Russia-in-secret-plot-against-fracking-Nato-chief-says

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 22 Jun 2014, 03:39

AndySir wrote:When dismissing a policy it may be helpful to actually read it.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international ... evolution/

The relevant section starts on page 55.

No I'm not wading through fifty five pages or even one page with a book mark. If you have a point to make or to point out from this tome cut and paste it out so we can talk about it.

AndySir · Post by **AndySir** » 22 Jun 2014, 13:33

vtsnowedin wrote:
AndySir wrote:When dismissing a policy it may be helpful to actually read it.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international ... evolution/

The relevant section starts on page 55.
No I'm not wading through fifty five pages or even one page with a book mark. If you have a point to make or to point out from this tome cut and paste it out so we can talk about it.

The point is that you have completely mischaracterised a document which you can't be bothered reading.

cubes · Post by **cubes** » 22 Jun 2014, 15:14

RenewableCandy wrote:Baseload, as a concept, is so last century.

As for running the grid on renewables, it can (just!) be done, bearing in mind things like interconnectors to Ireland and the Continent, and Drax running on biofuels (which admittedly has its own issues, but having to import gas from Russia isn't one of them).

and those interconnectors are always going to have power available whenever we need it? Didn't think so.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 22 Jun 2014, 21:53

There exist such things as storage, and "demand management". Both in their infancy at the mo, and for both of which "further research (and development) is necessary".

Power will come through those interconnectors if we are prepared to pay (enough) for it. "Demand management" should include a variable price for power depending on how much is available when one wants to use it. Linking the price to the mains frequency (which is a nationwide signal of the relationship between demand and supply) can probably be done even with today's infrastructure (i.e. without the need for Smart Meters).

But I digrwess. The point is that various studies, not all of them sponsored by environment enthusiasts, have shown that running the Grid on renewables is possible.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 22 Jun 2014, 22:35

And it is quite clear that running the grid on non-renewables will come to and end, sooner or later, for better or worse.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 23 Jun 2014, 12:09

AndySir wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:
AndySir wrote:When dismissing a policy it may be helpful to actually read it.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international ... evolution/

The relevant section starts on page 55.
No I'm not wading through fifty five pages or even one page with a book mark. If you have a point to make or to point out from this tome cut and paste it out so we can talk about it.
The point is that you have completely mischaracterised a document which you can't be bothered reading.

One could make a full time job of reading Greenpeace publications and gain little real knowledge from it. They are propaganda pieces full of assumptions and pipe dreams and very scanty in hard facts and realistic projections. When someone projects that crude oil will only cost $112/bl in 2025 and $152/ bl in 2050 I see no need to place any confidence in any of their other projections.
In short I have not mischaracterised their document or plan. It is a pipe dream.
If the Russians would use propaganda to sell more of their NG to the west is another question entirely.

Post by **adam2** » 23 Jun 2014, 15:10

RenewableCandy wrote:-----------------

Power will come through those interconnectors if we are prepared to pay (enough) for it. "Demand management" should include a variable price for power depending on how much is available when one wants to use it. Linking the price to the mains frequency (which is a nationwide signal of the relationship between demand and supply) can probably be done even with today's infrastructure --------------

Demand management by price has a lot to commend it for large power users who can shift demand to cheaper times of day.
I have my doubts as to how effective it would be domesticly, I fear it would be quite beyond the understanding of a lot of domestic consumers who would simply complain loudly about the wicked "fat cat utilities charging more just when families need it the most"

Automatic demand control via grid frequency is fine for very short term shortages, it gives a bit of "thinking time" to allow fast starting gas turbines to be brought into use, not much good if we are to cease gas and oil burning though.

cubes · Post by **cubes** » 23 Jun 2014, 15:33

RenewableCandy wrote:Power will come through those interconnectors if we are prepared to pay (enough) for it.

I disagree - the French government would never let the lights go off at home while they stayed on in the UK, no matter how much we paid.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 23 Jun 2014, 22:20

adam2 wrote:who would simply complain loudly about the wicked "fat cat utilities charging more just when families need it the most"

Obviously the National Grid needs to be re-nationalised.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 23 Jun 2014, 23:37

Can you imagine factories sitting idle waiting for the wind to blow or the sun to shine?

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 24 Jun 2014, 07:25

Can you imagine factories sitting idle after human civilisation has collapsed following catastrophic climate change?

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 24 Jun 2014, 11:34

biffvernon wrote:Can you imagine factories sitting idle after human civilisation has collapsed following catastrophic climate change?

Hopefully we will deal with my prediction before we have to deal with yours.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 24 Jun 2014, 11:57

biffvernon wrote:Can you imagine factories sitting idle after human civilisation has collapsed following catastrophic climate change?

Energy hungry, mass-producing factories born of the hydrocarbon industrial age?

Yes.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 24 Jun 2014, 12:46

Can someone point me to exactly where it's suggested that this world can run precisely as it does now but powered totally by renewable energy? No NGO, no government, no individual has a plan to run the economy as we know it completely or even mostly on renewables.

There are realistic plans - such as linked to by AndySir - proposed for running a world on renewables. If you don't like them, you have to come up with a (broadly) similar alternative - it has to be similar because eventually the world will have nothing else but renewables. Those plans are far from unviable: currently, they're the only sensible proposals out there. Not going down that road, while we can, is just selfish.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 24 Jun 2014, 13:47

I think it's worse than that EM. We can;t run our world for very much longer on hydrocarbon-fuelled BAU. But, neither can we run it on renewable. I am very much a believer in the economic view of history. That is to say, the reason we didn't have tractors and electricity in ancient Egypt is not because they had not yet learned enough about physics and engineering. It was because they did not have access to sufficient energy to make it worthwhile developing knowledge in such fields. and they didn't have global climate change, global soil erosion, global eco-system collapse and all the other myriad global wolves at the door to deal with.

The only way you get to feed, house and clothe 7 billion+ people over the surface of an entire planet is with industrial levels of production, distribution and communication. and all of that takes industrial levels of energy. Renewables simply won't meet that need.

And so, the reason our dear leaders are not doing anything serious to take us down the road to a renewable future is because there isn't one this side of, say, a couple of billion. And so, instead, they, and the people they really work for, are busy manning the lifeboats for themselves and rearranging the deckchairs for the rest of us.