Movie Time: The Age of Stupid

[Lime]

There is a Catch 22 situation here; save the environment by destroying the historic features of the house, or save the features, and then watch the house disappear underwater as global warming turns Lincolnshire into a popular fishing resort. If reducing CO2 has to be a priority, shouldn't the listing rules be changed to allow houses as 'inefficient' as mine to be converted into something less wasteful of resources?

The whole exercise is a catch 22 situation.
To start with there is the supposition that creation of CO2 is causing climate change.
Then there is the supposition that mankind has anything to do with the very slight increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.
To top that there is the supposition that performing all these "improvements" will make any difference at all.

The methodology that insulating a house will save energy appears to be based on a very simplistic idea, namely that houses are heated to the same temperature whether insulated or not hence an energy reduction will take place.
Perhaps for a little box home that can be applied as they are already heated throughout but how many older homes are heated throughout?
Then there is the "closed eye" that ignores the waste of heat in shops and factories.
I'm sure you have all seen the over-door heater in shops heating the street as well as clouds of steam etc from factory chimneys.

 

[biffvernon]

We've got a house whose historic fabric we're rather precious about, but we heat it with biomass and have a 12m2 solar water heater on an outhouse roof of no history. Solutions have to be appropriate to the situation.

 

[Jon Maine]

Sadly we had no scope here for that, although it is now accepted that you can fit solar panels to hidden valleys on listed buildings by some authorities.

Of course we have our heat pumps, but even if coupled with a green energy supply Defra have now ruled it cant be considered as neutral as only energy generated on site can be offset as neutral.

 

[Moo]

We've got a house whose historic fabric we're rather precious about

So have we.
But we live in the middle of the city with a 3m x 4m back yard, and there's no way we could instal a biomass system. Nor do we have any non-historic space for a 12m2 solar water heater. I guess the same would be true for our neighbours, and many other houses in the area.

I suspect that the sad fact is that the number of people who have the space (and the money) to do the right thing is relatively small. Lime is so right - within towns and cities the really significant savings would be made if businesses were persuaded (or compelled?) to reduce their profligate use of resources.

 

[Flyfisher]

Of course we have our heat pumps, but even if coupled with a green energy supply Defra have now ruled it cant be considered as neutral as only energy generated on site can be offset as neutral.

That seems an odd decision. Where do they think the energy you're harvesting from the ground is coming from? (Presumably your ground loops/borehole) is on your own land, i.e. 'on site'.

As for biomass heating, I caught the end of a R4 prog yesterday (Costing The Earth?) where the Government seemed to have concluded that wood burning was an impractical option for the UK due to amount of land space it would require. I didn't hear the whole report though and haven't yet done the 'listen again' thing.

 

[Lime]

the Government seemed to have concluded that wood burning was an impractical option for the UK due to amount of land space it would require.

I would have thought that to be obvious.
Like the growing of oil containing plants to supply fuel for cars etc.

Apart from land use, just think of the energy needed to create it and transporting it.

As an aside but specific to bio fuel for cars, has anyone noticed the build up of gum in their diesel tanks, pipes etc?

I ask because last year I installed a new fuel tank on one of my landrovers.
The old tank was over 37 years old and was full of bits of detritus on the bottom but no gum.

Since then I believe an addition of bio fuel oil has been added to diesel by order of the EU.

Just recently I found the fine fuel filter within the tank was blocked and causing problems.
When I removed it for examination the pipes, filter and all the tank insides had a layer of gum over it reminiscent of a chip pan.
Not a good thing.
Think of all the wasted energy that will cause if this is happening in every diesel all over the UK.
...............making, supplying and fitting new tanks, pipes, pumps, injectors even engines perhaps.
Very green, I don't think!

 

[worms]

As an aside but specific to bio fuel for cars, has anyone noticed the build up of gum in their diesel tanks, pipes etc?

I had a similar problem running a petrol land rover in a country where sugar cane alcohol was added to the mix - after much pfaffing about with the carburrettor and fuel filters to stop the intermittent cut-outs I discovered that the nylon mesh bag over the end of the pipe in the tank was covered in a gelatinous substance. Removal of the nylon mesh solved the problem. Tank and pipes were Ok, it seemed to be a reaction to the plastic/nylon.

 

[worms]

Flyfisher wrote:
the Government seemed to have concluded that wood burning was an impractical option for the UK due to amount of land space it would require.

I would have thought that to be obvious.
Like the growing of oil containing plants to supply fuel for cars etc.

Apart from land use, just think of the energy needed to create it and transporting it.

