PowerSwitch

Here's Chris Nelder reminding us what we're about. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/the-tak ... t-is-here/

I have waited a long time—decades, really—for a tipping point in the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables beyond which there can be no turning back. Fresh evidence pertaining to many themes I have explored in this column over the past three years suggests that tipping point is finally here.

We just watched Pandora's Promise.

I'm not entirely sure who it's aimed at. Not me, that's for sure. Possibly those unable to think for themselves.

It's basically an advert for nuclear, its central message being 'we have no alternative'. At one point, a speaker says that nuclear is 'clean'.

Every now and then I distribute leaflets. This gives me the opportunity, frankly, to kneb 'round the Renewable neighbourhood On my rounds I notice little changes: a polite notice asking for no junk mail/plastic "charity" bags gets taped on here, a door gets replaced with a more thermally-efficient model there. Woodpiles are beginning to appear: when I first started on this round there was one, now there are more than a dozen. Ditto solar panels (pv and thermal). Last time it snowed, I remember noticing a particular place that always had a snow-free roof, has had insulation put in. A few concrete drives have been dug up and grassed or gravelled over, and in turn several front lawns now boast raised beds and new fruit trees. I've even heard chickens.

The Great British Public, at least those who are able, are quietly and without ceremony adapting to higher energy and food prices. I hope this also means that those who are less able to adapt (e.g. because of poverty) are going to be ready for a government who take this situation seriously.

RenewableCandy wrote:. A few concrete drives have been dug up and grassed or gravelled over,.

While the rest of your post seems quite positive and optimistic, this bit seems nonsensical. Even if we we were reduced to one hundred percent foot travel we would find concrete paved drives and roads more efficient then any alternative. Why would anyone tear them up?

RenewableCandy wrote:. A few concrete drives have been dug up and grassed or gravelled over,.

While the rest of your post seems quite positive and optimistic, this bit seems nonsensical. Even if we we were reduced to one hundred percent foot travel we would find concrete paved drives and roads more efficient then any alternative. Why would anyone tear them up?

Ah, I think there may be a translation error from English to American. The drives of which RC speaks are short pieces of ground from road to garage, typically less than ten yards long. We haven't quite got round to ripping up the roads yet.

A lot of flooding in built-up areas would be relieved if the concreting over of non-road land was not carried out. Gravel is fine for the short bits between roads and garages/car ports.

RenewableCandy wrote:Every now and then I distribute leaflets. This gives me the opportunity, frankly, to kneb 'round the Renewable neighbourhood On my rounds I notice little changes: a polite notice asking for no junk mail/plastic "charity" bags gets taped on here, a door gets replaced with a more thermally-efficient model there. Woodpiles are beginning to appear: when I first started on this round there was one, now there are more than a dozen. Ditto solar panels (pv and thermal). Last time it snowed, I remember noticing a particular place that always had a snow-free roof, has had insulation put in. A few concrete drives have been dug up and grassed or gravelled over, and in turn several front lawns now boast raised beds and new fruit trees. I've even heard chickens.

The Great British Public, at least those who are able, are quietly and without ceremony adapting to higher energy and food prices. I hope this also means that those who are less able to adapt (e.g. because of poverty) are going to be ready for a government who take this situation seriously.

I have noticed similar changes. Only a small minority have made changes in response to rising food and energy costs, but it does seem to be a growing minority.
I travel a lot by rail and have observed more vegetable growing, more line drying of laundry, and less excessive lighting, and fewer bonfires in back gardens.
Cycling and use of public transport seems to be increasing.

However before we become unduly optimistic, a fair proportion of the population believe that rising energy costs are due to "wicked fat cat profiteering utilities" and call for various forms of nationalisation, confiscation, subsidy, price control, or giving free fuel to themselves.

