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Anyone for a spaceport?

Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby pony23 » Sun Jul 22, 2018 6:42 pm

Mr Harper, with all due respect, you start off well ie on population, but from then on you descend into naivety. Your biggest error is on energy "efficiency".
If you were to reduce your heating etc in your house and reduce your energy use by, say, £500 yearly, would you set fire to this £500 or otherwise dispose of it?
No, you'd spend it on something else with an adverse environmental impact.

And with your claim that wind power is cheaper than conventional, have you included the cost of the new transmission lines to remote windfarms, the cost of conventional power stations being kept on standby for when the wind stops, the £11 billion + cost of smart meters which we are told will make renewables work (a lie), the cost of eventually disposing of all the turbine blades which can't be recycled and contain toxic materials? Currently there are 10,000 turbines in the UK, that's 30,000 blades, what's your solution Mr Harper?

Finally, check the (pro-wind) website winderful.diascreative.net website, switch to "monthly", run your cursor over the graph line, see how pathetically low UK wind output has been this month. Down to 75 MW at one point. That's out of a theoretical maximum total of 12051 MW (megawatts).
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby Gareth Harper » Sun Jul 22, 2018 8:52 pm

If you were to reduce your heating etc in your house and reduce your energy use by, say, £500 yearly, would you set fire to this £500 or otherwise dispose of it?


Recently stayed in a new build cottage that had no central heating. It’s only heat source a wood burning stove (renewable) for the occasions when it’s particularly cold.

Mr Pony, it’s about a reduction in emissions in everything we do. Any relation to costs or savings is irrelevant.
You are also missing all the other energy opportunities. The de-centralised grid, solar panels, home generation. And of course, the key to renewables, energy storage. Moving to a point where fewer and fewer conventional stations are required.

Smart meters have nothing to do with the viability of any given energy source.

Wind turbine blade disposal is a minor issue, sorry absolutely minuscule issue, when compared to the colossal waste created by burning coal, not to mention all the mine related issues. And in case there are already re-cyclers turning used blades into cement production.

Oh, and of course pollution. No emissions. No CO2. No acid rain. No N2O. No particulates.

Mr Pony, indeed it’s no secret sometimes the wind doesn’t blow.
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby pony23 » Wed Jul 25, 2018 2:41 pm

Mr Harper,
if you're so worried about CO2 emissions, what on earth are you doing burning trees to keep warm? After all, when left alone those trees are absorbing and storing CO2. And studies suggest that wood burning releases more pollution per unit of energy produced than coal. If you want "sustainable" logs then can I suggest that you plant some trees this week and harvest them to burn when you see fit?

The use of words like "renewable", "low carbon", "eco", "environmentally friendly", "sustainable" etc is usually complete BS.
For example: "Sustainable" means able to be maintained at a certain rate. Now years back I saw a new housing development where there weren't houses before, and it had a sign saying "Sustainable development". Now this is untrue because eventually if they continued building such housing either the land surface would run out or the building materials would run out or both. Or did they demolish another older development, return that to grass and re use the materials?

You say "It's about a reduction in emissions in everything we do". You're making colossal assumptions in the capability of "renewables".

Your claim that "Smart meters have nothing to do with the viability of any given energy source." is wrong. Smartenergygb, which was commissioned by govt. to roll out smart meters says this on it's website: "It will help us get the most from variable power sources like wind and solar".

You claim that the disposal of 30,000 turbine blades is a "miniscule" problem. Have you ever driven past one (I have). They're huge, typically c. 75m long. The UK's blades end to end would stretch from London to Athens approx, and that's just one country's blades today. You sound stupid and dogmatic, but I'm sure you're not stupid. You suggest adding them to concrete; the problem with making concrete is that it involves the emission of 180 to 1,100 kg of CO2 per 1,000 kg of concrete depending on process (source: wiki, NRMCA, EPA). The lower part of the range is achieved when fly ash, which is burnt coal from power stations, is added. (Does this mean that CO2 emissions from making concrete in the UK will rise, seeing as the coal power stations are to close by 2025?).

