a Case of Pot and Kettle

[principled]

Either I'm going senile or the "Eco" movement is.

Green energy campaigners are attempting to block new nuclear power stations in the UK by complaining to the European Commission that government plans contravene EU competition regulations.They say financial rules for nuclear operators include subsidies that have not been approved by the commission

Now, hang on a minute aren't we subsidising Wind and Solar? Why don't they go to the EU about that? Oh, it's because they've been approved. Well that makes my wallet feel a whole lot better!
Forgive me for a moment, I need to bang my head against a wall.

Have a read and please tell me I'm not going mad.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16646405
P

[marchesarosa]

Your article shows what a basket case the Greens are, principled. They are following slavishly in the footsteps of German Greens that have become the tail wagging the Deutsche energy policy dog.

They insist on "incentivising" all low carbon generation EXCEPT when it is nuclear.

Read the article I quoted here www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,809439,00.html about the German uber-subsidy for solar. You can't imagine a worse location for solar energy generation than Germany!

Merkel's knee jerk raction to Fukishima is going to leave them dependent upon nuclear power generated elsewhere! Tossers! I think the UK state is a little more hard-headed and less liable to be led by the nose by Greens and that new "incentivised" nuclear power generation will go ahead here.

With nuclear and shale gas the UK should be able to keep the lights burning in winter.

[rsmith7]

The greens should be ignored obviously, since there's plenty of energy to be had but I can't help wondering what will power air travel in the future when kerosene becomes too expensive. Ships could be nuclear, cars - some form of electric but planes? They tried nuclear years ago but couldn't make it work. I guess it could be done providing the hand-wringers are put in their rightful place.

[marchesarosa]

Mr Smith

There are, apparently, processes for converting natural gas into transportation fuels like gasoline and diesel. Qatar, which has huge reserves of natural gas, recently completed a plant to do this.

At the moment there is oversupply of natural gas and prices have fallen to reflect this.

[principled]

RS

I can't help wondering what will power air travel in the future when kerosene becomes too expensive.

I'm not too worried myself. They have now successfully produced diesel from yeast, so kerosene will not be a problem. (see link) At the moment it's from sugarcane, but I suspect some other products will be used that can easily be grown and don't displace food crops (eg Sea weed?).
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x185089

My main concern is the stupid use of gas to produce electricity just to satisfy some minor CO2 reduction promise. Gas is the most efficient energy source for heating houses (gas energy to heat energy = 85% -including pumping and boiler losses, against 35% for electricity).


BTW Marchesa
I spent ages researching and producing a long post for your Der Speigel thread (on Solar Power) and then pressed the wrong button and lost the lot. So annoying. I saved the calcs though. The subsidy in Germany equates to the equivalent of 41p/kWhr for EVERY solar kWh generated and in sunny Spain it's 22pkWh. Now you'd think that the Intelligentsia that rule us would realise that if in Spain (= 2x more sun than Germany/UK)the solar subsidy was crippling them, then going solar in N. Europe was about as sensible as a chocolate teapot!

For those who don't believe my figures, here are the facts:
Germany: Annual Elec Energy : 547billion kWh. Of which 3% is Solar. Subsidy 6.8 billion pounds.
Spain:Annual Elec Energy : 262 billion kWh. Of which 4% is Solar. Subsidy 2.3 billion pounds.

Chocolate teapot anyone?
P

[marchesarosa]

Frustrating when you lose something like that, principled. Commiserations.

Thanks for the info on direct space heating by gas being the least wasteful.

Last night I was watching the final part of the Story of Electricity presented by Jim Al- Khalili.

Fascinating. Apparently the world's energy problems will be greatly reduced by the discovery of room temperature super-conductors which will save the 20% wastage caused by resistance! Let's hope it will happen soon.