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Clark
We don’t need “nuclear” never have. We in the UK have more then enough renewables, we could export it to europe and make money…Fact.
However, one final thing to consider.
Increasing temp -> increased CO2 (with an average latency of 800 years) and NOT vive versa.
Why would we need to apply a precautionary principle to a fiction.
Are we applying this priciple to the risk of a meteorite impacting our planet, or to an alien invasion?
Clark
http://tinyurl.com/234q4g9
George Dutton,
if what I read about thorium reactors is true, they can’t do what Chernobyl did. There will undoubtedly be other dangers. But a quick solution is needed (if CO2 really is a problem, as I believe); I favour deep geothermal, but development should have started decades ago, and we need something now.
“but development should have started decades ago”
Indeed. We are being played like puppets on a string by evil. Has it not always been so.
ScouseBilly,
maybe AGW is a fiction, maybe not. Plenty of scientists seem to think AGW is true. Big Oil tried to cover it up for decades, the head of NASA was silenced by Bush.
Also, look up ocean acidification. CO2 disolves into the ocean and decreases alkalinity – sorry, no links to hand, I saw it in New Scientist.
I’m not prepared to write it off as a fiction at present. And as to meteor strikes, well, there is a project to detect and catalogue Earth-orbit crossing asteroids.
Aleins we needn’t worry about. If they have the technology to get here, (a) they won’t need anything we’ve got and (b) we couldn’t fight them, anyway. We probably couldn’t even detect them.
Clark, good reply though I view New Scientist and Nature with extreme caution.
Yes, I’ve visited Rendlesham Forest a few times and still not met any aliens 😉
As I understand it, there is no risk of ocean acidification – again I’ll have to look up sources.
Good discussion I am sorry I have to leave it now.
George Dutton,
I’m not a great believer in evil – usually it seems to come down to short termism and greed. But yes, those lead to manipulation of opinion.
I like the wilderness of Scotland, I’d hate to see it festooned with turbines and tidal power installations. Building with concrete releases loads of CO2; has that been accounted for?
ScousBilly,
bye for now.
This is perhaps one of the best examples and illuminating of that clown Humphrys interrupt agenda.
When you listen to this you quite quickly realise that his interruptions have no merit whatsoever.
He quite simply isn’t interested in what his interviewee has to say.
He’s there purely to push a BBC agenda come what may.
Interestingly it’s in this fairly uncontroversial interview that that becomes most clear, but it shows just how damaging the likes of him can be to public discourse when more controversial matters are being discussed.
It begin 4.25 mins in:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8655000/8655738.stm
“I like the wilderness of Scotland, I’d hate to see it festooned with turbines and tidal power installations.”
It doesn’t have to be like that.
“come on, give new tech a chance”
Perhaps, a little bit of discrimination, in among it ? Some tech good, other tech bad ?
I mean, I share the dislike of “nuclear”, meaning as we have it, but have heard mutterings about the thorium pebble-bed things, and do wonder if maybe they do bypass my objections ?
which are, among others –
military. France is 80% nuclear, yes, and also likes having its own bombs. Our programs were, I think, mostly started for the same reason, and I’m not sure how far they can be disentangled from it – and I’d like to see us give up on our nuclear weapons (along with the whole “puching above our weight” self-flatttering macho shite). I remember New Scientist did a piece at the time of the Reagan/Thatcher buildup, on calculating the market value of plutonium as if it had no military use. I forget the details, but the conclusion was that any sane person would run miles to avoid being given money to ge anywhere near it …
“chernobyl” etc, with a nod to “Neddy Seagoon, the brains behind the Windscale disaster” – because the Goons see as sane a commentary as any other. The sheer timescale of the mess it leaves behind seems quite mindbogglingly disproportionate to the needs it addresses.
centralisation – I’d rather see a much more distributed system, that didn’t need such “security” around it all (which refers back to the military aspects, of course).
