Bill Gates would be proud of you!

 

Did you submit this reply in on a postcard together with a postal order for ten shillings?

, you should set us all an example by shuting down your computers,

I don't think it's necessary.

My android tablet uses very little power, about 10WH per day, about 50p worth of electricity a year.

The main threat is transport.

Renewables, long half life, nuclear, waste, fossil, it’s all irrelevant.

 

The only fact is that in a world with a population which is expanding out of control and a world which growing increasingly sophisticated, the demand for energy is going to exceed anything that can be produced by windmills, fields full of solar panels or tidal dams. At present, there is no option other than nuclear power, unless we want to switch off our computers, smart phones, TV sets, and other “modern gadgets”.

 

If you feel so strongly and want to be powered by windmill, you should set us all an example by shuting down your computers, turning off your smart phones and any other internet enabled device. Then try and communicate to this thread by some alternative means.

 

It really doesn’t matter about storing toxic nuclear waste for 200,000 years. The population expansion rate, if it continues to follow the precise & perfectly constant rate since the dawn of time, will mean that most of the population will either starve or die in food riots within the next 100 years anyway. Forget everything else. Population expansion dwarfs every other threat to mankind.

Your point about global population growth is absolutely spot on, and we do not have a sustainable global population.

The proper term is windpower, or less properly wind turbines, windmills are machines used for milling operations.

There are many energy efficiency measures which can be taken, by taking a more holistic approach to activities. Better building insulation, less air travel( sorry), more integrated cities, but all will be futile without population control.

Using one of these metrics that friends of the earth adopt, apparently Next week, the first of August , is overdraft day... When we will have exploited a years value of energy, food ,materials and are now cutting into reserves.

Of course, and why I mentioned in the following post that the remaining waste can be safely dealt with using tectonic subversion, which I've mentioned before as you know.

 

 

 

Not so, I used a term that all will understand, certainly not the case with dispatchable, which is incorrect anyway since it refers to the substitutes switched on when renewables are not available. A renewable not being available when we need it means it's unreliable! The longer term is an irrelevance where electricity supply is concerned, it's very much an on-demand necessity in our world.

 

The only really reliable renewable is tidal, the very one the authorities generally won't consider due to the immense construction costs of barrages, so I largely discount it.

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The sun is pretty reliable.. the solar constant has remained at the 1 kW\ m2.for a millennium The Sahara is pretty big, central Spain is closer and fairly arid. The Americans have the Mohave avail to them..

Sorry Fecc, but dispatchable is the correct term. Wind energy has the potential to cover a large fraction of national needs, but is not dispatchable without expensive storage.

I don't think it's necessary.

My android tablet uses very little power, about 10WH per day, about 50p worth of electricity a year.

The main threat is transport.

.. but the local WiFi node a bit more, the local telecoms network a bit more ,the server farms a lot more. I think that heating is the greatest domestic energy load, and electricity for industrial purposes.

The main threat is transport.

No the main threat is industry

Transport is only a small problem in comparison

 

People moan about the car and something needs doing but what ?

Electric vehicles are not the solution in my opinion as they just move to a different set of problems unless they make the battery last a damn side longer in its service life and charge it using daylight

Now that would be good

One way or another there’s problems

 

How about a nuclear powered car

That would work to supply enough electricity As long as you don’t hit anything:)

I don't think it's necessary.

My android tablet uses very little power, about 10WH per day, about 50p worth of electricity a year.

The main threat is transport.

 

Very little power in use, but hen add: the gathering of base raw materials + transport of raw materials + processing of raw materials + transport to and power used at processing facility + transport to distributor and power used storing + transport to manufacturing base and power used during manufacture + power used for packaging + power to transport to warehouse and warehousing power consumption + power used in distribution.

 

I power sipping device in use has lots of hidden energy costs. Just like windmills, how much energy is consumed processing all of that steel and quarrying & transporting all the material needed for the foundations? It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the environmental damage caused manufacturing and installing a windmill is never repaid in wind energy over the life of the thing.

Very little power in use, but hen add: the gathering of base raw materials + transport of raw materials + processing of raw materials + transport to and power used at processing facility + transport to distributor and power used storing + transport to manufacturing base and power used during manufacture + power used for packaging + power to transport to warehouse and warehousing power consumption + power used in distribution.

 

I power sipping device in use has lots of hidden energy costs. Just like windmills, how much energy is consumed processing all of that steel and quarrying & transporting all the material needed for the foundations? It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the environmental damage caused manufacturing and installing a windmill is never repaid in wind energy over the life of the thing.

The life cycle costs for windpower has been done and yes they are favourable.. provided of course they are sited in engineering appropriate locations, not politically expedient ones. I recall a case of a few years ago where the planning office recommended they be placed in a valley on visual amenity grounds.

The foundations are good for multiple generations of turbine and all the steel is easy to recycle. The only item where difficulty arises is the composite blade... But you might be familiar with that from the aircraft industry.

The sun is pretty reliable.. the solar constant has remained at the 1 kW\ m2.for a millennium The Sahara is pretty big, central Spain is closer and fairly arid. The Americans have the Mohave avail to them..

Sorry Fecc, but dispatchable is the correct term. Wind energy has the potential to cover a large fraction of national needs, but is not dispatchable without expensive storage.

 

But I don't live in the Sahara, Spain or the USA. I live in England where the sun often goes absent for very long periods.

 

As for dispatchable, it's "new speak". I've taken this from online:

 

Dispatchable generation refers to sources of electricity that can be used on demand and dispatched at the request of power grid operators, according to market needs. Dispatchable generators can be turned on or off, or can adjust their power output according to an order.

