Chris Huhne's successor faces clash as Tories attack wind farms spending

[Philip R]

GavinA,

You mentioned Westinghouse.

Up to recently, the nuclear bit of Westinghouse was owned by BNFL. When Gordon Brown broke it up and flogged it off to Toshiba Corporation for a song, he also flogged off our neclear fuel operations to Westinghouse and AREVA. What a t***er.

Forgemasters manufacture the pump case forgings for the AP1000, being built rapidly in China. Shame Our government kyboshed the loan for the new forge press capability. Large forgings, really big ones like large 4 pole generator rotors are limited in supply from JSW (Japan) or Doosan in S Korea.  It seems that HMG whatever the colour are hell bent on not helping UK manufacturing ( wealth creation)

PhilipR

[biff]

Actually it is all a bit weird,
                      we were watching a bit on the telly about this british railway carriage making company who were employing thousands of workers.they had tendered for a multi million contract to build carriages for british rail.Before the program ended,the news broke that the contract had been awarded to a company outside britain for more money.The immediate effect was to throw thousands of workers onto the dole.One would wonder at the science behind that move.
                                                         Biff

[billt]

It is indeed a renewable energy forum and most definatly not a nuclear one.

This forum has quite a few very practical people on it who publish lots of really interesting real world experiences and information.

In the real world, wind and PV haven't got a hope of supplying a significant fraction of our electrical needs without dictatorial control of consumption. You'ld think that people of a realistic bent would be interested in discussions of how future energy needs are going to be met, rather than turning the forum into a ghetto of irrationality.

[martin]

I'm afraid I must differ - renewables CAN supply a very large proportion of our needs, but we need to cut consumption as well - sadly there are many keen to mutter about "hair shirts" and "stone age" when such things are mentioned, and I think what is greatly lacking is perspective - if you live in a leaky old house with bog all insulation, and heat your water with an immersion heater in an uninsulated tank, and heat the place with an assortment of electric fires and coal, it will be prohibitively expensive and wasteful to run, and probably pretty miserable to live in - bring the insulation bang up to date, and install a modern efficient heating system, you may save 80% of the earlier consumption and outgoings, and have a far more comfortable home - so "cuts" can be about education and "carrots" rather than sticks, and IMproving quality of life.....(but the fossil fuel and nuke industries would hate that, they thrive on profligate over-use).

It has been pointed out several times, even if we did waste gazillions on nukes, they can only ever produce a tiny percentage of our needs (and too late in the future to fill the yawning impending energy gap) - where's the rest of our energy going to come from? (bearing in mind we've wasted an inordinate sum on pursuing the empty dreams of nukes?)

As proved by several off-gridders, you can provide a very large proportion of your energy needs renewably, so claims that it is "impossible" are frankly nonsensical.

I don't think that any discussions about supplying future energy needs can be realistically discussed without also contemplating how we'll make cuts in consumption too, without which we will only perpetuate our disastrous profligate energy use.......

[smegal]

It has been pointed out several times, even if we did waste gazillions on nukes, they can only ever produce a tiny percentage of our needs (and too late in the future to fill the yawning impending energy gap) - where's the rest of our energy going to come from? (bearing in mind we've wasted an inordinate sum on pursuing the empty dreams of nukes?)

I disagree with the above comments. Nukes can provide much more than a tint percentage. We are talking hundred GW scale, to put this into perspective 1 GW of nuclear with a capacity factor of 90% is like installing 8.5 Thanet wind farms at a cost of £6.8 billion.

Is nuclear that expensive.

I know the nuclear debate is a recurring one, but it is interesting to see peoples opinions. Yes this is a renewable energy forum but we are all trying to achieve the same goal.

No single person on here has the answer, because the problem is so complex it is hard to comprehend. Most people (less so on here) just cannot grasp how much energy humans use.

[desperate]

FOE - bias? - erm well yes, biased towards saving us from trashing the planet - shock, horrror, probe, how utterly dreadful!

I was aware that Desp was pro nuke, but was somewhat amazed to find him apparently opposing wind too - as for " there is now a perception that a lot of it is merely a front for more taxes" is precisely the sort of deeply ignorant position encouraged by the likes of Lawson and Delingpole...

Martin you just don't get it,do you?

I've have made my position perfeckly clear before, but you choose not to hear. Are you attributing that delingpole/lawson rubbish to me? If so I find that deeply offensive, I wouldn't pi55 on them  if they were on fire.

