Eco-activists vandalise snow machines in French Alps

A snowHead

I’m a little unsure how breaking things, leading to the increased use of resources to repair them, is supposed to “save” the planet.

A snowHead

@gixxerniknik, @PeakyB, Both of you have made very considered and sensible post on this issue.

I am concerned about what kind of planet we leave to our children - the conundrum, as it applies to "ordinary people" is that we are pretty powerless to do anything about it.

We can all make small changes, but the adjustments required in order to keep global warming to 1.5c need global agreements and support - and as we have seen via successive COP meetings, there is a lot of chat and very little action.

As has been mentioned above, the UK has done fairly well in a unilateral way, but the really big emitters keep kicking the can down the road. In many ways Covid was great for them, they could ignore climate for another couple of years.

If the Ukraine invasion taught us anything it is just how ridiculously dependent on fossil fuels Europe is. But to wean ourselves off Gas and Oil will be mind bogglingly expensive, every home and business will need alternative boilers / means of heating / additional insulation / regulations on building and rebuilding.

It really is a massive problem, an area where we should be utilising all the best and brightest minds to come up with innovative solutions, but that would require cooperation.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@Gordyjh, you’re right, breaking snow making equipment in itself solves nothing.

I think the behaviour is a symptom of the frustration felt by many environmental campaigners and activists that far too little is being done far too late. When people passionate about things get very frustrated, they’re prone to take drastic action. It’s just part of human nature.

Leaders of the countries that consume most resources seem not to think of how the world might be in 20 years time, let alone 100 or 1000. They won’t be here so they don’t care?

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Emissions are not going to come down any time soon.
There are many 2nd & 3rd world developing countries who's emissions are rising faster than developed countries can cut theirs.

You can't argue the quality of life in countries like Brazil, Mexico, Thailand & Turkey has not improved over the last 30 years.
Each nations emissions have risen equally to what the UK has cut.

You can give up skiing if you want, but it wont make a measurable difference.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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@GreenDay, I agree with almost all of what you say, but to wean ourselves off gas and oil isn't that hard, nor is it expensive. It just requires a small shift in how our governments think.

For example, as an individual, I pay basic rate of 20% tax, if I do well (in my dreams!) the rate goes up to 40 or even 45%. Big oil and gas companies have just had a (windfall) 10% increase in tax for the next 2 years only, taking them from 25% to 35% tax. Profit from green energy is taxed at 45%. What incentive is there for, say BP to increase their investment in solar or wind energy?

COP meetings? I was told that the majority of people who attended Glasgow were either directly or indirectly in the pay of oil/energy companies (to quote Monty Python) with a vested interest in the status quo.

I did a few sums when I was bored last year. It's quite hard to find exact costings for nuclear power plants but I based this on Hinckley C projected costs. For the build cost of one nuclear power plant, 4,500,000 homes could have a 4KW array of solar panels installed. These solar panels would produce roughly the same amount of electrical energy in half the time as that one nuclear power station if we take into account the cost to produce electricity as well. The only negative thing with solar is environmental cost to produce and recycle the mainly glass panels compared with the still as yet unresolved problem of nuclear waste.

We are told that most older homes are unsuitable for a heat pump system. Rubbish. We don't have to redesign our homes, if we have solar panels and a heat pump we would use far less imported energy to heat our homes. Heat pumps are really good now and can heat water up to 70DegC, use this to pre-charge the existing boiler and your gas bill drops off hugely. You wouldn't use any gas at all during the non heating summer months.

I'm still going sliding in 3 weeks though so am a bit of a hypocrite!

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@gixxerniknik,

Hinkley Point C is expected to produce enough power to cover over 6 millions homes. Take 10 years to built & last over 60 years with over 20,000 working on the construction.
Your solar will only be enough for 4.5m homes & last about 20 years and probably take another 20 years to install en-mass. 3 people installed my solar panels. 1x qualified spark & 2 labourers who done the outside work. They could probably do 2x installs a day as a team during spring and the summer & probably 1 a day in shorter sunlight hours.
As for heat pumps. Lots of homes are unsuitable as the central heating system is likely to use 8mm-12mm bores. Ideally heat-pumps should have a minimum of 22mm, but more likely 28mm bore. If you are saying to only use heatpump to help a gas boiler, then you may as well use solar to heat the water as an immersion heater. Much cheaper - like £125

After all it is free

@Gored, Good point about the build/instal time, I hadn't thought of that. But how many solar systems could 20,000 people instal in the 10 years it takes to build Hinkley?

I'm not saying my theory is based on sound facts because I may have missed quite a few things and I got all my info from the interwebulator which is dubious at best!

Hinkley C is now expected to cost £26bn to build alone without thinking about the cost to decommission. It will produce about 12,500,000MWh/yr if I'm not mistaken, and I based my calcs on 50years of production. 4.5m homes with a 4kW array (in Yorkshire) is reckoned to produce about 2850kWh/yr each. I came up with a £50/MWh cost to produce from Hinkley.

I was thinking of using the heat pump as the primary heat source with the gas (or oil because that's what we have at home) as the secondary as required. I'm a building controls engineer and have written software and commissioned this sort of system quite a few times as it's becoming rather popular now, albeit with a CHP in between the HP and boilers. But pipe size...hm, didn't think about that!

Solar powered immersion? Now that's a good idea. But if we used the HW tank as a thermal store which was heated by the solar then we wouldn't have to have a heat pump, is that what you are saying? We could then use the thermal store to pre-charge the return heating feed to the boiler and keep the existing heating system piepwork and rads etc. Much cheaper.

Really, all I'm saying is that with a slight shift in how we think it must be possible to reduce the damage we do to the planet. If I can come up with a (slightly flawed Laughing

) idea like that maybe bigger brains can come up with workable ones?

@PeakyB, I was also thinking of vandalising petrol pumps, art works, buildings, shops…

They don’t seem to realise you catch more flies with jam then vinegar. Positive actions are always more effective in spreading a message, pissing people off less so. The perpetrators keep telling us they want to “raise awareness” but I would suggest everyone is “aware” by now. They really need to start suggesting solutions rather than having childish tantrums & breaking stuff. I suppose if they really upset some unhinged individual into taking the law into their own hands someone will get seriously hurt. That won’t help anyone.

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@Gordyjh, thanks for letting me know. I’ll point the police in your direction.

Seriously though, I thought I’d made it clear that I don’t condone vandalism, criminal damage or widespread breaches of the law.

I also don’t condone world leaders who put their own short term political and seemingly greed driven selfish objectives before the long term sustainability of the planet.

The gravity of the consequences of inadequate action by them are likely to lead to increasing frustration and protest, tbsp was my point.

It’s like if you’re sitting in a car and the driver tells you they’re about to accelerate towards a cliff and plunge you off into the sea. What do you do? Say something like ‘I say, do you think that’s altogether wise?’ and try reasoning with them? Or something a bit more violent and probably against the law? Puzzled

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

@PeakyB, don’t over dramatise things. Everyone who has heard/read news over the past 20 years is aware that most people believe in anthropogenic climate change so the cowdoo we’re told about “raising awareness” is complete nonsense. It’s merely the case that some think they’re above the law & know better than the rest of us. Someone somewhere will take the opposite attitude & someone will get seriously hurt. It doesn’t take a genius to work it out.

Help!!

Eco-activists vandalise snow machines in French Alps

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