Denmark is the First to Fall

Mary_Hartnell

Bf109 wrote: »

And even then we will still need the same number of nukes/coals/gas power stations to supply power when there is not enough or too much wind.

I agree that the greens oppose everything but I'm not a green in the conventional sense of the word.

I must confess I don't know exactly where in the South West this is proposed - perhaps you can post a link?
If they were silent, I would agree to you building one in my garden - better than the telephone tower, I nearly got lumbered with.
I don't want your atomic power station anywhere within (say) 100 miles.
I do hope you have invested in wood heating, push bikes for transport and you are not the parent of half a dozen kids.
The point I am trying to make is that with a national population well over 60,000,000 and a world population well over 6,000,000,000 some very hard choices need to be made now.
You might be travelling first class on space ship earth but there could be serious trouble brewing in steerage, where the rations are being cut on a weekly basis.

Snooze

Mary_Hartnell wrote: »

I must confess I don't know exactly where in the South West this is proposed - perhaps you can post a link?
If they were silent, I would agree to you building one in my garden - better than the telephone tower, I nearly got lumbered with.
I don't want your atomic power station anywhere within (say) 100 miles.
I do hope you have invested in wood heating, push bikes for transport and you are not the parent of half a dozen kids.
The point I am trying to make is that with a national population well over 60,000,000 and a world population well over 6,000,000,000 some very hard choices need to be made now.
You might be travelling first class on space ship earth but there could be serious trouble brewing in steerage, where the rations are being cut on a weekly basis.

Invested in wood heating? I think you might need to recheck your sums! I spent some considerable time earlier this year looking at cheaper alternatives to leccy and gas and there simply aren't any. People bang on about solar panels and wind turbines etc, but if you do the research you'll find that solar panels are about the same price as your house and you may see a return on your investment in about 150 years time (and that's with the Government grant, and also assuming you can get it) plus also factor in that one full day's summer sun will provide just about enough energy to boil a kettle... once.

Home wind turbines are even worse at leccy producing duties and you'd need a full week of a constant force 9 gale in order to boil a kettle. :rolleyes:

As for wood heating, compare the cost of wood against the cost of gas and you'll see that wood is more expensive (although with the cost of gas continually going up there probably isn't much difference now), not to mention that wood burning boilers are about 4 times the price of a normal boiler. On a similar vein, burning corn and wood pellets are more expensive still and all options require you to live in a non-smokeless zone.



Rob

Lotus-eater

Ahh but you don't generally compare wood heating against gas, but against oil heating.
Against which is does very well.
With the heating oil price almost trebling in the last 3 years, we are paying heating prices you gas customers would not believe. Get ready for it, because its coming your way.

Snooze

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Ahh but you don't generally compare wood heating against gas, but against oil heating.
Against which is does very well.
With the heating oil price almost trebling in the last 3 years, we are paying heating prices you gas customers would not believe. Get ready for it, because its coming your way.

Hmm, oil-fired heating - yes I'd agree with your point. Trouble is, burning wood/pellets/corn etc, you still need to be in a smokeless zone and unless you live out on the sticks, that rules out the vast majority of folks.

I even looked at (road) diesel heating for myself as I get road diesel free of charge (yes, really!) but oil-fired boilers are designed to run on CHO and road diesel is the wrong sec. unfortunately.

Rob

Dithering_Dad

Snooze wrote: »

...but if you do the research you'll find that solar panels are about the same price as your house and you may see a return on your investment in about 150 years time (and that's with the Government grant, and also assuming you can get it) plus also factor in that one full day's summer sun will provide just about enough energy to boil a kettle... once.

lol, I think you need to do your research again!

We're looking at solar water heating with the solar panel embeded into the roof instead of sitting on it - they just look like roof windows, and are much more attractive than alternatives.

They will provide 100% of our hot water needs in the summer and 25% in the Spring & Autumn. They cost about £5k fitted but there are much cheaper alternatives, such as a DIY version for £2k.

When you factor in the wear and tear on your boiler (you don't have it switched on at all during summer), the new cost of gas and the environmental impact, solar water heating is looking pretty good value.

Solar PVR is a more expensive proposition, especially if you want the excess power you generate to go back into the national grid, but again we're not talking 10's of thousands here and if you stay in the house where you installed the solar PVR/water you'll enjoy reduced gas & electricity prices forever. Brilliant when you're a pensioner.

carolt

Back to topic - I love Denmark. If only they'd have me/ I could learn Danish, I'd have moved there years ago.

Bloody hard language though.

No surprise it's been voted 'happiest'. It's full of happy Danes - you can tell the tourists; they're the stressed, miserable looking ones.

Dithering_Dad

They have no choice but to 'have you', they're part of the EU and so you have freedom to live and work there.

I also love Denmark, such a brill place. Shame we bombarded Copenhagen in an unprovoked attack...

Naughty England

Still, give them their credit, they don't seem to hold it against us.

neverdespairgirl

carolt wrote: »

Back to topic - I love Denmark. If only they'd have me/ I could learn Danish, I'd have moved there years ago.

They'll have you, no problem! EU free movement of labour.

carolt

Yes, technically they'd have me but I couldn't get a job as don't/can't speak Danish. Did try - gave up after first lesson, when I discovered the Danish for 'dog' and the Danish for 'women' both sounded the same to me - one has a (silent) glottal stop in it, which I couldn't even hear, let alone reproduce myself. That was the point when I realised it just wasn't going to work out. Far too much opportunity to accidentally offend people....

Shame. If they'd had an easier language, things might have worked out differently...

Still, can't complain..... Wouldn't have met my OH/had my kids if I'd gone to Denmark back when I was considering it. So thanks, Denmark, for your pointlessly difficult language.

Still, if anywhere could weather a recession pleasantly, sure it's Denmark. It's just such a nice place, full of lovely (and fluently English-speaking...grrr..) people.

Snooze

Yes Denmark is lovely, as long as you don't mind paying the equivalent of £20 for a pint.

Rob