"Just stop oil"
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It takes 3 times the electrical energy to produce hydrogen from water using solar/ wind.
So hydrogen will always be 3 times the price is electric.
Cost will be the barrier on uptake.
But it's a moot point anyway as we don't and can't have an unlimited supply of electricity. Nor anywhere near close enough to it to routinely waste the vast majority of our electricity on an extremely inefficient way of moving electricity from one place/time to another, which is what hydrogen is. And even that's assuming that the multitude of problems with storing and moving hydrogen can be solved for free, which is impossible.
Renewables won't even give us a reliable supply of electricity, let alone an infinite one. Practical fusion might get close enough to unlimited to count, but it might not. It doesn't exist at all yet.
Technology that might exist in the future is an interesting speculation, but in the meantime we need something that works. And actually exists.
We are not using even a fraction of available renewable energy sources and we are already using a very inefficient and more importantly non-sustainable way of producing electricity.
There are already countries that meet their energy demand from renewables so even existing technology seems to suffice.
en.wikipedia.org
There are already countries that meet their energy demand from renewables so even existing technology seems to suffice.
100% renewable energy - Wikipedia
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Geothermal and hydroelectricity (which is what those countries rely on) are very stable and controllable sources, so not really comparable to wind and solar. They are also very dependent on the right geography and geology.We are not using even a fraction of available renewable energy sources and we are already using a very inefficient and more importantly non-sustainable way of producing electricity.
There are already countries that meet their energy demand from renewables so even existing technology seems to suffice.
100% renewable energy - Wikipedia
We don't have volcanic hotspots to easily take advantage of like iceland does, and although there are some trials and there might be potential to expand geothermal generation, it will likely be more difficult and expensive in the UK due to the limited number of suitable locations and deeper depths we'd need to drill to.
Further large scale hydroelectric developments aren't really possible in the UK, at least without huge sacrifices of land and environment. Small scale schemes might be more feasible, but then they do lose some of the advantages of large scale hydroelectric dams, and can have other negative environmental impacts too.
Not sure what you mean about our current electricity generation being inefficient? Most plants are highly efficient.
Hydro is a poor match to this country unfortunately both in meeting demand and suitability of sites.
There is a lot of potential in tidal generation but for some reason it is often sidelined - there have been lots of promising developments which go nowhere due to lack of interest rather than technical hurdles being too great, though some of the engineering required is at scale and needs a relatively large amount of money upfront.
It is unfortunate nuclear has the stigma it has and the potential issues with human nature in terms of things like running plants beyond their sensible design lifetime/limits due to money and investment in disposal.
I'd like to see some decent advances in more localised wind generation with hardware which was less of an eye-sore - around where I live it would easily meet 25-30% of the demand possibly more, albeit some issues with reliability.
There is a lot of potential in tidal generation but for some reason it is often sidelined - there have been lots of promising developments which go nowhere due to lack of interest rather than technical hurdles being too great, though some of the engineering required is at scale and needs a relatively large amount of money upfront.
It is unfortunate nuclear has the stigma it has and the potential issues with human nature in terms of things like running plants beyond their sensible design lifetime/limits due to money and investment in disposal.
I'd like to see some decent advances in more localised wind generation with hardware which was less of an eye-sore - around where I live it would easily meet 25-30% of the demand possibly more, albeit some issues with reliability.
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Quite reliable, but still intermittant and still uncontrollable. Using more sustained currents rather than tides as such is much less intermittant and using multiple sites also results in less intermittancy (but also requires far more power stations because each one only runs intermittently). But while that works around the biggest problem (intermittancy), the other problems remain. It's expensive (and even more so with large numbers of power stations) because large volumes of moving salt water are really good at wrecking stuff. Even when the seas aren't rough. Which they often will be. And currently mostly working forms of tidal power (which is the best anyone has) block shipping and shipping is surprisingly common around Britain. Then there's the expense and obsolescence. Since nobody knows the best way (or even a particularly good way) of doing it, anything done now will be an expensive obsolescence in a short amount of time.
As others have pointed out, the geothermal and hydroelectric that you previously posed as The Solution won't work in Britain. On top of the extremely badly suited geology and geography, we have much too high a population density. Norway is the example usually held up as The Whole Answer. Norway has the population of a city and the size of a fairly large country. It's population density is tiny. Then there's the high risk from hydroelectric. Pretty much all the deadliest power generation disasters have been hydroelectric (the worst one killed ~240,000 people and left ~11,000,000 people homeless) and that's mostly been in places far better suited to it. It would be beyond reckless to try it in the UK. Same goes for pumped hydro for energy storage, which works on the same principles. Not that it would be possible to build enough of that in the UK anyway, even ignoring risk and cost.
What we have now isn't sustainable, but it is functional and it is efficient. What's usually suggested is neither. It's often not sustainable either because it relies on finite materials that aren't 100% recyclable and in many cases not recycled at all or recycled rarely and in a wasteful and inefficient way (e.g. lithium batteries).
There isn't a single answer. Maybe there will be in the future. Nuclear fusion, matter/anti-matter annihilation, something transdimensional, something nobody has even imagined yet, magic. Who knows? But we need a functioning energy supply today, tomorrow and every day. Modern civilisation requires it. That's not going to be done through ending the only functioning system that exists and assuming a working alternative will automatically and immediately appear somehow. We need to transition to something else and it needs to be something that works before, during and after each step in the transition. Not money-grubbing claims from existing businesses. Not clickbait and false claims, which is what routinely appears in the media. Not investment-attracting hype for research projects that vary from extremely optimistic to outright lying. Right now, the fastest transition that could work in the UK would be to a mix of nuclear fission, wind, fossil fuel and buying electricity from other countries. With maybe some tidal and maybe some solar. The mix might change with future technology. It would probably at some point in the future become possible to phase out fossil fuels entirely, maybe also to phase out nuclear fission. But that's a "maybe at some time in the future" thing and we can't put civilisation on pause while we wait for the tech tree to develop. This isn't a game with a cheat mode.
