Fuel bills

[observer]

Just for interest Kije; and talking about "self sufficiency"; where do we get our uranium from and where will the waste end up?!

[Lt Kije]

Australia, USA or Canada, don't think any are unstable and we won't being crossing any off our Xmass card list

[observer]

So - we're not self sufficient in Uranium then?

[Lt Kije]

I believe I have answered your question, you want coal instead of nuclear, you do not want nuclear due to future cost. Coal has a future cost how come you are not taking that into account?

[observer]

Since we're sat on a thousand years worth of coal,  an abundance of rainfall, surrounded by tidal seas, and now have discovered gas from fracking - it seems we have an abundance of alternate indigenous energy options  - ALL cheaper and safer than the nuclear option.

[Lt Kije]

so you take the long term cost of Nuclear into account Obs, but the long term cost of burning fossil fuel you do not. 

 

Strange?

[Bill]

Lt Kije 

 

You say that electricity doesn’t travel well and seem to be using this argument to dismiss certain forms of power generation, notably hydro electric but where does this logic come from? As I see it, electricity travels pretty damn well and if it didn’t, we wouldn’t have off shore wind farms or buy electricity from other countries. Of course there are some losses to be take into account but these can be considered irrelevant when the source of the power is virtually free. Either way, IMO, transmission line losses is a pretty poor argument for siting power stations (especially nuclear) close to population centres.

 

Bill

[observer]

Errm,  the cost of nuclear is both long term AND short term - as we've now seen, centrica have abandoned their involvement in building new nuke stations due to excalating costs (short term).  Winscale's decommissioning and waste storage will cost £67billion and rising (long term); plus they've got the problem (being ducked by Gov) of how and where to store the waste that will remain radio active for centuries. At a time of economic woe, when job creation is required to stimulate the economy, at a time of extreme weather events (flooding) major infrastructure projects are required such as esturey barriers and resevoirs (hence the two for one options of hydro-electric schemes, tidal and wave power); add to this waste incineration, bio-mass gas creation, and fracking etc; plus a demand reduction strategy and we may manage to survive the future.

[Bill]

Whichever you look at it, the problems always going to be that we want our power and we want it and not just when the wind blows of the tides happens to be going out. So we’re always going to need some form of power that’s available on demand and that tends to only be available from conventional stations. 

 

To my way of thinking, we’ve probably go enough overall capacity at the moment but with no capacity to store energy, we’re at the mercy of supply and demand at peak times. It would make so much more sense to be investing in things like pumped storage to make use of the surplus electricity produced during the evening which can then be made available during times of peak demand. This wouldn’t only solve all of our ethical problems re power generation, it’d create huge amounts of employment. 

 

Bill

 

[Lt Kije]

We can not do hydro Obs, it's a non starter, we can only do tidal in the Severn estuary. And you are not taking the cost of burning fossil fuel into account. Your maths is very floored.

 

Gas before it is burned can be transported, hydro, can only be used where it is produced. Also you are not taking environmental costs into account on tidal barriers. You are costing nuclear because it suits your argument, but you are not costing your alternatives, and you have not solved the problem of electricity not travelling very well. That is why are power stations are relatively close to the population centres they serve. I wouldn't worry about the last problem as nobody has solved that problem. the further electricity moves down power lines the more you loose.

 

Yes their is a big problem with nuclear, with the waste issue. Nobody wants it in their back garden, but nobody wants a coal fired power station at the bottom of their garden either. The problem with gas powered is you need a lot more of them. They are smaller than coal fired power stations and produce less electricity. Before you say build bigger gas fired power stations, their is a good reason why they are smaller, they are built that way because it maximises their efficiently. So their is no getting round the fact you need a lot more of them. Then you can cost out the pipes you will need to get the gas to where it is needed for example the South West.

[asperity]

What Lt Kije says, except I believe estuary barriers have been looked at and dismissed as too expensive in money and environmental terms. As for coal fired power stations, well I live within sight of Fiddlers Ferry and it doesn't bother me one bit.

[Lt Kije]

Sorry Bill mist your post

 

 Electricity does not travel well, just look where our off shore wind farms are, Their are alot of the East Coast, the power comes in and connects to the Sizewell grid, The ones off Lanashire connect to the Heysham grid. All of our power stations are situated near population centres because of the inefficiency of our grid at transporting power. When moving power they use transformers to ramp it up and down,

 

 Even our present nuclear power stations were biult near population centres. Sizewell near Norwich, Dunganess near London, Hinkley near Bristol, Hartlepool near Sunderland/ Newcastle, Hunterston near Glasgow, Torness near Glasgow, and when they biult them as far away as they could because of the perseveed danger, but close enough to get the electricity near where they needed it.

