MSE News: Legal threats over solar subsidy cuts

jamesd

HalloweenJack wrote: »

but - now we have the wall of NIMBY about south based on shore turbines

No plans for one in my back yard but I agree that siting them in both inhabited locatiojns and in sites that affect areas of natural beauty is wrong - I'm not keen on environmental damage whether it's optical, audible or anything else.

HalloweenJack wrote: »

scotland is better location for wind and tidal power, given that large area`s are unihabited

I agree.

HalloweenJack wrote: »

we WOULD save money and appease the NIMBY by balancing the system - or are you openly against green power in this way? reduce the `fine` being paid for having out of sight and out of mind wind farms.

We wouldn't save money unless it was efficient for the providers to site the generators there and also pay the shipping costs from there. This story is about people asking for a subsidy for siting generation far away from consumers. That's wrong both technically - it's inefficient placement - and economically for those who have to pay the higher costs of power that result. There's already going to be a large subsidy for those forms of generation. If that's not enough to pay for it and shipping then that's a pretty good proof that the site just doesn't make economic sense.

But doing it in conjunction with some new local power consuming industry might be a great idea still. That might involve relocating some business from further south.

HalloweenJack wrote: »

BUT , there is a need for nuclear as well, something i agree with - all renewables have a place.

The far north of Scotland is a good place for nuclear generation. Much space there before large numbers of people are affected by any radiation incidents. But with talk of independence it would be poor economic investment siting, unfortunately.

Not a nimby issue for me re nuclear, there are usually some nuclear reactors operating within a few miles of me and I'm happy to have them where they are. But I still don't think that would be a good choice of location for a new nuclear generation plant, it's too close to a significant population center.

jamesd

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

The problem is that domestic solar PV (electric) panels is that they generate zero power, when it is needed: early evening in mid winter.
This means we still have to build the expensive second national grid to get that missing peak power from somewhere

True, unfortunately. And that means gas turbines mainly because those are really good at doing that. Or hydro and pumped storage for shorter periods.

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

nuclear cannot be turned on and off at short notice

It can be varied to some extent with short notice, though I'm not sure of the practical range. In any case it's an inefficient use of the plants not to use them near 100% capacity.

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

we will be firing up those gas turbines (jet engines) round our major cities.

A new one fairly close to me located between two regional cities. Excellent technical placement of the generation with only a few miles of shipping needed for most of the power being generated. And on a spur of the grid so it also increases the stability of the grid by reducing transmission into that area. Also lower pollution and radioactivity emissions than say coal burning.

Add increased and cheaper natural gas supplies from fracking that's already reducing imports into the US and these may be a really good alternative to some of the renewables for a while. At least until we're past the point at which the UK may suffer a generation shortage if new plants aren't built rapidly.

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

"Why is the ice cream melting ? - Because the intelligent grid has turned off the freezer and we have yet to invest in an "A" rated new design.!"

Heh, but the fridge or freezer wouldn't accept the instructions outside the safe temperature range if it was properly intelligent. It would accept things like an instruction to cool down more prior to an anticipated reduction just before an ad break in a popular TV program, say. Intelligent grid control of appliances offers some really interesting potential to regulate and shift demand to lower or off peak times.

John_Pierpoint

jamesd wrote: »

Add increased and cheaper natural gas supplies from fracking that's already reducing imports into the US and these may be a really good alternative to some of the renewables for a while. At least until we're past the point at which the UK may suffer a generation shortage if new plants aren't built rapidly.

Would that the the "fracking" - the underground explosion - that makes well water undrinkable and cause earthquakes?:D

jamesd

Not sure explosion is right but the symptoms can be. Aren't you glad that they are really keen on it in the US and are helping to lower gas prices here?

Nothing worse than what mining has done in the past so far as I can tell. More like less harmful.

rogerblack

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Would that the the "fracking" - the underground explosion - that makes well water undrinkable and cause earthquakes?:D

The numbers of people on well water in the UK is much, much smaller.
Even if this is a real problem, given the differering geology between US and UK.

John_Pierpoint

People have been getting a bit excited about what has been happening up in the Blackpool area.

Having lived in Nottingham, where houses regularly "fall over" due to old mine workings, I have checked the Coal Authority and I am surprised that it gets by on a grant of only £30 million a year. Mind you for every conveyance in somewhere like Nottingham it probably collects a search fee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Authority

http://coal.decc.gov.uk/en/coal/cms/services/auth_charges/auth_charges.aspx

HalloweenJack

amazing jamesd - a long winded `NIMBY` arguement if i`ve heard one....... scotland is fine so long as they pay for transport but *heaven forbid* building anything near populations centres - which rules out england then.....

remove the subsidy OR build nuclear reactors in cities... (which wont happen) or remove the massive overhead to transport the electricity from unihabited north scotland.

jamesd

HalloweenJack, northern Scotland is far from population centers, even pretty far from those in Scotland. There's no reason why we should subsidise power producers who choose to generate power in places far away from people. Let them pay the full cost out of the very generous subsidies they already get if they want to build in such out of the way places.

Or generate the power closer to where it's needed and closer to my own back yard.

cotleigh

Any business, product or service that depends for its existence on a completely artificial market created by government legislation or subsidy, runs the risk of suddenly being wiped out overnight if the next government change the rules.

Apart from the FIT solar subsidy change, other examples I can think of would be HIPs (all those people spent money training as "HIP inspectors" only for the unpopular things to be largely scrapped), and LPG conversions on petrol cars (you only save money cos LPG is taxed less than petrol, if that changes, you've wasted your money and spoiled your car!).

The rules might get changed because of politics and ideology, or sometimes because too many people were taking advantage of a generous subsidy or tax break, and it becomes too expensive to carry on.

Other ones to watch out for are the road tax, congestion charge and parking exemptions currently available for electric cars. If ever loads of people buy electric cars, the perks will suddenly disappear, just watch.

If something is REALLY a good idea, it wouldn't need either massive subsidies, or being made compulsory, in order to work.

If what you sell or do only makes sense if everyone else is forced to pay for it through their taxes, you shouldn't whinge when someone turns off the money tap!

BarryQ

cotleigh wrote: »

Any business, product or service that depends for its existence on a completely artificial market created by government legislation or subsidy, runs the risk of suddenly being wiped out overnight if the next government change the rules.

If what you sell or do only makes sense if everyone else is forced to pay for it through their taxes, you shouldn't whinge when someone turns off the money tap!

You mean like the annual £2.5 billion in subsidies given to the UK power industry, that money tap certainly isn't in danger of being turned off.