Rising energy prices mitigation

[pseudonym]

If you get cashmere or anything from a mountaineering/hillwalking type shop then that will be light and very warm, not bulky.

I'm going to see if I can get an inexpensive gilet, so I'm warm but my arms can breathe (and move ).

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/men-s-pad ... 37&c=BLACK

[Yorkshire Andy]

If you get cashmere or anything from a mountaineering/hillwalking type shop then that will be light and very warm, not bulky.

I'm going to see if I can get an inexpensive gilet, so I'm warm but my arms can breathe (and move ).

Look at tool station / Screwfix starting about the £25 mark depending on style / type

[diamond lil]

I like long waistcoat/gilet things. Hate bulky sleeves and cuffs.

[jansman]

Looks like we are on coal tonight

Screenshot_20220112-190247.png

What are you looking at and do we need to be concerned?!

Me and jansman had discussed the black start mothballed power stations before..


Coal = those dirty old power stations they are trying to close are currently held in reserve in use as there's a great big lump of high pressure over a good chunk of the UK and the windmills won't go round with no wind across the south . Until recently round here we were holding Eggbrough in reserve but that's now a pile of rubble .

Screenshot_20220112-204325.png


It's dark so solar does nothing..

https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Be interesting tomorrow morning as demand starts to increase to see where the electric is coming from..

Ratcliffe on Soar was going hell-for-leather yesterday.Always makes me smile ,’cos that means the windmills that are going to power our New Green Utopia ,just ain’t doing what they should. Nobody seems to ‘get it’ though.

I have been stocking up on power banks ,USB and battery lighting. Next is more rechargeable batteries and solar charging too. Also LOTS of standard alkaline batteries.I figure that if / when there is some kind of energy crunch,everyone will be flocking to buy what I already have.I want to be ahead of the game,and I know we will have to help both daughters too.

[grenfell]

There is something of an irony here. Coal powered stations came under the EU's " large combustion plant directive" . November and December saw France suffer electricity supply problems largely caused by temporary closures of some of their nuclear capability and that shortfall was made up at least in part by imports from the UK . Coal generation was running around 1.2-1.5 GW and exports to France were in the similar range peaking at 2GW so we were in effect burning coal to supply an EU country that had imposed the directives.
The biggest problem to the green utopia as jansman puts it isn't the technology , it's people's attitudes. We could power our society sustainably with renewables if we travel less , consume less stuff , eat local seasonable produce , accept wearing a jumper in our cooler darker houses and generally just work around a variable energy supply but people don't want that. They want to be able to sit in a tee shirt and sunglasses in their house in the winter waiting for the delivery of Peruvian strawberries and Australisn wine while contemplating a 200 mile drive to the airport to whisk them off to the Caribbean.

[itsybitsy]

If you get cashmere or anything from a mountaineering/hillwalking type shop then that will be light and very warm, not bulky.

I'm going to see if I can get an inexpensive gilet, so I'm warm but my arms can breathe (and move ).

Look at tool station / Screwfix starting about the £25 mark depending on style / type

I'll have a look, but it may be that I need something a bit more feminine than what they can offer.

[Cocotte]

The move to electrify our daily lives to take away from combustible fuels is definitely the right way to go to solve the climate crisis. No home has or oil, no dirty coal power plant etc...
But, and it's a big but, we need the power to do it.
Renewables are the final solution for this, and my main argument for renewables is simply permanent energy independence. Every nation wants that, no one can argue that point.
But relying on the weather isn't 100%. We need something powerful, that doesn't emit waste products into the general area and can last for a couple of generations.
And we have it. It's nuclear energy. There are more annual deaths from wind turbines (mostly construction and a few from maintenance) than in the history of nuclear energy. There are 3 big risks with it.
Old technology, which most have been running on and need a major overhaul. These need to be checked thoroughly and often from outside professionals to prevent degradation.
Where they are built, not an issue in the UK, but New Zealand with it's 10 quakes a day of various magnitudes should never consider a reactor or another Ring Of Fire nation *ahem*Japan*ahem*.
And finally waste material storage. The US was working on being a world leader on this and offering free storage (because they'd then have that as reserve when the tech can use it) in a massive waste dump they carved out of solid rock in the middle of a dry desert so it can't contaminate the ground water. It hit it's budget and they stopped just as they were about to start lining it. It's the only civil project that was not allowed to go over budget that I know of.

Easy solution, build what we can now.
The tech is there now, it's smaller, cheaper, safer, far more efficient and can even use most of the previous waste material. They can turn 10,000yr half life down to 100s years and get energy from it while they're at it.

What is available now, solves most issues but because "nuclear" is now a dirty word no politician will ever associate themselves with it, even if it's the perfect stop gap to allow renewables to work out their kinks or grow varied enough to cover most if not all our energy needs.

Is if there is a political party that actively promotes nuclear energy, let me know. I want to vote for them. I don't care about their other policies. It could be pro- nuclear and also promise the 10 plagues of Egypt, it'd still keep us warm, promote industry and every other factor of our modern lifes.

[shocker]

What about those amazing Rolls Royce self contained mini reactors for local generation?
They were headline news five years ago but now?

Or did they get back burnered so a certain Eton boy could get his snout in the Chinese trough?

PS not a political statement, I detest all politicians and by extension politics equally

[jansman]

There is something of an irony here. Coal powered stations came under the EU's " large combustion plant directive" . November and December saw France suffer electricity supply problems largely caused by temporary closures of some of their nuclear capability and that shortfall was made up at least in part by imports from the UK . Coal generation was running around 1.2-1.5 GW and exports to France were in the similar range peaking at 2GW so we were in effect burning coal to supply an EU country that had imposed the directives.
The biggest problem to the green utopia as jansman puts it isn't the technology , it's people's attitudes. We could power our society sustainably with renewables if we travel less , consume less stuff , eat local seasonable produce , accept wearing a jumper in our cooler darker houses and generally just work around a variable energy supply but people don't want that. They want to be able to sit in a tee shirt and sunglasses in their house in the winter waiting for the delivery of Peruvian strawberries and Australisn wine while contemplating a 200 mile drive to the airport to whisk them off to the Caribbean.

Spot on. We need to use less.Fact. If governments around the world said ,” we have to ration EVERYTHING,and it will never end “ the Population of the developed,privileged world would be livid. The fact that our world is resource limited,but the politicos and economists think we can grow,grow,grow,in a world that is finite,shows where we are.

Without constant ‘growth’ more shiny shite,bread and circuses,the electorate will turn against the PTB. That is why the myth of growth is perpetuated.It gets votes,and keeps the people calm. Can’t have a holiday in a Dubai,no new I phone,no Netflix…No Tesco or Sainsbury,or Lidl…or where is my grub coming from?

The moment it is clear that the power is gone ,or nearly gone,a bit like a garden party in a lockdown,the population will rebel. But unlike a party in lockdown,when the power goes,then so does the Economy; which is society itself.

[shocker]

Nail on head. Constant growth on a finite planet is a seriously short-sighted paradigm. Gives capitalism a bad name