Anyone for Gas?

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rjb
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by rjb »

I heard Dale Vince who runs Ecotricity on the radio or tv today. He was arguing that energy should be based on what it costs the country to produce not on world open market prices. Effectively this is how it was prior to privatisation. His take on it was the uk is almost self sufficient in energy and dosent need to rely on imports for electric and gas, thus prices should reflect the true cost of production not wholesale prices. Something ive been banging on about for years. Nationalisation here we go. :lol:
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reohn2
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by reohn2 »

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Mike Sales
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by Mike Sales »

thirdcrank wrote: 23 Sep 2021, 3:50pm
Thinks: Why are gasholders called gasometers?
Apparently gasholders register changes in atmospheric pressure, so you could stretch a point and call them meters, or a sort of barometer..

I am reading a book about the explosion of Krakatoa in 1883. The gasometer in Batavia (Jakarta now) a hundred miles away from the eruption, registered a change in pressure of two and a half inches of mercury, which was what the gas cylinder floated on.

This is an irrelevant digression I know, but interesting I think.
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AlanD
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by AlanD »

I do wonder if the cost of fuel, and hence heating, will influence a change in design of houses? I was interested to see a ‘Grand Designs’ build a couple of years ago. The owner built a home that was buried into his land. The only windows were south facing and he used a system of pumps and pipes to capture heat and store it in the earth surrounding the house. This may be a way to go?
irc
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by irc »

rjb wrote: 1 Oct 2021, 8:01pm I heard Dale Vince who runs Ecotricity on the radio or tv today. ....................... His take on it was the uk is almost self sufficient in energy and dosent need to rely on imports for electric and gas,
For an energy boss he seems very ill informed.

"We now import more than half our gas "

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58637094

As for electricity. We are not self sufficient there either.

"EnAppSys data shows that Britain remained Europe’s second biggest net importer in the first half of 2021, recording net imports of 12.3TWh."

https://www.powerengineeringint.com/ind ... ts-record/
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

reohn2 wrote: 23 Sep 2021, 3:18pm
NATURAL ANKLING wrote: 22 Sep 2021, 12:30pm Hi,
pete75 wrote: 21 Sep 2021, 11:08am

We closed coal fired power stations because the bloody Tories shut all the pits.
But they were going to close anyway weren't they, not working them means they closed quicker, strikes.
How do you think voting public would manage today with electricity blackouts due to coal strikes?
That totally misses the point Pete was making,which is that the Tories now claim they shut the pits for environmental reason,THEY DIDN'T,they shut them to break the unions!
And the unions were todays activist?
Like lots of others here I do remember sitting through the power cuts.
How far exactly do people go to get their opinion across?

I see that "environmental activist" is now a job description.

Will's new Near miss awards, I suppose it's a progression from three hugging. :)

I am all for saving the planet, Green living and recycling.
But the trouble with the technology that's been brought in I fear is that only the rich will be able to buy it.
We are going to have to convince the low paid people somehow, How will vehicle tax be replaced when we're all driving electric vehicles?
Also how much work has been done on recycling of these very complex machines.
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Oldjohnw
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by Oldjohnw »

Activism to get you and I the vote was pretty, well, active. Even extreme.

I believe discussions are already ongoing regarding an alternative way of raising “road tax”. Most likely road use.

I have not paid it for years.
John
thirdcrank
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by thirdcrank »

As a complete aside, it's several years now since my mother was treated badly by British Gas - a company she had stuck with through a touching concept of loyalty. For reasons I won't go into now, her gas was turned off for imo spurious safety reasons. In my chat with the person who turned it off, I suggested the future of gas as a domestic fuel might be short simply to wipe the smirk off their mush. I was able to point them towards some info on the subject when there was less out in the open than there is now, just to demonstrate I wasn't making it up. I wouldn't wish unemployment on people but there are vacancies in agriculture and wholesale butchery
reohn2
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by reohn2 »

NATURAL ANKLING wrote: 18 Oct 2021, 11:27am
reohn2 wrote: 23 Sep 2021, 3:18pm
NATURAL ANKLING wrote: 22 Sep 2021, 12:30pm Hi,


But they were going to close anyway weren't they, not working them means they closed quicker, strikes.
How do you think voting public would manage today with electricity blackouts due to coal strikes?
That totally misses the point Pete was making,which is that the Tories now claim they shut the pits for environmental reason,THEY DIDN'T,they shut them to break the unions!
And the unions were todays activist?
Like lots of others here I do remember sitting through the power cuts.
How far exactly do people go to get their opinion across?
The point I was making was that the current PM,one Boris Johnson was trying to make political gain by telling blatant lies about the reasons for the 1984 miners strike.
Striking,eg; withdrawing your labour,is the final and legal course of action taken by workers only after many other failed steps along the way,usually negotiation,work to rule,etc.
The consequences can be as you say power cuts among other things,but don't forget that striking workers are without income and therefore need a lot of pushing to the edge before even considering such action.


