European Energy Independence

[EvaDK]

Yes, but the energy savings are not necessarily always what they may superficially appear to be.

For instance in the UK, people have their lights on more in winter (long days) than in
summer (short days), and in winter the waste heat from incandescent bulbs was useful heat.
So if they switched to LEDs and then put the electric fire on on occasions when because, in the
absence of incandescent light bulb waste heat, they felt too cold, there is little energy saving.
Of course the LEDs are better in summer and in warm countries and for outside lighting.

Anyone who used or uses lightbulbs as a source for heating; you're doing it wrong.

To add, what about the millions of light bulbs used outside, or anywhere outside the home? Road lights. Traffic lights. Stores or any facility that keeps the lights on during the night. That waste heat benefitted no one either.

 

[Farm Boy]

One was about right for the well pit in winter. Buying bespoke heat tape rolls is fancier, but they seem to burn out at least as much and cost significantly more.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Anyone who used or uses lightbulbs as a source for heating; you're doing it wrong.

My father used to leave the lightbulb on in his greenhouse overnight to prevent late frosts killing plants.

To add, what about the millions of light bulbs used outside, or anywhere outside the home? Road lights. Traffic lights. Stores or any facility that keeps the lights on during the night. That waste heat benefitted no one either.

I thought I already addressed that in the last sentence of my previous reply.

 

[Samson]

Oh no!! I am all for more wind turbines, and putting them out to sea is a solution. Unfortunately that is making queenie even richer.

Queen’s ‘seabed rights’ swell to value of £5bn after auction of plots

The value of rights owned by the Queen’s property company to exploit the seabed around Britain’s coastline has swelled to £5bn after a record-breaking auction of plots for offshore windfarms.

Profits for the crown estate, which generates money for the Treasury and the royal family, jumped by £43.4m to £312.7m in the year to the end of March.

The total value of its portfolio, which includes swathes of the seabed around Britain and property on Regent Street, London, has increased by 8.3% to £15.6bn.

The estate awarded licences for six offshore windfarms off the coast of England and Wales, which could generate up to £9bn over the next 10 years. The successful bidders included Germany’s RWE Renewables, which won two licences at Dogger Bank, off the Yorkshire coast, and two from a consortium which includes the oil company BP, which is also investing in renewable energy.​

 

[EnglishEdward]

According to wiki: HMR Elizabeth II's share is 25%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate

 

[Arwon]

"the Queen’s property company"

bloody hell

 

[EnglishEdward]

Actually if the UK treasury gets 75%, I'd call it the peoples' property company.

 

[Samson]

TIL that lorries have got less efficient over the last 3 decades, as everything else has got more efficient:

 

[Samson]

TIL that they reckon we can save 98% of the energy we use by heating:

Thermal comfort could hypothetically be provided with much less energy if only the occupants, instead of the building space, were heated. People could wear extra layers of clothing when inside, as they already do when outside in winter, or drink more cups of tea. However, such measures involve major behavioural changes which are outside the scope of this analysis.

If all houses were constructed equal to the model house, the global requirement for space heating equals 0.5 EJ, which can be compared to the current global energy used for space heating of 28 EJ (at a weighted first law conversion efficiency of 40% from primary energy to delivered heat). The conclusion is that if all buildings were designed at their practical limit, the energy required for space heating would be reduced by 98%.​

Drink more tea to save the world .

 

[Quintillus]

From the same document Samson posted, UK reserves of oil and natural gas:

The consumption figures are in TWhr instead of billion cubic meters, so I can't directly compare how long the reserves could meet supply, but suffice to say it seems like it would be difficult for the UK to get by on purely domestic production for very many years.

----

I am curious why lorries have become less efficient? There's a direct economic incentive to have a lower total cost of ownership, so as long as the fuel savings pay for however much it costs to have more fuel-efficient components, you'd think lorries would be early adopters of fuel-saving devices. I know in the U.S., truck skirts and those flaps at the back of the trailers to reduce turbulence have become widespread for their fuel-saving effects, and if you go to Western Star or other manufacturers' websites, they often tout how their new models get 5.6 mpg instead of 5.3 mpg, or similar figures that sound really low compared to a passenger car but add up to a lot of savings over the life of the lorry.

Maybe the lorries are driving faster and thus using more fuel? Or spending more time idling in traffic?

Either way, definitely an area where it'll be interesting to see what can be done to make them more efficient. I wonder why hybrid trucks haven't become more common, especially for city/last-mile delivery vehicles.

 

[Arwon]

Probably changed activity patterns due to the channel tunnel.

 

[Samson]

The channel tunnel opened in 1994, which is the most efficient year but it is fairly flat in the subsequent years, the peak of ineffiency does not come until 2009. It is not obvious that the chunnel is to blame.

 

[EnglishEdward]

From the same document Samson posted, UK reserves of oil and natural gas:

I am curious why lorries have become less efficient? There's a direct economic incentive to have a lower total cost of ownership, so as long as the fuel savings pay for however much it costs to have more fuel-efficient components, you'd think lorries would be early adopters of fuel-saving devices. I know in the U.S., truck skirts and those flaps at the back of the trailers to reduce turbulence have become widespread for their fuel-saving effects, and if you go to Western Star or other manufacturers' websites, they often tout how their new models get 5.6 mpg instead of 5.3 mpg, or similar figures that sound really low compared to a passenger car but add up to a lot of savings over the life of the lorry.

Maybe the lorries are driving faster and thus using more fuel? Or spending more time idling in traffic?

One of the consequences of the Internet and Covid has been an increase in home deliveries.
I suspect that the delivery of goods to homes inherently results in lower mpg than to retail centres.

There have also been changes in the UK law requiring prioritisation of vulnerable traffic such as cyclists.
This means that more lorries are going to be travelling at 6 mph when following a cyclist up a hill.

It would probably be more efficient to use lorries for longer distance delivery to depots and fully electric
vehicles for delivery to end customers, but the problem is that delivery is primarily organised in sectors
with electronic ordering, central warehouses and fossil fuel delivery direct to end customers (possible
because the UK is a much smaller country than the USA) and not on a long distance via local geographical basis.

 

[Quintillus]

That's a plausible contributing factor given the timelines. Covid doesn't seem to have bumped it (intensity went down in 2020), but the rise of e-commerce does more or less correlate. And covid may have had some positive effects on lorry efficiency too, with fewer lorries getting stuck in traffic and burning fuel without moving very far.

For what it's worth, electric last-mile-delivery vehicles aren't much of a thing here yet either. I know of one office supply company that has a few, and the big companies have trial phases and orders pending, but it's nothing substantial yet. I wouldn't be surprised if that changes over the next few years though; the large delivery companies (FedEx and UPS) have hubs near big cities, so the distances the last-mile vehicles travel each day is relatively modest. And Amazon has warehouses seemingly everywhere.

 

[Arwon]

The channel tunnel opened in 1994, which is the most efficient year but it is fairly flat in the subsequent years, the peak of ineffiency does not come until 2009. It is not obvious that the chunnel is to blame.

I'm sure trade patterns didn't change overnight.

 

[Samson]

It seems like the UK gov has decided that it will not be solar energy. Perhaps it will compete too well against the tory darling of Sizewell C.

Solar farm plans refused at highest rate for five years in Great Britain

Solar farms are being refused planning permission in Great Britain at the highest rate in five years, analysis has found, with projects which would have cut £100m off annual electricity bills turned down in the past 18 months.​

​

Planning permission for 23 solar farms was refused across England, Wales and Scotland between January 2021 and July 2022, which could have produced enough renewable energy to power an estimated 147,000 homes annually, according to analysis of government figures by the planning and development consultancy Turley.​

​

The refusals have jumped significantly since the start of 2021 – the research found only four projects were refused planning permission during 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 combined.​

​

Of the 27 declined solar farms between 2019 and 2022, 19 are in Conservative constituencies. Four were in Labour constituencies, three in Scottish National party constituencies, and one in a Liberal Democrat constituency.​

​

There are fears such refusals could increase further as the Tory leadership contenders, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, have made disparaging comments about solar farms.​

