Energy

[Naetha]

A lot of my work recently has been involved in renewable energy, and just wondered what people thought about the upcoming energy crisis?

What do people think is the way forwards? Should we throw all our research into nuclear fusion? Should we turn the north west of the UK into a giant wind farm? Should we improve clean coal technology and import foreign coal?

Brain dumps below please

More info here btw:

http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/

(D'oh can't seem to edit poll options - for current oil/gas, please read current coal/oil/gas )

 

[Case]

Renewable sources such as wind and wave primarily. Increase research into nuclear fusion.

 

[Naetha]

Bah I should stop trying to save the world and start tidying the house



















<mutters under breath>

 

[tris-]

A lot of my work recently has been involved in renewable energy, and just wondered what people thought about the upcoming energy crisis?

erm, what crisis

i know a guy who studied something on energy and geology and something else and hes off to work in the petrol industry to search for new reserves. according to him its going to take 100s of years before we run out of oil. i also read that the rate at which oil is found increases each year but product is same/less because its difficult to get too.

my self ive voted for the bottom option. i had to answer an essay question on the ethics of using up resources and not saving them for the future (which was imo). long story short, i believe its fine to continue as we are.

 

[Naetha]

It's not just about the reserves left, it's about the CO2 that's being chucked out. It's also about sustainability.

 

[Chronictank]

i think the governement should subsidise solar power to every household in the uk,
that way you can make a grid system using the excess power produced by everyhouse and your bill should be reduced according to how much power you give back on peak.

The with power is not so much the production, that is easy but the storing.
In order to store power you need batteries of some sort, batteries needed to hold that much power use heavy metals which will evenetually turn into toxic metals when the battery is expired so you are back where you started, creating lots of toxic waste but of a different type.
Nuclear power has the inherant problem that it is being produced all the time, it cant juse bt turned off and on at a whim, so ALOT of power is wasted eveyrday when the demand is very low (they use oil/coal power stations to take the slak as they are able to produce the load quicker)

 

[tris-]

i think the governement should subsidise solar power to every household in the uk,
that way you can make a grid system using the excess power produced by everyhouse and your bill should be reduced according to how much power you give back

afaik cant you already sell unusde power back to the grid?

 

[tris-]

It's not just about the reserves left, it's about the CO2 that's being chucked out.

from my limited time when i had a look through some data about ice ages, global warming and cooling etc, it showed that it was a cycle that has stayed the same regardless of how much CO2 we put out.

though one thing i dont like is the way trees are cut down left right and centre.

trees are ftw and without em i think there is gonna be trouble.

 

[Quazzimodo]

Personally i wouldnt want to rely on nuclear power plants, besides the Long startup times and Insane cost to build them, there are many other reasons why.

No matter how 'safe' a nuclear power plant is ( and im not saying they arent safe, dont get me wrong we've made significant improvements since incidents like cherynobl sp? ) There is allways the risk that something could go wrong... and the bigger these plants get or the more of them we have, the likelyhood of incidents like cherynobl sp? and maybe even more catastrophic ones is going to increase.

I'd say the government is going to opt for nuclear power, as unlike renewable sources they provide more energy which is inturn going to produce more electricity. ( and its a easy way out of negotiating a deal with some tree hugging hippies hehehe )

The technology is here to get clean renewable energy, but imo the government doesent want to pull its finger out until some other countries do or the situation gets worse. because its going to cost them alot of money,

hope i havent got the wrong end of the stick here.. but i think renewable is the way to go.

 

[snushanen]

With our vast use of power, the renewable power sorces like wind, water and sun wont manage to provide the world with power alone (unless we develop MUCH more effective solar cells) , today we use huge ammounts of oil, gass, Uranium etc etc.

I think fision and fusion are our best options. If we dont continue to use fision, nobody will manage to construct a profitable fusion reactor. And fision itself can be a great power sorce, Sientists claim that the new Thorium reactors they whant to build will produce a couple of hand bags with waste every year, thats seriusly nothing!! Newer fision technology focus on using the fuel multiple times, plutonium -> Uranium -> thorium ->.....
And with the small usage of fuel, it dosnt only produce smal amounts of waste but also consume smal amounts of fuel, so we can live longer on our heavy atoms.

I think Nuclear power should be used for what it is.

and btw, The chanse for a meltdown with todays technology and security is minimal, i have read that reactors are build in a way, so they auto shutdown when reaching a specyfied temperature.

 

[Quazzimodo]

Sientists claim that the new Thorium reactors they whant to build will produce a couple of hand bags with waste every year, thats seriusly nothing!!

