Well, thank you, PK! It has been a roller coaster of a ride at times. Sometimes interesting, sometimes pleasant, and some not so nice. I was on an icebreaker in dry doc in Canada at -20C. Sahara desert was +40C. And the gold mines in SA had snakes…
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Not too bad for a low kW generator, but consider noise and running costs. Also, the output will need to regulated and filtered to prevent electrical spikes that could damage electronic equipment.
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Right so its not something I could shove in the spare room living above an older person then…sigh there’s always a catch. 
Depends if you want to die of carbon monoxide poisoning or not. 
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Oh I have a detector…I’m not silly! 
To quote the words of a well known adventurer…“I hate snakes”
My personal opinion is that the only reliable source of electricity in the long term, until nuclear fusion is developed, is nuclear fission.
Fossil fuels will run out and/or become too expensive, wind and tidal are already insufficient and wind is unreliable.
The only problem is the number of objections to fission, at least in the UK. Obviously, the French don’t worry about that or perhaps their people have more common sense than ours!
Certainly, if and when Boris’s electric cars become more popular (if people do keep falling for them!) there are going to be some serious supply problems.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Actually, I overdid it last night when we went out to our friends and became more drunk than Marge ever remembers me before. Nevertheless, I was not 
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Plenty of coal waiting to be mined JB…
Happy Christmas to Marge and your good self by the way…
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The problem with nuclear is that we are not paying the actual costs of it.
We have huge bills to pay in future for the radioactive waste we are storing.
One day we will have the “Solex Agitator”.
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We have a little house we rent out. We had tenants in there for 12 years and they left so we do holiday lets from last April when the Govt said we could. There is no gas in the village and there is not room for oil tank so our only option was electric. We had an Energy Performance advisor in to do the EPC and she recommended high heat retention storage heaters. These seem effective although they were expensive and we now wait until April to work out what they are costing to run over 12 months. They have improved the EPC anyway.
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I look forward to hearing the results in April Flowerpower…
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Oh, I agree. Unfortunately, the trendy eco-warriors seem to have the government in their pockets and we are unlikely to see any more coal mining in this country, despite there being years and years of supply down there.
Perhaps when other things run out and it is finally accepted that windmills are not a practical answer…
Thanks, and happy new year to you and yours OGF!
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Nothing is free. I believe the costs are well worth it.
Ask the French. They do a lot more of it than we do and they’re not complaining!
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As usual the French are ahead of us.
The kicker is in the last sentence, the best and cheapest sites are in the South East, so the Politicians will not do it.
Yes, very interesting.
I found the most telling section in that piece is:
"The British scheme was set to explore an underground laboratory in Cumbria near the Sellafield nuclear site. The local district council approved the scheme but the strategic authority - the council in Carlisle - blocked it in January 2013, sending the nuclear planners back to the drawing board.
A UK Government white paper to be published in the summer is widely expected to tweak the approval process to curb a county council’s influence. The hunt is now on for a new location."
The Finns and the French are doing it, so there is no reason why we cannot do it either. We also benefit from many disused deep coal mines.
As pointed out in the link, our greatest problem is opposition from SOME of our local authorities.
However, I have the distinct suspicion that as we run out of gas and natural sources fail to meet demand, this naive opposition will quickly diminish as people yearn for the electricity supplies they once had and, due to lack of forward planning, no longer enjoy!
We really need a forward looking government who can see what some of us already can, and make the necessary changes now rather than at the last minute when the lights begin to go out…
and everyone’s electric cars begin to grind to a halt!
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It would appear our 0.1% effect on saving the planet is more important than the poverty and suffering of it’s citizens and who actually voted for a government that allowed this.
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Will do! The EPC woman said that in the future if you have an EPC below a certain level (sorry can’t remember what that was right now) then your property can not be rented out.
These high heat retention storage heaters are much slimmer than the old ones we had in there and have a fan in the bottom and you can adjust the temperature on a dial on the top.
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Those snake type things are still being studied by Southampton University’s engineering department.
When I was still working for the Malaysian government, we had several Malaysian PhD students over here studying for their PhDs while working on this project. The rubber aspect of the system was being worked on at our laboratory.
That minimum level is E.
As a landlord I have to comply and next month I expect to complete a new conversion/renovation where with all the work carried out I expect the results to be B once the TG windows are finished to the correct and quoted for specification, unlike what was actually supplied in the first instance where the frame sections did not contain insulation.