ENERGY MATTERS

[Stanley]

Well, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that nobody is holding any of mine!

[PanBiker]

I got notification today that I am getting £200 from the DWP, must be getting old.

[Big Kev]

Well, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that nobody is holding any of mine!

My account is currently in credit but that'll soon change when the bill is paid

[Stanley]

I have turned the thermostat down to 17.5 after noting that the house felt warm. Not sure whether this is a change in the thermostat, my Damart vest or a hot flush!

[Stanley]

There was a total drop out on East Hill Street last night at about 19:30 which lasted a couple of minutes.
N Power have announced they are going to virtually drop out of the energy market in the UK losing about 4,500 jobs, 8 out of ten of the total. Merry Xmas lads! The rump of the business is to be transferred to Aeon, itself not without problems. What's the betting there will be further job losses.

[plaques]

NPower is part off E On whose profits dropped to £2Billion, Can't afford to carry on like this. Happy Christmas lads.

[Big Kev]

The 'restructuring' of Npower involves moving all their accounts to E-Ons IT systems. A sensible business move but not good news for the 4500 who will lose their jobs.

[Stanley]

"moving all their accounts to E-Ons IT systems"
I saw that as well and immediately thought "Oh Dear!". That's when the errors occur!
Part of the same report was an estimate that many of the new smaller providers are working at a loss to attract 'market share'. I have a suspicion that the constant advice to "switch provider for a better deal" is part of the problem. What has happened is a constant 'Black Friday' ethos in these smaller companies and this does not promote stability.
I have a lot of time for Old Sparky in PE and this week he lays out in detail the dire history of the Hinkley Point project. No room for all the details but it is disastrous. Much is being hidden here and OS himself still has his fiver on the plant never being finished. I tend to agree with him.

[Tizer]

EDF's Flamanville plant started long ago and still isn't finished.
`EDF had warned earlier this month that the cost of the project had ballooned by €1.5bn to €12.4bn, in part due to faulty weldings. On Monday, a government-commissioned report into the failings at Flamanville lambasted EDF. It pointed to several issues besetting the wider French nuclear industry, including a lack of specific skills at EDF, poor project management and headaches the group has had in integrating the nuclear business of its failed competitor Areva. “This is a failure for the entire French nuclear power industry, we must recognise this failure and treat it and address all the consequences,” Bruno Le Maire, French finance minister, said at a press conference in Paris. Flamanville was “supposed to have cost €3bn and its construction was supposed to have lasted four and a half years; it will now cost four times as much, and its construction will last for 15 years,” Mr Le Maire added.'
For more, see: FT, 28 October 2019

If Hinckley fails it's not only a loss of money and a waste of time. Many infrastructure changes have already been made in South Somerset to allow for the projected new plant and its workers, businesses have been created which would depend on Hinckley, people have moved into the area on the basis that they would be able to get jobs there etc. The nearest town, Bridgwater, and its business and residents have suffered severe disruption for several years now as roadworks and other projects have been carried out to suit the new plant.

[Stanley]

And the justification for the proposed new plant at Sizewell is "the technology will have already been proved at Flammanville and Hinkley Point".

[Stanley]

November's energy bill reflects the colder weather and increased shed activity, £107.81.

[Tizer]

I've just seen a BBC article titled `Labour pledges to electrify UK bus fleet' which I think is a good idea but it reminded me to mention the following...
Now and then I think about whether getting an all-electric car would be a good idea and I decided last week to look on the Web for more information about them. The main thing it taught me was that if you're going to consider one you really do need to delve into the technical details before making a decision. The first thing is that they're terribly expensive to buy, even with a government grant, so think at least £25,000 to £30,000 when new. Salesmen will say, yes but fuel costs are a quarter of the price and servicing is cheap because they're simple. The answer to that is you'll never get back the extra money you paid to buy the car no matter how long you keep it. And you probably can't get it serviced by your favourite mechanic round the corner, because special equipment and knowledge is needed.

An advantage of driving an all electric car is that there are no gears (except on a few models which have two gears and they change automatically) and it's a smooth drive with lots of torque. They're quiet, of course, but that's good in some ways, bad in others (think of pedestrians walking out in front of you in town). Then there's recharging...you don't want to queue up while the driver in front takes 15 minutes to charge his car so the advice is that you'll have to get a charger fitted at home - OK as long as you can park your car off the road at home (you can't trail a cable across the pavement!). You have to use a government approved business to fit the home charger, so you can be sure it'll be expensive. Then you find that you shouldn't charge your car's battery above 80% full - above that the charge rate slows dramatically and it also makes the battery hot which shortens it's life. You shouldn't let the charge get too low because the chargers are harder to find than petrol stations. That raises the question of how long does a battery charge last if the car is left standing - there's no simple answer because it depends on ambient temperature. And how long before the battery fails and you need to spend a fortune to buy a new one? Most of the all-electric cars have a 5-year guarantee on the battery but it will be losing efficiency from the day you buy it.

