Climate Change.

[ronk]

We already have that magical technological breakthrough. It's called nuclear power.

Nuclear is pretty strictly base load.

The fix is relatively simple. Put in demand control before you add major loads to the grid. Space heating, water heating and charging cars are big loads that will only get bigger. All of them could be flexible and some could even temporarily work in reverse.

[paddyor]

.

FIrstly, I don't think personal choices will cut it. Much as people want to change there's some things they won't budge on(my gf won't switch to eco friendly make up removal pads etc) so it will have to be collective action by governments like big infrastructure programs. Progress there will be slow and the big idea for funding it (Carbon taxes) will probably only be enough to cover interest payments on the investment required. The other thing about them is we effectively pay substantial taxes on our cars already(taxes on fuel, VAT, VRT, road tax) and it doesn't really seem to reduce usage as people need transport. Now if your cartbon tax works in discouraging use of vehicles that's going to leave a big hole in your finances and the only way to balance that out is with a)more taxes b)growth. SOemthing similar happened with the green reforms to motor tax in the 00s IIRC.

Secondly, if you're poor or a poor country the threat of losing 2% of gdp in 2050 is kind of meaningless. You'd rather lose 2% of 150bn in 2050 than 2% of 100bn by constraining growth now.

I'm not saying a h f*ck it. Just think the "solution" will be more of a grind and will involve a lot of adapting to a changing climate.

Choice is often an excuse. The problem is one of mismatched incentives. As an example my landlord is replacing my gas boiler with an electric boiler. The trade off is that they get less maintenance and a cheaper boiler, I pay more for electricity and the environment suffers.

Apartment renters don't pay management fees (the bins), so they have no incentive to recycle. Landlords don't have to supply recycling bins, so why bother. In a functioning market management fees would drop and landlords would pass the savings on.

Or look at the issue of cars. Few people drive cars because they are cheaper. There are other reasons. Switching behaviour has to address the other reasons. If you want to reduce usage of 4x4s you need to remove speed bumps and create family alternative transport like easy car rental and taxis with child seats. Raising the price of 4x4s drives people to cheaper 4x4s, not to alternative transport.

Or to bring it back to rugby, should Munster use IRFU money to sign a big name or invest their own money in developing players they don't especially want to play.

Hasn’t the thinking on gas boilers changed? Iirc we’re moving to outlaw them in new builds soon and after that the existing boilers will become end of life a few years later. Night metered storage heaters in well insulated homes are quite effective and competitive on price afaik.

Recycling is a sham though. It’s ridiculous we want along sending stuff to landfill in China for like a decade. Probably burning it now. There’s countries with much higher rates of recycling and less of those incentives. I see the Brits are looking to move away from it.

[paddyor]

We can’t do metro link or dart underground, we’re struggling to build houses. We’re not about to become nuclear powered.

[Oldschool]

You have to laugh.
On The Tonight Show.
"Some people are just using their hybrid cars with the recharging turned off"
Mind you they're probably more carbon friendly that way.

[jimbobjoe]

We already have that magical technological breakthrough. It's called nuclear power.

Nuclear is pretty strictly base load.

The fix is relatively simple. Put in demand control before you add major loads to the grid. Space heating, water heating and charging cars are big loads that will only get bigger. All of them could be flexible and some could even temporarily work in reverse.

This is the big one - domestic demand control - which would apply to car/domestic battery charging and possibly heat pumps, would be controlled by an IoT connected charging point to manage import variably, will be essential in the next few years. The reductions in import would amount to max 10% decrease and at times when no impact is witnessed by the customer.

Vehicle to Grid (V2G) is a big possibility on the horizon too although it seems car manufacturers are unwilling to sign off on this one just yet - they'll need a bit of leaning on from governments.

If governments want to sort the security of the network and progress decentralisation of energy, then they need to heavily incentivise the above (grants for development in smart charge points, route to market access, simplicity for domestic customers) and then subsidise cost and install of heat pumps, solar PV and domestic batteries. THey'd also need to anti-cowboy the installations too - approved and trained installers ideally.

It's a lot to ask but it's essential if any government is serious about it's supposed zero carbon ambitions.

