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Thursday, November 03, 2005

THE SCOTSMAN COMES OUT FOR NUCLEAR & MY LETTERS

Recently the Scotsman came out in a 2/3 page closely argued leader in favour of building new nuclear power stations - you can imagine how pleased I was. Nonetheless I spotted an error - they had based their argument on the idea that 20% of our electricity is nuclear whereas in Scotland it is up to 55%. Clearly pointing that out would serve to reinforce the point.

That was the first letter here.

I got a very good reply supporting classic power sources which I am reprinting.

I sent back this reply which, somewhat to my surprise hasen't been published. The Scotsman haven't printed any other letters on the subject & I am sure Stuart Campbell at least must have sent one so I presume they have decided to give correspondence on nuclear a rest for a time.

The original leader is at the bottom, since being much longer than the letters, had I started with it my bit would be drowned out.
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Nuclear power


I was pleased to see your editorial (15 October) supporting nuclear power, due to the catastrophic effects of drifting into a situation where Hunterston and Torness close without being replaced. However, you say that 20 per cent of Scotland's power is supplied by nuclear, when, in fact, that is the figure for the United Kingdom as a whole. In Scotland, the figure is 55 per cent.
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Enough power in store


The pro-nuclear lobby keeps trying to inflate the amount of nuclear power generated in Scotland, usually quoting figures between 50 and 55 per cent with Neil Craig (Letters, 22 October) quoting 55 per cent. Official figures for 2001, 2002 and 2003 are 36.8, 32 and 37.2 per cent respectively.

If the Hunterston B (1,190 MW) licence is not extended beyond 2011, it will close, but before 2010 almost 1,900 MW of additional power capacity will be available in Scotland.


The modernised Peterhead gas/oil-fired power station has a further 821MW that could be made available if the east-coast grid was strengthened. A 350 MW prototype carbon-free hydrogen-fired power station at Peterhead is planned to be operational by 2009.

There will also be a further 400 MW gas-fired station at Westfield, Fife, an upgraded 120 MW gas-fired station in Fife became operational in December 2004, and an additional 120 MW hydro capacity will be available by the winter of 2008, and we now have 50 MW of biomass and waste-fuelled power plants available.

BILL ROBERTSON
Old Greenock Road
Bishopton, Renfrewshir
(I really had to work to answer this)
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The letter from Bill Robertson (25th Oct.) saying that Scotland only relies on nuclear for 37.2% of our electricity rather than the 55% I said deserves a response. The figure he gives derives from a DTI report which also says that this was artificially reduced in 2002/3 by technical problems (mainly at Torness). The figure of 55% was accepted at Holyrood. The former relates to theoretical capacity, the latter to market share of power produced. Thus, for example while there may be 50 MW capacity of bio-mass (aka wood) available, without planting many hundreds of square miles of new forest it would be impossible to utilise this continuously as nuclear can.

In any case since my letter was in response to well justified predictions of catastrophe if we lose 20% of our power to say that it may actually, on an average day, be only 37% is not reassuring.

I agree we could put in new cabling to use power from Peterhead, though the hysteresis losses in moving power make that an inefficient measure. However, with the ratification of the Kyoto treaty, it is now illegal to increase CO2 production & thus we cannot rely on increased coal & gas fired power.

His reference to a prototype hydrogen powered generator solving our problems is misplaced. Hydrogen is not a power source - hydrogen is merely a storage medium. There is no such thing as a hydrogen well. To make 350 MW from hydrogen you have to first use over 1000 MW of power to make the hydrogen from water. This actually makes some sense if you use the off peak power of a nuclear reactor. Reactors work best producing flat out continuously & have minuscule fuel costs so the marginal cost, when demand is low is very small. However this only works if we actually have the reactor in the first place.

Mr Robertson has produced serious figures to back up his letter unlike so many "renewable" supporters who think electricity just comes from sockets but the fact remains that we are facing major blackouts over the next 2 decades for purely hysterical reasons. France produces 85% of its power from nuclear, sells large amounts of it very profitably to its Luddite neighbours (including 5% of UK power keeping the south of England warm) & is doing very nicely out of it. I think that is better than having pensioners dying of hypothermia because they can't pay their fuel bills as, according to Help the Aged, happens to 24,000 pensioners in Britain every winter.
Yours Faithfully
Neil Craig
REFS
DTI report www.ukaea.org.uk/reports/ 2003review

