Why we should think....Part 2

[Nemesis]

That neatly illustrates what the greens want, to take us far back into the past (financially), about which so much romantic twaddle is written. They want us all to have very little, and to (be able to) spend almost nothing on nonessentials. Live off the land (ie become subsistence farmers earning a pittance) using hand made goods (which are unaffordably expensive) etc. Abolish all those nasty pesticides so we get to harvest even less food, etc.

Sweeping assertion.

 

[NT]

Lime contains less embodied energy than cement, but as ever in life its not that simple.

Cement kilns have the nice habit of being able to burn all sorts of nasty substances safely, such as hazardous clinical waste, and not only use the energy to make cement but also incorporate the burnt ex-nasties into the cement. These materials would need to be burnt anyway for safety reasons, cement making just captures and uses the heat and material wastes.

Another plus of cement is it can be powered by used tyres, again with the burnt substances being incorporated into the cement. It is hard to convert tyres to power any other way. Or to do anything useful with the sheer quantity of the things.

Finally on a small personal scale, lime uses more energy than cement. How come? Lime currently costs more becuase of its lower production volume, meaning more business energy use per bag of product sold than with cement. (Money is energy) So even proselytizing lime isnt as clear cut as it might seem.


NT

 

[NT]

Learning, or re-learning, the arts and crafts of building with locally derived, sustainably produced building materials with a low embodied energy, will help.

Its no coincidence that such products usually cost more than mass produced. Its because they consume more energy per product.

Such policies are about wanting to take us back far into the past. They would impoverish people greatly. Poverty causes injustice, illness and death.


NT

 

[NT]

That neatly illustrates what the greens want, to take us far back into the past (financially), about which so much romantic twaddle is written. They want us all to have very little, and to (be able to) spend almost nothing on nonessentials. Live off the land (ie become subsistence farmers earning a pittance) using hand made goods (which are unaffordably expensive) etc. Abolish all those nasty pesticides so we get to harvest even less food, etc.

Sweeping assertion.

It is, but its also a valid one. The green party is the political driving force at risk of taking over and implementing green policies, and that is what their policies would achieve. That unfortunately is the reality of where 'going green' would take us. Its majority rule out there.


NT

 

[Nemesis]

'Greens' and the Green Party may not be the same thing at all.

 

[biffvernon]

NT, advocating cement over lime so that one can get rid of other trash has got to be a daft reason.. let's not produce the other rubbish in the first place. (Anyway, I expect a limekiln could make use of most of it.)

No, lime does not use more energy to make than cement. The lower firing temperature means that substantially less fuel is burnt. Money and energy are not quite the same thing. The price of a product is a function partly of supply and demand and also other factors since the market place is not perfect, in an Adam Smith sense.

Arty-crafty products often cost more than factory made equivalents because labour is expensive. They need not involve more energy and often use far less.

I'm not advocating going back to the past - that's impossible. It's about cherry-picking from all human experience to use the best methods and materials for the future. When it comes to fixing one brick on top of another, lime has lots of advantages over cement. I'm pretty keen on aerogels as an insulating material, but the building trade is a bit to stuck in it's old fashioned ways to adopt it. I also like solar pv, which is hardly a medieval invention.

We should cut back on lectrickery so long as it is coal generated, because it's production emits a lot of CO2. (We should cut back on wind generated electricity because it spoils Nemesis's view.)

 

[Nemesis]

We should look carefully at wind as I said in places of great landscape value.

At the monment, wind factories are being plonked wherever a landowner wants to make cash. That's the major factor in choice of siting.

It's not 'my' view as I have said before.

 

[Flyfisher]

Arty-crafty products often cost more than factory made equivalents because labour is expensive. They need not involve more energy and often use far less.

The product itself might require less direct energy input but the expensive labour is expensive (in the west) because the labour involved will have an energy-rich lifestyle.

Put bluntly, it uses less energy to make a pair of, say, trainers in a 'Chinese sweatshop' than in the UK because the UK worker is likely to enjoy a more energy-rich lifestyle than the sweatshop worker. This energy-rich lifestyle costs more, hence the labour cost is more.

Money = Energy = Money. Spend less and you'll be using (directly or indirectly) less energy. I've not yet found a scenario where this maxim doesn't work.

What often happens in practice, though, is that people buy the cheap trainers but still spend the money saved on something else, thereby still consuming their usual amount of energy. Only by spending less money can we reduce our 'energy footprint'.

 

[biffvernon]

The product itself might require less direct energy input

Yes that's what I'm talking about. And money is not the same as energy.

Meanwhile:

The European Union's goal of keeping the global temperature rise to 2C is unlikely to be met, a leading climate researcher has warned.

