UK energy

[Carlton green]

The bigger question is how to reduce our overall energy consumption. Should we all have the same amount of energy made available to us, millionaires and billionaires included?

An interesting concept but how it might be reasonably implemented I wouldn’t like to say, but in times of commodity shortage - which in some respects we have - then rationing is arguably fair and was used in World War Two.

The rich will find some ways around rationing, but without allowing them some ‘loopholes’ the rich will be very effective at blocking change. I’d like to see fuel supply being fairer and remove the who can have fuel being overly based on wealth; one can be reasonably certain that if the rich were limited in what fuel they could buy then Chelsea Tractors would loose their shine and the 100 mpg car would shortly be a reality. As they say necessity is the Mother of invention - means and wit is usually needed too.

[pwa]

The bigger question is how to reduce our overall energy consumption. Should we all have the same amount of energy made available to us, millionaires and billionaires included?

An interesting concept but how it might be reasonably implemented I wouldn’t like to say, but in times of commodity shortage - which in some respects we have - then rationing is arguably fair and was used in World War Two.

The rich will find some ways around rationing, but without allowing them some ‘loopholes’ the rich will be very effective at blocking change. I’d like to see fuel supply being fairer and remove the who can have fuel being overly based on wealth; one can be reasonably certain that if the rich were limited in what fuel they could buy then Chelsea Tractors would loose their shine and the 100 mpg car would shortly be a reality. As they say necessity is the Mother of invention - means and wit is usually needed too.

On the other hand, those with more disposable income can adapt more easily than those on a low income and stuck with an inefficient boiler they can't afford to replace. It is the same with electric cars. The people who need them most are unable to afford them. The wealthier you are, the more options you have.

[roubaixtuesday]

The people who need them most are unable to afford them. The wealthier you are, the more options you have.

Vime's boots theory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

[Carlton green]

On the other hand, those with more disposable income can adapt more easily than those on a low income and stuck with an inefficient boiler they can't afford to replace. It is the same with electric cars. The people who need them most are unable to afford them. The wealthier you are, the more options you have.

I wouldn’t dispute that though a fairer situation where the wealthy pay more tax and the poor less would help those in more need.

Of course wealth is not only money but skills, health, education, social support and social contact too; so you might have little money but be able to help yourself and vice versa.

With respect to Electric Cars there is much inequality in the use of what materials that there is available. Unless I’m mistaken many manufacturers don’t make small affordable electric cars and instead use what material they have to make overly large and very expensive (much more profitable) cars instead … well, they are businesses and have shareholders to answer to and executive bonuses to be paid. Such vehicles are bought by people who pay no ‘road tax’, no benefit in kind tax (company vehicles) and no particular tax on the fuel (electricity) that they use. Those of us with fossil fuel cars pay loads of tax … something seems unfair to me.

The people who need them most are unable to afford them. The wealthier you are, the more options you have.

Vime's boots theory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

Thank you for drawing my attention to that theory, I find it to be true.

As some would say: “I'm not rich enough to buy cheap things” (because I can’t afford to frequently replace them).

[Biospace]

The bigger question is how to reduce our overall energy consumption. Should we all have the same amount of energy made available to us, millionaires and billionaires included?

An interesting concept but how it might be reasonably implemented I wouldn’t like to say, but in times of commodity shortage - which in some respects we have - then rationing is arguably fair and was used in World War Two.

The rich will find some ways around rationing, but without allowing them some ‘loopholes’ the rich will be very effective at blocking change. I’d like to see fuel supply being fairer and remove the who can have fuel being overly based on wealth; one can be reasonably certain that if the rich were limited in what fuel they could buy then Chelsea Tractors would loose their shine and the 100 mpg car would shortly be a reality. As they say necessity is the Mother of invention - means and wit is usually needed too.

I'd be most interested to hear how the rich would try to justify a higher allocation of energy for personal use. We're told that there is an impending climate disaster by the elites who fly around the world to meetings, often in personal jets, so if they believe themselves why are they not leading by example?

On the other hand, those with more disposable income can adapt more easily than those on a low income and stuck with an inefficient boiler they can't afford to replace. It is the same with electric cars. The people who need them most are unable to afford them. The wealthier you are, the more options you have.

This argument is one used to justify higher levels of consumption, for the most part the more you spend, the greater the negative impact on the environment.

