UK energy

[Cugel]

UK onshore wind turbines only generate 4Mw when it's windy. This generation can usually be accommodated in the existing infrastructure. It's only when generation runs into the Gigawatt capacity that new transmission cables will be needed.

Its certainly the case that the Fforest Brechfa power output is relatively small and that it seems to be absorbed locally. But the windmills were built a significant distance from the nearest sub stations yet no overhead lines were used to take the juice the few miles to wherever it enters the grid,

I've not had the time or inclination to make a more detailed examination of the overhead vs underground transmission cases/costs for long distance power transmission. One reads of various arguments for and against both.

Personally I feel that transferring as much power generation to the individual sites that use it should be a primary approach, where possible. Solar on roofs and a windmill in the back garden of anywhere high enough to gather significant wind could probably power a high percentage of the power-draw of each home, factory, farm or whatever. A local sub-station with a large battery array to store then provide excess solar and wind power during periods of low sun and wind would also reduce the need for bluddy great pylons.

Surely there are also pylons that are not so ugly as the grid-iron type typical in the UK? If not, where are the gubbins designers who can derive such a design?

[rjb]

Undergrounding transmission lines is very expensive (several billions) and slow to build. It requires trenches up to 65m wide and water cooling built in. A bit like building a motorway. The consumers would have to pay for it through their bills. HS2 would pale into insignificance compared to this requirement. Timescale would be in the order of several decades. It's not going to happen apart from short sections through sensitive areas.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... 2NFbgVppkX

[Biospace]

There is, but for many living in more isolated places it provides free heating and cooking. This situation is the opposite end of the scale compared with someone heating their house air with gas or electricity who then decides a wood stove gives a nice feel to their home while sucking the FF warmed air up the flue.

Do you believe their source of hot water, space heating and cooking should be phased out while continuing to permut aircraft to ferry political campaigns around the country - and take people on their "dream holidays"?

Whether the wood fuel is free to the stove owner or not it still emits the same pollutants. The cost of those is paid for by others, in increased costs of healthcare and mitigating the other effects of additional CO2 in the atmosphere. And most of those costs are being passed on to the next generations. Who haven't burnt any coal or wood. So yes, on balance I think it's fair and reasonable to phase out that practice soon.

As I would short haul flights, like the French government has. And perhaps longer haul can use a biofuel eventually.

I don't know about you but my observations are that the weather patterns in the UK are very different from those of my childhood. Look at the predicted sea level rise that is reportedly now baked in from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. I won't be around to have to cope with and pay for the resultant changes. But my descendants will. And it's far more than the monetary cost of some people now giving up 'free' fuel.

We've heard on the forum how more parsimonious members in rural parts will burn scrap wood and gather fallen wood, which would otherwise rot away with carbon emissions which are of the same order as if it's burned. Should they be 'encouraged' to purchase and install heat pumps against their will, to save the planet - in your opinion?

[rjb]

Surely there are also pylons that are not so ugly as the grid-iron type typical in the UK? If not, where are the gubbins designers who can derive such a design?

Down on the Somerset levels a new supergrid transmission line is being built to take power from the new nuclear power station Hinkley C under construction. It is utilising the new design of pylons. T pylons which are 2/3 the height of the old steel lattice towers and aren't so visually intrusive. A section of this new line will be underground as it passes through the Mendips Hills.

images.jpeg (8.27 KiB) Viewed 693 times

[wheelyhappy99]

We've heard on the forum how more parsimonious members in rural parts will burn scrap wood and gather fallen wood, which would otherwise rot away with carbon emissions which are of the same order as if it's burned. Should they be 'encouraged' to purchase and install heat pumps against their will, to save the planet - in your opinion?

It's not just the carbon emissions. It is particulates too. And it's established fact that particulates, especially PM2.5, penetrate all our organs and damage our health. I'd prefer a world in which that wasn't happening to.anyone. So yes, on balance, encourage and if necessary incentivise people to stop stone age practices. Put another way, would people who would like to continue with them be willing to meet the resultant costs to society as a whole?

[PDQ Mobile]

I'm pretty much carbon neural and totally independent in my main energy supply.
Heating cooking hot water (hot fill washing machine).
The clean ash feeds my bit of land.
No treated/ painted wood.
Burned hot and clean, (it's those produced gases you know!).
Flues stay really clean.
Particulate emissions are low as possible.

Never burn plastic (which is an all too common sin in many many places- silage wrap for God's sake!).
No bonfires- twiggy waste is composted or goes back to the woodland.
Rural location.

