Kitchen Garden Forum

As I have stated before, like it or not there is no alternative to Nuclear power for our little island. We are in real danger (and some may argue that we already are) of being held to ransom by unfriendly faces from abroad. After years of being anti Nuclear our government has now begun to wake up and realise that there is no alternative, the question is, is this all too late?

The green lobby are total fools when they oppose a clean form of energy that can supply our country with its own energy with no emissions. The French and many other countries realised the virtue of Nuclear power years ago whilst we languished thinking the wind or tides would come to our aid, more like whistling in the wind in my view.

If we had built a network of modern nuclear powered stations we would have a secure energy supply and could invest in battery powered vehicles that could be charged from the secure electricity grid. People need to wake up; recently the country was on the verge of major power cuts due to our total ineptitude of politically correct politicians that have not the guts to face the future with the facts.

Personally having lived through the building of two nuclear stations near me I would rather that they were built somewhere else however the likelihood is that a third will be built near me. The facts are permission for the third (Hinkley C) were passed years ago but worthless short sighted fools did not want to build it, now it is likely to be French built and French owned, perhaps we should learn from the French in having a revolution and kicking out our useless establishment.

If you want total dependence on other countries oil and gas then keep whistling in the wind or hoping for the magic of the tides.

The facts are clear for anyone wishing to see them.

Cheers me dears!

Barney

Hi Barney,
I notice that Alan simply cannot bring himself to even write the word NUCLEAR. How sad.
I agree with everything that you have said and certainly feel that France manages to have Nuclear power without all trials and tribulations that accompany even the word nuclear in this country.
All the good schemes envisaged by British people have gone to planning and put out to committee then to a sub-committee who have a further sub-committee and none of them simply would dream of questioning the person seeking the planning consent. This means that none of the committee members have the foggiest idea with what they are dealing. The net result is it all gets bogged down and lost in the mists of time. This is called British Progress.
Dear god there are times when I hang my head in total despair.
This is why British entrepreneurs have really given up investing in Britain. If it's not reticent Governments it's Local Authorities and now blackmailing Parish Councils.
I am due to sell-up here and spend what time I have left and it will not be in this god forsaken country.
What put the Great in Great Britain disappeared long ago!
JB.

Just a thought. Nuclear was not cheap last time round, though.

presumably when theyve finished assessing the scale of the problem the experts will start to dream of ways of solving it, then we may get an idea of the timescale and realistic costs.
as it stands at the moment they have absolutly no idea what they are going to do with all this radioactive waste in the medium and long term.

Nuclear is the obvious solution but the decision making process is so slow I reckon there will be cuts and rationing before they come on stream. Our infrastructure is so appalling because we have a civil engineering industry that simply can't deliver things that work on time for a sensible price. If the French can let them do it and bankrupt some of our complacent companies. The problem of decommissioning costs has always bothered me. Why decommission the reactors? Why not have a large site with a central services area and build a series of reactors over the years around it. As a reactor reaches end of life just encapsulate it Chernobyl style and leave it on the site.
If wind farms need to sweeten the parishes where they are sited surely the best way is that if locals sign up for a green tariff they get a discount if they are within a certain distance from the turbine site.

Already been cuts last week when nuclear AND a coal facility both abruptly went offline at the same time!

Reasons witheld for "security reasons".

More detail at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7423169.stm

Spare capacity, I laugh and look at the price of petrol-electric generators and solar panels.

Johnboy

Perhaps you could persuade your Parish Council to store nuclear waste

Sorry, that should be "host".

Alan,
This area is awash with "No to wind farms posters"
all of a sudden. A public meeting due to take place on the 19th June. Rather strange because the closing date for objections is on the 20th.
Some of the things that they are saying are really quite laughable. People can be affected by the flutter of the blades and they don't fall in with the rules about horses. Apart from the fact that there are no bridleways anywhere near the site seems to have escaped their notice. The proposed 4 wind Turbines are going to be 366ft high but are so far off the beaten track and surrounded by woodland most people will only see the blades above the trees. They are more than two miles from the nearest main road.
I feel that if they are built, within a couple of years people will not notice them as they will become so familiar.
Tourists will not visit the area. (Down in Cornwall they are a tourist attraction and right on the roadside.) They will be seen from The Offas Dyke Path and put people off using it. Property values will be drastically reduced.
Me thinks most of it is mostly a load of old cobblers!
JB.

Johnboy

Are these the ones?

Personally I like the look of wind turbines. The wind farm at Llyn Alaw is great, and overlooks the soon to be switched off Wylfa nuclear plant, as is the offshore farm at North Hoyle

The main problem with on shore wind turbines is that they do not produce electricity when we need it most.

For example there is little wind in February and during the hottest part of the summer, and these are the times when we need electricity the most for either heating or cooling.

As yet (discounting the DC battery cell) we have no way of storing electricity so we could never depend on wind turbines and as such have to build power plants that are reliable and give predictable outputs. Therefore since power plants have to be built because we can not rely on the wind what is the point of building them in the first place.

Clearly the cost of them is too high for little output when they are turning. Naturally the anti nuclear brigade will state that building power plants is high and they are quite right in that assumption. However the cost of building nuclear plants do not attract the 'green' subsidy that the wind turbines attract - in other words the cost comparison are not using a level playing field.

I wish we did not have to build another (the third) nuclear power plant near me but are people seriously arguing that we can depend on the wind?

Barney

to ensure power supply you need an excess of generating capacity from a mix of sources ,if some of that is wind turbines every kilowatt they produce is a kilowatt that didnt come from oil or gas cos the oil and gas plants can be turned off whilst the wind is generating

I know you are joking Richard, but for some they might actually believe that you can turn a power station off and on like a light switch. If only that was the case.

Barney

the oil and gas ones are turned off and on to balence supply and demand, even nucs can be regulated to vary the power output but the process takes longer.

Why hasn't Alan told us how they store electricity in North Wales at the old slate workings - assuming they still do?

Geoff wrote:Why hasn't Alan told us how they store electricity in North Wales at the old slate workings - assuming they still do?

Sorry, Geoff, it slipped my mind. Here's what we do with the spare leccy:

Ffestiniog
and
Dinorwig