ENERGY MATTERS

[PanBiker]

Last bus I went on was one of the Leeds City buses which are now electric. They have head up displays of stops plus an audio announcement of the stop and what the next one will be. WiFi and phone charging ports as standard. Non contact electronic payment by card, pass or phone.

[plaques]

Distance induction circuits have been with us quite a while, electric toothbrushes, nuclear reactor rod control, linear motors etc. I think what you are referring to is a induction circuit buried in the ground so when you park your car over it the battery will be recharged. In my mind the ground clearance gap presents a big problem requiring the power input to overcome these losses to be too prohibitive to make it a viable proposition.

[Tizer]

My Honda Jazz hybrid has regenerative braking.
I agree with china about electric buses. Same for vans. And bin lorries. It's more important to get them electric than cars. It beats me why here in the UK we didn't set up new companies to manufacture our own electric buses and vans and already have them in cities and towns. We need more jobs and more electric vehicles. Put the two needs together!

[PanBiker]

Could be a diversification for Rolls Royce in Barlick along with SNR components if there was a will.

Nissan and Vauxhall have already said that their plants in the UK will be unsustainable if we leave the EU without a deal.

[Whyperion]

I thought about you all when I read PE this week and saw the article by Old Sparky. He likes Octopus and wants them to get across this problem they seem to have.

Perhaps if Pluggy is happy to work from home for them he can share his solution (the IP cam at the meter registers with a bit of AI should do the job

[Stanley]

That's right Ken, that's the report I have seen.
Something simple like drop the receiving circuit plate down to reduce the air gap?

[Tizer]

People in Cornwall will say `Here we go again'. They've been exposed for centuries to boom and bust cycles based on mining various minerals. The county is world-renowned for it's great variety of minerals but the usual trajectory is: new discovery, great optimism, big spending, lots of jobs - then a much cheaper source is found elsewhere in the world and the Cornish business closes down with loss of the jobs. I hope this will last longer but I wouldn't take any bets on it. We've known for centuries that there's lithium in Cornwall but it's only now that the price of the element is high enough to tempt in the mining companies. My worry would be this - how long will it be before cheaper or more effective batteries can be made without lithium?*

`Could Cornwall see a lithium ion battery revolution?' LINK
Video caption: `Lithium ion batteries power electric cars, mobile phones and other electrical devices, but they are difficult and dangerous to transport and so related industries like electric car plants tend to be located close to the source of the element. But now a possible new source of the raw ingredient, lithium, may have been found in Cornwall. One company, British Lithium, believes that the county might be the best place to find the element in Europe and is taking samples to find potentially economic seams.

*Sodium ion batteries, anyone? There's no shortage of sodium! Sodium ion batteries

[Stanley]

I saw the reports on Cornish Lithium Peter and it reminded me of the number of times I have seen similar news stories associated with companies who were going to make money out of re-screening the old waste tips using better technology than was available when they were created. These initiatives always seemed to quietly fade away.
You're right about the dangers. More than one cargo plane has found them too hot to handle.

[Stanley]

My November combined energy bill is in and is almost the same as October at £94.82. I suspect this month will be more than that, we seem to be into winter weather now!

[plaques]

Don't forget a 1 horse power motor will use 746 watts. Two hours in the shed running the lathe and drills will quietly gobble up those extra £s.

[Stanley]

Leccy in the shed has never been a big cost Ken. No more than cooking. Perhaps I'm just careful about usage.

