Edmondo

Makes me smile reading people's views on CO2 etc when they drive decatted cars lol

Chip

http://www.ukenergywatch.org/Electricity/Realtime

As you will see coal provides only 20% of our electricity needs now and will get less over the coming years as more solar and wind farms come on line.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

LOL, and when the wind doesn't blow and the sky is dark or cloudy?

What then?

Oh, powercuts, of course.

dpb

I know they make money out of us , but we run on a knife edge as it sometimes


So.......

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Lignite is the very low-grade brown coal that used to be open-cast mined in abundance mostly in the East of Germany. It bears little resemblance in either appearance or combustion efficiency to good quality deep-mined anthracite.

borat52

The point I'm making is that anyone who holds Germany up as an example of clean energy has not read the facts. CO2 emmissions in Germany are increasing because of lignite coal, which they are using because they need fast and cheap generation due to committing to phasing out nuclear and the renewables they are experimenting with being an unknown quantity.


Your also point blank wrong about the CO2 from Anthracite (see below), and this is where the problem with these kind of discussion and policy comes from - if we just stick to the facts instead of what we want or think to be true then government policy would be much more congruent.

If we just switched all of our coal generation over to gas, this would probably reduce CO2 by more than all the renewables put together, and be far less costly.


Pounds of CO2 emitted per million Btu of energy for various fuels:

Coal (anthracite) 228.6
Coal (bituminous) 205.7
Coal (lignite) 215.4
Coal (subbituminous) 214.3
Diesel fuel & heating oil 161.3
Gasoline 157.2
Propane 139.0
Natural gas 117.0

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=73&t=11

borat52

It comes from a fact of the way the Universe we live in works, this is the way it looks in table form, its a fact:

Pounds of CO2 emitted per million Btu of energy for various fuels:

Coal (anthracite) 228.6
Coal (bituminous) 205.7
Coal (lignite) 215.4
Coal (subbituminous) 214.3
Diesel fuel & heating oil 161.3
Gasoline 157.2
Propane 139.0
Natural gas 117.0

dpb

Oh well that's settled then , we'll just keep on using our natural gas up until the country is 1/8 covered in solar panels , im all for it

borat52

We're not using ours up, we're importing it through here, the biggest Liquified Gas port in Europe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Hook_LNG_terminal
Would you seriously prefer to open the mines up, hope that the unemployed brits will go down and work in dirty and dangerous conditions for minimum wage, subsidised by the tax payer (because the coal they dig would not be competitive the open cast mines from Eastern Europe in price terms) and then we feed our power stations with it and pollute the air we breath?

I'd personally rather come up with something more hopeful than that, and I suspect that in reality the mines would be staffed by Eastern European migrants.


Solar is about to grind to a halt in the UK, no ones going to bother with it once the subsidies are pulled very soon. If the UK is serious about lowering carbon we're probably talking a complete switch to Gas in the short/medium term, and something like the Severn Barage (which should be a no brainer - it could produce 10-15% of the UK's total electricity requirement and the tide flows twice a day, every day), as well as facing up to the fact that zero carbon today can only be provided by Nuclear. Hopefully fusion will work some time in the next 100 years and then we've got no worries.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

You say fact, I say, whose figures, where from?

dpb

I think we've discovered the flip side to all that investment Tb Lair made in student numbers

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

The fact that lignite has a broadly similar CO2 output per BTU as other coals is one thing, the amount of effort and the complexity of technology required to get it to yield those BTUs without giving off much higher amounts of other (more toxic) pollutants is quite another.

As for sticking to the facts, don't those tell us that Germany's problems all started with its hasty decision to phase out nuclear?

Chip

No, gas fired powered power stations would kick in obviously

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

With IMPORTED gas that thr Riussians sell us at top wack and can withold any time they like...or we **** them off.

Personally, I don't want to be in thrall to Putin. And you?

PS: any mention of fracking at this point loses you the argument, since it's pie in the sky........

hodgy0_2

What is pie in the sky about fracking

The science?, the water contamination issues?

Or simple politics

dpb

Do you see stock broker surrey being happy with this possible polluting of the water table ??

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

The second two........it will be VERY unpopular and will depend on where it's done. As mentioned, Surrey etc won't allow it, the north of England will be fine

And, so far, there's none....nor a guarantee it will give us the gas we need.

Chip

No, the LNG that comes into South Hook in West Wales

dpb

Well I never , African people are earning more than eastern europeans

hodgy0_2

Mmm, yes I tend to agree, a tough sell in the home counties, much like HS2

And most experts I have heard say it would not really reduce domestic energy prices

Chip

Really.?

http://frack-off.org.uk/locations/

Chip

Really.?

http://frack-off.org.uk/locations/

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

And it's happening on a large scale, actually paying off?

Thought not

Come back when it starts making a difference.

PS: those tankers arriving in Wales are but a small portion, most comes from Russia, or what used to be the USSR...afaik.

And you STILL seem happy that we import almost all our energy while sitting on 300 years' worth of coal? Mad.

Chip

I would hardly call supplying 20% of the UK's gas needs a small portion.

We currently receive LNG from Algeria, Egypt, Trinidad and Malaysia. Not mostly from Russia as you wrongly state.

legb4rsk

Sounds like a balanced site with no axe to grind.

dpb

Trinidad ..!!!?

Chip

6th biggest producer of LNG in the world.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

OK, I give in, 20% is the majority.........

Welsh maths, makes about as much sense as their dead language.

Chip

I was referring to one plant, south hook which was mentioned earlier in the thread, fact is 44%of our gas was imported in 2014.

As for the Welsh language, at least it stems from Brittonic or Celtish rather than the West germanic group that your English derives from. Not that anyone can understand the indecipherable ****e that you Northerners spout anyway

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

LOL...what's the Welsh for computer again?

At least my language is living, and, I'll have you know, the closest to Anglo Saxon is spoken around here.