ENERGY MATTERS

[Stanley]

What a good post P! Technically I am in Fuel Poverty and at one time claimed a lower rate from British Gas but they had such a convoluted system for establishing eligibility I simply gave up on them. It made very little difference and I have an aversion to hassle of any kind!
The present grumblings about the WFP and pensions in general is based on a comparison with average working wage and is totally wrong. The focus should be on raising worker's pay, not pulling pensioners into line with them, a tawdry policy. We are still low paid as pensioners compared with other countries......
You are right about any overt attack on pensions. We will simply be attacked the same way as anyone else with higher cost of living.

[Whyperion]

If you get winter fuel allowance and have your leccy from one of the big suppliers you should automatically get a rebate on the electric, about £140, if you are on pension credit I think, may even be if you are on ordinary pension ( the BG form is easy enough to fill in) also covers WTC (dunno about UC) if your total heating spend is 10% or more of your income - note heating does not have to be from the electric !!)

[Tizer]

TalkTalk's wi-fi hack advice is 'astonishing' (BBC)
TalkTalk's handling of a wi-fi password breach is being criticised by several cyber-security experts. The BBC has presented the company with evidence that many of its customers' router credentials have been hacked, putting them at risk of data theft. The UK broadband provider confirmed that the sample of stolen router IDs it had been shown was real. But it is still advising users that there is "no need" to change their routers' settings. A cyber-security advisor to Europol said he was astounded by the decision....A spokeswoman for TalkTalk said that customers could change their settings "if they wish" but added that she believed there was "no risk to their personal information". She referred the BBC to another security expert. But when questioned, he also said the company should change its advice.
LINK

[Stanley]

Oh Dear!! But there is no way I am going to start messing with my link to Janet!!

[Big Kev]

Oh Dear!! But there is no way I am going to start messing with my link to Janet!!

Unless some has changed their default router credentials there's no need to hack it anyway, it would be fairly common knowledge.

[Tizer]

Doctors are calling for a ban on all diesel cars in London. This seems a silly idea to me. You can't expect all London's diesel drivers to suddenly buy a new petrol or electric car. It would be more sensible to put pressure on the manufacturers to quickly come up with retro fitting equipment to reduce the carbon particulates and nitrogen oxides levels in the exhaust to close to, or below, those of petrol cars. Modern diesel cars have greater acceleration and torque than necessary - even family runabouts are like the sports cars of the 1980/90s. It would be worth sacrificing some of this performance in order to get the emissions down to an acceptable level. And if Jeremy Clarkson objects we can stand him up in front of a room full of child asthma sufferers and let him explain to them why they should put up with car pollution.

Linked to that was a Costing the Earth episode a few weeks ago about a port for cruise ships that's going to be built at Greenwich, London. When the cruise ships are in dock they have to keep their diesel motors running continuously to power all the services for their thousands of passengers and crew. Apparently each ship is equivalent to having 650 articulated lorries in one place with their engines running. As you can imagine, the Greenwich locals are not happy - they already have bad pollution from the road traffic. It was heartbreaking to hear a young girl with asthma talking about it. I'm nearly 70 and I've got breathing problems that restrict my lifestyle; she's a teenager and she's got the same peak lung capacity as me. Just imagine how that affects her life. And what will she be like at 70?

[Stanley]

What a good post! When I go out for my early morning walk with Jack I have three checks to carry out, a bit like looking at the instrument panel on your vehicle.... I check pain levels, the ability to stride out well and probably most important, can I take a really deep satisfying breath. I learned a long time ago that the ability to breathe properly and take in clean air to increase the oxygen level in your blood is vital. I also learned that the most accurate monitor of your air quality is the colour of your snot! Barlick is a white snot area! Your point about the cruise ships is good as is your mention of manufacturer's programming of vehicles for performance rather than cleanliness. We learned last year that VW have a programme that greatly reduces vehicle emissions. They used it to cheat but why can't it be used to de-rate existing engines and reduce emissions. That alone could make an enormous difference and in a city like London where the average speed of traffic is walking pace what difference would it make? As I mentioned in Politics Corner, Brexit is creating a smokescreen which is hiding the really important matters that demand attention and air pollution, especially in London, is one of them.
Perhaps we need a Minister in charge of Priorities?

