Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[Mr. Dazzle]

Find a big factory anywhere making stuff which isn't subsidised either through cash injections or favourable tax rates. Tis the way its always been.

[Taipan]

[ZRX61]

People making good money here stealing the cables, is the any reason not to park with the cable under a tire?

[Felix]

People making good money here stealing the cables, is the any reason not to park with the cable under a tire?

Fucker a couple of streets away has not got to worry about folk nicking the cable its me hitting the fucker with an axe. Posh side of town and he drags it up a drive to the street. Over a pavement and into his fucking car. This is a street with doctor surgery traffic so plenty old folk or infirm to trip up. Ignorant prick.

[Mussels]

People making good money here stealing the cables, is the any reason not to park with the cable under a tire?

If the cable isn't designed for that then it could break pretty quickly, a simple answer could be to make a small steel tunnel, put the cable under it and park on that

[Rockburner]

Heating you mean?

Kinda illustrates how much power an ICE wastes too, you can run those systems off of what the engine is chucking away in the bin

Found it... I knew someone had mentioned this fact - that ICE engines are basically a heat source.

Would you believe someone once "invented" a petrol engine/steam hybrid based on that exact principle?

I was just reading the Norton Owners club mag and they're doing a series on weird engines, and have come across Granville Bradshaw's 6-cylinder two-stroke/steam hybrid. It was a two-stroke triple that heated the water in an all-encompassing water jacket, which then fed a 3-cylinder steam engine. Apparantly it was supposed to have a "self-regulating" throttle for the two-stoke half based on steam pressure.

[Count Steer]

Some years ago we installed a CHP system at a local swimming pool (Peckham iirc). It was basically a little Fiat car engine running on natural gas. The engine drove a generator and the leccy was used for lighting etc, the heat went into the pool. Worked pretty well with gas prices being what they were at the time. I think it might have been the first such installation in the UK.

The Shell building on the South Bank used to do something clever with waste heat but, again iirc, used to dump excess heat into the Thames. Probably had a shoal of neon tetras and manatees living there.

I suppose a nuclear plant is basically a big kettle too.

[Mr. Dazzle]

My old flat, part of a development of maybe 500 homes, a big super market and a load of smaller shops, had its own CHP.

Big piston engine running on natural gas making leccy at a constant output, it also gave/took from the grid as necessary. We received water which was "a bit" warm for heating.

[cheb]

One of my part thought out never realised half cocked ideas was to heat and part power my house with a Lister CS running on used veg oil. Running the generator at full load and using the cooling water and possibly scavenged waste exhaust heat for the house hot water needs, any excess heat or power being dumped into buried heated water pipes outside.

[Count Steer]

My old flat, part of a development of maybe 500 homes, a big super market and a load of smaller shops, had its own CHP.

Big piston engine running on natural gas making leccy at a constant output, it also gave/took from the grid as necessary. We received water which was "a bit" warm for heating.

We did something along those lines with a small district heating scheme for a bunch of new-build retirement bungalows but, at that time, I don't think you could feed surplus electricity into the grid so I think it was sized accordingly. The supermarket link is a good idea as there's always demand for the chillers/freezers.

New build is ideal for that sort of thing. It irritates a bit when you see all the missed opportunities on some big housing developments. 1 poxy panel on the roof of each house, just to tick a box, no ground or air heat pumps, no 'district' anything etc etc.

[ZRX61]

Heating you mean?

Kinda illustrates how much power an ICE wastes too, you can run those systems off of what the engine is chucking away in the bin

Found it... I knew someone had mentioned this fact - that ICE engines are basically a heat source.

Would you believe someone once "invented" a petrol engine/steam hybrid based on that exact principle?

I was just reading the Norton Owners club mag and they're doing a series on weird engines, and have come across Granville Bradshaw's 6-cylinder two-stroke/steam hybrid. It was a two-stroke triple that heated the water in an all-encompassing water jacket, which then fed a 3-cylinder steam engine. Apparantly it was supposed to have a "self-regulating" throttle for the two-stoke half based on steam pressure.

How about Smokey Yunnick's vapor cycle engine?

[slowhare]

I was just reading the Norton Owners club mag and they're doing a series on weird engines, …

How about Smokey Yunnick's vapor cycle engine?

Or this shed Built: 'Radial Nerve' - 360cc 7 cylinder radial engine

(edit) bugger, not displaying

youtube.com/shorts/wZPdZbKAGCw?feature=share

[Potter]

New build is ideal for that sort of thing. It irritates a bit when you see all the missed opportunities on some big housing developments. 1 poxy panel on the roof of each house, just to tick a box, no ground or air heat pumps, no 'district' anything etc etc.

That's hit problems everywhere in the world that I've been involved or seen it done.
The district heating/cooling plant, the owners/occupiers, the developers and the energy companies all have different agendas.

Then you throw in energy saving companies who make gains for the end user and in one example I saw the district plant fined the end users for low delta-T because they were using a lot less energy. This sparked a chain reaction where the plant then made 'efficiencies' and the end users then tried to sue the plant for not supplying the right temps

It has to be very tightly governed, they're all in it to make money (or save money) and each element in the chain needs to be balanced, if it's left to normal market forces then it's a bun fight.

[Count Steer]

New build is ideal for that sort of thing. It irritates a bit when you see all the missed opportunities on some big housing developments. 1 poxy panel on the roof of each house, just to tick a box, no ground or air heat pumps, no 'district' anything etc etc.

