The deep green vote would be to use no gas at all? In a London terrace house, what would be the alternative? (Serious question).
I did a job a couple of years ago for an architect who's client was adamant he would not have gas in his house (a London terraced house) though in his case it was for safety reasons rather than energy. But at the same time he wanted his town house refurb to be up to passivhaus standards for energy performance. His heating and hot water are principally from air source heat pumps (i.e. highly efficient electric heating). He had solar PV on his roof. His cooking is all electric. We don't have gas here, either - all electric. We've just finished building a small development of two bed terraced houses in the middle of a town - no gas, all electric.
Gas boilers are cheap to buy but costly to run (all the safety tests and servicing costs). I've had them in previous houses - horrible, unreliable, smelly things. I won't have one by choice.
The main problem with swapping an existing house onto heat pumps is most houses have radiators and although heat pumps can work with them, they work much better with underfloor heating.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
@wild edges I've hummed and hawed about solar thermal vs PV plus a diverter for hot water. I have generally come to the conclusion that the latter is better - more flexible, as you say. I become more confident about that where there is a secondary heat source - i.e a woodburner with a back boiler or the like - to take up the principal dhw load in winter.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Thank you Frank, spot on there, there’s no point in us trying to make any effort at all, just look at the size of our country to the rest of the world. And most of them not doing anything about anything. We need less population, less burning of fossil fuels and neither of those are going to happen. The planet is on a slippery slope, too late to go back now it’s gone on too long. But then, we’ve had a good run, if we lose it now, it’s been better than the other planets. Said it before, will say again, the only true ‘greeny’ is a dead one.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Pansyface. What goes in has to come out and that means paying for disposal, any type of unit for doing that will have a waste product, what to do with said waste product? think about it. Mixed in with those massive heaps of green waste compost who will know. I have heard of waste meat or animal products placed in the base of those heaps.
All the so called green schemes have an input of energy, Heat Pumps are exactly that pumps using electricity to move the air and heat it or the water used. Solar panels now five times more efficient than the first ones produced need energy from the sun, we in the N.E. do not have much sun in winter when we need heat. Wood burners are under fire because it has been found they can cause lung problems in some people. Why I ask must this small Island bear the cost of other very much larger countries lust after cheap power, even Germany is going back to coal although they never stopped using it. The day will come when we will all have a little wind mill on the roof and our little old Gran's will be up there in a rocking chair blowing her heart out. Daft? yes but some would then sit back and say we are saving the world. As an Engineer I have yet to see a cost effective Green power Unit that does not upset some one or even pay its way. It will come down to "are we warm or are we hungry" as costs go up and up. Frank.
Frank, with respect, I think you're wrong. Coal use in China (and therefore the world) has declined over the past 10 years. Germany is reliant on coal - more than it wants to be - because it has stopped using nuclear since the Fukushima disaster and it takes time to replace such a large chunk of their generation with any sort of fuel source. They aren't increasing coal use, they just aren't decreasing it. China, Germany and India all have more installed wind and solar capacity than the UK. Overall, Germany is over 30% energy from renewables, the UK about 27%, China about 25%. There are a lot of countries in the world, smaller than the UK, doing a lot more to cut carbon emissions. Lyn is right, population is the underlying problem. But the size of our country is not the point - the size of our energy consumption is high for our size, so plenty of much bigger countries produce far less carbon than we do.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
"There’s no point in us trying to make any effort at all"
Lynn, is that sarcasm? I wasn't sure.
Apropos of the original question, after phoning around various 'Green Energy' companies, it seems any "green gas" is using virgin grain crop to generate methane (not just sewage). This comes with its own slurry of associated concerns.
From my point of view, world population figures are neither here nor there. We have a personal and national responsibility to look after our own resources, land, people and energy usage. We can't do much to affect other countries' development, but we can change our own behaviour. It matters and it counts. Forget moaning about China and Germany or anyone else - it's just more blame shifting - which postpones fundamental changes we must make.
