[Closed] Reducing oil and gas dependence

Can't say I disagree with any of that really.

Unfortunatley, people in charge + brown envelopes = nothing will ever happen....

Diesel trains are timetabled for scrapping - different schedule in Scotland and England, and as with all rail timetables it may run late.

Council tax on EPC rating - interesting, bit like “road tax” 😉, but it tends to punish those who cannot or cannot afford to upgrade their property.  That said I’d love to see the queen’s council tax on that basis (bet she doesn’t pay it).

We’re always going to need it (HGVs / aircraft / gas turbine power stations etc etc)

This one I’m not sure about.  They are looking at catenaries on motorways for HGVs (M180 should be the first trial in the UK), and as an emigrant from Glasgow the former home of the trolley bus, I like the concept. The execution doesn’t look right at the moment to me.

The inter seasonal energy shift is the bit that concerns me most.  Easy to harvest renewable energy in the summer, but you need it in the winter. Need some clever ideas. Hydrogen works, but is inefficient. LiIon batteries are more efficient on round trip, but maybe not for 3-6 months or storage.

Insulate housing stock.
Shift away from fossil fuels in domestic buildings.
Zero-carbon industrial clusters.
Grid digitalisation, demand-side response.
Grid capacity expansion to support electrification.
Massive increase in offshore wind, onshore wind and large scale solar.
SMRs, plus completion of existing large scale nuclear projects.
Hydrogen for industrial, some transportation, energy storage.
Other energy storage technologies.

Lots of stuff really. There are various competing opinions on different technologies but we'll probably need all of them to some extent.

With the increase in fuel, gas and electricity prices over the last six months and the possibility of the cap doubling again in October bringing it to around £4k then our reliance on fossil fuels will shrink considerably anyway as everyone cuts back.

I listened to a good radio program with Saul Griffith spruiking his book
Electrify Everything at the weekend. Very interesting.

Its a bit like the golden age of COVID, we had so many opportunities to change our lifestyles for the better, but ended up reverting to the line of least resistance soon enough.

without huge changes in lifestyle we cannot make any significant changes  What is needed is a massive reduction in energy consumption and stopping moving folk around in 2 tonne metal boxes each

Electric cars for example do nothing significant to reduce pollution - just change where it occurs and do nothing for congestion.

Radical changes in lifestyle are needed.  anything else is greenwashing.  Until this is widely accepted then global warming will continue

The sad truth is that people just look at crude oil and think diesel, petrol and other fuels, but petrochemical products are vast, and support our every day life even more than the fuel in your car.

We'd (and i mean governments, industries and people) have to change how we manufacture and use products on a huge scale, weening ourselves off crude oil will not be a quick fix!

Massive switch of road infrastructure to cycling/walking infrastructure in urban areas so car use in towns/cities ceases to be default option. National speed limit switches to 50mph instead of 70/60mph -including Motorways. No overtaking of cyclists on roads that are shared with cyclists.

Big investment into the RR modular nuclear plants.

Remind me how many years UK Govts have been spending loads and talking lots but still haven't built a new nuclear power station...

Realistically? No chance.

We have an inept Gov that only thinks short term and unless they're led by the hand by our international partners they flounder at the first obstacle. Just look how they are handling the refugee crisis.

Starting tomorrow, if we were to start investing and constructing in other forms of energy sources, how long before we could claim to be self sufficient? I would guess a lifetime would be the correct answer.

Would nuclear be the obvious choice of our main energy source?

Remind me how many years UK Govts have been spending loads and talking lots but still haven’t built a new nuclear power station

It's ok we can get someone else to build them for us....like er oh I dunno China...then we won't be reliant for energy supply on other countries with appalling human rights records that the global community may impose sanctions on at the drop of a hat.

The sad truth is that people just look at crude oil and think diesel, petrol and other fuels, but petrochemical products are vast, and support our every day life even more than the fuel in your car.

Whilst true, there's a huge asymmetry.

The fraction used to make plastics is small.

The fraction used to provide energy to industrial processes (Ti Oxides, fertilizer, etc) is small and mostly down to cost as refineries always have something in excess (often hydrogen) that is dumped to the fuel gas system. Those processes could be done electrically if you could provide the energy cheaply enough.

With the increase in fuel, gas and electricity prices over the last six months and the possibility of the cap doubling again in October bringing it to around £4k then our reliance on fossil fuels will shrink considerably anyway as everyone cuts back.

This I think will have a larger impact than any government policy.

£2/litre for diesel will finally make car use around the same cost as getting the train. And air travel needs taxing at the same rate as road fuel.

Higher gas prices will force energy efficiency on people. Yes being poor sucks, but being poor and paying off a loan on cavity wall insulation whilst buying less fuel is better than just buying more fuel. And there are allsorts of grants for allsorts of people, even we qualified for free wall cavity insulation recently. And for those not on the breadline it moves from a "I might get around to it at some point" to something they act on now.

