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Renewable Energy

Not yet, but then we didn't buy it as a new build. We have chucked 1,750kWh to grid since the start of March which would be about 600Kg of CO2 reduction for other people if it was displacing gas generation, so atoning for previous generations will take time.
 
Hi here in Nottingham we have a massive COAL fired power station, this thing has 4 coal fired boilers, and 8 cooling towers, they are going to shut in down in about 6 years, don't know what they are planning to do about electricity after it has gone, as they are building nothing to replace it, they seem to be building much smaller stations, locally like the one in newark that burns straw bails, time will tell, if i could be arsed i would be worrying about now,
 
I think the difficulty with hydrogen is that it is very corrosive to metals. I'm not sure how the pipework would fare.

A bigger issue is how you produce it. The majority of it comes from fossil fuels. It may be the most abundant element in the universe, but it's not abound as a raw element and producing it from renewables may make sense in some cases, but it's less efficient than storing those renewables more directly in most cases.

It's where electric cars have such an advantage if we get wide rollout of vehicle to grid. Many of the supply issues with electricity are peak demand related. A huge volume of storage on the network has an amazing effect on the status quo.
 
44,000km2 of panels
I was out on my morning bike ride and realised I'd forgotten to divide by 8. This many panels will give a day's worth of electricity in an hour, it should be 5,500km2.

If only the real Tesla had succeeded in his goal to transmit electricity wirelessly around the globe, we'd be sorted.

I set up an off-grid solar system two years ago and lead acid came in cheapest even when I planned to use just a 25% depth of discharge to avoid sulfation. LiPo batteries have halved in price since then which makes them a no-brainer.

This article claims that solar and wind are now the most economical new builds for 2/3 of the world. The new generation wind turbines output 4MW!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikesc...o-fall-as-power-becomes-cleaner/#16924266785f
 
Not surprised, apparently oil refineries in Texas are using solar energy as it is cheaper...

In calculating output you do need to account of variable output over the day and year, for reference our panels did about 1,020kWh/kWp installed in 2019.

Oh, and V2G is interesting as a concept but while batteries are the main life limiting factor on cars it seems a little silly to use life on domestic use when there are dedicated batteries (including repurposed ex vehicle ones).
 
I've seen heat pumps working well in the UK, it's generally a small dT so it works. The one I saw was some baronial pile using a lake as a cold end. Costly installation but cheap to run and a very fast payback on a big house. Air source and smaller house might be less worthwhile.
 
Disappointing, I think, that the Gulf nations don’t seem to be big investors in solar. Even at current efficiencies, given their virtually unlimited sunshine, and huge arid wilderness/desert areas, you’d have thought they could generate enough electricity to power swathes of Asia and Europe, even factoring in significant transmission losses. It feels like an obvious way for oil-dependent states to wean themselves off fossil fuels and use their other plentiful resource.
 
Sue - there have long been studies for paving areas of the Sahara in that manner; and it looks like Morocco, and then Algeria, will be the first to expand their already -burgeoning PV resource to export to the EU. Critically - both timing of peak demand, and the distance ( via HVDC transmission tech across teh Med) aligns with what is current tech, let alone the near-term stuff that could be achieved.

There is very serious interest in this, not least part-funded by EU energy providers in their own interest; the moves are in place, and it will happen.
 
Sue - there have long been studies for paving areas of the Sahara in that manner; and it looks like Morocco, and then Algeria, will be the first to expand their already -burgeoning PV resource to export to the EU. Critically - both timing of peak demand, and the distance ( via HVDC transmission tech across teh Med) aligns with what is current tech, let alone the near-term stuff that could be achieved.

There is very serious interest in this, not least part-funded by EU energy providers in their own interest; the moves are in place, and it will happen.
God, I hope so. And soon. :)
 
Interesting that you suggest that Boris will be around in 2050.

As for facts - you seem blissfully unaware of many. The only realistic way to go carbon free is nuclear, and the reason no-one goes for that? First the initial investment needed, and the second - public, ill-informed, opinion, albeit that drives policies OF ALL PARTIES.

Boris and facts - no more or less so that any of the rest of the Westminster crowd, except when people get selective amnesia and/or myopia.

The policies he puts in could affect what happens in 2050, yes.

What facts am I unaware of? I didn’t say we didn’t need nuclear. In fact the reason we don’t have a coherent energy policy (including nuclear) is mostly down to the politics you say are not important.