You say that wind turbines have "no emissions, no CO2". Really? When a developer gets planning permission does the wind farm just appear on the hill as if by magic? Doesn't the iron ore need to be dug out of the ground? Doesn't the rock need to be crushed? Doesn't it need to go through a blast furnace? Doesn't it need to be transported from Brazil and Australia to the turbine factories in Germany and Denmark? Don't the finished turbines need to be transported to the wind farm? Doesn't the wind farm need to be constructed? All these stages involve CO2 emissions, just in case you didn't know. Same for the copper, aluminium, concrete etc. (I wonder what % of the energy required for these processes comes from fossil fuel? Could we ever do it without fossil fuel?).
The projection is that the world will have c. 2,000 GW (gigawatts) of wind power capacity by 2050 (source: EIA>wind energy road map targets>ETP Blue Map scenario). That's one million turbines. Wind turbines have lifetime emissions of between 5 and 32 grammes of CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity produced (source: climatexchangedotorg). So a rough calculation gives between 380 million tonnes and 2.45 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted to deploy these 1 million turbines (assuming a capacity factor of 25% average, turbine lifetime of 17.5 years average). And remember, at the end of the 17.5 years when they need replacing all this is repeated. "Zero emissions" is it?

I notice you don't use any data in your writing, instead you use adjectives like "proven" and "miniscule". Have you EVER researched or calculated anything properly, or do you get your info from the MSM (mainstream media). All the MSM is good for is to be burnt on your tree-burning stove. Try this calculation, using my data of 75 m per turbine blade and 1 million turbines by 2050; if all the blades were to be put end to end how many times would they stretch around the equator? Get back to me.

You claim that energy storage is the solution.
Now a few years back a battery farm was commissioned at Leighton Buzzard (LB) costing £19m, size of 3 tennis courts and can store 10 MWh of electricity. It was described as "The biggest battery in Europe". People like you tell me that batteries are the "game changer". So let's do some more sums. Highly qualified electrical engineers say that in a 100% renewables world we'd need between a week and a month of stored electricity to cover extended low wind/solar periods. Let's go half way and use half a month. The UK consumed 336 TWh (terawatt hours) of electricity in 2016 (source: DUKES). LB stores 0.00001 TWh. Therefore we'd need 1.4 million LBs to stop power shortages, cost £26.6 trillion (trillion = million million), area covered is 322 sq km.
In reality things would be much worse than this. The cost of materials like lithium and cobalt would soar as demand went through the roof for these uncommon minerals. Same for the wages of engineers. They'd need to cover a bigger area as batteries are a major fire hazard and would need good separation. Batteries suffer from energy losses of up to 50% or more so you'd need to at least double the size of your battery park. And it only works if, on the onset of an energy shortage, your batteries are full- what happens if a low wind period is followed by a fairly low wind period and you can't recharge your batteries? And remember, we're only covering electricity here, what about all other energy, like gas heating and transport, diesel and petrol. Electricity is only 17.5% of all UK energy (DUKES). So you'd need to multiply it all again by between 5 and 6. Are you seeing the big picture yet?

You say "it's no secret the wind sometimes doesn't blow".
You're the first pro-wind person to admit this to me. Well done! :wink:
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby madprof » Thu Jul 26, 2018 12:48 am

pony23 wrote:Stuff


I don't think I've seen a less well-put argument on this forum.

I'm going to make sure I go and enjoy the peninsula before they build the spaceport there. Only passed by, never stopped for any length of time.

It isn't too hard to see why they built it there, given the lack of people and remoteness. They won't launch much of any size from there though, can they? And it would have to be for certain orbits wouldn't it?
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby Sgurr » Thu Jul 26, 2018 6:26 pm

You need to go and climb Ben Hutig before it is spoiled. It is possible to see Orkney from there on a good day and great views to Ben Loyal of course. The original O/S was up there for some time and there is the remains of a surveyors camp on top


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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby Gareth Harper » Thu Jul 26, 2018 7:59 pm

Yeah I think the thread has gone a bit off topic. I’ve not helped there. So briefly Mr Pony. Your figure for lifetime emissions of 5-32 gco2 per kw/hr looks pretty good to me. Total emissions for 1kw/hr from coal are typically about 1200g. I never mentioned anything about batteries.


Don’t know much about spaceports. But if it’s viable, it could provide good jobs I guess.
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby pony23 » Fri Jul 27, 2018 6:38 am

Mr Harper,
the "carbon intensity" of coal is between 786 and 990 g/kWh (source gov.uk, wiki).

Note the correct unit is kWh not kW/h. I often see this mistake.

Yes you didn't mention batteries but I was using it as an example because it's the "solution" most mentioned. It doesn't matter if the storage is battery or pumped hydro or CAES or flywheel or ammonia or using spare wind energy to manufacture some flammable gas: these all suffer from the same problems especially that they couldn't be deployed at the huge scale necessary.

