Renewables.
The government would like us to believe that the future is green and renewable. But why has it been so difficult to deliver it? Is the problem dodgy science, over-ambitious targets and spiralling costs or simply a lack of political will?
All this week on PM we're examining these questions. We'll investigate what we can learn from other countries and why the debate on renewables is more rhetoric than reality. PM reporter Michael Buchanan sends these words and pictures:
What's the best thing to do with the Barvas Moor? Not a question that occupies your mind too often I'd imagine, (unless you actually live on the Isle of Lewis) but one idea was the build Europe's biggest wind farm here. Lewis is after all acknowledged to have Europe's best onshore wind resource, and its fair to say its often blowing a hoolie on the moor. But the scheme - which was project to save about a quarter of a million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission per annum - was rejected in April by the Scottish government due to the adverse effects it would have on wildlife. It would have been huge - 181 turbines standing 140 metres tall - and was wildly unpopular locally. But do we have to withstand such issues if we are to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint? Discuss."
Listen to PM
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If you do a little digging into the background of the term 'eco towns', I think you will find it rewarding.
Basically, 'new towns' by another name.
(I have a colleague who can help you track this down, if you need a little nudge in the right direction.)
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Fifi (1) There's one proposed on a site near to me - there's very little that is ''eco'' about it.
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There is NOTHING eco about them, Gillianianian. And the model we are told they are supposedly following, from Europe, is a single instance in Germany which is a suburb ... nothing in common with the monstrous developments proposed here.
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I’m afraid those who believe that wind turbines are a better alternative to a tidal barrage have no understanding of how generators share power on the national grid. To be suitable for the grid each generator turbine must have reserves of torque (turning power) so that it can instantly react to changes in demand. The moment we switch on a kettle the grid requires an additional five horsepower of torque, if a million of us switch on our kettle, at the end of tonight’s match, it needs an extra 5 million horsepower. As the torque (not spin) from a wind turbine modulates in sequence with each gust what torque they have available when we require more is totally unpredictable. That is why our power stations have to burn the same amount of fuel irrespective of whether the wind is blowing or not. Tidal power, however, is the only renewable source that can guarantee reserves of torque, which is why power stations could even be shutdown during known high tide periods. This is not rocket science it is the fundamental laws of physics.
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The vast majority of people are only going to be truly interested in ‘eco-initiatives’ when they can make and save money on them. As the cost of fuel increases the perceived disadvantages of going-green will start to seem less important in light of the extra cash they may be able to put into peoples pockets.
A car that can run on hydrogen, a home that runs from wind or solar energy or having a size 4 rather than a size 12 carbon footprint are fine ideas, but only if they save people money, or improve peoples lives in the process.
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I listened to a programme about eco-housing the other week (maybe 'Costing the Earth'? The radio was on and I heard it, rather than choosing it) in which the building of an eco-dwelling in a group was being discussed, possibly something to do with the Rowntree Trust. A builder was talking, and as he did so it became clear that with the best will in the world he simply didn't have workmen capable of building things that complied with the eco-regs, and saw no hope whatever of meeting any government targets that made eco-friendly building mandatory for new housing by I forget the date but a few years' time from now.
We can demand eco-friendly all we like, but if the people meant to be building it are not capable of doing so, we are wishing for the moon.
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Your example illustrates one problem: ecology and sustainability are very complex, and straightforward solutions are almost bound to have unexpected side-effects.
Another seems to be the difficulty that Government has with thinking across the big picture. That's partly departmental territoriality, and partly just the human tendency to concentrate on what you know about. (This is a problem for the media, too, as is painfully illustrated when a piece about global warming is immediately followed by a piece about gas price regulation, with the correspondents apparently oblivious to the possibility that the two might be related.)
Basically, we need Renaissance men and women, as never before.
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Oh, and Genfly's argument would be valid if it were proposed to get all our power from wind, but in the context of a mix of generating sources, these concerns can be accommodated. In fact, nuclear power also has the problem that you can't just turn it up and down at a moment's notice. We use gas for that.
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No action by Government without the consent of the governed. A founding principle of democracy. So if the Islanders of Lewis don't want a wind-farm on their doorsteps then the decision is the correct one. They don't want electricity made on Lewis for the benefit of the rest of the U.K. and we respect their opinion.
To maintain reciprocity the electricity industry should, of course, immediately stop shipping power across to Lewis FROM the mainland, benefitting them from power stations built outside our houses, so that they can provide their own electricity by what ever means they wish and on whatever commercial terms they can negotiate. They'll start considering wind-farms then!
No wind-farms would ever get built at all if the opinions of the locals were given first consideration. We all think they are a good thing, until someone proposes them for our parish.
All hail the great God NIMBY, patron saint of protestors everywhere. (Think Heathrow 3rd runway, Thames estuary airport, wind-farms everywhere, Severn tidal barrage and 1001 other infrastructure projects).
Some contend that, in planning infrastructure projects, the needs of the nation should override the concerns of the local groups. But the proposed planning bill, which was due to short-circuit expensive and lengthy planning inquiries, was shelved by the Government quietly because it was due back in Parliament last week and the Government didn't want to risk even the possibility of two defeats in a week. It is opposed strongly by those on both sides of the House who see the removal of dissenting voices from the planning process to be an extension of the democratic deficit, removing our ability to have legitimate grievances heard.
The debate over windpower is oxymoronic anyway. Yes we need it. But it's unreliable and unpredictable. I drove from Hampshire to Cheshire yesterday afternoon/evening through the heart of southern England. All the way I saw hot-air balloons rising into the sky. A clear indication of a calm stretching from Winchester to the North-West. No electricity can be produced where there is no wind.
So we need the other alternatives too. We need wind, wave and solar power, in combination with nuclear. Coal chucks out more radioactivity into the atmosphere than nuclear power, since pitchblende (containing radium) is found in coal seams. Nuclear can provide the baseload, with the other technologies supplying the daytime top-up.
Britain has a long coastline for tidal and wave power to draw upon. It has some significant estuaries, Thames, Severn, Humber, Forth, Mersey, where barrages might be built. It has the Solway and Pentland Firths, perhaps Morecombe Bay, the Wash and the like for larger schemes.
Generation has to be built into every new home, to reduce the need to transport electricity over long distances from the North-East to the Home Counties, which involves up to 10 percent of that power simply being lost as heat during transmission and distribution.
We need to reduce our usage. The proliferation of 'labour-saving devices' and lifestyle accesories in the home all require power to operate. Dishwashers, large-screen TV's, etc. And the old favourite, the TV standby button. Get rid of it and we are told that 2 power stations could be shut down overnight.
But, despite the predictions that work would become redundant and we would all have excess leisure time on our hands, we British work the longest hours in the EU. We are time-poor, but have been cash-rich (until very recently at least!). So we pay for things to be done for us, rather than lift a finger to do them ourselves. That even extends to crossing the lounge and turning the TV firmly off at evenings end.
So what chance for a politician or party who would threaten to remove some of our comforts? None at all, I would guess. It would be political suicide to even express the idea. We love the Greens locally where their power is constrained (Brighton is run by them, isn't it?), but nationally they are simply prophets of doom and unelectable.
This is the Gordian Knot of the 21st Century.
WR.
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I'm trying to comment in plain text, but I'm being told I'm using illegal HTML!! Help.....
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Right, I'll try again, seeing how my (10) made it through. My thoughts are similar to Ratty at (9). Whenever any scheme like this is proposed, it is reported either as a *Blot on the landscape that should never be allowed*, an *Eco-disaster that will threaten the existing ecology*, or *The last best hope for the UK energy system*, depending on which paper you read or boradcaster you listen to. I think there needs to be more dispassionate discussion about this. All options should really be on the table, including wind, tidal, nuclear, and any other technologies that may be beneficial. Without looking at all alternatives rationally, we risk painting ourselves into a corner that we have no hope of getting out of.
I's also like to see more localised micro-generation be looked into. I'm not just talking about the folks who fit turbines to their roofs, or solar panels. What I mean is small towns, business parks generating their electricity locally, selling surplus generated power to the national grid. This could be through geo thermal where possible, tidal schemes on coastal rivers, landfill gas, etc.
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Stevious84;
Hydrogen for cars has to be obtained from some source, which takes electrical power to accomplish.
Electrical cars, whether fuel cell or battery, need to obtain that electricity from somewhere. That means increasing our sources of electricity whilst reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.
Hybrid cars are not the answer. They still require a fossil fuel source and their fuel consumption isn't that much better than pure petrol, whilst being more expensive, weighing in heavier and having less luggage space. They give the driver a warm and worthy feeling about themselves, which is about as genuine as a fake tan.
The motor manufacturers are trialling diesel-electric hybrids, to make use of the extra economy of diesel. But there is a world shortage of diesel and prices are rising fast, so that may be false economy anyway.
Teleworking is a partial answer. Very many of us could potentially work from home full-time. There is no real need to travel to an office, using car-fuel, clogging roads, wasting our ever-more-precious time in commuting. Any slight extra costs to us in terms of heat and llight from using our homes for work would be offset by reduced overheads to us from the abandonment of daily travel.
There is a snag though. The Boss doesn't trust us unless he can see us. He wants us in the office under control working hard, not slacking off at home. So we keep getting in the car, driving along the congested roads, to that soulless office environment, day in and day out.
Can you imagine the result if every large and many medium sized companies in Britain suddenly told every worker to work from home where it was practical to do so? A sharp fall in road fuel usage. More leisure time. More personal energy due to less time travelling to/from work. Possibly a happier workforce? Sharply reduced road traffic, with its concurrent congestion, pollution, death and injuries. Better air quality. Lowered expenses claims on those companies. Much reduced need for commercial office buildings, which might even be convertible to residential use (perhaps for key workers ?). That means lower corporate overheads again if they divest their buildings.
Reduced road usage means less wear and tear on the roads, reducing the repair bill for Govt. That means more cash to invest in genuinely first-class public transport. On this basis you can make a case for Govt. offering meaningful tax-breaks to companies for each member of their staff who teleworks full-time.
They'll never do it!
WR.
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Genfly. Pumped storage is one of the solutions to rapid demand but can you imagine the fun if we all had a zero base load and then put the dinner on an hour earlier than usual. Why else do the street lights stay on all night.
WR 9
The people of Lewis have no problem with putting up a wind farm to make themselves self sufficient in electricity. It was covering the entire island to supply the rest of Scotland that was too much for them.
We all know that the economics of wind farms are almost as bad as nuclear power and that there is no total alternative to fossil fuel. As you rightly say, a mix would help us cut down but cannot eliminate the need for it.
Can you imagine the carbon spend to replace our existing housing stock or even making a hybrid car rather than keeping the old one for 20 years.
A Gordian Knot indeed.
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WR12 Can you imagine the fuel saving if children walked or cycled to school.
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The sheer physical scale that is required to create wind farms that generate a reasonable quantitiy of electricity is mind boggling.
The wind farm at the Braes o'Doune has 36 turbines and can generate 72 mega-watts. It is spread over a vast acreage.
Presumably, the Isle of Lewis site would be capable of maybe 350 mega-watts. Sounds impressive. Then, if you check the relative outputs for the power stations supplying the National Grid, the only power stations capable of generating hundreds of mega-watts are nuclear, gas, coal and oil. To replace the equivalent capacity of SizewellB would require 3 or 4 Isle of Lewis scale wind-farms - and that would only increase power generation from wind from just over 2 giga-watts to around 3.5 giga-watts.
Germany generates 20 gw from wind.
How have they managed to do it?
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UTT 15. Germany is a tad bigger than GB and has a powerful Green Party.
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RJM - I agree that Germany is bigger, but I am sure the more important point is that of political will, as you suggest.
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Germany - Area - 375,000 SqKm
UK - Area - 244,000 SqKm
Germany - Coastline - 2,389 Km
UK - Coastline - 12,429 Km
Seems obvious where the UK has an advantage and where it might concentrate its efforts.
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Ratty (12) - My SO did a dissertation about remote working/education for his MSc.
He concluded that teleworking was a real answer to many problems ... but that the cult of 'presentee-ism' would see that it never happens.
The last professional conversation I had with a senior Royal Mail manager, before I gave up doing direct marketing for a living, indicated that they had embraced the technology that allowed staff to work effectively from home.
But it did require managers to be grown-up about managing... and let's face it, most managers aren't trained, they're just promoted.
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Fifi (19) - The Code for Sustainable Homes, which in examining the environmental impact, carbon cost etc., generates a sustainability rating for new homes, gives credits if the dwelling provides space that can be utilised as a home office.
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I want to put photovoltaic panels on the south facing roof of my house. The cost would be £25k and the payback about a million years.
Grants to home owners by the Govt for renewable energy generation have dried up as the budget has been squeezed and squeezed.
How can the Government expect to be taken seriously when it taxes motorists in the name of being green, but does nothing to prevent businesses leaving millions of lights on all weekend and every evening, and allows the BBC to shine a light up to a 1000m into the empty sky as a memorial to journalists.
A memorial is fine and a good idea - why does it have to be powered and so consume completely unnecessary electricity?
This is a crazy country.
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I am not the least bit surprised that people mistrust so-called Green Power with all its targets and subsidies, look at the bunch supporting it, Greenpeace, EU, the Government, the list is very long. All these have political ambitions and lamentable science. Name a techical project the Gov. has managed with economic success. Why should anyone trust this lot?
