Take a 2019 Tea Break with Delta

[Peter Mallett]

But crucially, very green.

[Tel 911S]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

But crucially, very green.

The Wall Street Journal called it " The dumbest energy policy in the World "

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news...policy-opinion

[Mike Bell]

We’ve still got consultations (3rd stage just commenced) going on in E Anglia regarding the proposed Sizewell C Nuclear Plant. Having read through the detailed questions on the ‘have your say’ website, I wonder if it will ever be built.

The other reason it could never be built appears to be this- https://www.eadt.co.uk/business/plan...folk-1-5893771

Coincidentally I was one of the customers EDF lost due to their high tariffs!

[Peter Mallett]

[Whisper]fracking[/whisper]

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

[Whisper]fracking[/whisper]

Possibly.

However in the USA the industry as a whole is barely profitable but has generated an huge debt mountain tied mainly to the price of oil since that is the primary output, it seems, in the States.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/a...ncial-tremors/

One of many possible sources of information. However the nature of fracking means that sources can take extreme opposing views entirely dependent on what the authors or their backers wish to present.

The European world seems to be mainly against attempting to find and use more oil and gas, believing wind and solar and some unicorn technologies yet to be discovered plus a shed load of 'storage' of one form or another will save the day.

[Peter Mallett]

Hmm,

Well first you need to understand the business. Then you need to understand that the NYT is opposed to Fracking and has been since day one.

Yes when oil prices were up at $100+ per barrel they were making big profit but, crucially, they were inefficient. The drop in oil prices has got rid of the chaff and now they can be profitable at around $35 per barrel.

The story you linked to is rather old news and was doing the rounds in one form or another back in 2014.

It has its issues but again the cowboys are long gone. As for the UK we need energy. We won't get nearly enough from renewables so I expect our powers that be, to come to their senses and pull back from a total ban on hydrocarbons.

[Tel 911S]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

[Whisper]fracking[/whisper]

Couldn,t agree more Peter .
But with electric costs from a gas fired power station costing overall only 20 % of the total cost from offshore wind generation , it is unlikely to happen .

The overall aim of the Global warming / Climate change / CO2 emissions / Agenda 21 scam is to remove as much money from developed countries as they possibly can . [ This was admitted by one of the leading politicians of the IPCC ] .

So anything that cuts costs to the public will be opposed by the greens & politicians .

Link to an article explaining efficiency of power generation , bit long & complicated , but telling the truth so will probably never be in the mainstream media .
http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/R...imitations.pdf

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

Hmm,

Well first you need to understand the business. Then you need to understand that the NYT is opposed to Fracking and has been since day one.

Yes when oil prices were up at $100+ per barrel they were making big profit but, crucially, they were inefficient. The drop in oil prices has got rid of the chaff and now they can be profitable at around $35 per barrel.

The story you linked to is rather old news and was doing the rounds in one form or another back in 2014.

It has its issues but again the cowboys are long gone. As for the UK we need energy. We won't get nearly enough from renewables so I expect our powers that be, to come to their senses and pull back from a total ban on hydrocarbons.

If the recently re-announced intention to ban gas for heating in all new homes from 2025 is enacted - and if it isn't the domestic gas heating industry could be significantly crippled in the intervening period due to lack of investment and development in a declining market - it would also be logical to ban the use of gas for industrial premises space heating soon after.

Allowing gas cookers is a sop to traditionalists and pointless if new estates are built without gas supplies. It also does nothing for in house "pollution" standards and would be worse with hermetically sealed super insulated housing as proposed by some future thinkers. (Quite why the relatively mild UK, facing an apparently ever warming winter climate according to the green industry forecasts, needs Scandinavian levels of triple insulation to add to the costs of building and maintaining homes escapes me - but we should not let vanity project support influence our judgement of the people concerned.)

So Gas would be left to cater for industrial manufacturing use, some backup energy generation when the wind fails to blow at night during the winter and as a feed source for anyone wishing to attempt to generate hydrogen gas supplies (and take on the responsibility for removing and storing or otherwise utilising CO2 at the point of manufacture.)

I'm fairly sure that the average landowner would be quite happy to take the opportunity to rake in money from a wind/solar installation and the Crown Estate must surely be delighted with the opportunity to offer leases for the use of the off-shore sites within the boundaries of territorial waters.

The politicians will panic at some point and to deals with high payments for both production and curtailment for both wind and solar that will support high levels of over generation (based on optimum conditions) in order to attempt to offer enough live capacity to deal with low output high demand situations.

As a result of that and ever increasing "Carbon" taxes I would posit that any possibility of using a fossil based energy source as a fuel for a large generation plant, allowed to run for no more than a few days per annum when the oversupply of wind and solar proves inadequate, is very unlikely to attract investment. As now, multiple small 'plants' based on something like diesel or maybe ICE run on gas (from fracking?) may be economically viable based on comparatively low investment cost, fast response possibility on a local grid basis and low fuel costs since their use would be limited.

Shell, in recent times, has made at least one public statement about wanting to shift to be a primary player in the wider "Energy" market so I assume they will have done their homework and risk analysis on investment, government support policies for the industry (projected forward a couple of decades at least) and political risk as well as economic risk.

It would be interesting to read that analysis.

I would not trust our (European) politicians to do any better with energy policy than they have so far with Brexit. The results of an Energy policy fubar could well be much worse than anything Brexit can achieve for the region.

Just my opinion of course.

[andy97]

On to more important matters...

I am hoping to miss the start of the CSCC racing season. What?!
I am hoping to be at Wembley to see Wolves take on Watford in the FA Cup semi-final! Not much stops me attending the season opener, but that does. Assuming i get a ticket.

[bauble]

Originally Posted by andy97

On to more important matters...

I am hoping to miss the start of the CSCC racing season. What?!
I am hoping to be at Wembley to see Wolves take on Watford in the FA Cup semi-final! Not much stops me attending the season opener, but that does. Assuming i get a ticket.

How sad.

[GORDON STREETER]

Renewable energy like wind/wave/solar/hydraulic/ground source/or whatever power has to be the best way to produce electricity. The concept is relatively new and is already competing with proven ways of producing power like coal/oil and natural gas. The competition is going to get even fiercer over time as research and improvements to renewable energy will inevitably come. The cost of building and producing green energy have been declining and if this keeps happening, hopefully renewable energy will eventually be responsible for 100% of the electricity that we produce and consume.
I can't see this happening in the very near future or even in my *lifetime*, however something will have to happen and I wonder when the first eco friendly airliner will make an appearance ?

*PS* my old man lived to almost 101 so will it happen in the next 28 years ?

[Mike Bell]

[Peter Mallett]

I don't disagree in principle but the entire ethos us based around cost not efficiency. Hence the government's and operators have no incentive to make things cheaper. This is the opposite of market driven oil/gas. You can legislate it off the planet but you can't make people pay more than they should. At the moment it works but I fear for the future when people wake up to the complete rip off that is being inflicted on them.

I love the technology, I just don't buy the costs.

[Tel 911S]

The idea of all renewable energy is fantasy.
The grid has to run at a fixed frequency , & any variation by more than half of 1 hertz for more than a few seconds causes it to automatically shut down for safety .
Wind , solar & most other renewables do not have synchronisation with the frequency , & rely on conventional power stations to keep the grid stable .
Which is why there must be 100% conventional backup for any renewable generation .
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...to-the-UK.html
Article about how Germanys move to about 30% of renewable generation has caused them problems .
From a few years ago , but almost certainly the media would not allow this to be printed now .

And another one from an expert telling how it is almost impossible to restart
a blacked out grid with only renewable generation .
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/art...ay-power-cuts/

[grantp]

Both wind and sun had been around for millennia before steam engines were developed to the point of relatively reliable use - good enough to justify the investment because of the multiplying effect they offered for a person's productivity.

With the adoption and deployment of fossil fuels, notably coal to start with, the efficiency gains le quickly to huge advances in the human condition with machinery providing for far greater productivity than a human can deliver by individual manual labour alone.

Back before the industrial revolution the natural economy offered a taxation potential of the tithe - about a tenth of what one could produce as an individual. Wind assistance offered little more even with direct usage rather than conversion into other forms before deployment.

If we lose that effort multiplication factor or even some of it when changing to alternative energy sources there will almost certainly be forced changes to the social structure and likely not for the best as we would see it.

That might be a lot to adapt to over as long as a human generation or three.

