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phasing out of fossil fuels - programme


magpie patrick

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2 hours ago, IanD said:

An interesting idea, but I doubt if you'd be allowed to do it because when swung out the edges of the panels would stick out over the towpath and/or the canal; one is a safety hazard to pedestrians and especially bike riders (though I'm sure some would say this is a good thing, they might change their mind after one gets decapitated...), the other is a safety hazard to passing boats and people on them.

 

If they don't stick out then the area gain wouldn't be enough to make it worthwhile...

You could have 2 mts width whereas a roof is probably only 1.4 Mts. If they are angled and not flat it could be more than 2 Mts of panel

Edited by ditchcrawler
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9 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

You could have 2 mts width whereas a roof is probably only 1.4 Mts. If they are angled and not flat it could be more than 2 Mts of panel

OK if boat is pointing north /south or make them rotatable 

Edited by nb Innisfree
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36 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

Surely the whole cycle of biodiesel is not far off carbon neutral?  Burning creates CO2 but presumably in similar quantiies to the CO2 absorbed by growing the crops in the first place.  So the only net increase would be due to processing.  Am I wrong?

Yes, but why burn the crops to create CO2? If you grow something from CO2 in the atmosphere, why not use it for something that doesn't put it all back in the atmosphere i.e. Like food? 

Your thinking is too focussed on how do we neutralise our need to burn hydrocarbons for energy. You are then forced to think of mitigation strategies. The best way forward is to find cleaner forms of energy so we don't need to burn things and grow things to eat.

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13 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Are you aware of the Government 'Maritime 2050' plan ?

Where ..........

 

By 2025 ALL new boats sold must be capable of being conveted to zero emission propulsion

By 2035 NO new boats, that are not zero emission propulsion, may be sold

By 2050 NO boats (old or new) will be allowed on UK inland or territorial waters unless they are zero emission propulsion.

 

Pretty much all boats in existance or being currently built must either be scrapped or have their propulsion syatem zero emission by 2050.

 

Zero propulsion does not simply mean Electric.

The Government are working on a number of technolgies.

 

 

 

Screenshot (271).png

Screenshot (272).png

By 'plan' I guess you mean something along the lines of 'we will vaccinate 14 million by mid Feb' . . . 

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53 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

I didn't say it was a good idea to make biodiesel!

When you burn biodiesel it still makes 3 times its weight in CO2 so we are still all doomed. What then is the point? Hydrogen may work but I have 30 years experience working in BP watching them trying to develop fuel cells and hydrogen storage. Yes it works but it has never been at commercial prices. I really can't see that changing if there are cheaper solutions. Maybe some sort of portable methanol or hydrogen fuel cell but more reliance on batteries is the way to go. If half the population bought Teslas then we can all (well the 75% who have drives) plug in overnight and store all that free electrickerty to be given back to the network during the day.

Battery technology will advance hugely in the future. Just think where we were with batteries 30 years ago! In another 30 years the world will be a very different place. We'll probably be getting to lockdown number 69. 

Did I mention biodiesel is carp?

 

 

 

41 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

Surely the whole cycle of biodiesel is not far off carbon neutral?  Burning creates CO2 but presumably in similar quantiies to the CO2 absorbed by growing the crops in the first place.  So the only net increase would be due to processing.  Am I wrong?

I get you are saying Bob but its better to make hydrogen than pay to stop the turbines. Its interesting that we in Sheffield have one of the very few hydrogen fuel points it's made using a turbine which hardly ever spun (Sheffield university owned so money wasted like water) it now spins all the time so something or somebody has changed. 

I with you doratheexplorer I think biodiesel is a good use of a waste product even if some energy is used in the making, I have used it for many years 

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15 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

By 'plan' I guess you mean something along the lines of 'we will vaccinate 14 million by mid Feb' . . . 

