Make Coal History Says PM Boris Johnson After UN Climate Report (bbc.com) 247
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Coal needs to be consigned to history to limit global warming, says PM Boris Johnson, describing a UN report on climate change as "sobering." He said the world must shift to clean energy and provide finance to help countries at risk from changing climates. The landmark study found it was "unequivocal" that human activity was responsible for global warming.
Green campaigners said the UK must halt planned new fossil fuel projects. Despite the call to end the use of coal, the UK is considering plans for a new coking coal mine in Cumbria, as well as proposals to tap a new oil field near Shetland. Mr Johnson said: "Today's report makes for sobering reading, and it is clear that the next decade is going to be pivotal to securing the future of our planet. We know what must be done to limit global warming -- consign coal to history and shift to clean energy sources, protect nature and provide climate finance for countries on the frontline."
The UK government, which has adopted a 2035 deadline for a 78% emissions cut, is due to publish its strategy on cutting UK emissions to zero overall by 2050 this autumn. Net zero means cutting carbon emissions as far as possible then balancing out any remaining releases, for example by tree planting. "The UK is leading the way, decarbonizing our economy faster than any country in the G20 over the last two decades," the prime minister said. "I hope today's IPCC report will be a wake-up call for the world to take action now, before we meet in Glasgow in November for the critical COP26 summit." "The UK has already drastically reduced the use of coal, with consumption falling from 61 million tons in 2013 to eight million tonnes last year," notes the BBC. "But the country remains dependent on other fossil fuels such as natural gas, which provides most home heating and about 40% of electricity."
Green campaigners said the UK must halt planned new fossil fuel projects. Despite the call to end the use of coal, the UK is considering plans for a new coking coal mine in Cumbria, as well as proposals to tap a new oil field near Shetland. Mr Johnson said: "Today's report makes for sobering reading, and it is clear that the next decade is going to be pivotal to securing the future of our planet. We know what must be done to limit global warming -- consign coal to history and shift to clean energy sources, protect nature and provide climate finance for countries on the frontline."
The UK government, which has adopted a 2035 deadline for a 78% emissions cut, is due to publish its strategy on cutting UK emissions to zero overall by 2050 this autumn. Net zero means cutting carbon emissions as far as possible then balancing out any remaining releases, for example by tree planting. "The UK is leading the way, decarbonizing our economy faster than any country in the G20 over the last two decades," the prime minister said. "I hope today's IPCC report will be a wake-up call for the world to take action now, before we meet in Glasgow in November for the critical COP26 summit." "The UK has already drastically reduced the use of coal, with consumption falling from 61 million tons in 2013 to eight million tonnes last year," notes the BBC. "But the country remains dependent on other fossil fuels such as natural gas, which provides most home heating and about 40% of electricity."
oh please enough of the distractions (Score:2, Redundant)
let's not let them try and make natural gas, petrol or gassification sound like a feasible substitutes
Re:oh please enough of the distractions (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but nuclear is definitely feasible, and reasonable.
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No, but nuclear is definitely feasible, and reasonable.
Feasible and reasonable? LOL
Have you seen the latest news about the Vogtle nuclear power plant [wsj.com] Southern Co. has been building?
When Georgia approved the Vogtle expansions, the Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors were suppose to be in operation in 2016 and 2017, respectively, and cost $14 billion.
Now they're saying they won't be in operation until 2022 and 2023, and will cost an extra $2 billion more than the last time they raised cost estimates. Now it's going to cost at least $27 billion, or nearly 2x what the original
Re:oh please enough of the distractions (Score:5, Informative)
There's over 400 civil nuclear power reactors in the world, why bring these up? Maybe it's because if you brought up a more representative sample of nuclear power your case against nuclear power would not be so strong.
How about Palo Verde? That's a 4 GWe power plant that cost 12 billion dollars, has a capacity factor over 80%, and it is operating in a desert.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I mention that power plant because idiots also keep bringing up how nuclear power plants in Europe had to lower output because of a drought or heatwave. The Arizona desert is a permanent heatwave, and a permanent shortage of water. If that construction cost seems high to you then consider that it is in a desert.
We are going to see more 3rd generation nuclear power reactors built all over the world, and that includes the UK, USA, Japan, Germany, and France. I don't care what Germany says now about their plans to close all of their nuclear power plants. Germany will need nuclear power or become dependent on other nations with nuclear power.
