Insulating one room is pretty simple stuff as long as you don't forget to make sure your pipes don't freeze.
Of course, it means you have to insulate your internal walls too, so you may be able to do the entire house for not much more!
I'll try to get something together on my blog, and post it here so that people can put their info in.
But briefly:
You have to sort out what your budget is, what the climate is- warm or cold summers, does it often go below freezing and how long for etc, and what the construction of the house is.
If you live in a climate which can get hot in the summer the first thing I would consider is an attic fan:
http://www.solarnet.org/AtticFan.htm
Solar Utilities Network: Attic Fans
Back to looking at the problem from cold:
Check for drafts first - they can pull the heat out of a room in no time, but put in enough ventilation or you will get mould.
This site gives a good guide to the alternatives for insulation for different wall and roof constructions:
http://www.celotex.co.uk/
If you have a brick built house with a cavity wall you can have insulation pumped in.
If it is a solid brick or stone structure then the best way is to build outside it, and insulate the new structure effectively.
The big enemy is damp, so take account of that whatever you do.
Because of planning permission or expense - for instance if you are in an upper story flat - you may have no option but to so the insulation inside- see the Celotex site again for info on this, and be very careful of damp.
In the attic space go for at least 270mm of insulation - that is for Britain, other countries may vary.
You can also buy insulation in blankets which go directly under the tiles if you have an inhabited attic space.
If your main living area has a high ceiling, consider a false roof, which will give you plenty of space for insulation.
If you are just insulating one room, then don't forget the space between the floorboards of the room above.
In large,open plan housing then stud partitioning is fairly inexpensive, but don't forget that you will need a double skin for insulation.
For areas where you don't have room to put in insulation, consider using aerogel, which provides huge amounts of insulation as it is around 37 times as efficient as fibreglass:
http://www.aerogel.com/
ASPEN AEROGELS | NANOTECHNOLOGY AT WORK™
It is fairly expensive, at $5sq ft, but useful for instance in the rebates of windows - it is surprising how much heat they can loose.
Talking about windows, obviously if you can afford double or triple glazing that is the way to go.
Less expensively, consider insulated curtains.
And really cheaply, buy the bubble plastic they use in gardening, and attach it to your windows when it gets cold - you will find it at the gardening stores.
Lastly, a couple of thoughts on selecting and sealing one room for the winter.
Choose a room with easy access to the bathroom , and with a kitchen area, as cooking will provide much of your heat.
Bedrooms can be a space in this area, or if the climate is not too severe or you are tough enough you can put on old fashioned things like pajamas and night-caps(!) before heading off to bed in another room.
Your bathroom may be in or out of the heavily insulated area also, but if it is out of the heated area use heat tape to prevent the pipes freezing:
http://www.mygreathome.com/fix-it_guide/heat_tape.htm
How To Install Heat Tape
If you have a bathroom which is conveniently near enough to the area you intend to insulate that it can be done inexpensively, that is great, but if you have a second bathroom you may want to cut off the water to that part of the house in the winter an drain the pipes to prevent them freezing - putting in a valve to do this is easy and cheap, or you could use more heat tape.
Try to design your layout so that as and when more funds become available you can extend the insulated area without wrecking too much - if I were just insulating one room I would make most of it fairly temporary and movable rather than beautiful.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Sunday, 29 June 2008
Views of TOD UK users
I thought it might be worthwhile to establish what ideas we have, and what common ground.
If anyone has any thoughts on what we can do, who to contact etc, please post here.
Meanwhile, perhaps folk can indicate what they see as the right options.
To get the ball rolling:
1.Is the new renewables bill for England realistic?
How much will it help? Is it financible?
Here are the links to the documents:
http://www.berr.gov.uk/energy/sources/renewables/strategy/page43356.html
UK Renewable Energy Strategy Consultation - BERR
I have downloads them, and altered the pdf names to their original titles, so if anyone wants them in this form please contact me and I will download them to dropload.
2.What about the nuclear option?
I can't see any way of powering Britain without it, but if others disagree perhaps they could briefly indicate their alternative, whether vastly reducing population, or that conservation would do the job on it's own.
This paper seems to set out the difficulties in not using nuclear as a source well:
http://www.withouthotair.com/
Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air (withouthotair.com)
The intention here is not so much to have further debate, but to see how much ground is in common, and perhaps to arrive at a group position so that any efforts we make in relation to the group may be coherent.
Although personally convinced that the only realistic alternative is nuclear, for the purposes of this as an advocacy group I would be prepared if necessary to go along with a contrary group position, providing that it is at least coherent.
This has now gone far beyond theory, and into the imperative for political action, and for that it seems to me that common positions must be found and compromises made.
Or perhaps others don't feel this?
3.How bad will any depression be in the UK?
