Gardeners Corner Global Energy Policy

If everything goes to plan & GC is running the Planet by 2020 then we need a policy on energy production.

I was thinking earlier about how to get Greece out of the hole its in. The one thing it has got is plenty of sunshine, but to sell that, converted to electricity, they would need to have access to an international grid.

I then got to thinking that at any one time only half the planet is in darkness, and while we're in Winter the Southern Hemisphere is in Summer.

So, if we could set up a World Power Grid it would even out the supply & demand to a large extent.

Many of the hotter countries also suffer from problems like drought, famine, poor soils and so on. If they were selling other nations solar electric, they would be able to buy food with the money so the trade opportunities would increase.

Also, large solar electric farms would create micro climates beneath them, the panels would give shelter from the worse of the sun and at night would act as dew collectors (you get frosts in the deserts at night)

This would enable grazing to establish on previously barren soils.

It wouldn't be without its teething troubles, you'd need to standardise the voltage & some countries would loose out by a voltage change, but with the use of adaptors, it wouldn't mean you'd have to change every appliance overnight, you'd phase the new voltage appliances in as the old ones wore out.

Might sound far fetched but the UK didn't have a National Grid till 1938 and now we are conected to Northern Ireland, Ellan Vannin, France and The Nederlands.

Food for thought?

 

We should of course start a little nearer home. Not energy, but water - we need an National Water Grid - we are water-rich in the north and in Scotland and Wales and we must have an efficient way of getting the stuff to other parts of the country. We can do it with gas, electricity and petroleum products, so why nor water. Unlike the previously mentioned essentials, the basic ingredient is FREE, we don't have to drill for it, generate it or refine it - just push it around the country.

More food (or drink) for thought.

 

I agree Alex, the GC resources department needs to tackle that one as well.

Why not a global grid for that too, drought in Ethiopia, just divert some water from Norway, drought over.

We need to think more like The Borg if we are all going to share the planet.

 

I don't get how we can have water shortages in this day and age.

When I was a kid, our school was involved in a project with a charity in India that aimed to bring safe, fresh drinking water from the mountains to the villages. That was back in the early 1980s. They did it. The first of many new villages were built as a result of that initiative. Its been nearly 3 decades since then, yet in other parts of the world, even just in other parts of India, they are still having problems with flash floods and droughts, yet nearly 30 years ago an eccentric chap and a bunch of 9 year olds found a cost effective solution.

Then you get a situation like that in Lanzarote. Take a volcano that is still kind of active, so baron and windswept that it has virtually no vegetation outside the resorts, because it hasn't had chance to re-establish after the island exploded a couple of hundred years ago, with an environment with just 2mm per year of rainfall. Yet it is a popular holiday island as well as being home to a fair few people. They have to bring in some of their drinking water in bottles from the mainland, but alone isn't enough. Back in the 1960s (I think) someone scratched their head and asked, how can we be struggling for water when we're surrounded by sea? So they built a big desalination plant. That happened about half a century ago.

It just seems like all ingenuity ceased several decades ago.

 

My point Dave, Thatcher disbanded the government body resonsible for planning Britain's energy future & didn't tell anyone.

We've been sitting riding an energy time bomb for 30 years.

(off to look for an "Energy Time Bomb" on e bay now, should be listed with the "Time Travelling Helicopters"

 

time travelling helicopter - Google Search

GC is slowly nudging the future in that direction:WINK1:

 

Well we could start the water in the UK PROJECT by the companies actually talking to each other and lay a massive water main alongside the work for the new HS2 Train link so all the digging and blasting is shared Job done

On the other hand I resent living in cold wet Scotland for eleven months of the year collecting rain water, to send to those SUN rich people in Dorset, who bask in the sun swim in the sea grow giant veg and expect me to water it all
Maybe lay a Sunshine pipe alongside the water main and reflect it up here with big mirrors, fair swaps

Jack McHammocklashing

 

With the GC Energy Grid, you'd be getting electric from New Zealand in winter to power your grow lights & unnatural daylight blubs.

In return, you'd be sending them neaps in the summer.

 

We already have quite a few solar powered road signs here with their own individual panels. Why can't this be put into practice with street/road lights across the UK. Okay yes, it would take time and probably initial cost would be high, but would be a benefit in the long run, just think of all those motorway lights and the power they use.

Here on the island there are no road lights only in vital places like accident black spots, we can also see the stars at night. All our street/road lights go off at 12.30am. Cars have lights and pedestrians know how to use a torch.

In the last ten years the island has received power from the mainland via cable in the Irish Sea even though we have our own power stations. This can be reversed of course should it be needed on the mainland. We are now also in the process of converting to natural gas via a pipeline, again through the Irish sea. It would be possible to do the same with water.

I think Ziggy's post is a possibility but it is a logistical nightmare for everyone worldwide. It would take a very long time to organise and work towards set up and running.

 

Big losses transporting electricity over long distances. There is talk of a DC grid, rather than AC, that will have (IIRC) less losses.

And then you have the issue of the sunniest countries (which are near-ish to us) have (what our politicians consider to be) unsuitable regimes and unreliable as long term energy suppliers. How they can be more likely to hold us to ransom than the Russians and Oil exporting countries beats me ...

I approve of locally micro-generated energy - as it doesn't have to travel very far. We don't have enough sunlight to provide much energy for us in Winter (when we use the most) and the Wind doesn't blow when we have major anticyclones which coincide with very cold periods in Winter, when we need extra heating, and very hot in summer (air conditioning demand rises). So we are a bit stuffed.

The UK cannot be self-supporting on alternative energy with any currently envisageable technology. Even covering the whole country and inshore sea with wind turbines (which is clearly impractical) and every site with potential for tidal or hydro electric generation ... So we are a bit stuffed ...

There is a fascinating talk by a scientist on the subject - if you are interested I'll try to get a link. He talks about how energy demand is increasing, oil is running out, and what the options are for renewals / nuclear / coal etc in this country, and realistically how much we could generate (even at optimistic forecasts). It makes for grim listening ... :(

Short term fix would be to have an accelerate program of Nuclear plant building; nothing else will come on stream fast enough, or with enough power generating capacity.

 

I would think that with all the daily b*ll sh*t on GC , the methane by product would make us at least carbon neutral and even a net contributer

 

Sorted then!

I have no idea how big an issue "Carbon Dioxide" is (I understand the science though) - there's lots of talk of Carbon This and Carbon That and when that happens its usually displacement-activity so that less attention is spent on other things the government/industry are doing. I have a more simplistic view: the fuels we have been using are running out, at a time when India / China etc are ramping up their use as their economies grow and the wealth of individuals increases and they want their own cars, TVs etc. So we have to use less fuel short term, and find a new fuel long term. Trouble is that Petrol ("oil") contains a fantastic amount of energy for each gallon, and is relatively cheap to "make", and has had hundreds of years of refinement, so getting a really good alternative is blinking difficult by comparison.

We can stave off the drop-dead date, when it runs out, by a bit by using less. Uncomfortable as it is the Government has to raise fuel prices by 10% above inflation a year to force people to make change. Change to more fuel efficient cars / drive less / share more / use public transport, turn the central heating down, etc.

If everyone had voluntarily reduced their fuel usage by 10% p.a. raising prices wouldn't have been necessary, but usage has been increasing instead so we are where we are, and people moaning at the government about increases in fuel prices won't make the problem go away.

All uncomfortable choices compared to the freedom we used to have to do what we have been doing.

Average UK household uses twice as much electricity as it did a couple of decades ago. All manner of gadgets, many left on standby (eh? We used to be able to get up to turn them off why not now?), loads more lights in rooms ... we built more houses each year too. More cars on the roads every year, more fuel required/used.

Hugely inefficient power supplies in Computers (and other things too I expect ...) to drive the price down just a few pennies. Another area where government should legislate - "Only efficient power supplies from now on" - it would add pennies to the cost, but would be a level playing field for all manufacturers.

Road taxing, with cheaper rates at night, freight companies could use the roads at night, and save some Tax, and for the rest the roads would be less congested so less stop-start driving, and lots of fuel saved (which might well match the additional tax - wouldn't stop people moaning though)

I'm sure bright people must have a million ideas that would make a difference, we just need a leader who wants to sort it out, treat it like a wartime footing and JFDI

 

Lets get back to basics,when people go camping even in a tent they want 240V hook up to run the gadgets (this isn't camping)only a 100yrs ago most on the country didn't even have leccy in their houses,they survived perfectly well.They must of survived because we are here the human race didn't decline.
When planning permission is granted for housing estates they dont take into account the extra usage of water gas and electric,very short sighted.Very few new build estate are enviro friendly to the level required the odd house but not estates.
I dont think a global energy network is a workable idea sadly,someone would have the chance to hold another to ransom
Over the last couple of decades alternative alternative energy ideas have been bought up by the big energy suppliers and shelved because it would wipe their share prices overnight.Or if not shelved made illegal (just one link)Learn The Truth About Hemp
A very simple plant that could power/feed/clothe the world is it legal no because the big corporations want to make money plain and simple.

 

We can already be held to ransom over gas and oil supply, its the chance we take in a global market.

At least if we were buying electric from Africa, when Russia turns the gas tap off, we'd still have some power coming in.

Most countries have a national grid, its not too far fetched to connect them. Like Kristan said, we'd have to compensate for the power losses over long distances somehow.

In 1937, we didn't have a National Grid, but the engineers on the night shift put all the power grids into sync in an unauthorised test just to see if they could do it I suppose.

It worked, and a year later the National Grid was brought on line.

I agree with Kristen about the local micro generation as well. Think of how many small turbines you could put on a river from source to sea.

Plus the job creation of installation, maintenance, construction of fish ladders where migratory fish like Salmon use the rivers.

 

Ziggy - there is a lot of sense in what you said about a world grid. And I have no doubt that in time we will have something approaching that - we are already directly connected to both the French and Dutch grids and I have no doubt that they are connected to the German and other grids etc.

There is one practical point. You have transmission losses.

So currently power generated in Greece would mostly be lost if it was transmitted directly to Britain. However there are many people trying to develop room temperature super conductors, which in theory might solve this problem. But in practice it would be very difficult.

My own solution is simple. There is no shortage of power in this country or in the world - there are just too many people. Reduce the world population and you have a long term sustainable solution. So - its bromide in the tea ...:yess:

A perfectly practical and very effective solution would be the Severn barrage. ie dam the Severn estuary and install two way tidal generators, as it has one of the largest tidal movements in the world. It has been talked about for years. But like so many important long term projects no one has the guts to do it.