Siting of panels for solar water heating

On 2006-12-06 20:00:18 +0000, Tony Bryer said:

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 12:23:54 +0000 Owain wrote : Jumble sales and the like are done by people wanting to sell things for money. Council tips are run by councils.
Jumble sales are run by organisations who aren't worth suing. There's a certain breed of lawyer who make money suing over uneven pavements:

They normally seem to come from out of the drains.......
aka ambulance chasers.

they would have a field day with people injuring themselves (for real or otherwise) on things got from the dump.

In message , meow2222@care2.com writes

John Beardmore wrote: In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-29 00:25:37 +0000, John Beardmore wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk> said: In message , Andy Hall writes
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.

Well, equally, as Andy declines to give any detail, I don't see any reason to assume it need be any lower footprint either.
It's really Andy who has pushed this agenda, but I'm not convinced in the absence of a hard proposal, that he can know that there would be a reduction in foot print, or that he cares much. It's not his priority.

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.

Be tempted. But maybe this is more like delivered milk or groceries ?

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.

Yes - my point is only that saying "You would be at liberty to choose a supplier who operates in the same way as your existing one" doesn't guarantee anything about environmental performance or answer my concerns in any respect, and indeed if other services are run as well, it's impossible to see how the aggregate footprint of moving that material could be lower.

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.

No - being told isn't enough. What you are told has to 'add up' and make sense !

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?

Well - clearly it is prone to underestimate, but it seems to be a pretty useful and largely quantitative way of looking at the problem.

Or that you think everyone agrees with it?

Well - environmentalists seem to. As they coiled the phrase, defined it and refined the meaning, I think it's fair to say that as much as most other technical term there is good consensus.
Of course you may choose to give it some other meaning altogether, but I'm not sure that's any more sensible than calling a food mixed a microprocessor.

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.

In indeed there are any - or at least any that aren't recognised as inherent to the technique.
Anyway - if you've got any bright ideas for better ways to work it out that's fine. If not, random redefinition is probably petty pointless.

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.

Then they can say
'Footprint calculations don't work because...'
That's not the same thing as redefining what it is agreed to mean.

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?

Who knows ? I don't spend my whole life doing LCAs.
But how does the action of UK PLC render the assessments worthless ?
LCA might indicate various things about all sorts of activities, and these indications will be correct if the LCAs are carried out objectively. They won't be 'worth' any less just because of the character of the system or process analysed, any more than a voltage will be 'worth' any less in a toaster than a TV.

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.

THE solution ??

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.

There is certainly no single solution, but there are many things that can contribute to a reduction. Recycling is one such.
Nobody has ever said there is a single 'magic bullet'.

With only 2% of the worlds population there is nothing Britain can do today to solve the problem by acting within our own borders.

Except contribute.
Your arguments leads to the conclusion that
nobody should do anything because nobody can do everything
where as those with a little more presence of mind see that
if everybody does something, everybody can achieve anything.

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.

Well - as I've said, fusion might get us out of a hole, but it seems dumb to 'bet the farm' on technologies that may never emerge while we are already doing damage at an alarming rate.

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.

:) Actually they seem to be voting for them in the European Parliament as well...

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.

Depends what you think 'IT' is ! There are certainly 'ITs' that the 'knit your own yoghurt' environmentalists miss, but equally there are many that are over the horizons industry looks to too.

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.

This problem isn't going to be solved by a single interest group, or by a 'them and us' mentality, but by characterising the problems and looking for opportunities to fix it at all levels.
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore

On 2006-12-06 21:00:52 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , meow2222@care2.com writes
Also you keep saying more vehicles, without offering any evidence that this is the way it will go down in practice.
Well, equally, as Andy declines to give any detail, I don't see any reason to assume it need be any lower footprint either.

So the net is that it is an unknown quantity because there is not firm evidence one way or the other. Under those circumstances there is no need to have the restraint of trade from having a single supplier.

It's really Andy who has pushed this agenda, but I'm not convinced in the absence of a hard proposal, that he can know that there would be a reduction in foot print, or that he cares much. It's not his priority.

Again, you make assumptions. I do care, but I choose not to address the issues in the (single) way promoted by a monopoly supplier.

