I have come to the conclusion that a low carbon standard is no a good idea

We should be using a low energy standard.

A poorly insulated low carbon house could become a high energy user if the method of heating was changed from a low carbon one to something different

It is extremely likely that the heating method would change during the life of a house or housing estate with biomass boiler.

All this just a first faltering step towards a Negative Resource Standard for buildings. Only that can be called Sustainable - anything less is a perversion of a perfectly good plain English word, that had clear meaning until muddled up with brownie points for birdboxes etc.

Carbon (a misnomer itself - shd be carbon dioxide - Carbon is GOOD, CO2 is the baddie) is only one of a multitude of Resources (or eco-system loads) that have to be reduced, first to zero then beyond that to Negative.

Zero isn't good enough (tho at zero or slightly positive the planet cd already say '"thanks - I'll take it from there - but on a 'geological' timescale").

We humans can and must go further, to Resource Negative, meaning that planetary healing actually happens sooner and better as a result of the building, than if nothing had been built. This is the basis of Permaculture thinking - knowing that it's the planet and its plants , not us (or any animals), that does all the reprocessing and the clearing up of mess and the replacement (or substitution) of depleted resources. What we animals esp 'intelligent' humans can do is to actively help that process along, and not actively hinder it.

So Resource Negative is not only a moral duty, it's a matter of self-interest (to get the planet and therefore our grandchildren back to health asap), and as a way of living, thinking and acting it's also a return, for humans, to fun, fulfilment - and sanity.

Posted By: SteamyTeaare we just trying to create a golden age when all the Earth's weather systems were stable and predictable?

No, we're trying to preserve a long (to us) temporary (on a planetary timescale) era when conditions were (still are) favourable to animals esp humans. If the cosmos is now really determined to change that, then there's little that we can, or should do about it.

More to the point, is the general overload that we humans have succeeded in creating on the broad range of the planet's systems and resources, of which the greenhouse gas issue is only one small corner. That's not a matter of nostalgia for a golden age, nor of trying to manipulate conditions to suit us - it's just plain overload, caused needlessly and ignorantly by us.

Wot, you mean walk my talk?

or are we talking kWh ?

48kWh is what the world average if energy use is (about).

Imagine that every day at midnight you you have 48kWh (172.8 MJ) of 'energy' delivered to your door. You have to make that last until midnight. You are not allowed to carry any over, buy any. That is your daily allowance for each individual. Now see how long it lasts. I don't count energy in food in this, but should really but the limit would have to be higher.
Last time I tried to calculate it I ran out by 8am.

If you have night storage heating and a big leaky house and it's sub-zero weather, you'll certainly use that 48kWh up before 8AM. Twice that, if you're lucky.

Evan has got it. house was not particularly bad (been improved now) just that the E7 used it at the wrong time and a journey to work, even a short one like mine can still use 10kWh for 15 miles. Starts to put it all into perspective.

JT
Should really take all the hidden stuff into account as they form some of the global average figure, very hard to calculate accurately, but there are estimates of between a third and a half of out energy use is non direct to us as individuals.

Edit
JT
Sorry only half read your reply. I did mean not taking the calorific value, but have also not included embedded energy of any sort, that is historic in a way.
Was more thinking along the lines of what can be easily calculated just to show how hard it is (and must be very hard for people with less than the average). Very really below 0C here.
I am also counting all energy, be it renewables, biomass, electricity, gas etc.

Judith
Journey is in my car, has to be as there is no public transport where I live that I can use.

I have also learnt to never comment on a ladies age, hairstyle, fashion sense or weight. Nuff said on cycling.

Add up a years worth of utility bills, add to that energy for transport and then divide it by 365 and then by the number of people in your household. It leads to high density urban housing as the most energy efficient lifestyle. Often the opposite from what the green movement thinks.

We had a thread on here, can't find it at moment, about wealth and energy use. In the UK the wealthiest people use the least energy. More to do with demographics/geography, but interesting all the same.

Edit
Found it

http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=5625&page=3#Item_14

Interesting thread. I don't find where is shows that the wealthiest people use the least energy. (UK plc may have become wealthier and energy consumption within UK may have gone down - but that is an entirely different claim).

That methodology doesn't work for me because you've introduced a variable (local climate) independent of wealth.

JT

There is a problem with finding out average earnings and energy use by earning from government figures. Was the best I could do, but there really isn't that huge a difference between geographical areas and climate, just feels it (1.1 C difference).

I am not saying that we should be at the world average level, but it is an easy baseline to work to. The world baseline of 2kW or 48kWh/day includes all infrastructure whereas our domestic usage is just that, what we pay for directly.

Now I have no idea how many people are in your household, when I calculated mine there was just me. I now have a lodger and the bills initially tripled, but after 2 years of banging on about it she does not spent 40 minutes in the shower (or until all the hot water stopped).

I asked a bus driver how many miles per gallon a bus used and he thought somewhere between 4 and 8 depending on if it was an old double decker or a newer single deck one. Bit hard to calculate the loading on a bus, unless you do the same journey every day at the same time and you can count the passenger numbers to work out an average. It then poses the question about how much energy is used in running a bus and the bus infrastructure for when you do not use it. Same with a car to a certain extent because it has to be serviced and MOT'd there is an energy cost to that. Same with a bike, sooner or later you need to buy bits for it, Halfords have an energy bill. Be an interesting MSc for someone, the true energy cost of cycling, be a lot higher than we imagine.

Evan
My old Suzuki does 50 mpg, or 11 miles to the litre (call a litre of gasoline 35 MJ or 10kWh) or 1.1miles/kWh. Your electric car does 4 miles/kWh or 3.6 times better, the van does 2 miles/kWh, that is almost 100 mpg, have I gone wrong somewhere, easily done late at night.

JT

Not suggesting that cycling is close to a car, just that is higher than imagined but not done the figures, so would not put my name to it. I like to put numbers to everything, that way things can be easily compared.

It is hard to separate income figures and energy figures, why as a quick calculation I used the methodology I did. Not perfect but a starting point.

Bus journeys are often held up as an example of of 'greenness', as is rail travel, there was an interesting report last year about comparing trains and cars and there was not so much difference because of the infrastructure costs, though I think that included embodies energy.

The reason Tony started this thread is because of these problems of calculation, just using a carbon footprint is not really looking at the whole picture. To the disinterested general public is is a fine way to highlight the issue (how much carbon to make a pint of milk, offset your flight) but to us on here who have a deeper interest (I teach it) we soon realise the limitations.
If carbon was the only issue things would be fine and easy to calculate, trouble is it is only a small part of the whole energy equation (the earth energy budget) which soon gets linked into sustainability.
The way I look at things is from an economic viewpoint, or how much damage am I willing to put up with and how much am I willing to pay for that damage, or to not damage. May seem a peculiar way around it but the common base is money. I know how much I earn, how much extra work I would have to do and can then cut my clothe to suit. I am probably a lot less environmentally damaging than most, but in world average terms much much higher.
Changing the base from carbon to energy does make calculations easy. Personally I would use the Joule, but as that would add another layer of calculations to things. I think it would get too complicated for most people to calculate quickly in their heads. Would allow for much more detailed understanding though.

I'd be interested in a reference to that report on cars vs. trains. Of course, carbon footprint is not the whole picture, but then nor is energy use. Neither take into account other forms environmental impact (e.g. pollution, biodiversity, habitat loss, &c).