Global Warming

[chrisp65]

We’ve looked in to the alternatives to a gas boiler.

We don’t have the upfront money for an arrray of PV that could completely replace the need for a gas boiler. We also don’t have the money to install a ground source heat pump of sufficient capacity to replace the gas boiler.

We can buy and install an electric boiler. But with running costs currently about quadruple the costs of a gas boiler, I can’t help feeling there’s a lot of people out there that might just be in denial about the costs of instant hot water and a snug house all year round. An electric boiler in a fairly average domestic setting requires an electrical supply upgrade as well, and i guess you’d also need an upgrade of some cabling if you switch to an electric cooker and hob. All starts getting a bit pricey.

Legislation means gas boilers only have a few years left as an option. 

Perhaps we should be accelerating and expanding on the insulation and energy efficiency initiatives. Using dramatically less energy, rather than switching energy sources.

 

[HanoiVillan]

43 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

We’ve looked in to the alternatives to a gas boiler.

We don’t have the upfront money for an arrray of PV that could completely replace the need for a gas boiler. We also don’t have the money to install a ground source heat pump of sufficient capacity to replace the gas boiler.

We can buy and install an electric boiler. But with running costs currently about quadruple the costs of a gas boiler, I can’t help feeling there’s a lot of people out there that might just be in denial about the costs of instant hot water and a snug house all year round. An electric boiler in a fairly average domestic setting requires an electrical supply upgrade as well, and i guess you’d also need an upgrade of some cabling if you switch to an electric cooker and hob. All starts getting a bit pricey.

Legislation means gas boilers only have a few years left as an option. 

Perhaps we should be accelerating and expanding on the insulation and energy efficiency initiatives. Using dramatically less energy, rather than switching energy sources.

 

It's a massive problem (and to be fair, the article does a good job of explaining some of the challenges). Governments have tried various approaches to incentivise switching, but as you say an electric boiler is a hassle and doesn't heat the house as much as a gas boiler, and people just don't want to think about this stuff in the first place. There's (clearly) a huge lack of education and understanding about the issues, and I absolutely include myself in that.

[Tegis]

3 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

ground source heat pump

How is the market in the UK for "Air-to-water heat pumps"? It's what I use for all heating and hot water and I reckon it's a roughly 8 grand investment over here if you have a hot water based radiator installation already.

[villakram]

Gas is incredibly clean in comparison to most other energy sources and incredibly abundant. Taking CO2 emissions to zero is a silly notion and some middle ground needs to be taken. 

It would be nice if it started with the CO2 generation directly related to the most wealthy who can afford to not use the most economical energy generation mechanism, rather than the every(wo)man who generates a pittance of CO2 in comparison.

Get rid of coal and then look to oil and all that precious plastic. Gas burning will be needed as a backup to unreliable solar and wind at a minimum.

 

[chrisp65]

Just now, Tegis said:

How is the market in the UK for "Air-to-water heat pumps"? It's what I use for all heating and hot water and I reckon it's a roughly 8 grand investment over here if you have a hot water based radiator installation already.

The market is tiny.

But I’m seeing more adverts and more industry related spam posts about them.

Haven’t really looked at them in a very long time. Ground source was obviously head and shoulders better several years ago and I’m not aware of any great leaps in tech since then.

You’re certainly not going to use one in the UK to heat a typical home in winter. It’s another one that really needs the house to be super insulated in the first place and we don’t appear to have any real appetite to do that. High end new builds, yes they could work there. But as a contribution to the overall problem, installation in high end new builds isn’t going to make much impact.

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, villakram said:

Get rid of coal.

That was going quite well until Trump and Schwarzman decided they could still make a lot of money from it. It'll be interesting to see if there's more movement now.

 

[sidcow]

I just came on to post this video, I was actually thinking about starting a new topic about electric cars, but this thread is probably as relevant. 

I just thought this was a brilliant video and it also answers some of the questions @villakram raised in the US politics thread last week.

I fully recommend you subscribe to Fully Charged if you have an interest in this.  They mainly talk about electric cars but branch off into all sorts of connected areas especially renewable energy generation and powering homes. 

Anyway, here is the video.  

 

[villakram]

57 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

That was going quite well until Trump and Schwarzman decided they could still make a lot of money from it. It'll be interesting to see if there's more movement now.

 

Trump did a lot of talking, but coal productivity fell as it became too expensive when compared to abundant and cheap gas. As a result, US CO2 production fell under Trump. There are long term trends at play that one can do no more than shout at. That's real environmental progress that should be talked up, yet the blind anti-fossil fuels crowd have some sort of weird desire to take the cart before the horse.

 

[villakram]

18 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I just came on to post this video, I was actually thinking about starting a new topic about electric cars, but this thread is probably as relevant. 

I just thought this was a brilliant video and it also answers some of the questions @villakram raised in the US politics thread last week.

I fully recommend you subscribe to Fully Charged if you have an interest in this.  They mainly talk about electric cars but branch off into all sorts of connected areas especially renewable energy generation and powering homes. 