Little do Greens seem to realise that their very life depends on CO2 in the atmosphere but they are all frightened by some very stupid assertions that it is dangerous! All they can do is cite "somebody else's" analysis, never their own (goes for the BBC also, parrot politics, bah!).
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So, Horse (20), that'd be any spare bedroom then?
In my own home, where both SO and I use a room each as an office, does that make us doubly sustainable?
Stereo sustainability chez Fifi ... you heard it here first!
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Gillianianianian, 2, me too. The old RAF Coltishall site is being proposed, despite no road / rail links etc. The developer has even indicated a new 'broad' being planned, strange really as RAF Coltishall is some 10M ABOVE the River Bure!
Needless to say we shall be fighting this tooth and nail.
NIMBY DiY
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TIH 18. The PM programme showed the problem with that 12,429 Km of UK coastline. Shipping. Lots of it all reliant on radar both on shore and ship board. And then there are the aircraft......
I would like to know what proportion is of practical use for wind turbines.
Also, burning wood chippings is sustainable and slightly greener than burning fossil fuels. What happend to "Plant a Tree in 73"?
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Roger Harrabin succinctly explained the fallacy of wind this afternoon. As he said, each wind farm built needs more conventional power on line to cover the periods when the wind is too low (or too strong) to generate enough electricity. Germany, with more wind turbines than anywhere else in Europe, is currently building 5 new coal powered power stations for this very reason.
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The most logical way to tackle the carbon emmisions is to reduce them at source.
Business premises and homes can have a solar and wind generation system. This would mean less not more stress on the national grid. Energy produced could be stored and used when needed.
An added plus to this is that homes and businesses would become more aware of there energy use and would try to use less.
I have been trying to get a project up and running to research a viable system. I contacted Paul Rochester at BERR, responsible for leading the way in renewables. He said they were only interested in simple ideas? He sent me down the foggy alley of SEEDA, a dead end.
Since then after some research the real problem are the oil companies and perhaps until now, the media. Climate change is a real disaster in the wings, we would act if the reality of the situation was made clear.
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dermod 22
It"s all about prisms and wavelengths. Look into it it"s fascintating. Basic stuff is GCSE physics. Anyone can understand it.
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Two hundred years ago most of our factories were run by power from our rivers. We are never short of rain for very long. Our major rivers are an ample source of energy. Water turbines could assist as backup for the times when the wind is not blowing.Many rivers still have the weirs that were built in the 19C. Without too much cost these could be refurbished to run water turbines.
James Marginson
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Governments constantly whine about cost when it comes to doing something that many of us want or need, but I notice that they avoid the subject when it comes to something they want to do (large tents in Greenwich, wars etc). If the British people really demanded that something effective be done in the renewables sector then even our government would have to do something.
The German government has the political will and support of large sections of the community that see the need for renewables on a massive scale. Germany has even implemented solar photovoltaics and made it economically viable (just) using the grid feed-in tariff. When the next generation of solar PV becomes mass market i.e. cheaper and much more efficient, PV will become competitive for the UK.
There are some technologies, struggling to get funding, that have the potential to produce very cheap solar PV panels with at least 2x the efficiency of monocrystalline silicon. All we need is one of these to take off and even the UK could generate significant quantities of electricity from sunlight.
Just imagine how many new jobs could be created in the UK within renewables manufacturing, but especially within the installation sector. Instead of seeing the renewables sector as a source of costs, we should be viewing this as a massive opportunity - it could be another industrial revolution. Except this time a green revolution. The country/companies that lead the way will reap the financial rewards, and the rest of the planet will gain as well (more importantly).
Cheers! (Rant over for now)
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Germany does not have the extent of peat bogs that we do. Unfortunately, much of the superficially 'suitable' land where windfarms could be sited (exposed hillside, not too steeply sloping, not too many dwellings nearby etc) in the north of the country are also the sites with ideal conditions for the formaton of blanket bog. The Isle of Lewis is covered in active blanket bog.
However, putting large developments such as windfarms on peat is potentially disastrous. Peat mire is 98% water and stores thousands of years worth of carbon in the form of undecomposed organic matter. Drainage leads to drying and oxidation of the peat - giving off CO2. It also prevents future storage of carbon as the active peat formation is likely to be halted.
Peat is also prone to become instable when interfered with - look at the major slide at Derrybrien, Ireland in 2003, which occurred during construction of a wind farm.
And that's quite incidental to the fact that the UK peat bogs support intenationally important populations of many species.
If we're going to build windfarms, they are really going to have to be in sensible locations. Peat bogs are not such places.
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Options:
Why is it that everyone concentrates on a point solution to the energy and global warming issues? As Fearless Fred (11) said, it's not all about wind energy. It's not all about nuclear. It's not all about saving energy. It's about all the possible options, put together into a coherent solution.
Ideas:
The Cente for Alternative Technology has produced an interesting report which provides a vision of the way we might tackle the many problems we face with energy. See http://www.zerocarbonbritain.com/content/view/37/72/ for an overview. It shows wind energy as one part of the solution. Control of supply, and more importantly demand means that alternative energy sources can provide a more secure source of power. Most people, and especially politicians, would be uncomfortable committing entirely to all of the recommendations in the current climate (e.g. very little air travel, much more vegetarianism), but there are many interesting ideas.
By the way, the arguments that wind power is a waste of time due to variable output are false. The report covers the issue.
Reality:
What that report doesn't tackle (and I haven't heard much talk of elsewhere) is the vision of what it will be like to live in a low carbon economy. Will our standard of living be reduced?
Global changes (climate, energy, population) mean life will become more difficult sooner or later. It is how we act now which will dictate the outcome. Do we crash headlong into a *real* global crisis, or do we take appropriate action now and understand that our lives will all have to change?
CS
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I have taken the trouble to look up the 2007 IEA statistics for tonnes of CO2 per capita for countries mentioned for their high investment in renewables versus the UK. Germany=9.87 tonnes, Denmark=8.77 tonnes, the UK=8.80 tonnes. None of these figures differ significantly from 1990 levels. As Germany and Denmark are frequently quoted as leading the installation of renewables, in particular wind power, this would suggest that as a means of reducing CO2 emissions it does not work! I suspect this may be due to the amount of fossil power needed to back it up and counter renewables uncontrollability. It is apparent that it does bring about a sharp increase in the cost of electricity in these countries.
I would not support the idea of a feed in tariff premium to people who install micro generation, renewable or otherwise into their homes as this would reward them whilst the energy poor who would not have the finance or facilities to do this would have to pay that reward in higher energy prices.
We will need renewable and other forms of energy in the future but I doubt that we will be able to reach 20% at the same time as balancing the intermittent power flows they would present. As we can see from the German and Danish figures installed capacity of renewables is meaningless in relation to CO2 reduction, it will be effectivness that counts and for that we need to look at France, Sweden and Switzerland.
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DIWyman (24) I wouldn't mind if the proposed ''eco-town'' was a bit closer to my back-yard - like the one you refer to, our local one will be in the middle of nowhere, so new roads will have to be built to service it. Unless there is a RADICAL shake-up of public transport, there is going to be a great deal of traffic going along country lanes to get into a town which is already experiencing parking problems. I would feel more sympathetic towards a scheme located within walking distance of the main shopping area, but then of course there would be more opposition fron folk who didn't want it to encroach on the surrounding countryside......
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I think we should have lots of nooclear. Maybe we only produce graduates able to handle a windmill though !
Nooclear power stations staffed by media studies types would be nearly as bad as Homer {simpson}
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A few general comments:
The Government is not serious in it's 'commitment' to renewable energy as it has not provided the necessary protection against the planning system that nuclear energy will enjoy in the future. At first sight this seems an act of supreme stupidity, however one could view this as a way of ensuring that nuclear is the only way to go. To go nuclear will be an act that future generations will regret.
The economic case for nuclear energy has never been proven. Some of you may remember a BBC Horizon program back in the 1980's I think, which clearly showed that nuclear energy is the most expensive method of producing power. I do not hear anyone discussing this. Why are we still paying out billions each year to the nuclear industry in subsidies?
The government states that nuclear power will provide energy security. How? when we're relying on 3 private foreign companies to run it and uranium is all imported from areas of the world that are politically unstable.
The Germans, (of course) by contrast, have rejected nuclear power and are now streets ahead of us in both wind and solar generation. I've just returned from Munich, which has the highest concentration of solar power generation on the planet!
I look forward to a change in government.
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Renewables, including wind turbines, will form an important part of our electricity generation capacity.
Burning fossil fuels is killing the planet; were running out of natural gas; and nuclear energy relies on cheap oil to mine, process, transport, and dump the nuclear material - and to decommission old nuclear power stations.
We have been living a fairytale existence for 80 years, but now we need to prepare for the reality of a low energy future.
As peak oil starts to cause reductions in the supply of everything, we will all be grateful for our wind farms. Of course, it's quite likely that constant electricity 24x7 will become a thing of the past. No doubt the re-adjustment will be painful, but the pain will be far worse if we remain in denial.
We have already used half of the global reserves of oil. Let's make better use of the remaining half to super-insulate our homes; build smaller, more resilient communities; and invest in wind farms - lots of them!
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Dear Moderator,
Do you really expect me to compose in this tiny window.
Text typed in a text editor and pasted is rejected as HTML. Really?
Sorry but I can't type on a postage stamp.
Regards stanstent.
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Eco Housing to all current and proposed 'Carbon Neutral' future building regulations is already available. As an architect I'm well aware of the inadequacies of the British construction industry and would agree that we are having difficulties meeting the current, let alone future target standards. However, if we look abroad there are manufactures how already producing homes that are carbon positive, let alone neutral, as they encapsulate more carbon within their fabric and renewable systems than they release during their manufacture and life span.
Again this comes down to political will. Legislation is the only way to ensure a better future. It's the only way to get the business and public communities to move.
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Hello Molesworth 28 You say "it's all about prisms and wavelengths. Look into it it"s fascintating. Basic stuff is GCSE physics. Anyone can understand it"
Sorry Molesworth, do like the French and the Danish and think again. It's actually about thermodynamics and gravitation. Halfwits in the IPCC think they can defy gravity and 2nd law of thermodynamics, its an old, old story, just like those geezers with their perpetual motion machines!
Of course the smart ones like you an' me can spot this kind of junk science a mile off, can't we?
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It would seem not.
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Wot? Is Coltishall closed?
All that southern biased news must've missed it!
We only hear about the weather in London and MSP's expenses up here...
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Wind Power
--------------
A couple of years back, the Today programme asked its listeners to submit a poem in praise
of the aesthetic aspects of wind turbines. Two were to be selected for broadcast. MY poem was NOT selected, in spite of having sent it in using the name Andrew Motion, which should have given me an advantage, you would think.
However, what was unreasonably denied to the “Today” audience can now be vouchsafed to “pm” listeners - at least to those who trouble to read its blogs. Because HERE it is:
The windmill IS a wondrous sight.
It makes both heart ... ... and toaster glow.
But greens can never tell us quite,
what happens when the wind don't blow.
O Westron wynde when wilt thou blow?
I want to watch the telly.
But if becalmed, I'll miss that show.
So give them blades some welly.
Blow, wind and crack your cheeks
and turn the windmill's sails.
Just tell me why, when usage peaks,
THE BLOODY ELECTRICITY FAILS.
The wind, it plies the saplings double.
It blows so hard 'twill soon be gone.
If greens had not caused NUCLEAR trouble,
We COULD still switch the power on.
The windmills ARE a wondrous sight,
when generating “juice”.
But, standing still when you need the light,
THEY’RE DAMN WELL BUGGER ALL USE.
If Dr Raj Persaud happens upon this poem, he may suspect that it owes not a little to other poets, such as anon, W Shakespeare and, AE Houseman. I maintain that any plagiaristic similarities are entirely coincidental..
Guinneabottle.
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Isn’t it a little odd that the greener the extreme-left become the more conservative (with a small c) they become? Although our climate has changed year on year since the big bang they now believe that our climate was so perfect in the year XXXX we should reverse everything that has happened since the year XXXX, so the climate will revert to the way it was in the year XXXX. What they all seem to be waiting for now is Al Gore or the BBC’s environmental soothsayer David Shukman to tell them what year XXXX actually was.
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Forgive me for not reading all the above;
just got in.
But -
It just reminds me of a suggestion I made a couple or so of weeks ago - and this may be the time -
Eddie and team, would this be a good time to start a renewables and other related category on the right hand side?
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Frances, What a good idea.
And thank you for NOT ending your comment with the word
Discuss?
as either Michael or Eddie did.
-o0o-
I'm all for windfarms and missed the report tonight. I will listen tomorrow to understand what wildlife will be affected, apart from birds of course.
More good news came from Honda today, who have released an electric car powered by Hydrogen. The emissions being only water vapour.
Tomorrow I start by doing my bit with the hybrid prius.
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Re GENFLY
Having done some research into wind turbines, - not the small domestic ones - I think some of the technical problems of interfacing then to the grid morfe efficiently are being overcome, using feedback control from the turbines.
Here are some papers if you are interested about the Danish system.
http://www.wt-certification.dk/Common/Regulation%20for%20Windturbines%20TF%203.2.6.pdf
However I take your points regarding instant demand and mainting the 50 Hz frequency of our grid whilst adding wind turbines.
