Sustainable energy without hot air

[mlteenie]

Just heard a very interesting slot on R4 about sustainable energy.

Many of us in ED are rightly concerned about the environment, but perhaps like me, you are not really sure about what the most effective ways to help the planet are. For example, I have just heard that turning off our mobile phone chargers (as we are continually urged to do) saves 1% of the power used to run a 40W lightbulb all day: i.e., 1% of 1 kWh. Fair enough,, but to put that into perspective, that is the same amount of power used to run your average car for 1 second. Oh.:(

I recommend that you scamper off to www.withouthotair.com and download Professor David Mackay's book (it's free) and we can all get some urgently-needed perspective.

I thank you.

[Marmora Man]

I heard the same programme and recommend mlteenie's recommendation. You could also listen to it not he BBC Listen Again service.

[Mark]

Find it on Listen again here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jvdhb

On a related note some SE22 residents can get hold of a free "show me how much electricity am I using" meter (worth about ?40) at the moment, see this thread http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?9,244688,244688#msg-244688

[skidmarks]

I read another windfarm has been thrown out in Oxford by the local NIMBY councillors as it ruined the residents view. I wonder what their position will be when Bangladesh is under the sea and a few million refugees will be on their doorstep?

[mlteenie]

Just tried to get a meter, but they are restricted to a certain part of SE22, not my street. Boo!

[snorky]

haha

nothing like a climate change debate to get things going on the forum

I liked the way the Ramblers objected to the placement of wind turbines in most areas becaseu it would spoil their view and their hobby. Thought, in their favor , they did intriduce the barely whispered idea that wind power, even if sexed up to make it seriously efficient, would never have much of an impact - akin to taking an aspirin to cope with your hair being on fire.

sorry

[skidmarks]

The trouble with windfarms is what everybody quite rightly says, there is no electricity without wind, you need to be able to store the energy from times of plenty?but there is a way of storing it. You use the variable energy from windfarms or solar panels etcetera to pump water up hill into a reservoir storing all that potential energy to be released controllably through hydroelectric generators to provide a consistent power source to be connected to the national grid.

Instead of the Dinorwig hydroelectric power station in Wales using spare electricity from the national gird to recharge its reservoir this could be done using a separate renewable energy gird. Piece of p?ss!

[Marmora Man]

Skidmarks - your storage is sensible and already in use to store the power generated by conventional (gas, coal, nuclear, hydroelectric etc) generators which work best if kept at a steady state - so during the night and other low useage times the excess can be stored as you suggest. There is some loss of power during the process as the power recovery by hydroelectricty cannot be 100%.

However, to use the excess power from windfarms in a similar way doesn't make quite the same sense. Windfarm only generate power when the wind blows - so they are inherently inefficient already and can't provide enough power to make a substantial difference to the grid anyway. If the power they do generate is diverted to a storage facility and then recovered there is a secondary loss of power as above - making them yet more inefficient.

If you are seeking natural / renewable sources of power look at tidal and wave energy - predictable and incredibly powerful, plus the fact that nowhere in UK is more than 120 miles from the coast - much is far closer. Nuclear power also has much to recommend it.

[skidmarks]

Does the loss of energy and inefficiency matter? Now using a coal power stations energy just to pump water up hill over night is a waste considering coal is about 30% at most efficient. Using the variable output from a completely new renewable energy national grid just to top up reservoirs around the country would store lots of potential energy and be carbon free ? who cares about the losses.

The problem with renewable energy sources apart from wave and hydro-thermal is that the output is variable you need away of storing the energy. Considering we are about to go for carbon capture which makes coal plants even less efficient so the losses with what I suggest will be irrelevant considering there is no CO2 produced.

[Marmora Man]

onsidering there is no CO2 produced.

Not CO2 free - remember the manufacturing of the turbines, associated machinery and the cables from the turbines to the point of transformation / storage - often excessive as the windy places are a long way from the places of use. EG: The planned Eastern Highlands windfarms with 200 miles of pylons marching across some of Scotland's most beautiful landscapes - including the Wallace Memorial.

Wind farms are inefficient AND they ruin the landscape. Nuclear and hydro (preferably tidal) are far better.

[skidmarks]

So building a tidal barrier out millions of tonnes concrete or mining, processing and transporting uranium from Australia has no carbon footprint?

[Marmora Man]

skidmarks Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> So building a tidal barrier out millions of tonnes

> concrete or mining, processing and transporting

> uranium from Australia has no carbon footprint?

I didn't suggest it was carbon free - just that is was a renewable source.

[skidmarks]

Marmora Man Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> skidmarks Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > So building a tidal barrier out millions of

> tonnes

> > concrete or mining, processing and transporting

> > uranium from Australia has no carbon footprint?