Raisingirl, I do hope I am wrong and you who still have faith are right for the sake of my Grandchildren. I came from a time of King Coal, every house had coal fires stoves and boilers in our case two of them, one for animal food and one in the wash house. In our village many of the fires were never lit because people could not afford a bag of coal. Electricity Generating station were going up fast we went from one to three as more was used after the war. Then Atomic power it was going to save the world, well I was in Germany in October 1962 (the Cuba Crisis) none of you realise how close we came, us forward troops never expected to see our families again. Smog caused the clean air bill we all had central heating fitted at our own cost because thousands were dying in the smogs. North Sea oil was discovered all our lives were going to be better they were not, then North Sea gas, our village was cut off and converted in one go. I remember the opposing party to government screaming we were wasting our assets it would all be gone by 1980, wrong there are still millions of barrels coming ashore not five miles from me. My Son decided on Solar power but had it looked at first, it turned out with all government subsidies he would have paid off the debt in 20 years, end of story for them. We have watched the wind farms go up and seen them all standing still producing nothing, some of the local jokes about them unprintable. Meanwhile power was always going to get cheaper it never did, last week I checked my power usage on line (yes at my age I can do that), they owed me money so I reduced payments from £147 a month to £131, Luckily I am in a position to pay many pensioners are not. Yes Raisingirl I see it all with jaundiced eye, I have lost faith in the people who tell us something will be good for us, it never is. Meanwhile coming from a time our gardens fed the family I have hopes my Grandchildren do not see what I and many others have seen, although our gardens producing food would probably help the world more than anything else. Frank.
Frank - I'm a natural cynic, so it's not faith that I'm going on, but evidence - if that gives you any comfort, and also economics. The ongoing upheaval and conflicts in and around most of the main oil producing countries has done far more than fears of Climate Change to convince some countries to try to kick the oil Habit. It's had some negative impacts - fracking in the USA - but some positives too - China's investment in hydro. In the end, solar and hydro are basically free source energy, so any country that can rely on those more than ones they have to buy - fossil fuels and nuclear - will, in the long run, have an economic advantage. The list of countries that are 100% renewable energy is growing and some that are heading that way might surprise you - Brazil has about 80% renewables in its domestic generation, for example. Any country with a good hydro resource is silly not to use it. Like the UK, which has a massive resource but has privatised its water companies under such terms that we cannot access the best sources.
It's a shame your son didn't go with PV. The basic economics don't make sense, for sure, but it's very hard to factor in the reduction in non solar powered usage that you can achieve. I reckon we've cut our electricity costs by between 30% and 50% with a standard domestic array (just under 4kW). The FIT payments alone would certainly not support the costs - 25 year pay back or thereabouts - but the savings on the electricity we buy means it actually paid for itself within about 5 years. We are all electric, of course, so our potential to save was large - that being the only bill we pay for all our heating, cooking and hot water.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Brazil has about 80% renewables in its domestic generation, for example. Any country with a good hydro resource is silly not to use it.
Which is fine as long as you don't mind the destruction of millions of acres of pristine rain forest, displacement of native communities and widescale destruction of wildlife and river health. We'll never know how many species were lost for Brazil to get to the stage they have. People complain about 'unsightly' wind farms here but if only they knew about the scale of destruction in other countries to achieve 'green' energy...
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Being interested I looked up China's power generation, now there is a story. They have the worlds biggest green energy generation that produces 25% of the country's power the rest is by Coal powered stations and they are building more. The Seven dams installation has caused mass population movement from the flooded land and thousands of acres of food producing land to be flooded. They do have a clean air policy, we have all seen the pictures although it is more to do with China's economy. If I lived in the South of England then it may be worth looking at Solar, up here in the N.E. with the fractious North Sea to contend with that would be a no. My Daughter in Sunny California has Solar and yet still has long periods when she is on the grid, that could be heating the swimming pool of course. The Coast road from Sunnyvale to Mexico to my eye's was totally spoilt by the continuous miles of wind towers. The latest from America is they are dismantling some of the Dams and the Hydro Electrics they produce because of damage to the environment. At my age you have seen it all and had all the broken promises, some people would like to see the world go back to the stone age. Hunter gatherers dressed in skins (apart from Vegans) and living between sun up and sun down. As long as they wake me at Dawn with a cup of gunfire as they did in the army well so be it. Frank.
Posts
We don't have gas here, either - all electric. We've just finished building a small development of two bed terraced houses in the middle of a town - no gas, all electric.
Gas boilers are cheap to buy but costly to run (all the safety tests and servicing costs). I've had them in previous houses - horrible, unreliable, smelly things. I won't have one by choice.
The main problem with swapping an existing house onto heat pumps is most houses have radiators and although heat pumps can work with them, they work much better with underfloor heating.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
We need less population, less burning of fossil fuels and neither of those are going to happen. The planet is on a slippery slope, too late to go back now it’s gone on too long.
But then, we’ve had a good run, if we lose it now, it’s been better than the other planets.
Said it before, will say again, the only true ‘greeny’ is a dead one.
