O/T Frack me

[KerrAvon]

As usual one of remain reasons whynowt is seriouslybeen d one is because money talks for the wealthy. Gfires pal Mr trump, the US being the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases, won't even attend summits on the problem now.

That depends upon how you define wealthy. Earlier this year, you explained that your view of having enough money included being able to take a decent holiday every year (I paraphrase, but it was something like that) - in other words a strictly unnecessary use of fossil fuels (unless you meant a walking holiday based at your home). That's the real problem, which is that dealing with climate change means having a significant impact upon what people expect for their lives. The announcement yesterday indicated that we should greatly reduce or curtail our meat consumption - how many people will readily buy into that do you think?

In other words, the real problem is democracy. Given the impact that actually doing something about climate change will have as opposed to simply pontificating about it means that it is unlikely that any democratic government will be able to act on it to any significant degree. People will vote for beef and Benidorm and think that somebody else will sort out climate change.

[great_fire]

Of course climate scientists are going to say it's man-made and getting worse, their jobs depend on it.

It's like anti-racism/ Islamophobia campaign groups, they're always going to say racism/ Islamophobia is getting worse, if they said the opposite the government would say "well we don't need you anymore" and pull their funding.

When I was growing up these "scientists" were saying we were heading for a new ice age. Then it became clear that was happening so it became "global warming" then that didn't happen so it was changed to "climate change" to cover all the bases.

Bur the Earth has always warmed up and cooled off, before we were even on the planet.

[KerrAvon]

Waffle waffle waffle waffle, spent ages writing that waffle mate didn't yer, please stop trying to be better than everyone and just post what you think...

I think that you are thick, but don't have the self awareness to realise it.

I am very sorry for saying that, but you insisted and maybe it was time for someone to tell you.

[John2]

John, I suspect I will be called out for pedantic, but I have to point out the terminology error in your post. When you are talking about the average household electricity consumption you mean kWh not kW. To say otherwise is akin to saying that the distance from Bristol to Rotherham is 70mph.

The calculation that you have made concerning the amount of solar panelling you need to meet the energy consumption of your average house is fundamentally flawed for two reasons. Firstly a 1kW panel might well yield 700 to 900kW per year, but it won’t do that at a constant rate through the year. In Rotherham in June, daylength peaks at about 17 hours whilst in December it will reach around 6 hours and 10 minutes. That is bad enough, but then you get onto the second reason, which is that the demand for electricity is at its lowest in June and peaks in the winter. That means that you are going to need an awful lot more panelling than you calculate to meet winter demand or you ae going to have a lot of non-renewable capacity doing nothing during the summer. That is the point that I am making – solar is useful, but is not a solution, because it is good at producing energy when it is not needed.

Forgive me, my original message was unclear.

I wasn't trying to say 5.75kw of panels would be sufficient, and my using such a calculation was misleading and confused the point I was trying to make. I was just trying to give a rough frame of reference, and was assuming perfect storage.

The point I was making was, even if solar is 200% better in summer than winter (there is 176% more daylight in longest day using your numbers), that's solve able with just having a high enough quantity of panels. Using that 5.75kw as the average and 200% better at peak (8.72kw) vs bottom (2.88kw), means you'd need double the number of solar panels used in my earlier numbers (11.5kw of solar panels per household) to get the average. That's £4k of panels for a household and lasting 30 years (solely panel cost of course).

If these numbers are off as the sun is even less strong in winter, and there are various inefficiencies, and demand is much higher, just add more panels. Heck, 23kw per household or more of panels if necessary to meet the winter demand. At 1.65sqm per 250w they barely make a dent in the thousands of sqm we have for every individual for farming if we've exhausted rooftop and other spaces.

If we build enough solar to meet demand in winter (and just encourage as much heating/washing machines/etc during daylight hours, make grid use hours out of daylight expensive - people will adjust their habits). We then have a massive massive surplus of electricity in the summer, which opens up a whole host of new opportunities.

