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Remember the May 2017 locals when TMay was totally dominant and conquering all before her – politica

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Comments

  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,756
    Jonathan said:

    Will Galloway or Piers Corbyn stand and cause problems?

    Galloway's standing for the Holyrood list for his Alliance for Unity vehicle, not sure if you're even allowed to stand for 2 separate parliaments at the same time. Hartlepudians might also be somewhat confused by lifelong socialist GG proclaiming that he's voting Tory in his Scottish constituency.
  • Floater said:
    Comedy Dave is going to have to work overtime spinning the EU governments out of this one.
    Well....

    https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1371764815740407809
  • My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    So you're effectively defunding the police.

    Shame on you.
  • My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    If you draw said phallus neatly inside the box for the candidate you think is the biggest phallus of all, I would be arguing for that to be counted as a vote when it was waved at me at the count.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited March 2021

    Floater said:
    Comedy Dave is going to have to work overtime spinning the EU governments out of this one.
    Well....

    https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1371764815740407809
    I think twitter need to put a warning flag on this guys account like they did with Trump....
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited March 2021

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    I can post mine here when it arrives if it'll make you feel better.

    The worst part of the annual council tax dance is when those two neighbouring London boroughs get posted, one with very low and the other with incredulously low council tax.
    Oh and the 'Labour councils more expensive nonsense'. Also the "most expensive council tax places map" - which grossly underestimates the multiple tier system bills present for rural areas.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,038

    TimT said:

    "Central theme is not trade or military, but science and technology". Duh! Science and technology drive both military and economic/trade.
    I'd prefer to read the report myself really rather than all these journalist "hot takes".
    https://www.scribd.com/document/498974238/Integrated-Review#download
    Many thanks.
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,387

    Floater said:
    Comedy Dave is going to have to work overtime spinning the EU governments out of this one.
    Well....

    https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1371764815740407809
    wire the guy up and he will probably produce enough electricity for a small town. Hartlepool perhaps.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,153

    Artist said:

    Ladbrokes odds for Hartlepool:
    Tories 4/7
    Labour 6/4
    Reform 33/1

    Labour value there. They should be the other way around.
    Agreed. LAB will win. Most of the ex Brexit party will go back to LAB or more likely stay at home.

    LAB safe.
  • My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    If you draw said phallus neatly inside the box for the candidate you think is the biggest phallus of all, I would be arguing for that to be counted as a vote when it was waved at me at the count.
    Has been known, should only count if the phallus is erect, clear preference and all that.

    I've also seen someone argue that a perfectly drawn swastika inside a box was a clear preference for them.
  • Meanwhile in Stockton, the media pin down Dr Paul to hear him deny that he is a candidate

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVQ3Q4tQAhM
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,153

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    In London we are all enjoying the SADIQ uplift of 9.5%.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,038

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    So you're effectively defunding the police.

    Shame on you.
    This came on the back of a similarly large increase last year.

    They can make do with a 2-3% increase like everyone else.

    Our PCC is a limp lettuce. If the rozzers told him to jump he'd book himself in for a day out at Go Ape.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    kinabalu said:

    I tipped Sir Keir at 5/1 earlier on this month, he's now 3/1

    https://twitter.com/LadPolitics/status/1371808046792511493

    I think he's safe myself. Wonder why no Betfair exchange on this though?
    I do as well. Why does anyone think he'll walk? Failing that, how is he to be toppled? And who would be both a better replacement and one simultaneously able to win over the membership?

    I don't think he'll walk, and absent that there'll be no move to get rid of him. Besides anything else the majority faction of the PLP will be terrified of a repeat of Corbyn.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited March 2021

    MaxPB said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    100% agree. However the product here seems to be marketed towards new builds, who should have no problem being energy efficient enough. To me it sounds like a "loop hole" for house builders to pretend they're being green but they're not.
    This intrigued me too. 96% sounds great on the face of it, but electric heating is extremely efficient anyway - efficiency losses in electrical appliances are mostly in the form of heat, if it's heat you want, you can do it very efficiently. I'd be interested to see figures for a more traditional heating element boiler.

    So, what's the microwave angle. All I can see is that you can maybe do it more quickly/cheaply. Properly directed microwaves could dump a lot of energy in water very quickly, likely quicker (or with a less complex heat exchanger) than conductive/convective systems used with a traditional heating element. For a combi-style electric boiler, that's key.

    I do also wonder whether this makes sense overall though. For retrofitting, sure, but in new builds wouldn't we be looking (if not a heat pump, where as you say you can get efficiency way over 100% and for a new-build where you've got diggers on site and nothing of value to dig up it seems the obvious thing) at simply having electric heaters/electric underfloor and electric heating at the tap/shower rather than a central boiler and all the pipework that implies?

    Edit: Of course, retrofitting will be most of the market for the foreseeable future, so if this is a better retrofit then it makes a lot of sense.
    Cost, heat pumps are >£10k, this is aiming to be the same price as a conventional gas boiler system at between £3-4k.
    Why so expensive? The ground works or the technology? Heat pumps aren't exactly cutting edge.

    In this case, I'm not sure what microwaving the water instead of using a coil gives you - other than added complexity.

    If you are going to use direct electrical heating you are far betting using individual thermostatic radiators in any case.
    Ground source heatpumps require laying a large amount (100s of ft) of ducting a few feet below ground or drilling a very deep hole.

    Air source are cheaper but can be noisy.

    They also require completely replacing your radiators as they are lower temperature than a gas boiler.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    In London we are all enjoying the SADIQ uplift of 9.5%.
    Sorry but all London council tax payers don't know they're born.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,100
    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:
    Who needs a vaccine when you have Zlatan?
    Like the hymn - invisible, hid from our eyes.

    Who he?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    OT. I just listened to Lord Dannatt interviewed on radio 4. I can't imagine a better Colonel Blimp. If he's typical of the British military God help us.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    100% agree. However the product here seems to be marketed towards new builds, who should have no problem being energy efficient enough. To me it sounds like a "loop hole" for house builders to pretend they're being green but they're not.
    This intrigued me too. 96% sounds great on the face of it, but electric heating is extremely efficient anyway - efficiency losses in electrical appliances are mostly in the form of heat, if it's heat you want, you can do it very efficiently. I'd be interested to see figures for a more traditional heating element boiler.

    So, what's the microwave angle. All I can see is that you can maybe do it more quickly/cheaply. Properly directed microwaves could dump a lot of energy in water very quickly, likely quicker (or with a less complex heat exchanger) than conductive/convective systems used with a traditional heating element. For a combi-style electric boiler, that's key.

    I do also wonder whether this makes sense overall though. For retrofitting, sure, but in new builds wouldn't we be looking (if not a heat pump, where as you say you can get efficiency way over 100% and for a new-build where you've got diggers on site and nothing of value to dig up it seems the obvious thing) at simply having electric heaters/electric underfloor and electric heating at the tap/shower rather than a central boiler and all the pipework that implies?

