There is plenty other tech out there without using nuclear. This is about yet more contracts for big business

This is evidence to show that the PR system is utter folly. This tiny party, barely getting into double figures, may hold the balance of power at next years election.

I fear for my country!

Your Green parties position on Nuclear power generation is familiar. They don't explain where
more electricity is going to come from. Can't use
coal, oil or natural gas as they all pollute the atmosphere. People don't seem to want wind power.

There are other options and big business knows this but as per usual its about control of information and power http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=246413983718153...

or this one....Free energy...The race to zero point http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-89432052147847...

Nicola Tesla was another that proved the point by creating wireless free energy but JP Morgan said at the time that unless you could stick a meter on it he was not going to support it

If/when the electorate grasps the fact that the regional ballot is not a second choice fringe parties like the Greens and the SSP will be sidelined. There are no easy alternatives and conspiracies with this stuff. The cold hard reality is that the only viable alternative to fossil fuels required to meet base load demands of a first world level economy is nuclear.

hey scottwebb, take your paranoid musings somewhere else. A quick look at your website reveals some pretty disturbing anti semetic sites you link to and some very weird ideas.

Its nice to see a picture of a green who appears to be attempting to produce his own wind energy.

Use of power could be addressed if everyone was given what was needed to live comfortably supplied free funded by taxation, with anything above that supplied at a massive premium.

This would prevent deaths and harsh conditions from those currently suffering fuel poverty, and act as an incentive to everyone else from squandering energy.

One person freezing to death a year is one too many, yet I think the current numbers are over two hundred in Scotland alone.

If the Ecology debate was at the heart of every political party, as it should be, the Greens would not hold such a disproportionate influence. They seem to always put forward the Doomsday Scenario. I believe that global warming is part of the Earth's natural cycle which we cannot stop and shouldn't panic about. We just need to build barriers and waterways, buy more umbrellas and harness the extra water power. GW might also produce rain in Africa and other parts of the world riven with starvation.

The current warming, however, is happening at a vastly accelerated rate due to polution since the Industrial Revolution of which we are so proud in the UK! The main way we can slow it down is by capping and filtering the world's chimneys. We must have the technology somewhere.

I'm no expert in these fields but surely we could also produce clean energy. The Greens are against the cleanest form of power generation, which unfortunately presently has nasty leftovers. Again the technology must exist to solve the problem: Maybe launching dangerous waste into space? There is so much natural radiation out there that our relatively tiny amounts of nuclear waste surely wouldn't do any harm. It could presumably be sealed in canisters and float around in space for eons in any case.

Any thoughts from our physicists and engineers?

Comment@10 mike. Glad you approve dude :)

Comment@12. Philip, hi mate, youd be amazed at who can be behind sponcering the greens.........anyway i would have though the Chemtrails are much more of a concern to us all :) http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-28153201986551...

Dam the phone,sponsoring is what i meant :)

OK all you bright guys out there including so called scottwebb, where is all the electricity you now all use going to come from. Don't tell me wind, wave or solar power. Do some real research and see how much power is currently being used around the world. The only currently KNOWN source of power we have at this time which will produce the vast quantities of electricty we use in the future is nuclear unless you want to keep using coal which appears to be even more of a no no. Get real you environmentalists or better still go back to using candles and cooking with wood. This way we wouldn't have so much nonsense talked on the computer. You wouldn't be able to use it.

Two thirds of the output of a wind turbine is taken straight off the grid. A wind turbine is merely a way of 'laundering' dirty electricity.

The mechanical 'capacity factor' is around 30% but the electrical capacity factor is less than 10%. The difference is made up by raiding the Grid.

Anybody who wants an excel spreadsheet that proves my assertion can apply to solutions@greenheating.com
for a copy

The dangers of spent fuel is vastly overstated. It only takes 40 years for used fuel rods to decrease its radioactivity by a factor of a thousand.

How many of you people are aware that there are 15 naturally occuring reactors that Mother Nature operated in West Africa. The waste products from these natural reactors only traveled less than a meter. So much for destroying all life on earth huh?
[http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml]

OK, not every country could go 100% renewable, but Scotland certainly could, and it's not just wind, but wave and tidal as well. Even the feckless Lib Dems admit that, although they think it'll take nearly 40 years to do it for some reason.

Thank goodness for the wee parties being able to restrain the big ones in their madness. Proportional representation - one of the best things to have come out of devolution.

_________________
visit freetalkscotland at http://www.forumspring.com/freetalkscotlan

Not so Ted. What happens on a calm day when the ocean is almost waveless and there is almost no wind? Tidal power can't pick up the slack because it fluctuates as well. Renewables cannot provide the base load required to keep a first world level economy functioning. They are at best a partial solution.

#21 Neatly ignoring storage again, eh John?

Every power source fluctuates. Coal, gas and nuclear all have to be taken down for maintenance - in the case of nuclear, often at very short notice for prolonged periods. Stop pretending that they are 100% reliable.

A combination of tidal, wave and wind power in offshore installations with storage, and solar and small-scale wind for localised supplies created close to the point of need, again with storage systems, over time can meet all of Scotland's needs.

#21 John, pop out to the byre and spark up the genny !

I'd be disgusted with the Greens if they jumped into bed with Labour, the party of Trident submarines, dumping at Dounrey, low investment in renewables, and carpet bombing of Iraq. Dont do it Robin!

The Greens are an irrelevance. Does anyone at all care a jot about what they think?

Viable power sources for the next 50 years or more are nuclear, coal, oil and gas with a little, but just a little hydro-electric.

The Greens are, and will remain an irrelevance. If, by some freak chance they ever did get the chance to wield power, your petrol prices would soar to around £100 a litre, road tax would be about £5,000 a year, and they'd get booted out smartly at the following election.

I wish they'd stick to hugging trees.

2 We operate under PR so that minorities also have representation and only an idiot could think that more opinions are counterproductive.The very opposite is in fact true.If we dont start listening to the Greens it may very soon be doomsday!Even if they are wrong it still makes sense to listen to them until we know this for sure!The scientists are increasingly more worried qabout global warming, so what Labour think (and I use the word think very loosely indeed ) matters a lot less!

The balance of power is held according to the wishes of the people collectively,and this is accepted by most people as a democratically arrived at representation.Are you suggesting we adopt facism with El Duce Blair or Brown running everything?I think not!
More importantly is what happens to the dumping of nuclear waste,which England will produce even if Scotland produces none.The Greens should demand no dumping in Scotland also,and their size is irrelevant to their right to representation,since we already cover this by their level of representation.I personally hope all the Unionists leave after independence and go and live in their beloved United KIngdom of whatever its called now.Scotland needs people with independent minds,not parrots who echo Westminster brainwashing and think this makes them sound intelligent!

Ted #19 - your ignorance is in danger of being exposed.

That`s all very well but if you watched Panorama last night the picture on gas supplies is not good.I worked in the gas industry for 23 years and was told that when the N/Sea gas ran out we would revert back to town gas.Then Maggie came along and closed the coal mines plus it` does`nt seem that they want to use fossil fuels thanks to the scaremongering about greenhouse gasses.I`d say can`t have your cake and eat it.

We have global warming because we have over consumption as the population of Europe and the World continues to explode. Green energy can never supply what we need to survive so unless we take some hard decisions we will come under the Russian boot and do what we are told or the taps will be turned off!!
Nuclear = Freedom. Green = Prison.

Even if they are wrong it still makes sense to listen to them until we know this for sure!

Is that not a contradiction, if they are wrong how does it make sense to listen to them

I'll be voting Green!

I'm not wild on ANYTHING nuclear but it may be that there is no alternative. I wonder how quickly the greens will change their minds the first time they can't get their juicer to switch on!!

Duncan 22# If you look at page 10 of:

http://www.iea.org/textbase/work/2004/nea/winter.pdf

you will see what the problem with windpower is. While all power plants break down occasionally windpower varies dramatically from hour to hour. As the whole country can be affected by low wind condition you then lose all your windpower.

The pumped storage systems were developed to cope with short term demand and supply changes such as a power station going off-line. They have a few problems though a) they lose 40% of the energy put into them, by the time you add on transmission losses you have lost half your power and doubled the cost of the electricty b) they have a limited amount of stored energy, Dinorwig can empty its storage area in 5 hours. c) there are only four sites in the UK with a total output of 2778Mw with a limited possibilities for expansion d) they are still required for their original purpose.

What colour do you get if you mix red and green together?

What is the saying? reds and greens, should never be seen, except on Irish fairies and queens?

Duncan #22 - There is absolutely no way that the so called renewable sources, such as wind, wave, etc. could meet Scotlands growing need for power.

A recent report estimated that renewables could at best meet 20% of our needs. That means that there is a huge shortfall. Even the use of hydro-electric schemes would not work because although we have sufficient water in the country we do not have that many suitable glens which could be dammed to provide the necessary resevoir of fuel.

Ultimately the only way to go is nuclear. With sufficient overcapacity built in there would not be any shortages on a day-to-day basis.