​

Analysts at the thinktank Green Alliance said the rejected projects were large solar farms at an average of about 30MW each, which may account for the planning refusals as it is easier to get smaller farms approved.​

​

However, it added that this should not be a reason to refuse planning permission, as larger solar farms could cut bills further.​

​

Dustin Benton, the policy director at Green Alliance, said: “We should be building as much cheap, clean energy as we can to reduce people’s energy bills and cut our reliance on Russian gas. This additional solar power generation, if it displaced gas, would have saved over £100m per year in wholesale energy costs.”​

​

“By integrating solar panels into fields, even farmers on high-grade land can continue to grow crops at the same time as enjoying the steady income from solar panels.”​

​

If Truss proceeds with her plans to crack down on solar farms she would be going against the government’s energy security strategy published this spring.​

​

The strategy set out ambitions of generating 70GW of energy from solar technology by 2035. It also promises to consult on amending planning rules to strengthen policy in favour of development on non-protected land, as well as supporting solar that is co-located with other functions such as agriculture and established energy infrastructure.​

 

[Yeekim]

Diversify energy sources and gas suppliers. If Europe is afraid of Russians shooting themselves in foot, then build more LNG terminals and pay more for the same amount.
Everyone is talking about Russians using gas as leverage like it's common knowledge, but nobody can give example where Russia has ever turn off gas supply and what were the demands.

This post has aged well

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

It seems like the UK gov has decided that it will not be solar energy. Perhaps it will compete too well against the tory darling of Sizewell C.

Solar farm plans refused at highest rate for five years in Great Britain

Solar farms are being refused planning permission in Great Britain at the highest rate in five years, analysis has found, with projects which would have cut £100m off annual electricity bills turned down in the past 18 months.​

​

Planning permission for 23 solar farms was refused across England, Wales and Scotland between January 2021 and July 2022, which could have produced enough renewable energy to power an estimated 147,000 homes annually, according to analysis of government figures by the planning and development consultancy Turley.​

​

The refusals have jumped significantly since the start of 2021 – the research found only four projects were refused planning permission during 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 combined.​

​

Of the 27 declined solar farms between 2019 and 2022, 19 are in Conservative constituencies. Four were in Labour constituencies, three in Scottish National party constituencies, and one in a Liberal Democrat constituency.​

​

There are fears such refusals could increase further as the Tory leadership contenders, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, have made disparaging comments about solar farms.​

​

Analysts at the thinktank Green Alliance said the rejected projects were large solar farms at an average of about 30MW each, which may account for the planning refusals as it is easier to get smaller farms approved.​

​

However, it added that this should not be a reason to refuse planning permission, as larger solar farms could cut bills further.​

​

Dustin Benton, the policy director at Green Alliance, said: “We should be building as much cheap, clean energy as we can to reduce people’s energy bills and cut our reliance on Russian gas. This additional solar power generation, if it displaced gas, would have saved over £100m per year in wholesale energy costs.”​

​

“By integrating solar panels into fields, even farmers on high-grade land can continue to grow crops at the same time as enjoying the steady income from solar panels.”​

​

If Truss proceeds with her plans to crack down on solar farms she would be going against the government’s energy security strategy published this spring.​

​

The strategy set out ambitions of generating 70GW of energy from solar technology by 2035. It also promises to consult on amending planning rules to strengthen policy in favour of development on non-protected land, as well as supporting solar that is co-located with other functions such as agriculture and established energy infrastructure.​

This is so bloody aggravating! Why do these excuses for human flesh have such a negative impact on our world..

 

[AmazonQueen]

This is so bloody aggravating! Why do these excuses for human flesh have such a negative impact on our world..

Windmills and solar panels spoil the view. The Conservative Party exists to protect property prices and Little Englanders want their countryside pretty and twee.

 

[Farm Boy]

The army of windmills really is hideous. I mean, they'll come, and they'll require access roads to match the size of the incoming fiberglass blades. Solar is uglier though, that either takes the sunfall of whatever growing things were there, or need to be placed where there were no growing things to supplant. Urban and suburban environments seem target rich for solar in a way they aren't for wind.