Stephen
 
Do you think you've offset the 50 tonnes of CO2 used to build the house yet? (https://citu.co.uk/citu-live/what-is-the-carbon-footprint-of-a-house)

Hmm. several thoughts on this; not sure I'm awake enough to post them in a considered manner.
  1. Elephant in the room is - how does 50t of CO2 compare with av UK adult yearly footprint.
  2. Second is, how does that compare with what thr av uk adult can save without noticing **
  3. 3rd, is a comparison with the numbers I work with on projects - which is the bit I'd have to go away and look-up. It is a balance issue - for example, using a PVC roof membrane with a 40yr warranty is an outstanding choice for certain large projects, in terms of embodied energy, embodied carbon, total reliability and actually - min energy input to achieve those things. Since it is made from the scrapings of the bottom of the oil barrel, and salt - that to me is total win over 'oh - but pvc?!'. Those scrapings were getting burnt in ships otherwise - and at end of life that roof membrane can be recycled.
Now then:

Certainly on one job I completed 4yrs ago, we managed to save 45t of CO2 (just from the choice of facing brick - from clay to concrete (!) (- and it had to be a masonry construction for...other reasons (on 3300sq.m /3sto 'office' (cough) building you cannot visit)

As an architect in a practice with Sustainability we hold a key concern for - this stuff is right at the forefront of what me, my colleague, consider. Small changes have to balanced over expected lifetime and other costs- and it remains a very interesting, and ever -shifting calculus!

For example: we'd love to do more med/large scale in timber frame, of course we would - but if the client's Insurers (and that's ALL of them post- Grenfell, pre- Grenfell Inquiry resolution) won't insure it, or demand a premium (oh yeah) - then the Lifecycle Cap-Ex & energy saving gets dwarfed by the annual Ins premium - even if in Carbon/total lifecycle on energy terms it would be a better solution.

tl;dr: Approaching zero-carbon is a multi-dimensional problem. We've several such jobs in process to get to grips with, too.


footnotes:

**eta: since the UK electrical Grid has actually de-carbonised so fast - this is harder than it used to be.
10yrs ago I did a large civic facility, and the consideration for electrical consumption modelling was 450g CO2/KwH; owing to the mix of fuels used in the UK electrical grid then.***
Today, ten years later, that UK electrical average is close to 150 g CO2/KWh; simply owing to the loss of coal-fired input, and the massive rise in Wind & PV to the grid displacing even 'clean' gas. It makes a unit of electricity at the point of consumption, much-lower -carbon, than burning a unit of gas locally at 100% efficiency for the same total useful, local output. And 2-3x better than the same unit of fossil fuel in a modern petrol/diesel car, quite apart from the fact electric cars are already 2-3x more efficient/KM in input energy use for distance travelled than a petrol/diesel car. Think about that for a bit.

This decarbonisation of the UK Grid is an immense change; and lies behind the recent push to electrical-everything - from VRF heatpump systems, at every scale, to electric vehicles. It dwarves lifetime materials choice, for many building types.

HTH.


*** That facility it still beat the NHS 'best-practise' benchmark for energy use in class by 30%, which I remain proud of.
 
Correction: 10MW class is already the new-normal, and 12MW are available. :)

Far out! They put one on the hill above Wellington NZ in about 1990, it seemed huge at the time but it was just a tiddler. IIRC it had a 200kW output.

I've seen heat pumps working well in the UK, it's generally a small dT so it works. The one I saw was some baronial pile using a lake as a cold end. Costly installation but cheap to run and a very fast payback on a big house. Air source and smaller house might be less worthwhile.

Air source heat pumps are in most new homes in New Zealand now, they work well in a temperate climate.
 
second is, how does that compare with what thr av uk adult can save without noticing
Or other people noticing, Teslas look good on the drive but competently installed glazing (and what is currently on our house, as we are discovering, isn't) doesn't shout eco credentials as much.
 
Everyone who went along to Tesla's battery day presentation today would have driven home quietly.
No million mile battery, no new anode chemistry, just a larger format cell.
 
I’m sure none of this will deter Boris Johnson from declaring we’ll be carbon neutral by whatever date he chooses.

Just replacing domestic gas boilers is going to take decades. And there’s no sign we’ll do that anytime soon or what will replace them or who will pay for it.

Stephen

Will someone please explain how we can be carbon neutral ( by any date ) if we still have massive British Airways
jet aircraft polluting the atmosphere.
 
Will someone please explain how we can be carbon neutral ( by any date ) if we still have massive British Airways
jet aircraft polluting the atmosphere.
Airbus is exploring hydrogen fuelled aircraft. Technology keeps moving forward. Unfortunately we can't put the genie back in the bottle, but we can find ways of taming it.
 
Will someone please explain how we can be carbon neutral ( by any date ) if we still have massive British Airways
jet aircraft polluting the atmosphere.

Indeed. Carbon neutral won't be enough anymore - it's a bit of a con anyway with the associated trade offs allowing business as usual. Really only the end of deforestation and the replanting of trees (together with significant reductions in emissions) has the capacity to alter CO2 levels over the next century.
 
Young trees grow a lot faster and hence absorb up a lot more carbon than mature trees.

If forests were responsibly managed and people used more timber and less concrete in their homes, that would certainly help.

Clearfelling forests is much easier hence more profitable so sadly responsible forest management isn't likely to happen.
 


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