[ritchiebaby]

It needs to be stressed that the UK has about 20 million homes heated by gas boilers. So allowing for the Government target to phase them out by 2035, that's almost 1.5 million needing to be replaced every year - 30,000 every week! Can anyone tell me where all the qualified fitters are going to be coming from to do all this work? And who is going to be manufacturing and fitting all the new electric boilers/heat pumps required? Can the National Grid cope with the huge demand of 1.5 million homes every year using additional electricity (on top of the demand with all-electric cars)? And where is the money coming from? Surely we're not leaving it all to Government and surely the people who can afford it will pay for it themselves, as they have done for years.

Ambition is fine as an ideal, but it's got to be realistic in the circumstances. I would imagine if we can do it before 2050, we'll be doing really well.

[0762]

2050 will unfortunately be too late if we are seriously looking at the "do minimum" targets that most established eco experts, climatologists and other qualified agencies are demanding on a global scale preceding this important COP26 conference in Glasgow. What is that old saying that crops up? "Where there's a will, there's a way"? When a country sets its priorities on the equivalent of a "war footing" in serious terms of engagement to tackle such an impending climate threat. That's when a serious govt "pulls out all the stops" because its officials finally realise the extent of the threat and they can't live in denial of the fact any more. And that change of tact covers a massive drive on a variety of ways to reduce our energy consumption and reducing CO2 emissions etc. The boiler issue is only one of many serious concerted efforts to achieve an effective end resolution.

[ritchiebaby]

In my opinion, it's already too late. Mere humans will never beat nature and the younger ones among us will have to get used to the new normal in furure weather extremes. Locally it shouldn't make too much difference - it'll turn out to be like the south of England or northern France, growing more tender plants outside, etc - but spare a thought for those living in steep-sided valleys, near low-lying coasts or on flood-plains all over the world. They will see a big difference by 2050.

The best humanity can do is to learn to live with it and be even more determined to ensure that the temperature rise doesn't go above 2 degrees.

[0762]

I think we'll get a clearer picture soon enough after the COP26 conference TBH!! Like yourself, I'm not optimistic for the future (remember that we've had 25 previous conferences, so what does that tell us?), but there are still some positive thinkers out there who may prove us wrong. My question is, "Are there enough of them to make a difference"? In the UK's case, all these glitzy decarbonisation plans being touted by Johnson and his cohorts just don't "stack up" - IMO the wrong govt to have in place for such a demanding and serious challenge to change things with "frightened politics" predominant - removing all those gas boilers eh?? A vote loser to be avoided, don't you think!!? Still too much self-interest and human frailties sadly involved in such an important event to branch out with radical decarbonisation measures for the future!

[hibeejim21]

"Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is planning to more than halve the tax surcharge on bank profits in next week’s budget to help boost London’s competitiveness as a global financial centre, the Financial Times is reporting."


All this while they are hiking up NI contributions to make the poor pay the bulk of the COVID bill and cutting universal credit to impoverish the low paid and poor.

Meanwhile the NHS are ringing the alarm bells about winter and covid.... But not Boris cares not a jot.

[theo_luddite]

It's hard to stop the bastards grinding you down when all they do is grind you down with every move they make.

He's obviously not going to do anything that will affect the pound in his wife's pockets or the roubles in some dodgy Russian 's pocket that they want to launder through a property deal or two in that there Larndan is he?

---

Oh and don't forget the Nigerian "Prince", who is now apparently a Nigerian politician or two (dozen or more apparently) that previously wanted use of your bank account for a couple of weeks to hide his stash in return for a chunk of his filthy lucre? They are now also bidding with the Ruski's for property deals in that there Larndan. Of course, the odd bung to the Conservatives in the guise of a "Party Donation" and it all gets waved through. Nothing to see here. Move along please.

[theo_luddite]

Additional Bodgit Bollocks

“In 2050, we will still be driving cars, flying planes and heating our homes, but our cars will be electric, gliding silently around our cities, our planes will be zero emission allowing us to fly guilt-free, and our homes will be heated by cheap reliable power drawn from the winds of the North Sea.”

Given I'll be in my 90's by then, I may or may not be around to see it.

