As accidents go, the one at Fukushima was predictable
Really......everyone expected the safety backup systems in 3 out of the 8 reactors to fail ?
Well they need to get their PR act together then - the message I'm getting isn't, "it's alright everyone, this is suppose to be happening - we predicted it all"
Haven't read all of this thread yet but read this article this morning, [url= http://mitnse.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/ ]"Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors."[/url]
renewables could meet that demand within ten years.
OK - educate me - which renewables are going to provide 25% of our current total consumption as baseload? (for the sake of argument I'll ignore the fact that decreasing household consumption by 75% wouldn't decrease total consumption by anywhere near that much)
. Anyone using a computer to have this argument can't be treated seriously for saying that we waste electricity!
Rubbish. I use far less energy that the average in teh UK. I do still have computers tho
I have attended the enquiries into the building of the Sizewell reactors, and been asked to leave more than once. Simple questions with direct answers requested.
1) Given that after building the station, ongoing the highest cost in production is the tranportation of generated power to the point of use, why are these reactors being built 70 miles from the urban conurbation that they serve (London). The answer given at the time was the proximity to a large water source and that availablity of land. Countered by so the Thames and the Battersea site aren't technically suitable then? ......... Please will you leave?
2) Is it correct that the technology doesn't currently exist to decommission and make these sites safe? Answer: (after some prevarication) It is anticpated that in 120 years time the technology will be available to do so, until that time the site will be managed safely. Response: Given that the site cannot be made safe for that long could I enquire as to why it is being built on the fastest eroding coast line in Europe whose average loss is in the order of 1 metre per annum? .......... Please will you leave?
Safety is a relative term. Not one of these reactors would get past normal scrutiny for a risk assessment in the workplace. The penalty for failure is so unimaginably high that the risk is just not tenable. so the question then comes back to are we prepared to risk it for the benefits we gain? Personally, the answer is no I'd rather look elsewhere, and try to use less energy as a solution to my energy needs.
I wouldn't say using a computer is wasting electricity. I'd say leaving lights on when no one is in the room, leaving the heating on when you are out, leaving everything on standby, that is wasting electricity.
Who keeps saying nothing will explode and no radiation will escape, there's been another explosion and people being told to stay inside for 30km around the site because of a radiation leak
Current production 4A, consumption 1A (it's cloudy); I don't see why I shouldn't use a computer.
How? It's easy. A combination of wind and solar power with pump storage using existing hydro stations will cover it. A tarif system such as the Italians use would also be necesssary to reduce the peaks in demand. Other legislation could be introduced to cut peaks such as limiting the wattage of things like immersion heaters or more drastically: limiting domestic electricity meters to 9A + 2A per occupant.
In my case annual production is 3300kWh and we use 2200kWh. The worst month is December with production of only 120kWh and consumption of 250kWh. I reckon the 12 000e I've inested in a fund to provide capital for mainly wind projects should produce enough to more than cover the December deficit.
Idustry and the public sector could perhaps achieve even greater savings given the waste I've seen in every institution I've worked in.
How? It's easy. A combination of wind and solar power with pump storage using existing hydro stations will cover it.
In my case annual production is 3300kWh and we use 2200kWh. The worst month is December with production of only 120kWh and consumption of 250kWh
So despite having 50% annual overcapacity, you have a 130kWh gap in December. Given a very conservative 10 million UK households, that's a 1.3TWh gap for the whole of the UK, even if they're all as frugal as you. With 140GW of hydro in [b]the whole of the EU[/b], even if that lot was all converted to pumped storage (ignoring the infeasibility of that - there's only actually 38GW of pumped storage), you'd need 9 hours of running at maximum capacity to cover the gap in needs of [b]just the UK[/b]. Shame they typically only manage about half that at full capacity.
Of course I'm being pretty generous here, by ignoring the needs of industry and allowing you the use of solar generation, which is horrendously uneconomic on a large scale basis in the UK (I can only believe it makes sense at any scale due to grants).
Try again.
