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Originally Posted by SV650rules
... truth is for every wind turbine you need 100% conventional power backup
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This is only your opinion, not a universal truth. You stated it earlier in the thread but repetition does not make it true. I for one don't agree.
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Originally Posted by SV650rules
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Building coal is short term and non-sustainable (by definition, eventually non-renewable fuels will run out)
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Originally Posted by Luckypants
Or battery back up / pumped stored hydro / more inter-connects / etc. Yes renewable energy is unreliable and we need to mitigate against that. Generally the UK has wind blowing somewhere in it's environs, so wind can do a good job. Its a case of storing surplus energy from renewables for when its not quite meeting demand. A battery, a pumped storage scheme or "lending" it to another country are ways of doing this. I don't think current technology is the complete answer, but we HAVE to find the answer.
Humankind cannot just keep burning stuff if the planet (and out children) are to survive.
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Originally Posted by embee
Whether it is encouraging or not depends on whether you consider instantaneous or year-averaged generation. Sure flexible back-up is needed, but that doesn't necessarily mean the renewables are not worth the effort. Your opinion may well vary.
The coal issue is clearly a subject of contention, but I'm sure it's a stop-gap for the decommissioning of nuclear, and coal is planned to be phased out.
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+1. Opinions do vary but I hope that there will soon be consensus on the general point that we need to continue searching hard and fast to determine a sustainable solution. Pragmatically, it may take several steps to get there but that's no reason not to take the first step or two.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SV650rules
The alternative is to build massive amounts of renewables to blight the country side ...
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I can see you're not a fan (sic) of windfarms from your repeated posts and choice of words. So no doubt you'll hate me for pointing out that having just had a quick look at the National Grid ESO TEC Register, there's c.65GW of proposed wind generation currently contracted to connect to the national grid. Currently there's about 15GW wind connected so it could be a fair step up, though note that 80% of it is offshore wind. (UK max demand winter peak historically tends to be c.55-60GW. FYI, there's also about another 60GW of non-wind connections contracted, mainly nuclear and gas. Very little is tidal, which as timwilky points out is a bit of a missed opportunity since it's the most predicatble natural sustainable 'fuel' source. Unless someone's expecting the moon to stop orbiting?! Maybe it will come, in time?)
Admittedly a lot of that will be speculative and effectively in competition with each other so it won't all get built but it is correct that larger amounts of total connected capacity gives resilience against supply variation. The initial part of you point about the alternative appears to be correct.
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Originally Posted by SV650rules
... and cross fingers that in the bad times you get enough, but remember the renewable companies have to be paid even when not needed by grid, so maybe a big increase in your electric bill.
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Sorry, I think this is scaremongering. It's not crossing fingers in bad times, it's analysing the data of the past and extrapolating forward. Some speculation and uncertainty, yes, but not pure hope. Also, generators are only paid to not generate in certain circumstances for system balancing. For the most part the operation is driven by the supply market and trading-led. Capital financing (loan interest) is probably the biggest fixed cost and funders tend not to invest in utilities when prospective return is dicey so they're unlikely to back something that would have a big disruptive influence on prices that would affect billing revenues. Also remember that for wind and solar the 'fuel' is free so that should theoretically lead to a reduction in cost to offset lower time in productive service.