>

>

> I didn't suggest it was carbon free - just that is

> was a renewable source.

I think tidal is a great option but you do need a variety of renewable energy sources.

Nuclear I am not so sure on, we do not have our own supply of uranium so can?t be confident of security as per the situation with Russian gas and of course it is not renewable.

[????]

Imagine if hot air alone could be used as energy - the EDF by itself could keep SE22 and even bits of Nunhead ablaze all day and all night

[LegalEagle-ish]

everyone always mentions the energy and therefore CO2 produced in manufacturing wind turbines etc so when you are figuring the efficiency of coal, nuclear, has etc you should also be including the energy needed to mine it and build the machines to mine it, plus the energy to transport it etc.

There is also energy lost from large centralised power stations sending electricity over long distances. Smaller more localised renewable electricity generation would help with that.

Comparisons that fail to look at the whole process of each method of energy generation are faulty.

Also after Chernobyl, why the hell would anyone consider more nuclear?

[snorky]

nuke is a scary thought, but as an interim, what else is there ?

( interim = but still have to dump the shit they produce, somewhere tho )

[Marmora Man]

Chernobyl was a crap design managed by crap engineers in a crap system. Modern designs are very very much better.

I spent much of 15 years (almost) within less than 100 foot of a nuclear reactor. To date - no problems. IN fact the incidence of cancfers for nuclear submariners tends to be lower than the national average (we spent a lot of time out of natural sunshine and not close to other radiological sources such as Radon.

Nuclear isn't scary when you get to know it.

BTW - I was on duty when satellite intelligence of the Chernobyl reactor problem was detected - for a brief (very brief) moment there was a worry that it might be the presage of something far more scary - like WWIII

[????]

Come on MM, we all know the rules.of the left 'intelligensia' politics by number debating..

Nuclear = bad & naughty....end of

[SeanMacGabhann]

Ah nuclear energy - the CDO's of the energy world

Come on quids - people who raise concerns about the "challenges" around nuclear energy and the storage for generations to come have a point - and dismissing it as leftie bobbins is both a cheap shot and doesn't inform the debate in any way

If I have learned anything in life it's that anyone who is adamant that "there is nothing to worry about" is to be treated with a degree of suspicion directly connected to the size of the issue they are talking about. See also every economist over the last 10 years

[????]

er, my point is that the anti-debate is just that - "CDOs" etc being a pretty good example of it Sean. iE where the text book Guardian response starts so often prejudice dressed up as 'being right' without debate and to challenge it is the devlish work of fascists...come on, I thought you were a champion of the madness of "BadScience". I know bugger all about this but I'm sure as hell willing to listen to a rational debate about it (as far as I can see it does offer us a potential way out of the forthcoming energy holocaust) without my lefty mates, who know as little as me, taking a ooooh it's the work of the devil starting pointand defaulting to "Chernobyl" as if that's the end of the argument. Flatearthiness of the worst kind...

[SeanMacGabhann]

Hmmm - it would help your argument if you didn't follow shouting down people as thinking they are "right" by saying "I know bugger all about it. That makes it sound like chip on shoulder stuff rather than a proper debate

Maybe some of the people you deride do know more about it and your fear of an energy holocaust prejudices your judgment? I'm not saying I do.. but it's possible some people know more than us right?

I don't think either you or I trust any government or subcontracted company to not f***-up anything from medical records to ID cards. So despite any progress made in the years from chernobyl onwards, human fallacy means the likelihood of a fuck up increases with any proliferation of not just reactors but (more likely) the ongoing storage of the waste. And I don't think we are in any way equipped to deal with the fallout - people are rushing to reap the benefits and are "light" in our assesment of the risks

[????]

..and the approaching environmental holocaust? 'Cos believe me making it harder to drive in London and switching all our lights off for an hour once a year won't stop that....there's no easy answers which phillisophicaly leads me to look at Nuclear as a potential solution. I'm not a scientist,i'll let them do that, but i'm suspicious of people whose Knowledge is probably as poor as mine resorting to Student Common room default position on these important issues.

edited cos it was almost unreadable

[????]

*won't edit it but apologies my key baord is missing letter and a space bar thanks to kids hence even more typos than normal:))

[????]

Sean, seriously where is the shouty bit or the chip on the shoulder bit? My posting style is short and polemic that's all - I ain't angry about this fella

[Marmora Man]

OK - to put the question more clearly to anti nuclear team:

What are your concerns?

1. Likelihood of a reactor turning into a bomb?

2. Likelihood of a major disaster creating major nuclear fallout?

3. Likelihood of it becoming a terrorist target - with effect of 1 or 2 above?

4. Long term "pollution" of storing nuclear waste?

5. Something else entirely?

Once the questions are posed rationally then brational answers can be providedd.