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Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4613
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Mon Jan 13, 14 3:34 pm Post subject: Fracking
Seems the push is on, Coal was once King,then came North Sea Gas and Nuclear to knock him off top spot,Wind was protrayed to be the new saviour,but they still needed the black stuff,hence the new Drax carbon capture, Even though a few weeks back the energy minister said coal will be fazzed out by 2020/30, And the new replacement which they did`nt state, will be Fracked Gas.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 8951
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Mon Jan 13, 14 3:37 pm Post subject:
The Oil industry has done fracking before in Scotland, the start of the oil industry, leaving mountains of red waste

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46245
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Jan 13, 14 10:47 pm Post subject:
gazprom,edl/china nuclear uk and drax or the seven sisters fracking co hard to choose really moving water has plenty of energy with no pollution and until the weather stops it is renewable

Mutton

Joined: 09 May 2009
Posts: 1508

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 12:56 pm Post subject:
Mmm - but water best harvested via reservoirs and dams - lots of concrete and impact on wildlife that lived where the reservoir now is. Can do inline turbines via leats - less environmental impact but far more sensitive to periods of drought. Do also have problems on salmon rivers - extra expense of fish exclusion grids. Best option - use a lot less.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 1:05 pm Post subject:
If only we had massive amounts of water going up and down round the country all the time.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 1:32 pm Post subject:

Nick wrote:

If only we had massive amounts of water going up and down round the country all the time.

Hmmm. Did I see you on QT yesterday?

Mutton

Joined: 09 May 2009
Posts: 1508

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 1:53 pm Post subject:
I think hydropower is an effective generator of electricity - its just not free of its own environmental impact when you come to harvest the energy. Nick - are you talking about tidal power or the current flooding?

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 2:06 pm Post subject:
Tidal/wave power. I struggle to believe that we can't realistically harvest a tiny percentage of the actions of the sea. My assumption is life isn't hard enough yet for energy companies to look into it.

Mutton

Joined: 09 May 2009
Posts: 1508

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 2:28 pm Post subject:

You need to distinguish between

1. Wave power - which is really delayed wind power. There is a hub for plugging in wave power test rigs off Cornwall. Not been following how that is going.

2. Tidal power via a tidal barrier - see La Rance for one that has been going for a long time and the environmental and engineering problems (such as silting up) associated with it.

3. Tidal power as harvested in an estuary - Severn estuary has been comprehensively investigated and the environmental impacts are bad enough that everyone has currently given up on the idea.

4. Tidal stream - which includes partially, or fully, submerged underwater turbines in the tidal stream. Can be a lot of energy, there are test models and even full production models in place in a few locations - Stanford Logh in NI springs to mind - but there is concern regarding environmental impact on dolphins and seals for starters, both in terms of injury and for the dolphins additional underwater noise interfering with their sonar.

But - renewable energy is NOT infinite. If you take enough energy out of the wind or the tidal stream, then you change the climate. There is data on warm areas downwind of large wind farms. I haven't looked for similar data on tidal stream turbines - but there are probably not yet enough of them.

It is back to we have to use less electricity. We cannot safely generate the amount we'd like to use even using renewable. Yes, I know you said 'tiny percentage' Nick, but we need to work out what is really tiny in sustainable terms.

There is also the further problem, that the National Grid was originally built to the infrastructure as it stood - so power stations tended to be built near areas of high consumption. Renewables are not necessarily anywhere convenient in terms of areas of high consumption, and you then have to add in the environmental and energy costs of new runs of pylons to bring the electricity from where it is generated, to where it is used, and then add loss during transmission to the equation - how much is lost when you transport electricity over a long distance.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 2:51 pm Post subject:

Mutton wrote:

You need to distinguish

I don't. I'm not involved at that level.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46245
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 3:10 pm Post subject:

wave power extraction with the snake things seems to work on a semi tech scale but needs further work to tweak the engineering .

overshot wheels or archimedes tubes under a leat are low tech but they work

big drop turbines and dams (hoover etc)are rather rough on the landscape but work smaller scale as well which can be less messy

tidal seems problematic in several ways but with research the problems could possibly be overcome in some places or the problems can be offset by adjustments elsewhere

an undershot wheel can be dipped in any moving water ,inefficient but low impact on river life (trout might get swept but a cage can avoid that)

off shore wind was a good scam for the royals (15% of the income from renting the sea bed is a nice earner on top of the investments )but it isnt very effective at making leccy

im having a dejavu moment here

the reason these things are not common is the vested interests in fossil/nuke etc prefer to make profit on their monopolies rather than investing /permitting old or new ways to produce energy to sell

Mutton

Joined: 09 May 2009
Posts: 1508

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 4:48 pm Post subject:

Nick wrote:

Mutton wrote:

You need to distinguish

I don't. I'm not involved at that level.

Nick - you made a sweeping statement about 'realistically harvesting' energy from the sea and your assumptions about why it wasn't happening. I spent time providing you with detail as to some of the hazards, and you get all dismissive.
Thanks a bunch.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 5:16 pm Post subject:
Sorry, don't take it that way. I'm just astounded that there is clearly tons more energy than we could use in a life time turning up, every day in the oceans, and we use almost none of it. Actually, I'm not astounded; I can see there's less profit in it than burning dead trees and animals. But, it's not nearly my field of expertise, nor, especially, interest.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 5:49 pm Post subject:

Mutton wrote:

You need to distinguish between

1. Wave power - which is really delayed wind power. There is a hub for plugging in wave power test rigs off Cornwall. Not been following how that is going.

I heard that it is getting almost no use... I did make an enquiry to someone who appeared to be the relevant chap, but I didn't get a reply.

Quote:

3. Tidal power as harvested in an estuary - Severn estuary has been comprehensively investigated and the environmental impacts are bad enough that everyone has currently given up on the idea.

Why do they seem to only ever look at doing these things on a monster scale which will obviously cause monster problems?
What is wrong with lots of small projects instead?

Quote:

But - renewable energy is NOT infinite. If you take enough energy out of the wind or the tidal stream, then you change the climate.

Wind energy is effectively infinite as it is driven by the sun.
The tide is driven by the kinetic energy stored in the orbital velocity of the moon... use enough of that and the moon's orbit will slow down, but I think we'd have to use a heck of a lot of it.

oldish chris

Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 4148
Location: Comfortably Wet Southport

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 14 9:34 pm Post subject:
I'm not convinced that fracking is going to happen. There are a lot of hurdles to jump. Each hurdle will have costs associated with them, all eating away at potential profit and increasing financial uncertainty.

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