Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch and who turned out the lights?
Thanks to decades of neglect and wishful thinking by successive governments – and now the devastating impact of a directive from Brussels – we are about to see 17 of our major power stations forced to close, leaving us with a massive shortfall.
Even after 2010, the experts say our power stations cannot be guaranteed to provide us with a continuous supply, meaning that we face the possibility of power cuts far worse than those which recently – largely unreported – blacked out half-a-million homes.
[…]
Scaremongering? Just look at the hard facts. At the moment, to meet Britain’s peak electricity demand, our power stations need to provide a minimum 56 gigawatts (GW) of capacity.
Ten gigawatts, nearly a fifth, comes from our ageing nuclear power stations, all but one of which are so old that over the next few years they will have reached the end of their useful working life.
On top of that, however, we shall also have to shut down nine more major power stations – six coal-fired, three oil-fired – forced to close by the crippling cost of complying with an EU anti-pollution law, the so- called Large Combustion Plants directive.
This will take out another 13GW of capacity, bringing the total shortfall to 22GW – a staggering 40 per cent of the 56GW we have today.
It gets worse.
Fred
“the courts will invoke the LAW and the LAW is now made in Brussels.”
To invoke a cliche, I ask: How many battalions does the EU have to enforce their law?
how many people will have to die before sanity is restored? i had another thought on this but this is adequate. all the words and all the shit does not equal action. i see no action. as an old man i guess i could kick the ass of most posters. except those with shotguns.
brussels, a sprout, shove it up your arse.
TG: “Heavy demand for stove/oven, hot water, washer/dryer and the satanic dishwater is another question however.”
The EU may prevent coal fired power stations, but I don’t think they can prevent people from using coal to heat their homes and stoves. Washers? The old wash tub will may come back, as will the clothesline. As for showers and baths, people should read (or at least, re-read, Orwell’s “The Road to Wigan Pier” – which is available online for free, so no excuses!). Plenty of Brits, not even 100 years ago, had one bath a week, and didn’t have hot running water in their homes (or central heating, either). Suddenly, old Gran will seem plenty wise to her family.
Do progressives have any idea how difficult life was for people in their grandparents and past eras? It was not like some “roughing it” for the week camp outing. Not many people, especially women, would really want to return to that life. The simpletons that are advocating this retro-life are similar to those naive “Back to Nature” communes of the hippies. Remember why they did not succeed? Because those romantic visions came crashing to reality. I have no doubt that the Gaia neophytes will quickly abandon the faith too, once the reality bites them in their spoiled butts.
A duck will have more of a chance flying around Syncrude’s tailing ponds than over the skies of Britain. I can imagine there will be change in the habits of english birdwatchers as they eagerly train their binocular’s skyward from the edges of wind farms: Thup, thup, thup, SPLAT!, thup, thup – “Gee Mr. Hunnybun, I think that was an adult female hen harrier! Guess that means there’s only ten left now”
The Brits need to take a page from Norway. They are not EU members. Two referendum votes failed there. If they are real lucky and Ireland does the right thing they can piggyback off of that as soon as they throw Brown out.
In spite of the Yes argument that non-membership denies them the ability to shape policy which is a joke anyways…..
The No camp does not disagree, but stresses a generic lack of dialogue and the centralised nature of the EU. They believe ordinary people are not consulted within the EU process anyway. They argue that only by holding on to “complete sovereignty” can Norway protect its own interests against an elitist, centralised superstate. Dag Seierstad of the “No to the EU” organisation puts it like this: “When you move hundreds of the main decisions from the national Parliament and the national Government to Brussels – to a political superstructure, a huge, political machinery which is completely unpenetrable, incomprehensive to the ordinary citizen, the result is a devastating threat to democracy”.
http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/als_page2/From%20the%20outside%20looking%20in.html
Greenies being subsidized and killing birds to boot.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055427930584069.html?mod=opinion_ma
cant the squirrel eating , beard growing , armpit braiding hippies get off the public teet.