[asperity]

It seems shale gas is making nuclear irrelevant in the USA:

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-06/duke-reactor-shutdown-plan-shows-shale-s-sway-over-power-energy.html

 

Meanwhile our shale gas reserves are believed to be a lot greater than previously reported.

[Lt Kije]

Not quite true Asp, that power station has been shut down since 2009, for an upgrade which has spiralled out of control, add to that shale gas being so cheap the company say the best short term answer is to shut it. Note the short term.

[asperity]

You really need to read past the first paragraph:

 

Quote from the article::

 

"the first to be shuttered in the U.S. because of growing shale gas supplies, serving as signposts for utilities from Japan to Belgium also considering decommissioning reactors. At least four other U.S. reactors are also at risk of early retirement due to new power market economics"

[Lt Kije]

Sorry Asp, I got my info from another source, While trying to re find it found this, tells you more about the costs of the refit going up,

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_River_3_Nuclear_Power_Plant

 

I am trying to find where I got my original info from again and I will put the link up

 

 Sorry I should have stated the info I put up came from else where

[Lt Kije]

Also found this 

 

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/duke-energy-announces-closing-of-crystal-river-nuclear-power-plant/1273794

[asperity]

This all goes to show that, in the world of energy, we are in a state of flux as new opportunities open up. The Greens would like to turn the clock back when really the only way is forward. Necessity is the mother of invention and what civilisation needs is electrical power, without it we are doomed.

[Lt Kije]

On that I agree Asp, but for me the only energy for the long term is Nuclear

[Bazj]

On that I agree Asp, but for me the only energy for the long term is Nuclear

 

remind us again what line of business you are in Kije?

[Lt Kije]

Calibration Baz, Yes I work on Nuclear Power Stations but I also work on coal and Gas ones as well, and a lot of sites that have nothing to do with power generation  

 

I just think Nuclear is the best Long Term answer

[observer]

You got there before me Baz, perhaps a declaration of interest from Kije would be appropriate?!     No Kije, I don't believe in bigger gas fired power stations; a multiplicity of sources can and will be used in the future, thus no dependency on any single type of source. Some will be local such as biomass or waste incineration, some will be major such as wave, tidal, hydro, fracked gas and modified coal (now being burned with wood chippings). Electricity can travel and can be stored, using conversion to mechanical power (such as hyraulic pistons).  But the bonus, the two for offer, is that some will require labour intesive build and will contribute to securing water storage and flood control. Until our R&D come up with a working fusion option, nuclear is as bigger a problem for future generations, as your predictions of global warming; with astronomical costs and a thousand years of radiation pollution.

[Lt Kije]

Electricity doe not travel well, the further it goes the cost and the loss go up, that is why our power station are all next to conurbations, 

 

Hyraulic pistons ?

 

I have never made a secret of where I work, insider knowledge comes in handy on here

 

And where would you put tidal????

 

And where could we use Hydro, the only place suitable is the highlands of Scotland

 

Just as a matter of interest what did you do Obs, before you retired?

[Bill]

Saying that electricity doesn’t travel well and that power stations are built near towns because of this is not exactly correct. Electricity travels very well but like a car, it needs a good conduit (road) if it needs to move any distance. The limiting factor in bringing down power from the north of Scotland isn’t the line losses but the fact that there isn’t sufficient carrying capacity on the National grid.

By all accounts, Scotland's a goldmine for wind, tidal and hydro but if using my transport analogy, the only route out of there is a minor B road, then all the free clean energy just ends up being stuck up there. It’s all down to money and the willingness to make long term investments for the future but with rapidly changing advances in energy, such investment is always going to be risky. Then there’s the possibility that Scotland might go it alone and then we’d be at their mercy for most of our electricity supply.

In a perfect world we’d have a super grid with enough capacity to bring in the power from wherever the source was and who knows, with all the work being done on super-conductivity, this may be the case one day.

Bill

[asperity]

This is the Scottish Nationalists master plan. Get independence and then hold the sassenachs to ransom for all the free wind power they will sell them. They hope. :cool: