The true cost of wind...

[Java Jive]

I've just searched this entire ng, and I have said no such thing, so it seems that what you have ascribed to me below was intended as your own.

It is obvious that you d>

[Java Jive]

I note that you give no substantive figures in correction. Let's see them now.

I did, I explained where each item originated from.

Typical pissing-in-the-wind hypocrisy. This is the seventh post in this sub-thread exchange and you have only NOW just explained your point. Noone here writes more vaguely than you, it seems to be a convenient way of trying to avoid being proved wrong.

[Java Jive]

The hypocrisy is 100% relevant, it's a fundemental point that needs to be addressed before sensible discussion can take place.

No change there then.

Neither and both, it's all of what you quoted above and the entire bit that you snipped, as summarised by:

"Therefore, to complain about the unreliability of wind but then say we must answer that by building nuclear power stations is inconsistent, there's an inherent and hypocritical self-contradiction in such a claim."

[Tim Streater]

They were not economic *before* they were closed, that was the point. If you're making an argument that they could have been closed in a way that allowed them to be straightforwardly re-opened at a later date, what would that have cost, and who should have been paying for it? If the cost would have been quite high, then you could also argue that they may as well not have been closed.

So perhaps it comes down to: continue using as before, or close them in they way they were closed.

[Tim Streater]

Only if the claim that non-indigenous supplies of nuclear fuel are in short supply, are known to be going to be running out soon, and for which there would be no work-arounds or alternatives.

None of the above is the case, and so your whole argument falls to the ground. Nice try, Ace, but must do better.

[Huge]

Terry, never wrestle a pig. You get all dirty, and the pig likes it.

[Java Jive]

But the point is, as previously linked several times, that nevertheless we do have significant reserves of carbon-based fuels to fall back upon if the need arises. The fact that we can currently import them more cheaply than exploiting our own is no bad thing, as it means we are conserving our own resources against bad times.

I think you must be another one who has failed to hoist on board the significance of the World Nuclear Association's own data:

In the graph at the bottom, entitled "Reference Case Supply", the red line denoting reference demand crosses above the stack of all currently known supplies in 2025-ish. That's ALL currently known supplies, including under those currently under development, planned, and prospective.

But we had and still have the gas under our own control, whereas we have never had and don't have the uranium. The point is that there are people here who say that the electricity supply is paramount, and therefore must be reliable, and mostly these are the same people who support nuclear generation of it. However, as I've shown more times than I care to count, the supply of fuel for nuclear generation cannot be classed as reliable, because of the uncertainties associated with relying on supplies from other nations when there is a projected shortage of it.

[Java Jive]

The relevant trade association's own figures show that they will be in short supply by about 2025.

Anything sooner than the proposed lifetime of a reactor, 60 years, is 'soon'. 10 years is 'real soon' by comparison.

There are only the various bits of waste that we could recycle, and they are not enough.

All of the above is the case.

It does not. As usual, you haven't produced a single substantive piece of evidence to the contrary, mere more denial by assertion.

I'm easily doing better than you.

[Java Jive]

[John Williamson]

Yes, it costs almost as much to close them and maintain them as it does to use them. As for them not being economical to run, that had more to do with politics than anything else, as conditions were generally no more difficult than in many other foreign deep mines which apparently continue to operate profitably. Coal *was* cheaper to import from foreign open cast mines than dig from our deep pits, just as it would have been cheaper to use open cast mining techniques here if we'd had any suitable deposits.

As for who would have had to pay for it, that would have been the taxpayer, as always. The same taxpayer that paid the dole for all the unemployed miners.

Otherwise known as politics.

[Terry Fields]

Bzzt! It's *your* point that's under scrutiny.

It seems like it's seven posts where you have avoided answering.

LOL.

[John Williamson]

Where are these carbon based supplies? The vast majority of our coal reserves are now inaccessible by means other than in-situ burning or gasification, due to the way the mines were closed. We are rapidly reaching the end of North Sea gas, and fracking is only economical now because of the high prices we have to pay for imported gas and oil. That's assuming that it will at some point become politically feasible, which it will, as gas and oil prices rise further and people start getting squeezed more financially by the resulting bills.

And as prices rise, more supplies will come on line as they become economic to use. This is what history has been showing us for the last century at least, starting with coal and oil. At first, there was "flammable water" used in the middle east to fuel lamps about 2 millennia before the troublesome Jew got nailed to a cross. In the 19th century, lamp oil came from plants, and only became paraffin when that was found to be a useful waste product of oil produced for other purposes, so using it for lamp oil became cheaper than growing crops. The South Africans were mining the gold mine waste dumps for Uranium until the prices dropped in the 1990s. They could easily start again when prices rise. There is no *actual* shortage of the elements used in nuclear fuel, just artificial shortages generated by price fluctuations. Uranium is actually quite a common element in the Earth's crust, being

500 times more common than gold, for instance.