So if they manage to get 'near' to the 14 million by mid Feb, do you accept that they might 'get near' to hitting their 'marine plan' ? (say 2051 instrad of 2050 )

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3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

So if they manage to get 'near' to the 14 million by mid Feb, do you accept that they might 'get near' to hitting their 'marine plan' ? (say 2051 instrad of 2050 )

As all in things I suspect it will for the inland waterways be sooner rather than later due to diesel becoming far to expensive and scarce to waste on leisure boats

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36 minutes ago, peterboat said:

I'm with you doratheexplorer I think biodiesel is a good use of a waste product even if some energy is used in the making,

I agree with that. Its a good use of the waste product if it can back out diesel from refineries BUT it seems daft to make it as first intent from plants just to burn. Why not make something more useful from the algae like food?

Having said that, I am not a fan of biodiesel being blended in to our current transport fuel as it does reduce shelf life significantly - ie reacts to form gums and isnt as good at cold temperatures causing waxing etc (so I read!!!!!!!). It's not a problem for cars but for long turnaround stuff like canal boats, it can be an issue. I wonder how many boats out there still have significant amounts of diesel put in 3 years ago. Having oxygen in the molecule is certain to make it more biologically active and assist in forming diesel bug. What is certain is that many boats today (ie the 14th January) are running their ebersparky thingies and their engines on diesel that was made to summer spec (ie much higher cloud point) and put into their tanks before mid September (when the refineries change to their intermediate - then winter - grades). I am reading that RCR have had multiple issues of clogged filters/injectors etc in the last few year.

Having gennies that operate only on biodiesel is a big step forward.

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2 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

You could have 2 mts width whereas a roof is probably only 1.4 Mts. If they are angled and not flat it could be more than 2 Mts of panel

If you angle them the panel in front will shade the one behind, so you have to space them apart, which either increases the width of makes each one smaller. Angling sideways only works if the boat is moored pointing E-W, if it's moored N-S then they have to be tilted along the boat, then they all shade the one behind...

 

Having a single panel flat instead of angled south loses about 10% of maximum power, but means it doesn't matter which way the boat is pointing. Add in the variable of boat direction and the average loss comes down to 7%. Which basically means it's not really worth angling the panels, better to securely flat-mount them and use the highest efficiency ones that make sense from a cost point of view, which right now means rigid mono 380W 1780mm x 1050mm, 6 (panel cost about 800 quid) will fit lengthways on a normal (57') narrowboat to give 2.2kW maximum -- which means about 8kWh per day average in the summer if you're not shaded (e.g. under a tree), maybe 4kWh/day in spring/autumn, maybe 1.5kWh/day in winter.

 

https://www.bimblesolar.com/solar/large-panels?sort=p.price&order=ASC

Edited by IanD
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2 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

Yes, but why burn the crops to create CO2? If you grow something from CO2 in the atmosphere, why not use it for something that doesn't put it all back in the atmosphere i.e. Like food? 

Your thinking is too focussed on how do we neutralise our need to burn hydrocarbons for energy. You are then forced to think of mitigation strategies. The best way forward is to find cleaner forms of energy so we don't need to burn things and grow things to eat.

My thinking isn't at all what you're saying, I was simply pointing out the flaw in what you said. 

 

It's obvious that sequestering atmospheric carbon is a useful aim, but if we don't use those soybeans for biodiesel, then what else should we be doing with them (or anything else we grow)?  There's not much evidence that the more traditional use of crops (eating them) is any more helpful in reducing overall levels of atmospheric carbon.  Certainly using those crops for animal fodder is probably an even worse idea than burning them, since methane is arguably even worse than CO2 for driving climate change.

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2 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

You could have 2 mts width whereas a roof is probably only 1.4 Mts. If they are angled and not flat it could be more than 2 Mts of panel

 

That's sort of my thinking - a standard domestic solar panel is usually about 990mm wide, so two of them not quite touching would be under 2m on a boat that's 2.1m wide at the gunwales.  They wouldn't be wider than the boat, but would protrude either side of the roof, which is why they need to fold/slide in for transit.

 

They'd be at risk in bridgeholes and tunnels on narrow canals if unfolded, but usable on broad canals.

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4 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Surely that would not be productive for people who cruise 'most days' as by the time they moor up much of the best of the Sun would be 'gone'.

I guess if you cruise for one day, moor up for 13 days then it would be a good option.

 

True, but if you have an electric powered boat, no genny and no charging points what other option do you have?

