But that’s production, not consumption Northwind

Energy payback times for solar PV and wind:

http://globalenergysystemsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/presentations/GES2013_day3_session2_Michael_Dale.pdf

Skip to slides 40-43 for the graphs for wind.

Alex – the thing about electricity is, pump storage aside, production needs to equal consumption or the frequency shifts from the nice 50Hz (ish) you’re used to.

But it is a pie chart of power capacity presumably installed capacity) not of energy produced , so the charts aren’t quite equivalent.

Scotland has a much bigger land mass vs population compared to England, so it’s not really a helpful comparison.

I would like to see those charts in times series, GW used per year per source and overall for perhaps the last 30 years.

dragon – Member

Scotland has a much bigger land mass vs population compared to England, so it’s not really a helpful comparison.

Both have massive amounts of usable empty space, landmass isn’t a constraint on renewable energy use in either country. (and England doesn’t lack for coast either)

Read The God Species by Alex Lynas.

Brilliant book that covers everything from energy policy to food production and land use. It details how commonly held beliefs and policies are destroying our planet and gives credible solutions to the issues.

In particular he holds greenies partly resposible for our current predicament due to their resistance of technlogy and progress to solve our issues. They are effectively burying their heads in the sand.

His, very credible, view is that on shore wind is a marging topic, offshore a bit more relevant but still pissing into the wind (so to speak). They will only ever account for a small proportion of the required demand and are “expensive”, not so much financially but in terms of the ammount of scarse resources they take to build. Maybe there will be outliers like Scotland where wind is higher up the agenda but globally it’s a pinprick.

He also dismisses traditionally green alternatives, hydro for example is seen as green becuase its so low in carbon emissions but this isn’t the only enviromental issue. Hydro electricity has had an enourmous detrimental effect on our planet already.

The only viable answer is nuclear. But the green loby means our view of the technology is stuck in the 70s. Fuckashima damaged this further. But if you look at it pragmatically nuclear is the safest energy technology around. Even when one of the worlds worst natural disaters slammer right into the side of an old plant without the latest technology the impact was virtually zero. Even at chenobyl (sp?) wildlife is thriving and the negative impact of the radiation is hotely contested.

Nuclear is clean, its carbon free, its safe and even if we never work out what to do with the waste it’s practically inconsequential. (Hence why nobody has bothered with solving the issue). And if we had invested in the technology rather than being afraid of it we would be decades ahead of where we are now, with even safer, cheaper, cleaner power

pump storage aside

Er… no aside… we need more hydro storage schemes for renewables to make sense, and to cope with peaks in demand, and we need to be building them NOW.

Maybe there will be outliers like Scotland where wind is higher up the agenda but globally it’s a pinprick.

Indeed.
Solar power in the deserts of the Americas.
Wind and tidal in the UK.
Use what’s on your doorstep…

The are plenty of threads on “safe dose”. The conclusion on most is that what the nuclear industry considers a safe dose is not a safe dose for those studying genetics and the way mutations occur. Even the background radiation is a non-safe dose, especially if you live in a granite house.

Solar power in the deserts of the Americas.
Wind and tidal in the UK.

Renewables as a whole are a pin prick really.

If we don’t embrace nuclear we are basically buggered.

The are plenty of threads on “safe dose”. The conclusion on most is that what the nuclear industry considers a safe dose is not a safe dose for those studying genetics and the way mutations occur

Maybe so but there is also no evidence of increase mortality amound the 300,000ish people who were directly affected by Chernobyl. And certainly none around Fukashmia or safely operating nuclear plants.

And nuclear power isn’t the only source of radioation. The residues from coal fired power plants are incredibly radiotactive for example.

Kelvin – I think that was the point I was making on pump storage. It’s the only major technology that allows you to produce more than you consume and still balance the system. There are chemical and pneumatic (and I think kinetic) solutions but smaller scale at present.

It’s the only major technology that allows you to produce more than you consume and still balance the system

True – But suitable sites to construct pumped storage are also few and far between.

Nuclear is clean, its carbon free, its safe and even if we never work out what to do with the waste it’s practically inconsequential. (Hence why nobody has bothered with solving the issue).

Eh?

And if we had invested in the technology rather than being afraid of it we would be decades ahead of where we are now, with even safer, cheaper, cleaner power

We haven’t invested in nuclear power? 😕

You could surely argue the same about renewables anyway.

i thought we were getting or close allies the russians and chinese state owned companies to invest in our nuclear reactors

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24604218

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/11/russian-nuclear-firm-build-power-station-uk

Nuclear is clean, its carbon free, its safe and even if we never work out what to do with the waste it’s practically inconsequential. (Hence why nobody has bothered with solving the issue).
Eh?

