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UK to "get serious" About Renewable Energy
Bob Dobbs writes "Tomorrow the UK government will
announce (observer.co.uk) it's going to "get serious" about renewable energy; in the bleakest look at global warming so far Tony Blair will warn that extreme weather will wreak £150 billion worth of damage across Europe within a decade and the current situation is "unsustainable". On the bright side, it's mentioned that sustainable energy sources are less susceptible to terrorist attack."
Sounds like another arguement for my hydrogen powered Jeep. GWB mentioned it in his State of the Union Address too.
No telling what the British are thinking though, with all of that renewable energy sitting right there under the North Sea.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
this white paper, a few weeks ago,about the governemnt setting targets
for CO2 and renewable energy levels, instead they've set aspirations
(see the BBC , The Sunday Herald
and The Telegraph).
Most people seem to share the view that New Labour 'aspirations'
mean absolutely nothing, and we'll probally end up in 2050 with
more coal/gas/nuclear (best option in my opinion) powerstations than
ever before.
The crucial assumption that the earth will become 6 degress warmer within the next century probably stems from a IPCC study. But the IPCC study is being disputed - mainly for grossly overestimating the 3rd world growth. And with a more reasonable estimate of the economic growth, the resulting CO2 emission and therefore also the resulting global warming will be substantially lower.
4
See for instance here: http://www.kuro5hin.org/print/2003/2/17/15110/519
Renewable or sustainable? Nuclear fission is not renewable, but is sustainable in the long run (possibly with breeder reactors) and looks like the only way to reduce CO2 emission levels while keeping the energy production comparable to the current levels.
(Solar/photovoltaic consumes almost as much energy to make solar cells as they produce over their entire lifetime and yield toxic waste, solar/thermal has a poor ration of conversion to electricity, windmills and dams need to be spread over very large areas -- think whole countries -- to produce the same quantities...)
And nuclear reactors would still be vulnerable to terrorism. But they are not PC anyway.
Somehow I don't picture solar energy working very well in the UK. I would think their high degree of cloud cover and rainy days would put a damper on such a project. Are there any existing (and reasonably efficient) solar plants in the UK?
Given their island nature, wind power might be reasonably useful. Current windmills in the UK seem to be bringing in 2MW per turbine. Of course, this is small in comparison to the 38GW that's currently being consumed by the UK. (Wh / hours_per_year)
Divide it out and they need only build 19,000 wind power turbines to power the country's electricity needs.
There is certainly value in installing as many affordable renewable energy sources as possible. However, for general purpose usage in all countries, the world's energy needs won't be solved before commercial fusion is available.
While Bush might not believe the global warming thing, he does have some renewable energy programs that don't seem to get a lot of press. Maybe not as many or as much spending as the previous administration (I haven't looked that part up) but they are there and apparently he does promote them.
As an Apple user and Volkswagen driver, I know when someone is gay. I am an authority in determining if someone is homosexual. Tony Blair is definitely a fag. There is no doubt in my mind that Tony Blair not only sucks penises, he is also the bitch in an anal love relationship with George W. Bush. Tony Blair is so gay, that even my juices get flowing. Someday, I would hope to have my dick sucked by Tony Blair. That is what I think of this. Tony Blair's sucking could be a renewable energy source.
I live in Norfolk which has some cool wind turbines going. Like this bad boy in Swaffham. They're going to build another even bigger one there soon. They are building the UK's biggest wind farm on the sand bank just off the coast here. They are even talking about converting some of the old wind mills/pumps that used to drain the marshes here to generate electricity which I think would be really good if it means more of them are preserved and serving a useful purpose.
What "tax breaks for SUVs" are you talking about?
Well, if he's talking about the ones everyone else is talking about, it's that SUVs don't have to meet the emmissions rules that cars do, nor do they have to meet the same MPG requirments (20 vs 27 for cars.)
Since it costs a bit more to make a cleaner car or a more efficient car, the suburban assult vehicles are getting a free ride on a statute meant to assist rural farmers and small businesses.
this is such a bunch of tripe!
First of all.. if we were to take the encylopeadia Britannica and stack all the books up.. then the thickness of each page would represent more than 100,000 years of the earth's history. This means that the last ice age which ended about 10,000 years ago and was at peak 18,000 years ago would be within 1/5 of the thickness of the last page.
There were 8 ice ages in the last 2 million years and that is within the last 20 pages.