I reckon the 12 000e I've inested in a fund to provide capital for mainly wind projects should produce enough to more than cover the December deficit
So when you weren't generating in December, presumably due to lack of wind, somebody else is supposed to magically get wind from somewhere to cover you?
That's a 130kWh gap for the whole month. Or 4.3 kWh per day and given there are 24h in the day about .18kW instant.
On the basis of that consumption (180w instant per household of three) there's enough hydro in Europe for the whole of Europe and then some.
There's a lack of sun in December hense the low production, easily compensated by the wind investment.
300 000 000 x 180/3 = 18 000 000 000 = 18 GW.
So if European households reduce to my level of consumption in Decemeber there is curently two and a half times the necessary pump storage capacity.
I don't know what your "Europe" refers to so I've used a population of 300 million.
You simply need the kind of commitment that went into producing weapons for WWII or the cold war
Hehe. That didn't cost the country much, did it? Lolz.
How? It's easy.
Of course. Silly rest-of-world!
How much d'you reckon it would cost to get every household generating their own power?
A combination of wind and solar power with pump storage using existing hydro stations will cover it.
Numbers, or it's bolx.
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Households could reduce consumption by 75%
Yeah, they [u]could[/u], but most are not going to are they! And how exactly would you force people to do this? The answer is you can't.
Plus household use accounts for only about one third of the energy used in the UK anyway.
Well maths quite clearly isn't your strong point, given two and a half times 18 isn't 38. Of course if you're going to look at instant generation capacity requirement, then you don't take total energy demand and divide by the hours in the day - I mean you're using more than 180W right now - pumped storage being designed to cope with these short term changes in demand rather than longer term lack of wind or sun, which is what you seem to think it's going to do.
There's a lack of sun in December hense the low production, easily compensated by the wind investment.
Oh, so you don't actually have any wind generation capacity? But what does happen when there's no sun and no wind?
At some point you might also want to address the power demands of industry rather than just domestic.
You've got the numbers now Molgrips, produce some of your own or admit I'm right.
Household account for a third, quite right. Apply the same philosophy to industry, street lighting, public buildings and so and you'll soon be within the realms of what can be produced from renewables.
I too was sceptical when I went to see an energy advisor back in 05. I thought the estimates I was given were over optimistic. Experience has shown me that the savings from insulating were underestimated and so was the production of the solar panels. The technology works, works well and is viable.
I have a 3kW solar instalation, a solar hot water heater and have invested 12000e in a fund that finances wind power. So I do have more than enough total production capacity even in December, aracer. I am reliant on EDF for managing variations in my output through pump storage. Personal storage using batteries would be more polluting than using existing hydro infrastructure.
Why did they build them on the east coast and not the west coast? West coast being a built more sheltered etc?
DH
Sorry to contradict you but...
As accidents go, the one at Fukushima was predictable - earthquakes and tsunami tend to go together.
But the magnitude was far higher than the design standard. Standards will now have to change so plant survives stronger quakes and tsunami.
The Windscale fire was a result of a drive to produce Plutonium for the nuclear weapons programme hence an air cooled graphite moderated reactor with only a few filters preventing release of radioactive material into the environment.
It worked OK for Plutonium but the thermal modelling was flawed. When they tried to make Tritium for hydrogen bombs they exceed the safe temperature limits, which caused a fire. "Cockroft's folly" filters, inadequate as they were, saved us from a much more serious disaster.
TMI was the result of a faulty meter reading
The PORV solenoid lamp worked fine, but the operators misunderstood what it meant. The PORV position gauge also worked fine but was not with the lamp, and hidden from view. There was no direct indication of coolant level. Coolant boiled away and exposed the rods leading to partial meltdown.
TMI has parallels here. Preoccupied operators failed to notice dangerously low coolant levels. Since the coolant level is so critical, why isn't it measuredly directly and alarmed to death? I guess it's because these plant are as ancient as TMI.
The usual response to: "the equipment doesn't do X" is "the operators will do it manually". But operators forget things, especially under stress. I'm not knocking the operators. If they hadn't had the bright idea of using the fire suppression system to pump seawater into the cores, they would all have suffered meltdown.
So I do have more than enough total production capacity even in December
What happens when the wind doesn't blow?
The water they pumped up the hill using my surplus is used for generation. Overcast periods with no wind don't last long. Taking Europe as a whole they are almost inexistant.
You've got the numbers now
I've obviously missed your figures for total national energy production due to renewables, total pumped storage capacity, the needs of industry, etc. Maybe you could repeat them.
Compulsory hour long turbo sessions for each capable adult every night.
Micro generators built into every mattress sold.
Compulsory dynamo use.
Ban airconditioning AND deodorant.
Hat wearing compulsory on Tuesdays.
Should buy us a year or two....
Deaths per TWh for different power sources. The results shouldn't surprise anyone with a brain.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html
Overcast periods with no wind don't last long.
3 or 4 days isn't long?
Taking Europe as a whole they are almost inexistant
I'm sure it will be a great relief to people that the lights will be on almost all the time. Of course there isn't actually the grid capacity for us to get all our energy from Southern Europe for a few days, but surely you know that as you have all the figures to hand?
I too was sceptical when I went to see an energy advisor back in 05. I thought the estimates I was given were over optimistic. Experience has shown me that the savings from insulating were underestimated and so was the production of the solar panels. The technology works, works well and is viable
I am fully aware the benefits of home generation. I would love a setup like yours, but the problem is money. I haven't got 12k euro lying around, and I suspect most folk don't.
To get any large scale adoption would require subsidies and grants, and that money would have to come from somewhere. The Govt could in theory but won't be able to for a while yet.
Plus I am sceptial that pump storage would provide enough power storage for the whole country to cover gaps in wind coverage.
Edukator - I've just put two and two together - you're not in the UK are you?
true about the Govt subsidies molgrips, but they subsidize the building of power stations anyway. without them nuclear power stations wouldnt be economically viable. id rather see these subsidies going to uk residents then offshore power companies.
You provided the pump storage capacity yourself, aracer. France, Germany and Spain are already on target (or ahead of target in the case of Spain and Germany) for achieving 20% renewables at current consumption levels by 2020 and 25% by 2030 is not unrealistic. I've stated a 75% reduction in domestic consumption is achieveable and more than proved it to myself. I'm equally certain that the companies I've worked for could achieve savings greater than that.
I worked in a factory where the main energy cost was "cold". The food industry has to keep things cool and heat things up. Between insulating the buildings, using heat exchangers to simultaneously heat some things whilst cooling others and powering the lot with solar panels on the huge roof area the plant could have become pretty much self sufficient.
My proposals were turned down on cost grounds of course because with nuclear electricity being sold at a fraction of it's long term cost in France energy saving is not a company's priority. charging the real cost of nuclear electricity is not going to happen in France where cheap energy for French industry is a political choice to help competetivity. The group I worked for also had factories in Germany and Italy which cost more to run simply due to energy costs.
They can hardly just cut subsidies just like that, can they? Esp if business models depend on it and decommissioning costs as much as running.
EDIT: Re refrigeration - I always thought it would be useful to have a fridge vented to the outside by means of a valve. Then, when it's cold you could simply draw air in from outside. Anyone know if industrial plants use this?
The factory I worked in had the heat exchangers outside. I pointed out that in winter it would be better to use the heat to heat the offices rather than the outside air but the engineer in charge just gave me a dirty look.
France, Germany and Spain are already on target (or ahead of target in the case of Spain and Germany) for achieving 20% renewables at current consumption levels by 2020
I'm assuming that's based on the usual "peak capacity" BS numbers the renewables lobby used, the actual contribution being much smaller.
I'm far from being against making an effort - your ideas for the factory sound great, and it is a shame that energy is sold for less than its real cost, so making these sort of schemes unviable.
Still to be convinced the real figures add up - you realise that we have very little inherent hydro capacity in the UK (ie not many places we could build any more), and already use all our pumped storage capacity to cover changes in demand, so there's not really any spare to cover changes in generation capacity if we go for lots more renewables. Even 25% renewable is only feasible if there is 75% from other sources, not if it suddenly becomes 100% due to decreases in demand (which simply aren't going to happen on that scale).