However will the milk be frothed for their lattes? Is there a future for a windmill on the top of every Starbucks? Can’t be metal, that requires electricity and carbon for refining and smelting. Can’t be wood, that destroys the carbon balance. Cannot be plastic, that comes from oil. Hemp, OK, they will be hemp windmills, hand carved, that will turn a wee twizzler that will froth the milk. But the milk must be from free-range, organic cows, only to be milked by PETA-ordained priestesses, who shall sing them lullabies and make incantations to Gaia thanking for the gift. The cup, mind you, cannot be fired ceramic (carbon, again). Nor glass. Nor steel. Clay, I think, might be acceptable, but only if not taken from a stream bottom, for the fish and turtles must have clean water.
Careful what you wish for, lefties.
Is Wind Power Green?
There are many reports that purport Wind power to be an environmentally friendly source of power. Let’s dismiss the fact that it is an unreliable power source as the wind doesn’t blow all the time and therefore must be duplicated by conventional power sources from coal, natural gas, hydro and nuclear.
The press has not reported on the environmental drawbacks of wind power. If wind power was the only source of electricity for the city of Toronto, the wind turbines would take up the land mass of the province of Prince Edward Island. Lord knows how much land would be needed if the country went 100% wind power. Land that could be used for say, something like food production.
In addition, the worlds present wind turbines kill in excess of 100,000 birds each year. How many dead birds will it take to make this environmentally friendly source of power un-green.
The Few ducks that bit the dust at the Tar Sands made National CBC news for a week. How come they don’t report on the 100,000 or birds that get smacked by Green Turbines.Hardly balanced reporting. But Hey anything to keep the people afraid of Global Warming is fair game..
TG sounds like Obama, who is looking increasingly beatable, BTW. His latest little gaffe, “The only problem with gas prices is that they should have risen more gradually.”
I put that right up there with Dukakis’s definition of take home pay “Lost Revenue Opportunity” and his pledge to hire ten thousand new IRS agents.
Or Mondale’s “Let me say this, I *will* raise your taxes.”
They had one smart one, Bill Clinton, who never promised out loud to raise taxes, and then pretended to regret it after he did it.
What’s good about this article is, beside the writer, Booker, is that it is in the Daily Mail, a Main Stream Media, widely read newspaper. Yes, they still read them in the UK.
The rising gas (petrol) prices in the UK has suddenly made people aware of the cost of energy, of the importance of abundant and cheep energy and the costs of [strike]going whacky[/strike] fighting the climate.
TG @2.45
There is nothing new here, only maybe etechnology improvements. Coal gasification was used in britain for a hundred years. When you watch the opld workign class” movies of the British from the fifties & sixities: Saturday night and sunday morning etc. you will see the “GAs Works” in the background.
This is not revolutionary. Coal and oil is abundandant; the eniros and politicians prevent us from using it; that’s why we have high prices.
There is enough oil, coal and uranium, even without breeder technology, to last the world a very long time – by which we finally get fusion working.
Revnant Dreams @2.51 You are on the nail with the “banana nastion”.
A UK parliamnetary committee was planning the issuing of “carbon” ration cards to the populace. Of course, the IMPORTANT PEOPLE will be chauffeur driven and flown around the world to all sorts of exotice places for yet another discussion of carbon rationing.
I believe we can agree that politicians, as well as environmentalists, scientists and just plain ordinary (guillible, brainwashed, leftist, etc.) folks, haven’t been thinking things through, haven’t been asking, “Exactly what will it take to make the likes of Al Gore and David Suzuki happy? How will we suffer? How much will it cost us?”.
The Chicken Littlists claim that they’ve figured it all out, that we’ll actually prosper like never before if we proceed as they demand. But the Chicken Littlists never, never, never make the case, never present us with the proof that they’ve got it “all worked out”, with the technology, the financial cost, etc. I say they’re lying again, and dare anyone to prove otherwise.
