Why was Didcot "A" Power Station Demolished a Columnist Asks?

Well no one has yet worked out a practical and economic way to filter out CO2 emissions. As for the Chinese, well if that family over there aren't putting their litter in the bin, does that mean I should just chuck my crisp packets on the floor too?


And china generated 366 TWh of electricity from just wind power in 2018, more than the 304 GWh the UK generated from all sources in 2016. China currently gets about 25% of its electricity from renewable resources, and this is rapidly rising.

Extinction Rebellion annoy me for several reasons.


They do not seem to have any proposals as to how things should actually move forward to achieve a desirable outcome.


They seem to think they have a monopoly on caring and nobody else does.


Some of their activities consist of bullying people who may well share the same overall objectives, but actually need to get on and live their lives without being harassed on the streets as they do do.

The Extinction Rebellion website  does not appear to have any aims or objectives on it, merely proposing disturbances around the world to make changes.


As an electrician every day I endeavour to reduce the carbon footprint of all of my customers and would like to think that every electrical installation uses consumes less electricity after I worked on it than before, by installing new lighting and appliances that use less electricity also have better controls to reduce the customers bills and reduce their carbon footprint.


I also try to fo my best to reuse and recycle and so on and so forth.


In fact I would like to think I have more of a positive impact on reducing global warming, as best I can, than the majority of those involved in the Extinction Rebellion. Their standing in roads and the like will not have the actual benefits to the environment  that my getting to work will.


 Andy Betteridge

Follow the money eh? He controls the charity that is funding extinction rebellion through his wife. It gets its funds from creaming off a percentage of the profits of his hedge fund.

He runs a very aggressive hedge fund with a cuddly children's name. His motives are not to be trusted imho.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/10/extinction-rebellion-funded-charity-set-one-britains-richest/


Mass movements don’t spring from nowhere, there needs to be a catalyst. The current trend to bow before Saint Greta of No-Nobel arose because she inspired thousands of credulous children to believe in her imperfect understanding of climatological trends. All very innocent if a bit worrying. But Extinction Rebellion is made of sterner stuff and deliberately conflate unconnected issues to weave a narrative of societal breakdown with which to attack the very thing which allows them the lives they have; capitalism. For make no mistake, this is their true aim.

They do not seem to have any proposals as to how things should actually move forward to achieve a desirable outcome.

I can't speak for Extinction Rebellion but there certainly are proposals out here of what could be done - e.g. Zero Carbon Britain Report. There seems to be a common theme though that gradual small comfortable changes made by individuals won't deliver the required change - either large enough or quickly enough - e.g.  BBC Report: Climate change: Big lifestyle changes are the only answer  Individual improvements certainly help - if nothing else in demonstrating what's possible - but perhaps we should be considering the possibility of much more radical and widespread changes.


  - Andy.

The European Union made grants available to replace central heating circulating pumps in domestic properties, but the British Government decided not to make this available to people available throughout the UK. 


Had all the central heating circulating pumps in homes across Europe including the the UK been replaced with new more efficient versions several coal fired power stations could have been closed and demolished.


It is not all about grand gestures, it’s actually about getting on and making lots of improvements that add up to a huge difference.


Most people end up with the cheapest pump the plumbers merchants sell, in fact my plumbers merchant only stocks one model of pump, there is no choice. When I passed comment to a plumber that I had bought a particularly energy efficient pump that was in comparison expensive he laughed, but it has more than paid for itself by now, just think how many hours a day it runs over the winter.


Even if the Government had taken up the EU grant scheme I doubt many people in the UK would have bothered yo make the change.


The home insulation schemes have probably reached saturation point by now, generally people who will have additional home insulation installed have had it installed by now. To go any further with it would require some sort of compulsion and I cannot see that happening at the moment, only further increases in the cost heating your home is an incentive to improve the insulation at the moment.


Andy Betteridge

Not sure that the heating pump example the best example - where does the energy go to if not to heating water which is exactly you wanted to do anyway.  I'd agree for parts in a refrigeration system however, every watt is sacred. (apologies to Monty Python)

If you want to use less electricity on pumping, perhaps fit a bigger boiler, so that the duty cycle is shorter. Actually to save energy, nothing beats not heating the building until as late in the year as possible, and wearing more clothes.

Some other things worth pursuing would be heat recovery on ventilation and on wastewater, which is possible to do today but rarely seen, and the design of an air source heat pump that does not ice up at the winter humidity levels we see outdoors in much of the UK.

Funny you should say that Sparkingchip‍ ...


Slightly #offtopic but in my home in France we installed a large electric water heater (not sure of the make and model off the top of my head) that we bought in the local Brico Depot. It's so efficient that we switch it off three days before we're due to leave and it's still giving out really hot water (enough for a comfortable shower) up until then. 


My immersion heater tank at home in the UK is stone cold after being off for a few hours...without any of the water being used. ?

Nothing wrong with conserving energy if it saves money, can't argue with that, but for the other issues, all of this presupposes that c02 is actually a villain here.

Many would argue not, those dissenting voices which present the real science are silenced if they voice their professional opinions which don't chime in with the way the mainstream has presented the argument. You cannot get research grant funding now unless you add something like '....as a consequence of climate change'.

So for example - "I wish to conduct research into how red squirrels store their nuts for the winter across various regions of the UK."

Submit that and you will get a big fat zero.

However, if you add the closer '..as a consequence of climate change' to your request, the funding bodies are your oyster.

Fall-out from this affects medical research and many other kinds of useful studies.

In terms of coal fired power, whatever happened to the Govt grants which used to be available for Clean Coal Technology?

We could have had a sustainable coal fired generation industry if these climate change nuts actually acknowledged the real science instead of jumping upon what is rapidly becoming a global political project, and no good will come of it in the long term.

I'd have thought taking away the drum sticks and threatening the scruffy buggers with a hot bath and a deluge of carbolic soap would clear the streets soon enough.


Lets see how much protesting they are doing on a freezing cold January morning  - or will they all be home protesting on Twatter and Faceache a nice centrally heated house.


The naivety of these imbeciles amazes me - apparently in Shoreditch you can power an iPhone through wishful thinking.


Personally, I think what's happening to Greta is child abuse - but there'll be no reaction to this from the Met, they have other targets to pursue (but maybe not Brazilians, or Electricians, eh Cressida)


Regards


OMS