Climate sceptic typologies

Are you any of the following:

1. Fully fledged AGW adherent - i.e. supporting a belief in anthropogenic (man-made) global warming, or the views of the UN-led IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)?
2. Climate non-conformist - with a belief that whilst the planet is getting warmer this is natural, cyclical and not man-made or carbon-based, and that it's likely that man cannot influence this cycle anyway?
3. Global Warming sceptic/denier - holding the view that there is not even a greenhouse effect at all, not even a 'natural one' - "Everyone who even accepts the term 'greenhouse gases' is infected"?

On the IPCC website under Organisation:
“The IPCC is a scientific body. It reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of climate change.” http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.shtml

That seems even-handed and straightforward. But under Organisation/Procedures – Principles Governing IPCC Work (English):
“The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.”
Not quite the same, is it? It assumes the basis of something that it was intended to enquire into - whether climate change is 'human-induced'.

So I come into Category 2 above. But I hasten to add that like many in the IPCC scientists grouping, I'm not a climate scientist either!

Smart Meters

Wikipedia says "The United Kingdom rollout is considered to be the largest programme ever undertaken - involving visits to more than 27 million homes to replace meters for both gas and electricity. The official start date of rollout is 2012 but some energy suppliers are already installing smart meters in people's homes and as of January 2010 there were estimated to be in excess of 170,000 domestic smart meters installed. Eon is considered to be leading the rollout of the new technology, and is expected to have at least 2 million meters installed by end of 2012. This energy supplier is reportedly installing on average 1,000 new smart meters every day."

However - how will the Smart Meter assist microgeneration data recording? As far as I can see data readings are more accurate so may reduce the possibility of inaccurate bills, and secondly physical access to the meter is no longer required as data can be updated remotely, i.e. by bluetooth.

The Centrica website says that the 'smart grid' will increasingly rely on microgeneration. "Smart meters are the starting point in what will be a major upgrading and renewal of our entire energy chain. The end-point in this journey is the 'smart grid', where the entire grid is intelligently swapping real-time information about its operations to optimise performance and reduce demand. The advantage here is avoiding the transmission losses inherent in the network system (up to 10%), and locally generating electricity and heat using renewable sources: solar, heat-pumps, wind, and other low-carbon technologies like micro-CHP (a boiler which produces heat and electricity) and fuel-cells. Smart meters are essential in facilitating micro-generation. They capture the measurement of energy produced locally and potentially exported into the grid, allowing suppliers to make payments to homes and businesses for the energy produced, and informing networks and generators of the local generation coming on to the grid. Smart meters can also control the amount of electricity going into a home or business; for example restricting non-essential consumption at peak times (but still allowing some consumption)."

ConsumerFocus notes that the smart meter rollout is estimated to cost more than £11bn – each customer will foot the bill.

The Ofgem site has radical ideas (albeit from 2006 and not updated!) on measuring what each appliance is doing via SmartMeters - but it's not so smart a website as the HTML text won't transfer onto here!

This 2008 Guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/20/energyefficiency.smartmeters refers to the Italian experience of 5% energy reductions after smart metering, but adds that proponents do question how interested energy companies are in selling less energy. They also argue that smart meters would mainly benefit the energy companies by doing away with estimated billing and manual meter readings.

N-power say: "In December 2009 we became the first major energy supplier in Britain to start installing smart meters for our microgeneration customers who export electricity back to the grid. Each of the microgeneration smart meters comes with a Customer Display Unit which will display the amount of energy being used at the property. It will also show the level of energy being exported back to the grid, and the amount customers will be paid for that energy." That seems more like it.

There's an exhausting (10 mins) video with a commentary on the smart meter uses at MicrogenReady but it seems to show an artist's design rather than explain how the smart meter works, or one in real life.

A cautionary tale is at this blog: concludes: "The surprising lesson in all of this is that the data I rely upon was available before my smart meter was installed and the monthly summaries are still the most useful data available for my purposes. So where is the consumer benefit from smart meters? As far as I can tell all the benefits are flowing to the utility company, but my rates are still going up."

Another blog is also interesting - explaining that without a real-time display of units used and comparisons made available, a SmartMeter is unlikely to assist in energy reduction: "The meter's display is still there on the fridge door but when the batteries powering the display ran out and it went blank, no-one noticed."