Come on, Chicken Littlists, exactly how are we going to effect such incredible, staggering GHG emissions reductions and still have the same amount of electricity, the same transportation ability and so on, without going bankrupt and ending up in another Great Depression and perhaps being incapable of running our militaries, which is what our enemies would love to see happen, as they obviously would love to be able to take over the free world by force, which they cannot, for now, at least, do?
OH, and let’s not ever forget that the IPCC itself says that its hypothesis is declared with only 90% confidence, meaning that they concede that they’ve proven nothing. So why is the world carrying on as if it’s proven that we’re destroying Earth by consuming energy and so on?
We’re most likely being had. And I say this with 90% confidence. May I have a consensus here? Our consensus, our 90% confidence level, to counter the Sacred, Holy Consensus of the “IPCC”, a frightening creature of the corrupt, criminal United Nations.
If it saves only one polar bear, it will have been worth it.
HAHAHA Mr. Meaty Mystery, this is worth an entry on Tim Blair’s site, or Paco Entrpises.
To RL: And don’t forget that in order to make a windmill more efficient, you need battery or diesel backup. Diesel engines spew Carbon Dioxide, Lead acid batteries spread PBO2 in the environment. And let’s not forget the birds and the ducks who get caught in the impeller. They quack up every time!!
And the fossil fuel energy to make the concrete, smelting energy for the steel towers and blades , the energy for frequent maintainance, weather damage, .. and then do it all over again in twenty years when junk, .. no wind, too much wind, ice, ..
No wonder even the experts on windpower, the Dutch, canned them when hydro and electric motors came along.
SpurwingPlover has the answer, but I’ll add that supervisers be given bullwhips to keep them peddlin.
And then there’s the absolutely moronic John McCain. At a time like this with gas and oil prices going through the roof he stamps his little feet and swears by Goebbel’s Warming.
What a twit – 75% of Americans want to drill for more oil and John McCain says no! How stupid can the man be? This is a gift from the Gods for him if he runs with it. Drill for oil, build refineries, streamline gasoline production, and build nuclear plants.
Yet he’s too stubborn and Mavericky to admit just maybe he’s wrong. If he just grabbed hold of this gift and ran with it D’OhBama would have nuthin! Instead Maverick sucks up to the Greenies – pathetic!
RL,
“There are many reports that purport Wind power to be an environmentally friendly source of power. Let’s dismiss the fact that it is an unreliable power source as the wind doesn’t blow all the time and therefore must be duplicated by conventional power sources from coal, natural gas, hydro and nuclear.”
Actually most wind farms clock in at around 50 square miles per 1.5 Gigawatts, and in the case of Ontario’s average household consumption, 1 million homes can be powered by 1 – 1.5 gigawatts of power. So you’re essentially worried that we’ll be missing, in a worst case scenario 5 gigawatts of consumption, or 625 square kilometers.
PEI is 5,683.91 km, and so we’re talking about 10% of PEI being covered by wind farms to produce power for the city of Toronto. A bit of an exaggeration to say ALL OF PEI!!!, especially since PEI is only 0.6% the landmass of Ontario, so we’re talking about 10% of 0.6% of Ontario, or really 0.06% of Ontario!
“In addition, the worlds present wind turbines kill in excess of 100,000 birds each year. How many dead birds will it take to make this environmentally friendly source of power un-green.”
This is a common myth that is replayed and replayed. Google it and read for 5 seconds before you make up random facts. The blades on anything built in the last 20 years move extremely slowly, it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for almost any birds to be killed on wind farms.
Now, I don’t think wind power is the answer at all, but I think that the winning combo by far is Nuclear in addition to Wind Power. Taking advantage of the jetstream crossing our nation in addition to our abundant uranium reserves being used in fast breeder reactors can literally be almost termed a renewable power cycle.
“This is a common myth that is replayed and replayed. Google it and read for 5 seconds before you make up random facts. The blades on anything built in the last 20 years move extremely slowly, it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for almost any birds to be killed on wind farms.”
by Jebus
I work in close proximity to some of these windmills on a regular basis. The tips of those vanes are moving at least 100 mph on a windy day. I tried to do the math accurately, but it’s hard to find specs on the dimensions.