    Edit: Of course, retrofitting will be most of the market for the foreseeable future, so if this is a better retrofit then it makes a lot of sense.
    Cost, heat pumps are >£10k, this is aiming to be the same price as a conventional gas boiler system at between £3-4k.
    Why so expensive? The ground works or the technology? Heat pumps aren't exactly cutting edge.

    In this case, I'm not sure what microwaving the water instead of using a coil gives you - other than added complexity.

    If you are going to use direct electrical heating you are far betting using individual thermostatic radiators in any case.
    Ground source heatpumps require laying a large amount (100s of ft) of ducting a few feet below ground or drilling a very deep hole.

    Air source are cheaper but can be noisy.

    They also require completely replacing your radiators as they are lower temperature than a gas boiler.
    People always massively underestimated the amount of land they needed for a ground source heat pump when I was designing their systems.

    However air source are not noisy if you get a good one with good bearings!
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,038

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    If you draw said phallus neatly inside the box for the candidate you think is the biggest phallus of all, I would be arguing for that to be counted as a vote when it was waved at me at the count.
    Has been known, should only count if the phallus is erect, clear preference and all that.

    I've also seen someone argue that a perfectly drawn swastika inside a box was a clear preference for them.
    Corbyn's Labour?
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1371816846383583233

    What an absolute clusterfuck over on the mainland
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    We got off lightly with 5.5% in Surrey:

    https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-residents-face-55-tax-19820757

    Interestingly, the Tory incumbent is running as an independent against a new Tory candidate this time:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_England_and_Wales_police_and_crime_commissioner_elections#Surrey_Police
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,620

    DougSeal said:
    Unfortunately, positive tests (not cases) will probably rise today or tomorrow (thanks to a huge acceleration in testing), and that will be used by the Zero Covid psychopaths as evidence to delay the roadmap. You're going to be able to set your watch by them.
    I don't really agree with you - we've been doing 1.5 million tests for a while now (at least a week). Yes we have had an apparent levelling off of the decrease in cases, but what new testing is going to be reported today?
    POSITIVE TESTS

    It looks to me that positive tests are going to show a small rise in the next few days, and that this will be leapt on by the 0CV19ers. It's just a guesstimate – we'll see.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited March 2021
    Pulpstar said:

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    I can post mine here when it arrives if it'll make you feel better.

    The worst part of the annual council tax dance is when those two neighbouring London boroughs get posted, one with very low and the other with incredulously low council tax.
    Oh and the 'Labour councils more expensive nonsense'. Also the "most expensive council tax places map" - which grossly underestimates the multiple tier system bills present for rural areas.
    I shouldn't post mine - as everyone will scream.

    When they did the valuation we ended up in Band A and any change in band due to improvements only occurs when the ownership changes so I'm paying just over £110 a month for a 5 bedroom house.
  • My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    If you draw said phallus neatly inside the box for the candidate you think is the biggest phallus of all, I would be arguing for that to be counted as a vote when it was waved at me at the count.
    Has been known, should only count if the phallus is erect, clear preference and all that.

    I've also seen someone argue that a perfectly drawn swastika inside a box was a clear preference for them.
    Corbyn's Labour?
    Tory candidate in 2009.

    He had one annoying constituent who blamed the council for all the ills that befell him.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    I can post mine here when it arrives if it'll make you feel better.

    The worst part of the annual council tax dance is when those two neighbouring London boroughs get posted, one with very low and the other with incredulously low council tax.
    Oh and the 'Labour councils more expensive nonsense'. Also the "most expensive council tax places map" - which grossly underestimates the multiple tier system bills present for rural areas.
    I won't post mine - as everyone will scream. When they did the valuation we ended up in Band A and any change in band due to improvements only occurs when the ownership changes I'm paying just over £110 a month for a 5 bedroom house.
    I pay (not including my student exemption) around £130 for Band C in Newcastle.
  • tlg86 said:

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    We got off lightly with 5.5% in Surrey:

    https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-residents-face-55-tax-19820757

    Interestingly, the Tory incumbent is running as an independent against a new Tory candidate this time:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_England_and_Wales_police_and_crime_commissioner_elections#Surrey_Police
    Wasn't he deselected?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,780
    MattW said:

    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:
    Who needs a vaccine when you have Zlatan?
    Like the hymn - invisible, hid from our eyes.

    Who he?
    A brilliant if now somewhat elderly footballer who has an ego closer to the solar system than the planet but who also has a GSOH. Just an amazing character in a game somewhat bereft of characters these days.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Last year's (Band E) was 2545.97 for me.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,626

    DougSeal said:
    Unfortunately, positive tests (not cases) will probably rise today or tomorrow (thanks to a huge acceleration in testing), and that will be used by the Zero Covid psychopaths as evidence to delay the roadmap. You're going to be able to set your watch by them.
    I don't really agree with you - we've been doing 1.5 million tests for a while now (at least a week). Yes we have had an apparent levelling off of the decrease in cases, but what new testing is going to be reported today?
    POSITIVE TESTS

    It looks to me that positive tests are going to show a small rise in the next few days, and that this will be leapt on by the 0CV19ers. It's just a guesstimate – we'll see.
    The schools have been back a week and we have (as of yesterday)....

    image
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,038

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    If you draw said phallus neatly inside the box for the candidate you think is the biggest phallus of all, I would be arguing for that to be counted as a vote when it was waved at me at the count.
    Has been known, should only count if the phallus is erect, clear preference and all that.

    I've also seen someone argue that a perfectly drawn swastika inside a box was a clear preference for them.
    Corbyn's Labour?
    Tory candidate in 2009.

    He had one annoying constituent who blamed the council for all the ills that befell him.
    Ah, @Dura_Ace.
  • I get that Labour should hold the seat. Should. As it should have held all the red wall seats. Labour used to own Teesside, but it has been swinging increasingly away from them over the last 20 years. Remember that Hartlepool dumped the Labour council in 2001, voted for a man in a monkey suit for mayor in 2001, and today has a Tory / independents / ex-BXP council. With the local Labour group split into multiple warring factions.
  • England screwing up here and letting Pant having so many overs to bat.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,780
    Is this a replay of the first T20?

    I am beginning to wonder if this cricket stuff is really necessary. We could just show the toss x5 and allocate the series accordingly.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124

    Floater said:
    Comedy Dave is going to have to work overtime spinning the EU governments out of this one.
    Well....

    https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1371764815740407809
    I think twitter need to put a warning flag on this guys account like they did with Trump....
    It's funny because if it is in no way linked to 'Brexentment' it actually makes the level of stupidity pretty much medieval in its degree. I have noted a number of vaxsceptics among my Spanish FB friends but it's pretty rural where I am. I hardly can believe this level of craziness across half the continent..
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    Quite

    Emer Cooke, executive director of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said that other EU-approved vaccines, the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, appeared to be linked to similar numbers of blood clots as the suspended AstraZeneca jab.


