BritInParis

Exactly

steveq

I doubt it, the UK is the sixth largest economy in the world, and in a few years may even become fourth - I've seen analyses that it will be bigger than Germany in less than 8 years. The UK can do far more damage to Europe by erecting barriers to trade from the EU to the UK, than vice-versa. The UK is the German auto industry's largest market for example.

And if they don't like the EUs silly rules about things like, say, energy efficiency, they can tell them to go away and come back with kettles that work properly....

scrubbedexpat099

Kettles are actually very efficient, assuming you only heat as much water as you need.

steveq

And the power rating of the heater is not a measurement of its efficiency. The EU is now apparently "banning" high power kettles.
We have a 240V kettle at work though, and I have colleagues who swear it makes the water hotter than a 110V kettle. I despair, we are an engineering company.

Pulaski

Given that all the heat from a kettle's element ends up in the water, and that warm/hot water loses energy, there is a good argument to be made that a kettle that heats more quickly is more efficient because it loses less heat on the way to the boiling point because it gets to the boiling point quicker!

Personally I think the whole thing is irrelevant - just get an induction stove/cooker and it will boil water in a stove-top kettle faster than any electric kettle, because you can throw considerably more power into it than even a 240v 3Kw kettle.

steveq

Exactly, I nearly made that contention. The EU apparently employs no physicists ......

Sadly an induction hob wouldn't fit on the shelf in the lab :-)

scrubbedexpat099

Technical consultants to the EU?

username.exe

Giantaxe

Less than 10% of EU exports go to the UK, 45 to 50% of the UK's exports go to other EU countries. So I doubt your statement is correct.

amideislas

No need to be confused. Remember, Germany is shutting down all nuclear power stations and resorting to nearly complete dependence on CO2-generating Russian fossil fuels, because of the Fukushima incident (a nuke plant irresponsibly built on top of one of the world's most dangerous fault lines) because the Greens (a very powerful political party in Germany) demanded it.

Now Germany will be pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, from gas, coal, and oil bought from Putin, as well as buying nuke-generated power from France, who is laughing all the way to the bank.


By the way, it's worth pointing out that Germany doesn't have many faultlines, precious few earthquakes, and those precious few that they do have typically register in the 3's or 4's (max) on the Richter scale.

beachgal21

What is TTIP? And six reasons why the answer should scare you | Comment | Voices | The Independent

Pulaski

Your numbers are consistent with Steveq's post. "Less than 10%" going to a single country is a very big number.

Giantaxe

It may well be. However, it's a lot smaller than the 45 to 50% that go in the reverse direction. Given that the EU negotiates trade deals collectively, that difference is what is important, especially as such a deal would have to be voted on by all EU members. The bottom line is that trade to the EU is more critical to the UK than trade to the UK from the EU is to the EU.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Switzerland is a bank branch located in the mountains of Europe, with a population equal to that of Greater London. Not really comparable.

scrubbedexpat099

But 10 is smaller than 50