Yet more proof.

[BeElBeeBub]

You're missing the point.  They don't ONLY want to stop "fossil fuels", they want dependence on electricity, which means no burning any kind of fuel, including wood, and no nuclear power.  It is not harder to control access to electricity than wood.

They already control access to wood and the equipment to use it.

Wood needs to be accompanied by a "ready to burn certificate" - for which the supplier must be scheme member (with an annual fee)

Stoves must be installed by a HETAS installer.

Environmental health can investigate and put restrictions on wood burning stoves 

Try using wood as a fuel in a London tower block.and see how far you get.

Electricity, on the other hand, for less than £3k you can have a self contained solar system and battery. Enough to do basic communications, light etc with. Boil a kettle and so on.  These can be deployed from a window or balcony (Germans love these systems).

Put it this way, I have a wood stove that can heat my house and hot water. I have access to free wood and the place to store it. I can talk fairly knowledgeably about the coats of installing and running such a system.

If I had a friend with a medium sized wood, I'd still recommend they spend the.momey on a solar and battery setup.  Much more utility for the smale or less money.


My friend works in forestry and has access to unlimited free firewood. He doesn't have that much money and whilst the do have a stove (house came with one) when they got a little.money from an insurance payout they invested in a solar and battery setup rather than wood fired hot water and cooking setup.  Very happy with the resulting savings. 

[BeElBeeBub]

Oh, right, so if parliament supports the conspiracy theory, that's ok, but if not, it's loony tunes?  So we don't go by evidence, we appeal to authority?  Can you supply any of the evidence of "Russian meddling"?

By it's nature the meddling will mainly be visible to the security services and that means the evidence can't be open sourced easily. However the parliamentary report did cite open source studies into the amount of russian activity around elections in the UK and abroad. Go read the report and it's links.

[BeElBeeBub]

Really, if your survival depended on it, it's not too hard.

Surprisingly it *is* quite hard. You can't just set fire to stuff in your living room.

If I cut off your gas and electric today and gave you an axe, how well do you think you would fare?

[Scott777]

It is far harder to control access to electricity than it is to fossil fuels

You're missing the point.  They don't ONLY want to stop "fossil fuels", they want dependence on electricity, which means no burning any kind of fuel, including wood, and no nuclear power.  It is not harder to control access to electricity than wood.

[Scott777]

Could you provide heat, hot water, light, power and cooking facilities from wood at your home?

Some people have the capability for heat. Fewer have it for hot water. Almost none for cooking.

Really, if your survival depended on it, it's not too hard.

[Scott777]

The "steel beams are hard to melt" family of theories are well known conspiracy theories.

On the other hand the suspicion that Russia had meddled in UK elections and referendums was well enough founded to merit a parliamentary investigation which had been completed when I wrote that but not published due to unusual delays by the Johnson Government.

When eventually published, the report stated there was evidence substantial russian influence in UK politics via a number of routes.

Oh, right, so if parliament supports the conspiracy theory, that's ok, but if not, it's loony tunes?  So we don't go by evidence, we appeal to authority?  Can you supply any of the evidence of "Russian meddling"?

[Borg Refinery]

Just to put this solar into perspective, and these are based on 2022 published figures admittedly.
The earthed used 25,000 Terawatts of electricity in 2021, of that 855 Terawatts came from Solar. That means increasing the number by 30 times, and that's before we all start driving like the Jetsons. I've got an EV and it's 💩, can nearly get 200 miles out of it, and many times it won't accept the handshake from the charger and I am lwft doing 10 miles an hour with my hazards on desperately trying to get to the next charge station.

The fact is, the answer was nuclear in the 80 when Mrs T in her wisdom pointed it out, and frankly all you Liberals screwed us over with your Swampy's, CND and burn you bra mentality. Now you're the one telling us we're ruining the planet!! Couldn't make it up.

You obviously drive around in many different countries, so I'm sure you know it's much easier to charge an EV in many other countries that have better suited infrastructure than the UK's.

As regards the charging, I'm not sure how much the battery costs in your EV, but in some cheaper Chinese models it might be economical to carry a spare battery if you can (relatively easily) swap it out, there are also battery swapping services. I don't think any of this is common in the UK but I could be wrong, maybe worth looking into if the performance of the EV is less than stellar.

