Costly exercise (From York Press)
Get in touch: send your photos, videos, news & views by texting YORK to 80360 or send an email»
Costly exercise
10:24am Monday 1st October 2012 in Letters By Reader's letter
The government is committed to renewable energy (Before the wind, Letters, September 26).
Offshore wind turbines cost twice as much as coal to produce electricity, and will require subsidies for the next 20 years.
The wind energy producers are Danish and German, a Norwegian company owns a wind farm and Britain is subsidising them.
Electricity costs for consumers are inflated by £1 billion a year subsidies to all renewable energy.
Power stations rarely work to full capacity. The more modern ones have more spare capacity, the National Grid is specially devised to cover stations which cannot supply due to problems. The actual supply of energy is not intermittent.
There is little control over whether the wind blows if and when it is required.
They are not simple technology – very costly cabling is required for distribution to the national grid.
The offshore turbines also need a fleet of vessels for constant maintenance, at high cost. On-shore turbines often have local objectors or are in many cases a blot on the landscape.
Thus there is extremely costly expense for at the most 15 per cent of our energy supply.
J Beisly, Osprey Close, York.
Comments(14)
The Great Buda
says...
12:46pm Mon 1 Oct 12
ColdAsChristmas
says...
1:12pm Mon 1 Oct 12
I don't know where Buda gets his info from and I'd like to see the detail of his subsidy ratio.
I have just listened to the Ed Balls speech and was not impressed. On the one hand he spoke of how China is expanding its economy but failed to mention all of the cheap and efficient new coal power stations built and being built in China. A little further on he appeared to suggest that we could compete with renewable (Clean green) energy! Not only that but he used the old Gordon Brown remark that 'we have to act now.'
Will Huhne go to jail? We'll see.
One thing is for certain and that is that wind is both costly and inefficient.
What to do with the 4G spectrum phone sale: For a start, how about reimbursing the people who have had to purchase set top digital boxes and video replacements? Yes, yet another rip off.
ColdAsChristmas
says...
1:43pm Mon 1 Oct 12
Here is your link that would be better suited to the Hammer House of Horrors:
http://www.google.co
.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q
=&esrc=s&frm=1&sourc
e=web&cd=4&cad=rja&s
qi=2&ved=0CDsQFjAD&u
rl=http%3A%2F%2Fendf
ossilfuelsubsidies.o
rg%2Ffiles%2F2012%2F
07%2FEndFossilFuelSu
bsidies-Factsheet1.p
df&ei=T4ppUMDvK8jZ4Q
Tji4HQAg&usg=AFQjCNE
slpQGWoFsTWO0KOiQKeY
y5qWQ0A
Now just think of all that money we spend through various organisations to sponsor green activists such as those that went to CO2penhagen for example and the Joly's for those attending all of these Earth summits.
Hot air if ever there was. Let's hear it for the not so 'peak oil!'
ColdAsChristmas
says...
2:10pm Mon 1 Oct 12
Not a link or a word anywhere including you when I raised this question before. Perhaps Andy D knows why it has gone, what if anything it produced and how much it cost the Council Tax Payer and the general tax payer as a subsidy!
I can't wait.............
Buzz Light-year
says...
9:13pm Mon 1 Oct 12
Magicman!
says...
2:33am Tue 2 Oct 12
The Great Buda
says...
12:09pm Tue 2 Oct 12
http://www.bbc.co.uk
/news/science-enviro
nment-19785689
ColdAsChristmas
says...
12:31pm Tue 2 Oct 12
If calling names is the best you can do then it is not the realists that have lost but you warmers.
Incidentally, did you know that Antarctica has never seen so much ice!
Ichabod76
says...
2:18pm Tue 2 Oct 12
The Great Buda wrote:Did you even read the article ?
Another argument the flat-earthers have lost:
http://www.bbc.co.uk
/news/science-enviro
nment-19785689
here's a little taster
"In this case, it is a very clever application that really does look like a potential solution to a really great challenge that faces us as we increase the amount of intermittent power from renewables."
Intermittent power !
Dr Fox urged the government to provide incentives in its forthcoming electricity legislation for firms to store energy on a commercial scale with this and other technologies.
the government to provide incentives
(subsidies)!
The process follows a number of stages:
"Wrong-time electricity" is used to take in air, remove the CO2 and water vapour (these would freeze otherwise)
the remaining air, mostly nitrogen, is chilled to -190C (-310F) and turns to liquid (changing the state of the air from gas to liquid is what stores the energy)
the liquid air is held in a giant vacuum flask until it is needed
when demand for power rises, the liquid is warmed to ambient temperature. As it vaporizes, it drives a turbine to produce electricity - no combustion is involved
so where dose the energy come from to cool the air to -190c
then re heat it to ambient temp ?
IMechE says this process is only 25% efficient but it is massively improved by co-siting the cryo-generator next to an industrial plant or power station producing low-grade heat that is currently vented and being released into the atmosphere.
only 25% efficient with no data as to how much it can be massively improved !
yep wind energy is defiantly the way forward :p
ColdAsChristmas
says...
5:46pm Tue 2 Oct 12
I expect it has been recycled as the depot was handy but very strange that there is a news blackout on the issue.
Incidentally, did I tell you that Antarctic ice is at its greatest extent since records began? No warming down there and no hysteria about it either!
Ichabod76
says...
6:35pm Tue 2 Oct 12
they don't like little things called facts to get in the way
as long as they get fed and their fleeces sheared their happy Baaaaaaa
Matt_S
says...
1:43am Wed 3 Oct 12
then re heat it to ambient temp ?"
Think the energy to cool it also comes from the 'wrong-time electricity'. I'm not sure any energy source is needed to reheat it to ambient temperature; you could just switch off the cooling mechanism and heat would get transferred from the warmer surroundings.
Jezreel
says...
6:22pm Wed 3 Oct 12
The Great Buda wrote:Yes as far as I know this is correct, however it pales into insignificance when compared to the vast subsidies available to nuclear. If you count in the cost of decomissioning, the subsidy disappears off the top of the scale.
For every £1 wind gets in subsidies; fossil fuel gets £6.
According to the Telegraph (and they are pro-nuclear) we are talking billions
http://www.telegraph
.co.uk/finance/newsb
ysector/energy/95614
74/Nuclear-power-sub
sidies-could-add-70-
to-annual-household-
energy-bills.html
capt spaulding says...
12:08pm Mon 1 Oct 12