That's hit problems everywhere in the world that I've been involved or seen it done.
The district heating/cooling plant, the owners/occupiers, the developers and the energy companies all have different agendas.

Yeah, it does require a bit of joined up thinking. The bungalows I mentioned worked pretty well as it was a Local Authority build of OAP housing so everything was 'under one roof' rather than developer/home owners/energy co. etc (It was in the 80s - when they still did that sort of thing). It can work pretty well for mixed developments like Universities (labs/lecture theatres/ student accommodation/sports hall etc if they're campus based).

However, we also spent a fair bit of time leak chasing on old sites with district heating. Wandering around, usually at night, with an infra-red camera looking for warm areas of ground. Made a change from chasing gas leaks.

[Potter]

Yeah, it does require a bit of joined up thinking.

I've never seen it work well anywhere tbh, even when it was government run from start to finish, the government in question got in trouble for putting meters in that ran at 1.5x and inflated the bills, they said they calibrated them wrong by accident. It was like a pantomime, the residents bought in a private contractor who re-fitted flow meters upside down so they ran backwards

Trying to explain the algorithms and psychrometrics to angry people on all sides who thought they were all being cheated was fun. It's one area of business that I said I wouldn't fancy getting involved in again.

[Noggin]

I've not read up on this until just now (not sure why not ) but up here we have a biomass heating plant. Which apparently provides 90% of the resort energy - I'm guessing to the buildings/machines owned by the resort not hte private stuff, cos I definitely pay EDF for electric, although heating is within the building charges, so maybe that comes from it!

I suppose, that, in a wooded area it's better to use the fallen trees that can't be used for building, to make energy/heating?

Kinda cool really.

And, most of the electric in the big town int he valley comes from the water off the mountains; ok, still EDF but at least when CoolBus charges their electric transfer vehicles, they are doing it with electricity that has been created using water rather than the less green method? (You can tell I don't know much about this?!! )

Energy is really the essential issue. We look for it, look after it and produce it in a way that does not deplete the planet’s resources. In Plagne Centre, a biomass heating plant has been in operation since 2009. Using vegetal matter (mostly wood), it supplies 90% of the resort’s energy, i.e. around 50 buildings, including hotels, restaurants, offices and apartments, etc. Installed at about 2000 m above sea level, it is an original construction that has proved its worth.

In terms of transport, the tourist office has opted to use electric vehicles. In partnership with Hyundai, tourist office employees no longer emit greenhouse gases as they travel around.

https://en.la-plagne.com/our-mountain-o ... activities

[Count Steer]

Yeah, it does require a bit of joined up thinking.

I've never seen it work well anywhere tbh, even when it was government run from start to finish, the government in question got in trouble for putting meters in that ran at 1.5x and inflated the bills, they said they calibrated them wrong by accident. It was like a pantomime, the residents bought in a private contractor who re-fitted flow meters upside down so they ran backwards

Trying to explain the algorithms and psychrometrics to angry people on all sides who thought they were all being cheated was fun. It's one area of business that I said I wouldn't fancy getting involved in again.

It can get a bit 'knotty' if the landlord is charging specifically for metered heat/energy.

(The OAP site just had documented service levels and it was all bundled into rent).

Bit of a digression but my team worked on another LA development of 'cutting edge, low energy, architect designed OAP bungalows (trombe walls etc etc). Our Chairman visits for a photo op...looks around, looks at me and says 'Where's the fireplace? Old people like to sit around by a fire'. We had to design a completely new long, horizontal run, powered flue - with all the safety cut outs so if the power went off, the gas went off etc - so they could install gas fires where he thought they should be.

[demographic]

Bit of a digression but my team worked on another LA development of 'cutting edge, low energy, architect designed OAP bungalows (trombe walls etc etc). Our Chairman visits for a photo op...looks around, looks at me and says 'Where's the fireplace? Old people like to sit around by a fire'. We had to design a completely new long, horizontal run, powered flue - with all the safety cut outs so if the power went off, the gas went off etc - so they could install gas fires where he thought they should be.

How well did the Trombe wall work, I assume it was painted black and behind glass on ths outside?
Seems a shame to build an ultra efficient building just so some berk can fit a feckin gas fire just so they had something to look at though eh?
If the place is a tually ultra efficient they'll just aboutbave to have the windows open to lose all the heat the gas fire gives out.

[Count Steer]

How well did the Trombe wall work, I assume it was painted black and behind glass on ths outside?
Seems a shame to build an ultra efficient building just so some berk can fit a feckin gas fire just so they had something to look at though eh?
If the place is a tually ultra efficient they'll just aboutbave to have the windows open to lose all the heat the gas fire gives out.

I think it's fair to say this was an early implementation and pretty basic cf modern low energy housing (it was the 80s). No air management/heat recovery/triple glazing. It was more of a Morse wall really. Substantial brick interior mass with a large glazed sloped roof on the sunny side. I think there was a small gas CH system. (We did co-design and test/get approved a system for starter homes called the 'Otter' - it keeps you 'otter - which was basically a finned, sleeved hot water storage tank which acted as a warm air unit/hot water supply but I don't think it was fitted in these places).

[Mr. Dazzle]

Our flat could only get energy from one supplier. I did do the maths at the time and ISTR it was the same prices as if we'd bought it on the open market. No idea how much we saved via the CHP because it was a new build which had always had CHP, so obviously no baseline was available.

We did have a 36hr period with neither power or hot water once though, but at least they forewarned us IIRC we just went away that weekend.