The true cost of wind...

[Java Jive]

What sort of argument is that? The geography is a given, you have to make the best of what is given.

I don't believe anyone else here considers pumped-storage "hand-waving blue-sky b/s". If it is, why have we bothered to build any of it at all? Are you trying to claim that it doesn't even work?

As previously posted, only you've conveniently chosen to 'forget' again, we have:

UK Coal:

"UK Coal Reserves Economically recoverable coal reserves for existing deep mines and opencast sites in Britain are estimated to be around 400 million tonnes. However, the total potential British coal reserves are much larger. The Coal Authority, the body responsible for directing the British coal industry, has indicated that in 2005 coal resources at existing deep mines and existing, planned and known potential surface-mining sites were in the order of 900 million tonnes, with approximately one-third in deep mines and two-thirds at surface-mining sites. Additional recoverable tonnages considered to be potentially available from new or expanded deep-mining operations amounted to almost 1.4 billion tonnes!!"

UK Gas From Coal:

"?The United Kingdom is well placed within Europe in having large reserves of indigenous coal both onshore and offshore in the southern North Sea,? points out the UK?s Coal Authority, now part of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

?These reserves have the potential to provide security of future energy supplies long after oil and natural gas are exhausted.?

The key to commercialising the nation?s vast beds of fossil fuel is a process called underground coal gasification (UCG) ? a discrete, environmentally friendly method of liberating the energy content of the coal. What?s created is a synthesis gas, or Syngas.

The process uses directional drilling techniques that are commonplace in the oil and gas sector to follow the coal seam. But crucially it doesn?t involve deploying the fracking technology that has been vilified despite transforming the US gas industry.

The UK resource suitable for deep seam UCG is estimated at 17 billion tonnes, or 300 years' supply at current consumption, according to a Department of Trade & Industry report."

""It's an unusual fact that despite the industrial revolution and everything that's happened since, 75% of British coal is still underground," he said.

"Under the North Sea there are vast deposits. We're talking about two billion tonnes of coal off the coast here. Now, to give you some measure of that, two billion tonnes has more energy in it than we've ever extracted from the totality of North Sea gas since we began.""

UK Oil:

"UK sources give a range of estimates of reserves, but even using the most optimistic "maximum" estimate of ultimate recovery, 76% had been recovered at end 2010."

So we could probably assume that at least about 15% of the total yield to date still remains.

"... the highest annual production was seen in 1999, with offshore oil production in that year of 407×106 m³ (398 million barrels) and had declined to 231×106 m³ (220 million barrels) in 2007.[20] This was the largest decrease of any other oil exporting nation in the world, and has led to Britain becoming a net importer of crude for the first time in decades, as recognized by the energy policy of the United Kingdom. The production is expected to fall to one-third of its peak by 2020."

So UK oil production is falling, and we are importing, but we do still have worthwhile reserves.

Are you disputing the WNA's own figures, or not? From that unsubstantiated denial, it reads like you are.

Denial without substance does not help your cause. Prove it is secure with facts and figures.

[Java Jive]

[Java Jive]

You may consider them an eyesore, but they don't pollute it in the normal sense of the word.

Both those are highly debatable. In particular, it's likely that new nuclear would increase your bill by even more. However, I can't be arsed.

That is just ridiculous.

They don't need to have, because AFAIAA there is nothing peculiar about them that needs any extraordinary treatment, in the way that nuclear plant and waste fuel does.

That statement epitomises very well what is wrong with 'debate' here: - It is based on unreal negative stereotypes. - It is abusive - It is mindless - It is pointless

[Java Jive]

[Java Jive]

I do. In fact I've linked to this before, though it was some time ago:

So, if you are the senior academic you claim to be, how come you are employed then?

Seems to me to cast even more doubt on your claims.

[RJH]

Not completely:

Cheers, Rob

[dennis]

Why don't you try and get the data and methods, then you may have some idea about how hard it is. As in not possible.

[dennis]

Does that explain why it is actually warming slower than is claimed? Is that errors in the data, errors in the processing or just lies?

[bert]

In message , Java Jive writes

Not me mate, speak to the Doctor concerned.

[bert]

In message , Java Jive writes

Very difficult to prove a negative. It's up to you to prove climate change will deviate away from typical as a result of mankind's activities. SO far yo have not come up with anything because your models have proved to be a failure.

[bert]

It was based on a statistical analysis

It' not a question of being perfect it's a demonstration of the BBCs unwillingness to accept any form of criticism whatsoever

[bert]

In message , Java Jive writes

My reading of it is not as selective as yours. Quality not quantity.

[Java Jive]

I've not disputed that, particularly in the past, over reliance has been/is being placed on the modelling. Partly this is caused by the press and politicians, but at one time it was also the fault of some early players in the field, I forget names now, who thought the potential consequences of what they were seeing were so catastrophic that they 'went public' before they had the tools that the public would inevitably need them to have. It's bad news for climate science, because when the models come out wrong, as too often they have, the resulting egg-on-face gets the whole discipline a bad name. However, the very real difficulties with the modelling certainly do not imply that the whole of climate science is wrong. To imply, as perhaps the DM would have us all believe, that the whole discipline is incompetent/corrupt/fraudulent would be both a massive insult and a massive mistake, and potentially even more costly than too slavish acceptance of modelling results has already been.

It is one of the, if not the, youngest sciences, and inevitably around a core of good understanding, there are consequently acknowledged grey areas of dispute. In general, the long term is a great deal better understood than the short term, though you could argue that the short term is more 'weather' than 'climate'.

For example, we do know that over the long term higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere cause the earth to warm - we have both a qualitative understanding of why and a numerical fit with data. Therefore, we can also show that most of the recent warming is likely to have been caused by man, because of the amounts of CO2 that man has been daily pumping into the atmosphere.

But we also know that there is great short term natural variability in the climate. That much is obvious just by looking at data records graphically.

So it would be very unwise indeed to ignore completely what climate science tells us, but equally, we, the public and the politicians we elected, were unwise in placing too much reliance on the modelling results we were and are still being given.

You should remember that in the enquiry that followed, many of the worst accusation were found to be false. The above is a pretty even-handed review of both the original affair and the inquiry.

However, science in general and climate science in particular need to be move on. There are rotten apples in every barrel, it is in noone's interest to discredit the whole of science whenever one or some within its ranks come to public attention.

[bert]

If windpower is removing all these millions of gigawatts of energy form the wind will it affect the climate?

[bert]

In message , Java Jive writes

And you accuse use of being unscientific. If you can't produce any sort of reasonably accurate model or formula to explain what you thing is happening then your hypothesis is pure guesswork - AKA bullshit.

[bert]

In message , Java Jive writes

You lot are pissing our money into the wind

[bert]

Nope they are referring to currently mined sources and there is ample new supply at todays extraction costs to keep us going to 2080. Just as has happened with oil.

There is currently no technology available that will make use of coal acceptable. When there is come back and talk to us about it. Just hoping something will turn up out of the magic of technological development is not a basis for an energy strategy. Nuclear on the other hand has a relatively small overall carbon footprint and a reasonably foreseeable fuel supply up to 2080. So over to you. Come back when you have a solution to coals problems and we'll go over to coal. If I had to choose I'd rather have a nuke on my doorstop than a Ferrybridge or Blyth B. Meanwhile stop wasting my money on useless windmills.

[Vir Campestris]

... almost all of which is from the weapons programme. Making the civil nuclear industry pay for that would make about as much sense as taxing British Airways to pay for UXBs.

Andy

[Java Jive]

[Java Jive]

No YOU, yourself, I wasn't replying to anyone else. You do not seem to understand the difference between total supplies and the RATE of extraction and consumption, the latter are usually referred to as supply and demand respectively.

It is little comfort to know that the total world supplies of uranium are very great if the lights have just gone out and you don't have any, because demand has outstripped supply.

Put it on a domestic level. You are young person with a reasonable income, live in rented accommodation, and thereby have pay in advance metered electricity. Your car was written off the other day through someone else's fault. The lights have just gone out and the only paypoint shop for miles around has closed for the night an hour ago. The fact that there is plenty of electricity available on the grid and you have plenty of money are both neither here nor there. You're stuffed until the shop opens in the morning.

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