Petrol ban now 2030

[Tony Griffiths]

What about another quite large elephant in the room which is building energy efficiency? Next to us they are in the process of building 19 "executive dwellings" of from 2 bedroom to 5 bedroom size. They have all the latest swanky kitchens and bathroom equipment but the insulation and airtightness  are based on unrevised energy standards for domestic buildings dating back to 2007. And of course they have gas boilers. Could it be that the developers have  very powerful lobbying to keep such standards low so that they can trouser the extra profits?

The proposals also include bringing forward the ban on domestic gas boilers from 2025 to 2023 - that's just over two years away. Meanwhile the existing gas supply system continues to be extended to areas not presently covered!

Gas is also used to power many small power stations - and what will happen to shares in British Gas? Will holders be compensated a huge cost to the taxpayer. What will replace gas? Well, the plan is for some sort of thermal device, holes bored in the ground, etc. Cost per house? £15,000. I suppose everybody has a spare £15,000 tucked away - or will the magic money tree provide? It would help if a single government minister had a science or engineering degree, but, as far as I can discover, not one does. But, hope springs eternal, the P.M., led by his todger, has a most trusted and widely-read adviser, his girlfriend. She has a top-class degree that enables her to instantly grasp the complexity of technology and its implications - theatre studies.

[Charles P]

Alok Sharma, Secretary for State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has a degree in Physics and Electronics. He must have shuddered at the presentation of data at some points this year.
The boiler strategy is about new homes, not wholesale rip out and replace. 


Charles

[Mike Costigan]

Well, every cloud has a silver lining: I live over the Nottinghamshire coalfields, where it will not be possible to drill deep enough for a successful heat pump, so at least we shall be spared extensive future new house development ... or not 

[Dave Wortley]

There are alternatives to ground source heat pumps for a new build domestic property. First of all much better wall insulation, floor and roof insulation, triple glazing and last but not least, airtightness. When the fabric of the building is sorted then installing a mechanical ventilation with heat recovery system will apparently, if you read about Passivhaus buildings, reduce heating requirements to a very small percentage of a current conventional build house. Only then would it be necessary to consider air source heat pumps, solar thermal systems and other heating systems.

[Hugh Barnes]

A pal has just built to Passivhaus principles and his house is always remarkably warm (on occasions, too warm?) but his energy usage is virtually nil. I think there are a lot of things that can be done to reduce our energy use. And we can all play our part..

My 2 penne'th..

[Denis Sweeney]

Germany removed a large number of coal fired power stations to appease the greens and went for green power they found their costs went through the roof. Chancellor Schroeder agreed with the Russians to help build the a new gas pipeline. Just weeks after the signing the deal he was voted out of office and then joined Gazprom as a director. Relying on green energy Germany for the first time ever found themselves in energy poverty. They actually had people having to choose whether they bought food or paid for their heating. They had to import electricity from neighbouring countries because they could not meet the demand from their green energy they are now almost totally reliant on gas from Russia!!
Germany are now building new coal power stations to replace those they dismantled.
Australia have had similar problems where they have moved away from coal to become more reliant on green energy, they once had the 4th lowest energy price in the world they now have the 4th highest costs and suffered outages of electric power for the first time in recent winters.
In the UK Drax power station in Selby converted to burning wood instead of coal, it now burns 70,000 tons of wood per day. But it does not just burn chopped up wood, the wood has to be pulped and pressed into pellets which have to dried. All of which takes a huge amount of electrical energy. The wood is not sourced locally it is actually sourced in the USA and Canada and so there is a steady stream of ships currently crossing the Atlantic using more fossil fuels to feed the power station. They also had to build a new waterside facility in Carolina to accommodate the ships using millions of tonnes of concrete.
A 65 meter wind turbine comprises approximately 100 tons of steel and 350 tons of a concrete for a foundation base, to mine the iron ore and convert this to steel and to create the cement for the concrete will consume as much electrical power as that turbine can produce in ten years.
Because of large subsidies to green energy projects to meet the carbon emissions in the EU, costs of all electricity have sky rocketed to an extent that a very large number of industries right across the EU have moved to countries outside the EU where their energy sources are cheaper, because they use coal. But the EU happily claim they have reduced their carbon emissions whilst jobs are lost to other nations.
I am not a supporter of Trump but he was castigated for pulling out of the Kyoto protocol, but because he pushed hard on Fracking US energy costs to industry and fuel costs to everyone in the country dropped and their economy boomed and ironically the US emissions have seen one of the largest falls beating most other countries.
On a personnel note I know over the past 15 years my electric bill has risen from £32 per month to £96 per month whilst my power consumption has remained constant, during that period my gas bill has reduced from £65 to £55 again consumption has remained the same.
A good read for you all is a book entitled “Not for Greens” by Ian Plimmer and emeritus professor in geology, a lot of the above has come from that read.
I do not deny that climate changes and I believe it will continue to change as it has done throughout the millions of years before man ever existed. What I do believe is we should not be so arrogant to think man can change the climate and wasting the billions on trying to do so and learn to live with it, after all carbon dioxide is the basic food of all plant life.
I would like someone to show me in the workshop manual for the earth where it actually states what the CO2 level the earth should be and what the tolerances on that number are? Currently the world is in a position where the current CO2 level at a little over 400 ppm is at one of the lowest levels it has been since man has been present on earth, according geologists. Plant life cannot exist below 150 ppm, it was not that long ago that we were at 180ppm and scientists were then looking to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Denis S

[austin]

A pal has just built to Passivhaus principles and his house is always remarkably warm (on occasions, too warm?) but his energy usage is virtually nil. I think there are a lot of things that can be done to reduce our energy use. And we can all play our part..

My 2 penne'th..

We have friends coming to end of building a passive house, he calls it the passive aggressive house for the amount of pain it's caused.

[Tony Griffiths]

Germany removed a large number of coal fired power stations to appease the greens and went for green  power they found their costs went through the roof...

Spot on, Denis. I've read that and other reports and agree with them all. The man-made-climate-change-we-are all-going-to die is a giant scam. In Germany, the thousand of "middle firms" went ballistic when the energy reforms were proposed (these were all EU regulations by the way) and even large companies like VW threatened to leave the country. They were pacified by "amendments" to the regulations - resulting in the German government being taken to the ECJ for breaking State-aid rules, with many other cases outstanding against them. What a mess.
Worried about the amount of energy you use? If the 65-million UK population vanished tomorrow that's just 0.02% of the three billion people worldwide who use solid fuels (often wood) for cooking and heating. In Africa it's 77% (a figure increasing); Southeast Asia 61%; Western Pacific 46%; Eastern Mediterranean 35% and still around 20% in Europe and the Americas.
So, for every one of us, there are 47 people chucking wood and coal on fires and dreaming of the day that they too can have a car, fridge, freezer, TV, air-conditioning, power tools, etc. Ah! must go, the coalman arriving - we still have an open fire...

---

Well, every cloud has a silver lining: I live over the Nottinghamshire coalfields, where it will not be possible to drill deep enough for a successful heat pump, so at least we shall be spared extensive future new house development ... or not 

Mike, with your lovely large-floor area garage, you could drill down and extract the coal...Here you go, the neighbours will love it - and not only that, it uses an Austin 7 engine! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...house.html

[Dave Wortley]

Fred Dibnah had a coal mine (sort of) in his garden.

[Hedd_Jones]

Fred Dibnah had a coal mine (sort of) in his garden.

Only till the planners found out!