Net Zero

[londontown]

Nigel Farage is thinking of starting a pressure group/political party to challenge Net Zero. Love him or loathe him, given his record on Brexit he has to be taken seriously.

I think that Net Zero is unattainable, and will grant China, India, and one or two others the economic upper hand.

What do you think?

[turbo2]

Feb 9, 2022 22:11:07 GMT londontown said:

Nigel Farage is thinking of starting a pressure group/political party to challenge Net Zero. Love him or loathe him, given his record on Brexit he has to be taken seriously.

I think that Net Zero is unattainable, and will grant China, India, and one or two others the economic upper hand.

What do you think?

There’s no doubt any country ignoring it will have an advantage. But it’s gone on for years.

At the end of the day we should as a country be leading wind and tidal technology instead of giving contracts to foreign owners let’s own it ourselves then sell it to the world.

The tidal lagoon in Swansea was priced at 1bn about 10 years ago. Moronic not going ahead with it.

[captslapper]

Other than feeling good about yourself because youre setting an example, it all seems a bit pointless , the Uk being net zero, unless the major polluters of the world take massive steps towards something similar. And im not sure theyre particularly interested in doing that.

The human population is so big we are literally consuming the planet. and its just getting bigger and bigger all the time.
The best thing they could do ( perhaps only thing in reality ) to save the planet would be to create a deadly virus in a lab somewhere that will kill billions and then release it.
Maybe these last couple of years has been a trial run?

[scutcher]

There are lots of adds on TV saying the future is electric (heating). I reckon my heating bill would at least triple if I went fully electric! One of them is Fischer. Their site tells you the cost would be 45 to 75 KW a day depending on your insulation! Work that out per month!

Here is an exexcellent article about zero carbon. This another stick they are going to beat us with.

The Climate Fairytales Boris Was Told at His Net Zero Re-education Briefing – The Daily Sceptic
dailysceptic.org/2022/02/09/the-climate-fairytales-boris-was-told-at-his-net-zero-re-education-briefing/

[Deep Space]

I worry about this debate, not least because I don't totally understand it. It seems to me to be another of those conversations whereby everyone either drops into the 'we're all going to die' camp or the 'it's all a scam' one. I don't even really understand, in any real-world sense anyway, what 'net zero' actually means. Somehow or other there's supposed to be a calculation that says x trees planted = y watts of electricity consumed or z plastic bottles?

I'm quite happy to 'do my bit' for the environment; I know that plastic bottles kill fish, recycling is probably better than burying or burning & so on. But at Government level, it feels to me like one of those 'trip off the tongue' statements that doesn't really mean very much & nobody can ever really measure or monitor.

[captslapper]

Been reading in the press this morning about nuclear fusion power stations of the future.
A commercially viable one is being created in France by a consortium of nations, the Uk being one, and a tiny 'dummy' one in the Uk has just made a huge advance in the output they've managed to achieve.
( enough to boil 60 kettles from 5 seconds of output , which doesnt seem much but it apparently a huge step forward in the technology )

Imagine in time it will be how almost all electric is produced as it only requires two different types of hydrogen which is abundant and fuses them together to make helium. The process creates enormous amounts of heat which is used to produce electricity.
But there's no carbon footprint and no radiation issues like there is in in a conventional nuclear fission plant.
In theory when its up and running its a limitless source of energy for very little cost and no environmental risks.

Some way off, but the future is all electric energy for everything and it should be pretty cheap.

[gingerbreadman]

If the Government were truly serious about achieving 'net zero' in the UK they'd have scrapped HS2 and put solar panels on every roof across the land.

[captslapper]

it amazes me that new builds dont all come with things like solar panels as standard. Or heat source pumps where viable.
And why doesnt every house have its own little wind turbine spinning away on its roof, and every street lamp have a little solar panel?

[sabre]

Feb 10, 2022 9:17:37 GMT gingerbreadman said:

If the Government were truly serious about achieving 'net zero' in the UK they'd have scrapped HS2 and put solar panels on every roof across the land.

HS2 …. What a waste of money that heap of shite is. 

[turbo2]

Feb 10, 2022 8:21:02 GMT scutcher said:

There are lots of adds on TV saying the future is electric (heating). I reckon my heating bill would at least triple if I went fully electric! One of them is Fischer. Their site tells you the cost would be 45 to 75 KW a day depending on your insulation! Work that out per month!

Here is an exexcellent article about zero carbon. This another stick they are going to beat us with.

The Climate Fairytales Boris Was Told at His Net Zero Re-education Briefing – The Daily Sceptic
dailysceptic.org/2022/02/09/the-climate-fairytales-boris-was-told-at-his-net-zero-re-education-briefing/

I average 10kwh per day. We currently struggle to meet our electric demands. Along with electric cars, electric heating would mean the U.K. requiring approx 10x the current supply.

And you might think ok, but Hinckley point has taken 10 years to build for about 10% of the U.K. supply.


It’s all pie in the sky shite. Won’t be available in my lifetime for sure

[londontown]

Feb 10, 2022 8:38:58 GMT Deep Space said:

I worry about this debate, not least because I don't totally understand it. It seems to me to be another of those conversations whereby everyone either drops into the 'we're all going to die' camp or the 'it's all a scam' one. I don't even really understand, in any real-world sense anyway, what 'net zero' actually means. Somehow or other there's supposed to be a calculation that says x trees planted = y watts of electricity consumed or z plastic bottles?

I'm quite happy to 'do my bit' for the environment; I know that plastic bottles kill fish, recycling is probably better than burying or burning & so on. But at Government level, it feels to me like one of those 'trip off the tongue' statements that doesn't really mean very much & nobody can ever really measure or monitor.

