Yes folks, its cheaper to heat with electricity!

Indeed I did.

I remembered an item appearing in Nature documenting the plight of the great apes of the Congo, but couldn't access it as I'm not a subscriber to the journal (and don't work for them any more) so the NS was the only accessible reference.

Reply to
magwitch
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The message from Tony Bryer contains these words:

Of course.

The TNP does his cause no favours with his latest rant against the Severn Barrage.

Without broadband access atm I can't easily check anything but ISTR that the the TNPs piddling little dent is somewhat larger that his preferred nuclear power station option.The barrage would require no more backup or storage than a nuclear plant, is less likely to go wrong and would be no more intrusive in the landscape than a nuclear plant and considerably less conspicuous than a large wind farm.

I have no idea where he gets his thousands of square miles from. The whole of Wales is only about 8000 square miles.

Reply to
Roger

Surely, unlike windmills, is totally reliable (insofar as anything can be) and totally predictable.

Reply to
Tony Bryer

Yes, but its not continuous, and the cycles it operates at would mean that other power with a fast uptime would have to cut in to take care of 'slack tide'

that's the problem with all thse climate driven sources: the transmission of them or the long term (days) storage of them is so expensive that they fact that they can produce cheap electricity *when they want to* rather than *when its needed*, makes them pretty damn stupid costwise.

If they have to be backed up with inefficient gas turbines, teh carbon benefit is entirely lost as well.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

there you go then.

The severn estuary is getting on for that size.

Actually my preferred nuclear power station option is a 100 sets of suitable size, capable of supplying the *entire eenrgy needs of the country* not just replacing current electricity generation.

With a footrprint of less than 100 sq miles.

That's 100% uptime 24x7 power to run everything, given suitable BEVs for transport, apart from the small number of applications that cannot and never will be able to run on anything but chemical fuel. Aircraft mainly.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

However, if the kit is costing (in terms of interest on loans) whether or not power flows through it any power that flows through to generate revenue is worth having. There is no added cost of transferring that power apart from administrative overheads.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Thats the coldest temps, yes, but here for sure the worst case heating requirements are a north to east winter wind with temps around zero. Its about 2 times the energy loss as aginst a -5C but still and sunny day. For me anyway.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Well give or take a factor of 40.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

The message from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

Pull the other one. The Bristol Channel out as far as Worms head on the Gower is only about 1000 square miles. That's 40 miles or more outside the preferred barrage site and the barrage itself would be invisible to anyone at sea level at that distance. And being water most of that would look much the same whether or not there was a barrage even at low water.

The barrage itself would have a footprint of less than one square mile and there would be a loss of mudflats of perhaps a few square miles more.

Reply to
Roger

Mmm... but that's not a good argument to justify initial investment - rather how to mitigate loss having spent it.

Reply to
Andy Hall

If that is the case then it wouldn't generate very much electricity.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

That would be the case if the design was like the barrage on the Rance in France. If the design used two lagoons then power would be continuous the upper lagoon being filled at high tides and the lower one emptied at low tide.

This would limit peak output somewhat so the costings would have to consider whether remote storage and better peak generation would be better.

As I have said before, nuclear power might be the technical solution but politically I'd reckon on people going for global warming burning coal before building nuclear power stations.

Reply to
Ed Sirett

The message from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

You really haven't thought that through.

While I can't easily access any of it atm due to loss of broadband the published information is quite specific about the expected output of the Severn barrage and the preferred site. IIRC the barrage will be topped by a road which would mean the structure would be wider than otherwise needed and low water mark within would rise to what is currently half tide height. By no stretch of the imagination is that the malignant monster you are seeing in your dreams.

Reply to
Roger

No argument there I am merely pointing out that - like arbitrage in say currency markets, it may not be the reason the market is there, but it is a way to make a living out of it given that it is.

In essence ALL trade is arbitrage. Just because you build a ship to carry spices from India, and manufactured goods from the UK,if there is a bit of spare space, and someone is willing to pay, you wouldn't begrudge a couple of passengers either.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Do the sums on the power then. If the height variation is not huge and the area covered is not large, the power generated being essentially the product of the two, will be equally reduced.

The power is in absolute direct and irrevocable proprtion to the size of the environmental impact.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

They will in this country, simply because it will be a shorter timescale.

However I would expect the first new nuclear plant to be onstream around

2020 - maybe earlier, after a few years of rolling blackouts.
Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

At highly predictable times of the day as tide times are well known. 8% of the power production in country like the UK is highly significant, then wind on top of that. If measures are taken to reduce energy usage by changing building regs to have more insulation, air-tights tests, more energy efficient appliances (the current AAA is way out of date), better town planning to reduce car and energy usage, etc, etc, then collectively it all adds up.

Both barrages create rail and road crossings as a by-product. In the case of the Mersey it is a win. win situation. The Mersey has the 4th highest tidal range in the world, the Severn the 3rd. Large sea locks can be incorporated in the barrage. The large Seaforth container terminal may have locks nto it on the sea side of the barrage. Large Post-Panamax container ships could berth on the barrage, either side of it. The large container ships rest on the river bed at low tide, as do the oil tankers at Tranmere on the Mersey river.

Locks in the barrage may mean smaller ships may come and go at any time. The ships go into the locks and up into the dammed-in river. This means access to Mersey ports and even the Manchester Ship Canal taking ships 45 miles from sea, is 24/7. Ships could also use berths on the dock river walls which previously they could not because of the 32 foot tidal range.

The strong tides take in sand into the Mersey estuary making dredging essential at some points. A dredged channel is maintained to the Manchester Ship Canal locks at Eastham on the Wirral side. Once the river is dammed in, the sand can be removed and the river will remain deep making it more appealing for shipping and larger ships, and hold more water, which is more energy to produce more electricity.

Also John Lennon airport is on the river banks. At low tide sand is visible. Once the river is dammed in, a dock/wharf setup can be built meshing in with the new air cargo port that is being built there. A direct combined cargo air/sea port. The cargo airport will be linked to Liverpool Seaforth container terminal at the river mouth by rail links. Garston Docks are right next to the airport, but the owners of the airport do own them. They own the airport and the massive container terminal at Seaforth.

The pros far outweigh the cons.

Similar with the Seven. But the Severn has far more environmental issues than the Mersey, as far more river is being dammed in. The proposed Seven barrage is huge. Migrating birds which use the Mersey, can just use the River Dee, which is virtually next door.

Expect to see the Mersey barrage built first if it comes about, as it will be smaller across the river narrows.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

It can also be built in less than the time frame of all these nuclear plants. And cheaper too. How many nuclear plants to produce 8% of the UKs power? That 8% is 8% in total, not 8% at full belt.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

Would the plan be to notify them in writing of this? ;-)

Reply to
Jules

I keep wondering how soon someone could build a new plant and bring it online if sufficiently motivated...

Say copy the complete design from another country, throw lots of labour at it, copy practices/procedures (as well as support infrastructure stuff), could it be done in less than 5 years? Or are there reasons that we still couldn't just make a functioning clone of a site elsewhere?

Reply to
Jules

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