Okay but what happens when over the years the demand is greater, the handbangs turn to mountains of handbags, then suddenly we are back to square one.. That nuclear waste takes.. hec well it takes a bloody long time for that waste to decompose, and where is all the room going to come from to store it? oh and what if something goes wrong where it is being stored.

again hope i havent got the wrong end of the stick, Gotta love what they taught me in science heh heh

 

[tris-]

but its still relying on humans to create that procedure, and we know how humans make errors.

program a computer and do it wrongly and the error is going to propogate through it.

i am fond of nuclear power stations though. i remember my younger years when public where allowed a full tour through the one at hartlepool, i loved that.

on the point of storage, i agree thats an issue. from my trips that i mentioned, they showed us the containers that waste where put into. apparently no radiation could leak out and driving trains and shit into it caused no damage. the ideal thing would be put to those containers into the excavation sites that the origional fuel came from. but costs money :/.

 

[Mojo]

i think the governement should subsidise solar power to every household in the uk,
that way you can make a grid system using the excess power produced by everyhouse and your bill should be reduced according to how much power you give back

They do kinda, you can get grants from the DTI to fund such things. I did some pricing and i found that wind powered homes are cheaper and offered more benefit. I never sussed out planning permissions for either yet though.

 

[tris-]

They do kinda, you can get grants from the DTI to fund such things. I did some pricing and i found that wind powered homes are cheaper and offered more benefit. I never sussed out planning permissions for either yet though.

might be difficult. people are ass holes when it comes to saying 'omg it doesnt look good'. reminds me of a time someone who lived in another street could see a sign on our garage block that said "garages" and he claimed that spoilt his view of the run down, chav filled area.

and yeh, we had to remove it :/

 

[Case]

from my limited time when i had a look through some data about ice ages, global warming and cooling etc, it showed that it was a cycle that has stayed the same regardless of how much CO2 we put out.

though one thing i dont like is the way trees are cut down left right and centre.

trees are ftw and without em i think there is gonna be trouble.

Surely you can really beleive that the damage we're currently causing to the planet isn`t having a massive detrimental effect on the environment?

http://www.ecobridge.org/content/g_evd.htm#graph

I mean come on it`s now a fact and the reality is unless we change the way we burn and destroy the worlds resources we're in for some real deep shit over the next 100 years or even earlier.

 

[tris-]

but thats only going from 1860 - 2000

not exactly a massive span in the earths cycle.

 

[Case]

No it`s not a huge timeframe but the article clearly shows the huge damage the emissions we are causing are having on the environment. CO2 levels are the highest they`ve been on 650,000 years and CO2 causes glbal warming, so where exactly do you think the CO2 is coming from if not from us? Despite the fact we know it`s from us that is.

 

[tris-]

so where exactly do you think the CO2 is coming from if not from us? Despite the fact we know it`s from us that is.

the same place it came from when it caused the warming and cooling cycle before human intervention.

where that is, i have no idea. im not an ecologist or what ever its called

 

[Case]

But we know burning fossil fuels creates carbon dioxide and we know cutting down tree`s reducing the amount of co2 consumed by the biomass of the planet. If the co2 we release isn`t the cause then I guess the co2 we make goes into space or something and some other mysterious co2 source somewhere nothing to do with humans is the cause? Oo

 

[tris-]

But we know burning fossil fuels creates carbon dioxide and we know cutting down tree`s reducing the amount of co2 consumed by the biomass of the planet. If the co2 we release isn`t the cause then I guess the co2 we make goes into space or something and some other mysterious co2 source somewhere nothing to do with humans is the cause? Oo

like i say im no expert i just answerd a question or 2 on it for uni.

but its seen that global warming and cooling is a natural cycle. where do you suggest the CO2 came from before humans put it there?

im not saying humans dont put it there, what im suggesting is the cycle would happen regardless of what we do put there. though it maybe safe to say we do speed the cycle up.

 

[Amildin]

Okay but what happens when over the years the demand is greater, the handbangs turn to mountains of handbags, then suddenly we are back to square one.. That nuclear waste takes.. hec well it takes a bloody long time for that waste to decompose, and where is all the room going to come from to store it? oh and what if something goes wrong where it is being stored.

Shoot it into the Sun...

Im with tris, these cycles have been going on in the earth since way before our time. Why should they stop because a conscious being is here? We may be speeding it up a bit with our emissions, but it was going to happen anyway.

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

One of the problems currently, is that governments don't see much merit in clean energy resources.
As blair put it a few days ago (not exact quote, don't know the words used anymore): Even if we shut down everything in the UK using energy, and we don't use any electricity anymore, China's growth in energyconsumption would've nullified our efforts in only 2 years time.

So as long as other countries don't do anything about it, no country is gonna do anything rigorous by itself. We need a worldwide understanding and agreement on this, like kyoto, but stronger, and make sure every country in the world follows it. Also countries like China, Korea, Congo, USA, or any weird little country I don't know.

Untill that happens I'd say put a few billions in nuclear fusion, and make sure we got that technology ready in 5 years.

