This I found quite interesting as the water in them from the ASHP runs at 45C, not like the lunatic temps of +55C that many Gas/Oil boiler systems run at, so the efficiency of rads has improved somewhat over the years. Our rads worked out to an average of £250 per room, plus fitting, so not OTT IMO. Not all redo's need a rad refit, it depends on the insulation of the property and the Delta point(heat loss point) for each room. Often existing rads can be used, especially in the bedrooms where normal air temperatures are around 15C, the lounge/living space is the main one, MSC installer have to design so that the optimal temperature is 21F, so based on room volume and delta values they calculate the radiator size(kwh) needed to maintain this with a water temperature of 45C and an outside air temperature of -10C. They do this for every room, for the regulated minimum temperatures, this results in a very efficiently designed system which can cope with cold conditions but will also be cost effective and efficient at +0C outside temperatures. The crux of the issue really is insulation and spending time/money to get it good. I have heard people who have stuck ASHPs in building like converted barns with little insulation and then complain it costs a lot to run, yes it will they need big radiators or large amount of underfloor heating to heat it up and then the system has to keep the temp maintained because of heat loss issues. ASHPs and GSHPs are used a lot in Scandinavia, they have much colder winters than us, they primarily do not get issues because they had to insulate their homes well before or basically freeze or have massive bills. |
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