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.
Yes - my point is only that saying "You would be at liberty to choose a supplier who operates in the same way as your existing one" doesn't guarantee anything about environmental performance or answer my concerns in any respect, and indeed if other services are run as well, it's impossible to see how the aggregate footprint of moving that material could be lower.

.... or higher.....

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.
No - being told isn't enough. What you are told has to 'add up' and make sense !

Which is the precise problem with the greenwashing agenda through the LAs.

Or that you think everyone agrees with it?
Well - environmentalists seem to.

Which environmentalists? Are you suggesting that they are incapable of independent and individual thought?

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.
There is certainly no single solution, but there are many things that can contribute to a reduction. Recycling is one such.
Nobody has ever said there is a single 'magic bullet'.

Good. Then nobody should have an issue over whether an individual chooses to buy his rubbish collection on an open market basis from his supplier of choice without also paying the LA to do it, or indeed the approach taken.

With only 2% of the worlds population there is nothing Britain can do today to solve the problem by acting within our own borders.
Except contribute.

There is only a point to this if it makes a tangible difference to the outcome.

Your arguments leads to the conclusion that
nobody should do anything because nobody can do everything
where as those with a little more presence of mind see that
if everybody does something, everybody can achieve anything.

That is naive in the extreme. The focus of the 2% should be on what it takes to achieve the 98% - i.e. look at the largest aspects of an issue first. Just because it isn't easy does not mean that it isn't the correct action. Unfortunately people seem to think that "doing their bit" is the right thing to do. The only real effect of that is that they may feel good about it - it doesn't make a significant difference to the outcome.

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.
Well - as I've said, fusion might get us out of a hole, but it seems dumb to 'bet the farm' on technologies that may never emerge while we are already doing damage at an alarming rate.

Conventional nuclear technology is perfectly able to address the shortfall until that happens. Little bits here and little bits there generally result in all of the bits being inadequate because of insufficient investment in each.

David Hansen wrote:

On Tue, 5 Dec 2006 08:10:40 +0000 someone who may be usenet@colddrake.co.uk (sarah) wrote this:-
You are wedded to the outdated notion that competition on the free market <spit> always results in the best of all possible worlds.
It is not outdated. Rather it is a very simplistic model, suitable for O Grade economics but not something to rely on in the "real world". Unfortunately some party politicians cling to it, as they don't understand the limitations (and probably prefer something simple).

[-]
That's why I said 'always' :-)
regards sarah
-- Think of it as evolution in action.

Mary Fisher wrote:

"sarah" wrote in message
sarah
[1] Note my self-restraint.
Has to be a first time for everything :-)

Damn. Believe me, I've got a brilliant riposte to that, I just can't post it for posterity. My vaguely Victorian upbringing triumphs over free speech yet again...
regards sarah
-- Think of it as evolution in action.

Mary Fisher wrote:

"sarah" wrote in message
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:
I know sarah IRL and while she is smarter than any whip I know her intellectual integrity is beyond reproach.

<blush>

And we don't even always agree :-)

And we are almost always agreeable. At least I think so.
regards sarah

-- Think of it as evolution in action.

In article , Andy Hall wrote:

However, if I use a toll bridge or toll road I pay for them, otherwise I don't.
You don't get any discount on your general taxation if you don't use a

particular toll bridge, do you? The tolls on a toll bridge generally only cover part of the costs of maintenance of the bridge. The capital cost is normally covered from central or local government funds. Part of the dispute over the cost of the Skye bridge was, IIRC, that the ownership of the bridge remained with the toll-collecting company instead of reverting to the state (as a proxy for the people), and that they were setting the toll to cover the building cost and a profit margin, as well as maintenance costs. -- Aidan Aberdeen, Scotland Written at Thu, 07 Dec 2006 08:54 GMT, but posted later.

In message , Andy Hall writes

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 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

The rubbish is collected. What more do you want ?
You want a free market, but this seems to be more to do with your personal ideology than any particular lack of skill.

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.

Indeed.

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

If you want to prove that, get numerate about it.

and sells it to the customer. The administration adds no value,

A bold yet spurious assumption...

so the customer might as well deal direcly with the supplier and cut out the middle man. Clear enough?

Clear, simple, simplistic, but not in my view correct.
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore

On 2006-12-10 22:50:34 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes 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 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
The rubbish is collected. What more do you want ?

Choice of supplier, service and price - I already told you that.

You want a free market, but this seems to be more to do with your personal ideology than any particular lack of skill.

It's not a personal ideology, rather a recognition of the natural order.

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
If you want to prove that, get numerate about it.

Are you telling me that you can't figure out that if you take service A and add admin cost B to it that the total isn't A+B?

and sells it to the customer. The administration adds no value,
A bold yet spurious assumption...

It's an unnecessary cost. I am surprised that you think that that's spurious.

so the customer might as well deal direcly with the supplier and cut out the middle man. Clear enough?
Clear, simple, simplistic, but not in my view correct.

It's hard to come to any other conclusion unless you believe that Father Christmas funds local authorities.

In message , Andy Hall writes

On 2006-11-28 17:03:45 +0000, John Beardmore said: In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-27 18:21:13 +0000, John Beardmore wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk> said:
No, but they seem to go on about it more. More to the point, they tend to be offended by state provision. I see. I wouldn't say that state provision offends me. I just it as largely unnecessary Well - we can each judge the tone of your posts I guess. I don't know where this "we" comes from. Well - remarkably there seem to be more than two of us in this thread, and WE, can each judge the tone of your posts.
Oh I see. A representative sample, then.

No sampling required. You just have to live with us each forming our own opinions.

There is no "tone" to my posts.

:)

Yes, though there is probably much to be said for education, public health provision, health and safety, environmental protection the police etc... Out of those, the only one that marginally may be worth doing in the public sector is policing and even that is marginal Again - this is your view, and I don't get the feeling that it's widely shared !
It really doesn't bother me. As long as there is freedom of choice, one of the choices can be to stay with the status quo.

But the status quo involves one fleet of vehicles run by one contractor doing the whole job. As soon as you move to three services from three contractors, that is lost.

If it is possible to sort mechanically, or otherwise *some* different types of plastic or metal, then I am sure that given thought and investment, other types can be as well. I doubt it will be cheap, and it's likely to be energy intensive. Let's see what happens when the drongos in the LAs are taken out of the food chain. Let's see what happens when you have the software, circuit diagram and the components list.
??

To sort materials automatically...
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore

On 2006-12-10 23:39:47 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-28 17:03:45 +0000, John Beardmore said: In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-27 18:21:13 +0000, John Beardmore said:
No, but they seem to go on about it more. More to the point, they tend to be offended by state provision. I see. I wouldn't say that state provision offends me. I just it as largely unnecessary Well - we can each judge the tone of your posts I guess. I don't know where this "we" comes from. Well - remarkably there seem to be more than two of us in this thread, and WE, can each judge the tone of your posts.
Oh I see. A representative sample, then.
No sampling required. You just have to live with us each forming our own opinions.

I always do. It's called being an individual rather than a sheep. I commend it.

Yes, though there is probably much to be said for education, public health provision, health and safety, environmental protection the police etc... Out of those, the only one that marginally may be worth doing in the public sector is policing and even that is marginal Again - this is your view, and I don't get the feeling that it's widely shared !
It really doesn't bother me. As long as there is freedom of choice, one of the choices can be to stay with the status quo.
But the status quo involves one fleet of vehicles run by one contractor doing the whole job. As soon as you move to three services from three contractors, that is lost.

Sigh.... Already covered.

If it is possible to sort mechanically, or otherwise *some* different types of plastic or metal, then I am sure that given thought and investment, other types can be as well. I doubt it will be cheap, and it's likely to be energy intensive. Let's see what happens when the drongos in the LAs are taken out of the food chain. Let's see what happens when you have the software, circuit diagram and the components list.
??
To sort materials automatically...

That would be something worthwhile striving for rather than wasting millions of peoples' time sorting crap.

On uk.environment, in , "Andy Hall" wrote:
<snip>

If it is possible to sort mechanically, or otherwise *some* different types of plastic or metal, then I am sure that given thought and investment, other types can be as well. I doubt it will be cheap, and it's likely to be energy intensive. Let's see what happens when the drongos in the LAs are taken out of the food chain. Let's see what happens when you have the software, circuit diagram and the components list.
??
To sort materials automatically...
That would be something worthwhile striving for rather than wasting millions of peoples' time sorting crap.

Here we see yet another reason why the environmental movement is a failure: Laziness. Extreme laziness.
The 'environmentalists' won't even take the time to sort their garbage.
Whose idea was it to recycle? Theirs.
They talk, but they don't do.
In order to avoid taking a little time off from watching the Telly and running his mouth on the Usenet, he would rather see yet another industry created.
(Or radically expanded: It would take many hundreds of thousands of these garbage-sorting complexes to serve even the developed nations.)
This would be an industry that produces very complex and energy-intensive machinery to sort his garbage for him. Robots, essentially.
May I suggest that you would be a lot more comfortable on alt.pave.the.earth?
Those are your people there.
Alan
-- http://home.earthlink.net/~alanconnor/

Thanks for your kookfart, Beavis.
-- <article not downloaded:
Info about "Alan Connor"
Alan "The Usenet Beavis" Connor is a good friend of Bigfoot: http://tinyurl.com/23r3f
A couple of years ago he was kidnapped and raped by Xena, the Warrior Princess: http://tinyurl.com/2gjcy
Beavis believes that the MSBlast virus of yesteryear was explicitly targeting him, for some inexplicable reason: http://tinyurl.com/ifrt
Beavis belongs to a UFO cult: http://tinyurl.com/2hhdx Beavis's life in a UFO cult: http://tinyurl.com/24jqm Beavis knows all about network security: http://tinyurl.com/5qqb6 And he's also a search engine expert: http://tinyurl.com/9pjnt
"But if you must know, Alans' name is Bruce Burhans, and he lives in Bellingham WA. To his hippie friends he calls himself "Tom Littlefoot" **Google Tom Littlefoot, Bruce Burhans and "Wildwood"**.
Bruce has some serious mental problems and spends a lot of time as an in-patient at the big mental hospital in Bellingham, when he's not hospitalized, he posts to usenet. In every group he posts to he comes off as some sort of expert in the subject at hand, and when anyone disagrees (and they will, he sees to that) he starts in on his trollery.
Again, Bruce is a true Professional Usenet Troll. It is his entertainment and it's what he lives for."
http://www.pearlgates.net/nanae/kooks/ac/fga.shtml http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=MQ9uxRYAAAAX2tAp-itjMPAOxLgFwCc3_gRbb05PKyTO4L-MEqh3HQ&hl=en http://www.pearlgates.net/nanae/kooks/ac/ http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Mail/challenge-response.html http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/329.html#CR http://www.gatago.com/authors_pgs/13650.html http://blog.bananasplit.info/?p=84 http://tinyurl.com/ifrt http://tinyurl.com/3h6a5 http://tinyurl.com/ys6z4
Also in the headers for alan to read.

On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 10:58:22 GMT someone who may be Alan Connor wrote this:-

On uk.environment, in , "Andy Hall" wrote:
To sort materials automatically...
That would be something worthwhile striving for rather than wasting millions of peoples' time sorting crap.
Here we see yet another reason why the environmental movement is a failure: Laziness. Extreme laziness.
The 'environmentalists' won't even take the time to sort their garbage.

Nice try.
However, you have got the wrong end of the stick.
-- 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

In message , Andy Hall writes

On 2006-12-02 19:29:48 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message , Andy Hall writes
The only people to lose out would be the bureaucrats in the local authority who aren't adding any value in the first place. They should view it as an opportunity to find something gainful to do. That would be a benefit to them as well as to the population as a whole. Maybe in some instances, but I'm not convinced it's true in the general case. You haven't met many local authority employees, have you....? Loads as it happens. But my experience seems rather different to yours. Maybe I have high expectations.... Maybe - or maybe you just can't acknowledge that good can come from anything that isn't the type of organisation that your ideology says it should be.
I can and do acknowledge achievement where it is made. Unlike a lot of people, I won't accept poor service and being promised A and having A - B delivered. This is why, as a nation, we are ripped off and then moan about things but are generally not willing to take action about them. IME, both the private and the public sectors suffer from bad service malaise, but it is far more prevalent in the public sector.

But none of this happy rant says anything specific about the matter in hand.
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore