The Politics of Power

[CPD]

Following on from :

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/2247886/an/0/page/0#2247886

I feel I need to declare an albeit late interest in this topic, having served a student apprenticeship with NEI Parsons (of geordie fame) and thence having helped commission :

Unit 6 (of 6 , each 660MW) at Drax (the largest coal fired station in Europe)
Unit 2 (of 2, each 650MW - nuclear fired) at Heysham
Unit 5 (of 5, each 350MW ? oil fired) at Pulau Seraya in Singapore
Unit 3 (of 3 oil fired (really !!!!!) at Al Mussaib in Iraq (sadly now probably a pile of rubble).

It seems to me that the subject of power generation has become politicised to the point of madness.

If this :

http://www.powerstationeffects.co.uk/pdf/UK-OperationalPlantsMay2004.pdf

is to be believed then in 2004, if I am reading the figures correctly, wind power generation accounted for approximately 1% (742/73855 - see page 5) of the total output- next to nothing in other words.

Now have a look at this .......

http://www.rdenergysolutions.com/technologies/wind-largescale.html

Under the picture of growing lollipops is the statement :

"Large wind turbines are now available from 100 kW to over 5,000 kW. Those belonging to the lower end of this scale are typically installed individually on small farms or businesses, whilst the top end of this scale are used in off-shore wind farms. Turbines ranging from 1 to 3 MW are typically used on industrial sites or in modern on-shore wind farms."

To put this in context, a large steam (and the steam may be produced by oil, coal, gas, nuclear etc etc) turbine generator (of perhaps 500MW+ output) requires between 3-5MW just to get it's support systems going - think of it as the tiny spark that gets the big engine firing. Let's be generous and say that the big offshore generators produce 5MW a piece (in perfact winds, 100% of the time, just like us sailors get ), then that would require 110 windmills to produce 1/6th of the power output of just 1 (yes 1) large turbine-generator unit.

How many are there at Scroby ?. How many are there to be at Gunfleet ? ................ producing at 100% rated output ........... 24/7 ................ ???????????

My point ? .......... I said earlier that power generation has become madly politicised.

Wind/wave power is great once the infrastructure is paid for. After all, the raw materials, the fuel, is then free.

But to what end ?

Before I answer my own question, let me offer some food for thought ....... within , quite literally, a few days of taking power, new labour transferred the responsibility for setting the bank base rates to the bank of England monetary committee, an independent (?) gathering responsible for setting bank base rates to ensure inflation rates, set by the government, were hit. By and large (and just where did that phrase come from ?), it has been a very sucessful switch - the politics has been taken out of interest rate changes. Gone are the days of interest rates plumetting weeks before an election - current meltdown excluded, and I for one, think that was an above politics masterstroke.

The answer to my own question re : to what end, is quite simply ............................. votes.

I don't claim to be an expert in this field, but the green vote seems to have won through ignorance on this one. Yes, we all need to use less power, yes we all need to do all the right things such as switch off lights etc etc, yes we all need to recogise that we are just borrowing this fine planet from our children. Now, I'm not going to produce fgures for power requirements for the next 3 decades, but I'm pretty sure the growth will be positive, so, what do we do ?.

The answer, so far as I am am concernd, is to appoint an independent power policy committee, rather like the bank of England monetary policy committee - headed by who heaven only knows, but give them the power to make long term sensible decision sregarding long term issues such as power generation (the same thing could apply to water, gas etc)

Oh yes, and the other thing ..........














...... stop building vote winning windgenerators.

 

[Vamoose]

Well Said

 

[moondancer]

i don't disagree with you cpd but one of the main reasons, i believe, that the east coast forum has stayed a pleasant place to be whilst the lounge and scuttlebutt have been no go areas for many is the absence of political threads.

I think that this thread would be better placed in the Lounge section.

 

[Koeketiene]

Seconded

 

[FullCircle]

I hadn't thought of it that way, but if it means no more (extra) windmills to tilt at, I think it is relevant to us.

It does not appear to have drawn any evil doers thus far, I read it a bit bewildered.

