LibDems reveal their city of the future.

Ming Campbell is calling for Britain to become entirely carbon neutral by 2050. I wonder what the weather is like for Ming in cloud cuckoo land. This is from a previous post:

The government has blown (excuse the pun) half a billion pounds subsidising the wind turbine industry. "So what, it's a worthy cause" I hear you say. Well, it turns out that it is anything but worthy and more worryingly, it is a total waste of our tax money. It is alleged that energy companies are receiving subsidies for wind farms that will never make any money, because they have exaggerated the potential of sites with not enough wind.

The government are miles away (or kilometers as our EU friends prefer) from achieving the target of providing 20% of our energy from renewable sources by 2020. Despite blowing (there I go again - sorry) half a billion pounds of our money, the energy companies have failed to provide even 0.5% of our requirements. For a wind farm to be viable it must have a load factor of 30 per cent. But Jim Oswald, an engineering consultant, found that the average across the country was 28 per cent.

Michael Jefferson, policies chairman of the World Renewable Energy Network believes that the subsidies are encouraging energy companies to exaggerate the amount of potential wind energy a farm can supply. Mr Jefferson said: "We should be putting our money where the wind is and that is quite often not where the development pressure is."

In a previous post about nuclear power’s life-cycle emissions it turned out that the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions for nuclear plants are lower than that of wind farms. Now it turns out that on average these farms are not even financially viable.

At least one LibDem as some sense. Chris Davies, the Lib Dem climate change spokesman in the European Parliament said: "I have always been opposed to nuclear power. It is expensive, creates a legacy of radioactive waste and has absorbed public resources that should have been used to develop alternative technologies. But the imperative now is to fight global warming. We cannot ignore the fact that our existing nuclear power stations do not release carbon dioxide."

For God's sake (and ours) let's stop pandering to the green brigade and get some nuclear power plants built.

Coal - the fuel of the future? (clean coal technology)

THE Green Party of Australia have called the coal industry plans to raise $1 billion to research CCT (clean coal technology) a waste of money. The $1bn required for the research will be raised by the mining companies by means of a 10 year levy on industry.

The Australian Coal Association executive director, Mark O'Neill, said: "This should leave no doubt about the coal industry's intention to partner with state and federal governments on nationally significant clean coal projects."

Australian Greens Senator, Kerry Nettle, said: "We should be putting money into renewable energy that we know works and that can work right now, rather then putting the money away for a technology that we don't know that it works."

Current uncertainty in the global supply of oil and gas has brought coal back as a viable source of energy. Coal is widely available, according to the World coal Institute there are enough reserves to last 164 years (Oil 41 years, Gas 67 years) at current production rates.

The International Energy Agency has a Clean Coal Centre, it’s managing director, John Topper, said: "If you are in China or India where you have huge resources of coal and you have elements of the population that do not have access to electricity then your driver is to build and operate power stations as quickly and as effectively as possible." It is hoped that the development of CCT (clean coal technology) will allow coal to be used as a environmentally friendly fuel.

CCT comes in many forms, the US FutureGen programme, is a $1bn project attempting prove the viability of near-zero emission coal-fuelled power. The project will involve the integration of an IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) electricity plant with hydrogen production, carbon dioxide capture and geological storage.

The major concern is not if the technology will work but how long it will take to implement. Michael Cupit, director of energy at Ernst & Young said: "It all depends upon the uptake among the big companies. Once somebody takes the bull by the horns, you can usually squeeze the technology and make it commercial fairly quickly."

Is it time to start a major push towards Nuclear Energy?

Back in November of last year I held the following referendum vote on this site:

A legally binding target to reduce long-term carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by the year 2050 has been set. The bill will establish a "Carbon Committee" to make sure targets are met. However the bill makes no reference to annual CO2 reductions targets. Opposition parties and environmentalists deem CO2 reductions necessary to tackle global warming.
The Queen told MPs and peers: "My government will publish a bill on climate change as part of its policy to protect the environment, consistent with the need to secure long-term energy supplies."
David Cameron said he was delighted to hear the proposals in the Queen's Speech. "I hope it will be a proper bill and not a watered down bill. Government has got to give a lead by setting a proper framework." That must mean an independent body with annual targets and an annual report from government on its progress."
The prime minister responded by pointing out that the UK was set to lose about 15% of its electricity generation capacity as existing nuclear power plants reached the end of their operating lives.
"We need to put nuclear power back on the agenda and at least replace the nuclear energy we will lose. Without it, we will not be able to meet either our objectives on climate change or our objectives on energy security."

Should we invest in new nuclear power stations?

The results were:

Yes 84% No 16% Do not know 0%

With the current political climate in the Middle East and Russia, surely now is the time to invest heavily in Nuclear Energy. There is an Energy War going on and we are losing it. As long as we are dependant on Fossil fuels we will not have energy security and we will be at the mercy of foreign governments. Industry should be put on a war footing, not to build weapons but to build a new energy infrastructure. At the same time money should be poured into the advancement of alternative (wind, wave, solar etc) forms of energy. With a firm and secure nuclear energy supply we would be in a position to phase in alternative forms of energy as the technology advances.
The money that we have spent fighting the war in Iraq to secure our oil supply could have been spent on nuclear energy here without loss of life. There are those who are against nuclear energy but also believe that Fossil fuels are causing untold damage to the environment. Nuclear energy could be seen as a secure and clean stop gap to environmentally friendly forms of energy. Legislation could be brought in to ensure nuclear energy is replaced as soon as is possible, thus removing the fear of having a long term reliance upon it.

There is no doubt that if relations with foreign governments decline further, causing a restriction in our fuel supply, this country will be crippled.

Update: Today's Independent Article - Is thorium the answer to our energy crisis?

Nuclear winter?

A legally binding target to reduce long-term carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by the year 2050 has been set. The bill will establish a "Carbon Committee" to make sure targets are met. However the bill makes no reference to annual CO2 reductions targets. Opposition parties and environmentalists deem CO2 reductions necessary to tackle global warming.
The Queen told MPs and peers: "My government will publish a bill on climate change as part of its policy to protect the environment, consistent with the need to secure long-term energy supplies."
David Cameron said he was delighted to hear the proposals in the Queen's Speech. "I hope it will be a proper bill and not a watered down bill. Government has got to give a lead by setting a proper framework." That must mean an independent body with annual targets and an annual report from government on its progress."
The prime minister responded by pointing out that the UK was set to lose about 15% of its electricity generation capacity as existing nuclear power plants reached the end of their operating lives.
"We need to put nuclear power back on the agenda and at least replace the nuclear energy we will lose. Without it, we will not be able to meet either our objectives on climate change or our objectives on energy security."

Q. Should we invest in new nuclear power stations?

To view the results go to:

http://dailyreferendum.co.uk/