[Tizer]

VW didn't set their programming as a default for the very reason that it reduces speed and acceleration. In America the EPA's regulations are more strict than in Europe and VW are having to accept some lowering of performance in order to meet the emissions specs. But I wonder if all that will change when The Trumpet becomes President?

[Pluggy]

He'd probably encourage steam powered vehicles to be able to burn coal. Hideously inefficient and dirty as they come. (Sorry Stanley). But Climate change is just weather.

I'd use him as a good excuse to get out of bed with America, they've held us back long enough with their clueless foreign policies. Thats certainly not going to improve with a moron like Trump at the helm.

It isn't just London thats looking to getting diesels out of the cities. Its happening across the world. Another few years and nobody will buy cars with internal combustion engines. Battery technology is improving and getting cheaper all the time, At some point the cost of an electric car will be less than an ICE car because they are much simpler and easier to produce. They already cost a lot less to run and in many cases outperform a car with an engine. No doubt the government will find a way of taxing the electric used to charge vehicle batteires to claw back the revenue produced by petrol and diesel.....

[Tizer]

Once the teething problems have been ironed out I'll be looking forward to having a driverless car. My Golf has adaptive cruise control which maintains a distance from the car in front which is good for safety and for more relaxed driving especially on multi-lane roads. It slows down then speeds up again as the car in front changes speed and it gives me a taste of what driverless cars would be like. It isn't perfect yet - it sometimes gets affected by a car in front veering off onto a slip road and still slowing me down once it's out of my lane. But that just needs the system to be made more accurate. The biggest problem is that few other drivers have (or they don't use) a similar system and they don't always understand why my car is slowing down when there's a big gap in front of me. Some use it as an opportunity to overtake and squeeze in which then slows me further to create the gap again. Also, my car responds so quickly to the car in front slowing that the driver behind (without the same auto facility) takes longer and has to step harder on the brake (or gets too close). Thus the big problem is incompatibility between even semi-auto-driven and manual-driven cars. I don't know how the car industry is going to solve the transition problem.

[Pluggy]

Much easier done with electric cars (no messy clutch or gears to deal with). Tesla's already can already drive themselves but there have been several deaths though. The media tend to blame all Tesla deaths on the autonomous mode weather it was being used or not. I suspect many of them are exploring the ragged edge of the devastating performance .

Driverless cars will be a legal can of worms in my view.

[Stanley]

I rather think Pluggy is right. Another small matter is that they are so quiet you can't hear them coming!

[Tizer]

`World's hottest borehole nearly complete' LINK
Geologists say they are close to creating the hottest borehole in the world. They are drilling into the heart of a volcano in the south-west of Iceland. They have told the BBC that they should reach 5km down, where temperatures are expected to exceed 500C (932F), in the next couple of weeks. The researchers want to bring steam from the deep well back up to the surface to provide an important source of energy. "We hope that this will open new doors for the geothermal industry globally to step into an era of more production," said Asgeir Margeirsson, CEO of the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP), a collaboration between scientists, industry and the Icelandic government.

[Stanley]

The thing that struck me was how dangerous it is to drill so close to magma!

