The BBC's On The Money programme has an hour long overview of the UK energy industry, covering the current state of energy generation, the transition to renewable sources, and the future of generation including the likely mix of sources, microgeneration, fracking and others.
Although this is a Business (and UK) Centric programme, it's a good overview of the topic without the usual political hype or rhetoric that seems to accompany these debates, and a relatively good mix of views as to the costs and benefits of new generation techniques in a place many of us wouldn't necessarily look (although the gratuitous musical clips can be annoying — nothing is perfect).
It should be available as a podcast for the next month over at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/otm/ — (and the earlier "Future Of Flight" podcast is also worth a download while you're there.)
(Score: 3, Informative) by BasilBrush on Sunday August 31 2014, @08:43PM
Fracking is being done in the UK against the wishes of it's people, much the same as in the US. With political policing of the demonstrations against it - protestors are being arrested on made up charges, including politicians that have attended the demonstrations. Meanwhile the fracking companies are allowed to break the law with impunity.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 3, Informative) by evilviper on Sunday August 31 2014, @11:47PM
One of the benefits of representative democracy, is that you don't have to educate every random idiot on the street about a topic, in-depth. Sometimes (pretty often, actually) public opinion is wrong, and going against it is necessary.
That said, US public opinion of fracking isn't all that bad... Pretty close to 50/50 and for/against changing based on locale:
http://www.utexas.edu/know/2013/04/09/ut-energy-poll-shows-divide-on-fracking/ [utexas.edu]
For my part, I fully support fracking... That cheap oil and natural gas produced domestically will keep poor people warm in winter, able to work, and should also reduce the need for more wars for oil. The low price of US LNG should make it possible for Europe to drop Gazprom without destroying their economy, just as soon as those terminals get finished, meaning fracking could rather directly save Ukraine from an invading army.
Renewable options are being built as fast as practical, and technologies like hybrids and electric vehicles are being developed at a breakneck pace, too. In the interim, reasonably priced energy is still needed, and the alternatives to fracking are pretty awful.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 1) by bjerke on Tuesday September 02 2014, @12:14AM
"Renewable options are being built as fast as practical ..."
This is new! When has this accelerated development taken off? As far as I have understood the situatiopn US has denied to support international agreements of reduction of CO2 release ... like China. And EU has had severe problems with adopting a mandatory agreement, among other things because Poland insists on mining coal. Rather, fracking seems to be yet another way of postponing the solution of the climate problems - and a particularly problematic one. Five Shocking Places Where Fracking Is Taking Off [truth-out.org] Fracking the Farm: Scientists Worry About Chemical Exposure to Livestock and Agriculture [truth-out.org] California's Fracking Boom Just Got Busted [truth-out.org] https://waterdefense.org/tags/fracking [waterdefense.org]
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Tuesday September 02 2014, @05:03AM
And? A signed piece of paper is completely irrelevant to actions on the ground. Paper or no, they're still doing just what I've said.
There have been roadblocks that have slowed the buildout, with the BLM pausing permits to study environmental impacts, the economic collapse slowing the projects, and the recent concerns about Ivanpah killing huge numbers of birds, but deployment of wind and solar has continued apace, and keeps growing. Rooftop PV installations are running rampant through the deserts, helped by rental/utility agreements and subsidies. And the US remains by far the largest hybrid and EV market, both total and per-capita.
You can look up the numbers for yourself. This treaty or that treaty makes no difference to reality on the ground.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 1) by bjerke on Tuesday September 02 2014, @07:30AM
"This treaty or that treaty makes no difference to reality on the
ground."
It is simply wrong that no treaties make a difference. There are lots
of examples of the opposite, such as the international patent treaties,
the EU-treaties, WTO, etc. etc. (Please notice, I don't say that all
treaties have the intended effect.)
The case with Poland is a good example: Poland did not want sign a
mandatory agreement on CO2 because it would make problems for their
coal mining.
Indeed, there is a lot of development going on within the fiels of
renewable energy, but this gives no guarantees whatsoever for an
overall reduction of the CO2 release. Rather, the reason why US and
China will not sign any treaty commiting them to CO2 reduction, is that
the governments were not not able or willing to stop the growing CO2
release (like Poland).
Incidentally, all the developing renewable energy technologies stumble
on one crucial difficulty: Storage of energy. The production of wind
power are blowing in the wind and needs storage, and there is a similar
problem with solar power. No one has really solved that problem yet at
a sufficient scale and with a sufficient efficiency. Therefore,
reduction of CO2 releasing energy consumption is still paramount for
amending the climate problem. From that perspection, fracking is a
pollluting non-solution. Yet another way of creating problems for the
next generations.
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Tuesday September 02 2014, @08:20AM
I didn't say that. You're extending this out to ridiculous extremes that are irrelevant to this topic. The failure to sign a treaty certainly doesn't change reality, though.
Nonsense. There could have been any of a huge number of reasons, ranging from minutiae to political priorities. And no amount of arguing about a signature on a piece of paper will change the reality of actions.
No, that won't be a problem until a very large percentage of power generation switches over to wind. Geothermal and hydro has no such problems. Solar conveniently tracks peak power demands here in the southern US, and solar-thermal power plants with a few hours of liquid-sodium energy storage already exist, and the technology can be expanded further to economically increase turbine utilization without any concern for the health of the grid.