Edukator - MemberThe factory I worked in had the heat exchangers outside. I pointed out that in winter it would be better to use the heat to heat the offices rather than the outside air but the engineer in charge just gave me a dirty look.
LOL
Nope, not peak, aracer. Simply the proportion of energy produced from renewable soureces.
As mentioned in previous posts pumped storage is only one strategy to iron out demand peaks. In Italy they have intelligent meters and consumers soon learn to run the washing machine, dishwasher, immersion heater, electric heating and anything else that can be deferred when it costs less off-peak.
In France you can sign up to a scheme wher you get very cheap electricity except when demand is high - you then pay a small fortune. The people that sign up just organise their lives so that they don't consume when it's expensive. The roast gets replaced with a microwaved lasagne that week..
Still to be convinced the real figures add up - you realise that we have very little inherent hydro capacity in the UK (ie not many places we could build any more),
That's totally wrong, there are new hydro schemes being built all the time, in fact there is a recent rush for them as was on the news recently. Expect to see more run of river rather than stonking huge dams though.
As I understand it the current pretty stable UK 60GW will need largely need replacing in the next few decades as plants reach the end of their lives, and with the increase of use of renewables this will have to increase to something like 100GW to cover the times when the wind ain't blowing etc.
In the absence of things like renewable energy storage technology this does leave room for nuclear or fossil , CHP etc. The true costs of nuclear are really not known though - look at the cost of decommisioning Dounreay alone, rising by billions every few years and going to take long enough to keep people in a job for life.
We need a good crisis like falling out with Qatar or something bigger to make people realise how much energy they use to make people use less - pestering people to unplug their phone chargers ain't enough.
there are new hydro schemes being built all the time
Yeah, but only little ones.
Edukator - you going to answer the question about where you live to generate 3300kWh a year from solar? From your other answers I think we can safely assume not the UK.
the proportion of energy produced from renewable soureces.
Fairy nuff - quite impressive if so, but it still doubtless suffers from the unreliability problems of current renewables, which means that almost the same amount of conventional generation capacity has to be kept online as backup.
As mentioned in previous posts pumped storage is only one strategy to iron out demand peaks. In Italy they have intelligent meters and consumers soon learn to run the washing machine, dishwasher, immersion heater, electric heating and anything else that can be deferred when it costs less off-peak.
Which is all very well for smoothing out normal demand peaks, not so good for getting rid of consumption when the wind doesn't blow - I don't suppose people will be too impressed at being told they have to wear dirty clothes, eat of dirty plates and sit in a cold house because there's a big high pressure area sitting over the UK.
Which is all very well for smoothing out normal demand peaks, not so good for getting rid of consumption when the wind doesn't blow - I don't suppose people will be too impressed at being told they have to wear dirty clothes, eat of dirty plates and sit in a cold house because there's a big high pressure area sitting over the UK.
I realise there's a touch of devil's advocate going on here, but even so this is grasping at straws.
Are these really insurmountable problems? More difficult to deal with than the problems of nuclear waste?
I seem to remember (on several occasions) you berating others for raising their strawman arguments, but you're doing the same.
No one (other than you) has suggested that there will be times with no power whatsoever available, but even so, I for one am prepared to step up to the parapet and offer to hand-wash my dishes if that means we can avoid the next wave of nuclear power stations in this country - OK?
Aracer - use hydrogen as a way of storing the energy? - use excess electricity to make hydrogen by electrolysis when the wind blows, sun shines and the tides run high and use that to make electricity when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine?
You also need tidal stuff to help provide a steady base load - one each side of the country to ensure continuous generation
I realise there's a touch of devil's advocate going on here
Not at all - it's a perfectly serious point.
Are these really insurmountable problems?
The wind not blowing and the sun not shining for a few days are pretty awkward if you're basing your whole energy supply on (current) renewables. There simply isn't anywhere near enough storage to cope - remember it's already almost fully utilised anyway.