How can the budget deficit/balance of payments deficit be paid for?
4.How do we feed ourselves?
If anyone has any thoughts on what we can do, who to contact etc, please post here.
Meanwhile, perhaps folk can indicate what they see as the right options.
To get the ball rolling:
1.Is the new renewables bill for England realistic?
How much will it help? Is it financible?
Here are the links to the documents:
http://www.berr.gov.uk/energy/sources/renewables/strategy/page43356.html
UK Renewable Energy Strategy Consultation - BERR
I have downloads them, and altered the pdf names to their original titles, so if anyone wants them in this form please contact me and I will download them to dropload.
2.What about the nuclear option?
I can't see any way of powering Britain without it, but if others disagree perhaps they could briefly indicate their alternative, whether vastly reducing population, or that conservation would do the job on it's own.
This paper seems to set out the difficulties in not using nuclear as a source well:
http://www.withouthotair.com/
Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air (withouthotair.com)
The intention here is not so much to have further debate, but to see how much ground is in common, and perhaps to arrive at a group position so that any efforts we make in relation to the group may be coherent.
Although personally convinced that the only realistic alternative is nuclear, for the purposes of this as an advocacy group I would be prepared if necessary to go along with a contrary group position, providing that it is at least coherent.
This has now gone far beyond theory, and into the imperative for political action, and for that it seems to me that common positions must be found and compromises made.
Or perhaps others don't feel this?
3.How bad will any depression be in the UK?
How can the budget deficit/balance of payments deficit be paid for?
4.How do we feed ourselves?
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Resource Constraints for Lead -Acid Batteries in the near-term
There seems to be good resources ultimately available, around 1.5 bn tons according to one source, although I would like to see more sources on that:
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lead/380302.pdf
380302.pdf
This is the US Geological Survey, 2002
However, it appears that in the West over 80% of our use is from recycling old batteries, and even given some improvement in resource use by Firefly technology and others, that will hardly allow us to move beyond using batteries just to fire up a car to running either an all-electric vehicle or hybrid on them.
Most new production these days is used by places like China and India, and they have a much smaller base to re-cycle, as industrialisation is recent.
http://www.stockhouse.com/blogs.asp?page=viewpost&blogID=629&postID=2239...
StockHouse.com : KEEP THE LEAD IN
To sum up, even if we have enough resources to switch to a lead-acid battery vehicle technology eventually, we could not ramp up fast enough to supply the need for hybrid or EV batteries anytime soon, hence an easy switch to electric using this well-developed technology does not appear possible in the near future.
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lead/380302.pdf
380302.pdf
This is the US Geological Survey, 2002
However, it appears that in the West over 80% of our use is from recycling old batteries, and even given some improvement in resource use by Firefly technology and others, that will hardly allow us to move beyond using batteries just to fire up a car to running either an all-electric vehicle or hybrid on them.
Most new production these days is used by places like China and India, and they have a much smaller base to re-cycle, as industrialisation is recent.
http://www.stockhouse.com/blogs.asp?page=viewpost&blogID=629&postID=2239...
StockHouse.com : KEEP THE LEAD IN
To sum up, even if we have enough resources to switch to a lead-acid battery vehicle technology eventually, we could not ramp up fast enough to supply the need for hybrid or EV batteries anytime soon, hence an easy switch to electric using this well-developed technology does not appear possible in the near future.
Sunday, 10 February 2008
Resource Constraints for batteries in cars
The car companies are putting their resources into battery technologies which use materials which are too uncommon to be able to provide for most cars – notably Lithium, but Nickel Metal Hydride batteries, although nickel has somewhat better availability, would still not be able to provide power for enough cars to make a substantial difference.
Due to this misjudgement we are likely to be severely limited in oil available to get around until at least 2020, when perhaps we can hope that they will have changed to the more suitable zinc-air technology.
Oil from both conventional and unconventional sources such as tar sands are unlikely to be able to cover more than 30% of present volume in the developed world by that date, as demand from China, India and other places is increasing whilst supplies are static, and present exporters are using increasing amounts of their own oil with less availble for export.
I am prepared to argue this case, and it is one held by large numbers of responsible analysts, but for the purposes of the present post we just want to see if electric vehicle and battery technology will dig us out of problems of short supply, first through increasing mileage inplug-in hybrids, and later through all electric vehicles.
As will be seen critical materials for the batteries the car industru is emphasising are in too short supply, and price will be far too high and availability too high.
It appears that the only technology with the right resource base and characteristics such as high capacity is zinc-air.
http://www.meridian-int-res.com/Projects/EVRsrch.htm
It is also the only battery alternative with the right characteristics to run heavy lorries and machinery.
Since everything but Lithium is now getting trivial amounts of funding in connection with car battery technology, then that blind alley is going to mean further delay in moving to a electric economy.
