Britain Debates the Energy Future

[thunderhead]

George Monbiot writes in The Guardian

Monbiot's calculations look good to me, except for one thing: he doesn't include direct fuels (gas, coal, oil) and he doesn't include transport energy, just electrical energy.  To give you an idea of where that fits in, we use about 17kWh of electricity and maybe 10kWh of gas per week; commuting electric would require maybe another 45kWh of energy.  An electric car uses 80% of the fuel to push it down the road, but a petrol car uses less than 17% and a diesel car less than 22%.  So currently we probably use 180kWh of energy per week.

The linked article also says "Now here comes the biggest leap of faith. I am going to assume that by 2030 a cost-effective energy storage technology has been developed which has a 50% efficiency."</o>

In my opinion - and I have been looking seriously into this sort of storage, both for home and car - this leap of faith is at about the same level as "Jesus will return and put everything right".  Maybe it will happen, but it's not something that belongs in our energy plan.

The search for a cost-effective energy storage technology has been going on at least 100 years - twice as long as the search for safe nuclear power - and has got about as far.  The technology used for electrical storage on an industrial scale is essentially unchanged since 1910.

Electrical storage is not an option, and I don't believe it will become an option.

The only energy options I can see for the future are nuclear and satellite solar.

[Jon Miller]

I would agree with yout sumary there thunderhead i watched the news night program last night and most people asum that they are using very little energy but to make an asumtion about the energy storage system is very wrong its clear we all need to use les energy we could all use CFL and that would make a big change.  

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[Gary D]

 Interesting article, thanks for sharing the link! At least the U.K. is thinking of the future...

 The quickest way to drop peak domestic demand automatically is a kill switch on waterheaters. Our electric co-op has been using them on a voluntary basis for years. We have one installed, and since I'm a bit crazy, when I notice the light(kill switch) is on, I shut other appliances down for a bit...

 As for storage, pumping water during low use times for release during peak needs seems to be the norm in this part of the U.S. Unfortunatelly no ammount of windpower will be able to offset the millions of new homes and shopping malls power requirements on this side of the pond. I personally think that's why our elected officials have hidden from any acknowledgement of merit on the Kyoto treaty... It will take a new thought pattern totally alien to the use and throw away society we have become. That is sadly, brownouts and total system failure come to mind...

Gary D.