What a Forlorn Loser of a Billionaire!

What chance have I got, when there are clueless, defeatist billionaires 'trying to buy time for the world to wake up' and uttering stuff like:

 "... but if we mean to burn all the coal and any appreciable percentage of the tar sands, or even third-derivative, energy-intensive oil and gas, with 'fracking' for shale gas on the boundary, then we're cooked, we're done for" 

and: ""the absolute minimum hope of survival is a gracefully declining population""

This is theguardian article Jeremy Grantham, environmental philanthropist: 'We're trying to buy time for the world to wake up' 

This is a comment I made which theguardian is unlikely to print:

Talk about 'can't see the wood for the trees'. What an idiot! All of that personal wealth and control over £10s of billions and he's pratting about with AGW and 'saving the environment'. Why?

It's clean, safe and secure energy Mr Grantham. Nothing else will matter to a nation, when there are 10 billion of us, in just a few decades. The ¾ of the population, who currently use ¼ of the energy produced, will be fighting tooth and nail to reach our standard of living. We will be battling to hang on to our way of life.

I hope, for his grandchildren’s sake, this is metaphoric fighting talk because by 2050 we will need 3 or 4 times more energy than we use now, in the face of declining and evermore expensive fossil fuels and other resources.

One and only one technology has any chance of providing an energy-rich future to every individual on the planet, for all of time; it is that of the breeder reactor.

The UK is uniquely placed at the moment, because we have an imminent decision, likely to go the way of such a reactor, for burning our plutonium stockpile. We could lead the world into the inevitable era of the breeder reactor.

Get thinking clearly, Mr Grantham. Strive for peace and stability in a world where it is technically feasible for everyone to benefit from an energy source, free of greenhouse gas emissions and affordable by all.

People like you can make a difference to the speed of introduction of breeder reactor technology and it needs to be happening now.

What's £80 million a year? Not much else to spend our hard-earned taxes on, is there?

"...The UK is currently home to 112 tonnes of what is the most toxic substance ever created and most of it is held in a modern grey building to one side of the site.

Such is the sensitivity surrounding the building and its contents that only a handful of staff, with the necessary security clearance, are allowed inside.

Estimates suggest that the taxpayer currently spends £80m a year to store it safely and stop it falling into the wrong hands..."

UK's plutonium stockpile dilemma. By Rob Broomby, File on 4

Well, the IMechE are pointing - yet again - to a no-brainer solution!

AND IT DOESN'T COST THE TAXPAYER A PENNY - BECAUSE IT'S PAYMENT BY RESULTS.

UK PLUTONIUM, THE WAY FORWARD.

From the Conclusion:

"...but the sodium-cooled fast reactor route is sufficiently attractive to merit significant immediate UK support..."

They Mean - The GE Hitachi offer, to burn the UK's Plutonium Stockpile with the PRISM Reactor!

You've heard all of this before, Mr Davey! When is the (£80m a year) penny going to drop?

Continue reading the main

Parliamentarian: A buffoon or jester who entertains by jokes, antics, and tricks in a circus, play, the Houses of Parliament, or other presentation.

Could any highly paid, professional body of people come up with such a pathetically comical statement as this, and not be compared with clowns:

"...it is worrying that DECC does not have any contingency plans in place for the event that little or no new nuclear is forthcoming. Crossing one’s fingers is not an adequate or responsible approach when the UK’s legally binding climate change commitments and energy security are at stake. For a department whose principal priorities are to ensure energy security and carbon reductions, DECC appears to be overly reliant on aspiration and hope. While we share the Minister’s hope that new build will be delivered as planned, we nevertheless recommend that DECC begins exploring contingency options as a matter of urgency..." 

---------------------------------//------------------------------------

The above statement comes from Para 5 of 'Recommendations' of this Report, 

from the Energy and Climate Change Committee: 

Building New Nuclear: the challenges ahead

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Climate Change Commitments - A Joke! What difference would it make to the outcome, if the UK did not generate another single kilogram of carbon dioxide? - Not one Jot! But what a good way to collect votes, if you give every interested party a bit of what they want. It may mean another 4 or 5 years in a job.

I Repeat

IT'S THE ENERGY SECURITY STUPID!

"...don't say No Nuclear Power, say Better Nuclear Power..."

Sundance 2013. Robert Stone - Ondi Timoner

The interview with Robert Stone starts at 27:10.

28:40 Robert Stone: "...the core reason why people are against nuclear energy is because they conflate it with nuclear weapons..."

29:54 Ondi Timoner: "...nuclear....this big scary thing....it may actually be the only thing that saves us from climate change..."

31:01 Robert Stone: "...I have no problem with wind power. I have no problem with solar power....you just can't power the world as it is now, with those; they just can't scale..."

31:14 Robert Stone: "...by 2050 we're going to need 3 times the energy that we have now - 3 times..."

31:58 Robert Stone: "....an enlightenment environmentalism....we're here, there's gonna be 10 billion of us....we're not gonna be retreating....the reality is we're gonna keep encroaching....how do we make that encroachment as environmentally benign as possible..."

32:20 Robert Stone: "...DON'T SAY NO NUCLEAR POWER, SAY BETTER NUCLEAR POWER..."

38:59 Ondi Timoner: "...there are not that many great films that could spark a movement. this is one of those films..."

Robert Stone's Website for the Documentary

Do you have a Morbid Fear of Invisible Radiation - Part II

Surely, even the rabid anti-nuke lobby would not attempt to claim that a United Nations Committee is in the pocket of the 'Energy Giants', would they? That's one fantasy too far.

I should now be able to respond to their claims, usually built on the 'science' of one individual - from studies bereft of control groups - that you can trust this UN report and henceforth, have no fear of low-level radiation!

In all future discourse, I feel sure they will now then drop the usual hyperbolic death figures from low-level radiation and point readers at this report.

Maybe Not - Business as usual I would guess!

Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation

4% Wind Energy Penetration - That's the Limit for the People in the Know!

From the first couple of paragraphs of the Executive Summary:

Executive Summary

Environmentalists advocate wind power as one of the main alternatives to fossil fuels, claiming that  it is both cost effective and low in carbon emissions. This study seeks to evaluate these claims. Existing estimates of the life-cycle emissions from wind turbines range from 5 to 100 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour of electricity produced. This very wide range is explained by differences in what was included in each analysis, and the proportion of electricity generated by wind. The low CO2 emissions estimates are only possible at low levels of installed wind capacity, and even then they typically ignore the large proportion of associated emissions that come from the need for backup power sources (“spinning reserves”).

Wind blows at speeds that vary considerably, leading to wide variations in power output at different times and in different locations. To address this variability, power supply companies must install backup capacity, which kicks in when demand exceeds supply from the wind turbines; failure to do so will adversely affect grid reliability. The need for this backup capacity significantly increases the cost of producing power from wind. Since backup power in most cases comes from fossil fuel generators, this effectively limits the carbon-reducing potential of new wind capacity.

The Limits of Wind Power

Wind Electricity is 1½ Times More Expensive than Nuclear!

Don't you just love it, when something you instinctively know turns out to be true?

Hot off the Press!

This is the real cost of wind energy, with some of the intermittency and grid connectivity costs added in. This is not the percentages and totals figures the wind lobby throws at us and our gullible MPs - it's what has to come out of our hard-earned taxes, somewhere along the line: Wind Lovers - get off the Band Wagon while you can!