Optimism for a windy day

[Seeker]

I'm a pessimist so this clouds my opinions but I'm striving to understand the the thinking behind this policy.

Our "NetZero" target assumes that we are going to get more windy days.

https://us.yahoo.com/news/net-zero-t...145609131.html

I think wind turbines are a step in the right direction (although not the total solution) but I also think that assuming the weather is going to cooperate with Conservative party policy is the most stupid thing I have ever heard.

My ex-wife is an optimist (I loved that) and she would say why worry about something that hasn't happened yet? This worked (sort of) in managing our affairs although my stress level was elevated at times but it's not a satisfactory method for planning a country's energy policy. (imho).

[DJ123]

Of course wind will work with the Conservative policy. It's why they're also not affected by Covid, because Covid knows they know each other and it can't infect them - mainly because they're not Human . . . .

[Craig380]

Of course, we should all have these by now: an old beer can and a banana peel and boom, 1.21GW of electricity ...

[embee]

I feel there are two issues at work here. The request for the CCC info was from "Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), a climate sceptic think tank", so there was obviously an agenda to that. However the questioning of the assumptions is very valid. It sounds like the CCC report was based on a previous study by Imperial College, and it really depends on what part of that study was adopted and what the purpose of the original study was, e.g. was it an examination of various scenarios, and not intended to be a proposal for strategy? This what tends to happen, several possibles are considered by the academics and the politicians grab the one they like the look of. Don't necessarily blame the academics.

It sounds to me like they modelled what would happen if the tails of the wind spectrum varied, the actual harvesting would depend on the bulk availability of usable wind, the big bit in the middle of the spectrum. Too gentle wind, no good, too strong and also no good. The tails are probably not all that significant, +/-10% isn't usually a deal breaker in such things, the need for a reliable back-up source is critical though.

However in a wider sense, the current government seem to understand the word "plan" to mean making some extravagant target a law, or come up with a way to raise a set amount of money. Neither of these constitute a "plan".
A plan is what you intend to do to get to a certain outcome, not just a finger in the air wish or raising some cash to pay for something (health/welfare). Laws only apply to law abiding people, and if they worked there wouldn't be any crime by now.

[Bibio]

why aren't https://www.spiritenergy.co.uk/kb-so...oltaic-windows products standard on industrial and domestic new builds. same goes for the roof tile type instead of slate.

maybe the gov should take the tax raised by fuel and invest it into new builds with the above tech. if every house in the UK was a "solar panel" pumping to storage farms then there would be loads of power.

[Chris_SVS]

But not too windy as they can't run then

[keith_d]

Originally Posted by Bibio

why aren't https://www.spiritenergy.co.uk/kb-so...oltaic-windows products standard on industrial and domestic new builds. same goes for the roof tile type instead of slate.

From the spirit energy web page, "Transparency varies from 0% (fully opaque) to 50%". So that's dark grey to black. Not much use for letting light into your home.

Solar panels instead of roofing tiles is much more reasonable, though substantially more expensive than clay tiles. But around here (south east) almost all the new builds are apartment blocks with much less roof area per household than a conventional house.

The main issue with solar power in the UK is that we need energy mostly in the winter when the days are short, cloudy, and the sun is low in the sky.

[Bibio]

i'm pretty sure that there is a clear 90% light transmission solar glass in the market and i was using the above as an example.

every bit counts to a total. solar, hydro, wind and if they ever get their arzz into gear tidal power. as a cumulative it would see the end of fossil fuel for domestic power.. well that is until we are all driving stupid electric carzzz.

the big problem we have is greed which was spurred by privatisation. domestic utilities should never be put in the hands of the private sector. but the greedy british public rushed out to buy shares in something they already owned thinking they could make a quick £.. in the private sector there has to be a profit made, would that profit not be better in the public purse or am i missing something.

[DJ123]

storing the energy made from renewables is the challenge to overcome.

[embee]

Originally Posted by Bibio

...utilities should never be put in the hands of the private sector. .............. in the private sector there has to be a profit made, would that profit not be better in the public purse or am i missing something.

I tend to look at it the other way round. There's no incentive for a publicly owned/nationalised industry to be profitable nor efficient. That's reflected in the costs of the NHS, MOD etc, the management there don't need to "earn" the money for the business, they are given it.
I can't really think of a super successful efficient cost effective value for money example of a nationalised industry, I'm open to suggestions. Politicians are probably the worst possible bunch to actually run anything, they are mainly interested in changing stuff which is always an illusion of progress, much of the time you need to leave things alone and just run the business properly.