sgt_woulds

Another reason not to go EV! I prefer to use cash wherever possible, as it doesn't crash, conduct random updates, or run out of battery at the worst possible time. And it is much easier to keep an eye on spending.

Maybe, like me, her only affordable full EV option would be a very used Nissan Leaf or early small bettery (and extreemly unreliable) Zoe. Then her range anxiety makes sense. I have a real dilema in that I desperately need a larger vehicle - our Kia ceed with a four bike roof rack barely copes - but I don't want to waste money on an ICE MPV or window van. The only EV that would suite our lifestyle (at least, one that I can ever hope to afford one day), is the Nissan ENV-200 mpv. On the rare occassions they come up for sale, they are £5000+, and also cost lot more in TAX and insurance. That's just imposssible to justify for a vehicle where battery degredation is a real worry. One of the rare EV cases where Jezza Clarson's 'you'll throw the battery away in 3 years' might come true.

Makes no sense other than for health of passangers / public. I wish I had a big enough wallet to make the change on that basis. The numbers of petrol stations in the UK have started to reduce. I guess there will be a tipping point when 'range anxiety' forces ICE drivers into electric... 🤣

You are not thinking holistically. The CO2 cost for burning fuel in an ICE car also needs to take into account the CO2 cost of extracting, manufacturing, and shipping the fuel to petrol station, the emmissions cost of spillages, emmissions during filling up the car, etc. Add to that the low efficiency of the engine in using the fuel (60% is wasted heat and friction) and the fun fact that you can only burn it once. Think well-to-wheel, not vehicle mpg and you will start to see the logic of studies like this. Even when burning FF, electricity generation efficiency and minimal transmission losses make it far more efficient. The most profligate EV (Ferrari, Maserati, ancient Enfield Electric) will still use the 'fuel' with +80% efficiency of conversion. And, unlike ICE, you get some of the expended energy back when you brake or go downhill. Add in that the valuable minerals in car batteries and drive systems will be recycled (+99.6% recyclability of materials, plus reusing Lithium from existing batteries saves more energy as it is already purified). I heard an expert from a mining company say that within 20 years, most battery and magnet materials used in vehicles in the future will come from the circular economy rather than mining extraction. The amount of CO2 used in the manufacture of an EV will be less than that to create an ICE vehicle within the next decade. Unfortunately none of this helps me. I drive less than 2500 miles a year and my diesel car has such low running costs in the grand scheme of things (insurance and TAX would both be higher on an EV) and the upfront cost of buying a second hand EV is too great. The second hand value of my car is probably less than I pay for insurance and fuel each year! I would dearly love to have an EV, but will only be affordable if I'm given a freebie, or a government grant/scrappage scheme that allows me to buy a very used EV

Possibly, if they used a liquid piston (fluidyne) stirling generator, which reduces the count down to a single moving part (the floating magnet in the linear alternator), but AFAIK these have never been made outside of the lab and efficiencies were very much lower than a 'traditional' stirling engine - probably not much better than TEG. There is a fascinating book about stirling engine experiments conducted by Phillips that I read a million years ago. Well worth a read. I was obsessed with Stirling engines at the time, but there are good reasons why ICE is the more dominant technology.

Well, yes, if by 'better' you mean more efficient. But they also have moving parts to wear out and require expensive and dangerous maintenance. A TEG could be positioned off a continental shelf and just left to work for 20 years. In an open sea environment, 'better' has a different meaning. HAWT are much more efficient than VAWT, but they are also more difficult to assemble at sea (blades have to be fitted after the tower is up), have higher maintenance requirements, and require repairs at great hights as the generator is at the top. New VAWT designs are starting to make more financial sense, even though less 'efficient'. They can be floated out fully assembled, then (after anchoring), the ballest end is flooded and they pop up almost ready to go. VAWT have less stresses induced in operation, and maintenance on the generator can be done at sea level. Over a 30 year operating life the cost savings outweigh the lower generating efficiencies. Deep sea is where the real wind blows - the further away from a continental shelf you can get, the better the generation, but then you have to anchor floating turbines. It is much harder to install a floating HAWT. Logically, the next 10 years should see alot more VAWT in deep sea locations, despite being 'worse' than other types of wind machine. Now imagine the same scenario, but with no moving parts to maintain. I doubt that 3% efficiency would provide enough generation to cover cost savings though! There must have been some TEG advancement in the 30 odd years since I was last interested in this. What happened to all the carbon nano magic everyone was talking about a decade ago?

