Stimpy  wrote:

>On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:18:59 +0100, Roland Perry wrote
>>
>>>> Remembering also that in the medium term centralised generating capacity
>>>> will be the scare resource, not coal.
>>> 
>>> Alledgedly.
>> 
>> What are you expecting to take up the slack, when all the nuclear plants 
>> become life-expired?
>> 
>
>Prof. Ian Fells was making exactly this point on R4 yesterday morning. He 
>suggested that we need to start building more generating capacity *now* to 
>replace the plants becoming life-expired in the next 5 years


The situation is now desperate.  The Engineering Institutions have
been giving strong warnings to the Government about this for at least
the last four years.  New Labour has decided to do absolutely nothing,
a position not helped by their abolition of the Department of Trade
and Industry which was also responsible for energy.  

The DTI's toothless successor has only a watching brief, if that, and
the Government no longer has a credible energy policy.   Of course the
method of privatisation is also to blame; the industry was split into
three, with generation, the national grid and local distribution and
billing all done by a plethora of private firms with no overall
co-ordination or control.  Most important of all, none of these
organisations has been given the most important responsibility the
CEGB had, which was to ensure security of supply.

The problem is so acute that the only option left is to build more
gas-fired stations.  Mr Putin would just love that; we are already
very heavily dependent on Russian gas and building more gas-fired
stations would make us even more subservient to the Kremlin.  It will
soon get to the point where the UK has no leverage over Russia, and
all the power (literally) will be in Putin's hands.

In comparison, our sources of oil are safe and secure. 

Even building new coal fired stations would be too slow to fill the
soon-to-be yawning gap.  Roughly speaking, promoting, building and
commissioning a gas fired station takes about three to four years, a
coal fired station about six to eight, and a nuclear station probably
about ten to twelve.  These figures are very rough approximations but
I give them to illustrate the relative speed at which new stations can
be brought on stream.

The point at which rolling power cuts become probable is about 2014,
due to closures of the oldest nuclear stations and the rapidly
diminishing reliability of those still operating.  In order to avoid
those, we will probably need to build as many gas fired stations as we
can get away with, while also building a couple of coal fired stations
- naturally these will be built without carbon capture and storage
because the technology is many years away from full scale
implementation.

Even if we start building nuclear stations tomorrow, the first ones
will only come on stream in 2018-2020, which is far too late to help
bridge the "generation gap".  So rolling power cuts are what we can
expect.

Needless to say, any initiative that increases our dependence on this
inadequate system - such as widespread rail electrification - would be
complete and utter madness at this time.

EE507  wrote:
>
>On Sep 18, 10:43 pm, Tony Polson  wrote:
>>
>> In comparison, our sources of oil are safe and secure.
>
>For how long?


There's no shortage of oil.  As the current easy sources of production
decline, there are plenty of less easy sources that become economic as
oil gets more expensive.   There's plenty of oil in the deeper water
around the UK sector of the Continental Shelf, for example.  There's
the Athabasca Oil Sands, for which Canada is building a nuclear power
plant to cut the CO2 emitted during extraction of the oil.  There's
the large, still untapped reserves of Alaska.  

There are also huge areas of the planet that haven't been prospected
yet - I have a friend who I have known since our early childhood who
manages the exploration activity for one of the world's largest oil
companies, and he is not in the least bit anxious about the oil
running out, only the greater cost of extracting it once all the easy
oil fields have been exhausted.

As we have seen in the past year, as oil prices go up, so do gas, coal
and uranium prices.  And they go up by roughly the same amount, as
does the price of electricity generated from any of these fuels.  Fuel
from wind farms costs several times more per kWh in any case, and is
totally dependent on a very large subsidy, paid for by a levy on
electricity generated by all other means including nuclear. 

So as I have said before, rising oil prices have no effect whatsoever
on the comparison between diesel trains and electric trains.  The
relative costs will remain the same whatever the oil price, as recent
experience has shown that all the other energy costs will follow oil's
lead.

But no doubt you will wish to ignore reality and choose to believe
something completely different, as usual.

darkprince66  wrote:
>
>For sure, there is a
>potential future problem with supply keeping up with demand, it isn't
>yet the doomsday scenario that you predict, and if those who get paid
>to solve these things do their jobs properly, we will never reach that
>point.


As usual, you know almost nothing about the subject, and what little
you "know" is wrong.

And as usual, I suggest that you research the subject, in the certain
knowledge that you won't, because you don't want your comfortable
little state of ignorance to be threatened.

It is you who need to smell the coffee, if such a civilised beverage
is available in the cultural desert and living slum that is Rhyl.  I
suppose you might have encountered it on your travels.

Tony Polson wrote:
> EE507  wrote:
>> On Sep 18, 10:43 pm, Tony Polson  wrote:
>>> In comparison, our sources of oil are safe and secure.
>> For how long?
> 
> 
> There's no shortage of oil.  As the current easy sources of production
> decline, there are plenty of less easy sources that become economic as
> oil gets more expensive.   There's plenty of oil in the deeper water
> around the UK sector of the Continental Shelf, for example.  There's
> the Athabasca Oil Sands, for which Canada is building a nuclear power
> plant to cut the CO2 emitted during extraction of the oil.  There's
> the large, still untapped reserves of Alaska.  
> 
> There are also huge areas of the planet that haven't been prospected
> yet - I have a friend who I have known since our early childhood who
> manages the exploration activity for one of the world's largest oil
> companies,

"oi, minion, can you try to find the office stapler?"

 > and he is not in the least bit anxious about the oil
> running out, only the greater cost of extracting it once all the easy
> oil fields have been exhausted.

So a person who is paid to look for oil is not worried about the need to 
pay people to look for oil.

In other news, the pope attends mass, and Thameslink isn't running when 
I need to go to St Pancras.
-- 
Arthur Figgis               Surrey, UK

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:43:41 +0100, Tony Polson wrote
> Stimpy  wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:18:59 +0100, Roland Perry wrote
>>> 
>>>>> Remembering also that in the medium term centralised generating capacity
>>>>> will be the scare resource, not coal.
>>>> 
>>>> Alledgedly.
>>> 
>>> What are you expecting to take up the slack, when all the nuclear plants 
>>> become life-expired?
>>> 
>> 
>> Prof. Ian Fells was making exactly this point on R4 yesterday morning. He 
>> suggested that we need to start building more generating capacity *now* to 
>> replace the plants becoming life-expired in the next 5 years
> 
> The situation is now desperate.  The Engineering Institutions have
> been giving strong warnings to the Government about this for at least
> the last four years.  New Labour has decided to do absolutely nothing,
> a position not helped by their abolition of the Department of Trade
> and Industry which was also responsible for energy.  
> 
> The DTI's toothless successor has only a watching brief, if that, and
> the Government no longer has a credible energy policy.   Of course the
> method of privatisation is also to blame; the industry was split into
> three, with generation, the national grid and local distribution and
> billing all done by a plethora of private firms with no overall
> co-ordination or control.  Most important of all, none of these
> organisations has been given the most important responsibility the
> CEGB had, which was to ensure security of supply.

That was pretty much the gist of what Prof Fells had to say.  The only 
practical option in the short-term (short in power generation terms, natch) 
is to build more gas and coal stations - get the gas ones on stream ASAP to 
buy time until the coal ones are ready.

This all assumes that these are built without any concern for environmental 
issues.  Adding that into the equation adds time.

Prof. Fells suggestion was people have to decide now if they want security of 
electricity supply for the next 20 years or power shortages whilst nuclear 
and/or renewable sources are built and/or developed to provide the required 
generating capacity.

So, which of the mainstream political parties will fight the next election on 
the platform of:

"We're so green that we're deliberately not going to invest in widespread 
building of environmentally unfriendly power stations in order to protect the 
environment, at the cost to you, Mr Voter, of significant electricity 
shortages over the next 20 years"?   :-)

Tony Polson wrote:

> the Athabasca Oil Sands, for which Canada is building a nuclear power
> plant to cut the CO2 emitted during extraction of the oil.

No. Canada is *planning* to build a *possible* reactor which *might*
allow the trickle of oil from Athabasca to increase from a laughable
150kbbd to maybe 750kbbd. The current capacity of just Saudi Arabia is
10000kbbd. World consumption is over 80000kbbd.

If they start now, Shell reckon it'll be 20 years before they reach
those heady flows, but they aren't likely to be starting any time soon
because the cost of tar sands projects is escalating faster than the
price of oil is falling, and investors are pulling out left, right
and centre.

Canada's most optimistic estimate is that they might produce a shade
under 5mbbp (half of the Saudi's current capacity) by 2025. Bear in
mind that half of this output will be made up of light distillates
that have previously been imported into Canada.

As I said previously, tar sands are the refuge of idiots and the
deluded. Perhaps some are more deluded than others: maybe it's the
same delusion that leads to a belief that all the lights will go
out if we happen to plug a few more trains in.

> As we have seen in the past year, as oil prices go up, so do gas, coal
> and uranium prices.  And they go up by roughly the same amount, as
> does the price of electricity generated from any of these fuels.

In equilibrium, yes, long term trends will track. However, as oil
is depleted its price will rise, and more importantly, it will rise
*faster than coal and Uranium*, because the cost of extraction will
become a significant proportion of the price.

