Solar Heating?

[Andy Hall]

I was just on a flight lasting 3hrs and there was nothing in English to read apart from today's copy of the Guardian.

Now I wouldn't normally give this rag house room let alone read it because it is largely nonsense; however, there were several energy related articles that caught my eye:

- Some nitwit in the leader section suggesting that the way to reduce carbon emission would be to leave fossil fuel in the ground. He didn't spell out the outcome, but one can figure that this is the only way to drive up prices and hence eventually allow alternative energy to pay.

- A discussion about the Chinese opening up yet more coal fired power stations because they can't do anything else quickly enough to meet the demands of their economy

- An article admitting that alternative energy generation over the next two decades could not meet significant demand and correcting the ministerial announcement from late last week

- Shell and BP quietly selling off their alternative energy assets because they can't be made to pay in less than geological time.

[AJH]

I know but I thought emissivity worked both ways, as in a good black body lets out no incident radiation, heat it up it emits a lot.

AJH

[Huge]

Oh, you poor thing. I flew back from Delhi on Saturday (Jet Airlines Business Premium - fabulous.) They ran out of proper newspapers before they got to me, but even I couldn't bring myself to read the Guardian. It makes me want to vomit. Or punch people. Or something.

That one I didn't know... Bit short-sighted, though.

[Andy Hall]

You would have at least expected the Delhi Telegraph........

They aren't exactly advertising it for obvious reasons. The rest of the article talked about projects with tar sands.

[Huge]

Boo! Hiss!!!! You swine!

I'd have expected them to be getting into wind power in a big way, though. There's all that Government subsidy to be hoovered up.

[Andy Hall]

Exactly

Minister 1 gives story on Sunday about massive increase in offshore windmills

Minister 2 blathers about subsidy for hard to get fossil fuels.

I think that the energy calculator on the BBC web site is the most useful. There are sliders for fossil, nuclear and alternative.

Simply slide the nuclear slider to the top, leaving all the rest at zero and there is plenty of energy and no carbon emission.

Easy. Done. Next.

Now all that we have to do is to have a word with the Chinese and Indians.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Unusual for the Guardian to get the facts essentially correct..

[The Natural Philosopher]

Nothing in their business model allows them to be remotely skillful at such an enterprise.

[Man at B&Q]

Perhaps because it's not correct?

Headline in today's Torygraph "Shell plans to produce fuel from algae", quote "The pilot project, announced yesterday, continues Shell's efforts to develop new-generation fuels".

Not quite the same as "Shell and BP quietly selling off their alternative energy assets because they can't be made to pay in less than geological time", is it?

MBQ

[Andy Hall]

Granted that anything printed in the Guardian is not worth the paper it's written on.

However, you may wish to read through

to follow up the links to the sell offs plus the comments of Shell's CEO

Needless to say, both companies, like governments, speak out of both sides of their mouths.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Of course shell are quietly selling off the neverwazzas and trumpeting every new 'give a bloke in a white coat a salary for a year, you never know' initiative.

Actually it is. Due the the triumph of marketing spin.

[geoff]

Shell had a (photo-voltaic) solar panel factory in Aylesbury 25 years ago - mainly for oil rigs and installations, it's been gone a while now

[Mary Fisher]

...

But you haven't, apparently, so what's your point?

[Mary Fisher]

KNOW?

We're anything but gullible and weren't approached by any salesmen. In fact they gave very sound advice when we approached the company.

That's what you think. We're extremely happy with our installation.

I suggest that you are antagonistic without knowing the facts. It's just an opinion and I still don't un derstand it - but I don't need to.

[Mary Fisher]

As usual, well said.

Mary

[Tony Bryer]

I am interested in hard facts: I write SAP Rating software. Yes, of course there are ethical firms selling systems, equally there have been more than a few media reports of high pressure salesman making totally untrue claims as to what people will save. The plain fact is that for most people, if you heat your hot water by gas, the economics of a professionally installed system do not make sense. It's about a feelgood factor, being seen to do some, whereas if you want to save the planet, paying to have an old person's loft insulated would make more sense.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I am more an more coming round to that way of thinking too. The more actual real sums I do, the less most of all the more popular greeny bollocks makes any kind of sense. For this country, there are only two viable ways to get carbon emmissions down to what I feel are sfae levels.,

Crash the population to about 30% of what it is today, and go back to a

17th century pre-industrial lifestyle.

Or build nuclear power stations and go to an 'all electric' society.

Nothing else is remotely feasible to achieve the sorts of reductions we seem to need.

Everything else is just paddling in the shallows of the problem.

The greeny bollocks relies on te fact that Nu Laber has been in power so long, that no one can actually DO sums anymore, and its really gone out of fashion to use mathematics and reason and logic to solve problems. Religion has take its place instead, trust in ideology, slash the tyres of a 4WD and you Will Be Saved.

[Tony Bryer]

Well it's the Eton-educated Mr Cameron who decided to put a wind turbine on his Notting Hill house, and a Conservative MP has just introduced a private members Bill to "enshrine in law the right of councils to set policies which insist on a minimum level of power for a development to be generated by on-site renewable energy."

although in many cases insisting on triple glazing would probably achieve more environmental benefit at less cost.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Indeed. By I don't think Mr Camerons education goes as far as Si-ense.

He's a marketing man: To do anything, first you have to get elected. I guess he feels he has to go along with greeny bollocks to do that.

The real issue is that if he does get elected, will he make the transition from marketing director to managing director.

And employ people who *can* do sums, and listen to them.

[Peter Parry]

He appears to employ one Zac Goldsmith, a fervent gambler and ex-owner of the perhaps aptly named Drones Club as his advisor. Zacharius, as befits a Green Guru who lectures all and sundry, has no qualifications or experience but is a member of a family whose carbon footprint is bigger than that of some third world countries.