Green pollution

[dangerousedd]

well if the demand for electric cars soar they're going to need to build a few more power stations.

[Margarita Ma]

Quite. My vote has always belonged to nuclear.

Renewables are very expensive, unproven and intermittent requiring massive ver-supply and fossil backup.

 

Renewables are expensive it is true However taking into account the subsidy on Nuclear it is just as, if not more expensive. We also, or rather future generations, have to deal with the radioactive waste, which will also be expensive hazardous and a potential disaster many times larger than that of the Aberfan disaster. How reliable renewables is is surely down to what methods are used.

The tonnage of human and farmed animal waste has been expensive to deal with for years and its potential ignored except by a very few when we have known for a long time that it produces methane gas. Surely that gas would be better captured and burned than allowed to pollute the air. Animals are often wintered inside where waste can be managed at a time of year when more energy is consumed farms could produce energy to use locally or feed into the grid.

Water is underused in the energy production industry, we have massive rivers all around the country which could be producing energy either from tidal lagoons or the natural fall of the land. Regulating the flow of the water from these rivers would help in flood control too.

Most of our energy production is owned by foreign companies and we are dependent on foreign coal production to fire the remaining coal generators. So much for forward planning

The political will to look at and develop alternative means of energy production has not been very evident. Solar and wind energy are now losing the subsidies given for development and the government want to go into a method of gas production that could very well pollute the land and the water that we depend on. The possibility for increased earthquakes due to fracking is being largely ignored at the same time as the risk from Nuclear is proposed to be increased. This government needs a couple of psychiatrists to look after their future behind closed doors.

[Bargepole23]

Quite. My vote has always belonged to nuclear.

Renewables are very expensive, unproven and intermittent requiring massive ver-supply and fossil backup.

 

True, right now. But without putting in the investment into developing them now, they will never progress.We can do both, they aren't mutually exclusive.

[El Cid]

We bought "carbon neutral" wood burners for our homes. They were expensive but we wanted to help.

 

 

I didnt realise these were an issue untill I spent a day in the Lakes.

Peace and tranquil all around, but it only takes one or two wood burners on a quiet day to leave a smell of smoke in the air, and the unhealthy side of that.

 

The people that I know have one to save money and burn free wood, not for the Green issue.

[unbeliever]

True, right now. But without putting in the investment into developing them now, they will never progress.We can do both, they aren't mutually exclusive.

 

I don't see how any amount of research is going to resolve the intermittency problem.

 

---------- Post added 19-02-2017 at 17:45 ----------

 

Renewables are expensive it is true However taking into account the subsidy on Nuclear it is just as, if not more expensive. We also, or rather future generations, have to deal with the radioactive waste, which will also be expensive hazardous and a potential disaster many times larger than that of the Aberfan disaster. How reliable renewables is is surely down to what methods are used.

The tonnage of human and farmed animal waste has been expensive to deal with for years and its potential ignored except by a very few when we have known for a long time that it produces methane gas. Surely that gas would be better captured and burned than allowed to pollute the air. Animals are often wintered inside where waste can be managed at a time of year when more energy is consumed farms could produce energy to use locally or feed into the grid.

Water is underused in the energy production industry, we have massive rivers all around the country which could be producing energy either from tidal lagoons or the natural fall of the land. Regulating the flow of the water from these rivers would help in flood control too.

Most of our energy production is owned by foreign companies and we are dependent on foreign coal production to fire the remaining coal generators. So much for forward planning

The political will to look at and develop alternative means of energy production has not been very evident. Solar and wind energy are now losing the subsidies given for development and the government want to go into a method of gas production that could very well pollute the land and the water that we depend on. The possibility for increased earthquakes due to fracking is being largely ignored at the same time as the risk from Nuclear is proposed to be increased. This government needs a couple of psychiatrists to look after their future behind closed doors.

 

 

 

Money flows into and out of renewables (and to a lesser extent nuclear) from so many directions and schemes and taxes and rebates and allowances and tariffs and such that it's extremely hard to tell what the true cost of each technology is.

 

Nuclear however is a mature and proven technology not subject to intermittency. Waste is not a real issue because of the extremely small masses involved. It gets my vote.

[Robin-H]

I don't see how any amount of research is going to resolve the intermittency problem.

 

Research into storage presumably.

[unbeliever]

Research into storage presumably.

 

I'm not optimistic. Batteries will get good enough to run vehicles, but not to buffer the whole supply. It's just too much energy.

[Robin-H]

I'm not optimistic. Batteries will get good enough to run vehicles, but not to buffer the whole supply. It's just too much energy.

 

The Telsa Powerwall can already store enough energy to power an average two bedroom house (presumably American average..) for a day.

 

It is not outside the realms of possibility that in the future most homes will have the ability to store energy that the house makes from photovoltaic roof tiles/windows etc..

[unbeliever]

The Telsa Powerwall can already store enough energy to power an average two bedroom house (presumably American average..) for a day.

 

It is not outside the realms of possibility that in the future most homes will have the ability to store energy that the house makes from photovoltaic roof tiles/windows etc..

 

No it's not impossible. Just a way off. I don't think we have that kind of time based on CO2 reduction targets.

Don't forget that we'll be using a lot more energy per home to charge our electric cars.

 

I worry also about pricing people out of things they can currently afford, like cars and more importantly decent home heating.

[Guest sibon]

well if the demand for electric cars soar they're going to need to build a few more power stations.

 

Not necessarily. It all depends upon what type of electric car wins out.

 

All of the big German manufacturers have fuel cell cars ready for launch. They need a hydrogen infrastructure though and that doesn't really exist outside of California and Japan. The big advantage of fuel cell cars is that they don't need recharging.

 

---------- Post added 19-02-2017 at 19:11 ----------

 

 

I wonder what "green" advice we shall get next.

 

Nice thread, unbeliever.

 

Much of the green agenda has been a force for good over the last thirty or so years. Look at the improvement in water quality and the increases in recycling for evidence there.

 

We have had some barmy ideas though. You mentioned diesel cars, may I add energy saving light bulbs. They are contain mercury compounds, and virtually compulsory in our homes, yet we have no easy way of recycling them. My guess is that most of the broken ones end up in bins and from there to landfill, or incineration. I'll give it five years before the first problems start to become aparrent.