I think that EVs are the future, but with Elon Musk in charge of one of the largest EV companies, it's no wonder they don't work as intended.

I think they just recalled every single Tesla truck due to faults, just like they have recalled almost every single Tesla ever sold in North America because they all have a serious software malfunction that can't be remedied with an update, also firmware issues, with a guy like that heading the "electric" revolution you have to wonder if it's being sabotaged on purpose

[papasmurf]

You'd think the Tesco's would just stick some public WiFi next to the charger. 

Quite, however I use ethernet connection on my PC as WIFI is a tad variable here.

[BeElBeeBub]

And what are wind turbine blades made from?... CARBON FIBRE
Insid some work for a company call Hexcel that produce FB for companies like Boeing and Airbus, the amount of chemicals, electricity and heat that goes into making it probably takes years to get back. After they've made it they put it in a huge deep freeze until they want to use it to stop the catalyst from working on the resin, more energy used.

The only reason solar and wind are cheaper is because we are paying our taxes to give them huge grants to build the bloody things, so it might be cheaper at the point of use but we have already paid tons in tax to get to that point.

Time and time again studies have shown the embodied carbon and energy in things like wind turbines is paid back within months of operation.

As for subsidies, the current rate (per mwh) is £73 for offshore wind, £63 for onshore and £61 for solar.

CCGT gas plants are around £114.

And then there is the matter of the tax breaks (a form of subsidy) that are still given to oil and gas companies for exploration work.

[BeElBeeBub]

At a supermarket 10 miles away from me. (As far as I am aware the only public charging points in the area.) It appears all too often due to the mobile phone signal being bad or non-existent at times. (The area has very bad mobile phone signals.  In my own home it is either very low signal or out of action. The ability to pay or even log on to the relevant app seems to have led to some very angry people.

You'd think the Tesco's would just stick some public WiFi next to the charger.  In fact the bloody chargers should have a WiFi network built in they are clearly wired to the internet in order to do their end of the transaction so why not just make them an access point ("Tesco Charger WiFi") so you can connect if necessary.  Better yet just make it a straight payment transaction like the fuel pumps.  Just tap your card, it preauthorises £50 or something and then bills you at the end.

[BeElBeeBub]

The fact is, the answer was nuclear in the 80 when Mrs T in her wisdom pointed it out, and frankly all you Liberals screwed us over with your Swampy's, CND and burn you bra mentality. Now you're the one telling us we're ruining the planet!! Couldn't make it up.

I don't disagree.  The answer was nuclear. If we had got on and started building them in the late 90's and early 00's they would be coming on stream about now.  I've always supported nuclear new build, and even worked in the nuclear industry.

I was rather annoyed that the (conservative) government ballsed up the new build program and stuff like the Wylfa replacement has been defacto canned.

But, the big issue with nuclear is it takes so bloody long to build. Some of that is red tape but there is also the straight up problem of building a massive machine out of steel and concrete to a very high standard. Sure SMRs sound very interesting but I fear the regulatory hurdles to getting them deployed will push them 20year or more away.

If we.started now we might see some results by the late 2030's  or into the 2040's

The average UK nuclear plant puts out around 5,500 Gwh a year.

The UK added about 5,000 Gwh per year of generation over the 5 years to 2023.(2018-57,000 Gwh 2023-82,000 Gwh)

So we are already  effectively commissioning a nuclear power station every year.  We will have replaced our fleet of 9 stations in a decade with wind, whilst any nuclear replacements will still be under construction (at best)

[papasmurf]

At some point, and governments will probably have to step in, we will end up with a robust standard so any make and model of car can plug into any charger and they just talk to each other and get on with it. Payment too will need to get easier. Ideally just a simple payment per kWh. No apps, no sign ins, no networks

But no denying, we aren't here now


So get a nice petrol, and keep the electric for local journeys (or sell it).

At a supermarket 10 miles away from me. (As far as I am aware the only public charging points in the area.) It appears all too often due to the mobile phone signal being bad or non-existent at times. (The area has very bad mobile phone signals.  In my own home it is either very low signal or out of action. The ability to pay or even log on to the relevant app seems to have led to some very angry people.

