For some years here in Derby we have dutifully been recycling our waste, with one of our bins being a brown bin for garden waste and food leftovers.
Derby City Council have now had a rethink on the process and in a leaflet that was delivered with our new larger blue bins (more below) they dropped in a small section about the brown bin collection.
They tell us that next year they will charge for collection of the brown bin. Of course they blame the government, to quote the leaflet
'This is because of government cuts to our budget which means we have no choice but to stop providing some services for free. This will allow us to protect other services such as children's centres, care homes and libraries'
I have two objections to the above statement:
Firstly they were not providing the service for free, waste collection is part of what I pay my council tax for. I won't see a reduction in the council tax but an additional charge for a service I have already paid for!
Secondly they are still cutting the services they claim this charge is to protect - work that one out.
It gets better however. If I don't want to pay the charge I can opt out of having my bin collected - I am sure the administrative costs there will not be trivial, and if say 50% of households do so across the city then it is likely there will be no cost savings as the bin wagons and their crews will still be needed for the other 50%. Furthermore I am told that if I don't want my bin collecting I can put the waste I presently recycle in with the non recyclable waste so it can go to landfill - where is the sense in that?
There also seems to be a retrograde step with the blue bins. To date we have had a small blue bin for plastics, glass and cans. This has now been replaced with a larger bin into which we can also add the paper and card previously collected in a blue bag and orange bag respectively. I hope this is because it is more cost effective to sort it at the depot but nothing has been said. Is there some other reason? Is it being recycled at all?
This also leaves us with our old small blue bin. These are to be collected in or we can do a bit of 'Blue Peter' and turn them into composing bins! I trust if collected in they will be recycled but once again I have my doubts.
There appears to be no coherent approach to recycling - but a very clear plan to extract yet more money from the captive taxpayer!
Showing posts with label Environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Environment. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Climate Change - the Unseen Reason
Much is being said about climate change and there is debate as to how much of this is natural and how much is a result of our lifestyles.
We can see that analysing data shows the climate does indeed change over time. Historical evidence show that there have been cycles of change in planetary temperature and we are at some point in one of these.
Whilst we cannot determine how much change would have occurred without mankind, I think we can assume that we may have an effect on the climate, be it with our demand for electricity, heating, transport or even food (think methane from cattle for example).
Steps are being taken to reduce our impact by making vehicles more efficient, generating power from renewable energy sources, using heat from solar panels and ground heat systems.
One area however that has a significant impact but is not often mentioned to my knowledge is population growth.
If we kept the population of the planet fixed (impossible I know!) and reduced their energy requirements then the impact on climate could be reduced.
However the population of the planet continues to grow. As it does so there are more people requiring transport, using power and wanting to keep warm. Total energy requirements therefore will go up as a result of this.
Should we not be looking at controlling population growth as part of our attempt to minimise our impact on the climate. There are other ways in which growing populations impact upon the climate, such as clearing of trees to make room for housing or food growing.
We need to look at the total picture - not just pick the low hanging fruit.
We can see that analysing data shows the climate does indeed change over time. Historical evidence show that there have been cycles of change in planetary temperature and we are at some point in one of these.
Whilst we cannot determine how much change would have occurred without mankind, I think we can assume that we may have an effect on the climate, be it with our demand for electricity, heating, transport or even food (think methane from cattle for example).
Steps are being taken to reduce our impact by making vehicles more efficient, generating power from renewable energy sources, using heat from solar panels and ground heat systems.
One area however that has a significant impact but is not often mentioned to my knowledge is population growth.
If we kept the population of the planet fixed (impossible I know!) and reduced their energy requirements then the impact on climate could be reduced.
However the population of the planet continues to grow. As it does so there are more people requiring transport, using power and wanting to keep warm. Total energy requirements therefore will go up as a result of this.
Should we not be looking at controlling population growth as part of our attempt to minimise our impact on the climate. There are other ways in which growing populations impact upon the climate, such as clearing of trees to make room for housing or food growing.
We need to look at the total picture - not just pick the low hanging fruit.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Unfair VAT on e-books
For some time now I have been a keen e-book reader, and am very happy with my Kindle. I probably have less than one hundred books on it so far but the amount of shelf space that even that number would take up is considerable.
So far so good.
My problem is with the tax treatment of e-books.
If I buy books in the more traditional hardback or paperback format I am not charged any VAT. If however I buy e-books then I am charged VAT. Why? I don't understand the difference because at the end of the day the content is the same, possibly even less as some e-books are without some of the pictures you get in the print version.
This seems to me to be counter productive. E-books do not require trees to be chopped down to make paper, do not require vast warehouses to store, no fuel guzzling trucks to distribute and no shelf space at retailers.
All in all this should actually be reason for the government to offer an incentive as they are more environmentally friendly. So why then are we charged VAT to buy them? The only reason I can see is greed - yet another way to extract money from Joe Public for the government coffers.
I will be writing to my MP and the government. I am not hopeful for a change of policy however!
So far so good.
My problem is with the tax treatment of e-books.
If I buy books in the more traditional hardback or paperback format I am not charged any VAT. If however I buy e-books then I am charged VAT. Why? I don't understand the difference because at the end of the day the content is the same, possibly even less as some e-books are without some of the pictures you get in the print version.
