BS: Food for thought on climate change

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Jun 15 - 05:00 PM

The food for thought is that food is threatened world wide.

FOOD IS AT THE NEXUS OF CLIMATE CHANGE-POLLUTION, TOXICITY from systemic poncho &gaucho poison insecticide, FRACKING TOXICITY AND GROUND WATER LOSS.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jun 15 - 11:47 AM

I'm like Brian Clough, Derrick. If someone disagrees with me, we have a chat about it for a little while before deciding that I'm right. :-)

(Cue the first po-faced yank who doesn't get that...)

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 26 Jun 15 - 11:25 AM

I think we have reached agreement Steve,the real problem is the insanity of mankind.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jun 15 - 11:10 AM

I can't explain why we can't pick a cheaper and cleaner option, but we simply don't invest what's needed in green technology. One avenue we simply have to go down is energy conservation. We could start by withdrawing massive subsidies to landowners and using the money instead to insulate and double-glaze every home in the country. We could impose punitive taxes on all cars with more than minimal emissions and stop people hauling caravans and motorhomes all over the place. We could tell the yanks that they need to ditch their gas-guzzlers and that they don't pay enough for petrol. Make farmers pay the same price for diesel as everyone else has to. Get freight back on the railways. Stop shipping unripe apples half way round the world so that Morrisons can sell them for less than a quid a pound. I saw a bag of Duchy Originals organic spuds in Waitrose this morning, grown in Israel (!!!) when English spuds are coming out of our ears. We could stop sending Devon milk to bottling plants two hundred miles away before shipping it back to be sold in Devon. Add your own dozen absurdities to the list. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic..

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 26 Jun 15 - 08:43 AM

Your nuclear solution is one longer term solution,the waste disposal issues and decommissioning costs are a problem.
Any energy generation system be it green or any other costs money so why not pick a cheaper and cleaner option?.
Other energy sources may be more reliable in the long term,have we got time to set them up?, not much if some forecasts are right..
What we don't seem able to solve is the stupidity of mankind,between us we can solve the energy crisis,nobody seems to have the solution
to the blindness of humanity.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jun 15 - 06:57 AM

"UK Government To Scrap 250 Wind Farms As Subsidies Are Axed

The Renewables Obligation subsidy for new onshore wind farms is being scrapped a year early from April next year.Ms Rudd said this would save consumers cash by avoiding a surplus of state-funded windfarms and by helping newer green technologies compete. "

UK wind farms 

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jun 15 - 06:02 AM

I think the planet is in massive trouble and there is no easy way out. We seem to lack the will to get to grips with the issue. I think I'm allowed to say that green energy is going to fail us without having an alternative that will work in the short term. We can only hope that the planet will spare us for longer than expected so that we can get nuclear power up and running. Decades of realisation that global warming is a desperate issue has failed abysmally to persuade us to cut emissions. We can't behave well enough to go on using fossil fuels and we refuse to invest properly in renewable energy. Our track record is useless and there will be no turnaround in this failing of human nature any time soon. So what's your answer then?

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 26 Jun 15 - 05:17 AM

I seem to have seen something similar elsewhere on this forum, the gun problem in America springs to mind.
The theme is "I agree that there is a problem,I don't know what the answer is, but I do know your solution will not solve the issue.
Snafu (situation normal all, insert f-word of choice,up

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 07:45 PM

There isn't a short-term solution. Nuclear power stations take a very long time to build and commission. Green energy is not anywhere near sufficiently invested in and will never be while there's more money to be made by other means.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 07:09 PM

You said earlier the solution was nuclear when do you think Hinkley Point will be ready to generate? At the present rate of progress not for quite sometime I suspect.
What is your short term solution to the problem?
Given that fossil fuel stations are reaching the end of their life we need a means of bridging the gap until nuclear or some other long term solution is reached.
Wind and solar is the simplest solution and the easiest to decommission when no longer needed.
Solar doesn't work after dark, wind blows somewhere day and night and both will help to fill the generating shortfall until we get some other form of generation up and running.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 05:27 PM

Wind and solar both work,step up production and they can come on line far quicker than nuclear.

