Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Now we have something / quite-a-lot to discuss and celebrate.
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mjr
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by mjr »

landsurfer wrote:If you protest against Fracking.
Which is a reasonable position.
Do not be hypocritical enough to use any gas derived energy.

It's like a Vegan protesting against the murder of meat then popping into McD's for a burger on the way home ...

It's more like people protesting against animal cruelty then eating a free-range steak. Nothing terribly inconsistent about that.

Accusing protestors of hypocrisy by creating false dichotomies seems a popular defence tactic by refuseniks.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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Cyril Haearn
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Re: Team Sky is now Team inoes

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Lot of weather on the first stage, Normal for Yorkshire? :wink:
Hope the dangerous 'welcome to Yorkshire' pennants can be banned
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cycleruk
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Re: Team Sky is now Team inoes

Post by cycleruk »

Cyril Haearn wrote:Lot of weather on the first stage, Normal for Yorkshire? :wink:
Hope the dangerous 'welcome to Yorkshire' pennants can be banned

Asselman was very fortunate to not being brought off with a spectators flag.
How some of the guys raced only short sleeves and shorts with the rain and the cold ?

Kept flicking between Tour of Romandie and TdY

Both races won with a rider from the breakaway.
You'll never know if you don't try it.
firedfromthecircus
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by firedfromthecircus »

Watching the highlights on ITV4 yesterday I think Brailsford has done himself an injustice. Obviously I paraphrase, but for those who missed it when asked about fracking and Ineos involvement he basically said 'I have spoken to my new paymasters and I am now confident that fracking is fine and anyone who disagrees is ignorant.'
I used to have a great deal of respect for him and his achievements but perhaps I misjudged his integrity. :(
irc
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by irc »

Mike Sales wrote:I don't think you have grasped the urgency of the situation.
If we do not cut emissions it is the poorest who will, as always, suffer most. A drive to insulate our shoddy housing stock would help more.
The Third world poorest are already suffering from climate change.
You seem to have reached third stage of denial. "It is too late to do anything."


I don't believe banning gas central heating is feasible in the near future. In the Beast from the East weather March 2018 UK gas demand peaked at 214GW. For comparison the peak electricity demand that winter was 53GW

So without gas heating we would need a national grid and power stations capable of delivering 5 times the capacity of the current system. Good luck with that any time soon. The peak was 6pm in March. So solar was zero. Cold weather can often be alongside an anti cyclone with very low winds. Scope for increasing hydro is limited. So the national grid will need to either build many new gas stations (burning the gas there rather than directly in homes which defeats the purpose) or build many new nuclear stations (like France did) (albeit probably a warmer climate on average than the UK). Given the Hinkley C fiasco is there any chance of the UK building the number of new nuclear stations to replace gas heating in the next 20 or 30 years?

So given the likelihood of replacing gas home heating with nuclear electricity is low we will need gas for the forseeable future. Let's frack!

http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/news/gas-consump ... -east.html
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RickH
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by RickH »

irc wrote:I don't believe banning gas central heating is feasible in the near future. In the Beast from the East weather March 2018 UK gas demand peaked at 214GW. For comparison the peak electricity demand that winter was 53GW


I don't think anyone is saying they are going to ban them outright. There was something on the radio (I think, unless it was a podcast) about banning them in new builds. Is gas heating still allowed in new build flats? I don't think gas cookers are allowed anymore.

I think there are big shake ups on the way.

Local battery storage is getting ever cheaper so you can store your solar generated power to use when you need it, not just when the sun shines. Last time I looked at prices it is now cheaper to get solar with storage than it was to just have solar a few years ago.

Multimegawatt grid level battery storage is becoming feasible. There are several in operation around the world although I'm not aware of anything big in the UK yet.

The latest offshore wind turbines are now up to 15+MW each & will work in much lower wind speeds. If you pass a wind farm & none of the turbines are operating it is more likely that they are idle* due to lack of demand rather than there not being enough wind. (*They are paid to keep them idle when the demand isn't there in the same way that coal fired generators are paid to keep their plant idle but ready for action).

Vehicle to grid is another interesting one just starting to creep into the public domain. The idea being that electric car owners charge their cars up on cheap electricity & then sell a little bit back (a few %) to the grid when demand is high (& prices high too). With enough vehicles in the system there is scope for significant peak smoothing. The technology could also be configuted to run your home from the car in an emergency.
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Mike Sales
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by Mike Sales »

The Committee's blueprint for getting rid of gas does not involve banning it on the spot. It is a well worked out scheme for transforming energy use.
The fact is that we are not short of gas. We have more reserves than it is safe to use a fraction of. we should be investing our efforts and money in renewables, storage and insulation, not to mention, on a cycling forum, facilities which make cycling safe and appealing. Finding more gas and burning it is heading towards climate chaos.
The Government has stopped the cheapest windpower, onshore, but allows pushes fracking. Why?
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
irc
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by irc »

Grid level battery storage is not feasible. Using batteries instead of fossil fuel power or nuclear would increase electric cost too much.

https://euanmearns.com/the-cost-of-wind ... -included/
irc
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by irc »

Mike Sales wrote:The Government has stopped the cheapest windpower, onshore, but allows pushes fracking. Why?


