Siting of panels for solar water heating

Alan Connor wrote:

Hooray! The Subject was changed when the subject changed.

one tries :-)

On uk.environment, in 1hprnll.zika54lknksjN%usenet@colddrake.co.uk>, "sarah" wrote:
John Beardmore wrote:
In message 1165078345.322377.5770@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com>, meow2222@care2.com writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message 1164800890.569168.242640@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com>, meow2222@care2.com writes
Owain wrote:
Andy Hall wrote:
At present the nation is expected to put a sizeable amount of hours each week into rubbish sorting at home, for free, when the companies that get the sorted goods should be responsible for this.
Hours ?!?
lets say 5 mins per person per week, x 65 million = 325 million minutes = 5.4 million manhours per week = 280 million manhours per year, at a value of 2 billion pounds, if we value it at �7/hr. Guess I should have said millions of hours.
Well OK, but if you want to aggregate things, have you looked at the cost and environmental impact of centralised waste separation ? You don't really have a decision to make until you've got both data sets.
I'd argue that sorting your own waste has an important psychological impact. It's *YOURS*. You (well, not you personally, John :-) bought the stuff, and you should have to deal with the results of your purchasing. If you choose to jumble it all together to make one large horrid mess, you should certainly have to sort that out yourself. Like Andrew, our waste is sorted (by me) as it is generated. No problem.
And here we see one of the main reasons the so-called 'environmental movement' is a failure:
The 'environmentalists' spend their time discussing how to get rid of garbage that shouldn't exist in the first place.
Things produced locally with human power and that are actually _needed_ for a decent life, things that are actually Earth-friendly, don't have packaging.
But when you excessively consume things that are produced industrially in far away places, then you have a garbage problem.

Agreed (one reason we voluntarily restrict our consumption). But alas, we live in this world, not Utopia.

And even producing the basics does far more environmental harm than is necessary.
But hey, that's better than having ugly industries in your neighborhood trashing _your_ environment, right?

No. I've no objection to ugly industry in my neighborhood. Provided it conforms to appropriate environmental regulations. I currently live in an environment thoroughly trashed by industrial agriculture.

So just make a ritual out of sorting your garbage, cleansing yourself of sin thereby (in your own mind, anyway) and then send it somewhere else. Wouldn't want to actually _live_ near where it ends up, would you?

Actually I wouldn't mind at all. I was one of the very few who supported an application for a local refuse composting facility. Upwind of us given the prevailing wind, and less than 1km from our house.

NIMBY = Not In My Back Yard
The call of the psuedo-environmentalist.

Ah, the clarion call of the hobby-horse...
regards sarah

-- Think of it as evolution in action.

Andy Hall wrote:

On 2006-12-03 17:47:04 +0000, usenet@colddrake.co.uk (sarah) said:
Andy Hall wrote:
.. or pay someone else to do it.
OK. But only if you and those others who want that service pay for it *personally*.
I have no problem with that and made that clear from the outset.
You can hire someone to come in and do it for you; you could do so tomorrow if you felt like it. The rest of us who prefer not to waste (ha) our money shouldn't have to pay anything towards provision of that service. I would work hard to vote out any of my representatives who suggested such a thing.
The whole premise was to have a range of services from a range of providers so that people can choose what they want and with local authorities taken out of the financial path between customer and supplier. If you want to continue as you are then that is accomodated.

That's *your* premise, not mine. Making a range of services from a range of providers available means no one can apply economies of scale (and someone will have to regulate and inspect the suppliers, but that's another issue, sorry, set of costs). I'm perfectly happy to have essential services provided by a single supplier ultimately responsible to me (the electorate).

Alternatively, you have the option to select products based on the way that the manufacturer does the packaging. It's far better not to have the packaging disposal issue in the first place.
Quite. But until legislation forces it on the manufacturers, their marketing people, combined perhaps with a host of safety regs and transport requirements, and sheer laziness on the part of some consumers ensures the problem will persist.
There already is huge over-regulation in these areas. Adding more is unlikely to alter the behaviour of consumers who want to buy a) on price and b) on the attractiveness of the packaging.