The only way Scotland could ever be self sufficient by using renewables would be to close it down.

Gordon, People's Republic of Stirling #5 - Because they started using coal. More reliable power, but look at the emmissions!

John #9 - Currently!

Tom, Bangkok #16 - When the first steam engines were created, the majority said they would never catch on - and the same goes for many other technologies (Head of IBM stated in the early 60s that the world demand for computers was about 6!!)

Wind power has only one major drawback, and that is that there is - currently - no buffer in the supply. ie Wind blows, power produced at a variable rate until it either blows too hard or too little.
If all the power could be stored, and used in a steady output, then it would be acceptable as a mainstream production method. The question is not of IF but WHEN this technology is devised (current government assistance does not help as it is given on maximum output rather than average annual production).

If we had invested the billions spent on fossil fuel and nuclear development on renewables and storage technology instead, we would already be there. We still have the opportunity to invest in such development. Why do people persist in talking about what can be done now with renewables, rather than the potential they hold?

Nothing is going to be handed to us on a plate. Better to develop renewables tech here, and export it when it comes to fruition, than to sit on our hands and have to import it when we reach desperation.

Ian #35 - We have plenty of rivers, and the remains of Victorian water mills can be seen at various places along them. Using these - and new ones - takes the kinetic energy from the river, and could be used for small-scale, local production (tens of kW). Environmental damage is minimal, as the flow is slowed, but not stopped.

I've already been through that with you Duncan#22 and I'm not going to waste my time discussing absurdities like using batteries and hydrogen storage again. Fantasy scenarios designed to deliberately mislead people and hide the true hardcore Green agenda which is ending modernity and returning the working classes back to subsistence agriculture.

Duncan #37 - Well said!

Duncan #22. What's this storage you keep talking about? If you know of some way of storing massive amounts of electricity you would be worth a fortune.

Oh no John #39 - you've seen through my elaborate disguise. Indeed, my hidden agenda is to return the working classes back to subsistence agriculture. I also intend to be worshipped as a human god.

Pillock.

What colour do you get if you mix red and green together?

Yellow. The colour of cowardice.

Charles 33# sorry don't know what you mean - "c) there are only four sites in the UK with a total output of 2778Mw "?

Scottish wind farm output is on http://uk.geocities.com/scotwind06/output and per latest figures is running at just over 2% of generation. Long way to go before greens' policy makes any sense.

Why does everyone assume we've got a "growing need for power"? There are so many easy, cheap and available now things that we can do to reduce our power consumption. Alot quicker and cheaper than building more nuclear - when would the next generation of nuclear power stations be available? What happens in the meantime. And remember nuclear needs uranium, there's not a limitless supply of it in the world.

The Greens have shown themselves to be a sane voice in parliament, working with other parties when they agree with them. Lets have more Greens!

John #39 - Do you think that coal- fired power stations are now the same as they were in Victorian times? Or has there been some fine-tuning of the technology?
Was nuclear power introduced in its current form?

Technology improves almost daily, and some experimental forms do not survive for long, but aid in the progress (remember the wax drums used for the first recordings? It is a variation of that technology which is utilised in the hard disk of your computer!)

Tom #41 - If you had known in the 1930s of a way to create energy from nuclear reactions you would have been worth a fortune too.

I believe that the problem of storage can be solved, and a number of promising options are already on the table.

Progress is not always made in science just because people would like it to happen, Gordon#47. Alchemy never really got anywhere but plenty of people tried.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy

Gordon #35 - As I said we do have a lot of water in Scotland. The idea of using river power for local needs is indeed admirable. But please explain to me how you would provide sufficient power by this means for a city the size of Glasgow or Edinburgh.

I would suggest that their needs could not be met in this way and that by local usage you would mean one or two houses, or at best 20, which do not have any form of industrial needs attached.

These re-newables dreams are just that - dreams that will in a modern world never work.

John #48 - The alchemists did not succeed in producing their desired result (yet!), but many new discoveries did come about through their experiments.

Have you heard of the origins of stainless steel? It was invented by accident, while tests were being performed on new alloys for gun barrels. Discounted as too soft for the purpose, it was left in the waste pile, and was still shiny months later - don't tell me you have nothing made with stainless steel.

Gordon 38# It would take 120,000 10Kw generators to replace Torness. There may be 1000 or so such sites in Scotland but I doubt there are much more.

Have you thought of the effect on wildlife of having every river in Scotland with a turbine in it. This would possibly kill a large percentage of fish. Never mind that the cost of large numbers od small systems would be enormous.

Try and live in the real world.

Ian #49 - Some Victorian mills produced enough power to feed the domestic needs of a village, and that was delivered by mechanical means, so the losses were quite high by modern standards.

I agree that many more plants will be required, and the infrastructure will be quite different from that for a nuclear site, but river power can provide the base load for other renewables as the supply is near constant.

Scorn some of you may, but from where I’m sitting the green party, does a magnificent job with conscience and aforethought for people and planet. Further the correlation between the irresponsible concentration on GDP, as core indicators of success are a massive dishonesty, as is our dependency on nuclear power. There are safer alternatives, however safer alternatives, will not, see the light of day, until the non proliferation of nuclear weapons/power is globally exacted.

We need to start building Torness B now !
Delays will omnly increase costs.
After watching last nights TV on energy blackmail we must secure our energy and that means NP.
If in 100 years or so the fantasy stuff that Scottwebb keeps pushing delivers then all is well if not then we will have secure energy and reduced co2 emissions. Win Win.
Greens are fringe group that are counterproductive to advancing the protection of nature.

Charles #51 - I did not say 10kW max, but in that scale, so some could be in excess of 0.5MW, depending on the location.

If these were of such major ecological harm, would the Victorian remains not have been removed by now?

As for cost, the damming used can last for hundreds of years, with the turbine only needing maintainance. Can you say the same about nuclear sites?

To all the greens out there that live and work in a normal house in or around a normal city - why don't you just switch of all your items powered by electricity now and try living that way for a week.

This means no lights, no telephone, no computer, no television, no heating, no railways, etc. for a whole week.

Go ahead and try it - I guarantee that you will not like it at all. You may even come to realsise how much the modern world depends on it. To guarantee any form of continuity we must have sustainable sources that generate enough power for our needs, and for the next 100 years or so, and at the moment the ony method that is reliable enough is nuclear. Wake up you greens and join the REAL world.

Given the same amount of investment that the taxpayer has put into nuclear, R&D and clean up. Nitrogen technology has the potential to provide us with the capacity we need.

Government and vested interest discredit nitrogen because this allows communities to be autonomous, and control their own energy distribution, consumption and cost. Not tied to a grid where indirect taxation can be cranked up at will.

Energy can be generated at or near to the point of consumption. No massive grid to maintain, no transportation cost for fuel. Look at the pipelines now from the other side of Russia?

What happens when they put their pipeline through to China?

How much carbon have we used building pipelines?

There are people who are getting on and doing hydrogen, whether the government likes it or not.

The nukes argument against windmills is very blinkered and condescending. “The wind does not blow all the time,” WOW really illuminating, I never noticed!

Wind and solar can produce hydrogen, hydrogen can be stored to be burned as fuel. When the wind is not blowing, and the sun not shining, and at the same time. See BP at Peterhead. Also:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/13/green_fuel/
http://www.pure.shetland.co.uk/index.html
http://www.powermag.com/archive_article.asp?a=07-DEPT_GM&...

If this industry were given the same subsidy and government support as nuclear has received in R&D and clean up costs, where would we be in 10 years time with it? Do you think we could produce enough power for our needs? Many people do.

We can also do a lot more about how we use energy, the present building regs. Are not being enforced on some new builds, due

Gordon, People's Republic of Stirling #56 - All land, whether it has a windmill or a nuclear power station, as subject to planning, rent, etc. I think you will also find that in some areas water power was an intermediary.

As far as modern use of these technologies goes, however, they are predominantly used for production of electricity, which is transported by wires, so location with regard to end user is less important.

We also see the start of offshore wind farms, which are currently using only one capture technology. It will not be long before hybrid units, capable of utilising wave and current methods in the same site are used. This will give not only a much larger capacity per site, but reliability also.

ML 44#
I was talking about pump storage. Their are 4 sites in the UK.

Gordon 52#

How many of these sites actually exist?

5 years ago the Hydro board was talking about shutting their smaller schemes as they did not make financial sense and by smaller I am talking about less than 50MW so talking about 0.5Mw systems really is nonsense.

There is a reason that no where in the world does this, that is because it is unworkable. To have tens of thousands of small scheme spread around Scotland would require an army of maintenance workers and a complete re-jig of the grid.

The greens and CND may have laudible intentions but the problem I have with both is that once something has been invented or discovered it cannot be simply
undiscovered or uninvented just because we don't like it.
The atom has been split, so let's work with that as it seems to be the only way to produce enough energy
for this energy greedy species. If we just give up on it we will never develop it to a point where it could become a lot safer than it is now.
Then of course energy is converted when the atom is put back together again, but that project is constantly hampered by government underfunding.

