Just been listening to this chap on the Today Programme:

Mr Buchanan points out that the imminent closure of ageing coal and oil power station make it vital to invest more in securing gas supplies.

He says that over the next three years, he expects to see the “reserve margin” of generation to dwindle from 14% to just 5%.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21501878

I shall now go out to the workshop and dust off the generator and maybe chop some more wood 🙂

Pro fracking proper gander.
Prapps

Some sustainable gas ideas from france

New Clear Gas Power Stations

Perhaps a £2:55 investment is in order….

Nuclear power, it’s the future.

Or simply tool up…

I only we had a plentiful supply of energy rich material buried beneath the UK.

CaptJon – Member
I only we had a plentiful supply of energy rich material buried beneath the UK.

We would if people would let us bury it!

Or do you mean coal? With all it’s pollution.

coal – efficient carbon capture or gasification shouldn’t be beyond the reach of science.

A nice Buffet of baked beans, perhaps?
(See what I did there?)

Mr Buchanan is flageoleting a dead horse if you ask me

And build some bloody windmills already. It’s embarrassing seeing how many of them are in mainland Europe (particularly Germany) compared to here.

coal – efficient carbon capture or gasification shouldn’t be beyond the reach of science.

A very persuasive well reasoned argument 🙂

build some bloody windmills

Right now total demand = 47.33GW, total wind contribution 0.14GW. Maybe we could burn some windmills to produce energy?

For every GW capacity of windmills you build, you need to build the same in conventional power to supply the euqivalent load when it’s not windy.

A peat-fired power station?

For every GW capacity of windmills you build, you need to build the same in conventional power to supply the euqivalent load when it’s not windy.

Or, to put it another way, every GW of wind power is a GW you didn’t have to generate by burning gas or coal or kittens.

Right now total demand = 47.33GW, total wind contribution 0.14GW. Maybe we could burn some windmills to produce energy?

Germany is averaging many times that (in the order of an average of 5GW). Nobody’s ever going to claim it’s the overall solution, but it’s less gas and coal burned.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPIP9KXdmO0[/video]

but it’s less gas and coal burned

Agree, but the original article was about meeting peak demand, and if our current 8.5GW of installed wind power is actually generating 0.13GW (wind seems to have just dropped) it’s not contributing much to that! It seems to average somewhat less than 2GW btw.

konabunny – Member
For every GW capacity of windmills you build, you need to build the same in conventional power to supply the euqivalent load when it’s not windy.

Or, to put it another way, every GW of wind power is a GW you didn’t have to generate by burning gas or coal or kittens.

Sort of but you need the Kitten Furnace running on standby which means for every GW of Wind you still cause pollution.

Oh – I thought this was going to be about how a little old guy sitting in a pensioner’s bungalow in Omaha manages to be such a huge world player…

Some science dude on Radio two weeks ago suggesting that wave power off the North West coast of Scotland is projected to produce more than 22 Nukeleaar Power stations combined amd since it has a regular flow and not reliant on tidal currents so they can provide constant supply.
Technology for this is 10-12 years away.

A peat-fired power station?

We’ve been doing that for years in Ireland, same for home fuel…its not that good TBH… but smells lovely 🙂

do we not waste huge amounts of energy? we are very poorly insulated in many homes, businesses, many folk prefer to heat a whole house than put some clothes on– cheap energy is a luxury that will not be available anymore, best get used to it, and yes the coal industry was shut for political purposes, pesky workers having some say in the runnings of ….

we’ll be fine.

we’ll just buy our leccy from the French*

(*who’ll just chuck another uranium log on their nuclear fire)

it’s what the Germans do.

and just like the Germans, we’ll be able to point at our windmills, and say ‘no nukes here’.

(i call this ‘cheating’)

Some science dude on Radio two weeks ago suggesting that wave power off the North West coast of Scotland is projected to produce more than 22 Nukeleaar Power stations combined amd since it has a regular flow and not reliant on tidal currents so they can provide constant supply.
Technology for this is 10-12 years away.

Glad I’m not up there waiting for that to happen could be a cold dark few years to find out the original prediction (less some reality) is 2/10th bugger all

surroundedbyhills – Member

Some science dude on Radio two weeks ago suggesting that wave power off the North West coast of Scotland is projected to produce more than 22 Nukeleaar Power stations combined amd since it has a regular flow and not reliant on tidal currents so they can provide constant supply.
Technology for this is 10-12 years away.

waves are constant are they?

