The Lights Are Going Out ...

[sunny-dave]

The first straw in the wind :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29038804

Successive Governments have bottled out of commissioning new Nuclear Power Stations, which are the only feasible answer to providing long-term energy security for the UK.

So now the chickens are starting to come home to roost as the elderly fossil fuel plants start to fail, the geriatric nuclear plants reach the end of their life and the 'renewable' sector is hopelessly off the pace (forever?).

I'm buying candles, logs and bottled gas ... I suggest you do the same.

[mushroom25]

it's a bit unfair to hold Scandinavia as a "model" for a renewable energy aspiration, simply because the conditions in the UK are not the same. More than half of Sweden's renewable energy total is hydro-electric, in the UK we simply don't have the geography for that.

[Canary42]

///Nuclear Power Stations, which are the only feasible answer to providing long-term energy security for the UK. ///

Unsubstantiated dogma from vested interests.

[sunny-dave]

"Unsubstantiated dogma from vested interests"

Nope - a carefully thought through view from an old engineer (me), who understands the risk/gain equation and would prefer to have the lights kept on throughout his lifetime, please.

The Unsubstantiated Dogma is from those who assume (without a shred of compelling evidence) that we can somehow muddle through with our current mix of dirty fossil and flaky green.


[ and for those who seek to make political capital out if this, I'm one of your 'tame lefties' - but I will heap opprobrium on any Government which doesn't grasp the urgency of the nuclear agenda ]

[jno]

most people would sooner fund IS by buying Saudi oil than have a wind farm within 10 miles, so a lot of the problem is conspicuous overconsumption.

[youngmafbog]

So jno, just how much Saudi oil does generate our electricity? Percentage wide is fine, if you cold just let us all know?

[Gromit]

YMB,
France is even further up *** creek than we are. They are OVER dependent on Nuclear. Just like us, their stations are closing because of age. More than half of their power stations are due to reach the end of their life in the next 15 years. A Nuclear station takes 10 years from commissioning to outputting power, so over the next 5 years, France needs to spend hundreds of billions to build new plant - except the money to do so is not there. And Private firms will not build any new ones without a huge Government subsidy, because Nuclear power is not commercially viable.

[youngmafbog]

I was simply demonstrating my point of using one country alone to justify something. You seem to have ratified that. Thanks.

[dave50]

The environmentalist nutters are to blame for this state of affairs together with spineless governments who listen to them. They anti capitalists in all but name so they should be ignored.

[Gromit]

28% of our enetgy is derived from natural gas.

North Sea gas production has fallen 38% in the last 3 years.

By 2020, we will be dependent on imported gas for 70% of our needs.

[Gromit]

Just under 40% of our energy comes from coal piwered electricty stations.

The reason for that is historical. We were self sufficient in coal as our nation sat on huge deposits. In 1970 we imported nothing. Last year homegrown coal production was at a record low.

So last year we imported two thirds of our coal from abroad, mainly from Russia and Columbia.

[youngmafbog]

But that gas does not come from Saudi though does it?

[mushroom25]

UK deep coal is (at present) too expensive, when there are countries that permit mines like this to exist.
http://www.minuto30.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/turismo10.jpg

which UK local authority is likely to approve an application for strip mining?

[vetuste_ennemi]

"The big failure has been our half heated adoption of renewables"
"...and yet we lag hopelessly behind. "
Respect, Gromit.

[Gromit]

Ymb,

The majority of our gas imports come fro that other supporter of IS, Qatar.

// Foreign Secretary's advisor Lord Howell warned that the Emirate of Qatar is "rather near a lot of jihadists" and if anything went wrong we'd be "up *** creek".

Government data shows that last year most of the money paid by bill payers for imported gas went to the tiny Middle Eastern Emirate of Qatar - which is also due to host the next round of talks on tackling global climate change.

In 2011 the UK spent £4.25bn on Qatari gas, 70% more than our next largest import partner, Norway. //

[ToraToraTora]

we only import coal because it's a lot cheaper than mining it ourselves.

[Gromit]

// we only import coal because it's a lot cheaper than mining it ourselves. //

The cost of coal is rising because China is buying all the coal it can get its hands on.

And we have closed most of our mines. We did that because we were self sufficient in gas and we decommissioned coal fired power stations for gas ones. Now the gas is running out and our coalmines are mostly gone.

Which leaves us importing gas from I.S. loving Qatar, and Coal from our good enemies, the Russians.

Great work Thatcher, Blair and Cameron.

[Hypognosis]

@Gromit

[echo box to maximum]

//Nuclear is not viable without massive subsidy from the tax payer.//

//Nuclear is not viable without massive subsidy from the tax payer.//

//Nuclear is…// (etc)


Yes. Unless Thatcher was "doing a Magrathea", by mothballing our coal and waiting for prices to go up, well done her and her successors for totally s*dding up our energy independence.

France's high speed rail only runs thanks to -heavy- government subsidy… and we're trying to emulate them yet expect to make profits from it.
Are we just plain dumb, or what?

[Hypognosis]

By the way, is there an annual "what's your CH thermostat setting?" thread?

[mushroom25]

Gromit, this
http://www.ukoog.org.uk/knowledge-base/gas-uses/where-does-the-uk-currently-get-its-gas-from
suggests that the UK gets 51% of its imported gas from Norway, and 27% from Qatar. so unless the exchequer is paying massively over the odds for Qatari gas, 70% more for about 50% less seems a trifle inaccurate.