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Re Isle of Lewis Wind farm: "But the scheme - which was project to save about a quarter of a million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission per annum - was rejected in April by the Scottish government due to the adverse effects it would have on wildlife"
So nothing to do with the 90 miles of roads and two huge quarries? I have asked many organisations when a wind farm actually becomes carbon neutral. I have yet to have a reply. The Lewis scheme would have needed a massive submarine powerline made of copper or aluminium plus pylons to connect to the Grid on the mainland. That doesn't grow on trees - it needs heavy industry.
Re-employment - during construction yes but once commissioned? The farm near us employs three part-timers and that's it!
Wind farms are all about the subsidies the developers get and the compensation the land owner gets.
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AL @48
You make some very good points. Steel, copper and aluminium need enormous and constant power to smelt them. Steel usually requires coal for smelting or vast amounts of hydro-electric power. Not only the making and installation of wind turbines needs fossil fuel, everytime a gear box or a generator needs maintenance it is almost certain some fossil fuel will be used to make and install the spare parts. I am sure there are places for wind farms but not the Isle of Lewis.
I saw a programme about it and the proposal was to cover the island in a way which would make life unbearable for the residents and, as you say, do untold damage to the environment.
What was interesting was that a wind farm just for their own needs would have been a fairly modest affair.
Renewables include, biomass, wave and tidal power, geothermal, hydro electric, solar panels and probably others I haven not listed. All have problems but the only one that gets talked about these days is wind turbines. All these require fossil fuel to some extent for their construction and maintenance.
Nuclear energy is not renewable (there is a fast breeder type but that has limitations), it does not produce CO2 except to construct, maintain and decommission. As it is not renewable it should not be included i the discussions.
It would be good if PM focused on all renewables and if we could get some idea of the carbon footprint for the life cycle of each type.
jonnie:
How long will it take to recover the CO2 invested in the manufacture and maintenance your Prius. Will my 13 year old Polo beat it if I keep it 20 years, which is my intention if at all possible. I don't know but I would like to. Someone must know and I challenge the PM team to find that person.
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RJM,
You raise some very good points, as does Amaz Lawrence re: transporting the power from the wind farm to the mainland. A point I'd not really considered.
I also agree with your point on hybrid cars - a major concern has been the damage to the environment in obtaining the Nickel for the large battery pack. I will do some digging to see whether Toyota or other hybrid manufacturers have done much research into the total carbon footprint of a vehicle across the lifetime. I would imagine it would be a difficult calculation as it involves so many factors. Brake pads and discs are meant to last well in excess of 100,000 miles for example.
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The fundamental issue at hand is that we human beings have significant impacts in many areas of life, and just one of them relates to the release of greenhouse gas emissions. In order to reduce and or nearly all of these impacts, we primarily need to address their causes, not just (or at all) their symptoms.
Renewable energies, particularly those related to the provision of electricity and fuels, address only (a part of) the symptoms, and do not innately address the causes, our behaviours, desires, and demand.
Thus, the first port of call should NOT be, do we have wind power, wave power, photovoltaics, nuclear, etc, and how do we get it/them?, BUT INSTEAD it must be a honest appraisal of WHY ON EARTH DO WE PERCEIVE THE NEED FOR THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE, AND IS THAT A NEED, OR JUST A WANT?
We can power a nuclear missile, tank, rocket etc 'renewably'. We can foster endless yet unnecessary gadgetary, consumer goods, computer games, talking fridges, etc. and so affect and support adverse mental and physical health and enormous planetary resource usage, and the spreading of the human population around the world and overpopulation etc, and distancing of people's lives and minds from Nature which affects their decisions, and so on, and we can do all this 'Renewably'.
At the present time, because there is a fashion, lack of awareness (by just about everyone inc. so-named experts) of all of the impacts of all forms of energy provision and the resource-usage that they include and/or support, and since there is much profit to be made (and many short-term-ist headlines too), the EASY addressing of SYMPTOMS, which requires little thinking beyond plug-in-and-play, is that which is currently the case and takes the form of Renewables. These have a place, but not before deeper awareness and self-questioning has occurred, else they will simply support the same problems as now just in a different way.
Thus, environmental concerns such as that of the moorland MUST take precedence at this time over the fashionable and urgent desire to put Renewable generators etc everywhere (inc. to make profit on them), since there is much more to the equation at the moment than just Greenhouse Gas release and serving existing and INCREASING demand for energy, for WANT, rather then, necessarily, NEED.
Investigations into the atom then led, due to feelings of fear and furvent urgency, to the atomic bomb, in which regard the Japanese, the Northern Russian's, the Manhattan island's, and many minds around the world have been infected with feelings of fear and wars have occurred.
There is more going on than focussed attention on Renewables provision only, forgetting the former of which turns a smile into a smile that later stabs you in the back.
All the Best,
Chris.
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Molesworth 49 "Nuclear energy is not renewable" What is a renewable then? How long will a wind turbine last before it has to be replaced? And as for wave power!
Giving some technology the title "renewable" is typical green rubbish. Do you seriously think there is any techology that does not need repair, maintenance and replacement?
Gas turbine nuclear electric plants using helium cooled pebble bed reactors and magnetic bearings will probably have a life over 60yr because they have frictionless bearings and helium chemically inert. They use fuel far more efficiently than early design, supplies of fission fuel are likely to be available atleast for 2000yr, even without breeding.
Greenies are for ever looking backwards, oh!Chernobyl, (very sad that 40 or so died) oh! Windscale (not even an electricity plant! Built in emergency.)
When steam power was introduced boilers exploded regularly, not often these days!
I see green politics as the politics of starvation and ignorance because greenies try to cause anxiety by posting scare stories about what may happen without engaging in discussion, "they know they are right".
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It is good to know there are areas of agreement between people of diverse opinion.
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Dermod - please tell us what is the end-game of the 'green conspiracy' ?
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pauleco @ 54,
...and it's a-five, six, seven, open up the pearly gate:
There ain't no time to wonder why -- whoopee! we're all going to die!
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@ 55 - are you implying that the 'green conspiracy' is an end to wars?
That would be a real bummer...
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Oh dear Eddie! I thought that you might have asked Lord Turner what evidence he has to support his Canuteist assertion that it is cheaper to prevent climate change rather than mitigate its effects where harmful.
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Instead of messing around with unreliable technology which uses more energy to construct and maintain than it will ever generate, why not just put the clocks forward a couple of hours?
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Renewables in the UK are not doing that bad! Have a look at the renewables energy map www.renewables-map.co.uk . Not only are there a huge number of schemes already contributing but many times that number being built and in planning. Looking at the potential contribution of the Severn Barrage puts that scheme in context, its huge!
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........ and while I'm at it.
- Can we find a more honest term to replace "renewable" whan we refer to energy sources/transfer mechanisms? Don't they just have a longer prospective life than fossil fuels?
- If the justification for "renewables" is to alleviate climate change, why are we even considering replacing methods that may have an indirect and yet unproven effect on the climate (fossil fuels) with one (wind farms) that has a direct and immediate effect on the climate. Has anybody modelled the effects on the climate of removing major amounts of energy from the Earth's incredibly complex air circulation system?
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There is an E-petition at
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Feed-In-Tarrifs/
asking for the introduction of feed in tarrifs for renewable energy production along the lines of the German model.
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I am absolutely staggered to have just heard Lord Turner promoting onshore wind in the bid to combat climate change. This was an even more staggering claim as he says he is a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on Ecomoic Affairs - has he not been attending or at least keeping up with current review on The Economics of Renewables - what arguments does he have to combat the scientific work of the Renewable Energy Foundation who's evidence can be found here: [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator] ??? And what arguments does he forward to combat Hugh Sharman's acclaimed paper ‘Why the UK should build no more than 10GW of Wind Capacity’ which was awarded the Institution of Civil Engineering's Telford Gold Medal in 2006: [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator] ca To quote from this report: “Wind power’s contribution at 10 GW, albeit small and costly, can be significant. However, its construction will do nothing to offset the inevitable loss of firm generating capacity. Between 40 and 50 GW of diversely energised, new generating capacity, costing £40–50 billion, must be planned, financed, engineered, procured, built and commissioned between now and 2020.” So if we are to have any wind (which I still debate) then why not offshore where the winds are steadier and the generators can be placed nearest the centres of demand as modelled for the Renewables Advisory Board (aka the wind industry). I'm afraid Lord Turner was speaking authoritively on a subject on which he has very little knowledge or else a wealth of mis-information - no wonder Mr Lawson disagrees with him. As for the CEO of Ecotricity, wel of course he loves industrial wind turbines at £500,000 per year per turbine income and a majority of that is subsidy or "incentive" funded by an unitemised charge of every electricty bill. Community involvement currently consists of a paltry £15,000 of so per adjacent parish per year, out of £500,000 And yes Germany has meters that go forwards when electricty is taken from the grid and backwards when electricty is fed in. the obvious drawback with micro-generation though is that it really would be power to the little people i.e. money out of the hands of the big electricty generators and into the hands of the little people - no wonder it's not happenning here. And BBC, I know there's a lot of reading to do to get to the bottom of the wind issue but please do it and challenge these guys - do you remember the days when they denied on air that there was any subsidy because of course the wind industry called it incentivisation? Oh and objections are about a lot more than landscape - try: http://www.ref.org.uk/PressDetails/136
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In #54 pauleco wrote "Dermod - please tell us what is the end-game of the 'green conspiracy'"
Was it Marx who said "I never make predictions, particularly about the future", me neither.
But one thing I do know, there isn't a snowballs chance in hell (way-hey!) of heat from a (very) cold troposphere travelling to a rather warmer earth's surface so that it gets even warmer, with or without CO2, with or without infrared radiation. (Goes "the other way", don't it?)
It seems I am one of the few people who knows this, i.e. that heat goes from hot to cold; i.e. that warm(er) radiators send heat to your cold(er) living room, not the other way round!
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Re 57 He was called Gordon Canute, wasn't he?
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dermod 63.
What's outside the air around our planet?
Stop thinking conduction and convection and start thinking radiation. Only then will you understand how the planet gains and loses heat.
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Where is the evidence for the claims made by Lord Turner et al for the contribution of wind-farms to our electricity production? Has anybody bothered to check?
The Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2007 gives some useful official figures for electricity production from 1998 to 2006, the period when nearly all of the UK’s wind-farms were built. What these figures show is more fossil fuels used per unit of electricity supplied. Most of this was caused by the switch to from nuclear and gas to coal but analysis shows that a substantial part was caused by reduced efficiency of the individual means of production.
Due to the way in which wind-power production rises and falls rapidly and unpredictably inefficiencies are caused in the management of the grid. How much of this reduced efficiency is due to the input of wind into the grid is uncertain but the official figures give no evidence of any contribution from wind-power at all!
So where’s the hard evidence of the benefit of UK wind?
Until we get it we can assume that when Lord Turner makes claims for wind-power output what he probably means is the amount of electricity that goes into the grid and not the amount that gets to the consumer which is, quite possibly, none at all. Which would mean we have had all that grief, all that cost, for nothing!
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RJMolesworth wrote "What's outside the air around our planet?" Deep Space with an effective T=3K that is why the CO2 and H2O polar molecules in the troposphere are able to radiate so much heat to keep the planet at 258K (its radiative balance temp.)
Heat transfer from a sphere to surroundings is proportional to the difference of their respective temperatures raised to the 4th power - P=k(Te^4 - Tt^4).
Now the Earth's surface is Te, about 288K, and the effective radiation temp. of the Earth is Tt about 258K. How then can this 258K radiate warmth to the surface and cause the greenhouse effect? The heat actually goes from the surface at 288K to the troposphere at 258 and thereafter to deep space at 3K
OK?
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I trust that my entry, no. 62 that is currently with the moderators, is simply passing through a standard process because it has links to some very good information.
Meanwhile, the burning isssue is 'can industrial wind turbines significiantly do anything significant to address climate change'?
Considering the following point, probably not:
Even if the government target for 10% of our installed generation capacity to comprise of renewable generators
by 2010 is met; the increases in UK electricity consumption since the target was established have ALREADY offset the 2010 CO2 emissions reductions.
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I see you have been reading Wikipedia. Well, read on and you should find the information you are missing.
Just in case you had not noticed the Earth has very little heat of its own but fortunately for us there is a huge hot infrared radiation source about 92 million miles away. Because it is very hot the wavelength of the radiation coming in is shorter that leaving the Earth because the Earth is not as hot as the sun.
So called greenhouse gases affect the shorter wavelength and longer wavelengths differently. Increases in these gases reduce the amount of radiated heat leaving the planet both by absortion and by reflecting more of it preventing it escaping into space.
What is not helping is that the heat coming in is also increasing as the heat from the sun changes with time.
The combined effect of the additional heat in with the reduction in heat escaping is heating the planet.
Do you disagree with any of that?
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Re 69 Molesworth. I have tried to post a reply but I get an error message about none HTML!
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69 Molesworth. CO2 cannot reflect heat like the water vapour in clouds does, nor can CO2 in the cold upper reaches of the atmosphere radiate heat to a warmer surface, or do you not agree with my version of the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation formula?
While I agree that CO2 and H2O both absorb radiation they also emit it, but only towards colder places e.g. deep space at 3K.
