Surviving the End of the Oil Age

Gurgle

rooferPete wrote:

As to your real point as to whether Ireland can be self sufficient I honestly doubt it especially with the morons in Government and the high up Civil Servents who are the people who really make the decisions.

tbh, its entirely because of government strategy over the last 50 years that we're not already self-sufficient. Theres all kinds of energy solutions available now that could replace oil. Oil has already reached a supply vs demand situation that would make these solutions economic, but government policy is to have people burning oil rather than use renewable energy.

Examples are heat pumps and solar panels. Both require larger initial investment than an oil burner but both are much more efficient to run. VAT is charged at 21%, while home heating oil is 13.9%.

Would it be scandalous to suggest that oil companies make donations to political parties in every 'democracy' in the world ?

CJhaughey

As I have already stated in green issues, Ireland is unique amongst EU countries in having a reverse carbon tax when it comes to renewables and oil.

Gurgle: not so sure about Heat pumps yet, jury is still out on long term running costs of big pumps.
Far better to insulate properly in the first instance and negate the need for large inputs.

rooferPete

Hi,

I have to agree with CJ,

Regardless of the heating / cooling system being installed there is no investment that will show a high return from day 1 and will continue to do so for the life of the building like good insulation.

I also agree about the true cost of running heat pumps, to me they operate like a stealth tax by using electricity, I have yet to find a supplier who agreed about the amount of power needed.

Regarding our government I honestly believe history will show they have wasted what was probably the best opportunity Ireland ever had to become self sufficient in the past ten years.

We have the educated population many who returned from exhile with knowledge and skills based on both the mistakes and success they have seen abroad, but they have been left to go it alone.

I believe if anybody is willing to appear so radically different in their construction methods like straw bale houses or houses that appear to exceed the regulation standards for insulation by three or four times the accepted level.

There was a great chance to encourage such one off systems by grant aid if only granting vat exemptions it may have been enough to have the people allow real energy research to be carried out on their home while it is lived in.

A lost opportunity ?

.

Gaillimhtaibhse

Mike_C wrote:

END OF THE OIL AGE
3) are the alternatives likely to produce enough energy to meet our current fuel demands

As price of oil goes up...alternative sources of energy and their developmental costs become feasible. Let's hear it for fuel cell technology! Hydrogen? Biproduct: Water (not smog).

CJhaughey

Pete:
I agree this will show as a wasted decade for efficient housing, and is nothing short of criminal particularly in light of the massive profits made by builders.
It is not as if the technology isn't there it has been common in many EU countries for the last 20 yrs.
There are many insidious methods used by the DOE in order to facilitate the concrete industry, including an unwritten order that timber framed houses need to be clad in block in order to qualify for section 23 tax relief.
I really feel sorry for many peole that have been forced to buy substandard housing and pay through the nose for it.
Gaillimhtaibhse:
as energy costs rise everything goes up including the manufacturing costs for alternative technology,
It is a vicious circle. I don't think that Fuel cell is quite ready yet it still needs a lot of electricity in order to produce hydrogen.
In spite of radical theories if even 50% of houses built in the last 10yrs had been made to low energy regulations than we would not have haf the problems meeting our agreements under Kyoto.
a footnote, Ireland is the first country in the EU to set up Carbon tradingany guesses why?

Capt'n Midnight

Oil prices are fairly low at the moment in historical terms. Two big uses are heating and transport. ( Fertilizer production is about 1% BTW )

Heating could be drastically reduced drastically by building more energy efficient homes. Here we still give top rating to houses without thermostats in the living rooms - no feedback means it you have the heating on all the time.

Transport, hybrid diesel-electric cars would be the first step. Real world tests show that hybrid petrol-electric aren't much better than diesels due to the inneficiency of petrol engines (also add the extra power used in the refinery to convert diesel / LNG into petrol IIRC it's another 5% or so)

CHP/communal heating should be looked at more for places like cement factoriesand power stations that gernerate waste amounts of waste heat.