With time lags you must surely be talking about 2020 before they can be in widespread use, effectively long after oil is in serious short supply and after it has lead to large reductions in automobile use.
I therefore find it persuasive that major disruption is likely.
You will find further information on Nickel availability also here:
http://www.meridian-int-res.com/Projects/EVRsrch.htm
Meridian International Research - EV Research Papers
Download the document 'The Trouble With Lithium'
The basic problem with the Nickel Manganese batteries is the word 'Nickel', it is expensive and in short supply, although not as bad as lithium.
From the pdf I link Sodium Nickel Chloride may be the current best alternative, although it is limited by Nickel availability and price, however they use a lot less than nickel metal hydride.
Replacing the Nickel with Iron seems hopeful for the future, but this is very early days for the technology, and I had not yet looked into it so I omitted it from the analysis as for present purposes it seemed sufficient to show that there were batteries available which could potentially do the job but none of them were being funded, and Zinc air fills that job whilst also providing the possibility of discharging and recharging a slurry so effectively using a similar refill technology to the present.
Sodium nickel chloride batteries use nickel a lot more efficiently than Nickel Metal Hydride, but probably not enough to solve the availability issue, and may have other problems as detailed below.
A Google using the terms 'Sodium Iron Chloride battery' or 'Sodium Nickel chloride battery' comes up with results which are mostly around 1995.
This perhaps provides some indication of the level of interest in research in this technology and shows that it would not be possible to scale production to significant levels anytime soon.
The term 'Zebra battery' brought up this:
http://tyler.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/7/16/2130125.html
Wikipedia shows that many molten salt batteries have issues if shut down and not left under charge, taking days to pre-heat them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_battery
Another alternative also uses zinc, there is the possibility of using solar energy to make zinc from zinc oxide which is then powdered and transported to filling stations, where it is used to make hydrogen by combining with steam and the car is filled with hydrogen.
http://www.isracast.com/articles/51.aspx
IsraCast: ZINC POWDER WILL DRIVE YOUR HYDROGEN CAR
The zinc oxide is then transported back to be re-cycled.
This is the only practical way I am aware of of going to the hydrogen economy without incurring huge inefficiencies.
However, AFAIK the only practical way at the moment of using a fuel cell to utilise the hydrogen in the car is a membrane as developed by Ballard, and they also utilise rare materials.
This might change with future development of Fuel cells, but as of now they cost a fortune and have resource issues even graver than for lithium.
One possible technology which might use the hydrogen is this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/10/super_soaker_nasa_boffin_heat_en...
Super Soaker inventor touts solid state heat-2-leccy | The Register
This consists of a closed cycle engine which uses any heat source to force hydrogen through a membrane between two different temperature regimes.
Much further work needs to be done to perfect the membrane, but efficiencies of 60% seem possible.
This if it works is very efficient, much more so than burning the hydrogen in an ICC, which I would guess would require prohibitive amounts of hydrogen and vast scaling up of the zinc production, likely more so than would be practical in it's early days would be my guess.
In summary, there are good prospects of running everything including heavy machinery and road haulage using batteries and/or hydrogen, but the time horizon is some way out, and currently alternatives which would not do the job are those being pursued.
Severe fuel constraints are therefore likely at least until the 2020 time period, and likely until around 2025
The only potential 'Get out of jail free' card we would appear to have which would enable similar consumption patterns of liquid fuel as in the past to continue in the immediate future would seem to me to be liquid fuels from algae.
Since this is a immature technology any idea that it could be ramped to substantially replace oil within the next few years up to 2020 would seem to me mind-bogglingly optimistic.
We are still at prototype stage.
Liquid fuel and car use would appear to be likely to suffer severe constraints for many years.
Friday, 8 February 2008
Passive mining of Methane hydrates in the tundra
A natural gas shortfall from conventional sources seems inevitable:
. http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/3584#more
Would deposits in the tundra be a better option?
Discussion I have seen centre around how difficult it would be to separate it from the soil, and the huge energy cost involved and so on.
It occurs to me that if the problem is that warming may cause the release of methane, if we increased temperatures by a few degrees then the job would be done.
A largely passive approach might be best, with large areas covered with hexagonal (to ensure a fit on the ground) greenhouses – black tubes on the base, porous underneath and solid at the top, whilst the greenhouse raises the temperature during the summer.
As each area is exhausted, the greenhouse is moved, together with thee pipework which drains the methane.
Of course, you could make many design alterations to the basic system, after the ground is a lot warmer kicking it over a critical level with a heat boost form other sources or drilling bores ready to inject steam into before putting up the greenhouse, and after the soil have spent a season or so warming injecting the steam.
Is this extensive way of extraction make any sense?