CO2 and H2O at 258K absorb heat from the surface at 288K, they radiate this into the inky blackness at 3K. They do this so effectively that they also get rid of the heat getting into the atmosphere from evaporation of water, convection, and directly from the Sun.
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Re 70 AND 71, ampersands don't work!
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Are you sure about that, dermod?
&
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OK so for some reason I don't understand, post 62 is still not showing so I'll try so it in bits: The renewable Energy Foundation have just given evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Environmental Affairs for their review of the Economics of Renewables - an excellent read explaining the real issues of intermittant renewables such as wind namely that it has a capacity credit of virtually zero i.e. it cannot be relied on to displace any firm generators:[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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http://www.ref.org.uk/Pages/5/renewable_electricity_market_access_model.html
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My aologies moderators, I am not getting any emails through to explain why my posts are being withheld. i am wonering if its because some of my links are pdf files, so I am trying again without direct links to them.
So as asked in post 66, where is the evidence of the benefits of wind to the UK?
Well Hugh Sharman explains this in his
acclaimed paper ‘Why the UK should build no more than 10GW of Wind Capacity’ which was awarded the Institution of Civil Engineering's Telford Gold Medal in 2006.
To quote: “In view of the pending energy crisis, substantial challenges lie ahead in every sphere of industrial, domestic and commercial activity and we are forced to conclude that the UK needs as diverse an energy supply as possible.” … and … “Wind power’s contribution at 10 GW, albeit small and costly, can be significant. However, its construction will do nothing to offset the inevitable loss of firm generating capacity. Between 40 and 50 GW of diversely energised, new generating capacity, costing £40–50 billion, must be planned, financed, engineered, procured, built and commissioned between now and 2020.”
And this really illustrates the issue with wind; because of its variability, however much wind we have, we still need the equivalent generating capacity in "firm" generators.
Wind generators are not an "instead of" other generators, they are not alternative generators.
From the link below, which has been permitted, Hugh Sharman's report can be accessed (scroll down a little) and it makes for very comrehensive reading.
http://www.ref.org.uk/Pages/5/renewable_electricity_market_access_model.html
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This entire discussion on PM was dominated by bean counters from London. The Industrial Revolution wrecked many areas of the country - to the benefit of many of those bean counters and the detriment of people who lived there. Are we going to repeat this with huge windmills? And destroy any open country we have? And continue sticking huge lumps of concrete into the peat bogs? And kill the local bird population? How many nesting birds (e.g. curlews, lapwings) manage to survive being chopped to pieces?
Have a windmill on your house by all means but please don't destroy the open vistas of our countryside with these eyesores.
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The House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs are currently reviewing the Economics of Renewable Energy. The evidence fom the Renewable Energy Foundation also illustrates the limitations of wind. Their evidence can be seen by going to this link and clicking on the section 'uncorrected oral evidence' and then clicking on the first item: http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/lords_economic_affairs.cfm
And Lord Turner attended this session!
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Also the reasons for objecting to industrial wind turbines are many, landscape being just one of them.
A key issue is the noise as highlighted in a new european noise study on wind turbines.
For more on this please go to this link:http://www.ref.org.uk/PressDetails/136
"This is an extremely important study and should stimulate the UK government to protect local residents by replacing the obsolete and widely discredited noise regulations (ETSU R97) controlling wind turbines."
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Amplitude Modulation is the other alarming issue for the neighbours of industrial wind turbine developments.
Amplitude Modulation occurs at 5 out of the 100 or so wind turbine sites in this country and has caused people to abandon their homes. Jane Davis and her family, farmers and originally pro-wind, have had to abandon their home, their farm is more than 900m from the site. DBERR know all about their situation and seem powerless to do anything as the wind turbine site apparently complies with ETSU-R97. The Salford University report acknowledges that amplitude modulation from wind turbines cannot be predicted but the government has ignored its recommendations to carry out further research.
Therefore everyone around a wind turbine is under threat of having their homes rendered uninhabitable. Is it any wonder that there is so much protest?
The evidence from Jane and Julian Davis can be seen by going to this link and clicking on the section 'written evidence' and scrolling down to the relevant named item:http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/lords_economic_affairs.cfm
To quote:
"Our house, which we own, on our tenanted arable farm, is 930m from a wind farm, and is downwind of the prevailing wind. The wind farm, comprised of 8 wind turbines, each 100m high at blade tip with 2 MW capacity, became operational in the summer of 2006. Immediately we started having problems with the noise and hum coming from the wind turbines.
"By May 2007 we were forced to abandon our home as a place in which to sleep and live; we currently rent a property 5 miles away so that our family can live as near a normal life as possible. Our house is now likely to have a value of just the land - £35K-£50K and is no longer marketable as a home for people to live in"
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Re message 77 from dhedley, I completely agree except for your last comment re turbines on houses - they are not performing well especially in urban areas; photovoltaics and ground source heat pumps and insulation are better options.
Also small turbines kill bats, a protected species. An industrial wind turbine development has been refused planning permission because of its impact on bats.
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dermod @71
It seems to me that you are hung up on the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Radiation from the earth occurs at the Tropopause. If radiation is absorbed before it gets there, then the troposphere gets hotter. Because the atmosphere gets colder the higher you go, infrared radiation reflected from the Tropopause towards the planet will heat the cold air in the upper troposphere. However, the real problem is the reduction in infrared radiation from the planet and the increase in radiation into the planet. The energy budget deficit it is sometimes called.
I like the diagram at the middle of this page because it is simple (like my intellect).
http://tinyurl.com/5frswy
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Will wind turbines allow us to reduce our CO2 emissions?
Germany has the largest wind blanket in Europe and it hasn't helped them as stated in this quote from REF's evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs (see earlier posts):
"If I might take the emissions question first, because that is the easy one, the truth is that in both Denmark and Germany, emissions have risen, not quite in line with the penetration of wind, but their carbon dioxide emissions have risen and continue to rise. They are higher than they were when they started. The inference has to be, we are told, we have not researched the subject ourselves, that this is because they have had to resort to backup."
Was Lord Turner having a little snooze in this session?
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All renewable companies maintain their high ecological values when pushing their product on the unwilling public but Juliet Davenport CEO of Good Energy the conservation and eco-friendly national energy company is quite happy to submit planning to build four giant wind turbines at Otterham in Cornwall only 350 metres from the Little Otters infant school and 600 metres from the Marshgate primary school with no concern for the future effects of low frequency vibration nor for the distraction to concentration that will affect the youngsters in the schools. Noise is now fully recognised as a significant pollutent by all parties including government but this pollutent is allowed to escape from all developed windfarm sites in full contradiction of European Human rights.
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@ 77
In the days before the industrial revolution, what do you think 'littered' our landscape in order to provide power...? Windmills...
We also cut down lots of trees to burn and to graze livestock - which totally wrecked the habitats of many species and caused extinctions as well as creating what we fondly refer to as 'the countryside'...
Wind turbine blades turn slower the larger they are, and the RSPB now has no objections to the modern large scale turbines in terms of chopping them into tiny pieces. So in answer to your question - pretty much all of them survive (how about asking how many wild birds are killed by domestic cats, glass windows or cars?).
Concrete foundations? Not really an environmental catastrophe is it? We don't think twice about pouring tons of it into the ground for houses or even for somewhere to park our two cars...
You may be interested in some hard facts for the different options of our energy future - check out this draft e-book by Professor David J C MacKay of the Cambridge University Department of Physics http://www.withouthotair.com/
If you have a pet hate about wind turbines, consider the alternatives. And if you don't want one in your back yard - what do you want instead?
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No.85
Para.1
And what came after windmills - watermills! Why, because by means of a sluice gate we could grind our wheat and corn when we wanted to rather than waiting for the wind to blow.
Para.2
Since when has our previous destructive behaviour been a reason to continue on the same vein?
Para.3
Please would you provide evidence that the RSPB now has no objections to the modern large scale turbines in terms of chopping them (birds) into tiny pieces.
They do still object to industrial wind turbines and on the grounds of their threat to raptors such as Golden Eagles.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/campaigns/lewis/index.asp
Perhaps you'd be good enough to share the maximum speeds at which various sized turbines can rotate?
Marvellous - we already kill lots of birds so lets kill some more - what a commendable attitude.
Para.4
Concrete foundations are not conducive to stemming the effects of flooding. Pouring concrete into peat bogs is a bit of an environmental disaster actually.
Last Para.
You miss the point, wind turbines are not an alternative to our coal, gas, oil, nuclear power stations.
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I had a look at the 4 page summary for Prof MacKay's book.
Initial reaction:
The calcs on energy needs are done on average needs and so don't take into account peak demand.
The summary makes no mention of the need for backup for wind energy and treats wind as an alternative to our firm generators.
Doesn't compare to the work of Hugh Sharman or REF.
Thanks all the same no.85
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Had a brief look at Prof MacKays four page executive summary.
Initial reaction:
Calcs. on energy needs are based on average consumption and so do not take into account peak demand.
No mention is made of the need to back up wind turbines, indeed they are presented as an alternative to fossil fuels.
Thanks for the link anyway Pauleco
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I would like to say that I have found this blog very helpful. I had never done any research on wind turbines before but thanks to the contributors I have now.
At the risk of being contentious, I think the answer is clear. Wind generation is ideal for small communities where there is a nearly constant wind.
So, wind turbines should not be connected to the national grid but serve only that community. A separate generator (tidal, hydroelectric, pumped storage, biomas, oil, gas or a combination of these) or possibly the national grid is required for backup unless the community is content to lose power on calm days.
The community should decide whether it wants wind generators, how much and where they should be placed. The decision must be open, tranparent and locally democratic. Where compensation payments are necessary, they must be generous not miserly.
The government should pay for the reciting of radar stations where necessary, not the community.
The company that installs and maintains the wind turbines must be a 'not-for-profit' company with a majority of locally elected representatives on the board of directors and its activities must be regulated by law.
Such companies should be backed (insured) by the government so they can borrow money at the lowest market rates. It should not be possible to buy or almalgamate the companies without the consent of a majority of its customers.
Not very British is it. Transparent, open, locally democratic, no graft, no borrowing money at 35 percent, no excess profits. But it could be done and we should make sure it is done.
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Paulco asked - what do you want instead of wind?-
There are many energy saving schemes that could be pursued which would save far more carbon emissions at a lower cost than wind-power. For example, a minute improvement in the fuel efficiency of cars would replace all of the wind-farms in the UK at a stroke. Currently UK cars do the same mpg as they did in the 1970s which speaks volumes about the real intentions of polititians!
Wind-power is a gross misdirection of funds, effort and public attention driven by financial and political interests, sometimes both together. I could name three senior politians who have benefited from their promotion of wind.
Corruption? You decide!
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I agree - it is a choice: do you want power cuts this winter or not?!
When the existing earmarked power stations are closed, (either permanently or for emergency repairs), there will not be enough supply for our demand.
So, we need more supply.
(1) We could import gas from Russia to power new build gas power stations.
(2) We could import coal /oil too. Prices for these are set to double in the next year or so, leading to even more increases in domestic energy bills, as well as prices at the petrol pump.
(3) We could attempt to use our island location, and build vast offshore wind batteries.
(4) We could build new nuclear power stations, like France did.
I can think of no other alternative; if there is, please post !!!! For myself, my opinion would be to build nuclear; my worry is that we wont be able to get the planning permission through before the demand outstrips supply, and we have winter power cuts with fatal consequences.
I have a log fire. Even now, I am collecting wood every time I go out.
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Nikki,
Simple. Reduce demand. Use less.Ivan IllichImagine we're sitting at one of five great tables - the one with four fifths of all the food heaped on it. At each of the other four tables sit the same number of people as at ours, but sharing one twentieth as much food. (They have to make do with one fifth of the total spread over four tables)
Now the PA system announces that next time we sit down to dinner there isn't going to be quite as much to "share out", and from our table rises a great tumult of complaint...."We can't possibly do with any less!"
;-)
ed
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And even at 'our' table, the Americans have twice as much piled in front of them as the rest of us....
Tom Paine, "Common Sense";-)
ed
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Ed, you are of course 100% right. The (only) sensible alternative is to consume less.
We humans are only sensible individually. When we get together as Cities or Nations, we have a nasty habit of consuming lots. And very very few are prepared to vote for a return to village life, prefering hope in the face of fact.
Politicians (from polis, city), are very rarely village people.
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Nikki & all,
In #92,93 I gave the example of five great tables with four fifths of the food on only one. I mentioned, that at 'our' table, the Americans have twice as much food and goodies piled up in front of them as the rest of us do....There's greedy, and then there's double-greedy
Here are some numbers to ponder:
Energy Production and Consumption
(in thousand metric tons of oil equivalent)
Total energy production, 2000
(USA, N America, UK, Europe, World)
1,675,770 2,050,633 272,693 2,253,336 10,077,984
Total energy consumption
2,269,985 2,511,765 230,324 2,559,701 9,702,786
Energy consumption per capita,
7.96 7.95 3.89 3.51 1.64
USA, N America, UK, Europe, World
(source Earth Trends)
Salaam, etc.
ed
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Energy consumption
Percapita figures
USA 7.96
N America 7.95
UK 3.89
Europe 3.51
World 1.64
Sorry about bad formatting.
