Moving on

Birchall said:
Yes, me too.

At least with an electric car is likely to get you OHM.
When people see them they say "Watt is that?"
Some electric cars are ugly though, I would almost say re"Volt"ing.
If the batteries keep going flat, does the dealer fix them "no charge"
If you plug them in the wrong way is that "misleading"?

Wire my going on like this.

I belong in a "Dry Cell" (padded)

Steve B
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Steady on... some bright spark may overcome some considerable resistance and be in like lightening with some more corny jokes! :D :D :D
 
Hi Dan,
I understand your reasoning of parting with your A2,
Good luck with the Volvo all My Upper managers have them.
Keep those solar panels Churning the power :)
 
But as the grid decarbonises (which it already has quite significantly) then electricity becomes less polluting at point of generation too thereby reducing the pollution burden of the electric transport.
Birchall said:
Just a "tongue in cheek" comment.

Electric cars are not emmision free when being used (let alone when being manufactured)
The electricity generators in the power station pollute (coal / gas or nuclear waste)

It is just that with an electric car the pollution is elsewhere (which is good for congested roads, but still poluting).

As I say, tongue in cheek.

Steve B
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Cheers all. Will be sad to see it go.
Solar panels are doing great since Feb, got 7kWh yesterday which covered all of the day's usage of PC, washing machine, dishwasher and heated my hot water tank!
I'm on the waiting list to install a new micro CHP gas boiler this year too to replace my shonky GlowWorm unit. It has a 1kW generator that operates whenever the boiler is running to heat the house. It all helps.
 
dan_b said:
But as the grid decarbonises (which it already has quite significantly) then electricity becomes less polluting at point of generation too thereby reducing the pollution burden of the electric transport.
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Surely whatever method is adopted there is pollution of some kind, solar power or wind / wave power being the exception, but they seem to be way off yet. They sometimes have a blight on the landscape too unfortunately.

But I do take your point and it is a good one, but we are not there yet.
I suppose that the more electric cars that are sold will help accelerate the switch away from carbon fuels.

Oh and as for the original subject, you will be sorely missed (and I guarantee that you wil sorely miss your A2 after a while too). But there are reasons for the move away and so I hope it works out for you.

It is not so long ago that people would snigger at someone buying a Volvo, but now they are fantastic cars.

I had the big V70 Estate and because it was a drivE (the super economical version) it returned over 50 MPG (more on a motorway run) and was only £90 to tax each year.
It was driven by the 1.6 diesel engine that was used in the BMW Mini and so you would have expected it to be slow, but amazingly it wasn't. I loaded it up once to the brim with a flat pack kitchen (lowered the car to the max that did) and yet it drove perfectly normally.
To achieve all of that from a 1.6 diesel engine is an amazing feat. So "hats off" to Volvo.

Steve B
 
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dan_b said:
Cheers all. Will be sad to see it go.
Solar panels are doing great since Feb, got 7kWh yesterday which covered all of the day's usage of PC, washing machine, dishwasher and heated my hot water tank!
I'm on the waiting list to install a new micro CHP gas boiler this year too to replace my shonky GlowWorm unit. It has a 1kW generator that operates whenever the boiler is running to heat the house. It all helps.
Click to expand...

Almost went for the Baxi Ecogen,Glad I didnt as everyone up here has been swopped out,Plus it was 5k!
Fuel cell ones look interesting
 
The Baxi CHP units were over complex for sure. These new Flow Boilers look much better.

Steve, I personally don't consider wind farms or solar panels to be an eyesore, but I do find large coal fired plants to be so!

The Murdoch media would have you believe renewables are a failed experiment, a waste of money and a generation failure but I can tell you they are not. We will still need and use gas plants for a long time but renewables now represent a substantial proportion of UK grid supply -about 15% when averaged over the year. Yes it is variable but it is possible to manage systems to accommodate variability of both supply and demand ( the UK has the worlds biggest pumped hydroelectric storage facility for example which was built to accommodate the generation inflexibility of nuclear power). As to subsidy - renewables are a nascent industry that's what subsidies are for. I'm happy to subsidise new industries. There is no argument though for the coal oil and gas industry to receive more than 5billion in subsidies in 2015 whilst saying that renewable subsidies are unaffordable. The last thing I will say is that this Govt has also totally failed on the nuclear power question. If the UK is to get new nuclear capacity, with the current plan of 3x different reactor designs being built at 3 different sites by 3 different consortia, we will end up with the worst outcome - no economy of scale or shared learnings resulting in efficiency savings, and currently one reactor design which has yet to be successfully commissioned anywhere in the world which has been guaranteed the highest electricity cost in history.
 