Well they work, but they both refuse to be on tap just when we want them, and production can be stepped up, but it isn't being and it won't be, not on the scale needed. We live in a capitalist world, and there isn't enough profit in renewables. The profit is in oil, which is why we don't get the investment needed for renewables. To big business, green energy is for hippies and earth mothers unless governments put in impossible amounts of taxpayer subsidies. We need to get real about this. It's all a nice idea, but it's all too little, too late. We can all go to hell in a handcart waving placards with our principles daubed on them, can't we?

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 01:40 PM

We do have to get rid of all that plutonium and weapons grade uranium though.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 01:02 PM

Wind and solar both work,step up production and they can come on line far quicker than nuclear.
This can buy us the time to research and. build better and longer lasting sources of energy.
The other advantage is scrapping and removal after redundancy is far easier than sorting out nuclear waste,and the sites restored with a minimum of fuss.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 11:57 AM

Troll.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 11:17 AM

What's up , Steve. Getting withdrawal symptoms from the closed thread !?

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 10:49 AM

I'm afraid the lunatic fringe green lobby is far more faith-based (aka quasi-creationist) than adherents such as myself to nuclear, which works and which will keep us going for thousands of years. Green's all too little and all too late and the necessary investment is not being made.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 06:47 AM

although the wind drops occasionally, it always blows

Yes, and it can be forecast quite well for a day or so ahead, allowing variability of power from wind to be worked into the market.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Stu
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 05:13 AM

"We have got time to get building nuclear power stations, just about."

They are not safe, plain and simple. Their waste lingers for thousands of years and we still haven't found a secure way of storing it anyway (dumping at sea?). As for being ugly, Morecombe Bay has been blighted by Heysham for decades and Didcot is an eyesore.

Renewables are the only answer, and although the wind drops occasionally, it always blows. Like the song says, God himself couldn't stop the northerlies from blowing.

Nope, wind is certainly the way forward, from ships with sails making a comeback to onshore/offshore turbines that will, if the technology gets a chance to develop under this government of loons.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 03:45 AM

But all I'm saying is that wind energy is far from being the panacea its fans sometimes claim.

No you are not, you are repeating the disinformation put out its detractors. Sheesh, it's almost like arguing with a creationist.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 03:37 AM

Of course nuclear plants do. But all I'm saying is that wind energy is far from being the panacea its fans sometimes claim.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 02:58 AM

Does building turbines use more energy than they produce?

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 02:50 AM

as their construction requires massive amounts of energy and raw materials

And nuclear power stations don't ?

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 08:42 PM

With nuclear, at least they'll be here to curse us.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 08:29 PM

Strikes me that these nuclear power plants years down the road are the dangerous waste of time.

Harnessing the enormous amounts of renewable energy of one wort or another makes far more sense to me. "without the will to develop them", that's the point. That and the resources, human and organisational and financial, to turn that will into action.

Wind turbines are just part of it, and no doubt they could be improved. For example look at this, a bladeless system that would completely eliminate those dead birds - https://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2015/06/24/saving-birds-lives-with-bladeless-wind-turbines/

The main thing going for nuclear power plants is that people with political leverage stand to make enormous profits from the massive subsidies that are on the way.

Our grandchildren will curse us.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 07:34 PM

We haven't got time for works in progress that have been in progress for decades but without the will to develop them. We have got time to get building nuclear power stations, just about. We haven't got the luxury of time for anything else.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 07:08 PM

Indeed Dave. There are plenty of stand alone tidal units in open water, worldwide, where tides are significant. Most I have seen are phototypes representing the evolving technologies to suit the different conditions -and attempts to get a good energy return. Someday, when the wrinkles are worked out, it will be a contributor to some degree. Considering the hurdles to be overcome (notably the initial costs), it seems to be a work in progress.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 06:03 PM

So here's the thing about wind turbines. We've had them big time for a couple of decades. They are far from being a free lunch, as their construction requires massive amounts of energy and raw materials, and we seem to want to give millions of taxpayers' money to already-rich landowners in order to persuade them to give up a few square metres of land per turbine. During that couple of decades, in spite of tens of thousands of evermore powerful turbines springing up, we have not reduced carbon emissions (the very opposite, in fact), and we can't close down a single power station, as we never know when the wind won't blow. What we have from wind is extra energy, not replacement energy. You might like the look of turbines, you might not care if you have one in your back yard, you might not worry if your turbine kills as many birds as your pussycat. But what you do have to do is address their serious lack of success. So let's hear it. And let's make it a rational argument, eh? Not pie-in-the-sky green is good because it's green, ok?

