IanD
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Posts posted by IanD
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7 minutes ago, booke23 said:
Ditto. I’ve been experimenting with many different kinds of manufactured smokeless coal this winter and even the poor ones produced much more heat than logs……even kiln dried logs don’t come close.
As a side note the table that @IanD posted earlier is very interesting. I had assumed that manufactured smokeless coal would be nearly as bad as wood as it can be very smoky and dirty until it properly lights up. Good to see it is significantly better than wood with regard to PM2.5. Another surprise is that pure Anthracite is slightly worse than manufactured smokeless…..as in my experience Anthracite burns with very cleanly with little to no smoke at all.
PM2.5 particulates are far too small to see or appear as smoke, which consists of much bigger particles. You can have a fuel that appears to be the same or better for smoke than another one but is worse for PM2.5, dry wood being a good example...
The PM2.5 woodburner pollution problem is only in urban areas which is where the numbers have increased rapidly in recent years, not houses (or boats) out in the countryside. Whether the government can find a way of drawing the lines which bans their lifestyle use in towns while allowing essential use to continue off-grid is going to be interesting... 😉
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11 hours ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:
I find the "when did you stop beating your mother" efforts quite amusing.
For the record (and for the forth time) my position is -
It is unfair that anyone who does not bring a boat onto CRT waterways should have to pay licence fee.
- and I have never suggested that this unfairness can or should be corrected.
I can't understand why anyone should get themselves so worked up about this.The world is unfair. It's unfair that CART don't get enough money from the government. It's unfair that the ultra-rich don't pay their fair share of taxes.
In most cases, the people who make most noise about unfairness -- like, repeatedly posting about it on CWDF, for example -- think that it should be corrected.
Sometimes they even come up with suggestions about how this might be done, for example by making bigger differences between the license fees paid by different people on different boats in different places.
But according to your posts not you, it seems. Ho hum... 😉
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30 minutes ago, buccaneer66 said:
I like the idea, but I think silly to and fro arguments between members would have to be removed in an area such as this.
Oh no they wouldn't... 😉
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26 minutes ago, peterboat said:
I have an approved stove in my boat Ian, I burn well seasoned logs, ones that had to be chopped down because they were interfering with electric lines. The reality is nothing else other than a diesel stove works on a boat and we know that diesel is no better than wood in pollution stakes as its primary product from fossil fuels
My wood burner does preheat incoming air it works well
Yet again you're confusing CO2 emissions with PM2.5 pollution -- this has been pointed out to you several times but you keep on ignoring it... 😞
Woodburning is -- at least, over the long term -- far better than diesel for CO2 emissions, which is a long-term global problem (climate change).
Diesel is much less bad than woodburning for PM2.5 emissions, which is a shorter-term local problem which kills thousands of people in the UK every year.
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47 minutes ago, magnetman said:
What a ridiculous comment !
Passive smoking compared with wood burning for heating?
Since when was smoking something that people have no choice about? I know addiction is bad but at the end of the day smoking is a choice. Heating a living space, in this country, is not something you can opt out of unless you want a very cold and very damp living space.
Don't be silly comparing space heating to smoking. They are totally different subjects.
One is an optional luxury the other is a basic need.
And that's an idiotic response... 😞
Passive smoking means the diseases and lung cancer inflicted -- without their consent -- by smokers *on other people*, including their own children. It's estimated that even today *after* the decline in smoking it kill around 10000 people in the UK every year -- again, government figures, not from some anti-tobacco organisation. This is pretty close to the estimated death toll from woodburners in the UK, the majority of which are used for lifestyle/affluence reasons, not essential heating -- meaning, they're an optional extra. All this has already been said in this thread, if you bothered to read it.
The proposed ban is for woodburners in urban areas where this is invariably the case, nobody there *has* to use one -- again, already posted many times. Houses and boats out in the sticks where pollution levels are low are unlikely to be affected by a ban -- but boats have a different problem, which is that they can move, which makes allowing woodburners on "country" boats difficult to enforce. Urban boats will certainly be affected by any ban.
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10 hours ago, peterboat said:
I am alright then as I burn anthracite on my Rayburn, However well seasoned logs go on the wood burning stove. The problem with the above chart is as most of us boaters know the smokeless stuff is also heatless! It also has to be made so more pollution, so is it really better than well seasoned wood? Drax seems to be using wood pellets so in the scheme of things I suspect wood is best overall
Like Lady G you're mentioning all.kinds of distractions, none of which are anything to do with PM2.5 pollution, which is what has been realised recently is responsible for a large number of deaths -- like happened with tobacco smoke.
