Home wind turbines dealt a blow

[The Natural Philosopher]

The reason they are NOT is because they cannot get planning, and they are faced with a totally open ended 'clean up charge' that a government may or may not impose on them sometime in the future.

on economic grounds, without those two issueas, they make sense.

But faced with a bunch of ale swilling bearded bunny huggers putting up CND camps in the middle of a building site, they tend to say 'not worth the risk'

Look at Huntingdon Life Sciences for how a vicious minority can wreck a company for no good reason other than religious hatred?

Then there is teh vexed 'decommissioning cost' issue. Its totally biased against nuclear power. No one expects the fossil fuel plant to be charged for the cost of removing a few billion tons of CO2 from the environment..but a couple of billion levy for a few hundred tons of uranium, Hey why not?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Very good idea.

Should have used battersea power station..

Definite economies of scale. BTW submarinse DO have very powerful motors. Myabe not in te GW class but several tens of MW..

I would support that. Or close by.

However fuel efficiency is not an issue with nuclear power. The fuel is probably less than 1% of the cost of generation.

Much easier to build - say - a nice set of greenhouses around the outflow, and produce out of season mangoes ;-)

>

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:31:11 +0000 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-

Given that nobody has tried, that assertion is obviously incorrect.

They may think that it would take a long time to get planning permission, but that is different.

There is an easy way to deal with this. The company can accept responsibility for the clean up, of at least the site if not the spent fuel. They could for example deposit a bond.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you'd be happy paying higher electricity prices because the power stations are build on expensive land.

[Andy Hall]

Great idea.

Pipes over 2m high with about 50mm of insulation on them snaking around the streets by the side of the road. The system is turned on on the

1st October, regardless of the weather, and the temperature inside the buildings is regulated by opening the windows.

[The Natural Philosopher]

They do already. But the problem is, to what standards must they clean up?

Right now its an open ended risk that no one will take.

If some bunny hugging government comes in and insists of making it less radioactive than distilled water, they may be faced with total ruin.

The point is that the rules applied to nuclear energy are a million times more stringent than those applied to conventional power. And they are not cast in concrete either: at any future date the companies MAY be required to change their standards massively.

Or be nationalised like some third world country.

You cannot enter a commercial arena with completely unqualified risks at the whim of a government, in competition with other players who are doing massive proven damage to the environment, and who pay *nothing* for the effects they make.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well you could build residential and office blocks on them with free lighting and heating. That should cover the land cost.

And a train station next door with a sunstation to feed the power lines..

[The Natural Philosopher]

Sounds like some council flats I stayed in in Denmark. Had some kind of waste burning boiler..

[Tony Bryer]

It was done in London: waste heat from the Battersea power station was piped under the river to heat the Pimlico estate

Not a vote winner, I suspect. But it could make sense to put acres of polytunnels next to a power station and grow tomatoes etc all year round with free heat - better than flying the stuff thousands of miles.

[AJH]

I thought that was once done at a power station somewhere.

I'm pretty certain a distillery in Scotland used waste heat for a greenhouse project, toymorey(sp??)

I think one of the schemes by that chap that wrote in "New Scientist" was to rotate trays of tomatoes between decks of a large redundant supertanker around the equator and head for home as they became ripe.

AJH

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 14:31:36 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-

District heating is done better in a number of places. Iceland is perhaps the best known.

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:12:45 GMT someone who may be Tony Bryer wrote this:-

There are a number of schemes.

lists some of them.

[<me9]

The scandinavans manage to pump hot water for great distances without excessive loss.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The (specific)? heat of water is pretty good, and so is modern insulation.

Capital cost is pretty high, but it should be cost effective over medium distances I would think.

[Derek Geldard]

No, no, you got it wrong It's not a dollar. (Hell, that would be

*three digits*, IE $1.00) it's 99 cents. Precisely, in Calfornia.

Have they made any? Yes, last week.

Do they work? Hard to say.

Have they measured how they perform ? Erm pass on that it's not summer in Calfornia ...

God help them in Switzerland it's always been pissing down when I've been there.

Greenmythology only works in "magic numbers". IE CFL's last 25 years.

[Derek Geldard]

Then you put your money where your mouth is.

If you have any.

DG

[Derek Geldard]

CFL's are the answer (not) . They last 25 years (not).

Unlike wind turbines, they only last 19.

Whereas the CEGB Magnox stations seemed to last about 40.

DG

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The life of any lamp is stated in hours used.

A CFL (depending on type) should have 5-10 times the life of a GLS lamp. If you used it an hour a day a 25 year life is possible.

[Andy Hall]

They have big open air baths there but only because the heat comes straight out of the ground

[Andy Hall]

And you have to have a gob stopper in your mouth in order to speak the language.....