;-(
ed
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Ed @ 92
Sounds good but how many people do we need to kill to make it work. How do 60 million people live in a country this size consuming only the energy requirement of the 18th or even 19th century or even, come to that, the 1930s.
Of course we can use less but not sufficiently to solve the problem.
Let us imaging a miracle happened and a low cost nuclear fusion power was discovered tomorrow that could be implemented in 10 years worldwide. Would you advocate restraint in power use then?
Well, yes, maybe to some extent because there are other constraints that we also experience today. But the main problem would then be over population which brings us back to how many we kill.
The point is that just reducing our energy needs is not a solution in a world that is massively over populated. Nither is finding the Nirvana of all energy sources.
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Ed @96
USA 7.96
N America 7.95
I can imagine Mexico might use 0.01 but Canada?
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RJ,
Yes, I go with Ivan Illich: "high quanta of energy degrade social relations just as inevitably as they destroy the physical milieu. "Too right! Time for the lifeboats...Canada's figure is actually higher than the USA's - I don't know why.
;-)
ed
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RJ, & anyone interested,
The energy figures understate the imbalance to some degree because some of the energy consumption in the 'rest of the world' is used in producing food and manufactured goods which are consumed in "the West". I don't know where to go to find any estimate of this dimension, but it's very real.
For example, who gets debited the energy used growing plants whose genitals are cut and airfreighted to Europe? Who gets debited the aircraft's carbon footprint? Who gets debited the energy consumed in felling and milling the timber from Indonesian forests?
Etc., etc., etc.
;-(
ed
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Molesworth in #71 you wrote "It seems to me that you are hung up on the 2nd law of thermodynamics." Too right I am! If your scheme breaches the 2nd law it means you are getting energy out of nothing, however you dress it up. All the wacky schemes for perpetual motion , cold fusion etc. rely on this.
One trouble with greenhouse effect (sorry I couldn't get your link to work) is that the proponents do not draw a distinction between absorption/emission and reflection.
Absorption/emission means, as you point out, that the temperature of the absorber rises, but it cannot rise above the temperature of the emitting source, for this reason CO2 can only emit into deep space.
Reflection is a very different process where the direction of the rays are changed without the rays being absorbed. The obvious example is a mirror where the free electrons in metal do the reflecting.
Other solids and liquids reflect without having free electrons because they are dense and have bound electrons whose path is deviated. These do not reflect as well as metals but reflection is noticeable, clouds are a good example. The reflection from clouds does produce a warming effect, cloudy nights are often warmer than clear nights because heat radiating from the Earth's surface is reflected back down. CO2 can freeze to a solid in the atmosphere so there may be a little reflection from it, but I don't think this is your actual greenhouse effect as claimed by Al (gor blimey!) Gore.
To emphasise the difference between absorption/emission and reflection, the best absorber/emitter is matt carbon black, there are not a lot of mirrors made of matt carbon black!
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Re #83 Thanks Gillianian. No I am not sure. But in one post I wanted to use an ampersand in this expression "CO2 and H2O" and I got an error message referring to HTML. When I replaced the ampersand it posted as you see.
It is too late at night to start experiments, I have had a difficulty and a found a way round it, enough!
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Dermod @101
I shall say this one last time and then I am giving up on you.
It is not about reflection back from the tropopause to the planet that is the problem (let us say that there in none whatsoever) but lack of infra red radiation from the tropopause into the vacuum of space that makes the world get hotter.
We live in a perfect thermos flask, heat only enters and escapes by infra red radiation. If the radiation coming in increases and/or the radiation leaving decreases the world gets hotter. If the reverse, it gets cooler.
Anything else that happens is a secondary effect. There are masses of secondary effects but it is the primary one that determines if we live or die.
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That should have been "let us say there is none whatsoever"
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Ed @ 99
"high quanta of energy degrade social relations just as inevitably as they destroy the physical milieu. "
Not if you live in Montana in the winter.
Ignoring any profligacy, a continental nation will always have to consume more energy than a country next to the transatlantic drift.
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hi guys, the government may believe the future is green/renewable/sustainable, the question is what are they actually doing about it? i am a sparky (electrician) who runs my own business in devon. how much support, incentive or encouragement am i getting from any national governing body or acrediting industrial body to go green or promote green? none. i am not a twigg fondling eco warrior, i am a dad who wants to be accountable to my kids in 30 years time and "do my bit". so why no help? if we get through peak oil and into transition towns it will be entirely from the ground up and inspite of the government not because of it. if gordon was really serious he would have told the haulage industry "oil is a finite resource, prices are only going to increase. go away, retrain, think creatively and find sollutions" but then i guess that wouldn`t get him many votes....
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Re #103 Molesworth. I do not go around inventing crackpot ideas that involve unaided heat transfer from cold to hot; you can read what it is I am attacking here on page 90 of the 3rd Assessment report of the IPCC itself:
"Note that it is essential for the greenhouse effect that the temperature of the lower atmosphere is not constant (isothermal) but decreases with height." (6th page of this link [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator])
You argue "but lack of infra red radiation from the tropopause into the vacuum of space that makes the world get hotter" even the IPCC doesn't think this. They make a balance between 342 W/m^2 coming in from the Sun and 235W/m^2 radiated plus 107W/m^2 reflected (=342W/m^2) going out.
I have found very few authors actually work through the physics of what they write about, even though they are very certain of the result. Because of this there is much inconsistency in the explanations, I had not come accross yours before but I have worked through quite a number. Authors are often very attached to what they write and it becomes a belief matter rather than science.
In these circumstance discussion becomes very hard work! Witness your statement "I shall say this one last time and then I am giving up on you."
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@ 63 - dermod.. hmm - I have heard that before somewhere. If the debate is to be polarised into a game where the opponents are 'greens' and 'the rest' - I want to know what the agenda of the greens is. I am a shade of green, and my end game is no end to games. Infinite play. Life to continue post-oil and all that. Is the opposite of that true of 'the rest'?
@86 - Chloe, I will try and be brief.
Para.1
AFAIK we had a mix of wind and water mills (and grass/beer power - horses and farmers). It isn't wise to put all your eggs in the one basket.
Para.2
I would rather we planted some more trees and encouraged more smallholdings etc.. I just don't think we are generally aware of how much we have changed the landscape.
Para.3
"The available evidence suggests that appropriately positioned wind farms do not pose a significant hazard for birds."
RSPB on Wind Turbines They also say that global warming is a greater threat to birds. Maybe ask them to back up that statement? Lewis is not a good example. It was a pretty OTT proposal.
I am just putting htings in perspective. I think (and I could be wrong), that more golden eagles die from being poisoned by game keepers on behalf of their 'landed' employers because of their impact on grouse and the sport of shooting them.
Para.4
Digging peat up to put in compost is probably a bigger threat.
Last Para.
You miss the point - we don't really have a choice about revising our energy strategy to include onshore wind turbines.
@ 89 - RJ - I think you have something there... if people local to a proposed turbine benefit directly from the development - there will be a lot less NIMBY objections I suspect.
@ 90 - corruption? Hehe - well, thank god there is no vested interests in coal, gas, nuclear or oil. Seriously though - I think that the wind energy sector has more positive motivations than just profit. Call me naive... but c'mon then, Name the 3. Let the BBC cover it.
I will leave the 2nd law of thermodynamics/entropy to the scientists...
I look forward to reading the government's Renewable Energy Strategy Consultation Document this Thursday... I hear we are about to spend £100 billion on getting there. Quick get your proof in that Climate Change is a scam, and that Wind Turbines are a con!! ;-)
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Physics and Climate Change for Dummies from the UN.
RJM,
Keeping one's self warm in a Montana winter needn't involve the kind of large quanta of which Illich was writing. After all, firewood gives at least three heats.
;-)
ed
P.S. Some suggestions from Arne Naess
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Pauleco,
I comletely agree re not putting all ones' eggs in the same basket - its pretty drastic then that so much store is being put in wind turbines.
Re wind turbines and reducing CO2 emissions, you have made no attempt to explain away the experiences of Germany and Denmark.
And why onshore and not offshore if we are going to have a little bit of wind?
Are you niave, I don't know, but you certainly are re big business. With an income of half a million per turbine per year and more than half of that being a subsidy (incentivisation) funded by an unitemised charge on our domestic electricity bills and the by the climate change levy on business electricty bills, the power giants are clambering to build wts. That's the same power giants who don't clean up their coal fired power stations and who build nuclear etc.
And haven't you heard of NIABYS?
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Pauleco,
Dieter Helm on The Politics Show on 7 December 2007:
"The design of renewables policy is essentially a wind
policy in this country and is amongst the most expensive renewables policies in the developed world."
And "It is hard to think how you could design a renewables support policy which could turn out to be so expensive
and indeed actually produce so little by way of capacity."
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Pauleco 108. You say "I want to know what the agenda of the greens is." As you noticed I play games - largely because the "green" agenda is largely in the mind of the individual promoting it.
Promoters of green ideas frequently have little idea of the matters they wish to improve and are suckers for miracle solutions to sometimes quite intractable problems.
Frequently greens are frightened by catastrophic predictions made on the basis of wobbly or downright erroneous science. All this leads a true greeny to be quite unable to engage in any discussion that casts doubt on the "truth" he has discovered.
True enough, the provision of energy is in permanent need of re-evaluation. The green agenda is to produce shedloads of vituperation against the imagined dangers of proposals that do not aggree with theirs, they use ad hominem attacks as if it was scientific fact. A greeny can cite an idea as scientific without a shred of evidence. And so on and so on.
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Very interesting on my post 107 A nice message [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator] If you are curious to find out what the BBC considers what comes into this category you should be able to work out from this text how you can find out what the the IPCC has to say about the physics aspects of climate change.
The BBC has an agenda based on a mythical purity that doesn't allow PDF files to be opened on your computer when on their websites. this is very convenient becuase it restricts discussion of official documents which might be embarrassing. So what you have to do is work out what this is:-tp://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/TAR-01. PDF
Alternatively, do a google for the words "The Climate System: an Overview" inverted commas included. Probably the first result is part of the IPCC 3rd assessment report, what I am trying to show you.
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Dermod @107
The reason I am giving up on you is not that I am wedded to a particular theory but that I am obviously a very poor teacher. I am trying to teach you GCSE Level Physics which is the level to which I was educated. Heat is transferred by only 3 methods; conduction, convection and radiation.
Heat cannot be transferred through space by convection or conduction because space is a vacuum. So it can only transfer by radiation. The heat balance of this planet depends on transfer of energy from the Sun to the Earth by radiation through the vacuum of space and transfer of energy from the Earth by radiation out into the vacuum of space. If that balance changes then the world will either get hotter or colder depending on the type of change. The amount of radiation received by a planet is why the planets closest to the sun are the hottest and the planets farthest away are the coldest.
The world used to expel Chloro Fluoro Carbon (CFC) compounds into the atmosphere from aerosols sprays, refrigerators, air conditioners etc. Holes formed in the Ozone Layer above the North and South Poles and got bigger every year. This was dangerous because the Ozone is one of the gases that limits the dangerous levels of ultra violet and infra red radiation from the sun reaching us. Climate scientists worked out that the CFCs were causing the holes to get bigger. Industrials said they did not know what they were talking about and there was no proof but, eventually, the countries of the world got together and banned the use of CFCs. Gradually, over many years, the hole in the Ozone Layer started to reduce and is still reducing, protecting us once more.
I applaud you for reading the IPCC report but you and I are only amateur scientists at best. I don’t know to what level you were educated but even I can tell that you don’t understand what you are reading.
It wasn’t people like you and me who discovered what was happening with the ozone layer, it was climate scientist with PhDs. If these people were right about the Ozone Layer then the chances are they know what they are talking about when it comes to CO2. If they tell me that CO2 (and many other gases) have molecules that resonate at the same frequency in the infra red spectrum as the radiation that is trying to leave the planet and that this resonance prevents radiation leaving the planet then I am prepared to believe them.
If you are not prepared to believe them then I am not the man with the knowledge and teaching skill to convince you otherwise, which is why I have to give up on you. The problem is mine not yours.
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Re 113 just for fun, here is the htm link http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/041.htm
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Ed @109
Firewood is good. It only releases carbon that can be re-fixed by growing more trees. Of course trees take a long time to grow and only minutes to burn.
What's the impact? I don't know. Do you?
I like the idea of low energy but I don't see how we get to low energy use from where we are today with the planet's growing population?
I asked you that question above but you did not answer it.
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cracking debate!!! Are we any further forward?
With winter approaching, we are (almost) bound to have power cuts... its not a matter of mild curiousity, some people will die in cold houses.
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nikki 117
Debate doesn't change minds or solve problems. Ed @ 99 says we need a space ship captain but he is rather over fond of philosophy to be elected captain. Guess we are stuck with McCain or Obama and Brown or Cameron. Not much hope for the world there then.
Of course philosophy is an important consideration, especially on a blog. Any given utterance (word, phrase, or sentence) can be considered as having different potential interpretations, depending on prevailing language norms, the characteristics of particular persons or groups of users, and the language situation in which the utterance occurred. These differing interpretations are to be formulated in more precise language represented as subsets of the original utterance. Each subset can, in its turn, have further subsets (theoretically ad infinitum).
