 | Home > Off Topic > Electric vehicles - saving the planet? |
 
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| Zed Member Since: 07 Oct 2017 Location: In the woods Posts: 3009   
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Yeah that's the model. We have underfloor heating downstairs and a mixture of underfloor and radiators upstairs. It's an old house so there was a bit of work involved but not as much as I expected. My only regret is that we didn't do it sooner. |
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3rd May 2019 8:52pm |
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| Rashers Member Since: 21 Jun 2015 Location: Norfolk Posts: 3335 
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The push will be first in London where the environmental controls are higher. Larger units than you have Zed can feed blocks of flats. Each flat has a heat interface unit (looks like a boiler, acts like a boiler, but no fuel or ignition) where the heat and hot water is balanced and distributed. This is also where the heat will be metered. Very clever stuff. The technology has been around for quite a few years it’s just now it is becoming popular due to the environmental building regulations in London which are different to the rest of the UK.
There has been a bit of a push to fit Combined Heat and Power units (CHP). These are essentially a small car engine which runs on gas or another fuel (I have seen one which runs on rape seed oil) and this generates electricity and heat for a building. They are generally unliked as they have to be regularly serviced. The idea is this is it runs at a constant speed and is more efficient to run than the losses encountered by power stations and overhead cable distribution network (these losses are quite high). But in most cases, they run of gas which is still a fossil fuel. |
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3rd May 2019 9:14pm |
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| Zed Member Since: 07 Oct 2017 Location: In the woods Posts: 3009
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Interesting stuff.
I read about a local farm running CHP or something similar. They use the waste CO2 for their greenhouses. It's all very clever. |
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4th May 2019 11:21am |
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| Rashers Member Since: 21 Jun 2015 Location: Norfolk Posts: 3335
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Whissington Sugar beet factory in Norfolk was funnelling their CO2 into adjacent greenhouses to grow tomatoes.
There re so many good ideas out there. Unfortunately Govenment legislation usually stifles many of these and snuffs them out before they can be developed. CHP looks as if it will no longer be accepted, Biomass Boilers have had their day and you would probably be surprised if you realised the buildings where this technology was installed to get it through planning, then never used (relying on their gas boilers). I was told of a building in central London owned by the daughter of a famous millionaire where photo voltaic panels were installed on the roof to get the building through planning, and never connected. No one ever goes back to check. Just look at the advice from our own Government about Buying diesels? Misguided knee jerk reactions whereas we should be embracing the ideas which are already out there. |
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4th May 2019 12:01pm |
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| ARC99 Member Since: 19 Feb 2013 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 1831 
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I think someone has been selective as to which power station they list. The Wilton power station which shut down 25 years ago along with the one at I.C.I. Billingham after being converted to Natural gas in the 1960's The new Wilton power station is a Biomass fed station and a separate one is or planned to burn thousands of tonnes of house hold waste from either Manchester or Liverpool. The Wilton I.C.I. station produced enough power to supply not only the site but the local steel works and the town of Redcar. Don't make old people mad. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to  us off.
Richard |
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4th May 2019 12:36pm |
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