Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

JKenH

When I was a youngster living in rural Lincolnshire power cuts were a regular occurrence when we had thunder and lightning or it was windy and we always had candles to hand - that was once electricity actually made it to the village.

Our expectations of the world are so much higher nowadays. We are also much more dependent on technology which itself depends on power. It would have been frustrating for a lot of people but no one died as far as I am aware.

Leaving aside the reasons for the failure this should push the development of domestic battery technology to provide back up power - at least enough to power my router.

Andy_WSM

JKenH wrote: »

Leaving aside the reasons for the failure this should push the development of domestic battery technology to provide back up power - at least enough to power my router.

For 15 years now I've had a whole house battery backup system. When I moved in and was in the throws of all the building work I had an extra ring main put in with at least one socket in each room that runs back to a large (3kW) UPS with 6 x 120Ah leisure batteries.

In a power cut anything "critical" including fridge/freezer, fish tanks, lights, broadband and TV continue to run for at least 12 hours - at which point I could go out to the garage and start the LPG powered generator and run for days if I needed to. It has come into it's own numerous times since it was installed and worth every penny. So many people complained that losing power was a huge inconvenience - well it needn't be.

NigeWick

JKenH wrote: »

When I was a youngster living in rural Lincolnshire power cuts were a regular occurrence

I live in rural Lincolnshire and am now protected from power cuts with my solar & battery that can disconnect from the grid if there is one. The horse & cart with electricity is very regular these days.

JKenH

NigeWick wrote: »

I live in rural Lincolnshire and am now protected from power cuts with my solar & battery that can disconnect from the grid if there is one. The horse & cart with electricity is very regular these days.

Do you switch over manually? Who installed your battery system, if you don’t mind me asking?

zeupater

Hexane wrote: »

... A while ago we also had a very complicated situation with joefizz who I vaguely recall has a quite complicated PV/battery/something setup (it did not involve nuclear fusion or even fission, never mind CHP nor HPD nor COP) in Northern Ireland and occasionally Antarctica, and another regular poster here was insistent on denying that any of it could be true and demanding detailed figures about the poster's lifestyle, electricity inputs/outputs etc so that they could all be analysed. And being rather insulting when walls of text were offered instead of the auditing figures that they had been demanding. Can't remember if you were one of the people who kindly pointed out that the interrogation went a bit too far, but it's very possible ...

Hi

That'd likely be a swipe at my input at the time then, input for reasons that were valid at the time & remain valid! .... :cool:

If you were to revisit the thread, maybe you could both recognise & appreciate that the exchanges were related to the cost effectiveness of a battery storage system and acted to highlight how (at least) five separate elements were employed to make the economic case for batteries stand up in a specific case ...

- Low cost supply from internet sources
- DIY/'mate's rates' approach to installation to negate costs.
- Applying an atypical energy usage pattern in order to minimise winter demand when there's little solar available & maxing out summer demand through adding a large but atypical load in the form of a hot water tub ...
- Applying energy supply tariffs that suit what essentially represents a seasonally inverted consumption pattern ...
- Justifying expenditure and payback of a battery on a whole system returns basis (including other measures - eg PV) as opposed to the incremental savings attributable to the battery itself.

... before effectively classifying that this atypical combination was not atypical at all because, as it applied in one particular case, it is the set of circumstances which would apply to the majority of installations that should be considered atypical .... no issues apparent there then! ... :doh:

Without highlighting the logic & figures behind the battery economics being touted, anyone at the time (or since!) could have formed a perception that domestic scale battery systems had a reasonable return-on-investment, however, as a result of the 'interrogation' you raise, hopefully the near-unique nature of the variables involved to formulate the economic case would be recognised by anyone considering battery installations on pure economics as not being applicable in the majority of cases and therefore any decision is deserving of careful consideration! ....

HTH
Z

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

True. Most of GA’s posts have a technical element to them and usually lots of figures and I have no technical knowledge that would enable me to challenge or confirm them.

The posts from Mart that I tend to challenge usually originate from non technical articles in the media. Inevitably as Mart favours left of centre sources and my politics are right of centre there will be times when we will see things differently.

Mart is alright
His problem is like most people he seeks confirmation bias

So when an article says coal burning causes untold damage on health and wealth he will cite it over a dozen times look for another dozen websites all referencing each other and some nonsense paper and go on forums to talk to the other hobbyists about it all and pat each other on the back.

