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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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 Posted -
15/12/2007
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07:03
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I thought it might be a good thing to have a topic devoted to this important subject.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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frankwilk
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Posted - 04/01/2008 : 12:38
I agree 100% traders don't lose. But Please tell that to my Energy Supplier who is buying Spot, and selling Electricity into the Pool
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy  |
pluggy
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Posted - 04/01/2008 : 12:48
Unfortunately, those buying the stuff for real have pay market rates as well. Welcome to the world.
But those selling electricity don't generate it, they buy and sell it on the markets which are exactly the same as the oil markets. And I'm prepared to wager they buy and sell a lot more than actaully goes down the wires.........
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk" 
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
Tizer
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Posted - 04/01/2008 : 16:55
Our local villages here (Somerset) are mostly on oil-fired heating. A neighbour of mine started up a syndicate to buy oil and have it delivered to local people at the lowest price. Several times a year he takes in all the orders, gets quotes from suppliers, and places the order with the lowest. It is now very successful - started in 2004 with 6 members and by 1 January 2008 there are 528 members in 53 villages. Users are estimated to save about 15% a year. He makes no money out of it and does it to help everyone.
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belle
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Posted - 04/01/2008 : 17:21
Just to back track again... i was away when you answered, Softsuv, thanks for explaining it to me in a way I could understand.
Life is what you make it |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 05/01/2008 : 07:45
We've done the classic OG thing and swung onto a track which has very little to do with the topic of climate change. Apart, of course, from the fact that the higher energy prices go, the less is used because people start to look for savings and do sensible things like attend to insulation, draughts and temperature levels.
The biggest factor in UK energy prices is the introduction of the 'market economy' by the Thatcher government. Driven by pure monetarism they sold the family silver and allowed the market to regulate prices and the economy. The argument was that the market is always right. In a perfect world, where everyone takes the same line, there is some truth in this but in the case of energy, the market has failed because we are out of step with the rest of Europe and it is in Europe that the real energy giants control the energy market. The UK is a milch cow for these companies because by manipulating the spot market they can extract a far higher price from us than in the more regulated economies of mainland Europe. The only thing that can alter this in political terms is action by the EU to level the market but don't hold your breath on this. There is another way, to develop internal energy sources like tidal barrages, clean coal fired generating units and nuclear power. All these things could be started now but the government is paralysed by indecision caused by fear of the political fall-out from the eco warriors, conservationists and fear of nuclear. The bottom line is that political mismanagement has led us to a position where we are going to be reliant on energy from abroad. The irony is that if the market had been allowed full sway, as in pure monetarism, all the saving technologies would be under construction now because there is money to be made. The moral is that if you shackle a free market you end up with the worst of all worlds, chaos and inaction. I don't like the market, I would like to see us sieze the commanding heights of the economy, but that isn't going to happen. If you're going to have a free market, let it operate efficiently and bear the consequences.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
frankwilk
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Posted - 05/01/2008 : 09:25
If you're going to have a free market, let it operate efficiently and bear the consequences.
Have to agree with that Stanley but we are where we are, and I can't see us going back !!!
If Climate Change is as serious as our leaders keep saying we need a joined up Europe to tackle it. Instead we have our goverment increasing tax on vehicles, that nobody has stopped using as far as I can see. If it is as easy as increasing vehicle tax why has Europe not followed the UK example. The reason CC is not taken seriously is because people see it as a scam by Goverment to raise revenue.
Just one example
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
Tizer
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Posted - 05/01/2008 : 11:13
What do you think about carbon offsetting? My views on it were summed up well by someone called Paul Cross of Newcastle upon Tyne whose letter was published in "The Times" in late 2007.
He wrote: "Sir, Carbon offsetting is nonsense. You state that Land Rover has assured the owners of 10,000 new Freelanders that their carbon emmissions are `neutralised by a hydroelectric project in Tajikstan'. The objective of reducing carbon emmissions should be that we all do so as far as possible. How does getting people in Tajikstan to reduce their emmissions allow Land Rover owners to increase theirs? It is like a doctor arguing that, because he saved a life at work that day, he should be allowed to murder somoeone later since the overall outcome is `death neutral'."
