Save the world, install an LPG tank.

[epsilonGreedy]

9 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

when government get serious about climate change  first thing to do is bring back a  decent FIT  for PV and solar thermal and add it to electric prices 

getting the pay back period down to 5 years will make people think it worth doing

 

 

Which is another way of saying "make the rich richer and oppress the poor". If domestic PV is not economically sustainable without subsidy the technology is not viable.

 

14 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

and then do same for battery storage so grid can use it for wind storage 

then get real about pollution in cities and give grants to turn all buses  to CNC or LPG -they have loads of space for tanks and know how far they will go in a day 

 

 

The Government is effectively bankrupt, do you think that precipitating the collapse the nation state through mass subsidy of an ineffective technology will help combat climate change?

[ProDave]

20 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

when government get serious about climate change  first thing to do is bring back a  decent FIT  for PV and solar thermal and add it to electric prices 

getting the pay back period down to 5 years will make people think it worth doing  --and then do same for battery storage so grid can use it for wind storage 

 

Solar PV is close to that at the moment IF you source the kit carefully AND DIY install it, AND take reasonable measures to self use as much as you can. I am expecting payback from mine in about 6 years.  But it is not for everyone and those out at work all day every day can only sensibly self use by putting stuff on timers.

 

The biggest obstacle is the FIT schemes required expensive MCS installers that pushed the price up. We have to get away from that model with non MCS companies offering cheap systems that are viable without a FIT.  There is still no sign of the mooted export payment scheme that was supposed to replace FIT's.

 

Batteries will have their day but are not yet imho cheap enough or long lasting enough.  It is not wind power that needs storage, but solar PV power so most folk can us it in the evenings.

 

NON FIT solar PV should be a no brainer for business premesis where they use power in the daytime, that is where the big push for cheap, easy to install, no subsidy solar PV should be going. No need for storage.  If every industrial unit had most of it's roof covered in solar PV that would make a big impact.  And if the infrastructure to supply and install cheap kit evolved, then the domestic market could tap into that as well.

[scottishjohn]

you miss the point 

as long as we accept that generating power form fossil fuels  is ok ,then nothing is going to change 

the other option to stopping global warming is get rid of 2/3 of the worlds population #

I know which is a better option 

[scottishjohn]

1 minute ago, ProDave said:

NON FIT solar PV should be a no brainer for business premises where they use power in the daytime, that is where the big push for cheap, easy to install, no subsidy solar PV should be going. No need for storage.  If every industrial unit had most of it's roof covered in solar PV that would make a big impact.  And if the infrastructure to supply and install cheap kit evolved, then the domestic market could tap into that as well.

again the problem is time scale 

no small biz thinks about 20 years  for planning -

I looked ta covering my south facing roof of garage with solar ----but it was a 15 year payback --and inital cost was 160K

and only low interest loans if i used at least 50% of it --so a non starter .

the estimate is 25% of energy usage is domestic --so that would be a big start to make a hole in that one and as i am suggesting you raise cost of electric to pay for it --then its self funding

maybe that would make major house builders fir it as std  as well ?

there are 2 pumped storage schemes in my area that have been on the books since 2015 --but no money to do them ,yet we are polluted with wind farms ,which have to be turned off when its a windy day all over scotland ,but worse than that we are still paying for the energy they would have made on  these days if they were turned on  !!

 

[scottishjohn]

10 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The biggest obstacle is the FIT schemes required expensive MCS installers that pushed the price up. We have to get away from that model with non MCS companies offering cheap systems that are viable without a FIT.  There is still no sign of the mooted export payment scheme that was supposed to replace FIT's.

 

Batteries will have their day but are not yet imho cheap enough or long lasting enough.  It is not wind power that needs storage, but solar PV power so most folk can us it in the evenings.

you cannot expect most people to up to fitting it them selves -not realistic-

maybe it should be part of an electricans training  now ,as it wll become more and more normal ,so no need for special  MCS,

all these thighs are doable with the right political will+common sense .

we do need storage for wind as that is not going away and even more offshore wind farms are planned.

i would put the money into hydro personally ,be it tidal or dams --dams can be used as pump storage as well in right place 

we have 4 hydro stations on river dee in about 20 miles --built in 1934 +still running  ,and again proven technology

and if you go with global warming then uK is going to get wetter as well as warmer 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

8 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

you miss the point 

as long as we accept that generating power form fossil fuels  is ok ,then nothing is going to change 

the other option to stopping global warming is get rid of 2/3 of the worlds population #

I know which is a better option 

 

 

There is another option. Wait a few decades for the immature and highly unreliable science of climate change to improve its modelling, instead you advocate executing a crash economic gear change for the whole nation based on a scientific culture that is notable for the gross unreliability of its current models.