 

[Chronictank]

They do kinda, you can get grants from the DTI to fund such things. I did some pricing and i found that wind powered homes are cheaper and offered more benefit. I never sussed out planning permissions for either yet though.

there is but there is so much red tape its unbeleivable, aswellas the fact the body has been renamed 4-5 times so you dont actually know who the hell to call because there are so much discrepencies.
I tried to get the grant for solar panels for electricity, but they said they would only pay for the water heating unless i applied to another body for x x and x,
Then you have to get planning permission to get it put on the house, which takes 5 months to a year to go through including various days off work to see the guy who comes to look around. Along with that you need to get written permission from your neighbour, and if you arent in a detached house (i am in a semi) your neighbour has to get them put on aswell (maybe that was bs but thats what i was told by ym neigbour when the guy went there to ask them).
In the end i cba and gave up.

As for putting the electricity back into the grid, not as far as i know mate i might be wrong

 

[Naetha]

It's true that there's been global warming and cooling for billions of years, however these warming and cooling periods have been associated with mass extinctions, and this is something we should worry about. We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We know that an increase in greenhouse gases causes surface temperature increase. Regardless of whether the rise in temperature is anthropogenic, if we can reduce the warming then I think we are obliged to as one of the key variable factors on the earth today.

Also, the important thing to note is the rate of warming. On a geological timescale, this warming is phenomenally fast, and the faster the rate, the harder it will be to slow it down.

Personally, I think investment in nuclear technology and renewable energy is a good base to start from while we work on more sustainable technology. Nuclear waste is always going to be a big problem, but deep storage is the only answer at the moment. Shooting it into the sun is not an option as if anything went wrong (e.g. Challenger 1986) the whole atmosphere would be full of radiation.

The more people go around with blinkers on, the worse this situation will become until we go past the point of no return. That's if we haven't passed it already.

 

[tris-]

It's true that there's been global warming and cooling for billions of years, however these warming and cooling periods have been associated with mass extinctions, and this is something we should worry about.

im not sure i agree with this. i dont go with the 'humans are special' thing

 

[Dahakon]

im not sure i agree with this. i dont go with the 'humans are special' thing

This isn't a "humans are special thing", it is looking at the hisotry of the planet long before humans came on the scene. For example, the largest mass extinction in history (the Pre-Cambrian (sp?) mass extinction), when 95% of all life was wiped out, was caused, scientists now believe, by a 10 degree C rise in average temperatures, caused by greenhouses gases. This doesn't sound like much of a temperature increase, but it is enough to make Southern England like the Sahara Desert. So the amount of of greenhouses gasses we produce can have unforseen effects, for example, with the Pre-Cambrian mass extinction, a 5 degree rise in temperature probably cause the release of Methane cristals stored in the oceans, which lead to the other 5 degree increase.

Also, the amount that we are effecting the planet might have seemed less in the past because of something called global dimming, when basically, extra particals in the atmosphere caused some of the sun's energy to be reflected back out into space, however because of us cleaning up our air quality this effect is decreasing, so the effects of global warming could be alot greater than modern recordings of temperatures show. And before someone says we should therefore put more particles back into the atmosphere, global dimming also has a big effect on the distribution of weather patterns on the planet, and probably caused the droughts in Africa in the 80's which lead to the Live Aid appeal being set up.

As for what we do about our CO2 emmitions, we should try to use renewable sources as much as possible, but where this doesn't meet demand, nuclear is the only way to go I'm affraid. And fission doesn't work, as the only way to create a stable reaction is to use masses the size of stars, where the huge gravitational pull holds it together. Also recent research has shown (after the disaster at Chernobyl) that low level radiation isn't as dangerous as previously thought, for example, the Chernobly disaster has lead to only about 50 deaths from radiation caused cancers, a much smaller number than was predicted.

 

[psyco]

a mix of all of the options is the only way to go

 

[tris-]

out of interest, anyone have any info on how much of the ozone weve saved by making CFCs illegal?

 

[Reformed]

Well I know in Denmark - prob lots of other places around that area too - they have an energy source from underground. Think it is hot water. It supplies heat to lots of homes. Seems a pretty nifty idea to me. How viable is it for the UK? Is it possible to drill and then pipe cold water down to be heated up - for free? Big huge boiling bubbling mass underneath the earth's crust just waiting to be exploited! Clean too. Is that wot Biomass is?

 

[tris-]

Well I know in Denmark - prob lots of other places around that area too - they have an energy source from underground. Think it is hot water. It supplies heat to lots of homes. Seems a pretty nifty idea to me. How viable is it for the UK? Is it possible to drill and then pipe cold water down to be heated up - for free? Big huge boiling bubbling mass underneath the earth's crust just waiting to be exploited!

if your gonna pump water down then its gonna cost energy. to pump it back up maybe free from the water pressure.

i know back in the old days they used to take heated water from factories and pump it around houses to provide heat.