Is it any use being green in the UK any more when the likes of China are building 1 coal fired power station PER DAY!

What we can do is nothing compared to that lot.
Until that & the USA is sorted, we may as well go back to coal ourselves - after all we only have a few dozen.

No us baby boomers who will get the fallout but our kids & gradkid who I feel sorry for.

But going back to the original article - if we have had nuclear power stations since I don't know when - and I stand to be corrected on this - we have had no radioactive issues at all (not from official power stations we haven't) then what is all the fuss about?

Thise who watched Panorama last night saw that our gas is on its way out & we are on the end of a very long pipeline - we need energy of the non CO2 kind to keep us warm at night & to cook with. Lets all get real shall we!

Given the long term contimanated waste problem of nuclear power, alternatives to np must be utilised to the full and with the proper investment for development. However, the world is not frozen in time, things change, so never say never, even to nuclear power. This attempt by the Greens to wheel and deal sums up the narrow thinking of the Greens who are getting completely carried away with the thought of power sharing. Expect the same from all the parties over the next 6 months.

Let's localise power production by bringing back the small gasworks that every town used to have. Using clean-burn coal technology, this would reduce power transportation costs and dependence on Russia and, at the same time, revive the British coal industry. Just think of all the redundant miners desperate to get back down the pit!

Yes Tony just think of the 230 miners that die every year from pnuemonicosis ( did I spell that correctly?) or the thousands that die early due to pollution from burning coal.

64# not enough redundant miners Tony.
Remember miners made redundant are now reaching 70 or are dead.
You will need to import experience from countries such as Hungary and Poland.

Charles #60 - If tens of thousands makes no sense when a few giant ones will do, does that mean that you will give up using the car, and ensure that everyone takes the train?

The logical answer for both transport and electricity production lies somewhere in between.

Just as not everyone can use trains to complete their journey, there are areas which could be energy self-sufficient, on a micro scale.

We already see Scotland producing more power than we need, and "exporting" it to the neighbours: to do likewise on a local - or individual - level would not harm the system, as long as the power transfer is within usable ranges. This is why a buffer system needs to be developed, especially for wind power, to improve predictability.

Arthur #61 - is it not concievable that where energy is emitted during splitting of atoms, energy will be required to put them back together?
(equal and opposite reactions?)

Ian #57 - To supply power for the next hundred years, we would need three generations of nuclear stations, built from scratch.

Hydro dams would last that long, with the only upgrades being turbines as power capture efficiecies are improved.

Overall cost comparison? - especially when you consider the nuclear waste storage.....

Just joking about the miners, of course. But I think that the concept of local power generation, whether from the gasworks or from some other source is the way forward. I don't suppose Scotland would tolerate some wee, local nuclear power stations?

Gordon,
Atomic Fission and Fusion both emit energy as by processes. It is the efficiency of the process that is the problem at present. More research is needed at project
JET on the latter but funding is being withdrawn.

Gordon 68#

Each car needs it's own operator to ensure it works safely. If you are going have tens of thousands of sites how many maintenance staff will you require? Wind turbines only make any financial sense when they produce over a Mega-watt each and are grouped in farms to reduce maintenance and connection costs so how are water turbines any different?

Every country in Western Europe is connected to adjacent countries electrical supplies. This allows peak smoothing and limits the amount of excess power required to cope with problems. It also allows France to export it's cheap nuclear power to England,Germany etc. Scotland is no diferent.

Pepsiholic #18 that was a very interesting link. Thank you. I had heard previously of there being 1 nutural nuclear reactor in west Africa but this takes it much further.

Duncan 46 said
"Tom #41 - If you had known in the 1930s of a way to create energy from nuclear reactions you would have been worth a fortune too.

I believe that the problem of storage can be solved"

This belief is a religious matter, it is neither science nor a sensible basis on which to base Scotland's survival. Even in your own terms you are talking nonsense since nuclear didn't come into large scale use until the 1960s. We cannot freeze in the dark for the next 30 years with blackouts in the hope that something may turn up thereafter.

Storage, alchemy, free energy or fairy dust are currently mythological & can play no part in sane calculations.

Nuclear & coal are the only possible options for large scale production & of those I would call nuclear a no-brainer had not Scotland's political parties, not purely the Greens, managed to exceed that description.

Not while there are irresponsible constitution obsessed politicians like Alex Salmond who see it as a useful wedge issue, Tony#70. If the independence issue were ever settled definitively one way or the other I suspect the political elite in Scotland would have a rapid change of heart on this issue and forge a cross-party consensus minus the Greens.

Actually Neil #73 my belief is highly rational, based on observed current evidence. I am not a religious man.

Storage is not "mythological" - hydrogen cells *work*, electrolyte batteries *work*, potential energy stores *work* and with a little investment they can all be made to work even better.

Localising the sources of supply will do a lot better job at dealing with base load than creating distant power stations which disspate their energy by transporting it via pylons or underground links. Renewables technology is much better suited to localised generation. It's a fact.

Ian #56

There was a Scotsman article a few weeks back in which the green leader above, Robin Harper, was doing his bit as from then by not using his dishwasher anymore! How green is that??! And these jokers want a share of power.

Duncan

The usage of Batteries is increasing all the time, as with the growth of small portable personal electrical equipment, but they can never power the large domestic and industrial equipment. In any case the chemicals used in battery production are not exactly environmentally friendly, and the raw materials are a finite resource.

John #74 - At least in an independent Scotland we could decide for ourselves. If Red Ken had anything to do with it, we would have no option, as the population inside the M25 exceeds that of our country.

Have they thought of using the Thames flood barrier as a power station? Trap the tide at the extremes, and release the pressure through turbines...shipping could be allowed through at off-peak times.

The SE of England has two other problems: drought and coastal erosion.

When flood defences are installed, maybe they should incorporate power capture/production facilities, and desalination plants - or are these too expensive as its easier to get supplies from the spongers!

O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us! - R.B.

Firstly, surely the Greens, to be consistent, should "red line" the housing of Britains nuclear deterrent in Faslane as well?

Secondly, given the Scottish Greens are supporters of Independence, does that mean the English Greens are supporters of an English Parliament?

Any Greens out there want to throw some light (pardon the pun)?

I see you have an admirer in the Daily Record Letters Neil 9%. Pal of yours by any chance?

Is it true that there was a measured increase in temp during the air transport grounding post 9/11?

Old Gord is a bitter auld cooncil worthy with more time and money on his hands than he knows what to do with.

I didn't know people stopped using windmills? Sometimes, the auld ways are the best eh? Fact is, global warming IS happening and when the River Forth starts flooding more often and Gordon's SUV collection gets submerged then maybe he'll realise. Sorry Gord, the earth isn't flat.

Im undecided on the Greens but if they can outlaw SUV ownership in urban areas and give free shrinks to the drivers then they get my vote.

Dave #80 - probably, everyone was at home watching tele & drinking coffee! - we all know that uses so much more energy than flying.

Firstly: Scotland is self sufficient in power and exports surplus over the border.
Second: Scottish Power (who are no daft) are increasing their percentage of renewables year by year.
Third: No household should be wholly reliant on one fuel. I learnt this the hard way with 2 babies in an all electric flat during the miners strike. Everyone should have alternatives for back up. Cities & Countries should also follow this basic rule.
Fourth: If further nuclear development is allowed no money will be put into developing renewables - and no incentives given for solar panels, wee windmills etc.
Fifth: We have already left some legacy to our bairns and grandbairns (think ppfi among others). Please do not burden them with even more nuclear waste.

Sheena #83 - Theoretically we aere self-sufficient. However as you yourself point out we export to the rest of the UK. Believe it or not this renders us liable to have power shortages, etc. Why because the major power generating companies are on the whole controlled by bodies outwith Scotland.

Power is channelled to major industrial and residential areas of England when there are problems leaving us in the dark.

Your 2nd & 4th points may be contradictory.

3rd point - fully agree but even if you use gas it is still controlled via an electrical circuit running to your boiler controls. Alternative could be coal, but that brings problems of pollution.

Point 5 is a joke isn't it? The handling of nuclear waste has changed dramatically since nuclear power was introduced. Long-term storage is no longer the problem it once was.

No No Candles for wigwams too, just the power source
house dwellers will need. Problem solved you're a genius!

Every time nuclear power comes up as a topic a "Mum" appears amongst the contributors worried about her children/grandchidren. These "mums" wouldn't be FoE staffers would they? If so they should desist -especially the male ones-or say who they are honestly.

#84 "Long-term storage is no longer the problem it once was." Another in a long line of statements made on the basis that if you keep saying it it will become true?

Margaret must be New Labour if she wants to deny democratic free speech to Mums. What a ridiculous notion. I'd always thought most Mums worry/care about their kids? Dont you?

Eh hello? The use of inverted comments signifies I don't believe they are real mums (the consistency of "their" contributions is a good clue). It's an old convention that has maybe passed you by.

Dugald MacMillan #85 - the expected problems this year are not due to green policies, but the reliance on a few giant power stations. Two off line, and a problem: what happens when a third has to close, even temporarily?