Until wind makes up a big percentage of the grid, load can be leveled across different power sources easily enough, and it will help that countries already have huge amounts of pumped hydro energy storage, installed for other reasons.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 1) by bjerke on Tuesday September 02 2014, @12:32PM
"
The failure to sign a treaty certainly doesn't change
reality, though."
Exactly, since US and China would not sign any treaty on CO2 release
reduction, they are not obliged to reduce CO2 release, and growth
continues.
Nonsense. There could have been any of a huge number of reasons
...."
It is nonsense, because there could
have been other explanations.??? Which other explanations can you
actually point to???
"No, [energy storage] won't be a problem until a very large
percentage of power generation switches over to wind. Geothermal and
hydro has no such problems. Solar conveniently tracks peak power
demands here in the southern US, and solar-thermal power plants with a
few hours of liquid-sodium energy storage already exist, and the
technology can be expanded further to economically increase turbine
utilization without any concern for the health of the grid."
Sorry, these problems have not been solved:
1. Geothermal and hydro energy does not suffice, except under special
geological conditions. (Remember that more than 99% of the energy on
earth stems the sun.)
2.
"[energy storage] won't be a problem until a very large
percentage of power generation switches over to wind
.." Exacty,
in Denmark, it is a problem.
3. No one has designed a solar power systems that can produce
sufficient energy (including storage compensating for light variations
as well as transportation requirements) for running a whole advanced
economy like Europe or US.
This [cleantechnica.com]
article about Germany explains the problem quite well.
“From now on, every new solar system that is installed in Germany
increases the need for electricity storage solutions,” Rothacher said.
“The cost of storage systems is forecast to drop in the coming years
and this means that storage is not only becoming more necessary – it is
becoming more attractive from a financial point of view as well.”
If governments, like those of US, China, and Poland, do not support the
development of the market so that cheap storage will be accesible,
sufficient storages will not come ... and fracking is just another way
of not solving the climate problem, but aggravating it.
(Score: 1) by evilviper on Wednesday September 03 2014, @01:44AM
Your irrational, magical thinking is a complete waste of time.
And countries who *did* sign the treaty, that are obliged to reduce CO2, aren't meeting their goals, and growth continues there, too.
Meanwhile in the US, more than 11GW of solar power is online. "A total of 4324 MW of utility scale solar power plants are under construction and an additional 25926 MW are under development"
The United States also has 61091MW of wind power. "the Roscoe Wind Farm (781 MW) in the United States is the world's largest wind farm".
See how wrong your mindless knee-jerk opinions are?
A signature on a treaty won't change the numbers above. End of story. Your ranting about this worthless treaty is a profound waste of my time.
They already have quite a bit of storage, there will be some more in solar thermal storage, and it's really not true at all that more is necessary. The grid allows coordinating different sources of power over large geographic areas, without needing to resort to storage. Storage is always a loss, and is best avoided whenever possible.
Until Germany stops buying energy from Gazprom, you've got nothing to criticize the US about.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 1) by bjerke on Wednesday September 03 2014, @04:37AM
I had not expect such rude flaming here:
"Your irrational, magical thinking is a complete waste of time."
"See how wrong your mindless knee-jerk opinions are?"
"Your ranting about this worthless treaty is a profound waste of my time."
Being rude does not make your assertions true.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @08:45PM
Bee Bee Sea Amp Dash On The Future Of Energy Amp Dash Podcast
...RSS encoding needs a little work.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Monday September 01 2014, @08:06AM
In the past you used to get articles you could read or skim. More and more "information" is now presented in a poor form, like audio, or worse a 10 minute YouTube video to tell you the default password of a router.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 01 2014, @11:34PM
..they NEED your attention long enough to earn their ad money imbedded in the A/V clip you are consuming and in the surrounding webpage in the form of script-based 'refreshable' ads.
I HATE the occasional page I surf to with IE that autoloads and plays a bloated video that wastes my pay-as-you-go bandwidth! :P (>_<);;;
Some sites 'autoplay' A/V clips as a form of 'branding' when you visit them. Hopefully, there is a fast way you can bypass the clip and save your time and bandwidth.
It's just the 'TV-isation' of the Internet at work...a sure sign 'Big Business' has co-opted the Internet as its own moneyspinner/PR machine. :(
I'll watch/hear A/V clips for entertainment but text is the BEST way to consume the information you need FAST!
Even the 'infotainment' shows I like to watch are CHOKED with ads! So much so, some people record the shows, strip out the ads, and upload the ad-free programs to YouTube. Some of these programs are sourced from the BBC which is essentially ad-free and DO NOT interrupt their programming with them like they do in the USA.
This method of marketing REALLY works!!!
For example, long ago, I saw a favorite movie of mine SO MANY TIMES that I managed to 'RECORD' it in my memory with 100% accuracy and fidelity! I could 'play it back' in my head to enjoy it when it wasn't showing on TV!
In business, they always talk about 'location, location, location'.
In the marketing world, it is all about 'repetition, repetition, repetition'! :P