Anyway, here is the video.  

 

It is a nice video, but is fundamentally a puff piece that argues against easy to target low hanging fruit and relies on magical electricity again and again. Let's just replace all the gas powered cars with electric cars, yay problem solved! 

And, the nimbism of polluting and re-cycling elsewhere is rather apt.

 

[sidcow]

8 hours ago, villakram said:

It is a nice video, but is fundamentally a puff piece that argues against easy to target low hanging fruit and relies on magical electricity again and again. Let's just replace all the gas powered cars with electric cars, yay problem solved! 

And, the nimbism of polluting and re-cycling elsewhere is rather apt.

 

 

[sidcow]

So they are banning the sale of "wet" wood and coal in home sized batches.

It's kind of strange that whilst climate change has been possibly the biggest issue of our time and people are swarming to electric cars and solar panels there has also been a massive upsurge of woodburning fires in homes.

I thought that most urban areas had gone into smoke free zones decades ago but it seems not. 

Not illegal to have the actual fires/stoves, just burning coal or wet wood on them.  You need to use artificial smoke free batons or properly seasoned wood. 

It seems right in my opinion, lovely as they are it's so counter intuitive to have such fires proliferating whilst we are trying to reverse the damage done by decades of industrial chimneys and cars. 

Someone over the road from me has a wood burner and they clearly use dodgy wood because sometimes the smoke comes pouring out of their chimney. 

A couple of months ago even though our windows were all closed you could smell it strongly in the house and even irritated the eyes, so I'm all for it! 

[limpid]

13 hours ago, sidcow said:

So they are banning the sale of "wet" wood and coal in home sized batches.

Isn't this an air quality issue more than anything else? You've not linked anything so i don't know the background.

[sidcow]

2 minutes ago, limpid said:

Isn't this an air quality issue more than anything else? You've not linked anything so i don't know the background.

Yes, it's mainly due to air pollution but nevertheless the increased burning of carbon fuels to heat homes is equally not going to help climate change.  We should be reducing it, not seeing it as trendy and increasing it as has been happening the last few years. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56949426

Wood burners: Sale of coal and wet wood restricted in England

Quote

Curbs on the sale of house coal and wet wood for household burning in England have come into force under new rules aimed at cutting air pollution.

People will still be able to use stoves and open fires but they will need to burn cleaner alternatives.

These are the first restrictions on what people can burn in their homes since the clean air acts of the 1950s.

The UK's air is far cleaner now, but in recent years pollution from log burners has increased dramatically.

Only 8% of households use them, but they are now the biggest source of the tiny pollution particles that are most damaging to health, according to government data.

Quote

It shows domestic wood burning in both closed stoves and open fires was responsible for 38% of pollution particles under 2.5 microns in size, three times more than road traffic.

These tiny particles can enter the bloodstream and lodge in lungs and other organs, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) warns, and have been identified by the World Health Organization as the most serious air pollutant for human health.

Log burners and open fires are not being banned, but the government says people will have to buy dry wood or manufactured solid fuels which produce less smoke.

It says both options are just as easy to source and more efficient to burn, making them much cleaner and more cost effective.

Defra claims burning dry wood produces more heat and less soot than wet wood and can reduce emissions by up to 50%.

 

[Ingram85]

With millions of hard working people/families in a situation where their wage doesn’t meet a decent living standard up and down the country how does anyone expect them to meet this pipe dream of electric car and no gas boiler? A lot of families even struggle to even have a normal car in the first place. Can you get an electric car for £2k? Someone mentioned £8k for a swap from gas boiler to some an alternate one. 

How are working class families supposed to switch to a greener way of life when they are barely keeping their heads above water trying to keep up with the current way? It’ll just create more poverty and widen the classes even more leading to even more punching down than there is now. 

More needs to be done to make all this a lot more affordable for everyday people. For targets to be met things have to be attainable for all not just the well off or financially comfortable as usual. 

[limpid]

45 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

With millions of hard working people/families in a situation where their wage doesn’t meet a decent living standard up and down the country how does anyone expect them to meet this pipe dream of electric car and no gas boiler? A lot of families even struggle to even have a normal car in the first place. Can you get an electric car for £2k? Someone mentioned £8k for a swap from gas boiler to some an alternate one. 

Electric cars will be the cheaper option in 3-4 years, by which time there will be a second hand market.

If (and I don't believe that number) boiler replacements cost that much, they'll be subsidised.

47 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

More needs to be done to make all this a lot more affordable for everyday people. For targets to be met things have to be attainable for all not just the well off or financially comfortable as usual. 

Yes I agree. However most of what needs to be done is at a national level. Ordinary people can help by changing little things. Eat less meat, recycle more, consider whether your journey is necessary, decorate you house less often, don;t buy a new shiny thing the moment one is released, turn your thermostat down a bit. and vote for parties with a coherent message on addressing climate change. It should also be stressed that if people can't do these, then they can't do them; but everyone can do the last.