All the so called green schemes have an input of energy, Heat Pumps are exactly that pumps using electricity to move the air and heat it or the water used.
Solar panels now five times more efficient than the first ones produced need energy from the sun, we in the N.E. do not have much sun in winter when we need heat. Wood burners are under fire because it has been found they can cause lung problems in some people.
Why I ask must this small Island bear the cost of other very much larger countries lust after cheap power, even Germany is going back to coal although they never stopped using it.
The day will come when we will all have a little wind mill on the roof and our little old Gran's will be up there in a rocking chair blowing her heart out. Daft? yes but some would then sit back and say we are saving the world.
As an Engineer I have yet to see a cost effective Green power Unit that does not upset some one or even pay its way. It will come down to "are we warm or are we hungry" as costs go up and up.
Frank.
Coal use in China (and therefore the world) has declined over the past 10 years. Germany is reliant on coal - more than it wants to be - because it has stopped using nuclear since the Fukushima disaster and it takes time to replace such a large chunk of their generation with any sort of fuel source. They aren't increasing coal use, they just aren't decreasing it.
China, Germany and India all have more installed wind and solar capacity than the UK.
Overall, Germany is over 30% energy from renewables, the UK about 27%, China about 25%. There are a lot of countries in the world, smaller than the UK, doing a lot more to cut carbon emissions.
Lyn is right, population is the underlying problem. But the size of our country is not the point - the size of our energy consumption is high for our size, so plenty of much bigger countries produce far less carbon than we do.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I came from a time of King Coal, every house had coal fires stoves and boilers in our case two of them, one for animal food and one in the wash house. In our village many of the fires were never lit because people could not afford a bag of coal.
Electricity Generating station were going up fast we went from one to three as more was used after the war.
Then Atomic power it was going to save the world, well I was in Germany in October 1962 (the Cuba Crisis) none of you realise how close we came, us forward troops never expected to see our families again.
Smog caused the clean air bill we all had central heating fitted at our own cost because thousands were dying in the smogs.
North Sea oil was discovered all our lives were going to be better they were not, then North Sea gas, our village was cut off and converted in one go.
I remember the opposing party to government screaming we were wasting our assets it would all be gone by 1980, wrong there are still millions of barrels coming ashore not five miles from me.
My Son decided on Solar power but had it looked at first, it turned out with all government subsidies he would have paid off the debt in 20 years, end of story for them.
We have watched the wind farms go up and seen them all standing still producing nothing, some of the local jokes about them unprintable.
Meanwhile power was always going to get cheaper it never did, last week I checked my power usage on line (yes at my age I can do that), they owed me money so I reduced payments from £147 a month to £131, Luckily I am in a position to pay many pensioners are not.
Yes Raisingirl I see it all with jaundiced eye, I have lost faith in the people who tell us something will be good for us, it never is. Meanwhile coming from a time our gardens fed the family I have hopes my Grandchildren do not see what I and many others have seen, although our gardens producing food would probably help the world more than anything else.
Frank.
It's a shame your son didn't go with PV. The basic economics don't make sense, for sure, but it's very hard to factor in the reduction in non solar powered usage that you can achieve. I reckon we've cut our electricity costs by between 30% and 50% with a standard domestic array (just under 4kW). The FIT payments alone would certainly not support the costs - 25 year pay back or thereabouts - but the savings on the electricity we buy means it actually paid for itself within about 5 years. We are all electric, of course, so our potential to save was large - that being the only bill we pay for all our heating, cooking and hot water.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
They have the worlds biggest green energy generation that produces 25% of the country's power the rest is by Coal powered stations and they are building more.
The Seven dams installation has caused mass population movement from the flooded land and thousands of acres of food producing land to be flooded.
They do have a clean air policy, we have all seen the pictures although it is more to do with China's economy.
If I lived in the South of England then it may be worth looking at Solar, up here in the N.E. with the fractious North Sea to contend with that would be a no.
My Daughter in Sunny California has Solar and yet still has long periods when she is on the grid, that could be heating the swimming pool of course.
The Coast road from Sunnyvale to Mexico to my eye's was totally spoilt by the continuous miles of wind towers. The latest from America is they are dismantling some of the Dams and the Hydro Electrics they produce because of damage to the environment.
At my age you have seen it all and had all the broken promises, some people would like to see the world go back to the stone age. Hunter gatherers dressed in skins (apart from Vegans) and living between sun up and sun down.
As long as they wake me at Dawn with a cup of gunfire as they did in the army well so be it.
Frank.