Compare Palo Verde to Ivanpah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
At Ivanpah is a solar power facility rated at about 400 MWe, cost over 2 billion dollars to build, and has a capacity factor of about 25%. It would take about 30 Ivanpahs to equal 1 Palo Verde in annual energy output. That would be 5 times the cost.
Both would need some energy storage to match supply to demand over the days and seasons. Which would need more?
Why Palo Verde compared to Ivanpah? I don't know, they just came to mind. Find other examples if you like, just don't cherry pick the most expensive construction project on the planet and call that representative of an entire industry.
Offshore wind projects are another favorite of the anti-nuclear crowd. The same people that like to point to nuclear power having a problem with droughts. If we can run wires to the sea for offshore wind power then we can run wires to the sea shore where a nuclear power plant can be placed so it never runs out of water. The sea will not run dry. The wind might not blow though. With access to the sea there will not be a shortage of fuel for nuclear reactors either. The sea isn't an ideal source for uranium as it would be quite energy intensive to get the uranium out but the energy produced will be more than enough to make up for it. Should all other options fail then the sea is an effectively infinite heat sink and uranium source.
Nuclear power is far more reasonable and feasible than solar and wind. That is why the UK, USA, and many many other nations will be building more nuclear power plants.
Re: oh please enough of the distractions (Score:2)
The Palo Verde nuclear plant has already tried to get permits to use groundwater too.
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From your "representative" link (emphasis added):
The Palo Verde Generating Station is located in the Arizona desert, and is the only large nuclear power plant in the world that is not located near a large body of water. The power plant evaporates the water from the treated sewage from several nearby cities and towns to provide the cooling of the steam that it produces. . . .
Up to 26 billion US gallons (~100,000,000 m) of treated water are evaporated each year.[12][13] This water represents about 25% of the annual overdraft of the Arizona Department of Water Resources Phoenix Active Management Area. . . .
The owners applied for a construction permit for two additional units in the late 1970s. These units were cancelled for economic-risk reasons before the permits were issued.
Re:oh please enough of the distractions (Score:4, Interesting)
And you don't think that in that 45 years since Palo Verde was constructed, that we might have learned a few things that could improve an already outstanding piece of infrastructure? Or techniques that can make newer reactor designs far more safe? Like, not designing the thing on a drafting board with pencils and a slide rule?
An argument against building new reactors is an argument for continuing to use 45+ year old reactors for longer, with less safety margin. We aren't going to be able to conserve our way to a nuclear-free grid, so we're going to have to build something. Let's figure out a mix of the right zero-carbon energy generation and build that, and that will include nuclear fission until we crack commercial fusion.
Re: oh please enough of the distractions (Score:2)
The people building them have changed, we're simply not as good. Lazy, immoral and spoiled for choice for better work.
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Everything has it's tradeoffs. At least the nuclear plant isn't spewing carbon and sulfur into the air as a course of normal operation, and still delivers energy in calm cloudy weather.
Solar and wind are great - when I move next year I have plans to have solar on the roof shortly after I take occupancy of the home. But I also know there are nameplate capacity concerns. We need a mix of generation in order to have a stable grid, and the direct high capacity baseload replacement for coal is nuclear.
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Let me ask you this question: how do you make a budget for a thing that's never been built before? It's easy to budget for building an office building or a manufacturing plant because all the furniture and equipment is commercially available. Virtually every single nuclear plant in commercial operation is a unique design.
Budgets are usually formed by looking at past work and refining it for accuracy for the next thing you are doing. If nobody has built a nuclear reactor besides a contractor for the Unite
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Nuclear by itself doesn't work. You need both nuclear and natural gas.
Nuclear is strictly a base load supply - capacity cannot be ramped up instantly - it takes hours to ramp up and reduce power. Luckily consumption is fairly regular and predictable so you can ramp up and down based on historical consumption patterns.
However, since there's insufficient storage capacity, there will always be a shortfall so alternative fuel power is required, usually made up with natural gas, which is a source that can be bro
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Do note that this is merely a design decision, and not a law of nature. Nuclear submarines can and do ramp up power quickly. And they can ramp back down just about as quickly when whatever emergency made them ramp up is over....