[Tizer]

A good summary of the history of diesel by Tim Harford who does the BBC More or Less programme and works for the FT...
`How Rudolf Diesel's engine changed the world'
LINK

[Stanley]

That's a good summary Tiz. One of the great advantages of the Diesel engine is that in terms of torque, it approaches the excellent performance of a pure steam engine but with the advantage it could be scaled down for propelling ships, rail and road vehicles more efficiently. Gardners at Patricroft were the first to exceed 50% thermal efficiency. Rolls Royce spent millions trying to better this with their 'Eagle' engine but never solved the major problem, the heat loss via the exhaust. This was eventually solved by the Combined Heat and Power principle in which heat was extracted from the exhaust as low grade energy for heating. Newton and I made a CHP engine which drove a 6Kv alternator for power and used the exhaust for heating his house in the 1970s, we reckoned we reached over 80% efficiency and the same principle is used today in applications like swimming baths where the pool water provides a large enough heat sink.
Today the emphasis is not on overall thermal efficiency or the ability to use different fuels (Magirus-Deutz made an engine that ran on anything from paraffin to coal dust in the 1930s) but lower emissions. Progress towards this is being made but is possibly slower that the development of 'fuel cell' technology in which the fuel is converted directly into electrical energy and it may well be that it is these that will eventually oust all internal combustion engines.

[Tizer]

`When will our electricity come from the sea?' LINK

`UK car shapes up for solar challenge' LINK

[Stanley]

Two thought provoking links Tiz. The CH boiler seems to have settled back into the collar..... (Touch wood!)

[Tizer]

`India's double first in climate battle' LINK
"Two world-leading clean energy projects have opened in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. An industrial plant is capturing the CO2 emissions from a coal boiler and using the CO2 to make valuable chemicals. It is a world first. And just 100km away is the world's biggest solar farm, making power for 150,000 homes on a 10 sq km site."

It's all good news until you get to the end: "The firm behind the solar plant, Adani, is also looking to create Australia's biggest coal mine, which it says will provide power for up to 100 million people in India. Renewables, it says, can't answer India's vast appetite for power to lift people out of poverty. "

[Stanley]

Unfortunately that is probably true and should they be held back? Are the potential benefits for them bigger than the downside? It's a tricky question.
If you are of a nervous disposition, don't read what Old Sparky says in the latest PE. He says that the proposed dash for gas is dead in the water and all that is shielding us from cuts this winter is old coal fired stations on life support. On Hinkley he reports that there is a hold up because faults have been found in similar design nukes in France and there has to be an extensive re-design of Hinkley. There is more, one key component of the new reactor is a very large steel component, I'm not sure whether it is a forging or a casting. An example of this has been made and tested and found to be unsuitable, no specific reason given but the foundry where it was made is the only firm in France that can handle this size of component so there is going to be a rethink..... All in all, buy candles and trim the wicks on the oil lamps!

[Tizer]

A few weeks ago we discussed driverless cars. Now the BBC has followed our lead ( ) and decided to pay attention to them. This article gives information from the Dept for Transport which says such cars will initially cause some congestion but then reach a tipping point where they will prevent congestion (although the title of the article gives the impression it's all bad news). It says "..should driverless vehicles make up between 50% and 75% of cars, DfT researchers say they will reduce congestion." BBC

[Stanley]

The concept is fine I suppose but what a can of worms introducing them!
Still allowing the CH to carry the burden of heating. I have had other matters on my mind. Now I'm thinking I shall probably light the stove when we get some really hard weather.....

[Stanley]

See THIS for an interesting new initiative at Swansea. I like this.....

[Stanley]

This mild weather is very good for my gas bill..... What a good thing it is also for the energy companies who, if reports are accurate, are skating on very thin ice in terms of spare capacity..... I hope it doesn't lull them into a sense of false security.

[Tizer]

This wasn't cancelled because of any technology problem but was simply due to a government cock-up!

`UK government spent £100m on cancelled carbon capture project' LINK
"About £100m was spent on a competition for developing carbon capture technology before it was scrapped, a new report has revealed. Peterhead power station and the White Rose scheme in North Yorkshire were in the running to win the £1bn contract before it was cancelled in 2015. It would have seen emissions from heavy industry stored permanently underground. The National Audit Office has been looking into why the project was axed. It found a failure by the UK government's energy department to agree the long term costs of the competition with the Treasury led to its cancellation amid concerns over the price to consumers."