I beg to disagree. If regulation forces manufacturers to reduce their packaging excesses, consumers will have to buy what's available.

If you choose to jumble it all together to make one large horrid mess, you should certainly have to sort that out yourself.
Why? I pay for rubbish disposal.
And your rubbish is disposed of.
Then I'm happy. I am not happy if I am expected to do part of the supplier's work for nothing. Either they reduce the price or they do the work.

You're not thinking it through. No one sorted refuse in the past: you're requiring them to do additional work. Which means the cost of refuse disposal would rise. Are you proposing a two- (or more) tier cost for refuse disposal, with one price for those of us who sort their own and another for those who prefer not to sully their hands with it? How much would implementing *that* cost? Add the cost of providing sorting facilities, hiring people to do the sorting, working out how to charge for it... gods, they'd have to have *another* collection round for the dirty combined stuff, which shouldn't contaminate the sorted refuse, so they'd need more trucks and drivers... the cost would be (relatively) astronomical. Nope, I'm afraid that if you don't want to sort your refuse yourself, the only effective solution is for you to hire someone to sort yours before you put it out. I'd rather my council tax paid for library books, thanks.

If the local authority wants it to be separated then they need to organise that.
If waste recycling were merely some whimsical initiative undertaken by UK local authorities, that would be fair. Unfortunately it's not. Recycling has been forced on them by EU directives which are in turn a function of general (you may be excluded if you wish) recognition that we're running short of sites for bulk waste disposal and that burying valuable resources or sending them up in smoke to generate heat and pollution is a Bad Thing.
If the total effect of each recycling procedure is positive (including the whole lifetime of the product), then it may be worthwhile. I am not convinced that there are very many actual cases where this applies.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your PoV), those responsible for recycling don't necessarily agree with you. And they're bound by the regulations anyway, so neither their opinions nor yours will influence the outcome.
regards sarah
-- Think of it as evolution in action.

John Beardmore wrote:

In message , sarah usenet@colddrake.co.uk> writes John Beardmore wrote:
North Herts has apparently concluded that the privatised bus services are effectively operating a cartel ;-/
Surely not ??? Shock ! Horror !!
Maybe they have a monopoly ? Oh no ! That cannot be !
If we're not careful, you'll corner the market for irony, cynicism and sarcasm.
:) Too bad there isn't much market.
You'll be wealthy beyond your dreams,
Not according to my accountant who I can't afford any more...

Oh, dear. I just engaged one. Not having to do my accounts and file a tax return is my best (adult) christmas present ever.
regards sarah
ps. Is the beginning of this thread worth reading for info on the subject?
-- Think of it as evolution in action.

John Beardmore wrote:

In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-29 00:25:37 +0000, John Beardmore said: In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-28 23:12:38 +0000, John Beardmore wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk> said:
But splitting delivery of the same service (shifting a mass of waste) is achieved with more competing vehicles, where is the environmental gain ?
The service isn't the same for each.
In total, the same amount of material is shifted.

yes

More people, equipment and road miles may be involved.

as may be less. Its really not difficult to see how that could occur.
Also you keep saying more vehicles, without offering any evidence that this is the way it will go down in practice.

As far as pricing is concerned, the market will decide. One element of the market is price competition.
Well - the average consumer may feel they've been had if it does work out more expensive.

I'm tempted to call the other examples of demonopolisation, such as electricity, gas, phone.

You would be at liberty to choose a supplier who operates in the same way as your existing one.
Which guarantees nothing about the change to multiple providers as a whole.

whats this preoccupation with guarantees? Clearly life doesnt give guarantees, wise decisions just give us the best odds.

I also told you that the term "environmental impact" is whatever the individual decides it is.
You may have told me that, but an MSc course in environmental decision making tells me otherwise.
Which do you think I'm going to believe ?

I get the feeling its whatever you were told.

