The normal definition relates to fuels created out of organic material, previously living material, laid down in geological times since the planet was created.
Uranium and other minerals (e.g. other metals such as iron, tungsten, etc) are what was left in the earth's crust after it solidified. Not fossil at all.
Largely because uranium was cheap enough.
Quite. Option (i) involves turning 75% of the UK's land area into a monoculture to grow biofuel. Hardly 'sustainable'.
On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:28:04 +0100 someone who may be "Arfa Daily" wrote this:-
The tides and waves off Scotland, chiefly off the north and north west, could generate 1/5 of UK annual electricity use.
There are certainly difficulties to be overcome with regard to the weather, but these are challenges rather than insoluble problems. As we see with wind, challenging environments bring great rewards too
"The excellent wind regime found in Shetland makes the Burradale windfarm the most productive, in terms of capacity factor, in the UK. The average capacity factor of the turbines since the windfarm was opened in the year 2000 is over 52%. This average was surpassed in 2005 with a recorded capacity factor of 57.9%."
The aesthetic impact of tidal generation is almost zero. Most of the equipment is under water and that which is not will generally not be easy to see from land. Wave machines will largely be too far away from land to be seen.
Hydro has been working quietly away for over a century. The 1896 installation at Foyers was revamped in the early 1970s to produce a conventional hydro scheme and a pumped storage scheme .
That version of "Power from the Glens" doesn't mention what the earlier version of the booklet did, that only half the schemes identified by the NoSHEB were built. In the past few years construction of hydro schemes has started again, though that got off to a faltering start with the closure of Glendoe . That problem should be sorted in 2011 though. Other hydro schemes are being planned, including more pumped storage (converting Sloy to pumped storage).
The aesthetic impact of hydro can be severe if badly designed. I wouldn't have approved the various early schemes for Glen Affric, which were awful. However, few people object to the power station in Pitlochry and the artificial loch which feeds it. Rather it is an attraction. The scheme which was eventually built in Glen Affric is a superb example of how to blend the man made with beautiful second- to-none scenery.
Thank goodness for them. However, their power is relatively weak compared to the taxpayer funded lobbying of the nuclear bunch. See the previous government's gyrations for a good example.
There are no uranium mines in the UK. Were we foolish enough to embark on a nuclear programme then that would increase our dependency on other countries. Some of these other countries are (usually) friendly to the UK, such as Australia and Canada, others are not [1].
On the other hand renewables reduce our dependence on other countries. The fuel is either grown here like biomass [2], or is international like the tides. You could argue that wind turbines are largely built elsewhere. That is our own fault, our early lead in wind turbines was not developed, due to nuclear lobby influence in government. The same cause stopped Salter's duck, the first useful wave machine, being developed. The story with wave isn't as sad as with wind though, we may have clawed our lead back. Let's not make the same mistake with tidal.
[1] in a report for the SD Commission the Atomic Energy Authority indicated that in their view uranium supplies would be a problem in the short/medium term but less of a problem in the longer term. I'm not convinced by their longer term assumptions, but their report does draw attention to the fact that nuclear is not the quick fix proponents claim. [2] biomass on a large scale is not sustainable, but on a small scale it is. There are also plans to import "biomass" from around the world, which is not sustainable either.On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:24:09 +0100 someone who may be Tim Streater wrote this:-
Iron and tungsten are not used as fuels. Uranium is and it seems sensible to me to consider it along with other fuels which are dug out of the ground, no matter what definition some may use. I can see why nuclear enthusiasts hate the comparison, but it is a valid one.
Mining isn't an issue, we have enough plutonium to keep our reactors going for decades. We are using plutonium as a fuel now and have been for years.
Just as valid as claiming all re-newables except tidal are solar energy then.
"Come climate change all the wind will move somewhere there are no wind turbines", Murphy. "We won't have enough rain to run hydro electric", Murphy. "It will be too hot/cold to grow enough bio fuels", Murphy. "Murphy is an optimist", Patrick.