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Yeah, but nuclear submarines don't exactly use the same kind of reactor designs we want to build for commercial generation. They typically use highly-enriched uranium fuel, and the US and UK nuclear submarines actually use weapons-grade HEU. So yeah, they can adjust output a lot faster, at the cost of a far more expensive fuel from both a monetary cost, and the cost of anti-proliferation concerns.
When your HEU fuel bundles are being used on an underwater boat designed to not be found that also probably ha
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The reason that nuclear power plants are designed that way is at least in part economic: running a nuclear plant at low capacity doesn't actually save on costs. Yes, reactors "burn up" fuel but it's not a major contribution to costs. When you have a 9 billion dollar plant sitting idle, the cost just to service your debt kills you. That's not an issue in a submarine because you're not relying on selling the power to justify its existence.
Really the key to making nuclear economically viable is reducing the
Re:oh please enough of the distractions (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear by itself doesn't work. You need both nuclear and natural gas.
Nuclear is strictly a base load supply - capacity cannot be ramped up instantly - it takes hours to ramp up and reduce power.
Or every nuclear plant will have an adjacent datacenter mining cryptocurrencies... They just run at estimated load + margin and adjust the mining load to consume excess margin.
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The petrochemicals aspect will insure it's longevity. And last I looked my backup emergency generator isn't some Fallout nuclear contraption.
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Natural gas is better than coal in every way.
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For sake of argument, Coal doesn't release Methane at every step of the way from extraction to burn.
Natural Gas is no panacea, folks.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissio... [epa.gov]
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Coal releases mercury into the atmosphere. That is much worse than methane.
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Coal releases mercury into the atmosphere. That is much worse than methane.
As well as radioactivity, and God's gift to man, fly ash, slurry dams that breach, highwalls and mountaintopping that fills in valleys with the non-coal rocks they stripped, and one of my favorites, orangewater - acid runoff.
People trying to claim that coal is better than natgas need to take a tour of West Virginia, or north central PA. Utter devastation, ruining land for any other use, while the natgas extractors have actually rebuilt many of the back roads, and left some enlarged pipelines planted mos
Re:oh please enough of the distractions (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, I am zooming by on an interstate highway in my comfortable ICE car, so my other complaint is probably more of a NIMBY issue.
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I'm still irritated by the wind farm that destroyed a beautiful area in the Arbuckle mountains of Oklahoma. They went through and torched all the existing plants, then built the giant turbines all over the ridges. They closed the scenic overlook (last I checked), but it isn't as scenic anymore. Of course, I am zooming by on an interstate highway in my comfortable ICE car, so my other complaint is probably more of a NIMBY issue.
Sounds like you had some bad construction philosophy in your area. Ours are nestled among the trees on the mountaintops. There are definitely roads and power lines, but the environmental impact has been pretty low.
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Re:oh please enough of the distractions (Score:5, Interesting)
Coal doesn't release Methane at every step of the way from extraction to burn.
Yes it does.
Coal mines emit more methane that oil and gas sector [carbonbrief.org]
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Re:oh please enough of the distractions (Score:5, Informative)
Actually in Sweden there is a project to make steel without coal. Soon you can buy green steel from Sweden.
https://www.h2greensteel.com/g... [h2greensteel.com]
Sweden continues to be #1 in ranking of the one country who fight climate change the most and is leading the development to a better world.
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That is interesting to know.
Re: oh please enough of the distractions (Score:4, Insightful)
Just stop buying from China&co and start making steel without coal, problem solved. Lack of competetiveness with coke made steel is only a problem if you allow coke based steel on the market.
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Natural gas is vastly cleaner than coal. It absolutely is a feasible substitute.
Re:oh please enough of the distractions (Score:4, Interesting)
It's amusing that we have all these discussions, seemingly without realizing that the real issue is that humans have simply made themselves more numerous than the earth is capable of handling.
That, sir, is a load of dingo's kidneys. Without writing a long screed, the fact is that we are behaving atrociously inefficiently. The earth can most likely support multiples of our current population if we act with consideration for our environment. That means, for example, restorative agriculture instead of extractive. It means aggressive recycling even when it is not profitable. It means conservation through improvements of efficiency, e.g. insulation, reducing or eliminating commutes, etc.