Ian #84 "Long-term storage is no longer the problem it once was."

No, it has been swept under the carpet, perhaps literally.

I won't be convinced about nuclear power being cheap as long as the companies producing that power are getting millions in handouts to stop them going bust. This has never happened with "normal" suppliers.

All oil companies realise that their current fuel supply will run out eventually, and are diversifying into other power production technologies. I am yet to see one going into nuclear production - maybe because they will not be able to make any profit for their shareholders through that route.

"Margaret" #90 - I'm a father, so maybe you want to discount all my remarks.

"" - same significance

No Gordon I believe you are Gordon. It's just that every time nuclear power comes up as a topic a mum appears always with a different name always saying the same thing. All good fun I suppose but some of us weren't born yesterday.

At the end of the day nuclear will go through as the building and management of anything nuclear is big money for big companies....any discussion on the subject is for no other reason that give the unwashed masses the perception that we have a say on the matter, when the reality is that choice is just an illusion :)

72 CHARLES. Exactly the kind of, inside the box thinking, that is stifling the debate and starving renewables of R&D government funding. You are using propaganda and ghostie stories that the vested interests in the nuclear industry trots out which is condescending and downright insulting. Your argument is flawed.

"Each car needs it's own operator to ensure it works safely. If you are going have tens of thousands of sites how many maintenance staff will you require? Wind turbines only make any financial sense when they produce over a Mega-watt each and are grouped in farms to reduce maintenance and connection costs so how are water turbines any different?"

How on earth do we keep our central heating and air conditioning going. Tens of thousands of them.
What is wrong with a community investing in it's own combined heat and power plant. Running on hydrogen, which is generated by wind, solar, from coal, coal gas. Or having geothermal heating. Or having there own hydro scheme where possible.
What is wrong with me having my own windmill, and solar panels producing hydrogen to provide my own power.
What is wrong with a company having technicians who service and install these systems.
It is the grid dependency mentality that has us now held to ransom by dodgy politicians in far of lands.
Sorry but I see this from a Scottish perspective, I could not care less if the lights go out in England or Europe. Would they if the boot were on tother foot. We have plenty resources and technology to look after our own power needs.
We have the intelligent and gifted people of vision who can turn the next corner for us, we do not need any more nuclear poison plants.

Margaret #94 - Now I'm confused.

You berate another female - lets give her the benefit of any doubt - but you seem to have no opinions of your own to give.

Please enlighten us as to your views.

Margaret 94 - I suppose I am the 'mum' in question at the moment and no I never post under another name as I am not ashamed of my opinions. And no again, I do not work for friends of the earth. The reason you keep seeing comments from concerned mums is because there are a lot of us about and we have a lot to be concerned about. Mums and dads are automatically more concerned about the welfare of their children than their own welfare, needs and wants. It just goes with the territory. BTW where is your constructive contribution to this debate?

Duncan #96 - Stop putting OR between each renewable option, please, as the more variety we have, the better.

66
Here we go again CHARLES. Ghostie stories and propaganda. These figures come from an era. that has passed. Technology and health and safety has moved on and you know it, you will be quoting deaths from the plague next.
" Yes Tony just think of the 230 miners that die every year from pnuemonicosis ( did I spell that correctly?) or the thousands that die early due to pollution from burning coal."

99 Yes Gordon

#98 Sheena ok I apologise - you are obviously genuine. How old are your children now?

"77ARTHUR. The usage of Batteries is increasing all the time, as with the growth of small portable personal electrical equipment, but they can never power the large domestic and industrial equipment. In any case the chemicals used in battery production are not exactly environmentally friendly, and the raw materials are a finite resource."
No one would suggest running a factory on batteries. Try a combined heat and power plant. Run on hydrogen. Made by it's own solar panels and windmills. Backed up by it's own geothermal heat pump and high quality insulation and air heat transfer pumps. Beats having a nuclear poison plant on a beautiful beach in Scotland supplying power to England and leaving us with the waste. And be sure of this when they come to the decision on waste it will be in Scotland, if we are still part of the DisUnited Kingdom.

Duncan/Arthur

http://www.coate.org/jim/ev/tractors/index.html

Electric car anybody? Battery technology is coming on leaps and bounds.

As for hydrogen, as I've said before, if you have a problem with nuclear, you will have a problem with storing something that wants to convert from liquid to gass at a ratio of 1:2500 and instantaneous at that. Plus, it has to be sub 0 temp storage. How does one ensure a contiuous cold supply i.e. refrigeration?

There are many ways of temporarily storing energy - even a spring does that - the problem is to find enough ways so that each application uses the most suitable method.

Hydrogen could have a significant use as a replacement for petrol, as most IC engines could be converted. It is unlikely that it will be useful for high power usage in the near future.

Storage methods restricting the release speed have advanced dramatically over the past few years, so the likelihood of a "Hindenburg" is much reduced.

So the greens only have 1 red line issue - new nuclear power. They are prepared to 'negotiate' on all the others - i.e. sell out on all the others. So get into bed and support a party like Labour that took us into an illegal war in Iraq, is daily denying our civil liberties, introduced tuition fees and top up fees in the UK, sells peerages for party donations. And in order to stop new nuclear power the Greens will back an annual budget. Do these cretins not realise that the annual budget is what supports all the things that they say they don't like - roads, airports, prisons, police etc etc. The greens will be punished severely by the electorate for engaging in this kind of sell out behaviour

Apologies if I have missed mention of this but surely it isn't, in any case, within the First Minister's power, nor the Scottish Executive's, to say 'no' to nuclear power?

Energy policy is a reserved matter for Westminster. The Scottish Executive would be involved in arrangements for the planning regime but I am guessing that it would not be legally possible for the Scottish Executive to object to nuclear power on the basis of a principled argument about the merits (or not) of nuclear power - it would be acting beyond its powers to reject nuclear power on this basis and so the Greens could ask for all they like at Holyrood but, in this case, any promise wouldn't be in the gift of the First Minister.
http://thethimble.blogspot.com/

Duncan (#42 et al) you may want to disassociate yourself from that portion of the Green movement which espouses neo-primitivism. But to an external observer the policies of the green party increasingly seem more concerned with opposing industrial development than in protecting the environment. Given that nuclear power is among the most effective generating technologies for reducing CO2 emissions, it seems curious that the Greens obstinately oppose it while they wring their hands about climate change.
Perhaps it is due the guilty feeling that if they had not opposed nuclear in the past we might not be in our current predicament.
Surely it is obvious that nuclear power should be encouraged, along with whatever renewable technologies can be made effective. I share your hopes for storage technology - and while this is essential to make many renewable technologies reliable, it will also be a tremendously useful addition to all generating technologies including nuclear power. I don't think R&D on storage has been stifled - it is simply hard to achieve on a large scale.

For those who think Margaret overly cynical & FoE would never dream of packing any discussio see this on their packing of BBC & Herald polls.

http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2006/02/nuclear-poll...

Thanks Dave #80, I did have a letter in the record recently, based on some stuff I had put on this site a couple of days previously.

I also have one in the Herald today in response to a letter from Tavish Scott saying what good value for money a rail tunnel under Edinburgh Airport would be.

Duncan I'm glad you agree that "nobody would try running a factory on batteries because they can't hold enough power. Would you now accept that it would be an even more foolish policy to run Scotland by depending on batteries?

Colin #108 - Storage of large amounts of power in the form of electricity has been sought for many years, and would be helpful.

The traditional production methods take a material with a significant power potential - petrol, gas, coal, wood, uranium, etc - and use this to create electricity in a form we can use, AND at the time we need (want) it.

Currently, the renewable industry, with the exception of dammed hydro, uses the fuel - wind, wave, water flow, solar - when it is available, and turns it directly into electricity.

While this is the most efficient way to convert from one form to another, the product must be used straight away. Introducing an intermediate stage, where the power is stored as potential energy would allow a smoothing of the supply.

This could be likened to the sale of fresh vegetables, which have a short shelf-life, as compared to frozen, which can be stored until needed.

#109

a) There is more than one Duncan posting here. There are clues as to which each one is. I shall leave it as an exercise for you to work out what they are. :-)

b) I have never suggested depending on batteries. You never actually engage on what I do suggest - a combination of large-scale off-shore wind, tidal and wave generation, and localised generation close to the source of demand by wind and solar, all of which can use a variety of storage options to provide continuity of supply, and all of which would benefit hugely from the levels of funding currently given to oil, gas and nuclear technology.

I posted this reply already and saw it on the page - where did it go?

To Margaret: It takes a big person to apologise - thank you. How old my bairns are is irrelevant but for the record they are now in their thirties. However first granchild is due soon and the prospect fairly concentrates the mind on long term remedies rather than quick fixes.

Want to make some money? Invest in Uranium companies - producers and explorers. Supply of Ur is finite and it takes years for a new mine to enter production and refining. At the moment there are over one hundred nuc power stations being built and many more in planning so demand for ur is compounding, price of the commodity has trebled in a couple of years and should treble again in the same time period or less.
A no brainer.