It might even help a bit with Global warming, as the methane would be burnt and end up as the much less powerful carbon dioxide instead of methane, gradually being released as we warm up.
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Conservation:our best route to reduce carbon emissions in the UK in the near future
In previous posts on this blog I looked at UK plans to spend, on Government figures, at least £45bn to generate around 10GW of energy flow from a 33GW off-shore wind installation, and argued that it was not an effective way of reducing CO2 emissions, but would instead lock in high levels of carbon release from coal and gas burn as that is the cheapest way of making up for wind's intermittency.
In another post here I also argued that solar was not a good solution for the UK.
So what should we do with our £45bn that would work better? A nuclear program is going to take a few years to get off the ground, and up to full speed.
Conservation seems to me the best and most cost-effective way to proceed until then.
In the UK there are around 24million households.
Lets take £1,000 for each of them total £24 bn, and see how much that could help.
Conveniently it leaves £21bn, the cost of around 7 of the new 1.6GW reactors such as that being built in Finland, based on a cost estimate of $6bn for one reactor:
Finnish plant demonstrates nuclear power industry's perennial problems - International Herald Tribune
This has had cost over-runs, and is currently well over budget at about $4bn.
I have assumed that this over-run will get worse, and total cost will end up at $6bn.
I have also allowed nothing for the benefits of experience in buildign several reactors, or for technical progress such as this:
ES&T Online News: Reshaping nuclear fuel
So these costs are very much based on present reality, and do not assume the progress such as are assumed even to give the £45bn cost of the wind project.
Back to conservation.
A very high proportion of British energy needs is used in houses, and reductions would not only reduce costs, they would also if planned the right way tend to reduce the difference between winter peak use of around 75GW and daytime summer base load of around 20GW.
Coal and gas do better for peaking need than nuclear, as for nuclear most of the costs are upfront and they need to be kept running most of the time to pay for themselves.
In a later post I will examine whether this will always be the case, or if nuclear can deal with peaking in the future.
In the meantime anything we can do to reduce peak load helps, and at a later date when we have more nuclear we need not be very concerned even if we increase base load towards peak, as the marginal costs of a kwh in nuclear are very low. the more closely matched base-load and peak load are, the better the economics of nuclear.
For that reason I would suggest that subsidy should not be applied to solar thermal panels, as although they are an exciting technology and very useful where annual variation is not so great, they make their biggest contribution in the summer, and aren't much help in the middle of the winter.
PV has the same problem, and is far more expensive, so for this reason is also ruled out in this country and for northern areas generally.
I have dealt with the problems of solar in areas where most energy use is in the winter in another post on this blog.
So what should be done? I would suggest better insulation, heat recovery from waste water, air-heat pumps, tougher mandatory standards, green roofs, alterations to planning permissions and encouragement of plug-in hybrids.
To take them in turn, the 3 million worst homes in Britain are in band G, having absolutely terrible insulation. Improving them is unlikely to do much to reduce energy use, unless they are upgraded to a very high standard, as most of the people there would like to be warmer, and would turn their thermostats up. They would also be amongst the most expensive to upgrade, as for a lot of better off people a part-subsidy can result in their putting their own cash in, but many of the people in these houses are too poor.
A further 9 million households are in band F, still pretty terrible.
We have two big factors in our favour.
A lot of these households are rented, and improvements can be mandated on the owners.
The other thing is that these measures drive costs down permanently, so at some stage the initial investment is recovered.
One way of financing improvements then would be to make loans for the improvement, and recover it by estimating how much energy should be saved by keeping the heating and electric use set for the same level of comfort as before the upgrade, and increasing the unit cost to the resident to make it so that their bills should remain at the same level until the loan is repaid, when the resident then benefits.
If, say, a loan of £3,000 resulted in a saving of £300 per annum, then after 15 years the customer would start to see the money, and the loan would be financed.
If we moved to reward utilities in a similar way to California, then decreasing energy use would profit the companies and lead to innovative solutions.
By those sorts of means our £24bn could accomplish huge amounts.
Heat recovery from waste water is also very cost effective, particularly in larger households where a lot is used.
Recovery systems for showers could be fitted almost everywhere, as the water is used and flows out at the same time, to recover heat from the washing machine outflow and other sources you need to have the space to install another tank.
We are fortunate in the UK in having a mild maritime climate, where the temperature rarely drops far below freezing for long periods of time.
This means that the far cheaper air source heat pumps are perfectly adequate, rather than the groundsource heat pumps needed in places like Sweden.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pumps
Basically they multiply the effectiveness of electricity for heating by taking heat from the air.
It is more effective where you have underfloor heating, multiplying the heat from the electricity by around 4 times, but still can get a factor of about 2.5 in houses where you just outsize the radiators by about 20%,as it is better at providing lower temperature water than traditional heating.