This is the *only* part of the report that supports your apparent position, by the way. Other reports, which are easily findable, give "Peak production" of Uranium, while ignoring Thorium, at various dates from the 1980s to a century or so away, depending on what assumptions they make.

Whereas the government's own figures say that by 2030, we will have to import 72% of our oil and gas, as we won't be able to produce it ourselves. We currently have to import about a third of it. The ceramics industry was recently 24 hours from having to close down due to unreliable gas supplies.

The figures for energy supply sustainability are in the table on the last page.

[Java Jive]

As previously posted twice recently:

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.

In a planned economy, 'the world', whatever that phrase may mean, would simply legislate that it should be done, and it would be. But we live in a market economy, and it doesn't work like that.

In a market economy, it can take significant time for the mechanisms that you describe to kick in, and the potential problem is only 10 years away. Further, remember again that demand is expected to outstrip all known current, planned, and prospective developments in production. For example, although the Australians and others are developing new production, it has apparently already been included in the WNA's predictions, yet demand is still expected to outstrip supply.

Further, the spot price of U3O8 is currently 25% less than it was 9 months ago, so there's no incentive to do much production development, so that probably writes off some of those 10 years, and once the spot price does rise, it'll take time for that to work through to making a decision in favour of developing new production.

Once such a decision has been made, it will take time to develop new production, whether it be opening up a new mine, which would likely require the local equivalents of planning enquiries, building access infrastructure, etc, or troubleshooting an entirely new technology.

That's probably more than your ten years gone already.

There are no guarantees at all that market forces alone will prevent the shortfall predicted by the WNA.

Indeed, but you are forgetting that the WNA know all this too, yet are still projecting a shortfall. To meet expected demand, production will have to rise by about 50-60% over the next ten years. That is not going to be easy.

Elsewhere I have linked to four reports, 2 from the WNA and 2 others, which all say the same sort of thing.

Yet you don't link to them.

The report that I have linked is from the industry's trade body, so I think its reports can be taken as definitive, but at very least we can not afford to ignore the possibilities outlined in it.

Suppose you are the minister for power. Are you going to gamble away a huge tranche of public money in 'guarantees' or 'Feed In Tariffs' (effectively 'subsidies') for nuclear power while there is a report sitting on your desk saying that nuclear fuel supplies become uncertain in as little as ten years from now? I don't think you are.

Thorium and breeder technologies are irrelevant because current UK policy does not intend to deploy them. For better or worse, current UK policy is firmly based on uranium fission, so that's what we are discussing here.

Yes, I've seen it before. However, AIUI, it doesn't include gas from shale or coal, while producing 28% and importing 72% is still better odds for security than having to import 100% of something that is already predicted to be in short supply.

[Java Jive]

Bzzt! Then why don't you obtain some figures to contradict it then?

It's seven posts where you wasted everyone's time trying to look clever, but merely looked an idiot.

And your last post is yet another example.

If you have a point, support it with facts and figures.

Put up or shut up.

[dennis]

link

link

proof? how do you know what climate change will do to our weather?

or nukes.

[Java Jive]

Also ...

(map for oil supplies also linked above)

From the 2006 data there: Coal 148 years Gas 167 years Oil 40 years

As previously posted three times recently, once already earlier today:

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.

It is as inconceivable that dead calm will permanently beset the UK as it is we will ever permanently be a sunshine holiday resort. Our climate is maritime and inherently changeable because of our geographical position on the planet. It could become colder if the Gulf Stream stops. It could become less changeable if the jetstreams move either north or south on a permanent basis. But we will still always be maritime, and therefore rather changeable.

To claim otherwise on no evidence would beat for hype even the most exaggerated claims ever made about AGW.

Uranium fission based nuclear as envisaged by HMG cannot be classed as reliable, for the reasons explained many times before.

[Tim Streater]

Thanks for that; I was in California for the whole of the 80s so don't have much in the way of facts regarding the mines themselves. As a matter of interest, where were the foreign deep mines that were able to operate profitably? I'd have thought they'd all have had the same competition problem from the open cast boys.

[Terry Fields]

Oh, the 'facts and figures' are in your reply to Vir Campestris - well, some of them are, and some you appear to have left out.

[Terry Fields]

Then don't use it as a proxy for temperature, but the explanation as to why data from climate-sensitive systems isn't tracking temperature suggests some effect, combination of effects or their interaction, that is affecting climate that haven't been taken into account up to now. With six-to-eight forcing mechanisms known only to a low or very low level of scientific understanding, such a possibility not only cannot be ruled out, but demands investigation; and in the mean time the current view of climate and its dynamics must be reviewed on the grounds that it is clearly insufficiently understood. Which, of course, comes as no surprise. A better 'view' of climate science might well be able to incorporate this data, which never was, isn't, and will not be 'bad'. The only 'bad' thing is the inability of climate scientists to account for it and incorporate it in their current view, and that stems from lack of knowledge.

[Terry Fields]

And it's still wrong.