ENERGY MATTERS

[David Whipp]

Thinking about gas...

You may be interested in an update on the Lockfield Drive gas wells.

Having sunk (or resunk) the best part of a dozen and a half wells over the last three weeks, our live in Transco guys declared on Friday that they'd capped all the gas production on the drive.

Over the weekend, I checked out the remaining two excavations and noticed in one that there was gas bubbling through the water covering the main in the bottom of the trench. I rang this in as a leak on the emergency number.

A large truck turned up to backfill the trenches when I was going out this morning. I explained to them that there was still a leak in one of the holes, asking if it could be left open for the repair gang which will turn up sometime.

Returning home this afternoon, a second gang was busy neatly filling the hole with bitmac, the back fillers having continued in the morning.

You'll probably hear the residents' collective screams of rage when the leak detection gang start drilling again tomorrow...

[Whyperion]

On the tube ads...

I assume these are LEDs?

Vertical Fluoresence Tube lights 8foots x 4 to a panel in the walkways.

They also generate heat (cosy in the winter , needing aircon and fans in the subways in the summer to dissapate) , and the walkways are already well lit and when you need to turn right/left at the end of a tunnel the ads are not exactly unmissable in your face nearly - and theres not much else to look at on the tube. There are also some white walls on some station platforms , with 3 colour mega projectors for short advertisements.

the panels up the escalators are basically tellys ( flat panel ) , at least the ads can be changed quickly ,which saves a paste-up man working overnight, but again they generate heat.

[Stanley]

The programme on Weekend Farming Today you referred to was brilliant. It may still be on Listen Again.

[David Whipp]

the panels up the escalators are basically tellys ( flat panel ) , at least the ads can be changed quickly ,which saves a paste-up man working overnight, but again they generate heat.

As you know from other threads, there's nowt like a warm pussy.

As well as my router pussy, I've two that like it on the telly. One at the back and one at the front. It's the warmth they like.

Missus complains they spoil the view sometimes.

[Whyperion]

Cat hairs in the old large tellys are a fire risk , how cats can balance on the modern <1 in wide tellys is beyond me.

[Stanley]

David, did they take heed of your warning about the evidence of a leak?

[David Whipp]

David, did they take heed of your warning about the evidence of a leak?

Pretty sure not - there's a chance they turned up when I wasn't here, but none of the neighbours saw them either.

All the residents have been smelling gas for years on the bottom part of the road. (The first part of the street - built 1920s? - has a steel gas main. At the end of the old houses, this changes to plastic from 1970s development. There haven't been any leaks on the plastic.) Up to the last month, there's been an occasional visit from Transo to dig a hole and fix a leak, but the smell of gas has never really gone away.

A month ago, the gangs started in earnest; finding leaks here there and everywhere. The main now has collar after collar, patch upon patch. The crews working on repairs all agreed that the steel main should have a proper repair or replacement, but the powers that be wouldn't do that.

The gas that I saw and smelt over the weekend in the trench is now solidly backfilled. The gas probably finding its way to a handy void.

Have rung again quoting the leak number and will keep eyes open for action.

Cat hairs in the old large tellys are a fire risk , how cats can balance on the modern <1 in wide tellys is beyond me.

We've a couple that'll sit on top from time to time (suppose it's no different to a fence rail for them?).

[Stanley]

Email from BG this morning which I think was telling me prices have increased. Print so small (even on my enlarged view) that I couldn't read it. Who cares.... We all know what they've done!
I noted that the CEO of the petrochemical plant at Grangemouth said that Ethylene could be made for half the UK price in US and China due to lower energy costs in those countries. Remember what I said yesterday about the effect of increased energy prices due to the present ethos in the market? Much of UK industry could be priced out of the world market. Lookm up Economic Imperialism and recognise that it's a form of warfare.

[Stanley]

Listened to a man giving pensioners advice on how to save fuel. Useless things like turning the heat off i all the house except the bedroom when you go to bed. How the hell is a pensioner with no technical knowledge and an antiquated heating system going to do that!? It's like putting a sticking plaster on a gunshot wound and about as useful. Latest figures estimate annual deaths in UK attributable to low temperatures is 24,000. We are second only to Estonia in the EU. Is it going to get any better this winter? See t\his LINK.

[Tizer]

The government should set up a scheme to get everyone to fit radiator thermostats on all their rads then they could set the appropriate temperature for each room instead of blasting heat into spare rooms or having the the rad switched of altogether. We use our rad stats so much that I find it hard to understand how folk manage without them....by spending too much money and wasting too much energy I suppose!

[hartley353]

Don't listen to the government, find a good heating engineer who can balance your radiators. TRV's were never intendended for small scale wet heating systems.

[Tizer]

Don't listen to the government, find a good heating engineer who can balance your radiators. TRV's were never intended for small scale wet heating systems.

That doesn't provide the flexibility that TRVs give - we use them all the time for adjusting temperatures around the house. And they work fine for our `small scale wet heating system' (i.e. central heating).