This seems to me to be counter productive. E-books do not require trees to be chopped down to make paper, do not require vast warehouses to store, no fuel guzzling trucks to distribute and no shelf space at retailers.
All in all this should actually be reason for the government to offer an incentive as they are more environmentally friendly. So why then are we charged VAT to buy them? The only reason I can see is greed - yet another way to extract money from Joe Public for the government coffers.
I will be writing to my MP and the government. I am not hopeful for a change of policy however!
Saturday, April 14, 2012
The Environmentalists Are Running The Asylum
It seems more and more that our politicians are bowing down to the environmentalists. It is bad enough when politicians try and run the country themselves, but when they start listening to environmentalists the whole situation gets much worse.
In making these claims I must point out that I am accusing all the political parties, so this covers the present government and it's predecessors.
At various climate summits our politicians have signed us up to reductions in CO2 emissions which are not achievable. This is just like a salesman saying his product will do things it clearly does not. Before agreeing these reductions perhaps our representatives should have taken expert advice on what can and cannot be done!
The same climate summits see other countries agreeing to far less severe reductions in CO2, with some such as China even suggesting they cannot reduce CO2 but are likely to increase.
This leads to unsustainable plans for wind farms, solar farms and so on to produce a fraction of the reduction we are committed to.
So the government attack the issue in different ways by trying to force us out of our cars and make us install ever greater levels of insulation in our homes.
The latest scheme however has to take the biscuit, whereby if you wish to carry out certain changes to your home you will be inspected and presented with a list of other work to be carried out - at your own expense - if you wish to go ahead. Don't worry though as they will offer you a loan so that any possible savings will be lost when you repay this.
Two examples quoted so far have been boiler replacement and building a conservatory (and perhaps any type of extension).
The first will affect me, and many others. as boilers have a finite life. My house was built in accordance with the building regulations and insulation standards of the time, but would now fall short and I have no doubt I would be expected to top up the loft insulation at the very least. My loft insulation is the depth of the joists so in some areas I have boarded the loft for storage space. This will presumably have to be taken up and more insulation added such that I can no longer use the loft for storage unless I raise the floor in some areas.
Perhaps I should just leave my old boiler in place longer, OK it is less efficient than a more modern boiler but the savings from the boiler are already hard to justify against the cost of installing it, let alone when it comes to the additional expense.
Madness!
What about people in older properties, particularly those with solid walls? Their insulation factors may well be low. Do they get forced to insulate the inside of the walls and make the rooms smaller and lose the character of the building, or perhaps insulate the outside, again losing the character.
The lunatics really are taking over the asylum.
In making these claims I must point out that I am accusing all the political parties, so this covers the present government and it's predecessors.
At various climate summits our politicians have signed us up to reductions in CO2 emissions which are not achievable. This is just like a salesman saying his product will do things it clearly does not. Before agreeing these reductions perhaps our representatives should have taken expert advice on what can and cannot be done!
The same climate summits see other countries agreeing to far less severe reductions in CO2, with some such as China even suggesting they cannot reduce CO2 but are likely to increase.
This leads to unsustainable plans for wind farms, solar farms and so on to produce a fraction of the reduction we are committed to.
So the government attack the issue in different ways by trying to force us out of our cars and make us install ever greater levels of insulation in our homes.
The latest scheme however has to take the biscuit, whereby if you wish to carry out certain changes to your home you will be inspected and presented with a list of other work to be carried out - at your own expense - if you wish to go ahead. Don't worry though as they will offer you a loan so that any possible savings will be lost when you repay this.
Two examples quoted so far have been boiler replacement and building a conservatory (and perhaps any type of extension).
The first will affect me, and many others. as boilers have a finite life. My house was built in accordance with the building regulations and insulation standards of the time, but would now fall short and I have no doubt I would be expected to top up the loft insulation at the very least. My loft insulation is the depth of the joists so in some areas I have boarded the loft for storage space. This will presumably have to be taken up and more insulation added such that I can no longer use the loft for storage unless I raise the floor in some areas.
Perhaps I should just leave my old boiler in place longer, OK it is less efficient than a more modern boiler but the savings from the boiler are already hard to justify against the cost of installing it, let alone when it comes to the additional expense.
Madness!
What about people in older properties, particularly those with solid walls? Their insulation factors may well be low. Do they get forced to insulate the inside of the walls and make the rooms smaller and lose the character of the building, or perhaps insulate the outside, again losing the character.
The lunatics really are taking over the asylum.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Ridiculous Recycling
Our local council has just decided to split the recycling collections again, meaning on recycling day we have to put out up to five different containers. When will this lunacy end?
A short history:-
We started off with a brown bin for garden waste and cardboard, a blue box for plastics, cans and glass, a blue bag for paper and a red bag for textiles.
Very quickly the council decided that lids were needed for the boxes, so these were issued. More boxes were handed out to people as they were not large enough to hold all the recycling!
The blue boxes were then scrapped (not being made of recyclable materials!!) and blue bins were issued instead.
So far so good except that putting paper in a bag quite often meant it blew all over the place when the wind got up.
Now we have been issued with orange bags for cardboard - as with the paper collection this either becomes a sodden mess when it rains or will blow around if the wind gets up.