Craig (I think) referred to the ‘cost of decommissioning’. Have any ever been completely decommissioned & the site cleaned up ? It’s a while since I’ve looked, maybe someone has by now ?
So, a failsafe system producing only energy plus byproducts with a really short halflife, might just be very different. How common is thorium ? Do we fight wars to ‘secure our supply’ a few decades down the line ? I could check, yes, but I have to get ready to go out & play a ceilidh.
Oh, but I wouldn’t want to throw away quite all of it. We need the medical stuff, and “research” is fun.
Later …
Re George Dutton:
“Increasing temp -> increased CO2 (with an average latency of 800 years) and NOT vive versa.”
This is wrong. It works both ways round. Increased temperature causes increased co2, and increased co2 caused increased temperature.
Sorry that last comment should be aimed at ScouseBilly not George Dutton
http://tinyurl.com/27v6846
Thought some of you might be interest to see what ‘ScouseBilly’ has been posting on James Delingpole’s blog at the Telegraph; it’ll give you an idea of the sort of ill-informed twerp you’re trying to deal with…
scousebilly on May 1st, 2010 at 5:02 pm
“For anyone who fancies a troll bash:
There’s a leftwing arse called George Dutton who I’ve been batting with here:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/05/cries_not_unhea.html
We kicked off around 2.05pm
YNWA
I really have to go out and wondered if anyone fancied giving him a kicking?”
scousebilly on May 1st, 2010 at 1:27 pm
“Would appreciate some help.
Got this from Craig Murray and would like good technical info to rebuff:
“scousebilly
nuclear is the most expensive of all, if you include waste processing and storage and plant decommissioning costs. It has only ever been made to look viable by excluding these costs or transferring them to the taxpayer.”
This is not my area but I know some you are seriously expert.”
You see, he doesn’t have a clue about nuclear power, he just has an ideology and finds facts to suit it.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100037371/inventor-of-mann-made-global-warming-feels-the-heat/#comments
Again since Craig’s exposure the tabloid press is doing all it can to skew the election result by bullying and scaring voters. [1] The political editor of The Sun has been given clear instructions from Rupert Murdoch:
“It is my job to see that Cameron f****g well gets into Downing Street” [2].
Murdoch and his tabloid press friends think they’ve got the right to decide who governs us.
Please check the links as this deception will reach boiling point in the next few days before voting. I propose one more big push to expose this media scaremongering. What can we do? I would appreciate any ideas. Thanks
newstatesman.com/media/2010/05/murdoch-clegg-cameron-paper
thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/election2010/2942670/Election-2010-The-no-win-nightmare.html?OTC-RSS
charter2010.co.uk/news/who-says-hung-parliaments-cant-be-effective
Thanks again folks.
I am disappointed senegal at the back-stabbing especially as I have great respect for George.
It was an interesting argument and one I forwarded to Lizabeth, wind turbine sceptic from the former WebCameron blog.
Here is one of her posts saved from the blog:
Sir
May I thank Ewan Boyd and Ian Consterdine for the way the have responded to my letter which gave correct facts relating to wind turbine subsidy. They have had the decency to write to our local paper, The Teesdale Mercury.
For many years my letters or appearances at meetings throughout the country, have brought numerous responses from anonymous and spineless creatures in the form of threatening, nuisance and pornographic e- mails. This particular form of hassle or intimidation does in no way suggest any official connection with BWEA (British Wind Energy Association) The gutless beings who hide behind anonymity make reference to wind energy.
I support all forms of renewable energy except where they impact on the landscape This is not oxymoronic but commonsense, once gone the landscape is gone forever. Landscape is not just about views but the right to enjoyment and use of it. I cannot put seven years of research into one letter but it is recorded in my book, Force10 available at the library.
Recent Issues need to be made public before elected members are conned into ruining the county and in fact the country. With no 3rd party right of appeal it is heads they win and tails we lose. This is not democratic.