Just wrong there. The govt has stopped onshore wind subsidies. If it is so cheap to supply wind power that it doesn't need subsidised companies are free to build it. The SNP will give planning permission. So far the queue is short. Fracking isn't subsidised. Gas power and heat is available 24)7. Wind power isn't.
Psamathe
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by Psamathe »

irc wrote:
Mike Sales wrote:I don't think you have grasped the urgency of the situation.
If we do not cut emissions it is the poorest who will, as always, suffer most. A drive to insulate our shoddy housing stock would help more.
The Third world poorest are already suffering from climate change.
You seem to have reached third stage of denial. "It is too late to do anything."
....
So given the likelihood of replacing gas home heating with nuclear electricity is low we will need gas for the forseeable future. Let's frack!


I don't believe banning gas central heating is feasible in the near future.....

(Sorry, a bit off-topic from Ineos & Sky)
I'm uncertain. I've not used my Central Heating (Oil) in the last 11 years. People are shocked when I tell them how often my oil tank is filled (twice in 11 years). But I do have sweaters, fleece, etc.

I don't expect everybody to not use their Central Hating but I wonder what the savings are like if people start turning it down, not using it when it's not really needed. Some people can get obsessed about having heating on (a few weeks ago I was sitting outside in shorts and T-shirt enjoying the fabulous weather whilst my neighbour was feeding wood into his woodburner).

But, I am anti-fracking for reasons beyond just taking more carbon ground->air. I have a lot of reservations about the concoction of chemicals and their longevity. Research in the US strongly suggests those chemicals can appear in our water systems and in fish. It gets difficult because the fracking companies wont reveal the details of the chemicals they inject (which makes you wonder why they wont say) but types of chemical are known and thus research can be done. The secrecy make independent research difficult (which I assume is reason the fracking companies are so secretive). And when the government starts acting as a cheer leader for the industry and maintains that secrecy it raises more concerns.

Ian
Mike Sales
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by Mike Sales »

irc wrote:
Mike Sales wrote:The Government has stopped the cheapest windpower, onshore, but allows pushes fracking. Why?


Just wrong there. The govt has stopped onshore wind subsidies. If it is so cheap to supply wind power that it doesn't need subsidised companies are free to build it. The SNP will give planning permission. So far the queue is short. Fracking isn't subsidised. Gas power and heat is available 24)7. Wind power isn't.

Have a look around Wikipedia, or any number of sites on fossil fuel subsidies. The market would look very different if they were abolished.
The U.K. is a big subsidiser of fossil fuels.
Try getting insurance for a nuclear power station. Nuclear has to be insured by Government.
There is good reason to encourage wind power. The costs of fossil fuel burning will become apparent in the future, but in the short term the companies balance sheets look good.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by Cyril Haearn »

A mix is the thing of course, and storage, if the sun is not shining here the wind is blowing elsewhere
The Stwlan pumped-storage scheme is great, it can be switched on in a few seconds, and Mynydd Trydan, Electric Mountain, a power station hidden underground
..
The sponsorship of our TdF heroes by I could be a gift for the green lobby, one hopes
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Psamathe
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by Psamathe »

irc wrote:Grid level battery storage is not feasible. Using batteries instead of fossil fuel power or nuclear would increase electric cost too much.
.....

In the context of wind generation and electricity I think of the term "battery" in a broad context (not just your traditional electrical battery). Electricity storage has been in use for decades and been very effective. I remember when I was a child visiting a generation battery station in Ffestiniog - a storage system that can power North Wales for several hours. Can ramp up power generation within 1 minute of demand. As far as I'm aware seems quite effective and does not need any magic new technology (been going since the 1960s), etc.

There are alternative technologies that don't use your traditional electrical battery and it is a sector where techniques are continually developing.

Ian
irc
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by irc »

RickH wrote:
irc wrote:I don't believe banning gas central heating is feasible in the near future. In the Beast from the East weather March 2018 UK gas demand peaked at 214GW. For comparison the peak electricity demand that winter was 53GW


I don't think anyone is saying they are going to ban them outright. There was something on the radio (I think, unless it was a podcast) about banning them in new builds. Is gas heating still allowed in new build flats? I don't think gas cookers are allowed anymore..


No mention yet of a ban on existing boilers but the Committee in Climate Change says 25 million will need to go to get to zero carbon by 2050 whether that is by a ban or other means who knows?

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-must-cut- ... 0-11709070
Mike Sales
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Re: Team Sky is now Team INEOS

Post by Mike Sales »

Cyril Haearn wrote:The Stwlan pumped-storage scheme is great, it can be switched on in a few seconds, and Mynydd Trydan, Electric Mountain, a power station hidden underground


Marchlyn Mawr is the top lake of Mynydd Trydan. The private road up to it may be the highest tarmac road in Wales, over 2000 feet. On my wall I have a photo of our club at the top, raising a cup of hot punch at Christmas. We used to try to ride up every Christmas, but sometimes it was too icy and covered in snow.
We have also visited Stwlan.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
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