The situation gets worse of course because we now have four lorries on recycling day - brown bin, blue bin, paper/textiles and cardboard. How can this be good for the environment?
Add to that the fact that with the bags for paper we find a lot of them blowing away after being emptied because they are not securely returned by the refuse crews. This will now be added to by the new bags. Two problems arise here, firstly they are made of plastic so litter the country side and do not biodegrade, secondly they have to be replaced.
Some people, myself included, have reused the old blue boxes for paper. This may not work for card because the crews will not easily see the difference (lids on to prevent rubbish blowing everywhere)
Why can we not follow the lead of Europe, where recycling is collected in one bin and sorted at the recycling centre - the technology exists to do this nowadays and that which cannot be done automatically will create employment?
A short history:-
We started off with a brown bin for garden waste and cardboard, a blue box for plastics, cans and glass, a blue bag for paper and a red bag for textiles.
Very quickly the council decided that lids were needed for the boxes, so these were issued. More boxes were handed out to people as they were not large enough to hold all the recycling!
The blue boxes were then scrapped (not being made of recyclable materials!!) and blue bins were issued instead.
So far so good except that putting paper in a bag quite often meant it blew all over the place when the wind got up.
Now we have been issued with orange bags for cardboard - as with the paper collection this either becomes a sodden mess when it rains or will blow around if the wind gets up.
The situation gets worse of course because we now have four lorries on recycling day - brown bin, blue bin, paper/textiles and cardboard. How can this be good for the environment?
Add to that the fact that with the bags for paper we find a lot of them blowing away after being emptied because they are not securely returned by the refuse crews. This will now be added to by the new bags. Two problems arise here, firstly they are made of plastic so litter the country side and do not biodegrade, secondly they have to be replaced.
Some people, myself included, have reused the old blue boxes for paper. This may not work for card because the crews will not easily see the difference (lids on to prevent rubbish blowing everywhere)
Why can we not follow the lead of Europe, where recycling is collected in one bin and sorted at the recycling centre - the technology exists to do this nowadays and that which cannot be done automatically will create employment?
Friday, December 9, 2011
The Wind Turbine Fallacy
As our government and environmentalists make ever greater demands for alternative power sources for when fossil fuels run out, more investment is being made in wind farms.
The recent bad weather in Scotland and northern England however is demonstrating why this won't work.
In strong winds, wind turbines have to be stopped. I believe this is achieved by both 'feathering' the blades to reduce their thrust to zero and also by applying a brake to prevent the rotor from turning.
In low winds the turbines just don't turn anyway as there is insufficient strength.
As a result we are left with a relatively narrow window of conditions in which wind turbines can produce any power. It gets worse however in that we don't have the infrastructure to take all the power they can produce when we are in the right zone so suppliers are paid to turn them off!
In the news today, I read of the wind turbines damaged by the wind! Both in Scotland, one of them has caught fire - as yet the cause is unconfirmed but it could well be that it was rotating against it's brake and hence building up heat, the second just simply blew over.
These incidents are not isolated, in the past there have been incidents of turbines losing blades whilst operating. The consequences of that striking someone or damaging property could be very serious, not to mention any further damage that may be caused by an out of balance turbine continuing to rotate.
So they are inefficient, provide power in fits and starts depending on the weather, and are potentially very dangerous.
Time to look elsewhere for our alternative energy sources I believe.
The recent bad weather in Scotland and northern England however is demonstrating why this won't work.
In strong winds, wind turbines have to be stopped. I believe this is achieved by both 'feathering' the blades to reduce their thrust to zero and also by applying a brake to prevent the rotor from turning.
In low winds the turbines just don't turn anyway as there is insufficient strength.
As a result we are left with a relatively narrow window of conditions in which wind turbines can produce any power. It gets worse however in that we don't have the infrastructure to take all the power they can produce when we are in the right zone so suppliers are paid to turn them off!
In the news today, I read of the wind turbines damaged by the wind! Both in Scotland, one of them has caught fire - as yet the cause is unconfirmed but it could well be that it was rotating against it's brake and hence building up heat, the second just simply blew over.
These incidents are not isolated, in the past there have been incidents of turbines losing blades whilst operating. The consequences of that striking someone or damaging property could be very serious, not to mention any further damage that may be caused by an out of balance turbine continuing to rotate.
So they are inefficient, provide power in fits and starts depending on the weather, and are potentially very dangerous.
Time to look elsewhere for our alternative energy sources I believe.
Friday, November 25, 2011
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The world is getting weirder by the day - I am beginning to wonder when listening to the news or reading the paper (any paper) whether everyday is now April the 1st.
Two recent news items only serve to help in this perception.
The first is a government minister who claims that despite continually rising energy prices, fed in part by taxes for renewable energy, our bills will be smaller in 2020. Who are they kidding?
This year alone most energy suppliers have had a series of price hikes, with the latest round being in the range of 10 to 20 percent. The minister supported the claim by suggesting our use of energy will fall more than enough to compensate for the increased unit costs.
Personally I cannot see how I can save 10 percent of my present energy use. I already have a well insulated home, switch electrical equipment off when not in use, have low energy light bulbs and even switch those off.