(they aren’t)

I foresee demand for turbo trainers going up 🙂
Home-produced energy – we can get paid for riding our bikes and selling the power back to the grid on feed-in tariffs.
Will sort out the obesity crisis too…
Bring it on I say!

waves are constant are they?

(they aren’t)

He didn’t say waves, he said tides – which are alarmingly regular – you can buy books telling you the times and heights of tides going months into the future don’t you know.

so, say the country ate baked beans at 1pm, how would we tap this natural gas resource produced at around 2pm? Is that the plan?

bokonon – Member

He didn’t say waves, he said tides – which are alarmingly regular – you can buy books telling you the times and heights of tides going months into the future don’t you know.

he very definitely said ‘waves’

here:

Some…dude…suggesting that wave power off the North West coast of Scotland

and he very definitely said ‘not tidal’

here:

and not reliant on tidal currents so they can provide constant supply.

which sort of makes some kind of sense, as tides stand stillish for a while as they turn – making them not ideal as a power supply.

anyway, the idea that we can design, test, modify, test, build and successfully install any meaningful amount of tidal/wave/whatever power generation in a usefully short period is a step into the world of science fiction.

Fair point RE waves tides – my poor reading.

anyway, the idea that we can design, test, modify, test, build and successfully install any meaningful amount of tidal/wave/whatever power generation in a usefully short period is a step into the world of science fiction

The same is true for carbon capture and storage, and in fact almost all low carbon technologies bar nuclear though.

I SAID “Oh – I thought this was going to be about how a little old guy sitting in a pensioner’s bungalow …”

Oh, please yourselves.

Oh, please yourselves.

Can anyone hear a little tiny voice in the corner getting ready for a flounce?

Great argument that we are currently really bad at using wind power therefore it’s not viable. 🙄

Spain is the world’s third biggest producer of wind power,[1] with a year-end installed capacity of 21.6 GW and a share of total electricity consumption of 15.9% in 2011.[2]

In 2010, 43,692 GWh of wind electricity was produced in Spain, with an end of year installed capacity of over 20 GW, representing 20% of capacity, and 16% of production.[3] only overtaken by thermal gas combined cycle at 68,828 GWh and nuclear that reached 61,944 GWh. In 2009, for the first time in the annual calculation, wind overtook coal that produced 33,844 GWh. In 2010, wind energy has covered 16% of the demand, compared to 11.5% in 2008 and 13.8% in 2009.

In 2009, the largest producer of wind power in Spain was Iberdrola, with 25.5% of capacity, followed by Acciona with 20.9% and NEO Energia (EDP Renewables) with 8.3%.[4] On windy days, wind power generation has surpassed all other electricity sources in Spain; in November 2009, a wind storm caused wind farms to produce a peak of 53% of total electricity demand (11.546 GW).[5][6] Power peaks of 14.960 GW were reached in November 2010,[7] and in November 2011 a new capacity peak of 59% of power demand being generated by wind power was reached.[8]

Grum what was being used when it wasn’t windy or at peak. There still needs to be something else there or the lights go off. (And the hospitals etc)

The “replace 22 nuclear powerstations” quote is probably one of those typical sound bites that are based on something, but something that is not applicable or can’t actually be leveraged!

For example, 22 Nuclear stations = 22 x 850MW = 18.7GW, could be the amount of power that is theoretically availible over a certain stretch of coastline on an averagely windy/wavey day. The feasibility of harnessing that power however wasn’t mentioned.

Tidal power is a fantastic solution to power generation, being both incredibly predictable, and because the tides follow the path of the moon, you can get continous generation because the times of slack water are not the same for all physical locations. The issue is the potential for huge changes to the ecosystem, changes that are not immediately obvious and may be very subtle. You only have to look at the issues and war of words surrounding trying to build 1 barrage across the Seven to see that!

Wind is at this moment producing 0.09% of UK electricity demand. If that’s what we’re going to be relying on to keep the lights on we’d better go and stock up on candles, never mind baked beans.

Apparently there is an inexhaustible supply of straw men. Can we burn them?