neil-h

Yup, crack the storage and everything else falls into place. Solar/wind are all well and good but when your peak demand is in the middle of winter when it's dark and not particularly windy. Then your stuck with your coal/gas/nuclear etc.

Wave/tidal has potential but you have the issue of the effect the installation has on the surrounding environment, the same as you do with wind turbines.

neil-h

That's quite an ask, both technically and politically lol.

jonc

I don't understand why we don't use geothermal energy as a renewable energy. I takes up relatively little space, is non-polluting and produces little in CO2.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Hopefully its under London

wrx300scooby

Where has the Op fec??d off to?

vindaloo

Germany - not exactly facing annihilation by their ocean frontage.
French - Actually have ocean facing real estate and susceptible to at least one tsunami generating event if it happens in the next 100 years. (Canary islands Volcano breaking up).

It's all political bullshoite.

jonc

Funny you should say that

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/londo...g-9810279.html

warrenm2

The problem with "renewable" energy is its too diffuse. For example, solar is about 1kW / m^2. Factor in PV efficiency, routine maintenance and land use, backend convertors, add in the initial energy cost of manufacture and it quickly becomes clear its a waste of time except in certain off grid circumstances. Wind, massively unreliable, huge storage issues, inaccessible places, massive extra grid infrastructure need to be built, blot on the landscape, completely underestimated maintenance costs, huge cost on wildlife, ridiculous subsidy to make it work. Huge waste of time. Tidal. Under developed technologically, HUGE maintenance costs. Waste of time

The only real proper engineering solution (apart from shale gas powered gas turbines) is new nuclear, for example molten salt reactors powered on Thorium. Unfortunately there is a fair chunk of development costs to go yet before we get a commercial plant but from an engineering standpoint is clearly the way forward. As a bonus it would burn up all the current nuclear waste whilst generate electricity and possibly desalinating sea water whilst its at it with waste heat. The new Hinkley Point is a travesty, an outdated technology base.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Dublin at the moment, why?

jonc

Whilst you feel that you are a very important person and the centre of the universe, I think you find he is refering to paulr, the opening poster. Unless of course you know he is in Dublin; of course please note this does not mean you are "with" him and sharing a room together in Dublin so no need to get defensive.

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

The molten salt reactor sounds interesting.
Why isn't this being promoted publicly as a possible alternative? It's the first I've heard of it.

jonc

Because it's nuclear and therefore deemed dangerous and polluting and not "green".
Because engergy companies get billions in subsidies for wind farms not nuclear.
Because the EU are pushing the decommissioning of nuclear energy and pushing wind farms.
Because wind farms can be setup relatively quickly and therefore contries are can be "seen" to be meeting CO2 targets.
Because wind energy appeals to the masses as it is "free", everlasting and "as nature intended".

hodgy0_2

Because energy companies get billions in subsidies for wind farms not nuclear.

nuclear has massive subsidies

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...necessary.html

warrenm2

"The molten salt reactor sounds interesting.
Why isn't this being promoted publicly as a possible alternative? It's the first I've heard of it. "

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbx_gFT0v7k
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kBCMEUuSNw

warrenm2

Not the best example. The Hinckley plant was guaranteed a set price for electricity in order to make it attractive for it to be built. Although we need the capacity, it was handled poorly, a bit like the GP pay review when we ended up paying more for a reduced service. So the issue is one of poor Gvmt management there.

I assume you are referring to the decommissioning costs and waste disposal costs. I agree, the problem there is because we are still using 1950s technology effectively. For example a modern PWR uses about 0.7% of the energy in the enriched uranium fuel rods before it has to be disposed of due to cracking. That's where the waste problem is, 99.3% of the rod's energy is unused!

Dr Hu

Even GreenPeace has accepted Nuclear is the answer.... no-one saw that coming!!

I've always wondered why we can't use vulcanology\geo-thermal - drill a very deep hole (or not so deep if you handy volcano nearby!), turn your water to steam using the free heat of the magma to drive your turbine... la la (almost) free energy, until the center of the earth cools down and we have a 'global core cooling tax' assault

hodgy0_2

yup, that does not surprise me

and yes, these costs need to be taken into the equation - to get a like for like TCO/ROI story

as long as ALL the costs are transparent

and ultimately I agree - it will be humans amazing ingenuity and technical ability that will probably solve these problems

and am happy to accept that this will include Nuclear (as it seems Green peace are)

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

No it wasn't. They planned to shut them down anyway, they planned to decomission the last one in 2011 but had no viable replacement at the time. Fukushima just enhanced the plan to get rid of them all asap. But as has already been pointed out, Germany is in no imminent danger of a tsunami or even an earthquake worth mentioning.

Turbohot

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

Thanks for that

Mouser

Could be his alter ego.

hux309

ITER Tokamak is our best option, but it's years away.

neil-h

Except ITER won't actually produce usable energy, DEMO is the first step on the European Fusion Roadmap which will actually generate electricity.

Tbh the space to watch as far as fusion is concerned is the project Lockheed Martin are working on. Although everything I've read so far seems to be very pie in the sky with very little in the way of actual results.

warrenm2

Yeah it seems with ITER there is a lot of money being spent with very little result.

As for LM, they have been in the news the last week or so bigging up their latest project. However on closer examination it seems that they are really looking for partners to share the development costs rather than a huge technological breakthrough. Molten salt reactors have already been built in the 60s and run successfully for 5 years. Far more accessible technology with less containment issues (low pressure), virtually unlimited fuel source (thorium), no pre processing of fuel (huge cost of todays reactors), virtually no waste (100% of fuel used versus 0.7% of fuel used), useful isotopes produced for medicine and space exploration, passive safety (the salt just drains out in an emergency to a passively cooled tank). What's not to like?!

neil-h

These things take time (and money), it's the nature of the beast.

warrenm2

Yes I agree its hard science, but at some point you have to make the call whether the huge amount of resources it is consuming is worth it? 11 years longer than expected and costs going from $5bn to $50bn. Don't you think that we are pretty near the point of saying, hang on, there is a better way to spend this?

neil-h

I think that point has to be post ITER, once ITER has had it's run then we'll know if it's physically possible to achieve power generation from fusion. Untill that point scrapping it based on cost is just short sighted.

warrenm2

Thats true if you ignore the opportunity cost. However in reality, you can't afford to do so

neil-h

Thing is, fusion has a lot of potential to be the solution to a lot of problems. Not all of them granted but quite a lot of them.

hodgy0_2

also the purveyors of new shiny technology are always very adept at presenting an often unrealistic upside

its simple human nature

I remember in the early 90's CD's were marketed as literally indestructible scratch proof technology, I have a draw full of CD's that disproves that

it is often the less hyped technology that has the most long lasting impact - an example of this was GPS, it came in almost unnoticed