Alternative energy?
Discussion
Very topical. There is a proposal to put a farm near us.
www.embertonwindfarm.co.uk
Sneakily they are doing it on the borders of 3 counties so each planning application is only a 3rd of the total size.
The irony is that if it was a quiant old windmill at the end of the street it adds value, if it is a wind turbine it puts prices down.
I don't mind them but as a Nimby it is going to knock the value of my house down.
www.embertonwindfarm.co.uk
Sneakily they are doing it on the borders of 3 counties so each planning application is only a 3rd of the total size.
The irony is that if it was a quiant old windmill at the end of the street it adds value, if it is a wind turbine it puts prices down.
I don't mind them but as a Nimby it is going to knock the value of my house down.
Gazboy said:
mate at work mentioned this after reading about someone whinging about wind farms being an eye sore- Why not have these things run down the centre reservations of motorways?
Also, how long does it take for each whirlygig to pay back the energy needed to create it?
Yep I think if we have to build them they should go there. Of course they are of no use at all, they will not solve the energy needs. The payback time is never^-3 Ie they take 3 times as much energy to create as they will ever produce.
Now nuclear power thats a different story and its about to begin.
All the "renewable" money should go into Solar energy research and battery technology. Wind and wave is bollox.
There is a bit stigma about Nuclear, but it solves every criterea that the luvvies require. Clean, emission free, etc... But Chernobyl took it back a long way! I'm right in thinking that the US are concentrating on Coal powered as the future, or at least i remember that in the debates on TV...
We should have started building more nuclear powerplants 10 years ago, but if we do green-light constructions it will be 10 to 15 years before they are on-stream and producing power.
Less pollution, cheaper energy and only a small amount of nasty waste to dispose of.
No chance of a Chernobyl type incident with pebble-bed reactors or other newer reactor types.
Even wind turbines arent "clean" energy. How much pollution does the production of the aluminum and other materials used in them create? How much total energy is needed to build one?
The figures given are, I believe rather understated.
Tidal barrages - yep great idea IMHO.
Geothermal - Still needs a little work and there are several types, but its a proven and working concept with very little impact on us all.
Bio-Fuels - Why on earth isnt the government pumping resources into this? (Taxes on fossil fuels perhaps?). There is no reason why we couldnt produce enough bio-fuel to run every car on the road. Again there is some development needed, but there is no reason why it couldnt be done. Scrap the CAP and pay british farmers to grow our fuel, flog the north sea oil to everyone else who wants it.
The same petrol distribution infrastructure could deal with the retail end, we would need a couple of new refineries... Im guessing, but a mass rollout and crop subsidies would probably have cost less than the total cost of the millenium dome (we pumped what, nearly a billion into that white elephant all told?).
What else?
Solar panels - Same reasons as wind turbines, plus supply and cost issues for a mass rollout. We have sod all sun in the UK, its not the best place for them.
How about covering hundreds of square miles of African desert in solar panels? Put in a few very large cables (got to eb cheaper to lay than building oil pipelines) and et voila, our energy costs solved.
Less pollution, cheaper energy and only a small amount of nasty waste to dispose of.
No chance of a Chernobyl type incident with pebble-bed reactors or other newer reactor types.
Even wind turbines arent "clean" energy. How much pollution does the production of the aluminum and other materials used in them create? How much total energy is needed to build one?
The figures given are, I believe rather understated.
Tidal barrages - yep great idea IMHO.
Geothermal - Still needs a little work and there are several types, but its a proven and working concept with very little impact on us all.
Bio-Fuels - Why on earth isnt the government pumping resources into this? (Taxes on fossil fuels perhaps?). There is no reason why we couldnt produce enough bio-fuel to run every car on the road. Again there is some development needed, but there is no reason why it couldnt be done. Scrap the CAP and pay british farmers to grow our fuel, flog the north sea oil to everyone else who wants it.
The same petrol distribution infrastructure could deal with the retail end, we would need a couple of new refineries... Im guessing, but a mass rollout and crop subsidies would probably have cost less than the total cost of the millenium dome (we pumped what, nearly a billion into that white elephant all told?).
What else?
