heard on the radio last night that the chances of power cuts are getting greater, I don't know anything about wind power apart from them being all over the country so what are they all about or was this quantertitive easing
wind
- Thread starter Harbourwoodwork
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calorific
Where's joe when you need him?
Couple of point from a mate of mine who's in the know:
1/. A number of these windmills are in fact "duds" and generate eff all.
2/. A number of these windmills have been built on peat land and the carbo footprint created by using this land necessitates a working life of at least 50 years at full capacity, which ain't really likely to happen.
Fat cats doing business at our expense and for no benefit other than to line their own pockets. Meanwhile, in a few years we'll have to purchase even more of our electricity from abroad at high prices.
Couple of point from a mate of mine who's in the know:
1/. A number of these windmills are in fact "duds" and generate eff all.
2/. A number of these windmills have been built on peat land and the carbo footprint created by using this land necessitates a working life of at least 50 years at full capacity, which ain't really likely to happen.
Fat cats doing business at our expense and for no benefit other than to line their own pockets. Meanwhile, in a few years we'll have to purchase even more of our electricity from abroad at high prices.
I don't want to know the cost of them I'll just get into one
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Local Radio ? You`ve got loads planned offshore near you - I know you`re in the armpit of Sussex
Wind power is not at fault for the chance of power cuts, it has bad points, but no.
EU regs have demanded a number of old coal stations have to close, the government signed up for this (so that it is the EU is a side issue), successive governments knew these close downs were looming, but none have made a decent strategy to build new capacity.
A number of nukes are coming to the end of their life as well.
The problem with wind is it requires something like 90% gas turbine generators as backup, overall it will save more carbon (the gas turbines only go on intermittently instead of constantly), but you are paying for 2 sets of power generators instead of 1.
Tidal power tech is not quite ready, it's expensive and slow to build still.
Many people oppose nukes.
If you buy into the whole C02 global warming shenanigans, but don't want nuke then wind power is the way for the short term. And it means paying more for leccy (goodbye economy it was nice knowing you).
If you don't buy into the C02 stuff, then wind is a complete waste.
They'll just keep the coal fired stations open or build new gas ones. It's the only solution in the near term. Medium to longer term it's going to need nuclear, I reckon they know that, but politicians don't have tricky medium to long term policies - it's the next election that counts.
If you'd listened more carefully to the radio you might have heard more.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were talking about the planned close-down of old coal-fired stations.
since the Japanese nuclear generator problems, lots of people have got less keen on nukes. Maybe one day the Morecambe Bay barrage will be built.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were talking about the planned close-down of old coal-fired stations.
since the Japanese nuclear generator problems, lots of people have got less keen on nukes. Maybe one day the Morecambe Bay barrage will be built.
As with oil, it is actually not finite - just uneconomical to produce/extract...
Seawater can apparently provide thousands of times the amount currently mined, but the cost is prohibitive...
So the only thing to do is reduce consumption...
But then contraction flies in the face of the capitalist model !
A 32 ft tidal range on a spring tide at Morecambe and it all empties right out in 6 hours thats some power to harness that plan has been on the table since the seventies ,I don't know the latest on that one, morecambe bay now has two n/p/s at Heysham
Along with any other technology we use.
Solar PV and wind turbines require rare earth metals. Any technology we use require materials that are finite
This is wrong. Really wrong.
To understand why this is wrong, you have to understand resource management. Oil has been exploited with many more decades than uranium. In fact uranium didn't really take off as an energy resource until the 60s, but by the early 70s, the demand for it levelled off owing to continued political pressure, by which time, the mining companies had found reserves to last them many decades into the future. As a result, there was no real need for them to go looking for more in any significent sense.
So we've had a levelled off demand since the 70s, and its only now starting to increase as we see new builds appearing.
However, there are alternative sources of uranium, such as certain types of coal ash, and phosphate.
But more importantly, most countries that use nuclear power have a once through cycle, meaning they are wasting a huge amount of energy. The US for example stopped reprocessing during the Carter admin, and are only just looking into restarting. So they are sitting on about 3 decades of spent fuel that could be reprocessed.
We could easily go more than 100 years with our current technology with nuclear because of these issues alone, but it gets better. GenIV reactors will use the fuel more efficiently, meaning we get more energy for each unit of ore.
Then there is the nuclear cycle as a whole will only get more efficient, with advances such as laser refinement of the ore, and better reprocessing, to realise more the of ore's potential.
Then of course there's uranium extraction from sea water, which has only been tried once or twice. Fully developed, it could last millions of years.
The fuel is only a small fraction of the cost of nuclear, and so changes in availability can easily be managed.
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A Severn Barrage could harness a formidable tidal range some 46ft, second only, in world terms, to Bay of Fundy in Canada.
I recall Barrage feasibility studies back in the 70's - declaring a Barrage as a potential disaster for the ecology.
Certainly a major problem envisaged was the build up of silt generally, and more specificaly at the local 'resorts'
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I recall Barrage feasibility studies back in the 70's - declaring a Barrage as a potential disaster for the ecology.
Certainly a major problem envisaged was the build up of silt generally, and more specificaly at the local 'resorts'
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