Professor Martin Parry told BBC News that millions, if not tens of millions, would be at increased risk to their lives from a rise above 2C (3.6F).

Professor Parry co-chairs the impacts working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The group's full 2007 report is being presented to scientists in London.

more

By the way, have you noticed the price of oil? $82.16, and will be looking to go higher now the fed cut rates by 0.5pts.

 

[Flyfisher]

Money equates to energy. Sure, you can think only of the embedded energy in a product if you wish, but that's ignoring the bigger picture - which is rather pointless, isn't it?

 

[DaveBrigg]

Money = Energy = Money. Spend less and you'll be using (directly or indirectly) less energy. I've not yet found a scenario where this maxim doesn't work.

Did someone mention going back to the past? I thought we'd nailed this old chestnut some time ago. Cost is simply based on supply and demand, with the proviso that products and services are not usually sold at a loss.

Example 1: I want a painting by Turner. It will cost at least £80 000. There is high demand, and a very limited supply. To tranfer it to my possession takes no energy at all. However, if I want my house painted inside and out this will take a team of decorators a couple of weeks, but cost a lot less than the canvas, because the supply of decorators in this area matches demand.

Example 2: B&Q reduce the cost of their patio furniture by 50% in September. Not because it is suddenly made with half the energy, but because demand has fallen.

One has only to look at Ebay to see items sold for a whole range of prices depending on how many people are bidding at the time. Having prostituted myself working in a burger chain as a student I can confirm that we charged what people were willing to pay, not what the item cost to produce. The aim was to maximise profit, rather than cover the cost of production.

 

[DaveBrigg]

Thanks for clearing up some of my confusion earlier.
Some facts about wind power:

• By 2010, the World Wind Energy Association expects 160GW of capacity to be installed worldwide, up from 73.9GW at the end of 2006, implying an anticipated net growth rate of more than 21% per year.
  Germany's Schleswig-Holstein province generates 36% of its power with wind turbines.
  India already has 3 times the wind energy production as the UK. Wind energy has boosted the economy and improved the prospects of local people. "With an aggregate wind power capacity of 540 MW, therefore, the Muppandal region has the distinction of having one of the largest concentrations of wind turbines at a single location. This renewable source of energy has brought about Rs.2800 worth of investment to the region, through private firms such as Vestas Wind Systems. Investment on this scale is unprecedented in the region, and presents a large employment opportunity for its youth. The developments in the region are an example of renewable energy having brought prosperity to an otherwise barren area."
  US Department of Energy studies have concluded wind harvested in just three of the fifty U.S. states could provide enough electricity to power the entire nation, and that offshore wind farms could do the same job.
  In 2004, wind energy cost one-fifth of what it did in the 1980s, and some expected that downward trend to continue as larger multi-megawatt turbines are mass-produced.
  The most comprehensive study to date found the potential of wind power on land and near-shore to be 72 TW (~54,000 Mtoe), or over five times the world's current energy use and 40 times the current electricity use. This is a conservative estimate, but would be very difficult to achieve.
  A study by the Irish national grid stated clearly that "Producing electricity from wind reduces the consumption of fossil fuels and therefore leads to emissions savings", and found reductions in CO2 emissions ranging from 0.59 tonnes of CO2 per MWh to 0.33 tonnes per MWh.
  A British Wind Energy Association report gives an average generation cost of onshore wind power of around 3.2 pence per kilowatt hour
  In USA wind power is within 1.5 cents per KWh of being the cheapest source of electricity.

To me, this suggests that:
Wind power is being embraced by developing countries. The scale is small now, but in India and China wind power is increasing at a faster rate than conventional sources.
The cost of wind power is comparable with coal, and is falling in real terms.
If wind power was phased in to replace obsolete power stations there would be no significant increase in cost to the consumer. Certainly not £100 000 per family!
It is economically viable, and practical for a region to produce more than a third of its electricity from wind.

I know that there are limitations with wind power, but issues with intermittancy are being overcome and better storage methods being developed. No-one is suggesting 100% wind power would be practical, but combined with other sources it could develop into the primary source of electricity.

 

[Flyfisher]

Cost is simply based on supply and demand, with the proviso that products and services are not usually sold at a loss.

Example 1: I want a painting by Turner. It will cost at least £80 000. There is high demand, and a very limited supply. To tranfer it to my possession takes no energy at all.

But you're being selective and not considering the whole picture ('scuse the pun') is it? Of course the Turner has little embedded energy itself but transferring it to your possession does indeed require an awful lot of energy. First, you have to earn £80,000; think of all the energy involved there. Then someone is going to take your £80,000 and spend it on a whole load of other stuff, all of which will involve the use of energy.