Running costs in an radiator-type installation are about the same as for gas, but CO2 emissions around half with the present energy mix of electricity generation.
Since a lot of nuclear capacity is to come off-line before a new build is possible, we should be wary of putting any extra strain on generation, as we would end up having to build more gas or coal power to bridge the gap.
For that reason heat pumps should initially be targeted at the 5 million or so homes that are not on the gas grid until more nuclear comes on line in perhaps 2025 or so.
New homes might be mandated to have underfloor heating, but not heat pumps in the meantime.
Other standards such as insulation on new builds and house sales could simply be mandated, as long as they were enforced properly.
Inspectors pretty well ignored then in the past, so many houses built before 2005 do not meet even the low standards then in force.
Severe penalties for inspectors failing in their duty should do the trick there.
We should stop putting tarmac all over the country, and even with more houses required for an expanding population we don't have to, due to Greenroof.
What that is is planting greenery on the roofs of buildings, which insulates them , reduces heat islands effects, and would provide gardens in dense housing if built on to flat roofs.
They are built extensively in Germany:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_roof
Building regulations at the moment specify tiny houses to get more people in to the square mile, and our equivalent to the very energy efficient Passivhaus in Germany specifies taking some of that to provide for front and back porches, to act as a barrier to the cold air.
This is because the Passivhaus uses active mechanical ventilation, but it is not felt that builders here would be able to work to the standards of air-tightness required.
We should be looking to provide more spacious accomodation by the building both up and down, with roof gardens and basements.
Whilst present plans provide for very small houses, they do nothing to prevent urban sprawl as stores are allowed to be opened with large carparks, and the countryside is being built over, as permission is granted in the name of jobs.
We need joined up planning, so that future developments would have to provide for no increase in built-up area.
Greenroofs and insisting on underground car parks should help towards this, whilst cut and cover techniques as used in Germany for roads would contribute.
Any remaining need for roads could be balanced out by paying for older properties to have Greenroofs built or building underground parking.
Future building should be made firstly with the pedestrian in mind, would be high density and green.
Plug-in hybrids are now becoming possible at reasonable cost:
Next Big Future: UltraBattery combines a supercapacitor and a lead acid battery
The tax system should encourage this, no subsidy would be needed.
Although this would put some extra demand on the grid during the period before nuclear build gives it a boost, it would be off-peak capacity and so would fit in well with efforts to reduce the difference between base load and peak load as they would be charged off-peak.
It will take around 10 years for them to have a substantial impact anyway, and their demand on the grid would be more than compensated by the other measures I have outlined.
One final point is that efficiency gains always disappear into increased consumption if prices for the energy stay constant.
Prices would have to be allowed to rise per unit consumed until nuclear build made strict conservation less important.
The easiest way of doing that would for the money for both the conservation program and the nuclear build to go on prices.
It's a tough call politically, but the way to compensate the very poor is with grants, not by reducing the overall price of electricity.
This of course would put up the price still more for the rest of us.
Although the uncertainties of how much leverage can be obtained on the use of the £24 bn budget preclude exact costings, I hope the foregoing shows that we can obtain reductions in demand and in carbon emissions form such a strategy than could ever be obtained by the use not just of £24bn, but the whole of the £45 bn cost of the off-shore turbine proposals.
In another post here I also argued that solar was not a good solution for the UK.
So what should we do with our £45bn that would work better? A nuclear program is going to take a few years to get off the ground, and up to full speed.
Conservation seems to me the best and most cost-effective way to proceed until then.
In the UK there are around 24million households.
Lets take £1,000 for each of them total £24 bn, and see how much that could help.
Conveniently it leaves £21bn, the cost of around 7 of the new 1.6GW reactors such as that being built in Finland, based on a cost estimate of $6bn for one reactor:
Finnish plant demonstrates nuclear power industry's perennial problems - International Herald Tribune
This has had cost over-runs, and is currently well over budget at about $4bn.
I have assumed that this over-run will get worse, and total cost will end up at $6bn.
I have also allowed nothing for the benefits of experience in buildign several reactors, or for technical progress such as this:
ES&T Online News: Reshaping nuclear fuel
So these costs are very much based on present reality, and do not assume the progress such as are assumed even to give the £45bn cost of the wind project.
Back to conservation.
A very high proportion of British energy needs is used in houses, and reductions would not only reduce costs, they would also if planned the right way tend to reduce the difference between winter peak use of around 75GW and daytime summer base load of around 20GW.
Coal and gas do better for peaking need than nuclear, as for nuclear most of the costs are upfront and they need to be kept running most of the time to pay for themselves.
In a later post I will examine whether this will always be the case, or if nuclear can deal with peaking in the future.
