Just when you thought Guvmint energy policy was as daft as it could get . . .

[STYRBJORN]

It got dafter. The Committee on Climate Change has said that all wind farms should be backed up by fossil fuel plants to ensure that base load is covered during the anticipated increasing periods when climate change will cause long windless intervals. Last year wind farms operated at 21.4% of maximum capacity. So our lovely green wind farms are going to result in more CO2 release.

Joined up thinking lessons anyone?

[cendoubleu]

This was always going to be the case as no renewable is there 100% of the time. Critical users such as hospitals will always have to have the assurance of power 100% of the time and renewables have never been the answer.

[davecatt]

Originally Posted by cendoubleu

This was always going to be the case as no renewable is there 100% of the time. Critical users such as hospitals will always have to have the assurance of power 100% of the time and renewables have never been the answer.

Not true. There is one reliable form of natural energy that will probably even increase in efficiency if global warming should cause a rise in sea level. Tidal movment will allways be there but no doubt it would be far to expensive to harvest

Not far off the East Yorkshire coast there is a large collection of gas rigs called the Amethyst Field. If every one of those rigs had wind and tide turbines incorporated into their structure perhaps the exploitation of fossil fuels could at least be reduced?

[STYRBJORN]

Dave - There is slack water twice a day at high and low tides. Predictable and so can be planned for, but life's never as simple as we'd like it to be!

Ric

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by STYRBJORN

....The Committee on Climate Change has said that all wind farms should be backed up by fossil fuel plants to ensure that base load is covered during the anticipated increasing periods when climate change will cause long windless intervals.....

Not only have they said it, but the government are agreeing to it and sanctioning it - and - would you believe, we, the customer, will be forced to pay a premium on our bills to cover the subsidies. As the poor energy providers, are crying to the government about the fact that these Peaking Plants (Intermittency Plants to you and me), will not be profitable due to the inherent inefficiency of their proposed mode of operation.

Ive posted on this specific issue previously, here: -
Prepare To Dig Deeper - You'll Have To!
Included within that thread are links to the recently released government white paper and it's associated documents. The contents of which, for anyone prepared to read them, are particularly relevant.

Regards,
Mike.

[STYRBJORN]

Mick -

I'll bet you are having difficulty keeping a smug smile off your face. I put this up specially for you!

Ric

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by STYRBJORN

Mick -

I'll bet you are having difficulty keeping a smug smile off your face. I put this up specially for you!

Ric

I think that you and I are on the same wavelength regarding subjects such as this.

If the consequences of such folly were not of such enormous and needless financial cost to the end user and the country, this sort of thing might be considered laughable. - But this is no laughing matter. If it were possible to do so, I'd have these successive government officials up for culpable negligence/inefficiency. - Inept is too mild an adjective to describe their antics.

Regards,
Mike.

[PMG]

Originally Posted by Lancashire Lad

I think that you and I are on the same wavelength regarding subjects such as this.

If the consequences of such folly were not of such enormous and needless financial cost to the end user and the country, this sort of thing might be considered laughable. - But this is no laughing matter. If it were possible to do so, I'd have these successive government officials up for culpable negligence/inefficiency. - Inept is too mild an adjective to describe their antics.

Regards,
Mike.

Hanging or better still burning at the stake ........ and if you think I'm joking think again ......... I really mean it ..........

[Paul mabbott]

I don't see the problem, there were always going to be transitional phases and the need for backup. SWince nobody can predict exactly what is going to happen with climate change we need to be prepared - which means maintain several sources of energy. I don't see how this is going to increase 'result in more CO2 release'?

Originally Posted by STYRBJORN

It got dafter. The Committee on Climate Change has said that all wind farms should be backed up by fossil fuel plants to ensure that base load is covered during the anticipated increasing periods when climate change will cause long windless intervals. Last year wind farms operated at 21.4% of maximum capacity. So our lovely green wind farms are going to result in more CO2 release.

Joined up thinking lessons anyone?

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

I don't see the problem....

Then open your eyes to the reality of what is actuially happening!

Yes, a responsible and cohesive approach to energy policy needs to have several sources of supply, and, looking to a sustainable future, those sources need to be reliable, efficient, cost effective, and environmentally friendly.

Yes, there is most definitely a need to include wind power within the portfolio, but where is the logic in installing more wind power than the system can cope with, and then having to additionally build (at vast cost) many gigawatts worth of fossil fuelled back-up, solely because of that fact.

If successive governments hadn't pandered to the energy giants over the years, and if energy ministers actually had any functioning brain cells between their ears, that fact would be obvious.

Base load generation needs to be efficient and reliable. Wind power is neither. Enlightened people have been saying that for years, and by virtue of these latest machinations, the fact is now out in the open for all to see

An efficient, cost effective, equally sustainable, just as environmentally friendly, and - statistically by far the safest form of mass electrical generation, has been and still is available in the form of nuclear.
If government had, in timely manner, sanctioned new nuclear to supplement the existing base load provision, then we would be in a far better position than we are now - and will be for many years to come.

But no, - nuclear is the demon that is going to cause armageddon - or so the anti brigade would have you believe. And as a result, successive governments have been too concerned with keeping their precious backsides in power, to take the bull by the horns and sanction the necessary builds.

Instead, they climb onto the green vote waggon, (again with the prime objective of keeping their backsides firmly planted on the seats to the Speaker's right in the House of Commons), and set forth a policy that includes so much wind power implementation that the result is wholesale need for grossly inefficient and massively expensive back-up plant.

Regards,
Mike.