Switch off at the socket?

[email protected] wrote:


"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
In message , "[email protected]"
writes:
[]
ROI is not critical if its to fight GW.
What is critical is that it saves CO2.
Wind power saves little, if any, CO2 over its expected life.
There is no issue with wind power, it just doesn't do what is
required as a solution to GW.

By CO2, you can only - in this context - mean energy.

Are you seriously saying that a windmill generates less energy in its
working life than is used in total to create, maintain, and (arguably)
decommission it?

Well they quote lifetimes of about 30 years and payback periods of about
20 years, but that assumes they work as quoted.
The actual production of existing wind generators appears to be somewhat
less than ideal.

Then there is the minor issue of backup for calm days and its associated
CO2, unless you have suddenly decided that power cuts are acceptable.
I believe that the power system is being reworked ATM to ensure the
power cuts only affect those that don't vote labour, but I may be
mistaken. ;-)


If so (and it is possible), then the fact needs wider circulation.
(Though I'd want to see pretty foolproof proof.)

It also makes me wonder why people are building them; OK, subsidies
and so on, but it suggests there would never be sufficient ROI - and
business just doesn't work like that.

ROI is cash, not CO2.
If you factor in grants, rising fuel prices, etc. you can make a
business case for building them.

No, not compared with nuclear. They always cost more to build, and
produce less.

They ONLY exist commercially *because they are SUBSIDISED*.



It does not mean that they save any CO2 over their lifetime.

Java Jive wrote:
I agree, it's ridiculous. This issue is discussed at some length in
Mackay's book that everyone's been quoting. One of the best short to
medium term bets seems to be hydro-electric pumped storage.


Until you actually do the numbers.

Derek Geldard wrote:
On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:09:01 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , J G Miller
writes:
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:43:33 +0100, [email protected] wrote:

Uranium for instance can be safely kept in a cardboard box under the bed.
And breathing in the radon gas is not a hazard?

You also forget that aside from the radioactive hazards of uranium,
it is a toxic metal.

Only in the same way lead is - i. e. if you eat it. I don't think many
people will be doing so. (For a start, it's a lot harder than lead.)

OK, Plutonium then.

Unlikely to eat that either.

Derek

In article ,
Java Jive wrote:
I agree, it's ridiculous. This issue is discussed at some length in
Mackay's book that everyone's been quoting. One of the best short to
medium term bets seems to be hydro-electric pumped storage.

Many years ago, when on family holiday in Macfarlane country (family
connections) my stepfather by virtue of his position* got us shown
round Loch Sloy and the power station there, and explained that the
idea was that you used the water to cover surges in demand, and pumped
it back into the reservoir when demand was slack, eg at night.

I now see that Loch Sloy is mentioned as a potential site for this in
Mackay's book - the only thing surprising to me about that was that
I thought it was already in use for pumped storage, perhaps simply
because that was where I first heard about it.

The only Scottish pumped storage is Ben Cruachan.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

Java Jive wrote:
One of the biggest legacy problems that we face from the history of
careless fossil-fuels consumption is that we're left with a
centralised grid system that works to very tight constraints. It's
difficult (but not impossible) for intermittent sources of power like
wind and sun to meet such constraints.


Oner of the biggest legacy bvnefits we have left from a fossil fiuel
scenario, is we have learnt how not to waste resources on building 3-6
times as much capacity as we need.


Also wind has peculiar problems of its own ...

One of the key economic indicators for wind is the loading factor,
which, IIRC, is a measure of the percentage of time on average that
the wind will be blowing at the right sort of strength to generate.
Ideally, you want to site your windmills where the wind is constant
and predictable. The most constant and predictable places are the
north and west coasts where the prevailing wind comes straight off the
Atlantic. But most people live in the South and East of the country,
so grid losses are then a significant factor.

Also, with offshore and inshore wind, some of the machinery has had to
be replaced as manufacturers hadn't factored in the corrosive power of
salt laden air sufficiently into some designs.

Also, we need a hell of a lot of wind farms if that is all we intend
to rely on, more than most people would consider as an acceptable
'blot on the landscape', and we'd need to build them very, very
quickly, but IIRC the only UK manufacturer has just closed.

Nevertheless, we should certainly be doing what we can with wind.

No we shouldn't. Its like saying 'well we cant gold plate everything,
but we ought to gold plate as much as we can'

When we dont need gold plate at all.

The Green**** love affair with windmills stems from one basic
assumption, there is no other technology that is low to zero carbon that
can do the job. There is. It's called nuclear power.