PS have you finished that calculation yet? (the one about how many times could the blades of 1,000,000 wind turbines circle the equator) :)
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby Gareth Harper » Fri Jul 27, 2018 6:01 pm

Pony23,

I don’t think your figure takes into account mining and transportation emissions for coal. That’s why the total figure is often around 1200g or more. Whatever figure is quoted, it’s colossal compared to wind generation.

However, the thread is supposed to be about the proposed spaceport in Sutherland;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44841123
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/lockheed-martin-spaceport-scotland/
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby Sunset tripper » Fri Jul 27, 2018 7:51 pm

pony23 wrote:
PS have you finished that calculation yet? (the one about how many times could the blades of 1,000,000 wind turbines circle the equator) :)


I like puzzles but it is impossible to work out unless we know what equator you are talking about.
If it is the equator of the moon (does the moon have an equator? :crazy: ) we could fly all the turbine blades out there from the new rocket launch site in Sutherland. That would be a proper puzzle how many times would the blades of 1,000,000 turbines stretch round the equator of the moon - I take it that's 3,000,000 blades and they are all the exact same size. Sorry that s too easy. Here's a better puzzle.

How many rockets would it require to fly all the wind turbine blades in the world to the moon, flying from the new spaceport in Sutherland? And how many times would these rockets stretch round the equator of Saturn? :D

Ps I wonder what the co2 emissions of all these rockets would be? :shock:
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby Sunset tripper » Fri Jul 27, 2018 9:19 pm

5.61?
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby GillSte » Mon Jul 30, 2018 7:24 pm

Sgurr wrote:You need to go and climb Ben Hutig before it is spoiled. It is possible to see Orkney from there on a good day and great views to Ben Loyal of course. The original O/S was up there for some time and there is the remains of a surveyors camp on top


I totally agree. Ben Hutig is a really lovely hill, with superlative views. I'm really sad to see that it's going to be home to this daft spaceport. The spaceport would, indeed, be better sited on the South Downs.
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby Pastychomper » Wed Aug 08, 2018 4:19 pm

GillSte wrote:
Sgurr wrote:You need to go and climb Ben Hutig before it is spoiled. It is possible to see Orkney from there on a good day and great views to Ben Loyal of course. The original O/S was up there for some time and there is the remains of a surveyors camp on top


I totally agree. Ben Hutig is a really lovely hill, with superlative views...


I hope the spaceport won't spoil the hill or the area but having just been, I absolutely third the recommendation to get up there while you can. Great hill. :D

Now I'm a bit more familiar with the area I've had a look at the graphic on Dounreay's website and think it matches this location. I don't know if that's accurate, it looks a bit exposed to me but I suppose the hills to the west would cut the wind a bit.
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby thepigguy » Sat Nov 10, 2018 9:46 pm

The spaceport plan has passed its first hurdle, the Melness crofters voted to support the plan - 59 per cent voting for it. Hardly a surprise as there is a vague promise of jobs, although it seems the project is likely to be small-scale (£17m doesn't buy a lot these days) so any economic benefit would be similarly limited. Infrastructure will be a problem with the journey out from Thurso taking more than an hour (more in summer with the swarms of camper vans).
Anyway, as previous posters have said, get up Ben Hutig while the going's good.
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby mynthdd2 » Sat Nov 10, 2018 9:54 pm

You want a spaceport? Try Benbecula and its missile testing range...ok maybe not exactly earth orbit but just point one up instead of out to sea......
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Re: Anyone for a spaceport?

Postby al78 » Sat Nov 10, 2018 11:19 pm

Gareth Harper wrote:
Eh? :shock: ...what's the problem with wave power? Surely you mean wind power..?...which is hugely uneconomic, hugely subsidised from the public purse (paying land owners NOT to connect to the National Grid for fear of over -load) Oh, and they only work when there's a wind blowing. No wind. No turning blade. No power generation. And finally of course, they're a God-awful visual blight across some of the most spectacular scenery anywhere in Europe.


Eh?


I've learnt not to take anyones assertions about renewable energy seriously unless backed up with authoritive evidence, as there are so many misconceptions and BS flying around, at least partly from the right wing gutter tabloid press. Bottom line is if we don't ditch fossil fuels we are all screwed within a century, probably a fair bit less than that, so alternatives HAVE to be found, like it or not. I for one hope humanity manages to transition to a sustainable economy, if only because I will probably still be alive to witness the consequences either way, and if it goes the wrong way, I would prefer not to be alive.
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