That depends on what you mean by "environmental foot print"
No it isn't. It's been understood for a long time, and has been refined somewhat over time, but broadly goes like this.
Environmental Footprint is an indicator of consumption. It is calculated in terms of the amount of area required to deliver the things we consume, in such a way that there is no net use of non-renewable resources.
If anything, Environmental Footprint estimates tend be conservative indicators of resource use because it is virtually impossible to build a complete list of all the things we use.
In the context of Environmental Footprint calculations, 'area' means biologically viable land or sea required to grow the required resources we live on, and to incorporate the waste produced as a consequence of their consumption back into that biological system.
The area units used are hectares with world average productivity. This area may be analysed in terms of requirements for cropland, grazing land, forest to grow raw materials, sea for fish and seafood production, land for housing, work and infrastructure, and land to fix carbon dioxide emissions arising from energy use.
Because the area of available land and sea habitats are known, this indicator enables comparison between the footprint areas required by individuals, populations, or processes, and that available locally or globally.

Are you going to tell us you dont see any issues with that definition? Or that you think everyone agrees with it?

While slightly different definitions used by different researchers may give rise to slightly different methodologies, as long as the same methodology is used when making comparisons, a fairly accurate relative measure can be obtained for individuals, populations, processes etc, and all methodologies give broadly similar results.

as long as the same definiton is used, the same errors will be present.

To say "The definition is individual" shows a pretty complete lack of understanding of the field.

it may be just an acknowledgement of the fact that not everyone buys this approach.

No - all work to reduce environmental impact is done in the context of supporting life on the planet, ours included.

If thats true then these assessments arent worth much, given the way Britain behaves towards the 3rd world countries it deals with. What is the result of your assessments concerning trade with china, africa etc?

For example, the United States is not signing up for Kyoto because they believe that to do so would damage their economy. The Chinese are not stopping building power stations, presumably for similar reasons.
Quite so, but none of this means we should do nothing.
The fact that much of the solution is not trivially delivered does not mean that the problem that needs addressing has gone away.

its not that the solution is non-trivial, right now the issue is that the solution isnt available. No-one has even proposed any method that would reduce the worlds environmental footprint - and by that I mean a system based in reality that is likely to work. There is no such solution today.
With only 2% of the worlds population there is nothing Britain can do today to solve the problem by acting within our own borders. The only real solution si to devise methods that both can be applied internatinally, and for which there is an incentive to apply them worldwide. The real climate problem solvers are not footprint assessments, but technology innovators.

By all means try and find better ways to deal with the situation, but I don't buy it that 'business as usual' is the answer.

It is because it gives people what they want. If you think this and that need changing, convince people. If you can, if they vote for your ideas with their wallet, theyll buy from business that offer what they want.

The environmental lobby needs to go away and learn some economic realities and then come with solutions that will allow sustainable economies.
This isn't some problem owned by environmentalists for their amusement.
It's a problem owned by all of us that all of us have contributed to.

yes, but Andys comment above is still quite right. Enviro types really have not got a handle on it yet. Just as awareness is now much better than in the 70s, perhaps this interest group will come of age in the future and come up with some real solutions.
NT

David Hansen wrote:

On 2 Dec 2006 08:54:54 -0800 someone who may be meow2222@care2.com wrote this:-
Sounds like you live in a perfect world where those extra containers dont take up space or get in the way,
They take up little extra space or get in the way if organised properly.

tell it to people living in small accomodation, it wont wash.

the bags of junk dont fall over and blow junk everywhre,
There are few houses with gales inside them such that if a bag of "junk" falls over it will be blown everywhere.

no, that occurs outside

the boxes of cans dont fill up with neighbourhood rubbish,
Boxes of cans in people's houses, gardens or the street?

outdoors

and the binmen actually take the junk away.
Provided people comply with the rules there are few cases of binmen not taking "junk" away.

i wish. If it were true I'd still be using the service.
NT

sarah wrote:

Andy Hall wrote: On 2006-12-03 11:02:36 +0000, usenet@colddrake.co.uk (sarah) said:
I'd argue that sorting your own waste has an important psychological impact.

if you believe so, youre free to do it. If otoh youre quite ill and this is not on your priorities, you need to be free to not do it. Why does nanny always think one course of action is best for all?
You may find that after a while there is no more psychological benfit in sorting, once youre perfectly well aware of the rubbish situation. There is no reason people ought to spent their whole life in that learning about their rubbish phase.

