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Emissions, Global warming or a scam


Echo
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30 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

It’s a worthy thread Echo.

Climate change has happened for millions of years, naturally.

I do believe though that in the last century or so we have artificially accelerated it massively.

That can’t be good.

I can’t change what China etc. are doing, but at least I’ve stopped using tyres to start fires!

We can all help where we can, but even I am intelligent enough to realise that some things are just pissing in the wind.

A while back I asked why it wasn’t law that every new-build didn’t have solar panels. Never did get a genuine answer.

We sure did contribute to all this global warming, in Ireland developers do have to put a certain percentage of solar or other renewable technology in new builds, what gets me is they are still allowed to build houses in holes, that get flooded every year, crazy, I see the same thing in the UK on an all to regular basis, then no insurance cover and no one wants your swimming pool of a house either, does man use much of his brain at all.

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54 minutes ago, djbobbins said:

 


Sorry to use coarse language, but that point about prices going up because of less units being sold is generally incorrect. The wholesale price of electricity has fluctuated in recent years but isn’t significantly different now to what it was 10 years ago (in fact, in 2008 there was a period when wholesale prices went crazy).

Actually, on windy or sunny days, particularly in summer, the wholesale price goes down and is occasionally negative - i.e. generators are having to pay to put their energy onto the grid.

What has changed with the advent of renewables in the UK is that of your price of domestic electricity of (say) 15p per kWh, about 4p is being paid by your supplier and is ending up going as subsidy for wind farms and solar panels which were installed when subsidies were much higher than they are now. More money is also being spent on balancing the electricity system (as AC can’t be stored), transporting electricity from a larger number of wind farms around the grid, plus paying owners of coal and gas power stations to keep their plants ready to run for the smaller amounts of time when they are really needed. This latter part is done in a competitive auction process and plenty of assets have already closed. Coal and gas stations have to pay two different carbon taxes already.

For what it’s worth, despite the change in the make-up of the price of electricity to the end consumer (and the general increase in levies and subsidies) prices in the UK remain much lower than in most of Europe. From memory, I think we are about the 12th cheapest out of the EU 15. German domestic electricity is about 30 cents per kWh; the big difference is that they are making a better job of building efficient houses - standard build when I last saw a German building site was 300mm cavity filled with polystyrene blocks.

As such, we use more electricity and have higher bills, despite it being cheaper per unit. And will continue to do so, until we get more efficient.
 

 

People in general don't just use more electricity, I mean do you want us to watch two televisions instead of one, or double up on such, it doesn't happen like that, my usage and my parents usage in units is always nearly the same, and we are no different than other people.

Our electricity prices were dictated by fuel prices, there has been many documentaries here in Ireland showing that the wind mills caused the price of electricity to go up at the same time the oil pries were at their usual average, so most definitely the suppliers put the price of the units up because they were now left with a smaller portion of the cake. 

 

The UK may indeed be a different case, and I agree, AC cant be stored, there was always that problem, stations had to power back when peak demand fell and that is no easy task.

 

I also think it unfair to give subsidies to the likes of wind farms, they should be like any other business and invest in themselves.

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11 minutes ago, Echo said:

We sure did contribute to all this global warming, in Ireland developers do have to put a certain percentage of solar or other renewable technology in new builds, what gets me is they are still allowed to build houses in holes, that get flooded every year, crazy, I see the same thing in the UK on an all to regular basis, then no insurance cover and no one wants your swimming pool of a house either, does man use much of his brain at all.

Water is moved if its in the wrong place, diverted or pumped. If houses weren't built on flood plains around here, there would be no new houses.

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58 minutes ago, djbobbins said:

Sorry to use coarse language, but that point about prices going up because of less units being sold is generally incorrect. The wholesale price of electricity has fluctuated in recent years but isn’t significantly different now to what it was 10 years ago (in fact, in 2008 there was a period when wholesale prices went crazy).


Actually, on windy or sunny days, particularly in summer, the wholesale price goes down and is occasionally negative - i.e. generators are having to pay to put their energy onto the grid.

What has changed with the advent of renewables in the UK is that of your price of domestic electricity of (say) 15p per kWh, about 4p is being paid by your supplier and is ending up going as subsidy for wind farms and solar panels which were installed when subsidies were much higher than they are now. More money is also being spent on balancing the electricity system (as AC can’t be stored), transporting electricity from a larger number of wind farms around the grid, plus paying owners of coal and gas power stations to keep their plants ready to run for the smaller amounts of time when they are really needed. This latter part is done in a competitive auction process and plenty of assets have already closed. Coal and gas stations have to pay two different carbon taxes already.