Now that we have all been shown that there is a magic money tree, there is no excuse for inaction. The rich people this will affect will not stop being rich, they'll just stop getting richer.

[Davkaus]

The cheapest electric car on the market at the moment is the Skoda Citigo-E. A depressing and flimsy little citycar, which makes a VW Up look sophisticated and luxurious, with a list price starting from just over £20,000.  The petrol equivalent started from under £8,000.

I admire your optimism, but I don't see electric cars being the cheaper option from new until they're the only option due to new petrol cars being banned. If they're cheaper than petrol, like for like, within 3 or 4 years, I owe you a pint, Limpid.

And yes, the cost to replace a gas boiler for an air source heat pump is somewhere in the range of 8-12k. Ground source are more efficient, but even more expensive. There are some subsisidies available, but it doesn't make anywhere near enough od a debt in the cost to make them affordable to most homeowners.

I fully agree with the latter half of your post, though.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Davkaus

[blandy]

2 hours ago, Ingram85 said:

With millions of hard working people/families in a situation where their wage doesn’t meet a decent living standard up and down the country how does anyone expect them to meet this pipe dream of electric car and no gas boiler? A lot of families even struggle to even have a normal car in the first place. Can you get an electric car for £2k? Someone mentioned £8k for a swap from gas boiler to some an alternate one. 

How are working class families supposed to switch to a greener way of life when they are barely keeping their heads above water trying to keep up with the current way? It’ll just create more poverty and widen the classes even more leading to even more punching down than there is now. 

More needs to be done to make all this a lot more affordable for everyday people. For targets to be met things have to be attainable for all not just the well off or financially comfortable as usual. 

The boilers thing in particular I can see getting kicked into the long grass. I think I’m right in saying that in about 2 or 3 years it will no longer be legal to fit gas boilers in new build homes, which is fine, but a further few years later it will be illegal to replace broken gas boilers in existing homes. I can’t see that deadline sticking, it’ll turn into a black market of “repairing” by means of complete removal and, ahem, magically “refitting” after it has been “rebuilt” - “here’s one I “rebuilt” earlier to look just like “new” kind of thing. That’ll happen both for cost reasons like you say and practicality around heat pumps etc.

[sidcow]

2 hours ago, Ingram85 said:

With millions of hard working people/families in a situation where their wage doesn’t meet a decent living standard up and down the country how does anyone expect them to meet this pipe dream of electric car and no gas boiler? A lot of families even struggle to even have a normal car in the first place. Can you get an electric car for £2k? Someone mentioned £8k for a swap from gas boiler to some an alternate one. 

How are working class families supposed to switch to a greener way of life when they are barely keeping their heads above water trying to keep up with the current way? It’ll just create more poverty and widen the classes even more leading to even more punching down than there is now. 

More needs to be done to make all this a lot more affordable for everyday people. For targets to be met things have to be attainable for all not just the well off or financially comfortable as usual. 

No one is being forced to change their car now or change their gas boiler now.  Indeed a new gas boiler is still the most common replacement item your likely to get. 

But over time it will just become cheaper to use alternatives. 

Electric cars will are probably nearly on parity with petrol when taking into account all runnning and servicing costs (servicing is much cheaper) anx should need less repairs because there is significantly less things that can go wrong. 

Boilers are more tricky. I don't think there is a real market for electric boilers yet but I'm sure that will follow. It mainly seems to be about heat pumps and so on. 

But over the next 20 years petrol and gas are only going to get more expensive. Electricity is only going to get cheaper.  Solar panels get cheaper and more efficient every year and wind turbines get cheaper all the time too.

Renewable energy is already the cheapest energy you can get, and the gap will grow and grow. 

Edited May 2, 2021 by sidcow

[sidcow]

48 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I admire your optimism, but I don't see electric cars being the cheaper option from new until they're the only option due to new petrol cars being banned. If they're cheaper than petrol, like for like, within 3 or 4 years, I owe you a pint, Limpid

Maybe not in 3 or 4 years, but they will be. 

And it will probably be driven by Chinese companies who are seriously aiming at the cheap end of the market.. Western car companies need to watch out because by the time they finally decide to move on from £60,00p electric SUV's their market may have already abandoned them. 

Edited May 2, 2021 by sidcow

[limpid]

11 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Maybe not in 3 or 4 years, but they will be. 

And it will probably be driven by Chinese companies who are seriously aiming at the cheap end of the market.. Western car companies need to watch out because by the time they finally decide to move on from £60,00p electric SUV's their market may have already abandoned them. 

Quick google later and:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/21/electric-cars-as-cheap-to-manufacture-as-regular-models-by-2024#:~:text=Electric cars will cost the,imminent%2C according to new research.

Quote

Electric cars will cost the same to make as conventional cars, with internal combustion engines, by 2024 and an acceleration in the shift away from fossil fuel vehicles may be imminent, according to new research.