A wind turbine on the roof will be pointless and will likely never recoup it's purchase and installation costs, likewise the calculations I have done (and had from Solar Energy suppliers) indicate that that too will always run at a loss.
We need to see a return on our renewables tax in the form of cheaper, more effective renewable energy supplies otherwise there really is no point.
The second news item is even more unbelievable - the Isle of Wight is to become a self sufficient island and eco friendly.
This will be achieved by installing an army of wind turbines, acres of solar panels, geothermal energy plants. To supplement this there will be recycling on a massive scale, fleets of electric cars and doubtless houses will be insulated to the point where the inside space shrinks to nothing!
I have just looked at their brochure - it talks of plans for the period 2008 to 2010, so we should already have the EcoIsland we are promised, but somehow I doubt it.
If I were to visit the island again (having not been for over 15 years now) I suspect I would not notice any of the eco improvements - perhaps someone can prove me wrong. I believe that even the wind turbine factory has closed down, so any turbines would have to be manufactured elsewhere and imported with all the associated carbon footprint.
Two recent news items only serve to help in this perception.
The first is a government minister who claims that despite continually rising energy prices, fed in part by taxes for renewable energy, our bills will be smaller in 2020. Who are they kidding?
This year alone most energy suppliers have had a series of price hikes, with the latest round being in the range of 10 to 20 percent. The minister supported the claim by suggesting our use of energy will fall more than enough to compensate for the increased unit costs.
Personally I cannot see how I can save 10 percent of my present energy use. I already have a well insulated home, switch electrical equipment off when not in use, have low energy light bulbs and even switch those off.
A wind turbine on the roof will be pointless and will likely never recoup it's purchase and installation costs, likewise the calculations I have done (and had from Solar Energy suppliers) indicate that that too will always run at a loss.
We need to see a return on our renewables tax in the form of cheaper, more effective renewable energy supplies otherwise there really is no point.
The second news item is even more unbelievable - the Isle of Wight is to become a self sufficient island and eco friendly.
This will be achieved by installing an army of wind turbines, acres of solar panels, geothermal energy plants. To supplement this there will be recycling on a massive scale, fleets of electric cars and doubtless houses will be insulated to the point where the inside space shrinks to nothing!
I have just looked at their brochure - it talks of plans for the period 2008 to 2010, so we should already have the EcoIsland we are promised, but somehow I doubt it.
If I were to visit the island again (having not been for over 15 years now) I suspect I would not notice any of the eco improvements - perhaps someone can prove me wrong. I believe that even the wind turbine factory has closed down, so any turbines would have to be manufactured elsewhere and imported with all the associated carbon footprint.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Ban the Plastic Bag
We have been hearing a lot about banning the plastic throwaway bag so often handed out by supermarkets. At least one of the tabloid newspapers seems to think they are 'leading the way' but then don't the tabloids all jump on to whatever is the current bandwagon to try and increase their popularity?
I am not interested here in the tabloids however, more in the underlying problem of the single use plastic bag. It cannot be denied that they contribute a lot to our waste stream and thus increase the burden on landfill. They also get into the environment and cause litter and problems for wildlife.
Part of the problem is how people use the bags, not just the bags themselves.
When they were freely given out I tended to use them for bin liners in small bins, for bagging other rubbish before putting it in the wheelie bin, for separating laundry when returning from holiday, for storage of out of season clothing etc. In short I tried to get as much use as possible out of them and in doing so avoided buying other plastic bags to address those needs.
Now I use bags for life for my shopping, which means I need to buy bin liners, bags for storage etc. See the problem - in my case just a shift of bag type.
You also get the people who do see them as single use bags and just dump them. Many of those that spoil the environment are probably just thrown away casually without even being placed in a bin which is why they end up in hedgerows, on beaches, etc. Will the proposed charge for single use bags affect these people? Probably not.
Where a charge has been imposed it is likely to stop responsible people using so many bags - but those bags are the ones less likely to cause problems.
Charging is also a way of increasing the supermarkets profits - we have seen this already with a leading company who by charging for their bags cover all the costs of bag production, previously borne by themselves, and donate only the profits to charity. Thus they increase their own profits - a fact they are rather quiet about!
Could we ban them altogether and insist shoppers either use reusable bags or boxes. This is a possibility but I doubt it would go down well. In the past I have used the trolley liners which did get heavy but you simply lifted them from the trolley to the car and then to the house. Whoops, you must always take your car shopping! The best solution which a now defunct supermarket had was plastic crates - they combined this with self scanning at the point of loading your trolley. Simple checkout procedure but again you needed a car. Reusing cardboard boxes that the goods arrive at the supermarket in was once used but probably waned as goods became more palletised.
What is the solution - I don't know, perhaps my readers have some ideas.
We must also consider the impact upon industry - if we do succeed in significantly reducing bag usage - will the businesses and their employees who make them be able to redeploy their resources without loss of employment?