But since most of green**** are old CND marchers and generalised bearded
lunatics, brought up on sovbloc propaganda that 'nuclear power=nuclear
weapons (which of course ot did then, largely) they cant bear to lose
face and admit that the old enemy, is in fact their best friend.


Quite a few remote areas in the Highlands & Islands rely quite a lot
on wind, I think some exclusively or almost so, so it can be done.


I dont think anyone relies on wind.

Its unreliable.

Java Jive wrote:
I note that yet again you provide no supporting evidence for your
assertions.

Mackay p168/178: "nuclear power’s price is dominated by the cost of
power-station construction and decommissioning, not by the cost of the
fuel."


Correct. That's what I said.

As power-station construction is in the immediate future, it's cost
can be reasonably accurately estimated although ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...r.nuclearpower

"""
Much has been made by the nuclear industry of the new reactor,
Olkiluoto 3, being built by French construction giant, Bouygues
Travaux Publics, some 155 miles north west of Helsinki in Finland
(next to two other reactors built in 1978 and 1980) as a model for the
nuclear energy renaissance they would like to see develop globally.
But the reactor has had serious problems in construction, with
concrete and welding problems, as well as a serious fire, with the
result that it is already two years behind schedule. This is bad news
for the showcase 1,600 MW EPR (European pressurised prototype
reactor), which is based on a design concept developed by nuclear
giant Areva, a Franco-German consortium formed by Framatome ANP and
Siemens. Olkiuoto 3's original budget of £2.5bn has already overrun by
an extra £1bn.
"""


Still cheaper than windmills.

... however, decommissioning will take place in the fairly distant
future, so it true cost cannot be accurately estimated. Who is going
to pay for it? Currently UK decommissioning is paid for by the
taxpayer.


Thats because the stations were built 50 years ago.

Modern stations are REQUIRED to leave 15% in some form of guaranteed
fund for decommissioning, that being the approximate cost.

They ONLY exist commercially *because they are SUBSIDISED*.

The same article itemises other examples of hidden subsidies and ends:

"""
Back in Britain, in the September edition of Prospect, Tom Burke,
formerly executive director at Friends of the Earth, pens a
excoriating critique of the optimism of the nuclear sector that an
atomic renaissance is within their grasp. He wrote:


well he would, wouldn't he?

You shouldl see the lies that greenies tell in Mackays book, assuming
you actually have read it, rather than cherry picked the bits that at
first glance appear to suit your arguments.


The government has pledged that there will be no subsidies for new
nuclear construction. But this was never credible,

It has not and will not subsidise it. Its sold British energy - or its
stake in it - to EDF. EDF will build stations without any subnsidies.


and it is already
possible to detect signs of retreat. In 2006 the government bravely
promised to 'make sure that the full costs of new nuclear waste are
paid by the market'. By 2008 this had mutated into the more nuanced:
'The government will [set] a fixed unit price [for] waste disposal at
the time when approvals for the station are given.' This effectively
caps the costs of nuclear waste disposal to the operator and transfers
the risk of cost overruns on to the taxpayer.


More snide lies from the green****ers.

How MUCH are the scottish windpower lobby expecting te ENGLISH taxzpayer
to spend ion national grid extensions so their unwanted intermittent
power can be carried to English consumers at 3 times the price of
nuclear power?

EVERY time a windmill turns, you spend a penny on the electricity, and
tuppence on taxes to get it to you.


Burke concludes: "It is hard to argue that this is not a subsidy."
"""


Thats rich. EVERTYTHING about windpower is a subsidy.

On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:38:24 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:


Only in a few places does geography favour you and allow cost effective
pumped storage to work.

I dont know of an and I cant think of any possible new sites.

Obviously the head of water needs to be up a mountain.

The lake at Dinorwic was built in a disused quarry.

A disused quarry on top of a mountain, that's something everyday you
don't see. And how many of these did you say we would need ?

Total reliqance on renewables would have an impact on the landscape more
or less akin to that which happened when the ice age retreated and
humans settled here and totally deforested the place. It would be
industrialisation of the landscape on a scale so massive it would be
completely unrecognisable. Forget trees, wilderness and beauty spots.
The whole landscape would be covered with power grids, windmills, solar
panels and every mountain would have to have a lake and a dam.

David reckons ten percent of the land area would need to be covered with
SOMETHING. at 100% efficiency.


All such "Wastelands" currently have a sparse population eeking out a
miserable,very basic existence, but surviving.

