is electric heating likely to become cheaper than gas heating in future?

[The Natural Philosopher]

No.

That is wrong. One nuclear power station more would probably out perform all the installed base of windmills. 30 nuclear power stations would generate all the current electricity we use. 100 would generate enough energy to run all the non-electrical stuff off electricity. Including transport.

And still cost less than we have lent to bail out the banks, or run the NHS.

A typical modern set is several GW. Our peak consumption is 70GW right now for electricity, or about 300GW total in terms of all energy used by the nation on shore.

Going all nuclear on current electricity would reduce our onshore carbon footprint by about 50GW out of that 300GW, or about 16%. More than enough on its won to meet our CO" reduction targets. Start to use electricity for things its not cost effective to use it for now, and you could get to a lot more than that.

Costs will

Even sillier statement.

A nuclear power station is effectively never paid for until its decommissioned. What sets its costs are the costs of *borrowing the money*..

Its like a bank. Deposit money into (building) a nuclear power station, and get a lifetime pension fund from selling its electricity.

The cost is about £3000 per kilowatt capital outlay over 60 years.

Which means that I personally, could e.g. theoretically pay £10,000 to a nuclear company for all the electricity I will ever need in my life.

A deal which I would instantly take up should it ever be offered.

My investment in a nuclear fund has already made 10% in less than a year.

Although a lot of that is due to the tanking pound.

Its a massively good investment IF the government stops monkeying around with the rules , especially on decommissioning and waste disposal. There is no shortage of pension fund and private capital to fund them either.

The FACTS of the matter are that a nuclear set every 18 months IF we could have started 7 years ago, would be easily enough to see us through.

The actual costs at - say £3000 per kilowatt - with is conservative - to build 70Gw of capacity is £210 bn. Or about £1000 per head of population.

Bailing out Fred the Shred and his pals has cost twice that, with far less returns, other than a crippling tax debt we will never escape.

To totally electrify the country is probably £3000 per head. Maybe £5000. That's assuming electric cars, and the infrastructure to make them work effectively, etc as well as build nuke sets.

Which would you rather do? spend £5000 on traffic wardens, drop in Afro-Caribbean lesbian day care centers, Duck islands, Liars for Hire, affordable homes for thieving pikey bastards, or free electricity and fuel for the rest of your life?

[The Natural Philosopher]

So far correct, except heatpumps are not noisy.

They are just large fridges, in reverse.

Its way below gas at around £1.5p /Kwh ex the set itself.

Current build costs are as stated early somewhere between £1000 and £3000 per Kw installed capacity including decomissioning: At consumed by householders rather than by power generators for "green

& nuclear plant.

No.

Governments are not involved in funding nuclear power at all, except in France.

Nuclear power needs no govt. funding: Its a viable commercial enterprise IF the decommissioning and waste disposal rules are not suddenly subject to change and political whim.

The government sold its last remaining interest to EDF when British Energy was bought out by them.

Certainly as far as domestic heating goes, the best payback starts there. But once you have that, you run into the law of diminishing returns.

After a lot of calculations, Only one technology - heat pumps - looked likely to better my fuel bills, And that needed an oil price of 45p plus to be worth doing.

And >£10k investment.

The other possible but equally capital intensive system was heat recovery ventilation.

Forget solar panels, or domestic windmills. Complete waste off money.

Put the money in a nuclear fund, you will get more ROI from that!

[The Natural Philosopher]

never took capital costs into account: That was political spin anyway.

No, I believe that in France, if you are within 20 miles of a nuclear power station, and a lot of people are, you get free electricity or very cheap electricity. This changes local peoples perceptions dramatically when it comes to planning permission....

[The Natural Philosopher]

It can be. I tend to do similar. Not heat the whole house.

[Bruce]

When they got past that particular barefaced lie, there was a publicity drive stating that the prices of electricity generated from nuclear, coal and oil were in the ratio 1:2:3.

But that was also a barefaced lie, as nuclear power in the UK has always cost more per kWh than electricity produced commercially from any fossil fuel.

"Peak uranium" is not far behind "peak oil", which is going to happen within the next decade. The rush to nuclear power, the result of a desire to lower CO2 emissions, will bring peak uranium ever closer. Uranium prices will rocket and finding secure supplies will become ever more difficult.

I wonder what the next "quick fix" will be after nuclear power? Tidal power, more wind power, perhaps, but these systems don't generate power reliably when you need them. Clean coal? The first UK clean coal station has just been denied planning permission on the basis of a detailed report that showed the technology did not have a cat's chance in hell of doing what was claimed for it. Biomass? The proposed biomass power station on Anglesey would need most of its fuel to be imported over long distances by sea, adding CO2 emissions.

So it looks like nuclear fusion will be needed to save the day. But it's 20-30 years away. Funnily enough, they said the same 20-30 years ago. But 20-30 years on, it is still 20-30 years away.

Must keep trying. ;-)

[Dave Liquorice]

But the he isn't heating the whole house. If you don't heat it you don't spend any money on fuel for space heating, which is the biggest consumer of energy.

I'd also say that the OP ought to shop around for his electricity 11 to 12p/unit is expensive, I'm paying 9.03p/unit.

[Tim Watts]

The Natural Philosopher wibbled on Thursday 25 March 2010 08:08

Not forgetting the infrastructure upgrades though...

