Sign of things to come ?

[The Natural Philosopher]

This morning, for the first time since February's cold snap, the UK became for a few minutes a net exporter of electricity.

Was this surplus wind power? No. There was no wind. Was this thousands of solar panels on suburban rooftops contributing to our balance of payments? No it was dull and dreary and no solar panels are producing anything of note..

It was coal. That dreary old stuff that will be banned from next year due to LCPDs was actually making the nation money. That and some whacked out old nukes.

Oh dear. It's less the lights will be going out in Britain when we shut the coal down, more the lights will go out in Europe - especially Germany.

I will larf my bleedin head off.

[charles]

true - I drove down the M6 and none of the turbines in Cumbria that I could see were turning

[Brian Gaff]

We should be working on a clean way to use coal as there is still a lot in the ground and that at least could make money if there was a clean way to use it.

Brian

[Andrew Gabriel]

Try going a bit faster, you might stir up some air ;-)

Talking of which, for the first time ever, my outdoor anemometer has been still for long enough for spiders to lash it down with cobwebs to stop it going round...

[jgh]

There *is* a clean way to use coal, and has been since the 1980s, super fine pulverisation is one method, effectively gassifies the goal before combustion and burns a higher proportion of the fuel, caputure and further burning of unburnt gseaous products, caputure and use of waste heat for ancilary purposes (eg growing tomatoes). The technology has been there since the 1980s but government bribes made it more profitable to build gas turbine generators when gas should be reserved for sending down the gas main to go through only one energy conversion cycle at the point of use.

In my chemistry lessons in the early 1980s we were told there was 300 years of coal reserves in the ground in the UK at projected extraction and use. Granted we could use it up faster than the 1980s projections, but we're also find more of it faster than 1980s projections and have better extraction technology to get the stuff they knew about then but dismissed as unfeasable to extract.

JGH

[Andy Champ]

It's still going to produce nearly as much sulphur, carbon dioxide, and uranium. That'll just drop the soot levels, and maybe increase the efficiency a little.

Andy

[Hugo Nebula]

Thank Margaret Thatcher (for that, and everything that's wrong with the UK since 1979). Coal = powerful trade unions. Therefore; Coal = CO2 = bad thing. Dash For Gas = good thing x 2 (no unions on North Sea platforms + new private power stations not unionised).

[The Other Mike]

You forgot to mention our dependence on imports for gas from that nice Mr Putin.

Time will show that Thatcher really was a commie.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Andrew Gabriel wrote on 08/10/2012 :

Same here too - no air movement at all from 1am through to 08:45 and not much in the four hours previous to that.

[mark]

Zooming off at a tangent: Without pulverised coal there would be no pulverised fuel ash and therefore no lightweight concrete blocks. More sciatica and hernias!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Allegedly more radioactivity per MWh than a nuclear power station fuel rod, in coal fly ash!!

mark

[Man at B&Q]

We had a labour government for 13 years and they did f*ck all about the problem. Tory B Liar is just as guilty.

MBQ

[Man at B&Q]

I'm sure we could find a use for it, if we tried.

MBQ

[The Natural Philosopher]

Battery acid for the S02 and greenhouses for the CO2 and surplus power station heat.

WHY we don't have greenhouses instead of cooling towers and grow pineapples and avocados and all sorts of steamy tropical junk..

[Andy Champ]

Beats the heck out of me. And it's as well, not instead - the flue gasses are plenty warm enough to heat greenhouses.

Andy

[mark]

An 18 hectare greenhouse here:

[mark]

Oh great! Thanks.

mark

[The Other Mike]

There are about 40 acres of greenhouses at Drax fed with cooling water waste heat

[Jo Stein]

There is no clean way for coal. The waste from coal is about

20 000 000 000 times larger pr unit of produced energy when compared to nuclear. Nuclear is one step in the right direction, while coal is 20 000 000 000 steps in the wrong direction. As one step = one meter, coal will put you exactly on the other side of the globe.

-- jo

[Jo Stein]

Small error in previous message. Sorry for that.