Monday 7 March 2016

A no-brainer?

Just a quick word about yesterday's post. This morning, the French power company, EDF's finance director has resigned, saying that the company's agreement to build a new power-station at Hinckley Point on England's North Somerset coast will destroy it, as the £18 billion it will cost is more than EDF is worth on paper, despite that the project will be underwritten by France and China. They have immediately appointed a new finance director.  Hollande and Cameron are going to get this bloody station built if it takes them ten years. It will be ten years at least before it begins to generate any power. This is beyond the limit of my understanding, but I am not invited to any of the board meetings.

I am also not normally one to jump on any Green bandwagon, but it really seems like a no-brainer to build a couple of tidal lagoon generators in the same area that the new Hinckley Point station is going to be situated. As I said yesterday, I believe the Severn Estuary has the second highest tide in the world - I think it is about 30 feet - that's a lot of water tonnage. It may even be the highest tide in the world, but I'm not sure.

My limited knowledge of tidal generators was gleaned from a desperate planner of one, who was explaining how they work on the radio the other day, and that he has the permission and site to build one, but just lacks government commitment for half of the cost. Actually it's worse than that - they have flatly refused to cooperate on the grounds of cost.

I cannot remember the figures in detail without looking them up, but I know that the power-output is around half that of a nuclear station, but the cost to build one is much less than nuclear, with the added advantage of a useful productive life of 100 years as opposed to 60 for nuclear. Of course - as Rachel pointed out - you cannot make atomic bombs from waste water, but you could probably make hydrogen bombs from it, if your heart is set on a big, fat WMD.

Correct me if I am wrong about any of the following:

One tidal lagoon generator is 550 metres long, of which only 50 is visible when the tide is in. Most of this length is the turbine hall, and the colossal weight of water running in and out as the tide goes up and down, runs the turbines which generate the power.

The tide is infinitely predictable, so the power output is also predictable for the whole of the 100 years, unlike that of the rows upon rows of massive wind turbines cluttering up the horizon and killing migratory birds.

Once the generator has been built, you just plug the energy into the grid like you would with any power house, and maintenance is the only future expense. There are no waste products because there is no waste - the water comes in and spins the massive turbines, then it goes out and spins the massive turbines - on and on. A century of guaranteed, safe power.

On top of the Hinkley Point nuclear power station, how much is the British government going to spend on Trident?

23 comments:

  1. I am totally opposed to the deal we have signed with China for the building of nuclear power stations at Hinkley,Sizewell and Bradwell and the debt we will be repaying China for evermore. Forget PFI mistakes, they will pale into insignificance. However i know nothing about wave power but it strikes me that it would be like most green energy, unable to compete on output against the investment put into it and supply enough. I am not knocking it. I really dont know. My remark about the Chinese nuking us related to them building the power stations and we really wouldnt have a clue what switches they had incorporated.

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    1. I have just heard about the resignation of the EDF finance director and looked up the EDF figures. They are borrowing in order to pay dividends to shareholders. They are heading for disaster.

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    2. Yes they are. So is France. I have never really believed the Greens could come up with anything commercially solid, but with falling fossil energy prices, there is only nuclear and that left if anyone wants to make money.

      If those statistics are half true, then it would be a crime not to invest, but so many worse crimes have been/will be committed already, that these seem small by comparison.

      It really is time that public services were designed for the good of the public, especially as most of the old ones have been sold off to foreigners over the last 30 years. Would that be too much to hope for?

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  2. Wind turbines are notoriously inefficient. It's about time some boffin invented a good, cheap, and super-efficient, solar system. Or better still a tiny separator of Oxygen and Hydrogen (water) so that we could all produce our own electricity with a small hydrogen powered generator.

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    1. And your thoughts about tidal lagoon generators?

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    2. I've not read any good reports about them; the jury is still out!

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  3. Since when does any government accept affordable and sensible solutions to problems. I do believe that the more money it costs the more likely to receive due consideration...

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  4. I want to know why the government plead poverty on so many issues and cut down on this and that and then can suddenly find millions for a white elephant.

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    1. They set aside credit and forecast growth using expenditure as the the medicine, unless it takes away profit from the global industries and their investors.

      Do you remember when they sold-off all the services to ordinary people about 30 years ago? A few people I knew felt smug for making a few thousand by immediately re-selling the shares to the big boys. They could not have given a flying fuck about the future, and I accused them of that at the time.

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    2. You don't have to join an 8 month waiting list for a telephone anymore because there's no numbers available as I did in 1980.

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    3. How easy was that sorted out? add an extra digit, derr.

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    4. Privatisation sorted it overnight.

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    5. Yes, of course. How silly of me not to realise this. What kind of a poverty-stricken medieval world would we be living in now if it were not for glorious privatisation?

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    6. Why don't we privatise health-care, like they have in the USA? Just think how much better it would be for everyone.

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    7. Want a no-brainer? Charge to go to the GP and charge to go to A&E on a Friday and Saturday night. That would sort the fuckers out, shorten the queues and clean up A&E.

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    8. People are clogging A&E because it takes two weeks to get an appointment with a GP. Don't you listen to any news at all in Norfolk? A friend of mine went to his chiropractor because of a back problem so bad that he was having tremors in his legs which prevented him from walking. She took one look at him and said if he didn't go to hospital soon, he may never walk again. She actually phoned an ambulance, but they refused to attend. She tried to get a referral from his GP for a scan, but was told that there was a 14 day wait. He went private the next day and was told that his spinal cord was being pinched by his vertebrae. Answer - privatisation, if you have the fucking money, despite how much you have contributed to the NHS.

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    9. The nhs is on its knees dealing with more complicated health issues of the elderly ( who would simply have died 20 years ago)
      Its a fucking mess

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    10. Yes, they should stop telling people like me to drink and smoke less, then everything would be alright. I know when I have outstayed my welcome.

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  5. There's a pretty long list for a hip replacement though.

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    1. Not in this country there isn't. Two 50 year old friends of mine have had it done within a month of each other. The NHS is good.

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  6. Tom, I am way too ignorant about the issues you've been writing about in this and your previous posts, but do thank you for summoning my curiosity to learn more.

    I've been paying too much attention recently to the goings on in the two major political parties' Presidential campaigns over here. It is scary.

    Best wishes.

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    1. Yes, it's a different sort of scary in Europe right now. Europe is on the brink of collapse, I think. The scary part is that both world wars began in Europe.

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