Game_Over
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Posts posted by Game_Over
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What does Scientific American have to say about global warming?
Towing the line of course.
But the point is, China and India are building hundreds of coal fired power stations
so I don't see the justification for forcing half our population into fuel poverty and wiping out our remaining industries
for the sake of 10 coal fired power stations
even if 'Global Warming' wasn't a crock of sh*te
which most scientists would admit if their research funding didn't depend on it.
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Relax. I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that the UK is only in 8th place for wind power capacity in a table topped by China, the US and Germany. China has obviously sowed the seeds of its own doom by installing 10 times the wind capacity of the UK. (
)My electricity bill is absolutely enormous - due to
Cooking
Washing Machine
Tumble dryer (as it never stopped raining for 12 months)
Electric shower
kettle
2 fridges
lights
Ironing
Hoovering
PC's
TV's
Hair Dryers etc
Central Heating pump
Hard disk set top boxes
Internet router
etc, etc
A few years ago our electricity bills were less than our gas - now they are astronomical
So thanks for the advice, but short of going back to living in the 1920's I am not going to get much relaxation in this area for the foreseeable future
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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=india-has-big-plans-for-burning-coal
This is from Scientific American which states India has hundreds of coal fired power plants coming on line
but can we build 5 or 6 in order to get the price of electricity in the UK down to affordable levels
oh no
because we will destroy the f*cking planet apparently.
Oh and by the way - there has been no 'Global Warming' for about 15 years
if anything, it's actually getting colder
as experts in the 70's predicted based on studying cycles in solar output.
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You are wasting your time, the people obsessed with wind power won't accept they are wrong even when it's staring them in the face. The maths doesn't add up unless everyone on planet earth agree to adopt wind+hydro at the same rate. Otherwise counties still focusing on Fossil Fuels and Nuclear will steal all the manufacturing.
Well as China and Germany are both building coal fired power stations, the writing is on the wall.
Also added this link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/14/india-coal-rush
as it's from the Guardian no one can question it's veracity.
There are more up to date articles of course
but if I post anything that isn't from the Independent (which is owned by a Russian Oligarch I believe) or the Guardian, everyone says it's lies.
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If I offered you a penny to dig my garden I would have created a job too. It's not that hard. The real trick is to create jobs that pay wages people can live on.
The answer is for the state to stop stealing most of what people earn then giving it them back as 'benefits'.
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I recall Euan Mearns at the Oil Drum stating that the contribution from Wind power during that period saved enough gas to stave off rolling blackouts.
That's because we don't have enough gas storage facilities because our politicians have no strategic vision and won't spend money on anything that doesn't buy them popularity.
And gas is cheap to store compared with the cost of storing electricity.
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I recall Euan Mearns at the Oil Drum stating that the contribution from Wind power during that period saved enough gas to stave off rolling blackouts.
Never read so much garbage in my life.
Wind power has to be backed up by some form of storage.
The fact that the current system copes with variations in demand is irrelevant because gas and coal fired stations can easily vary their output by burning more or less fuel.
When demand is low THE FUEL NOT BURNED IS NOT WASTED.
You cannot turn up the wind when demand increases or store the wind when it is blowing in the middle of the night.
Any country that has a significant proportion of wind generated electricity will have to have pumped storage or will face constant power shortages and even if they make this enormous investment, the cost of energy will be so high they will never be able to compete with countries relying on fossil fuels or nuclear.
Even here, people just don't realise how screwed we are as a result of 20 years of fantasy policy making.
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You've obviously never been to scotland.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/54357/0013233.pdf
Under Hydro it is stated that the scope for new schemes is limited to 2000mw
which is about the output of 3 coal fired power stations
In any case I was thinking of England
Scotland is a different country
or will be shortly - hopefully
and good riddance
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People don't lend money from a sense of moral obligation- they lend money to make a profit.
It's not that certain that a defaulting nation would be shut out of lending for that long either- after all- if you have no national debt in a world of debt encumbered nations you might look like a good risk!
Iceland seems to prove the counterfactual- it's doing ok since it declined the bankers offer to pay all their debts for them.
Iceland has a minuscule population and loads of fish
they were rich before the boom, unlike Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain.
Clearly investors will eventually lend to countries that have defaulted
but only after the consequences have played out.
No one in Greece wants to default because that would mean austerity far worse than they are facing now
What they want is free money and they think they have the EU over a barrel
Either way it isn't ging to end well
anyone who understood anything knew that the Euro was doomed from day 1
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What do those who seem more knowledgeable than I, think of hydroelectric dams?
Storage and generation combined, they seem to be a winner. Apart from environmental impacts.
You need the geography for hydro electric and we don't have it
plus they generally involve flooding vast areas of land.
If you have vast uninhabited areas of land or a totalitarian state this is not a problem
otherwise it is a big problem.
We don't even seem capable of building reservoirs in this country any more
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Nonsense - so basically countries cannot pay there bills, cannot keep bailing out, and getting into more debt - There is plenty of money out there - the government will just tax everyone more - the future in countries like the UK/US for consumers will be like Scandinavian countries - high tax, high prices, for driving, alcohol, food, etc - this will have the effect of modifying people's behavior to consume less, and make every penny count, driving smaller cars and car sharing - Same standard of living - just that your won't go out eat 3 nights a week, or go out and drink ten pints at the weekend, and have two or three cars per household. House prices will eventually start rising again slower, like they did perhaps 10 or 15 years ago as opposed to large amounts every year.
People's behavior and actions can be controlled by financial incentives and punishments.
Governments will eventually lower their debts and life will go on as normal.
That's fine as long as you realise that normal is:
Economic collapse, War, Secret Police, death camps, famine and disease
The history of the 20th Century was just humans doing what they normally do
personally I'm really looking forward to the return of 'normality' following the largest credit boom in history
Not........
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They are cost-effective. They are difficult to manage to integrate into the supply, but we live in the windiest country in northern Europe, so if others can make it work, then so can we. As prices of the alternatives get higher due to fuel costs, wind stays the same. The build-out cost of wind is small compared to large installations, as you can commission turbine by turbine, you don't have to wait for several years before you get a single kiloWatt-hour as in a nuke build.
France has a lot of nuclear power, because early on they took a good look at the fuel situation, and realised without some action they were up the creek. It's also interesting to note that at about the same time they vigorously pursued the development of the small fast diesel engine for cars, and kept the cost of diesel fuel down, to save oil imports. If the disaster in Japan had happened earlier, they might have adopted a different strategy.
Others, Germany for example, are giving up nuclear for the clear reason that a single failure could be devastating. Iran, I would assume has little wind, so for long-term baseload would like to get nuclear.
We may live in the windiest country in northern Europe, but the wind doesn't blow much where all the people live
ever heard of transmission losses?
Also the wind tends to blow most when demand is lowest, so without pumped storage, which is hugely expensive, the majority of wind is wasted.
You also hit the nail on the head of why wind power is so popular with politicians in the UK
because it doesn't require any forward planning or strategic thinking and funding can be supplied in dribs and drabs
classic kicking the can down the road while appearing to be right on and ever so eco-friendly
after all, who could hate politicians when they are saving the planet?
We can argue till the cows come home, but at the end of the day, everything is pointing to wind power and MMGW becoming casualties of the realpolitik that is heading our way like a runaway express train.
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Indeed. To suggest that reliability, efficiency and performance of wind generators has not improved massively over the last 30 years is crazy.
I wonder why China has the largest installed capacity of windpower in the world if, as suggested, they are merely built to take advantage of subsidies?
China also has empty cities.
In the French revolution people were set to work digging holes, then others filled them in
Hey Presto - full employment
this doesn't mean that digging holes and filling them in
or building wind turbines
is a good idea
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You were promoting the idea that wind turbines were not cost effective because they had a higher than expected failure rate. Your assumption was that the cost to repair or replace was internalised - i.e. the operator would face this cost, and that would make wind power uneconomical. We are just pointing out that other energy forms also have a failure rate higher than expected, but when failure occurs it can be massive, with huge external cost liabilities, which are mainly picked up by the public, i.e. a hidden subsidy. Not just failures, but unanticipated after-effects. Look at what's happening in Germany, where some land has sunk by 25 metres due to mine subsidence, requiring continuous pumping in some places to avoid urban inundation.
