Interestingly I had a lunch hour on Thursday and took a drive over to Sawley marina. All iced in against the backdrop of the power station on full bore giving us all the energy we want.
At my Uni we are being asked to look to coming off the grid and generating our own power as there is a known shortfall in future power planning. We get funding to do this. It made me wonder if liveaboards who were off the grid could\ should get the same smaller inducement?
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Doing a lot more good than the wind generator at Lowestoft or the ones off Gt Yarmouth that haven't moved for days
'giving us all the energy we want'
Not 'us all' and not the energy we actually need to exist.
Ratcliffe power station emits 9 million tonnes of CO2 annually and provides power for around 2 million people (in a population of 61 million).
Burning fossil fuels, which take millions of years to form and 5 minutes to burn away, is a ridiculous path to continue on. Dirty, dangerous and extremely short-sighted.
Carrie
Carrie,
Now you have made me feel bad... as I have been burning coal to keep my boat warm over this cold snap. How do you propose we get around this ? You will see if you check back on my blogs my efforts to install two wind turbines at a friends farm in Scotland recently, but based on Brian and Diana's comments these are not 100% effective.
My father-in-law used to work at the nuclear power station on Anglesey and he told me coal powered power stations emit more radiation than nuclear. I was amazed when we did the tour at the nuclear power station what constitutes radiation waste - gloves and overalls for one !
If I were the PM I'd go for nuclear but then they have their critics as well.
nev
I've got no problem with people using coal to burn for direct heat, just like people used to use peat. Small scale - direct use. What I do have a problem with is vast quantities being burnt - a large power plant can burn 10,000 tons of coal a day - to make electricity so that we can turn into morons in front of 'X Factor' and leave gadgets on standby all night.
Nuclear power doesn't emit so much pollution as fossil-fuel-powered ones of course, you are right. But the mining of uranium from open-cast mines is poisoning rivers, land and people as well as stockpiling an increasingly large amount of radiation waste that will never conveniently disappear.
My solutions? We don't 'need' 3/4 of our electricity. We don't 'need' constant light, heat and power. We could have poured millions of pounds into lots of renewable energy methods by now, instead of throwing it down mineshafts.
Ha! Had a good ol' rant thanks!
carrie
Carrie,
Rant away -I tend to do it to myself but more and more I hear the words coming out of my mouth rather than staying in my head - old age I suppose!
Problem is like in most instances you give/supply someone something and then they expect to keep getting it. Not many will readily accept reduced supply of gas and power as a way to cut emissions.
So it has to be a program of education of what it costs and how much people use. I think everyone should have a use meter supplied FOC so they can monitor their own use - not too dissimilar to how we do it on our boats I guess.
Maybe take it one stage further and charge a sliding scale for what is used to encourage people to use less.
Hope you are ok and warm on your boat, missed your blogging BTW,
Nev
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