Duncan #111
"There is more than one Duncan posting here. There are clues as to which each one is"

May I suggest that you identify yourself in some way, such as location or an extended name. I have previously been advised that Duncan the Idiot (Duncan #46 whom my previous answers were directed at) is one of a platoon of archnemesii haunting this site.

DAVE 104
Please Dave if you have not done so go to the Pure Shetland site. They are doing it now, they have no major storage problems. I don't know where you get this sub zero storage business from?
http://www.pure.shetland.co.uk/
If hydrogen is such a no no, then why are the biggest multi national on earth, BP, using it in power stations. Peterhead and Carson California.
http://www.bpalternativenergy.com/liveassets/bp_internet/...
Must be something there if BP are hedging there bets?There are new storage systems a few years away, ie. pellets!
Your Hydrogen v Nuclear is a bit of a red herring. The residue left behind is my issue with nuclear. we are leaving poison for our kids which they will not thank us for. If Scotland remains in the DisUnited Kingdom we will have the UKs waste buried here. If New Labour remain in power. (Which I hope they don't.) Scotland is/was regarded as expendable by the unionist state. Which is why we come to have a disproportionate amount of UKs nuclear missiles here. And an experimental fast breeder reactor that has left a legacy of poison, contaminating our shoreline and our atmosphere. And costing us billions to clean up, money that should be going on renewables R&D. On the basis of Dounreay alone I will never trust these people with anything, they are not fit to run a bouncy castle. The Pro Nuclear arguments saying nuclear has never done us any harm is just pure naked propaganda. Information is manipulated and suppressed. Vested interests see to that. It is an industry all on it's own.

Gordon, you have much time on your hands obviously but few solutions of your own to global warming. Of course though, it either isn't happening or else YOU'RE not to blame.

The issue of nuclear waste is one that i can't see being solved plus the risk of accident is just horrific to contemplate. Dounreay leaked all over the place, Sellafield/Windscale wasn't much better. At least wave machines going wrong don't pose much of a threat.

A combination of renewable energy on a local level (wind turbines and solar panels on all schools, office blocks and many homes) plus considerate use of current resources would i beleive solve our problems. Problem is, there's just so many selfish people, 4x4 drivers being some of the chief culprits.

Gordon, The People's Republic of Stirling #118 - The storage methods, and use, were not so good though!

Also, how can you expect new technologies to have a proven track record? I suppose you would have been anti-nuclear if this debate had been in the 50's?

Perhaps the reason that the data is not being released is that BP want to be market leaders in the technology, and don't want to give too much away too soon. Its all about money, after all.

I think the Greens should be listened to , but in the end , decisions on energy, must be through debate based on facts in the Scottish Parliament and not taken elswhere. Hopefully Scotland will get rid of Joke McConnell and his band of misfits, who dont seem to take responsabilty. Energy resources and production is very important matter (especially if you saw last nights Panorama) which has to be taken by Scots for Scots and not left to see what Westminster conjures up with Blair/Brown . Remember if Labour loose the UK election you will end up with your friend Dave 'Hug a Hoody' Cameron, shudder at that thought!
Its up to Scottish Government (pre or post develotion) to explore all options. Scotland may have to include Nuclear power as part of the energy provision as well as renewable sources

Duncan (on tour, #103) the concept of a factory running on hydrogen generated from its own renewable sources is appealing until you look at the figures. Hydrogen, as a storage medium, is about 20% efficient. That is, for every kWh you put into hydrogen, you get about 0.2kWh out. The capacity factor for wind and other renewables is (optimistically) 30% if you site the factory in an optimal place for the renewable source. So in total, if you use renewables to create hydrogen to provide power you need 16 or 17 kWh of renewables plant to produce 1kWh of electricity. Admittedly, you gain some by using combined heat and power from the hydrogen, but even so the efficiency is not great. This is why nobody with a decent grid supply would do this.
The technology to produce hydrogen by electrolysis is not new. The technology to generate electricity from wind is not new. All of this could have been done a century ago, long before nuclear power. It just isn't sensible when there are better solutions available. I will grant that hydrogen has possible uses as a transport fuel, where it is not practical to use the grid. But even here, the most efficient way to make it is by using a high temperature nuclear reactor.
Your fears over nuclear waste are a generation out of date. As a child of the generation who developed nuclear power I am glad that my parent's generation chose to develop it and contain the waste. I am annoyed at those who opposed it and by doing so encouraged haphazard use of fossil fuel and the consequent legacy of fossil fuel waste in the atmosphere.

Gordon, The People's Republic of Stirling #122 - The only way to get noticed these days is to shout about it. If the best always won, would "Windows" still be around? or Ford?

As for solar panels, they would block out all the light coming into a greenhouse. If you are near Napier Uni in Edinburgh, one wall of the tower has been covered in PV cells - great for powering some computers, but they have not yet got round to fitting double glazing, which would save vastly more energy.

There will always be drawbacks with any technology, but to be successful these will be played down. With nuclear, the problems are not seen, and can take many years for adverse results to show - if they are not hidden from the public. This unseen menace is disregarded by some, and blown up out of proportion (maybe) by others.

Wind farms have the obvious visual impact, and the fact that power capture can only take place when the wind blows within certain ranges.

Nothing is perfect, just some things are less perfect than others.

Colin, can you explain your two bald statistics please? What do you mean by "hydrogen, as a storage medium, is about 20% efficient"? On what basis do you make that claim? And similarly, what is this "capacity factor" of 30% for "wind and other renewables"? What is it that all renewable energy sources - wind, wave, tidal, hydro, solar, geothermic - do at 30%?

Sheena - you never had bairns cold and in the dark because of a miners strike no way!
Yer bairns are not old enough.

Colin, like nearly everbody on the planet, thinks that wind turbines have capacity factor of 30%.

It is true that wind turbines have a 'capacity factor' of 30% based on the aggregated total of mechanical power developed over the course of a year. The resulting electrical capacity factor is around 10%. The lost mechanical power is made up by taking electricity off the grid to compensate.

Storage of electricity is expensive and stupid - storing it as heat BEFORE converting it to electricity is the answer.

I'm not sure why your nuclear plants in England are having financial problems, over here in the states, we make more money for our company than our coal plants do. This is WITH money for waste disposal and for decommissioning costs being paid.

I keep on hearing "problems with nuclear waste". The only problem with waste is getting it buried. The radiation level goes down by a factor of 1,000 in 40 years. You then melt it into glass and then enclose that in stainless steel drums and bury a mile underground. Problem solved.

Remember... there are 15 natural reactors in Africa that were "activated" by rainwater. You don't see "death zones" from the radioactive waste or 6 legged zebras do you??? In fact, radioactivity wasn't even detected outside the area.

Yes, Chernobyl was a disaster. That is what you get when you build on the cheap (typical of Russia) and don't follow procedures. If radiation was/is so bad...not to sound callus but how long was Hirosima and Nagasaki evacuated after it was bombed? Oh... it wasn't...rebuilding started immediately.

Other than Chernobyl, how many lives has commercial nuclear power killed? We had Three Mile Island here in the states and not a single person died from it. After that, every plant in the states spent millions on improvements to ensure it doesn't happen again. There are over 440 nuclear plants operating safely throught the world today.

127 - Winter 1973 - was warned when I arrived at the hospital in labour that there might be brief intervals of emergency lighting until the stand by generators kicked in. Back home to timed rota cuts. I remember it well. You are right that my new baby and toddler were never in the cold and dark as we bundled them up and moved to my mums when the power was due to go off. Luckily she was in another zone.
What is up with the posters today - first I'm accused of being a man and not a mum at all and now I can't remember when my children were born. Retired miner why not have a go at Guga, or do you really believe that is his name and that he lives on Rockall?

I have a question for all you guys that think that renewables and storage is the answer.

What would happen in your world if you had a week in which it was cloudy with no wind??? How long would your "storage" last?

There is only one reliable "renewable" energy. Geothermal. All others can be disrupted by mother nature.

COLIN 124
The point that I am always making is levels of investment. Nuclear power distorts the playing field, due to vested interest, it is not level.
How efficient is nuclear power in terms of money spent on R&D and clean up?
Are we getting value for money?
If some brave government said, "we will give hydrogen equal billing with nuclear power." Do you think it is conceivable that they will come up with the goods, I do?
Was it conceivable in the 50s that we would split the atom and generate almost free clean electricity?
Well the first part of that came true.
The spin of was weapons powerful enough to exterminate ourselves hundreds of times over, and the way it is shaping we will. So what was the point?
You say that my thinking on nuclear waste is a generation out of date.
Nuclear poison lasts for thousands of years, so give me a break. Google Chernobyl!

Can you give me a reference for the figures you quote regarding the efficiency of hydrogen?

Here is a Danish company that does not share your view. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050907102549...

BP and other companies are not pursuing this if it is a non starter, that is just not viable or conceivable.

