Price cap

[Notch7]

Who else's hands would you put it in?

British Muslims. hardworking, dignified, trustworthy people.

 

[ajohn]

Who else's hands would you put it in?

The obvious answer is governments and there are various ways of achieving that including allowing hidden debt which is the usual result of having privatised utilities. There is no reason why a government shouldn't own a company. All or some of it.

 

[diy_fun_uk]

OT but related. If the UK was prepared to heavily invest in wind and tidal energy generating solutions, what % of our total energy requirement would they serve? When I say heavily invest, I mean having these things dotted all around the UK coast where conditions allow.

 

[ajohn]

I mean having these things dotted all around the UK coast where conditions allow.

Not an easy question to answer. The complication is using less total energy hence all insulating houses etc. The grid can't make up for the loss of gas pipes without a rather huge investment. It's not seen as a viable option.

Gov advisors on greening and domestic energy don't crop up often. One did on one channel and was talking about a problem - people who use oil heating but the same applies to gas. For much of the year not that much heating is needed. When the electrical supply can't cope turn the other heating on.

Thinking back to the past has interesting aspects as well. I live in an old house that did have a fireplace in every room. Move on in time and a house might have 2 one in the front room and one in the rear. The one used in the living room would be used most often. Bedrooms might have small panel heaters for occassional and limited use. Eventually the fireplaces would be replaced with a single gas fire. Similar could be done with an electric one.

 

[Justin Passing]

OT but related. If the UK was prepared to heavily invest in wind and tidal energy generating solutions, what % of our total energy requirement would they serve? When I say heavily invest, I mean having these things dotted all around the UK coast where conditions allow.

All questions like that are arguably "the wrong question".... such as how possible is it in any case, to upgrade the electricity supply grid, to get shot of gas.

But, if you add up all the wind, solar, hydro and biofuel sources (NB excluding Nuclear ) you get to nearly half our needs.
Yes, you'll find if you read up, we could double or treble most of those sources.
You could have enough redundancy for shortcomings to be manageable - storage, imports, gas etc.
Tidal has benefits, trials would make sense.
Onshore wind might one day be unravelled from the stupid state it's in.
Nuclear will always be around somewhere . Currently around 1/6th of our needs.
Solar panel (1/20) technology is jumping fowards so that and other elements in the picture may change.

Costs split into upfront and ongoing. Then there are lead times. After those, politics will determine where we go.

 

[Trazor]

British Muslims. hardworking, dignified, trustworthy people.

Generalisations are always wrong, as is this one.

 

[ajohn]

One of the factors that concerns me in this area is pages like this

Heat Pump Efficiency: How Efficient are Heat Pumps? - Evergreen Energy

Find out about ground heat pump and air source heat pump efficiency measurements and compare energy-efficient heating systems now.

www.evergreenenergy.co.uk

It does mention that efficiency drops of in winter temperatures to 150% but glosses over other factors that apply to air sourced. So when max is needed efficiency is at it's lowest and other losses are ignored.

However another factor isn't really made clear. Flow temperatures. I doubt if the condenser boiler figure is correct if the the boiler is to condense all of the time. It will need to be lower. This changes the size of the radiators needed. For a given heat output radiator sizes need to increase as flow temperatures go down. Sore point with me. We were on economy 7 when we moved in here. I had a variaty of plumbers in who clearly didn't have a clue what they were at. Mostly guess work. So designed my own and left calc's lying around when I called the gas board in. He agreed with them but would have wanted to fit a more powerful boiler anyway. However I chose to use a flow temperature of 60C not the usual 80 or how ever it happened to work out via guess work. It's not possible to be precisely accurate in this area in terms of the house due to loss calculation errors. I did most of the fiddly work myself and then got some one in to finish off. It's getting a bit tired now so could do with an upgrade. My wife was over the moon with running costs compared with friends living in similar sized properties but was always moaning that radiators turned off - LOL

Heat pumps - why does it cost such a lot of money to drill a hole and use ground source?

Insulate the house - how much would I gain. I have heard that some methods can void building insurance.

Then this type of market. A while ago a company came up with a simple idea for scavenging waste heat from the boiler to preheat hot. It was a very cheap option. No reason why it shouldn't be.

Hot water - best option is probably high levels of insulation and a tank. We no longer have one - in fact as they were huge they were removed long ago. The house had been converted to gas instant heating - 2 of them, under sink types. It currently uses a heat store.

 

[Notch7]

Generalisations are always wrong, as is this one.

thank you for pointing out that when Andy11 claims all Muslims are terrorists, he is completely wrong

 

[Deleted member 18243]

There is no reason why a government shouldn't own a company. All or some of it.

There is. A government might be totally reckless and irresponsible.

thank you for pointing out that when Andy11 claims all Muslims are terrorists, he is completely wrong

I wonder if there is a muslim equivalent of Notch, belittling his own people whist having nothing but praise and adoration for the free West?

Abdul 7 maybe?

 

[Trazor]

thank you for pointing out that when Andy11 claims all Muslims are terrorists, he is completely wrong

Of course he is.

 

[Notch7]

Of course he is.

by the way, my previous post was just a fishing hook for Andy, he hates Muslims, I think he mightve got dumped by one

 

[JohnD]

There is. A government might be totally reckless and irresponsible.

Have you heard of the Royal Bank of Scotland?

BHS?

Patisseries Valerie?

Carillion?

Southern Water?

Philip Morris?

Octel?

Innospec?

 

[JohnD]

thank you for pointing out that when Andy11 claims all Muslims are terrorists, he is completely wrong

sixty years ago, the favourite target of fascists was Jews.

today it is Muslims.

 

[ajohn]

Have you heard of

A rather long list really. Many areas not working as they should,

Rail fares should be going up shortly. They base it on inflations which in this case should it seem be by 11.9% Dept of transport wont come clean currently other than saying it wont be that much.

Worcester's bus service hit grief. Company running at a loss - having to be subsidised to keep it running. The loss were last year, maybe the one before too. An area that has always been of interest to me having experianced how B'ham Corporation ran their seviice compared with Midland Red.

Some oddities in rail services in various places as well but I have no details.

 

[ellal]

If the UK was prepared to heavily invest in wind and tidal energy generating solutions, what % of our total energy requirement would they serve?

The cost of a Severn tidal barrage being less than the cost of a single nuclear power plant and supplying 7% of the UK's energy needs isn't a heavy investment in the grand scheme of things...

It also would have a longer lifespan, and not require the endless spending of tens of billions required to decommission nuclear plants...

And it's a guaranteed source of energy...

Sadly it will never happen because it would upset the corrupt 'status quo' of those running the show!