But by being a super low leccy user I subsidise solar by dint of paying over 50p a kwh when the standing charge is factored in.
I see solar as a poor winter solution in winter cloudy Wales, way too much investment for the amount generated.
No leccy teccy expensive crap to go wrong either.
Never need engineers etc.

So long as I am physically able I will continue to burn 100% wood.
It is a lot of wood too, and needs fitness.

Pipes and smoke it!

(If you search the forum ("i want a woodburner" etc) you will see I have been a passionate advocate of properly seasoning wood for fuel, and using correct combustion techniques.
Love trees and woods)

[Cugel]

We've heard on the forum how more parsimonious members in rural parts will burn scrap wood and gather fallen wood, which would otherwise rot away with carbon emissions which are of the same order as if it's burned. Should they be 'encouraged' to purchase and install heat pumps against their will, to save the planet - in your opinion?

Yes.

Those rotting bits of brash are a home to much life - a part of the natural carbon cycle extant and successful at increasing bio-diversity for millions and millions of years. Burning brash does nothing but harm, particularity to the dafties inside the house doing the burning.

There are various cultures that burn grassland, bits of forest and other parts of the landscape in order to "manage it". They all have a long-refined case for doing so. Those cases rarely benefit anything but some local human want .... and not always even those wants. Think what The Puke of Westminster could be doing with all that burnt pheasant-shooting fell instead of just murdering tame birds.

The arrogance and harms we humans exhibit in so many of the things we do is tragic.

[Biospace]

We've heard on the forum how more parsimonious members in rural parts will burn scrap wood and gather fallen wood, which would otherwise rot away with carbon emissions which are of the same order as if it's burned. Should they be 'encouraged' to purchase and install heat pumps against their will, to save the planet - in your opinion?

It's not just the carbon emissions. It is particulates too. And it's established fact that particulates, especially PM2.5, penetrate all our organs and damage our health. I'd prefer a world in which that wasn't happening to.anyone. So yes, on balance, encourage and if necessary incentivise people to stop stone age practices. Put another way, would people who would like to continue with them be willing to meet the resultant costs to society as a whole?

Yes, I know, and as Cugel points out they're bug life habitiat. But a sense of perspective is also needed.

I'm super keen on clean air, but should all fires be banned, then barbeques also, candles, steam vehicles? Bonfire night, fireworks?

[Cugel]

We've heard on the forum how more parsimonious members in rural parts will burn scrap wood and gather fallen wood, which would otherwise rot away with carbon emissions which are of the same order as if it's burned. Should they be 'encouraged' to purchase and install heat pumps against their will, to save the planet - in your opinion?

It's not just the carbon emissions. It is particulates too. And it's established fact that particulates, especially PM2.5, penetrate all our organs and damage our health. I'd prefer a world in which that wasn't happening to.anyone. So yes, on balance, encourage and if necessary incentivise people to stop stone age practices. Put another way, would people who would like to continue with them be willing to meet the resultant costs to society as a whole?

Yes, I know, and as Cugel points out they're bug life habitiat. But a sense of perspective is also needed.

I'm super keen on clean air, but should all fires be banned, then barbeques also, candles, steam vehicles? Bonfire night, fireworks?

Its a matter of scale, really. A few wood burners in a low population areas is likely only going to harm the folk inside the house with the woodburner.

Ditto the mucky stuff coating the ceiling and walls from candles; and a few barbecue-stinks. Mind, a nice charcoal BB can be a cleaner choice - if the charcoal is high quality stuff from a proper coppice worker and not the greasy crap sold in Gloopermarkets.

Fireworks - nasty dangerous things burning folk, driving animals mad with fear and keeping everyone awake at night.. Ban the horrible things!

Steam vehicles do have a nostalgic appeal but they are filthy items. I confine my own steam vehicle addiction to the virtual program Trainz. Mind, even that burns electricity - but all me own solar electricity at least.

[wheelyhappy99]

So long as I am physically able I will continue to burn 100% wood.

I find it interesting that users of outdated technology make claims like 'it's all okay if you use it properly' or 'my bit of pollution isn't causing the problem'. Pollution is cumulative. Particulates don't simply disappear when emitted. As we saw when huge quantities were discharged from Aussie bush fires they circulate all around the globe. Including the particulates from individuals burning wood at home.

I'm pretty much carbon neural

I can't reconcile this with the claim to be burning 100% wood.

[pwa]

So long as I am physically able I will continue to burn 100% wood.

