Climate Change, 'Greenhouse' effects, Environment, etc part III

As I said, Solar and wind are nothing but "feel good" solutions promoted by those who have no idea of the realities of the engineering problems and the practicalities involved.

Solar and wind cannot provide more than about 5% into the renewable energy mix. It all helps but not a viable long term solution.

The only way forward is nuclear. OK, we have had Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. But it has to be the only sensible solution.

So... Why the very highly skewed subsidies for fossil fuels and not other fuels? Why the zero cost imposed for the obvious pollution? Why the zero cost imposed for the environmental damage for extracting the fossil fuels in the first place?

To get some idea of the problems of using solar and wind energy read these.

Germany Rethinks Path to Green Future
and also read the other articles from the link - German Energy Revolution

Germany's wind power chaos should be a warning to the UK

I have said a lot of things here and I would like to clarify some of them here.

First I think big power while necessary is bad for a lot of things.

Second small power fixes a lot of the problems with big power.

Third thinking out of the box is now necessary.


Too the first, big power concentrates too much in 1 place physically and

politically forcing a 1 size fits all solution on everybody.

It is also to vulnerable to attack, or acts of nature.


As to the second small power enough for say 1 to 6 houses, if a lot

of people do this then not just the utility's will be setting the rules for

how the power grid is built. And when bad things happen at least some people

will have power to start rebuilding afterwards. Also small power provides

peak power capacity for big power at no cost to the utility's.


AS to 3 thinking out side the box thinking, my first thought is that wind mill's are

lousy at making electricity but grate at pumping water so if you put a catchment

under a hydro power electric plant and put wind mills there they could pump

a vary predictable amount of water back up behind the dam per year for a second run

though this form of power storage is possibly the cheapest possible.

The second out side the box idea is, if the battery's in electric cars were

treated as as power grid resource then the excess capacity could be used

for off peak storage at home and used for peak power return while plugged in at

work. This could be done under the complete control of the car owner, need the

extra charge on Friday to get to the lake for the weekend pay a little extra

to charge at work, going strait home on Friday get paid a little extra for

making that capacity available.



____________

Good ideas there, thanks.

There are many ways to do things. The problems appear to be very much more political and that of industrial monopoly rather than anything intractably practical...

Where there is the willingness, there is a way forward...

All on our only one planet,
Martin

____________
Mandriva Linux A user friendly OS!
See new freedom Mageia2
The Future is what We make IT (GPLv3)

And the costs for others already are piling up:

Farmers urge minister to provide extreme weather insurance

National Farmers Union estimates rains in 2012 cost the industry £1.3bn from poor harvests and higher food bills for cattle...


And for quite a mixed bag of positivity and wow:

Gratitude for Environmental Wins in 2012

... Here are just a few examples of environmental triumphs that we can all celebrate from 2012:

[...]

This year Australia -- the largest coke coal producer in the world -- brought into effect a carbon tax. And if they can do it, so too can every other nation on the globe. ...


Indeed, if the fossils pushing Australia can turn the tide, then there may be a glimmer of hope for politics yet... Canada next?!


All on our only one planet,
Martin

____________
Mandriva Linux A user friendly OS!
See new freedom Mageia2
The Future is what We make IT (GPLv3)

Good ideas there, thanks.

There are many ways to do things. The problems appear to be very much more political and that of industrial monopoly rather than anything intractably practical...

Where there is the willingness, there is a way forward...

All on our only one planet,
Martin

This year Australia -- the largest coke coal producer in the world -- brought into effect a carbon tax. And if they can do it, so too can every other nation on the globe. ...

The price of energy has always been politically sensitive, particularly for pensioners on fixed incomes, and legislation has now been introduced by an Energy Bill, to make energy companies put people on the cheapest tariff automatically. Also collective switching is being introduced where for e.g. a whole town or neighbourhood will join together and all buy their power from a single source in bulk, thus driving the price lower than for individuals. The first such schemes are due this Spring.

But the whole shebang is a vicious circle like petrol prices. People can only afford to spend so much on energy after they have paid the rent and bought food. Therefore they turn the heat down or use less. The energy companies see their income drop for their shareholders, so they put up prices to compensate, so again people use less, up goes the price again.

It's the same for petrol. In the UK people by petrol (gas) in multiples of £10 that they can afford. This gives them so many miles per fill up. If the price goes up, they get less petrol for their money, so they drive less miles. Petrol companies income stays flat, so up goes the price again, and people drive even fewer miles. People cant spend what they don't have, governments might do, but the man in the street can't.

There is a case for Energy companies to be Nationalised, so that they don't make profits for shareholders, but the government couldn't afford to buy them out.

The price of energy has always been politically sensitive, particularly for pensioners on fixed incomes, and legislation has now been introduced by an Energy Bill, to make energy companies put people on the cheapest tariff automatically. Also collective switching is being introduced where for e.g. a whole town or neighbourhood will join together and all buy their power from a single source in bulk, thus driving the price lower than for individuals. The first such schemes are due this Spring.

But the whole shebang is a vicious circle like petrol prices. People can only afford to spend so much on energy after they have paid the rent and bought food. Therefore they turn the heat down or use less. The energy companies see their income drop for their shareholders, so they put up prices to compensate, so again people use less, up goes the price again.

It's the same for petrol. In the UK people by petrol (gas) in multiples of £10 that they can afford. This gives them so many miles per fill up. If the price goes up, they get less petrol for their money, so they drive less miles. Petrol companies income stays flat, so up goes the price again, and people drive even fewer miles. People cant spend what they don't have, governments might do, but the man in the street can't.

There is a case for Energy companies to be Nationalised, so that they don't make profits for shareholders, but the government couldn't afford to buy them out.

As to the folks on fixed incomes, there are company's in the US that will

lease solar panels to you for 20 years and guarantee a fixed rate for that

period. Something like this could be done for the needy for a 1 time cost

until the battery's need replacing.
____________

Solar power is the "in thing" at the moment, but the up front prices just don't cost in at present. The original UK subsidy to feed in tariffs, to encourage take up, have already markedly dropped because solar panels are becoming substantially cheaper to manufacture in the Far East. Nevertheless it costs at present £6000 for a 4KW system.Solar costs How many years will that take to break even. And of course assuming that you have a south facing house with sunshine all year round.

Still, it keeps the green tree huggers happy .....

Solar power is the "in thing" at the moment, but the up front prices just don't cost in at present. The original UK subsidy to feed in tariffs, to encourage take up, have already markedly dropped because solar panels are becoming substantially cheaper to manufacture in the Far East. Nevertheless it costs at present £6000 for a 4KW system. ...

You tell me Martin, you tell me .....

Looking at my old list of suppliers of electronic parts, the best UK wholesale price of a solar panel I could find was £450 for 180W panel un-mounted.

Of the list of 10 makes of panels only 3 makers have current listings.

For kits of mounted panels, incl the securing kit, cableing and inverter the price looks to be about £6/watt. One thing struck me was that the life expectancy of the inverters was about 5 years. No suprise there if you consider that the technology is not that much different to PC PSU's.

(my a/c number still works, even if not used for 3 years.)