Can we safely say we are becoming something of a joke?

[MikeSharp01]

Just read the report on ASHP installs against the grant scheme on the BBC - source of graphic below. It is seems interesting / instructive  that the coldest places, where you may think heat pumps would struggle, have the highest take up. While, perhaps the stand out insight is that the UK - despite our proclaimed aspiration for leadership in green technologies is in last place on this list.  Given these insights one wonders if we might be approaching the point of being able to say that, in this area, we are becoming something of a joke!

  

Image source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66033199

[ToughButterCup]

Ah, Mike, we're just procrastinating.  And the time to procrastinate is now! Don't delay !

[JohnMo]

Or does it just say something about the grant scheme?

 

Plenty of here with or installing ASHP, not part of the scheme including me. So they don't appear on the statistics h shi** in sh**e out

[Conor]

I'm sure building regs plays a big part, e.g. in Ireland the NZEB BER means the easiest way to pass is to use a heatpump rather than boiler. It's now the default choice, even for developers. Zero incentive to do that when we built last year*

 

 

*not up to speed on new UK regs.

[Happy Valley]

I'd like to see the figure for 2022. This has only really started gaining momentum very recently.

[Iceverge]

Having given this some thought. 

 

Air to water ASHPs are a poor swap for high temp gas system as the COP suffers with a large delta T. The whole plumbing system typically needs replacing. Hence nobody does it. 

 

As others have mentioned elsewhere previously a single A2A placed in a hallway or large room could substitute a huge chunk of the gas heating at a COP of >4. 

 

However the nature of a split unit, vacuuming, gas pipework, flaring tools etc and the F-Gas requirements mean than most jobbing DIYers are put off. 

 

You can get these but the COP is poor. 

 

 

How about an external monoblock with a single duct into the house.  The huge volume of air required for the evaporator could be more easily satisfied by the external unit (higher COP) and there'd be one less hole to drill in the wall. Pick your location beside an existing socket and limit the current draw to whatever that supplies happily and any toolman could put one in. 

[RichardL]

UK has a history of other heating methods until recently - it depends when you start measuring?

On the plus side UK is perfectly positioned to leverage that knowledge and experience and honing the technology from the top of the list though - we should thank the Fins and the Nordics et-al and jump on that bandwagon copying what works.

I wouldn't worry too much about becoming a joke - no one is looking over their shoulder laughing - they have better things to do - or should do.


Strikes me, usually, the best plan is to avoid nationalisation of anything - especially technology initiatives - sadly usually it turns that thing into a common lowest denominator, or the U.S. MO model ties it up in red tape to prevent active competition in law, or the middle men that cash in on grants and distort the market.

 

The best you can hope for with government is not loading the tech with tax or duty.

[ToughButterCup]

43 minutes ago, RichardL said:

....
Strikes me, usually, the best plan is to avoid nationalisation of anything - especially technology initiatives

...

 

... unless you have to ....like water companies or railway companies or energy companies. Sometimes nationalisation works, sometimes it has to be made to work for a bit, others it is indeed best avoided.  

[RichardL]

50 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

or energy companies

Absolutely - if Govt. made electric dirt cheap but left the market open to innovate on how to burn it for heat.... ?

Perhaps that wouldn't work though - everyone would fill their houses with 2-3 bar fires?


The challenge is - once things (energy) have no value(cost) theres no imperative to save them.

Just thinking out loud - I don't know the answer to the above - unless you're Iceland with sharable heat -  but artificial (i.e. law driven rather than natural resource driven) community driven heating and you're back in that common lowest denominator game.

[Temp]

So we are 21st out of 195 countries?

[ToughButterCup]

Yes @Temp...good point. I've been encouraging people to read this book for many years....

 

It's been in print since 1950 ISH. Essential reading for politicians. 

[SteamyTea]

8 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

I've been encouraging people to read this book for many years

Better still, just listen to Adam Rutherford's Bad Blood: The Story of Eugenics

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001fd36

 

Shows how uneducated people can fall for fake statistics and be, in part, responsible for millions of murders.

Sadly, even on here, we have some members that think some groups of people are still inferior.

 

 

[joe90]

My old Dad, bless him, said you can prove black is white with statistics 🤷‍♂️ (so take them with a pinch of salt).

[SteamyTea]

15 minutes ago, joe90 said:

My old Dad, bless him, said you can prove black is white with statistics 🤷‍♂️ (so take them with a pinch of salt).

I would like to see how that works in practice?

