'Without Hot Air'

[wookey]

Simon, I've read it too (I even have a paper copy now). You can read the previous threads on the subject here:
http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4243.0.html and here http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,8814.0.html (and probably should before we repeat _too_ much of them)

Arguing with Martin about nuclear power is a total waste of your and his time - you are not going to change his mind.

The heat-pump issue is that the COP of 4-5 McKay uses is pretty optimistic, whereas most of his other figures are pretty conservative. This annoys a lot of people (like Renewable John). Heat pumps can do 4-5, but only under optimium conditions. UK installations that have been monitored to date get numbers like 2-3 over the year. There is no doubt room for improvement but actually using '5' in calcs really is 'optimisitic' and causes accusations of bias. Having met McKay and heard him speak a couple of times I am quite sure he is genuine, and clearly his main point is fundamental - the numbers (whatever they are) have to add up. But there remains a great deal of dickering to do about exactly what the numbers are and should be.

I do particularly like his suggestion that the way to deal with nimbyism is that every county should be told: choose one: a nuclear power station, 1000 big wind turbines or no electricity.

Hope that helps. I shall refrain from commenting further for now, except to say that whilst I think Martin is a fool on many subjects, his assertion that we need genuine consumption reductions to make ends meet is actually right. There are actually huge efficiency gains waiting to be had in almost all the houses and businesses in the land. Those are probably much cheaper and (more importantly) quicker to make than completely re-engineering our power and transport infrastructure.

[Simon]

Wookey, thanks for the touch of sanity you bring to the debate. I followed a number of your other posts in this forum (particularly on data collection theme) and have always found them informative.

Navitron's sales site do indeed quote a range of CoP for ASHP as 2.5-4 though I can't locate an actual performance graph to see what conditions apply.

What attracts me to MacKay's book ( and yes I have a paper copy as do my son and daughter - poor souls!) is that love him or hate him, you do have the "numbers" to examine and challenge if you feel you better/different "numbers". What many people seem to miss is that he isn't actually proposing any solution just pleading that the numbers must add up. This does seem to be a rational plea to me.

In the mid '90s I chaired a group called the West Wales Technology Forum. Its purpose was to try to get more young people interested in science, engineering and technology. Not too successful in this respect as most meetings attracted an audience of 10-20 middle aged men! However we did fill one lecture theatre to overflowing when we organised a presentation then debate on the proposed use of Orimulsion in Pembroke power station which was then mothballed having been designed for oil. Orimulsion, you may recall, was a pretty grim suspension of a sort of bitumen in water which Venezuela was trying to develop. All in all it was pretty environmentally unfriendly stuff but could be treated and handled such that it behaved much as oil did. You can imagine the public protest that this aroused particularly as Milford Haven is an area of outstanding natural beauty and tankers full of "tar" were not being welcomed with open arms.

However at the same time there was a planning application for several wind turbines on the nearby Preseli hills/mountains. You can also imagine the public outcry at this proposal.

The point of my story is that at this meeting virtually everyone was against everything and each other! While as chairman I had to maintain a neutral stance, in my closing remarks I suggested that when everyone went home that night and reached for a cold beer or milk from their fridge, where did they propose the electricity should come from. I think the view was "...not from here ..."!

As MacKay might have said, it just didn't add up.

As a foot note neither planning applications succeeded. Pembroke power station was demolished though a new gas fired station is under construction to utilised the LNG now being imported via Milford Haven from Qatar.

As a final and I hope amusing anecdote. At the meeting, a lady voiced her objection to the Orimulsion proposal because she said she was against young children being sent down the Venezuelan mines to extract Orimulsion. She had been totally unaware that Orimulsion was actually extracted in much the same was as oil. It was a good example of how people make decisions based on mis-information. Incidentally, I seem to recall she was still against the proposal even when this particular "fact" was corrected.

Oh well, c'est la vie.

Simon

[Ted]

It's possibly not too strange to find that in almost all walks of life people make up their minds about an issue and then find and quote the facts that support their preferred position. If some of those 'facts' turn out to be false then that isn't going to change the person's stance.

[Simon]

It's possibly not too strange to find that in almost all walks of life people make up their minds about an issue and then find and quote the facts that support their preferred position. If some of those 'facts' turn out to be false then that isn't going to change the person's stance.

How true. I guess we are all guilty to a greater or lesser extent. However I hope that at least a proportion of the populace will take on board new/better information. Or perhaps I am being too rational. As a chartered engineer and having worked most of my life in the marine and offshore engineering industry, one could not just ignore or dismiss new ideas/materials/techniques etc. Of course not all new ideas turn out to be superior to the "old" ideas but one had to arrive at this conclusion by some sort of rational analysis.

