On 10/10/16 09:13, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Mon, 10 Oct 2016 08:16:44 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:
Those figures seem quite small when one considers the size of the projects
and the unpredictable effects of changing the way the currents and tides
run.
The problem seems to be that no matter what you try to generate power from
any naturally occurring force like wind or tides or even the sun, you
actually are taking power from the earth and if you do enough of it, you
alter the environment in some way, often a way which was unexpected.
Brian
I don't think so Brian. There may be local effects, such as reduced
wind speed downwind from a wind farm, or smaller waves 'downwave' of a
wave farm, but the effects are small in the grand scheme of things.
You would be surprised.
Wind energy is dissipate when it shakes trees; wave energy is
dissipated when the waves hit the coast; solar energy is wasted when
the sun heats the ground. All man is doing is diverting that energy
from being wasted into something useful.
So shaking trees is 'not useful'
And you have just made the point that solar energy that DOESN'T hit the
ground is obviously going to leave the ground colder than it was by a
substantial amount.
When David Mackay talked of 'a wind farm the size of Wales' he wasnt joking.
That is a significant an serious environmental impact.
After all, all that energy
ultimately comes from the sun, which is going to keep shining for a
good few years yet and what we do with the small amount of its energy
that reaches us isn't going to change that.
Even the energy of the tides is wasted, and the tidal forces exerted
by the moon and dissipated by distorting the solid bits of the earth
probably vastly exceed those dissipated just by moving the sea to and
fro. The moon is slowly moving away from the earth, at a rate roughly
equivalent to how fast your finger-nails grow, and it was been doing
so long before anyone thought about harnessing the tides to do
something useful. http://tinyurl.com/6hnffhl
I am simply jaw droppingly flabbergasted at your complete and utter
ignorance of what used to be called 'physical geography' and that is the
actual impact that things like sun, wind, waves and tides have upon the
environment.
AS I have pointed out before, the UK uses several Hiroshima sized bombs
worth of just *electricity* every day.
Ultimately the environmental impact of that, done conventionally, is a
little CO2, and a reasonable amount of heat. IIRC something like 10% of
the sunlight falling on the UK. (that is of course what actually
generates the 'rising temperatures' of 'global warming' as cities get
built round thermometers and keep them toasty due to energy spill)
With energy needs in a crowded country like the UK being about 20% of
the actual energy falling on it as an island from the Sun., its going to
be a massive environmental impact however its done, and more so with so
called 'renewables' than any other way.
Because they have to be HUGE to scrape it up. At least 20% of the land
area for PV for example.
The lowest environmental impact of any is of course nuclear. The sole
thing it produces is heat, and the oceans are big sinks (though it might
help melt a tad of polar ice). The waste such as it is is compact and
easily dealt with,.
Nuclear is far and away the 'greenest' technology there is, to generate
large amounts of usable power.
--
it should be clear by now to everyone that activist environmentalism
(or environmental activism) is becoming a general ideology about humans,
about their freedom, about the relationship between the individual and
the state, and about the manipulation of people under the guise of a
'noble' idea. It is not an honest pursuit of 'sustainable development,'
a matter of elementary environmental protection, or a search for
rational mechanisms designed to achieve a healthy environment. Yet
things do occur that make you shake your head and remind yourself that
you live neither in Joseph Stalins Communist era, nor in the Orwellian
utopia of 1984.
Vaclav Klaus