[OpenTRV-interest] [OpenTRV-dev] Storage heating, dynamic demand, and OpenTRV

[John Stumbles]

On 08/09/14 21:34, Damon Hart-Davis wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I’ve read that piece and don’t think I believe it by a long chalk.
>
> PV EROEI in the UK is rather better than (say) tar sands in Canada.
> I hope that we can do better but we can survive on it for now I
> think.

There may be energy sources with worse EROEI but the figures in the 
Weissbach paper (the source of the EROEI figures quoted in the Brave New 
Climate article) are for Germany which is likely to be similar to the UK 
in both PV performance and amount of energy required to run social 
services like healthcare and education. Unless Weissbach & colleagues 
are wildly wrong then PV in these latitudes would seem to be a waste of 
money and energy (as German experience tends to confirm with a mere 5% 
of its electricity, let alone total energy, supplied by its vast 
expenditure on PV, and amongst the highest electricity prices in the world.)

> My family lives on about 1/2 or less of average energy (for example)
> even by UK standards, and don’t try convincing someone from the US
> that those are anything other than penury.
>
> We’ve got some adjustments in expectations to make, but I think that
> PV and wind, with improvements to come, will be a positive piece of
> the picture.
>
> Anything else is a counsel of despair IMHO!

If PV and wind were the only technical options then despair and false 
hope would be the corresponding emotional alternatives. Fortunately 
there are technologies capable of producing prodigious amounts of clean 
energy safely and sustainably with high enough EROEIs to run a modern 
world on.


-- 
John Stumbles                                    http://stumbles.org.uk
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