Land of the Prince Bishops is in danger of becoming Land of the King Turbines as about 80 x350foot turbines are currently planned for the county. The Stang, Barningham and Hamsterley are marked on the Regional Spatial Strategy indicative diagram for wind farms in Teesdale.(North East Renewable Energy Strategy document , North East Assembly and TNEI services,.. Oct 2003 )
I offer some comments to help give a balance to councillors and planners before they decide, on future applications for wind turbines. something obviously lacking when permission was given for the GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) secondhand turbines (Agent ,TNEI, managers of the TREC programme)
The Journal 16/6/04
TNEI. Doing a roaring trade in used wind turbines
Farmers Weekly 15/07/04
Damage from Wind Turbines in Germany have resulted in preliminary payments over £161m
Country Life Magazine 5/8/04
Landowners advised to speak to a commercial property lawyer before entering into contracts to host wind turbines.
Ian Fells 25/07/04/ Sunday Times
One of the world’s leading experts on renewable energy. He states that behind the building of windfarms is a goldrush, created Prof Fells says by a government struggling to meet its own renewable energy targets. It has led to developers racing to build turbines with little care for the environment.
Tom Burke, former director of Friends of The Earth 25/07/04/ Sunday Times
“..there is a lot of money to be made” A single 2MW 2million turbine will
generate £385000 a year for 20 years, not bad for a machine that costs £1.2million to build.
Further information on ROC’s, this complicated but ingenious subsidy hiding under a levy can be found on official websites.
DTI appoints Porter Novelli to power up renewables debate 6/2/04 http://www.coi.gov.uk
Porter Novelli has been appointed by Department for Trade and Industry to increase awareness of renewable energy sources amongst investors and planners.
This I understand at a cost of £2M and with two pilot areas in Co Durham
All I ask for on behalf of the community is a balance not bias.
For interest.£13000 needed for The High Court Hearing to protect Barningham High Moor did not come from Teesdale Council but from local residents and supported in the main by CPRE branches
Nimby’s will protect the areas they love as no one else can understand the need., least of all it seems our politicians.
Elizabeth Mann
Barningham High Moor Conservation Group
Webcameron never blocked any of my posts but when they ‘closed’ the site the truth and full facts were being exposed! Thank you web rejects for allowing me to finish the story of this travesty of justice.
senegal
Thanks for telling me that. I think I should inform the police that someone going under the name of “scousebilly” is inciting people to come and physically harm me. I am sure the Telegraph have their IP number.
Thanks again.
“I am disappointed senegal at the back-stabbing especially as I have great respect for George.”
The feeling is entirely mutual Mark and then some.
Senegal,
thanks for your research.
ScouseBilly,
things certainly seem to be changing faster now than ever before in human history. Beware some of the writers on that Telegraph blog; they seem so attached to their lifestyles that they blind themselves to the possible consequences. Our way of life *may* be unsustainable; do we really want to find out the hard, irreversible way?
I’ll still look up thorium reactors sometime.
For your info scousebilly’s comments have now mysteriously disappeared from Delingpole’s blog.
@ Fergie
are you sure of that link? JH seemed to be a pussy cat in that piece compared with some interviews…
This is deliberately provocative – but the refusal of the UK political system to face up to (and the media to report) the energy shortfall we are facing infuriates me.
This is how I see the situation:
The problem re. future electricity generation is thet everyone wants the lights to go on at the flick of a switch but opposes the only generation systems that can guarantee it: coal and nuclear.
Forget windpower, it’s political not a serious contribution to UK energy consumption. I have more chance of flying to the moon on a cosmic ray than wind power has of providing even 10% of UK electicity demand by 2020. And NONE of that is baseload.
Offshore wave energy has potential but is really at the demonstration stage in terms of large-scale plant. maybe in 5 years or so.
We should have started building new baseload power stations 5 years ago, but none is now likely to commence for 3-5 years. More gas power stations are feasible and could be built more quickly as their environmental impact is lower, but can we source the gas? We’d be dependent on pipelines from Russia and north Africa, and tanker loads of liquid gas from the Gulf.