What incentive could we conceivably offer them for them to accept all
this crap electrical generating hardware, when all they have by way of
compensation is a beautiful unspoiled environment, so that we in the
cities 300 -600 miles away can live comfortable (nay luxurious) lives
with 9 to 5 desk jobs in "marketing" with electric cars and electric
central heating with air conditioning.

Now currently 23% of te land is used for agriculture. So what happens
when another 20% goes to develop power generation?

Or 100 nuclear power stations on coats and estuaries. Yup, we can
deliver electricity to supply the whole countries TOTAL energy needs
with 100 large nuclear power stations.

You tell me which makes more sense.


What would have made more sense would have been for the politicians
not to have paddled us up this **** creek to keep green**** and the
other ultra lefties happy for the sake of clutching on to their vote
as a drowning man would clutch at a straw ...

Derek

"Java Jive" wrote in message
...
Mackay again, p197/210

Denmark's solution

Here's how Denmark copes with the intermittency of its wind power. The
Danes effectively pay to use other countries' hydroelectric facilities
as storage facilities. Almost all of Denmark's wind power is exported
to its European neighbours, some of whom have hydroelectric power,
which they can turn down to balance things out. The saved
hydroelectric power is then sold back to the Danes (at a higher price)
during the next period of low wind and high demand. Overall, Danish
wind is contributing useful energy, and the system as a whole has
considerable security thanks to the capacity of the hydro system.

How do you know they're only buying hydro power?

Bill

Java Jive wrote:
On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:43:36 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
Oner of the biggest legacy bvnefits we have left from a fossil fiuel
scenario, is we have learnt how not to waste resources on building 3-6
times as much capacity as we need.

No, we have learnt how to build systems whe

1) Power is centrally generated at relatively small numbers of
stations remote from the point of use, so transmission losses are
high.


almost as high as 3%.

Now have a wind farm off the scottish coast supplying London, or best of
all, and undersea link to MOROCCO. so you can go 'green'.

All forms of renewable energy will lead to higher transmission losses.
Pumped storage is at best 70-80% efficient.


2) Relatively few large scale technologies are used, making them
difficult to replace with alternatives.

That's as specious as saying that its a shame we can only breathe air,
and not water.

We dont NEED any alternatives if what we have works very well.

3) The frequency and voltage of supply need to be kept within
expensively tight tolerances to avoid things breaking down.


They don't actually. Not from a generating point of view. Its the
consumers whose lightbulbs would pop and whose clocks would run slow
that first caused teh whiole thing to be stabilised. Its a huge
advantage pof proper power staions that they can deliver what teh users
need.

Not a disadvantage.

4) Cheap energy has encouraged waste.

Nothing encourages waste, but why not? cheapness is a mark of something
that doesn't need to be a huge concern. Cheap energy has also meant
that twits like you can live a life of luxury and comfort that your
grandparents could only dream of, and have time to write this crap online.


We could have built a more distributed system whe

1) Transmission losses could be much lower.


No, we couldn't.
If we built more stations, it costs more, uses more materials, and uses
more fuel. BIG stations with condensers stuck on e.g. rivers are more
efficient than a small onea. There are significant economies of scale.
both in cost, materials used and actual output efficiencies.

Transmission takes very little out of the system.

2) A greater range of generating technologies could be used.


The generating technology of a windmill is the same as a power station
anyway, its juts 3-6 times more iron and copper to achieve the samme result.

3) Equipment could be more tolerant to fluctuations in supply.


Modern electronic power supplies are, anyway.


4) Energy could be used more efficiently.


Yes, but that has nothing to do with how its generated.


However, we have what we have, and, except 2 as far as other
technologies can fit in, and of course 4, I'm not trying to recommend
changing the system's operating characteristics now that it's in
place.

When we dont need gold plate at all.

Gold plate is no more relevant here than your bank account was in
another subthread.

We need either to reduce our demand for electricity by using it more
efficiently, avoiding waste, doing without "all the useless things in
the world that could not be done without"(1), etc, or we need more of
it, and one possible additional source is proving to be wind, as
linked below.

1 Jane Austen "Sanditon"

The Green**** love affair with windmills stems from one basic
assumption, there is no other technology that is low to zero carbon that
can do the job. There is. It's called nuclear power.

But since most of green**** are old CND marchers and generalised bearded
lunatics, brought up on sovbloc propaganda that 'nuclear power=nuclear
weapons (which of course ot did then, largely) they cant bear to lose
face and admit that the old enemy, is in fact their best friend.

