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Climate Change Debate

Visage said:
http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...ricity-needs-through-wind-power-10381648.html

Haven't they heard? Renewables don't scale...
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Did you read the sentence about coal? Did you comprehend that it was a freak day that gave a small country to lay claim to the record?
Tell me where you expect to source 50GW of electricity in the UK (and more if you want transport to switch).
Remember electricity is just a small part of the UKs energy consumption.
'Fossil fuels' have an availibility of centuries, plenty of time for genuine innovation.
 
nimrod said:
so have we changed chancellor since george osborne approved using taxpayers money to guarantee Drax's conversion projects can go ahead then?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said:
I am very pleased that the development of Drax has been able to benefit from the UK Guarantees Scheme. This is another example of how we are using the credibility Britain has earned through its determination to deal with its deficit to support investment in the economy.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/drax-biomass-backed-by-uk-guarantee

i think this thread lost its direction, if it ever had one, a long time ago and has become rather bizarre. it started with your supposed concern about the cost impact on lower/middle income families of the green economy. since then you've declared support for what has been described as the largest subsidised project in energy history (edf nuclear) and yet you're championing the chancellor of the government that approved it (what happened to your concern for lower/middle income families? disappeared very quickly didn't it?). you champion him (above) on the back of his supposed opposition to drax biomass conversion despite the fact that he not only approved it, but is using taxpayers money to ensure the profit making capability of a private company not just through a subsidy but through guaranteeing debt payments of the project for virtually no upside (is that helping lower/middle income families)? and your opposition to drax's scheme no longer appears to be on price (as you'd look hypocritical having declared higher support for nuclear) but instead you're jumping on a green bandwagon critique (you of all people!) regarding sustainability as if you were a green activist. and if you and the greens are right on that and there's not enough wood to source drax projects over 15 years, it means your champion chancellor has fucked up royally in putting taxpayers money at risk twice over.

here's the alternate view from drax on sustainability by the way, which of course is a criteria required by the support mechanism and hence had to be closely scrutinised by george's department before he gave his support. this is only to balance your detailed one line analysis above

http://www.theecologist.org/reply/2897163/biomass_for_energy_is_the_common_sense_option.html
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Osbourne has been released from the shakles of the Libdims. Expect more policy shift. With regard to nuclear the costs are inevitably increased through failure to have a strategy for 30 years. If a common technology had been taken on board the development and safety costs would have been amortised nicely over a number of installations.
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
Osbourne has been released from the shakles of the Libdims. Expect more policy shift. With regard to nuclear the costs are inevitably increased through failure to have a strategy for 30 years. If a common technology had been taken on board the development and safety costs would have been amortised nicely over a number of installations.
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Yes, who needs to test multiple systems when you can just bang your head against the wall instead?
 
Visage said:
Between Q1 2014 and Q1 2015 we added 5GW:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/437810/Renewables.pdf

So at that rate we'll be there in a decade.
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Of which you get about 20% of rated capacity, also requiring 100% availability of conventional generation. Maximum demand is in cold still winter days with near zero wind. What of the environmental footprint of all the turbines and their access to the grid?
Electricity is only a proportion of our energy demand, you might be able to replace some of that with electricity hence increasing inefficient power conversion.
The claim in that document for biomass also includes the industrial scale Drax co-fired generation.
Finally how do you account for all the power generation defered by the West to China, India etc. (which is no bad thing necessarily)?
 
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Isle of Eigg gives that extra LOLZ
 
Alan USA said:
Sooner than that given how quickly the tech is moving forward.
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Some technolgies move very quickly but electro-mechanical technolgies and power storage technologies tend to creep on slowly compared to say semiconductor technologies (Moore's law). There are physical limits as there is a relatively low density of recoverable ambient energy.
This is why renewables have significant and ignored environmental impact themselves.
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
Some technolgies move very quickly but electro-mechanical technolgies and power storage technologies tend to creep on slowly compared to say semiconductor technologies (Moore's law). There are physical limits as there is a relatively low density of recoverable ambient energy.
This is why renewables have significant and ignored environmental impact themselves.
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This statement coming from an engineer absolutely flabbergasts me.
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
Osbourne has been released from the shakles of the Libdims. Expect more policy shift. With regard to nuclear the costs are inevitably increased through failure to have a strategy for 30 years. If a common technology had been taken on board the development and safety costs would have been amortised nicely over a number of installations.
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i said the thread had lost direction and become bizarre and you’re certainly continuing the trend. we now seem to be in the realms of fantasy and science fiction.

the fantasy is that at a time of maximum austerity when essentially whatever the chancellor said about affordability was king, the minor coalition partner, you know the party that had to give up key things it promised in its manifesto for which it suffered inevitably bad consequences, were somehow able to bully him against his will into signing off a HM Treasury guarantee to support the drax deal. you’d have to be seriously deluded to believe this.

the sci-fi is you imagining a hypothetical parallel universe where nuclear energy is apparently much cheaper. i don’t mind that one so much, but what it doesn’t explain is why today, when its not cheaper, you support the most heavily subsidised energy project whilst openly criticising cheaper tech and far smaller subsidies.

rather than acknowledge your double standards you try and dodge them.
 
I find it quite telling that only HGW goes on about political dogma, yet it seems only his opinion and rhetoric is polluted by it. (pun intended)
 
Alan USA said:
This statement coming from an engineer absolutely flabbergasts me.
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Its a good expression of why manufacturing and product development stagnated in this country for so long. Small minded thinking, thankfully the newer generation of engineers are slightly better.
 
It's a problem that we know how to fix though. As we move more and more to renewables, any issues will be sorted as we go.
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
Grid fit for purpose?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33527967

This is why I express concern.
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this is not about "the grid", it's about the lack of capacity surplus which we've mentioned a number of times before.
your posts in this thread are typically adverse to what the report is saying.

for instance, if you're now really concerned about security of supply, why voice opposition to new baseload plant that can delivered quickly (biomass conversion).

note what it says about gas generation:

"The economics of generation are terrible" said Peter Atherton, a utilities analyst at Jefferies Investment Bank. "Every gas fired plant is losing money. And new build is not delivering. Hence the underlying margins are getting worse".

yet you post deliberately misleading daily mail articles comparing tariffs needed for new build generation with old depreciated plant much of which is due to go offline.

what your daily mail article didn't touch on is why we're in this position and having to throw money at private companies to build nuclear, convert biomass and pay extra to keep old capacity available. it's because privatisation policy has completely failed to deliver anywhere near sufficient generation. blackout risk is a consequence of that failed privatisation policy which papers like the daily mail have always supported.
 
The Bear said:
It's a problem that we know how to fix though. As we move more and more to renewables, any issues will be sorted as we go.
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Which renewables can replace a 50GW grid? That grid capacity necessarily expands if you wish to move from transport and heating fuels.

I'll post this link yet again:
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Last I looked wind was about 1.5% of a very low demand.
 
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