Existing coal fired stations are old and will have to close from 2016 onwards unless their safety certificates are extended. And chances of planning permission for a new coal fired power station in the current political climate = zero. Kingsnorth, anyone?
Opposition to nuclear station replacement, let alone new sites, and refusal of government to have a policy let alone a strategy means we can’t build them in time either.
Unless we start cutting UK electricity demand fast (and that’ll probably have to be by price – 20% VAT on electricity, gas and heating oil anyone?) I foresee serious winter “brownouts” in about 2017 or 2018.
And on a connected issue, most of the UK’s energy is now controlled by companies based in other countries.
I’m very pessimistic about all of this. There has been no mention of energy security by any of the main parties in the election campaign. I’m glad I’m getting to the age where I won’t have to live with the long term consequences of the wasted decade 2000-2010. Maybe global warming will reduce my winter heating needs…
Very interesting. So this is how it works… hmn. Thanks, senegal.
ScouseBilly,
did you delete your own comments? Or what happened?
Senegal,
thanks again.
George Dutton,
my apology. I was too trusting of ScouseBilly.
John D Monkey writes:
“Forget windpower, it’s political not a serious contribution to UK energy consumption. I have more chance of flying to the moon on a cosmic ray than wind power has of providing even 10% of UK electicity demand by 2020.”
10% of something can be a serious part of it!
According to this great publication on sustainable energy technology –
http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html
The maximum practical contribution from onshore wind turbines in the UK is
20 kilowatt hours per day per person.
Maximum offshore wind is 48 kwh/d/p
European average gross energy consumption (electrical and everything else) is about 120 kwh/d/p
I am enthusiatic about windpower having studied it and designed and built a portable camping windmill. I really love wild places -not so much deforested wildernesses- and im happy with the presence of windmills. Businesses may be profiteering with them, but they can produce useful amounts of clean, safe and quite affordable energy.
If we could get a decent incentive for microgeneration, as they have in Germany, we’d see millions of small turbines springing up every year. One decent nuclear station produces about a gigawatt – which equates to about a million small wind turbines.
Add to this solar power. Germany, again, has a huge generation from solar, even though they have more cloudy days than us in the UK, hard as that might be to believe.
They get a tax break on the price, get a government mandated very low interest loan on the generator from the banks, a mortgage on it effectively, which returns from the generator will cover over the period. Once paid for, it makes money. And you get to sell excess power back to the grid at 7 times the purchase price of power from the grid.
So it costs you nothing down to install, the repayments are paid for by the generator, after which you make money. The banks get a small return. The government/ power companies do not have to pay the huge costs of building reactors. And 40,000 jobs have been created installing the generators.
Everyone wins.
But wait… big contractors haven’t won. Oh rats, well, out with that idea – it’ll have to be nuclear for the UK, and get the major contractors in to bid for commissioning nuclear sites. Cost overruns will not be a problem, the taxpayer has unlimited funds. Trebles all round!
What a bloging shame.
Now why didn’t Craig’s blog get on to this Times list? Would it be because he tells the truth about the Murdochracy and its servants?
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article7108518.ece
Note the disproportionate space given to Guido Fawkes, which consists of mostly nasty right wing trash comments and with its creator Paul Staines dying for a Cameroon victory.
‘Cameron International Corp, which supplied the rig’s blow-out prevention equipment that failed.’
Hope there’s no connection to Dave.
This great ecological disaster is turning into a lawyers’ paradise before they’ve even stopped the leaks and cleaned up the mess if that is possible.
Notice our old friends from Iraq, Halliburton, are in the frame.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/7664862/BP-faces-criminal-inquiry-into-rig-explosion.html
The BP spokesman should have been a politician.
‘[A] BP spokesman said he was not aware of previous safety issues at the Deepwater rigs despite reports of spills, fires and a collision in the nine years it had been at sea.’