There are people, (3 that I know of in Scotland,) who have built hydrogen generators, and run a car in one case and a landrover and a van on hydrogen generated from water carried on board the vehicle. They do not like to tell people as it is would you believe illegal to do this without declaring it to the IR. The worst problems they face is corrosion on the exhaust side of the engine, as the by product is water. How good is that, fill up with water.
http://www.texol.co.uk/texol_gasgen.htm
Report Unsuitable

Duncan,

Since part of our cost for cleanup is included in our custome's bill and we are still competative with coal. I'd say we are providing value for the money.

Pepsiholic, States #131 - And the tides stop when?

http://www.wam-a-bam.com/hydrockickbank.html?hop=yuparach

RUN YOUR CARS ON WATER, BUT DON'T TELL THE INLAND REVENUE.

Yes Duncan, your thinking is way out of date. I'm a nuclear chemist working at a nuclear power plant so I'm sure that I know way more about Chernobyl, nuclear power, cost benefit ratio's, disposal costs, waste burial methods than you do.

If anyone wants to see that waste from the Oklo natural reactors stayed in an area and was zero threat to anyone here is the link: [http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml]

Gordon. How much electricity does your country use and how much does tide machines produce? And... doesn't the tides change just twice a day?

http://www.wam-a-bam.com/Newscb.html

IT'S TRUE!

Pepsiholic, Geothermal is not really a true renewable because the water temperature falls over time in the same location. Tidal stream energy alone could keep a fairly large thermal store at an almost constant temperature with dTs <1C.

Don't bother rushing out to get a patent on this idea - it has already been invented - by a Scot!

Pepsiholic.

So you say, Mr. Nuclear Chemist if indeed you are. makes me wonder what the hell you are doing on a site like this.
I read about the natural reactors today.
They have nothing to do with the folly of mankind.

Pity you chose to make assumptions about how much you know versus how much I know, kind of playground stuff that isn't it. You can have no way of knowing what I do and what my level of knowledge is, and I am leaving that open for the obvious.

We are not worthy.

Duncan,

Of course it's true, we already have cars in the states that run on hydrogen.

Let's remind ourselves what a nuclear power plant does. It uses a controlled thermo-nuclear chain reaction to, wait for it, boil water to raise steam!

Instead of this ludicrous method of boiling water why don't we use renewables to do just that.

Easy peasy.

Andrew,

Are you familiar with old faithful?

And we have several geothermal plants and they don't have problems with dropping temperatures.

Duncan...pretty safe assumption... on what you don't know... I've seen your wrigtings/rantings.

And excuse me but... what type of site is this??? Is it a far left nutcake site that I shouldn't be on?

Duncan (#126), you lose energy when using electrolysis to create hydrogen (25%-30% efficient i.e. you lose up to three-quarters of the energy). You lose energy again when you convert hydrogen back to electricity (e.g. in a fuel cell, which is perhaps 75% efficient). The combined result is about 20% efficiency.
The 30% "capacity factor" is the proportion of energy that you actually get from a wind generator compared to what you could theoretically get if it ran at its maximum rated output all the time. 30% is generous in that it assumes the turbines are sited in a good location, which might not always be the case if they are next to a factory as in the hypothetical example.
The capacity factor of PV solar panels in the UK would probably be worse than 30%.
So what I'm saying in my previous post is that if the factory needed 1kW of continuous electricity from generated/stored hydrogen, you'd need wind turbines theoretically capable of generating 16 or 17kW (at full power) to make the hydrogen. If it was running off nuclear electricity from the grid you'd need generating capacity theoretically capable of about 1.3kW for each 1kW (assuming 85% capacity factor for nuclear, and 10% transmission loss).

If you can find anything to suggest that hydrogen storage can be better than this (without using high temperatures to make the hydrogen) I would be genuinely interested to hear about it.

I'm not disputing that hydrogen has potential as a transport fuel. That is a different proposition. But using it to store electricity is not sensible in situations where you could attach to the grid.

Andrew,

Why would you use wind power to boil water?

I can remember being a bairn cold and in the dark in the early 70s redundant miner#127 in a council flat where the only energy available for heating, cooking and light was by electricity. Wound up doing my homework using a torch. The shape of things to come for future generations if the Greens manage to get their way by limiting access to both fossil fuels and nuclear.

Look, no one has ever said nuclear power is 100% safe. Is flying a plane 100% safe? How about driving in a car? Everything in life is a risk. But, you have people though that think that nuclear power is the greatest evil around but lets look at facts. Nuclear power is a tool just like cars and planes are. Here in the states, I think deaths by automobiles is around 40,000 a year. Airplane deaths 200. Deaths from nuclear power is zero.

I am perpetually amazed at the number of Orwellian Socialists living in the Anti-Nuclear 1960's.

Greenies, desiring to be archaic - to return to a stoneage culture at one with nature - living in a gur or tipi - squatting outside in the cold with a lifespan of 25, offer no viable alternatives excluding the death of millions.

Nuclear, solar, wind, tidal, biogas, geomagnetic, geothermal use it all . Petroleum and coal are far too valuable for other purposes to waste by burning them up. Better to change attitudes and technology reaching for the stars than to stultify in your own midden

Pepsiholic, States #137 - Tidal power machines can produce electricity for 4 of each 6 hours, as they rely on the movement of water. Power is too little in most cases when the tide is either in or out. Wave machines can collect at all times.

One of the problems with nuclear is that when the plant needs to shut down, a vast amount of power is lost from the grid. In the USA this might not be a problem (except in California?), but here each nuclear plant provides ~10% of output.

Much better to have more small units, so maintainance or repair is less likely to coincide. Two reactors down in the UK over the winter could lead to major shortages.

Duncan (on tour #132), levels of investment in renewables have not been too shabby in the last 25 years, and have been pretty darned good in the last 5 years.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf68.htm
Yes, nuclear fission has had much more investment, but it arguably has greater potential, rapidly growing to 16% of world electricity. If you exclude hydro (which is a great source of electricity) the amount of energy we get from renewables worldwide is still very close to zero (actually around 1%). There is nothing to suggest that a vast amount of additional funding would help renewables research. The basic science that underlies it is well established. It doesn't need money for research, it needs everlasting operating subsidy.

BP's enthusiasm for hydrogen is, at the moment, based around extracting hydrogen from natural gas. This process produces CO2 which is then sequestered - as proposed at Peterhead. It is cleaner than burning gas, but not exactly sustainable for the long term. They call it a hydrogen power station, but really it is a somewhat cleaned-up fossil fuel power station.

Long-term adoption of hydrogen to replace petroleum for transport will need unimaginably large amounts of energy to create the hydrogen. It is inconceivable that this could all come from renewable sources any time soon.

I think that there is a good chance that any country that decides to opt for hydrogen will use nuclear power to generate the hydrogen. There are a few notable exceptions where a reliable source of renewable electricity is available, such as geothermal in Iceland. But on the whole, the best way to make hydrogen on a large scale without producing CO2 is by using a nuclear reactor.

Andrew (#128), if it is possible to store heat efficiently for later use to make electricity, why do thermal plants not do this already? It would be tremendously useful if a nuclear power station could store heat during the night and release it to make electricity during the day. If it was efficient to do this I think we would be doing it already. What makes you think heat is a good way to store energy?

Colin,

Yes, the next generation of nuclear plants are going to be around 600 MW I believe. The graphite design can also be refueled without reducing power. Another nice thing about the next generation of power plants. They are going to be cookie cutter design. All of them the same which will bring costs way down.

Thermal storage is used in fossil fuel power stations to aid start ups. However, because hard cash has to be paid for the fuel it has a bad press because of losses. If a renewable such as tidal stream is used to heat the water - for free this time - then it matters not if there are some losses because you are tapping into an infinite resource. I have actually done the maths on this - and delta T is quite small over the lunar cycle with Spring tide excesses carrie forward into Neaps.

For obvious reasons I cannot show you my spread sheet that took me over two years to develop-but you can do the maths yourself if you wish.

I never did say that wind could be used my Amercan friend. Wind power is so pathetic that you should read some of my letters on the subject.

http://www.shetland-news.co.uk/pages/opinion_debate/energ...

I believe that converting all forms of renewable energy into heat storage is the key to saving our planet. Nuclear has had its day.

Andrew (#154), if your idea works I think the nuclear industry would be interested. The fuel cost for nuclear is very low and the plants run constantly overnight producing electricity that is virtually worthless because the demand is low. If they could store the heat for eight hours and use it to generate peak electricity they could make a fortune.

Colin, I agree - even if the feedwater temperature is raised by a few degrees using tidal stream and/or wave energy, the existing fossil fuel power station will burn a lot less fuel to raise water temperature up to its operational temperature.

Eventually, it will dawn on the operators that it would be cheaper to raise the temperature all the way and store it overnight for peak load generation during the daytime.

I think Gordon of Stirling is on this forum 24/7. He never actually has any positive alternative viewpoints to offer, just whinging. I think the solar panel/wind turnbine idea should be implemented immedietly, and yes, with double glazing on the windows too.