[BeElBeeBub]

M I've got an EV and it's 💩, can nearly get 200 miles out of it, and many times it won't accept the handshake from the charger and I am lwft doing 10 miles an hour with my hazards on desperately trying to get to the next charge station.

Get rid of it then. Your use case is clearly not suited for it as you are doing more than 200 miles away from home and are having to use our kic chargers - the issues with being well documented.

There is no intrinsic reason that public charging is so crap.  We are currently in the 90's phone charging phase of car charging. Remember when every manufacturer used a different charger plug, sometimes even between models and you had to find someone with the right charger?  Ultimately we have landed (via some government intervention) on one standard and now charging phones is much easier.
At some point, and governments will probably have to step in, we will end up with a robust standard so any make and model of car can plug into any charger and they just talk to each other and get on with it. Payment too will need to get easier. Ideally just a simple payment per kWh. No apps, no sign ins, no networks

But no denying, we aren't here now


So get a nice petrol, and keep the electric for local journeys (or sell it).

[BeElBeeBub]

Just to put this solar into perspective, and these are based on 2022 published figures admittedly.
The earthed used 25,000 Terawatts of electricity in 2021, of that 855 Terawatts came from Solar. That means increasing the number by 30 times, and that's before we all start driving like the Jetsons. 

We need to be careful about our units and the difference between capacity and generation (not saying you don't know this but history showed us it's easy for us to end up at cross purposes on here.)
The figures I dredged up from the internet were
World generation capacity (rounded 2022)

Fossil fuels	4,570
Renewables	3,346
Hydroelectricity	1,216
Solar	1,056
Wind	899
Nuclear	378
Hydroelectric pumped storage	185
Biomass and waste	160
Geothermal	15
Tide and wave	0.5

Top two are the totals

So in terms of generating capacity it's about 25% of total capacity 

When it comes to total generated it's a little different 

Total electricity generated world was 30,000 Gwh
Of which 4,700 Gwh was from wind and solar - about 15%.

So clearly wind and solar have a way to go.  But they are growing fast. Around 500Gwh a year. Assuming we haven't topped out our installation rate yet closing that gap in 25 or so years isn't implausible.

Trying to reduce the growth in demand is important 

We also have e the issue that the above is only for electricity generation, which is only part of our world energy demand.

Direct use of fossil fuels for thermal energy (aka heating things) and for transport are the two biggest users.

Electrifying those sectors will increase demand for electricity and moving the burning of the oil in our cars to the power stations that charge electric cars isn't a big win.

Good resource.

https://www.energyinst.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/1542714/EI_Stats_Review_2024.pdf

[BeElBeeBub]

Why?  Nice strawman.  But in case your IQ ever reaches above 75, wood can also be used to keep you from freezing in the winter, to cook your food, to heat your water.  And that's what you want the state to control.  So why not actually admit it is easier to control electricity than fuel, and hence more beneficial for the state and corporations to switch to electric, and therefore politically useful to fund pro AGW research.

Only if you have the infrastructure to do so.

Could you provide heat, hot water, light, power and cooking facilities from wood at your home?

Some people have the capability for heat. Fewer have it for hot water. Almost none for cooking.

Unless you have extensive outside space, storage of enough wood for the above is a big undertaking, several cubic meters in volume and hundreds of kg.

Oil and gas are considerably easier to control access to than electricity.

A bunch of farmers managed to restrict access to fuel.  The UK government could easily stoo.our access to oil and gas. Sure some people have storage facilities but nobody has the capability to make their own diesel and gas.

By contrast, not only is electricity far more useful than oil or gas, but it can be produced and stored on a micro scale.  Admittedly production of large quantities of it are not so easy.  But that is another reason for becoming more efficient.

Just look at lighting.

30 years ago the lighting load for a house could easily be a kw (4 or more 50w down lighters per room).  That would take 200-300 kg of lead acid batteries. Now the same load could be 100w and lowered, all night from a 30kg LFP battery.

It is far harder to control access to electricity than it is to fossil fuels