In the meantime anything we can do to reduce peak load helps, and at a later date when we have more nuclear we need not be very concerned even if we increase base load towards peak, as the marginal costs of a kwh in nuclear are very low. the more closely matched base-load and peak load are, the better the economics of nuclear.
For that reason I would suggest that subsidy should not be applied to solar thermal panels, as although they are an exciting technology and very useful where annual variation is not so great, they make their biggest contribution in the summer, and aren't much help in the middle of the winter.
PV has the same problem, and is far more expensive, so for this reason is also ruled out in this country and for northern areas generally.
I have dealt with the problems of solar in areas where most energy use is in the winter in another post on this blog.
So what should be done? I would suggest better insulation, heat recovery from waste water, air-heat pumps, tougher mandatory standards, green roofs, alterations to planning permissions and encouragement of plug-in hybrids.
To take them in turn, the 3 million worst homes in Britain are in band G, having absolutely terrible insulation. Improving them is unlikely to do much to reduce energy use, unless they are upgraded to a very high standard, as most of the people there would like to be warmer, and would turn their thermostats up. They would also be amongst the most expensive to upgrade, as for a lot of better off people a part-subsidy can result in their putting their own cash in, but many of the people in these houses are too poor.
A further 9 million households are in band F, still pretty terrible.
We have two big factors in our favour.
A lot of these households are rented, and improvements can be mandated on the owners.
The other thing is that these measures drive costs down permanently, so at some stage the initial investment is recovered.
One way of financing improvements then would be to make loans for the improvement, and recover it by estimating how much energy should be saved by keeping the heating and electric use set for the same level of comfort as before the upgrade, and increasing the unit cost to the resident to make it so that their bills should remain at the same level until the loan is repaid, when the resident then benefits.
If, say, a loan of £3,000 resulted in a saving of £300 per annum, then after 15 years the customer would start to see the money, and the loan would be financed.
If we moved to reward utilities in a similar way to California, then decreasing energy use would profit the companies and lead to innovative solutions.
By those sorts of means our £24bn could accomplish huge amounts.
Heat recovery from waste water is also very cost effective, particularly in larger households where a lot is used.
Recovery systems for showers could be fitted almost everywhere, as the water is used and flows out at the same time, to recover heat from the washing machine outflow and other sources you need to have the space to install another tank.
We are fortunate in the UK in having a mild maritime climate, where the temperature rarely drops far below freezing for long periods of time.
This means that the far cheaper air source heat pumps are perfectly adequate, rather than the groundsource heat pumps needed in places like Sweden.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pumps
Basically they multiply the effectiveness of electricity for heating by taking heat from the air.
It is more effective where you have underfloor heating, multiplying the heat from the electricity by around 4 times, but still can get a factor of about 2.5 in houses where you just outsize the radiators by about 20%,as it is better at providing lower temperature water than traditional heating.
Running costs in an radiator-type installation are about the same as for gas, but CO2 emissions around half with the present energy mix of electricity generation.
Since a lot of nuclear capacity is to come off-line before a new build is possible, we should be wary of putting any extra strain on generation, as we would end up having to build more gas or coal power to bridge the gap.
For that reason heat pumps should initially be targeted at the 5 million or so homes that are not on the gas grid until more nuclear comes on line in perhaps 2025 or so.
New homes might be mandated to have underfloor heating, but not heat pumps in the meantime.
Other standards such as insulation on new builds and house sales could simply be mandated, as long as they were enforced properly.
Inspectors pretty well ignored then in the past, so many houses built before 2005 do not meet even the low standards then in force.
Severe penalties for inspectors failing in their duty should do the trick there.
We should stop putting tarmac all over the country, and even with more houses required for an expanding population we don't have to, due to Greenroof.
What that is is planting greenery on the roofs of buildings, which insulates them , reduces heat islands effects, and would provide gardens in dense housing if built on to flat roofs.
They are built extensively in Germany:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_roof
Building regulations at the moment specify tiny houses to get more people in to the square mile, and our equivalent to the very energy efficient Passivhaus in Germany specifies taking some of that to provide for front and back porches, to act as a barrier to the cold air.
This is because the Passivhaus uses active mechanical ventilation, but it is not felt that builders here would be able to work to the standards of air-tightness required.
We should be looking to provide more spacious accomodation by the building both up and down, with roof gardens and basements.
Whilst present plans provide for very small houses, they do nothing to prevent urban sprawl as stores are allowed to be opened with large carparks, and the countryside is being built over, as permission is granted in the name of jobs.
We need joined up planning, so that future developments would have to provide for no increase in built-up area.
Greenroofs and insisting on underground car parks should help towards this, whilst cut and cover techniques as used in Germany for roads would contribute.
Any remaining need for roads could be balanced out by paying for older properties to have Greenroofs built or building underground parking.