No it isn't a perticularly valid one, because the primary environmental reason fossil fuels are considered bad is the CO2 their combustion generates, not the impact of the fact they need to be mined.
That's not to say the impact of any mining activity should be neglected, but the amount of mining activity per usefully extractable kWh of energy must be pretty negligible for uranium, when compared with carbon fuels.
It is said, and I don't know how much truth there is in it, that the amount of energy needed to build and install a windmill is quite high in relation to the amount of energy it will produce during its lifetime. That makes them much less "green" than at first sight they might seem. And think of all the iron ore which needs to be mined to make them.
On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 14:58:09 +0100 someone who may be Ronald Raygun wrote this:-
Yes and no. Uranium and coal mines, and oil wells are not exactly benign operations. Children playing on uranium mine waste tips, coal waste and opencast, and the oil leaking out of badly maintained old pipes in Nigeria are examples.
I suspect that I have more of an idea about the arguments made by environmentalists than you do. One of the arguments against CCS is that extra coal has to be mined, in opencast sites these days, to power the chemical works. Interestingly Scottish Power's plan to carbon capture half the output of one of the three [1] units at Longannet is to use a gas fired CHP plant to produce electricity and steam for the chemical works, surplus electricity going into the external system.
That is obviously the case, but I don't think it undermines the comparison.
It is said, usually by the anti-wind lobby, but it is not true.
The short rebuttal is at and detailed studies commissioned for (wind turbine manufacturer) Vestas are at .
[1] Longannet has four 600 MW units. However, only three have been fitted with FGD and the same three were to be fitted with SCR. The fourth was to be used as a standby. However, SCR is up in the air given the determination of the UK government to water down standards
As a small boat sailor I'm all in favour of wave energy. Keeps the big waves away from my playgrounds! But...
.Half the schemes would seem to add up to a couple of percent of our energy use. There are too many people and not enough mountains here.
Well, we could always melt down the nuclear deterrent :)
The small scale is the problem with all these. You can get a few percent from hydro, not even 20% from wind, I don't know what from wave, a few percent from tidal (2GW average from Severn, and a matched number from Morecambe Bay nicely de-synchronised from it)
But that doesn't even make half our power requirements. We can't keep burning coal forever - we'll run out in the end, even if the smog doesn't get too bad - and the oil and gas are definitely finite.
So, in your view David, where is the majority of our power going to come from?
Andy
Steve, do you ever go near Chieri?
Oddly enough, yes. It's over 400 miles from home, but sometimes we drive via the Frejus tunnel and past Torino on the A21 which means we pass within 15km as we drive through Villanova d'Asti. Never been there and the closes places that I have stopped to there are Bardonecchia and Marengo.
Umm this isn't going to turn into "Would you mind towing a SCUD missile launcher back to the UK" is it?
I'm not sure when the next time I'll go that way will be. Probably later this year, trying very hard to not get caught in a blizzard.
Hmmm, no sign of geoff's message that this is in reply to, is there still news b0rking going on?
You sussed it
Its actually a load (about a dozen) of watch with mother videos
Snow and Italians is generally ... entertaining
This was it in its entirety and completely off topic
"Steve Firth writes >Adam Aglionby wrote: >
Steve, do you ever go near Chieri?"
FFS
Fat Fuel (fool?) Synthesis. Simply take the coprpses of the obese and starving and use them for biofuel. Greens get compulsory euthanasia at 24.
It was:
Message-ID:
Showed up fine here.
Sorry, but you simply can't bend definitions to suit your own viewpoints.
See
Arfa
Hmmm, I also notice a reply to js.b1's message which I didn't see in the "Gas Pipe In Loft Quote" thread, I wonder if giganews is suffering, will check message-IDs later ...
Quite possible. I'm with PlusNet, who get their news feed from Giganews, and am seeing the problem. Other users in the plusnet.service.customer.feedback newsgroup have been reporting missing articles and PN support are raising it with Giganews,
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