Andy Wade wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Triple that for ALL power, including transport and industrial heating
and domestic heating.
Double it for PEAK capacity..
Sounds plausible, but recent real data is readily available:
http://stats.berr.gov.uk/energystats/dukes07.pdf
I am talking *total annual power consumption of the whole country* -
around 160GW average..
It's surely somewhat irrelevant to talk in terms of power, when overall
energy consumption is what matters. (The power flux in the pipe while
you're filling your car up is about 8 MW, but err, so what?)
Allright, multiply 160GW by 24x365 for annual consumption of power
OUTPUT in TWh, and then multiply by two to get what the oil input
actually is. Roughly. Thats how I got there in the first place.
Its not irrelevant.
Its totally relevant: What is also relevant is that youu cannot
apparently do sumns, which makes you a strange person to be arguing
against my maths,.
Or were you thinking about delivering all energy in the form of
nuclear-generated electricity?
Yes, At last he sees it. Or windmills. Or anything that doesn't burn
oil/gas/coal and produce CO2.
It goes like this. We burn whatever it is tons of carbon fuel a year. We
need to reduce that not by 0.000012% and have crappy lightbulbs, nor yet
by 0.00000001% with a propellor on our heads. We need to at lest halve
it, and it would be nice to shhot for 85-90%, so we could syill fly to
Australia with a cloeart cosncience.
How could this be acvhiebved?
And the answer turns out to be one simple way, and only one that is
remotely scalable and remotely viable. It is in fact totally scalable,
economically viable, and largely either technology that exists and works
at the scale required, or exists and works at the scale required but is
expensive cos its new, or exists and probably works, but no one has
actually doine it this way befire
Nuclear power stations, and electric cars. Plus a few other cheap energy
storage devices like hot water tanks to smooth out the off-peak load.
At current fuel prices the power stations are already viable. Since
about 1/3rd of fossil fuel is used in electricity generation, that
implies a 3:1 grid upscale is needed broadly. Well within our capabilities.
So thats energy generation and distribution. A 10-15 year program of
installing nuclear sets and beefing up the grid. Now to maximise the
utility, they need to runs at fairly constant HIGH outpout - all through
the winter, and be taken down for servicing in the summer. To avoid
building more than need be, we need to store power in off peak.
The rough breakdown of UK power usage is 30% electricity, 30% transport,
30% heating and 10% the rest.
We can store low grade heat for heating ourselves in hot water tanks. It
takes very little to do this.
We can store enough energy for a few days motoring in the electric car
batteries, so thats all right.
We could, if was cost effective. store a couple of days electricity n
lead acid batteries. Its not hugely expensive. Not cheap, but possible.
You balance the cost of excess capacity that dumps waste heat when
underloaded, with the storage costs. Maybe you just build a few more
power stations.
The myth about building all this takes more Co2, is precisely that,a
myth. The chemical release of CO2 in making things, is peanuts compared
wit the energy derived CO2, i.e. every ton of cement release maybe a few
kilos of Co2, but takes a ton of coal to make it hot enough to do it. So
use an electric furnace.
Sythetic hydrocarbons to make plastics are not that hard, and the actual
use of oil by te plastics industry is very low..less than a few percent
IIRC.
The ONLY places we need liquid fuel is long haul stuff, where recharge
times get to be a pain, stuff that operate far from the grid, like
industrial site equipment, and miltary stuff, and aircraft.
I haven't done the sums on those yet, but theyt are NOT in a majority.
Its likely biofuel or synthetic fuel could fill that gap.
Net result. After a 15 year program by the west, in investment in
electrical transport, distributed storage systems, and nuclear power (at
lest in northern climates, where solar is useless) we could cut our Co2
emissions by 85%, cut on street pollution by about 95%, and end up with
a greener cleaner and QUIETER place than we now have.
And it wouldn't actually cost us that much. Unlike sodding windmills.
And the revenue to radical islam would dry up. And the Jihadist ********
would fade into history.
We swap a couple of billion tons of CO2 a year that is definitely
harming the whole planet badly in ways we don't understand..for a couple
of hundred tons of fairly hot radioactive nucleides, that won't harm the
planet at all, and not even us if we don't get too friendly with them.
Or simply spread them around thinly enough.
Ok, we would rather NOT have them, but its the lesser of all the evils,
by a HUGE margin.
Nothing else today will do the job, at anything approaching the low
level of disruption, and the same low costs.
Take your choice. Burn the oil and go back a million years plus.
Go bunny hugging, and go back 2000 years, and see the world population
collapse..
Or build nuclear power stations, electric cars, and develop from where
we are.
I dunno about you, but its a no brainer as far as I can tell.