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Wind turbines causing rain? [Split from Mossdale.]

Rob

Well-known member
I would say as a general point that offshore wind is colossally expensive to install and maintain. There's about twenty highly expensive wind farm maintenance boats operating on the various Liverpool Bay wind farms every day. These aren't cheap to run with specialist marine crew and maintenance crew. Anyone who says renewables are cheap is a liar.
Whilst offshore wind may seem "colossally expensive", it's still nearly three times cheaper at producing electricity than gas, levelised over the entire project.

It's all here:
 

Flotsam

Active member
Whilst offshore wind may seem "colossally expensive", it's still nearly three times cheaper at producing electricity than gas, levelised over the entire project.

It's all here:
That must be why our energy costs have tripled in the last few years as "Green" energy marches on. I'm counting standing charges as well which are being used to subsidise the infrastructure required for "Green" energy. The figures for the promotion of "Green" energy are a manufactured farce. Look at your bills.
 

Rob

Well-known member
That must be why our energy costs have tripled in the last few years as "Green" energy marches on. I'm counting standing charges as well which are being used to subsidise the infrastructure required for "Green" energy. The figures for the promotion of "Green" energy are a manufactured farce. Look at your bills.
Not really no. Unfortunately the levelised cost of renewable energy makes no difference to grid prices here. 😭

In the UK electricity prices are based on gas wholesale prices. Even though natural gas is only responsible for 38% of electricity generation in the UK. If you want to complain about something, that's where you need to head.

The gov say that this is because gas is usually the most expensive source of energy that needs to be turned on at any given time. The price of electricity is set by the merit order, which ranks the order of preference for generation types.
 

PeteHall

Moderator
Whilst offshore wind may seem "colossally expensive", it's still nearly three times cheaper at producing electricity than gas, levelised over the entire project.
Considering that gas generation capacity must be maintained on standby to cover for low generation periods from renewables, it is pure deception not to consider the cost of maintaining an entire separate generation system and associated infrastructure when considering the cost of renewables.

If a gas power station has to be maintained and fully functional to fire up at the flick of a switch, but it makes no money from selling electricity most of the time, how will it be paid for?

And that's before we get to the bit about upgrading/ modifying the entire distribution network to get power from remote locations where it can be produced by renewables to where it's needed.

Anyone claiming that renewables are cheaper than nuclear or fossil fuel generation is (deliberately) failing to consider the full picture. Reality will catch up soon enough.
 

JAA

Active member
If you wish to lose a few minutes a YouTube search for people kicking footballs at wind turbines comes up with some suprisingly amusing results!
 

Flotsam

Active member
The issues I have with the "Green" agenda are

1) Export of manufacturing and CO2 to India and China
2) All of the so called "solutions" to our CO2 "problem are not solutions in any sort of sensible economic, technological or engineering terms or even reduce CO2 by a sensible amount. I include Solar, wind farms, carbon capture, electric cars.

Essentially we seem to be in a race to the bottom to achieve the unachievable.
 

maxb727

Active member
And that's before we get to the bit about upgrading/ modifying the entire distribution network to get power from remote locations where it can be produced by renewables to where it's needed.

However these costs are covered by the project installing the renewables so should be factored in on their costs rather than paid for by the distribution company.

Something which is costing the UK currently is the age of our network which needs reinforcement/maintenance. A lot of it was built a long time ago, and now needs work in order for it to be in use, the costs are higher now just for materials let alone labor cost.

Plus the what I haven’t seen mentioned here is the total use of electricity increasing which is driving a lot of the changes to the network - we are wanting more electricity all the time.
 

PeteHall

Moderator
Plus the what I haven’t seen mentioned here is the total use of electricity increasing which is driving a lot of the changes to the network - we are wanting more electricity all the time.
An extremely pertinent point, given the push towards electric heating, electric transport (cars, vans etc), electricity rather than gas in industry etc.

Currently the UK has the highest industrial and domestic electricity prices in IEA; 46% above IEA median for industrial electricity and 80% above the median for domestic electricity. This despite the fact that gas prices in the UK are at/below the median for domestic and industrial respectively.
Data available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/international-industrial-energy-prices

As we push towards more and more dependence on electricity, while pushing up electricity prices with more expensive and less dependable technologies, we will cripple our economy, while becoming ever more dependent on imports. In the event of a major global conflict (which doesn't seem too far fetched a prospect these days), we'll be totally screwed.
 

grahams

Well-known member
It's no fun at all playing dodgems with the Sellafield boy racers on the Bootle Fell shortcut at shift end/start, a road to avoid at those times of day. As for the nuclear waste, our descendants are going to hate us for leaving all that muck around for them to deal with, probably at a huge ongoing cost, for the next million years or so. If these costs were properly taken into account, nuclear power would be discontinued but it's SEP.
Back to wind turbines - an electric motor is used to pump gallons of oil around the massive gear mechanism during slack periods. I guess that the blades are not decoupled from the gears, hence the turning blades.
 

Flotsam

Active member
What do you mean by "a climate change fanatic" in this context, please?
What does calling me names by suggesting I'm Donald Trump achieve, I wonder who put that on? Ed Milliband?? It seems to me that climate change fanatics always want to shut down any debate.
What I'm saying all the proposed solutions to get to Net Zero are not solutions at all. The idea that the Labour Government are going to generate a new economy from "Green Jobs" is ridiculous. Some businesses in the UK might make money with help from subsidies. The Chinese are decades ahead, they make most of the solar panels and a lot of the components in wind turbines. and not even bothering about CO2 and hydrocarbon use at all.
 
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Flotsam

Active member
If bringing facts to a debate is "shutting it down" for you, then I'm sorry but we are not having a debate.
MMGW is an unproven hypothesis.. Donald Trump I've yet to see any facts.

Please tell me what the solution is, if true.
 
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langcliffe

Well-known member
What does calling me names by suggesting I'm Donald Trump achieve, I wonder who put that on? Ed Milliband?? It seems to me that climate change fanatics always want to shut down any debate.
What I'm saying all the proposed solutions to get to Net Zero are not solutions at all. The idea that the Labour Government are going to generate a new economy from "Green Jobs" is ridiculous. Some businesses in the UK might make money with help from subsidies. The Chinese are decades ahead, they make most of the solar panels and a lot of the components in wind turbines. and not even bothering about CO2 and hydrocarbon use at all.

Thank you for your reply, @Flotsam, but I'm afraid I'm not the appropriate person to answer your three questions.

I'm still no wiser why you used the term 'climate change fanatic' in the context that you did, but I'm sure that it made sense to many people, so I'm content to let it stand.
 
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ChrisB

Well-known member
As for the nuclear waste, our descendants are going to hate us for leaving all that muck around for them to deal with, probably at a huge ongoing cost, for the next million years or so. If these costs were properly taken into account, nuclear power would be discontinued but it's SEP.
Radioactivity decays over time. In something of the order of 1000 years the radioactivity of the waste is less than that of of the original uranium before it was mined, so there should be no problem burying it where even under the most pessimistic assumptions it won't get even slightly released for 50,000 years. Unlike asbestos, which never decays but we dump in surface landfill, along with many long lasting and toxic chemical wastes. The cost of managing coal mining waste have fallen on the general taxpayer; coal mines are just left to flood and pollute the water table.

Nuclear would be much cheaper if it was allowed use the same risk criteria as other industries, but the Greens hyped it up and scared the public, so it has lower risk targets and ridiculously pessimistic processes to calculate the risk.
 

MarkS

Moderator
As for the nuclear waste, our descendants are going to hate us for leaving all that muck around for them to deal with, probably at a huge ongoing cost, for the next million years or so. If these costs were properly taken into account, nuclear power would be discontinued but it's SEP.
Whilst nuclear waste is undeniably problematic, at least the harmful products of the power production are properly considered and managed.

If power stations using fossil fuels were held to the same level of accountability, coal, oil and gas would be non-viable overnight.
 

Samouse1

Well-known member
What does calling me names by suggesting I'm Donald Trump achieve, I wonder who put that on? Ed Milliband?? It seems to me that climate change fanatics always want to shut down any debate.
What I'm saying all the proposed solutions to get to Net Zero are not solutions at all. The idea that the Labour Government are going to generate a new economy from "Green Jobs" is ridiculous. Some businesses in the UK might make money with help from subsidies. The Chinese are decades ahead, they make most of the solar panels and a lot of the components in wind turbines. and not even bothering about CO2 and hydrocarbon use at all.
No one specifically called you Donald trump… and you didn’t answer the question.

“There’s no perfect solution so we should carry on f*ing up the only habitable planet we have access to” is not the attitude that will make the younger generations particularly happy, them being the ones who will see the catastrophic effects of climate change in their lifetimes.

An imperfect step in the right direction is better than sitting on a sinking ship because no one is lowering the lifeboats in your preferred manner
 
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