Is domestic heating oil NOW more expensive than electricity for hot water?

[MM]

Does that boiler need a proper chimney, as opposed to just a vent in the garage wall that my oil boiler has?

MM

[MM]

In the UK I pay 10.6p per unit of electricity. Your $0.105 cost is roughly half the cost here. But you have in Canada much greater opportunity for hydro, only half the population of Britain to keep warm, and a land mass that is roughly 40 times the size of Britain. That's a heck of a lot of trees!

MM

[Huge]

If the solar hardware + installation effort costs more kW than it saves, then easily.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Which is why off peak nuclear and coal electricity is 4.9p..

Watch gas spiral though

[The Natural Philosopher]

Canada also has nuclear ..google CANDU.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Mostly solid fuel bolers need a fan blower for efficieny, or a long chimney.

Te key for solid fuel efficiency is the old steam train adage 'little (fuel) and often'..you need to keep combustion temps high.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Energy costs to manufacture and recycle.

They have a point, but are unable to do the sums.

Therefore they have promulgated qualitative solutions which make, and can only ever make, marginal differences.

That in itself would not be a problem, except that it diverst attention away from the underlying reality of the problem.

The Greens think it is lack of political will, but actually its simple numbers: green energy cannot do the job.

And we cant reduce energy below a certain level - which green energy STILL could not meet - at current population levels.

would be a good place to start. Also various DEFRA publicatyions.

Yes.

Nuclear in *this* country. Nothing else comes remotely close at sensible costs.

If you give free money away to every solar panel purchaser and manufacturer, that is hardl;y surprising.

Bully for tem. Now look at te overall cost and teh backup required when the sun dont shine.

Pour enough money into anything and you can be a leader in it. Who wants to be a leader in a useless technology?

Currently since Germany shut theirs down in a fit of post Chernobyl panic, South AFRICA is the worlds leader in pebble bed reactor design.

Possibly the safest and most versatile type of atomic fission reactor ever devised.

Quite right. The last quote says it all. The energy suppliers are FORCED to buy uneconomic power from small producers.

In the same way that Britain probably leads the world in the growth of speed camera industry figures. If you legislate a playing field to a sort of grand canyon level of flatness, you can encourage anything you want.

If its the wrong solution, its just another burden on the taxpayer.

[Icky Thwacket]

Yes a proper chimney, and a thermostatically controlled fan to increase the burn efficiency when on load. Sadly all the small coal distributors are slowly being mopped up by the big boys and I fear I will have to eventually bite the bullet and change to oil or LPG as it gets harder to obtain. Given the choice I would stick to solid fuel - yes it is marginally more work - probably a total of 15 mins per week - but only have to refill the boiler every 2 or 3 days when cold or it will run a week almost in mild weather. I like the 24/7 heat you get out, house is always nice and warm day or night.