A typically irrational entrenched attitude based on stereotypes,
resorting to which is usually a sure sign that an argument is lost. Do
you really think this is the best way to promote ANYTHING, especially
anything as controversial as nuclear power?

I dont think anyone relies on wind.

There are some examples of the sort of thing I meant here ...

http://www.windandsun.co.uk/Projects...ct-gallery.htm

... from which, although this isn't one of the ones I remember
hearing about previously, it'll certainly do:

http://www.windandsun.co.uk/Projects/eigg.htm

"2008 has seen the Hebridean isle of Eigg literally come out of the
dark ages, with one of the greenest power schemes in the country, a
£1.5m solar, wind and hydro generating station. Eigg residents have
gone from lacking a technology that defines the modern age, to
possessing one that the rest of us are still struggling to develop. It
is an inspiring example."


Its utter bull****, and I bet it was funded by EU grants.

Derek Geldard wrote:
On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:38:24 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:


Only in a few places does geography favour you and allow cost effective
pumped storage to work.

I dont know of an and I cant think of any possible new sites.

Obviously the head of water needs to be up a mountain.

The lake at Dinorwic was built in a disused quarry.

A disused quarry on top of a mountain, that's something everyday you
don't see. And how many of these did you say we would need ?

Total reliqance on renewables would have an impact on the landscape more
or less akin to that which happened when the ice age retreated and
humans settled here and totally deforested the place. It would be
industrialisation of the landscape on a scale so massive it would be
completely unrecognisable. Forget trees, wilderness and beauty spots.
The whole landscape would be covered with power grids, windmills, solar
panels and every mountain would have to have a lake and a dam.

David reckons ten percent of the land area would need to be covered with
SOMETHING. at 100% efficiency.


All such "Wastelands" currently have a sparse population eeking out a
miserable,very basic existence, but surviving.

What incentive could we conceivably offer them for them to accept all
this crap electrical generating hardware, when all they have by way of
compensation is a beautiful unspoiled environment, so that we in the
cities 300 -600 miles away can live comfortable (nay luxurious) lives
with 9 to 5 desk jobs in "marketing" with electric cars and electric
central heating with air conditioning.

Now currently 23% of te land is used for agriculture. So what happens
when another 20% goes to develop power generation?

Or 100 nuclear power stations on coats and estuaries. Yup, we can
deliver electricity to supply the whole countries TOTAL energy needs
with 100 large nuclear power stations.

You tell me which makes more sense.


What would have made more sense would have been for the politicians
not to have paddled us up this **** creek to keep green**** and the
other ultra lefties happy for the sake of clutching on to their vote
as a drowning man would clutch at a straw ...


It all goes back to the Cold War. Soviet money went into trying to
disaffect populations from governments to halt the nuclear weapons
campaign. CND was one way or another, an organisation funded by the
Soviets to make everybody so scared of nuclear anything that they would
be the only ones left with a Bomb.

So its ingrained in the Left, who used to be funded by the same place,
that a weak defenceless country, without any nuclear power stations that
could breed plutonium, was what was the ideal society should be.

Put like that, it wasn't a message that could be sold, so a campaign of
fear, uncertainty and doubt was launched against everything nuclear.

The result, alongside the essentially soviet style government we have
today, is what was desired..long after it was desired by the Soviets.

They no longer care, apart from ensuring we need lots of cheap gas to
back up windmills.

Green**** and to an extent FOE and things like the Animal Rights
movement are simply the logical descendants of those sorts of movements
and people.

More or less well meaning but very naive people, who believe a bunch of
lies pushed down at them by some very cynical people, and some utter
fanatics, to whom the truth is simply what people can be persuaded to
believe.


It wasn't worth risking confronting them with nuclear energy, so it got
dropped from the political agenda. At the price of capital vis a vis the
cost of coal, oil and gas, it wasn't cost effective anyway.

Now the supplies of coal oil and gas are scarcer, the world is competing
with the West on price, and CO2 is coming back to haunt us, it suddenly
becomes the best option.

BUT the history of FUD is still in peoples minds. There is no rational
case against nuclear power, but there is a huge IRRATIONAL one. There is
no rational case FOR windmills, but there is a huge irrational one.

Its sold as a 'back to nature' clean power. Its anything but. Its
industrialisation of the landscape on a scale that has never been
attempted. Its unbelievably inefficient of manpower and physical
resources. But its proponents seek to make those its BENEFITS fer chrissake.






Derek