Woodburners are the largest source of this in the UK today, and the government-- one of whose jobs is to protect the health of its citizens -- has decided that this is not acceptable.
You might rail against the intrusion of the "nanny state" into people's business, but this doesn't change the facts.
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3 hours ago, Paul C said:
So there's 3 options:
1. Ban all but smokeless fuel in urban areas
2. Ban stove use in urban areas
3. Ban stoves entirelyIn theory, there is scope for an exemption for boaters (depending on which of the above is chosen) but I don't hold out much hope for it, given that recent successes are somewhat thin on the ground; and that if option 2 or 3 is selected (which will seem somewhat draconian, especially if you've recently paid £'000s for an installation in a home), they will be wondering why boats are unfairly exempted. Especially since there are theoretical options, of diesel (not great though....) and gas (only a bit better).
Ultimately, its going to be electric bollards along the canals but then the big question is where? And who controls them? I don't see CRT funding it, for example. (I know about Llangollen, but that's atypical...)
Electric bollards (and water source heat pumps on boats) might be the ideal solution especially for CO2, diesel or gas are both fine from the PM2.5 point of view but obviously not for CO2... 😉
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54 minutes ago, magnetman said:
It is all part of the ongoing hijack of basic personal liberties.
Loss of freedom is not very nice but it is something the masses will walk into happily given enough coercion.
You mean the basic personal liberty to continue doing something that is now known to contribute significantly to the deaths of others?
Passive smoking is an exactly equivalent case, probably with a similar death rate...
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3 hours ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:
I do not agree in this instance that "fair" and "unfair" are impossible to define in this instance.
A leisure boat licence allows a boat to use CRT waterways. If a boat does not use CRT waterways then it is unfair to require it to have a licence.
So you think it's unfair, but other people disagree. Welcome to the real world instead of Utopia... 🙂
Regardless of what is fair or isn't, I'm going to ask you yet again the question that you're desperately avoiding answering -- do you think that fixed moorers in marinas should pay less, and that as a consequence boaters who navigate on the canals should pay more?
Come on, yes.or no -- at least have the courage of your convictions like Higgs does... 😉
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57 minutes ago, Paul C said:
I think you're reading/comprehending it wrong. They're saying smokeless fuel produces 75-80% less than raw coal; and that kiln-dried wood produces 75-80% less than unconditioned wood. They're not comparing smokeless fuel to seasoned wood.
I gave figures earlier from the government, as opposed to somebody selling coal who could hardly be said to be unbiased... 😉
1 hour ago, Paul C said:It depends which "environment" you mean - the local air quality, or the global one? This is all about particulates in built up areas.
...for which even dried wood is 5x worse than smokeless fuel.
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23 minutes ago, Midnight said:
We are on an 'unconnected' part of the system - it's so unfair 😪
... but the beer's good!And presumably cheap... 😉
7 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:I thought it was in double quotes but no matter.
So if you think its fair, why are you posing a question that assumes the opposite?
The question here is not what's "fair" or "unfair" bacause that's pretty much impossible to define, as this thread has shown.
You're avoiding, wriggling, diverting, answering a question with a question -- anything to avoid actually giving an answer. Brexiteer tactics all over again... 😉
The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that -- like Higgs -- you *do* think that static marina dwellers should pay less and moving actual boaters pay more, but -- unlike Higgs -- you aren't willing to admit it.
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2 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:
Pleased that you have finally agreed that it is an "unfairness".
Well done!
No, that's why it was in quotes -- that's conventionally how they're used when you think a word is either wrongly used or misunderstood.
Are you going to answer the question or not?
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3 minutes ago, Orwellian said:
But how is it unfair if landowners/developers/moorings operators freely build & connect marinas by entering into a NAA and attract moorers who accept the t&cs of the mooring provider? Nobody has coerced anyone.
I suspect that Allan and Higgs think it's unfair because they think that they should pay less and other people should pay more... 😉
(as opposed to me thinking exactly the opposite...)
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11 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:
I think you are incorrect in suggesting that everyone pays the same licence fee ...
Doesn't matter -- of course it varies with boat length, but not whether you leave the marina or stay in it. And as I said, there are a few exceptions, but these don't change the overall picture.
Please stop evading the issue and answer the question -- do you think permanent marina dwellers should pay a lower fee and boaters who use the system to go boating should pay a higher fee than they do today?