...perhaps it’s time to make the big push in the UK, Europe, and the USA to try to shelve our reliance on gas and oil going forward.

I thought we had a big conference about that in Glasgow at the tail end of last year? All this does is give an extra reason to get on with it.

A good start might be to both subsidise solar PV installation, and prevent councils from denying planning permission on listed buildings. Likewise any council building or school should have solar PV as a matter of course. 0% loans for installations and batteries.

Where do the panels and their raw materials come from? Do we shift dependence from one material to another? In principle though I agree but some things worth considering. There's an inequality - different parts of the UK get more sunshine, and they probably have lower energy demand too. The early schemes also heavily incentivised the capital rich to buy pannels, and then pay them a premium for their generation - that premium is essentially paid for by "the poor" - those who don't have capital and in particular those who don't own the property etc. So what you seem to have is wealthier people in the SE of the country being subsidised by the poorer in the N whilst the N also need more power just to heat and light their homes...

that sort of inequality would make this sort of thing wrong:

Perhaps consider basing an element of council tax on EPC rating.

this penalises those who either don't have the capital for upgrades or don't have the authority (or longevity of tenancy) to make them.

The sad truth is that people just look at crude oil and think diesel, petrol and other fuels, but petrochemical products are vast, and support our every day life even more than the fuel in your car.

We’d (and i mean governments, industries and people) have to change how we manufacture and use products on a huge scale, weening ourselves off crude oil will not be a quick fix!

Although increasing Raw Material price will presumably mean that process efficiency and recycling become more attractive. The reason our oceans are full of plastic is because its cheap enough to throw away.

@tjagain

Electric cars for example do nothing significant to reduce pollution – just change where it occurs and do nothing for congestion.

Some of your sentiment is right - but its not true that EV's don't reduce pollution. Pollution isn't just CO2. PM10s, NOx etc are issues that even if the power for EVs came from carbon cleaner generation systems (you can't scrub an exhaust pipe and power station chimneys aren't at ground level/built up areas!) you still potentially have less pollution. However *correctly designed* the Grid should be making it really attractive to plug in EVs and changed them when there is excess renewables and less attractive to charge when its coming from carbon. I know some energy providers already have this type of pricing in place. Of course it won't help congestion and does nothing to make people question if they really need to make the journey at all.

Necessity is the mother of invention as they say. Maybe when change is forced then there has to be a reaction to that and new/better/greener options will get better funded.
I remember in the 70's the rise in fuel prices made even the American's buy smaller and more economical cars (for a while).

Unfortunatley, people in charge + brown envelopes = nothing will ever happen….

Get better people in charge. There seem to be more people aware that something needs doing urgently, certainly among younger folk. Hopefully they can vote with the future in mind.

So much can be done just by changing our own behaviour. I was reading the other thread yesterday and was really shocked by what is apparently normal these days. People heating their houses to 22', driving at 85mph, washing machines and tumble driers on pretty much permanently etc.

My DD for electricity has just been reduced to £30/month. If we are asleep or out of the house then EVERYTHING except fridge/freezer is switched off at the plug. No smart gadgets, no wifi, nothing. Clothes are washed when they need washing, not just because they have been worn for a couple of hours. That means with two of us the washing machine runs twice a week at the most and that includes bedding and towels. Clothes are dried outside when it's warm, or inside on a drier when it's not. We don't own a tumble drier. If there is no-one in the room, then there is no light in that room. No hall lighting etc. Kettle boils only what is required and nothing more. Computers all turned off when not in use, my phone and tablet gets charged in the car.

I've had my car for 3 months, according to the computer I've not been over 65mph yet and that includes driving from Perth to Kent and back. I park at least 4km from where I work and ride a bike for the last bit (in the better weather, I'll ride a lot more than that). That saves me km driving a day that alone saves me at least 1800km of driving a year compared to parking at work and takes no longer.

The house is mostly heated with foraged wood. I know this is contentious, but are nearest neighbours are 150m away and there's only 5 houses within a a km. I firmly believe that collecting wood for burning with an axe, saw and wheelbarrow is better environmentally than oil which needs oil rigs, helicopters, tankers/pipelines, refineries and road tankers to get to me.

If we can all cut our energy use by 10% - and I bet most could do a lot better than that, then we can forget about Russian oil.

Get people to turn their heating down.

Electric cars for example do nothing significant to reduce pollution – just change where it occurs and do nothing for congestion.

A lot of people don't agree with you. However, the thread is about reducing oil and gas dependency, and they will help to do that because you can generate electricity renewably and in most countries from a variety of sources, you aren't dependent on oil and gas.

