Comments for carbon limited

Comment on heat pumps emit more carbon than gas boilers – so why will they get the Renewable Heat Incentive? by rural energy user

rural energy user — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 23:14:49 +0000

Belatedly, a comment – why on earth would anyyone install electric resistance water heating with active solar, when they cxould continue to use an LPG or gas condensing boiler, the latter both costing less to install and emitting less CO2?

It seems quite mad.

In time maybe ground source heat pumps will be available that can actually heat the water – like gas, LPG, oil or district heating from CHP can do.

Comment on grid carbon will stay high for some time yet by Nick Devlin

Nick Devlin — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 10:17:55 +0000

excuse my ignorance, and to some extent laziness, as I should really read the document myself. But whats the fundamental difference between the average and marginal emissions factors?

Comment on what rate of return can I get from the PV feed in tariff? by JC

JC — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:06:27 +0000

What you have to remember guys is that inflation is now more like 4.5% (RPI) – see recent Telegraph article by their editor. As you may know, applying the rule of 72, we get 72/4.5 = 16 years for money to halve in value. Tesco currently sell 3.96 kWp systems – the biggest size. If south facing, no shading, under SAP it would make over £54,000 by year 25. (I’ve assumed 2.5% RPI, and 5% price rises in electricity, with deemed amounts being used i.e. 50% is exported, 50% is used.) A bank account paying 2% interest would on the same amount you spend on this system will only get you £24,000.

Gold is of course an alternative to PV. But gold is reaching an upper price limit, perhaps it’s even topped. Stock markets are up and down with rumours of wars, financial recessions, bail outs, debt, bank problems, countries going bust. So by contrast, Tesco PV is a sure bet.

You would have to be pretty stupid not to want to take advantage of something that rises with inflation. The only other thing I can think of is gilt bonds but they are very expensive and nowadays one might consider them uncertain as well because govts are going bust left right and centre.

The main thing is that you will get a payback after 8 years and for the next 27 years you make a packet.

I believe M&S are now also selling these systems! Amazing! Fab-u-lous!

Comment on quango cull – blow to HCA and others by Gavin McP

Gavin McP — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 05:01:29 +0000

The review didn’t cover “private bodies limited by guarantee” so CT and EST still await their fate.
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2271521/defra-faces-brunt-quango-cuts

Comment on biodiesel backlash began yesterday in Bristol by nick Grant

nick Grant — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 05:41:24 +0000

Casey

Assume you have seen Biomass a Burning Issue discussion paper by now, sorry it took so long but we took a lot of time on peer review and then were a bit nervous about publishing.

http://www.aecb.net/publications.php

discussion here:

http://www.aecb.net/forum/index.php/topic,2649.0.html

and on Mark B’s blog etc.

Lots of initial anger from people who later admitted they had not actually read it so worth a couple of reads before reacting.

Appreciate your thoughts.

Nick

Comment on grid carbon will stay high for some time yet by Elemental » Interesting links for August 18th through August 24th

Elemental » Interesting links for August 18th through August 24th — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:10:27 +0000

[...] grid carbon will stay high for some time yet « carbon limited – "the official line is that the carbon intensity of the grid will remain roughly steady until 2015, when it will plummet towards near-zero carbon in 2040. (As an aside, is it a coincidence that the dropoff comes in 2015, given that it’s the latest possible date for the next general election?) It will be interesting to see how that drop off moves in coming years. The announcement strongly reinforces the message from DECC that decarbonisation of heat will not be achieved through electrification. In other words, heat pumps are not the answer to decarbonising heat at the national scale." No TweetBacks yet. (Be the first to Tweet this post)SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Interesting links for August 18th through August 24th", url: "http://www.melstarrs.com/temporary/?p=1330" }); [...]

Comment on ground source heat pumps not so green by shane

shane — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:50:01 +0000

ohhh, just noticed the figure for Natural Gas is 0.01799 kg/CO2/kWh indirect emissions (DEFRA 2010, Annex 1, Table 1c rather than 1b as above)

Comment on ground source heat pumps not so green by shane

shane — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:09:23 +0000

B Whittle,

It’s an old wifes tale to include biomass transport like this as all fuels have indirect emissions not just biomass and the Grid electricity figure used excluded these emissions. Here’s the latest figures;
Wood Pellets 0.03895 kg/CO2/kWh indirect emissions (DEFRA 2010, Annex 9, Table 9C)
Natural gas 0.1968 kg/CO2/kWh indirect emissions (DEFRA 2010, Annex 1, Table 1b)
Electricity indirect 0.07185 kg/CO2/kWh indirect emissions (DEFRA 2010, Annex 3, Table 3C)

For example Natural Gas has 5 times more indirect emissions than Wood pellets while electricity has double.

Policywonk,

proper wonky stuff. the idea of advocating an inaffective solution due to some capitalist money exchange is very frustrating.

Shane

Comment on heat pumps emit more carbon than gas boilers – so why will they get the Renewable Heat Incentive? by Are GSHPs as good as they promise? « Energy Saving Expert's Blog

Are GSHPs as good as they promise? « Energy Saving Expert's Blog — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:16:26 +0000

[...] a very interesting article at http://carbonlimited.org/2009/08/11/heat-pumps-emit-more-carbon-than-gas-boilers-so-why-will-they-ge…. Basically it says that because electricity from the grid is partly generated by fossil fuel power [...]

Comment on heat pumps emit more carbon than gas boilers – so why will they get the Renewable Heat Incentive? by Pump Suppliers

Pump Suppliers — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:54:25 +0000

The valid points raised here, especially regarding how the ‘application’ of heatpumps significantly effects the CoP – in carbon terms it’s plain stupid to connect a heatpump to a distribution system that needs permanently high water temperatures.

I have a question @GuyCashmore is it possible to raise the above temperature by using the above application.