Constantly high levels of consumption (a significant proportion of which could be judged as unnecessary) leads to lower second hand values which in turn invariably leads to shorter lifespans, in turn goods are made to a lower standard - there's little more wasteful than a product with years of life left sitting in a skip. It's a viscious circle, fed by carefully exploited human 'need' for shopping. We haven't even a good recycling process for most plastic waste.

"It is the same with electric cars". Not quite, it makes more sense to keep older small cars which cover a lowish annual mileage than replace them with EVs, in most countries which burn a lot of fossil fuels to make their electricity. Typically the sort of car a lower income household uses. Volvo cites 70% more emissions in manufacturing EVs.

The proper servicing of mechanical devices is neglected while new sales are encouraged and heavily promoted. Products are less serviceable today, perhaps as a result of this behaviour. Yet that's the very opposite of what's needed if we're to turn around the mess the planet's in. Higher quality, simpler products are needed, ones with servicing and future upgrades engineered in.

[pete75]

The people who need them most are unable to afford them. The wealthier you are, the more options you have.

Vime's boots theory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

Well known before 1993. Remember my father saying similar in the sixties. Well off chap could get a reduction on a £200 TV for paying cash, less well off pays about £300 because he has to get it on HP.

[Biospace]

Europe’s energy market is going through a war-driven restructuring away from Russian gas which will take years. Wholesale gas, coal and carbon prices will remain very high much longer than everyone expects, and consumer distress will be acute. The political pressure to allow extra carbon emissions, bale out consumers and tax producer windfalls will continue to intensify.

[my bold]

https://www.cornwall-insight.com/top-3- ... ransition/

[Biospace]

https://renews.biz/82888/mps-call-for-m ... nd-marine/

[Biospace]

A huge move to hydrogen

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... line-2025/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... ogen-boom/

and nuclear https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... -net-zero/ appears increasingly likely in Britain.

However, the total lack of understanding in this comment "The technology [nuclear] is seen as an important and stable source of electricity that will help to balance out more intermittent sources such as solar and wind, as the UK winds down its use of coal and natural gas in the coming decades" mirrors and further bolsters common misconceptions about how 'useful' nuclear power is as a complement for renewable.

There is little scope for nuclear to 'balance' out intermittency, that's to say you can't turn it up and down to balance the grid in its daily demand fluctuations, unless we dot the country with many small nukes, which would be even more expensive. And money which would draw funds away from what is really needed - storage.

It's very likely that the Tories assume the market and private investment will somehow see things through, together with the array of EVs and domestic batteries bolstering the Smart Grid. Or they know they'll be out of power, so aren't concerned about the finances?

[Biospace]

Are we getting good value for money from the French investment in our nuclear industry?

"EDF's accounts show that from all its UK activities, it made an overall operating loss of £998m in the year to 31 December 2022 on an investment of £2.6bn, an improvement from the £1.7bn loss it made in 2021 on an investment of £2.3bn."

https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/civi ... 0-02-2023/

[[XAP]Bob]

Hydrogen has uses - but those uses are not in domestic boilers.
Far better off using otherwise curtailed power to generate hydrogen, which is then later used to generate electricity during extended low generation than trying to keep it inside pipes in people's houses - you can't even give it an odour like natural gas, because the hydrogen leaks so much more easily than any odourous compound.
Large industry can probably use it as well, but again it's best generated from otherwise curtailed renewables generation (or unused nuclear), and used in very specific applications.

[[XAP]Bob]

"It is the same with electric cars". Not quite, it makes more sense to keep older small cars which cover a lowish annual mileage than replace them with EVs, in most countries which burn a lot of fossil fuels to make their electricity. Typically the sort of car a lower income household uses. Volvo cites 70% more emissions in manufacturing EVs.

The proper servicing of mechanical devices is neglected while new sales are encouraged and heavily promoted. Products are less serviceable today, perhaps as a result of this behaviour. Yet that's the very opposite of what's needed if we're to turn around the mess the planet's in. Higher quality, simpler products are needed, ones with servicing and future upgrades engineered in.

Whilst I agree overall - there is also a good case for converting older vehicles which do little milage.
In fact by their very nature they don't need huge battery packs, because they do such little milage...

If you want a device with lower servicing requirements you can't do much better than moving from the thousands of moving parts in an infernal combustion engine to the single moving part in an electric motor.

[Biospace]

"It is the same with electric cars". Not quite, it makes more sense to keep older small cars which cover a lowish annual mileage than replace them with EVs, in most countries which burn a lot of fossil fuels to make their electricity. Typically the sort of car a lower income household uses. Volvo cites 70% more emissions in manufacturing EVs.

