Sign of things to come ?

Question

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 · Accepted Answer

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

Brian Gaff · Answer

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 · Answer

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 · Answer

There *is* a clean way to use coal, and has been since the 1980s,super fine pulverisation is one method, effectively gassifiesthe goal before combustion and burns a higher proportion of thefuel, caputure and further burning of unburnt gseaous products,caputure and use of waste heat for ancilary purposes (eg growingtomatoes). The technology has been there since the 1980s butgovernment bribes made it more profitable to build gas turbinegenerators when gas should be reserved for sending down the gasmain to go through only one energy conversion cycle at the pointof use.In my chemistry lessons in the early 1980s we were told therewas 300 years of coal reserves in the ground in the UK atprojected extraction and use. Granted we could use it up fasterthan the 1980s projections, but we're also find more of itfaster than 1980s projections and have better extractiontechnology to get the stuff they knew about then but dismissedas unfeasable to extract.JGH

Andy Champ · Answer

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 · Answer

[Default] On Mon, 8 Oct 2012 10:00:20 -0700 (PDT), a certainchimpanzee,              Margaret Thatcher (for that, and everything that's wrong withthe UK since 1979). Coal = powerful trade unions. Therefore; Coal =CO2 = bad thing. Dash For Gas = good thing x 2 (no unions on North Seaplatforms + new private power stations not unionised).

The Other Mike · Answer

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 · Answer

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 · Answer

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 · Answer

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

Man at B&Q · Answer

We had a labour government for 13 years and they did feck all aboutthe problem. Tory B Liar is just as guilty.MBQ

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