If we call black, zero, and white, one.

Show me how 0=1 please.

 

It is possible to ask people the wrong question and then record the data badly, but that is not proving anything.

So the question, when series of coloured cards is 'what colour is that?', but the only recorded answer is for white cards.

This does not offer an alternative recording of the answer i.e. is it another colour than white.

An another why to collect bad data is to categorise things badly, which then delves deeply into set theory.

So that white card is in the group of all colours, while also being in the group of colours that are not black.  Taken as a whole, after millions of samples are taken, white will look, by the numbers, to be part of the all colours group, rather than the not black group, but as black is also in the same group as white, you can say that black (0) and white (1) are equal.  But you would be mad to.

 

Or just listen to More or Less.

 

An alternative approach is to place people into sets, those that understand data, those that use data to suit their beliefs, those that distrust data (which is not the same as saying it is lying) and those that think some data is presented as lies, and finally, those that think all data is a lie.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 30, 2023 by SteamyTea

[SimonD]

16 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

 

... unless you have to ....like water companies or railway companies or energy companies. Sometimes nationalisation works, sometimes it has to be made to work for a bit, others it is indeed best avoided.  

 

What often gets overlooked is the alternative and even more maligned approach: proper regulation. If the regulatory framework had been constructed and governed properly this crisis may well have been averted. It's not dissimilar to the financial meltdown and is only the beginning I fear as so many other companies are massively leveraged, many of which are inflation linked too.

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Better still, just listen to Adam Rutherford's Bad Blood: The Story of Eugenics

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001fd36

Shows how uneducated people can fall for fake statistics .

 

Dunning Kruger Level 1 folks all over the place, here as well as everywhere else. They are normal. They are me - sometimes.  We don't have to look too far from our own doorstep to find many others - (the local pub will do )

 

In relation to what we do - self building - I know I spend my time mostly on the way up to  Mount Stupid  [ as in : How hard Can It Be? ] and too often  sliding down into the valley of despair.  [as in :  Look at the Mess I made Of This, Help Me Here Please!  ]

 

The brilliant thing about BuildHub is that there are so very many generous people here who - seeing members like me flailing around in the Valley of  Despair -  who are more than prepared to grab me by the scruff of the neck and pull me up the slope of enlightenment.

 

To me, that's the definition of Kindness.

 

We can all see those - others always (?) -  at the peak of Mount Stupid ( for example I cannot imagine how @SteamyTea puts up with my stupidity about electrical terminology) . But all too often I lack the kindness  - the effort - the time - to help folk make the next step along this particular rollercoaster. Even when I can see the plot of route they need to take.

 

To suceed, all I need to do is nothing. [ As in  stuff it, I know the answer , but I'm not going to contribute to the discussion ]

 

So, @MikeSharp01, we are becoming something of a joke eh?  [ As in sliding to the Valley Of Despair] 

 

Who do we ask to help us on the next step towards Sustainability? 

[SteamyTea]

9 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

Who do we ask to help us on the next step towards Sustainability? 

The scientists, engineers and accountants already involved.

Forget the politicians, the pressure groups, do gooders, naysayers and delusional.

 

Taking the current price structure of our electrical generation, which price favours gas production, who would have thought that wind and solar would contribute nearly half of the production this year.

But it has. So even while hampered but obsolete taxation, it is still the cheapest form of new capacity.

So trust the people in the RE industry, and ignore the rest, they are so far behind the curve they are becoming a cult.

[Dave Jones]

22 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

I would like to see how that works in practice?

If we call black, zero, and white, one.

Show me how 0=1 please.

 

It is possible to ask people the wrong question and then record the data badly, but that is not proving anything.

So the question, when series of coloured cards is 'what colour is that?', but the only recorded answer is for white cards.

This does not offer an alternative recording of the answer i.e. is it another colour than white.

An another why to collect bad data is to categorise things badly, which then delves deeply into set theory.

So that white card is in the group of all colours, while also being in the group of colours that are not black.  Taken as a whole, after millions of samples are taken, white will look, by the numbers, to be part of the all colours group, rather than the not black group, but as black is also in the same group as white, you can say that black (0) and white (1) are equal.  But you would be mad to.

 

Or just listen to More or Less.

 

An alternative approach is to place people into sets, those that understand data, those that use data to suit their beliefs, those that distrust data (which is not the same as saying it is lying) and those that think some data is presented as lies, and finally, those that think all data is a lie.

 

 

 

 

 

quantum theory.