At the time I wondered if it be simpler / cheaper / more reliable to use a TEG (Seebeck device) instead. Power output would be extreemly low, but with no moving parts, maintenance costs would also be low with an almost unlimited lifecycle. At the time, TEG were very inneficient (I remember 3% for one back in the 90's using a depleted uranium heatsource). Have they improved since?

I remember this was a big thing in the mid 90's (when all the real interest / progress in renewables kicked off). But then? Nothing! Open cycle OTEC was the really interesting version since you didn't need working fluids such as ammonia; they claimed fluid based was closed loop, but there is no such thing in reality, so there would have been some leakage into the environment. As a plus, open cycle OTEC produces desalinated water as a by-product, and in the next few decade that will probably become as valuable as oil. You'd think the Saudis would jump on it.

Will this change the FF conversation in any meaningful way: As Europe swelters, Paris judges say consumers aren’t to blame — TotalEnergies is – EUobserver I'm guessing usual people will jump on this straight away as a flawed decision or deepstate interference, and that the science (the OIL companies own commissioned research) it is based on is biased/wrong.

What if was one of those knitted bed-throw blankets with all the holes in like your granny used to make? Actually, if you invested in a small herd of sheep or angora goats they would keep the shed warm in winter and you could skin them for extra insulation each year.

You cannot make changes without the capacity already in place; having heard him speak, I'm sure that 'Ed' get's this, and that is why he is pushing for as much renewable capacity to be built whilst they have the ability. I doubt if labour will get back in at the next election, so it is the right call to make for the country in the long-term, even if at the moment, you cannot see an immediate benefit to your personal bill. As others have pointed out (but some on here cannot see past their blinkers), the increased renewables capacity has already reduced the impact of the oil wars on our economy and personal budgets. Once we have enough capacity we can encourage things like this: Giving away excess daytime solar for free - pv magazine Global Personally, I believe this should already be happening in Scotland, espescially for businesses, as this would encourage the 'Northern Powerhouse' that everyone is on about at the moment. The only way for the rest of us to 'see' future benefits is to invests in them. As someone once said, 'if you always do what you've always done, you'll only get what you've always got'.

Replace the hardcore with a sufficient depth of foamed glass aggregate (e.g. Geocell) and you remove the need for additional insulation under the slab and also for a DPM. (Unless it is a radon area, all you need is a geotextile membrane seperating the concrete from the foamed glass). I'd be interested to know more about RRP of SCC. I used floated conrete over Geocell, but unfortunately it still required a leveling screed since my builders were a bunch of amateur monkeys.

Why not a retractable canopy? Less faff than shutters or brise soleil. Need about 300mm above windows to allow fixings which you have. Rollar shutters fitted external to the opening and above the reveal shouldn't block access for a leaning ladder (gutter access) either. If you are set on using shutters, why not fit strips of a less reactive timber either side of the windows and flush with the existing trim. Screw non-stainless into these? (with stainless screws right through into cladding). This would also spread the weight accross the Chessnut boards that already have visible shakes/splits

Cut some EPDM gaskets to fit between the hardware and the boards? And use double dipped galvenised hinges to stop any ferrous run-off (not the so called 'galvenised' stuff sold in the big sheds). If using stainless screws it is also wise to pilot dill the boards before screwing them in, as stailness has a habit of rounding off or snapping the heads off - nearly always when they are 7/8 of the way in so a PITTA to remove again!

Shifting spoil at 7pm last night I cut down the cheap cotton work trousers they sometimes sell in Lidl / Aldi just below the knee pad pockets. They work quite well as pirate pants; all the extra rips and tears just add to the ventilation potential and I still have all my pockets and a hammer loop and knee pads. Cut upwards behind the knee for extra relief. Drives the girls mad... Straw hat with built in solar power fan Work boots was the worst bit. Last time I was in Hungary I found a shop selling steel toe sandals but didn't have enough pocket money. I'm deffo buying them the next time I visit!