Martin Brown wrote in message ...
Warwick Michael Dumas wrote:

"anton" wrote in message ...
Warwick Michael Dumas wrote in message
. ..

I'm not saying there aren't plenty of practical steps which an
individual can take to reduce their impact on the environment, and
should. It doesn't really cost that much to use only renewable energy
at home - maybe 100 pounds a year, less than 0.1% of a typical
household income.
(sic)

Please explain this comment. How do you heat your home
and use electricity using only renewable energy for £100?

I'm assuming you wait until at least your boiler's knackered, so
there's not much opportunity cost involved in the one-off expenses of
making the switch to decent electric heating. Then given that
renewable costs about 5% more (with regional variations) and your
original electric bill might have been 200 pounds, the statement is
equivalent to saying that (the actual bills for) electric heating
might cost you about 86 pounds more than gas. So it looks like I'm
guessing that electric is about 50% more expensive, if someone's gas
heating bill might be of the order of 170. Hmm, sounds reasonable.

How do you know that the electricity you are buying is really from genuine renewable resources ?

It's a medium-sized, well-known and respected firm which only trades
in renewable electricity.

There are plenty of unscrupulous energy companies about that will happily take an extra £100 per year
off you and give you a little certificate to salve your green conscience.

There is actually a legal requirement for electricity companies to
make 5% renewable energy. They then charge people extra saying "we'll
produce one-for-one renewable electricity as you use it", not
mentioning that they're doing nothing different from just fulfilling
their legal requirements.

Using electricity for space
heating in any way shape or form is incredibly wasteful. Even with the gain from heat pumps it still
isn't remotely efficient.

It's about 3 times less efficient than gas to produce, because of the
pylon power loss I think. But you can't get renewable gas.

It was briefly just about plausible in the mid 60's "white heat of technology" nuclear power will be
too cheap to meter pipe dream era - but it proved to be a bulky, messy and unprofitable business.

Combined heat and power systems where the electricity is generated and the waste low grade heat is used
to heat water and nearby buildings is reasonable. But using electricity to generate bulk heating is
*not* environmentally friendly even if it was produced by renewable means.

I think it's reasonable to assume that something more-or-less without
an environmental impact is environmentally friendly. I agree that
using a method which involves producing extra energy can seem
counter-intuitive. Solar cells don't, but for a lot of people solar
cells aren't a practical addition to their property - they cost 3000
and round here I wouldn't get that back.

If you are really serious about renewable carbon neutral heating have a wood burning stove and cut your
own wood.

You'd also have to grow your own wood where it wouldn't have grown
anyway, or it would surely be far worse for the environment than gas.


Warwick Dumas

www.members.tripod.com/ecuqe

"If Adolf Hitler were here today, they'd send a limousine anyway."
- the late Joe Strummer