 

Renewables don't reliably meet all those conditions, particularly market needs, but many backup resources do, gas turbine for example. I recognise that the word dispatchable is often used for renewables, but that doesn't make its usage correct.

 

Renewables in the UK remain unreliable generators, which is why we spend fortunes building reliable resources to compensate.

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But I don't live in the Sahara, Spain or the USA. I live in England where the sun often goes absent for very long periods.

 

As for dispatchable, it's "new speak". I've taken this from online:

 

Dispatchable generation refers to sources of electricity that can be used on demand and dispatched at the request of power grid operators, according to market needs. Dispatchable generators can be turned on or off, or can adjust their power output according to an order.

 

Renewables don't reliably meet all those conditions, particularly market needs, but many backup resources do, gas turbine for example. I recognise that the word dispatchable is often used for renewables, but that doesn't make its usage correct.

 

Renewables in the UK remain unreliable generators, which is why we spend fortunes building reliable resources to compensate.

.

But I don't live in the Sahara, Spain or the USA. I live in England where the sun often goes absent for very long periods.

 

As for dispatchable, it's "new speak". I've taken this from online:

 

Dispatchable generation refers to sources of electricity that can be used on demand and dispatched at the request of power grid operators, according to market needs. Dispatchable generators can be turned on or off, or can adjust their power output according to an order.

 

Renewables don't reliably meet all those conditions, particularly market needs, but many backup resources do, gas turbine for example. I recognise that the word dispatchable is often used for renewables, but that doesn't make its usage correct.

 

Renewables in the UK remain unreliable generators, which is why we spend fortunes building reliable resources to compensate.

.

I am glad you looked it up ,you will therefore appreciate my usage was correct. The nature of weather forecasting has dramatically improved to the extent that wind farm operators can reliably predict how much energy they can supply for the next half hour period and can therefore engage in the wholesale electrical market. Hydro electric, pumped storage, nuclear, gas turbines, coal fired, international interconnectors all compete in this market. Unless a supplier meets their promises they suffer financial penalities, and wind competes!... the UK buys and sells to and from France and Ireland, and perhaps Belgium. Nordic countries into Denmark and Belgium.. its a big deal...

I am glad you looked it up ,you will therefore appreciate my usage was correct. The nature of weather forecasting has dramatically improved to the extent that wind farm operators can reliably predict how much energy they can supply for the next half hour period and can therefore engage in the wholesale electrical market. Hydro electric, pumped storage, nuclear, gas turbines, coal fired, international interconnectors all compete in this market. Unless a supplier meets their promises they suffer financial penalities, and wind competes!... the UK buys and sells to and from France and Ireland, and perhaps Belgium. Nordic countries into Denmark and Belgium.. its a big deal...

I am glad you looked it up ,you will therefore appreciate my usage was correct.

 

But so is my use of unreliable, and that is what I meant, not your correction, which I still insist is a means of avoiding the truth.

 

Electricity is needed 24/365, and no renewable can always do that. All renewables in combination and shared over large regions can meet quite a lot of the demand at times, but at other times they can fall well short. That's why we are all still operating and expensively building reliable resources to compensate for renewables failings.

 

I understand your keen support for renewables and I'm no different, my supplier as green as could be. But I'm enough of a realist to recognise how far we are from sustainability and 24/365 reliability and the current failings.

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The sun is pretty reliable.

 

But cloud cover is not reliable or particularly predictable, especially in the UK.

On a linked matter are you aware of any studies, hypothetical of course of a barrage over the 30 km at Dover?. The tidal effect would be considerable, as water would need to flow all the way around the top of Scotland...

But cloud cover is not reliable or particularly predictable, especially in the UK.

It is highly predictable..,with your background in aviation, you will know that. The problem is that both you and flecc in this instance are taking far to local a viewpoint.

Dare I even suggest even simplistic.

This is not a binary question with all the eggs in one basket. , there are many more shades and choices than that. . Nuclear and hydro providing a base load, wind where appropriate going directly onto the grid or into storage. When demand exceeds supply bringing on fast responding and very expensive gas turbines or fast storage. . The response time for gas turbines is a couple of minutes, response time for pumped hydro storage is a couple of seconds. . The response time for battery storage is milliseconds. .and then there is demand side costing and shutting off loads. ... There is actually a lot more flexibility in the system now than decades ago., Particularly with international energy grids.

At that stage, two decades ago, the conventional thinking of the Chair of your CEGB, argued that there needed to be an amount of conventional capacity equal to the peak demand of the system, irrespective of the amount of renewables. I think that your response mirrors that mindset.

On a linked matter are you aware of any studies, hypothetical of course of a barrage over the 30 km at Dover?. The tidal effect would be considerable, as water would need to flow all the way around the top of Scotland...

 

Not a barrage, but there have been tidal flow energy studies at that site. Here's one such.

 

However, the usage and importance of the shipping lanes there would I'm sure rule out a barrage, locks would probably be unable to cope with such high traffic levels.

 

We'd also need a much higher Thames tidal barrier and extensive high sea walls downstream too.

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the UK buys and sells to and from France and Ireland

 

With, possibly, an increase in capacity of the Irish link if the Freshwater West to Ireland (not sure where) cable does get laid.

With, possibly, an increase in capacity of the Irish link if the Freshwater West to Ireland (not sure where) cable does get laid.

Certainly. There are currently at least 3 Scottish NI and N Wales to dublin, this freshwater one you mention and there also an edf proposed Brest to Cork . There is a lot of capacity in the eastern part of the Atlantic for both wind and wave, and look now accross to France and a European super grid makes sense.