For example, it could be that you might consider I am making a fatuous remark when really I am just trying to get you give an answer to a question that you wish to avoid answering or perhaps that by injecting some humour into a response I may be considered insulting to some cultures.
Could the use of links in a post be considered insulting? The reader may consider that the poster cannot be bothered to explain what he little understands when, in reality, the poster only has a sincere wish to educate the audience.
Such philosophical questions in themselves can be fraught with possibility to miscommunicate.
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Some more info for Pauleco,
The RSPB can't possibly object too much to wind turbines when it gets payments for customers signing up to RSPB Energy http://www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/green/energy.asp
The countryside has indeed changed - gradually over hundreds of years allowing time for adaptation - not rapidly in a few years which is what wts will do.
I really don't find the fact that we are already causing so much damage e.g. eagles may be poisoned and peat is dug up for compost etc as reason to cause more damage, quite the reverse in fact, the case to protect it becomes stronger.
You continue to argue that the damage caused by wts doesn't matter because we've done so much damage anyway, does this mean you're happy to have nuclear power?
To quote from one of your posts "Seriously though - I think that the wind energy sector has more positive motivations than just profit."
Firstly, the wind energy sector is the same sector that builds coal, oil, gas and nuclear.
Secondly when the subsidy was removed in Denmark, guess what happened?
Anyway, all this happily avoids the real issues, so Pauleco:
- what's going to backup our wts
- and what are we going to do to address climate change?
- and what are we going to build to fill our energy gap?
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Re #108 Molesworth It is very kind of you " I am trying to teach you GCSE Level Physics which is the level to which I was educated."
I studied the subject for three years at university and have used it on and off in my very interesting professional life. I still feel that I have a lot to learn. However, as I observed in #63, anyone who advocates acting on the idea that heat travels from cold to hot should check something or other, maybe for bats in the belfry?
You say "I can tell that you don?t understand what you are reading" Which bit?
You say "If they tell me that CO2 ----molecules that resonate at the same frequency in the infra red -------this resonance prevents radiation leaving the planet then I am prepared to believe them."
Good, that is your belief. I question it because CO2 radiates by the same mechanism as it absorbs. Further it cannot radiate towards the warmer place (the surface) but only to the colder place, deep space. CO2 get the heat it radiates mostly from the O2 and N2 it is mixed with, it and H2O, provide the main mechanism that cools the atmosphere.
What may not be very obvious from this is the fact that an atmosphere without CO2 would not change the surface temperature (it would be ever so slightly warmer at the surface) but we would all starve very slowly.
It is the hunger that "green" politics is causing that motivates me to challenge your science (!) and that of the IPCC. Their science is no better than yours so you are incertainly on the side of the big money!
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dermod@120
1. I spent 3 hours going through all the links you gave me and I can't find anywhere where anyone advocates the idea that heat travels from cold to hot. In case I missed it can you give it to me again with a page and line number?
4. If it is the case that someone advocated that how would such a glaring anomaly get through the peer review process for scientific paper?
3. Just out of interest, what university did you study physics at for 3 years?
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Excuse the numbering error.
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2. Molesy, thanks for your 118, but, really!!! "debate doesnt change minds"??!!! what are words for?!
x
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Re#121 Molesworth http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/041.htm In the third para, there appears this :-
"They emit in turn infrared radiation in all directions including downward to the Earth’s surface. Thus greenhouse gases trap heat within the atmosphere. This mechanism is called the natural greenhouse effect"
Further "whereas the Earth’s surface is kept at a much higher temperature of on average 14°C. "
and finally " Note that it is essential for the greenhouse effect that the temperature of the lower atmosphere is not constant (isothermal) but decreases with height."
A number of important points 1/ it is certain that they mean heat is transported by radiation to the warmer surface, it is not the reflection that happens with clouds. 2/ the falling of the atmospheric temperature with altitude is explicitly recognised so the CO2 can never be warmer than the surface, a condition that is absolutely necessary for heat to be radiated downwards. In this case radiation goes upwards only.
In Fig.1.2 there is an item 324Wm^2 labled "Back Radiation" this is what is impossible. This item is about twice as much as the Sun's contribution, why this does not arouse suspicion in the IPCC I do not know. This Back Radiation is very strange, it goes straight into the ground with no reflection or scattering like the radiation from the sun.
I suspect nobody has looked at this with a critical eye. This is not the only deficiency in the document but it is the one which most people will be able to appreciate.
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Paulco,
''The Labour Party received a donation of £250,000 from wind-farm company owner Nigel Doughty' in 2005'- Sunday Times 22.05.05.
''Stewart Stevenson, Scottish Energy Minister, was forced to sell shares in a major wind-farm developer, Scottish Power ''- The Scotsman 20.09.07.
''Brian Wilson, former Welsh Assembley Energy Minister, is now Chairman of Airtricity - a preferred bidder for major wind-farm development on Assembley land in Wales Cambrian News 08.11.07.
There must be more!
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Has this thread been taken over by S.O.S?
:)
Here's an idea. I like wind turbines and I don't like Nuclear (or coal/oil... biogas is a bit better). You like coal, nuclear/oil but don't like turbines.
How about we both/all cut down on using electricity/energy and need less of all of them?
There is no planet b.
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Pauleco,
Conservation of energy is an excellent move, no ones disputing that.
But it isn't enough on its own.
I am not aware that anyone has said they 'like' coal, gas, oil, nuclear etc.
I have however seen quite a few folks on this thread explaining the limitations of wind turbines and supplying links that explain this at length.
So when you're on the operating table and the wind is hardly blowing anywhere in Europe (and it happened in Feb this year for days on end) I guess it'll just be tough.
Until you address this issue, it is hard to take you seriously,
stepindeedcould indded is indeed an excellent u
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dermod@124
I can see why you might think that was what they were saying at http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/041.htm at para 3 but I read that as meaning the heat from the hotter parts of the world are radiated back to the cooler parts (equator to poles). In fact, their diagram sort of shows that but it isn't very clear and the description is poorly expressed.
The difference between radiation figures the sun and the back radiation on the diagram could be due to the storage effect of the oceans and the heat circulation in both the oceans and the atmosphere.
The problem with this document is that it asumes a level of knowledge and makes no explanations for those without that knowledge.
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Re #128 Molesworth. Your observation about the heat from the warm parts going to the cooler is very relevant to the debate on climate change. Most people realise that the sun shines the hottest in the tropics, but you must follow the logic. If the Earth wasn't tilted the poles would get very little solar heat indeed, their temperature would be atmost 10-20C above absolute zero because they "see" only deep space. The poles get almost all their heat from air and water circulating from the tropics. As I said, it is entirely normal for heat to go from the hot tropics to the cold poles and air and water provide the mechanism. It is no accident that the North Pole is warmer than the South, there is 4300 m water underneath it, the South is on land, as is Greenland.
The jargon says that this is horizontal heat transport, it is the resultant turbulance that gives us "weather". Heat flow away from the planet is called vertical transport, it is generally averaged over the whole surface so that one set of numbers (temp., temp. gradient, heat in, heat out. etc) give the picture, this is called a "one dimensional model", it has its uses.
Some wonder if these flows might change, they do, but they are not going to slow down (or increase) because of CO2. Like all turbulent flow, the kinetics of the mass of air or water makes predicting the flow pattern difficult but the average is never in doubt (weather forecasters know about this!).
You say that the IPCC doc. "asumes a level of knowledge and makes no explanations for those without that knowledge", you are very kind, it is scientific rubbish.
The IPCC fails to recognise that the thermal properties of the atmosphere are completely described by thermodynamics, it is clear that their authors are largely unaware of this science of heat; without the least understanding they have picked up a few pieces that someone else said were relevant and, of course, predicted catastrophy.
The IPCC is a government agency, governments know that they exist to solve the problems the governed suffer from, traditionally they invent a few whenever they feel the need, care to think of a few in recent history?
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Chloe - no-one has explained the limitations of turbines on this thread, just the limitations of the national grid, our current stubborn mentality, lack of imagination and inability to look beyond our own lifespan.
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Pauleco,
Germany and Denmark have adapted their grid systems; as stated in an earlier post, their CO2 emissions have still risen!
More to the point, it doesn't matter what sort of grid we have if Europe is beset by calm.
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You've got the idea, Paulco!
Reducing energy consumption is by far the most efficient use of resources in the bid for carbon emissions reductions. Don't waste time and money on wind.
And it's no good saying we must do both. The more we spend on wind the less we spend on energy efficiency.
I'm with you - we need to do something - but it must be effective.
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dermod @129
You say, "weather forecasters know about this!" So presumably that includes the World Meteorological Organization.
It says on their web site. Given the number of scientist who contribute as authors, contributors and viewers do you think that it is at all possible, and I hestiate to say this, but could it be just possible that you might be the one out of step scientifically.
Could ALL those scientist really have missed something so obvious?
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Re #133 RJM "could it be just possible that you might be the one out of step scientifically. " Of course, it is very common for people to misunderstand scientific matters. I have had a lot of fun with enthusiasts who are convinced that JC Maxwell got his electromagnetics wrong, others who think that there is "free" energy to be recovered from water, etc. etc. Likewise I have spent some effort researching the discrepancies in the CO2 theory of climate change. What I have found, I have put down in a way that I hope can be understood. If I am mistaken then so be it, if I am not....
Reading critically what has been written on this matter has opened up considerable areas of science that I was not sure about and I have looked carefully through the available literature to sort the matter to my satisfaction. The arguments I have presented are the result of much effort to check and recheck my understanding, so please feel free to tell me if I have written something illogical or inconsistent.
As far as my satisfaction is concernered, the matter isn't complete. Like a lot of wacky hypotheses, the CO2 one is probably through and through inconsistent, in this case one has to look at the way the "radiation balance" figure of 258K was arrived at since classical science based on the distance from the Sun, gives 279K, care to have a look?
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dermod 134
I respect the research that you have done but why is the world getting hotter. I have travelled in the arctic and the antarctic over a number of years and I have seen the melting of glaciers for myself. Is it just a natural cycle? Why have all these weathermen got it wrong?
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RJM 135 you seem to miss the point of my contribution entirely. If there is planetary warming, and I have no idea if there is, the proposition for CO2 being the cause is clearly mistaken, so why embark on wildly speculative schemes to "save the planet" by attempting to modify the CO2 content of the atmosphere?
Global warming used to be a greeny joke but now it has got serious because idiots, egged on by politicians like WMD Blair, are burning food in vehicles on the grounds that it is "renewable". People are going hungry, perhaps starving, as a consequence, do you not find this a truly ghastly scenario? Is it not worth your while to brush up your science so you can help to slay this monster?
The most we should be doing about GW is adapting our economy to cope with it, CO2 is not a problem since all it does is make food grow better, are you against this?
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dermod 136
I really have missed the point of your posts.
At first, I thought you were trying to convince us that CO2 was not one of the causes of global warming and that the idea that it was a green lobby delusion.
Now you tell us that you have no idea if there is planetary warming. If you have not observed that than how can we trust your observations on anything else.
If you had told us that you have observed that the planet is warming but you are not convinced by the science in relation to CO2 that would at least be a credible position. But if you do not know about climate change how can you be trusted on any matter related to it. You cannot claim ignorance about climate change and then claim knowledge of climate mechanisms and expect to be taken seriously.
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RJM 137 You say "Now you tell us that you have no idea if there is planetary warming. If you have not observed that than how can we trust your observations on anything else."
Why do I have to accept global warming (or climate change) to show that CO2 has nothing to do with the planetary mean temperature? If the climate is changing there will be a cause but an analysis based on scientific nonsense has got to be rubbish.
I have the impression you wish to make me out as some sort of nutty climate change denier. Although not old enough to remember the last ice age, I have never have doubted its reality and I fully expect there will be another, what happens in the meantime is very interesting.
I have the strong impression you wish to retain an equally nutty belief that heat can spontaneously flow (radiate) from a cold troposphere to a warm surface and thus cause climate change! Dream on, why not use this heat flow to do your barbecue at night, put a good mirror out and, according to the IPCC, you will get more heat than from the Sun!
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dermod 138
I have no wish to "make you out" as anything.
Likewise, I am sure that "your strong impression" that I deny the 2nd law of thermodynamics is just to tease.
Neither of us believe any such thing and we would not seriously attribute such a belief to the other.
Because you are sure it is nutty to believe that heat can spontaneously flow (radiate) from a cold troposphere to a warm surface you will similarly be sure it is nutty to believe the glaciers are melting because the world is getting colder. That would be to deny the 2nd law.
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dermod
I found this web site which, as a physicist, I think you are going to like.
Not a mention of radiation a cold troposphere to a warm surface but a great deal else of interest.
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/26946
Skip the first 4 paragraphs as its just journalistic introduction.
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RJM 140 Quite a lot of stuff in your link, books and articles by John Houghton who I think is a big mover in the Institute of Physics. I have a book about climate change by John Houghton, it is not very informative, where you can decide what he means it is not different from the IPCC (he is the British govt. rep. on the IPCC)
They go on about their computer simulation, I suspected they did fluid flow simulations but this is the best explanation of what they want the money for. Simulating fluid flow is a horrendously expensive thing to do on a computer, I found this statement on the website "The topography of the Earth's surface, its frictional properties and its reflectivity also vary on scales smaller than the resolution of the model" which says "Basically our model is quite inadequate"
My personal view is that computer modelling may produce better weather forecasts but climate change predictions require, at the very least, significant parameter changes such as albedo. Even here it is far from certain that a change in albedo would affect the climate. Albedo is a very poorly defined parameter, there are many definitions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo
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back @ chloe the NIABY.
