Reply to: Energy the options

[NoddY]

The answer is to develop a portfolio of different energy sources - with a significant skew to sustainable resources. This eliminates a single point of failure and provides price stability. The overall cost is probably higher - but the extra cost buys you peace of mind and fixed costs are business friendly.

[bfg]

Coal

It is 800 years worth of coal we are standing on.

Pressurised fluid bed combustion.
Clean, efficient, effective, runs on coal, doesn't glow in the dark and kill you for 1 gazillion years after you finish with it, developed here by the NCB.

Can someone please tell me again why we run our power stations on anything but coal these days?

[PerlOfWisdom]

How to reduce energy consumption

Ban electric heating in all new builds (mainly flats).

[n5gooner]

still it was funny....

[milanbenes]

I must admit, that was a copy paste, a friend of mine came
up with that gem

I also thought it was excellent

Milan.

[The Lone Gunman]

best thing to do with criminals is teach them all french with the duration of their sentence being the time it takes them to get to degree level, then on release give them a couple of hundred euros and a eurostar ticket

Milan.

Oh Bravo mon amie Bravo indeed. Laughed out loud.

[milanbenes]

best thing to do with criminals is teach them all french with the duration of their sentence being the time it takes them to get to degree level, then on release give them a couple of hundred euros and a eurostar ticket

Milan.

[wc2]

How about clock work

Loads of britains finest criminals winding up in prisons all over the UK.

At least this work could not be our sourced

Mr WC2 I sentance you to 10 years hard winding

[Captain Jack]

But surely, by harvesting the energy from the sun, the wind and the tide we are interfering with a delicate eco system. Think chaos theory "a butterfly flaps its wings....." sort of in reverse.

What happens if all the wind turbines face the same way?

We ar all doomed I tell you!

As long as it causes house prices to boom, who cares?

[The Lone Gunman]

But surely, by harvesting the energy from the sun, the wind and the tide we are interfering with a delicate eco system. Think chaos theory "a butterfly flaps its wings....." sort of in reverse.

What happens if all the wind turbines face the same way?

We ar all doomed I tell you!

[Captain Jack]

Good factoid for you from the Economist a couple of weeks ago. To replace the power output of the largest French nuclear plant with wind power, would require one windmill every 100m along the entirety of the French coastline.

Not apropos of anything in particular, I just like factoids.

[milanbenes]

barrages harnessing tidal energy could provide 20% of
Britain's power needs...

http://www.darvill.clara.net/altenerg/tidal.htm

of course the greenies don't like it

Milan.

[eternalnomad]

I understand that even with current extraction technology there are ~200 years of known coal reserves in the UK

Extraction technology where more difficult seams can be exploited is being developed.

The technology for 'cleaner burn' coal is now very advanced

I believe that one day (even in my own lifetime) the time will come when the UK will have to once again exploit its natural energy assest of "King Coal"

As for wind farms....a local farmer recently submitted an application to build 2 massive wind turbines a couple of miles from where I live.

http://rawdenbydale.co.uk/index.html

Trouble is that these things are 410ft (125 metres) high and will be absolute eyesores in an area of natural beauty.

I dont think this is a case of 'NIMBYism' but one of balancing the UK's energy needs against destroying places of outstanding natural beauty (which strangely enough is one of the reason I bought a house there )

[ASB]

Coomercial Fusion is still 20 years away. Always has been. I rather imagine that it will continue to be 20 years away.

Still if the political will exists to fund ITER sensibly (and it does look as though it might) at least we'll know sooner rather than later whether it can work.

Currently none of the fusion experiments have made the breakthrough of getting more energy out than put in.

[planetit]

Uranium rich ore (mostly from Canada) is apparently running out faster than oil. When it does we will have to use "less rich" ore from unstable countries. And that ore will take more energy to process into fuel than the fuel itself produces.