The key is not having tiny nuclear reactors in our cars, or riding horses instead (horses are themselves good at emitting methane)
Right, we need to dramatically change the way we operate.
Humans have shown themselves of being incapable of building safe nuclear power as well.
No arguments here.
The key is to diminish the largest and dirtiest emitters (coal is filthy on so many fronts) come up with safe alternatives and transition fuels, and to do controlled sequestering.
All agreed.
And then there is the elephant in the room. The huge number of humans.
No. Absolutely not. It doesn't matter if you have five or ten or fifteen billion humans, if the method of agriculture practiced actually builds soil and sequesters carbon then feeding them won't cause any harm. If the method of transporting them is offset with something that cleans more pollution than it produces, then it won't cause any harm. And so on, and so forth. We have the technology to permit many more humans to exist on this planet, but we are currently (As a species) using the technology to maximize profit instead.
If you want to argue that having too many humans makes it inevitable that we will fall into these patterns, well, that might be true. But if you want to argue that the earth is incapable of supporting this many humans who are cooperating and living with concern for their life support system (the ecosystem which supports them) then there is frankly no scientific basis for that belief. We can produce more crops in less area using less water, producing more actual nutrition, but it will take more human labor at this juncture. And our society is set up not to put humans where they need to be for us all to succeed, but instead where a few need to be to succeed beyond all sensibility. We are building dynasties when we need to be building a future for all.
retrofit vehicles (Score:2)
Retrofitting vehicles for electric or hydrogen would speed the transition.
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Retrofitting vehicles for electric or hydrogen would speed the transition.
So would replacing gas hot water tanks and burners with electric ones in people's houses.
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Once the accuracy of smart meters [smartgridawareness.org] is dealt with.
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Re: retrofit vehicles (Score:2)
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Ah, I see you don't live in Manchester.
https://www.manchestereveningn... [manchester...news.co.uk]
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Retrofitting vehicles for electric or hydrogen would speed the transition.
So would replacing gas hot water tanks and burners with electric ones in people's houses.
Good luck getting all the extra electricity down the network. You might manage it if you stick to domestic only, but the amount of energy needed to convert industry to all-electric would melt the current grid. I think it would be in the region of double the capacity.
There are no easy solutions when you leave everything to this late in the day.
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No try again with an induction hob. The idea of having a naked flame in your house that destroys air quality for the purpose of cooking is ridiculous.
Professionals use gas because they are inverted snobs stuck in their ways, not because it is objectively better.
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Retrofitting vehicles for electric or hydrogen would speed the transition.
Is there any way to do that which isn't more expensive than buying a new car? The solutions some people come up with are so impractical.
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I would rather convert my current car than buy a new one. I dislike new cars in general - gasoline, diesel or electric.
When the government starts considering banning gasoline powered cars the battery technology will probably be good enough that I will have a decent range from my not-very-aerodynamic car converted to electric.
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No, it would not. You couldn't just do it tomorrow, there's nobody to make the equipment or do the conversions. And if you employed the people to do those things you'd just be taking them away from other industries. Meanwhile people will replace their cars with new ones within a decade anyway, so we can focus on the generation side which is where most of the pollution is anyway. And it actually makes petroleum fuels less polluting to increase renewables, because it takes a lot of energy to make them and tha
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You and that synthesized hydrocarbons nonsense. So you’re going to burn energy to make fuel? How does that even work? You gained nothing and lost energy in the process.
cute but tiny place doesn't matter (Score:2, Informative)
the carbon output of the UK is next to nothing, less than 0.4 gigatons. Doesn't matter what they do for Earth's climate. Meanwhile, the top five emitters put out over 20 GT
https://www.ucsusa.org/resourc... [ucsusa.org]
Re:cute but tiny place doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
The earth is just a collection of tiny places. There is no single entity, person, or country who can stop AGW by themselves.
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Wrong, when talking about carbon emission the Earth is a collection of five huge places and a bunch of tiny places. If the big pigs stopped emitting the Earth's natural processes could sink the rest.
Re: cute but tiny place doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
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(presumably the continents of Asia, Europe, Nth America, Sth America, Africa where the majority of the world's population live)
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Or maybe they add something like Russia and the EU ? If so, I'm somewhat doubtful about the former, and taking the latter as a unified whole seems misguided to me.
