Re: So what exactly do scientists know about global warming?

In message <dqen7e$2tq$9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Jim Webster <Jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

>It is a political debate and disinformation is rife, so the wise man
doesn't 
>really believe either side

A wise man looks at the Life Cycle Analysis and the average wind speed
where it's installed.


No, if you need the electricity you have to check the number of days without
enough wind as well


Indeed.


Best I ever get is the Bristol Hilton.

Have you ever been ? Plastic conferences with plastic food !

you need promotion obviously. 

:)


At least auction mart cafes tend to have
reasonable food


OK.


The French seem to be doing OK.  Biggest UK prototype I've heard of is
20 MW.


How long has it been running? I've seen various reports of tidal and they
have trouble keeping them going in winter

Don't know. Closest I got was informal discussion about how you dump 20MW out of a test rig.


> Not have you got to force the schemes through the environmental
>lobby groups, you then have to get the engineering good enough to
withstand 
>what the tide can do.

Ah.  I'm talking about tide _stream_ as opposed to barrage.  Probably
not many more issue than off shore wind from a protesters POV.


The Morecambe bay scheme is a tide stream, vertical turbines, slowly
rotating, slowing the stream but not stopping it. The problem is that by
definition you take energy out of the water which means it can transport
less sediment so you get more silting. It is an unavoidable consequence of
the system.


Yes.


>> And maybe fusion will render the above obsolete in 30 years.  And maybe
>> fusion electricity will cost 60p / kWh and come from plants the size of
>> Berkshire.  Of course, we'd all like to KNOW...
>
>nah, we'll have cold fusion in barrels in the corner of every kitchen;-))
>But the problem is, we have to start building pretty damned quick, in
fact 
>we should have been building nuclear ten or more years ago

And fusion is still unproven for more than about 15 seconds at a time...

Even Andy Warhol expected us to get 15 minutes! 

See what ITER brings I guess.


>> >Suddenly decommissioning nuclear doesn't look as expensive does it
>>
>> :)   Do we know what it will be then ?
>
>getting less. As the next generation of reactions is probably going to be
>built on current sites, there is not going to be the need to take them
back 
>down to the top soil. Just close down and monitor.

Yes - better choice of materials too. Still some issues though.

They will probably become quarries of useful materials in a century. 

If you want neutron activated concrete...


>Nuclear can deliver
>Coal can deliver
>Wind, after a fashion can deliver at times
>Hydro can deliver but is also not without problems
>
>The problem is, on a global scale, we will use more energy, and therefore
>have to gear up rapidly with the alternatives or we will find everyone is
>just doing gas/oil/coal
>
>The fact that we don't trust so much of the world with nuclear means that
to
>balance things out and cut CO2 we are going to pretty well have to cut
oil 
>entirely

Yes. Depressing.

either that or let the genie out of the bottle. 

Yes.


Cheer, J/.
--
John Beardmore
.

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