 

In the mean time we can prepare the ground with persuasive taxation to change consumption side behavior, look at the phenomenal success of co2 tiered vehicle duty. And let's do something about plastic packaging, there is an easy win.

[Jeremy Harris]

It's worth looking at where the UK electricity grid gets its primary energy, too.  Gridwatch has a reasonably clear presentation of the various energy sources being used: http://gridwatch.co.uk/

 

Right now it seems that the grid primary energy split is (roughly):

 

Renewables 28.41%

Gas 42.1%

Coal 2.7%

Nuclear 18.2%

Interconnects 8%

 

(the small error in the sum is due to rounding plus things like a tiny amount of pumped hydro, I think)

[PeterW]

3 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

And let's do something about plastic packaging, there is an easy win.

 

Zero impact on climate change. It has significant ecology impact though. 

[scottishjohn]

2 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

There is another option. Wait a few decades for the immature and highly unreliable science of climate change to improve its modelling, instead you advocate executing a crash economic gear change for the whole nation based on a scientific culture that is notable for the gross unreliability of its current models.

 

In the mean time we can prepare the ground with persuasive taxation to change consumption side behavior, look at the phenomenal success of co2 tiered vehicle duty. And let's do something about plastic packaging, there is an easy win.

If it was only this country that believed the science --then i might agree --but as scientists world wide think the same --then is more probable they are correct

as a planet we cannot take the chance ,of doing nothing  IMHO

[epsilonGreedy]

11 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

there are 2 pumped storage schemes in my area that have been on the books since 2015 --but no money to do them ,yet we are polluted with wind farms

 

 

The world is awash with investment money awaiting viable propositions, what you are saying is you are frustrated the Government is not sponsoring a pet project of yours.

 

20 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

yet we are polluted with wind farms ,which have to be turned off when its a windy day all over scotland ,but worse than that we are still paying for the energy they would have made on  these days if they were turned on  !!

 

 

This demonstrates why Governments should not try to micro manage the economy by creating convoluted artificial market structures, yet you advocate more examples.

[Jeremy Harris]

The study of climate science, like that of many other subjects, tends to have a degree of uncertainty, but that doesn't make it unreliable.  Clear conclusions as to general trends can be reached, even if we are unable to put hard numbers on the predicted outcome. 

 

Climate modelling uses estimates, based on a limited amount of evidence, to try and draw conclusions as to how an extremely complex system may behave in response to specific changes.  This modelling can only be improved and made less uncertain by the normal process of observation and measurement, and arguably may never be 100% accurate.  After all, we've been studying meteorology for centuries, and despite this being significantly simpler than global climate, we still can't predict weather without a degree of uncertainty

. 

One example of the uncertain nature of climate modelling recently occurred as a result of seemingly anomalous measurements of atmospheric CO₂, over a couple of decades, which didn't seem to be following the previous climate model predictions.  This led to more study and a revision in the global model to better account for the impact of the oceanic CO₂ sink, a factor that had not been as accurately modelled in the past. 

 

As I understand it, the climate model has been refined in this way pretty much continuously, and continues to be refined further, in the light of new observations and measurements.  It will probably always have some degree of uncertainty, but that doesn't make it unreliable, or less useful for decision making, we just have to remember that there are fairly large error bounds on current predictions.

[epsilonGreedy]

19 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

Renewables 28.41%

 

 

A figure that demonstrates impressive progress though the whole year percentage is probably lower. I still think there is a renewable crunch point a decade or two away when the mechanical equipment starts to fail, I read somewhere that the estimated price for renewing a gearbox in an offshore turbine is £40k.

 

Unless the UK economy is in excellent health 20 years from now and we are prepared to cross subsidize renewable infrastructure maintenance I suspect broken turbines will be mothballed and a new generation capacity gap will creep up on us. 

[Ed Davies]

13 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

You have to dig into non mainstream media sources to discover that:

1. For most of the period of life on earth co2 has been higher than today.
2. The greenhouse effect of additional co2 is not a linear risk, the negative effect of more co2 tails off. 

 

There are lots of sources around which talk about the history of CO₂ in the Earth's atmosphere. That AGU fall conference video I linked to is probably one of the most mainstream scientific presentations you can imagine short of the IPCC reports. Whether the media see that as an important point to present to the public or not is a different matter; I can see why they would think it's not so important, human civilization didn't arise under those conditions and isn't adapted to them so they're not awfully relevant.