Re:cute but tiny place doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
The average Brit produces three times more CO2 than the average Indian. So who is the pig?
No one should be excused just because they live in a small country. The number that matters is the per capita emissions.
Should left-handed people be excused because right-handers cause 90% of global warming? That is idiotic.
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The birth rate in India is 2.2 BPW, which is barely above ZPG.
List of countries by total fertility rate [wikipedia.org]
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Exactly. Drop that to 0.8ppw for three decades if you're serious about this shit.
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Mass immigration from where? I'm proposing this happens globally.
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Only China made efforts about this, with their one child policy. You should thank them. Meanwhile, I bet your country is still favoring birth with stuff such as subsidies to families, free education, parental leaves, or a combination of them.
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I have no children so my per-capita emissions are an order of magnitude less than the average Indian, with their constant breeding.
Wrong. Your per-capita emissions are still high.
Which part of per capita don't your understand? We are not talking about per family emissions.
And anyways every born person has as much of a moral right to live (and pollute) as you do. Just because some Indian is born in a country of over 1 billion and you are born in a small country doesn't give you anymore right to pollute.
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Having children is a choice, just like owning a car or going on a foreign holiday.
It is. But being born isn't.
By your logic, continuing to live is choice also. You could kill yourself to reduce CO2 emissions. (and by the way, I am not seriously suggesting that).
My logic is that every living person has the same right to live. Just because someone has 10 siblings he shouldn't get only 1/10th the pollution allowance that you do.
I'm polluting less than the people creating new polluters.
You are not polluting less than them. Your household might be polluting less than theirs. That's different.
Don't fucking tell me my per-capita emissions are high when they're lower than every miserable shitty breeder on the fucking planet.
I doubt it's true not matter how you look at it. There are
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That is false equivocation.
No, it's not.
there certainly are ones who have much greater impacts than others.
You just attacked a strawman, attacking a point which I never claimed. You fail at logic.
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That is false equivocation. There may be no single country that can stop AGW by themselves, but there certainly are ones who have much greater impacts than others.
Yup, but these countries are typically much more populated. What is your point? That countries with low population should have a free pass at emitting CO2 while big countries such as the USA and China should try to reduce their emissions?
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The classic "do nothing" argument. It works at every level.
Small country: The big guys aren't doing anything, it's pointless us making the effort!
Large country: The other big guys aren't doing anything, it's pointless us making the effort!
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To quote a British comedy skit; "The Four Stage Strategy"
Stage 1: We say "Nothing is going to happen."
Stage 2: We say "Something may be going to happen, but we should do nothing about it."
Stage 3: We say "Maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we CAN do."
Stage 4: We say "Maybe there's something we could have done, but it's too late now."
=Smidge=
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Yeh, From the brilliant Yes Prime Minister, about the British Foreign office.
Another relevant great line from that show was “Prime-minister, The Foreign office isnt there to do things, they are there to explain why things cant be done”
Wigan Pier (Score:2)
After reading The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell; I have formed serious doubts that coal use can ever be reduced without assistance from nuclear power.
Re: Wigan Pier (Score:2)
Re: Wigan Pier (Score:3)
He didn't write about nuclear power. He did write about the way that the socialist system is so linked to coal that it's practically inseparable. It's my conclusion that the easiest way to remove coal is with nuclear... otherwise the option is to remove socialism as it currently exists.
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Well I havent read that particular work by Orwell but I would like to point out that at least in the US it's the Left that wants to do away with coal and conservatives that want to keep it as a power source so maybe that book doesnt apply to modern day.
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Coal mining is mostly dead in the UK, has been for decades. Thatcher destroyed it. Socialists these days are more interested in green jobs. Green New Deal and that sort of thing.
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Hot air (Score:4, Interesting)
Johnson loves a catchphrase. Sadly, that's all it ever amounts to.
It's just hot air and the current government of the United Kingdom is incapable of facing the scale of the challenge,
Our democracy is run by oligarchs, a shady network of backroom deals, lobbying and media control.
It is a government of extreme short-termism, a "chumocracy", where lucrative contracts are handed out with just the minimum amount of "cover", in terms of contract bidding. The chums always get the contracts.
Johnson was propped into place because he was "popular" with enough of the country to allow a wholesale plunder of the riches this country has, as he attempts to "charm" the nation. The man is a cunning "buffoon" who has only one priority - himself.