Future building should be made firstly with the pedestrian in mind, would be high density and green.
Plug-in hybrids are now becoming possible at reasonable cost:
Next Big Future: UltraBattery combines a supercapacitor and a lead acid battery
The tax system should encourage this, no subsidy would be needed.
Although this would put some extra demand on the grid during the period before nuclear build gives it a boost, it would be off-peak capacity and so would fit in well with efforts to reduce the difference between base load and peak load as they would be charged off-peak.
It will take around 10 years for them to have a substantial impact anyway, and their demand on the grid would be more than compensated by the other measures I have outlined.
One final point is that efficiency gains always disappear into increased consumption if prices for the energy stay constant.
Prices would have to be allowed to rise per unit consumed until nuclear build made strict conservation less important.
The easiest way of doing that would for the money for both the conservation program and the nuclear build to go on prices.
It's a tough call politically, but the way to compensate the very poor is with grants, not by reducing the overall price of electricity.
This of course would put up the price still more for the rest of us.
Although the uncertainties of how much leverage can be obtained on the use of the £24 bn budget preclude exact costings, I hope the foregoing shows that we can obtain reductions in demand and in carbon emissions form such a strategy than could ever be obtained by the use not just of £24bn, but the whole of the £45 bn cost of the off-shore turbine proposals.
Solar energy for the UK and Northern areas
What can solar energy contribute towards the UK's needs? What can it contribute more generally in Northern areas where peak use is during the winter?
What can it contribute in areas where peak use is for cooling in the summer?
What will it cost?
Whilst my analysis will allow for technological improvements, I will not budget for breakthrough technology - by definition, you can't, and would be a fool to bet your house on it.
A Solar Grand Plan: Scientific American
with discussion on these proposals here:
A Solar Grand Plan Article Comments Scientific American Community
And a proposal for a world-wide grid by the redoubtable Stuart Staniford here:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3540#more
Both postulate that the present rate of cost decrease in PV power will continue as far as the eye can see, and even then the costs the authors give are staggering.
The Scientific American's proposals give an initial subsidy of $420 billion to get things going, and still end up with fairly expensive power, on their own figures.
They also lock in a vast use of natural gas, as their chosen means of storage is compressed air, which needs heating to expand.
They do not say where they are going to get it from, what it's implications are for Global warming, or what costs they are presuming for this increasingly scarce resource.
They are also stuck with the problem of having to vastly over-install solar panels, as the old problem of maximum needs in the colder north happening in the winter, just when insolation even is the sunny Mohave is around 25% of it's summer maximum, as storage for a whole winter is entirely impractical.
Stuart's idea avoids storage, which he admits is problematic, and goes instead for a world -wide grid!
In the discussion, K Levin estimated that the costs of his proposals was around $1000 trillion! - and Stuart did not dispute this. - some 20 times to a close order of magnitude of the cost of using nuclear! - and that is with truly heroic cost reduction assumptions for the PV panels.
In my view both provide conclusive proof that their ideas are wholly impractical.
In contrast I would suggest using different resources where they are most practical.
In the cold and dark north you use nuclear - I will discuss in another post what proportion of total energy needs there it could cover, whilst solar takes care of all but baseload in the South-West, as I am perfectly happy to postulate further cost reductions in solar power, perhaps even to the point where even base load could be taken care of in sunny areas by solar, but lets keep our feet on the ground.
We can plan for using solar for peak use, even overnight if storage ideas by, for instance, Ausra work out, but not bank on solar costs decreasing for the forseeable future at the same hectic pace have they have done recently - at some stage progress is going to slow past the peak of the price reduction curve, and as a lot of total cost is sticky maintenance and installation costs, that point it seems to me is not that far off.
Solar will make, in my view, a massive contribution to power needs where most people live, in areas fairly close to the equator, but attempts to make this a universal solution do not work, and nuclear energy also has a major role to play in a low-carbon future.
What can it contribute in areas where peak use is for cooling in the summer?
What will it cost?
Whilst my analysis will allow for technological improvements, I will not budget for breakthrough technology - by definition, you can't, and would be a fool to bet your house on it.
Even in areas as far south and hot as the Mohave, you only get around 0.25 of the maximum amount of summer power in the winter, due to the greater angle of the sun and longer hours of darkness. I will therefore use this factor of 4 in my arguments, although it should be noted that areas like the UK only actually get around a sixth of the summer power, mostly due to cloud cover, so a nominal 1kw installed in June might give around 150w of power on average through all the hours of the day and night, but in December gives a flow of around 30watts - so an expensive 5kw installation during Dec, Jan and Feb will only average around 150watts energy flow, which is why they need supplementing from the grid.
What makes things worse for cool climates is that peak use is in winter - for the
At peak in the winter we use around 75GW.