When our leaders are attempting to force the pace for some reason I do not expect a better outcome over a much shorter period. They show no competence that suggests a useful advance but every sign of following a well worn path often trodden during recorded human history by "The Madness of Crowds".

If the energy assisted human economy does become collectively less efficient then our sea of debt - a method by which we build stuff today based on the value of its production in future years, a concept that has long been deployed for high capital intensity projects like usable energy generation - will likely lead to a global collapse of the economy that would be unlike anything seen in the past.

That could well be one way of solving the supposed Climate problem in so far as it is connected to the activities of humankind. There are many out in the world who would welcome such an outcome and not a few who look at what is happening in the business and financial areas and get the impression that the decline has already started and may not be reversible.

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by Tel 911S

The idea of all renewable energy is fantasy.
The grid has to run at a fixed frequency , & any variation by more than half of 1 hertz for more than a few seconds causes it to automatically shut down for safety .

I don't disagree with this, however this is now and not in 30/40/50 years time.
When I was growing up in the 50s things that were in the "Eagle" comic have now been surpassed and now look "old hat". A mate of mine went to university in the early 60s to study "computer design" I had no idea what he was talking about and as far as us hillbillies in our village were concerned was nonsense ! He went on to design computers for Plessey
Things seem to advance so quick in technology in that whatever you buy today something better comes along next week twice as good ! Cassette video and audio recorders came and went and CDs are old hat along with lots of things I'm pretty sure that someone will come up with an answer otherwise will we be going back to the 70s when we only had 2 or 3 days electricity because of the miners strike ! That cost me 20K (however I did get it back)

[S griffin]

Well we are not quite there yet. Certainly we have come a long way since technology was predicted in fiction in the 50s. There were very few computer scientists in the early 60s, now they are a necessity. Technology is changing albeit slowly. Cassette tapes as you say have been killed off and CDs are now being outdone, albeit still there. Certainly we should be grateful for how far tech has come. I know I am

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Certainly we should be grateful for how far tech has come. I know I am

I have been an avid film maker since the early 60s starting on St8 and16mm and have updated every time something new came out. It has cost me thousands over the years but now I can buy a digital camcorder for (pro rata) less than one of my Super8 sound film cameras that I bought in the late 60s.
I can now take and edit top quality films and send it to anywhere in the world with the equipment that I can carry in my hand luggage.

[S griffin]

That’s great. It just shows technology really does get things done quicker

[Mike Bell]

Well I’m with Gordon. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”.

I think we now need to find something lighter to talk about (no pun intended) or risk driving the majority of tenthers to drink.

Oh hang on....

[midgetman]

I understand Goodwood is featuring Group A racers soon. Here's an example of a genuine, matching numbers Sierra Cosworth in Goodwood specification during testing. "Absolutely original old boy."

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

Well I’m with Gordon. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”.

I think we now need to find something lighter to talk about (no pun intended) or risk driving the majority of tenthers to drink.

Oh hang on....

Agreed Mike, as long as you don't drive back

[delta]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

Well I’m with Gordon. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”.

I think we now need to find something lighter to talk about (no pun intended) or risk driving the majority of tenthers to drink.

Oh hang on....

Yes you have all lost me.BTW I did the Reading Half Marathon yesterday.All around the coarse I had people shouting out encouragement calling me by my name. I thought" I never knew so many people in Reading" but perhaps being a famous racing driver this is what you would expect. After a couple of miles I thought this is daft. I then realized my name is on the race number bib on my chest.
Had a great run and it was a lovely morning for it.I did have a problem later as I had booked my HGV medical for 3pm.The race started 30 min late and I only just got the appointment in time still wearing my running gear.

[S griffin]

Well not surprised you're lost with so much going on. Why not do a marathon and it seems thanks to a bit of racing you're a bit of celebrity around Reading. And why not wear your race number on your front, help people recognise you. And it's a good job you managed to fit in your appointment, despite starting late. But you were right to prioritise the running this time

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by delta

Yes you have all lost me.BTW I did the Reading Half Marathon yesterday. Had a great run and it was a lovely morning for it.I did have a problem later as I had booked my HGV medical for 3pm.The race started 30 min late and I only just got the appointment in time still wearing my running gear.

What sort of doctor does HGV meds on a Sunday? Most consultants would be on the Golf course......

Max, you have to tell where that Sierra pic came from. ‘Hovercraft Monthly’ or.....?