Making the news today....

[GarethM]

Yeah, the green Germans.

 

Let's close perfectly good nuclear power plants in favour of gas and renewables whilst also burning the most foul polluting coal which is barely even coal it's akin to burning soil/peat!

[GarethM]

If you really want to see how much of a cock up the renewable industry is in go have a look at Australia. A country so blessed in sunshine they are facing actual blackouts!

[Woodworks]

 

Agreed we need a base load but no need when it's windy, no need when it's sunny not when there is excess in countries we have interconnects with. Keep our nukes going as they are brilliant for base load, Short term store natural gas for domestic heating but dont be burning it to make electric when we really dont need to be.

 

 

This looks like a good explanation of the whole mess and its not the costs to generate or subsidise renewables thats the problem.

Opinion: Renewables are cheaper than ever – so why are household

WWW.UCL.AC.UK

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Renewables and nuclear make up half of UK power but a new market that cuts energy bills at the same time as decarbonising the system is needed, says Professor Michael Grubb (UCL...

 

 

[GarethM]

You need base load regardless, you need to be using the renewable to do something such as hydrogen when it's excess.

[eggsarascal]

On a lighter note, Frankie Boyle nailed it, "you're not in the middle of a recession, you're in the middle of a robbery".

[Commando]

18 hours ago, eggsarascal said:

I do love it. Rishi and Boris have raised tax more in two years than Brown and Blair managed in 10. 

 

Yes, it is avoidance, perfectly legal.

 

 

Hardly comparing Eggs with Eggs there (see what I did there😉). Do you think the geopolitical and economic situations are similar? FFS😂

[GarethM]

In that Frankie Boyle it's a robbery, all that comes to mind is the pulp fiction restaurant scene.

 

So is it Liz, Angela or that daft green screaming it ?

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, GarethM said:

Sounds like you've swallowed the huge renewable lies,

What lies?

2 hours ago, GarethM said:

if you want to supplement the grid with solar, wind etc that's to be encouraged but you need base load to actually allow that.

 

Without sufficient base load and storage your renewable energy delusions are not even possible. You need storage for atleast 24 hours not minutes, batteries are not the answer, hydro maybe but they turn wind off when it blows top hard.

 

If you are talking in general yes you are right, the cheapness of fossil fuels and the vested interest in producing them has meant the urgent need to deal with the external costs of them hasn't allowed the renewable energy business to develop as far as it could have from when problems became apparent 50 years ago. It is a basic human trait to live for today.

 

At the domestic level an individual can comfortably do without the grid for most of their electricity with a battery that only stores a days worth. I could even do without  the grid  for the last 450kWh I fall short of from Mid November to March with a simple chp system which would  make better use of the thermal energy of gas. Of course we are going to rely on fossil fuels for a long time yet but no need to continue with such profligacy and those living in high density housing will have to rely on what is provided, and pay for it.

2 hours ago, GarethM said:

 

You need to be using that power however hard it blows!.

It's simple O level physics that show why this is not practicable;energy in the wind is the mass flow times the square of the velocity, mass flow also contains a velocity term as it is mass  passing per unit time, hence the energy varies with the cubic power of the wind velocity. So if you design the hardware to make use of the wind  and produce a return on the hardware at an average 7 metres per second then double the wind speed to 14m/sec and you need to cope with producing 14 times the average amount of power, it is simply not worth investing the equipment for such a range  so cheaper to produce the power around the average speed with machinery optimised for it and shut down when the windspeed is too high for the equipment to absorb the energy.

[GarethM]

The lie is the one the renewable zealots spout, you can't run a world on renewables and then proceed to try and educate me about why they shut down wind turbines when it's too windy!.

 

They are variable pitch, your calculations are pointless, it's the same technology used in aircraft propellors and they work at 500mph.

 

What about the blades and the fact we've been burying them or burning then to co fire cement production!.

Edited August 19, 2022 by GarethM

[difflock]

Just back from a cycle, and the "black" economy appears to be doing fine, based on my observations, both yesterday and today, in a local pub, where the Guinness is truly superb, also worth noting the horse racing appears to be well supported.

Poverty, what poverty?