Welch on renewables deal, UK government told The British government has been advised by the civil service to find a way to get out of renewable energy targets Tony Blair committed to earlier this year. According to a leaked report, seen by The Guardian newspaper, there is next to no chance the UK will manage to derive 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by …
welch:
1857, racing slang, "to refuse or avoid payment of money laid as a bet," probably a disparaging use of the national name Welsh.
Lucy, you've missed "gypped", "jew down", "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief..." and other pleasant terms. Please ensure you include such an anachronistic phrase in all future articles.
I am very familiar with renewable projects and can fully attest this is just a lame excuse! The issue is lack of government action preventing deployment of projects that have been in the pipeline for years now!
Talking about wind energy solely, in the UK we have 40% of Europe's entire wind resource, but we are trailing behind the rest of Europe. According to the British Wind Energy Association, the equivalent of 6% of the UK's electricity supply is held up in the planning system for onshore wind energy projects alone, which means the UK can meet its 2010 targets and be in a good position to meet the 2020 just by unlocking the logjam of planning.
If we then take into account offshore wind, the realistic estimation is that the industry could supply 20GW (approx. 17% of the UK's electricity capacity) by 2020 from this area alone. Again, we are all waiting for the Government to launch the next Strategic Environmental Assessment, which is required before they can move on with site awards.
I am not advocating we carpet the country and its surrounding coastline with turbines. The industry is more aware than most about environmental impact. When the site is right, bureaucracy should be significantly eased in order to allow us to meet the targets.
Snowie
I was reading an article a few days ago which stated the UK had around a third of the EU's total potential offshore wind power. As a collection of islands in very much tidal waters, the UK also has a lot of potential for tidal energy. On top of this there are parts of the UK that are blown (oo-err!) by powerful winds day in and day out. This is insane!
In Germany there are massive subsidies in place for people to fit their own solar panels... OK, so that wouldn't be much use here, but I'm sure more of our taxes could be invested in renewables and energy reduction. Could they fit LEDs into our sodium-lamp street-lights, for a start? If it's an EU mandate, then make these things a target for EU funding!
Last week I was informed I need planning permission to install a small (6kW peak) wind turbine on my forthcoming house, yet that would power all my gadgets and gizmos and reduce my burden on the grid. Pah.
Why do civil servants never advise the government in secret reports to JFDI? It's always advice to weasel out of whatever you agreed to do. What happened to keeping your word and doing things even when they are difficult, because they are the right thing to do?
Oh, by the way don't answer the last question... ;)
"Renewnable targets complete fantasy". That's essentially what the report says.
it's true as well. We will never be ale to supply our energy needs from renewables without tearing up most of the countryside and replacing it with windmills, as demonstrated by Denmark which, with all its massive windfarms, has enough theoretical capacity to supply its entire power needs from wind alone. Yet wind power supplies only about 4% of Denmark's electricity...
Just build a few modern nuclear reactors while we wait for the fusion revolution. It's a lot more sensible than covering scotland in windmills.
Wind farms don't produce leccy when the wind doesn't blow. However it does blow a lot off shore around the UK. We do, however, need a base load, which would be something like Nuclear, Clean Coal, etc...
What you can do is have a certain amount of "overlapping" renewables, such as solar, wind, wave, tidal, a bit of micro generation and then your base load, you do need to have extra capacity available nearline that can be brought online at short notice.
I live in Dundee. Here, there was a local *outcry* when a factory wanted (and obtained) planning permission for two "massive" wind turbines on it's site.
The site is located in the middle of a number of housing estates, offset by some parkland.
All of the normal concerns were raised - But the possibility of the area losing 1000 jobs was too much to allow even the most vocal complainants a chance of influencing the planning application.
So, now we have two majestic turbines. They're not unsightly - Almost everyone comments on their positive impact on the skyline.
Property prices?
No effect. Some people are turned off by the turbines, some are enthusiastic about them. You can sit and just watch them for hours.
Wildlife?
No effect. The blades on these things are *large*. Which means they move slowly - Birds are actually quite good at avoiding flying into things, surprisingly.
Noise?
Minimal. The generator housing is sound isolated and 400 feet away from the ground. The blade noise is less than the noise caused by wind resistance an electricity pylon causes.
And these are turbines that are _almost literally_ in people's back yards.
The NIMBY nature of environmentalists does really get my blood boiling.
What to do when you run out of wind is relatively well-established already. (Apart from ordering more curried beans, of course - sorry, couldn't resist.) Basically you need some way of storing energy when there's plenty of wind and releasing it when there isn't any. This is already used today to help cope with peaks in demand and the greater demand during the daytime than at night. Dinorwig is the archetypal example - pump a lakeful of water from the bottom of a mountain to the top of the mountain, open the sluices when you need an extra boost of wattage, and Bob is indeed your uncle. That's for the National Grid scale of power, of course - local storage for individual houses/villages/businesses might use old-school batteries, or possibly a small version of pumped-storage with water tanks.
The downside is that these things ain't cheap. So the cost of wind power needs to factor in not just the cost of the windmills, but also the cost of energy storage. Once you do that, I believe wind power comes out pretty badly in cost-effectiveness. Even so, though, I guess the question is whether we think getting rid of all those emissions from coal/oil/gas is worth it.
For Gods sake, please save us all from the politically correct mob. They won't be happy until all of us never say a word or set foot on the street just in case we offend somebody. Oh I'm sorry, have I just upset somebody with the use of the word God in this comment? Probably - get over it
Nuclear plants need to be switched off to replace fuel and remove radioactive waste. I remember reading that those in the UK are only on for about 60% of the time. As for wind - I see the point, but as more wind farms are built and if they are distributed sensibly around the UK the probability of there being insufficient power from them declines asymptotically.
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