David Hansen wrote:
On Mon, 7 Jan 2008 01:31:54 -0800 (PST) someone who may be
wrote this:-
A MWe turbine in a typical wind-energy system operating with a 6.5
metres-per-second average wind speed requires construction inputs of
460 tons of steel and 870 cubic metres of concrete.
Ah, unreferenced figures.
Meanwhile the following leading article provides a good framework
for the discussion
I have never read such utter ******** in my life.
The only thing IO agree with is that we need to city C02 emissions by 80%.
The rest is completely the reverse of every single calculation I have made.
Thatcher had north sea gas. It was politically a lot easier to build gas
stations than nuclear. They are very cheap to build. Nuclear was quietly
dropped as politically too hard to justify.
Today, the conditions are not worse, they are HUGELY better. Oil/gas is
so expensive that nuclear energy is actually profitable. Even with the
punitive clean up tax imposed on it. Check the rise in share price of
British Energy.
There is a practical irreducible minimum to which energy use can be
reduced before it impacts severely on lifestyle and social conditiopns.
We simply cannot even get food from field to fridge without transporting
it in huge quantities. We cannot simply knock 80% off everyones fuel use
and 80% off their car use.
Ergo we have to find alternatice energy policies, not as he says'; focus
on conservation'
This is a typical piece of greenmyth ****e written by a journalist, not
by an engineer or scientist. It contains no facts at all.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/lea...cle3312758.ece
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Leading article: Nuclear power is a distraction
Published: 06 January 2008
Remember that excruciating picture last autumn of the Prime Minister
greeting Margaret Thatcher for tea at No 10? You can bet that Gordon
Brown does. For that photo-call � then hailed as a brilliant
tactical coup by jubilant Brownites bent on destablising the Tory
party � is now increasingly seen as helping to turn the son of the
manse's glorious summer into his winter of discontent, persuading
the public, together with the on-off election, that the Prime
Minister was as opportunistic as his predecessor. We don't know
precisely what the pair discussed over their china cups, but Mr
Brown is now set to revive one of the Iron Lady's most
controversial, and least successful, policies � and with similar
effect.
Mrs Thatcher promised a massive expansion of nuclear power.
Originally she wanted to build 10 plants, one a year. By the time
she published her nuclear White Paper in 1981, this had come down to
five, at an indefinite rate. In the end only one saw the light of
day � a full 15 years later � at Sizewell. Plus �a change. Gordon
Brown, like Tony Blair before him, is taking us down the same dead
end. This week he will publish his own nuclear White Paper, again
hyped as the dawn of a new atomic age. Again, we were originally
being promised 10 new reactors, again expectations are now being
scaled down: ministers are now deeply reluctant to specify any
number at all, insisting that they will leave it to private
companies. And again it is unlikely that many will be built, unless
the Prime Minister breaks his repeated undertaking � to be
reiterated by Business Secretary John Hutton this week � not to
subsidise them with public money.
Indeed conditions are far less propitious than a quarter of a
century ago. Back then, power stations were built by a nationalised
monopoly, run by nuclear enthusiasts, able to hide the costs of
constructing reactors and with no competition. Now we have a
liberalised, fiercely competitive energy market. No nuclear reactor
has so far been built in such conditions, anywhere in the world.
Investors know that they will have to lay out large sums both to
construct the plant and to dispose of its waste. And they also know
that they will receive no revenue at all for at least a decade, and
can have no certainty, in a liberalised market, of what price they
will get for their electricity at the end of it. Despite all the
ministerial rhetoric about the Government having decided to "allow"
the building of nuclear power stations, there is actually nothing
stopping their construction. The silence of the sites speaks
volumes. Of course it is possible that Mr Brown intends after all to
subsidise the atom. Our revelation today of his nuclear waste
sweetener invites suspicion.
Other arguments that ministers will advance this week are as flawed
as their economics. We will be told that we need the atom to avoid
dangerous dependency on overseas energy � especially Russian gas.
But analysis done for the Government's energy White Paper shows that
by 2020 � the earliest any new reactor could come online � gas
supplies will be more, not less secure, coming from a diversity of
countries. And as most gas is used in industrial processes and
heating homes, nuclear power � which produces only electricity � can
do little to replace it. We will also be told that it is a major
answer to climate change. If it were, it would be well worth
accepting not just the environmental risks of the atom, but its
dodgy economics too. But even building 10 reactors would only save 8
per cent of Britain's emissions of carbon dioxide, when we actually
need to cut them by 10 times as much. Indeed, if the Government
really wants to tackle the security and climate issues it should
dramatically step up its lamentable efforts at saving energy, which
has huge potential and seven times as much effect as nuclear power
for every pound spent.
But we do need to keep the nuclear power option open. Climate change
is so serious that we simply cannot afford to discard any low carbon
technology. It would be far, far better to build a nuclear power
station than to give the go-ahead to the coal-fired one planned for
Kingsnorth in Kent. But neither should be the priority. The first
task is to embark on a massive energy-saving programme energy. The
next must be to boost renewables: the Government made a good start
with its announcement last month of a massive increase in offshore
windpower. Nuclear power may have a part to play. But giving it top
billing, as Mr Hutton's officials want, will not only be self
defeating, but give support to those critics who have long alleged
that New Labour is merely Thatcherism in trousers.
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