THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

moneyistooshorttomention

Karmacat wrote: »

ZH was just mentioning how business has crashed in India because of the war against cash

I've just been reading about the comet/asteroid/meteor/meteorite/hunk of space that missed us yesterday - it was **inside** some satellite orbits! It was only about ten feet across, they say, but if it had come down, it wouldn't have been very nice for the people underneath ...

Do you/anyone else have links to those articles please?

Si_Clist

I see this morning that we're now importing fracked gas from Peru. I wonder if this ranks as more green or less green than the electric that Drax power station produces from woodchips imported from Canada.

Whatever, it's yet another indication of how it's all getting very precarious on the energy front ...

GreyQueen

What annoys me is that no one in power seems to be willing to get serious about our energy needs. They are all bodging along and hoping to be long gone before the brown stuff hits the orbital device.

There is no point in bothering with defending the realm by spending billions on the military if the realm can be brought to its knees by not being able to support its energy needs.

We've been pretty lucky in the UK with our geology and its natural endowments of coal, oil and natural gas. Which have been, arguably, squandered, leaving us in a parlous position.

thriftwizard

Just yesterday, I was talking with a friend about the time we tried to set up a Transition Town here, and basically got laughed at, in a nice way - the sort of way you might laugh at a child who's come up with something patently ridiculous. Both of us have heard plenty more gentle laughter since, along the lines of "See? There was nothing to worry about, was there? There's plenty more oil where that came from, and anyway, we can just buy electric cars instead!"

There comes a point where it doesn't seem worthwhile to try to open the eyes of those who really, really do not wish to see...

GreyQueen

Yeah, it's as if a lot of people have their hands clamped over their ears whilst singing la la la we're not listening.

I thing the term is normalcy bias or something of that nature. The way we have lived in the 20th-21st century is abnormal and cannot and will not continue in like vein, but I doubt there's one person in ten thousand who is seriously considering what that will mean, for them and for their children and grandchildren.:(

Winchelsea

Si Clist, fracked gas is a fossil fuel, so when it's burnt it releases carbon that was stored millennia ago.
Wood chips have been grown in current years, so the carbon stored in and released from them is only recycling what is naturally available.

This is why fossil fuels are such a problem. Releasing all that stored carbon is forcing the carbon dioxide levels in the air to rise - blanketing the earth and causing it to warm up.

Si_Clist

thriftwizard wrote: »

Just yesterday, I was talking with a friend about the time we tried to set up a Transition Town here ...

Must be ten years ago now that we went to a public meeting held to promote the idea of becoming a Transition Town. We left shaking our heads in wonder at ...

The fact that the total turnout in a town of 25,000 people was 17 including us

We arrived on our bikes. Everybody else turned out in their cars, including our next-door-but-one.

The highlight for us was the speaker, in the context of energy-saving and general green-ness, advising folk to swop their power shower for one which used less water. When I suggested that perhaps it might be a better idea to do without the power shower, he, and the rest of those present, had a good laugh and whatever he said next started with "Very good. Now, seriously ..."

Si_Clist

Winchelsea wrote: »

Si Clist, fracked gas is a fossil fuel, so when it's burnt it releases carbon that was stored millennia ago.
Wood chips have been grown in current years, so the carbon stored in and released from them is only recycling what is naturally available.

This is why fossil fuels are such a problem. Releasing all that stored carbon is forcing the carbon dioxide levels in the air to rise - blanketing the earth and causing it to warm up.

Hang on though - isn't Drax still reckoned to be the country's biggest putter-out of CO2?

There's also the small matter of the environmental consequences of felling, chipping, pelleting and transporting the resultant "biomass" to the port in Canada from which it crosses the Atlantic to a purpose-built terminal here before being trained to Drax.

But ATEOTD, it's all of academic interest. AFAIC the only way to solve the impending energy crises is to train people to get used to using less energy, and that just ain't going to happen until they have to. Meanwhile it's just window-dressing and people talking.

thriftwizard

AFAIC the only way to solve the impending energy crises is to train people to get used to using less energy, and that just ain't going to happen until they have to. Meanwhile it's just window-dressing and people talking.

And on that merry note, I'm very pleased to note that our energy supplier seems to owe us several hundred pounds! However it's not by us suddenly becoming more energy-savvy, it's by exporting 3 inhabitants - who just happen to be the 3 who prefer to remain clueless when it comes to energy use. The 4 of us who remain are very happy to wear woolly jumpers, snuggle under quilts, wool duvets & blankets, cook once/eat twice and only use the washing machine when there's a good load, and the tumble drier in emergencies.

Luckily DS2 & TDiL have moved to a modern, highly insulated & well-designed house, no bigger than they need, and DS3 is sharing with a bunch of other post-grad students in a similar but bigger establishment. Their bills are now their own problems, but will be mitigated by the actual buildings they're living in. There is so much that could be done through good design (not the massive open spaces favoured by architects!) but sadly the prime motivation for the builders seems to be money, and for the buyers, the appearance of prosperity.

Si_Clist

thriftwizard wrote: »

Luckily DS2 & TDiL have moved to a modern, highly insulated & well-designed house ...

Oooooh ... you've just reminded me of a conversation I had last week with a neighbour's daughter who's just moved into a brand new little house on a brand new little estate in the next town. Cue Mr Seeger from 54 years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUwUp-D_VV0

Anyhow, "It's lovely" says she. "And it's sustainable".

"What does that mean" says I. "I've never been able to understand how a house can be sustainable."

She: "Well, it means it's well insulated. And like we don't use much energy for heating and so on"

Me: "So it's not sustainable then, it's just energy-efficient."

She "Same thing. That's what sustainable means, innit."

Oy vey ...