Can you find anywhere in the more than two thousand post I,ve made here any that set me as "anti-wind, or pro nuke? I have stated on more than one occasion that I don't particularly like nukes, but do not find yours or any argument that we can do without them yet particularly persuasive. I do believe that eventually we will rely almost completely on renewables, but to get to that point is a long rocky road that won't in my opinion be helped by throwing away any forms of generation that we have at the moment. Nor do I believe that reductions in demand can be made anything like as fast as needed to protect the climate, particularly in light of 80% of the world population consuming at present almost nothing and aspiring to a "better lifestyle", whatever that is, but in anycase using more energy.


if you live in a leaky old house with bog all insulation, and heat your water with an immersion heater in an uninsulated tank, and heat the place with an assortment of electric fires and coal, it will be prohibitively expensive and wasteful to run, and probably pretty miserable to live in - bring the insulation bang up to date, and install a modern efficient heating system, you may save 80% of the earlier consumption and outgoings, and have a far more comfortable home - so "cuts" can be about education and "carrots" rather than sticks, and IMproving quality of life.....(but the fossil fuel and nuke industries would hate that, they thrive on profligate over-use).


Take the above as an example, fine and dandy in the UK I don't have any problem with that at all, but cast your mind a bit wider and think of all the third world people who survive by burning cow flop for cooking, and have to walk five miles to get cleanish water to drink, how please tell me are they going to reduce their consumption? Look at the Chinese, or the Indian people do you see their energy consumption going down?

It's easy to sit in comfy East Sussex and complain that desperate is pro this or anti that, and make a lot of noise about blobboids and leaky old houses with bog all insulation and electric and coal fires, but you are missing the point on a gargantuan scale, you need to consider the wider picture here, the climate cares nothing about the whereabouts of the emissions.

 For my money we should leave and even increase our Nuclear capacity as we have such an energy intensive lifestyle, and concentrate getting renewables installed as widely as possible in the developing countries so that they don't become the vastly CO2 intensive emitters of the future, Desertec and wind with hydro in Northern Europe, put the renewables where you get most bang for your buck.

There's only 2 things that I am anti, 1 running out of energy, 2Unfairness

Desp

[biff]

Well billt,
          The "real world" is going to have to wake up to the fact that the oil is not coming our way as easy any more.Iran has explained to angela that supplies will be shutting down shortly,She will not have to wait 5 months to see the effect.Italy is set to go bankrupt because italy has paid billion in advance for oil not yet delivered.Obama(the mighty U turn wizzard) has grabbed all Iran,s money in the US and walked off with it(thats what sancitions means).Russia and china have invested heavily in both Iran and Syria and even though the swords are drawn as i type,the west must realise that this is different,the old tricks dont work any more,the joke over,We are living through one of the most unstable periods in our history and the quicker we get out act together regarding renewable energy the less we will suffer.Its that simple.Thats the "real world"
                                                                                                     Biff

[brackwell]

Desperate,

 Well said.

Ken

[Ted]

Compulsory energy efficiency is on the cards.

DECC are just about to start the Energy Efficiency Deployment Office - EEDO. Followed by Green Deal with compulsory upgrades linked to Building Regs for anyone doing any work on their house.

It's all in their master plan.

[martin]

"Are you attributing that delingpole/lawson rubbish to me" - no, I'm fairly semantically pedantic, that was not my meaning, nor was it what I wrote.......

As for "third world countries" - it is potty to try to extrapolate the sort of economies that we, the developed world need to make, living as we do as if we had 3-5 planets - probably they need to make no "economies" as such, but could probably do with some help to make the best of what they do have - the imbalance between "our" world and theirs is grossly unfair, and needs addressing

I'm not for "throwing away" any energy source that we have, even nuclear  - I'm enough of a pragmatist to realise that "the damage has been done" with existing nuke power plants, we are lumbered with the damn things, so we may as well run them until the end of their lives, and put funding in place to decommission the things as safely as is possible at the end of their lives - I am however adamantly against the building of any new plants (for all the reasons many of us have given, ad nauseam)

The expense of nuclear is well hidden by the vested interests - the fact is that it has never existed without vast amounts of state funding (upfront, hidden, or both) is unarguable - the present shower are trying to say there'll be "no subsidies" whilst they move the goal posts to provide precisely that by the back door.
I'm frankly amazed that people have been swayed by the (admittedly clever) campaign waged by the nuclear industry over the last few years that suggests it is both "indispensable" and viable - it can only realistically ever give a few percent of our needs, and it is being accorded undue prominence and budget.........