Within the last 2,000 years (2% of the thichness of the last page) there have been several warming and cooling periods denoted by such names as the little ice age and the medieval warm period . Crocs were in the themes during Roman times... (little warmer).
look here to see a chart showing global temperature over the last billion or so years. This is the paleomap project an they have done increadible work.
Check out the university of Carleton, Tim Patterson has an excellent course on climate change and this is being broadcast on TLC as well.
On Chris Scotese's web site you will see that for 90% of the history of the planet for the last 650 million years or so, the earth was about 20 degrees warmer than now. If you look at the miocene maps you will see that 14 Million years ago the planet was warmer.. and a lot wetter..
BTW... the time scale on Chris's chart is not linear. If the chart is re-scaled it tells the same story but is even more dramatic. (We leave the re-scalling to the student as an excersize).
Look here if you want to know why Britian is so keen on renewable energy and specifically look at these charts which show the decline rate of North Sea oil production. Britain will become an oil importer within 2 years. The decline rate of North Sea oil production is more than 15% per year. The chart shows how feilds deplete. You can see how the big plays are drilled first and last the longest... and thereafter smaller and smaller fields are brought online until they give up and stop drilling. This is where Britian is now. One of the stats is that Britian has about 250 barrels of oil per capita. That is it! On to renewable because the oil resource is gone.
The real issue of climate change is this. Water in the atmosphere is far more significant than CO2. Firstly H2O is at a far greater level so the question becomes... how would we express the level of H2O in the atmosphere? Secondly there is uncertainty in the measurements. Thirdly, irrigation and agriculture increase the H2O levels. Most of that water pumped onto the fields will evaporate and plants do transpire!
CO2 levels are in the range of 0.036% and this of course is a plant nutrient.
So we are left with adding 2 numbers for instance.
H2O = 0%-4.0% +/- what? a percent?
CO2 = 0.036% +/- 0.0005
You can see these numbers here in table 7a-1.
Since the warming response is most likely due to the weighted "sum" of the CO2 and H2O and all the other green house gasses of course, then we need to "add" the H2O levels to the CO2 levels. Well - the numbers are in the preceeding paragraph and I don't know how to add them. We don't even have a good handle on the uncertainty of the H2O levels... but, My guess is that irrigation and agriculture have increased the H2O substancially.
So - we end up with the anaolgy to the encyclopeadia. Almost all of the data for climate modeling has been collected in the last 100 years and this represents 1/1000'th of the thickenss of the last page of the stack of books. Meanwhile all the other pages are basically ignored. The geological history of the planet shows that the planet is usually (90% of the time) about 20 degrees warmer than now. So most likely the planet will warm back up. But we don't know when and we might get another ice age or several before this happens. Anyone for 10,000 feet of ice over Toronto? Who votes for palm trees in the artic circle?
Sugar in your engine? What? That's ridiculous. There have even been products that have used alcohol in combination with gas, and I've never heard a case of damage due to that fuel.
I also can't imagine any reason the fuel pump would need to be modified in the slightest.
Try backing up your statements with some facts.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
From: Australia Rules and regulations
Vehicles up to 30 years old including Forward Control Vehicles:
15% Duty + 10% Gst
4WD 'Off Road' Vehicles & Commercial Vehicles:
5% Duty + 10% Gst
Hydro power isn't considered all that sustainable. For one, dams mess up river ecology, and the reservoir floods large areas of land and often displaces people. Because of the lowered velocity of water in the reservoir, the river drops much of its suspended load, the reservoir fills up with silt, and it needs to be dregded at great expense in money and energy.
Also, most of the suitable hydropower sites in the world already have been exploited.
First Carbs have been out of favor for 15 years now. (The last auto with a carb was in the mid 80s) Second, even then US regulations required all cars to operate with a 10% ethanol mixture. Not 100% alcohol, but start. Further, many gas pumps supply that mixture, and in most cases you do not even know you are getting it.
I will grant that your points (other than sugar depostis) were true for old cars, but you looking at the 70s or before, not many cars that old are on the road, and those that are, are collectors cars who can afford expensive gas for the car. (That is the car should be driven so little due to its value as a collectors item that even $10/gallon for gas is affordable, no matter how poor you are)
Carbs are easier to modify for ethanol/alcohol than fuel injection, just change your jets, while fuel injection requires you find someone who can give you a good prom. (in theory easy, in practice nobody does it) Of course if you want to get your performance and power back after that mod you should increase your compression ration, which is a major rebuild, but that is a semi-optional step and destroys your ability to easially go back to regular gas.
