what a load of pish

There's this:

I would not have thought so. Otherwise we would all be using gas fridges, not electric

We don't use gas fridges because we don't (yet) have mini gas turbines to drive the compressor. The old fashioned gas fridges were the "absorption" type, much less efficient than modern ones.

When the CEGB was privatised, one of the managers was going to use his redundancy payout to try to adapt lorry turbocharger technology to make a "home" system to generate domestic electricity and use the waste heat for DHW and central heating. I helped him to scrounge some laboratory C&I stuff that was otherwise going into a skip for him to start making prototypes. I guess it never got anywhere, but I was always slightly sorry about that. It seemed to me to be a scheme with potential (although probably better in colder climates with a more consistent CH requirement).

One of the problems with model plane gas turbines (jets) is that the blade to cowl clearance has to be about the same as it is on a full size jet, but proportionately this is a far larger percentage of the total blade diameter, and this leads to serious loss of efficiency.

Pocket size gas turbines simply are not as good as big ones. Small may be beautiful, but big is often better.

Remember that having ones own generator stopped being useful about the time the last windmill stopped turning.

Before modern insanity set in

And the primary advantage of electric heat pumps is you can run them off renewables, which you couldn't do with a gas heat pump.

'Combined Heat and Power' is a thing you can buy today:

Theo

In its 1920s Portobello power station, Edinburgh used the waste heat to warm up the sea water for the neighbouring open air swimming pool. Now both have gone.

That is not an advantage

Everyone knows that the last thing we want in the world is unsustainable 'renewables'.

Battersea power station ran its final condensate out to blocks of flats...its the ideal location for a nuclear power station...rub londoners noses in the fact that someone somewhere has to live next door to a power station

Didn't Battersea Power Station do the same for nearby housing estates?

Very true, but what?s the cut off date for domestic gas supplies? Can?t say I?ve ever heard one discussed.

So, *if* domestic gas supplies continue, the *cheapest* domestic heating could be a gas powered heat pump depending on their efficiency and gas prices.

Tim

How much gas is produced by non-renewables and is this reducing over time?

It won't all be coming from gas.

The basic problem, on top of the intermittency, is that tidal power requires robust infrastructure to cope with weather extremes, so the capital cost is high. A Severn Barrage would be rather like the Channel Tunnel, not cost effective as a project but once built a great asset because you could run a motorway and/or railway across it. Also, while it would be great for sailors and other aquatic leisure activities, it's not so good for Slimbrige and the birders.

And unless lots of other people in the location where that unfortunate girl lived are dropping like flies, falling victim to (only) the self-same "pollution", then it was probably not the pollution which killed her, though it might (or might not) have exacerbated whatever it was.

For a time when I was a boy, we used to live directly on the A59 in central Liverpool, less than a hundred and fifty yards from the Mersey Tunnel entrance. There were almost no emission controls in those days, and as well as traffic (lots of it), we were surrounded by dwellings burning coal in grates and various industrial premises, including a nearby brewery, all doing the same.

We all managed to survive.

I have thought it very odd that asthma rates have been rising, while vehicle emission controls have been improving and and all forms of vehicle pollution have actually been falling significantly, yet the action seems to be to pillory the motorist, restrict when and where they can drive and charge them punitive penalties for entering certain areas.

Of course, if anyone had actually died, they'd be sure to post here and let us know they disagreed.

#Paul

The human body can be damaged long term by some types of pollution, but still 'survive'. And not all will be equally effected.

Lead was a prime example.

It's similar to Covid. 'I've not caught it, therefore all these precautions are stupid, and disrupt my life'

Especially some immigrants who may come from a relatively simple life style and with genes not adapted to cope with the environment they find themselves in.

While it's anecdotal evidence, I have known a few friends who gave up smoking to then suffer from asthma. In one case their doctor said it's no an unusual consequence.

An interesting observation.

You only need to walk along the side of a busy road to notice the pong on NO2. This wasn't the case 20 years ago. Now There are 10+ million diesel engined cars on the road and the vast majority are not EU6 compliant. There needs a massive cull of older diesel clunkers.