Who exactly is going to pay for clearing up Fukushima?
That is one of the reasons they are not cost effective, I did mention many others.
Perhaps you could explain why France has so much nuclear generation capacity and why Iran wants nuclear?
Wind turbines are not the answer - they are expensive and blight the landscape
the only reason so many have been built recently is because of subsidy chasing.
Well no one can afford the subsidies any more or the higher energy bills they are causing
so, at the end of the day, my belief is, that wind turbines will be left to wither on the vine.
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So now we have gone from arguing that wind turbines are reliable and cost effective
to arguing that other forms of energy generation are even more unreliable and less cost effective
interesting
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I'm actually begining to think that you really do believe all this $hit.
The ideas you believe in were tested to destruction in the 20th Century.
I don't know what the answer is
but it sure as Hell isn't ideas that have failed over and over again.
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So living within our means = serfdom? More chance of your banking buddies getting lynched imo.
Living within our means
means Governments not giving ANYONE something for nothing
including bankers.
I would quite happily end free money for bankers
the only reason governments continue with this is because
if they didn't, it would mean the end of free money for everyone.
Why don't the Greek people want to default???????????
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Your first line is total ******. As an example, try googling magnetite + power station + failure. Quite a few steam plants have blown up because of a little bit of corrosion. The one I remember was in Wales in the 60s, where a simple ball on a spring got magnetised and stuck onto the valve seat. It resulted in a write off of most of the power station, and deaths. A more recent one happened in Michigan in 2001. There are others.
Your second statement is also wrong. Gearbox failure was built into the cost models.
Neither statement is wrong, as it happens.
Nothing can ever be made 100% reliable, but solutions to most problems exist
they just don't make any economic sense
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The accelerator sounds better, ask Osbourne.
None of our politicians have a clue how to avoid what is coming
because for them the cure is worse than the disease
only trouble is, no matter how bad the cure might be
if nothing is done the disease will kill us.
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Such implications are a given, Game Over's scenario isn't. Probably why the bankers and their state stooges are all terrified of the prospect.
Until societies live within their means, this cycle will repeat endlessly
and living within their means
means no big state social welfare model
The US will probably abandon it first, as they have a set of founding principles they can return to.
Europe on the other hand does not even have a very good record on democracy, so will probably return to the idea of Festung Europa
We have to choose whether we want to trade with the rest of the World or lock ourselves in the prison camp
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If you don't eliminate deficits
you can never eliminate debt
simple as that.
As I said previously, anyone can default
but what moral obligation does anyone then have to lend them money in the future?
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At the end of the day, once you have driven your car off a cliff
it doesn't matter whether you stamp on the brake or the accelerator
the end result is going to be the same
Very, very sadly, there is not a cat in Hell's chance this is going to end in anything other than complete disaster
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Well if she really is that bothered, she could start by writing off some of this debt instead of expanding it...
It isn't the debt that's the problem, it's the deficit.
Greece as an example could default tomorrow
but it won't, because that would entail living within its means which would require massive cuts, far bigger than the ones imposed by austerity.
Writing off debt would just delay the inevitable a few more years, but would solve nothing.
Anyone can default, any time
just don't expect anyone to lend to you again for a good few years.
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OK, that's interesting, thanks.
I'm sure that none of this is beyond the realm of human ingenuity though, and every new installation must increase knowledge. It's a bit like dismissing the principle of long distance air travel based on the Wright Brothers' earlier efforts.
In engineering terms you can make anything virtually 100% reliable
but at what cost?
And was this cost factored into the original calculations of the economic viability of wind turbines?
It appears not.
Booker: It Is Wind Power That Will Send Our Bills Sky-High
in Current affairs
Posted
It does follow actually.