    Yet .... tumbleweed .......
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,289

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    100% agree. However the product here seems to be marketed towards new builds, who should have no problem being energy efficient enough. To me it sounds like a "loop hole" for house builders to pretend they're being green but they're not.
    This intrigued me too. 96% sounds great on the face of it, but electric heating is extremely efficient anyway - efficiency losses in electrical appliances are mostly in the form of heat, if it's heat you want, you can do it very efficiently. I'd be interested to see figures for a more traditional heating element boiler.

    So, what's the microwave angle. All I can see is that you can maybe do it more quickly/cheaply. Properly directed microwaves could dump a lot of energy in water very quickly, likely quicker (or with a less complex heat exchanger) than conductive/convective systems used with a traditional heating element. For a combi-style electric boiler, that's key.

    I do also wonder whether this makes sense overall though. For retrofitting, sure, but in new builds wouldn't we be looking (if not a heat pump, where as you say you can get efficiency way over 100% and for a new-build where you've got diggers on site and nothing of value to dig up it seems the obvious thing) at simply having electric heaters/electric underfloor and electric heating at the tap/shower rather than a central boiler and all the pipework that implies?

    Edit: Of course, retrofitting will be most of the market for the foreseeable future, so if this is a better retrofit then it makes a lot of sense.
    Cost, heat pumps are >£10k, this is aiming to be the same price as a conventional gas boiler system at between £3-4k.
    Why so expensive? The ground works or the technology? Heat pumps aren't exactly cutting edge.

    In this case, I'm not sure what microwaving the water instead of using a coil gives you - other than added complexity.

    If you are going to use direct electrical heating you are far betting using individual thermostatic radiators in any case.
    Ground source heatpumps require laying a large amount (100s of ft) of ducting a few feet below ground or drilling a very deep hole.

    Air source are cheaper but can be noisy.

    They also require completely replacing your radiators as they are lower temperature than a gas boiler.
    People always massively underestimated the amount of land they needed for a ground source heat pump when I was designing their systems.

    However air source are not noisy if you get a good one with good bearings!
    We never hear our Hitachi airsource heat pump unless we walk past it outside. Been in 10 years now, no issues and no servicing costs.

    Just checked and the replacement cost would be circa £4k for a new one (ours was £5k 10 years ago.)

    It was a no-brainer for us as we had no gas but I'd be tempted next time if we do our planned new-build, even if there is mains gas.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,100
    edited March 2021
    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    I don't think I believe that last - which ones do you mean?

    There are certainly "hard to insulate" properties (eg solid wall, rooms in the roof), and a few exceptions like National Trust properties or things that are Listed with ornate interiors. But that is different.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    100% agree. However the product here seems to be marketed towards new builds, who should have no problem being energy efficient enough. To me it sounds like a "loop hole" for house builders to pretend they're being green but they're not.
    This intrigued me too. 96% sounds great on the face of it, but electric heating is extremely efficient anyway - efficiency losses in electrical appliances are mostly in the form of heat, if it's heat you want, you can do it very efficiently. I'd be interested to see figures for a more traditional heating element boiler.

    So, what's the microwave angle. All I can see is that you can maybe do it more quickly/cheaply. Properly directed microwaves could dump a lot of energy in water very quickly, likely quicker (or with a less complex heat exchanger) than conductive/convective systems used with a traditional heating element. For a combi-style electric boiler, that's key.

    I do also wonder whether this makes sense overall though. For retrofitting, sure, but in new builds wouldn't we be looking (if not a heat pump, where as you say you can get efficiency way over 100% and for a new-build where you've got diggers on site and nothing of value to dig up it seems the obvious thing) at simply having electric heaters/electric underfloor and electric heating at the tap/shower rather than a central boiler and all the pipework that implies?

    Edit: Of course, retrofitting will be most of the market for the foreseeable future, so if this is a better retrofit then it makes a lot of sense.
    Cost, heat pumps are >£10k, this is aiming to be the same price as a conventional gas boiler system at between £3-4k.
    Why so expensive? The ground works or the technology? Heat pumps aren't exactly cutting edge.

    In this case, I'm not sure what microwaving the water instead of using a coil gives you - other than added complexity.

    If you are going to use direct electrical heating you are far betting using individual thermostatic radiators in any case.
    Ground source heatpumps require laying a large amount (100s of ft) of ducting a few feet below ground or drilling a very deep hole.

    Air source are cheaper but can be noisy.

    They also require completely replacing your radiators as they are lower temperature than a gas boiler.
    People always massively underestimated the amount of land they needed for a ground source heat pump when I was designing their systems.

    However air source are not noisy if you get a good one with good bearings!
    We never hear our Hitachi airsource heat pump unless we walk past it outside. Been in 10 years now, no issues and no servicing costs.

    Just checked and the replacement cost would be circa £4k for a new one (ours was £5k 10 years ago.)

    It was a no-brainer for us as we had no gas but I'd be tempted next time if we do our planned new-build, even if there is mains gas.
    It's also a no-brainer to combine a heat pump with solar thermal panels. You can provide 100% of typical domestic hot water demand for a good 9-10 months of the year from only 1-2 panels. Even in the north of England.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    100% agree. However the product here seems to be marketed towards new builds, who should have no problem being energy efficient enough. To me it sounds like a "loop hole" for house builders to pretend they're being green but they're not.
    This intrigued me too. 96% sounds great on the face of it, but electric heating is extremely efficient anyway - efficiency losses in electrical appliances are mostly in the form of heat, if it's heat you want, you can do it very efficiently. I'd be interested to see figures for a more traditional heating element boiler.

    So, what's the microwave angle. All I can see is that you can maybe do it more quickly/cheaply. Properly directed microwaves could dump a lot of energy in water very quickly, likely quicker (or with a less complex heat exchanger) than conductive/convective systems used with a traditional heating element. For a combi-style electric boiler, that's key.

    I do also wonder whether this makes sense overall though. For retrofitting, sure, but in new builds wouldn't we be looking (if not a heat pump, where as you say you can get efficiency way over 100% and for a new-build where you've got diggers on site and nothing of value to dig up it seems the obvious thing) at simply having electric heaters/electric underfloor and electric heating at the tap/shower rather than a central boiler and all the pipework that implies?

    Edit: Of course, retrofitting will be most of the market for the foreseeable future, so if this is a better retrofit then it makes a lot of sense.
    Cost, heat pumps are >£10k, this is aiming to be the same price as a conventional gas boiler system at between £3-4k.
    Why so expensive? The ground works or the technology? Heat pumps aren't exactly cutting edge.

    In this case, I'm not sure what microwaving the water instead of using a coil gives you - other than added complexity.

    If you are going to use direct electrical heating you are far betting using individual thermostatic radiators in any case.
    Ground source heatpumps require laying a large amount (100s of ft) of ducting a few feet below ground or drilling a very deep hole.

    Air source are cheaper but can be noisy.

