Gas has no long term future

Get PV solar on as much of your roof as you can.

Next, ideally, use electricity when the sun is shining but each appliance one at a time - consecutively.

We are slowly getting more electricity from renewables, unlike depleting gas which has a shorter lifespan than renewables. Gas is also bad news because of the Ukraine War.

to David Morris re water meters

Hi David

We talked about water meters at church, yesterday.  When we got one many years ago, at least Jonathan was still living with us, if not Becky as well.  Our water bill definitely went down from £30/mth to, I think, £20+.  Now, with living on our own, earlier this year the DD went down from £18/mth to £17.50/mth from S Staffs Water.

Our Nov 2013 purchase of 24 PV panels has made us loads and loads of luverly MONEY!!  I was so glad I put them on Les Hardwick's house, too in Feb 2014.  He and the present young mum living there both benefitted and she is, too.  I was so sorry I could not do it on your dad's roof.  My solar electrician was so overwhelmed with work he switched off his phone and, then, your dad changed his mind.  However, even with no FIT payments it is even more worth doing if your dad can switch to electric heating and cooking, as we have done.  It sounds as though you and Ruth will, one day, move into dad's house and will benefit if you, this time, pay for the max PV panels you can fit on E, W, S rooves (even N, as I saw in Dornoch, Scotland!).  Or, I can lend you the money (or part).  With low inflation, the cost has gone down.  The cost in 2013 was £8,000 and Les's bill was £6,000 for his fewer panels the following year.  The cost of energy is now very quickly rising and thus inflation must be pushing up prices of PV, plus rising demand for them, too.

For Linda and I last month, Octopus wanted £11.50 for elecy and £15 for gas, including VAT.  It will rocket in the winter, of course.  This month's bill will come in shortly.

All the best and thanks for all your hard work in leadership on a Sunday morning.  Much appreciated.

Herschel and PV - a magic combination!

We have three portable panel heaters from Herschel for three different rooms.  No more Russian or American gas for our central heating.  Herschel are just tops, especially when we can use them with our 24 panel solar array and six batteries in the garage for evening warmth.  In recent days, we've had too much generation.  But how will get on with the cold spell coming up?  No problem!  We will live within what we can generate by careful housekeeping; lagging ourselves with layers if we need extra warmth.  We are nearly off-grid thanks to Herschel and PV!

to Stuart Croft of national FoE

Dear Stuart - and copied to Chris Crean and other VIP FoE members

Thanks very much for your reply.  Your:

​"Things we can do to reduce greenhouse gases​"​

is excellent.  From https://policy.friendsoftheearth.uk/policy-positions/reducing-greenhouse-gases-our-position

And, I am promoting it to my own council, Dudley MBC in the Open Forum agenda item for the public to have their say at some committee meetings.

I want to emphasise the importance of solar PV for energy independence that FoE really should be promoting, urgently, in the light of humanity's latest war on itself and the ongoing war on nature and finite resources.

I wrote this to a friend:-

"Thanks to solar PV, we are now able to get out of gas almost completely.  Like you, we have gone to electric space heating with Herschel infrared panels for warmth and, for me but not my wife, boiling up water for washing!  (Herschel gives us our "low carbon electric eco-heating"  - from your website, above.)

"Solar PV is so much more useful, it seems to me than going for heat pumps.  You then have to live within PV's capacity to deliver electricity, however.  But it does mean that every home, office, factory is turned into a mini power station to supply power to the people under the roof.  A lovely concept!"

I have just worked out that over the last 8 years of having PV, I've averaged electricity generation of 4.7 MWh/year.  Having very nearly stopped using gas, I'm now exporting much less for others to use, of course.  

Every roof must be a mini power station.

Best wishes and thanks again for writing, Stuart.

Power to the People

I feel absolutely great because I get my electricity from my 24 PV solar panels with battery storage for evening power.  It's called power to the people from my roof and I'm independent of Russian, American and North Sea gas.  Go and do thou likewise, my friends!