dan_b said:
Solar panels are doing great since Feb, got 7kWh yesterday which covered all of the day's usage of PC, washing machine, dishwasher and heated my hot water tank! I'm on the waiting list to install a new micro CHP gas boiler this year too to replace my shonky GlowWorm unit. It has a 1kW generator that operates whenever the boiler is running to heat the house. It all helps.
Click to expand...

dan_b said:
...as the grid decarbonises then electricity becomes less polluting at point of generation too thereby reducing the pollution burden of the electric transport.
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I was researching micro-CHP only yesterday. As I'm sure you're aware, they're far from carbon neutral because they burn fossil fuels like your standard combi boiler, but if you can harness the waste heat and turn it into electricity, why not do it!? As you rightly say, Dan, it all helps.
I'm currently in the process of investigating the feasibility of replacing the boiler entirely with an air-to-water heat pump. I'm lucky enough to have a south-facing exterior wall that gets warmed by the sun from sunrise to sunset. Initially, it'll be powered by electricity from the grid, but I plan to add a solar PV installation and - when they become a bit cheaper! - a Tesla PowerWall. This should mean that, once complete, the heat pump is driven by power from the PowerWall and the PowerWall is charged either by the sun or by Eco7 night-time electricity.

Back to the original topic...
I'm sorry to hear you're selling the A2, though the news doesn't come as a particular surprise. I hope you continue to log into A2OC from time to time and keep up with the goings on. It'll be odd not to see your name popping up in threads. Your post count is testament to you really having grown roots here and you'll be missed.

Cheers,

Tom
 
I can't see our household being able to wean off gas for central heating ( although we've reduced it with lots of insulation when ever we redecorate!) so the mCHP will at least mean we optimise what gas we'll have to burn.

I've even bought a low power 1kW kettle for use during the daytime when the solar is generating so I can make a cup of tea withou drawing from the grid at all!

Tesla Powerwall is in my plan but only when the price falls somewhat!

Yes it will be odd to not keep upping the post count significantly but at least I'm bowing out near the top with a car that has had pretty much every mod in the book done!
 
dan_b said:
Steve, I personally don't consider wind farms or solar panels to be an eyesore, but I do find large coal fired plants to be so!
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I agree that the world would be far better off without coal or nuclear powered plants, of course.

I am sure though that many people would see some installations as less than pleasant, perhaps the NIMBYs of this world?

Steve B
 
dan_b said:
I personally don't consider wind farms or solar panels to be an eyesore, but I do find large coal fired plants to be so!
Click to expand...

Ditto. I like wind farms. I find them quite visually elegant, though perhaps that's partly because I know they're stood there generating clean electricity. They're not perfect and have environmental consequences despite not emitting carbon, but they can be removed in years to come when other ideas and technology take over. The greatest threat to this planet is a runaway greenhouse and if avoiding that means subsidising the development of renewable energy sources and putting up with supposed eyesores, then it's a price that I think we all ought to be willing to pay.

Cheers,

Tom
 
I can't remember where I saw the data, but there was a report into wholesale electricity prices and it proved that the more wind generation UK has, the lower the wholesale price of electricity. So far from "subsidised" wind power pushing up electricity costs for "hard working families", they're actually doing the opposite. So even if you don't particularly care or believe in decarbonisation, if you do care about your electricity bills, renewables are the way to go - basically the cost of the fuel is free once they're up and running, whereas Putin controls the taps to our gas, and the Saudis to our oil, and most of our coal comes from Australia...
 
Its not perfect, but we are moving in the right direction...

Hopefully, one day we will all be independent from the grid and the corrupt energy companies that jointly keep prices high.

Once technology moves on and becomes cheaper we will all be running off our own little independent energy systems, solar, wind & powerwalls, etc.

Of course things will not be 100% pollution free. Although If you want to be carbon free, walk around naked and don't pass wind :p
 
So this was about the politics and decarbonizing after all :)
It's good to remember that over there, where they make the parts and batteries for el-cars, so we can save the planet over here - they have coal-fired power plants and are becoming the largest fossile fuel consumer...
 
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