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January meeting

Thread started on 20/12/2007 17:21

despina

despina

Hiya

A few of us were thinking we should have a meeting in January to help new people with their CO2 estimates, and bring our own estimates up to date. Anything else people would like to discuss / ideas for sessions?

How is Monday 22 or Tuesday 23 January for everyone? We could have it around 6.30 at the School of Geography?

xd

Next meeting

Richard Hargreaves

Thanks for keeping in touch but those dates and time are not on for me. Sorry, I’m an awkward so-and-so, living where I do **, and how could I ‘CRAGwise’ justify a journey all the way into Leeds and back just for a short meeting? Better if I could combine it with another activity the same day. My best bet would be a 7.30pm meeting on a Wednesday or Thursday after I’ve been doing my English teaching to asylum seekers slots in Bradford 4.30 – 6.30 those days. I could come on to Leeds by train. But don’t arrange things around me. I’m way behind in my CRAG calculations and decisions, still agonizing whether to commit to £300 extra per year for Good Energy.

Sorry, I’m a rotten CRAGgist, but I do THINK about it!

Richard

  • For those who don’t know where this is, I live in Littondale, 15 miles up from Skipton!

 

January meeting

Robert Johnstone

Robert Johnstone

Well I can make on 23 January. It’ll be good to meet all you CRAGsters.

Rob

 

Finalised dates

despina

despina

Right, I know of as many people who can’t make the 22nd/23rd as for the 17th.

Since everyone seems to be OK with Wed 13 Feb for the February meeting, and since we have to finalise the January meeting, I suggest we have it on the 17th – which will give us plenty of time to organise an exciting profile-raising February session!

So, for your diaries:
_____________________________________

Thu 17 January, 6.45 for 7 pm to 8.30 pm (tea and cake at 6.45 at the Foyer, then move upstairs at 7 for meeting), School of Geography (maps at http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/info/school/contact.html)

Carbon accounting – how do we measure up?

Bring your pre-CRAG, and CRAG era carbon emission estimates (carbon calculator is at http://www.leedstidal.org/sccleeds/calculator.php – or bring your electricity and gas bills and transportation mileage and we’ll do your accounting on the spot!) – and let’s DRAW SOME GRAPHS! Visualise those reductions..

Has anyone checked how we’re doing vs all the other CRAGs? Could do that on the 17th.. Where do we stand on the hardcore to softie scale??
_____________________________________

Wed 13 February, 6.45 for 7 pm to 8.30 pm (tea and cake at 6.45 at the Foyer, then move upstairs at 7 for meeting), School of Geography

TBC at January meeting – bring ideas for exciting topics. We could discuss examples of feasible national/international level rationing schemes, and rationing vs “cap and trade” (carbon permits auctioned to fossil fuel producers) at some point..
_____________________________________

See you soon!
despina

 

Follow-up to Wednesday's meeting

Robert Johnstone

Robert Johnstone

It was great to meet those of you who were at the meeting on 16 January. Here are some links to information related to things that were mentioned at the meeting.

I said that the Advertising Standards Authority had upheld a complaint against Good Energy. Here is the adjudication:
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/non_broadcast/Adjudication+Detai…
Having read the adjudication I have to say that I think the ASA got it wrong. There’s no real difference between getting electricity “directly from renewable sources” and getting it from those sources through the national grid.

I mentioned a flyer that I’d received offering loft and cavity wall insulation for £150 each. The company involved is called Viscount (http://www.viscount-insulation.co.uk/insulation_cost.html). I have no other knowledge about the company, so don’t take this as a recommendation. We got our loft insulated for £200 through Scottish Power. This took the best part of a year to arrange (probably due to the three sub-contractors involved) but we a happy with the result.

Here’s a link to the Mould Growth Consultants website: http://www.mgcltd.co.uk/
Their Sempatap Thermal product looks nice and easy to apply and probably does a good job at reducing condensation but, at only 10mm thick I wouldn’t expect a dramatic improvement in the thermal resistance of solid walls. Their website suggests that the U-value (thermal conductance) of a solid wall would be reduced from 2.1 to 1.6 W/m²K. The current building regulations require 0.45 W/m²K and I’m told that 0.3 W/m²K is readily attainable with internal solid wall insulation (of a much greater thickness than 10mm, of course).

The document stored at http://www.withouthotair.com/ may be of interest to you all. It tries to put into perspective the relative importance of various energy saving measures in terms of their contribution to our overall energy consumption. It’s a good read, and appears to be backed up by some sound research.

Best wishes,

Rob