Not forgetting that our gross national external debt (public and private) is now around 9x10^12 US dollars (Wikipedia) second only to the USA in absolute value and the worst per capita ($150k). What's another few thousand each to sort out two massive looming problems (energy and CO2)...

[Tim Watts]

The Natural Philosopher wibbled on Thursday 25 March 2010 08:36

Probably would here. Possibly to the extent that the locals would go and sort out the hippie protesters, saving the police the job.

[Fredxx]

Perhaps we should invest in more zoning valves.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes. The point is that this may be more cost effective than embarking on micro control of every room.

Very hard to find anwyeher that exactly suits your usage pattern and gives you a good deal.

I tried one of those online calculators and it showed that I couldnt do much better than 10.snmething p for my actual total usage across any supplier.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No. Thats why I quoted £3000 a KW rather than the base cost which is more like £2000 a Kw for actual real life standard nuclear stations these days.

Wind is far worse, because you have to size for peak loads three times higher than the average, due to their lousy load factors. And by definition they are always sited away from population centres that use the power.

Straw, camels back..

But like I said, the government doesn't need to fund this: ALL they have to do is allow planning and whatever sweeteners are required for people who live near them, and sign a binding contract on decommissioning, so the costs are fixed in advance, and let private finance do what it does best. Take a long term medium risk medium return gamble.

Oh, and stop subsidised windmills, and tax carbon fuels no matter what they are used for.

It was the government's involvement in nuclear power in the first place that lead to things like Windscale.

Keep the bastards out. They can f*ck anything up.

If the true environmental cost of burning fossil fuels means its 15p a Kwh, charge it, and use the money to set up a fund to deal wit the damage. Of course they'd steal it to pay back the debts owed to the sovereign gilt holders ..

[The Natural Philosopher]

WE occasionally swim a couple of miles up from Sizewell B. My wife reports the water is perceptibly warmer..

I tend to not swim in water below 20C, so I'll take that on trust.

[The Natural Philosopher]

If it didn't mean ripping half the plumbing apart..

[Rick Hughes]

I would doubt this .... if HM gov comes out with plentiful energy, they will see it as easy way to tax.

If you want an efficient way ... there are 2 options worth looking at :

#1 Home combined Heat & Power plant, these are now small and very efficient ... you are still on mains electricity .. but you sell back any spare capacity.

#2 Heat pump if you can plumb in plenty of underground piping ... air-air pumps are not efficient enough.

There are many other options ... but they are particularly worth review.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It doesnt now.

Utter bollocks. Ther is certainly enough urnaium for 50 years, and fasty brerders and other technologies can make a lot more fissionable material IF THE PRICE IS HIGH ENOUGH. Currently the cost of fuel is about 0.1p per kilowatt hour. When you look at the potential uranium reserves at say 10 times the price that it costs now - still only 1p per kilowatt hour - the resources are MASSIVE.

Peak oil has a natural cutoff, in that if it takes more energy to get it out than it produces , its really totally useless.

But that sort of figure, with uranium, is never reached. Its energy effective to filter it out of seawater. Its very EXPENSIVE, but not as expensive as oil at say $300 a barrel is.

Uranium exploration and mining is almost nil at the moment. A few rich and easily exploitable resources are in play, but no one has gone looking for more, or developed extraction for it, because its too cheap to be worth it.

Fusion power and second generation reactors. There are at least 5 potentially far better fission technologies out there, that have never been researched or developed because the cash wasn't there to do it. And the Greens managed to lobby hard to get them kicked in the balls.

The fact is that we cant with any current technology, except in a very few instances, run an industrial society on renewable resources. WE have to exploit the energy density of atomic reactions. Period.

If one tenth te effort going into trying to make windmills work, went into new reactor development, we wouldnt be in the mess we are.

OTOH fission is here now and able to do the job.

Fusion has, finally shown energy positive reactions. Its taken a hell of a lot of mathematics to get that far, but its progress. At least another

50 years is my guess, BUT there are so many far cleaner and safer ways to do fission with almost any reasonable staring material, that it seems that will be the way forward.

That takes energy off the map as far as a major problem is concerned, leaving more basic things like food an water to become real issues And general overpopulation.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Thats not much more than a diesel genny making electricity, and channeling the exhaust through a heat exchanger..:-)

They are better than nothing tho.

If I was doing another new build, I would definitely go GSHP for central heating and hot water plus solid/liquid/gas fuel backup. Its not good to rely totally on electricity these days.

[Jules Richardson]

might end up that way. Electric heating is slightly cheaper than gas where I am in the US, but only because the 'leccy heating only runs during off-peak hours, not continously (which is fine if you have a well- insulated house, but not so much if you live in a giant air leak like we do ;)

cheers

Jules

[Bruce]

Your speciality.

[Jules Richardson]

Where are the costs, though? The way I understand it, it's mostly in the labour involved in installing the ground loops - which, given the nature of this group, *could* be handled by the home owner.

Problems I have here:

1) Knowledge ;) Commercial installers seem to have the market pretty well sewn up, and there's comparatively little design knowledge in the public domain,

2) My 'leccy company gives a huge discount for having a GSHP, but only if it's a commercial system fitted by 'professional' installers,

3) I can get tax breaks for a GSHP, but hit the same problem as in 2 above.

as time goes on that'll hopefully change - design books will appear, parts will be available off the shelf etc.

cheers

Jules

[PeterC]

To avoid Uranium, cut the lead time, remove problems re. proliferation etc. and have the reactors close to popuations, Thorium looks promising.