ChumpusRex

I have the opposite view. Battery storage is expensive, and carries risks of fire and electrical fault. You want to avoid placing large, relatively volatile devices in homes where people may be unwell, drunk, asleep, etc. and where these devices can't easily be maintained and supervised. Hence, I think that utility scale batteries are more likely than widespread in-home batteries, although EVs would go some way to being a middle ground - but it would be easier to regulate the quality and maintenance of batteries going into EVs, as the automotive industry is already used to extensive regulation, plus the utility of EVs as transport means that the high cost of batteries is justifiable, and grid storage becomes a low-cost bonus feature. I don't think that utility scale batteries would even be the main form of energy storage on the grid - the demand for storage with the expected development of renewables is simply too great. 200 GWh which is what would be required to ride through a day or so of low wind, if we doubled our wind capacity - would require enormous investments - even if costs were cut by 75% from today, and the battery life could be extended to 10 years - that's still a £2.5 billion per year depreciation cost. I think battery technology will be used for smaller scale utility use where there is a proximate engineering or demand problem which requires a quick and simple drop-in solution. I've posted before about the electricity crisis in Wigan. Industrial development in the town in the early 2000s led to peak electricity demand exceeding the capacity of either of the two power lines going to the town. By 2005, if one of the circuits malfunctioned at peak time, the lights would go out. A solution of a power line on wooden poles bringing power from the nearby town of Kirkby was engineered, such that any 2 of the now 3 power lines could comfortably supply the whole town. There then followed a series of planning rejections, and a block from central government (any new overhead powerline had to be approved by DECC). The project was repeatedly delayed for environmental assessments, listed building assessments, etc. Eventually, in 2015, permission to install the power line was granted, and the line went into service in December 2015. This would have been an ideal situation for a battery installation - the battery only needs to cover the difference between peak demand and the capacity of 1 power line. This could be a relatively modest size; 10-20 MWh would be sufficient. The business case is there even at the high price of battery technology, as such a battery would be a similar price to a power line, while not requiring the extensive planning, and could be deployed in under 1 year. Not only that but such a battery system could also tender on the fast reserve and frequency regulation markets, hence bring in additional income from regulation services (as well as potential novel markets such as an inertia market) as well as providing bonus functions such as local voltage regulation at little or no extra cost.

Hot off the press, is national grid's latest "future energy scenarios" document, outlining several models of future energy consumption and how they might be met. http://fes.nationalgrid.com/fes-document/

Wow. My stake wasn't as large as LTS, but I'm nursing a pretty spectacular loss, as I only really caught up with news after 5 pm today. I haven't really quite worked out what has gone wrong, because on the basis of everything I had read, the fundamentals should have been reasonable: plenty of supposedly stable government contracts in the order book; as a contractor, insulated to some extent from the volatility of real estate pricing; etc. Oh, well, it was only a small part of a fairly high risk portfolio, but even so, this was rather unexpected for a FTSE company. This is more the sort of thing that I'd be expecting on AIM or NEX.

I think what is happening is that these small scale lab tests are testing for combustibility only. As has probably been posted in this thread there are several ways to be legal: 1. Use only non-combustible materials for cladding and insulation 2. Use a combination of materials/construction method which have passed a large-scale fire test at an accredited fire laboratory when installed together. 3. Use a combination of materials for which an expert at an accredited fire laboratory has performed a desktop study indicating that the combination can be assumed to pass a large-scale fire test. As the current testing only appears to be taking small samples, it is likely that they are only testing for method 1. A fail for this, could still pass a large scale fire test, or be sufficiently similar to a tested configuration that a pass can be assumed. While this may be useful in highlighting dangerous products, it could lead to considerable confusion on this matter. However, it is right to query why so many test failures have occurred. Presumably, this is a reflection of a general practice change from the more restrictive method 1 to methods 2 and 3 because with more products on the market, and more test data available, it becomes more feasible to choose products which are legal together. However, this could be part of the problem. Some groups have been sharing test data and results of desktop studies, but not necessarily the actual test certificate, and this could result in significant misunderstandings. For example, the manufacturer of the insulation at Grenfell had a test pass, when installed on a steel frame building, and when paired with a "class 0" cladding, and this was stated in the instruction leaflet for the insulation. However, only if you dig into the tiny print and dig out the actual test certificate, do you find out that the cladding tested in this configuration was cement tiles. The problem being that "class 0" is a useless specification, as the cladding at Grenfell was also class 0 - and this type of instruction sheet may be prone to misinterpretation by someone inexpert.

