Posted by: @transparent

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This discussion needs to be moved to your local pub. The more you tell others about this, the better informed they'll be.

All of us need to become much more grid-savvy and understand how to 'treat it well'.

Never had to bother before ( IE with fossil fuels) so why should I bother now?  It's all a plot.  We are entitled to infinite amounts of everything immediately, and if we don't get it then the government is at fault.

That's the reaction I get in my local pub to any suggestion of this nature, and this is the polite version.  The less polite version additionally invokes immigrants and 'benefit scroungers', often from people who are almost certainly themselves on benefits, because they are over the state pension age and thus presumably taking the state pension.

That said I definitely agree that the public need to be informed to a level way beyond that aimed for by the wealthy proprietors of many of our media outlets, and talking about it in the pub is one way to do this notwithstanding the possible reaction.

@jamespa Trying not to drag politics into this topic (I am not a political animal and am uncomfortable in talking politics anyway) but, the pension I paid into for all 49 years of my working life was an entitlement that I had paid for. Somewhere along fairly recent years, pensions became a ‘benefit’!

As to talking to others in the pub (I am not a pub-goer and am TT but that is beside the point) I think one would be regarded as a nerd at the very least. Even without the drinks with friends side of things, other than when interested folks come to ‘Visit a Heat Pump’, I have found that ‘MEGO’ is the usual result! Perhaps I have the wrong technique for evangelising.☹️ Regards, Toodles.

Posted by: @toodles

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...

(I am not a pub-goer and am TT but that is beside the point)

...

Actually I think that's very much on point.

From my experience, the days of the pub being the heart of social intercourse are long gone. Most pubs these days are glorified restaurants and the drink prices are far too high for people to "just pop in for a quick chat". Certainly the pub is still a social hub for certain subsets of any given community but not for the majority, I think.

As a result, trying to move any discussions like this to the pub is not necessarily effort best spent unless you happen to be a pubgoer already. Perhaps we need a renewables version of tupperware parties. Certainly around me suggestions of a get together to swap ideas and tips (some renewables related, some gardening related, some completely different) have met with enthusiastic uptake so perhaps the neighbourhood barbecue could become the new pub.

Posted by: @toodles

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@jamespa Trying not to drag politics into this topic (I am not a political animal and am uncomfortable in talking politics anyway) but, the pension I paid into for all 49 years of my working life was an entitlement that I had paid for. Somewhere along fairly recent years, pensions became a ‘benefit’!

Thats how many people see it, but if it were truly funded by contributions 'from the past' then there would need to be some sort of investment fund (which would probably be 'bust' given increased lifetime) into which contributions were put which is drawn on to pay the benefit.  There isn't, because it's funded from current taxation, not from contributions you or I paid in the past.

Part of the 'settlement' we have in society is to support elderly people (and others).  That's fair enough but there is, it seems to me, a legitimate arguement over the scale of that support and whether those who can easily afford to live without it should enjoy  support at the same level, particularly when they are generally living longer than was ever expected and there are many other demands on the funds that can reasonably be extracted from the productive members of society.

I, by the way, am over state pension age so I realise this argument is counter to my own interests.

It never takes much to drag something off-topic.  At least this forum never succumbs to Godwin’s Law!  

† Historical note:

Godwin died as a consequence of being attacked by all of his neighbours on Saturday 11th July.

He'd misunderstood the G99 Consent granted by his DNO, and simultaneously exported 16A to the grid from each of his two solar inverters and his home storage battery.

The resulting high current in the Neutral created thermal stress in the underground cable feed from the local substation.
This caused a breakdown in the insulation, taking out all three phases just before the start of the World Cup game between England and Norway.

Is this thread now back on topic?

Posted by: @andrewj

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It never takes much to drag something off-topic.  At least this forum never succumbs to Godwin’s Law!  

Fair enough and mea culpa.  I was responding to a comment made by someone else that the discussion about electricity grid strain needs to be pub talk.