 

The non-linear effect of additional CO₂ is absolutely built in to almost all discussions of climate change in that there's widespread discussion of the climate sensitivity (in terms of temperature increase) for a doubling of CO₂ concentration. This implicitly assumes that the increase is roughly logarithmic: double CO₂ from 280 ppm to 560 ppm and you get a certain rise in temperature (2.5 °C or whatever it turns out to be), double it again to 1120 ppm and you get about the same increase again.

 

Whether that equates to “risk” tailing off non-linearly is a different question. It could well be that a certain amount of change is fairly easy to adapt to but after a certain point the combined effects add up to the point where the ability to adapt breaks down. That's also implicit in the public discussions such as the Paris agreement based on holding to 1.5 °C or 2 °C levels of increase.

Edited April 24, 2019 by Ed Davies

[Ed Davies]

33 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

There is another option. Wait a few decades for the immature and highly unreliable science of climate change to improve its modelling, instead you advocate executing a crash economic gear change for the whole nation based on a scientific culture that is notable for the gross unreliability of its current models.

 

That was possibly a reasonable argument two decades ago. It's not any more. There are so many separate lines of evidence supporting the general conclusions of climate science in this area that it would be ridiculous to ignore them all.

[Ed Davies]

1 hour ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Which is another way of saying "make the rich richer and oppress the poor". If domestic PV is not economically sustainable without subsidy the technology is not viable.

 

The same argument could be made about fossil fuel technology. Currently this is, in effect, subsidised by not getting it to pay for the various harms it does (through local pollution as well as the more global effects) not to mention the political hassles it causes, e.g., the west having to, essentially, take oil at gun point either directly or through proxies.

 

I agree, though, FITs are not the right answer. They're like trying to prevent speeding by paying people when they drive past a speed camera slower than the speed limit rather than fining them when they drive past faster. That is, the backbone of any reasonable climate change policy should be a significant carbon tax though we've probably left things to the point where that alone would not be sufficient and further regulation to stop it just being a case of the rich paying would be required. In particular, a significant proportion of the money raised should be spent on helping people reduce their energy use (e.g., insulation of homes, better public transport, etc) though such schemes are difficult to run without perverse effects.

[epsilonGreedy]

7 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

The study of climate science, like that of many other subjects, tends to have a degree of uncertainty, but that doesn't make it unreliable.  Clear conclusions as to general trends can be reached, even if we are unable to put hard numbers on the predicted outcome. 

 

 

Statistical analysis of other statistics is a grow area in science at the moment largely because it is easy cheap science and a soft route to being published. The longterm value of such science is questionable particularly when applied to a scientific discipline rife with group-think such as climate change.

 

12 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

Climate modelling uses estimates, based on a limited amount of evidence, to try and draw conclusions as to how an extremely complex system may behave in response to specific changes.  This modelling can only be improved and made less uncertain by the normal process of observation and measurement, and arguably may never be 100% accurate.

 

 

If climate change modelling could achieve even a paltry 10% accuracy in its gloomy predictions than I would become a vociferous tree hugger overnight. The only thing climate change science can achieve with 100% accuracy at the moment is a failure to predict. Some of the grand fathers of global warming culture stood before the US Congress in the 1970s and warned of the coming ice age.

 

I am keenly aware there is only one earth and humanity does not have a lifeboat so my belief threshold re. climate change is very low. 

[Ed Davies]

20 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

I still think there is a renewable crunch point a decade or two away when the mechanical equipment starts to fail, I read somewhere that the estimated price for renewing a gearbox in an offshore turbine is £40k.

 

8 MW turbine. Capacity factor (conservatively) 0.35. 24 hours in a day. £0.05/kWh. Daily revenue £2940. Time to generate £40k: 13.6 days. Only somebody who is very daft or enumerate would mothball a turbine for that.

[Ed Davies]

4 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Some of the grand fathers of global warming culture stood before the US Congress in the 1970s and warned of the coming ice age.

 

Some, a large minority even then. For a very short time (a few years). They updated their views quickly when new evidence was found. Since then all but a few outliers have been predicting warming.

 

7 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

The only thing climate change science can achieve with 100% accuracy at the moment is a failure to predict.

 

Hansen's predictions from the 1980s have been pretty accurate. None of the predictions of cooling from various alternative views have been realised.

[epsilonGreedy]

27 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

8 MW turbine. Capacity factor (conservatively) 0.35. 24 hours in a day. £0.05/kWh. Daily revenue £2940. Time to generate £40k: 13.6 days. Only somebody who is very daft or enumerate would mothball a turbine for that.

 

 

These are persuasive numbers but I think you have swayed the figures to support you point.

1. The average turbine is much smaller than 8MW.
2. Some of that daily revenue will be at times of day when the energy is not needed hence you are counting subsidized revenue.