In MN there are many cars on the road that run on E-85, which is 85% ethanol. All those cars will run just fine on regular gas, but with E-85 about 20 cents/gallon chepaer than gas, and avaiable in nearly every MN town I don't see why you would. To be fair ethanol is subsidiesd in MN, something that will likely end soon due to budget problems, but there now are enough E-85 cars on the road that they should be able to make money continuing production unsubsidies..
you can efficently make ethanol from any celulose now so yard waste will work, pitoplankton will work, etc...we have an over production of food actualy and farmers can grow crops just for ethanol with out inpacting food production.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
You make many other assertions, and toss off known cost effective energy producers such as wind with "[...]noisy, ugly blight on the landscape[...]" and "Someone is making big bucks selling the Brooklyn Bridge here[...]". I hope British Petroleum and Texaco aren't making a dire mistake with their wind investments. Or it might be that your rant is more political than factual?
Cheers,
--Maynard
Actually the atypically high rates of cancers (leukaemia is I think the most studied) come in geographic clumps anyway, that is the normal pattern, which is why it is very difficult to establish cause and effect between the health effects and the power plants.
You can have a look at http://cis.nci.nih.gov/fact/3_58.htm for some of the issues that arise when trying to determine whether something geographically specific is occuring.
The longest transmission line in the world is the "Inga-Shaba", a 1700kM 500kV single-phase transmission line in western Africa. That's 1056 miles, roughly the distance from New York City to Chicago. However, its max capacity is 560 MW because of reactive line losses, equivalent to the output of one medium sized fossil fuel plant. This past summer, the mid-Atlantic states alone hit just over 60,000 MW for an instananeous peak. In 1999, the United States consumed 3.45 x 10^9 MW-hours of energy.
... a quick Google search could have answered your construction question (numbers for off-shore Alabama):
That is the problem with solar power, any type of generation really, you cannot concentrate it. Energy is lost as heat, proportional to the resistance of the wire, which is proportional to the distance of the line. So #1, even if you can generate it, you can't transport it that distance. #2, the more you concentrate, one cloudy day would wipe out the majority of your generation... remember, this is not a 365-day guaranteed capacity source. Not to mention #3 that a common sand storm in the desert would crack and scratch your glass, driving up repair costs.
What you would need is a 100% distributed system, maybe one station per square mile across every population center in the US, minimizing the path between generation and consumption. Now, try to get local approval from the municipalities to install it (and junk up their landscapes). Then, calculate the maintainence costs to visit each one of these locations... astronomical.
Finally, your whole "war on terror" argument is, for lack of a better word, crap. Every statement you've made is an approximation, and your solutions assume the ideal. It's a thinly masked anti-war rhetoric pretending to pass as fact. If the war were really about oil, we'd drill it ourself on our homeland, and be done with those dictators in the middle east. Then you finish it off with a snide remark against the President's home state
Q. How long does it take to drill these wells? A. Miocene: 1 to 2 weeks; Norphlet: 6 to 12 months
Q. How much does it cost to drill these wells? A. Miocene: $750,000 to $2 million; Norphlet: $15 million to $40 million
Q. What is the average daily drilling rig cost? A. $100,000 to $120,000
Q. How much and long does each well produce? A. Miocene: 2 million to 15 million cubic feet per day for 1 to 10 years, Norphlet: 10 million to 126 million cubic feet per day for 10 to 20 years
From StudyWorks Online: "For example, the consumption of oil in the United States reached a peak in 1978, then decreased by almost 20 percent by 1983 as more fuel-efficient cars were introduced and less oil was used for electricity. However, gasoline consumption increased again in the '90s as gas-guzzling SUV's and small trucks became more popular. Nonetheless, oil consumption is currently increasing by only 1 percent per year, and consumption in 1999 was only 3.5 percent higher than it was in 1978." Get those SUVs on a normal fuel usage plan. Improve gas-electric hybrids. Encourage more efficient fossil fuel generators. What we really need is efficiency, not alternative generation.
You must have vistited the Altamont Pass windfarm at some point. Those turbines are practically the only electrical windmills in the past 50 years which produce more than 75 decibels each.
First, that's nowhere near a jet engine. You can't hear them in a running car, even if parked with the windows down.
Second, modern turbines are whisper-quiet. If you don't believe me, and you're (I'm assuming) in California, drive down past any of the Riverside County wind farms and let me know if you hear anything.