One final note - everyone goes on about supermarket bags - what about the vast number of charity collection bags that come through our doors every year? Most of these are likely to end up in land fill without even being taken out of their (plastic) wrapper. The solution here is perhaps to just pop a small leaflet through the door inviting people to use their own bag if they have goods to donate. The leaflet can be recycled as paper and maybe we can even reduce the frequency of these calls on our unwanted goods - frequently I have nothing to donate when a bag comes through (and before you comment - I reuse these as rubbish bags also)
I am not interested here in the tabloids however, more in the underlying problem of the single use plastic bag. It cannot be denied that they contribute a lot to our waste stream and thus increase the burden on landfill. They also get into the environment and cause litter and problems for wildlife.
Part of the problem is how people use the bags, not just the bags themselves.
When they were freely given out I tended to use them for bin liners in small bins, for bagging other rubbish before putting it in the wheelie bin, for separating laundry when returning from holiday, for storage of out of season clothing etc. In short I tried to get as much use as possible out of them and in doing so avoided buying other plastic bags to address those needs.
Now I use bags for life for my shopping, which means I need to buy bin liners, bags for storage etc. See the problem - in my case just a shift of bag type.
You also get the people who do see them as single use bags and just dump them. Many of those that spoil the environment are probably just thrown away casually without even being placed in a bin which is why they end up in hedgerows, on beaches, etc. Will the proposed charge for single use bags affect these people? Probably not.
Where a charge has been imposed it is likely to stop responsible people using so many bags - but those bags are the ones less likely to cause problems.
Charging is also a way of increasing the supermarkets profits - we have seen this already with a leading company who by charging for their bags cover all the costs of bag production, previously borne by themselves, and donate only the profits to charity. Thus they increase their own profits - a fact they are rather quiet about!
Could we ban them altogether and insist shoppers either use reusable bags or boxes. This is a possibility but I doubt it would go down well. In the past I have used the trolley liners which did get heavy but you simply lifted them from the trolley to the car and then to the house. Whoops, you must always take your car shopping! The best solution which a now defunct supermarket had was plastic crates - they combined this with self scanning at the point of loading your trolley. Simple checkout procedure but again you needed a car. Reusing cardboard boxes that the goods arrive at the supermarket in was once used but probably waned as goods became more palletised.
What is the solution - I don't know, perhaps my readers have some ideas.
We must also consider the impact upon industry - if we do succeed in significantly reducing bag usage - will the businesses and their employees who make them be able to redeploy their resources without loss of employment?
One final note - everyone goes on about supermarket bags - what about the vast number of charity collection bags that come through our doors every year? Most of these are likely to end up in land fill without even being taken out of their (plastic) wrapper. The solution here is perhaps to just pop a small leaflet through the door inviting people to use their own bag if they have goods to donate. The leaflet can be recycled as paper and maybe we can even reduce the frequency of these calls on our unwanted goods - frequently I have nothing to donate when a bag comes through (and before you comment - I reuse these as rubbish bags also)
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Always Read the Small Print
A cautionary tale - in this case involving the solar energy industry but applicable to all contracts. It happened to a colleague of my wife recently.
It all started off innocently enough with a sales call from a firm offering to install solar PV on their house for free. Sounds a reasonable deal so they invited the company to send someone round to discuss the proposal and carry out the necessary survey.
There are two ways of installing solar PV to generate electricity:
Pay for an installation and it's ongoing maintenance yourself. This way you should benefit from reduced electricity bills (depending upon how much power you use when the sun is shining) and you get the government feed in tariff for the power you generate.
Alternatively, and this is the option here, a company installs the solar panels at their expense and also maintains them. This way you don't own the panels and basically you gain from reducing your electricity bill. To pay for the installation the company that installed the system gets the revenue from the government feed in tariff.
After the survey, the company announced that the roof was suitable and came back with a figure of how much the cost savings would be. They also reported that the roof might need strengthening to handle the weight of the panels and they would send a specialist around to investigate. My understanding is that this is quite common as roofs were only ever designed to be that - and not to bolt a considerable weight of solar panels on as well (remember this is above the tiles and not instead of).
This investigation showed that the roof would need strengthening at a cost of £4,000. The householder gave the go ahead and the work was carried out.
This is where the problems started. The company who had carried out the work on the roof presented the housholder with the bill. They had assumed that this was part of the 'free' installation so suggested the roofing firm sent the bill to the solar panel company, who to their surprise rejected it.
My wife's colleague has now drafted in legal help to go through the signed contract with the solar company to see if there is any clause stating they would pay ALL costs, not just the installation costs. They felt they were given to understand that 'free installation' covered all costs associated. In reality I think that 'free installation' just covers a standard PV installation without any associated work. They may even charge more if the existing electricity supply is difficult to connect into.
As yet they have not gone ahead with the solar PV installation whilst this dispute is under way. To rub salt in the wound the solar PV company have now come back and suggested their original savings figure may have been somewhat optimistic and actual benefits may be somewhat less!
The matter may well end up in legal proceedings so I will not name the company - I believe however that with many companies joining the 'gold rush' for solar PV installations this may well not be an isolated incident with just them anyway.
A final thought on this type of solar PV installation. You are signing up for twenty five years - if you wish to sell your house the new buyer must agree to the same terms, namely giving up their right to the feed in tariff income. This has probably not yet been tested in the housing market but it may be a disincentive to prospective buyers.
Caveat Emptor - let the buyer beware. Always read the small print and take legal advice if you don't understand it. It may cost in the short term but the savings could be massive.