Nuclear is just too dodgy. It's one 'new' technology i am suspicioius off, so im with Gordon Stirling on that one. Wind and sun have always been here and are clean and free. Common sense really.

s, wind turbines produce electricity for less than 10% of the year. However, they do produce worthless mechanical power for 30% of the year.

Send me an email to solutions@greenheating.com

and I will send you an Excel spreadsheet that proves that the wind industry is 'at it'

Ken, let's not bother using taxpayers' money - we can use our own money to build machines that will work - a 500kW machine will earn £200,000 per year at a construction cost of £50,000 tops.

Perhaps you are an accountant and cannot see the bottom line!

Tom, in Bangkok, spot on analysis. i guess you must be on your gap year because you don't seem to understand energy supply! The greens are at least looking to the future, clean coal is a better bet than Nuclear and it is where HMG and the EU are betting big bucks.

the future of energy supply is diffuse small scale sites that contribute a little to make a lot. Those who say that wind is 'unreliable' plainly do not know that at any one time only half of the UK's nuclear power plants are actually 'on'. Given the megabucks involved, thats a big waste!

Gordon, People's Republic of Stirling #153 - Wave machines are floating units, and could go adrift in storms, although to get the best performance they need to be securely anchored.

Tidal stream production uses equipment which is fixed to the sea bed, and is unaffected by storms.

There are also generators which are fitted into breakwaters, and can produce electricity round the clock.

Sheena - you clearly live and breathe the propaganda fed to you.
There was no miners strike in 1973 so your bairns were at no risk because of us.
Please check facts and do some questioning of things before you spout off.
You support wind energy - a wastefull and least productive way to supply energy and also an imported technology providing no future adavancement for the energy needs of the people.

Don't worry lads and lasses, Prinzowhales to the rescue! I've just invented a prophylactic that will convert friction to electricity and transmit it to the grid, so go out, buy a gross and light up the night sky like an aurora borealis...or australis for any Kiwis and the like who do it standing on their heads!

There is nothing fossil-fuel free about Nuclear power, if you inform yourselves about how it is mined and transported, and where it comes from. Just because the fossil fuel emissions to obtain the uranium are produced in Australia or Canada, doesn't make them leave the Earth's atmosphere, and they will STILL cause global warming, even if the uranium doesn't produce emissions in Scotland..Phony Tony is feeding you more spin, and you are believing it because you want to, as you believed him in the first place when he conned you into electing him. He probably has lots of Uranium shares.Why don't people do a bit of investigating for themselves?Cars can be run on digester gas, as the Swedish people are doing, and as Maltin is doing in Somerset, and this is a perpetual supply. We have to use allthe different kinds of alternatives, and reduce our demand, too.

who is this idiot in the mirror? I seek like minds on foreign lands andi am still affronted with the chimp?

i am more european than the europeans complainto me I savor the greivances

My uncle wired the cyclatoron. We own therights on nuclear bombs. since it is all my intellectual property I am recalling all nuclear technology. anyone who pretends to use nuclear weapons henceforard has to answer to me.

Duncan mate

I don't have a nuclear versus hydrogen argument. What I was trying to point out was if you think nuclear is a bad idea essentially because of human fallability, the same must be thought of hydrogen on a large basis. To keep hydrogen liquid, it must be cold by the way. I'm well aware of the Shetland concept as they propose to do something similar on Lewis. I support your argument for localised generation and usage, but I do not support largescale, industrial generation.

Redundant Miner 163

"Sheena - you clearly live and breathe the propaganda fed to you.
There was no miners strike in 1973"

Nice one. So Margaret was right.

Confused. What use does wind energy have today - without any storage solutions, without any of the alternative renewable technologies (wind, tidal etc), without local distribution networks?
How many fossil fuel or nuclear power stations could be shut down and replaced using the wind energy technology we have available today?
Why are the greens so intent on promoting a technology (wind energy) that needs to be supported by either nuclear or carbon emitting fossil fuel technologies?
Why do so many people believe it's renewables or/v nuclear/fossil fuel?
I just don't get it.

There was no miners strike in 1973 so your bairns were at no risk because of us.
Please check facts and do some questioning of things before you spout off
NEIL - PLEASE CHECK YOUR FACTS
why not google 1973 - miners strike or 1973 power cuts. I remain astounded at all these accusations of not being who I am.
and Redundant Miner - my original comment was not meant to chastise miners but rather Ted Heath's government and their handling of the power crisis at that time. In spite of your rudness to me personally, having grown up in a mining village (Tullibody) I have every respect for miners and believe they were used by first their own (Arthur Scargill et al) and then by Maggot Thatcher in pursuit of their personal political agendas.

143 PEPSIHOLIC. That Pepsi has done you no good. Talking of seeing writing/ranting. All I have seen in yours is rhetoric, so your point is?

"Duncan...pretty safe assumption... on what you don't know... I've seen your wrigtings/rantings."

Sheena the 1973 Miner's strike which caused all those blackouts & allegedly so memorably interfered with the birth of your child happened in 1974.

Ask your mother. I take it she isn't a Green like you or she would have been able to help you.

Lucy (173) the small amount of wind power we have at the moment just means we burn a bit less fossil fuel. When the wind blows, the gas and/or coal plants can turn down a little. You are correct that wind power in its current form won't see the removal of any power stations - it will just mean a bit less fossil fuel being burned. It's quite an expensive way of reducing CO2 emissions. At the current level it provides about 3-4% of Scotland's electricity, so it is quite long way from being as significant as nuclear (40%) despite the deceptively large number of turbines.

You are also correct that it shouldn't really be seen as a wind vs nuclear argument at all. Even the BWEA admits that wind farms are not there to replace nuclear power, as the Green fantasy would have you believe. Wind farms cannot provide consistent base-load electricity. Conversely nuclear power stations cannot readily follow peak demand - they tend to run at maximum or not at all. So the two technologies hardly compete.

Broadly speaking, if there is a dichotomy it is between wind vs gas for peak load, and coal vs nuclear for base load. But in reality we can expect a mix: nuclear base-load; wind when it works; and fossil fuel (possibly with carbon capture) to fill in when the wind doesn't blow.

Colin, Glasgow #177 - "Wind farms cannot provide consistent base-load electricity."

YET! - it is only a matter of time until some storage system is invented, and will also increase the energy capture capabilities.

Tidal stream & wave power have a much better base load capability, but are not as advanced and do not get the same subsidies.

A case of the early bird...

Colin (177) - thanks. Can wind energy (todays technology) ever meet our peak load demands? What installed capacity would be required?
I desperately need to be persuaded that there are some very sound arguments in favour of continuing with what I consider to be the savage destruction of our landscapes. The wind energy developing sharks are circling my county - 3 operational windfarms, 3 approved awaiting construction and countless others in planning, scoping.
It breaks my heart to think our wonderful, unique, wild land is being destroyed on the back of lies and deceit by politicians, greens & developers. It would be bearable (almost) if it was the answer to our energy and climate change problems.
What I still don't understand is why, if everyone knows we need coal (a cleaner version) and nuclear (also a cleaner version), are we bothering with wind turbines at all given the huge footprint and piffling amount of electricity produced? Please excuse my naivety but I can't believe that anyone really thinks wind energy is the answer - just take a look at countless 'independant' reports including those from the wind industry itself. Surely people are not so gullible as to accept without question what is reported?
Can we not call a halt to wind energy until all the other components required to make it a viable renewable alternative are developed and in place? Please??

Lucy #179 - The government is partly to blame for this, as the grants for renewables are paid by the installed power - the bigger the turbine, the more is paid. Where other forms are losing out is that they give reasonable output for a longer time, but the maximum output is not as high.

What would be better is if the grants were given for the annual output, as this would level the playing field and show that the current wind farms are not nearly as useful as they appear on paper, using the current (grant) rules.

30 I cant believe you posted that! The point is as I said (try reading it again)that scientists are divided but there is growing evidence that global warming is a reality. Until such time as the position is much clearer it makes sense to play safe and assume that those scientists who support the global warming claims are correct because WE DONT KNOW that they are wrong,and informed opinion (im talking about scientists not Wullie frae Glebe Street ie) are increasingly coming to the conclusion that global warming, melting of the polar ice cap, flooding and deserts spreading are happening and there must be a reason for it. IF we adopt your attitude we could destroy one third of this planet as far as being fit to live on in the next 50 years,Where do you suppose we should go then? Some scientists think we have already exceeded the point of no return but they are not 100% certain.If they dont know in any certainty(and they deal with this every day) it makes far more sense to listen to them than listen to you who apparently cannot understand a simple point of safety first! Have you never heard of Ca Canny? Its a simple enough concept to grasp for everybody else.

Colin.
You have made the point about wind turbines being 30% efficient. I agree. There is not to my knowledge yet a 100% efficient machine, although there are claims from some garden shed inventors. Most great ideas start there. (Harley Davidson.)
I remain convinced that given proper honest and transparent support. To the same level as nuclear has had, that Hydrogen is the way forward.
At the end of the day I suppose it comes down to how many £s you put in to the amount you get out.
There are engines running on hydrogen generation on demand, which comes straight of the alternator, and the emissions are H20 and O2, what a way to clean the atmosphere. There is a lot of this on You Tube.
What do you think of this?