Also there are numerous technical sounding scams for alleged energy saving devices that are based on "optimising" or "regulating" or "filtering" electricity in order to reduce the bill.
Someone must buy into these scams or they would give up trying to sell them. (I have deleted numerous adverts for such devices from these forums)
Any day now I expect a return of the magic petrol saving devices and fuel additives that were so popular in the 70s.

There are also apparently a lot of people going from door to door posing as Green Deal evaluators and charging people for EPC audits that either never happen or are completely worthless.

Which? says that genuine Green Deal people never just turn up on the doorstep.

Chateau Renewable also gets a lot of automated phonecalls about "you qualify for a new boiler from a government scheme..." I guess these are similar. Sadly the TPF isn't totally perfect.

biffvernon wrote:Ah, I think there may be a translation error from English to American. The drives of which RC speaks are short pieces of ground from road to garage, typically less than ten yards long. We haven't quite got round to ripping up the roads yet.

Even correcting for American usage of the word I wouldn't tear up a paved area unless it received so little traffic that it could support grass. Hard packed gravel will give near one hundred percent runoff during a storm event.
I'm doing some flood related work at present. We are re appraising all buildings that lie in the flood plain to account for changes in federal law about lending and flood insurance requirements. In many cases two hundred year old houses that have and are serving quite well are now at the stroke of a pen worthless. Very disconcerting to their often elderly owners.

VT the runoff is the problem.

There has been a huge increase in people concreting or tarmacking front gardens to use as parking areas in the UK. This is due to pressure on parking space thanks to multi-car families, and the fact that once you do concrete your front garden you get TWO parking places - one on the garden, one on the road in front of your garden. These places are more-or-less guaranteed as your neighbours are too polite to park on the road in front of your garden, even though its technically permissible if the front garden parking place is free. This is part of a wider phenomenon of the privatisation of assets that were created by public money as the stretch of road in front of the garden is left exclusively for the use of the household with the concreted garden and is withdrawn from the common pool of parking.

These concreted slabs almost always run off straight into the gutter, instead of allowing rainwater to drain back through into the ground. Vastly more water pours onto the road, overwhelming the drains and causing flooding further down which must be guarded against and prepared for. THis is also part of a trend in the UK where the public sector is left to deal with problems created by the private sector and privatisation itself.

Ripping concrete drives up and replacing them with gardens is a Good Thing, and to be welcomed.

When we paved our drive a few years back we put in a drain and soak away. I think ours is the only drive in the road with one.

featherstick wrote:Vastly more water pours onto the road, overwhelming the drains and causing flooding further down which must be guarded against and prepared for. THis is also part of a trend in the UK where the public sector is left to deal with problems created by the private sector and privatisation itself.

Ripping concrete drives up and replacing them with gardens is a Good Thing, and to be welcomed.

Not just the UK, I assure you. In some towns over here, you'd have trouble finding a dandelion. The Irish worship concrete.

It's not English to American translation but rural vs. suburban that is the cause of my confusion. I literally live five miles from the nearest paved road. What a shame to have ever paved over a bit of front garden or lawn to make a parking space to begin with. And of course your towns layout has evolved over centuries and it's initial planning ,if any, was, done in the age of horses not automobiles. If runoff is a concern you can lay a base of one sized crushed rock and pave over it with a gap graded bituminous pavement that lets water drain through it and into the voids in the crushed stone. Heavy travel areas should not be done this way but edges and low points can be done catching the water before it leaves the lot or apron.

Our gravel is made of round stones, not crushed ones (which are better for proper roads, as I learned from Biff's marvellous blog about building the A1). It has the additional advantage that it is now impossible to walk up to our door without making a noise, thus alerting the Renewables within to the presence of, for example, burglars or those wretched souls who post plastic bags through the letter-box in the vain hope that we might want to get rid of enough unwanted clothes to fill them (this happens about once a week).

The Renewable ride sits splendidly on the said gravel, but if/when times get harder it will be easy to shift the stones and plant stuff. The total area of said spot is about 50 sq yds. In the USA you probably wouldn't even notice it