It all started off innocently enough with a sales call from a firm offering to install solar PV on their house for free. Sounds a reasonable deal so they invited the company to send someone round to discuss the proposal and carry out the necessary survey.
There are two ways of installing solar PV to generate electricity:
Pay for an installation and it's ongoing maintenance yourself. This way you should benefit from reduced electricity bills (depending upon how much power you use when the sun is shining) and you get the government feed in tariff for the power you generate.
Alternatively, and this is the option here, a company installs the solar panels at their expense and also maintains them. This way you don't own the panels and basically you gain from reducing your electricity bill. To pay for the installation the company that installed the system gets the revenue from the government feed in tariff.
After the survey, the company announced that the roof was suitable and came back with a figure of how much the cost savings would be. They also reported that the roof might need strengthening to handle the weight of the panels and they would send a specialist around to investigate. My understanding is that this is quite common as roofs were only ever designed to be that - and not to bolt a considerable weight of solar panels on as well (remember this is above the tiles and not instead of).
This investigation showed that the roof would need strengthening at a cost of £4,000. The householder gave the go ahead and the work was carried out.
This is where the problems started. The company who had carried out the work on the roof presented the housholder with the bill. They had assumed that this was part of the 'free' installation so suggested the roofing firm sent the bill to the solar panel company, who to their surprise rejected it.
My wife's colleague has now drafted in legal help to go through the signed contract with the solar company to see if there is any clause stating they would pay ALL costs, not just the installation costs. They felt they were given to understand that 'free installation' covered all costs associated. In reality I think that 'free installation' just covers a standard PV installation without any associated work. They may even charge more if the existing electricity supply is difficult to connect into.
As yet they have not gone ahead with the solar PV installation whilst this dispute is under way. To rub salt in the wound the solar PV company have now come back and suggested their original savings figure may have been somewhat optimistic and actual benefits may be somewhat less!
The matter may well end up in legal proceedings so I will not name the company - I believe however that with many companies joining the 'gold rush' for solar PV installations this may well not be an isolated incident with just them anyway.
A final thought on this type of solar PV installation. You are signing up for twenty five years - if you wish to sell your house the new buyer must agree to the same terms, namely giving up their right to the feed in tariff income. This has probably not yet been tested in the housing market but it may be a disincentive to prospective buyers.
Caveat Emptor - let the buyer beware. Always read the small print and take legal advice if you don't understand it. It may cost in the short term but the savings could be massive.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Electric Cars (2)
Recent discussions in the news and a Top Gear item have prompted me to post again on the subjetc of electric cars.
Top Gear carried out a review of two electric cars at around about twenty five to twenty seven thousand pounds AFTER the government subsidy had been applied. These are not cheap cars then. The exact models are irrelevant as it seems these are representative of those presently coming on to the market.
The manufacturer of one of the cars claimed that before the test journey the cars were not fully charged and therefore this was not representative. I have to disagree in that you may well find yourself in a situation whereby the car is not fully recharged before a journey. With petrol, diesel and lpg cars you can handle this by fuelling quickly and easily en route.
Their next comment was that the cars were run down to ensure they ran out of charge in a place where there were no public charging points. Again fair as there are very few of these in the whole of the UK especially if you are outside of the major cities.
I don't doubt that Top Gear did emphasise the negative features, but there have been mamy longer term tests over a week or more which have come to the same conclusions. Top Gear is an entertainment programme with limited time. They made the key points about electric cars well I feel.
Supporters of the electric car have said that it is all being viewed wrongly. They suggest that the electric car is primarily a city car.
Sounds good so far as the daily mileage is likely to be low. All these city car owners will then need a second car to use on longer journeys or succumb to expensive and unreliable public transport.
More of a problem however is charging. As there are very few public charge points, even in London, then you can only realistically charge your car at home. Fine if you live in a property with a drive or better still a garage (to minimise jokers and vandals tampering with the charging cable). Many people who live in cities have neither of these, and whilst those in ground floor properties could try and run a cable across the pavement to their car (Health and Safety!!) what about those on upper floors?
Someone suggested that electric cars have replaceable battery packs so you can drive into a filling station and swap your flat battery for a fully charged one. There are two big problems here. Given the weight of these battery packs a fair amount of insfratructure will have to be installed to achieve this, and a reasonable stockpile of batteries to ensure there are always some fully charged. More importantly is the design of a common battery pack - manufacturers all have their own designs tailored to their car design - the chance of a common battery for all cars, fitted in a location where it can be changed in a reasonable timescale is somewhere close to none at all.
Electric cars have only one purpose in their existence - to allow wealthy 'eco friendly' people to make a public statement.
I cannot see them being a practical solution in my lifetime.
Top Gear carried out a review of two electric cars at around about twenty five to twenty seven thousand pounds AFTER the government subsidy had been applied. These are not cheap cars then. The exact models are irrelevant as it seems these are representative of those presently coming on to the market.
The manufacturer of one of the cars claimed that before the test journey the cars were not fully charged and therefore this was not representative. I have to disagree in that you may well find yourself in a situation whereby the car is not fully recharged before a journey. With petrol, diesel and lpg cars you can handle this by fuelling quickly and easily en route.