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frankwilk
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Posted - 05/01/2008 : 12:09
Land Rover owners are not increasing theirs (emmissions that is) it was just a way of trying to help. If your going to buy a Land Rover you don't really care if your emmissions are offset, It just makes the L R company feel better. Now LR is an Indian company or very soon to be it will be interesting to see how many units they intend to sell in India !!!
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
pluggy
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Posted - 05/01/2008 : 13:49
I love the 'No BS' comment on carbon offsetting. 
There is a case for keeping a smokey old dog of a car on the road, because it saves the manufacturing of another vehicle with its huge drain on power and resources. I never really formulated an opinion on that, partly because I hate following some festering rotbox belching fumes.....
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk"
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
handlamp
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Posted - 05/01/2008 : 15:17
Tizer, same idea as www.boilerjuice.com - I saved £40 on a 1000 litre order by going for one of their `oil buying weekends' just before Xmas. Re `carbon offsetting', I have always thought that this is a paper exercise thought up by politicians to make them feel good.
Stanley, your second paragraph exactly covers my thoughts. But why don't they get on with it!!!!! They'll prevaricate so long that we'll soon be having to beat our arms about to keep warm in this country.
Edited by - handlamp on 05/01/2008 3:21:30 PM
Ted |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 05/01/2008 : 16:27
Ted, I often wonder why we allow politicians to control things like the infrastructure. There is no logical case for it, taking a 'party line' on these matters is a nonsense, at the very least there ought to be a free debate between the parties and an independent committee given power to implement change. Talk to any practical person and they will say that the first aim of any policy should be to end dependence on foreign energy. It would be expensive to do it but sensible and at least we'd be keeping the jobs and any profit in the country. I see that there is a rumour that civil servants are openly debating the need for an agricultural industry. This is madness! The world is running short of food as I write. Food resources are being diverted into the production of bio fuels. Rainforests are being felled to produce fuel that will further pollute the world.
The bottom line is that the world has outrun its food resources and the population is still rising. If I had the power I'd concentrate all research and development into two things, increasing food supply and perfecting fission. That's the only way we are ever going to get enough breathing space to address the matter of population. China is now a net importer of food, they are sucking the great plains dry, just look at wheat prices. The politicians act as though we have plenty of time, many scientists would argue that it is too late already, climate change is unstoppable. That would be bad enough but to add energy and food shortage to the equation is madness. I'm not a natural pessimist but it's hard to see any light on the horizon.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
pluggy
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Posted - 05/01/2008 : 18:09
This thing is a gadget that tells you how electricty an appliance consumes. (No self respecting geek should be witout one)
My desktop PC is connected to the plug and its consuming 66.52 Watts which is all very well, you use a computer, you have to feed it with electric.
The problem comes when you turn it off
And the damn thing is still consuming electric, 16.73 watts, or in other words more electricity than a low energy light bulb uses turned on.
If its left in the switched off state 20 hours a day, it costs over a pound a month to run doing nothing. Much is made of televisions left in standby for the convenience of switching it on with the remote. Nothing is said about shutdown computers which you can't turn on with a remote.
So if you have a computer, don't just shut it down when you've done with it, switch it off at the plug (or unplug it).
Around 10 years ago, a computer had an actual mains switch in that physically disconnected the power. But this is progress.........
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk"
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
frankwilk
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Posted - 05/01/2008 : 18:19
Good post pluggy, with illustrations
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
Tizer
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Posted - 06/01/2008 : 11:56
Pluggy, A recent issue of Saga magazine had an article by a man who bought one of the gadgets then went round switching things off to see how the readings changed. He nearly went mad trying to find every drain on power! He said he was sitting in the dark, in the cold, in the quiet, with everything he could think of switched off at the mains and still the watts were draining away fast. He had forgotten the fridge! So he put that off too, but still the little gadget was showing electric being used. I think he gave in at that stage and put everything back on!
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pluggy
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Posted - 06/01/2008 : 16:36
This one only measures whats plugged into it, so its quite easy to make it read zero, you don't plug anything into it. Its not particularly sensitive, it reads zero if you plug a mobile phone charger into it, but they obviously using some juice because they warm up if they are left plugged in.
But its all relative, the elecricity used by stuff in houses all winds up as space heating, which if your'e running a heating system as well means it doesn't have to use so much energy to keep the place warm.
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk"
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING
