then how will you get the electricity to the people

 

Microwave transmission, probably. Lasers won't go through clouds.

All this was worked out forty years ago; we just haven't put much effort into developing it. It's easier to keep chewing up oil and leave the problem for our kids to sort out.

 

stopped on safety grounds

look how many mega Wat's of power the UK consumes and imagine all the people that would fry if a plane flew through the energy beam or the satellite de stabilized an moved its orbit

 

About a thousandth as many as currently die trying to dig coal and oil out of the ground. Are you stopping that on safety grounds?


No, didn't think so. Nor is anyone else.

 

your talking a bout a literal death ray if hundreds of megawatts of micro wave energy swept through a city like London

millions of deaths in a few minutes as it swept across the country in seconds and carried on around the globe

disaster scenario i know but look at the nuclear plants in japan

also the cost is prohibitive given current costs per kg in to high earth orbit

 

I suggest to the UK and Germany to stick with their nuke plans. The thing that went wrong in Japan is that they buried their backup power supplies under the ground so that the water from a Tsunami could destroy them. Someone made an error in the design of the backup system to prevent the reactor from going into thermal run-away.

It doesn't take a nuke engineer to understand this. It's common sense.

 

also i would used direct diesel pumps as backups one less thing to fail

 

What needs to be happening is the money being pumped into oil and gas exploration and tax incentives being allowed to oil, coal and gas producers need to be redirected towards the development of lower consumption electric appliances and lighting.Appliances made today use a small fraction of what was available in the 1960's,70's or 80's and are getting better but not fast enough. Once uppon a time here in the U.S. a power consumption study was done that determined that the power used by the computer monitors left on at night used enough energy to light Ireland and most of Scotland. That was back a few years but it still makes a point. We dont use electricity as efficiently as we should. Proper research and development would help to produce appliances that use less energy and produce the results we have grown accustomed to. Lower consumption products make less productive methods of power generation like wind or solar more effective. Space craft and satellites use large solar panels to generate much of thier electricity and its made possible by designing them with very low consumption components to minimize the need for larger solar panels. Take a page from NASA's playbook and streemline power consumption and discover new technologies that can take advantage of less power for the same output or maybe even more.

 

Nuclear power is perfect for the UK, although I do think hyrdo/solar/wind energy should be used as much as possible... make natural energy sources the main source of energy, and then have nuclear plants to subsidise it. People get very hung up on nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl, but it's been decades since then; the technology and the safety has moved on. Although it's easy for people to say this, but you always get the NIMBY crew and that's where nuclear power runs into problems

 

The same with wind farms, they are ugly and I wouldn't want one near my house, though I do live in a city.

One incentive should be if you live within a certain distance of a nuke plant you get your electric at a reduced cost in proportion to the perceived risk

 

If only the government had more ideas like that (not an attack on the current coalition... I doubt labour or any other party would be willing to make concessions like that tbh)

Where in the UK are you from? I'm from the middle east coast, and last I heard there were plans for some off-shore windfarms near there, we also have some on land ones, and I'm fine with them; they're right out in the middle of nowhere and I only see them when driving through the sparse countryside

 

Birmingham. Though I lived in Nottingham for a few years. I have seen the wind farms on the high peaks and think they are damn ugly, but needs must. If all new builds were done with solar panels, then usage from the NG would drop, if people changed their main circuit boards from 240 to 210 volts then consumption would drop, there are a few little things we can do to help, all my main bulbs are energy efficient, my lamps are low wattage. I would install solar panel but the initial outlay is beyond me at the moment.

 

at this moment in time solar, wind and wave power are a complete waist of time and a building of commercial plants is a waist of money as every MW of renewable energy must be backed up by a MW of coal or nuclear power

 

hi rich

the energy efficient bulbs are great but a reduced voltage will not reduce power consumption in any meaning full way as the current rises in you vacuum cleaner to allow the motor to produce the same power

i don't think wind farms are ugly but they are a waist of time

 

Well, that's pretty much what I'm saying... if we have a good source of renewable energy that's clean and safe, we should tap into that as much as we can, and then whatever else is needed can be made up with the cleanest possible alternative, in my opinion, nuclear power.

 

Clean?

What about the waste?

carbon-14 (half life of 5730 years)

 

its the best of a bad bunch at the moment

but on the bright side the government has reduced by 90% the money it is waisting subsidizing commercial solar power plants

what a waste of money that was

 

Not to mention the radiation exposure from mining the uranium, and is uranium a renewable resource? Well no it isn't. In fact, using current technology, we have 50 to 80 years worth of uranium to power the reactors we already have. Supporters of nuclear energy say this isn't a problem because we'll have economical breeder reactors that use spent fuel in 50 to 100 years. That's right. They're betting that it will take that long to develop that technology to be cost effective. My question is, how safe of a bet is that?

Also, unless a nuclear reactor is built by a coastline, it has to use a lot of fresh water for cooling which is often in limited supply. I'm not saying we should shut down the nukes we already have, but I question the wisdom of building more. In fact two are scheduled to be built in Texas by the same manufacturer that built the Japanese plant. Great! More terrorist targets!

 

all very valid points

BUT you do not say how you would generate electricity

so i ask you that question if you say no to nuclear power how do you generate electricity ???????

 

as a final foot note to a dieing thread

UK wind farm energy production lat year only achieved 27% of its potential out put

now there is an industry to bet your future on