When you ask the green cheerleaders if coal costs the NHS £6 billion per year as one posted earlier this week, and coal burning is down 90% in five years why haven't we seen a lower burden on the NHS.... silence

A lot of the green nonsense is exaggerated

Fossil fuel useage has no big negative on health other factors dwarf this (I wonder how many of the coal is harmful cheerleaders are overweight? What's likely to harm your health more carrying around 20kg of excess fat or a coal plant in Yorkshire 200 miles away burning some coal?)


Having said this I am strongly pro efficiency gains to reduce energy useage
I am pro reducing gas and oil useage simply because they are imports
And I am mildly pro annoying Mart because you know...why not :beer:

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

That'd likely be a swipe at my input at the time then, input for reasons that were valid at the time & remain valid! .... :cool:

HTH
Z

It might be a case of giving the benefit of the doubt on this occasion, otherwise the whole original post makes little sense.

You may note that he's criticising me, for standing up to Ken, in response to his demanding I respect GA's opinions, who he is mocking on a daily basis, across multiple threads and even lists some of the 'extreme highlights' in that very same post:

Hexane wrote: »

Let's face it folks, there are posters who claim that ICE vehicle pollution has zero or almost zero impact on health, and that the reaction to Fukushima was an "over-reaction"

It could be that the 'audit trail' on this discussion (or 'hard right demands respect from the left' ) has grown so complicated that most can't follow it anymore, and hence why I get critiqued for disagreeing with someone and placing them on ignore, that he also disagrees with - a weirdly circular argument!

I suspect this disagreement is now FUBAR, for anyone not right in the centre of it, and that result and the associated time and posting space wasted, was the main aim from the start.

Martyn1981

So .......back to my usual pondering, and overthinking.

I only post a small proportion of what I read and watch. I assume most people would find most of it boring, you may find all of it boring!

And this news article/report from CBSN probably falls into the large boring pile. But after watching it yesterday, it's played on my mind.

In brief it looks at the hardships many farmers in the US are facing due to recent extreme weather conditions (psst don't mention AGW).

But, what was interesting, and why I'm mentioning it, is that they may be coming round to GW and even AGW.

So what? Well, here's goes the extreme pondering, as I picture a line of ever larger dominoes.

If rural America breaks (on AGW) then that'll take the Republican Party with them. The majority of Americans support action against GW, and the Democrats talk openly about the AGW crisis, so that takes the US government along for the ride too. The US (love it or hate it) has the loudest voice in the World, so they'll take the rest of us with them*, and then action should ramp up much faster.

*TBF most of the world is trying hard already, and all on board the environmental bus, but the US is a problem as they are driving the bus, and have their foot on the brake.

So here it is, nothing new environmentally, or news wise, but the 'vibe' regarding AGW just kept gnawing away at me.

A climate reckoning in the heartland

1961Nick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

You may note that he's criticising me, for standing up to Ken, in response to his demanding I respect GA's opinions, who he is mocking on a daily basis, across multiple threads and even lists some of the 'extreme highlights' in that very same post:

The point that's being made is not that you "don't respect GA's opinions", it's that you don't seem to respect GA's right to have an opinion. Constantly promoting the fact that you have chosen to ignore GA, & then encouraging others not to quote him, is blatant use of your influence for censorship purposes.

I've read many of GA's posts & to tarnish him as anti-RE is nonsense. It's clear that he is pro-RE, but his argument is that wind & solar has reached saturation point & the grid doesn't currently need any more.

You may note that he's criticising me, for standing up to Ken,

That made me laugh....a better description would be "Ken standing up to you with some moral support from Hexane".

Martyn1981

1961Nick wrote: »

TIt's clear that he is pro-RE, but his argument is that wind & solar has reached saturation point & the grid doesn't currently need any more.

An example that is both anti-RE and ridiculous. Thank you.


PS - As you recently tried out a version of the 'CO2 is plant food' anti-AGW argument, I thought you might like this recent interview with an ex USDA whistleblower discussing the publication blocking of his peer reviewed paper on the reduction of nutrional value in rice due to AGW.

U.N. Warns Climate Change Could Trigger Global Food Crisis | Velshi & Ruhle | MSNBC