Do you not think there is something mutually exclusive about these two statements ? There is nothing particularly difficult about the technology behind wind, wave and tide except stopping it falling apart and getting a decent return on the investment that you make. Producing energy is not difficult, it is producing it in the quantity required, in a form that you want, when you want it, that is the challenge. 749er's interconnector with Norway sounds fine in theory but how often there will be an excess is open to question. It is a bit like the SNP assertion that the falling output of North Sea Oil can pay for increased services and fund a Sovereign Wealth fund; it just doesn't stack up.
@bootsam ok - thought you were suggesting there were still as bad as the days of the great 'pea soupers' ompus:
the potential for renewable's is massive up here. any one listen to r4 program last night on it?,we have a wee hydro scheme in duror where i live generating 650kw still managing to get power cuts tho. bet my kids know more about conservation and renewable energy than most pensioners.
Theyre not that bad @Nelson, I admit and a lot has been done but theres not much more they can do to clean them up. At the risk of stroking @finm ego and also actually agreeing with him. , the potential for wind and wave in the NW is huge and its something we are ideally suited to. It requires heavy industry and thats something The Clyde knows all about. Frankly I'd buy a couple of German/Korean bits and copy them better and start building the feckers on an industrial scale.
During / Since the World Cup, My Power has dropped off and back on so many times almost daily for a while, in perfect weather conditions, We were warned during the world cup and at certain times the power would trip when they said, 1/2 time etc. but quite frankly I think it was all bull shit, even games that no one was interested in, power still went off. It is really annoying and actually costs quite a lot of money each time. (printers cleaning etc and wasting ink) Lucky I have a decent PSU on my computers etc. I can only imagine it will get worse.
@johnv i was talking about the Hebrides and the delay in putting the undersea cable in. now being put on hold because the cost of shail gas is cheaper in the short term. old school thinking. go up to the Orkney's every man and his dug has a windmill. not as pretty as it used to be but a lot prettier than a power station.
Wind power takes a tonne of investment, especially off-shore. I believe some of the big players have opted out of off-shore due to the expense!
they do already. depending on what type you go for you have to sell it to the national grid then buy it back.
Wave and tidal power generation obviously has huge potential and nearly everybody would be in favour of them, in principle, including me. The snag is that whatever design of apparatus you install has to be robust enough to survive the most severe winter storms, corrosion-resistant enough to survive many years immersed in sea water, and cheap enough to produce power at an affordable price. Good luck to those who are trying to solve those problems. But like I said, it's too early to be boasting about them.
National policy is now directed towards less centralised power and heat generation. Theres enough roof space that if every roof was an active solar collector we'd have more than enough power generation. District heating schemes and energy centres are now the buzz in local authorities.
Who would be happy to pay a bit more for their lecky if it was cleaner? or alternatively take more "power" away from utility company's, get them told instead of them telling us. up the revolution.
Yes it was but thats the tories for you. PV is not very efficient I know, (circa 19% max) and the intrinsic energy balance is debateable. But the law of economics and supply and demand would see this improved if the will was there.
The 2020 directive kinda forced many of the utility companies hands. I do wonder if all these windmills and panels are a huge white elephant, merely erected to comply!