    They also require completely replacing your radiators as they are lower temperature than a gas boiler.
    People always massively underestimated the amount of land they needed for a ground source heat pump when I was designing their systems.

    However air source are not noisy if you get a good one with good bearings!
    We never hear our Hitachi airsource heat pump unless we walk past it outside. Been in 10 years now, no issues and no servicing costs.

    Just checked and the replacement cost would be circa £4k for a new one (ours was £5k 10 years ago.)

    It was a no-brainer for us as we had no gas but I'd be tempted next time if we do our planned new-build, even if there is mains gas.
    I would operate on the basis that mains gas won't be around forever.

  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    edited March 2021

    tlg86 said:

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    We got off lightly with 5.5% in Surrey:

    https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-residents-face-55-tax-19820757

    Interestingly, the Tory incumbent is running as an independent against a new Tory candidate this time:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_England_and_Wales_police_and_crime_commissioner_elections#Surrey_Police
    Wasn't he deselected?
    Quite possibly; I was hoping Kevin Hurley might have another go:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Hurley

    My police officer friend reckoned Hurley was completely bonkers.

    EDIT: should say was completely bonkers.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    I get that Labour should hold the seat. Should. As it should have held all the red wall seats. Labour used to own Teesside, but it has been swinging increasingly away from them over the last 20 years. Remember that Hartlepool dumped the Labour council in 2001, voted for a man in a monkey suit for mayor in 2001, and today has a Tory / independents / ex-BXP council. With the local Labour group split into multiple warring factions.

    OTOH nobody's voting to "Get Brexit Done" this time and there's every reason to suppose that, in the context of what's almost bound to be a very low turnout election that inspires little public attention, the bulk of the 2019 BXP vote will simply sit on its arse.

    Hartlepool was one of the bricks in the red wall that wasn't broken. I suppose it might be that the vote in that part of the world is still migrating towards the Tories and that they'll end up winning, but it does seem more likely that Labour will survive.
  • BromBrom Posts: 3,760
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    Floater said:

    https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1371816846383583233

    What an absolute clusterfuck over on the mainland

    Actually starting to feel renewed sympathy for the EU Medics at least having to work against so many dumbass politicos in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, etc. Time to bring back the Borgias/Medicis/Hapsburgs et al!
  • My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    If you draw said phallus neatly inside the box for the candidate you think is the biggest phallus of all, I would be arguing for that to be counted as a vote when it was waved at me at the count.
    Has been known, should only count if the phallus is erect, clear preference and all that.

    I've also seen someone argue that a perfectly drawn swastika inside a box was a clear preference for them.
    Corbyn's Labour?
    Tory candidate in 2009.

    He had one annoying constituent who blamed the council for all the ills that befell him.
    Ah, @Dura_Ace.
    Unlikely, this chap wanted the council to stop cars going past his house by closing a main road in the area, you know one that serves a supermarket, one big comprehensive, and a GP surgery.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    I don't think I believe that last - which ones do you mean?

    There are certainly "hard to insulate" properties (eg solid wall, rooms in the roof), and a few exceptions like National Trust properties or things that are Listed with ornate interiors. But that is different.
    I once worked on a project in Cumbria where I advised the client he needed to insulate his property further to avoid requiring a 3-phase power supply for his heat pump. The property was solid stone so it would have had to been done with insulated panels on the inside of the building, reducing the size of the rooms, and the madman actually did it! Fair play to him.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Floater said:

    Quite

    Emer Cooke, executive director of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said that other EU-approved vaccines, the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, appeared to be linked to similar numbers of blood clots as the suspended AstraZeneca jab.


    Yet .... tumbleweed .......

    At least the EMA said something about it. It does seem like a politically-motivated vendetta against AZN. I wonder why.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Brom said:
    What we need is to get Ford to make EV engines in the UK, diesel will be gone in 10 years.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124

    Floater said:
    Well done the EMA. I know there were some concerns last night that, because the individual national medical authorities are part of the EMA appraisal, they would sway this analysis. I have no idea if that really was the case but clearly the EMA has done exactly the right thing and looked at the evidence.
    Spain has paused AZN for 14 days and there's no way they'll change that now. Breathtaking levels of stupidity and of cause a huge wave of vaxscepticism has now been comprehensively reinforced by the politicians.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    edited March 2021
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,626
    RobD said:

    Floater said:

    Quite

    Emer Cooke, executive director of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said that other EU-approved vaccines, the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, appeared to be linked to similar numbers of blood clots as the suspended AstraZeneca jab.


    Yet .... tumbleweed .......

    At least the EMA said something about it. It does seem like a politically-motivated vendetta against AZN. I wonder why.
    i think it is more a case of "He is doing something, I must do something. I will do the same something."
  • tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    We got off lightly with 5.5% in Surrey:

    https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-residents-face-55-tax-19820757

    Interestingly, the Tory incumbent is running as an independent against a new Tory candidate this time:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_England_and_Wales_police_and_crime_commissioner_elections#Surrey_Police
    Wasn't he deselected?
    Quite possibly; I was hoping Kevin Hurley might have another go:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Hurley

    My police officer friend reckoned Hurley was completely bonkers.

    EDIT: should say was completely bonkers.
    Just checked, he was deselected, and the lady who beat him then quit.

    THE CONSERVATIVE candidate for Surrey’s police and crime commissioner has resigned, citing a ‘toxic’ environment in a video on Twitter.

    She said her inner circle worked against her rather than with her, and at times it felt like "an old gentleman’s club".


    https://www.altonherald.com/article.cfm?id=140440&headline='Toxic environment' blamed as Tory candidate drops out of police commissioner race&sectionIs=news&searchyear=2021
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    The surge is on!
  • I get that Labour should hold the seat. Should. As it should have held all the red wall seats. Labour used to own Teesside, but it has been swinging increasingly away from them over the last 20 years. Remember that Hartlepool dumped the Labour council in 2001, voted for a man in a monkey suit for mayor in 2001, and today has a Tory / independents / ex-BXP council. With the local Labour group split into multiple warring factions.

    OTOH nobody's voting to "Get Brexit Done" this time and there's every reason to suppose that, in the context of what's almost bound to be a very low turnout election that inspires little public attention, the bulk of the 2019 BXP vote will simply sit on its arse.

    Hartlepool was one of the bricks in the red wall that wasn't broken. I suppose it might be that the vote in that part of the world is still migrating towards the Tories and that they'll end up winning, but it does seem more likely that Labour will survive.
    Why a low turnout? Its to be held on the same day as the council election, the mayoral election and the PCC election. Turnout will be strong, and a lot of people will be off to the polling station not to vote Labour:
    Ben Houchen will walk the mayoral and deservedly so
    PCC election will be closer but I still expect a least a strong Tory showing
    Pools council has only 8 Labour councillors on it. Various different independent groups as well as genuine independents and ex-Labour/Brexit Party defectees

    Once you vote against Labour on one ballot paper its easy to do so again on the next ballot paper. And why would the Brexit vote stay home? They voted Brexit to see more prosperity, and places with a Tory MP are getting large wodges of cash flung at them.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,094
    edited March 2021

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    Typical Tories.