So much can be done just by changing our own behaviour.

The house is mostly heated with foraged wood.

Hmm yeah not really a large scale solution that, is it?

Maybe the fuel hike will push more people to work from home again?

There are a huge number of unnecessary car trips. At work, somebody has just been complaining how much it's costing them to drive their BMW M3 to work for a 1 mile each way trip. The frustrating thing is they go to they go to the gym to walk/jog on a treadmill before work.

Whilst I don't like the idea of a nanny state, high performance cars and large SUVs could be more heavily taxed or even restricted from being used on the public highway.

The government solutions, electric cars and heat pumps for new builds avoid tackling the underlying issues of poor public transport and poorly insulated housing stock.

https://www.carthrottle.com/post/france-introduces-suv-tax-to-curb-sales-of-heavier-cars/

All for this.

but its not true that EV’s don’t reduce pollution

However, the thread is about reducing oil and gas dependency, and they will help to do that because you can generate electricity renewably and in most countries from a variety of sources, you aren’t dependent on oil and gas.

While we are still dependent on fossil fuels for electricity generation in part each kw of electricity in cars used is an extra kw of electricity produced by fossil fuel - and don't forget transmission losses.  You also have to figure in the pollution from raw materials

Name me one country that does not rely on fossil fuel for a significant part of its energy mix

Stop greenwashing - start accepting that major lifestyle changes are needed.  Electric cars are a great symbol of greenwashing in that they make folk feel like they are doing something while doing nothing to change behaviors that have to change to make a differnce

Massive  reductions in energy usage are needed, not fiddling around the edges

There seem to be more people aware that something needs doing urgently, certainly among younger folk. Hopefully they can vote with the future in mind.

I really hope this is the case.

We’re getting an EV and I reckon I can fit enough PV to power it day to day. Might need a battery to time shift the production.  And probably not G83 / G98, but the sums will tell.

Can’t do that with diesel.

Toying with an ebike to may the two days a week bike commute more practical 5 days a week - but currently I’m not going in to the office for the tyre “car” days.

Remind me how many years UK Govts have been spending loads and talking lots but still haven’t built a new nuclear power station

RR have built 7 PWR2s since the nineties, they just need a shed to stick a few in rather than submarines

Stop greenwashing

And stop being belligerent - please!

I'm well aware of all the things you said, I am thoroughly against greenwashing (as any conscientious thinker will be) and I am most emphatically not suggesting that EVs are the solution to everyone's problems and life can continue as it is now but with EVs instead of ICEs. That would be ridiculous, and as an intelligent person I do not believe ridiculous things so let's nip that in the bud straight away.

I was addressing your point that EVs don't reduce pollution, whereas they do reduce significant forms of pollution. And there are quite a few economics based reasons why they are advantageous when compared with ICEs. And they can enable the reduction on oil and gas dependence, because if everyone has an EV then it only takes central planning to make a decision and everyone's oil usage would go down without them having to do anything. It's a lot easier to make central decisions than to try and persuade millions to make individual decisions.

Of course, we need far fewer car journeys, this is obvious, but it's also obvious that we cannot eliminate them all. What is also very important to remember is that you cannot simply berate people into making these changes. Other options need to be made more attractive. Over-simplifying the problems we face is unproductive because it reduces the credibility of the side we are both on.

igm - still means more fossil fuels burnt in power stations tho as otherwise that eleccy could be doing something other than more one person and a two tonne box around

Move closer to where you work? About 20 years ago I worked out how much more I could spend on a house if I moved closer, must be more true now. I know some folk like where they live and not the area they work but it seems daft to spaff on fuel when it could go towards property.

Name me one country that does not rely on fossil fuel for a significant part of its energy mix

Name a country that's significantly reducing its fossil fuel consumption year-on-year.

Much though i hate to do it, i'm going to have to extend the mortgage, make some cuts elsewhere and get some solar + storage sorted out very soon.

Its a bit like the golden age of COVID, we had so many opportunities to change our lifestyles for the better, but ended up reverting to the line of least resistance soon enough.

Yeah, we were promised full hybrid working with minimal controls by management.
We've now been told it's got to be a 70/30 split in favour of the office and any changes to that approved by a director.

Name a country that’s significantly reducing its fossil fuel consumption year-on-year.

Scotland,.  One of the highest amounts in the world

Move closer to where you work?

I don't think there are enough situations where that is feasible to make a large dent in usage. People don't spend an hour commuting for fun. Here in Cardiff people are driving in from the surrounding area because there either aren't the jobs where they live or they can't afford a house in Cardiff. Houses in Cardiff are more expensive precisely because they're closer to the jobs. If everyone moved into Cardiff, well, they couldn't, because there aren't enough houses here.

