We are heading towards an energy gap, where the total generating power will not meet peak demands, in part because of increase in demand and in part because a lot of existing power stations are reaching the end of their lives.
Options
Nuclear. At the moment these supply the base demand, they run steadily and meet the normal non-peak demand. Most of our nuclear stations are reaching, or have reached the end of their intended lives. Although they are the best option for the future we should have started building the replacements for our existing plants 10 or 15 years ago. If we start building now the new ones will not be completed in time to meet the energy gap so something is needed to fill the gap while/if they are built.
Coal. The traditional source of electricity in this country and we are sitting on 300 years supply of the stuff. How long will it take to bring in new coal mines, even if people would be prepared to undertake the work, and how long will it take to build coal fired stations? There are clearly environmental considerations in the use of coal! Even worse, our coal fired stations now use poor quality coal from Eastern Europe that is dirty and even more environmentally unfriendly than our own supplies.
Oil. Environmentally undesirable, expensive and may be imported from unstable areas.
Gas. Environmentally undesirable, the plants are cheap to put up but the electricity is expensive and they are really only suitable to fill in peak demands. Dear Mr Putin, thank you for supplying the gas to generate our electricity, you wouldn't dream of cutting it off, would you.
Wave power. We have lots of lovely waves around our coast and this would work. Unfortunately successful development work in the 1980s was effectively killed when the government falsified results and claimed, wrongly, that it would be uneconomic. Their reason was that they thought people would confuse wave power with tidal generation, the idea of which was already causing protest.
Tidal power. This one would really work, we have large tidal ranges and lots of nice inlets which would be very suitable for damming. Screams of protests from so called environmentalists who haven't the first idea of what the environment and ecology are really about. Tidal generators would destroy the precious Severn Mashes/other local features which have to be kept totally unchanged regardless of the facts. The environment is never static and always changing, you cannot keep it they way you think it ought to be. Given 50 years the coastal marshes etc will be destroyed by rising sea levels and changes in sea water chemistry anyway.
Solar power. Inefficient and uneconomic. Two or three generations of solar generators down the line and it might be worth using, but they have been promising the next generation for too many years now.
Wind power. It works. Watch a field of turbines with the blades slowly turning (and they are meant to turn slowly), it is an attractive sight. They do not reduce property values in the long term, the nimbys panic & sell cheap because of the view of the terrible turbines, thereafter prices go up because people like to see them, they like to think that they are getting green energy from "their" turbines. A lot of the problems come from a small group of professional anti-turbine protesters who turn up wherever windfarms are proposed, spreading a lot of "information" which at the politest can be called inaccurate. Landbased turbines are cost effective and efficient, the windfarms out at sea, beloved of the nimbys, are not because of the greatly increased cost of production.
So lets get on with building windfarms, wave generators and tidal mills until we can construct the new nuclear stations for the future.
And if that lot doesn't generate some debate, nothing will.
Discuss the alternatives.
maps is quite considerably shitter than it once was.