How I remember the arguments about the most appropriate approach to adopt when determining design wave spectra (heights and frequencies) when designing the towing of large offshore structures around the world. Try Korea to New Zealand or Japan to Brazil and imagine the debate about the risks. Interestingly enough, Lloyds insurance underwriters initiated much of my work because they took a risk-based approach to their insurance offering. I have seen a policy which would have paid out $2.4 billion (yes billion) on a constructive total loss. Rather them than me even though there was no loss or claim, phew!


Simon

[Ancient Brewer]

If the UK commissioned 1 1500MW Nuc every year for the next 20 ............................

But there's the rub.

The UK has no chance of commissioning anywhere near that level.

There isn't enough construction expertise around to build the plants at that rate.

There isn't enough commissioning expertise around to bring plants on-line at that rate.

There isn't enough operating expertise around to run all those plants.

There isn't enough uranium processing capability to produce fuel for all those plants.

There isn't enough uranium mining capacity to produce the raw material for the fuel for those plants.

And....... There isn't enough uranium in the ground to mine to produce the raw material for the fuel for those plants.

Other than that, it's fine.

Ok - fair point in terms of commissioning in the short term but there is no reason why over the next decade this Country could not gear up to a programme commissioning one reactor every 1-3 years.

We have the casting capacity - Forgemasters at Sheffield if given the correct signal could invest in a sufficient sized press to cast the largest reactor vessels.

I accept Construction, commissioning and operational expertise skills need to be expanded / developed and this prohibits any short term expansion of Nuclear. This argument would be the same though whether we are talking 30GW of Nuc, 100GW of Wind, 200GW of solar, or 80GW of wave.....

The lack of fuel argument does not stand up to scrutiny. There has hardly been any uranium prospecting in the last 30 years. 20 years supply of weapons grade material from former USSR stockpiles have surpressed prices. There are numerous sites in Western Australia, Canada, and the USA that could be reactivated. In addition there are huge quantities of tailings that can be processed with new techniques. I am certain the same would be the case for Niger, South Africa, and Kazakstan. They would just account for conventional supplies. There are a number of other potential unconventional sources - power station ash, salt pans and brine for instance. In addition the Japanese have had success extracting uranium from seawater although this is not competitive with current U prices.

There is no obstacle other than the usual regulatory hurdles in any of those Countries if additional uranium milling facilities are needed.

Longer term - breeder reactors increase fuel supply 100 fold. Its only the low price of Uranium that have resulted in limited development

In the meantime the quickest returns are with efficiency and modular renewables - no argument there. But renewables in a small Country with 60 million plus will never scale up to a third of our needs let alone 100%

[desperate]

Just finished reading it, I thought it an excellent well argued review of most of the options available to us, ok a few numbers were I thought a bit suspect, but overall it is spot on.
My main conclusion after reading it was that the main obsticle to the massive task ahead is us, which ever combination of technolgies"someone" chooses will cause the general public to go ballistic, I think we urgently need to educate the masses as to the scale of the task ahead, if the public dont understand this pretty damn quick, we may as well book up that flight to some tropical beach and enjoy it while we can.

Desperate

[Flamethrower_]

Desperate,

To be honest I think that most people are thinking just that!

There is a sense of either denial it wont happen to me !

Or we are all toast! lets just enjoy it while we can (Volcanic dust permitting)

Hey Ho! into the abyss!

[billi]

.... Sure time is scares , and because of that i always wonder , why we "developed countries " are not able to play a "Master" role to develop ideas to push the world into  the right direction .

Surely the globe will have more problems , like they are created already ,by just thinking in Nationalistic brains

I understand each country wants to save his tradition and nature , but please not with blind eyes

We all accept now , we should share a car with our neighbours = share one car for 4 people instead of 4 cars for 4 persons

Same with power ideas , thats why i like Europe



Billi

[desperate]

Hear hear billi, and Mr Flamethrower,

I think it is high time that we have to grow up and start behaving like responsible Earthlings and accept that we are all in this together, and come up with a truly global strategy for dealing with the many problems we face.

Contrary to some of the opinion around, I truly believe it is extremely dangerous to think we, or any other country can go it alone and build an energy infrastructure that satisfies our needs but ignores our neighbours. All this would acheive is a War against us by those desperate to purloin our resources, even if we had enough energy and food to look after our own population, we certainly wouldnt have any kind of security in a "Mel Gibson" type of post apocalyptic world.

Even if we could repel the hungry invaders it aint the kind of world I would want to take part in.

The number one message I take from "Without Hot Air" is that to make a truly sustainable energy source the plants needed are on a Country size  scale in the UK and indeed in Northern Europe. So we face 2 choices, either we could try and make Nuclear work which means in effect Fast Breeder Reactors a pretty untried technology with almost no track record, or a large scale programme of Desert based CSP and HVDC distribution, all of which uses tried and tested technology and could be started without any research needed.

Solar CSP has the advantage that if done on a global scale it would help to avoid setting any single country in a fortress of plenty open to attack by those without enough to cover their needs. We know how destructive inequality is in the UK, lets not make it any worse than it is already.

Desperate