Let's see - "our cars will be electric" - more than likely most will, recharging them and the cost of doing so will be interesting to see given all the fuel duty that will become a puff of smoke from the past, governments will recoup that somehow. Tolls, mileage tax, or by then you "rent-a-ride" regardless of the distance you want to travel. It may come as a shock to many but the government owns the car you drive right now. You are the registered keeper, not the registered owner. Check your documents.

Apart from the billionaires, most of us plebs won't be allowed to own a car for personal use. There will still be some old legacy fossil fuel burners around though. Note he doesn't mention trains, so if we still need diesel for some of those those (we will), well, the odd oil burner on the road - mostly delivery trucks and the odd heritage Chelsea tractor, will it hurt, maybe, maybe not? Current dealerships will be the hubs where these vehicles are parked and serviced. Of course, they may leave it on your drive too until someone else books it and ask you to juice it up. Whether you'll get paid for that is another matter.

"our planes will be zero emission allowing us to fly guilt-free" - so right now that means Hindenburg type hydrogen balloons does it? We all know how well that worked out. Batteries are going to have to improve in performance and weight by a huge amount to get similar sized aircraft to those we have now across the pond and even across some continents. This - https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/20...c-devices/ - will need a helluva lot of work to power a plane.

"When power is interrupted, BFree pauses calculations. When power returns, it automatically resumes where it left off without losing memory or needing to run through a long list of operations before restarting." Right - really useful on a red-eye night flight back across the pond that will be.

"and our homes will be heated by cheap reliable power drawn from the winds of the North Sea.” It has also escaped this dweebs knowledge that many days of the year the North Sea, like our normally windy island, is like a mill pond. There isn't any wind. No wind = no frigging power. IT HAS HAPPENED ALL SUMMER. The other thing with windfarms is they have to be shut down in high winds - otherwise they blow the bloody sails off. The one thing that is constant (apart from a couple of hours each day) is tides. As long as there's a moon in the sky there will be tides and we have some of the most powerful on earth.

There is one guy, that Private Eye considers to be either a nut job or a thief, trying to unsuccessfully pocket tax payer cash for developing a tidal lagoon power source in Swansea Bay. I've no idea whether that's the best or worst place to build one or whether his idea is even engineering wise, practical. As much as the PE reports shysters of any political or financial persuasion I know it's something we should be looking at. It happens twice a day come rain or shine, wind or no wind. Stronger in some places than others. The issues are stopping other marine life (mainly plant/algae but also molluscs) growing on it to reduce performance and not putting it in the way of migrating/spawning fish and sea mammals.

Given the billions of £'s of our money these dickheads have thrown at their mates in the name of Covid - why aren't they throwing some at one of their mates to develop this in places where it would make sense?

The other "free" stuff (after you build the stuff) the likes of Norway have is hydro electric power but we don't have enough high mountains or powerful enough waterfalls to tap into. Hence we'd need to retro build additional reservoirs (we couldn't practically retrofit existing ones as we'd pour all the drinking water down the drain) which would flood huge areas inland anyway. As happens every time we get a months worth of rain in 24 hours

[0762]

"Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is planning to more than halve the tax surcharge on bank profits in next week’s budget to help boost London’s competitiveness as a global financial centre, the Financial Times is reporting."


All this while they are hiking up NI contributions to make the poor pay the bulk of the COVID bill and cutting universal credit to impoverish the low paid and poor.

Meanwhile the NHS are ringing the alarm bells about winter and covid.... But not Boris cares not a jot.

The narrative between senior NHS England officials and that of certain govt Tories, who are responding to the warnings, is so contrasting/different that the disunity on this impending crisis is embarrassing TBF!!

[ritchiebaby]

Well said, theo, on the subject of tidal power. To me, it is the way forward, far superior to wind power for the reasons you mention. I'd add in hydro-electric power in as many sites as possible - not only a source of energy thanks to gravity, but also a reservoir of fresh water, potentially needed for hydrogen production. Plus if we can take energy from underground to run heat pumps for homes, surely there is a potential for extracting heat on an industrial scale.

It's all too complicated for my brain to make sense of, but surely every avenue should be investigated now, not just talked about.

[hibeejim21]

Javid telling us all its going to be a difficult winter with covid, but basically they are going to do zip about it....and get back to the office plebs!