IIRC

#1 fling waste into marianas trench
#2 proceed to completely forget about it, as the immense depth of sea water prevents any radiation from getting anywhere near anything

you might end up with the odd ill tempered mutant sea bass, but that’s about it

or

#3 or maybe hang on to the waste, seeing as there’s this workable idea you might be able to further use some or most of it in new reactor types. linky dink

proceed to completely forget about it, as the immense depth of sea water prevents any radiation from getting anywhere near anything

you might end up with the odd ill tempered mutant sea bass, but that’s about it

One thing to bear in mind with the nuclear “waste” problem.

It’s not a waste problem, it’s a semantics problem.

The “waste” typically has about 97% of the original energy still in it.

Our nuclear “waste” is an enormous stockpile of nuclear fuel.

jfletch – Member

Renewables as a whole are a pin prick really.

If we don’t embrace nuclear we are basically buggered.

Meanwhile in Scotland… 39% of Scottish electricity generation is renewable- the single biggest generation method. And that’s growing at a stupid rate- the increase in the last 10 years is astonishing.

Trouble with nuclear is at the current rate of consumption we run out of known uranium reserves in 90 years… But we’re not talking current rates, we’re talking massive expansion. So really we start to rely on alternative fuels, which are looking like good options but not really the sort of thing you want to bet the world on.

It also means vast capital projects, and lots of them, starting yesterday. In fact just sustaining the current uk percentage is a big project, with so many reactors being old and the lead time to generation being so long.

Maybe so but there is also no evidence of increase mortality amound the 300,000ish people who were directly affected by Chernobyl. And certainly none around Fukashmia or safely operating nuclear plants.

Even if only 1 in a hundred of the Chernobyl thyroid cancer victims have so far died that is still an increase in mortality that can be directly attributed to the accident. The British National Radiological protection board estimates total deaths will be between 4 200 and 80 000.

I didn’t see before the link to Euan Mearns blog. He’s a climate change denier/skeptic who’s view is that the use of hydrocarbons is not detrimental to the environment. He knows his stuff about energy, but sadly cannot see much beyond his beloved industry. The link I posted was actually from a conference co-organised by Euan, and I later saw his expressing dismay that keynotes chose to talk about the issue of climate change. Poor duck.

I made the mistake of telling a friend from Humberside that I quite like wind turbines. I might as well of insulted his mother’s family!!

All we connect round there these days…

teamhurtmore – Member

…I might as well of…

“I might as well HAVE”

Correct if wrong But i am sure David cameron’s dad is one with Land Turbines
on his land.
Think the problem with these is that those that produce cannot store the energy
so if to much is being produced. The farm turns them off so they get subsidies

Thanks, I knew that was wrong but was too lazy to check why. Awful grammar.

I hate the bloody things.

They are a sop designed to salve the consciences of the worried middle classes.

They are ugly.

They are making huge amounts of cash for the bent friends of our bent politicians.

The money invested in these stupid bloody things could have been used to develop proper renewable energy.

But Sebastian and Jemima can’t see tidal systems as they drive their Q7 out into the country, can they?
And extracting remaining coal reserves is all a bit, well, grubby and working class isn’t it?
But, ooooh look, a wind turbine! On that hill over there next to someone elses town – isn’t it lovely?
Aren’t we so lucky to have a government who cares about our planet?

Euan Mearns blogs on energy is about total energy consumed not electricity so is a bit misleading. Cars, tourists and rich people make the countryside a much more unpleasant place than windfarms.

Not just global warming to worry about. What about some of the elements “running out” )(economically like phosphorus

They are a sop designed to salve the consciences of the worried middle classes.

Round here, it’s the middle classes who seem to object to them the most.

Sorry.

I should have said ‘worried urban middle classes’. 🙂

never heard of anyone been killed in a wind farm either

my condolences to the family http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/driver-who-died-after-130-tonne-1221120

Nice innit? So I these these buggers every morning when I get up. And I can tell you, in all honesty, that you can count on one hand the days in a year when they aren’t whizzing round. And despite the fact that some people round our way have up to 8 fingers on each webbed extremity, thats still not many They were still yesterday. Its blowing the usual gale up there again today

The view from my street has them turning a lot less than that, also when turning at least one is out of service and one has already go up in flames.

just because they are turning doesn’t mean they are generating, Scout Moor has had huge issues with cable failure due to the peat moving

finally lets not start on the destruction of the deep peat on the moor due to the drainage channels placed during the road construction

but it’s all right they are going to double the size, go back on commitments to those who live in the shadow of it and spend money trying to reduce/ reverse the damage to the peat whilst pretending there is a local community benefit in the jobs for the German subcontractors

Would be interesting if someone set up a shell(no pun intended) energy company and applied for a license to explore for shale gas across the road from Cameron’s constituency home in that lovely Oxfordshire village….

Would be interesting if someone set up a shell(no pun intended) energy company and applied for a license to explore for shale gas across the road from Cameron’s constituency home in that lovely Oxfordshire village….

personally I’d have a law that all employee’s or subcontractors and their immediate families had to live within 1 Km of a fracked well for the rest of their natural life….

should create the right perspective in terms of local impact

I personally have no issues with wind turbines as unlike some of the other options, they are at least “easily removable” if and when we find a better option (and except for the composite blades are eminently recyclable themselves). We could probably take down the average wind farm in a month, and except for a few concrete bases, leave little of no trace of it ever having been there! (not something you could say for a tidal barrage for example)

Unfortunately, wind generation simply cannot meet our current and future energy demands, and in fact, due to decades of twiddling our thumbs and under investment, none of the options actually can!

The most practicable option is nuclear fission, however the average “man in the street” is not educated enough to be able to understand the relative “risks” themselves and hence a lot of Woo-Woo and myth clouds that decision. For example, ask the next person you meet if we should spread our nuclear waste out across Britain and the rest of the world? When they look surprise and call you an “idiot” mention the fact that this is exactly what we currently do with our fossil fueled power stations and transport infrastructure pumping it’s waste directly into the local environment. And because the volume of the waste is enormous, there is no simple “bury it under a mountain” option, even if you wanted one!

Another example is the German nation pretty much reversing it’s pro-nuclear policy in the wake of the Fukishama (non)disaster, which considering the chances of Germany being hit by a Tsunami seems a bit silly.

Then we get to the rub, politicians. No politician is going to suggest a course of action that is unpopular with the general public (that self same ignorant and un-educated public i mentioned above…) because they want to stay in power for as long as possible, and if not, there tenure is way to short to make good long term strategic decisions.

Because of this, our energy policy is already too little too late, and frankly it doesn’t matter if we build wind turbines or badger powered tredmills or whatever, our course is already set, and we are sailing directly into an energy scarce future………….

(hum “Terminator” end theme here^^^ for effect 😉

‘They’ should be promoting Thorium Nuclear fission, but oh no, there is no weapons grade by product.

Thorium is more widely available than uranium. Wiki

And tide of course, all that natural energy going to waste, day in day out millions of tons of water rising and falling naturally. Not exactly rocket science working out how to harness it.

And tide of course, all that natural energy going to waste, day in day out millions of tons of water rising and falling naturally. Not exactly rocket science working out how to harness it.

It’s working out how to harness it effectively, without wrecking the ecology of the place that’s doing the generating, and also doing it cost-effectively. The Severn is a case in point; the oft-mooted ‘Severn Barrage’ would be insanely expensive, an engineering challenge due to the enormous tidal ranges involved, (it’s a 14.5 metre tide in the Severn, second highest in the world), and it runs the risk of fubaring both the river ecology, because of the enormous amounts of silt that would build up, (see Somerset Levels, River Parrett dredging), and causing problems for up-river economies. There would have to be regular access for all the shipping going into Avonmouth and up to Gloucester, which would presumably mean locks, etc.
The preferred, and most likely to be implemented option, is a series of tidal lagoons, but constructing those will take some time, because of the scale involved.
Solar farms really seem to raise the ire of locals, for some reason. We have a number in North Wilts, and more proposed, and all you read about is ‘the destruction of the countryside, visual amenity, loss of farmland, vehicle movements, etc’, and yet the damn things are silent, virtually invisible behind hedges, very difficult to see from a distance; getting lost in all the other visual clutter, and animals can still be grazed around the panels, so I’m at a loss to see why solar farms are viewed as being as bad as wind farms.
There’s a solar array in this photo, I’d be very surprised if the complainers could actually point it out, and it’s built on a reclaimed rubbish tip, too:

[/url] image by CountZero1, on Flickr[/img]

Solar Farms er don’t work at night, the period of peak demand, there are two tides daily, you could prefabricate compartmental structures that you sink in areas of not exactly natural beauty, or create harbours where none exist and generate power from the movement of the water from one compartment to the other and of course from the natural ingress and outflow. You don’t need to dam the entire severne estuary. Or sea bottom propellors like wind machines in areas of great tidal flow, there are plenty of them and they work day in day out.

Common sense and some half decent marine engineers is all that’s required and some investment of course and oh guess what, the technology could be exported to other parts of the world.

switching off a wind turbine is cheaper than messing about trying to store its excess energy:

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/september/curtail-energy-storage-090913.html

You need to get to the end of the Stanford report where they say pump storage is very efficient for any kind of storage including solar and wind turbine. Countries with a high existing capacity for pump storage built to store overnight nuclear surplus can also store surplus daytime solar production to better cope with both breakfast and dinner peaks in demand. I used to water sample hydro schemes and soon learned when they needed to generate.

Would be interesting if someone set up a shell(no pun intended) energy company and applied for a license to explore for shale gas across the road from Cameron’s constituency home in that lovely Oxfordshire village….

Not in Witney, but Oxfordshire already has Didcot power station, Diamond light source, the Culham fission reactor, and Harwell where all the original nuclear research was done and has a stack of old trial reactors on site. Plus numerous quarries. So your point is?