I found reference to Alberta bats being killed by windmills. Bats eat tons of mosquitos, and I hate to lose them.
Canada can make electricity from these resources:
Canda nuclear waste managment we have lots of them can be used for this purpose
solar energy using sun from west end more sunny
use water like Niagara falls and too many rivers in Canada
others resources coals etc…
save energry first
garbage waste managment in Canada is growing
very fast
rather than buy form US we can sell to US in future since Canda is bigger and able to made it happend nad put some land to do this project for at least 5 to 10 years
haye- We’re already selling energy to the US in the form of oil from the west, and hydro electric in Quebec. Both sources have damaged the environment. The James Bay project was definitely not environmentally friendly.
The only argument for moving away from oil is the “theory” that CO2 is causing catastrophic warming, and that will soon be debunked.
[A well designed typical three-bladed rotor would have a tip speed ratio of around 6 to 7.]
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Wind-Turbine-Tip-Speed-Ratio.htm
@ 40 mph wind speed, the blade tip speed would be 40 X 6 = 240 mph
Think you could dodge someting coming at you from above at almost 400 kph ?? Dive bomber.
RW, I read you at 6:33,
In your last sentence, the grouping of energy sources, be sure to include various flavours of natural gases.
In the seventies the common knowledge was that we had enough natural gas for 200 years of world needs.
Now, because Serazin gas and others are riding the oil energy price wave, you never hear loose talk like that any more.
Look into *Kitimat* [Google], and you will discover football field sized LNG tankers are shipping to pipeline heads on the California coast.
No shortage, just bottlenecks. = TG
how about nuclear energy change to electricla energy
and how about solar energy uisng sun energy change to electicial enegry
I read some article about nuclear waste can use in land, or sea or air and they can used those waste turn to electicical but they have hazardous
then only need more research about it
made some nuclear facilty under water not in land that if some think happend nobody get hurt Canada has too manybig seas aroudn them to do more research under water facilty
I even saw some small country like DUbai made hotel under water since they do not have land
and their construction of them are Canadian
if we hired those Candaian constructore to build under water nucler facilty we can made more progerss to do some research an that reserach do not harm peopel live in land
again I just think this within a second
I am not uptodate of this topic
need more research about it
use brain of those smart guys and girls in univeristy and fund them good money and made security t make sure do not illegal usage of nucler wast then
if exisitng damage the energy need ask phd studend of Univeristy of Toronto environment group in mechnial, electrical and chemical engineering rather than play with bugs doing nothing seat and think and find solution for it
and governmnt give them funding to fast their research then
I do not know this topic too well I just heard about it
Posted by: dp at June 12, 2008 8:28 PM
** I found reference to Alberta bats being killed by windmills. Bats eat tons of mosquitos, and I hate to lose them. **
DP, You may have noticed a tremendous drop off of insect numbers in the last few years.
The chemical and pesticide companies are so poisonous that insects are really in jeopardy.
Take the massive honey and bumble bee die-off. No easy way to bring them back because they have about 20 various fatal plagues, not just one to correct.
Places in China where orchard workers have to pollinate blossoms with feathers attached to long poles.
Have 3M and Dupont etc. gone too far?
Windmills killing bats may be the insect re-balance we need, just in time.= TG
Kate’s right – ignore them and they will move on. Inevitable. Enough rope, will hang self.
YouTube video, some serious comedy;
George Carlin – Saving the Planet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw&feature=related
I try to stay away from this hatred but it’s difficult.
“the greens wont be happy till we are all living in log cabins with long beards containing squirrel nests and our women folk hold up their grey socks in birkenstocks held up by backcombing the hair on their boney gams.”
Katherine throws a bit of chum to attract the sharks and increase the hits on her site. Shameless.
Jebus: “Actually most wind farms clock in at around 50 square miles per 1.5 Gigawatts, and in the case of Ontario’s average household consumption, 1 million homes can be powered by 1 – 1.5 gigawatts of power. So you’re essentially worried that we’ll be missing, in a worst case scenario 5 gigawatts of consumption, or 625 square kilometers.”
