Ending Oil.
Mr Putin seems to have created a bit of a mess just when we need it least. It’s hard enough for most as it is with the increased energy bills and now we’re seeing the shock to the oil prices, but this has only quickened the minds of those who see the benefits of not using it at all.
We use a lot of heating oil in West Norfolk. And that is going to have to change. Personally, we have gone from around 3,000ltrs a yr, to 700-900 litres a year through efficiencies over the years and now we’re switching to electric radiators, we will be free of it for ever.
Those 700 litres could cost £1,400 at present. That will be our savings when we switch and I know the electricity needed to operate the new smart heaters, will be nowhere near that in increased electricity bills as I’ve been testing one out in the old workshop this winter. A 9m x 5m single skin, uninsulated shed type barn type workshop, cost £220 to heat this winter, last year, using an electric fan heater, and gas bottles, we spent £350 on heating the building.
Electric heating, modern electric heating is cheaper than oil and in some cases, gas. And it’s not all about Electric Rads Air Source Heat Pumps either. Infra Red heat panels for point of use heating are excellent when you need a little warmth without heating the whole house.
We can, end oil.
With transport being the biggest of oil users, we need to switch and make the transition quickly, whilst ensuring the service sector that exists for internal combustion engine powered vehicles can retrain and learn new skills for what’s required on Electric Vehicles.
By switching to an EV or or using public transport where you save hundreds if not thousands of pounds every year, you end oil immediately. Grab a calculator, put in the amount you spend monthly in diesel or petrol. Times it by twelve. That’s your savings. Now start looking at public transport or taxi costs when looking at alternatives.
I know many people who have ditched the cars and use a local taxi company or car share the costs such is their infrequency of driving needs.
They are ending oil.
Saying that, with the public transport infrastructure being so poor in rural West Norfolk that unless you live in King’s Lynn, Watlington, Magdalen or Downham Market, you can not walk to catch a train! You have to drive. Which uses oil.
We also has a skills shortage and that is echoed in our industry and many companies including our own, are booked so far advance we have temporarily stopped taking in new clients for the immediate future. We all need more quality electricians, more solar and battery technicians, more roofers, more apprenticeships in electrical engineering and electrical contractor companies are required. That will help end oil.
Many young people leaving school today will have only ever known a life where the likes of solar panels and electric vehicles are ‘normal’ and just ‘part of life’. Image being able to say you have spent your whole life in renewables and making the planet a better place? Kids leaving school today get that exact opportunity. We have no greater pride than the knowledge that our partner companies, the people who do the do up on the roofs and in the lofts, all have or are running apprentice schemes. 19 yr olds, the only job they have ever had, and they are upon the roof tops of this great nation, creating a better place for all of us. They are ending oil.
Locally, he busses are so infrequent, you can not commute to King’s Lynn for work if you live in many West Norfolk villages. So we need to drive. Which uses oil. We need better public transport.
Which would end oil.
Our own 2nd hand, 8 yr old EV which cost £6,500 from Stebbings 5 years, ago does around 5,000 miles a year. £30-£40 a yr in fuel costs when mainly charged via solar, £150 if direct from the grid, when i last calculated the finances a few years ago that is. I don’t know how much 5,000 miles in a diesel would cost today? £700? £800? But that’s our savings. We got the Electric Car for many reasons, one being that I was one of those who was hoping that after two decades in the Middle East, the oil wars would be over and that the transition to a cleaner greener future was happening on merit, on environmental benefits, on financial benefits and all the other reasons people choose clean, green, free energy.
20 yrs ago, it was about the Middle East. Today, it’s about Europe. It’s being pulled apart and facilitated from within, and it’s about oil, resources, old thinking and wealth. Not the wealth of Nations, but the wealth of individuals. Those who are fighting over the remaining scraps of what’s left to drill. And who are the winners?
We end our dependency and we change the world.
The frustrating thing is, that as sure as sunrise, we can sit beside the river, watching the tide ebb and flow and feel the wind in our face and know, we just know, that we have the solutions to do just that.
To end oil.
#SolarLove
Kevin