tidal power

[beeman2]

There is are now generators on most landfill sites, they are running on the Methane produced by OUR waste rotting down.The power generated is sold to the National grid. I'm given to understand that many of the bigger sewage farms, and old mine workings are looking to do the same' as a lot of money is to be made.
Just thought this may be of some interest.
Regards Beeman

[richard p]

JB is france happy becauseis they have found some mugs at sellefield to store their waste for them till a way of dealling with it can be found?

[Johnboy]

Hi Richard,
I take your very valid point.
JB.

[Cider Boys]

Johnboy has again adopted a ‘pragmatic’ approach. With respect, all other contributors cling onto unproven alternatives that are just not practical. From a personal point of view having lived through the major disruption of building two nuclear power stations and having weekly radioactive waste passing by my house, I truthfully wish there was an alternative we could depend on, but there is none. Contributors can quote methane, tidal wind, solar etc. etc but if I can respectfully ask for the predicted outputs from these schemes to compare with the proven outputs from a new series of nuclear stations they are as much use as a chocolate fire guard. Please do come up with an alternative that is green house gas friendly, can deliver 24hrs a day 365 days a year a quantifiable amount of power that we need. There are many companies in the world that have been seeking this answer for decades, you could make a fortune, and save me and other locals from keeping their iodine tablets. The area I live in has been reported as having the highest density of nuclear power in the world. We have had decades of these arguments in the local press with regular false scares but no-one has yet come up with a green alternative.

All the best

Barney

[beeman2]

Switch your afterburners off Barney, i was'nt saying methane was an alternative to nuclear,i believe at the moment it's about 8% of total usage.If its not used to generate electricity then it's just flared off ( wasted )As i said,i thought it might be of interest. Regards Beeman

[peter]

Beg pardon if my earlier comment was taken as do not build a barrage. I was not adopting a pro or anti stance on either nuclear or barrage schemes, merely pointing out some of the downsides of large water based projects.

What I was trying to point up was the law of unintended consequences and to advise caution under what Barney refers to as pragmatism.

It would be a damm sight more than a few birds, it could be the silting up of the severn estuary, how well would a barrage work then? My abiding memory of that estuary is of brown silty water sluicing past, slow it down and guess what will happen to the silt, that's right it gets deposited. 2026 news, of todays generated power 33% went to dredging out accumulated silt and transporting it for costal reclamation work in Holland and East Anglia to allow the barrage to work beyond 2030.

Regardless of impacts upon ourselves, Man does not have the right to usurp all other species places in this world. Just because we are able to do a particular thing does not mean it is the right thing. Many times over mankinds recent history we can see clear and simple demand for a particular resource. this is allowed to be satisfied, then when the resource is gone or dedicated to that need, OH dear we needed that for this other far more important need and we cannot have it now.

In Brazil there is a clear need for agricultural land, so people clear the rain forest, grow some crops, rain falls, no trees to hold the soil in place with their roots, so away it goes with the runoff and all the people have left is bare rock or subsoil.
No forest, no animals, no birds, no crops, no living.

Here is the south east one of our most precious resources is water and over the course of my life I have seen farmers, water boards and government agencies conspire to speed the progress of rainfall out to sea without any thought to our need for drinking water, just a desire to avoid flooding of houses built on flood plains. Now with even more houses here there is a need for water, to drink, wash etc. Oh dear we did away with all those woods, ponds, hedges, ditches, meandering streams and it cannot slowly soak in, it rushes away too quickly.

Before I get accused of tree hugging, no I do not think that "a few birds" should prevent something happening, but if they are the last few birds of that species then we should make damm sure that we aid that species to exisit in other places (successfully) before we deprive them of what they need so we can have what we want.

To close, safety is addressed in nuclear power generation from the working with hazardous materials, plant maintenance and employee stupidity angles, however Richard, you omit from your critique the worst aspect of Nuclear power in this day and age, which frankly scares me witless, that is security. We are probably closer in agreement against nuclear than you think, but for differing reasons.
You or I would be prevented from getting very far, but, are these plants around the western world guarded by soldiers with loaded guns, do naval vessels patrol off shore, are the buildings "hard enough" to withstand an airplane crash. Could lunatics armed with guns and explosives cause a nuclear breach. Would some hard up former soviet sell a drum from his storgae facility.......

[peter]

Beeman, round here yes there are capture schemes for landfill methane.
They consist of some sort of capping and capture cover leading to a vertical pipe with an automatic igniter on the open end.......