He has just about squeaked through for now, friends in high places, but his days are numbered.
I cannot see this country or the world reaching any goals at all in the next decade, the political will is no longer there.
If the political will was actually there, then the following would happen:
* HS2 (High speed rail) would be scrapped and whatever was left of the original budget, would be used to upgrade the existing rail network, providing more track and stations and preventing further destruction of the environment
* The huge plan for more roads would be scrapped and that money earmarked to provide the infrastructure required for electric vehicles - charging points!
* A car scrappage scheme would be devised, where people with Diesel or Petrol vehicles could trade in their cars for electric vehicles (this was done back in 2008 if I recall, to save the motor industry - although it was to scrap old diesel/petrol vehicles for new, with £2000 offered)
* Former industrial areas to be revitalised, whilst we still have the manufacturing skills in older people, with a goal toward producing green energy alternatives, like wind, solar and tidal power - training up younger people to give them careers. The UK has an abundance of wind and tidal energy waiting to be tapped.
* Flood defences, from large schemes to small. The smaller schemes could provide incentives for people to remove paved driveways and back gardens - it is well known that we have created a perfect environment for flooding in our towns and cities, due to water runoff. The larger schemes would be to provide areas of woods and wetlands, working with farmers, identifying the natural water courses and restoring them to their natural purpose - holding water.
* Rapidly weaning the country of natural Gas for heating, again, incentives for homes to replace gas boilers with electric ones, the provisor being the energy comes from renewables.
How do we pay for this? Given we have no choice to go ahead with these and many other schemes, it is going to have to be higher taxes, so, a key task is:
* Overhaul the tax system so that those with the most means, pay the most - right now, it is a joke. The wealthy have numerous ways to tuck away profits to avoid taxes.
Will any of this happen this decade?
Given that the next general election isn't until 2024 and that, right now, the opposition is in complete disarray, hell, no.
Eventually it will be people power that galvanises the country into action - mass civil disobedience, when it becomes clear just how much shit we are all in, by which time... too late.
And that's just the country I live in.
If you consider the worlds biggest polluters, such as China, do you really think they'll be able to cut their emissions by 50% in ten years?
It would cripple their economy. Right now, they are building MORE coal plants.
Then we have rising developing nations, such as India - they are well on their way with huge fossil fuel based infrastructure. Are wealthy nations going to be able to tell them "No, you can't have those"? - what alternatives will they provide? Will they cough up the money required to assist developing nations, when their own coffers will be depleted trying to fix their own problems?
I'm hugely pessimistic about the future, Cop26 is just going to be a blowhard fest - lots of promises made, lots of high fives and backslapping for the cameras, lots of gesture politics ... followed by no action, just like before.
Re:Hot air (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately that's pretty optimistic. When the waterfront homes start getting engulfed, we will see a sudden surge in interest for a taxpayer funded climate insurance scheme 'to share the cost of the climate challenge', taxpayer funded coastal protection infrastructure to preserve 'rare and threatened habitats', and schemes such as taxpayers purchasing coastal properties to 'provide critical buffer zones from rising oceans'. We'll probably even see calls for foreign aid payments to the countries with the tropical islands they own.
And if all of that doesn't quite work, the fed will just print a few more trillion to makes their losses whole.
I wish I was being sarcastic but this is pretty much how the banking crisis went down.
Hypocrite (Score:4, Insightful)
Boris Johnson has no shame.
He probably sold it.
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I very much doubt that the current Tory government is at all serious about this.
The really big issue is that UK housing stock is crap. So many poorly insulated, inefficient houses. Brand new ones being built today are of extremely low quality, and older ones cost a fortune to upgrade. They are tiny too, smaller than those in the EU and even smaller than Japanese homes.
To meet the UK's climate goals millions of gas burning boilers will need to be replaced. I think they are called furnaces in the US. Anyway,
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Big problem: I live in the UK and my gas and electricity bills are around the same size. The problem is that the price per KW/h for electricity is four times what the price for gas is.
Upshot? If I get rid of our gas boiler, our energy bill goes up by a factor of five.
Until this disparity can be dealt with, I foresee a lot of resistance to changing to electric only.