[Tizer]

More debate about hydrogen as a fuel. At least working together on the project is a good idea...
`Hydrogen power: Firms join forces in bid to lower costs' LINK

[Stanley]

Interesting link Peter. This was the quote that grabbed me...
"“It does not occur in nature so it requires energy to separate,” Mr Liebreich writes in recent essays for BloombergNEF. “Its storage requires compression to 700 times atmospheric pressure, refrigeration to -253C… It carries one quarter the energy per unit volume of natural gas… It can embrittle metal, it escapes through the tiniest leaks and yes, it really is explosive.” Despite this, Mr Liebrich says green hydrogen still “holds a vice-like grip over the imaginations of techno-optimists”. 2
I fear there may be some truth in Mr Liebreich's remarks. There are very good reasons why liquid fossil fuels have been so successful. Perhaps it would be helpful if we stopped comparing efficiency and economics with such a useful fuel and accept that hydrogen will be more expensive and less efficient but the overall benefits make up for this.
Everything is reduced to the same brutal level when profitability is the only criterion. Could we please remember that we are trying to avoid climate catastrophe here and there may be some prices to pay for earlier profligacy..

[plaques]

Now that it is possible to plug small renewable power sources back into the grid perhaps its time to look again at small hydro generators where the water drop may be only a couple of feet and an inconsistent flow but good enough for feed back usage.

[Tizer]

That reminds me of Dick Strawbridge using the small stream through his garden to generate electricity for the house. Every little counts and the more different sources you have for energy the more secure the supply becomes.

[Stanley]

Small scale generation has always been on my mind. I spent the last year of my life before Uni working for the DOE as a researcher investigating water power in the Lake district and one of the matters I brought up in my reports was the fact that there were many perfectly viable power sites, complete with all their turbines, sat there unused because of government legislation making it expensive and in some cases impossible to operate. I can show you water power sites in Barlick that could be easily used if a little imagination was used. This is true anywhere in Britain that is hilly!
My mate Robert has been pumping power into the Grid from his turbines at Masson Mill on the Derwent ever since he bought the place.
BTW. My energy matter is that my Smart Meter Monitor informs me it has 'Lost connection with the network' whatever that means.

[Big Kev]

BTW. My energy matter is that my Smart Meter Monitor informs me it has 'Lost connection with the network' whatever that means.

Move it closer to the electricity meter, it should reconnect.

[Whyperion]

Turn it off and on again ? I assume history is retained in the monitor ?
November consumption went up - I assume it was a little colder for the gas, but why the electric - more lights due to darker nights ?

The biggest component of CO2 aside from transport I still think is the loss of forest, particulary rain forest and the dependence on solid fossil fuels.

[Big Kev]

Turn it off and on again ?

Just temporarily putting it near the electric meter (which also has the comms hub) should restore the connection. Once re-established the IHD can be put back where it was, if it loses connection again it just needs a permanent home closer to the meter.

[Stanley]

[Stanley]

I unplugged it and put it in the cupboard.

[Big Kev]

I unplugged it and put it in the cupboard.

And you'll save yourself around £1 a year by not having it plugged in, not a lot in the grand scheme of things but it's still £1.
I struggle to see how watching how much energy someone is using, in real time, will save you money. I've put the oven on to cook my tea and the IHD has lit up like a Christmas tree, do I turn the oven off and not have any tea?
I've put the kettle on, I've put the heating on, I'll run some hot water, same thing. I would have thought most people had the common sense to turn off the light if they're re not in a particular room or only boiling enough water to fill the teapot or a mug.
Perhaps it would benefit those who don't actually pay the bills, one of my offspring has teenagers and most of the lights are on in his house whether it's dark or not, I've known one to even open the window rather than turn the TRV down...

[Stanley]

I was more interested in what I was using in the shed. Remarkably little as it turned out, as you say heavy duty cooking is far more energy hungry!

[plaques]

That's one of the mysteries of using electricity, It can be as black as pitch, fumbling around trying to find the light switch but once its on and the place is like Blackpool illuminations its impossible to find the switch again.

[Stanley]

I note that in one of the houses facing me on Wellhouse Square. Every light in the house seems to be permanently on during the hours of darkness. The way I was brought up, you only used the light in the room you were occupying. All the rest were switched off. I remember as a child sitting for hours with my mother in the firelight listening to the wireless. That's a forgotten corner now I suspect!