Scotland,. One of the highest amounts in the world

Exactly. It's not difficult to find one. Which backs up my point.

So now we're on the brink of War with Russia it seems like a good idea to reduce dependence on their greatest export? We're about 20 years behind the times, has no one been reading the non-Covid/Brexit/War news for the last few years?

We're on a road-map towards the end of the Petrol / Diesel powered car, and a simular one to the end of the gas powered home boiler. There have been grants and tax breaks lower carbon production and reduce fossil fuel use for years, decades even.

The end-game might even be Fusion Power Stations, we might just get our first in 2040.

It's happening now, it's been happening for decades, but change takes time.

Which backs up my point.

What point?  all it does is shows how daft it is to be thinking electric cars reduce pollution significantly  Even in Scotland which has a good record on alternatives or in germany where they have a lot of nuclear every KW used byy an electric car is an extra kw produced from fossil fuels.  its a basic fact that you cannot refute.  Alternatives do not and cannot supply 100%.  Everything using electricity means more fossil fuels as that is the only way we have of increasing generation

But once again you refuse to accept that the only solution is major lifestyle changes and that includes commuting.

The end-game might even be Fusion Power Stations, we might just get our first in 2040

Not a chance!! We'd struggle to build a new conventional nuclear power station from scratch in that timescale, and that's tried-and-tested technology.

No overtaking of cyclists on roads that are shared with cyclists.

That'll teach 'em.

The end-game might even be Fusion Power Stations, we might just get our first in 2040.

As a friend in the nuclear industry says, fission is always 30 years away.

Is anyone on this thread actually arguing electric cars are a great way of reducing oil/gas dependence??

I plan to insulate our house as best as possible this year. Got someone coming around in a week to quote for the loft and walls. Might do the loft myself.

Solar panels are a possibility, as we are on the south coast, and south facing. However, it seems you need either a large battery or some way of using the power in the day to get the most out of them, which makes things more expensive.

But once again you refuse to accept that the only solution is major lifestyle changes and that includes commuting.

No, I literally put that in my post.

Pretty obvious to say that we need major lifestyle change, everyone knows this. The real question is how to actually achieve this in a way that people will vote for. That is what I am concerned with.

Also - if, as per the being nice thread we recently had, let me give you a tip. Don't ever say this:

its a basic fact that you cannot refute

Adds nothing to the discussion except aggro.

We have an inept Gov that only thinks short term 

The long term failures of successive governments, of all colours, has got us here. It was being g talked about when I was at secondary school in the 80s FFS.

My employer has just brought in 60% office attendance, so 3 days out of 5. Petrol and parking is at least £15 a day for me. That's going to cripple some of our staff. More working from home will become an economic necessity.

Solar panels are a possibility, as we are on the south coast, and south facing. However, it seems you need either a large battery or some way of using the power in the day to get the most out of them, which makes things more expensive.

We had a 4.2kWh install just over three years ago, south facing in Cheshire and it's made a significant dent in our electricity bill (I was going to say usage but that would be wrong, usage is the same we just don't pay for a chunk of it 😀 )
However my wife is at home all day so dishwasher and washing machine etc use is always done throughout the day, if the house is empty then battery storage is the only way to get the best from it.

With the way prices have gone recently our predicted break even point has dropped steadily from 14yrs down to around 10 and the numbers are looking a lot better for a 10kWh+ battery store. They didn't make financial sense when we had the panels fitted.

No, I literally put that in my post.

Pretty obvious to say that we need major lifestyle change, everyone knows this. The real question is how to actually achieve this in a way that people will vote for. That is what I am concerned with.

It wont happen, the general public aren't interested in making the changes as it will upset their lifestyle. the only way it will happen is if legislation forces it on everyone or energy becomes eyewateringly expensive.........oh

We have an inept Gov that only thinks short term

The entire (near enough) populace thinks short-term. The changes that are needed require deep, difficult, probably expensive, changes to the (mostly) very comfortable lifestyles that everyone (near enough) is used to and enjoys, and will result in those lifestyles being, probably, 'worse' than they are now. Who's going to vote for a party that says that's what should be done?

We are f___d. Don't get me wrong, I will do my bit, I'll try and use less energy, I'll reduce/reuse/recycle, I'll buy organic food, all that guff, but it's all pissing in the wind.

It wont happen, the general public aren’t interested in making the changes as it will upset their lifestyle.

Well, you don't have to actually upset people's lifestyles, necessarily. Take my earlier example. It takes an hour or so to get from Merthyr to Cardiff at rush hour. So let's make a train that only takes 20 mins, let's make it free, regular and reliable. Let's make it so that when you get to Cardiff you can change and get to your final destination in 10 mins.

Make the alternatives better. People use PT in other countries not because they are worthier than Brits, but because PT is good.