It's *YOURS*. You (well, not you personally, John :-) bought the stuff, and you should have to deal with the results of your purchasing.
.. or pay someone else to do it.
OK. But only if you and those others who want that service pay for it *personally*. You can hire someone to come in and do it for you; you could do so tomorrow if you felt like it. The rest of us who prefer not to waste (ha) our money shouldn't have to pay anything towards provision of that service. I would work hard to vote out any of my representatives who suggested such a thing.

Ah, and thats important. Lots of people dont compost because there is no financial incentive to, and this results in masses of extra rubbish to dispose of and extra costs for us all. Why then do you not vote out people supporting this problem?

Alternatively, you have the option to select products based on the way that the manufacturer does the packaging. It's far better not to have the packaging disposal issue in the first place.
Quite. But until legislation forces it on the manufacturers, their marketing people, combined perhaps with a host of safety regs and transport requirements, and sheer laziness on the part of some consumers ensures the problem will persist.

Packaging is a signficant expense, as transport costs money and packaging takes up transport volume. Manufacturers do not therefore generally waste money on packaging. Its normally there because there is a reason it needs to be. The excess packaging myth results from popular lack of awareness of why its there.

If the local authority wants it to be separated then they need to organise that.
If waste recycling were merely some whimsical initiative undertaken by UK local authorities, that would be fair. Unfortunately it's not. Recycling has been forced on them by EU directives

so not even a democractic decision, or even semi democratic.

which are in turn a function of general (you may be excluded if you wish) recognition that we're running short of sites for bulk waste disposal

a classic untruth. There are areas of coastline begging for a ring wall of rubble to be laid down in the water and the area filled with garbage. The resulting land would pay us with its value, not cost us.

and that burying valuable resources or sending them up in smoke to generate heat and pollution is a Bad Thing.

What we buy is mostly made from oil and plants. From an energy use point of view, what difference does it make if we burn oil or burn oil derived waste?
I do agree the amount of stuff thrown away is excessive, but once items are no further use and thrown away, turning them back to energy sources, avoiding landfill use, does look like a sensible option.
TDP may change this picture.
NT

On 4 Dec 2006 02:41:42 -0800 someone who may be meow2222@care2.com wrote this:-

They take up little extra space or get in the way if organised properly.
tell it to people living in small accomodation, it wont wash.

There appear to be rather a lot of assumptions behind your remark.

There are few houses with gales inside them such that if a bag of "junk" falls over it will be blown everywhere.
no, that occurs outside

Outside the "junk" should be inside suitable containers, a bin or box, rather then bags.

Boxes of cans in people's houses, gardens or the street?
outdoors

And how do these "fill up with neighbourhood rubbish"?

Provided people comply with the rules there are few cases of binmen not taking "junk" away.
i wish. If it were true I'd still be using the service.

Then you have a particular problem, but that doesn't mean it is a general one. What is your description of the problem?

-- David Hansen, Edinburgh I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

sarah wrote:

Andy Hall wrote: On 2006-12-03 17:47:04 +0000, usenet@colddrake.co.uk (sarah) said: Andy Hall wrote:
That's *your* premise, not mine. Making a range of services from a range of providers available means no one can apply economies of scale (and

no it doesnt, no-one said they would have to be small firms.

someone will have to regulate and inspect the suppliers,

same as they do now

but that's another issue, sorry, set of costs).

which we already pay

I'm perfectly happy to have essential services provided by a single supplier ultimately responsible to me (the electorate).

this is another political myth. You or the electorate didnt insitute this LA garbage recycling system in the first place, theyre not acting as you tell them, ie theyre not serving you. With a free market the company does serve the customer/electorate, else it loses market share and dies.

I beg to disagree. If regulation forces manufacturers to reduce their packaging excesses, consumers will have to buy what's available.

the overpackaging myth

You're not thinking it through. No one sorted refuse in the past: you're requiring them to do additional work. Which means the cost of refuse disposal would rise.

au contraire, I think Andy doesnt want to pay for sorting.

Are you proposing a two- (or more) tier cost for refuse disposal, with one price for those of us who sort their own and another for those who prefer not to sully their hands with it? How much would implementing *that* cost?

nothing. You leave the market to it, and people will buy from whichever firm does closest to what they want. It would result in economies rather than costs.

