paulr

Nearly 20% of the UK energy supply came from wind power.

Well done guys.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Great until you factor in the cost!

^Qwerty^

Yeah great news. So what about the other 364 days? There was some flowery dress wearing idiot on the radio celebrating the fact that wind generated more power than nuclear for the first time ever and then used the argument to shut down more coal and gas fuelled power stations, probably the nuclear ones too, but I didn't hear that bit as I'd smashed the radio up by that point.

How difficult is it to understand that we need alternatives for when the wind isn't blowing enough to generate anything like what would be a useful contribution towards the UK's energy needs?

warrenm2

Woohoo, one of the 27% of days when they actually generate something. Shame about the other 73% though.....

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

I don't think this thread is going the way he expected

dpb

Every sunday is good day for wind round ours, specially after all teh roast

PaulC72

Coal powered wind turbines it's the way forward I tell you.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

There's hundreds of them windmills near us now...and it's got windier since they were built.

They attract the wind, I think, or they are acting like fans.

Either way, there'll be trouble......

jameswrx

iTrader: (4)

What they should do is put them all up North and fit huge scoops to the end of each blade, the rain will fill the sccops and spin the blades.. Sorted lol

SJ_Skyline

Surely they would spin faster if they had painted stripes on the sides of them?

^Qwerty^

Now now, we don't talk about that do we.

neil-h

Bloody hell, a thread on SN with an actual consensus.

Should i be concerned that I agree with warren on this one.

JTaylor

Yes.

hodgy0_2

compared to what though?

Gas and Coal are pretty cheap, but a finite resource

Nuclear - do any cost comparisons factor in the astronomical decommissioning costs

and apparently 50% of the Nuclear PowerStation's are temporarily shutdown

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

The Germans have decided to shut ALL their nuclear stations.

And go back to...coal......you couldn't make it up.

hodgy0_2

and haven't the French started to push Nuclear harder

no simple one size fits all answer

neil-h

Yes their is. The Germans closing all their nuclear plants was a purely political decision in response to Fukishima and the French have been pushing nuclear for years.

Take the politics out of the equation and energy generation is simple.

Karl_mac_

Aren't most 'coal' fired stations now running on biomass or 'waste to energy'? This seems like the most sensible idea.

dpb

There's not enough ukip pamphlets in the world to keep them stoked

hodgy0_2

what is it then?

warrenm2

Don't worry, it gets easier over time!

neil-h

How much detail do you want and what's the base scenario? I.e. do EU CO2 regs matter?

As a side however, you would aim to have capacity to cover your max annual load (plus some redundancy) using larger plants such as goal/gas/nuclear. With something like pumped storage or smaller gas plants to cover any fast transients.

thing is energy policy is one of the more sensible things you'll find on UKIPs manifesto.

hodgy0_2

well in enough detail to demonstrate you understand the context that the production of energy exist in

some regard to "green" issues - however you choose to interpret that -- CO2 targets!! possibly

I have no fixed view btw - I suspect the info (pro or con a particular technology) I get is tainted by some agenda or another

it is difficult to make an informed decision

I do think the wind power milestone in the OP is a good news - whatever negative spin the rabid anti-green lobby may try and put on it

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

This is such a non-story to me.

On one day with a bit of wind, they've finally done their job.....meanwhile during the times they weren't be it due to weather or nobody buying energy from them (as of course, with it being more expensive, energy retailers will only buy it if they are forced to by green levys), all the other not-so-green power stations have been chugging away day in day out meeting our needs.

Bar the one that caught fire. Even then it was blown out of proportion, it going off line was never an issue...and only four cooling of the thirty towers were damaged.

I'm not against renewables, but I really think wind farms are not the answer. Solar, tidle, hydroelectric storage (pumped reservoirs)....and nuclear needs more focus IMO

hodgy0_2

but all energy production has subsidies, the UK taxpayer is subsidising EDF (essentially the French taxpayers) who operate some nuclear power stations to the tune of billions of pounds a year

ukjesters

iTrader: (3)

I'm sure I heard something along the lines of that the renewable companies were actually being paid to dump some of the energy they'd amassed (dunno how), cos if they introduced it all to the national grid it would overload it?
Dunno if it's true or not though.

neil-h

To be honest to do the discussion justice requires far more time and space than we have available here (having written a fairly lengthy paper on the subject at Uni).

My personal feeling however is that wind and solar have been over subsidised given the current technology. They really require a suitable energy storage scheme to be in place before they reach there true potential as green energy sources.

legb4rsk

I was told the UK is sitting on a whole raft of coal.Easily enough for +200 years.

Just need a bit of imagination to make good use of it.

hodgy0_2

yes it occurred to me that energy storage is probably key to renewables success

but again nuclear is massively subsidised - it is just easier to hide at the backend

neil-h

Which would be wonderful if it was the answer but ultimately it isn't. Coal/gas/oil are finite resources and we should really be looking for a better alternative.