UK Power Shortages

Dear Winki,

The electricity generation situation [in the UK] does appear to be in a policy paralysis.

There are enough problems in the economic sense, that the government cannot risk short term unpopularity with the inevitable medium term choice of nuclear generation ...

If not this winter, but soon enough, I would guess that we shall see power cuts again, which reminds me of the situation with the three day week and the petrol crisis in the early 1970s, when it all seemed delightful fun to a child of ten or twelve.

Britain probably has to learn that inherently she has no right to believe that we [as a Nation] Britain ...are not inherently [or by resource richness] wealthier than the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

We might look at nuclear power plant as financed by France, but France is far more bankrupt than Britain. It would never be followed through.

We must get used to much higher energy costs so that the government can attract strong investment in the UK electrical system. Are the Chinese the source of the capital? I do not know.

ATB from George

Everyone will have to stop leaving their amps on 24/7.

I don't, but then I am a realist!

Anyway, if there is a power cut, then the old maxim concerning Naim replay will be out the window in any case!

ATB from George

It is OK Winky, we seem to have come up with a cunning plan to keep our lights on

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scie...environment-22630815

Have you got any spare trees in Canada to help us out in our time of need?

Am I bovvered  ???

This is not news - it was realised that the UK would be in a power crisis in this decade more than 10 years ago - however the powers that be (or not be) were more interested in being politically correct rather than get a nuclear power station building program under way.

The politicians spent the first decade of this century looking the other way and ignored the problem.

@Derek,

Have you given consideration to what happens with the spent nuclear fuel. those Rods are radioactive for 10s of 1000s of years - if not more.

Given that civilization as we know it is just about 5K years old, it's pretty scary that our actions should have such long lasting negative effect on this planet..

If the nuclear waste seeps into England's waterways - well, I just hope there are other countries where you can all immigrate too..

I agree Derek,   except it was not limited to nuclear that they looked the other way on. They completely failed to address the need & the time frame required for a multi-source mix of renewable fuels, fossil & sustainable bio-fuels & nuclear.

Dare I open up the question further by saying that we missed the boat with fracking. It was known for years that shale deposites existed under UK in very large viable quantities,  but rather than tackle the issues - & fracking does have issues - they again chose to look the other way.  Meanwhile USA got on with it & is now producing gas in commercial quantities for power generation.   

The British Geological Survey estimates 1,300 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas in the Bowland shale basin alone.  (by far the biggest shale basin in the world) The upper estimate is a possible 2,281tcf – that’s almost the same as the total USA reserves of 2,500tcf.

Additionally there are many other shale areas in UK  & also very large offshore reserves. According to BGS the UK's offshore reserves could be 5 to 10 times more than onshore.

UK currently consumes aprx 2.7 tcf of gas per year. The conservative 1,300tcf estimate would give UK  50 to 100 years' of gas at current consumption rate.  This is a gas surplus like no other, converting existing power stations is relatively cheap, simple & a fast track solution. 

Do the math,  its staggering,  we are sitting on a gas gold mine

– pity Blair & Co did not see it & we could be 15 years ahead of the posse by now.   

@Mike-B:

On the other hand, you can wait until the rest of the world depletes it's power supply...

and then you'll be the new Sheikhs. :-)

The governmant yesterday anounced £100 bn for investment in new infrastructure specifically mentioning power supply, road and rail.

Perhaps it will now put a bit of pre-election effort into building new generating capacity whether nuclear, fosil-fuel or bio-fuel.

All of our present energy production involves some sort of downside, whether it be nuclear waste, CO2 emmisions, or visual intrusion of inefficient windturbines as per SW Alberta.

But yes, its about time the politicians pulled their bloody fingers out.

Cheers

Don

Check how long this waste material lasts

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05.../11nuclear.html?_r=0

I agree. For many countries, frack-released shale gas is the bridge from coal to safer nuclear (or perhaps just more politically palatable nuclear). Why I say this is that even historically, nuclear power is safest large-scale power source ever employed, and by a large margin. Much safer than fossil fuels. Renewables don't count as large-scale, but far more people have been killed in wind-turbine construction accidents on a per kwh basis, than by nuclear accidents. Safety isn't the issue at all. It is public perception. Waste disposal is only thwarted by political processes. Bury it deep in geologically stable formations. Much nuclear waste is actually less radioactive than the Uranium ore that was mined in the first place, but certain bio-accumulating elements and isotopes are worthy of respect in the long term.

Nuclear, in turn bridges to truly efficient and large-scale renewables (or the holy grail of fusion energy). A solar panel on your roof doesn't cut it. Europe needs to pave about 40% of North Africa with solar cells to meet its needs. The US needs to pave over most of New Mexico and Arizona. Australia is sitting pretty due to a small population. Canada can only meet renewable energy self-sufficiency by sacrificing all its wild rivers (most are dammed/damned already), filling Alberta and Saskatchewan with windmills and pretty much logging all its forests for fuel if the pine beetle doesn't kill them all first.

It's a grim picture, but there are technical solutions. Sadly, the scale required is so expensive that the market inevitably will simply just provide energy to the wealthy.

That article is hilarious. The notion of some dystopian future where the forces of evil access deeply buried nuclear "treasure" without intervention from anyone to create some sort of planet or civilisation destroying weapons is perhaps possible. But really? Who gives this scenario any credibility? If society is that disfunctional in the future, there are much bigger problems than reprocessed nuclear waste.

The "scary" volumes of nuclear waste quoted are almost laughably trivial to anyone with experience in dealing with industrial-scale processes like mining.