You asked me some direct questions:
1. what's going to backup our wts (wind turbines?) - batteries, pumped water, compressed air, hydro, fuel cells, CHP, wave/tidal ;amp solar
2. and what are we going to do to address climate change - change ourselves
3. and what are we going to build to fill our energy gap? - all of the above
My question to you is why are the CO2 emissions of Germany and Denmark the fault of wind developers..?
Also - back to the old dilemma of which way to kill a mockingbird...
Obviously the best thing to do is not kill any. Sadly, humans are not very good at that, so in order to keep the birds singing, we need to look at the most effective ways of keeping habitats stable or we enforce evolution on the poor critters.
All I am suggesting is that there are many other targets for your passion - other than objecting to wind turbines, that would be more effective in reducing the number of deaths of wild birds. I tend to agree with the (obviously corrupt in your eyes) RSPB in that climate change (if it exists... yawn!) is a greater threat to not only birds but every living creature and plant/fungus and microbe that has managed to cling on to being naturalised in our post-industrial landscape.
BTW - RJM - this line really made my day: "Because you are sure it is nutty to believe that heat can spontaneously flow (radiate) from a cold troposphere to a warm surface you will similarly be sure it is nutty to believe the glaciers are melting because the world is getting colder. That would be to deny the 2nd law."
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Pauleco,
Marvellous, now your talking.
To put the backup of wts into perspective, how many MW of wind capacity are you looking at on the grid and which methods and in what quantities (and at what cost) would we need to give us in effect, electricity on demand?
Can you provide a link to the research supportng this scenario.
Changing ourselves sounds good, what shall we change into, Cactii?
I think you may be referring to using less energy and indeed Coppinger claimed we could save 30% of our energy consumption. So how are you going to get people to do this; how much has the government invested of our money to acheiving this?
You ask, how can wind give rise to an increase in CO2 emissions - roughly it's to do with running conventional power stations at less than their optimum performance.
I cannot think of a better diretion for my passion than promoting the effective tackling of climate change thank you.
I do not recall anywhere that I describe the RSBP as corrupt, those are your words; I merely provided a link to the RSPB Energy website and point out that in the circumstances, it woud be difficult for them to object to all wts.
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RJM 139 your logic is weird. You say:- "Because you are sure it is nutty to believe that heat can spontaneously flow (radiate) from a cold troposphere to a warm surface you will similarly be sure it is nutty to believe the glaciers are melting because the world is getting colder. That would be to deny the 2nd law."
To start with it is characteristic of glaciers to melt, Ja oder Nein? How they do it and when is a matter of interest and can be investigated. Currently it is asserted that glaciers are affected by climate change, see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaciers#FormationIn your logic, is this any evidence at all that radiation from the (cold) troposphere heats the Earth's surface? Having considered the known behaviour of glaciers you are able to say that atmospheric CO2 is the cause. From what you write one has the strong impression your opinion is based on "what everyone says" rather than a solid argument.
It is absolutely not characteristic of heat energy to transfer sponataneously from a cold troposphere to a warm surface, which is the central argument of the "CO2 causes climate change believers". This conviction is the modern "Flat Earthers" position. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth Down the ages large numbers of people, possibly a majority of the scientists of the day, believed the Earth was flat; it didn't change the shape of the Earth but if you wanted to keep your job and the boss was a believer then you said "the Earth is flat,.... Sire".
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@ chloe
Yes sorry for the delay - I got distracted with work.
WRT MW of WTS on the NG plc (decode that if you can!). I would say about 20 GW ish would do in the next decade or so. We might only need a couple of reactors then - saving a couple of tonnes per month of waste that we don't really know what to do with. It would also reduce the risk of something 'going wrong' - and there is a risk of that happening isn't there? Otherwise the ideal place to build reactors would be in the cityies, close to the people that use the electricity generated.
You did read the 'withouthotair' thing didn't you? Which of the five (starting on page 200) do you prefer/propose?
RE: Change. I suggest we change ourselves into slightly less selfish and self-obsessed 'teenagers' who leave important things to the very last minute before doing them, usually in favour of watching TV or playing on the internet ;-)
Although changing into Cactii would be a really smart move if we want to live in a desert.
You are saying that for every wind farm they need an equal amount of 'conventional' generation running as back up for when the wind is not blowing? I have come across that concept before, mostly on anti-wind sites.
As far as I know - to achieve our base-load of power on the grid - we currently do exactly that (regardless of wind energy) - we keep reactors running (when they *can* run) and some rapid fire coal stations etc 'on standby'. Any amount of excess energy is wasted or used to pump water up hill. We cope with unpredicted periods of high demand by pumped storage hydro, and by paying coal stations for energy they don't produce when idle.
Here is what the BWEA say:
"Myth: Wind energy needs back-up to work
Fact: All forms of power generation require back up and no energy technology can be relied upon 100%. The UK's transmission system already operates with enough back-up to manage the instantaneous loss of a large power station. Variations in the output from wind farms are barely noticeable over and above the normal fluctuation in supply and demand, seen when the nation's workforce goes home, or if lightning brings down a high-voltage transmission line. Therefore, at present there is no need for additional back-up because of wind energy.
Even for wind power to provide 10% of our nation's electricity needs, only a small amount of additional conventional back-up would be required, in the region of 300-500 megawatts (MW). This would add only 0.2 pence per kilowatt hour to the generation cost of wind energy and would not in any way threaten the security of our grid6. In fact, this is unlikely to become a significant issue until wind generates over 20% of total electricity supply."
We need to start storing more energy regardless of whether we have more wind turbines.
Have you looked at energy demand in comparison to CO2 production in Germany and Denmark? Denmark also tend to incinerate a lot of waste...
As far as I know Germany and Denmark's grid systems don't support dynamic/smart metering, they don't have widespread UPS/domestic energy 'buffers' or widespread electric vehicles or even fridge freezers which take instructions from the grid on when to turn on/off. They don't have compressed air storage either.
That's tweaking the grid.
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Pauleco,
Two posts ago you proposed backing up wind turbines with various methods.
I asked you to elaborate on what quantities of which methods you would use and you now quote me the BWEA, a paid up lobby group for the wind industry.
What staggers me is that you still haven't grasped or you refuse to acknowledge that wind will not displace firm generators. I have provided the information...
As for hotair, I didn't read beyond the summary after, equally staggeringly, his wts didn't need backing up either; and surely he knows that the only humane and practical way to reduce population is to provide abundant energy supplies i.e. population reduction is an outcome not a solution. He also does not take into account peak demand in his initial calculations.
No Germany doesn't have electric cars - there are still a few practical issues to overcome here like refuelling. Hugh Sharman looks at running our cars from wind turbines, I think you'll find it interesting reading. I love the idea of switching off fridges and freezers - just what we'll need when we're trying to feed a world starving because of climate change - why isn't it called global warming anymore?
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I think this will be my last post on this topic... I tire of repeating myself and clarifying.
All generators need back-up in case they pack-up.
A widespread lack of wind across part of the country would be the equivalent of a large power station shutting down due to failure. Both rare but it can happen.
Back-up and storage are the same thing. If we start to implement some storage, then we don't need to burn stuff as back-up. 'Withouthotair' DOES talk about this - in great detail.
What we need to do with wind, and solar, and tidal (ie renewables) is to harvest it and store it. The other stuff I mention is about reducing demand.
It doesn't require stuff to be burned, nor to produce nuclear waste.
If we can store the energy - that would be the best form of back-up.
Look again into your crystal ball and tell me what NIABYs and NIMBYs will be doing in 30 years time?
I don't claim to know the future, but I do claim to have thought about it. I can see that we will be using some level of nuclear (depends on how well we can use other forms of low carbon energy), but I can't see us using oil or coal or gas for much longer.
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Glad to see you are a flat earth man dermod. Not many of us left. Shame you didn't read that link I gave you. As a flat earth man you would have enjoyed it.
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Re 148 RJM You said "didn't read that link I gave you" There is so much on that link that you'll have to give me the benefit of your perspicacity and make a worth while point. I looked at quite a lot, but then am I looking at the correct link? ( http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/26946)
Now what is it there precisely that will ensure doom and get heat to flow from cold to hot if we don't follow our leaders?
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Just testing because I'm getting invalid HTML errors!
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Yes Pauleco, storage is a form of backup but how many valleys are you going to flood and how many mountains are you going to hollow out for hydro and how big are the batteries needed to store enough energy to meet a 24 hour winter period. I asked you to put storage proposals into perspective with some sample figures so that we could see the practicalities of what you are talking about. Also in converting energy into a storable form e.g. hydro, much energy is lost.
It would be great if we had practical storage methods; it would be great if we had fusion, but we don't. Perhaps instead of spending billions on wind, we could spend some of that money on fast tracking our research for real solutions to the issues we face.
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Pauleco, (the rest of my post is here now I've sorted out the problem - this board doesn't like ampersands)
Yes we need backup for the odd power station or two going out but not for all of them going out at once which is what you are looking at with wind turbines i.e. if all our electricity generation capacity was from wind we would need the equivalent amount (currently 78GW) in some other form as well because there are days when there is not enough wind across Europe, never mind the UK, to give us any electricity. It's simple really.
You say Pauleco: “You are saying that for every wind farm they need an equal amount of ‘conventional’ generation running as backup for when the wind is not blowing? I have come across that concept before, mostly on anti-wind sites”
Firstly backup is needed for the times when the wind blows too much, too little or not at all, not just when it isn't blowing and it needs ‘firm’ generators to for backup.
And secondly, since when have the Sustainable Development Commission, Eon Netz and Hugh Sharman been anti-wind?
Re crystal balls, in 20 or 30 years if we continue to rely on wind as some magic bullet then we'll all be in the dark and the turbines built now will be dying on us because we're lucky if they last 20 years never mind 30. Interesting point when comparing with the costs of conventional generators which can have a 60 year lifespan nowadays.
I am pleased to see you acknowledge nuclear as playing a role. It's nobody's favourite subject but it is low (no) carbon i.e. it addresses climate change and it is a firm generator i.e. it supplies electricity in vast quantities when we want it so that we are well equipped to survive climate change. We would need some other capacity for grid balancing though and it certainly couldn't be wind.
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If you loook at the economics of renewables you will find that the big movers in energy supply are very enthusastic supporters of renewables because they see subsidies and vastly increased business.
To their utter joy, populist politicians are enthusiastically eliminating the energy giants biggest problem, competetive supply is replaced with subsidies and directives (I search in vain for diesel fuel not containing food). All this means that they don't have to do any planning and the customer can go and whistle if he objects.
It isn't that the energy giants don't care for their customers, it just doesn't make any difference to them.
On top of this, the renewables project is horrendously expensive. Renewables need to store energy instead of fuel. Having obtained your energy from the wind, you have to make extra to use when there is no wind. The Danes send theirs to Norway where it is used to pump water up mountains. So not only do you have to install capacity about 3 times the peak demand, you also have to find pumped storage, batteries (!) etc. etc.
Small wonder the energy companies are enthusiastic, the idea that they will be obliged to spend all this money (which will come in the form of tax breaks and special charges on customers, just as it does now) just fills them and their shareholders (often governments).
A popular canard is "look at what we do now, 5% is wind, saving so much horrible fuel". What does this mean, only that you have ignored the numbers. Any substantial use of wind can only be done with a complete redesign of the network, the fact that the current installations have not done this is because they are small and are able to use the spare capacity that was there to cover outages of other types. The idiot position says "look, no accident so far". This is the nutty logic that caused the NASA Space Shuttle to burn up multiple times.
People are now dependent for their livings and lives on a good supply of energy, if the political system decides to base its decisions on unsubstantiated scare stories an abandon sound economics, which is what the renewables agenda is all about, then the result will be the opposite of what sound economics is about, i.e. poverty and starvation will replace the general good found in secure food supplies and plenty of fuel, the poor will suffer this the most. This poverty agenda is already taking hold and producing the predictable results.
The renewables agenda does nothing for the poor of the world, the richer nations will be increasingly using their scarce resources for themselves while trying to force more Kyoto Protocols on the poor. This isn't "the future", it is happening now.
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dermod 149 You say
"Now what is it there precisely that will ensure doom and get heat to flow from cold to hot if we don't follow our leaders?"
The answer in nothing. Absolutely nothing. None of that IPCC heat flowing the wrong way nonsense, just a history of the research into the effects of different gases.
Way before anyone had proposed idea that the climate was changing, back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, research and modelling was being done that proved to be accurate over time in relation to Ozone, CO2, Halogens , etc.
I thought you would be pleased to know that some good science has been done, even if it is not getting the publicity it deserves.
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RJM 154 you gave me a link of which I hadn't to read the first four paragraphs, then you asserted that I hadn't read it despite my protestations. All I want to know is, what am I missing? I have even read a book published by a major player on that site. Up until now I have found nothing that makes an unchallengeable case for CO2 causing climate change.
I have read the works of Fourier and Arrhenius, also about Angstroms experiments with a tube full of CO2. These were very primitive speculations that missed out substantial matters in the physics as does the IPCC. One way or another I have explained what these objections are and they are serious ones that must be answered or accepted in time.