That's roughly a four-fold increase in use.
This means that if we were to provide for all our needs with solar, we would need an installed capacity 4*6 of what we would actually use in the summer - as I said, not all areas are as cloudy, so to make our case for less cloudy areas in the north as well lets use four times as the generating difference.
So you install name plate of 16 times minimum usage.
Even with the most generous estimates of cost declines, it would cost a fortune.
It should be noted that although costs have declined very rapidly in PV manufacture, most of the that fall is in production costs, and that future falls are likely to be less as installation and maintenance cost falls are not of the same order, and will represent an increasing proportion of future reduced costs.
Which is a fancy way of saying that the very fast decreases we have had won't go on forever.
If we use nuclear OTOH it is just as efficient in winter as summer, so you 'only' would have to build a factor of 4 over the minimum summer load, which it is a lot more reasonable to think could be partly absorbed by the production of hydrogen and so on when you had too much power.
More sensibly, you could top up with coal for the peak power requirements, but the difference again is a factor of four less topping up is needed for the nuclear as compared to the solar option.
For the much lower needs of the nuclear option then topping up with biomass is also much more practical.
Would it be a good idea to install solar thermal panels in climates like the UK?
They are far cheaper than PV and give a fair proportion of the power needs over the year for hot water.
The problem with this is that just as for PV most of the power comes in the summer.
This means that you are generating the power when you least need it, and can't cover in the winter when it is most wanted.
You reduce base-load and so make the nuclear option less viable, as the lower initial costs of coal and gas make them a lot cheaper for peaking needs.
So once again you have locked-in coal, gas and CO2.
It's a different ball-game when maximum use is when most of the solar power is generated, in hot climates like the South-West of the US, and residential solar thermal panels can play their part there.
As can other solar technologies, utility scale thermal and PV and in my view solar can certainly take care of peak use, and may with modest improvements in storage, mostly overnight, take care of base load in the Mohave, for instance, if you assume that winter needs are half that in summer, using a figure of 25% of average daily insolation for the winter months compared to the summer, you would 'only' have to provide twice the requirement for the summer to take care of all needs in the winter.
It is more realistic though for the present to plan for winter needs to be covered by nuclear power, and peak load to be provided for by solar - if costs in solar drop by enough to provide for the winter, fine, but if not we have a good low-carbon game-plan at reasonable cost.
That is very hopeful for a lot of hot countries, which is where most people in the world live, as I can certainly see solar playing a big role there.
As for the
However, I based my case on an optimistic factor of four difference in diurnal sunshine, winter to summer, not the gloomy
A Solar Grand Plan: Scientific American
with discussion on these proposals here:
A Solar Grand Plan Article Comments Scientific American Community
And a proposal for a world-wide grid by the redoubtable Stuart Staniford here:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3540#more
Both postulate that the present rate of cost decrease in PV power will continue as far as the eye can see, and even then the costs the authors give are staggering.
The Scientific American's proposals give an initial subsidy of $420 billion to get things going, and still end up with fairly expensive power, on their own figures.
They also lock in a vast use of natural gas, as their chosen means of storage is compressed air, which needs heating to expand.
They do not say where they are going to get it from, what it's implications are for Global warming, or what costs they are presuming for this increasingly scarce resource.
They are also stuck with the problem of having to vastly over-install solar panels, as the old problem of maximum needs in the colder north happening in the winter, just when insolation even is the sunny Mohave is around 25% of it's summer maximum, as storage for a whole winter is entirely impractical.
Stuart's idea avoids storage, which he admits is problematic, and goes instead for a world -wide grid!
In the discussion, K Levin estimated that the costs of his proposals was around $1000 trillion! - and Stuart did not dispute this. - some 20 times to a close order of magnitude of the cost of using nuclear! - and that is with truly heroic cost reduction assumptions for the PV panels.
In my view both provide conclusive proof that their ideas are wholly impractical.
In contrast I would suggest using different resources where they are most practical.
In the cold and dark north you use nuclear - I will discuss in another post what proportion of total energy needs there it could cover, whilst solar takes care of all but baseload in the South-West, as I am perfectly happy to postulate further cost reductions in solar power, perhaps even to the point where even base load could be taken care of in sunny areas by solar, but lets keep our feet on the ground.
We can plan for using solar for peak use, even overnight if storage ideas by, for instance, Ausra work out, but not bank on solar costs decreasing for the forseeable future at the same hectic pace have they have done recently - at some stage progress is going to slow past the peak of the price reduction curve, and as a lot of total cost is sticky maintenance and installation costs, that point it seems to me is not that far off.
Solar will make, in my view, a massive contribution to power needs where most people live, in areas fairly close to the equator, but attempts to make this a universal solution do not work, and nuclear energy also has a major role to play in a low-carbon future.
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