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Heat pumps are much more efficient than gas. 400% efficiency is quite common for ground source heat pumps, for example.
If your house had a proper heating/cooling system you could also save a lot of money by using off-peak electricity overnight. Heat or cool the house by an extra couple of degrees at night and insulation will make it last all day.
I did get a quote for a heat pump on my mum's house, estimated cost to run it was about £5/year more than gas heating. That should be more than offset b
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You are not going to have many ground source heat pumps in the UK - the population density makes them inappropriate - not enough land close to each dwelling.
AIr source heat pumps, which I sell wholesale, are typically 350% efficient. However, I live in London, and at domestic prices, price per kW as electricity is FIVE TIMES the price per kW for gas here.
The gas network has massive rese
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Bore holes for ground source heat pumps are only 20cm in diameter. The main issue is that the boring machine needs to access the site.
The big advantage with bore holes is that they have excellent efficiency all year round, as at 100m down the temperature is fairly constant.
The UK definitely needs air conditioning now, at least in the south.
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Ah, yes. (Score:2)
Although magically this doesn't include new exploitation of the North Sea or new coalmines in the UK. Only in areas where the PM doesn't make a profit.
Fact: Coal is an oil substitute (Score:2)
Probably ... (Score:2)
This is just another empty promise, he does that constantly, from brexit, to COVID, hospitals, nurses pay, northern power house.
General election: 43 lies, gaffes and scandals that make Boris Johnson unfit to rule [mirror.co.uk]
60 lies of Boris Johnson: The Tory leader's curious relationship with the truth [mirror.co.uk]
Boris Johnson is a shameless pathological liar who will let you down [mirror.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
yeah but UK carbon output so tiny their actions will have no effect whatsoever. Meanwhile, the five big emitters are putting out more than fifty times the carbon of UK.
Re: How convinient (Score:2)
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If we don't do anything you will say "yeah but the Europeans aren't doing anything, reducing our output will have no effect whatsoever."
Re:How convinient (Score:4, Insightful)
If the gulf stream stops, there is going to be a lot worse impact than just the UK. The possibility of it happening is scary as shit, and a simple reminder that if we fuck things up beyond a certain point then survival even in a relatively short time frame (30-50 years) will be a huge challenge.
We will live in interesting times true to the Persian curse.
Yep, and 3rd gen reactors (Re:Nuclear or GTFO) (Score:3, Informative)
We cannot get there fast enough with renewables.
Agreed. A person hired by the UK government to study this, Sir David JC MacKay, made it quite clear the UK will not get to zero carbon without some nuclear power.
He wrote a book: http://www.withouthotair.com/C... [withouthotair.com]
He did a TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/davi... [ted.com]
He had an interview shortly before his death where he called powering the UK with only renewable energy an "appalling delusion": https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
If we are going to get serious, that starts with clean, safe Gen 4 reactors.
We are seeing 4th generation nuclear fission reactors under development but it will
Re: Yep, and 3rd gen reactors (Re:Nuclear or GTFO) (Score:2)
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Re: Nuclear or GTFO (Score:2)
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We cannot get there fast enough with renewables. If we are going to get serious, that starts with clean, safe Gen 4 reactors.
Whether we can get there fast enough with renewables is still very much an open question, but it takes longer and costs more to build nukes than renewables of the same output, so if we can't get there with renewables then we can't get there at all.
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What paywall-free British news service(s) would you recommend?
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Pretty much none of them.
Far Far better to look at news from other countries to see how we are viewed from places without an UK agenda , Or independent news.
If you find this pill hard to swallow, its your choice to
opt-in to a propaganda service. But propaganda is the only language brits understand. Thats why we elected a racist bigoted government that has control of the media, our news outlets and silences free speech. It wants to pass a racist bill that would make protesting a criminal offence with up to 1
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I generally recommend that my fellow USians do the same.
Our own mass media have degenerated into a propaganda machine for demonic leftists.
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The lying PM even had the audacity to say that thatcher was ahead of her time by closing those mines - they are suggesting she had a green agenda which is a lie. Utter bullshit - most of our iron ore and coal now imported from China. Of course we dont count the emissions. For China to do its part they would need to deny us those things. We ARE responsible pointing fingers and waving dicks around gets us no-where. Since Brexshit - our government is signing trade deals with countries on the opposite side of