Sunday 17 August 2008

Power The future?




I have just seen that the venture capital company who are backers of the Thanet Array wind farm are off loading their share of the company. Is this because renewable energy is doomed to failure? Perhaps our future source of power should be nuclear? I am not sure if either way is the answer, but am trying to get my average sized brain around a problem that is facing us all.

5 comments:

Michael Child said...

Ken my understanding is that when the hydrocarbons consumed in manufacture and maintenance are taken into account, wind farms are not thought to be the best option.

Large American companies seem to have promoted them as a panacea to the environmental lobby, and now a lot of the better companies seem to moving away from them.

I am afraid the harsh truth here is that the way we are going the planet probably has less that 100 years left, and at the moment the only viable way of extending this appears to be nuclear power and nuclear produced hydrogen, to replace fossil fuels in our vehicles.

The Great Daktari said...

I'm inclined to agree with you Michael.

Nuclear power is relatively clean (apart from the waste) and I'm sure that one day someone will find a way to destroy the waste

Either that or we can all go back to candles and give the planet some more of the greenhouse effect!

Nemesis said...

Response on net to a BBC Question Time discussion in this issue



Nuclear power

Audience question: Given the weather forecast for this winter and diminishing fossil fuel reserves, is it time to go nuclear?

You said:

Nuclear energy offers a genuine opportunity to decrease the impact we are having on the enhanced greenhouse effects. Alternatives also offer a great opportunity to produce large quantities of energy. We have in the UK a bay with one of the highest tidal ranges on earth - the Severn. The Severn barrier would produce over 10% of the UK energy needs alone. Nimbyism however is still at play when these options are proposed. It is ignorance that is having the biggest impact on the introduction of alternative technologies. Wind farms are also a great opportunity, if only we can get over the fact that this will have some localised ecological effects.
Dr Paul Carey, Manchester

The Nuclear option is a flawed argument. It is carbon based in that the fuel to build Nuclear plants are mainly oil powered. The dismantling of the plant would be hugely expensive in carbon terms. And the legacy for 100,000 years or more would be staggering. The short-term option is to cut back on carbon usage, use more local generation, such as Solar and Wind power. When or if the problems of dealing with the nuclear waste. Or another cycle of generating power is possible, can it be realistically be considered.
Francis O'Brien, Harlow, Essex

We live near Sizewell and tried to insure our farm so that if the land was polluted by a leak from the nuclear plant, we would be able to buy a farm in New Zealand. No insurance company at Lloyds would take the risk.
Roger Stearn, Stowmarket




Roger Stearn is, as far as I know, also the last combatant in the Suffolk Tithe War. Hence his tendency to try to plant disinformation on Suffolk Special Branchg that a meeting of the anti Sizewell group will be convened at the Bishop of Dunwich's strawberry tea party.

Suffolk Police (apparently) have never fallen for it but allegedly got their own back when Roger was arrested advanacing on Sizewell waving a crowbar aloft. His advance became accompanied by panic (of the air breaks down at 500 volts per millimetre category) and so he slowed to an Orange Order style advance of six inch paces and plenty of pomp fearful to get too near the plant. Then was reduced by terror to marching on the spot. And then to standing still requesting arrest.

This is the story at Stowmarket Rugby Club of which he was a founding member.

Whilst apparently fearful of the technology he opposes one concedes that he appears to have demonstrated that the money market shares his fears ?

The carbon argument (see above) also applies to construction of nuclear the ?

This story could be apocryphal.

Nemesis said...

Putting the other side of the story

his version of the events

Ken ... should we forego the number crunching re expected reliability of backup generators on nuclear plant ? (The things nedded to stop them going critical after an emergency shut down) Other than to say perhaps Lloyds agree with my assessments ?

Welcome to Thanet blogging Daktari.


Hope you are up on your Schacter and Singer

Tony Flaig said...

my comments always seem so inadequate after ricks let rip

I feel that this country has taken too long go wind and wave power, probably held back oil company propaganda. Maybe we should looking at coal again