This is the real problem. What exactly does it mean?

While I believe we should be doing a lot more about pollution, deforestation, plastics, and growing more hemp and so on (hemp actually absorbs a a lot of CO2), I think that CO2/Net Zero is a scam - a tax on the very air that we breathe!

In reality, I fear big corporations will buy carbon credits, and then offset them against their carbon emissions and claim to be net zero. While this might make them look green to some, overall it will mean feck all except for increased energy prices for everyone else. 

[El Mel]

In the time it takes you to read this post, enough sunlight has hit the surface of the earth to power Huddersfield for 30 years.


Solar power is massive here - obviously.

Thinking of investing in a kit so we can help reduce our electric bills - we have no gas, so electric is our only source of energy in the house, plus a woodburner for the winter.
Decembers electric bill was 90 euro's, January was 190 euros. Gas is way cheaper, but we'd have to get it in bottles, plus it's far more damaging to the environment - but if I had the choice of gas at a fraction of cost of electricity, I'd use the gas and let somebody else worry about saving the planet - and that's part of the problem.

[santiagoterrier]

Feb 10, 2022 16:38:51 GMT El Mel said:

In the time it takes you to read this post, enough sunlight has hit the surface of the earth to power Huddersfield for 30 years.


Solar power is massive here - obviously.

Thinking of investing in a kit so we can help reduce our electric bills - we have no gas, so electric is our only source of energy in the house, plus a woodburner for the winter.
Decembers electric bill was 90 euro's, January was 190 euros. Gas is way cheaper, but we'd have to get it in bottles, plus it's far more damaging to the environment - but if I had the choice of gas at a fraction of cost of electricity, I'd use the gas and let somebody else worry about saving the planet - and that's part of the problem.

Mel, without wanting to turn it into a Spanish love in that’s not relevant to everyone else, your electric bills seem very high ?

I’m not far away from you, Santiago de la Ribera, ours is a new build, no gas, everything runs off electric from Ibedrola including built in air con for hot and cold and two of us live here but we’ve had guests for 6/8 weeks during the last year.

Our last 2 bills were 58€ and 67€ - last year was a total of 764€ ( Hidrogea for water was 294€ for the year ) - we have a near neighbour from Holland with an identical house but he rents out via Booking.com and his electric bills are virtually double ours when they have clients in, but they never turn lights off and run the air con 24/7 even when the patio doors are wide open etc.

[santiagoterrier]

Feb 10, 2022 8:42:07 GMT captslapper said:

Been reading in the press this morning about nuclear fusion power stations of the future.
A commercially viable one is being created in France by a consortium of nations, the Uk being one, and a tiny 'dummy' one in the Uk has just made a huge advance in the output they've managed to achieve.
( enough to boil 60 kettles from 5 seconds of output , which doesnt seem much but it apparently a huge step forward in the technology )

Imagine in time it will be how almost all electric is produced as it only requires two different types of hydrogen which is abundant and fuses them together to make helium. The process creates enormous amounts of heat which is used to produce electricity.
But there's no carbon footprint and no radiation issues like there is in in a conventional nuclear fission plant.
In theory when its up and running its a limitless source of energy for very little cost and no environmental risks.

Some way off, but the future is all electric energy for everything and it should be pretty cheap.

I don’t always fully understand but always enjoy watching “How the Universe Works.” on tv along with all the Prof. Brian Cox stuff about Planers and the solar system - all the heat and light from our Sun is from billions of tons of hydrogen fusion that’s being going on for millions of years and for millions more in the future, it’s the same process that the U.K. scientists managed to replicate for around 5 seconds yesterday.


As you say they are also now working with other countries to try and extend the process, apparently the sun turns 20M tons of hydrogen into 16M tons of helium every second (how are you supposed to get your head around figures like that ?) but we’d only need a fraction of that to run everyone’s tellys and fridges.

[El Mel]

Feb 10, 2022 17:07:32 GMT santiagoterrier said:

Feb 10, 2022 16:38:51 GMT El Mel said:

In the time it takes you to read this post, enough sunlight has hit the surface of the earth to power Huddersfield for 30 years.


Solar power is massive here - obviously.

Thinking of investing in a kit so we can help reduce our electric bills - we have no gas, so electric is our only source of energy in the house, plus a woodburner for the winter.
Decembers electric bill was 90 euro's, January was 190 euros. Gas is way cheaper, but we'd have to get it in bottles, plus it's far more damaging to the environment - but if I had the choice of gas at a fraction of cost of electricity, I'd use the gas and let somebody else worry about saving the planet - and that's part of the problem.

Mel, without wanting to turn it into a Spanish love in that’s not relevant to everyone else, your electric bills seem very high ?

I’m not far away from you, Santiago de la Ribera, ours is a new build, no gas, everything runs off electric from Ibedrola including built in air con for hot and cold and two of us live here but we’ve had guests for 6/8 weeks during the last year.

Our last 2 bills were 58€ and 67€ - last year was a total of 764€ ( Hidrogea for water was 294€ for the year ) - we have a near neighbour from Holland with an identical house but he rents out via Booking.com and his electric bills are virtually double ours when they have clients in, but they never turn lights off and run the air con 24/7 even when the patio doors are wide open etc.

We switched to a company called Aldro - you have probably heard of them, they were cheaper than Iberdrola but now everybody round us who is with Iberdrola is getting cheaper bills, so I think it's time to switch back.

If you are in a new build, you may well have insulation in the house, ours is like a fridge - even tonight when I've come in from pricing a job it feels cold.

Another few months and it will be too friggin hot.