Wish they were as you describe.

[richard p]

try this one
http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/ ... es2005.pdf

its a 2006 report of work done in 05 on the 359 farms in north wales still subject to restrictions imposed after chernobyle, i expect there are more in cumbria and scotland.
i firmly beleive nucleur power has to be a last resort after we have researched and tried the alternatives, the first and easiest of which is reducing demand, low energy lights , turn off things that arnt needed etc .(why do we light roads all night when cars have headlights?) there is still a lot that can be done to make new houses more thermally efficient.
i think its accepted that a severn barrage wont be built but there is research going on into using the power of the tides, ocean currents etc. if we made more use of the renewables we would at least cut down the number of nucs required if nothing else

[Allan]

Richard and anybody, please read the website from the link that I gave earlier. It is NOT another barrage scheme. It would go a long way to meet the dilemma.
Lots of power 4 times a day, totally predictable, a number of them could give you 24 hr. coverage.

[Johnboy]

I certainly think that as Allan says this site is more than most encouraging.
Below is the website that Allan suggests we all read and I will add that I feel it is a "Must" read before this topic goes any further.

http://www.marineturbines.com/home.htm

JB.

[Mr Potato Head]

Well, to quote a well-known supermarket 'every little helps' - and surely the same is true of power generation. Small-scale generation may not be a practicable replacement for coal / nuclear etc., but surely it's worth including 'green' solutions as well as, if not instead of?

[madasafish]

>ciderboys
I do NOT suggest home generation is ever going to replace power stations BUT there is a small place for it in a THINKING power policy.

Better be prepared for blackouts in the next 5-7 years because our current electricty generation is creaking at the seams and falling apart . It takes 10 years to build a new plant (assuming objections don't last 10 years!) so we should be building now.

But we are not so.. inevitably there will be a BIG shortfall. Full stop.

Wind and wave power and useless in cold winter weather.. cos channces are there will be little wind and wave power is not going to happen because of the environment. We are running out of UK economically mined coal (note my choice of words), oil is going up in price and gas? - anyone fancy relying on the Russians?

Home energy efficiency will help.. but wiill not solve the problem.
Heat exchangers in the sea would work...

And whilst the anti-nuclears/ environmentalists whinge, China is building one new coal fired plant every week and lots of nuclear generators...

[Allan]

Thanks very much for the 'flowers' JB.Together we can achieve much.
Returning to topic, the tidal answer is only dependent on the moon's pull on our oceans and that is going to take something really catastrophic to ever change it so we can say that it is never going to fail us.To say once again, Don't confuse tidal current power with tidal barrage schemes Or wave power.
Allan

[peter]

Just over the border from me in Essex they are proposing a street light switch off.

Much opinion about increased crime, funny thing is the idiot youths don't tend to hang around pitch dark areas.

Time was as JB & Allan can probably vouch for, rural communities were up early and nightlife ended at pub closing 22:30 or 23:00 Friday & Saturday. In towns nightlife might have gone on a bit longer. Even I can remember the three TV channels closing down for the night, my kids don't quite believe it.

Nowadays, especially since deregulation of licencing the norm seems to be after midnight, weekends after 2 am and all the takeaway eateries want to stay open past the drinking / dancing establishments. TV is 24-7 (one great american term).

Thus an expectation of being able to see the whole night through, with subsequent light pollution casting its ghastly orange hue nationwide.

When we holiday in Dorset, Yorkshire or Scotland it feels really strange to look up just a bit from the horizon and see stars, at home you have to look straight up and then we are more likely to see the Ryanair flight.

[Chantal]

I work in street lighting and one of the main problems with turning the lights out is the accidents. There may or may not be an increase in road accidents but when they happen in an unlit area which is usually lit,the drivers (or relatives) blame the council for a badly, or unlit, road and often win costing the councils millions. The highways authority's have a statutory duty to light the roads.

There are many ways of reducing carbon emissions and saving energy using better lighting, dimming the lighting (when the technology is in place), cutting the lighting in selected areas etc etc, (if you want the full picture go to http://ile.org.uk/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=50&cntnt01returnid=15).

I agree totally about the light pollution and we've been fighting for years to improve the lighting to avoid this kind of light spill. Good street lighting goes where its wanted and nowhere else. However, there's a lot of bad lighting out there and no money to replace it en masse.