Once again, a little lesson in elementary arithmetic is required. I don’t know where Mr. Jebus’s figure of 50 sq mi/1.5 GW comes from, since he conveniently cites no references, so I found the following real life example:
The Nysted Offshore Wind Farm off Denmark has 72 turbines in a 24 sq km area (just less than 10 sq mi), with a peak generating output of 165.5 MW. Simple multiplication suggests that a 50 sq mi would have a peak generating output of about 900 MW, or 60% of Mr. Jebus’s figure. Please note this is an offshore site, where wind speeds are typically higher and more regularly sustained than over land.
However, as any first year engineering student knows, peak power output does not equal average power output. The Nyvesk website notes that their farm provides 600 GW-hours of electricity each year. That’s 1.65 GW-hours per day on average. But, 24 hours at 165.5 MW should yield 3.9 GW-hours, so in fact the Nyvesk wind farm actually delivers about 40% of its rated peak power. And please note that these are actual observed figures from a working wind farm, not theoretical calculations. Since they don’t post figures for hourly fluctuations, assume the power output is equal for each hour: 1.65 GwH/24 = 68.75 Mw.
Further: the average Ontario home uses about 860 kwH per month, or about 28.7 kwH/day. But, at night, in most houses, only the refrigerator and possibly the A/C is running, so it’s fair to estimate that 24 kwH is used during 18 hours, for an average of 1.3 kw. This gives us a figure of just over 52,000 homes electrical needs being met from our 10 sq mi offshore wind farm. Since Ontario has just under 5 million households (and some businesses still operate at night), we would need one hundred of these farms to supply Ontario’s household needs. That would take up 1,000 square miles, or just under 50% of the 2,184 sq mi of PEI’s land mass. And, as I noted, these figures are from an offshore wind farm, not a land based one, where wind speeds are much lower and not as sustained, and thus output is lower and more variable. Ocean wind speeds are around 9 m/s; land speeds rarely top 6 m/s. Since power density is proportional to the cube of wind speed, ocean winds provide more than 3 times as much potential power as land winds. So, the original post that it would take all of PEI converted to a wind farm to meet Ontario’s household needs seems to be optimistic! In fact, it would probably take all of PEI and a good chunk of New Brunswick to do so.
21st century London –
The sound of a muted bell tolls ominously off the dark murky waters of the Thames, as fog rolls thickly through the ancient streets of White Chapel borough. Figures lurk in shadowy corners hidden from the candlelit street lamps, as “Jack” the Mohammedan raper waits to collect his uncovered infidel…………………..
Bravo Kevin !
do not worry about birds go to birdy foods from Dollarama and food basic supermaket and drop them in park and they will survive the birds
watch geography channel or Geography managzine i watched it once based on differen birds you can buy differen animal birdy foods
even Geography channle said about even kind of bird and how educate people to save the birds and planets but you must have timeand love the environemtn and love the bird
but I bleive this must job of government to feed teh wild animal and wild birds with right funding to save teh environment not public since public can interfer to casue some animal or bird get excess which is get harmful than save the enivironment means food for animal in see in jungle and parks should provide by government by some real porportional to save and balance it all
i do not like Roccon in city they must keep them outside city they can be harmful for people and small animals
again as usual off topics
I do not like those group knock your door for save energy they are tricky to me increase teh price today to save tommorrow
how about change electrical equipment to nonelectrical one tell engineering built one
that all those work with no eleticity
builte electcial compresor to change unit of electical unit to 100 time more energy built one if you do not have one
chang 120 to 220
waht I mean if we hae equipment can change one unit of electrical to get increase that energy to 100 times more we do not need to built more resouces we acclerate and increae the base to more energy I am not sure we have this mad eyet or not
most famrer in case tehyloose teh eletricity they have some engine to give them temportay eletricity made the equipment upgrade it to bigger factory
I do not know electricity but electrical and mechnicla and chemicla must work with envioromental group or may mor group together tobuit this project to one plan work can ot damage otehrs
or change existing one all need research and continuous research never ended one to fix the old one and built the new project to back existing one
Canada are poor in science import from Russia and middle east more scientict brainto Canada they may help studnet upgrade
Kevin, Carlin would be uncomfortable that you would risk lumping all those turbines into one massive project rather than dozens of scattered independent and thus more reliable power sources. = TG
And hundreds and hundreds more miles of transmission lines to connect the scattered propellers.