Whatever the fuel balance, we do have to wake from our torpor, and realise that we have a gargantuan battle on our hands, get off our backsides, and actually do something for a change - and hopefully realise just how much public opinion is being swayed by vested interests, often to the extreme detriment of the situation...

[billi]

In the real world, wind and PV haven't got a hope of supplying a significant fraction of our electrical needs without dictatorial control of consumption.

If the UK would have the same PV  and Wind capacity installed  in  2011   like Germany  ,   PV and  Wind power only would have supplied about 18 %  of the UK s   electricity needs ...........


In Germany  it was 11 %  from those  2  green sources in 2011   and 20 %  in total from renewable s   (it doubled from 2005 )



Billi

[rt29781]

The expense of nuclear is well hidden by the vested interests - the fact is that it has never existed without vast amounts of state funding (upfront, hidden, or both) is unarguable - the present shower are trying to say there'll be "no subsidies" whilst they move the goal posts to provide precisely that by the back door.
I'm frankly amazed that people have been swayed by the (admittedly clever) campaign waged by the nuclear industry over the last few years that suggests it is both "indispensable" and viable - it can only realistically ever give a few percent of our needs, and it is being accorded undue prominence and budget.........

Whatever the fuel balance, we do have to wake from our torpor, and realise that we have a gargantuan battle on our hands, get off our backsides, and actually do something for a change - and hopefully realise just how much public opinion is being swayed by vested interests, often to the extreme detriment of the situation...

Absolutely, and well said Martin.  People in general have no idea the peril we are all in.  There are already signs of massive methane release from Clathrates as the seas warm.  This on it's own could send the climate into irreversible change that will unleash massive and uncontrollable weather events.  The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere today is too much and it takes many years before it will reduce without action.  Hence my belief that we have to try anything we have to reduce CO2 emission from current coal and gas power stations.

As you have said many times we have to really look hard at what we do as a nation and how we do it and change course.  We have not got a hope if we do not massively reduce our use of carbon based fuels.  The technical issues are not the stumbling block.  The stumbling block is to control the lobbyists that are currently hell bent on maximising the consumption of whatever it is they sell (oil,gas,coal,nuclear).

It would seem that others are sometimes irritated by the passion with which you defend renewable energy use and energy saving measures, over other forms of energy and rampant consumerism, but in the long run you will be proven correct, not that there will be much comfort from that if we don't get our act together.

[desperate]

"Are you attributing that delingpole/lawson rubbish to me" - no, I'm fairly semantically pedantic, that was not my meaning, nor was it what I wrote.......


Ok fair enough, but in that case please don't read anti-wind into my postings, ta

Desp

[GavinA]

GavinA,

You mentioned Westinghouse.

Up to recently, the nuclear bit of Westinghouse was owned by BNFL. When Gordon Brown broke it up and flogged it off to Toshiba Corporation for a song, he also flogged off our neclear fuel operations to Westinghouse and AREVA. What a t***er.

Forgemasters manufacture the pump case forgings for the AP1000, being built rapidly in China. Shame Our government kyboshed the loan for the new forge press capability. Large forgings, really big ones like large 4 pole generator rotors are limited in supply from JSW (Japan) or Doosan in S Korea.  It seems that HMG whatever the colour are hell bent on not helping UK manufacturing ( wealth creation)

PhilipR

yep - the one thing our politicians excel at unfortunately appears to be complete and utter incompetence combined with no understanding at all of what a good industrial policy would look like.

I lay the blame for this squarely on the change over from politicians who mostly had a career prior to politics to politicians who're almost all from the exact same background which contains no real world experience at all... public school >>> oxbridge PPE >>> policy wonk >>> parliament >>> fast track to cabinet.

I get the feeling that those that aren't from this background and might know what they're doing just get drowned out and ignored by the PPE wonks.

[Philip R]

GavinA
Yep,the establishment in this country has a lot to answer for.

As an aside, apologies for deviating. Her Majesty the Queen however is one smart woman. Leading upto privatisation of the ESI, she visited Didcot power station. Seeing the vectormeter ( generator operating chart), she asked of the operator if the parameters indicated were relevent to Complex number arithmetic she learned at school. They were and still are. Smart lady.

Cecil Parkinson there another day made a comment about US machines running at 60Hz and why these particular machines were not operated at 60Hz!! He had it explained to him. Not smart!!

PhilipR