Add the cost of providing sorting facilities, hiring people to do the sorting, working out how to charge for it... gods, they'd have to have *another* collection round for the dirty combined stuff, which shouldn't contaminate the sorted refuse, so they'd need more trucks and drivers... the cost would be (relatively) astronomical.

What would happen in reality is that in the earliest days of the market, many types of service would be offered and chosen somewhere or other. This would provide a mass of real hard factual data about the various options, and analysis would show which was genuinely best for the economy, environment and so on, and as consumers learn about this the choices would move toward the better options, according to the choices of the service user. None of this happens today, which is why we're still debating it.
And as we know from market observation, it tends to be the cheaper services that get large market share, not the astropriced ones.

Nope, I'm afraid that if you don't want to sort your refuse yourself, the only effective solution is for you to hire someone to sort yours before you put it out.

why cant he have another option, such as not sorting and not recycling? Its not like the recycling option is beyond debate.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your PoV), those responsible for recycling don't necessarily agree with you. And they're bound by the regulations anyway, so neither their opinions nor yours will influence the outcome.

does that mean they dont have power in democratically deciding this after all?
NT

sarah wrote:

Perhaps like most things we're not looking for the place to draw a line, but rather painting subtle shades of grey across a wide area :-) The competent and concerned get to do more, the rest follow according to inclination, ability and legislation.

surelt the competent have far more useful and important things to do with their time, like try to crack technological problems for one example.
NT

On uk.environment, in , "sarah" wrote:

Alan Connor wrote:
Hooray! The Subject was changed when the subject changed.
one tries :-)

:-)

On uk.environment, in 1hprnll.zika54lknksjN%usenet@colddrake.co.uk>, "sarah" wrote:
John Beardmore wrote:
In message 1165078345.322377.5770@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com>, meow2222@care2.com writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message 1164800890.569168.242640@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com>, meow2222@care2.com writes
Owain wrote:
Andy Hall wrote:
At present the nation is expected to put a sizeable amount of hours each week into rubbish sorting at home, for free, when the companies that get the sorted goods should be responsible for this.
Hours ?!?
lets say 5 mins per person per week, x 65 million = 325 million minutes = 5.4 million manhours per week = 280 million manhours per year, at a value of 2 billion pounds, if we value it at �7/hr. Guess I should have said millions of hours.
Well OK, but if you want to aggregate things, have you looked at the cost and environmental impact of centralised waste separation ? You don't really have a decision to make until you've got both data sets.
I'd argue that sorting your own waste has an important psychological impact. It's *YOURS*. You (well, not you personally, John :-) bought the stuff, and you should have to deal with the results of your purchasing. If you choose to jumble it all together to make one large horrid mess, you should certainly have to sort that out yourself. Like Andrew, our waste is sorted (by me) as it is generated. No problem.
And here we see one of the main reasons the so-called 'environmental movement' is a failure:
The 'environmentalists' spend their time discussing how to get rid of garbage that shouldn't exist in the first place.
Things produced locally with human power and that are actually _needed_ for a decent life, things that are actually Earth-friendly, don't have packaging.
But when you excessively consume things that are produced industrially in far away places, then you have a garbage problem.
Agreed (one reason we voluntarily restrict our consumption).

I'll bet you haven't reduced your ecological footprint by even 1%.

But alas, we live in this world, not Utopia.

An Earth-friendly civilization wouldn't necessarily be Utopia. Just a lot closer to it.
Your statement is basically a copout.
We _need_ to create an Earth-friendly civilization.
Or it's going to be created for us when this unsustainable one collapses.
The latter choice is a very unpleasant one for most people, who have no idea how to live directly from the land.

And even producing the basics does far more environmental harm than is necessary.
But hey, that's better than having ugly industries in your neighborhood trashing _your_ environment, right?
No. I've no objection to ugly industry in my neighborhood.

You would if _all_ of the ones you rely on were there.
Or even 1/2 of them.

Provided it conforms to appropriate environmental regulations.

The vast majority do not, being tastefully out-of-sight in other countries.
Good thing, too, or you wouldn't be able to afford what they produce.

I currently live in an environment thoroughly trashed by industrial agriculture.

How about a nice iron smelter next door? You use a lot of steel. And a nice petroleum refinery.
How about a de-inking plant for recycled paper?
All those wonderful, high-order petroleum solvents.
Oh. And don't forget the petro-chemical plant to make _those_.
The list is very long.

So just make a ritual out of sorting your garbage, cleansing yourself of sin thereby (in your own mind, anyway) and then send it somewhere else. Wouldn't want to actually _live_ near where it ends up, would you?
Actually I wouldn't mind at all. i

You do not want to live by a landfill.
Trust me here.
I've had enough of your willfully ignorant, psuedo-progressive glibness.
Fine. I get the picture. You aren't going to do anything real to preserve the Nature that sustains us.
So go play the role of environmentalist with your elitist friends and we'll do our best despite you all.
<snip>
Alan

Thanks for your kookfart, Beavis.
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Also in the headers for alan to read.

On Sun, 3 Dec 2006 11:30:42 +0000, Andy Hall wrote:

If you choose to jumble it all together to make one large horrid mess, you should certainly have to sort that out yourself.
Why? I pay for rubbish disposal. If the local authority wants it to be separated then they need to organise that.

I doubt it's practical to open bin bags of mixed rubbish and separate all the recyclable stuff.
People in other European countries have no problem with separating stuff for recycling, why should we?
I bet you could sort all the recyclable stuff from your rubbish in a tiny fraction of the time you spend posting to uk.d-i-y and worrying about ���� tools.
cheers, Pete.

On 2006-12-04 07:29:22 +0000, David Hansen said:

On Sun, 3 Dec 2006 23:35:37 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall andyh@hall.nospam> wrote this:-
Have you actually been to Brussels and seen the machinery of the EU at work? It made me physically sick to see the waste of time, effort and money that goes on there.
Really. What did you throw up over? A Eurocrat?

Hopefully several.

On 2006-12-04 02:54:50 +0000, John Beardmore said:

Obviously, one would hope that you wouldn't seek to reduce the choice of others who do not have the same order of priorities in terms of the impact of additional choices of supplier.
I think there should be a debate about it. Many of our choices are curtailed in the interests of others. I don't think waste disposal is so precious an issue that it should be out of the question that a democratically elected state make that choice. YMMV.

It does, because the state, and it's local level implementation does not demonstrate any great skill in that area

If you would like to introduce a social transaction element into your agreement, then hopefully you can find a supplier to include it. Quite what that would be - who knows.? There is one there already I think. That you have no sense of it comes as little surprise.
Oh I do. For the moment, the supplier is offering the service that I want (although his choice is limited) to one thing which is not good). Secondly, I would prefer to negotiate my own deal rather than letting the LA do so for me and applying its markup.
:) Your life really must lack important things to worry about !!

There's actually very little that I *worry* about.

Not sure about the notion of 'mark up' here.

I've explained it clearly enough. It buys the service from an outside (normally private) supplier. It adds administrative cost in spades and sells it to the customer. The administration adds no value, so the customer might as well deal direcly with the supplier and cut out the middle man. Clear enough?

On uk.environment, in , "Alan Connor" wrote: <snip>

Actually I wouldn't mind at all. i
You do not want to live by a landfill.
Trust me here.

I know exactly what's coming next. This lady is obviously another Beardmore, smart as a whip with the intellectual integrity of a sleazeball politician:
She'll say something like:
"A modern, well-designed landfill is perfectly safe and comfortable to live near."
No. Go spend a day adjacent to and downwind of one.
And those are _very_ expensive to create and maintain.
What does that mean: A whole lot things have to be mined and manufactured and powered to create and maintain them.
Of course, you don't see _that_ part of it.
NIMBY
But since you don't mind living near _all_ of the industry necessary to make your lifestyle happen, you won't mind living near the smelters and open-hearth furnaces and foundries and rolling mills and factories necessary to do the job.
And don't forget the iron ore mines, coal mines, and limestone quarries necessary to _begin_ the process of making steel.
Oh. And the coking plants.
And those landfills are still nothing but toilets. Nature being flushed down the toilet.
<snip>
Alan