PowerSwitch

http://www.moneyweek.com/file/25277/sev ... -year.html

Interesting article, incredible amount of nuclear plants in the pipeline. More reasons to crank up the wind turbines me thinks...

Uramin and Urasia Energy both up 10% today.

Uramin was 100p in Dec now its 240p!!!

There are people making a killing on Uranium or is that in a few thousand years time...!
Mind you Lovelock likes it.

Let's say I have 2,000 quid. I have two options:

1. I can invest in the mining of a substance that kills an excess proportion (compared to other miniming operations) of those mining it, and which create an devastating environmental legacy when used -- and which does nothing for me except make me notionally richer, and if the investment makes a significant return I'll get clobbered with 25% capital gains tax.

or

2. I can soend the money on an introductory training course in gardening, engineering and electronics, and probably have some money left over to actually equip myself to begin using my new skills -- and which enables me to react to the problems of peak energy far better when I've done this.

Which would you choose? I think it's fairly obvious!!

P.

mobbsey wrote:Let's say I have 2,000 quid. I have two options:

1. I can invest in the mining of a substance that kills an excess proportion (compared to other miniming operations) of those mining it, and which create an devastating environmental legacy when used -- and which does nothing for me except make me notionally richer, and if the investment makes a significant return I'll get clobbered with 25% capital gains tax.

or

2. I can soend the money on an introductory training course in gardening, engineering and electronics, and probably have some money left over to actually equip myself to begin using my new skills -- and which enables me to react to the problems of peak energy far better when I've done this.

Which would you choose? I think it's fairly obvious!!

P.

Word!

Which would you choose? I think it's fairly obvious!!

Yes it is obvious of course. You cant go wrong skilling yourself.

I do wonder what James Lovelock makes of these problems of Uranium mining. I know he doesnt mind having a few rods in his back garden.

Wasn't suggesting anyone buy these shares. However there is such a thing as a self select ISA up to ?7K per year would be exempt from CGT.

Mobbsey said

I can soend the money on an introductory training course in gardening, engineering and electronics, and probably have some money left over to actually equip myself to begin using my new skills -- and which enables me to react to the problems of peak energy far better when I've done this.

Gardening is one of the noblest of professions.
Just a thought, i wonder if there are people who are peak oil / energy crisis aware who are deciding to train for jobs within the nuclear industry. I would have thought that not many students would have learnt / studied nuclear engineering in last 15 years or so as it was not a fashionable thing to do. Their skillls could be much in demand if even half of these new facilities go on stream. Any thoughts yourself?

I would have thought that not many students would have learnt / studied nuclear engineering in last 15 years or so as it was not a fashionable thing to do.

Not fashionable? Despite everything that this man...

... has done to promote the cause???

Actually, I would guess that it'll take a lot less time to train up the next generation of nuclear engineers than it'll take to actually go ahead and build the next generation of nuclear power stations.

Actually, I would guess that it'll take a lot less time to train up the next generation of nuclear engineers than it'll take to actually go ahead and build the next generation of nuclear power stations.

No, not to this standard!!

Yesterdays Independent
Quote from Bill Coley CEO British Energy

He says that even with the emissions that activity such as building nuclear plants and mining uranium produces, nuclear power accounts for just 5 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt of electricity generated, comparable to wind power. By contrast, gas generates 400 grams and coal 900 grams.

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/ ... 268122.ece

So Ok he hasnt included the amount of C02 emissions in the decommissioning or the radioactive waste. ( major reasons why nuclear power generation is questionable at best!)

However I was always under the impression that nuclear power had a much higher level of CO2 output because of information that I'd read on PO forums.

Can anyone point me to evidence as to why this guy is plain wrong or heavily spinning at best?

Planning

But, Mr Coley adds, 'if this could be resolved [ planning] then new plants could be built within as little as five years and, all being well, the first could be on line by 2018'.
This being Britain, of course, that may be just a tad optimistic.

Obviously the planning issues will slow his ambitions to build, but if we have huge and rising electricity bills in the future and rising CO2 levels then IMO a greater percentage of the public will endorse the building of the next generation; especially with these CO2 output figures

I'd love to invest in Uranium if I could figure out how!