I could go on but you get the gist of it. If you want to consider an all-electric car make sure you know what you're letting yourself in for! There's lots of information on the Web.

[Stanley]

Good post Tiz. I am not interested of course, my car buying days are over! But from what I have seen I think I would be going for the hybrid with the normal petrol engine charging the battery as you use it. But then I've seen articles saying that most buyers don't know how to best utilise the hybrid facility.... Include me out!

[Tizer]

We've considered hybrids but they are mostly bigger than we want and yet have less space in them due to having to accommodate an i.c. engine, a motor and a large battery. There is also adverse comment about the regenerative brakes being `grabby' when applying the foot.

[Tripps]

I think you have just demolished the case for widespread adoption on electric cars.
My lad has a hybrid - bought solely because it is financially advantageous to him. Says (as I understand it) the battery range is so poor he rarely uses it, and relies on the petrol engine part.

My diesel Juke continues to delight me and I'll drive it till I can't. Only £20 pa tax - a hangover from when diesels were thought to be a 'good thing', and over 50 mpg. I see that the new model replacement for it is only available with a 1 litre petrol engine. I stand to be corrected but find it hard to believe that will be big enough with a full load.

Prophecy - Luckily I won't be here if they're not fulfilled.

There will never be lots of electric vehicles
There will never be lots of (any?) 'autonomous' vehicles
Fracking will be resumed eventually.
(Tiz's earthquake was about 4 on the Richter, with no damage.)
Power from nuclear fusion will always be 50 years away.

[Wendyf]

We changed our 10 year old diesel Skoda Fabia Estate for a 3 year old one earlier this year... zero road tax and well over 50mpg. Have to admit that I drive the Ssangyong 4wd which has considerably lower fuel consumption!

[Tizer]

We'll probably stay with our 1.6 diesel Golf which does over 60 mpg. If we do change, a VW Polo would be the likely option, a bit smaller and even easier to park. There's a 1.0 TSi version, which might be like the Juke Tripps mentions. They now make these 1.0 cars with turbochargers to give good performance in both mpg and oomph. They're not sporty, they use a turbocharger just to make up for a smaller engine.

[Big Kev]

We'll probably stay with our 1.6 diesel Golf which does over 60 mpg. If we do change, a VW Polo would be the likely option, a bit smaller and even easier to park. There's a 1.0 TSi version, which might be like the Juke Tripps mentions. They now make these 1.0 cars with turbochargers to give good performance in both mpg and oomph. They're not sporty, they use a turbocharger just to make up for a smaller engine.

Just traded in my 17 year old 1.9tdi Audi for a 1.6tdi Greenline 2 Skoda Yeti, official figures show 60mpg, only got it today so I've only done 'urban' miles in it and it's averaging 55mpg at the moment. This is still 7mpg up on the Audi...

[chinatyke]

Just traded in my 17 year old 1.9tdi Audi for a 1.6tdi Greenline 2 Skoda Yeti, ...

I was wondering what you was buying, now I know the answer to "buying a yeti today" in another post. Never heard of them before. Enjoy it.

[Stanley]

So glad I don't have these decisions to make.

[Big Kev]

Just traded in my 17 year old 1.9tdi Audi for a 1.6tdi Greenline 2 Skoda Yeti, ...

I was wondering what you was buying, now I know the answer to "buying a yeti today" in another post. Never heard of them before. Enjoy it.

[Tizer]

This looks like a useful development in the hydrogen fuel cell field...
`H2Go Power seeks to power drones with a 'happy gas'' LINK

[Stanley]

I heard a report on R4 yesterday of a farm where they have a solar powered unit to extract hydrogen from water which is then mixed with Natural Gas to power their generators giving a useful and almost free benefit in terms of emissions.
My combined energy bill is in, £118 for January.

[Tizer]

I hope their system is well-engineered by professionals - hydrogen gas is very hazardous and being such a small molecule it loves to leak!

[Stanley]

It was Tiz. I forget the institution but it was a collaboration between the National Trust and a university and was an experiment to assess the usefulness of such a system.
Have you been watching the results of the investigations into the power cuts caused by a wind farm and a gas fired plant going off line at the same time?