 

[Sixpence]

Afraid I'm with Jim, I don't think it's peaceful in here because topics are restricted, more because it's just more civilised in here, and a topic can be talked about without anyone getting emotional about it. The topic is local to the area, and I doubt anyone's going to get into a punch up over it

 

[Peegee]

Thanks CPD for an honest, obviously well informed, set of figures. I am happy to read it on any forum, and think that it is particularly apt on this one.

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

yep agree....

While I have some sympathy with Moondancer and Guapa's posts, we are particularly infected with Windfarm fungus on this part of the coast, and so i'd see it as relevant...

Nice thing though is that we can even disagree in a civilised manner! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Sixpence]

Yep, good grief, we have a forum that welcomes mobo and raggy, can't get more civilised than that /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[MoodySabre]

Some of us will affected by the construction of a new reactor at Bradwell but we're not nimbies. We might even end up with a shop within 5 miles of the marina /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif It's an ill wi....no perhaps not quite the saying I was looking for.

 

[Mariner69]

A pleasure to read your well thought out argument.

I must declare that I am a strong believer in the advantages of nuclear generation for power, coupled with stored hydro-electric for the instant need supply and use of excess nuke power at nights.

I have been watching the anti-nuclear activists writing frankly biased letters to the local papers regarding the possibility of the Bradwell Power Station starting up again. It amazes me how many of the cliches they are wheeling out.

Bradwell designed to work for 25 years ran for the best part of 40 years. The amount of radiation emitted over that period by a coal burning power station would have been substantially more than was actually released by Bradwell.

You are right, an independent non-political decision body is what is needed.

 

[AliM]

Firstly, I suspect we're past the tipping point - nothing much we do now will make a difference. All the predictions get more pessimistic by the month - soon the climatologists will tell us that we're into the positive feedback domain.

The basic problem is that no one is willing to say that there are simply too many of us. If we cut the world population by 50% - or probably more - we may be able to claw our way out of it. That cannot be done quickly, short of an epidemic, and no one (particularly the religious lobbies) will allow it to be done slowly, so it'll probably have to be done catastrophically (famine...). That is probably where we are headed, probably in my children's lifetime.

If it makes people feel better to build wind generators, let them. It won't do anything significant to address the problem, but then nothing else will.

If you really want to do something about energy, then build nuclear (fission) for the short term, and throw every spare cent you have into developing fusion power for the long term (assuming we are still around in the long term). Fusion is the only sustainable source with the potenial to solve the problem - but it is appallingly difficult, which is why no one discusses it much (except the JET/Culham and ITER people etc). It may be feasible in 50 years. (It was going to be the power source of the future, with a pilot in ten years time in 1970; there will still be a pilot in ~10 years time in 2009!)


OK that's pretty pessimistic. I hope I'm wrong. It also isn't boaty, except the wind generators - and my solution to the problem, which is to go sailing!

 

[CPD]

The last thing on my mind was to create any ill feeling or discomfort on what I fully agree is a forum where peacefulness abounds, so apologies to those ruffled in any way.

I agree with many comments above, and despite what I have said, I actually quite like the things, at least it gives the sense that something is being done. I just wish I was wrong.

 

[Sixpence]

The most annoying thing about them is when you want them to blow, they don't, then when you don't want a wind they turn them on too fast /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[CPD]

............ and maybe there is the solution we have all been waiting for. When the power generation problem is solved, there will be so much leccy that we will be able to dial into the appropriate website and vote which way they will point to lend hand to our fabulous pastime /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Sixpence]

Now there's a thought /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[BrendanS]

You need to speak to a specialist such as Slaribartfast or one of the other Magrathean specialists, who I'm sure could design a system without all the windmill thingies.

 

[AliM]

Actually, I like them too. I enjoyed sailing amongst them in Denmark, where they are everywhere, but no one seems to worry about you sailing close to them. However, I agree totally with you that they are not the solution to anything. In fact, I was told by a Dane that Denmark has enough wind generators to generate about 40% of their power when the wind blows, so when it doesn't, they have to import electricity at huge cost from Germany. It therefore saves the country nothing at all. (That is all anecdotal - I can't be arsed to check my "facts")

My feelings weren't ruffled. I enjoyed and largely agreed with your post, but wanted to bring fusion into the discussion (and I'm not really that miserable!).