Quote:
Originally Posted by midgetman
I can't understand why some people so keen to increase usage of a commodity that has us in the thrall of war mongers, Middle Eastern despots or Nicola Sturgeon.
Surely the events of the last months show we need an independent, renewable power generation system. What is the point of leaving the EU if we still have to kow tow to some of the worst regimes in the world? At least in Europe we had increased buying power.
Are our posters Russian trolls?
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There is, as I understand it, a considerable amount of oil and gas available under land and sea controlled by the UK (at least it is ours currently.)
Now it may well be seen as too expensive to extract, especially when compared with claims of "cheap as chips" renewables that have been popular in recent decades, but now that the cost of energy from all sources is seen to be increasing (whatever that really means in a practical sense) it may not be as expensive as was thought a decade or so ago.
Either way we, the developed world, have been less than enthusiastic about committing the necessary percentage of global GDP for the cost of energy that will be needed in the future. Sources will likely be more expensive to develop than the current energy and productivity balance of civilisation seems willing to fund - especially when other sources, like Russia and the Middle East still have readily available resources that for now will not be burdened by "excessively" high costs of production.
Excessive is a relative term. Especially if one sees the cost as a burden (heating, food, international security) rather than, say, an investment such as bricks and mortar, whether housing or offices or "industrial units".
That's a global problem, not just a UK problem.
The UK problem, specifically, is that we created the Industrial revolution because, at the time, we had the resources that made it happen and were more than prepared to exploit them.
Now we are not. So the few local coal fired power stations that remain, supposedly working limited hours per annum until 2024 at the latest, are now being asked to be prepared to be fully operational for at least the next winter - despite reduced maintenance and investment for several years.
Our local coal fired station has the biggest stock of coal I have seen for years. South African coal I have been told. I suppose as supply chains go ZA is as reliable as anywhere, despite the reduced size of the UK naval force.
Windturbine installations in the North Sea look much more vulnerable to possible interference from, say, Russia. And as I understand it the Wind farms and Solar Farms are heavily reliant on materials and products created and shipped from elsewhere, especially China.
That suggests that, currently, we are in no position to be self sufficient in anything and unlilely to be so for some years at best.
China, as an example, has no qualms about extending use of coal and gas for any purpose so our "green" investment probably mostly goes to support fossil powered materials production and engineering in China and then the transportation of those products half way around the world to Europe, where the quality of the products will likely be found to be wanting but not before they have been used to create "energy sources" at sea or on land.
About a decade ago I saw some research that suggested the North Sea windpower requirements for the UK's projected use of around 40Gwh at peak points (assuming some large amount of battery storage had been deployed as a solution to the intermittency problem, would burden Wind alone with a need to deploy about 104,000 wind turbines for offshore generation. Or more. Maybe half that now that generator sizes have increased but the available plated capacity still needs to be around 6 times the optimum best output expectations. That entire fleet would need to be replaced every 20 or so years.
Against that sort of demand model, I find it difficult to imagine a viable business model in terms and numbers that we might understand today. I'm not sure anyone has one for the future either - especially if Russia goes native with or without Putin.
Hopefully, something will pop up to save us.