The true cost of wind...

[Terry Fields]

Perhaps you should add that as a sig file, as some people seem not to remember it from the last time you had to remind them of it.

[Terry Fields]

Perhaps the money has been squandered on the subsidy farms of the useless renewables programme?

[dennis]

The BBC is totally biased. It refuses to act as any real scientist does and debate for and against for climate change.

Any "science" where its considered important to hide the data and the methods from the general public is obviously biased and is probably untrue. If it is true there is no need to hide anything.

[dennis]

Which carbon capture technologies exist that can guaranty long term storage of the carbon dioxide?

You can't just pump it into mines and wells as geological instabilities may release it and it may pollute ground water or cause minor tremors.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well exactly. They worry about long term storage of a few tonnes of radioactive material - a few gigatonnes of CO2 is 'hand waved' away..

Obviously what is needful is to store it as a carbonate, but suitable reagents to create carbonates come by ...er ...driving CO2 out of exsiting carbonates.. e.g. reduction of calscium or lithium carbonate to lithium.calcium (hydr)oxide, releases CO2, which is then converted back to the original carbonate.

That's what happens with cement. The hydroxides formed revert slowly to carbonates as the cement sets.

Or you could make hydrocarbons, like oil out of it, by using even more energy than you get out of it when burning the oil/coal in the first place..

Frankly the best thing todo would be to bubble it through huge lakes of algae, and let photosynthesis take place, and bury the resultant biomass..or burn it, but that's just a giant inefficient solar energy plant when all is said and done.

Not sure what pressure CO2 goes liquid at, but pumping it to the sea floor might work..but what effect would THAT have?

[Tim Streater]

*If* that is the case, given that waste from power stations has been treated for the last 20 years, then what is being paid for is surface storage. That the waste has not been (say) hidden underground, is not the fault of the nuclear power industry. It's the fault of doomsayers like you who routinely lie to the public about the "dangers", and thereby affect public policy to prevent the final disposal of the waste. This is like mugging someone and then asking the victim to pay your costs involved in evading the police.

Ultimately, I'm not interested in what some foreigner had to say about the matter. But let's note that "It is not too much to expect ..." is not the same as "Our children *will* enjoy ...".

Oh, you expected that, did you? Well I have some bridges to sell you too.

[Tim Streater]

If there is a market, they will be built.

and the same applies to uranium.

This is nothing more than argument by assertion. As I expected, you don't have any *actual* arguments.

[Tim Streater]

All of JJ's "arguments" are nothing more than blue-sky, handwaving, and some amount of bullshit when even the first two run out.

[Java Jive]

[Java Jive]

It is certainly less biased than you, for example.

Few, if any, real scientists involved question it any more, so there is no need for debate, and therefore debate can and must move on to more worthwhile subjects.

You are arguing - I presume, because as usual you haven't supported anything you say with credible evidence, leaving the rest of us to guess at what you might mean - from the particular to the general by claiming that one particular case of bad science is proof that the whole edifice is rotten. It should be plain enough that such logic is flawed, all cats being animals does not imply that all animals are cats.

[Java Jive]

[Java Jive]

I wouldn't've thought that pumping it into suitably sealed reservoirs in mines deep underground would be any more likely to cause geological side effects than the original mining operations did. These did cause some, but AIUI mostly subsidence caused by the original removal of material - replacing it with something else is unlikely to be so much of a problem.

It's no more hand waved away than is storage of nuclear material, but, unlike the latter, this is still very new technology, so there are much greater uncertainties with it.

I believe that has been mooted as one possible method. I've not heard of your other suggestions, presumably because, as you suggest, they're unlikely to work.

[Java Jive]

Again, as so often, you resort to abuse, and argue from the particular to the general.

I freely admit carb>

[Java Jive]

No, it's the 'fault' - your word not mine - of the nuclear power industry, because they haven't made up their mind whether to reprocess and recycle it, or to dispose of it finally. The problem is that currently the former is the most expensive, but if they choose the latter option, and then fuel starts to get expensive enough, it might then become worthwhile to recycle it. So rather than make a final decision, what they've done is just endlessly kick the can down the road.

It's no good spouting anti-green paranoia when the reasons are plain and understandable economics as above - go and take your medication.

Not quite the same in print, I grant, but when a man in that position in society as it was at that time says such a thing to such a gathering, there isn't really much difference in implication.

[Java Jive]

They may, or they may not, but the biggest danger is that they will be built but too late. Although we've seen that Australia is increasing output, even taking that increase into account there is apparently still going to be a global shortfall. Currently there doesn't seem to be sufficient market forces to generate sufficient output sufficiently in advance to avoid one - the current spot price of uranium is some

25% or $10 less per pound than it was nine months ago, that is not exactly an encouragement to open new mines.

It would be strategically negligent for any government to invest in a technology that places the country in a position of greater dependency on others than is needful. We are TOTALLY dependent on imported uranium, and there is forecast to be a shortage. Meanwhile, supplies of carbon-based fuels are much more assured, and we have goodish amount of them here in the UK.

The UK doesn't need to paint itself into a corner of dependency on nuclear fission fuel. The worst thing that could happen right now is that one of these white elephants actually starts to be built.

It does NOT. What is it about the term 'GLOBAL shortage' that you do not understand?

However much you may dislike it, it's an accurate description of the way the world works. To prove it to yourself, replace all references to nuclear technology in the above by, say, wind technology. You'll have no difficulty in agreeing to it then.

[Tim Streater]

Ah, I must remember to remind Einstein when I next see him that there is no need for him to look into relativity, as "the science is settled".

[Tim Streater]

Oh but it is. Spend fuel is already being stored in salt mines. No one has done any storage of carbon dioxide.

[Tim Streater]

If that is *actually* what is happening, what is the problem with that? It ought to mean that spent fuel should be on the companies' books as an asset.

[Tim Streater]

That there *is* no global shortage. What part of that do you not understand?

[Java Jive]

Ca sera assez inutile, n'est ce pas?

AIUI, that can't come from HMG. Do you know different, by any chance? If so a link would be welcome!