Wind Farms

[dingledong]

At least someone’s pulled their finger out and the first new nuclear station is to be built (by the bloody french!).

I’ll be dead before it comes on line.

Only the good die young Tony you'll still be here:icon12:

 

[Besoeker]

At least someone’s pulled their finger out and the first new nuclear station is to be built (by the bloody french!).

I’ll be dead before it comes on line.

Quite.
No, I'm not wishing you dead. Honest, guv!

Our electricity supply capacity is stretched to say the least. About 19% was from nuclear reactors. If memory serves, all but two of the reactors will be closed within a decade. By 2023.

It would seem that the general public, the electorate, has, or is perceived to have, a negative view about nuclear power. I have read that Thatcher was pro but then Chernobyl happened.

Nuclear was never going to be a vote winner. People seem to have an irrational fear about it and the gestation period from approval to getting a new station on line is much longer than a government term in office so it has never been likely to get on to an election manifesto.

Mention Fukushima and it's the nuclear power plant that continues to get the attention. Not the real disaster of the 20,000 deaths resulting from the tsunami and totally unrelated to the nuclear power plant.

Perspective is sometimes totally lacking.
But media sells what sells. The voracious appetite for the steamy, sordid, and the sensational. Nigella Lawson's weight loss took front page on the Daily Wail yesterday. I don't blame them. Their business is to sell newspapers so they will print what sells newspapers.

So, new nuclear has been given the green light. Whether it will be on line soon enough to avert a shortfall in our electrical supply is debatable.

The irony is that we have continued to import from France, 70% nuclear powered, usually at the full capacity of the HVDC cross channel link.

But this topic was about wind power.
People object to wind turbines for all sorts of reasons. Ugly bird slayers. Perception on the one point and nonsense on the other.

I have no real objection to them on either of those counts - or any other for that matter. They are harvesting a natural resource. Currently (05:00) providing about 9% of our electrical consumption.

But the limitation is variability. The same applies to solar. Nothing from either on a calm, dark night. They are on availability sources. We have on demand expectations. Flick that switch and we expect that light to come on.

We can't make the wind constant or the sun shine 24/7.
I quite like the idea of using renewable resources instead of fossils.
But I think we are quite some way off being able to do so.

To be able to cope with the variability, we need storage capacity at utility scale.
We don't have that.

 

[Fin170]

Quite.
The irony is that we have continued to import from France, 70% nuclear powered, usually at the full capacity of the HVDC cross channel link.

French National Grid status

84% at the moment, I've seen it at 110% before



Supply variability and over generation is a stupid but expensive problem to have. Taking the German example, plenty of sun in the day but low demand means paying the subsidy to the generator and then paying heavy industry to fire up kilns etc to get rid of it. Then it gets dark and you don't have the capacity for demand and have to buy electricity from the French

 

[driverman]

From what i know on this subject, which is very little. Germany have banned nuclear power completely in their country due to safety concerns etc. But like us they are happy to import it also from France.

 

[Gavin A]

At least someone’s pulled their finger out and the first new nuclear station is to be built (by the bloody french!).

I’ll be dead before it comes on line.

mainly chinese actually.

 

[Gavin A]

I'll just point out to the nuke heads on here that renewables produced 17% of UK electricity demand this year, which is now in the same ball park as nuclear has been averaging in the UK, and will be well ahead of nuclear in 5 years time.

And largescale solar is being moved onto the same contracts for difference funding scheme as nuclear from April 2015, so will be being funded at the same rate as new nuclear from next year, but actually capable of delivering capacity within weeks / months of contracts being signed rather than 10-15 years down the line.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

One word. Fusion.

 

[trev]

I've posted this elsewhere
Lockheed Martin Unveils Compact Fusion Reactor Which 'Could Provide Limitless Clean Energy'
If it happens then it solves all energy needs for a hell of a long time. I don't believe some of the claims made in the comments section about this company called Industrial Heat managing it with cold fusion, surely that news would have been all over the place.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

I was thinking about real ones though Trev. We've been pursuing that dream for half a century, I could get a Krispy Kreme doughnut and wave it at the media but that doesn't make it a working Tokamak. Be patient, it'll be here in 25 years...

 

[trev]

6 Years if Lockheed Martin are to be believed Lucien. If it takes 25 years I might be dust by that time, When it happens it's going to change everything, I'd like to see it happen