On this I don't totally agree - in parts of the UK we have more than enough land and timber to make a sizeable contribution to the local energy requirements - I can get coal from China delivered to my back door so why should it be impractical to get wood from the local forest delivered locally? (Actually, it is practical and cheap, so I can and do). The Government's problem is that it likes large-scale, one-size-fits-all, write-one-cheque-then-forget solutions and local wood-fuel supply tends to be small-scale, local and ad-hoc.

It should also be remembered that up to the '40s we used about a third of our arable land to grow fodder and grains for horses - the transport fuel of that time. Since then, crop yields have improved and a lot of land has been removed from food production, much of it because recreational use produces better returns than food production. At the moment, using high-value oilseeds for fuel is not economic, but if and when oil is in short supply and the price climbs into the $200/barrel range, that could well change. There will always be uses that need a liquid fuel and the energy balance in oil crops can be better than that for crop to alcohol conversion (although the latter may well be better at using crop and forest residues).

 

[Jon Maine]

Of course we have our heat pumps, but even if coupled with a green energy supply Defra have now ruled it cant be considered as neutral as only energy generated on site can be offset as neutral.

That seems an odd decision. Where do they think the energy you're harvesting from the ground is coming from? (Presumably your ground loops/borehole) is on your own land, i.e. 'on site'.

Yes the heat is carbon free, just not the electricity it takes to move it around.

 

[Flyfisher]

I suppose their stance is that you're not generating energy, just using a lot less - which should be regarded as 'a good thing', I would have thought.

 

[Jon Maine]

Yes it is a good thing.

 

[biffvernon]

The problem with heat pumps goes something like this.

You buy,say, 100 joules worth of electricity, use it to power the compressor and pump in your ground source heat system and get 300 joules from the deep dark soil. Looks a good deal.
But. The electricity you bought was generated in a dark satanic mill (aka coal-fired power station). It took 400 joules from the coal to deliver 100 joules to your leccy meter.
Ooops, there goes you planet-saving device in a puff of CO2.

Of course if buy your electricity from Ecotricity and it is wind generated you could tell a different story.

On the biomass issue, the BBC did a rather brief and misleading report on the Environment Agency's document. You really need to read it, not just the headline. It points out, very sensibly, that ploughing up permanent pasture to grow miscanthus or other biofuels and burning them in co-fired coal power stations without district heating or other ways of using the waste heat, might not save a lot of carbon dioxide emissions. Unfortunately the media have portrayed this as a blanket rubbishing of biofuels. The report is not that at all.

Please read http://www.environment-agency.gov.u...rbon_sink_or_carbon_sinner_summary_report.pdf before criticising the government on this one.

 

[Flyfisher]

Of course if buy your electricity from Ecotricity and it is wind generated you could tell a different story.

I don't think so. Only a tiny proportion of the electricity delivered to your home is generated from renewable sources.

According to http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=7286:
23% is from nuclear
34% is from coal
37% is from gas

. . . a total of 94%.

Under the currrent market arrangements you can choose who to pay your money to but you can't choose to receive only 'green' electricity.

 

[Jon Maine]

Of course if buy your electricity from Ecotricity and it is wind generated you could tell a different story.

No green power companies electricity used here can be classed as carbon free unless it is generated on site though. A ruling by Defra 2008/2009 onwards.

So my plan to say I am carbon neutral is not allowed to hold water anymore.

 

[biffvernon]

Ecotricity really is different because they are both generator and supplier and the profits they make in the retail business is spent on building more windfarms. (And since I happen to live very close to their bigggest windfarm the electrons I get probably are mostly pushed along by the wind.)

And here's another illustration of the Age of Stupid. You get extra Airmiles if you buy energy saving lightbulbs from Tescopoly.

more

 

[Jon Maine]

Says it all really. :roll:

 

[Feltwell]

I happen to know of a certain major supermarket chain that has recently launched a range of "energy saving" electrical products (although you could very easily argue that they are not).

These are made in China - as they left it too late when they finalised the range they had to airfreight them in to meet the launch date. :roll:

 

[Flyfisher]

Well, fortunately, the government seems to have solved the CO2 problem associated with coal-burning power stations, so we can soon look forward to a revival of the UK coal mining industry and abundant 'green' electricity from our huge reserves of the black stuff.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8014295.stm

Eco-madness? Perhaps, but it was politically inevitable.

 

[DaveBrigg]

I saved over a ton of CO2 emissions last week by not going to the Maldives for Easter Next week we're going to do the same by not going to Brazil.

 

[biffvernon]

I happen to know of a certain major supermarket chain...

Come along, don't be shy. Name names.