  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    Floater said:

    Quite

    Emer Cooke, executive director of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said that other EU-approved vaccines, the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, appeared to be linked to similar numbers of blood clots as the suspended AstraZeneca jab.


    Yet .... tumbleweed .......

    The German authorities seemed to be arguing it was due to the specific type of blood clots for people vaccinated with AZ. Of course that didn't explain why other countries had already called a halt due to different instances of clotting.

    I'm sure there's a reason why one vaccine is undergoing so much scrutiny whilst other vaccines with the same issue are still in use, but I sure as hell haven't figured out what the rationale is.

  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    100% agree. However the product here seems to be marketed towards new builds, who should have no problem being energy efficient enough. To me it sounds like a "loop hole" for house builders to pretend they're being green but they're not.
    This intrigued me too. 96% sounds great on the face of it, but electric heating is extremely efficient anyway - efficiency losses in electrical appliances are mostly in the form of heat, if it's heat you want, you can do it very efficiently. I'd be interested to see figures for a more traditional heating element boiler.

    So, what's the microwave angle. All I can see is that you can maybe do it more quickly/cheaply. Properly directed microwaves could dump a lot of energy in water very quickly, likely quicker (or with a less complex heat exchanger) than conductive/convective systems used with a traditional heating element. For a combi-style electric boiler, that's key.

    I do also wonder whether this makes sense overall though. For retrofitting, sure, but in new builds wouldn't we be looking (if not a heat pump, where as you say you can get efficiency way over 100% and for a new-build where you've got diggers on site and nothing of value to dig up it seems the obvious thing) at simply having electric heaters/electric underfloor and electric heating at the tap/shower rather than a central boiler and all the pipework that implies?

    Edit: Of course, retrofitting will be most of the market for the foreseeable future, so if this is a better retrofit then it makes a lot of sense.
    Cost, heat pumps are >£10k, this is aiming to be the same price as a conventional gas boiler system at between £3-4k.
    Why so expensive? The ground works or the technology? Heat pumps aren't exactly cutting edge.

    In this case, I'm not sure what microwaving the water instead of using a coil gives you - other than added complexity.

    If you are going to use direct electrical heating you are far betting using individual thermostatic radiators in any case.
    Ground source heatpumps require laying a large amount (100s of ft) of ducting a few feet below ground or drilling a very deep hole.

    Air source are cheaper but can be noisy.

    They also require completely replacing your radiators as they are lower temperature than a gas boiler.
    Yes, the efficiency of a heat pump is inversely related to the temperature difference you are driving, so the lower the temperature you can deliver the heat at the better.

    If it is the groundworks that cost then perhaps shared boreholes are the answer? I suppose they eventually get too cold unless they are very deep, though.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195

    RobD said:

    Floater said:

    Quite

    Emer Cooke, executive director of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said that other EU-approved vaccines, the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, appeared to be linked to similar numbers of blood clots as the suspended AstraZeneca jab.


    Yet .... tumbleweed .......

    At least the EMA said something about it. It does seem like a politically-motivated vendetta against AZN. I wonder why.
    i think it is more a case of "He is doing something, I must do something. I will do the same something."
    And they all just pick on ONE vaccine - and are acting out of "concern" - pull the other one
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    I don't think I believe that last - which ones do you mean?

    There are certainly "hard to insulate" properties (eg solid wall, rooms in the roof), and a few exceptions like National Trust properties or things that are Listed with ornate interiors. But that is different.
    There are about half a million listed buildings, many of which I’m sure are not connected to the gas grid. I was quoted anywhere between £30-50k for GSHP for a 3 bed house, with the land already in place and on the assumption that no amendments would be needed to internal radiators which are over sized for the room volumes. The running costs would have been approximately equal to heating oil. Absolutely no point whatsoever.

    Someone (I think I know who) needs to smash up this tired segment of the industry.

    As to using a biofuel in place of heating oil, over time biofuel will be blended into domestic heating oil and then be increased so that potentially in 10-15 years it might be entirely “renewable”. I don’t see a better solution really.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Eagles, Nemesis, who was the daughter of Nyx.

    Alongside Old Age, Discord, Sleep, and Death. They must've been fun as toddlers.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    100% agree. However the product here seems to be marketed towards new builds, who should have no problem being energy efficient enough. To me it sounds like a "loop hole" for house builders to pretend they're being green but they're not.
    This intrigued me too. 96% sounds great on the face of it, but electric heating is extremely efficient anyway - efficiency losses in electrical appliances are mostly in the form of heat, if it's heat you want, you can do it very efficiently. I'd be interested to see figures for a more traditional heating element boiler.

    So, what's the microwave angle. All I can see is that you can maybe do it more quickly/cheaply. Properly directed microwaves could dump a lot of energy in water very quickly, likely quicker (or with a less complex heat exchanger) than conductive/convective systems used with a traditional heating element. For a combi-style electric boiler, that's key.

    I do also wonder whether this makes sense overall though. For retrofitting, sure, but in new builds wouldn't we be looking (if not a heat pump, where as you say you can get efficiency way over 100% and for a new-build where you've got diggers on site and nothing of value to dig up it seems the obvious thing) at simply having electric heaters/electric underfloor and electric heating at the tap/shower rather than a central boiler and all the pipework that implies?

    Edit: Of course, retrofitting will be most of the market for the foreseeable future, so if this is a better retrofit then it makes a lot of sense.
    Cost, heat pumps are >£10k, this is aiming to be the same price as a conventional gas boiler system at between £3-4k.
    Why so expensive? The ground works or the technology? Heat pumps aren't exactly cutting edge.

    In this case, I'm not sure what microwaving the water instead of using a coil gives you - other than added complexity.

    If you are going to use direct electrical heating you are far betting using individual thermostatic radiators in any case.
    Ground source heatpumps require laying a large amount (100s of ft) of ducting a few feet below ground or drilling a very deep hole.

    Air source are cheaper but can be noisy.

    They also require completely replacing your radiators as they are lower temperature than a gas boiler.
    Yes, the efficiency of a heat pump is inversely related to the temperature difference you are driving, so the lower the temperature you can deliver the heat at the better.

    If it is the groundworks that cost then perhaps shared boreholes are the answer? I suppose they eventually get too cold unless they are very deep, though.
    The company installing the borehole loops should do all the calculations needed to ensure you don't take too much heat out of the ground. The tell-tail sign that a company hasn't done their calculations properly is the ground freezing.

    That said, I never saw a domestic scale borehole installation that made any sense. The drilling is just too expensive. Air source is good enough at a much lower cost.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    MaxPB said:

    Brom said:
    What we need is to get Ford to make EV engines in the UK, diesel will be gone in 10 years.
    Ford expect Diesel engines in commercial vehicles to be around slightly longer.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    RobD said:

    Floater said:

    Quite

    Emer Cooke, executive director of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said that other EU-approved vaccines, the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, appeared to be linked to similar numbers of blood clots as the suspended AstraZeneca jab.