But the consequences of the serious disruption to life on Earth caused by the current concepts of renewable energy are so enormous that every doubt must be resolved or accepted before too much damage is done to the world economy and the poor also.
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RJM, I have just come across this:
Tom Harris is an Ottawa-based mechanical engineer and Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/author.asp?id=5524
Click on The UN climate change numbers hoax
An extract: “An example of rampant misrepresentation of IPCC reports is the frequent assertion that “hundreds of IPCC scientists” are known to support the following statement, arguably the most important of the WG I report, namely “Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years”.
In total, only 62 scientists reviewed the chapter in which this statement appears, the critical chapter 9, “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”. Of the comments received from the 62 reviewers of this critical chapter, almost 60 per cent of them were rejected by IPCC editors. And of the 62 expert reviewers of this chapter, 55 had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial.
Two of these seven were contacted by NRSP for the purposes of this article - Dr Vincent Gray of New Zealand and Dr Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph, Canada. Concerning the “Greenhouse gas forcing …” statement above, Professor McKitrick explained “A categorical summary statement like this is not supported by the evidence in the IPCC WG I report. Evidence shown in the report suggests that other factors play a major role in climate change, and the specific effects expected from greenhouse gases have not been observed.”
Dr Gray labeled the WG I statement as “Typical IPCC doubletalk” asserting “The text of the IPCC report shows that this is decided by a guess from persons with a conflict of interest, not from a tested model”.”
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It is worth looking carefully at Pauleco's post 145 again to understand the BWEA's style of communication.
It certainly caught Pauleco out.
Pauleco writes:
"You are saying that for every wind farm they need an equal amount of 'conventional' generation running as back up for when the wind is not blowing? I have come across that concept before, mostly on anti-wind sites."
And further on he writes:
"Here is what the BWEA say:
"Myth: Wind energy needs back-up to work
Fact: All forms of power generation require back up and no energy technology can be relied upon 100%. The UK's transmission system already operates with enough back-up to manage the instantaneous loss of a large power station. Variations in the output from wind farms are barely noticeable over and above the normal fluctuation in supply and demand, seen when the nation's workforce goes home, or if lightning brings down a high-voltage transmission line. Therefore, at present there is no need for additional back-up because of wind energy.
Even for wind power to provide 10% of our nation's electricity needs, only a small amount of additional conventional back-up would be required, in the region of 300-500 megawatts (MW). This would add only 0.2 pence per kilowatt hour to the generation cost of wind energy and would not in any way threaten the security of our grid6. In fact, this is unlikely to become a significant issue until wind generates over 20% of total electricity supply.""
Do the BWEA say anywhere that wind turbines do not need backup?
Answer - no.
Infact they refer to the "additional backup" for wind turbines and the fact that we'll need it.
So when Pauleco writes: "I have come across that concept before (backup), mostly on anti-wind sites." I ought to make an addition to my post 152:
"... since when have the Sustainable Development Commission, Eon Netz, Hugh Sharman and the BWEA been anti-wind?"
Just to further illustrate the BWEA's typical methods of communication, it is worth looking at the title of their above quote - "Myth: Wind energy needs back-up to work" - nobody ever said that wind needs backup to work, providing there's an appropriate amount of wind, the turbines should turn regardless of whether there's backup. However, for the lights to stay on i.e. if we want a electricity when and where we want it, wind turbines need backup.
Also when the BWEA refer to 10% or 20% of 'our electricity supply', it is worth noting that they are referring to 'installed generation capacity'. In the case of wind turbines, because they only give a very low capacity factor, we would only get 28% (the current average capacity factor in this country) as actual electrcity from the installed generating capacity of 10% or 20%.
Eh ho...
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Chloe @156
The ICSC are not alone. There are many similar groups. But who are they?
The ICSC are:
Two mechanical engineers, a neuroscientist, a hydrologist and a justice of the peace.
I looked up one of their list of experts, Professor Peter Stilbs, and he is an expert on NMR. Many of those listed do not acknowledged links with ICSC on their web sites.
You have to draw your own conclusions.
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Come now RJM (158) you have to face the facts, it is clear that IPCC publications are not even "peer reviewed"!
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Ah here's the article I wanted on Eon, (the largest operators of wind farms in the world) and their view on backup:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/04/energy.renewableenergy
“E.ON said that it could take 50 gigawatts of renewable electricity generation to meet the EU target. But it would require up to 90% of this amount as backup from coal and gas plants to ensure supply when intermittent renewable supplies were not available. That would push Britain's installed power base from the existing 76 gigawatts to 120 gigawatts.”
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dermod @159
You may well think that, I could not possibly comment.
The IPCC process is clearly shown on their web site.
Do you have evidence that this is not a true reflection of their peer review process?
Better evidence than the mechanical engineers I mean.
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Hi RJM Re #161 Thanks for your link, I'm quit amazed that they feel it necessary to write it all down, as if the felt that nobody would believe them.
I am quite neutral on this, but if some one explains with good evidence what actually happened, then I will accept the evidence, it's a sort of scientific thing to do.
I have just been watching a film about the disastrous launch of the Challenger space shuttle. This shuttle blew up during launch, killing all on board in front of their families and President Regan. It blew up because it was launched in a temp. 27F below the designed lower limit. The decision to launch was taken by managers who overruled the technical personnel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
This appears to parallel the IPCC very nicely. NASA had rules and specifications but when they felt like it they ignored them. The lesson to be learned is "rules are not for managers, we have to take decisions".
You will be aware that the IPCC does not employ any scientists but invites scientists to contribute to give respectability to its pronouncements. But, as I hope you noticed, they feel free to select and modify what is in the report.
You may feel that lessons were learned and nobody was to blame, why then did NASA effectively do the same thing once more with Columbia SS 17 years later? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia
Organisations such as NASA and IPCC cannot afford to admit failure, they were after all, set up to get things right.
Can you imagine an airline with the launch record of NASA being allowed to stay in business? Do you think the IPCC with their crap science should be allowed to have any influence on the planning of energy resources?
However much you want to believe they are right, surely your beliefs are not based completely on uncritical acceptance?
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dermod 162
You say,
Well yes I can, almost every airline in the world (except Qantas) has a worse crash record.
Only PanAm, as far as can remember, failed to survive the reckless endangerment of its passengers.
What would worry me about being on the shuttle is the knowledge that every part was ordered from the contractor who bid the lowest price.
As for the IPCC, you continue to adopt the position that I hold some brief for them despite my assertions to the contrary. I have done my own research that has nothing to do with the IPCC over the last 20 years. My conclusions differ from theirs except in one respect and that is I am certain that a proportion of the climate changes over the last 100 years are caused by human activity. Exactly what that proportion is I cannot say, nor can anyone else with certainty. But I do think it is worth some effort on out part to reverse the changes. If done with care and intelligence, it can do no harm and may do some good.
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RJM, This thread is about "Renewables". The whole case for renewables is based on CO2 being, in some odd way, harmful to the environment.
The IPCC is the principle govt. agency pushing this, its science is, I hope I have shown, deeply flawed. Such rubbish science is likely to do much harm to the environment with its irrational calls to stop using carbon as an energy source. That is why I use their publications as an example of what is wrong with the CO2/GH panic.
If you are able to show me what you have found in you research, just fine, I am certainly interested. But you are not the one in my sights, yet!
I showed some flaws in NASA because, for some obscure reason, it is treated as a source of wisdom and truth when in fact it has fried the crews of 2 shuttles in 123 launches, not by mysterious malfunction but by obscene negligence.
You say:-
"almost every airline in the world (except Qantas) has a worse crash record."
In shuttle 123 launches NASA has lost 2 vehicles and 14 crew. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_shuttle_missions
Worse record? You cannot be serious. I quote this from an article in Wikipedia:-
"Air travel is the safest form of transportation available. Trains have .04 deaths for every 100 million miles while air travel has .01 deaths for every 100 million miles traveled. Compared to the automobile, with .94 deaths per 100 million miles, both figures are low." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_accidents#Safety
You will have to verify this for youself, I am not in this business. I just do not accept that the "NASA way" is necessarily good; same for the IPCC, another govt. org.
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dermod,
Renewables are about sustainable sources of power not about CO2. That's an issue that some people also like to consider but the main issue is that fossil and nuclear fuels have a finite life.
As to transport safety, when planes were as new a technology as space shuttles are now they used to fall out of the sky with monotonous regularity. "Safe" airline travel is relatively recent. Even after a 75 years of development cargo doors open in flight and engines go spontaneously into reverse and airlines make reckless safety decisions like failing to reconcile passengers to their baggage.
Those safety miles figures must have been thought up by the airline industry. Its the number of hours you are in the type of transport that determines your exposure to risk not the number of miles you travel. If you are stationary in your car on the hard shoulder of the motorway some pillock is going to plough into you if you stay there long enough.
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RJM,
You say "Renewables are about sustainable sources of power not about CO2. "
Well that's news to us all because the wind developers have been shoving industrial wind turbines down our throats to "save the planet from climate change" - I look forwards to your next relevations!
Anyway your revelation still beggars the question of how we our going to back up our intermittant renewables i.e. the wind turbines that we've been told we need to save the planet.
I'll quote Eon, (the largest operators of wind farms in the world) again in case you missed it earlier:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/04/energy.renewableenergy
"E.ON said that it could take 50 gigawatts of renewable electricity generation to meet the EU target. But it would require up to 90% of this amount as backup from coal and gas plants to ensure supply when intermittent renewable supplies were not available. That would push Britain's installed power base from the existing 76 gigawatts to 120 gigawatts."
And before you tell us 'Ah but the wind turbines will stop us burning lots of fossil fuels' I suggest you digest Hugh Sharman's report - link provided earlier on this thread.
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Chloe
Don't confuse marketing with sustainability. Never the twain will meet.
One thing we can agree about is that gererating electricity by wind power is a bad idea except for small isolated communities in windy places. There are plenty of other renewables so I why get hung up on just this one.
What's your plan for energy post fossil and nuclear fuel sources?
I'm rather keen on tidal and wave power with a bit of geothermal thrown in for good measure. Of course, in and North America and Scandinavia they have trees but we cut ours down a long time ago.
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RJM,
I'm not confusing marketing with sustainability but in case you hadn't noticed, many including the government are; and wind is the one renewable that marketing has convinced them will save the planet - these are he folks who are hung up on wind.
Hopefully post fossil fuel and post nuclear we'll have found sustainable means of producing energy but as Hugh Sharman points out, "Between 40 and 50 GW of diversely energised, new generating capacity, costing £40-50 billion, must be planned, financed, engineered, procured, built and commissioned between now and 2020."
But prior to then, we'd better get building something more sensible than thousands of industrial wind turbines!
You say you're rather keen on tidal and wave yet wave relys to some degree on the wind, tidal can provide a fairly steady and predictable source of electricity but just how many and where and of what type do you think we'll need to look after us all? predictablewrather keen on ti
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Chloe
Governments do more marketing than anyone else. Ordinary folks call it lying.
2020 is only just around the corner and we can use fossil fuel for the next 60 years. No, I was thinking more about the beginning of the next century.
Like the rest of us the best you can do is hope for some scientific magic.
As you rightly point out, tidal, wave, and wind won't provide for all of us but then some of us will be dead by then. More people will be removed as the waters rise and the food runs out so the few thousand people left will have sufficient power with renewables.
Geothermal would provide for us all but it is a enormous capital investment which would be wasted for the few people left alive.
Of course it might never happen or someone might save us all with fusion but I doubt you and I will find out one way or the other.
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I notice I did not answer you question about the government being convinced about wind power. Governments are always convinced by the blandishments of industry (a blandishment comes in a brown envelope). You will see that a large coal fired power station will be approved in the next 5 years as well as some wind turbines.
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This country won't get to the beginning of the next century if we don't does something drastic before 2015 as per Hugh Sharman's report and has re-iterated by Christopher Booker in today's Sunday telegraph:
"By 2015, thanks to the obsolescence of our nuclear power plants and the forced closure of nine of our major coal and oil-fired power stations under EU anti-pollution rules, we are due to lose 40 per cent of our current generating capacity - and Mr Brown hasn't the slightest practical idea of how to fill the gap."
You can worry about the start of the 20th century if you want; I'm worrying about the next few years so that we are in a position to do something about the beginning of the 20th century.
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If YOUR lights don't come on in the morning.
I don't care.
If YOUR kettle does not switch on in the morning.
I don't care.
If MY lights don't come on in the morning,and MY kettle doesn't work;
THEN
build all the coal fired powerstations; nuclear powerstations; wind farms; barrages; photo voltaic arrays you like in MY back garden.
Circumstances alter viewpoints.
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Can the BBC please not report electric cars without pointing out they do, if charged from fossil fuel, produce more pollution at the power plant than a modern efficent petrol or diesel engine produce using the fuel tat the point of use. You can easilly check this yourself by combing the efficiencies of power plant, grid/distribution network, battery charger and electric motor - its less even for the best gas plants.
Hybrids generate their own electricity, yes, but overall are less fuel efficient than the best diesel saloons, while suffering from handling and performance negatives their design compromises necessitate. Electric cars are a blind alley. Hydrogen could be good though. See James May's prog on them.... Brian Catt CEng, CPhys.
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