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Excellent resource on this topic: Sustainability Without the Hot Air by David MacKay, a Caltech-trained Oxford physics professor. Free download: http://www.with
by spodek 7y ago
Excellent resource on this topic: Sustainability Without the Hot Air by David MacKay, a Caltech-trained Oxford physics professor. Free download: http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html.
In the article on Scotland, however, not one word on the most safe, economical, immediately available, and effective technique: reducing consumption. Trying to reach sustainability without lowering consumption feels like trying to make a company profitable without considering lowering costs. I haven't visited Scotland, but most Americans could reduce their energy consumption 75% or more purely improving their lives before any challenging decisions.
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A short description by MacKay of his book:
"Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" presents the numbers that are needed to answer these questions:
- How huge are Britain's renewable resources, compared with our current energy consumption?
- How big do renewable energy facilities have to be, to make a significant contribution?
- How big would our energy consumption be if we adopted strong efficiency measures?
- Which efficiency measures offer big savings, and which offer only 5 or 10%?
- Do new much-hyped technologies such as hydrogen or electric cars reduce energy consumption, or do they actually make our energy problem worse?
Wherever possible, I answer these questions from first principles.
- atoav 7y agoWhile I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of reducing energy consumption where it can be done I don't see why we shouldn't do both? And ofc there is always the danger of things like electric vehicles etc. becoming an case of indulgence: people paying to atone their sins. Consumption and shiny new things alone won't solve the climate emergency. For the UK the first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about inefficency is heating. I grew up in the alps and we usually have quite well insulated houses (incentivized by government). Using solar and heat exchangers is increasingly common etc. When I had been to England first, I was shocked at the building standards with these thin walls that barely keep the heat inside. On top they seem to heat a lot with electricity — something which you only would do in an emergency in the alps. If you can quickly save energy by modernizing heating and insulation go for it and expand renewables as well.
- lol768 7y ago>On top they seem to heat a lot with electricity — something which you only would do in an emergency in the alps. How else would you propose heating a property in England in the winter?
- iso947 7y agoGas, which in my experience is far more prevalent in the UK than electric heating.
- lol768 7y agoNot in new properties. I've not had gas heating in a property in the last four years or so. Natural gas is non-renewable, too.
- iso947 7y agoBought my new property in 2016, it’s GCH. Only comes on in deep winter, and that’s with a thermostat at 21C 24/7
- arethuza 7y agoI was surprised to see that gas heating is to be banned in new UK properties from 2025: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47559920 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47559920
- frobozz 7y agoGas. In fact, I don't think I have ever lived in a home with electric heating as the main source. I have, however, lived in a shitty rented flat with a crap landlord and needed to buy a portable electric heater because the CH was rubbish and/or broken.
- dangravell 7y agoAs the parent comment suggested, start with building houses properly. UK building standards are no where close to where they need to be. Then, the active heating input requirement is negligible.
- timthorn 7y agoNo argument with the quality of the book, but the late professor might not be too happy with being given to Oxford - he was very much a Cambridge fixture.
- Already__Taken 7y agoThe UK has a massive reliance on Gas, I think last time I did some numbers when I read the energy storage whitepaper (I dunno, 2010?). Take the current UK energy consumption and quadruple it, that's how much gas we're importing for cooking and heating. I mention this because I think any talk of efficiency saving is missing the point. If you improved efficiency by 100%, we're halfway there. Don't forget to replace Gas.
- swarnie_ 7y agoLive data can be found here: http://grid.iamkate.com/ http://grid.iamkate.com/ Currently 31% Gas, 33% renewables including wind. It should be mentioned the weather here is grim right now so weekly/monthly/yearly averages are worse.
- Already__Taken 7y agoSweet page thanks. That's not enough numbers however. 31% Gas is generated for electricity. > The data covers the UK cold weather event on the 1st March, providing insights into the scale of hourly energy flows through both networks. A peak hourly local gas demand of 214 GW occurred at 6pm on the 1st of March, which compared to peak electrical supply of 53 GW occurring at the same time. http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/publications/local-gas-demand-vs-electricity-supply.html http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/publications/local-gas-demand-vs-elec... 214GW(!) that's another 3 more UK national grids in capacity to build.
- montalbano 7y agoNote that while it is an excellent book, some of its contents are outdated now as it was published in 2009. In particular: solar, wind and battery technology have improved much faster than predicted. This blog post discusses some possible updates that could be made to the book: https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2017/3/30/l6qcqgoedse1wmjjz87t09usoq6jva https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2017/3/30/l6qcqgoedse1...