ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION and Green Fantasies

[aubrey]

Obviously, there are not enough of them.

[marchesarosa]

See the graphs in the Governments latest report bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/3/28/uk-takes-the-german-path.html

Andrew Montford says

"The government has just released its provisional figures for 2012 greenhouse gas emissions, and it's not good news. Emission are up sharply, taking them back to the levels prevalent in 2009, when the Climate Change Act had just been put in place.

The Act is not apparently a policy success, even in terms of its own stated aims.

But we knew that. Perhaps more interesting is the reason for the rise in emissions. If you refer to the provisional energy mix figures, you can see that there has been a sharp rise in coal usage and a tailing off of gas. This has been more than enough to counteract the small (but very expensive) gains from renewables.


So it's fair to say that shale gas has had an effect on UK energy and emissions, even though development of shale fields is yet to begin in the UK. But as gas prices plumb the depths in the USA, coal has been displaced from their energy mix, making it much, much cheaper everywhere else. This may well be the way of the future: DECC as managed to get us a mixture of coal and renewables that gives us the worst of both worlds - higher emissions and higher costs. Bravo Mr Davey.

It's also interesting to consider these results in the light of Mr Davey's claim yesterday that our higher energy prices are due to higher "worldwide" gas prices. If we are using less gas, shouldn't the effect be rather muted?

Aubrey, you were parroting Mr Davey's claims yesterday. Any response in view of the actual data now available as opposed to the spin?

[pippop]

Yes.

[aubrey]

Was I?

I got it from a piece in the paper about 6 months ago.

[marchesarosa]

more data and discussion here www.energy-facts.org/

[cleefarqhuar]

Mar 30, 2013 9:17:01 GMT marchesarosa said:

Not bad at all when we consider the UK has only 40 coal mines emplying 6000 people!

[pippop]

Mar 30, 2013 9:26:50 GMT cleefarqhuar said:

Mar 30, 2013 9:17:01 GMT marchesarosa said:

Not bad at all when we consider the UK has only 40 coal mines emplying 6000 people!

British pluck and grit!

[aubrey]

We buy it in, don't we? And we certainly don't sell it to the US, which is what that graphic is about.

Who sponsored it, though?

It could have been in a children's "information" film from the 50s.

[marchesarosa]

If you had read the graphic carefully you would see it referred to electricity produced by coal round the world.

But just cover your eyes and ears if you don't want to be informed about these facts.

Use of coal worldwide is massive and growing. Live with it. Ultimately, the UK cannot buck the trend no matter how much subsidy it pours into renewables.

[marchesarosa]

This morning, at 10.30am, with the arrival of another blocking high, winds have dropped and windmills are now producing a mere 0.57 GW of the UK's electricity out of a total demand of 39.27 GW

or 1.45%

www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Needless to say coal and gas are doing the donkeywork, as per usual.

[cleefarqhuar]

Mar 30, 2013 10:30:44 GMT marchesarosa said:

If you had read the graphic carefully you would see it referred to electricity produced by coal round the world.

But just cover your eyes and ears if you don't want to be informed about these facts.

Use of coal worldwide is massive and growing. Live with it. Ultimately, the UK cannot buck the trend no matter how much subsidy it pours into renewables.

I know my Latinate beauty.
I was joking

[marchesarosa]

You'll have to rewrite that, aubrey, if you want anyone to understand your point.

All the data on UK imports and exports of energy fuels were given in this link I provided.

Energy imports and exports - Parliament
www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn04046.pdf

The main message was that whereas Britain used to be self-sifficent in energy supplies, now it is not. I have not claimed we are
self-sufficient in any of the fuels we use. But we could be self-sufficient in gas if fracking got established! Gas is transformable into almost everything including transportation fuel and chemicals as well as supplying domestic heating needs and electricity generation. What's not to like?

World wide, however, coal is king. Amazing how supply keeps up with ever increasing demand from China and India et al, isn't it? You'll be moaning about "peak coal" next, I expect!

[cleefarqhuar]

It seems that the best availability of power from wind-power is only 30% of that from coal-powered stations
If we were to supply all our electricity from wind then we would need over three times as much generating power from wind as we do from coal. And as that is a best estimate then our supply requirement on average would still not be met.
The stark truth us that if we depended entirely on wind power we would simply have to accept extended black-outs as standard practice
The horrible truth is that in a modern society, wind-power must have 100% conventional back-up to ensure continuity of supply.
The further horrible truth is that as the conventional back-up must be kept running, then carbon emissions are not much reduced

Ambitious nations that care about their people will simply not install wind-power they will rely solely on conventional (or nuclear ) generation. Their energy costs will be much lower than countries such as Britain and Britain's competitiveness wilkll dramatically reduce. This phenomenon is already in evidence

The unilateral drive toward wind-power reliance in the UK is madness - there is simply no other way to describe it

[aubrey]

Unilateral?

Marchesa - the logo thing only listed good things about coal. It's an advert: not truth (you know how truthful adverts are? How they miss out anything that doesn't fit?). And the information is about on the level of a film made for primary school children in the 50s.

[marchesarosa]

The level of your criticism of the data and info I have provided is puerile, aubrey.