Because that will be the direct result if your "unfairness" is corrected... 😉
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10 minutes ago, MtB said:
Blimey so cheap! That's SO UNFAIR!
https://www.watersidemooring.com/432-tyle-mill-above-lock-l1/Vacancies
Currently at £4,083.
You must ne new around here, not to have seen the number of times in years gorn by when I've proposed exactly this, to be shot down in tatters by widebeam boaters claiming it is perfectly fair, as the can only access half the system.
Which is a false argument of course. No-one forced them the buy a boat too big to fit everywhere.
Nah, I've seen you take incoming flak on this loads of times... 😉
Given that most of them (and a lot of narrowboaters) hardly move even on the parts of the system they *could* access, that objection is completely spurious anyway...
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19 minutes ago, MtB said:
True.
Is it fair a boat twice the width of mine pays only 20% more licence than me?
I don't think so but a lot on here think it is perfectly reasonable.
As pointed out earlier, for houses and flats and land and boats and marinas and harbours all over the world taxes/fees -- and rent/selling price -- are set by area, because living space is what you're buying. This is generally agreed to be "fair", you get more space in exchange for more money, and the shape of the space doesn't matter -- long and thin or short and fat, in the case of boats.
The CART license fee is an exception to this, for no obvious reason I can see...
10 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:At the risk of repeating myself -
It is unfair that anyone who does not bring a boat onto CRT waterways should have to pay licence fee.
I have never suggested that this unfairness can or should be corrected.
... and yet, again, it seems that defence of this unfairness is based on CRT losing revenue should the unfairness be removed.
Are you going to answer the question, yes or no?
"Starting from where we are now, where everyone pays the same license fee and plans their finances on that basis, do you think it's fair to increase the license fee (by perhaps 50%) for all those boaters who actually use the canals for boating, in order to reduce living costs for those who don't and just stay in a marina?"
Because this is the status quo -- the real world that we live in today -- not some idealised utopia where everything can magically be "fair", like nurses getting paid more than hedge fund managers... 😉
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24 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:
I think the councils will be hard pushed than to send you a letter. If it went to court and you defend the case asking for the evidence that you were producing harmful smoke the best they could do would be a photo and unless it was like a steam train being coaled up I think it would be hard to make it stick.
They don't have to prove you're producing harmful smoke, all they have to prove is that you're burning a banned substance -- wood, cannabis, asbestos***, plutonium... 😉
*** Before anyone says "but you can't burn asbestos!", let me provide a quote from Derek Lowe's excellent blog "Things I won't work with":
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-you-time
"In a comment to my post on putting out fires last week, one commenter mentioned the utility of the good old sand bucket, and wondered if there was anything that would go on to set the sand on fire. Thanks to a note from reader Robert L., I can report that there is indeed such a reagent: chlorine trifluoride.
The compound is a stronger oxidizing agent than oxygen itself, which also puts it into rare territory. That means that it can potentially go on to “burn” things that you would normally consider already burnt to hell and gone, and a practical consequence of that is that it’ll start roaring reactions with things like bricks and asbestos tile.
I’ll let the late John Clark describe the stuff, since he had first-hand experience in attempts to use it as rocket fuel. From his out-of-print classic Ignition! we have:
”It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.”P.S. I've got a PDF copy of "Ignition" if anyone wants a read, can't post it here because it's 3.5MB...
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Not exactly canal-side, but free -- if you can shift it and find somewhere to put it... 😉
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Just now, Bee said:
Fairness is a difficult thing to agree about. Is it fair that we usually pay for 12 months in a marina but spend 3 months a year out cruising? (Not complaining just pointing out the difficulty of defining fairness) I think the real enemy is the government annual grant not being sufficient to support CRT because of its ideology that demands the user paying. This is sort of OK until it leads to a situation where CRT can't afford to maintain the canals and boaters struggling to pay the bills.
Indeed, and it's the same broken ideology that they apply to railways and the NHS and many other things -- leave it to market forces and everything will sort itself out, cut down nasty socialist central government spending (and taxes) and make the users pay more of the cost.
Except that it doesn't work... 😞
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8 minutes ago, LadyG said:
Yes, I understand that, but if I am to take issue it is on the test results.
If I get my stove working well it is obvious from the emmissions that there is a big difference between the actual clear emissions from smokeless fuel and the black muck that it emits when it's starting up, and this can take a long time plus firelighters.