I can't believe they are all failing, unless they have scheduled testing for obvious failures first. I've been wandering around town for much the weekend, and I've taken some detours past some tower blocks. Most of them have some missing cladding panels. I could get close enough to about half of them, that I could see the cladding in reasonable detail. Of those, most of them had obviously non-combustible cladding - ceramic tiles, over rock wool. Very few had anything that looked to be anything else.

I'm sure this is due to widespread lack of understanding of the interpretation of the regulations, as I've suggested above. I know some people have suggested that the government have applied a rather contrived interpretation of the regulations, but here's a guidance document to buildings control from 2014: https://www.allerdale.gov.uk/downloads/bca_guidance_note_18_use_of_combustible_cladding_materials_on_residential_buildings.pdf This clearly states that ALL parts of tall building cladding should be "limited combustibility". This may well be the aim of the regulations, but it is not particularly clear from reading the regulations themselves. So it appears that many people in the industry have simply misinterpreted the regulations, and industry associations have given misleading advice, or incorrect advice on how to comply. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40418266

You've missed the point, the regulations DO state that they are illegal, when interpreted as the government states. The regulations say "external surfaces" must be class 0 or better. People have been installing ACM rainscreen, on the assumption that this is an "external surface". If you actually read the letter of the regulations, it states that fillers are insulation for the purposes of the regulations. The panels are "composite", comprising "filler" between aluminium sheets. The "filler" in the composite panels is therefore NOT an external surface, and therefore a class 0 rating is NOT acceptable under the buildings regs. So, the letter of the law states that PE ACM rainscreen is not acceptable. The issue is that this prohibition is not at all clear unless you dwell on every single word in the regulations. It really does appear that a susbtantial part of the cladding industry (from manufacturers, suppliers, specifiers, installers and buildings inspectors) genuinely believed that class 0 was an acceptable classification for rainscreen, and had done so for years. And most likely, on the assumption that the regulations were clear and correct, had installed them in good faith, believing them to be safe. Now, it had been well known that best practice was to avoid this and similar products. I've checked the planning applications for a few large private tower blocks commissioned by large architectural firms, and in the documents, the rainscreen has always been either solid metal, glass, stone or ceramic (i.e. totally non combustible), and the insulation limited-combustibility mineral wool. However, you can imagine that in tenders where price is the dominant factor (as is common in the public sector), it may well be difficult to justify practice in excess of the regulations if it is more expensive - especially, if the purchaser may not have an in-depth understanding of what they are buying. I imagine that there are a lot of squeaky bums in a lot of suppliers and architects offices, as basically anyone who has ever specified or supplied PE ACM for use in a building is potentially facing a negligence claim.

This is it in a nutshell. There is no "safety culture". You can speak to builders and they'll tell you how, they knew that they were putting up potentially flammable materials; you'd even get tales of them setting a blow torch on the various materials to see what went up, so that they could avoid that product for their own home. As you point out, polyethylene cladding has a long history of major disasters associated with it - so, surely anyone who is clued up would know that whether it meets the regs or not, it would be better to stay well away. The other issue in the safety culture, is that everyone has been fixated on the building compartmentation and "inherent" safety; such that everyone has forgotten about "reactionary" safety (fire suppression, egress routes, etc.). As a result, there has been no consideration of a failure of the inherent safety. The lack of this is evident in recent reports which have come out stating there are as many as 1000 fire doors which do not meet the minimum requirements in Camden alone.

OK. I think I've found it. It;s in a footnote in the following document: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/621449/170622_letter_to_LAs_and_HAs.pdf The building regs talk about "insulation" and "external surfaces". As I've stated before, there are 2 routes to compliance (materials and performance). For compliance via the materials route, the building regs require "insulation" to be limited combustibility (effectively non-combustible), and "external surfaces" to be class 0 (low risk combustible) when tested under BS476. As alternative, any materials can be used, if a complete facade successfully resists fire spread when tested under BS8414 conditions. What has happened, is that people have been treating the aluminium composite panels as being the "external surface" for the materials route. These panels may meet class 0 combustibility standards, when tested as a product. But here is the catch, "insulation" is defined in the building regs as "any insulation product, filler material (not including gaskets, sealants, etc.)...". So, for the purpose of the building regs, the polyethylene core of these panels is classed as insulation, so must be limited combustibility. So, by containing insulation, it is necessary for the panels to be "limited combustibility" not class 0. Of course, hindsight is always 20-20, and the definition is there in black-and-white, but the interpretation of the outer surface claddign core is not all that intuitive, which is why it seems to have been missed so frequently.

I wouldn't have expected the test to change. The historical test has been BS476, which has been around since the 80s with some minor revisions, and is based on small scale samples. It sounds like this is probably the testing which is being repeated, as I wouldn't expect dozens of large scale tests to have been done in just a few days. There are potentially innocent explanations, e.g. an unintentional change in production, due to a change in quality of materials in the supply chain, as well as less innocent explanations as to why the tests should now be failing.

It sounds ridiculous. But it is possible that safety experts were saying that they were unnecessary? That was the impression I got from the news interviews with fire specialists early on after the event. It seemed that there was certainly a body of opinion stating that as the buildings were designed to contain fire, by virtue of strict regulations, that fire suppression was unnecessary. Of course, it could be that the experts being interviewed were simply parroting the official guidance and I would have thought that politicians wouldn't have much influence over professional guidance. Indeed, increasingly, politicians are regulating by deferring to professional guidance - the fire safety building regs defer to the technical documents from the Buildings Research Establishment, and the electrical safety building regs defer to the IET's wiring regulations. My concern with this is that this idea of trusting a single protection system goes against everything that has been learned in safety critical industries: aviation, rail, healthcare, nuclear, etc. The concept of "defence in depth", where an accident can be mitigated at multiple stages using multiple different strategies, is now considered best practice. And that includes mitigation of severe incidents, which would not normally be considered possible.

Exactly. This illustrates the complexity of the matter. The legislation allows a materials approach (class 0 outer surface, and limited combustibility filler). However, there are concerns that class 0 is not adequate, as the classes are based on small scale testing. The pressure on government has been to remove the materials approach, and make the performance approach (BS8414) mandatory. Indeed, if you read the technical guidance from cladding manufacturers, several specifically advise NOT to go for the materials approach for >18 m tall buildings, and that ONLY a BS8414 compliant solution should be specified (which is exactly the change to the legislation which the government was being pushed towards in 2000). The problem in this case, and why the parliamentary discussion as to the legislation misses the point here, is that by specifying isocyanurate insulation, the architect has gone down the BS8414 route, and not the materials route (which was seen as the weakspot in the legislation). As you point out, the grenfell cladding system is not the same as the test example you quote. Hence BS8414 cannot be assumed, without either a full-scale test, or a desktop analysis/literature review by an fire safety expert.

Again, it comes down to the options for compliance. The law is general, but approved document B gives you several options as to how to be compliant. You can use non-combustible or "limited combustibility" materials (essentially materials which are mostly non-combustible, with small amounts of organic filler - e.g. mineral wool treated with a shape-retaining adhesive) as required in paragrah B12.7. However, B12.5 allows you to ignore paragraphs B12.6-12.9, if you can demonstrate in large scale testing (BS8414) that your complete engineered system resists the spread of fire adequately to the levels required by the BRE (BR 135) document. Although the latter "performance" requirement is nice in theory, I wonder if this disaster indicates that there are too many subtleties, which make it prone to error and that it may be difficult to enforce. For example, the overall performance is highly dependent on the materials, design, and construction, and these may interact in complex ways, which may not be easy to predict. At the same time, it can lead to confusion, as combustible materials may be acceptable in some circumstances but not others. The cladding manufacturers do provide examples of systems which have been tested to BS8414, or which, based on expert opinion, are expected to comply without testing. For example: http://www.kingspaninsulation.co.uk/getattachment/dc8cf2c7-5e23-4d9a-9a1f-96bdf571ecdd/Techncial-Bulletin--Routes-to-Compliance--Fire-Saf.aspx On page 22, you'll see there is an example cladding system design using ACM rainscreen (but you'll notice that it specified "FR" grade). I head some talking head today on the news saying that they reckon that the architect's specification was wrong, in that it didn't specify "FR" grade. As a result, normal grade polyethylene rainscreen got installed. The fact that building control didn't pick this up is a concern, but it goes back to my point that the performance based approach may simply be too complex to be enforced reliably.

My gut feeling is that the rules weren't followed, but we'll have to wait and see. The problem, however, is that the rules are "performance based" rather than prescriptive. In other words, there's nothing to say you can't use oily rags, instead, you have to prove that your materials and method of construction meet a certain level of safety performance (either by large scale testing, or by reference to pre-existing test databases). If the rules weren't followed, then you have to ask why they were not enforced? Were buildings control negligent, or worse, complicit? Were BC staff inadequately trained for the job at hand? Is it that the "performance based" legislation is simply too complex to enforce?

This is basically right. The conventional sprinkler system works on a very simple method - there are spray nozzles held closed by a liquid filled glass vial or a wax pellet. In the presence of heat, the liquid expands breaking the glass, or the pellet melts, releasing a spring which opens the valve. This works fine in an industrial situation where you have well maintained fire detection equipment, trained fire marshalls, and the site is occupied, or there is ready access to a site keyholder. If you want to put sprinklers into individual flats, then you have a problem - they are fragile and easily damaged or vandalised, if they do activate then it may not be possible to gain access to an individual flat if the owner/occupier is away on holiday, etc; although I'm sure people could come up with sensible ways of mitigating these issues. These days, there is new technology called water mist - this uses an ultra-fine spray pattern, which can use much less water than conventional sprinklers, so is less likely to cause damage. You can also get water mist extinguishers, which have numerous benefits over conventional CO2, powder and water extinguishers (and are safe to use on all common fires, including chip pan fires, electrical fires, flammable liquids and paper fires). In communal areas, sprinklers may not be an unreasonable option and may help slow fires - but in general, sprinklers are not designed to extinguish fires, only slow their progression. However, it would be reasonable to reconsider their use in fire protection strategies - I'm not sure how much sprinkler systems cost, but I suspect that the cost would only be a few% of the £10m cost of the refurb project in this case. Similarly, the technology exists for multi-zone fire alarm systems, with sophisticated anti-false alarm logic (e.g. only trigger the alarm if 2 call points, or two detectors in reasonably close proximity trigger - but a single activaton would trigger a silent alarm to a building manager/response company and if they fail to clear the alarm within a certain period, proceed to full alarm).

Some interesting reading here: https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/

Tower blocks are supposed to be constructed in such a way as to prevent the spread of fire like this. The core design is supposed to prevent spread of fire from one flat to the next, or from one flat into a communal area. Looking at some of the videos, you can see the fire streaking up the sides of the buildings. This reminds me of the massive fire at the Salafa tower in Dubai, which was traced to the use of highly flammable exterior cladding. There are regulations about the use of cladding in buildings in the UK, but who knows if they were followed, or if the products were genuine (fake cladding materials have been detected in other countries, and your average worker wouldn't know the difference)

The problem is not just May. A large number of labour politicians actively support this type of surveillance and control. It's not clear what Corbyn's view is, but there are plenty of authoritarians among the labour party, who would love to vote for such legislation, unless whipped not to (which I doubt would actually happen).

Sure, at the very mild end, you may only need periodic supervision, and you may get away with that. Indeed, that's one of the advantages of the care home model, it permits more efficient use of staff time between multiple clients. The major cost of res care is actually staffing, and the wages are often borderline exploitative, and care homes are still going bust left, right and centre. However, care homes are regulated, and the overheads large; and don't forget councils are trying to screw out business rates/council tax (depending on the exact type of home). Indeed, basic level care, which would be what is needed for early dementia, can be provisioned for £40k or so. The problem is that you may well find out that just one nurse is not enough. Once things get more severe, you need more continuous supervision, eventually going to 24/7; and beyond that you may actually need two staff, if the dementia manifests with behaviour problems. I've seen the costings for care packages for people with significant problems; when you get to the stage of behavioural problems requiring 2 24/7 staff, to ensure adequate cover for holidays/sickness/etc, you need 10 FT staff for 1 client. There have also been changes in what is considered appropriate medical practice. 30 years ago, it was considered acceptable to manage behaviour problems (shouting, violence, wandering, etc) with prescription sedatives. These days, this is considered completely unacceptable, on a social basis (i.e. they have been rebranded the chemical cosh) and not only that, but it has been found that many of the most commonly used sedatives carry a small risk of stroke/sudden death (so it is medical negligence to prescribe them).

Probably a couple of things: Price obfuscation. Ultra-low headline rates combined with huge hidden fees (think arrangement fees of £1.5-2k, or even 1%) Preying on apathy - even a month's delay in paying your new arrangement fee, can run up excess interest costs of £500 or more. A new application means a new credit check - you can poach your competitor's best customers, and hopefully get rid of your highest risk customers.

This was immediately before Euro 4 regulations (Sept 05) which started to crimp particulate emissions. Many Euro 4 diesel cars could get away without DPFs, although some were fitted with them. However, Euro 5 (Sept 09) really tightened the particulate limit, so that there was basically no alternative but to use a DPF. Many of these Euro 3 and Euro 4 cars are now old and cheap to buy, so are moving from the SE to the NW and NE. Additionally, the technology is old, and engine firmware modification tools are easily and cheaply available, and capable of generating substantial gains in engine power (but at the cost of horrific emissions). Euro 5 cars with their DPFs will tend not to smoke much, even with modified firmware maps; although there is a burgeoning market in removing the DPF internals and modifying the firmware to delete the DPF functional tests.

Diesels often do have catalytic converters, and these may be integrated with the DPF. They may be needed to meet the emissions requirements. However, due to differences in engine operation, they operate very differently to petrol catalytic converters. Petrol engines operate stoichiometrically. The air/fuel are carefully balanced during combustion, so that you get modest NOx (excess air produces this in large excess), and modest CO/hydrocarbons (excess fuel produces these in large excess). The catalyst can then react the NOx with the hydrocarbons/CO, destroying both at the same time. Diesel engines traditionally operate with excess air, hence NOx is a problem. The diesel catalytic converter can clean up any hydrocarbons/CO, but will do it using excess air in the exhaust, in preference to the NOx. NOx mitigation requires alternative approaches - a common one is exhaust gas recirculation, where to avoid the excess air problem, the engine will mix intake air with exhaust gases to dilute the oxygen in the intake air. This works reasonably well, but some reliability issues, because the intake side of the engine gets clagged up with soot and crud from the exhaust. A number of manufacturers, especially of commerical vehicles, but some domestic cars, are moving to selective catalytic reduction (SCR) which uses a catalytic converter to destroy the NOx by reacting the NOx with a urea solution (often sold under the brand name Adblue) which is sprayed into the exhaust system. These emissions mitigation solutions are well established, and in general cars meeting the Euro 6 standards are barely an issue as far as toxic emissions go. The issue is that pre Euro 6 standards were significantly laxer (especially for NOx). Petrol cars standards for NOx have always been much stricter, because the cleanup is easier, and the Euro 4 (2005) petrol standards for NOx and hydrocarbons are as tight as the very latest Euro 6 diesel standards.

This is true to some extent, but there is reasonable scientific data on health effects of radiation, and a reasonable estimate of a dose-response effect is known. The issue is that with environmental pollution in general, the death and disease toll cannot accurately be determined. Many of the effects are weak, the effects on the individual are low, the data is very noisy, and the effects are latent for a prolonged period. For example, the health effects of particulate air pollution are beholden to the same vagaries as that of radiation. Some of the health effects are beginning to become known and quantified, such as effects on asthma, respiratory infections, etc. However, there are reasons to suspect other illnesses: atherosclerosis, coronary disease, inflammatory diseases, lung cancer, throat and nasal cancer, etc. may also be linked. How does one separate factors from air pollution from smoking, or obesity, or poor diet, or lifestyle or whatever? Another issue is that radiation and radioactivity tend to be poorly understood by the public and politicians, and therefore politicians like to be seen to act. The government response to the Fukushima accident is a good example of this. The degree of contamination of the land is well established and known with detail. The biological effects on the population can be estimated within useful bounds, and useful predictions can be made: e.g. if the population had been told to stay put, then an excess of 50 cancer deaths would be expected over the next 50 years (e.g. work by French and Wilson). Now, we will never know which 50 were attributable, or indeed know with certainty whether the number effect was instead 10 or 200. However, what we do know was that 60 people were killed during the evacuation and several thousand suffered serious illness due to the displacement. For Chernobyl, the numbers are much higher due to the much higher level of contamination. The WHO estimate is that 5000 excess deaths by 2030 should be expected. However, that is only from the radiation, and as stated in the Fukushima vignette above, the health costs of evacuation and exclusion zones are substantial, and therefore this number needs to be taken as a lower bound. There have been various other estimates for total excess deaths of up 200k, but these have widely criticised due to unrealistic dose estimates. One should not assume that long-term exclusion zones are the preserve of nuclear energy; the coal mine fires at the coal town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, USA have rendered the vicinity of the town uninhabitable for the forseeable future, and potentially hundred or thousands of years. One should not forget the scale of air pollution from fossil fuels - in China recent estimates (work by Teng and Rohde) of the health effects of coal energy cite between 670k and 1.2 million excess deaths per year. No. Older boilers produce significant amounts of NOx, which was the main fudged pollutant in the VW emissions scandal and a major respiratory irritant and contributor to smog. In general, advances have been made in recent years, and state-of-the-art boilers have reduced emissions by close to 90% compared to older models, so that the total annual emissions from domestic heating for a typical house, are of the same order of magnitude as emissions from a modern (compliant) diesel car driven an average domestic annual distance. However, even this, in a built up area such a a city centre or much of greater London, can nevertheless be a significant contributor to air quality problems. Particulate emissions from natural gas are low - and about 1% of the particulate emissions of a log burner. Interestingly, the annual particulate emissions from a domestic boiler also work out as approximately equal to the annual emissions of a modern diesel car driven an average domestic distance (although both this and the figure above are perhaps more illustrations of the effectiveness of modern diesel emissions after-treatment than the cleanliness of natural gas).

Last week saw installation of the first nuclear grade concrete on the HPC site. The Moorside project appears to be in a state of near collapse. Following the bankruptcy of Toshiba's subsidiary Westinghouse, and Toshiba looking to get out of the nuclear plant market, financing is looking uncertain. After Engie, the French utility with a 40% stake in the project pulled out, Toshiba have been left as 100% owner. It's hard to see that this project has much more life in it than a doornail. So where now? Rumour has been that the Korean company Kepco might step up. The problem is that Kepco is a reactor vendor as well as operator. Would it be reasonable to expect them to finance a project to build a competitor's reactor? Kepco haven't submitted their own design to the ONR for approval, so it would be at least 10 years to get a construction licence if they wanted to go ahead with their APR1400 design. Conceivably, Kepco might act as project manager if someone else was to bankroll the project and pay Kepco the project management fees. The problem is that worldwide all the Westinghouse AP1000 reactors are hopelessly delayed, with none particularly close to completion. Perhaps they might consider going for the French EPR design like HPC? These are also hopelessly delayed, but there are now 2 which are fully complete and are well into the commissioning phase, with a 3rd already undergoing commissioning of some subsystems while final construction is completed. There may be supply chain advantages to this approach, as at least with the EPR, the detailed design work needed for the UK variant has already been performed, and EDF are already well on the way to building their own supply chain.

You are assuming full or nearly full charges on a daily basis. That is not realistic. A car like a leaf gets 5 miles/kWh, so a 30 kWh recharge would deliver approx 150 miles. That's more like a week's driving than a day's driving, for the average car user. Take this into account and the figures are very different.