A news story on solar panels...
Tiny 'LEGO brick' -style studs make solar panels a quarter more efficient
Rows of aluminium studs help solar panels extract more energy from sunlight than those with flat surfaces.
18 October 2013, Imperial College London

Most solar cells used in homes and industry are made using thick layers of material to absorb sunlight, but have been limited in the past by relatively high costs. Many new, lower cost designs are limited as their layer of light-absorbing material is too thin to extract enough energy. In new research, scientists have demonstrated that the efficiency of all solar panel designs could be improved by up to 22 per cent by covering their surface with aluminium studs that bend and trap light inside the absorbing layer. At the microscopic level, the studs make the solar panels look similar to the interlocking LEGO building bricks played with by children across the world. The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports by scientists from Imperial College London and international collaborators in Belgium, China and Japan.

"In recent years both the efficiency and cost of commercial solar panels have improved but they remain expensive compared to fossil fuels. As the absorbing material alone can make up half the cost of a solar panel our aim has been to reduce to a minimum the amount that is needed," said lead author Dr Nicholas Hylton from the Department of Physics at Imperial College London. "The success of our technology, in combination with modern anti-reflection coatings, will take us a long way down the path towards highly efficient and thin solar cells that could be available at a competitive price."

Dr Hylton and his colleagues attached rows of aluminium cylinders just 100 nanometres across to the top of the solar panel, where they interact with passing light, causing individual light rays to change course. More energy is extracted from the light as the rays become effectively trapped inside the solar panel and travel for longer distances through its absorbing layer. In the past scientists have tried to achieve the light bending effect using silver and gold studs because those materials are known to strongly interact with light, however these precious metals actually reduce the efficiency as they absorb some of the light before it enters the solar panel. "The key to understanding these new results is in the way the internal structures of these metals interact with light. Gold and silver both have a strong effect on passing light rays, which can penetrate into the tiny studs and be absorbed, whereas aluminium has a different interaction and merely bends and scatters light as it travels past them into the solar cells."

An additional advantage to this solution is that aluminium is cheaper and far more abundant than silver and gold. The future success of this technology opens up the possibility of making flexible solar panels that could be applied to any flat or curved surface, which could be used to power everything from domestic appliances to portable electronics like laptops.

University press release here:
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandevent ... 013-12-9-7

[Pluggy]

I'd advocate the middle ground on TRV's use them, but don't put them in the room with the main heating thermostat. Getting them balanced for both heat and flow is a nightmare especially if the house has been chopped around since the carefully sized radiators were first installed. I'd always have a 'proper' thermostat that shuts the whole lot off as a primary method of controlling the temperature and if the system was properly balanced for heat and flow it wouldn't use any more gas than with TRVs, but it doesn't need to be balanced with them. Since standard TRVs only work on wet systems, and the common ones only fit 10mm and 15mm pipework, saying they weren't designed for small wet systems doesn't make sense.

Having a system that varies the water temperature depending on the heat requirements is a route that many don't look down. Some modern top-end boilers take notice of the outside temperature or can be made to do so, but its far from standard. The place takes a lot less heating when the outside temperature is 12c than when it is -12c, It means the TRVs have lot less to do and heat isn't wasted getting the water hotter than it needs to be. My 14 year old cheap Italian boiler does it with the help of numerous temperature sensors, an Arduino and a lot of time programming it.

[Whyperion]

The government should set up a scheme to get everyone to fit radiator thermostats on all their rads then they could set the appropriate temperature for each room instead of blasting heat into spare rooms or having the the rad switched of altogether. We use our rad stats so much that I find it hard to understand how folk manage without them....by spending too much money and wasting too much energy I suppose!

I cannot wholly figure out latest house's thermosatic valves , they go from 1 to 7 , and at least three are stuck solid anyway.

[Stanley]

TRVs do work on 'wet systems' but regulating room temperatures has never been easy. Remember the first systems where the boiler fired merrily away till it reached top operating temp and was controlled by a stat and the input into the house was controlled by a room thermostat that switched the pump on and off? We thought it was incredibly modern, especially of you had a flap in the boiler flue that shut when the boiler wasn't on demand. Today my Class A boiler modulates according to temp difference between inside and outside, don't ask me how it does it! I have TRVs but don't use them, they are all wide open except the one in the office/spare room which is permanently closed as the room is never used for any length of time. I have found my own solution. The stat is on the landing and set to 18C. It is sited there because that is the most stable temperature in the house, not affected by cooking, lighting, fridge, TV etc. This means that the kitchen is always over 18C because of waste heat from appliances, door always closed so it doesn't affect rest of house. Rest of house is at about 18C. In the front room where I retire for my evening TV in colder weather it is not quite warm enough so cure in reasonable weather is a waistcoat or a jumper. In severe weather I light the stove which shuts the boiler stat down and reduces the temperature in the kitchen as door is always open into front room. We often forget that doors are a very efficient way of controlling temperature. The landing stat is never touched all year and the boiler is on demand 24x7, I've never been convinced by time settings especially when you are retired and home all day. There is one more high tech modification to the radiator in the hall which sends heat upstairs and controls the stat. I have a piece of blanket on it to make it less efficient, Heath Robinson but it works because it increases the dwell on the main stat when the boiler fires. My gas bills are OK, I am satisfied with my management system.
The thing about this though is that it is one man's solution to his particular circumstances and was only arrived at with the benefit of years of experience. Try explaining the principles behind it and the way decisions are made to your average pensioner. They'd lose the will to live after two minutes! The only way to reduce consumption in their houses is to install proper insulation and very complicated control systems that manage the individual room temperatures continually, not spout bleeding obvious aspirations and expect the pensioners to implement them. This is a cop out and simply a way of 'responding' to a very serious problem.