    Yet .... tumbleweed .......

    At least the EMA said something about it. It does seem like a politically-motivated vendetta against AZN. I wonder why.
    Yes it does sound like the scientists are giving the not so subtle finger to the politicos here.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,857

    kinabalu said:

    I tipped Sir Keir at 5/1 earlier on this month, he's now 3/1

    https://twitter.com/LadPolitics/status/1371808046792511493

    I think he's safe myself. Wonder why no Betfair exchange on this though?
    I do as well. Why does anyone think he'll walk? Failing that, how is he to be toppled? And who would be both a better replacement and one simultaneously able to win over the membership?

    I don't think he'll walk, and absent that there'll be no move to get rid of him. Besides anything else the majority faction of the PLP will be terrified of a repeat of Corbyn.
    No, can't see it. I can't see Johnson going before the election either. No exchange market on Starmer exit date but there is a quasi way to bet on it - Starmer as next PM. It's trading at higher than 5 but as soon as it becomes clear it will be Johnson vs Starmer at the GE it will be down below 3.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    moonshine said:

    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    I don't think I believe that last - which ones do you mean?

    There are certainly "hard to insulate" properties (eg solid wall, rooms in the roof), and a few exceptions like National Trust properties or things that are Listed with ornate interiors. But that is different.
    There are about half a million listed buildings, many of which I’m sure are not connected to the gas grid. I was quoted anywhere between £30-50k for GSHP for a 3 bed house, with the land already in place and on the assumption that no amendments would be needed to internal radiators which are over sized for the room volumes. The running costs would have been approximately equal to heating oil. Absolutely no point whatsoever.

    Someone (I think I know who) needs to smash up this tired segment of the industry.

    As to using a biofuel in place of heating oil, over time biofuel will be blended into domestic heating oil and then be increased so that potentially in 10-15 years it might be entirely “renewable”. I don’t see a better solution really.
    Was that using boreholes or ground loops? Single phase or three phase?

    I often had clients who would do the excavating themselves with borrowed plant to save money on the most expensive aspect - the ground works.

    Did you factor in the RHI in your payback calcs?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,100
    edited March 2021
    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    Because in the piece he's comparing his big microwave kettle to a Gas Boiler.

    But he's a bollocks merchant.

    His microwave boiler is about the same claimed efficiency as a gas boiler (which is irrelevant - that is not the main bollocks), and will heat up water instantly like a gas boiler, but peak rate electricity is about 5x more expensive than peak rate gas per kWh. That is the bollocks.

    It's exactly the same schtick as those "instant wall heaters" that they try to get you to have rather than storage heaters. Storage heaters let you use cheap rate electricity at 40% of the price on E7 or E10 tariff, and that is where you save the money. Instant wall heaters are peak rate so you pay full whack. Maybe OK for a boost if you have a near passive house (= the saving is that it needs 80-90% less heat), but as a mainstay it is deranged.

    An ASHP saves money on electricity because 1 unit of electricity drives a reverse fridge or similar which gets you 3-4 unit of heat out. You get heat because the outside air is made slightly cooler, and it gets through a helluva lot of air. @Gallowgate 's 5x is a touch ambitious as a typical figure.

    Better replacing a boiler with an ASHP or something like a Sunamp. The key is having something to use 4x less money buying electricity, whether by cheap rate or by using less. On one you get your green halo because you are using less, on the other because you are balancing the system.

    And hopefully you sort out your inefficient fabric first, anyway.

    One side point, this is *unit* efficiency, not supply chain efficiency so you will generate power station and distribution losses and emissions too.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Brom said:
    What we need is to get Ford to make EV engines in the UK, diesel will be gone in 10 years.
    Ford expect Diesel engines in commercial vehicles to be around slightly longer.
    I think the market will say otherwise, the cost of EVs is falling rapidly, the TCO of EVs will begin to become competitive with diesel and operators are rational and will move over to EVs much sooner than the likes of Ford and VW are hoping.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    Talk Radio 2 seems to be the only place to listen to the cricket if you don't have Sky.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    MattW said:

    An ASHP saves money on electricity because 1 unit of electricity drives a reverse fridge or similar which gets you 3-4 unit of heat out. You get heat because the outside air is made slightly cooler, and it gets through a helluva lot of air. @Gallowgate 's 5x is a touch ambitious as a typical figure.

    I am assuming 35 deg flow temperature inside of course for peek efficiency!
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    My council tax bill has just landed. It's eye-watering. HCC and EHDC are actually alright (at just 2% rises) but it's all the other jockeys.

    And the PCC has whacked up the police precept by 7.1% for Hampshire because he felt there was a "compelling operational case". He's not standing for re-election.

    Pillock. The phallus I will draw on my ballot paper grows ever larger and more detailed.

    We got off lightly with 5.5% in Surrey:

    https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-residents-face-55-tax-19820757

    Interestingly, the Tory incumbent is running as an independent against a new Tory candidate this time:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_England_and_Wales_police_and_crime_commissioner_elections#Surrey_Police
    Wasn't he deselected?
    Quite possibly; I was hoping Kevin Hurley might have another go:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Hurley

    My police officer friend reckoned Hurley was completely bonkers.

    EDIT: should say was completely bonkers.
    Just checked, he was deselected, and the lady who beat him then quit.

    THE CONSERVATIVE candidate for Surrey’s police and crime commissioner has resigned, citing a ‘toxic’ environment in a video on Twitter.

    She said her inner circle worked against her rather than with her, and at times it felt like "an old gentleman’s club".


    https://www.altonherald.com/article.cfm?id=140440&headline='Toxic environment' blamed as Tory candidate drops out of police commissioner race&sectionIs=news&searchyear=2021
    Munro sounds bullish. I reckon it will go to second preferences again.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,094

    I get that Labour should hold the seat. Should. As it should have held all the red wall seats. Labour used to own Teesside, but it has been swinging increasingly away from them over the last 20 years. Remember that Hartlepool dumped the Labour council in 2001, voted for a man in a monkey suit for mayor in 2001, and today has a Tory / independents / ex-BXP council. With the local Labour group split into multiple warring factions.

    Tories start as favourite on Betfair, and that’s probably right. Comparing with nearby seats it looks like Tice’s higher profile campaign hit the Tories disproportionately last time. And I can’t see Reform having the same appeal.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    Good old Stu! I was hoping we'd hear from her again.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184
    I can't help feeling that - despite what Rochdale P said earlier about the far-left nature of the Hartlepool CLP - the temper of Hartlepool as a constituency isn't exactly a good match to Pidcock's version of left-wingery. (Mind you, nor was Durham North West.)
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    I get that Labour should hold the seat. Should. As it should have held all the red wall seats. Labour used to own Teesside, but it has been swinging increasingly away from them over the last 20 years. Remember that Hartlepool dumped the Labour council in 2001, voted for a man in a monkey suit for mayor in 2001, and today has a Tory / independents / ex-BXP council. With the local Labour group split into multiple warring factions.

