| Archive for NEEPS North East Eco-friendly People's Site |
| wildgarlic |
UK at risk of power shortages
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| JamesB |
it does seem wrong in my view to blame wind turbines for the lower margin. if enough are built and geographical spread then they can offer a lot. it has been noted before than there has not been a single day ever recorded where the wind wasn't blowing somewhere in the UK!
That said, wind turbines will only ever be part of the solution. we need lots of different options, including even CSP delivered by long distance HVDC cables from southern europe although i do wonder about making generation so far from the point of use. James |
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| Martin |
Capgemini - French company, home of French Nuclear Power, who are having a big "push" to get us to accept their pernicious technology - obviously
no connection there then! 
We have precisely bog all in the way of reserve power because a lot of generating plant is knackering out following years of under-investment - to pillory wind is just a red herring. Doubtless they will follow it with a suggestion that "the only way" is nuclear - which is utter tosh, it would take far too long to get the blessed things operational, it could only provide a tiny part of our needs, nuclear fuel will run out in around 20 years, and noone has the will to spend enough to do it anywhere near safely.............and we haven't cleared up after the last lot yet........ 
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| IainC |
The "problem" as far as I understand it is that you need some kind of "power station" that can be ramped up very quickly to supply the power as it's requested in "surges".
Wind and Solar power can generate a lot of power but cannot be ramped up at a moments notice (ie commercials during a football match, etc when everyone sticks on the kettle). That's not to say they couldn't find some kind of way to store the power generated, but it would probably cost a hell of a lot for a battery bank that size. |
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| JamesB |
good point, i had forgotten about the quick reaction times needed. they need intelligent load balancing which shutdown appliances such as fridges (which dont neeed power all the time). I know this is an option they have investigated. | ||
| oakesme |
Also nat gas is regarded by some as a clean fuel, and nat gas supply is rapidly becoming less secure. Gas is being used to replace depleting, dirty coal and intermittent nuclear,
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4878 Will the UK Face a Natural Gas Crisis this Winter? (Part 2 of 2) Max the ex-gasman |
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| Julie |
Why, when we live on an island is so little attention given to the potential of wave power - or turbines offshore for that matter? | ||
| Martin |
because there is no vast lobbying organisation sporting brown envelopes behind the eco-friendly means of generation (in comparison, the nuclear industry supplies the US neocon lobbying companies with virtually unlimited funds for "incentivisation" (brown envelopes) 
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| Smooth Hound |
id sooner not have anymore nuclear power stations built, but i dont suppose they are listening, they know what there going to do anyway. and it certainly seems fairly sure that they will be building them. | ||
| Fia |
I think one of the reasons is that when folk were looking at this in the 60s and 70s they couldn't get funding to continue the research. (Remember these were the days when attempting to recycle anything marked you out as an odd person.) There was some groundbreaking Scottish research (can find it if anyone needs) on harnessing wave power in the 70s but they couldn't get the funding to continue. Only last year - nearly 30 yrs later - did they eventually trial the idea with plastic ducks iirc. |
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| Julie |
It seems the nuclear power industry had a lot to do with the suppression of Salter's Duck.They managed to convince the government of the day that it was not as cost effective or something like that?
http://www.greenleft.org.au/1992/64/2832 |
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| Ina |
Actually - what's so terrible about power shortages? As long as there is a constant supply of the emergency services - hospitals and so on - I can't see the problem... So we can't cook and put the washing machines on at certain times of the day. And factories and other businesses are closing down all over the place, anyway - if they were forced to reduce production by power shortages, would that make that much of a difference nowadays?
I heard a short extract of a diary of a woman from the late 40s - am trying to get the book, as it sounded very interesting. They had shortages and certain "out" times regularly, and managed fine. During a very harsh winter, too. |
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| Smooth Hound |
what concerns me is that one of the by products of creating electric is what they use to make/arm nuclear war heads, or have i got that the right way round, ill put that another way, one of the by products of producing the materials needed to produce nuclear war heads is electricity. and personally i would rather not have that sort of electricity. and i dont trust them with this , thats not to mention the fact that its dangerous/risky to have these power stations, and in my opinion, its playing with fire, or worse. and whats more its not needed. just my opinion though | ||
| Martin |
In many ways, I agree with Ina - what's so terrible about power outages?
We had them during the 70's and I don't remember them being earth-shattering. Unfortunately, people are nowhere near as hardy or able to fend (or think) for themselves these days - we live in a sad world where I honestly saw a post on a forum from a 14-year-old boy who was utterly mortified because during the time they were at the Glastonbury festival there'd be nowhere to plug his hair-straighteners in! 
We certainly pay an enormous price for having electricity "on demand" all the time - if for instance we could synchronise demand with availability, we'd use far less resources. (If you had a "community" wind turbine, on a good windy day, everyone would rush home because it was "wash day" - just like the old millers did!)
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| Smooth Hound |
yes it would be quite good, communal, this society is so fragmented now that in my opinion its what we need people need to realise that unlimited power is an unreasonable expectation. its a fact of life that everything is limited | ||
| JamesB |
salter duck (wave power)I was a electrical engineering student in the early nineties in Edinburgh. We got some lectures from Professor Salter who developed the famous Salter duck in seventies, unfortunately he was ahead of his time.James |