I am sure that clusters of boaters in enclosed urban areas are going to cause local pollution, but I'm not sure what the solution is other than banning boats with stoves. Boats with diesel heating need to go for the same reason. In the end it means electric bollards. Green Bollards of course!
For PM2.5 emissions, which is what the concern is:
Stoves burning smokeless fuel or anthracite : x1
Stoves burning dry wood or house coal : x5
Stoves burning wet wood : x20
Stoves burning diesel : much less (0.1?)
Stoves burning gas : close to zero
That's once it's burning, undoubtedly there will be more when starting up -- or maybe this is included, the information isn't clear. Doesn't change the facts though...
I don't see how this can be made any clearer.... 😉
The solution will either be to only allow the burning of smokeless fuel in urban areas -- which is difficult to enforce, and likely to be flouted by bloody-minded boaters with a chainsaw -- or if this doesn't work, ban stoves entirely, at least in urban areas. Though how you can enforce that a boat with a stove -- and maybe burns wood -- that moors in the sticks doesn't come into town and do it will be tricky to say the least, so maybe just banning stoves completely is the only workable option.
Workable for the government that is, not the poor bloody boater... 😞
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2 hours ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:
My idear, as you call it, is -
It is unfair that anyone who does not bring a boat onto CRT waterways should have to pay licence fee.
I am not sure this needs to be properly thought through.
I have never suggested that this unfairness can or should be corrected.
... and please correct your arithmetic.
What would you like me to correct?
I note that you haven't come up with any figures of your own, so I'll ask you again:
Starting from where we are now, where everyone pays the same license fee and plans their finances on that basis, do you think it's fair to increase the license fee (by perhaps 50%) for all those boaters who actually use the canals for boating, in order to reduce living costs for those who don't and just stay in a marina?
Yes or no will do... 😉
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5 minutes ago, LadyG said:
From a boaters point of view, I know there is a huge difference in emissions between fast and hot burning of either fuel and slow smouldering.
Great gulps of black smoke occasionally escape in to my cabin, most often from smoke coals which are NOT smokeless. I am pretty sure I will end up with the dreaded C due to inhalations, but I consider that it's much cleaner to use wood which is clean and dry.
I only use smokeless, which is not smokeless, as a bed for the wood on cold days, and for overnight.
Even if you use wood that's clean and dry and seasoned, it emits 5x as many PM2.5 particulates as smokeless fuel.
If that's inside the boat it's your problem, if it's in the middle of nowhere nobody else will be affected, but if you're burning wood in a town you're contributing to the increased death rates -- and this will be banned, sooner or later.
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3 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:
If a developer had a business case for entirely residential non-canal boats then it is quite possible to create one with no connection to the canal (or even near it!) and not incur NAA. (There may be other costs I suppose from other regulators)
As it happens, developers so far have chosen a mixed use and taken the hit for the NAA (clue is in the full title). As it is a business cost (not a charge on the boater - boaters do not pay it) it is passed on by the marina, like any other cost. They choose to offer moorings that include the right to access the canal, not to use it. That comes with paying a licence. If CaRT allowed boats to moor in a marina without a licence my guess is that it would end up on the NAA rates or on the licence. Either way, it means that boaters who use the canal would end up paying moor for the privilege of a few to choose not to navigate.
Quite a lot more, if the numbers I posted are right -- 50% was my guesstimate (see TL;DR post above...), could be lower (or higher!) depending on the exact numbers... 😉
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13 minutes ago, MtB said:
Thank you.
Them figures look encouraging, especially as sale of "house coal" is now banned so only the low-scoring coal products can be obtained on the general fuel market.
The figures are encouraging, and should allow the continued use of these fuels.
The problem will be people who ignore the rules and and carry on burning wood, because I suspect it'll always be easy to obtain off the back of a lorry, or via DIY and a chainsaw -- nothing is as cheap as this.
If too many people do this -- and I suspect boaters will be among the culprits, given the offgrid lifestyle of many and their reluctance to follow rules -- then a complete ban on solid-fuel stoves is likely to follow.
So let's hope that selfish people don't screw things up for everybody else -- though going by history on land and on the canals, I wouldn't hold out too much hope of this... 😞
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C&RT License Survey
in General Boating
Posted
"The Trust is asking boaters for their views on whether increases should apply evenly to all boaters using the current boat licence fee structure, or whether it is fairer to apply higher increases to certain boaters in a way that reflects how they use the waterways and the higher costs of meeting their needs."
Hang on, this sounds exactly like what has been discussed ad infinitum on another thread... 😉