In this country we could grow oil rich algae / use tidal power / hydrolyse waste ( 300c / 200ATM NaOH ) to generate oil and gas from garbage - but these technologies will only come on line if pressure to do so from carbon tax / oil prices.

Johnee

There's a piece in today's Guardian about a UK study suggesting wave power could supply 20% of their energy by the end of the decade. If they have the waves in Scotland to do this, surely our west coast is also a perfect site for development.

Not that I expect any R&D from the government, but if the British do it, there might be a chance we could follow?

RooferPete, you've made some good points about the cost of installing systems in homes. It's very confusing for someone like me who wants to install a non-oil-dependent system but finds it virtually impossible to find any reliable figures on cost, output, etc of the alternative systems. There needs to be some better regulation or research to make it more obvious to prospective customers as to which is the best solution for them.

For example, I cant put in a wood boiler because of problems with access for deliveries, storage, etc. But its impossible to distinguish which of the alternatives is better. Heat pumps? How much electricity do they use for what return? Solar? Im in a great position for sun, but what really is the output of PV panels? Biofuels? Do they even do home heating yet? Its a mess and the sooner someone makes it easier for the masses to figure out, the better.

rooferPete

Hi Johnee,

The Uk web site ClearSkies.co.uk (maybe .org) has some very good links to places where the actual figures are proven, a note of caution and I know this appears counter productive but don't take every system that was Clear Skies (grant approved) as being the best.

I was offered an agency for a solar system made in the UK and one of their big marketing points was they were approved by Clear Skies, the truly sad thing is the system is not worth the grant let alone the total cost because it is supposed to defy gravity.

Maybe they weren't expecting someone who investigates the systems to be the agent because they are of the belief that our govenment will be giving grants soon and will use the British Standard.

So it's a business open to investors who don't understand the systems, they are just looking at the profit margin, don't get me wrong I do look at the profit margin but only when I have found a system that works.

I agree our standards authority should be doing their job and making life easier for the consumer, these systems should not depend on the basis that the sales person was very nice to deal with.

As you have pointed out hard facts that are proven will make it easier for you to buy and the likes of me to sell, or if the product is not up to standard they get left on the shelf.

.

GreeBo

CJhaughey wrote:

Squire1
Wood is carbon neutral.
It releases exactly the same CO2 that it absorbed to grow in the first instance.

Yep, at the end of the world it wont have produced any CO2, but the CO2 that is in wood now is not in the atmosphere.
If we burn it all then there will be an increase in the "free" CO2 levels, its still neutral when the earth is taken as a whole, but for you and me and everything else thats alive its an important distinction.

CJhaughey

Any tree that falls and rots will release exactly the same amount of CO2 as burning would.
Ergo wood is carbon neutral.
The CO2 will end up in the atmosphere the same way.

GreeBo

yep, but there will be other trees sucking it back in, if we burn them all there wont.

squire1

Sorry guys, the point I was trying to make was that burning wood is not a viable alternative to burning oil. There is not enough to go around.

Burning wood is fine in an ecological sense if the wood is being replaced at the same rate that it is being burnt but what land developers do you know that are going to give up their land banks to reforestation.

Evergreen

CJhaughey wrote:

Why do people have to look at wood pellet stoves?
The energy used to transport wood to and from the factory and the energy involved in the creation of the pellets are all factors that need to be worked in to the equation.
If people simply burnt wood blocks there would be a whole sequence of energy usage taken out of the equation.
The masses aren't kept in the dark many simply choose to ignore the mounting evidence.

Hi CJ,

You can already get central heating systems that run on logs and blocks of wood, my brother installed one just a few weeks ago. It's easy to use, just fill the fuel chamber every morning and it provides heat for house and hot water for a 24 hours. Highly efficent system that can heat the house without having to heat the hotwater tank or visa versa, you can even have different heat circuits (i.e. a granny flat with it's on termostat control).

Ned

Evergreen

squire1 wrote:

Sorry guys, the point I was trying to make was that burning wood is not a viable alternative to burning oil. There is not enough to go around.

Burning wood is fine in an ecological sense if the wood is being replaced at the same rate that it is being burnt but what land developers do you know that are going to give up their land banks to reforestation.

