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The future of energy (if any)

...on serious topics that don't fit anywhere else at present.
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Nick
Posts: 11027
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 10:10 am

Re: The future of energy (if any)

#41 Post by Nick » June 11th, 2015, 7:39 pm

Latest post of the previous page:

Altfish wrote:
Nick wrote:...but more miles were closed under Wilson than under the Tories. The lines were closed because they were losing huge amounts of money, not because of the shade of government.
Most of the closures were already committed, i.e. notices served, bus replacements organised, etc etc - as I said earlier the Labour Government could have done more to reverse but the Tory government had committed to implementation of the Beeching report (unless it was in a marginal constituency)
They are costing more today under privatisation.
Oh? Alternatively, the number of rail-miles has been transformed. Generalisations are always problematical....
I will say that the current Tory government does seem to be pro-rail, certainly more so that the Blair/Brown government but unfortunately the botched privatisation under major (even Thatcher steered away from it) has left many, many problems
So maybe railways aren't such a party political subject after all. :wink:

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Altfish
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#42 Post by Altfish » June 11th, 2015, 7:40 pm

I never said it was, it was you who jumped to that conclusion.

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Altfish
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#43 Post by Altfish » June 11th, 2015, 7:43 pm

Altfish wrote:I never said it was, it was you who jumped to that conclusion.
No surprise really, you politicise everything. :wink:

Nick
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#44 Post by Nick » June 11th, 2015, 7:48 pm

Altfish wrote:I never said it was, it was you who jumped to that conclusion.
... because you accused "the Tories" of closing lines. Not an unreasonable conclusion. But never mind, you have yourself pointed out that is not the case, so let's move on. If I misunderstood, well, it wasn't my intention, so let's move on anyway.

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Dave B
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#45 Post by Dave B » June 11th, 2015, 9:39 pm

Altfish wrote:
Altfish wrote:I never said it was, it was you who jumped to that conclusion.
No surprise really, you politicise everything. :wink:
There are three main groups of people involved here: scientistics, technologists and engineers developing, designing and building energy systems; bankers, oil men etc. holding the purse strings and politicians inserting their ideologically mucky fingers into every pie and orifice they can to maintain their, usually destructive, desire for power and control - because they do not understand what is happening anyway.
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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Alan H
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#46 Post by Alan H » August 29th, 2015, 12:57 pm

Denmark Just Produced 140% of its Electricity Needs with Renewable Wind Power
About a week ago, Denmark made the absolute most out of a particularly windy 24 hours by harnessing its power and producing not only all of its own electricity needs for the day, but enough extra to spread between three neighboring countries. To be exact, the sustainable wind-power technologies harnessed and collected 144% of one days electricity needs.

Denmark had previously developed its wind-power plants but on that particularly windy day, it reached 116% of its domestic electricity demands through wind farms and then exceeded even that impressive surplus, reaching 140%, causing Denmark to export excess power to Norway, Germany, and Sweden.

80% of the excess energy surplus was given in equal parts to Norway and Germany and Sweden received the remaining 20%. Germany and Norway possess hydropower systems with storage capabilities and were thus able to store the extra away for later use.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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Alan H
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#47 Post by Alan H » September 23rd, 2015, 6:02 pm

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

Fia
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#48 Post by Fia » September 24th, 2015, 1:38 pm

Thanks for that Alan. And is it only me who sees the hypocritical irony that this government is employing two state owned companies -French & Chinese- to build new nuclear plants?

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Alan H
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#49 Post by Alan H » September 24th, 2015, 1:44 pm

Fia wrote:Thanks for that Alan. And is it only me who sees the hypocritical irony that this government is employing two state owned companies -French & Chinese- to build new nuclear plants?
Nope.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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Alan H
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Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: The future of energy (if any)

#50 Post by Alan H » October 14th, 2015, 12:28 am

This is interesting: Mapped: How the UK generates its electricity

One thing I never knew: the Drax biomass units produce as much as a nuclear power station.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

Nick
Posts: 11027
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 10:10 am

Re: The future of energy (if any)

#51 Post by Nick » November 5th, 2015, 9:42 am

UK wind farms have a theoretical maximum capacity of more than 13,000 megawatts, but produced less than 400 megawatts of power for much of the peak demand period – meeting less than one per cent of the UK’s electricity needs, published data suggests.
And gas, coal and nuclear had to provide 99.5%.
Britain’s 8,000 megawatts of solar panel capacity would also have produced no power during the peak, because it was dark at the time
.