    OTOH nobody's voting to "Get Brexit Done" this time and there's every reason to suppose that, in the context of what's almost bound to be a very low turnout election that inspires little public attention, the bulk of the 2019 BXP vote will simply sit on its arse.

    Hartlepool was one of the bricks in the red wall that wasn't broken. I suppose it might be that the vote in that part of the world is still migrating towards the Tories and that they'll end up winning, but it does seem more likely that Labour will survive.
    Why a low turnout? Its to be held on the same day as the council election, the mayoral election and the PCC election. Turnout will be strong, and a lot of people will be off to the polling station not to vote Labour:
    Ben Houchen will walk the mayoral and deservedly so
    PCC election will be closer but I still expect a least a strong Tory showing
    Pools council has only 8 Labour councillors on it. Various different independent groups as well as genuine independents and ex-Labour/Brexit Party defectees

    Once you vote against Labour on one ballot paper its easy to do so again on the next ballot paper. And why would the Brexit vote stay home? They voted Brexit to see more prosperity, and places with a Tory MP are getting large wodges of cash flung at them.
    Local elections traditionally suffer from low turnout, and interest in PCCs is derisory. Nor is local council composition necessarily a reliable guide to Parliamentary representation. To borrow from one of my favourite examples, the Liberal Democrats won 30 of 40 seats on North Norfolk District Council in May 2019. In the General Election later that year, where the yellows were the incumbent party, the Parliamentary seat (which shares very similar boundaries) went Conservative with a 14k majority and 60% vote share.

    Whilst it's possible that Hartlepool will go blue, there's no particular reason to suppose that any Labour seat which was held in 2019 (and the result in this one wasn't even that close) would flip in a by-election now.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,100
    edited March 2021

    MattW said:

    An ASHP saves money on electricity because 1 unit of electricity drives a reverse fridge or similar which gets you 3-4 unit of heat out. You get heat because the outside air is made slightly cooler, and it gets through a helluva lot of air. @Gallowgate 's 5x is a touch ambitious as a typical figure.

    I am assuming 35 deg flow temperature inside of course for peek efficiency!
    Hope the house is high quality fabric :smile: . It's also the defrost cycle that kills efficiency.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    [Google Translate]

    German Health Ministry on AZ:

    Are we not risking more deaths than we are avoiding as a result of the AstraZeneca vaccination ban?
    That is a statistical (and legitimate) issue. But the state is legally obliged, in particular, to the individual citizen who is vaccinated as part of a state vaccination campaign! The state makes the vaccine available and therefore has special duties of care. Officials of the BMG and PEI are obliged to monitor the safety of the vaccine and to react to appropriate signals. If these obligations are violated and the vaccination campaign continues without properly informing the population and the people to be vaccinated, there could also be legal consequences.


    https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/coronavirus/faq-covid-19-impfung/faq-impfung-astrazeneca.html#c20800
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,620

    DougSeal said:
    Unfortunately, positive tests (not cases) will probably rise today or tomorrow (thanks to a huge acceleration in testing), and that will be used by the Zero Covid psychopaths as evidence to delay the roadmap. You're going to be able to set your watch by them.
    I don't really agree with you - we've been doing 1.5 million tests for a while now (at least a week). Yes we have had an apparent levelling off of the decrease in cases, but what new testing is going to be reported today?
    POSITIVE TESTS

    It looks to me that positive tests are going to show a small rise in the next few days, and that this will be leapt on by the 0CV19ers. It's just a guesstimate – we'll see.
    The schools have been back a week and we have (as of yesterday)....

    image
    Indeed, we have seen dwindling falls. I expect positive tests (not cases, important difference) to show a notional week-on-week rise in the coming days. That's my reading of the trends. I might well be wrong and I hope very much that I am. An increase in positive cases is utterly meaningless when we are testing so many more per day –– yet it will be leapt upon by the Zero Covidians and parts of the media, who will deliberately conflate cases with positive tests. Mark my words.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846
    moonshine said:

    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    I don't think I believe that last - which ones do you mean?

    There are certainly "hard to insulate" properties (eg solid wall, rooms in the roof), and a few exceptions like National Trust properties or things that are Listed with ornate interiors. But that is different.
    There are about half a million listed buildings, many of which I’m sure are not connected to the gas grid. I was quoted anywhere between £30-50k for GSHP for a 3 bed house, with the land already in place and on the assumption that no amendments would be needed to internal radiators which are over sized for the room volumes. The running costs would have been approximately equal to heating oil. Absolutely no point whatsoever.

    Someone (I think I know who) needs to smash up this tired segment of the industry.

    As to using a biofuel in place of heating oil, over time biofuel will be blended into domestic heating oil and then be increased so that potentially in 10-15 years it might be entirely “renewable”. I don’t see a better solution really.
    We live in a Grade 2* listed building surrounded by a Romano-British town. We are not on the gas grid and currently use oil. Sadly for us neither solar panels nor GSHP are allowed so we are looking at installing a wood burning boiler which we will feed from our own wood.
  • Cookie said:

    I can't help feeling that - despite what Rochdale P said earlier about the far-left nature of the Hartlepool CLP - the temper of Hartlepool as a constituency isn't exactly a good match to Pidcock's version of left-wingery. (Mind you, nor was Durham North West.)
    As I suggested upthread they (regional director acting on behalf of the NEC) will impose a candidate.

    Ex Darlo MP Jenny Chapman quoted as being one of the people lobbying hard for Dr Paul...
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,100
    edited March 2021

    moonshine said:

    MattW said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    I don't think I believe that last - which ones do you mean?

    There are certainly "hard to insulate" properties (eg solid wall, rooms in the roof), and a few exceptions like National Trust properties or things that are Listed with ornate interiors. But that is different.
    There are about half a million listed buildings, many of which I’m sure are not connected to the gas grid. I was quoted anywhere between £30-50k for GSHP for a 3 bed house, with the land already in place and on the assumption that no amendments would be needed to internal radiators which are over sized for the room volumes. The running costs would have been approximately equal to heating oil. Absolutely no point whatsoever.

    Someone (I think I know who) needs to smash up this tired segment of the industry.

    As to using a biofuel in place of heating oil, over time biofuel will be blended into domestic heating oil and then be increased so that potentially in 10-15 years it might be entirely “renewable”. I don’t see a better solution really.
    Was that using boreholes or ground loops? Single phase or three phase?

    I often had clients who would do the excavating themselves with borrowed plant to save money on the most expensive aspect - the ground works.

    Did you factor in the RHI in your payback calcs?
    Half a million out of 30 million dwellings is not a really large block.

    And most of them can be efficiently renovated to a higher quality fabric anyway. Though perhaps at rather more expense, and they won't make absolute top quality. But that's the compromise.