Solar panels - Same reasons as wind turbines, plus supply and cost issues for a mass rollout. We have sod all sun in the UK, its not the best place for them.
How about covering hundreds of square miles of African desert in solar panels? Put in a few very large cables (got to eb cheaper to lay than building oil pipelines) and et voila, our energy costs solved.
I've also wondered why they can't be sited along M'ways ...... they cause a real "blot" on the landscape when placed in scenic countryside areas.
I also think that perhaps the money spent on windfarms (for which the econcomics are dubious / marginal at best ) - would be better spent on giving fiscal (tax) incentives to reduce energy consumption - particularly for industry, and domestic heating.
IIRC the long-term "Target" for % of energy generated by "renewable" sources is less than 5% (?) - - surely there are more cost effective ways of saving that instead .... or using Nuclear Power to generate the 5% , which is more cost effective.
I also think that perhaps the money spent on windfarms (for which the econcomics are dubious / marginal at best ) - would be better spent on giving fiscal (tax) incentives to reduce energy consumption - particularly for industry, and domestic heating.
IIRC the long-term "Target" for % of energy generated by "renewable" sources is less than 5% (?) - - surely there are more cost effective ways of saving that instead .... or using Nuclear Power to generate the 5% , which is more cost effective.
nonegreen said:
The payback time is never^-3 Ie they take 3 times as much energy to create as they will ever produce.
Oh FFS I'm pretty certain you were there when we did that conversation, so it's particularly dishonest of you to spout such nonsense. The payback time for the energy used to produce them is something like three months in reasonable conditions (no, I can't be bothered to search for the thread, but that's roughly the right order of magnitude, we went over the figures in some detail). After that the only cost is maintenance, transmission costs etc.
Wind power is not dramatically cheap, but improvements in the technology are having a positive effect. Unfortunately for us, nonegreen has such a huge political chip on his shoulder that rational discussion becomes pretty difficult :-)
Thelemming said:
Bio-Fuels - Why on earth isnt the government pumping resources into this? (Taxes on fossil fuels perhaps?). There is no reason why we couldnt produce enough bio-fuel to run every car on the road. Again there is some development needed, but there is no reason why it couldnt be done. Scrap the CAP and pay british farmers to grow our fuel, flog the north sea oil to everyone else who wants it.
because they wouldn't be able to tax you more, charge you more, etc, on the grounds that it is bad for the enviroment...
nonegreen said:
The payback time is never^-3 Ie they take 3 times as much energy to create as they will ever produce.
Sorry chap but that is simply not true.
www.bwea.com/edu/calcs.html Look at energy balance at the bottom.
On the other hand I agree wholeheartedly about nuclear being the way forward.
Thelemming said:
How about covering hundreds of square miles of African desert in solar panels? Put in a few very large cables (got to eb cheaper to lay than building oil pipelines) and et voila, our energy costs solved.
I would worry about the significant effect on the weather - a huge reflective surface would be similar to a huge new lake but without the cooling effects of moisture evaporation. The effect on the local winds would be amazing and you could probably crash an airliner flying over-head. Macro solutions of this scale have very unpredictable side-effects. A more holistic approach would probably yield greater benefits.
dieseljohn said:
The payback time is never^-3 Ie they take 3 times as much energy to create as they will ever produce.
Sorry chap but that is simply not true.
www.bwea.com/edu/calcs.html Look at energy balance at the bottom.
On the other hand I agree wholeheartedly about nuclear being the way forward.
D'oh!!
Jinx said:
How about covering hundreds of square miles of African desert in solar panels? Put in a few very large cables (got to eb cheaper to lay than building oil pipelines) and et voila, our energy costs solved.
I would worry about the significant effect on the weather - a huge reflective surface would be similar to a huge new lake but without the cooling effects of moisture evaporation. The effect on the local winds would be amazing and you could probably crash an airliner flying over-head. Macro solutions of this scale have very unpredictable side-effects. A more holistic approach would probably yield greater benefits.
True, would probably create utterly massive thermals. Dibs on the glider school concession. You could probably lauch a glider on those to damn near anywhere within a few hundred miles. Cheap air travel as a side effect?