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 05:18 PM

I think the big difference with this one was that it did not block anything or affect marine life. But I cannot find anything about it so maybe I dreamt it. Anyone up for crowd funding if I have come up with a new idea?

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 05:03 PM

Tidal energy turbines remains a work in progress (save blocking off estuaries and disrupting fish habitat).

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 04:57 PM

I thought the new tidal generator I saw looked very promising. Instead of relying on wave power etc. it was, effectively, a big pipe in the sea that, when the tide rose, water rushed down and drove a turbine. Not sure of the efficiency and so on but someone on Countryfile was raving about it.

Not being a scientist I don't know the ins and outs but being an optimist it seemed quite heartening.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 02:43 PM

Alternative means of energy production, need an alternative means of energy distribution. Dump the grid & decentralise - either that or take a leaf out of China's book & go hydro big time.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 02:29 PM

you're not really disagreeing, are you? I think your calculations are too loose and 'far more powerful' is part of that. Transport costs from A to B compared with A to B1, B2...   ...B2000 depend on where the A and B's are. How do you compare the environmental cost of 2000 loads past your door with one load past your door and one past each of 1999 other peoples' doors ?

Unless you have hard evidence of a bias between different sorts of civil engineering work I suggest construction cost per GWh is as good an estimate of the relative environmental cost (of the construction) as any. Looking at that table of costs non is 'far more' than any other.

But do remember to add in decommisioning costs.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 02:17 PM

Older, but, still an interesting perspective:


France's nuclear energy 

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 01:40 PM

Nuclear waste isn't a problem that can go away, it's a problem that will be with us for ever, because the nuclerar waste we produce woll be with is for ever.

The bottom line really is the only long term solutuon for our energy needs is the huge nuclear fission plant up in the sky, the Sun. Whether we use its energy directly from sunlight or indirectly via wind, wave, hydroselectric biomass or even solar powered powerstations out in space is a secondary matter - the Sun where it all comes from.

There is an exception - tidal power, which reliant on our planets' relationship with the moon.

But apart from that everything else is fossil fuel, and by definition that has to be temporary, both because of limited supplies, but more important, because of the damage that does to our world and our future. And that applies to coal, gas, fracking and nuclear fission.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 01:31 PM

Well it seems that every report you google tells a different story. Wind is cheapest when "health considerations" are included; every wind power job is subsidised by taxpayers to the tune of £10000 per annum; it depends what you include in the costings; etc. And when you say that the Japanese turbine is less than three times the power of the latest land turbines, in riposte to my statement that is far more powerful than most land-based turbines, you're not really disagreeing, are you? :-)

And poor Polly.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 01:14 PM

Cutting the onshore wind subsidy is perverse nimbyism.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 01:07 PM

it's bloody expensive (we haven't mentioned that, have we?)

No it's not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 12:57 PM

Now that Japanese turbine is a floating one and it's far more powerful than most land-based turbines. It's less than three times the power of most recent onshore ones (see this
list for the UK). The frozen chips firm in Whittlsey has three that add up to more. People can drive past and make their own mind up about them. No drama.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 12:30 PM

"How much of that electricity from turbines in Cornwall gets used out of the county?"

I think you know it doesn't work that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 12:28 PM

In fact. Dunno how that happened. My eyes are dim...

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 12:25 PM

You need at least 672 examples of Japan's current most powerful wind turbine to match the power output of Fukushima. More like 1400 when you factor in those inefficiencies and the unreliability of the wind. Even then you couldn't risk decommissioning a single power station because the wind doesn't always blow. Now that Japanese turbine is a floating one and it's far more powerful than most land-based turbines. Let's be charitable then and suggest two thousand large turbines per power station. So that's 40000 tons of steel and half a million tons of concrete. And lots of transport costs and other environmental implications, because you don't stick up 2000 turbines all in one place like you do with a power station. I admit to being out of date about the aluminium, to save you asking again (it's the kind of bloke I am). But a lot of what I'm saying, and more, is stuff the green energy scammers don't want you to know about. Wind energy is additional energy, not replacement energy; it makes us feel good about wasting energy instead of encouraging us to conserve; it's bloody expensive (we haven't mentioned that, have we?); it's clumsy and inefficient; its main advantage appears to be to make rich landowners even richer; it hasn't made us cut our carbon emissions, in. Fact they are still rising year in year; the turbines are ugly. Apart from all that, wind energy is just fab. Not!