    In many cases an ASHP will be as good. And much less investment / cheaper to run.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,620
    Indeed. That is much nearer where we need to be from here! Best 1st dose return on a Tuesday (Monday date of) since records began.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    I make the corresponding total for 8 March to be 254,061. Today's numbers look to be back to mid-February levels. That suggests some progress.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    An ASHP saves money on electricity because 1 unit of electricity drives a reverse fridge or similar which gets you 3-4 unit of heat out. You get heat because the outside air is made slightly cooler, and it gets through a helluva lot of air. @Gallowgate 's 5x is a touch ambitious as a typical figure.

    I am assuming 35 deg flow temperature inside of course for peek efficiency!
    Hope the house is high quality fabric :smile: . It's also the defrost cycle that kills efficiency.
    And when you're using direct electricity to boost the potable hot water temperature!
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Cookie said:

    I can't help feeling that - despite what Rochdale P said earlier about the far-left nature of the Hartlepool CLP - the temper of Hartlepool as a constituency isn't exactly a good match to Pidcock's version of left-wingery. (Mind you, nor was Durham North West.)
    I suspect if Hartlepool Labour party is given the opportunity to pick the candidate, Pidcock could well be the candidate.

    Her utter failure to win should hopefully destroy her career once and for all
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Pants down.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,981
    edited March 2021

    Mr. Eagles, Nemesis, who was the daughter of Nyx.

    Alongside Old Age, Discord, Sleep, and Death. They must've been fun as toddlers.

    Obviously you've never dealt with hangry (sic) toddlers.

    Spawn of Satan: 'Daddy, I don't like my food and drink'

    Me: 'Why, what's wrong?'

    Spawn of Satan: 'It's not dinosaurs and my drink's wet, I don't like it.'

    Old Age, Discord, Sleep, and Death are delights in comparison.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,100

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    This is interesting as closer to a like-for-like replacement for gas boilers than heat pumps.

    I think I'd definitely prefer a heat pump in a new build, but this looks like a more credible option for a lot of existing properties.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions

    Hmm. It doesn't look great to me. 96% sounds "efficient" but a heat pump properly installed and configured in a well insulated property will give you 4-5 times the output in heat than the input in electricity.

    There's probably a very good reason this hasn't been brought to market before.
    They've broken the laws of thermodynamics? They can't do that!
    Well a heat pump takes the latent heat in the air or the ground and puts it into your house. Like a fridge takes the heat out of your sausages and dumps it into your kitchen.

    All this "microwave" boiler is doing is heating up water using direct electricity.
    Hm, can't the heat pump be powered by electricity? Where's the gas coming into it?
    What do you mean? A heat pump is powered by electricity. But setup correctly, you'll get more than 4 times the heat out than electricity in because it's not using electricity to heat water directly, it's using the electricity to take the latent heat out of the air or the ground.

    Direct electrical heating can never be more than 100% efficient but a heat pump can be.
    There's a very large block of properties in the UK that are not particular energy efficient and cannot be made to be, meaning heat transfer tech is probably a non-starter. And another group again that are not even on mains gas, so can't be realistically retrograded to a hydrogen boiler. It's a pickle to be sure. I suspect it will be solved using biofuels.
    100% agree. However the product here seems to be marketed towards new builds, who should have no problem being energy efficient enough. To me it sounds like a "loop hole" for house builders to pretend they're being green but they're not.
    This intrigued me too. 96% sounds great on the face of it, but electric heating is extremely efficient anyway - efficiency losses in electrical appliances are mostly in the form of heat, if it's heat you want, you can do it very efficiently. I'd be interested to see figures for a more traditional heating element boiler.

    So, what's the microwave angle. All I can see is that you can maybe do it more quickly/cheaply. Properly directed microwaves could dump a lot of energy in water very quickly, likely quicker (or with a less complex heat exchanger) than conductive/convective systems used with a traditional heating element. For a combi-style electric boiler, that's key.

    I do also wonder whether this makes sense overall though. For retrofitting, sure, but in new builds wouldn't we be looking (if not a heat pump, where as you say you can get efficiency way over 100% and for a new-build where you've got diggers on site and nothing of value to dig up it seems the obvious thing) at simply having electric heaters/electric underfloor and electric heating at the tap/shower rather than a central boiler and all the pipework that implies?

    Edit: Of course, retrofitting will be most of the market for the foreseeable future, so if this is a better retrofit then it makes a lot of sense.
    Cost, heat pumps are >£10k, this is aiming to be the same price as a conventional gas boiler system at between £3-4k.
    Why so expensive? The ground works or the technology? Heat pumps aren't exactly cutting edge.

    In this case, I'm not sure what microwaving the water instead of using a coil gives you - other than added complexity.

    If you are going to use direct electrical heating you are far betting using individual thermostatic radiators in any case.
    Ground source heatpumps require laying a large amount (100s of ft) of ducting a few feet below ground or drilling a very deep hole.

    Air source are cheaper but can be noisy.

    They also require completely replacing your radiators as they are lower temperature than a gas boiler.
    Yes, the efficiency of a heat pump is inversely related to the temperature difference you are driving, so the lower the temperature you can deliver the heat at the better.

    If it is the groundworks that cost then perhaps shared boreholes are the answer? I suppose they eventually get too cold unless they are very deep, though.
    The company installing the borehole loops should do all the calculations needed to ensure you don't take too much heat out of the ground. The tell-tail sign that a company hasn't done their calculations properly is the ground freezing.

    That said, I never saw a domestic scale borehole installation that made any sense. The drilling is just too expensive. Air source is good enough at a much lower cost.
    I have at least one friend with a bore hole where it was cheaper because of the costs of connecting a mains supply

    Boreholes get very expensive if you need to mend them, as do trench type GSHP with "slinky sprnng" type loops of pipe because the antifreeze to fill it with really adds up.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    "unproductive" trans. "didn't get what I want"

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1371828605068660736?s=20
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,961

    I make the corresponding total for 8 March to be 254,061. Today's numbers look to be back to mid-February levels. That suggests some progress.
    Not bad for a Sunday.....

    Tomorrow and Thursday's reported numbers though I'm looking at too see how we are getting on.....
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,100

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    An ASHP saves money on electricity because 1 unit of electricity drives a reverse fridge or similar which gets you 3-4 unit of heat out. You get heat because the outside air is made slightly cooler, and it gets through a helluva lot of air. @Gallowgate 's 5x is a touch ambitious as a typical figure.

    I am assuming 35 deg flow temperature inside of course for peek efficiency!
    Hope the house is high quality fabric :smile: . It's also the defrost cycle that kills efficiency.
    And when you're using direct electricity to boost the potable hot water temperature!
    That's what you want a Sunamp for.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    Floater said:
    Logically and wanting to be consistent, surely all of those countries who have paused using AZ should now also pause using Pfizer and Moderna.
This discussion has been closed.