[Tizer]

Yes, CH temperature control is very much `horse for courses' and it depends on the size and layout of your house. Our house has old parts and new parts, it's long and rambling and has a lot of rooms (remember we chose it because we wanted to run a business from it). It's long axis is east-west which means that in winter the front rooms get toasted when the sun's out while the back would be freezing without any heating on. During our 17 years here we've never had a room stat, it's all run on radiator stats (TRVs) and we find this suits us very well. We set the TRVs for the individual rooms then some are left permanently on that setting others are varied during the day as we go from using one room to using another, e.g. lounge is lower during the day and higher at night. There's nowhere that would make sense to put a room stat and anyway we don't need it. A problem is that many people don't understand thermostats, even room stats. My mum used to accuse my dad of switching of the heating every time the radiators went cold, so it caused a lot of marital stress!

[Stanley]

It makes a great difference when you live on your own as well. Jack never complains about the temperature, he just puts up with it. Can you imagine the trouble in a family if Dad took the hot water tap off the kitchen sink! I can live with it comfortably but I doubt if many women could. Try banning hot showers....

[Whyperion]

[Stanley]

Not lit the stove yet but it's getting colder and I can see it happening very soon!

[Wendyf]

I lit our stove last night, we were going to wait till November but my toes were cold. Colin got a bit upset as his finely balanced heating system was disturbed and the oil stove fired up when it shouldn't, but even he gave up worrying when he sat down in front of the fire.

[Whyperion]

For various reasons I didn't sign up on the Pendle community rate , but checking now some of the fixed rate deals ( which some commentators say dont switch now - wait till all prices have settled down around Jan 2014 ) , I have found a couple of rates that are either same as current BG variable rate , or about 5% cheaper (£81 on average usage for monthly direct debit ). BG's November rate change is quite a hike in both its Gas and Electric rates , with the Standing charges for each being at just under 26p per day ( thats £190 before using any fuel whatsoever ) , other suppliers seem to be a shade more for Gas standing charge but around half the electric charge , so it seems odd that BG have any customers whatsoever other than those on current fixed/fall deals yet to expire. Of course for the more rural areas where mains gas is a un-obtainable thing its a bit meaningless , but the lower rates that are avalible to most of the British population it may well be worth a quick on-line investigation for switching. There is also some financial help to persons of certain ages and/or on certain benefits so the current media concerns about price increases may be a little over the top. The fundamental long-term UK energy problems though do remain a little harder to fix.

[Marilyn]

September to December and March to June are really cheap living months for us. Don't need heating or cooling...washing dries on the line here about 11 months of the year. Don't need to cook heavy/warming food. No need to use lights during the day in our homes.
Just as well. It has been said we pay more for our power than most countries, including UK.

[Stanley]

I might let the stove have a small blast this afternoon Wendy, to make sure that the front room is warm enough. To date it's not been too bad but today is a lot cooler.
I'm listening to comment from one of the smaller energy providers on the grilling of the big energy companies yesterday. The general feeling is that more heat than light was generated and the man interviewed this morning says that as far as he's concerned the big companies are operating as a cartel. They have set up such a complicated financial structure and billing regime that it is impossible to get a clear picture of what their overall net profit is, especially for domestic customers. When British Gas was privatised some of the more perceptive commentators flagged up the fact that the new providers had split domestic gas, industrial sales and delivery systems into separate companies as this meant they could more easily manipulate prices and profits. From what I can make out they are cocking a snook at government because they are fairly sure that nothing can be done to stop their predatory pricing regimes. Sorry, but words like heights, commanding and control spring to mind. What we are looking at is the market working at its best with no consideration whatsoever for the domestic consumer. They are simply a profit source to be screwed as hard as they think they can get away with. Given that everyone seems to agree on this, how come they are all going for approximately the same increase? All the evidence points to collusion if not an actual cartel.

[Stanley]

News this morning that the government is going to introduce an annual revue of the pricing policies used by the energy companies. Some commentators are pointing out that this is a waste of time because due to the structure since privatisation and foreign ownership, even if a naked cartel was found to be operating, they have no sanctions against it. We gave away control and now we are reaping the results. Think of the number of other sectors that this applies to. When a government divests itself of responsibility it also gives away effective control. Apply this also to 'outsourcing' and you find the same problems. It's a mess!

[Tizer]

It's all very strange when we need people to use less energy rather than more, yet we distribute energy via a capitalist system based on growth in consumption and rewards for those who sell most. Time for a change?