Green Building Forum - Energy company offering FIT+2p

Energy company offering FIT+2p

Seret — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:31:21 +0000

Just had an energy company that's campaigning quite hard in my area offer me FIT+2p for my PV, the somewhat less appealing catch being that I would have to switch my supply to their relatively dirty electricity.

Interesting to see power companies starting to compete for FIT business though.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

SteamyTea — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:39:54 +0000

Posted By: SeretInteresting to see power companies starting to compete for FIT business though.

It is what should happen under the renewables obligations. Makes all that costly FITs business a total nonsense.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

CWatters — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:46:17 +0000

Can you tell us which company that was?

Energy company offering FIT+2p

Seret — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:07:51 +0000

Posted By: CWattersCan you tell us which company that was?

Utility Warehouse. They came doorknocking, which is never a good sign from a utility company IMO.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

SteamyTea — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:10:42 +0000

They are a bulk buying company and no a generator, so their electrons are the same colour as everyone else's. They also have some strange things in their small print from what I read a while back.

As an aside, if you use all/most of your PV power at home, not exactly reducing the Grid Intensity.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

Seret — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:46:13 +0000

Posted By: SteamyTea
As an aside, if you use all/most of your PV power at home, not exactly reducing the Grid Intensity.

I tried having a word with the sun about matching it's output to my usage patterns, but it was having none of it.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

SteamyTea — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:04:17 +0000

Bet I could match it

Energy company offering FIT+2p

Brianwilson — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:15:56 +0000

So the rumour is true, Steamy is God!!

Energy company offering FIT+2p

SteamyTea — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:46:57 +0000

Thank you, but I tend towards the atheist, though I would have looked forward to seeing Davy Jones, on a horse, in heaven, just so I can hear him sing 'Daydream Believer'.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

Davipon — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 20:55:40 +0000

Seret, is that old fit or new?

ST there is a veritable choir this month!

Energy company offering FIT+2p

SteamyTea — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:02:40 +0000

Posted By: DaviponST there is a veritable choir this month!

We have put a ban on talking about musicians/singers we like at work as they seem to die the next day.
So we mention ones we hate instead, but it does not work that way around

Energy company offering FIT+2p

Davipon — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:57:28 +0000

Cliff! Still not ready

Energy company offering FIT+2p

Seret — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:47:06 +0000

Posted By: DaviponSeret, is that old fit or new?

Either. Obviously more attractive if you're on the new lower rate, as it's an extra 10%. But TBH I wonder if they'll get many people signing up. It's not a lot of extra money really, and the only people that would be happy to switch to their energy mix are those who've installed PV for entirely financial reasons and aren't really greenies at all. I suspect that's a relatively small subset of domestic PV owners.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

SteamyTea — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:50:31 +0000

Posted By: SeretI suspect that's a relatively small subset of domestic PV owners.

Or the majority who fell for the ROI figures.
If I had PV, I would take it as I know that electrons on the grid are just that, electrons on the grid and are neither green or not green. We all buy from the wholesale market.
You want low CO2 bulk power, invest in nuclear.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

fostertom — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:55:17 +0000

Posted By: SteamyTeainvest in nuclear

and let others pay the real costs over the next 1000yrs

Energy company offering FIT+2p

Seret — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:56:12 +0000

It's not the electrons that are the green part of the power supply transaction, it's the money. As you say, all electrons are alike, but where the reciprocal cashons flow back to is important. Therefore, there is such a thing as a green power supply.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

fostertom — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:15:34 +0000

Posted By: Seretreciprocal cashons

v gd!

Energy company offering FIT+2p

SteamyTea — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:22:08 +0000

Not all nuclear is uranium based, see the other 'interesting thing' broadcast.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

fostertom — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:40:07 +0000

Posted By: SteamyTeaNot all nuclear is uranium based

thorium, nice idea, but all of the present crop is uranium - a multimutifold upscale from anything so far. Talk about discounting future costs, to be paid with life on earth as the coinage, quite possibly. The waste problem has simply been pushed off into a possibly anarchic far future. Stupidity of a hitherto unimagined calibre. You, tho long gone, will be blamed ST

Energy company offering FIT+2p

JSHarris — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:50:42 +0000

Worth noting that coal fired power stations release more radioactive material into the environment than nuclear ones...............

Also worth noting that although the waste from nuclear power stations is extremely hazardous, the volume is tiny. A typical nuclear power plant only generates around 20 to 30 tonnes of waste a year.

Comparing the environmental impact isn't easy, but if all the emotive stuff is parked and just the hard facts looked at then nuclear looks a fair bit better than fuel-burning sources of energy, both in terms of health risk (remembering that gas, coal and oil extraction all kill and injure lots of people every year) and in terms of impact on the environment (burning gas, coal and oil creates lots of CO2 and other pollutants, in extremely large volumes).

Energy company offering FIT+2p

fostertom — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:03:51 +0000

That's like saying murder by garotting is better than a barrel of acid

Energy company offering FIT+2p

pmagowan — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:07:44 +0000

Yes, I don't get this hysteria surrounding nuclear, probably mostly to do with 1960's horror films. Everyone goes on about how long the waste is around for. At least it has a half life! Much of the waste from conventional power stations is permanent and can continue going round and round causeing damage. All you need to do with the small amount of waste from nuclear is bury it for a while and it becomes neutral again. There is even a process whereby you can speed this up from centuries to decades. You only develop a technology by investing in it. I think the children of the future will blame the 'greenies' who held back development which would have solved the global warming problems. All the windmills and stuff are fine as a transitional buffer but really don't cut it as a long term power source in an increasingly power hungry world. Reduction in demand is admirable but unrealistic (people are people).

End of thread hijack (sorry)

Energy company offering FIT+2p

Nick Parsons — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:15:34 +0000

'' I would have looked forward to seeing Davy Jones, on a horse, in heaven, just so I can hear him sing 'Daydream Believer'''

How do you know the horse can sing?

Energy company offering FIT+2p

fostertom — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:28:50 +0000

Posted By: pmagowanThere is even a process whereby you can speed this up from centuries to decades

How, other than converting one radioactive isotope into another, or to another element? That's nuclear, not chemical, wd require more reactors. Is this being done? Anyway it's millennia, not centuries that the stuff has to be faultlessly stored, which assumes continuing hi-tech supervision in an ordered world - not a gd bet.

Radioactive toxicity is a threat of different order entirely, from the worst chemical toxin. The latter its true don't have a half life (are not automatically self-extinguishing) - but a half life of hundreds or a thousand yrs is quite long enough to allow incalculable damage meantime. However toxic a non radioactive chemical is, it's possible to not produce it (unlike radioactive - production is certain) and can be cleaned up in short order by chemical means, with aid of copious solar energy input if nec. Radioactive cannot be cleaned up, except by moving it to somewhere else (please don't even mention diluting it) or by putting it thro another cleanup-nuclear reactor yet to be invented

Energy company offering FIT+2p

JSHarris — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:10:25 +0000

Posted By: fostertomThat's like saying murder by garotting is better than a barrel of acid

But that's exactly the decision we currently make with every single energy provision method we have. All forms of energy conversion we use, including renewables, have an adverse impact in one form of another. We have to balance which adverse impacts we find acceptable and which we don't.

We need to take account of true (not imaginary) health risk, in terms of the number of people who will be killed or suffer ill health per unit of energy produced; we also need to come up with a way to assess total environmental impact, again in terms of impact per unit of energy produced.

So far I've not seen one comparison along these lines whose data I would trust; the majority of such comparisons are full of emotive bullshit and misleading statistics. We can fairly readily compare the immediate death and injury per unit energy figures, I believe, as the differences between the different forms of energy production (including infrastructure manufacture) are quite stark. It gets much harder to try and determine environmental impact though. Is 3 mg per MWh of nuclear waste more or less environmentally damaging than 1024 kg of CO2 per MWh, plus ~13 kg of particulates per MWh, plus a few kg of other gases etc per MWh from a coal fired power station?

Energy company offering FIT+2p

SteamyTea — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:24:27 +0000

Tom
Purely as an aside, do you think that a nuclear reactor works the same as a nuclear bomb but at a smaller scale?

Energy company offering FIT+2p

fostertom — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:32:31 +0000

JSH I like the way you put fossil into comparable future-risk bracket. Clearly fossil is v bad immediately; agree that nuclear by comparison prob v gd in its short term (since serious roll-out) record. So if coal's really as bad as nuclear, long-term, then - well nothing new really - madness to continue with either. Agree also that if all (and I mean absolutely all) goes well with nuclear storage supervision long term, it could turn out well.

It's the consequences of even slight failure of that over the next thousand(s?) yrs, a pretty good cert I think, that makes nuclear crazy in my eyes. Mutant horror worldwide. That is a risk like no other within our power and I can't believe we even consider it. A long gamble with life itself on earth, on behalf of not just us but every other lifeform.

To compare these two monsters with renewables is like steamrollers and Dinkys.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

fostertom — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:33:02 +0000

Posted By: SteamyTeado you think that a nuclear reactor works the same as a nuclear bomb but at a smaller scale?

No.

I am relatively unconcerned with the lifetime of reactors - Fukashima wasn't the end of the world and l'm sure lessons are learned. It's the storage of the waste and the impossibility of guaranteeing its safe storage long-longterm that rules it out. Produce harmless (useful even) waste and I'm on board.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

JSHarris — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:55:07 +0000

Posted By: fostertom
To compare these two monsters with renewables is like steamrollers and Dinkys.

It is indeed, and let's not forget that all renewables also have some form of adverse environmental/health impact, too, even if it's only in terms of making and installing the devices needed.

I'm personally unconvinced that 0.000003 kg per MWh of waste from nuclear is really any worse than either the 1024 kg of CO2 per MWh from coal, the 838 kg of CO2 per MWh from oil, the 607 kg of CO2 per MWH for gas or all the other waste products these other forms of energy produce.

In all the emotive arguments, driven, I suspect, by the strong connection in the minds of many between nuclear weapons and nuclear power, I've rarely seen mention of the scale of the waste problem. Perhaps if people realised that enough nuclear energy to heat and light their home for a year would produce a bit of nuclear waste that was about the weight of 60 grains of sugar and less than half the volume of 60 grains of sugar, or that to heat and light their homes for around 20 years would result in a bit of waste about the size of an aspirin tablet, they might get a sense of proportion about it.

Energy company offering FIT+2p

pmagowan — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:05:21 +0000

Fukushima didn't cause a single death unlike the oil refinery fire which will be responsible for many. I don't understand how you can say that nuclear is somehow worse than chemical toxicity. From a health point of view that is simply not true. Radiation is relatively harmless as we have grown bathed in it, from the sun, cosmic rays and from the earth and our food. Current scientific knowledge of its risks are based on being conservative and cautious. It has a very handy square rule with distance and do a sheet of cling film can protect you from most of the radioactive particles thrown out in a reactor disaster such as Fukashima.
I think your idea of mutant disaster further reinforces this Hollywood understanding of radiation. There is a plant up and running (experimental yes) that reduces the half life of nuclear waste. It is only through necessity that invention solves the problems of society. Nuclear has the potential to solve current problems and, through development of next gen and fusion, future ones. A nuclear power station produces its waste in a handy solid form which can be stored safely. This is a positive, not a negative. Alternatives just churn their pollution into the air where is damages everything and is very hard to capture and cleanse.