JUST BUILD MORE HOMES LIKE MINE - not nuclear power stations

The thing is very high in greenhouse gas emissions during construction - like High Scam 2 and Metro trams - but very low when generating over the lifetime of the station (25 years?).  When does the one cancel out the other?  But then there must be some greenhouse gases emitted in decommissioning over the years.

The whole thing is counterproductive.  And threatened by sea-level rise.  And, totally unnecessary, as well if we only could go for PV on every suitable roof, every other renewables, energy efficiency and were much less greedy and extravagant in our unsustainable lifestyles.

Unfortunately, more greenhouse gases (GHG) are emitted in construction than they can possibly save, eventually in having low carbon electricity from the thing.

No one knows how many years of generation must take place before the greenhouse gases in construction are eventually cancelled out.

Instead, every building a mini-power station, like my home!  Thanks to PV solar panels and storage batteries.

DEMOCRACY BRINGS: Rotten Rule from Right Wing Conservative and Labour Councils and Governments

1. Fully support the UK's 8 tax havens for the super-rich to maintain their greed and selfishness.
2. For 40 years, this year, have unanimously supported the reinstatement of their earlier obliteration of the tram network by putting it on the railway network that they also destroyed with the trams and, with the bizarre conviction, that cars, vans, lorries, homes, offices and shops must run down the railway lines but never ever trains.
3. Since 2009 have fully supported the move for frequent flyers to have the option of flying through the air on land, as well as the air, by the gift of High Scam 2 that only stops at the Four Big Cities and two of their airports.  Some High Scam trains may also stop at Crewe, Toton, Chesterfield and Sheffield.
4. Fully supported their friends who, in the 90s and 00s, fought against allowing Dudley Muslims from upgrading their Central Mosque from an externally shabby Grade 2 listed primary school building into a purpose-built mosque that would also have been available for the rest of the non-Muslim community.
5. This is now the fifth decade of every MP and every councillor of every party, except the one-term Green Party councillor, who have all wanted and fully supported NOT the reinstatement of Dudley Castle Hill railway station to finish the already built, 120  Kms (74 miles) principal, mainline Black Country Railway but, wait for it, a piddling little tram stop, of all things!!
6. Yet, many want city status for Dudley borough.  A city for the largest town in the UK without a railway station!
7. Following the very bad example of Wyre Forest DC in wasting resources and adding to the runaway greenhouse effect, Dudley MBC is also moving their 1980s (?) and popular leisure centre all of one kilometre from the edge of town to the centre of town!
8. These right-wing politicians and planners think this is the best way to regenerate Dudley town centre - with tram stops and a brand new leisure centre - rather than highly energy efficient, small to moderate-sized homes that are very cheap to heat, have PV solar and allow the countryside to be used for farming to feed us all.
9. Trams to have more Dudley shoppers shopping at Merry Hill instead of in their own shops.
10. One billion pounds of greenhouse gases is being built, not to insulate every building in the borough but to bring glitzy, glamorous, over-indulgent, super-flash, wealth flaunting everything else.  Super immature, super-dopey and misguided.
11. No cycle-walkway on even one side of Duncan Edwards Way.  Only a tramway next to the important, wasted railway line!
12. The 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway remains just that!

THE WELLER PLAN FOR CLIMATE ACTION

LET'S GET OUR REGION BACK ON (WAY OFF now) TRACK to postpone climate calamity

UNLEASH OUR POTENTIAL TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST CLIMATE DISASTER

ANDY'S PLAN in black

100,000 good-quality jobs for business as usual to head us in the wrong direction on climate.

Massive progress on our transport plan.  Dudley's 7th railway line destroyed.

Thousands of new homes on brownfield sites.  Passivhaus standard.

Championing the West Midlands every day.  Action on preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.

WELLER'S PLAN

100,000 JOBS for insulating every building, PV panels on every E, W, S, roof.

Massive immoral spending ENDED on trams to replace buses and trains.

Every home must be a mini power station like mine.

Championing radical business action on the climate emergency every day.

