Timothy Birdnow

In a discussion about my power outage the other day, David Redfern and I had an interesting discussion.

David said:

We don't really have problems with power cuts in the UK. Occasionally for a few minutes or an hour if something trips or fails.

However, I'm getting increasingly concerned with our reliance on renewables and have been looking at a Natural Gas powered generator.

Less than about £4,000 and it'll run most essentials in the house as well as low power TV, PC etc.

It's just terribly sad that we've come to this in an advanced, civilised society.

I replied:

I fear power outages are the wave of the future as we keep pushing unreliable energy David. It was wise to get one of those generators.

Ordinarily we don't get outages here either, but if this starts happening on a regular basis I'm going to invest in one of those gas ones. I had thought of buying a gasoline powered generator, but I have no safe place to put it and I live in the city, meaning it'll be gone if I just stuck it outside. I don't have a garage, alas!

It IS terrible we see our civilization crumbling like this for nothing.

And David added:

I haven't bought one yet, we are about to extend our house so the work will probably be done then to install one.

They are semi-permanent items, bolted down to a concrete base with a permanent gas supply piped in. https://teamonegroup.co.uk/Pramac-Gas-Power-Generators

They are not the type of item to be lifted and walked off with. Nor should anyone install a petrol or diesel powered generator in a garage, far too risky if something went wrong, and it would be a pain in the backside to keep topping it up with fuel.

In the UK we have been threated with being forced to replace 98% efficient Condensing boilers which are by far the most common and cheapest means of heating a home. Unfortunately they don't work without a reliable electricity supply.

There is a considerable backlash against outlawing gas boilers as the government insists we install Heat Pumps (either Ground sourced or Air Sourced). I just don't have the room on this post to list the problems associated with either other than to say the main one is cost. I priced up a Ground Source Heat Pump for my house as I have sufficient land to lay underground pipes which extract embodied heat from the earth.

It would cost between £20,000 - £30,000 to install one. I replaced my very old, non Condensing Gas boiler with a modern Condensing one 18 months ago for £3,500.

I also priced updating our house to the theoretical ideal standards our government were demanding (not dropped but they will be). Including a Heat Pump the bill came to ~£100,000 however, my discussions with various HVAC engineers established my Victorian cottage could never practically achieve the living conditions we enjoy now despite achieving government standards.

One went as far as to say we would be forced to install a modern 'efficient' Wood Burning stove for winter, which would serve one room unless substantial expense was incurred plumbing it into our existing system of radiators, probably another £30,000.

Our 'green' government which, BTW, has no electoral mandate for this wholesale imposition of green policies, is/was also threatening to make it illegal for me to sell my own house unless it achieves these arbitrary standards.

Imagine that. My principle lifetime investment, paid for with my own Taxed income, with no government subsidy now becomes a government controlled item!

The only people to gain from this immense scam are Banks who will be lending at least £100,000 (my house is a modest 3 bedroom terraced home) to tens of millions of households across the UK who don't have £100,000 spare to spend on their insane policies.

Then there is the government itself which profits from all the taxable expenditure of all this needless waste.

A couple of years after I did my costing exercise, a notable engineer, Michael Kelly, did the same calculation but in a national context and reached exactly the same figures as me. He also highlighted that the UK has approximately one third of the physical labour required to achieve this task, and the CO2 from material production alone to achieve this would far outweigh any theoretical savings made.

The UK and US are now functioning under government regimes more restrictive than former communist countries. I have an acquaintance who has lived in Russia since it was liberated from communism. He tells me the Russian population is utterly astonished at the west's acquiescence to the march of Authoritarianism.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:02 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 784 words, total size 5 kb.