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VK2AAB > ENERGY 15.12.07 01:06l 107 Lines 5477 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Sent: 071214/2347Z @:VK2AAB.#SYD.NSW.AUS.OC #:52822 [SYDNEY] FBB7.00i
From: VK2AAB@VK2AAB.#SYD.NSW.AUS.OC
To : ENERGY@WW
Hello;
Our UK friends will find this of interest in case they have not already
read about it in their local newspapers. For the rest of us it will be of
interest and a warning.
73 Barry VK2AAB
---------------------------------
How coal is the future
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2631117.ece
Comment: An excellent but lengthy article (6 pages font size
10 printed) questioning how the UK will keep the lights on over
the next 10-15 years or so while reducing carbon emission. On
current trends, we would achieve neither. The author, Richard
Girling, though avoids discussion of the 'Peaks', peak oil, peak
gas, peak coal and peak uranium (but then again, so does everyone
else). This leads to a wrong conclusion about natural gas
supplies for the UK. He identifies correctly that the UK will
have severe problems getting enough natural gas supplies in near
future, and that another "dash-for-gas" (for gas-fired power
stations) would be madness. But he puts the potential shortage of
gas down primarily to geopolitics when the main problem is lack
of gas, demand increasing much faster than supplies, and
ultimately Peak Gas.
'How coal is the future' refers to underground coal gasification
(UGC). See: Wikipedia, DBERR (for some reason or other this is in
the renewables section of the DBERR website), World Coal
Institute.
"Streets after dark belong to armed gangs operating black markets
in everything from clean water to butchered pets... Fantasy it
may be... " Aren't some of our streets like this already?
Article: At 16 minutes after midday on October 17, 1956, at
Calder Hall in Cumberland, the Queen pulled a lever and declared
open the world's first nuclear power station. In a high wind that
crackled the pages of her script, she spoke of the "limitless
opportunities which providence has given us", and predicted that
the peaceful application of nuclear power would be "among the
greatest of our contributions to human welfare". When the
cheering died down, men with watch chains spoke of "epoch-making"
events, and "energy too cheap to meter".
Fifty-nine years later, in 2015, someone in the UK will flick a
switch and nothing will happen. Eight years from now, the country
will have only a fraction of the power it needs. Towns and cities
blank out as the National Grid fizzles and dies. Pensioners die
of cold, then putrefy in unchilled mortuaries. The only light
comes from families burning their furniture. Streets after dark
belong to armed gangs operating black markets in everything from
clean water to butchered pets. Shop staff flee as customers brawl
in the aisles over torch batteries and out-of-date Pot Noodles.
The prime minister declares a national state of emergency but
nobody hears him.
Fantasy it may be, but it's hardly more preposterous than the
government's faith in miracles. Somehow, it seems to think, by
native genius, good luck and the glad hand of beneficent world
markets, the looming energy deficit will not take so much as a
kettle off the boil. It invites us to have faith in the power of
prayer. North Sea oil and gas are running out and world oil
stocks are falling. The UK's last few nuclear plants are of
interest only to demolition contractors; so are its older coal-
fired power stations. A third of the UK's current generating
capacity will be out of use by the middle of the next decade.
International supplies of natural gas will be controlled by
unstable countries on the wrong side of the ideological divide,
while worldwide demand will soar. Sellers, not buyers, will rule
the market. We'll be okay, though. We can cover the fields in
windmills; burn straw and cow dung; dam a few estuaries...
... The problem is easily stated. On current trends, the world
will need 50% more energy in 2030 than it does today, which is a
lot more than it's got in the tank. Worse: energy-related
emissions of greenhouse gases by then will be 55% higher, which
means we'll fry our grandchildren if not ourselves. These, I
should say, are the government's own figures, published in this
year's energy white paper, not some doodle on a muesli packet by
the People's Yoghurt Collective. To keep itself humming, and to
compensate for the exhaustion of North Sea oil and the closure of
power stations, the UK pretty desperately needs a strategy. For
all its length (342 pages), the white paper is much more about
"need to do" than "how to do". It leaves that to "UK companies",
which will "need to make substantial new investment in power
stations, the electricity grid, and gas infrastructure". On how
that investment is to be assured, or even encouraged, it remains
largely mute (carbon-trading schemes are its best shot).
... Officials in the former DTI told ministers earlier this year
that Britain had no chance of meeting the EU's 2020 energy
target, and suggested they should use "statistical
interpretations" (ie, spin the figures) to get out of it. There
is, in short, an orthodoxy of hopelessness in which wriggling
deputises for action. The only excuse offered by friends of the
civil service is that ministers failed to understand the
difference between "electricity" and "total energy", and that
Tony Blair thought it was safe to back unattainable targets
because the French and Polish would block them (they didn't)...
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