For what it’s worth, despite the change in the make-up of the price of electricity to the end consumer (and the general increase in levies and subsidies) prices in the UK remain much lower than in most of Europe. From memory, I think we are about the 12th cheapest out of the EU 15. German domestic electricity is about 30 cents per kWh; the big difference is that they are making a better job of building efficient houses - standard build when I last saw a German building site was 300mm cavity filled with polystyrene blocks.

As such, we use more electricity and have higher bills, despite it being cheaper per unit. And will continue to do so, until we get more efficient.

 

Informative, but where's the coarse language I was promised?  Disappointed.

 

40 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

A while back I asked why it wasn’t law that every new-build didn’t have solar panels. Never did get a genuine answer.

Good idea.  Also, all the new techs like heat pumps etc. - they should at least be considered in all new builds.  There was something on the radio today about how gas-boilers are routinely used just because they are familiar to builders and expected by customers, even though there are more efficient and greener heating options available.

 

Also on the radio today, engineers (Dutch if I recall correctly) have developed an industrial, scalable carbon-capture system which sounds as if it has a lot of potential to mitigate some of the harm we do to the atmosphere.  The carbon can be buried, or converted into a better-than-natural fuel.  The summary was: it's very pricey, but works, and is ready to go whenever we decide we need it.   

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3 minutes ago, eggsarascal said:

Water is moved if its in the wrong place, diverted or pumped. If houses weren't built on flood plains around here, there would be no new houses.

Hi eggsarascal

No doubt there is cases where land is difficult to come by for houses, but why is this, planning is why, we have a 3000 acre estate here, it has pumps going around the clock this past 40 years, a government department has paid the electric bill all this time, now the powers that be are talking about washing their hands of this, its a commercial farm, recently changed hand for a huge sum of money, now some sucker has a farm in a hole and will eventually pay the price.

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when global warming is mentioned nothing is said about the rockets and bombs that are used in the wars/conflicts  the last figures that I have seen said the uk produce 1% of the global greenhouse gas so if we got to 0% it would not make any difference

dos any one have figures of how much co2 is produced to manufacture  wind turbines/solar panels from scratch to producing electric into the grid (witch will need replacing after about 20 years)                      

also read a article today about the rise of the electric car saying because of the loss of the fuel duty etc road tolls will be introduced and will cost the average driver £700 per year   

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1 minute ago, daveatdave said:

when global warming is mentioned nothing is said about the rockets and bombs that are used in the wars/conflicts  the last figures that I have seen said the uk produce 1% of the global greenhouse gas so if we got to 0% it would not make any difference

dos any one have figures of how much co2 is produced to manufacture  wind turbines/solar panels from scratch to producing electric into the grid (witch will need replacing after about 20 years)                      

also read a article today about the rise of the electric car saying because of the loss of the fuel duty etc road tolls will be introduced and will cost the average driver £700 per year   

Very good points there, but we all do need to make our best attempt to change all of this, dam near impossible I know.

Road tolls, probably so, and then we have to pay to charge our electric cars, and what about the cost of all the necessary charging points that will be needed around the country, and the environmental cost, am not sold on electric cars, no one seems to know the real cost of one in terms of energy used, and environmental impact, and when we all have them and the electricity goes out, were screwed unless we have generators and are allowed to run them.

For all we know, maybe carbon fiber cars with much smaller engines would be better for the environment, Two stroke fuel injection with cranks and bearing separately lubricated are already being designed, much more power, much less material, so they should have a much smaller carbon footprint.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds, will we get things established or make them worse, will money dictate we keep on producing throw away products, or will brains win out.

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4 minutes ago, Echo said:

Hi eggsarascal

No doubt there is cases where land is difficult to come by for houses, but why is this, planning is why, we have a 3000 acre estate here, it has pumps going around the clock this past 40 years, a government department has paid the electric bill all this time, now the powers that be are talking about washing their hands of this, its a commercial farm, recently changed hand for a huge sum of money, now some sucker has a farm in a hole and will eventually pay the price.

Are you suggesting that someone bought a 3000 acre estate from another person/company that had a deal to not pay to run  pumps around the clock FOC?

 

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1 minute ago, eggsarascal said:

Are you suggesting that someone bought a 3000 acre estate from another person/company that had a deal to not pay to run  pumps around the clock FOC?

 

The pumps are still being maintained and the electricity provided by the state, but the state are cutting spending every where they can, so that individual will eventually run into some considerable expense, he or they only own the estate a few years if I remember correctly, before that the last owner was put off for not being able to pay the bank back, then a co op had it, and they sold it to an individual, and now there is talk of dropping the ball regarding state support for it.

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