Hi Squire,

The idea behind wood pellets is that the wood is replaced, the pellets come from 2 different places, 1). from waste timber products produced from sawmills and forestery industries, and 2) Wood grown by farmers in the form of fast growing willow plantations. Willow grows quickley is easily converted into pellet form and then the farmer plants his next crop in a new field.

Forestery products can also be used to fire log boiler systems, these come in the form of thinnings that are taken from forest during the growing cycle. Again, the farmers re-seed harvested area with new trees when the time is right. In countries like Austria where they have large forestery industries and approx 50% of home heating is provided for by timber products.

As to developers giving up land for re-forestation, this is happening at an increasing rate in Ireland (althoug it is a slow rate) due to grants offered from Government and EU level. I'm not certain, but I think Ireland has approx 13% of land covered with trees which is up quite a bit from 20 years ago even if it is still well behind other EU countires.

The cost of wood products makes it very viable for domestic users when oil and wood pellets are compared on a kW/h per kW/h basis. The average price of 1000 litres of oil at the moment is about EUR 680, the get the same amount of heat from wood pellets you need 2 tonnes of pellets. Bulk deliveries of pellets cost EUR 165 per tonne delivered, you can do the maths yourself.

Ned

squire1

Could current pellet production keep pace if everyone switched from oil to pellets? Demand increase, shortage, price increase yada yada yada.

Evergreen

Current pellet production could not keep pace with demand, in fact current Irish production is already being out-stripped by demand. The Governement is offering producers grants to expand production at the moment but in the meantime fuel yards have to import pellets from places like Poland and Germany to fill the gap and it will probably be a few more years before production catches up with demand.

At present if everybody wanted to switch over to pellet central heating systems they would not be able mainly due to the fact that boiler producers do not have capacity. Our company imports pellet boilers and pellet stoves and our suppliers have an 8 week leadtime due to the increasing demand. In fact the 3 suppliers we import boiler and stoves from have each been increasing their manufacturing capacity by an average of 25% each year for the last 7 to 8 years. I have spoken to other importers and they have similar problems from their suppliers, so I think that it would be a very slow converstion process at the very best.

Gurgle

squire1 wrote:

Could current pellet production keep pace if everyone switched from oil to pellets? Demand increase, shortage, price increase yada yada yada.

It could, but would the manufacturers do it?
Business is all about profit margins, would you trust your average multinational corporation to re-invest enough of their profits to regrow their forests?
If it gets really competitive, thats the first expense they'll start to cut.

By far the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world is ITAIPU, a project jointly developed by Brazil and Paraguay. With a capacity of 12,600 megawatts (MW), it produced a record 89 million MWh of electric power in 1997 - 26.4% of the total demand of Brazil and 79% of Paraguay

This single plant generates 3 times the total power generated by the ESB in Ireland.

But it appears to be policy in most of the world not to bother with alternative technology until the oil runs out. Even building new plants, they don't seem to take life-span into account. We're still getting 86MW from Ardnacrusha, built in the 1920s. An oil burning plant is going to have no fuel in 80 years.

Evergreen

Gurgle wrote:

It could, but would the manufacturers do it?
Business is all about profit margins, would you trust your average multinational corporation to re-invest enough of their profits to regrow their forests?
If it gets really competitive, thats the first expense they'll start to cut.

That is a good comment, however, thankfully that is not the way it is setup to work. You have the pellet making company operating like a creamery, they contract farmers to grow willow for them at a set price. The farmer harvests his crops and brings it to the pellet company for converstion.

prospect

Johnee wrote:

It's very confusing for someone like me who wants to install a non-oil-dependent system but finds it virtually impossible to find any reliable figures on cost, output, etc of the alternative systems. There needs to be some better regulation or research to make it more obvious to prospective customers as to which is the best solution for them.

Yes,
I built 2 years ago, and tried in vein to come up with a highly efficient heating system.
But, it was near impossible to get some good solid info, and I ended up with quite the opposite, a massive oil bill every 6 weeks! :mad: