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Thread: Renewable energy

  1. #31
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    Default Re: Renewable energy

    Methane, remember as a young lad seeing what we were told was burning Methane, locals called it, 'Willow the whisp'

    Can be seen on warm summer evenings in boggy areas where the Methane seps to the surface and by some means ignites.
    Can be seen I am told in some EUY regions as well.

    Interesting about UK water, never knew so much was overseas owned.

    here in Victoria, and some other states our power and gas companies were sold of to investors.
    Our bus and train service are managed by a UK company who get a large bonus when they run to time.
    Time allows for a train to be five minutes late I am informed.
    Never use public transport so no idea of how it is working, but regular reports in the media show us the outcome of the services.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
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  2. #32
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    Default Re: Renewable energy

    John I suspect tha at least 80% of the UK's utility companies are foreign owned.

  3. #33
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    Default Re: Renewable energy

    Methane as i know it after working in the Mines , is an Oderless,Colorless Gas that is very Highly Inflamable , and was present a lot underground, thus we had to Water Down for both Methane and Dust before each shift, also using the safety Lamp which could tell you if Methane was present! It was one Gas that you had to treat with every care, and i had seen in Person what can happen with an Explosion of it! Terrible to say the least with devastating effects!

    If you did not check for it, one could walk right inrto a pocket without any knowledge and in Minutes you were DEAD !!

    Cheers
    Senior Site Moderator-Member and Friend of this Website

    R697530

  4. #34
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    Default Re: Renewable energy

    I just found this bit in the net here in Oz, make good reading for some, water companies, but for others maybe the truth.


    Whether physically present or not, recent prime ministers and their governments have prepared us for none of the great predicaments we face. They have looked the other way as the water companies failed to commission any new reservoirs since they were privatised in 1989, and allowed astonishing volumes of that precious commodity we call treated drinking water – 2.4bn litres a day on current estimates – to leak away. It’s a carelessness so grand that it feels like a metaphor. Instead of forcing them to stop these leaks, the government has allowed these corporations to pump the rivers dry: the living world, as ever, is the buffer that must absorb failure and greed.

    So determined is the government to absent itself from decision-making that it cannot even institute a hosepipe ban: it must feebly ask the water companies to do so. Most, with an interest in ensuring their metered customers use as much as possible, have so far refused. Nor have the companies been obliged to upgrade their sewage treatment works. The combination of over-abstraction and sewage dumping is devastating. The water in the upper reaches of some of our chalk streams – remarkable ecosystems that are almost unique to England – now consists of nothing but sewage outflows and road run-off. During this long period of regulatory absence, the privatised water firms have piped £72bn in dividends into the accounts of their shareholders.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
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  6. #35
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    Default Re: Renewable energy

    The previous posting fits with J. Curry comment on the amount of UK companies foreign owned.
    It is becoming a global thing though.
    Governments across the globe appear willing to let overseas companies to run the country via companies.

    It is happening more and more each year as if the govs do not want the responsibility of looking after the country.
    Of course if foreign owned they can pay dividends and the gov cannot be blamed if thigs go wrong.

    The problem is that global now govs want as much power as possible with as little responsibility as possible.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
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    Default Re: Renewable energy

    Prof Andy Pitman, director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, said regulators are relying on models that are good at forecasting how average climates will change as the planet warms, but are less likely to be of use for predicting how extreme weather will imperil individual localities such as cities, however.

    The concerns, detailed in a recent report in the journal Environmental Research: Climate, were underscored by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s release on Monday of its corporate plan 2022-23. Apra plans to “continue to ensure regulated institutions are well-prepared for the risks and opportunities presented by climate change”.

    However, Pitman said regulators are still ill-equipped to assess the risks and to regulate the ability of banks and other institutions to cope with them.

    “Without a shadow of a doubt, we’re overestimating the cost of climate change in some areas and grossly underestimating it in others,” Pitman said. “We need to take this issue seriously – not just access information flying around and think we can package it to do proper economic assessments.”

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    “If you’re going to throw billions or trillions of dollars around, you need to ensure that you’re getting the right scientific advice on how to interpret the climate information,” he said. “I think that’s a no-brainer but [regulators] are not doing that.”

    Pitman’s paper, and a separate one he co-authored for Nature Climate Change in 2021, examined the models being used by groups such as the Network for Greening the Financial System. The NGFS advises about 100 central banks and other regulators globally, including Australia’s Reserve Bank and Apra.

    The climate models underpinning such advice, however, are based on general climate change, such as rising temperatures. In part because their resolution typically covers only 100km-by-100km regions, the models’ coarseness makes them unreliable for predicting how extreme weather events will change, Pitman said.

    Without their own climate scientists, the RBA and Apra rely on scenarios generated by NGFS to understand how a heating planet will influence economic and financial stability.

    Related: Home buyback scheme receives 443 applications from flood-hit Queensland property owners

    The RBA referred queries to Apra, where a spokesperson said: “Apra’s focus is not on specifying individual climate risks for different regulated entities but rather on ensuring that entities are making lending, investing and underwriting decisions based on a full understanding of the relevant risks, including climate risks.”

    “We do not evaluate risks on behalf of the entities that we regulate,” the spokesperson said.

    Apra recently released the results of a self-assessment survey on members’ approach to those risks. It is also now completing its inaugural climate vulnerability assessment of the five major banks.

    Pitman, who had contributed to the soon-to-be-released inquiry into the NSW floods earlier this year, said the standard approach must avoid being complacent about the possible changes that may not be well understood.

    For instance, people should not build on flood plains even if the trend of future climates might result in some regions receiving fewer multi-day rain events but more short-term, intense ones.

    Decisions needed to be “framed in a deep understanding of uncertainty and chosen very carefully to do no harm” and include greater investment in the science, Pitman said.

    He said Apra’s corporate plan implied “we can do this well and we’ll continue to do it well, and I think that’s courageous”.

    For instance, it was clear the flood-prone Hawkesbury River near Sydney would flood “again and again and again”, Pitman said.

    “You don’t need climate projections to say there’s a vulnerability there,” he said. “Go and look for where there’s vulnerabilities in supply chains, or in the planning for those most at risk, and invest in those because you’re on very sure ground that those risks aren’t going away.”
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
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    Default Re: Renewable energy

    When that favourite of many here on site, Margaret Thatcher, sold off the utility companies to private investors we were told privatization would encourage competition and bring down prices. We are seeing the consequences of her failed policy, utility companies raking in record profits with millions of pounds paid out to shareholders and prices sky high. The water companies are a monopoly, we cannot choose who supplies our water, there is no competition.

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  10. #38
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    Default Re: Renewable energy

    Quote Originally Posted by Louis the fly View Post
    When that favourite of many here on site, Margaret Thatcher, sold off the utility companies to private investors we were told privatization would encourage competition and bring down prices. We are seeing the consequences of her failed policy, utility companies raking in record profits with millions of pounds paid out to shareholders and prices sky high. The water companies are a monopoly, we cannot choose who supplies our water, there is no competition.
    when she sold off the Wearside shipbuilding industry for £25m she said there was no market for ships, the yards had good order books and Austin & Pickersgill were knocking out SD14S as fast as they could build them and they licensed two other yards to build them, such was the demand

  11. #39
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    Default Re: Renewable energy

    Quote Originally Posted by Louis the fly View Post
    When that favourite of many here on site, Margaret Thatcher, sold off the utility companies to private investors we were told privatization would encourage competition and bring down prices. We are seeing the consequences of her failed policy, utility companies raking in record profits with millions of pounds paid out to shareholders and prices sky high. The water companies are a monopoly, we cannot choose who supplies our water, there is no competition.
    if there is no competition louis .....start an industry digging effin wells lol R683532

  12. Likes vic mcclymont liked this post
  13. #40
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    Default Re: Renewable energy

    Louis the sell off was the right thing do for a whole variety of reasons.
    In all of the companies sold off the UK Government held a golden share, this share gave them control over what the companies could and couldn't do.
    In 1994 the EU in its wisdom decreed that the golden share was illegal under EU rules.
    Removal of UK control opened flood gates for takeovers and mergers.
    Vic

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