I find it interesting that users of outdated technology make claims like 'it's all okay if you use it properly' or 'my bit of pollution isn't causing the problem'. Pollution is cumulative. Particulates don't simply disappear when emitted. As we saw when huge quantities were discharged from Aussie bush fires they circulate all around the globe. Including the particulates from individuals burning wood at home.

I'm pretty much carbon neural

I can't reconcile this with the claim to be burning 100% wood.

A sustainable wood burning system is almost carbon neutral. Not quite, but almost. For about fifteen years I burned wood that I cut, sustainably through coppicing. And in spite of some of the dubious ecology stuff upthread, the prime reason for doing it was to increase biodiversity. Woodland coppiced for firewood is some of the best woodland for wildlife, the resulting patchwork of trees at various stages of growth having more wildlife and ground flora than woodland with less light penetration. I coppiced some trees (down to close to the ground) twice over that period, the second batch of timber being carbon captured since the first crop. Someone who has their own sustainably managed woodland could harvest timber every year without reducing the total amount of carbon held in that woodland, which means as much carbon is captured as is released each year. Whilst improving local biodiversity. No coppicing would mean no dormice!

But not all firewood is guaranteed to be harvested in this near carbon-neutral way, or to be part of a management scheme that sustains biodiversity.

[Biospace]

It's not just the carbon emissions. It is particulates too. And it's established fact that particulates, especially PM2.5, penetrate all our organs and damage our health. I'd prefer a world in which that wasn't happening to.anyone. So yes, on balance, encourage and if necessary incentivise people to stop stone age practices. Put another way, would people who would like to continue with them be willing to meet the resultant costs to society as a whole?

...
I'm super keen on clean air, but should all fires be banned, then barbeques also, candles, steam vehicles? Bonfire night, fireworks?

Its a matter of scale, really. A few wood burners in a low population areas is likely only going to harm the folk inside the house with the woodburner.

Ditto the mucky stuff coating the ceiling and walls from candles; and a few barbecue-stinks.
...
Steam vehicles do have a nostalgic appeal but they are filthy items.

Exactly, it's a matter of scale. Certainly encourage the removal of "lifestyle stoves" in centrally heated homes, but if the state tries to ban all flames, whether rural wood stoves or barbeques, candles, steam traction and once a year Bonfire Night, the protest marches are likely to be responsible for greater carbon emissions as people converge on Westminster from all around our islands, even if they arrive by electric car.

Indoor particulates are slightly higher for homes with wood stoves, but how much of that is because of incorrect use and maintenance? Do we have any comparative safety data comparing this hazard with that of off-gassing synthetic material in a modern or modernised house, where windows are frequently shut and airflow is kept to a minimum?

[wheelyhappy99]

Exactly, it's a matter of scale. Certainly encourage the removal of "lifestyle stoves" in centrally heated homes, but if the state tries to ban all flames, whether rural wood stoves or barbeques, candles, steam traction and once a year Bonfire Night, the protest marches are likely to be responsible for greater carbon emissions as people converge on Westminster from all around our islands, even if they arrive by electric car.

Indoor particulates are slightly higher for homes with wood stoves, but how much of that is because of incorrect use and maintenance? Do we have any comparative safety data comparing this hazard with that of off-gassing synthetic material in a modern or modernised house, where windows are frequently shut and airflow is kept to a minimum?

Below are some quotes from and links to a few websites that came up when I spent five minutes searching for information on pollution from wood burning stoves. None I have read support the claims made in the above or preceding posts. Are there any authoritative reports that do so please?

Domestic burning, which includes wood and a small proportion of coal and 'smokeless fuels', is the single biggest source of harmful small particle air pollution in the UK, making up 27% of PM2.5 emissions.2 Even homes with the newest "ecodesign" wood burners are three times more polluted than homes without.3The more harmful small particle air pollution you are exposed to, the more likely you are to die from heart or lung disease or lung cancer. It can also cause diabetes, damage your brain health and lead to dementia, and affect unborn children.4 Being exposed to indoor burning can increase your risk of developing lung cancer or lung disease.6

The level of PM2.5 in the home while the wood burning stove was burning was between 27 and 195 micrograms per cubic metre of air. The World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests that exposure should be limited to below an average of 15 micrograms per cubic metre in a 24 hour period.

According to a report released in 2021
by the European Environmental Bureau, one Ecodesign-compliant wood burning stove releases the same amount of particulate matter per hour as 18 newer diesel cars or six modern heavy goods vehicles.

