Huhne plans 32,000 more wind turbines

[d000hg]

Lots of people seem to automatically assume that if an energy source is renewable, it MUST by definition be a waste of time. I think that attitude is a foolish as the greens' arguments... seems daft to suggest that we can do all these amazing things in micro-electronics that were fantasy a decade ago, but can't make windmills viable when people have used them for centuries (or millenia even).

Personally I think tide/wave is better since water is so much heavier, but the principle is the same.

[BlasterBates]

We now await the graph with a wiggly line clearly going downwards with a straight upwards trend line and the emphatic "the trend continues", which never ceases to remind me of the scene in Big Brother when O'Brian interrogates Winston and breaks him down to the extent that when he says he's holding up three fingers Winson sees three fingers even though he's only got two up.

[EternalOptimist]

Lots of people seem to automatically assume that if an energy source is renewable, it MUST by definition be a waste of time. I think that attitude is a foolish as the greens' arguments... seems daft to suggest that we can do all these amazing things in micro-electronics that were fantasy a decade ago, but can't make windmills viable when people have used them for centuries (or millenia even).

Personally I think tide/wave is better since water is so much heavier, but the principle is the same.

spot on. But if you read the nonsense that the greens spout, its all about reducing carbon and the precautionary principle.
Lets get the cheapest most efficient energy because humans need lots of cheap energy.

pj's advice to all the grannies who will freeze this winter was to use less. I say, give them more

[DodgyAgent]

Lots of people seem to automatically assume that if an energy source is renewable, it MUST by definition be a waste of time. I think that attitude is a foolish as the greens' arguments... seems daft to suggest that we can do all these amazing things in micro-electronics that were fantasy a decade ago, but can't make windmills viable when people have used them for centuries (or millenia even).

Personally I think tide/wave is better since water is so much heavier, but the principle is the same.

Er Windmills were the most efficient way of producing power back in Zeity's day. technology has since made them defunct so why are we introducing them again. You cannot store electricity on the grid and windmills are clearly expensive and inefficient. Biomass is limited by the amount of fuel available and I am sure that if tidal power to be effective it will catch on.

[BlasterBates]

There are two forms of renewables that are fine, hydro and biomass. Wind power is just useless, it's too variable, and there is no way to store it, a few pie in the sky ideas but no effective way at the moment. Wind is doomed to failure, but the sad thing about wind is that areas of outstanding natural beauty are becoming industrialised for no reason.

An example of wind madness

[EternalOptimist]

oh dear. they have been caught out fiddling the figures again


Why did you fiddle the figures ?. IPCC scientist, well, we had tto show a trend



you couldn't make this stuff up. (unless you are a climate scientist of course)

[DimPrawn]

Future generations will look back and think, what a bunch of idiots. Destroying the landscape because some totally flawed computer models showed a slight rise in global temperature. Sort of like letting Alchemists decide we should burn all the forest down in 1652.

What cretins on an epic scale....

[BlasterBates]

Presenting a single sentence plucked from a TV interview, reposted from a blog, as scientific evidence? Really?

I'm 'sceptical'. What was the context?

A sign of where the debate is moving when an eminent scientist says openly on national TV that Antarctica is cooling.

He is an eminent scientist, an expert in the polar regions so it unlikely that he said off the top of his head, don't you think?

But I'll leave you to post whatever graphs are necessary.

However maybe we should take them with a pinch of salt, rather like the graphs on sea level rises

House of Lords - Economic Affairs - Written Evidence

I've no doubt you'll now counter this with personal defamation rather than reasoned argument. This is typical of some climate scientists, rather like the climate scientist who has been convicted of defamation in a German court as it now appears he published some malicious lies about a journalist who exposed the IPCC in a recent article in a national German newspaper.

http://notrickszone.com/2011/12/02/d...imate-advisor/

The debate is moving against you, scientifically and politically.

[doodab]

This is the technological intellect barrier I'm on about. Fuel cells are 100% efficient.

60% generates electricity

40% generates heat - think of an grannies that might like such a thing?

Again if A does not lead to B without any system in-between the idea is flawed. How did this great engineering society of ours becomes so limp and lacklustre?

You have a cheek talking about a technological intellect barrier when you clearly have little idea what you are talking about. I'm sure if you can come up with a way of doubling current efficiencies that you will be able to make money, but it will never actually be a 100% efficient process.

Currently practical electrolysis technology is about 60-70% efficient. The main problem here seems to be related to the oxygen produced, there is no effective catalyst for this side of the reaction and a lot of energy is wasted as heat. There are more efficient processes that use solar energy to create hydrogen directly however these aren't going to let you use wind as a primary source.

The efficiency of electricity generation in a fuel cell varies with temperature, at room temperature the maximum theoretical efficiency is 83% and the waste heat simply isn't useful. To achieve such high efficiencies in practice requires a high temperature fuel cell (which is actually less efficient at directly generating electricity) and a turbine run from the waste heat. Then you will see perhaps 80% of the energy that goes in coming out as electricity and some waste heat generated that might be usable in e.g. communal hot water systems. You aren't going to get 100% of the energy out because the turbine isn't going to be 100% efficient and the waste heat will not be 100% usable. Practical current technologies are around 60% efficient.

Anyway, disregarding that, even if you give everyone a fuel cell, and it is, for sake of argument 100% efficient (it won't be for the reasons stated above) and you manage to invent an electrolysis process that is 100% efficient how do you plan to transport the hydrogen to the fuel cells without using energy? One obvious answer here is to give everyone an electrolysis plant as well and have them stockpile hydrogen at home when the wind is blowing. How do you plan to regulate the heat output of the fuel cells so that it is useful without wasting any of the energy? How do you propose to construct electrolysis plants and fuel cells without using any energy?

[EternalOptimist]

Presenting a single sentence plucked from a TV interview, reposted from a blog, as evidence? This is your idea of science?

I'm 'sceptical'. What was the context? The Antarctic shows a lot of variability, with the Peninsula showing some of the greatest warming of the planet, with differing trends elsewhere. Was the Professor talking about continent as a whole? Has he done a proper study? Where is it published? Where can I see the code and data?

Here is the climate change web page of the Alfred Wegener Institute, who employ Prof. Miller.



Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) Climate Change

There is simply no science in that quote. Replace the words world, climate change and carbon, with Romans, Gods and entrails
it makes as much sense

This much is certain: the Brittania is facing a big Roman invasion. Its severity, however, is not precisely predictable. What will matter above all, is whether the Iceni will succeed in significantly reducing the anger of the Gods in the coming decades. High Priests of the Stonehenge Institute are convinced that the tribes goal of limiting the Romans to a maximum of 2 provinces must be emphatically pursued. Their hope is a stabilization of the Gods anger . To achieve this, 1000 animal entrails must be read AD50.