At long long last:


UK government backs plan to ban gas and ‘hydrogen-ready’ boilers
wrote:

Delayed consultation could lead to heat pumps being installed as standard in newbuilds in England from 2025...

... The proposals could mean heat pumps being installed as standard as part of measures to make all new homes “net zero ready” from 2025.

The consultation rules out the use by housebuilders of all fossil fuel heating systems including gas, hybrid heat pumps and hydrogen-ready boilers, after a finding that there was “no practical way to allow the installation of fossil fuel boilers while also delivering significant carbon savings”...

... at least 10% of donations received by the Conservative party since 2010 – about £40m – came from property developers, real estate tycoons and others connected with the construction industry...

... “This is great news for homebuyers, who will save money on energy bills and avoid the need for costly retrofits in the future. It’s also great news for the UK’s clean-tech industry, providing the long-term policy certainty needed to boost investment in skills and supply chains.”

The requirement for all new homes to be built to highly efficient standards was originally proposed in 2006, which would have required all new houses to be “zero carbon” and generate as much energy as possible onsite from 2016. This proposal was scrapped in 2015...

The right way to go...

But why delayed by a full decade? Who suffers all the extra costs of that 10-year delay?...


All on our only one planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Is this the solution to our dirty oil addiction to nitrogen fertilizers?


Europe's Deepest Mine is Not What You Think...


Spectacular and spectacularly good.

Good for business, and good for our planet.

Here's hoping this does cleanly put oil produced nitrogen fertilizer out of business.

... Next is to undo the unsustainable unhealthy farming practices imposed by the greedy supermarket behemoths...


All on our only one planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

What can so easily and quickly be done:


Stung by the 2008 oil price spike, Uruguay now produces up to 98% of its electricity from renewables. Can other countries follow suit?


All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

UK MOD rejects heat pumps and trials alternative Cylo technology alternative. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/30/military-trials-cutting-edge-electric-boilers-heat-pumps/

One possible solution is by using Cylo boilers, which the Telegraph understands are currently being fitted in four homes at the Duke of Gloucester Barracks in South Cerney, Glos, as part of a pilot project due to start early in 2024.

Cylo is a fridge-sized, emission-free electric boiler that is cheaper to run and more effective than a heat pump.

It is also greener than a gas boiler and requires no major works* to a building before it can be installed.

The boiler uses a pressurised water tank as a thermal battery, using off-peak and cheap electricity to create a “heat reservoir” that then powers radiators when needed.

Standing around 6ft tall and weighing around 250kg before being filled with water, it can be fitted in a ground floor room or on the outside of a building.

* Uses existing radiators and pipe work, and power cabling.

Simply done:


A Huge Battery Has Replaced Hawaii's Last Coal Plant


Way to go!

All on our only one planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

They want something done about the climate so long as it doesn't spoil their views and those selfish NIMBY's will spread conspiracy theories to save that view. Yet they'll watch coal trains and bulk freighters come and go all day from the port.

In the Hunter, all eyes are on the horizon.

Then when the coal stops altogether what will a lot of them do for a job?

For a more tuneful good way:

Protest - ‘A powerful message through song’: the UK’s Climate Choir Movement is growing


Can the positivity win soon enough?

All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Small movements at last to undo the fossil fuel corruption:


UK quits treaty that lets fossil fuel firms sue governments over climate policies
wrote:

Britain joins France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands in withdrawing from charter it says ‘penalises’ shift to net zero

Chicago sues fossil fuel companies for role in climate crisis
wrote:

Lawsuit targets BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Phillips 66 and Shell, alleging that they intentionally misled public

All on our only one planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Will this work?...


Climate change: The 'insane' plan to save the Arctic's sea-ice

• Good?
  
  
• Desperate?
  
  
• Or fuel to give the Denialists an excuse to procrastinate yet more years?...
  

All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Is this a good way to go?


Simulation reveals all Japanese will have the same surname by 2531
wrote:

Konnichiwa, Sato-San...

... by the year 2531, everyone in Japan will have the surname Sato.

Not that there's anything wrong with the name Sato, of course. It's currently the most popular surname in Japan with more than 1.5 percent of the population proud to call it their own – slightly ahead of Suzuki.

There are, however, comparatively few surnames in Japan for the size of its population...

... by 2446, over half of the population would be called Sato. And by 2531, everyone would bear the name...

... However, [following present day trends,] the boffin pointed out that the year 3310 prediction was irrelevant – by that year the Japanese population would include only 22 people thanks to its population decline...

... "In other words, even if 100 percent of the Sato surname is postponed for 800 years, there is a high possibility that the Japan itself will be destroyed due to the declining birthrate before that,"...

Sato becomes the Last Samurai standing... Say it ain't so?

All on our only one planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Instead of banning petrol and diesel cars, there's a multiple of CO2 inefficiencies in the building stock of whole nations which should be addressed first. The article discusses the Eastern European satellite cities consisting of prefabricated housing complexes and their transformation into CO2 efficient, well insulated modern buildings. Such neighborhoods are also typical of the vast majority of all buildings in East German cities built between 1958 and 1990. I grew up in such neighborhoods myself, as did most of my classmates at school.

Communist-era apartment blocks dominate Eastern Europe – now they're being transformed
wrote:

From Prague to Plovdiv, engineers and architects are giving a second life to communist-built apartment blocks in Central and Eastern Europe, ready for the climate change era.

Many of these blocks are cold, draughty and expensive to heat. Today, [...] energy bills in the block are half what they used to be.

Approximately one third of the Bulgarian population lives in apartments built during communism, a similar proportion as in the Czech Republic and Poland. In Latvia more than 50% live in the ex-communist blocks, while in Estonia the figure is as high as 70%.

Miles Glendinning, professor of architectural conservation at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, says that modernist housing blocks in Central and Eastern Europe usually don't receive the same level of public stigma as those in Western cities. They are simply a part of daily city life.

I'm not sure if this should be in the "solutions" or "denial thread, but here's a bit of news I spotted a few minutes ago:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czkvlkvg9jyo

(Martin, somewhere in your neck of the woods, so perhaps you could see if you could improve your food variety by doing bit of fishing there?)

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/04/22/california-solar-duck-curve-rooftop/

But now, the state and its grid operator are grappling with a strange reality: There is so much solar on the grid that, on sunny spring days when there’s not as much demand, electricity prices go negative. Gigawatts of solar are “curtailed” — essentially, thrown away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX2n2-acksw&t=360s

I thought Electric Cars Were the Future. I Changed My Mind

One small part of an area that was once heavily wooded is being returned to woodland:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgy5nl5z67o
The good thing is the trees planted so far are of species that once covered the area (a mix of rowan, willow and hawthorn, in dense clusters). By planting in these clusters the trees protect each other and plastic tubes aren't needed.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Indeed, I also miss a larger focus on reforestation in our plans for climate change. I read somewhere that a third of the agricultural land in Germany was once required to grow fodder for horses. And that was before the invention of artificial fertilizer. How much more forest was there in the British Isles before large fleets of sailing ships were built over the centuries? The Spanish Armada, where did the used wood came from? The Viking's dragons... few forests in Iceland today.

We should look everywhere on the globe to find spots for new forests. That would be sensible development aid because forests immediately improve the microclimate.

In the UK much of the land bare of trees in upland areas was covered by mixed deciduous forest. This was cleared to provide "nice clear land" by the hunting & shooting gentry - a total waste of land. At the same time in lower areas of Scotland ever more land was cleared both of its woodland and occupants to provide land for grazing sheep. Add to that the forest management required to provide timber for ships and we end up with a land that was once quite heavily covered in deciduous woodland, with only a few areas like The New Forest, and areas of the west of Scotland having anything like its old coverage. For much of the last hundred years a lot of short-lived coniferous forests have been planted and harvested (in the main with non-native trees).
In some areas there is some "proper" re-forestation being under taken, but the areas being covered are small and patchy. We've a long way to go.....

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Setting a baseline to work from.

The cleanest air in the world is at Tasmania's Kennaook/Cape Grim. It's helping solve a climate puzzle.

When the "roaring forties" blow in from the Southern Ocean, Jamie Oliver knows he's in for a rough time.

"Sometimes in the winter, when it gets wet and cold for days and days, you get a bit sick of it," the 55-year-old beef farmer admits.

But Mr Oliver, who's lived on Tasmania's north-west coast since he was a teenager, wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

"It's a magnificent place," he said.

"The air, I don't know if it's just me, but it's so crisp and clean. And you feel like you can breathe it properly."

His assessment about the region's air quality is backed up by decades of science.

Twenty-five kilometres up the coast from his property is one of the world's three "premier" stations that monitor baseline air pollution.

Established in 1976, the Kennaook/Cape Grim facility can accurately measure changes in the global atmosphere without the interference of local contamination.

"Air here under baseline conditions is very, very clean," CSIRO atmospheric scientist Melita Keywood said.

"It's 1,000 times cleaner in terms of the number of particles than we would measure in Melbourne, for example – and that's Melbourne on a good day.".......

There is hope yet...



Renewable energy passes 30% of world’s electricity supply
wrote:

... A report on the global power system has found that the world may be on the brink of driving down fossil fuel generation, even as overall demand for electricity continues to rise.

Clean electricity has already helped to slow the growth in fossil fuels by almost two-thirds in the past 10 years...

... “The decline of power sector emissions is now inevitable,”...

... Although fossil fuel use in the world’s electricity system may begin to fall, it continues to play an outsized role in global energy – in transport fuels, heavy industry and heating. A separate study by the Energy Institute found last year that fossil fuels including oil, gas and coal made up 82% of the world’s primary energy...

More needed, and sooner, and without delay!

All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

At last!

We have:


A {High Temperature} Heat Pump for £500?!
wrote:

... high temperature heat pump which they believe could be the solution for 80% of UK homes and could cost just £500!

Now we just the Politics to catch up... (Or at least become less oil corrupt...)

All on our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)