There might not be no power available at all, but it will be little enough that if there's domestic supply at all there will have to be some sort of pricing mechanism making it very expensive to use at such times - so the poor will have cold homes if using electric heating, the middle classes won't be washing clothes (the alternative being blackouts as everybody tries to switch stuff on and the grid can't cope). It's not a strawman at all because it's basic cause and effect rather than an extreme situation which won't happen. Unfortunately your laudable offer to make the deep sacrifice of handwashing dishes won't be quite enough to solve the problem.
More difficult to deal with than the problems of nuclear waste?
Possibly, yes, given I've not seen a sensible solution put forward - the usual answer being lots of handwaving and assuming we'll come up with something later (actually a remarkably similar problem!)
use hydrogen as a way of storing the energy?
Nice idea - using renewables to generate hydrogen is definitely one of the better things to do, though better used to replace oil for road transportation rather than power generation IMHO. Give me some figures to suggest it might be anywhere near feasible - given it doesn't seem to be used at all at the moment suggests to me it's impractical until proved otherwise.
You also need tidal stuff to help provide a steady base load - one each side of the country to ensure continuous generation
Where are you putting these tidal generation stations? If you're going to suggest the Severn, then we're going to have a big disagreement - definitely destroying habitat and a natural wonder has to be far worse than any theoretical risks due to nuclear. In fact I'd happily have a nuclear station in my back garden rather than put tidal barrages on the Severn. In any case you'll still need to provide me with some figures to prove that's enough (and that there's anywhere useful to put tidal generation on the East coast).
I feel the need to point out as always that I'm far from against renewables, and very much in favour of decreasing our energy consumption. I'm also convinced that at some point renewables will be developed which are both practical and economic to replace the whole of our current generation system. We're just not there yet - a new generation of nuclear might just tide us over until we are.
Aracer - hydrogen?
there is a small scale plant running on Unst IIRC wind power with hydrogen storage for smoothing
OK - I hadn't realised it was being used at all. You suggest small scale though - any idea how scaling it up is likely to work?
Tidal - ~corryvraken and dornoch sorts scotland 🙂 Maybe a bit of minch to export to england.
You can generate from tidal without barrages - large scale trials going on in the north of Scotland at the moment.
figures? I don't know. I fear with hydrogen you would need some seriously big tanks - or some form of local distributed storage.
Tidal definitely can be a part of the solution.
Oops, sorry I didn't answer the question aracer. I'm a frog living at 43°N with 1850h of sunshine a year.
Taking Europe as a whole then the lack of sun or wind in any one area for a few days is not an issue. We need to view energy on a continental basis. There's not much point having solar panels in northern Scotland or windmills in Aquitaine. However, windmills in northern Scotland and solar panel in southern France or Spain are perfect. A solar water heater is viable in the UK.
I for one am prepared to step up to the parapet and offer to hand-wash my dishes
Lol, if only this was about the luxury of dishwashers!
Hospitals, factories etc aren't important then?
Plus not sure we could generate and store enough H for two weeks of still weather in winter...
large scale trials going on in the north of Scotland at the moment
That's wave energy, is it not?
[url= http://www.pure.shetland.co.uk/html/pure_project1.html ]Link to unst project[/url]
The PURE project consists of two 15kW wind turbines. It has a 3.55Nm3 per hour high-pressure hydrogen electrolyser, high-pressure hydrogen storage, and a hydrogen dispensing facility to fill hydride cylinders. The cylinders are used in a fuel cell/battery hybrid vehicle and other hydrogen applications as an alternative to fossil fuels.
A back-up power supply was also installed. This takes the form of a 5kW fuel cell and an inverter. The hydrogen used by the fuel cell is produced from the electrolyser. The inverter was installed to convert the output power of the fuel cell from Direct Current (DC) into mains equivalent Alternating Current (AC).
A battery based electric vehicle was converted to run with a hydrogen fuel cell. This electric/fuel cell hybrid car is now fuelled exclusively by the PURE system, using hydrogen produced from the renewable source. This makes the electric car one of the only 100% carbon free vehicles on the British roads.