Hydrogen Generator Saves 20% - 90% Fuel and Increases Power
00:43
Gorilla Developers has been working on creating a method of extracting Hydrogen from water and an electrolyte solution.

This has now ... all » been achieved. See the video to understand the incredible volume of Hydrogen being extracted. Gorilla Developers has been working on creating a method of extracting Hydrogen from water and an electrolyte solution.

This has now ... all » been achieved. See the video to understand the incredible volume of Hydrogen being extracted.

How is this achieved? Using 30 amps from your alternator on standard vehicles for the 20-Cell electrolyzer we weave this energy Through an over 40 stainless steel plates which extract the Hydrogen necessary to aid in increased fuel combustion efficiency.

What does this mean to me? Your vehicle will have substantially increased fuel combustion. [Most vehicles only burn less than 50% of the fuel injected into your cylinder because of a lack of Oxygen and Hydrogen] The lower your mileage directly relates to the lack of your engines efficiency. Increasing the efficiency of the burn provides a requirement of less fuel [less pedal being required to achieve/maintain sp

oops!

Duncan (on tour), just to clarify 30% capacity factor (for wind turbines) is not the same as 30% efficiency. I was not referring to the efficiency of converting the mechanical energy of the wind into electrical energy. The capacity factor just averages out the (un)availability of the wind - a 1kW turbine generates 0.3kW on average. Sometimes it's 1kW, sometimes it's nothing at all. A storage system allows this to be evened-out, but you still need the extra turbines to keep the store topped up.

I don't know what to make of your hydrogen electrolyser link. It doesn't give quite enough information to say where the energy is coming from. It seems to be an adjunct to the standard petrol engine in a car, which makes the engine burn fuel more efficiently. I can see two ways where it might be helping: firstly it uses some of the excess energy from the alternator, which would otherwise be lost as heat. This is used to drive the elecrolyser to create a little more fuel (hydrogen and oxygen). This might help reduce emissions if the gadget doesn't add too much weight to the vehicle.

The second way that it could help is that the additional oxygen would make the car burn more of its petrol. The proportion of fuel that is successfully burned would be higher, so you would need less fuel. The downside is that I suspect the amount of emissions (CO2 etc) would also increase as you burn more of your fuel. So it would save money, but not necessarily help emissions.

Colin, the efficiency or not of a machine seem sto be at the heart of the renewable controversy.
The internal combustion engine is anything from 20% to at best 50% efficient depending on make fueletc. Yet there are hundreds of millions of them in the world, and we have done ok with them.
I have no idea how efficient a nuclear plant is in reality, not on paper! Do you measure it as to what it cost to build and develop and feed it?
We hear a lot now about the amount of carbon it takes to make an object!
It just seems as if people use different yardsticks for different arguments. Even the experts argue about these things and cannot seem to have a common thread to there measuring. So if you are pro something you use this one if you are anti something that one.
Anyways here is some interesting videos!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2464139837181538044
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXbDy-BgQqc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj5tXP4AO0I

Duncan, economic efficiency is more of a deciding factor than energy efficiency. Any thermal system is likely to be woefully energy inefficient because most of the energy is lost as heat. This goes for nuclear power stations too. A pressurised water reactor (PWR) only converts about 30% of the available energy into useful electricity. The Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors (AGR) that make up most of Britich Energy's fleet are better designed for energy efficiency and can push 40% or 45%. But they are so complex and heavily engineered that they are expensive to maintain. With cheap fuel (and nuclear fuel is very cheap) it is actually more cost effective to use the less energy-efficient PWR.

There is potential to make them more energy efficient by using the waste heat for something useful like district heating or desalination.

With wind power, the fuel is free, so the mechanical/electrical efficiency is pretty much irrelevant. What matters is the capital cost of the turbine for a given electrical output.

The energy efficiency of a storage system IS important because the less efficient it is, the more generating capacity you need to keep it topped up.

In terms of using common measurements to compare systems, the main indicators tend to be 1) CO2 emissions per kWh of electricity, and 2) price per kWh of electricity. Fossil fuel is bad at 1 and good at 2. The price is similar to nuclear but the emissions are 100 times higher. Renewables, other than hydro, are good at 1 but bad at 2. The price is 150% or more of the cost of nuclear electricity., while the CO2 emissions are the same or higher than nuclear. Nuclear and hydro are good on both counts.

Duncan (185) The renewable controversy is only partly to do with the efficiency (lack of) of the turbines. It's the lies surrounding why we are being subjected to them that is galling.
Turbines are required to meet an ill thought out target - which we'll only ever meet on 'paper' if we ever meet it at all.
We are told we must have wind turbines to 'save the planet' by reducing carbon emissions. If wind energy could replace existing power stations then that would be acceptable.
We are told that our existing fossil fuel and nuclear power stations will be shut down over the next 20 years. And what's going to replace them? The only definite here is it'll not be wind.
So we must assume (as there's no energy policy) that there will be investment in clean coal (with carbon capture), there will be new nuclear, gas - for as long as it's available and eventually a mix of renewable technologies (tidal & wave).
The above would slash our carbon emissions so why would we ever consider choosing to continue covering our landscapes in wind turbines for their almost non-existent contribution to reducing carbon emissions.
Also to be taken into consideration is the hugely expensive upgrades to the grid required to cart this inefficient scource of electricity to the south of the country.
Yet further destruction of our landscapes.
The catastrophic effects of climate change are being fired at us from every direction - and the best we can do is wind turbines???
Back in the fifties Caithness was chosen to experiment with nuclear fast reactors - very sparcely populated just in case. Just before the bottom fell out of the nuclear world a decision was being made on where to site the proposed commercial fast reactor. What about Caithness - it made sense, everything already in place. But no, absolutely not. Caithness was too remote from the centers of population and huge transmission losses ruled out any chance of electricity generatio

Lucy. I know I rant on a bit. But I am not aware that I am a winfarm supporter.

There are some benefits to come from wind turbines:

Firstly, they have woken up the majority of the population to the need for renewable sources.

Secondly, the technology used in them has some advantages which will be used in later, and much more reliable devices.

Thirdly, new methods of energy capture can be tested on land, which is much more financially sensible as accessibility is greater than for those types which are to be fitted to the seabed.

By comparison with the car, wind turbines are little more than the first Benz: it won't be long before the "Model T" comes along!

Colin.
When I look for a new fridge, I can see they have a rating system. A,B,C, etc. But then I got to thinking, how do they arrive at these letters. I know it is thermal efficiency, but? My gripe is when people bang on about the efficiency or not of a particular form of energy, there seems to be so many ways of promoting or not your particular favourite.

My problem with nuclear is that all the figures are shrouded in mystery, and when you do get to the crux, it is always trillions for this and trillions for that. So my perception and many people share it, is that nuclear is and has been horrendously expensive, both in financial terms and pollution terms. And given the track record of Dounreay for example, I would not trust them as far as I could throw them. Reading about the 200ft. shaft alone, just makes you think, what a mess!

Duncan (188) Wasn't getting at you or anyone for that matter. Am just trying to understand why people believe they should encourage wind energy and get an insight into the reasoning behind the support. I'm not an expert and have relied on reports (countless) to lead me to my understanding of the situation. I could very well be wrong.
To date it appears politicians, the wind industry and the greens make up the majority of the support for wind energy. Every other report by 'independant experts' is against.
Gordon (189) 'they have woken up the majority of the population to the need for renewable sources' - my county/this country is not an alarm clock. This is exactly the kind of argument that switches me off wind. There are numerous other more effective ways of wakening up the majority.
How many turbines do they need to do their experiments on?
You're not denying that the technology today is inefficient and ineffective but are quite prepared to sacrifice our landscapes in the hope that maybe sometime in the future it might become reliable - and then before some other form of electricy generation makes wind redundant. I find that astonishing and genuinely don't understand it.
Have Denmark and Germany not come up with the answers, they've been at this game for decades? You speak about wind as if it is a new technology and we in this country are the fore runners of it's development.

Lucy #191 - "There are numerous other more effective ways of wakening up the majority." - Like waiting for the blackouts?

"How many turbines do they need to do their experiments on?" - We could ask the same question about the motor car - Why did Benz not wait until he had invented ABS and airbags - and GPS? Simply because we need to use a commodity in order to find its faults, and just experimenting does not give an idea of the acceptance of a product. How many people did Sir Clive Sinclair ask about the C5? - Great idea, but sadly lacking in the required usefulness.

As for "sacrificing landscapes", it would not take long for the signs of these towers to disappear once decommissioned, leaving the area as it was before, unlike nuclear sites which have a legacy attached.

The main problem, as I have said before, is with capturing ALL the energy possible, and using a buffer to supply the generator with a constant flow.
Government grants do not encourage this approach, as it requires some lateral thinking with wind power, unlike with conventional means where a pile of coal suffices.