OT: and back to a traditional debate! UK to set new emissions target

[Chris Hogg]

Climate change: UK to set new emissions target

Emissions to be cut to 52% of 1997 values by 2032.

And that seems to include households and vehicles, not just electricity generation. Bearing in mind that transport uses a whole lot more energy that do the electricity generators, and it's almost all driven by fossil fuel either directly or indirectly* I can't see how they're going to do that unless we all become Harrys, with electric cars of limited range, solar panels on roofs and house walls made of 3ft thick polywhatsit foam.

• for my education, how is the electricity generated for powering the network of electric trains in the south east and elsewhere and the London Underground? Do they just draw from the national grid, or do they generate their own? I thought that at one time the London Underground generated its own.

[Tim Streater]

LT certainly used to, but I don't know what the situation is now.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh, its the BBC?

Well I've got news for you BBC, we wont be doing that. And whats more the EU can no longer force us to by Siemens wind turbines in a hopeless attempt to do it, either.

Not even then. Of course you have to be numerate to work that out, and that's an increasingly rare attribute of the voting population.

Only in the sense of having their own substations.

>

[Mark Allread]

I never understand the logic of 'encouraging' the purchase/use of electric cars that *have to be connected to the mains to recharge* when we are told that our power stations are close to being incapable of providing the power we need for electricity anyway.

[The Natural Philosopher]

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Mark Allread escribió:

And being told electric cars are "green" when their batteries are full of toxic chemicals, and when they transfer the source of pollution from the internal combustion engine to the [remote, so conveniently out of sight, out of mind] power station.

But then very few harries can cope with reality.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The theory is they are a wonderful 'dispatchable load' so on fine sunny windless days when everybody fancies a drive, you wont be able to, but after a storm that has put tree branches and floods across half the roads, you will have a fully charged car ready to roll!

Its just more hand wavey fluff and bollocks that doesn't stand up to the first calculation, but its good enough to fool the Progressive Left, who think that education consists of being able to read the Guardian.

[T i m]

Yes, it may prove in time that the majority of them just voted Leave.

Even simple stuff like 'It's cost ~£50B to be members of the EU *so far* and ~£100B is predicted to be wiped off our GDP'.

Cheers, T i m

[Adrian Caspersz]

Don't need to generate as much ...

Each train station could have a set of accessible battery boxes with AA, AAA, PP3, C and D contacts.

In the morning, commuters can drop off their seem-to-be expired batteries to be be used to feed their very last gasp into the network, with commuter to receive a feed-in tariff reduction for doing so.

Ya read this nonsense idea here first. Boris?

meanwhile ...

Mercedes Classe AA avec Julia Louis-Dreyfus, SNL du 16/04

[newshound]

Still going to rely on Siemens for thermal power station gensets, though.

[The Natural Philosopher]

At least those work...

Or go for a used French one - a snip at $6m for 30MW

[newshound]

$195 per kW. Lidl currently have 2.4 kW sets for £175. Interesting to make the random comparison. Solar getting on for £2k per kW installed, I believe.

[newshound]

Excellent! There was a crank in the States who was actually peddling the same idea, can't remember where I was reading about it, perhaps Ben Goldacre?

[dennis]

Its up to the government to decide not you or the EU. Britain will still be on the climate change bandwagon.

Maybe Nige could start a "ban the windmill" party?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Probably Bob Geldof.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh yes, and with a 10% capacity factor. Windpower £1k onshore/£3K offshore. 25%/35% capacity factor.

Of course gas ain't cheap.

But the capital costs sin;y huge

Now lets get on and frack our arses off while the pound is low. Huge export potential.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh dear Dense, you never 'get' it do you?

Some choices are constrained by reality.

You may vote for a government that says its going to give everyone a rolls royce to drive around in, and free fuel forever, and they may even 'decide to do it' but it ain't gonna happen.

I don't think so. It will pay lip service a little longer, yes...but the reality in DECC is nuclear and fracking.

I wouldn't mind betting that we may even keep some coal plant running by repealing the legislation that makes it uneconomic.

He already did? Why do you thunk I am in UKIP?

Brexit means we can now ban windmills.

WE simply taper off the subsidies and they will die a death and never bee replaced.

[dennis]

That is harry's car isn't it?

Its a shame there won't be enough cheap EU migrants to change the batteries for you while its parked.

[soup]

..and the problem with that is? Apart from we have to become raving :O)

95% of journeys are under 25 miles

I would posit that a great deal more cars can be of "limited range". Why not hire a gas guzzler for those rare occasions when you need the range offered.

[Chris Hogg]

I have no problem with electric cars in principle, although the batteries are expensive to replace and probably have limited life. The biggest problem, as has been aired here recently, is that the national grid doesn't have the capacity, either in generators or in distribution, to cope with more than the relatively small number of electric cars we have at present, especially in winter, when even if everyone had solar panels on their roofs, it wouldn't make much difference.