[FLIP]

We already have that magical technological breakthrough. It's called nuclear power.

Nuclear is pretty strictly base load.

Yes it is, but you need a low carbon base load provider to allow renewable non base load methods to be able to go offline when prevailing conditions don't allow them to generate electricity. Germany went from using Nuclear for base load back to coal because of FUD. Nuclear, Renewables and Battery storage has the ability to meet the world's needs and be low emissions at the same time, while ensuring that industry and people don't have to completely alter how they go about things.

We can’t do metro link or dart underground, we’re struggling to build houses. We’re not about to become nuclear powered.

It's not just an Irish centric approach. If the UN was worth anything they would be leading a worldwide approach on this.

You have to laugh.
On The Tonight Show.
"Some people are just using their hybrid cars with the recharging turned off"
Mind you they're probably more carbon friendly that way.

In the UK a few years ago hybrid cars had no extra tax for company cars if they were hybrid, which I believe was also done elsewhere. So executive car makers started making plug in hyrbids with a small battery, and a decently large engine. Which company car drivers loved as you could get a car that had great performance and comfort without paying extra tax on the benefit of having it.

I had one of these, a Mercedes C class. 16 mile battery range on fully electric, and a 2l engine. When electric and engine worked in tandem it went like the clappers. Great fun, but 16 miles also worked for me as most of my work journeys were relatively local, or to the train station. But I'm under no illusion that the car model wasn't solely made as a tax dodge for executives, and in the UK at least the tax benefit is now only on fully electric cars. Which meant a bit of a downgrade to a Kia eNiro for me, but it's still a fine car and was a godsend when the media stirred up the petrol crisis here.

[ronk]

Nuclear is a non runner for political reasons in addition to the technical difficulties. You might as well be talking about the benefits of Ireland rejoining the UK.

[Oldschool]

Nuclear is a non runner for political reasons in addition to the technical difficulties. You might as well be talking about the benefits of Ireland rejoining the UK.

Data Server load aside that would sort out our CO2 emissions growth for a few years.
Does anyone know how sea based wind load factor compares with land based load factor.

[Oldschool]

We already have that magical technological breakthrough. It's called nuclear power.

Nuclear is pretty strictly base load.

The fix is relatively simple. Put in demand control before you add major loads to the grid. Space heating, water heating and charging cars are big loads that will only get bigger. All of them could be flexible and some could even temporarily work in reverse.

This is the big one - domestic demand control - which would apply to car/domestic battery charging and possibly heat pumps, would be controlled by an IoT connected charging point to manage import variably, will be essential in the next few years. The reductions in import would amount to max 10% decrease and at times when no impact is witnessed by the customer.

Vehicle to Grid (V2G) is a big possibility on the horizon too although it seems car manufacturers are unwilling to sign off on this one just yet - they'll need a bit of leaning on from governments.

If governments want to sort the security of the network and progress decentralisation of energy, then they need to heavily incentivise the above (grants for development in smart charge points, route to market access, simplicity for domestic customers) and then subsidise cost and install of heat pumps, solar PV and domestic batteries. THey'd also need to anti-cowboy the installations too - approved and trained installers ideally.

It's a lot to ask but it's essential if any government is serious about it's supposed zero carbon ambitions.

Are the smart meters that are being installed capable of providing load control signals.
Are new build being built in order to facilitate demand control because surely that's the place to start given the fact that retro fits are usually expensive.
I've a Solar water heater and I think this should be part of the solution.

[jimbobjoe]

Are the smart meters that are being installed capable of providing load control signals.
Are new build being built in order to facilitate demand control because surely that's the place to start given the fact that retro fits are usually expensive.
I've a Solar water heater and I think this should be part of the solution.

No idea re smart meters (probably not) but that's not where you want control - this would need to be at asset level in order to provide the most flexibility i.e.batteries offer the greatest range of operation; binary on/off, variable import/export increase/curtailment, static or dynamic frequency response services.

Not sure solar water heating will provide much in terms of flexibility - you want it to produce HW whenever solar is available and not curtail that in order to increase electrical load - this would likely only happen when wind is too high and demand is too low (i.e. night time).

[Oldschool]

What A Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong.
Should be the theme for COP26

[blockhead]

Can you just imagine it?
Warm winters, tropical summers, BBQs, siestas, tans, sun bleached blonde hair, bring it on man!

[Ruckedtobits]

Although expensive, this technology should be part of Ireland's solution

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-scotland-57991442

[Twist]

Nuclear is a non runner for political reasons in addition to the technical difficulties. You might as well be talking about the benefits of Ireland rejoining the UK.

We already use nuclear, we just import it rather than generate it ourselves.

[paddyor]

Although expensive, this technology should be part of Ireland's solution

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-scotland-57991442

There are promising versions of tidal out there. IIRC there was one model of a kind of snake that oscillate up and down with the waves in Scotland and the cost was approaching the same as Nuclear and the UK govt shut it down. Now anything involving water and sea water in particular is always hard to keep, but it does seem like a technology that's waiting for some govt to step in and do for it what the Germans did for Solar.

[paddyor]

Anyway just came on to note that we've flubbed the public transport plan. Cars it is!

[jimbobjoe]

Although expensive, this technology should be part of Ireland's solution

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-scotland-57991442

There are promising versions of tidal out there. IIRC there was one model of a kind of snake that oscillate up and down with the waves in Scotland and the cost was approaching the same as Nuclear and the UK govt shut it down. Now anything involving water and sea water in particular is always hard to keep, but it does seem like a technology that's waiting for some govt to step in and do for it what the Germans did for Solar.

A company called Pelamis developed the sea snake which oscillated with waves but went bust a few years back - I think the IP went to ScotGov but development stalled afaik.

Orbital marine power have developed a floating tidal current system which offers flexibility in location and allows for easier maintanence. If they can make it feasible for large scale then I think this would be a huge step in harnessing more tidal - it's a big if though.

[Oldschool]

There are going to be a lot of solutions but how about getting the low hanging ones into play straight away.
1. Adjust timers to come on even fifteen minutes later than usual and off a similar amount earlier.
2. Empty the car of any extraneous junk.
3. Unplug or at the very least power off applications when not in use
I'm sure there are loads of small things similar to above.
Bottom money in your pocket for very little effort.

[Peg Leg]

There are going to be a lot of solutions but how about getting the low hanging ones into play straight away.
1. Adjust timers to come on even fifteen minutes later than usual and off a similar amount earlier.
2. Empty the car of any extraneous junk.
3. Unplug or at the very least power off applications when not in use
I'm sure there are loads of small things similar to above.
Bottom money in your pocket for very little effort.

There were over 500 fossil fuel lobbyists at Cop26, fix that. The fossil fuel industry's greatest accomplishment in the past 50 years is the successful crafting of the narrative that everyone needs to "do their bit". 20 Companies (not countries) are responsible for 35% of the worlds carbon emissions since 1965.

[Oldschool]

There are going to be a lot of solutions but how about getting the low hanging ones into play straight away.
1. Adjust timers to come on even fifteen minutes later than usual and off a similar amount earlier.
2. Empty the car of any extraneous junk.
3. Unplug or at the very least power off applications when not in use
I'm sure there are loads of small things similar to above.
Bottom money in your pocket for very little effort.

There were over 500 fossil fuel lobbyists at Cop26, fix that. The fossil fuel industry's greatest accomplishment in the past 50 years is the successful crafting of the narrative that everyone needs to "do their bit". 20 Companies (not countries) are responsible for 35% of the worlds carbon emissions since 1965.

I get all of that.
However, who uses their products.
Absolving the individual from responsibility isn't the answer either.
Next time you fill up your car just think to yourself, I'm supporting one of those 20 companies.
I don't see any reason why the individual can't be expected to contribute.
You could substitute the word individual with consumer btw and then ask yourself Consumers of what?
So adjust your timers. empty your car etc and don't wait for governments and businesses to sort things out because it will be a long wait.
Here's another one, only half fill your car, that will be a few litres less weight in the car and less fuel consumed.
Save a little it could mean a lot.