The proper servicing of mechanical devices is neglected while new sales are encouraged and heavily promoted. Products are less serviceable today, perhaps as a result of this behaviour. Yet that's the very opposite of what's needed if we're to turn around the mess the planet's in. Higher quality, simpler products are needed, ones with servicing and future upgrades engineered in.

Whilst I agree overall - there is also a good case for converting older vehicles which do little milage.
In fact by their very nature they don't need huge battery packs, because they do such little milage...

If you want a device with lower servicing requirements you can't do much better than moving from the thousands of moving parts in an infernal combustion engine to the single moving part in an electric motor.

1/ Why is there so little push for recyclability and longer-lasting, more easily repairable private vehicles?
2/ Electric motors are as good as large batteries (for powering a vehicle) are bad.
3/ The 'Zero Emissions' label given to battery cars by the Government is totally misleading.

We need to use a sense of scale and apply life-cycle emissions to all our products, not just cars. Embodied energy is likely to become more widely understood as governments really get to grips with the consumption crisis, together with embodied environmental destruction.

We became fixated on exhaust emissions because they were easy to measure and easy to reduce, substantially. It has led to a new class of motorist who genuinely believes they're helping the planet by driving a 2 tonne BEV.

The average journey by car is under 10 miles in the UK. If we've genuinely realised that our levels of consumption should reduce in order to improve matters, why the desire for huge batteries?

[al_yrpal]

Three eco old friends came for lunch yesterday. Of course the conversation turned to their heating systems. One seems to spend long periods every day tweaking his various systems for maximum performance, another is tearing his hair out over his rooftop solar tubes that keep boiling over and the third is thinking of moving from his one room downstairs super modern new ecohouse into sheltered accomodation because his mobility is under threat. He turned up in a £50 grand electric car that looked like it belonged in a circus.
Us, we just live in our highly recycled old house amongst highly recycled inexpensive antique furniture with our 13 year old very economical comfy car. Although we pay quite a bit for heating I believe we have got things right for us.

Al

[[XAP]Bob]

"It is the same with electric cars". Not quite, it makes more sense to keep older small cars which cover a lowish annual mileage than replace them with EVs, in most countries which burn a lot of fossil fuels to make their electricity. Typically the sort of car a lower income household uses. Volvo cites 70% more emissions in manufacturing EVs.

The proper servicing of mechanical devices is neglected while new sales are encouraged and heavily promoted. Products are less serviceable today, perhaps as a result of this behaviour. Yet that's the very opposite of what's needed if we're to turn around the mess the planet's in. Higher quality, simpler products are needed, ones with servicing and future upgrades engineered in.

Whilst I agree overall - there is also a good case for converting older vehicles which do little milage.
In fact by their very nature they don't need huge battery packs, because they do such little milage...

If you want a device with lower servicing requirements you can't do much better than moving from the thousands of moving parts in an infernal combustion engine to the single moving part in an electric motor.

1/ Why is there so little push for recyclability and longer-lasting, more easily repairable private vehicles?
2/ Electric motors are as good as large batteries (for powering a vehicle) are bad.
3/ The 'Zero Emissions' label given to battery cars by the Government is totally misleading.

We need to use a sense of scale and apply life-cycle emissions to all our products, not just cars. Embodied energy is likely to become more widely understood as governments really get to grips with the consumption crisis, together with embodied environmental destruction.

We became fixated on exhaust emissions because they were easy to measure and easy to reduce, substantially. It has led to a new class of motorist who genuinely believes they're helping the planet by driving a 2 tonne BEV.

The average journey by car is under 10 miles in the UK. If we've genuinely realised that our levels of consumption should reduce in order to improve matters, why the desire for huge batteries?

1) Because capitalism demands that we buy the new shiny every three years...
2) EV batteries aren't bad, certainly not when compared with the alternative - I'd like to see an industry standard "battery extender port", so that you have a smaller main battery and drop in a couple of swappable batteries for the rare long journey.
Buy them or "rent" them between two service stations...
3) Marketing is always bull - they are basically zero point emissions (in that they don't emit where they travel), though they do wear (i.e. lose some tyre mass). One thing that the marketing misses is that each year they generate fewer emissions, since the grid is getting more and more renewable.


Yes, we need a better understanding of embedded energy costs, but since we have the fossil fuel industry dictating government policy at the moment I have no hope at all.
And there is a huge push towards designing batteries (in particular) which are easier to pull apart for recycling.