I am all for saving the planet, Green living and recycling.
But the trouble with the technology that's been brought in I fear is that only the rich will be able to buy it.
We are going to have to convince the low paid people somehow, How will vehicle tax be replaced when we're all driving electric vehicles?
Also how much work has been done on recycling of these very complex machines
I don't know is the short answer to the recycling of batteries(?),I'm sure someone will be along shortly to answer that for you.
Availability and affordability for the 'ordinary wo/man' will increase as mass production increases.
IMO the nil VED incentive will at some point be removed otherwise the treasury will lose a LOT of income as electric vehicles become more popular.

I see that "environmental activist" is now a job description.
Environmental activists have the right to protest in a modern democractic and civilised country,something the present government led by one Boris Johnson is trying to remove,it's the latest step toward totalitarianism in the UK IMO.
We might not like the inconvenience strikes or protests cause but it's a human right enshrined in law in present day UK.
For the moment that is!

Don't ever forget that a LOT of people have died in living memory fighting for and securing those rights,rights that the present Tory government lead by one Boris Johnson would remove from you and me at a stroke!

As for job descriptions,if someone is employed with a job description of Environmental Activist then that's what they are and I have no problem with that.



Will's new Near miss awards, I suppose it's a progression from three hugging. :)
You've lost me on that one :?
Last edited by reohn2 on 18 Oct 2021, 12:14pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Psamathe
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by Psamathe »

One aspect I can't understand is that apparently larger/more established/more reputable(?) electricity suppliers and generators buy ahead they gas so are not as immediately impacted by the gas price rise. I'd have thought that energy intensive industry would have put in place similar "buy ahead" contracts. Even if they use electricity they could "buy ahead" with a generator who could back-to-back that with their own gas buy ahead.

But it looks like the energy intensive industry has not been prudent and not "brought-ahead" and so they are subject to fluctuations and now seek Government bail-outs. If they are energy intensive they know how dependent they are and how much they use yet overlooked a major aspect to their business.

Or have I failed to appreciate things? (quite possible as I have no expertise in the sector).

Ian
thirdcrank
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by thirdcrank »

Or have I failed to appreciate things?
Could be.

I've read reports suggesting that eg the fertiliser outfit that produces CO2 as a by-product used by other industries did hedge their prices but found it more profitable to sell their bets to others than to maintain their own electricity supply. This then led to emergency government support to ensure they maintained production ie they profited from both anticipating the rise in electricity prices and from government support to mitigate the increased price of their electricity
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by Vorpal »

thirdcrank wrote: 18 Oct 2021, 12:22pm
I've read reports suggesting that eg the fertiliser outfit that produces CO2 as a by-product used by other industries did hedge their prices but found it more profitable to sell their bets to others. This then led to emergency government support to ensure they maintained production
In Norway there are some government funded projects to collect and store the CO2 from industries that produce lots of it (fertiliser production, oil & gas among them). Some of the CO2 is to be used for other things, such as purified & sold to the food processing industry, but most of it will be injected into defunct North Sea oil wells which will eventually be sealed off.
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thirdcrank
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by thirdcrank »

I get a lot of my info (and scepticism) from Old Sparky in Private Eye who has described carbon capture as a 'unicorn.'
pwa
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by pwa »

I love the idea of a cleaner, greener alternative to gas for central heating, but I dread any of our neighbours getting an air source heat pump system installed. We live in the countryside and if I step out into the garden at 10pm, as I often do, and gaze up at the stars, it is often perfectly quiet. No human made noise at all. If our neighbours install what are basically reverse action refrigeration units in their back gardens that will be gone, forever. Outdoor silence will be replaced with a constant hum. I know it is coming and I find that depressing. I seriously hope my hearing begins to fail before that happens.
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mjr
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by mjr »

pwa wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 8:01am I love the idea of a cleaner, greener alternative to gas for central heating, but I dread any of our neighbours getting an air source heat pump system installed. We live in the countryside and if I step out into the garden at 10pm, as I often do, and gaze up at the stars, it is often perfectly quiet. No human made noise at all. If our neighbours install what are basically reverse action refrigeration units in their back gardens that will be gone, forever. Outdoor silence will be replaced with a constant hum. I know it is coming and I find that depressing. I seriously hope my hearing begins to fail before that happens.
So it sounds like you've not heard them? There may well already be one near you. Domestic units can be 50dB max at 1m in front. At 2m or more, traffic on any road within a quarter mile will be louder. At 5m or from behind a fence or hedge, you pretty much have to look at the fan to see if it's running.

And it's not constant. The external fan only runs when heating, which is only when the hot water tank needs reheating or the low-temperature central heating loses some heat. Even in October, that is only about a quarter of the time. Its fan speed varies by demand: lower when windy and lower for central heating than hot water. So in summer, when you are more likely to be outside, it should run for about 20mins now and then for hot water.

Oil and gas boilers are far worse for noise, wheezing and whooshing for longer to heat less and blowing hot gas out small vents.
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