Alternatively, start to build wind turbines on the end depending on the effects
There are possible downsides, but considering the price of us renting or buying and extra-territorialising outright a large chunk of otherwise economically useless desert would account for a huge chunk of the GDP of several possible candidate countries, I dont think the locals would mind much...
Nuclear power - a rational and futuristic casualty of Cold War paranoia (see other thread).
IMO we do need to reduce dependance on oil - whatever it does to the environment and however much is left there's no getting away from the fact that it's a finite resource and the fact that it is finite gives many greasy-palmed pocket-liners an excuse to price it out of the stratosphere every time a dog farts in Baghdad.
We need to look into the mass production of biodiesel and biopetrol. Grow it from oilseed rape (which will grow in just about any soil in the world thus providing many poor countries with a booming economy), and set scientists to work on additives that will allow any engine to run on some variety of it. I've got a magazine somewhere featuring a bloke who's managed to get a Datsun 260Z running on veggie oil so it's not like it spells the end of performance cars either. 'Shell Vegimax'
But there is a major culprit here - the government. How's this for hypocrisy: They rant on about petrol being finite and polluting and a creator of political instability and tax it to the hilt... but don't let you use anything else. Why? Firstly, the oil companies are in their pockets, and secondly, they've grown addicted to taxing motorists to the point where any alternative sends Gordon into cold turkey.
IMO we do need to reduce dependance on oil - whatever it does to the environment and however much is left there's no getting away from the fact that it's a finite resource and the fact that it is finite gives many greasy-palmed pocket-liners an excuse to price it out of the stratosphere every time a dog farts in Baghdad.
We need to look into the mass production of biodiesel and biopetrol. Grow it from oilseed rape (which will grow in just about any soil in the world thus providing many poor countries with a booming economy), and set scientists to work on additives that will allow any engine to run on some variety of it. I've got a magazine somewhere featuring a bloke who's managed to get a Datsun 260Z running on veggie oil so it's not like it spells the end of performance cars either. 'Shell Vegimax'
But there is a major culprit here - the government. How's this for hypocrisy: They rant on about petrol being finite and polluting and a creator of political instability and tax it to the hilt... but don't let you use anything else. Why? Firstly, the oil companies are in their pockets, and secondly, they've grown addicted to taxing motorists to the point where any alternative sends Gordon into cold turkey.
dieseljohn said:
The payback time is never^-3 Ie they take 3 times as much energy to create as they will ever produce.
Sorry chap but that is simply not true.
www.bwea.com/edu/calcs.html Look at energy balance at the bottom.
On the other hand I agree wholeheartedly about nuclear being the way forward.
Hmmmm The British Wind energy association? I think they may just be a little bit biased
I stand by what I said and one day I may have the time to prove it.
Jinx said:
How about covering hundreds of square miles of African desert in solar panels? Put in a few very large cables (got to eb cheaper to lay than building oil pipelines) and et voila, our energy costs solved.
I would worry about the significant effect on the weather - a huge reflective surface would be similar to a huge new lake but without the cooling effects of moisture evaporation. The effect on the local winds would be amazing and you could probably crash an airliner flying over-head. Macro solutions of this scale have very unpredictable side-effects. A more holistic approach would probably yield greater benefits.
Yeah - like a solar panel on the roof of every house.
I also wondered about 'hybrid' planes with solar panels built into the wings and the top of the fuselage. Takeoff would still use traditional avgas but cruising and landing could be done on solar-powered electric turboprops. Would virtually eliminate the noise pollution problem too.
nonegreen said:
The payback time is never^-3 Ie they take 3 times as much energy to create as they will ever produce.
Sorry chap but that is simply not true.
www.bwea.com/edu/calcs.html Look at energy balance at the bottom.
On the other hand I agree wholeheartedly about nuclear being the way forward.
Hmmmm The British Wind energy association? I think they may just be a little bit biased
I stand by what I said and one day I may have the time to prove it.
That was just the first thing I googled. I could explain futher but since you don't have the time neither do I.
Tuna said:
I stand by what I said and one day I may have the time to prove it.
Well in that case, I say that the moon is made of cheese. Please take it as truth until I've got some time to prove it.
No it only works when nonegreen says things. He is always right, you are a mere mortal.
Gassing Station | The Pie & Piston Archive | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff