Topics

Seeing as people said £300-£500 for the loft, how much will cavity walls cost to insulate?

Could India follow China's lead in creating a massive dam on their own national river, the Ganges?

I think it would help massive as India already does not meet current electricity demand, and the Ganges has a very large outflow.

I don't, because how ever small the risk per station is, we've seen far too many accidents. They were saying "oh chernobyl will never happen again in this day and age" then in 2011 Fukushima had a meltdown on par with chernobyl. So I have no faith in safety anymore, especially with the current terrorism threat,

I'm hoping the answer is free with subsidies, but I'm not sure if they even exist anymore, otherwise what would the cost be for an average 3 bed semi loft insulation?

Although coal usage in china is still growing, as a percentage it has started to level off and now fall.

In 2007 it had risen to 81% of all electricity generation, but now has started to fall, to 79% in 2009 to 78% in 2010 with continued fall expected to be announced in 2015.

I used to have a blog in 2007/2008 about renewables and environmental issues, got about 50 unique visiters per day on average.

My aunt is also the co-founder of the Oxfordshire green construction network https://www.renewableenergyhub.co.uk/Forum/general/uk-to-lose-0-5gw-of-capacity-in-the-new-year/ and is a frequent speaker on BBC Radio Oxford about environmental issues.

I knew a man once who had a yearly gas bill of under £40.

He was on a tarrif that did not include standing charged, but this meant the first units of energy were quite expensive. Still he managed to keep his bills extremely low. He even showed my bills to prove it since I was very skeptical.

He had double glazing, cavity wall and loft insulation, but aside from this had an absurd amount of bed covers, and often sat around the house wearing two jumpers. The frugality was something to be both admired, and shocked by.

Which of the two is the cheapest and overall more cost effective? My house has neither, and I will likely only be able to afford one of these. So given limtied options, if I can only have one, which is the better option?

As a significantly less polluting source of energy, should we encourage the construction of more gas fired power stations in the short term, in a bid to eliminate coal much faster?

In the long term even gas would ideally be phased out, but in the short term this might be the less of two evils.

Do you think Hydrogen power plants have a future?

It struck me as a possibility that excess solar/wind might end up being used to produce hydrogen, to be used during dark and calmer periods. Is this a pheasable long term possibility?

I know the soil depth is pretty shallow, but is there anything you can grow on a green roof? I assume most stuff that you could grow in a pot you could also grow on a green roof.

In Oxfordshire, there are very few wind turbines, and I see them very rarely. I think the nearest is probably the large on on the industrial estate in Reading.

Do you have any wind turbines close to where you live?

What is the cost of converting my existing system to a MicroCHP system? I'd be willing to spend quite a lot on it, but I am still curious to exactly how much these systems to cost to install, and what the long term benefits are.

I wonder whether the benefits of a green roof outweight the benefits of having a roof fitted with solar heater/PV panels.

I don't doubt that green roofs are better than nothing, but I think that solar roofs are probably best environmentally.

What can a DIYer do on a budget to improve home insulation?

I don't want to spend a small fortune, but my house is poorly insulated and I'd like to change that. Any tips you'd have for some cheap DIY insulation?

There are some specific places that I do consider them an eyesore, especially the ones near Ballymoney, Northern Ireland. But as a general rule I don't, especially single turbines.

I seem to be pretty alone in this regard, and I wonder if there are any other wind turbine lovers here, I even used to travel quite far to seek them out as there are very few in the Thames Valley.

Is there anywhere in the world that commonly uses rainwater for toilet flushing? I know that seeing as it is greywater, it is suitable for toilet flushing, but I've never known it to happen in England. But I thought in more arid places this might be something that is more common.

It may be the world's leading co2 emmitor, but it is also the world's leading renewable energy producer. Leading the world in hydro, wind, and solar.

I'd say that they are doing a disproportionate amount to expand renewables, both with domestic production, and with research and development. Overall, I'd say they are unfairly criticised.

Assuming you were in control of your nation's electricity supply, and were tasked with making it 100% renewable, what would your setup be?

I'd start by giving significant subsidies to solar water heating and PV, primarily to reduce demand on the national grid as much as possible.

I'd increase wind capacity up to 15GW, solar up to 5GW, 5GW wave and tidal, unspecified increase in pumped storage, and would allocate investment for hydrogen plants to balance out fluctations in addition to pumped storage.

We were the first street in town to have LED street lights, and slowly the entire area is adopting them. Personally I am not a great fan. While the light they emit is far superior to normal sulpher street lights, it is weird walking around what feels like floodlight streets, and the lights are so bright that after raining it can give me difficulty sleeping.