Grand Designs - Turf roof on larch box in Skye

Wasn't too sure at first, especially when I saw the forerunner shown as some sort of example - didn't like that one at all. As it turned out, the one in the programme was a delight, and the occupants (and their neighbours) came across as non-pitas. There's a similar (but smaller) larch box on the south coast near me and it's a total blot on the landscape - looks like a packing case toppled over. The Skye-house architect managed to avoid that particular pitfall, I'm glad to say.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon
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What was a shame however, given that they kept blatting on about how beautiful the views were, was the bloody great windmills a couple of hundred yards away. I noticed that they were careful to show them as little as possible.

Did anyone hear Vine on radio 2 at lunchtime today ? They were debating wind vs nuke now that the Japs in the form of Hitachi have come on the scene to get involved with the British project. Vine came out with a typically hysterical statement that the fissionable material is so dangerous that if a golf-ball sized piece was put at the centre of a football field, you'd be dead before you had managed to walk out of the goal mouth. Where do they get this crap from ?

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

No-one in the media has any scientific training ...

Reply to
Huge

Now we'll see the electric bills go up. Nothing more expensive than nuclear.I wonder who'll be running/financing all this lot? Are we all/ the gov. getting into more debt?

And we'll be going into nuclear when others are getting out. Typical.

Reply to
harry

Are your PV panels going to save the day?

Reply to
Tim Watts

Expected groundless hysteria from Harry, of course ... Listen to Vine's programme from yesterday (Wednesday) , between 1 hour 26 mins and 1 hour 30 mins - assuming you know how.

Vine had a guy from Switzerland on the programme who said that the green lobbyists had managed to get all the nuke shut down over there, after misleading the public and then having a vote on it, and that now, their energy ministers had just announced that bills would increase by 200% as a result, so yes, it will be interesting to see what happens to our bills if we get the nuclear program back up and running. But no matter what, the biggest advantage in my eyes, would be the freeing up of our need to be beholden to the Frogs and Russkies for our energy, at the prices that they charge us. Perhaps when Europe have shut down all theirs, we too will be able to join the TTP club, and sell 'em some back. It would be good to squeeze them until their pips squeak, like they routinely do to us ...

It is completely unacceptable that we might not have enough energy capability to run the country in a few years' time as a result of shutting down all our generation capability to try and meet ludicrous emissions targets, and then trying to replace it with equally ludicrous 'clean' generation methods like wind. If the answer to that is to build some nukes, then that route has my vote. As to it being a Japanese company - specifically Hitachi - who are going to help with this, far from being worried, I am actually reassured, having dealt with Hitachi's products virtually since they first appeared on the market, and in that time, always having found the design and build quality to be right up there with the best.

Now if they had said that Amstrad were getting involved ...

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

That would be as much the fault of the government for not countering the arguments.

Reply to
Tim Watts

Its a shame because J Vine is usually broad minded and intelligent.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

SPIV lies again

Wind is vastly more expensive than nuclear and as for solar..sheesh.

Nuclear power is what's been keeping bills DOWN.

I wonder who'll be running/financing all this lot? Are we all/

No harry, though your pension fund might.

Excellent reason to do it. Never follow lemmings over the cliff.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Not once the guvmint is so broke that the power companies tell him to piss off when he tries to sell them electricity at ten times the going rate...and he tries to sue them for breach of contract...whereupon they refuse to supply him at all and he goes totally off line all winter :-)

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

ARRGGHH!!

Worse still a Sinclair Reactor or a Dyson one with transparent windows in the side so you can 'see the neutrons' and 'know when to empty it'

BWRs are rather old hat, like a Porsche, but developed as they are they will do the job, and at a sane price too. Areva has cocked up the AP1000 it seems.

And some of re latest Russian kit aint to bad either.

Are Babcock making the pressure vessels? Or just the turbiney bit with Rolls Royce?

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

But it was the government who went all 'green' on this.

They wanted out of nuclear, despite the fact that Switzerland being almost 100% hydro nuke - and it doesn't get cleaner than that - has virtually a zero carbon footprint when it comes to electricity.

They will have to build coal now..

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Harry ..

We can't all live in polystyrene boxes like you do or want to;!...

Reply to
tony sayer

I see out Nuclear output is down a couple of MW from where it normally is what are they doing refuelling or something?...

Reply to
tony sayer

In which case, the people have learnt a valuable lesson - and as it seems that democracy actually works in Switzerland (relative to here) they might be in a position to do something about it.

Reply to
Tim Watts

The pressure vessels are one bit that is highly likely to be UK sourced, RR are more likely to be involved with the reactor build.

The turbines will be coming from overseas, most likely from France, possibly from Germany or Japan. The UK lost expertise in large turbines during the

1980's because the home market evaporated and without a home market it is often very difficult to sell anything overseas. Nothing wrong with the companies, nothing wrong with the technology - the French bought the UK turbine industry, with French government cash, and then shut it down to protect French jobs.
Reply to
The Other Mike

"couple of MW"

GW ?

AGR's normally refuel on load. One unit is offline at Heysham 1, one at Heysham

2, one at Dungeness B. Total loss of about 1.8GW, at least one of the above will be offload all winter.
Reply to
The Other Mike

Yes of course Giggle Wots...

Lets hope its not too harsh then. ISTR reading somewhere that the supply system isn't as high a capacity as it might be...

Reply to
tony sayer

I guess so. generally they like to have everything sorted by Christmas, because Jan-Feb is when we really chew electrons,.

It looks like the French ICT is up again at 1.5GW at least. Maybe full power.

If this winter is as bad as last, France will need every last bit of coal we can toss in the boilers come January.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Was a good prog and nice to see something 'affordable', but I'd have liked it to be less angular. All the hills round it were, err, rounded. The ancient 'black' houses showed the way.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

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