WE'VE WON £1.05 BN OF GOVT CASH TO IMPROVE TRANSPORT IN THE WM says Amore railway stations

more bus improvements

more Metro stops

more cycling infrastructure

Weller says  get the stations and trains back on our mothballed and freight only railways - 106 Kms!

Extend Fare-Free Public Transport to EVERYONE.

No more obscene, immoral spending on Metro that makes public transport slower with more changes.

END the disgraceful 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway shambles.      

Solar Panels on NextDoor Hasbury

From what the climate scientists have found, the runaway greenhouse effect means, for our own survival, we have to urgently get out of burning oil and gas. There will be shortages by the end of the century, too. That leaves only renewable energy and wood. Buy your energy from a 100% renewable supplier. I would urge everyone to put PV solar panels on every sq cm of E, W, S facing rooves/roofs. You then use electrical items, one after the other when the sun shines or during the daytime. My E/W roof is completely covered with 24 panels and we get lots of free electricity and export the excess to the national grid for others to use. Check out: info@yougen.co.uk and research their website. Let me know, please what you conclude. THANKS! Tim Weller 4 Sept 2020

From alarming news about the ecological crisis (Covid is one) we have to urgently get out of fossil fuels when, anyway, oil and gas reserves are becoming exhausted. Electricity from renewables is urgent, even though new people who fit PV solar will not get FiT payments. "Currently the FiT scheme pays domestic and commercial green energy producers for the electricity they generate and export to the grid. The closure follows the announcement in 2015, that new generation tariffs would be stopped in March 2019." from: https://www.power-technology.com/features/end-feed-tariffs-uk-mean-small-scale-renewables/ "We can't shop our way out of this problem ... no more consumerism", said Jane Fonda on Radio 4, 'Today' this morning. But, we do have to shop for PV! 9 Sept 2020

JANE FONDA is doing what she can

From alarming news about the ecological crisis (Covid is one) we have to urgently get out of fossil fuels when, anyway, oil and gas reserves are becoming exhausted. Electricity from renewables is urgent, even though new people who fit PV solar will not get FiT payments. "Currently the FiT scheme pays domestic and commercial green energy producers for the electricity they generate and export to the grid. The closure follows the announcement in 2015, that new generation tariffs would be stopped in March 2019."

from: https://www.power-technology.com/features/end-feed-tariffs-uk-mean-small-scale-renewables/ "We can't shop our way out of this problem ... no more consumerism", said Jane Fonda on Radio 4, 'Today' this morning. But, we do have to shop for PV!

WMCA declaring a climate emergency is pointless and hypocritical without GREEN ACTION!

“The more we spend, the more we burn up fossil fuels, it seems to me.  Have I got this right?” SELF, 16 Feb 2019

“More or less right! … ”  SIR JONATHON PORRITT, 17 Feb 2019

For me, the first green action is to scrap pointless Metro expansion that involves, for five schemes, over £1.5 billion of fossil fuel burning to make for more ecocidal greenhouse gases, tipping points passed and extinction of all life.

Use the money to get Andy's wish: "the West Midlands will have the first clean bus fleet outside of London by 2021." 

FINISH with the widespread thinking that closed urban railway lines are for conversion to buildings, roads and tram lines.

Instead, urgent action on using our train lines for commuter and regional trains, not trams.

Scrap over £300 m Sprint diesels on only three routes and use Metro and Sprint money to urgently bring in fareless, ELECTRIC buses for all.

100% bus lanes on dual carriageways, traffic light priority for buses to speed them on their way at the expense of car commuters and car shoppers.  To free up road space for essential vehicles.

Reward, with payments those whose school run is on foot or cycle - or motorbike!

Upgrading every towpath and cycle-walkway to give them a hard, free draining, all weather surface for responsible shared use.

Every E,W, S facing roof to have PV panels to make the building a mini power station for free electricity.

Start thinking that maybe, it is as anti social jumping in the car or, burning natural gas and oil or, entering a plane, as those who smoke in public.

Lag yourself and your home.

OTHER THINGS TO DO:

 My Andy Street newsheet for him to copy!