Thursday 12 May 2016

The illogical fallacies of the EU

It’s a curious thing, physics. And unlike fickle humanity it tends to stick to the rules. Rules such as: you can’t get more work out than you put in, no matter how much interviewed footballers believe otherwise. Then there’s the Newtonian tendency for things to carry on doing what they were doing unless external forces act on them. And in thermodynamics, as Flanders and Swann so succinctly opined, ‘heat can’t pass from a cooler to a hotter’. (‘You can try it if you like, but you’d far better notter!’) So when it comes to boiling a kettle even the mighty EU is not in a position to alter some basic facts.

By way of illustration let’s take tea. Regardless of whatever you may wish to believe, it takes the same amount of energy to boil your water, every time, assuming the same volume, starting temperature and pressure. So, if your fast-boil, three kilowatt kettle takes three minutes to boil a litre of water, a simple calculation will tell you that a two kilowatt kettle will take half as long again, cost you the same and save the planet not one single gram’s-worth of carbon footprint. Plus there’s a chance you’ll get bored, wander off, forget about it then have to re-boil it ten minutes later when you realise you’ve sat down to Corrie without a cuppa.

Kettles, toasters, cookers... if the EU gets its bizarre, controlling, micro-wave-managing way everything will take longer; it’s almost as if they’ve listened to a fifteen-year old ‘climate scientist’ driven by idealism above reality, rather than real engineers and scientists and people who can actually distinguish their arse from the pointy joint in the middle of their arms. Given the parlous state of education and the increased emphasis on not stressing out the kids it will only be a matter of time before voters really will believe anything. I’m pretty sure that the meddlesome ideas factory that is the EU plutocracy isn’t short of raw material but just in case, I have come up with some schemes that may help.

Obviously, the planet desperately needs our help and gas-guzzling cars and trucks must be phased out forthwith. Henceforth no vehicles delivering less than 100 miles-per-gallon will be permitted to be manufactured. To combat light pollution, inside as well as out, no lights emitting more than 50 lumens (that’s physics for ‘fuck-all’) will be available for sale. Music systems will be limited to a maximum 5 Watts rms per channel and to save on space heating costs, room heights will be lowered to 2m. If this means breeding shorter people with enormous eyes and ears this is surely a small price to pay.

To assist in our low-energy future, gravity will be turned down by 20% so that all lifting mechanisms will need to do less work and daylight hours will be steadily increased to help with the light-saving initiative. Also, all roads will be levelled, or run slightly downhill in order that road and rail transport becomes more efficient and – possibly the greatest boon to our green credentials – every industry will be relocated as far away as possible from the EU region that our local pollution output will be reduced to near-zero.

Klingons on the starboard bow!
The New EU Physics Textbook

Left to the EU and its equally tenuous grasp on all things rooted in reality including economics, nothing will ever again be made in the great trade bloc and somehow its teeming millions will survive on near-zero energy consumption and fallacious financials. Feeding the five thousand? Feeding them bullshit, it seems. As the legendary Mr Scott had it, “Ye cannae change the laws of physics, Captain!”

7 comments:

  1. I am no great shakes at science or anything that smacks of academia actually. In the back of my mind though I have this feeling that it has been said that at the quantum level the laws of physics as we know them do not apply. So at the brain level being so small of those who decide on the rules and policies of the EU the laws of intelligence do not likewise apply.

    There cannot be any other explanation in fact evidence of it is everyday being uncovered as others in the world such as our politicians, rulers, religious leaders and more are proving to be very small minded and showing that normal intelligence does not apply to them either.

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  2. I agree with everything you said here. However I understand that the method in the madness is to reduce demand shocks to the supply grid by spreading a lower load over a longer time span rather than "saving" energy per-se.

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    1. I know that. But really it is about control. Instead of pursuing plentiful energy at the right price, they seek an unattainable dream which disadvantages the less well-off, as they always do. The EU is only interested in political power; they really couldn't care less about energy.

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  3. Actually, the 2 Kw kettle takes slightly more than 1.5x as long to boil than the 3Kw kettle and is less efficient. Once the water temperature goes above ambient energy is lost from the system. The quicker it boils the less energy is lost.

    On such stupidities do civilisations founder.

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    1. Yeah, I wrote about this some time ago when the limit was first publicised. But scientific exactitude is lost on the average reader. Some people believe it takes as much to boil a kettle whether for one cup or full!

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  4. Like it. My personal "favourite" EU rule is the cookie policy which breaks most websites, even if implemented properly, I.e.not continually popping up on every visit. Connection to physics? Most EU websites will consume a minute amount of extra internet resource including power. I haven't done the maths but it would be a fun calculation.

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  5. Actually you could make a reasonable case for low-powered kettles using MORE power in total, because they spend more time at intermediate temperatures, losing heat all the while - which is, of course, a time-dependent loss of energy.

    But all of that misses the point, as does your post I am afraid. The point of lowering the power of kettles (and everything else, in the fulness of time, is so that the windmills don't get overloaded. Nothing to do with reducing "carbon" emissions.

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