Hmmm.... So perhaps we can't rely on "Green energy" any time soon...

Of course, if we carry on building wind farms for windy days, we still need all the old power stations as well, vastly increasing the cost of energy overall. And you can't just turn them on and off at will, especially not nuclear and coal. In the meantime, tax-payers are paying people to actually stop producing stuff. That'll help pay for tax credits.... :rolleyes:

thundril
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#52 Post by thundril » November 5th, 2015, 10:37 am

I notice that the Beeb, (R4) last night, reported the narrowing difference between supply and demand on the Grid yesterday, and suggested that it was due to the lack of wind and sunshine across the UK. They did not mention the National Grid's explanation (cited in the Financial Times) that it was mostly due to -"several power-plant failures . . .'
Well. You pays your money and. . .

thundril
Posts: 3607
Joined: July 4th, 2008, 5:02 pm

Re: The future of energy (if any)

#53 Post by thundril » November 5th, 2015, 12:39 pm

For accuracy:
The so-called notification of inadequate system margin (NISM) was “a result of multiple plant breakdowns”, it said.

Nick
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Joined: July 4th, 2007, 10:10 am

Re: The future of energy (if any)

#54 Post by Nick » November 5th, 2015, 4:01 pm

Certainly, the thread of power shortages and power cuts is largely the result of the closure of coal power stations (because of pollution), failures to replace power stations (especially nuclear) and random power-plant failures. But the point I was making, is that such shortages cannot be covered by expanding wind-farms, because that does not and will not be an adequately reliable source of energy to cover peaks in demand or unexpected shortages in supply. In the example cited, wind farms were contributing just over 3% of their capacity. Simply not enough. SO we still need to cover the entire output from wind farms by conventional means. So the entire budget for wind farms is an avoidable cost. We are barking up the wrong tree in our search for less pollution and greener outcomes.

thundril
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Joined: July 4th, 2008, 5:02 pm

Re: The future of energy (if any)

#55 Post by thundril » November 5th, 2015, 6:00 pm

Here is the challenge.
We want to generate as much energy as we need, for all our puroses, and we need to do so without fucking up the planet. A mix of wind, hydro, solar, and gas should be the way to go for a start, combined with a concentrated effort to find ways of reducing electricity demand. That means more efficient home insulation, intelligent transport systems with more efficient motors, etc.
Running a heat-generating system which produces a material that stays toxic for MILLENNIA is to be avoided if at all possible. (And many well-qualified people reckon it is very possible!)

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Alan H
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#56 Post by Alan H » November 5th, 2015, 7:36 pm

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

Nick
Posts: 11027
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 10:10 am

Re: The future of energy (if any)

#57 Post by Nick » November 5th, 2015, 10:02 pm

Believe that, you'll believe anything. :sad2:

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Alan H
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#58 Post by Alan H » November 5th, 2015, 10:05 pm

:D
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

Nick
Posts: 11027
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 10:10 am

Re: The future of energy (if any)

#59 Post by Nick » November 9th, 2015, 10:32 am

Matt Ridley in devastating form. A "must read", IMO.

thundril
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#60 Post by thundril » November 13th, 2015, 3:43 pm

Bit of a rethink after Standard & Poor worry about the cost of Hinckley point .

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Alan H
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Re: The future of energy (if any)

#61 Post by Alan H » January 11th, 2016, 11:29 am

Energy boost as London Array wind farm smashes clean electricity record
A wind farm located 12 miles off the coast of Margate in the outer Thames Estuary has set a new record for the amount of clean electricity produced by an offshore farm in a single month.

In December, the 175 turbines owned by London Array - the world’s largest operational offshore wind farm - generated 369,000 MhW of electricity - considerably above target and well above the previous best of 317,000 MWh set last November.

The two successive months of production brought net overall output for the year to some 2,500,000 MWh, enough to meet the needs of more than 600,000 UK households.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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