 

In practice, most people who cruise every day don't tend to do it from sunrise to sunset, just for a few hours in the middle so they'd just need to fold/slide them more than a static. 

 

I'm not thinking of "butterfly wings" that don't do anything while folded, I'm thinking cutlery drawer slides so even when "closed" for travelling you'll still have at least half the solar panels fully exposed.

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48 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

My thinking isn't at all what you're saying, I was simply pointing out the flaw in what you said. 

 

It's obvious that sequestering atmospheric carbon is a useful aim, but if we don't use those soybeans for biodiesel, then what else should we be doing with them (or anything else we grow)?  There's not much evidence that the more traditional use of crops (eating them) is any more helpful in reducing overall levels of atmospheric carbon.  Certainly using those crops for animal fodder is probably an even worse idea than burning them, since methane is arguably even worse than CO2 for driving climate change.

We should be eating the soybeans or wotever other protein we can make out the plant growth and stop eating meat. If there was more research focussed on nutrition then we could make better use of plant based amino acids to build our food rather than animal based.  Trouble is that a lot of peeps like the taste of meat. My grandson when asked on Christmas day, what he wanted to eat said 'a big mac'. We are all doomed. I hate big macs......but I do like double whoppers.

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3 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

We should be eating the soybeans or wotever other protein we can make out the plant growth and stop eating meat. If there was more research focussed on nutrition then we could make better use of plant based amino acids to build our food rather than animal based.  Trouble is that a lot of peeps like the taste of meat. My grandson when asked on Christmas day, what he wanted to eat said 'a big mac'. We are all doomed. I hate big macs......but I do like double whoppers.

We can eat plants all we want, but the carbon will eventually find its way back into the environment, much of it in the form of CO2. In the end, it's roughly carbon neutral though, much like burning biodiesel.  The big menace has always been burning fossil fuels since takes locked up carbon and puts it in the atmosphere.  If we stop burning coal and oil (and raise fewer cows), we can meet our emissions targets such that emissions remain within the Earth's feedback loops (unless we've already crossed certain thresholds).  Burning biodiesel is part of that solution, so lets not demonise it.

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1 hour ago, TheBiscuits said:

I'm not thinking of "butterfly wings" that don't do anything while folded, I'm thinking cutlery drawer slides so even when "closed" for travelling you'll still have at least half the solar panels fully exposed.

 

As I said in post #1197

 

For those that do move frequently most of the time they would only get the benefit of the 'top layer' of panels.

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25 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

We should be eating the soybeans or wotever other protein we can make out the plant growth and stop eating meat. If there was more research focussed on nutrition then we could make better use of plant based amino acids to build our food rather than animal based.  Trouble is that a lot of peeps like the taste of meat. My grandson when asked on Christmas day, what he wanted to eat said 'a big mac'. We are all doomed. I hate big macs......but I do like double whoppers.

But, if we are not eating meat, we don't need to grow crops to feed the animals, we could eat those crops instead, and still leave all the extra crops to produce fuels.

 

A couple of the big estates (farming not council house) have moved over to 'gas production' and have huge big gas holders, enormous piles of 'green stuff' covered in tarpaulins. and have dedicated 1000's of acres to growing (primarily) Maize which is harvested before ripe, chopped up and put into the gassifiers.

Electricity is generated and fed into the Grid.

 

We grow and harvest

  • Grass for animal feed and for use by British Chlorophyll Company Limited
  • Alfalfa for the equine market
  • Sugar beet for British Sugar’s Newark factory
  • Vining peas
  • Barley
  • Oilseed rape
  • Wheat
  • Dried beans
  • Maize and Rye for supply to a biogas plant on the estate. Here they are anaerobically digested to produce both gas and electricity for our own power consumption as well as supply to the national grid.
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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

But, if we are not eating meat, we don't need to grow crops to feed the animals, we could eat those crops instead, and still leave all the extra crops to produce fuels.

You've got as much chance of persuading me biofuels are good as there is of getting Smelly to switch to a composting loo!

I'll give up now!