I missed this bit. We're already using the maximum amount of renewable energy sources that we can use. As a result, we're already walking a tightrope in terms of keeping the electricity grid up and we're already dependent on France to prop our grid up sometimes. And that's with almost all of our energy use (about 5/6ths) coming directly from burning fossil fuels rather than from electricity. If we moved that energy usage to electricity (possible on paper) the situation would become much worse. At least 6 times worse. If we built a nameplate renewables generating capacity of 100 times what we have now it still wouldn't be enough because the fundamental problems of lack of reliability and lack of control would remain unchanged. If we had enough electricity storage we could overcome those problems, but that's nowhere near being within screaming distance of being maybe possible perhaps, let alone being something we could actually do.
You misunderstood the "available" bit although you have accepted that we are not using tidal power yet? Doesn't add up. I am sure you are aware we have been using tidal power for decades in this country and we are in the best position in the world to harness this energy source. Not a dream - it is here already.
You also seem to miss the point about the cost. If there no other option cost is not part of the equation. Scarcity drives cost and I am sure you agree that fossil fuel will become scarce as the supply is finite.
You also seem to miss the point about the cost. If there no other option cost is not part of the equation. Scarcity drives cost and I am sure you agree that fossil fuel will become scarce as the supply is finite.
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Permabanned
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Less people, a lot less people, stop dancing around what the real problem is! 
No, I didn't. You are talking about theoretically usable renewables. But they're not actually usable, so they're not available. Even if you count unusable resources as available, they're still irrelevant.
There's a 2MW (note that's megawatt, not gigawatt) tidal power station that was opened last year. That's it. It's only a test facility and of course the "2MW" is a nameplate capacity and those are meaningless for renewables. 25% is considered a good load factor for tidal. So the one and only tidal power station in the UK (which has been open for 1 year) probably averages about 500KW.
Eventually, yes. But that's irrelevant as I'm not arguing for fossil fuel to be used indefinitely.
Also, cost is always part of the equation. Especially when there are different options with different costs.
Your preferred course of action would collapse civilisation and kill billions of people. I consider that to be a very high cost. You seem to miss the point about the continued existence of human civilisation. You also seem to miss the point about it being impossible to implement your ideas, which are based on lack of knowledge and require ignoring most of what's written when replying to it.
Less people, a lot less people, stop dancing around what the real problem is!
Which might be why "renewables advocates" are advocating plans that would kill billions of people. That would certainly benefit other animals and plants in the long run.
They are available for decades. In France since the 60s and producing 600MW. This is from a single, "old" power station.
Test facilities demonstrate what is feasible. The estimate is that a single barrage could supply 7% of total UK energy needs.
What are these different options? I assume you are not referring to nuclear as a lower cost alternative to tidal power?
Impossible is not something that should be used as an argument. I guess you are more like people that did not believe that ships made out of iron would float
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Caporegime
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The Severn can supply 5% of our countries electricity if they were to use the tides for power. IIRC it is the biggest source of tidal energy in the whole of Europe. Equivalent to several Nuclear power stations and is clean. It would create massive job opportunities for Wales as well but the government couldn't care as it has got nothing to do with London and rather waste billions on HS2.
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One of the potential issues with Tidal power can be the (sometimes unforeseen) consequences of disrupting the "natural" flow of water in / out of estuaries and around coastlines.
Constructing a load of Tidal generators has a greater chance of "screwing things up" than other alternatives like offshore windfarms etc..
(Look at the troubles Dubai has had since building those fancy artificial islands, they really disrupted the natural sea currents)
Plus it's still pretty tricky to come up with a design that can survive the kind of places that can generate large quantities of Tidal power and generate energy consistently (Not having to be turned off / "parked" during heavy seas etc..)
This is one of the big problems facing both Tidal and Wind power, as the available energy increases (due to stronger tides / winds) the more likely they are to have to be put into "weathervane mode" and not generate anything, for fear of them being destroyed from rotating too fast.
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Guessing you mean one of the barrage schemes? The Severn is probably the best case scenario for tidal power in the UK, but have to remember it is still intermittent (if very predictable) so storage or other generation capacity would need to be available. There would be big environmental risks too (the thought of all the assessments they've have to do, the uncertainty involved, and all the different local objections there would be make me dizzy just thinking about them...), and maybe with good design this can be avoided but tidal systems do have a bad reputation for being easily damaged and a bit unreliable...
I agree that the government is too focused on London, but I don't think that's the full story here, given there are plenty of other electricity generation projects in progress. Also London needs electricity as much as anywhere.
I'm not necessarily against that scheme per se but it's not a panacea for a 100% renewable future. Also 5% is still nowhere near the potential of wind and solar if a 100% renewable future is what you want, which while being more variable also benefit from ever-dropping costs (while tidal lagoon / barrage costs probably won't drop that much with experience as they're mostly just big civils projects).
Imo Swansea lagoon should have been built as a proof of concept type thing, and after a bit of operating experience might be in a better place to decide whether to go ahead with a full barrage.
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What people forget is that there is no reason whatsoever fo
Engineers take these variables into account and with tides especially it is easier to ensure that the power station is working within specs the vast majority of time.
Engineers take these variables into account and with tides especially it is easier to ensure that the power station is working within specs the vast majority of time.
Hydrogen spring into mind
I am sure having a solution that if damaged does not make a whole region uninhabitable for centuries is a preferred option for any person living in that area.
5% is more than good enough for a start. These energy sources will complement each other.