Their next comment was that the cars were run down to ensure they ran out of charge in a place where there were no public charging points. Again fair as there are very few of these in the whole of the UK especially if you are outside of the major cities.
I don't doubt that Top Gear did emphasise the negative features, but there have been mamy longer term tests over a week or more which have come to the same conclusions. Top Gear is an entertainment programme with limited time. They made the key points about electric cars well I feel.
Supporters of the electric car have said that it is all being viewed wrongly. They suggest that the electric car is primarily a city car.
Sounds good so far as the daily mileage is likely to be low. All these city car owners will then need a second car to use on longer journeys or succumb to expensive and unreliable public transport.
More of a problem however is charging. As there are very few public charge points, even in London, then you can only realistically charge your car at home. Fine if you live in a property with a drive or better still a garage (to minimise jokers and vandals tampering with the charging cable). Many people who live in cities have neither of these, and whilst those in ground floor properties could try and run a cable across the pavement to their car (Health and Safety!!) what about those on upper floors?
Someone suggested that electric cars have replaceable battery packs so you can drive into a filling station and swap your flat battery for a fully charged one. There are two big problems here. Given the weight of these battery packs a fair amount of insfratructure will have to be installed to achieve this, and a reasonable stockpile of batteries to ensure there are always some fully charged. More importantly is the design of a common battery pack - manufacturers all have their own designs tailored to their car design - the chance of a common battery for all cars, fitted in a location where it can be changed in a reasonable timescale is somewhere close to none at all.
Electric cars have only one purpose in their existence - to allow wealthy 'eco friendly' people to make a public statement.
I cannot see them being a practical solution in my lifetime.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Supermarket Green Trickery Part Two
Previously in this blog I have discussed how supermarkets use environmental claims to enhance their image whilst in fact what they are doing benefits the supermarket more than the environment and also gives them a nice image with prospective customers.
I have downloaded a policy document from one such supermarket and would like here to address a number of the points. Don't get me wrong, some of their actions do benefit others more than themselves, but these are mixed in with many that are far from altruistic.
I have written to various people within the organisation concerned but they typically respond either by re-stating the policy document or by claiming I don't understand it correctly (making no attempt to explain it!)
An amusing starting point however is their target of reducing CO2 emissions from business travel. So far they have INCREASED emissions by 33%!
There are a number of items related to energy production, the first of which suggests generating their own electricity from anaerobic digestion plants - they now find it won't work for them so are rewriting the objective - sounds like politicians to me. Secondly they talk about on site renewables to generate power - again too hard so the objective is to be revised.
Let's move on to transport, with a couple of interesting ones here. The first relates to increasing use of bio-diesel. This has been suspended as, surprise, the production of bio-diesel is not presently sustainable because of the destruction of rain forest or diversion of land from food production in order to grow the crops from which it is produced. The second is very interesting - converting delivery fleets to cleaner EURO IV and V standard engines by 2012. This is very easy to achieve as follows: All large transport fleets regularly replace their vehicles - typically a three or four year life. They will replace their vehicles with new ones from manufacturers. Legally new vehicles MUST comply with this legislation. Ergo the fleet will automatically be upgraded to these standards anyway.
Finally for now, a couple more amusing objectives:
The objective was to label all airfreighted food. This objective has been achieved. They proudly announce that sales have not been affected - hence no benefit to anyone or the environment - pointless.
A plan has been stated to install electric charging points at stores to enable people to use so called 'environmentally friendly' electric cars. They have over seven hundred stores in the UK so how many will get charging points? Five. Again pointless, but at least when they find that no one uses them there will have been little impact on the environment installing them.
More posts on this topic to come, if I can't get the company themselves to listen to me perhaps a larger audience looking at these claims can have more impact.
Which company? If you hadn't yet guessed, they claim there is no Plan B and all the documents from which I have derived their claims are freely available from their website.
I have downloaded a policy document from one such supermarket and would like here to address a number of the points. Don't get me wrong, some of their actions do benefit others more than themselves, but these are mixed in with many that are far from altruistic.
I have written to various people within the organisation concerned but they typically respond either by re-stating the policy document or by claiming I don't understand it correctly (making no attempt to explain it!)
An amusing starting point however is their target of reducing CO2 emissions from business travel. So far they have INCREASED emissions by 33%!
There are a number of items related to energy production, the first of which suggests generating their own electricity from anaerobic digestion plants - they now find it won't work for them so are rewriting the objective - sounds like politicians to me. Secondly they talk about on site renewables to generate power - again too hard so the objective is to be revised.
Let's move on to transport, with a couple of interesting ones here. The first relates to increasing use of bio-diesel. This has been suspended as, surprise, the production of bio-diesel is not presently sustainable because of the destruction of rain forest or diversion of land from food production in order to grow the crops from which it is produced. The second is very interesting - converting delivery fleets to cleaner EURO IV and V standard engines by 2012. This is very easy to achieve as follows: All large transport fleets regularly replace their vehicles - typically a three or four year life. They will replace their vehicles with new ones from manufacturers. Legally new vehicles MUST comply with this legislation. Ergo the fleet will automatically be upgraded to these standards anyway.