There seems to be no easy way to invest in it as a commodity, and the only uranium miner I could find on the stock exchange was a small exploration company!

alternative-energy wrote:Yesterdays Independent
Quote from Bill Coley CEO British Energy

He says that even with the emissions that activity such as building nuclear plants and mining uranium produces, nuclear power accounts for just 5 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt of electricity generated, comparable to wind power. By contrast, gas generates 400 grams and coal 900 grams.

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/ ... 268122.ece

So Ok he hasnt included the amount of C02 emissions in the decommissioning or the radioactive waste. ( major reasons why nuclear power generation is questionable at best!)

However I was always under the impression that nuclear power had a much higher level of CO2 output because of information that I'd read on PO forums.

Can anyone point me to evidence as to why this guy is plain wrong or heavily spinning at best?

I think that the carbon figures he is quoting come from some a nuclear-sponsored source. I don't have a link unfortunately. The flaws in his thinking are:

1) that there is lots more high grade uranium ore left - in reality, particularly with the increase in nuclear build globally (see link in my signature), the amount of CO2 from mining the increasingly poor quality ore will soon be comparable with that created by burning the fossil fuels direct. Even if we assumed there was lots more good quality ore left and that the whole nuclear process would be well managed into the future, the figures I've heard suggested that nuclear power's CO2 emissions are at best 1/3rd that of a typical mix of FFs.

2) it ignores the most important factor of all, that nuclear waste management will continue to consume energy long into the future. This at a time when we will be very energy poor and that energy will be sorely needed elsewhere.

3) it also ignores the fact that the fuel rod manufacturing process involves production/handling of uranium hexafloride, which is very difficult to dispose of and which has 10,000 times the greenhouse effect of CO2, i.e. 1kg of UF6 =10 tonnes of CO2 in terms of its climate change effect.

David Fleming's booklet on nuclear power describes this in more detail:

http://www.feasta.org/documents/energy/ ... _power.pdf

Hi Adam1
Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm still making my way through the article. Why isn't this kind of information in the general circulation? One sentence that caught my eye was:

Nuclear power, even as only a short-term strategy, is
about conserving the bankrupt present; Lean Energy is about
inventing and building a future that works

Sounds pretty sensible to me... I've already made the transition to small and local energy network personally and have invested in renewable energy investment trusts since 2000. However, it could be said that I haven't done this for purely altruistic reasons. However what concerns me is that there are many people who will think they can conserve the 'bankrupt present' and will press ahead. This is now reflected in the price of Uranium and the U miners.

alternative-energy wrote:... I've already ... invested in renewable energy investment trusts since 2000.

That sounds interesting. It's quite hard finding a good place/vehicle to put a bit of money in renewables. The market seems very uncertain, despite the urgent need to get on with building up capacity. Do you have any suggestions?

The main company I have invested in is Merrill Lynch New Energy Technology (MNE). The trust came to being in 2000 and was floated at 1.00 GBP. (About the same time as I bought the domain name www.alternative-energy.co.uk) Initially the price shot to 1.10 then slowly declined to 15p. I have kept up a monthly purchase of these shares through ML, but have transfered quite a few into a Self Select ISA just in case they end flying and a get wacked with CGT. I have bought more when the price has dropped back. Now the price is almost at 60p.
To be honest they havent been a great performer as I've stuck with it for a while now so I am in a strong position.
Another point is that the trust is heavily weighted towards USA. If Bush had never been elected and Gore was still in control just think what this fund could have done! However 2008 could be interesting. If America does swing into action with CC then who knows what could happen. (He says optimisticly)

Other companies can be found at.

http://www.trustnet.co.uk/it/funds/?cli ... fund=67728

http://www.alternative-energy.co.uk/Investment.htm
I would prefer a trust because there is potentially less risk in this embryonic industry. Individual companies such as Solar Integrated Technologies need a strong constitution! I would only put in cash with these guys if you dont mind losing it all. However the upside could be massive.


Interestingly an agent working for BP ( though i didnt know it at the time) contacted me to see if i would sell my domain name. This was just before BP alternative energy was launched. Obviously I declined...

Annoyingly BP alternative energy have just overtaken my google ranking for the search string "alternative energy" - still I can't complain at being number 6 out of 64,000,000!


Good Luck

Thanks for that. I'll follow up the the links.