Take climate change, all you hear is politically-motivated claptrap from people with an axe to grind about something. Where’s the motivation for ordinary people to do anything? Perhaps it’s only experienced old grumpies like me that think about this sort of thing…

Yes, I know about oil, that it’s running out but transportation only accounts for ~28% of energy usage by sector. Industry uses ~22% while buildings consume the remainder. Buildings also gobble up 76% of the electricity generated. Okay, those figures are from the United States but I would guess they apply to pretty much the whole of the developed world.

Common-sense suggests to me that buildings, as the largest consumers of energy, are the first things we should be looking at with regard to averting climate change. Or is that too sensible?

Now, you could go berserk with your insulation but you could also reduce the amount of unnecessary commuting. Why do you need to go to the call centre when it can quite easily be done from home. The same applies to designers, publishers, administrators and many others. The wage bill could be reduced as the travelling costs would be eliminated. Building costs would be massively reduced as they could be much smaller.

Newer buildings could be smaller and more energy efficient – reduction in energy usage. Commuting would be reduced – reduction in energy usage. We over-fifties might get some of these new jobs too! After all, we could do them from our ‘easy riser’ armchairs and our zimmer-frames could remain at home

References:

Architecture 2030 – http://architecture2030.org/the_problem/problem_energy

In the first instance, oil companies do not drill for petrol they drill for oil, bit of a give-away in the name! Petrol is what’s left after all the good bits have been drawn off and oil goes into the manufacture of far more than petrol. For example, Ammonia, Anaesthetics, Antihistamines, Artificial limbs, Artificial Turf, Antiseptics, Aspirin, Auto Parts and Awnings are all made from oil! All of these products have higher profit margins than petrol which is only profitable when sold in high volume.

Secondly, there are literally hundreds of refineries throughout the world most of which people have probably never heard of i.e. Silver Eagle Refining Inc., Wyoming. They’re one of the top 140 in the US, wonder where their petrol goes? Most of the BP stations are not actually owned by BP but are small businesses in their own right. BP petrol has a few additives that make it the brand BP but these are often not put in until the last moment so that the ‘raw’ petrol could be sold to someone else such as Asda or Texaco. Yes, oil companies buy from each other! Outlets such as Asda, Sainsbury and Tesco might buy petrol from several suppliers so you’ll never know whose petrol they are selling today.

If you stop buying BP petrol they’ll simply sell it to someone else and you’ll get it at Asda or one of thousands of other outlets.

The ONLY way you can lower the cost of petrol is reduce the amount used. Lowering the demand will push the price down.

Still, just in case, I’ve installed ‘bark-operated’ lights and doors in my house and I’m looking into a psycological assessment before the end of the year

In another case, a nine year old girl takes her birthday cake to school only to find she is not allowed to share it, only to blow out the candles – healthy eating policy apparently.

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda and the Taliban rule Afghanistan and north-western Pakistan. Anybody know what they want, apart from lots of dead infidels (that’s us by the way)? Well, the only good terrorist is dead one and at the rate the World population is growing the sooner they get dead the better.

In my lifetime, I was born in 1954, World population has more than doubled to around 6.5 billion! How are we going to feed them all? Well, according to New Scientist, Africa could feed the World almost on its own! Read the article here. That could make Africa more valuable as a World resource than the Middle East given that oil production will likely peak about now (some would argue that it already has). Read one view here.

It would be nice to think that millions of Africans will benefit from working for the World’s largest food producer but I suspect that they will probably not, given the ever-widening gulf between rich and poor. Now, there lots of theories about why this is but the bottom line is that there is a relatively fixed amount of money in the World. If you print more money inflation goes up as the value of the money drops so that’s bad, obviously. In my cynical view then, if you control the economy on unemployment you keep wages down, the rest of us pay (through taxes) for the benefit paid out, inflation remains low and rich bastards keep more of their cash.

In effect, there’s a war going on at the bottom of the heap and those at the top couldn’t give a toss. Given the apathy of most of the population this is unlikely to change.

So what’s that got to do with the end of the World? Well, it’s pretty clear we care little about our fellow citizens. We’ll shaft them for a few quid or an hour of fame. Instead of doing things, we have more people inspecting people doing things such that soon you won’t be able to do anything at all – it’ll be too hard to pass the inspections. That probably won’t matter too much as everyone will be an inspector!

If you don’t freeze to death when the oil runs out or boil in global warming, the terrorists don’t kill you and you can find a place away from prying inspectors and everyone else with stupid ideas you might just be able survive.

Otherwise, unless common-sense returns in spadefuls pretty damn quick, then we’re all bolloxed

Now, the Vale of York is a good, fertile area and we could grow a fair amount of food here except, of course, that major resellers, like supermarkets, would rather buy from abroad at lower prices so they can make more money.