Finally for now, a couple more amusing objectives:
The objective was to label all airfreighted food. This objective has been achieved. They proudly announce that sales have not been affected - hence no benefit to anyone or the environment - pointless.
A plan has been stated to install electric charging points at stores to enable people to use so called 'environmentally friendly' electric cars. They have over seven hundred stores in the UK so how many will get charging points? Five. Again pointless, but at least when they find that no one uses them there will have been little impact on the environment installing them.
More posts on this topic to come, if I can't get the company themselves to listen to me perhaps a larger audience looking at these claims can have more impact.
Which company? If you hadn't yet guessed, they claim there is no Plan B and all the documents from which I have derived their claims are freely available from their website.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Misleading Advertising
Once again I am drawn to comment on what I would describe as misleading advertising to dupe the unsuspecting public.
In the paper I saw an advert for a shower gel product, with the European Eco-Label displayed. They show on the label of the product that it contains no Parabens, Colourants, Phthalates, or Phenoxyethanol.
All very good and we are to presume these are bad for the environment so it is laudable that the product does not contain them.
It all goes wrong however when I look at my standard supermarket own brand shower gel, and guess what? Despite making no bold environmental claims, it too has none of these ingredients in the product.
What is more, it is probably between one third and one sixth of the price of the 'Eco-Label' product depending upon the offers in force and by being supplied in larger bottles it is more economical on packaging.
Beware Eco claims, they may not be all they seem!
In the paper I saw an advert for a shower gel product, with the European Eco-Label displayed. They show on the label of the product that it contains no Parabens, Colourants, Phthalates, or Phenoxyethanol.
All very good and we are to presume these are bad for the environment so it is laudable that the product does not contain them.
It all goes wrong however when I look at my standard supermarket own brand shower gel, and guess what? Despite making no bold environmental claims, it too has none of these ingredients in the product.
What is more, it is probably between one third and one sixth of the price of the 'Eco-Label' product depending upon the offers in force and by being supplied in larger bottles it is more economical on packaging.
Beware Eco claims, they may not be all they seem!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Chinese Lanterns
More and more these days we are seeing these pesky chinese lanterns. They are launched at weddings, parties, in fact any time when someone has got them without any particular reason.
I think they should be banned on a number of grounds, and this is just from personal knowledge - there may be other reasons that I haven't thought of.
Firstly, it seems that they never burn out completely, so even those with 'biodegradable' frames rather than metal wires will still come to earth in some form. The metal frames are litter that is dangerous to animals and children that come across them, but even the new biodegradable frames are potentially hazardous and can remain around for a long time.
Secondly, the fire risk. I have seen a chinese lantern, still burining, land on the roof of a nearby house. This was likely to be the result of a downdraft which exceeded the lantern's ability to rise. Fortunately it sat on the tiles and burned out without causing any damage- how different that could have been if it had landed on say a plastic gutter, thatched roof, or perhaps a dry crop in a farmer's field? There could have been massive and expensive fire damage.
Then of course we have the calls to the emergency services after people are convinced they have seen distress flares, aircraft going down in flames or in some cases, they are convinced these are aliens flying over.
Finally for now, as a pilot I have never had the misfortune to encounter one whilst airborne, but there are clearly two concerns. Firstly there is the possible damage, though unlikely, if one or more lanterns are ingested by an aircraft engine - the metal framed ones will be worse here. Secondly, the potential distraction caused to the crew if one suddenly comes into their field of view and they have to quickly identify it. Here I speak from experience of flying around bonfire night, with around 500 litres of high octane fuel in tanks either side of me, and questioning how high fireworks can get! The simple answer is that I climbed another 1,000 feet just to be sure but these lanterns can get very high depending on the weather conditions. I wouldn't want to experience that!
I think they should be banned on a number of grounds, and this is just from personal knowledge - there may be other reasons that I haven't thought of.
Firstly, it seems that they never burn out completely, so even those with 'biodegradable' frames rather than metal wires will still come to earth in some form. The metal frames are litter that is dangerous to animals and children that come across them, but even the new biodegradable frames are potentially hazardous and can remain around for a long time.
Secondly, the fire risk. I have seen a chinese lantern, still burining, land on the roof of a nearby house. This was likely to be the result of a downdraft which exceeded the lantern's ability to rise. Fortunately it sat on the tiles and burned out without causing any damage- how different that could have been if it had landed on say a plastic gutter, thatched roof, or perhaps a dry crop in a farmer's field? There could have been massive and expensive fire damage.
Then of course we have the calls to the emergency services after people are convinced they have seen distress flares, aircraft going down in flames or in some cases, they are convinced these are aliens flying over.
Finally for now, as a pilot I have never had the misfortune to encounter one whilst airborne, but there are clearly two concerns. Firstly there is the possible damage, though unlikely, if one or more lanterns are ingested by an aircraft engine - the metal framed ones will be worse here. Secondly, the potential distraction caused to the crew if one suddenly comes into their field of view and they have to quickly identify it. Here I speak from experience of flying around bonfire night, with around 500 litres of high octane fuel in tanks either side of me, and questioning how high fireworks can get! The simple answer is that I climbed another 1,000 feet just to be sure but these lanterns can get very high depending on the weather conditions. I wouldn't want to experience that!
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