On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 01:00:50 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I really don't see large scale gas storage as being feasible. the energy
density is too low. Liquids are a bit better, but we don't have much
storage capacity for that either. Wheras coal can be piled up and we
dont need so very much uranium. After all each reactor carries a year of
fuel rods inside it anyway.

You may not see large scale gas storage as being feasible but that
doesn't mean it can't and won't happen: there's a lot of work on it in
connection with hydrogen fuelled-vehicles, or on a larger scale we could
even liquefy it. Or use other electrical-to-chemical-energy
transformations -- the point being that we can only use so much
electrical energy directly and if we want to get away from fossils
(either to avert/alleviate AGW or as oil becomes more expensive) then
we'll have plenty of uses for leccy which will more happily accommodate
the sort of variable supplies one gets from renewables.


renewale can only work in symbiosis with hydro - which we don't have
enough of - or fossil fuel. By themselves they are useless.

For every wind farm, you also need a conventional power station.
Because nuclear can't dispatch properly, that means your a stuck with
fossil fuel if you go with renewables. It weds you completely to fossil.

Isn't there much the same problem with nuclear? AIUI you can't turn nukes
up and down at will so you need either a lot of storage or fossil-fuelled
fill-in. Or an energy economy based on large amounts of electricity
production with the excess over direct consumption used for conversion
into chemical and other forms of energy.


--
John Stumbles

The rain, it rains upon the Just, and on the Unjust fella
But more upon the Just because the Unjust's got the Just's umbrella