Cheers

mark-r

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:18:40 +0100,
    Mark Robinson  wrote:
> Tony Polson wrote:
>
>> As we have seen in the past year, as oil prices go up, so do gas, coal
>> and uranium prices.  And they go up by roughly the same amount, as
>> does the price of electricity generated from any of these fuels.
>
> In equilibrium, yes, long term trends will track. However, as oil
> is depleted its price will rise, and more importantly, it will rise
> *faster than coal and Uranium*, because the cost of extraction will
> become a significant proportion of the price.
>
Additionally, it seems unlikely that U will go beyond about $200/kg in
todays money because that's the price point at which it becomes cost
effective to extract it from seawater with todays technology

Last time I looked at this, an extraction plant would cost about the
same as a 1GW nuclear station and could extract enough U to suppy six
1GW stations. The extraction process itself is remarkably clean.
There will probably need to be some enrichment but will remove the need
for breeder reactors. (Personally I think we should be building breeders
but that seems dead due to the "OMG terrorists" idiots who wouldn't get
in an NMR machine until it was renamed MRI)

I've sometimes wondered if you could do even better building a
extraction plant in the Irish Sea. But then the conspiracy theories
would really start - were the Selafield leaks deliberate? ;-)

Tim.

-- 
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," 
and there was light.

  http://www.woodall.me.uk/    http://www.locofungus.btinternet.co.uk/

Roland Perry wrote:

> The extra trains won't make the lights go out, but shortage of 
> generating capacity will. The trick will then be to make sure that the 
> railway line still has power when all the lights around it are out.

If all the lights are out, would we really be that bothered about
the trains? I can't think of many times that I'd want or need to
travel if there wasn't going to be power at the other end. I'd
prefer the electricity was used to heat someone's home than run
trains, but there again if the trains were diesel I'd prefer the
diesel to be used to run generators to heat people's homes, too.

Cheers

mark-r

Mark Robinson wrote:

> If all the lights are out, would we really be that bothered about
> the trains? I can't think of many times that I'd want or need to
> travel if there wasn't going to be power at the other end.

But, if the "other end" were home... ?
-- 
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9683718.html
(55032 (Class 121) at Gloucester Central, Jun 1985)

Stimpy  wrote:

>On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:43:41 +0100, Tony Polson wrote
>> Stimpy  wrote:
>> 
>>> On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:18:59 +0100, Roland Perry wrote
>>>> 
>>>>>> Remembering also that in the medium term centralised generating capacity
>>>>>> will be the scare resource, not coal.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Alledgedly.
>>>> 
>>>> What are you expecting to take up the slack, when all the nuclear plants 
>>>> become life-expired?
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Prof. Ian Fells was making exactly this point on R4 yesterday morning. He 
>>> suggested that we need to start building more generating capacity *now* to 
>>> replace the plants becoming life-expired in the next 5 years
>> 
>> The situation is now desperate.  The Engineering Institutions have
>> been giving strong warnings to the Government about this for at least
>> the last four years.  New Labour has decided to do absolutely nothing,
>> a position not helped by their abolition of the Department of Trade
>> and Industry which was also responsible for energy.  
>> 
>> The DTI's toothless successor has only a watching brief, if that, and
>> the Government no longer has a credible energy policy.   Of course the
>> method of privatisation is also to blame; the industry was split into
>> three, with generation, the national grid and local distribution and
>> billing all done by a plethora of private firms with no overall
>> co-ordination or control.  Most important of all, none of these
>> organisations has been given the most important responsibility the
>> CEGB had, which was to ensure security of supply.
>
>That was pretty much the gist of what Prof Fells had to say.  The only 
>practical option in the short-term (short in power generation terms, natch) 
>is to build more gas and coal stations - get the gas ones on stream ASAP to 
>buy time until the coal ones are ready.
>
>This all assumes that these are built without any concern for environmental 
>issues.  Adding that into the equation adds time.
>
>Prof. Fells suggestion was people have to decide now if they want security of 
>electricity supply for the next 20 years or power shortages whilst nuclear 
>and/or renewable sources are built and/or developed to provide the required 
>generating capacity.
>
>So, which of the mainstream political parties will fight the next election on 
>the platform of:
>
>"We're so green that we're deliberately not going to invest in widespread 
>building of environmentally unfriendly power stations in order to protect the 
>environment, at the cost to you, Mr Voter, of significant electricity 
>shortages over the next 20 years"?   :-)


Vote Labour and they will do nothing for the next ten years, just as
they have done nothing for the last ten.  Vote Conservative and they
will do what is needed.  ;-)

Am Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:56:27 UTC,  schrieb Tony Polson 
  auf uk.railway :

> Vote Labour and they will do nothing for the next ten years, just as
> they have done nothing for the last ten.  Vote Conservative and they
> will do what is needed.  ;-)

  Which means in relation to railways, in the opinion of our honorable
member Tony Polson: do nothing. 


Cheers, 
L.W.

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:00:01 +0100, Lüko Willms wrote
> Am Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:56:27 UTC,  schrieb Tony Polson 
>   auf uk.railway :
> 
>> Vote Labour and they will do nothing for the next ten years, just as
>> they have done nothing for the last ten.  Vote Conservative and they
>> will do what is needed.  ;-)
> 
>   Which means in relation to railways, in the opinion of our honorable
> member Tony Polson: do nothing. 

...which is irrelevant to the point he was making - we were discussing the 
need to start building fossil fuel power stations now or face power shortages 
in 8-10 years time.