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When you calculate 'enough power', does that mean 'all the power you would like to have with plenty to waste', or does that mean 'enough to have a reasonable standard of living and be sustainable'?

I haven't totally made up my mind about nuclear power, but what makes it difficult is the lack of transparency, and also the global hypocrisy over nuclear weapons which is a linked issue.

In the real world there will always be waste - that's the way it is. Even if all wastage stopped now, we will still need the same amount to cover the ten's of thousands of new homes to be built in the next 15 yrs.

Again, who on Earth ever suggested that we get all our power from wind?
Answer: no-one.
That to me sounds like a straw man. An argument you set up yourself so that you can knock it down easily.

At the risk of repeating myself, the sensible suggestion is a combination of wind, solar, tide, wave and hydro.
Another factor is the growing feasibility of micro-generation. We could all be producing quite a lot of our own energy needs, be it solar panels, wind turbines or geo-thermal systems.
Then of course there is the question of efficiency vs. waste. How much energy are we losing through poor insulation? Daft use of cars?

Just down the road from us they built some new flats and as they built i watched with interst they double lined the walls and roofs, fitted solar panels to the roof and every flat had energy efficient bulbs, and in the roof space there are holding tanks for rain water from the gutters.
Pretty impressive if this is the future of building council flats.

Russ

old tree man wrote:Just down the road from us they built some new flats and as they built i watched with interst they double lined the walls and roofs, fitted solar panels to the roof and every flat had energy efficient bulbs, and in the roof space there are holding tanks for rain water from the gutters.

I believe that's the standard for all new building... Don't know whether it's law quite yet, but it should be soon.

pumpy wrote:In the real world there will always be waste - that's the way it is. Even if all wastage stopped now, we will still need the same amount to cover the ten's of thousands of new homes to be built in the next 15 yrs.

I think your concept of waste and mine are probably different. Mine includes the waste involved in the consumer society that intensified starting when I was about 14 years old and which involves huge inputs of energy. My son wants to be a part of that, and there's a struggle going on as to whether he should be allowed to. Obviously I'm not in favour. I'm not taking that waste for granted because I don't think we can afford to.

Rod in Japan wrote:

pumpy wrote:In the real world there will always be waste - that's the way it is. Even if all wastage stopped now, we will still need the same amount to cover the ten's of thousands of new homes to be built in the next 15 yrs.

I think your concept of waste and mine are probably different. Mine includes the waste involved in the consumer society that intensified starting when I was about 14 years old and which involves huge inputs of energy. My son wants to be a part of that, and there's a struggle going on as to whether he should be allowed to. Obviously I'm not in favour. I'm not taking that waste for granted because I don't think we can afford to.

Good luck with that. My daughters are 4 and 2 so I have it all ahead of me.
What I always say is: "teach your children how to think, not what to think".

Thanks for that pointer.

So I need to teach my son why we're not getting a Nintendo Wii (which happens to be a blast to play, and all god's chilluns got one).
He's just made a 'Let's reduce CO2' poster for school, so next time he asks for the Wii, I can just point to his poster and say "There you go, we just reduced a bit".

Rod in Japan wrote:Thanks for that pointer.

So I need to teach my son why we're not getting a Nintendo Wii (which happens to be a blast to play, and all god's chilluns got one).
He's just made a 'Let's reduce CO2' poster for school, so next time he asks for the Wii, I can just point to his poster and say "There you go, we just reduced a bit".

There's worse things than a Wii. At least it has them jumping around the room.
You could offer to let him have the Wii, think of the bargaining power it would give you! Be sure to milk it for all it's worth. If he's that hungry for one he'll agree to anything. And it's not that heavy on the juice.
And if you don't, sure he'll spend his time around in his friends' houses playing with their one anyway.

Edit: and if money is an issue, suggest that he saves up for one and that you'll match his savings 1 for 1. And you'll get one for Christmas, or even better at the January sales. If he can't wait until January, he pays more. His money, his choice.

He can and does jump around without a Wii, and although they may not use a lot of juice, they take a lot of juice to make. They also require rare substances that cause wars in the Congo. Plus he already has a Nintendo handheld thing that I wasn't keen on him having. These are all things that add up to current demand for power that didn't used to exist.

Man, you're being a fundamentalist.
Try to live life in a pure and wholesome way 100% of the time, you will fail. We have to live in the world as we find it.

I'm sure you can't post on the internet without burning a bit of blood-oil.

I'm not going to tell you what to do, but if it was my son I'd let him have the bloody thing if he was prepared to cough up some of his own savings. And maybe if he came up with some ideas for offsetting the ill-effects.
If on the other hand I was a 14yo boy with an inflexible preachy dad I think I know how I'd grow up.

For example I'm vegetarian, but I never lecture people on why they should give up meat. Instead I cook up a delicious vegetarian feast and say nothing. I've made a few converts.

QuizMaster wrote:Man, you're being a fundamentalist.
Try to live life in a pure and wholesome way 100% of the time, you will fail. We have to live in the world as we find it.

Remember the wee lad does have a Nintendo DS already. If I were really a fundamentalist, he wouldn't have that.

And without wishing to become Amish, I don't see why children should have a great deal more than I had when I was growing up. The world was not in nearly such a mess when I was a child as it is now, so I think we also have to take what measures we can. No Wii is hardly a hardship now is it?

One thing that everyone has failed to mention so far is USING LESS ELECTRICITY

It is my sincere hope that the rising costs of fuel will make us all more slightly aware of how much power we are using. I don't really understand why people don't think of energy conservation not as a green thing but as a sensible thing. It cost roughly £12 a year now if you leave your phone charger plugged in but not attached to a phone, think about that with an estimated 40%-60% rise in fuel costs - making it closer to £18 a year. Now add up the costs of various other appliances left on standby and think of how many days work or even overtime you have to do just to keep a phone on or a kettle full when it's boiling. As most of us are overdrawn a lot of the time then interest payments should be added to the over all costs.

Why oh why do people give up so much time in order to pay for little red lights to be on? We would perhaps not be having this argument if we all stopped wasting so much electricity!

"It cost roughly £12 a year now if you leave your phone charger plugged in but not attached to a phone,"

Rubbish.

"These are all things that add up to current demand for power that didn't used to exist."

Like incubators for premature babies and MRI scanners than can spot cancer early?
Attacking progress is the reason so many people are so against environmentalism, we dont want to live in a mud hut and subsist on soy curd.
You may be happy to live in a yurt with enough electricty for an hour of radio each week, but the rest of the world quite likes central heating and life expectancies above 50, and attacking those as the price of "green" makes the rest of us look like nutters.

Andy Hamilton wrote:One thing that everyone has failed to mention so far is USING LESS ELECTRICITY

It is my sincere hope that the rising costs of fuel will make us all more slightly aware of how much power we are using. I don't really understand why people don't think of energy conservation not as a green thing but as a sensible thing. It cost roughly £12 a year now if you leave your phone charger plugged in but not attached to a phone, think about that with an estimated 40%-60% rise in fuel costs - making it closer to £18 a year. Now add up the costs of various other appliances left on standby and think of how many days work or even overtime you have to do just to keep a phone on or a kettle full when it's boiling. As most of us are overdrawn a lot of the time then interest payments should be added to the over all costs.

Why oh why do people give up so much time in order to pay for little red lights to be on? We would perhaps not be having this argument if we all stopped wasting so much electricity!

I have to agree andy, we found by tuning stuff off properly did help a little so just imagine if " EVERYONE" did it how much we would actually save, mabey we are to a certain extent and thats why they are now upping our fuel costs by another 35%, when will it stop.

Russ