Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Lower voltage anyone? Seems sensible to me.

Wait eight seconds longer for your kettle – and cut your carbon bill

From Cheshire to Cumbria, thousands of people may soon be waiting a little longer for kettles to boil. A small sacrifice, perhaps, for cheaper energy.

Under plans to lower the voltage of energy grids across the north-west of England, about 45,000 homes can expect to shave £60 from their annual electricity bills. The scheme could save millions of pounds on energy a year and cut carbon emissions without people noticing any difference, says the local network company.

During “Smart Street” trials over four years, engineers for Electricity North West found they could carefully lower the grid’s voltage by enough to save on energy without noticeably slowing household appliances or causing light bulbs to flicker.

“Nobody noticed the changes until they were given their bill and suddenly found out they’d been using less electricity,” said Steve Cox, the company’s engineering director.

And more news on the FF misdirection action, with the report put together by scientists in the US and Bristol, yes that Bristol.

It's actually a much easier read than I expected, well presented:

America Misled - How the fossil fuel industry deliberately misled Americans about climate change

Conclusion

Disinformation about climate change has a straightforward purpose—to block action on climate change. In America, it has largely succeeded, with policies to mitigate climate change stymied or delayed for decades.

Meanwhile, climate change has intensified, causing impacts such as intensified extreme weather events, rising sea level, harmful effects on human health, and much more.

Climate denial has seriously hurt the American people. The damage, deaths, and harm to people will continue to worsen if we don’t expose and discredit denial.

This is not the first time that corporations prioritizing profits over people have caused great harm. The tobacco industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars disinforming the public about the health impacts of smoking in order to undermine tobacco control34,35. The World Health Organization estimates that six million people die every year from preventable tobaccocaused disease. Drawing on the tobacco industry’s playbook, fossil fuel companies have done the same on climate change, spending hundreds of millions of dollars confusing the public and delaying life-saving action. Their legacy is the death, destruction, and injustices of irreversible global warming.

Big Oil is the new Big Tobacco.

Martyn1981

An interesting idea that only gets more and more interesting as you read further mentioning New York, Singapore and others.

Could cities profit from protecting themselves against rising seas?

Some coastal cities are reclaiming land as a barrier against rising water – then selling it off. But critics argue that climate change defence should not be a business model

As well as hopefully obviating the need for grim concrete sea walls like those erected around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, new islands like these mean new real estate. In Copenhagen the rim of the island facing out to sea will have a soft edge for beaches, parks and wetlands; then, beyond a high protective mound, there will be space for 35,000 houses and a similar number of workplaces.

Since the island expanded from 190 hectares (470 acres) to 282 this August, the financial case has become stronger still. Whereas building a sea dyke to protect Copenhagen would have cost 750m Danish kroner (£87m), the city government estimates that building the island could yield a profit of 2.7bn kroner, simply from selling the earth.

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

And more news on the FF misdirection action, with the report put together by scientists in the US and Bristol, yes that Bristol.

It's actually a much easier read than I expected, well presented:

America Misled - How the fossil fuel industry deliberately misled Americans about climate change

Absolute load of tosh written by 5 left wing activists. Look them up if you don’t believe me.

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Lower voltage anyone? Seems sensible to me.

Wait eight seconds longer for your kettle – and cut your carbon bill

Genuine question. Is this not looking to achieve the same outcome as the voltage optimisers the solar pv companies were peddling?

1961Nick

JKenH wrote: »

Absolute load of tosh written by 5 left wing activists. Look them up if you don’t believe me.

Is there a law against "misleading (gullible) Americans"?

Thought not....

Dave_Fowler

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Lower voltage anyone? Seems sensible to me.

Wait eight seconds longer for your kettle – and cut your carbon bill

I'm not sure if their figures on bill savings can be correct.

To boil a kettle, no matter how slowly, will take the same amount of power. In fact the slower you boil the kettle by lowering the voltage the greater will be the heat loss during the time it takes to boil.

Most modern devices (TVs, computers ASHPs) have switched-mode power supplies which automatically adjust for variations in input voltage (some run from 90VAC through to 250VAC) all that happens is they take more current so that the wattage (power input) remains the same. With these devices it becomes less efficient to run them at lower voltages because the IR losses (current times resistance) increase with the square of the current.

This has been the argument about the voltage optimisers that are being added to solar panel quotations in the past.

Dave F

1961Nick

Dave_Fowler wrote: »

I'm not sure if their figures on bill savings can be correct.

To boil a kettle, no matter how slowly, will take the same amount of power. In fact the slower you boil the kettle by lowering the voltage the greater will be the heat loss during the time it takes to boil.

Most modern devices (TVs, computers ASHPs) have switched-mode power supplies which automatically adjust for variations in input voltage (some run from 90VAC through to 250VAC) all that happens is they take more current so that the wattage (power input) remains the same. With these devices it becomes less efficient to run them at lower voltages because the IR losses (current times resistance) increase with the square of the current.

This has been the argument about the voltage optimisers that are being added to solar panel quotations in the past.

Dave F

It's also not ideal for inductive loads either. Newer motors should be ok as they're designed for 230v +/- a tolerance. Older motors will have been designed for 240v so 220v will be getting a bit marginal - surely plenty of older fridges must fall into this category?

silverwhistle

JKenH wrote: »

Your sudden conversion to RE was nothing at all to do with the government saying in 2011 we’ll give you a couple of grand a year to put some solar panels on the roof?

You are becoming increasingly unpleasant.

Hexane

silverwhistle wrote: »

You are becoming increasingly unpleasant.

Entire conversation has been on the wrong discussion thread, I think. Please could those involved move it to the right one.

JKenH

Hexane wrote: »

Entire conversation has been on the wrong discussion thread, I think. Please could those involved move it to the right one.

Definitely one for the pointless and circular argument thread which unfortunately was renamed green discussion which isn’t quite so catchy and consequently has fallen out of use. Perhaps have a new ‘repetitive and pointless arguments’ thread where we can post the same ‘news’ day after day after day.