Now imagine that the Turner only cost £1000. Don't you agree that there would be a whole lot less energy involved in your purchase?

Money = Energy. Think of the big picture and it works.

 

[NT]

'Greens' and the Green Party may not be the same thing at all.

I dont understand why you like to state the obvious. The Soviet communist party wasnt communist either. And the people's republic of china isnt the people's.

In politics its not core principles that count, but who rules. As already said the green party is the political power base of the green movement, whether one considers them good representatives or not. So if political power turns green, it will be their version of it.


NT

 

[Nemesis]

I don't understand why you spend so much time posting long winded stuff which could be torn apart if I could be arsed, but there you go!

I have a biggie real world bit of saving a part of the planet to do. Much more useful. Nowt to do with the Green Party.

What you said is banal bollocks though, but don't worry about it.

x

 

[NT]

Biff:

> NT, advocating cement over lime so that one can get rid of other trash has got to be a daft reason.. let's not produce the other rubbish in the first place.

I didn't advocate cement over lime.

Are you honestly advocating not doing operations or post mortems so we don't produce clinical waste? Or not making tyres so we don't need to dispose of them? Or not burning issueful materials to produce energy instead of landfilling it? It sounds like a terrible recommendation to me if you are.


> (Anyway, I expect a limekiln could make use of most of it.)

Burning tyres produces a toxic smoke problem, but the materials are absorbed into the cement mix, react with other components and are rendered safe. Lime kilns dont work that way.


> No, lime does not use more energy to make than cement.

There is a lot more to any product than just the manufacturing step. This topic has been well coverd already, and one's enough for me today.


> Arty-crafty products often cost more than factory made equivalents because labour is expensive.

Thats right. And its expensive why? What does that money get spent on?


> I'm not advocating going back to the past - that's impossible.

How would we do anything but go back to the past with no operations and no tyres?


> It's about cherry-picking from all human experience to use the best methods and materials for the future.

Poeple seek to do that today, and will in future, and have in the past. So really the question is not that but rather you proposing your ideas to others when you dont understand the basics of their industries.


> When it comes to fixing one brick on top of another, lime has lots of advantages over cement.

I thought it had none on new builds. AIUI its PPs where its properties work around the issues of historic materials and methods.


> I'm pretty keen on aerogels as an insulating material, but the building trade is a bit to stuck in it's old fashioned ways to adopt it.

Are you saying that cost per performance doesnt matter? Surely most of what we have we've got precisely because we do routinely optimise return per cost.

I'd like to see aerogels used more, but only when the cost makes them worth it, so not today.


> I also like solar pv, which is hardly a medieval invention.

but is one of the least green energy sources going!

Must run


NT

 

[NT]

Money equates to energy. Sure, you can think only of the embedded energy in a product if you wish, but that's ignoring the bigger picture - which is rather pointless, isn't it?

Well quite.

It would be a nice world if that were the energy input into products, ie:
raw materials were mined with no energy
raw materials were processed with no energy
raw materials were transported with no energy
production factories constructed themselves with no energy or human input out of free materials
production machinery constructed and installed itself with no energy, human input, and using only free materials
all the other activites of any production company didnt occur
transport to wholesalers, shops and end users didnt occur
wholesalers, shops and other trade forums didnt exist and werent needed
Packaging either didnt exist and wasnt needed, or else constructed itself without machinery or materials (the emperor's box?)
Marketing and advertising didnt exist
Products levitated themselves from china to here

and no energy-consuming humans were involved in any of the above at any stage!


But back in the real world... there is rather more energy input into every product than just the factory electricity bill!!


NT

 

[ian]

Finally on a small personal scale, lime uses more energy than cement. How come? Lime currently costs more becuase of its lower production volume, meaning more business energy use per bag of product sold than with cement. (Money is energy) So even proselytizing lime isnt as clear cut as it might seem.

Why are oil companies not considered more green? They use tonnes of hydrated lime every day in each well they are drilling. Its use to conrol ph levels in the drilling fluid and prevent corrosion. They also use cement to seal up parts of the well bore, but not nearly as much.

 

[biffvernon]

Wow, there is just soooo much rubbish being written. I love the idea that money = energy. We could increase the amount of energy just by increasing the money supply - printing banknotes, allowing banks to increase lending. There would be no incentive to invest in the energy industry because the price of energy would always keep in step with inflation. Shame about the laws of physics. The idea that the health service comes to a halt if clinical waste cannot be burnt in cement kilns is almost as bizarre.

How about a moratorium on complete crap?

 

[Nemesis]

Thankfully, the wind being generated here is possibly not helping create more greenhouse gases.