The supermarkets may make more money but we lose out big-time. It costs more in global resources to ship the produce here, it has to be chilled and doesn’t last anything like as long after we buy it. I’m not convinced it’s beneficial to the countries who supply it either – their farmers must be on a pittance.

Just a thought, why don’t we grow more here and help the planet? Nah, that would be too sensible…

One of the things this exercise has revealed though is the appalling level of waste in the World – I can’t believe that we are the only people to have collected this much stuff. It wouldn’t be so bad but it loses value so quickly that I can’t give it away.

I am trying freecycle at the moment. Freecycle is an online means of linking people who have items they don’t want with people who are looking for items…

Most of the UK appears to be covered so click on one of the links above and try wasting less.

So, how can you tell if you would benefit from a wind turbine?

First of all do you have any wind! Seems pretty obvious but no-one seems to be explaining this very well. In urban areas wind can be quite turbulent as the flow is affected by all the buildings, the more consistent the wind is, the better. In the city a wind turbine needs to be above the roof line to give best results. Ideally, do a survey before letting go of your hard-earned, you can get your hands on a weather station with PC interface for around £100. Collect some information about average wind speeds at different times of the year and you will soon know whether a wind turbine would be any benefit. Compare your results with the specifications of the model(s) of turbine you are considering buying. Output is roughly linear so, if a 500 watt turbine needs a wind speed of 12 miles per hour (5.4 m/s) and your average is 6 miles per hour you’ll average 250 watts.

You’ll need planning permission although for the small 500 watt systems it’s unlikely to be refused and you could also qualify for a grant towards the cost.

Okay, so you’ve established that you could get some ‘free’ electricity from a wind turbine what do you buy?

Off the shelf

B&Q offer a fully installed unit for just under £2000. It’s designed to plug straight into a standard 13amp socket to supplement your supply directly. Admittedly, £2000 is a lot to spend but it is an approved system fitted by an approved supplier and, therefore, is a qualifying system for a grant.

Install your own

You can buy wind turbines from as little as £500 but you need to be aware that you need a degree of mechanical and electronic skill to be able to install and maintain them. For example, these systems are generally low voltage so will need a battery pack and control system to complete the setup. They are unlikely to qualify for a grant as they are, typically, not approved and are DIY installations.

Build your own

You can build your own for as little as £100 provided you have the necessary mechanical and electronic skills. There are courses run by people such as Hugh Piggott which can provide the necessary skills. If you have these skills already try Mike’s site which gives comprehensive instructions. You’ll need to hunt around for a suitable generator as the one he used is rare as hens teeth

Would you save any money? Well, at today’s prices tier 1 costs per kWh are around 15p; if your 500 watt system achieved an average 30% output (optimistic) you would generate 3.6 kWh per day saving 54p. Saving over a year would be around £197. In summary, build it yourself pays for itself in about 2 years; install your own pre-built system and get your money back in 5-6 years but the B&Q option is going to take nearer 10-12 years to recover the costs.

I think I’m gonna look at building but I’m collecting wind speed information first…

For example, it’s said that cattle in the UK are responsible for 25% of this country’s methane emissions. Methane is one of the gases said to be responsible for global warming – it has several times the impact of CO2 but is, currently, in much lower proportion. Reducing our meat consumption would reduce methane levels. However, methane only remains in the atmosphere for ~12 years and is removed by a natural process resulting in the production of water.

Carbon Dioxide, on the other hand, remains for around 100 years and is removed via photo-synthesis. We need more sustainable forest to address this and less consumption of fossil fuels but given the cost of oil/gas it won’t be hard to accept.

More importantly, we need a complete change of attitude including reducing travel significantly – commuting specifically – it’s ludicrous to travel up and down the country to the workplace when half the work doesn’t even need to be done at work.

But there are much simpler things that anyone can do. If you’re not short of cash fit solar panels, even in our crap summer you would have made savings. Consider a low voltage immersion heater system powered by a small wind turbine – free hot water forever!

Less in the budget? Get down to your local DIY store and get loads of roof insulation in; fit blinds to windows that are not double-glazed; install a small wood-burning stove.

Got no budget? Switch off unwanted lights and electrical appliances; buy fresh vegetables as you need them – rotting food in landfill produces methane; re-use shopping bags; build a composting bin from scrap wood. Try this site for further ideas.

If everyone does something, no matter how little, it would make a big difference!

Outlaw junk mail!

It won’t cost them a penny; it will save millions of trees; it will significantly reduce levels of waste and it will be supported by most of the population.

It doesn’t get much better than this…