10 energy "myths"

I think that the author of this guardian article understands what he is talking about - certainly bits of his article make sense!

"Finding a way to roll out CO2 capture is the single most important research challenge the world faces today. The current leader, the Swedish power company Vattenfall, is using an innovative technology that burns the coal in pure oxygen rather than air, producing pure carbon dioxide from its chimneys, rather than expensively separating the CO2 from other exhaust gases. It hopes to be operating huge coal-fired power stations with minimal CO2 emissions by 2020".

(Just remember that here in the UK we're really not that far behind - we've almost started to opporate a similar, larger, rig (see slide 19 - Phase II involves a rig which is larger than Vanttenfall's).

I'm not sure that I agree with him, when he describes how "the most efficient power stations are big" - he's making a sweeping generalisation. Yes, fuel cells are remakably efficient, and yes if embedded into a house you will be able to use the waste heat from them.
What happens if you can't use all the heat though - your efficiency drops.
Equally he doesn't mention the cost of these systems, rather argueing for a blank cheque from government. They are expensive, and they run on an expensive fuel (natural gas).

Equally his proposal for wind & solar power (huge electrical grids) will help and will reduce the problems associated with grid intermittancy. I can only dream up a number (in the hundreds of billions probably - especially for sub-sea power cables) for the cost of the system.
Equally it will mean integrating the UK's market into the european grid - and I'm not sure how easy that will be to do. I'm sure it's possible though (probably also another night-time market for all that cheap french nuclear power!).

Having said that, the more I read the article, the better I like it. It actually looks quite well researched - and my above problem is probably only there because the article has been edited for size.

What is a resource?

Fossil fuels? Uranium? Land? Carbon dioxide?

Probably all four.

When we generate electricity we need to balance these against each other.

This means that understandably people can be as against wind power as they are against coal power.

I realise that we need all forms of power to keep this country going - which brings its own challenges of intermitency, as shown in this article by the scotsman.

Of course we could use gas, rather than coal - but it needs to be fossil.

I like the way that WWF argue that we don't need to plan for the worst possible scenario.

Hang on - actually we do.

Moron.

The Pickens's Plan

I'm currently in the states, assisting with some coal ignition experiments.

Naturally the TV is stuffed with adverts, some of which relate to the on-going presidential campaign. It's really quite boring stuff (as an aiside I'm told that people don't vote because they can't see the difference between the two candidates).

One of the adverts on the TV is for the Pickens Plan. It's sold as being the solution to stop the US from being so heavily dependent upon imported oil.

The trouble is that it's excessively simplistic (possibly to keep rural americans interested).

It calls for 20% of the US's electricity to be generated from wind power, and for natural gas to be used to power vehicles.
The goal isn't to reduce CO2 emissions, rather to reduce the american dependency upon imported oil.

Nothing about CO2, demmand reduction or electric cars.

What strikes me is that people probably know about global warming - it's just that they really don't care about it.

This country has a long way to go.