In 2021, DEFRA (the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) released a report which found that domestic wood burning has become one of the biggest sources of PM pollution in the UK, exceeding that of road traffic.

https://eeb.org/wp-content/uploads/2021 ... y_2021.pdf

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/11/12/1326

[Cugel]

Exactly, it's a matter of scale. Certainly encourage the removal of "lifestyle stoves" in centrally heated homes, but if the state tries to ban all flames, whether rural wood stoves or barbeques, candles, steam traction and once a year Bonfire Night, the protest marches are likely to be responsible for greater carbon emissions as people converge on Westminster from all around our islands, even if they arrive by electric car.

Indoor particulates are slightly higher for homes with wood stoves, but how much of that is because of incorrect use and maintenance? Do we have any comparative safety data comparing this hazard with that of off-gassing synthetic material in a modern or modernised house, where windows are frequently shut and airflow is kept to a minimum?

Below are some quotes from and links to a few websites that came up when I spent five minutes searching for information on pollution from wood burning stoves. None I have read support the claims made in the above or preceding posts. Are there any authoritative reports that do so please?

Domestic burning, which includes wood and a small proportion of coal and 'smokeless fuels', is the single biggest source of harmful small particle air pollution in the UK, making up 27% of PM2.5 emissions.2 Even homes with the newest "ecodesign" wood burners are three times more polluted than homes without.3The more harmful small particle air pollution you are exposed to, the more likely you are to die from heart or lung disease or lung cancer. It can also cause diabetes, damage your brain health and lead to dementia, and affect unborn children.4 Being exposed to indoor burning can increase your risk of developing lung cancer or lung disease.6

The level of PM2.5 in the home while the wood burning stove was burning was between 27 and 195 micrograms per cubic metre of air. The World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests that exposure should be limited to below an average of 15 micrograms per cubic metre in a 24 hour period.

According to a report released in 2021
by the European Environmental Bureau, one Ecodesign-compliant wood burning stove releases the same amount of particulate matter per hour as 18 newer diesel cars or six modern heavy goods vehicles.

In 2021, DEFRA (the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) released a report which found that domestic wood burning has become one of the biggest sources of PM pollution in the UK, exceeding that of road traffic.

https://eeb.org/wp-content/uploads/2021 ... y_2021.pdf

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/11/12/1326

Sadly, you're unlikely to persuade anyone to change their wood burning habit with any sort of fact or evidence-based argument. Traditions have an immense inertia in human minds. They contain large amounts of "reasons why" (and many "reasons why not something else").

Personally I too like tradition as a means to decide what to do. A lot of tradition has far more experienced-based reason for continuing to do something in a particular (!) way than do the various mad "rational" schemes dreamt up by "think" tanks employing the backs of fag packets and the napkin from too much liquid lunch.

However, many traditions can ossify practices that are hundreds of years old only because there wasn't much of an alternative. ..... And because there was no obvious evidence, either, of the harms caused, since those harms were both normalised and also often take decades to express.

As you illustrate, there's now reams of evidence that the burning of fuels that generate invisible particulates and gases is a very harmful thing indeed, particularly when the particulate generation is in a closed space and near to those enjoying the burn. "Never did me any harm", cry the traditionalists. But how would they know, if those harms are so very gradual and easily attributed, when they do arrive, to "other" or "unknown" causes?

I spend most of my youth next to coal fires, paraffin stoves and similar long-term death traps. I'm still apparently healthy but ......

Ten years ago I had large B-cell lymphoma, "cause unknown". I got cured but perhaps a lifetime of good quality diet and lots of exercise has been something of a counterweight to whatever particulates have been lodged in my body for decades. Its hard to know.

So, why take the risk when so many alternative cleaner and immensely less damaging fuels are available? The answer is: bad old habits + cost of adopting much less risky better habits - an answer true of so many things where we really should change our silly ways.

[pwa]

I assume that with such sensitivity to the issue of wood burning, you anti-burning folk never dine at country pubs with wood fires. Personally, I like my country pubs to have wood fires in chilly weather. There are three such pubs within easy walking distance of my home, one with two settees adjacent to a large wood burning stove, the other two with open fires. I guess you avoid places like that, though.

Sometimes there is a friction between what is the absolute safest option, and what makes life worth living. if you live out in the countryside in a low pollution environment and with low housing density, how sad to live in a home with sterile underfloor heating as your only source of heat on a chill evening. I can see how that would be the right choice in a dense urban situation, but out in the sticks? Really? You're welcome to it, but I wouldn't want to live like that.

And there a sensible explanation for my love of flames. Oh yes there is, don't argue. Human beings have been sitting around fires for millennia. We are hard wired to gather around flames. It is built into us.