So will smart meters be a boon or burden for homeowners? It seems to depend on how engaged the homeowners are and how they use the data from the smart meter to make energy conservation decisions. Smart meters won’t give you cancer, but who knows how much help they’ll be in helping reduce your energy consumption. Smart meters are simply a tool that you can choose to use or ignore. But the ones we get may not be as useful as we're led to believe... more to the point, they will need to indicate the energy exported to the grid by solar power as well as the energy imported from the grid.

Govt changes to Feed in Tariff scheme in June 2011 - sigh of relief!

I have seen that some solar energy forum correspondents have been concerned about the government cutting the FiT scheme rates. However, they need not worry - the main pressure was to avoid overspending on subsidies to huge solar farms and certainly schemes that are smaller than 50KW seem safe and in June the government published Annex 2 Payment Rate table that confirmed the existing rates, agreed in 2010, for domestic PV solar schemes. It was interesting to read in this 'responses' paper that "a comparison with other European FITs schemes ... the UK should adopt an automatic degression mechanism such as that used in Germany, and that uptake under the Great Britain FITs scheme has been miniscule compared to uptake in other countries." I'm not sure what an automatic degression mechanism means but I'm assuming the 'miniscule uptake' refers to larger installations as there has been a huge growth in domestic ones.

Feed-in Tariffs Scheme: Summary of Responses to the Fast-Track Consultation and Government Response (June 2011)
www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/Consultations/fits-review/fits-fast-track-government-response---final.pdf

Spanish solar plant works at night too

Typical solar power plants stop working when the sun sets, but a new one in southern Spain, called Gemasolar, can stay awake all night: “During the day we capture the energy of the sun and we store that energy into a tank,” said Santiago Arias, a mechanical engineer who helped put Gemasolar into operation: “Then, whenever we want, regardless if it is day or night, we convert that energy into electricity.”

More at:
http://sun2home.co.uk/spains-round-the-clock-solar-power-plant/500492

Building a small scale Solar Power Generator

Found this useful item on the Housing Energy Advisor.com Forum:

http://www.efficientenergysaving.co.uk/solarpowergenerator.html

on building a small scale Solar Power Generator for less than £50.

Would it get used much though, maybe just at night to power the fridge, or in power cuts? 9Kw electric power showers are quite a drain but we can't avoid using them in winter hours of darkness and can't connect them up to a  generator.

Panorama on child beggars

John Sweeney reported in this programme - this time without having an unprofessional rant on screen as he once did. Yet you got the feeling that he was not searching hard enough behind the scenes - he chatted to mothers on the streets in London and also with families back at their substantial gypsy villas in Romania - but he seemed to be eluded in getting a real grip on the men that seem most likely to be controlling the trafficking and exploitation in London of large numbers of children, many of pre-school age. Some were in Slough, Chalvey - an area I know from my teens. No Romanians there in the 60s to the best of my knowledge.

The mothers appeared content enough that their children begged with them - or on their behalf - for long hours on the streets, indeed it seemed that this was nothing novel to those Roma that were seen back in Romania. Despite the large numbers of children in care proceedings in Britain (9% increase in the last quarter to end Sept) there was an obvious police reluctance in London to take action and actually remove children from abusive parenting and we never got to hear from children themselves. Sweeney was lambasted by a Romanian matriarch in Romania who picked up a stone to threaten the camera crew. Maybe if Sweeney looked less scruffy himself he would have gained greater cooperation?

I went to Romania for work reasons in 1997, into the interior in Tirga Jui. The houses that I saw there and in Bucharest were nothing like the 'blingy' Roma villas that were clustered in the village that Sweeney saw. I saw no-one that was overweight. So I hope that many don't gain a false impression that the picture shown today is what much of Romania is like now. One of the sad things about British TV is that it is so insular, there is not enough about life and welfare systems in other European countries.

Ain't No Fat Man's Toy

Well this is a first effort at a blog! May not work out but what the hell, it's a chance to tell it as it is whether it's solar panels, musical interests, Cafcass and the state of social work with children and families in England, or political values and resources - and the misappropriation thereof by government today.

Chrisso