When I visited Iceland I was stunned that the hot tub even in winter was heated by mains hot water and emptied for each use, with new water pumped in to retain the heat... this is the possibility of abundant renewable energy. Suddenly heated swimming pools, air conditioning, and many other luxuries become viable in the summer.

Beyond batteries, with surplus electricity you can generate hydrogen as fuel. Electricity is too expensive for this to be viable at the moment, but with a huge surplus in the summer you can create fuel for the winter months.

I'm cheating next ski season, I'll have a relay so I can charge the battery by running the engine, a bit like having mains to fall back on when needed, but I'm optimistic I won't need to use it.

[John2]

Of course climate scientists are going to say it's man-made and getting worse, their jobs depend on it.

They don't just say it, they research to provide evidence to prove it. It's just that some people are way too dumb to understand the evidence and so stick their fingers in their ears and demonstrate their ignorance.

[KerrAvon]

Iceland is a completely different kettle of fish. They have geothermal energy in abundance. It's a good thing they aren't trying to run their country on solar.

[WanChaiMiller]

Kerr - do you think it would be a good thing if a solar battery system in every household could take say 30% of reliance off the national grid?

The reason I think its not happening quicker is because it will take shareholder profit off privatised utility companies.

[ragingpup]

Of course climate scientists are going to say it's man-made and getting worse, their jobs depend on it.

It's like anti-racism/ Islamophobia campaign groups, they're always going to say racism/ Islamophobia is getting worse, if they said the opposite the government would say "well we don't need you anymore" and pull their funding.

When I was growing up these "scientists" were saying we were heading for a new ice age. Then it became clear that was happening so it became "global warming" then that didn't happen so it was changed to "climate change" to cover all the bases.

Bur the Earth has always warmed up and cooled off, before we were even on the planet.

Okies. I understand that the earth has always warmed up and cool off but usually this takes thousands/millions of year to move from one 'age' to another.

But how do you explain the graph that John posted?

Do you also dispute other scientific theories that, like human activity related global warming, have ceased to be debatable theories and instead become accepted scientific facts as scientists don't debate them anymore due to the evidence for the 'theory' being so overwhelming - gravity? evolution?

The very nature of science is to take a theory and try to disprove it, test it, look at objective evidence until all the scientists doing the testing agree that all evidence points to the theory being beyond doubt. That's how science works. Of course there will be some scientists that claim validation of a theory without due evidence but they are quickly argued down in the science community. And that's the point: 97% of scientists concerned with studying climate agree that human activity is changing the climate. That's a hell of a lot of scientists if you check out the link I posted earlier.

[KerrAvon]

Kerr - do you think it would be a good thing if a solar battery system in every household could take say 30% of reliance off the national grid?

The reason I think its not happening quicker is because it will take shareholder profit off privatised utility companies.

The money would be better spent making homes 30% more energy efficient, but, yes, there is a case for small scale solar, which is why I'm looking at it (though, sadly, it may involve cutting down a mature tree to the South East of my house).

I knew it would only be a matter of time before a big business conspiracy theory appeared - it's the nature of political debate on here - the Right blame immigrants for the ills of the world, whilst the Left blame the wealthy and big business. God forbid that anyone accepts a bit of personal responsibility.

How do you say the shareholders of utilities are blocking a more rapid spread of solar? There's money to be made in solar, as Bramley appears to have found to his cost. That by itself would attract operators to it, if there were much of a market.

[rolymiller]

Don't disagree that everyone has to do their bit kerr. Some scientists are suggesting the only way we can sort the problems out is for human beings to live a more minimalist lifestyle. How would that sit with the wealthy do you think? How would that sit with you? Would you be willing to live that sort of lifestyle ? It would i effect mean we would be more equal economically. A sort of environmental socialism may be the only answer. I would argue if that is true socialism has always been the answer!