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Just now, Dr Bob said:

You've got as much chance of persuading me biofuels are good as there is of getting Smelly to switch to a composting loo!

I'll give up now!

I wasn't suggesting they are 'good', I was simply pointing out that your suggestion of not eating meat would ensure there was a glut of vegetable matter available for human consumption without having to plant more.

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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I wasn't suggesting they are 'good', I was simply pointing out that your suggestion of not eating meat would ensure there was a glut of vegetable matter available for human consumption without having to plant more.

Even more reason to go for a composting toilet.

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4 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

As I said in post #1197

 

For those that do move frequently most of the time they would only get the benefit of the 'top layer' of panels.

 

Yeah, I read that after I'd posted the other bit.  I'm not surprised you understood the concept, just making it clearer for others. :)

 

Downsides to the idea are cost and time spent faffing.  There would be a lot more mounting hardware, more panels, and a more expensive solar controller.  It would have to be done in such a way that you weren't spending an hour a day opening and closing the panels too.

 

It obviously only makes any sense if there isn't any more cabin roof length usable, otherwise just adding another panel or upgrading the existing panels to more efficient ones is far easier and cheaper.

 

 

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16 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

Yeah, I read that after I'd posted the other bit.  I'm not surprised you understood the concept, just making it clearer for others. 

I was thinking more 'space station' unfolding its panels rather than a 'cutlery drawer'

 

 

 

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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The biodiesel I use comes from waste oil collected and processed its a bigish place and I have used them for 10 years, my boat has always smelled like a chip shop whilst cruising ? At the moment I am draining the biodiesel/kero mix out so that I can clean the tank out, I will know shortly what lies at the bottom om my tank I am sure it wont be pretty.

I am doing all this work and yet my hope is that I will hardly ever need the genny, at the moment I am on a shoreline attached to the leisure battery charger, so in effect I am still using solar when the panels dont have 2 inches of snow on them! In the last 2 monts I have used 7 squids worth of leccy so in another month it will be back to solar full time

 

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3 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

That's sort of my thinking - a standard domestic solar panel is usually about 990mm wide, so two of them not quite touching would be under 2m on a boat that's 2.1m wide at the gunwales.  They wouldn't be wider than the boat, but would protrude either side of the roof, which is why they need to fold/slide in for transit.

 

They'd be at risk in bridgeholes and tunnels on narrow canals if unfolded, but usable on broad canals.

The high-power high-efficiency panels -- which you'd surely use? -- are ~1050mm wide, so two butted together would be ~2.1m, the same width as the gunwales.

 

I don't know if there are any safety rules about having sharp-cornered sticky-out bits at people height on boats even if they fall within the width of the hull, there certainly are on cars. Maybe this would be allowed when stationary but not when moving, maybe allowed for both, maybe banned for both -- does anybody know?

 

Even if it is allowed, the first time somebody poked an eye out on a protruding panel corner (moored or moving) and sued the boat owner I suspect they'd effectively be banned by insurers... ?

 

A better option might be to fill the roof area by putting smaller 1.5m x 1m panels crossways, like these 270W ones:

 

https://www.bimblesolar.com/solar/large-panels/270w-perlite-54cell-small?sort=p.price&order=ASC

 

Could get at least 10 of them along the roof on a 57' boat, 2.7kW maximum for about 1200 quid.

Edited by IanD
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Talking of biodiesel reminds me that this nothing new.  Packed away in the shed I have an Edwardian-era book on (mainly marine) diesel engines. It has a preface by Dr. Diesel himself in which he mentions the little-known fact that, at an exhibition in 1900, one of his standard engines was operated throughout on peanut oil. He observed that, not only would this allow his engines to be used in the colonies without the need to import fuel, but, in years to come when all the earth's reserves of mineral oil had been used up, his engines could still continue to be operated by harnessing the energy of the sun.

Edited by Ronaldo47
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5 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

You've got as much chance of persuading me biofuels are good as there is of getting Smelly to switch to a composting loo!

I'll give up now!

I often wonder how many liters of red diesel is used in feeding this place every year

https://bioenergyinternational.com/biogas/biocow-inaugurate-uks-largest-biomethane-to-grid-plant

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