I want to know why, and who shut down the most viewed topic in the Club forum. Its Engineering content is obvious, and very large indeed. The answer to the problem is supposedly Electricity, and yet we cannot discuss it!
This is an area where again we can suggest solutions, but a faulty starting point has been chosen by someone as to where the discussion should start.
It appears that the chosen point is that the supply of electricity should be limited to the general population by disconnection rather than price as at present. The whole "Smart Meter" concept is about limiting supply to the householder when it suits the "Powers that be", in order to match consumption to availability in some arbitrary way. It is said that knowing individual consumption figures helps load management but this is simply untrue, those figures with a slightly larger granularity are already available to DNOs, National Grid etc. It does help billing and could allow variable tariffs, but these things are not up for discussion to the consumer, who sees continuously increasing prices and very poor quality of market regulation. I have been in several countries where this method of demand control is used, and it is crippling to the population as well as small businesses. The primary demand for electricity is that it is 100% available at all times, and in the quantity needed by the customers. This seems to have been forgotten by the "Green" advocates, although they whinge that there are not enough electric vehicle charging points available! Renewables cannot and never will be able to supply this reliability or demand but we are continuously told we just need to build wind turbines! Just who is living in cloud cuckoo land, as with railways the cost of these is not understood by the Government advisors, nor payback rates. Germany has a lot of wind, but also the most expensive electricity in Europe. The wind companies are loosing money because payback is nothing like that suggested by nameplate ratings. Maintenance costs for wind are crippling because a fault costs £100,000 for suitable huge crane hire. All of the turbines should have a suitable crane built in (on) to lower the heavy equipment at the top, but I am sure I am not the first person to suggest this, although it would be fairly cheap at the time of construction. Imagine how much it costs to service heavy parts on an offshore turbine, and how long one might have to wait for suitable weather.
The point I am making is that no one has actually thought most of this through at all, not the discounted costs, the advantages against the disadvantages, the technical difficulties etc., and yet they were happy to pour public money into projects because it looks "Green". We are about to make cars only available to the rich and powerful, the rest of us must use trains and buses, because the costs have not been considered. All this to "save the Earth", although this is actually completely scientifically false! It is also economically disastrous, as you may see in the coming Budget.
This is an area where again we can suggest solutions, but a faulty starting point has been chosen by someone as to where the discussion should start.
It appears that the chosen point is that the supply of electricity should be limited to the general population by disconnection rather than price as at present. The whole "Smart Meter" concept is about limiting supply to the householder when it suits the "Powers that be", in order to match consumption to availability in some arbitrary way. It is said that knowing individual consumption figures helps load management but this is simply untrue, those figures with a slightly larger granularity are already available to DNOs, National Grid etc. It does help billing and could allow variable tariffs, but these things are not up for discussion to the consumer, who sees continuously increasing prices and very poor quality of market regulation. I have been in several countries where this method of demand control is used, and it is crippling to the population as well as small businesses. The primary demand for electricity is that it is 100% available at all times, and in the quantity needed by the customers. This seems to have been forgotten by the "Green" advocates, although they whinge that there are not enough electric vehicle charging points available! Renewables cannot and never will be able to supply this reliability or demand but we are continuously told we just need to build wind turbines! Just who is living in cloud cuckoo land, as with railways the cost of these is not understood by the Government advisors, nor payback rates. Germany has a lot of wind, but also the most expensive electricity in Europe. The wind companies are loosing money because payback is nothing like that suggested by nameplate ratings. Maintenance costs for wind are crippling because a fault costs £100,000 for suitable huge crane hire. All of the turbines should have a suitable crane built in (on) to lower the heavy equipment at the top, but I am sure I am not the first person to suggest this, although it would be fairly cheap at the time of construction. Imagine how much it costs to service heavy parts on an offshore turbine, and how long one might have to wait for suitable weather.
The point I am making is that no one has actually thought most of this through at all, not the discounted costs, the advantages against the disadvantages, the technical difficulties etc., and yet they were happy to pour public money into projects because it looks "Green". We are about to make cars only available to the rich and powerful, the rest of us must use trains and buses, because the costs have not been considered. All this to "save the Earth", although this is actually completely scientifically false! It is also economically disastrous, as you may see in the coming Budget.
