Gas is banned

[difflock]

10 hours ago, Baldbloke said:

A fill of domestic heating oil in the U.K. usually means you pay 10% vat as against 1999 litres at 5%.....

Worth knowing

Oops! It will be the amount that falls within the 5% VAT rate then!

And ditto for the fill of 35 sec oil heating oil at the  5% VAT rate

[BCC]

I’m not sure that pellet boilers are that great for the environment. The 6 burners in the drax power station burn 2.5 million tons of pellets each. So 15 million tons. That’s after it’s dried. Got to be close to 30 million tons of wet timber. So where’s all that coming from? North America?

[Squaredy]

40 minutes ago, BCC said:

I’m not sure that pellet boilers are that great for the environment. The 6 burners in the drax power station burn 2.5 million tons of pellets each. So 15 million tons. That’s after it’s dried. Got to be close to 30 million tons of wet timber. So where’s all that coming from? North America?

Yeah mainly being shipped in from USA.  It was meant to be low grade waste from sawmilling and other operations but it has been shown that some is from old growth forests hence causing deforestation.

Edited December 30, 2019 by Squaredy

[BCC]

7 minutes ago, Squaredy said:

Yeah mainly being shipped in grim USA.  It was meant to be low grade waste from sawmilling and other operations but it has been shown that some is from old growth forests hence causing deforestation.

I know of people who burn all summer and vent the heat just to collect the government subsidy. I just hate the thought of some ancient forest been destroyed just to waste the energy.

 

[Squaredy]

5 minutes ago, BCC said:

I know of people who burn all summer and vent the heat just to collect the government subsidy. I just hate the thought of some ancient forest been destroyed just to waste the energy.

 

It is all about adequate controls and auditing.  Biomass is a great idea if it is done right, and worse than useless if it is done wrong.  There is a danger of giving the whole wood burning concept a bad name.

[openspaceman]

20 hours ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Interesting point, hadn't thought about that, but it is some years off for me yet....  Maybe, at some point, maybe Tesla, will make a compatible system where all components are in sync.

This battery stuff is very interesting, I would never have thought Lithium ion batteries could be so good after my first experience with laptops 30ish years ago when they were poor after a year.

 

Now I'm sold on EVs after my daughter got her Kona, and even let me drive it! The battery is warranted to still have 80% capacity after 7 years,  if it were a smaller car I would buy it off her leasing company after her 4 years are up if I am still able to drive then ;-).

 

Some sites I've googled even suggest with proper battery management (liquid cooling) and limiting charging between the bottom limit and 80% some 14000 cycles will be possible, that's getting on for 40 years of daily cycling.

 

Mind I would be aiming to do the opposite from you, buying cheap off peak electricity for the car (Octopus half hourly tariff) and a CHP unit to heat the home and charge the car in winter.

[donnk]

14 hours ago, openspaceman said:

This battery stuff is very interesting, I would never have thought Lithium ion batteries could be so good after my first experience with laptops 30ish years ago when they were poor after a year.

 

Now I'm sold on EVs after my daughter got her Kona, and even let me drive it! The battery is warranted to still have 80% capacity after 7 years,  if it were a smaller car I would buy it off her leasing company after her 4 years are up if I am still able to drive then ;-).

 

Some sites I've googled even suggest with proper battery management (liquid cooling) and limiting charging between the bottom limit and 80% some 14000 cycles will be possible, that's getting on for 40 years of daily cycling.

 

Mind I would be aiming to do the opposite from you, buying cheap off peak electricity for the car (Octopus half hourly tariff) and a CHP unit to heat the home and charge the car in winter.

octopus more expensive and less flexible than green energy uk time of day tariff.

[Capetown]

21 hours ago, openspaceman said:

This battery stuff is very interesting, I would never have thought Lithium ion batteries could be so good after my first experience with laptops 30ish years ago when they were poor after a year.

 

Now I'm sold on EVs after my daughter got her Kona, and even let me drive it! The battery is warranted to still have 80% capacity after 7 years,  if it were a smaller car I would buy it off her leasing company after her 4 years are up if I am still able to drive then ;-).

 

Some sites I've googled even suggest with proper battery management (liquid cooling) and limiting charging between the bottom limit and 80% some 14000 cycles will be possible, that's getting on for 40 years of daily cycling.

 

Mind I would be aiming to do the opposite from you, buying cheap off peak electricity for the car (Octopus half hourly tariff) and a CHP unit to heat the home and charge the car in winter.

The problem with the Kona is that it's over £30k. I got my brand new bluemotion golf pre registered for £16k.  The info about 14000 cycles is good news. But the sheer number of kW hours needed to replace all that petrol and diesel which is currently being used must be challenging. 

[openspaceman]

8 hours ago, donnk said:

octopus more expensive and less flexible than green energy uk time of day tariff.

You are a man of few words @donnk, best wishes to you and a peaceful and content new year to arbtalk.

 

There is more granularity in the Green Energy tariff in that it has two standard day times with a cost of 12p/kWh, a "penalty" tariff between 4pm and 7 pm weekdays of 25p/kWh and an offpeak rate of 5p/kWh between 11pm and 6am, with a peak lopping battery to avoid the penalty and  charging that an an EV during the low rate it could work as long as the amortisation of the battery per kWh and the losses incurred during the charge discharge process work, especially as the battery capacity changes over time.

 

The octopus tariff works slightly differently during the offpeak as it is a variable rate, so on a windy night the price drops, indeed the surplus has been so great that consumers have been paid a small amount to absorb the excess. I'm not sure if a smart charger can yet access the supplier to figure when the cheapest rate is offered and guaranteeing a full charge.

1 hour ago, Capetown said:

The problem with the Kona is that it's over £30k. I got my brand new bluemotion golf pre registered for £16k.  The info about 14000 cycles is good news. But the sheer number of kW hours needed to replace all that petrol and diesel which is currently being used must be challenging. 

 

I think the 14000 charge discharge cycle is theoretical and predicted if using an ideal battery management system. My daughter's Kona is leased by her employer and she enjoys a bigger tax break than if it was an IC engined car, but she would normally have had a car at 2/3 the cost. It will be interesting to see the offer price in 4 years, I bought my current fiesta after her lease at half its new cost with some 80k miles on it, I passed on the Qashqai she used for the last 4 years.. I calculated her electricity cost per mile would fall below 2p if she moved to a cheap tariff like octopus though she can often charge for free.

[neiln]

Article on BBC site about blending hydrogen with natural gas and reducing carbon emissions from domestic heating