Since posting I found a report that the average offshore turbine maintenance cost is $48k a year. The industry is also fretting about the number of turbines now coming out of warranty which suggests current average maintenance costs are for a youthful population of turbines.

 

I might also have misstated the gearbox repair cost, that £40k might be the ship charter cost, I read something a long time ago.

[epsilonGreedy]

45 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

Hansen's predictions from the 1980s have been pretty accurate. None of the predictions of cooling from various alternative views have been realised.

 

 

Hmm I am not familiar with that prediction but my thoughts immediately turned to something I read on how NOAA recently re-calibrated over of 100 years of US climate readings because the original numbers were disproving climate change.

 

It is all so political I do not know who to trust but I will follow up on your Hansen reference.

 

At this point I am abstaining from any non build threads on BuildHub because after an abrupt discussion on moderation policy I have concluded BuildHub is not an equitable forum for general discussion.

[Jeremy Harris]

1 hour ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

A figure that demonstrates impressive progress though the whole year percentage is probably lower.

 

Actually it looks like the annual figure for renewable electricity generation is a fair bit higher than the spot value I quoted earlier of 28.41%.  The most recent data I could find (from here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/789370/Renewables_March_2019.pdf) gives the provisional 2018 renewable generation percentage as 33.3% of the total, with renewable generation having increased by 11.8% for 2018, compared with 2017, largely as a result of increased capacity.

 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

1 minute ago, JSHarris said:

... gives the provisional 2018 renewable generation percentage as 33.3% of the total, with renewable generation having increased by 11.8% for 2018, compared with 2017, largely as a result of increased capacity.

 

 

Wow. Wind must form a substantial part of that because a quick eyeball interpretation of the yellow slither of PV across the whole year chart on the site you referenced suggests it is more like 10% annually.

[Declan52]

6 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Hmm I am not familiar with that prediction but my thoughts immediately turned to something I read on how NOAA recently re-calibrated over of 100 years of US climate readings because the original numbers were disproving climate change.

 

It is all so political I do not know who to trust but I will follow up on your Hansen reference.

 

At this point I am abstaining from any non build threads on BuildHub because after an abrupt discussion on moderation policy I have concluded BuildHub is not an equitable forum for general discussion.

No just not true. If like the vast majority of members here you play nice then your posts don't get subjected to any kind of moderation. It's in the terms and conditions that you signed up to when you joined this forum that if you post something which doesn't adhere to these rules then it gets moderated. It's that simple. 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

2 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Hmm I am not familiar with that prediction but my thoughts immediately turned to something I read on how NOAA recently re-calibrated over of 100 years of US climate readings because the original numbers were disproving climate change.

 

 

This wasn't something I was familiar with, so I've spent some time (including ten minutes on the phone) to try and understand what actually happened with the re-baselining of historical measurements.

 

The first reason for adjusting historical records seems to be because the observation locations have not been consistent. The true location of named observation stations has changed over the years, and although there are records of where the observation stations were located, no one has previously sought to see if there was a variation in recorded values as a consequence of precise location.  In addition to location, there have been local environmental changes introduced by things like the growth of towns and cities around observation stations. When the impact of location and local environmental changes were quantified a set of correction factors were generated that were applied to the historical data set, so that all the measurements were referenced to a common location and local environmental change baseline, in as far as was reasonably practical.

 

The next factor relates to the absolute accuracy of the instruments used, and the calibration standards that were applied.  Over the years these have changed, as the science of metrology has pinned down both units and measurement methods.  Another set of correction factors was applied to the historical data to allow for the changes in instrument types and calibration standards.

 

The final set of corrections seem to relate to temporal differences, as observation practices changed over the years.  Some observations were recorded once a day at manual recording stations and the time of day when the measurements were made varied, with periods when observations were made in the early morning, periods when observations were made in the evening and then more recent recordings that have been more frequent, perhaps many times a day.

 

I can find no evidence that there was any political or other bias in producing these corrections, especially as it seems that several different teams were involved, each looking at different aspects of recorded data accuracy.  The corrections seem to have attracted a lot of scrutiny, too, which has helped to substantiate the methodology that was used and show that it was robust.  I can't see a causal link between the various observation record re-calibration initiatives and any alleged desire to make historical data fit a modern climate model, especially as the corrections applied to historical sea temperature measurements, as a part of this overall measurement error correction initiative, tended to slightly reduce the evidence for global warming.

 

 

 

[Big Neil]

There's a new World Foods shop opened where the old Aldi used to be, on Seymour Grove in Trafford. I'm told they've got a great range of Dolmio. Probably go and check it out on my Lunch!