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 11:53 AM

We need the pylons (with aluminium cables) to move power from nuclear power stations miles from population centres (I wonder why they don't build them in cities...). How much of that electricity from turbines in Cornwall gets used out of the county ? How big are the pylons moving the power ?

No, you brought the concrete up - if you have a valid point you do the calculation.

It is possible to calculate the financial and CO2 cost of a wind turbine over its operational life. Every nut, bolt and ton of concrete. The you can think about doing it again for less by recycling the turbine and putting another one on the same concrete base.

You can't do that for nuclear because no-one knows what the final financial, energy and environmental cost of dealing with the waste material will be. How much of a nuclear power station can be recycled ? There still seems to be a lot of stuff on the sites of the shut-down first-generation ones.


Go on, admit you were wrong about the aluminium. Where did you get that from ? Can you rely on anything else from that source ?

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 11:04 AM

"How does the concrete base compare with that for a transmission pylon or a nuclear power station ?"

We need the pylons anyway. As for the concrete base, etc., do a little like-for-like. Compare the puny megawattage output of a turbine against the vast gigawattage of a nuclear power station. Then do a little multiplication.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 10:17 AM

Wind is free, Steve. Efficiency of conversion is irrelevant to your argument. The numbers you quote are engineering data relevant to the cost-effectiveness or otherwise of design changes.

You have not answered about the vast amount of aluminium . Did you check and discover that what you see is steel (tower) and fibreglass (blades and housing for the generator). As for high grade metal what do you think the turbines and generator in a nuclear power station are made of ? And in both cases don't you think it will be recycled ?

How does the concrete base compare with that for a transmission pylon or a nuclear power station ?

I hope you are glad that the new government is bringing forward the end of subsidies for onshore wind. Perhaps they need the nimbies in all those blue areas on the electoral map more than the rich farmers and city investors.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 09:46 AM

Inefficient? The maximum amount of energy that can be extracted from the kinetic energy of the wind hitting the blades is 59% (that's physics). The mechanical inefficiencies such as friction, and drag in the gear mechanism, etc., reduce this to less than 50%. In addition, coastal or offshore turbines are adversely affected by salt. A typical value for energy extraction per turbine is around 20% of that less-than-50%. That's because they will only work at maximum efficiency when there is a *steady* wind, turbulence-free, of around 30 mph, an ideal that is seldom if ever encountered. Add to that the fact that they can't be used at either very high or very low wind speeds, and that you can't tell a turbine to give you energy just when you need it, and you have a very clumsy form of energy generation that does nothing to stop power stations having to keep working at full capacity. As Guest's article says, wind energy is extra energy, not replacement energy. All info wiki-able. As for the aluminium, look up mining and extraction of ore. Incidentally, a typical turbine will require a reinforced concrete base that uses about 20 tons of steel and 250 tons of concrete. The blades, hub and generator assemblies weigh about 70 tons, mostly high-grade metal, and that's not counting the tower. I'll leave you to work out how long those blades have to spin for at "20% of 50%" to cover the environmental cost of all that lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 08:34 AM

Ah - OK.

Thanks

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 08:30 AM

Coal mines were almost all kept dry by pumping during operation. On closure they fill up with water, often to very near the surface. For that and other reasons not suitable. Neither is the rock around Sellafield. HM Gov tried that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 08:20 AM

Genuine question with no agenda. I just do not know. Could nuclear waste be safely stored in closed down coal mines?

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 08:11 AM

""Wind power  promises a clean and free source of electricity that would reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels and the output of greenhouse gases and other pollution...A little research, however, reveals that wind power does not, in fact, live up to the claims made by its advocates.""



Is wind power's potential contribution over-rated? 

Subject: RE: BS: Food for thought on climate change
From: Stu
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 07:22 AM

Wind power has already made nuclear outdated: This Huge Wind Turbine Floating on Water Is Fukushima's Energy Solution