Some new and reliable and feasible forms of energy production may yet come. Perhaps wind, solar, ect will be commonplace some day. But, now, without subsidies – what is being pushed on us, is questionable.
TG:
The only Carlin I know is George Carlin. Who you talkin’ ’bout?
And of course, I wasn’t advocating building a huge wind farm; just showing how it really isn’t feasible except for marginal supply. Note that the 10 sq mi Nysted farm produces 600 GwH per year; the Pickering nuclear plant – which occupies a fraction of that space – produces over 15 Terawatt-hours per year, or about 25 times as much.
I love that the last line of the article says this crisis is “as terrifying” as any the Brits have ever faced. The insinuation being that this is equal or worse to the prospect of being occupied by the Nazis.
Indeed.
I bait and only catch one. come on TG. admit to the beard at least.Im counting on Gerald to admit to birkenstocks with socks.
I try to stay away from this hatred but it’s difficult.
“the greens wont be happy till we are all living in log cabins with long beards containing squirrel nests and our women folk hold up their grey socks in birkenstocks held up by backcombing the hair on their boney gams.”
Katherine throws a bit of chum to attract the sharks and increase the hits on her site. Shameless
Cal2,
I wouild never tolerate a beard,. . (again).
Had one in the RCN while in the far north.
My feelings are not too solid on windfarms yet I try to balance expert Kevin with Billionair$ T. B. Pickens who decides to invest in the world*s biggest windfarm.
I respect Kevin and yet there*s no discounting Pickens.
Kevin, when windfarms occupy non-navigable shallow deltas, do they take up less arable land than Pickering?
Windfarms, Tidal-generation, NG-gen, Nuclear, thermal, clean-coal tech, Hydrogen-plant,Solar, Hydro, others. It*s always a mix.
Nothing stands alone in energy generation. = TG
BTW, TG, nobody said you were concously agitiating for us to go back and live in the kind of serfdom the enlightenment brought us out of, just that these are the consequences of the policies you advocate. Just stating that you don’t intend something does not automatically prove that it would not be the consequence of your proposals.
I don’t want to live without electricity, whatever your intentions for how I should live. Windmills do not generate neatly in concert with demand. Never will.
I guess I should clarify, shutting down what works now without having viable alternatives in place, then saying we simply need to adjust is nothing more than the kind of enviro-nazi-ism that does more harm than good to your cause.
Kind of like Obama saying that he only regrets that gas prices rose so quickly, not that they rose.
Tim in Vermont,
Of course I expect everyone to line up behind me, install roof solar, or balcony solar, if you rent.
Then install a wind generator on the corner of the balcony and feed the works to 10, 12v cells and a converter.
Then cook everything by microwave and avoid using the stove, the washer dryer, baseboard heaters, hot water tank and let me know how it goes.
Many of us on Vancouver Island would be wise to have an alternate to BC Hydro.
Developers are going nuts building complexes here, trusting that adequate water and power will *just happen* while protesters south of Vancouver are trying to stop the new essential V.Isle. Xmission lines.
The first company that sells the *efficient home power plant* out of Canadian Tire will make a killing. = TG
PS:
That*s an energy system, not a Honda generator. = TG
TG:
I guess you’ve never heard of ‘economy of scale’, not only for the kW/$ invested but for overall environmental impact as well?
Kelly,
brydia baban brydia!
In English is “Burn Baby Burn” or at least it is according to the English to Welsh translator I used…
My apologies for the delay in responding. The fishies were calling and I have no interweby at the cabin.