Calculating for the use of sand for a thermal store.

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

Correct me if im wrong, but the link you provide is the "buy" price, not the selling price?

Yes, they track each other though.

Hard to do the wholesale selling price as there are too many variables for each installation, but as a long terms price check, they are usefull.

[MikeSharp01]

8 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

Whats the payback?

This is also becoming a difficult point and is somewhat tied up with the much more 'wicked' problem that is climate change and our individual responsibility for it. I have said here before that although payback in my pocket would be a bonus a payback to the planet, eg my offspring's offspring, would be enough for me. I appreciate that this may mean us thinking more collectively but hey, and to bowdlerize George Washington - actually bowdlerize is perhaps not the right term, "If we do not all turn the temperature down together we will assuredly fry separately" 

[Roger440]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Yes, they track each other though.

Hard to do the wholesale selling price as there are too many variables for each installation, but as a long terms price check, they are usefull.

 

Do we not think that adding 30 million households to electric heating when starmer turns off gas in 2030, and the longer term addtion of 30 million electric cars wont have an effect on prices, given that, in simplistic terms, generation capacity isnt increasing significantly?

 

Normally, an increase in demand, and a constriction in supply normally only has one outcome.

 

 

[Roger440]

1 minute ago, MikeSharp01 said:

This is also becoming a difficult point and is somewhat tied up with the much more 'wicked' problem that is climate change and our individual responsibility for it. I have said here before that although payback in my pocket would be a bonus a payback to the planet, eg my offspring's offspring, would be enough for me. I appreciate that this may mean us thinking more collectively but hey, and to bowdlerize George Washington - actually bowdlerize is perhaps not the right term, "If we do not all turn the temperature down together we will assuredly fry separately" 

 

Its fortunate you are in a postion that financial payback doesnt matter.

 

However that puts you firmly in a minority.

 

Even where a payback is, lets say, under 10 years, it rather irrelevant if you cant afford the capital investment, which, again, will be the majority.

 

Thinking collectively is what government "should" be for. Good luck with that. The last 30 years of energy policy suggests you may be dissapointed.

 

Its pretty much everyman for himself. Which is why im on this thread. 

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

The principle is fairly simple

Yes, very basic thermodynamics.

The devil is in the non-linearity of it.

And I shall say it again.

Power and Energy are not the same thing.

You can store lots of energy, quite easily; heat a rock, lift some water, heat something, change the chemistry, even burn something that has grown.

Getting the power back out is the really hard thing.

As a simple rule, once you have used up half your energy store, the next half will take 4 times longer, and that may not give you much useful power.

[MikeSharp01]

1 minute ago, Roger440 said:

Its fortunate you are in a postion that financial payback doesnt matter.

Not quite what I said - the payback does matter but it can be to our children's children.

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

I have said here before that although payback in my pocket would be a bonus a payback to the planet, eg my offspring's offspring, would be enough for me. I appreciate that this may mean us thinking more collectively but hey,

You listening to Radio 4 right now?

It is all about peoples attitude to climate change

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001gkq8

[MikeSharp01]

2 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

Its pretty much everyman for himself. Which is why im on this thread. 

Totally understandable and while that would be a classic tragedy of the commons example. We have known this for millennia. Aristotle said "That which is common to the greatest number gets the least amount of care. Men pay most attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common." If we can make it payback early and in all dimensions then that would be ideal although we would then have to face up to how we make it affordable for all the planets residents.

 

3 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

You listening to Radio 4 right now?

Yes

[MikeSharp01]

12 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

Thinking collectively is what government "should" be for. Good luck with that. The last 30 years of energy policy suggests you may be dissapointed.

Hope dies last!

[SteamyTea]

23 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

 

Do we not think that adding 30 million households to electric heating when starmer turns off gas in 2030, and the longer term addtion of 30 million electric cars wont have an effect on prices, given that, in simplistic terms, generation capacity isnt increasing significantly?

 

Normally, an increase in demand, and a constriction in supply normally only has one outcome.

 

 

Not sure, does depend on government's intervention in the market place.

We may also save in other areas.

As an example, if we still killed the same relative number of people on the roads as we did in the early 1950s (~5000/year) today we would be killing 65,000 people each year based on passenger miles.

To a certain extends, we tend to think that fossil fuels are very cheap, but once all the prices are taken into account, they are probably not as cheap as we believe.

Loosing a major local supplier i.e. Russia has been a failure of government(s) foreign and trade policy, not of energy generation.

The big problem is that we cannot change the infrastructure overnight, and the current government is pretending to care, and do the right things, but have in fact just kicked the can up the road again.

Edited January 3, 2023 by SteamyTea

[MikeSharp01]

It seems that there are 3bn people on the planet who use less energy per year than a standard American fridge!

[Roger440]

3 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

It seems that there are 3bn people on the planet who use less energy per year than a standard American fridge!

 

Yes, but, call me selfish, but i dont want their lifestyle either. Do you?

[Roger440]

11 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Not sure, does depend on government's intervention in the market place.

We may also save in other areas.

As an example, if we still killed the same relative number of people on the roads as we did in the early 1950s (~5000/year) today we would be killing 65,000 people each year based on passenger miles.

To a certain extends, we tend to think that fossil fuels are very cheap, but once all the prices are taken into account, they are probably not as cheap as we believe.

Loosing a major local supplier i.e. Russia has been a failure of government(s) foreign and trade policy, not of energy generation.

The big problem is that we cannot change the infrastructure overnight, and the current government is pretending to care, and do the right things, but have in fact just kicked the can up the road again.

 

Your last paragraph is key. And you are right.

 

There is no credible plan to increase production to match (forced) demand. Therefore, the price must go up, unless there is a state intervention. My best guess is that such interventions will dry up. Of course i could be wrong.

[SteamyTea]

14 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

There is no credible plan to increase production to match (forced) demand.

I think there is.

 

Here is what can happen in a decade.  Both increased by a facto of 4.

 

 

[Kelvin]

Sign up to Octopus Agile and take the cash use the cash to buy Ripple Energy shares. You’d need to front the money first of course. Anything left over buy a nice cardi. 

[Roger440]

6 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I think there is.

 

Here is what can happen in a decade.  Both increased by a facto of 4.

 

 

 

Thats nice. But not the same thing. Overall power generation hasnt gone up by any appreciable amount. Simply replaced one with another, rather less predicatable source.

[Roger440]

2 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

Sign up to Octopus Agile and take the cash use the cash to buy Ripple Energy shares. You’d need to front the money first of course. Anything left over buy a nice cardi. 

 

Didnt think octopus were taking new customers?

 

Ripplle discussed already in this thread. Not something i would be putting money into. Way to high risk.

[SteamyTea]

8 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

Simply replaced one with another

That is the whole idea, replace CO₂ intensive generation with very low CO₂ generation.

It has worked well so far.

Yes there are challenges along the way, but not technical ones.

 

 

Worth remembering that we now use less energy than we used to.

Edited January 3, 2023 by SteamyTea

[Kelvin]

3 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

 

Didnt think octopus were taking new customers?

 

Ripplle discussed already in this thread. Not something i would be putting money into. Way to high risk.

They are. I signed up with them last year for a new supply (not just switching) 

[Roger440]

Just now, SteamyTea said:

That is the whole idea, replace CO₂ intensive generation with very low CO₂ generation.

It has worked well so far.

Yes there are challenges along the way, but not technical ones.

 

Just extended periods of low generation to cover off then. Like a lot of the last 3 months.

 

Of course, if we allow suply and demand to drive the price, it just means that prices wil be massively high when its not windy.

 

I dont see that as a satisfactory solution, but im pretty sure thats the one we are getting. Sufficiently convinced that im here on this thread discussing ways to ensure im not a victim.

[Roger440]

2 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

They are. I signed up with them last year for a new supply (not just switching) 

 

Thanks. Thats changed then.

[MikeSharp01]

21 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

 but i dont want their lifestyle either. Do you?

Nope - but we need to solve their problems or they will become ours. To do it we perhaps need to understand that there are many things in life that don't have a financial payback yet we still feel the need, perhaps mainly through social pressure, to do them nonetheless, EG Children, Cars, Holidays. To tackle this problem we do need to cohere and that is either a job for government, who as we have already said seem congenitally incapable of showing any sort of leadership on the matter, so as to make us pull together OR a small band of committed activists capable of ensuring we can collectively smell the coffee!

 

2 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

Way to high risk.

There are bigger risks it is just they are not that well understood or recognised.

 

3 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

Sufficiently convinced that im here on this thread discussing ways to ensure im not a victim.

Not moving forward together will ensure we all are, one can see the elemental approach to the status quo as classic defender mentality at work while this time, unlike most situations in the past, the attacker is the size of a planet!

[SteamyTea]

Just now, Roger440 said:

Sufficiently convinced that im here on this thread discussing ways to ensure im not a victim.

Yes, we all have to do a little bit to help.

When you go to buy a new car, you probably get one that is more economical, but probably just as quick (we are limited there) and just as reliable and comfortable.

Much of that improvement is done by the manufacturers, but driven by legislation.

I don't here people complaining that their new cars use too little fuel and it will all end in tears.

 

We are currently at the start of the transition journey, it is not going to happen over night, just the logistics of manufacture alone is going to hold us back.  So in the mean time, we, as individuals, are expected to help ourselves.

I did, 3.3 MWh of energy used in the house last year, 2005 I used 11 MWh.

And I can reduce that more if I swap out my resistance heating system for heat pumps, and stick some PV on the roof.

[Kelvin]

The house we rent is supplied by Bulb who have recently been taken over by Octopus so  at some point I assume they’ll merge systems and we’ll have two Octopus accounts. We haven’t started building yet so the Octopus supply at the plot has over £400 of credit in the account and we’re just on their variable tariff. 

[SteamyTea]

21 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

Like a lot of the last 3 months.

Shall we look at that.

 

So between the 1^st October and 1^st Jan 2023, out low CO₂ generation was higher than out fossil fuel generation.

The reality is that we are changing the generation type, and it is working reliably.

As I said, it will not happen over night, and there are challenges to over come, but making a wild claim that cannot be backed up with data just panders to prejudice.

 

Follow the green and red lines, the columns are my usage and irrelevant in this context.

The missing 6% is imports, as I don't know the generation type and biomass, as I don't consider it low CO₂.

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by SteamyTea