Holyrood debate http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-02/sor0314-02.htm
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& THE SCOTSMAN EDITORIAL:
HARD CHOICE ON NUCLEAR POWER

There were floods in Hawick this week. Not quite Hurricane Katrina, but with basking sharks invading Scottish waters we all know our climate is doing funny things. A concensus has emerged over the past couple of decades that it is best to be safe rather than sorry in this situation. So public policy has moved in the direction of redirecting the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which scientists have implicated as a possible factor behind global warming. But just how serious are our politicians about cutting carbon dioxide emissions? Do they really mean it or is it just playing to the gallery? And how committed are the various environmental pressure groups to making the many political compromises needed to effect change in the energy market? Are they players or merely utopians who reject any compromise solution - which is no solution at all.

The facts speak for themselves. The Blair government has set a target for achieving 10 per cent of Britain's energy from renewable sources by 2010. however we can barely manage 4 per cent, & most of it from large-scale hydro-electric plants which the environmental lobby would oppose if built today. Wind power is the only practical renewable technology available in the timeframe but it struggles to produce 0.5 per cent of electrical power after 15 years of development at enormous public subsidy. Besides the environmental lobby has now turned its guns against shore-based wind turbines.

Lesson: the government will not meet its 2010 renewable energy target as the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, hinted loudly in his speech to the Labour Party conference a few weeks ago.

In Scotland championed by the environmental minister, Ross Finnie, illusions regarding renewable power illusions are even more fanciful. Scotland has the advantage of the great hydroelectric schemes built in the 1940s & 1950s, which provide around 13% of our electric needs. Rather than build on this legacy in a sensible fashion, Mr Finnie has set an absurd target of generating 40 per cent of power generation needs provided by renewables in 2020. This makes the Executive - especially its Liberal Democratic part - look heroic to the more impressionable part wing of the environmental lobby. However any sensible observer realises Mr Finnie's figure is either hopelessly farfetched or a cynical ploy be a politician who won't be around in 15 years time when it is exposed as a fraud.

A look at the small print of the Executive's policy on renewables reveals it is premised on the untenable assumption that future growth in energy demand is limited to between zero and 1% per annum. But governments of all parties have championed energy conservation in Britain for 30 years only to see demand soar by 60%. Electricity demand in the United Kingdom rises at 1-1.5% a year. Unless Mr Finnie plans to knock down most of Scotland's houses over the next 15 years & rebuild them with a serious eye to energy conservation you can forget the 40% figure. Even if Mr Finnie did succeed in his plans, renewable energy is substantially more expensive than other forms of generation. Household bills would skyrocket, while what is left of Scottish industry would be put at a serious competitive disadvantage.

Fortunately a little common sense has started to break out in government circles in the past few weeks, especially at Westminster. Mr Blair has begun a not-so-subtle campaign to put nuclear power back on the agenda as an alternative that renewables or conservation can do the job of cutting down on fossil fuel emissions fast enough to help with global climate change.

A clue as to how serious the Prime Minister is can be found in the fact that that the Department of Trade & Industry has recently confirmed it has been holding preliminary talks wit major nuclear utilities in Germany & France. The DTI has already identifies 3 sites to host new reactors, including Hunterston in Ayrshire. That puts Scotland squarely in the nuclear frame.

Not for the first time, the Executive is prevaricating. The Hunterston B nuclear power station in Ayrshire is set to close in 2011, while Torness in East Lothian will last until around 2020. Together they supply some 20% of Scotland's electricity. Take them out of the game & renewable will have to fill even more than that impossible 40% target. Unless new nuclear stations are commissioned, the reality is that Britain & Scotland are going to have to burn a lot more expensive, imported natural gas. So much for cutting fossil fuel emissions. So much for security of energy supply.

The conclusion is inescapable: if we want to cut fossil fuel emission in a reasonable timeframe, the only practical policy is to build a new generation of nuclear generating plant. Others are thinking this way too. China plans to build 30 new reactors by 2020, while environmentally-conscious Finland has already broken Europe's long moratorium on commissioning atomic power stations.

The latest designs of nuclear plant embody passive safety systems that do not require human intervention in the case of an accident. The Chernobyl reactor on the other hand, relied on human operating procedures which were violated. The new reactors are also much more economical to build, operate & maintain than the current generation.

Long term waste storage remains an issue, but if there is a choice to be made it is surely more to cut the fossil fuel emissions now and sort out the nuclear waste at our leisure. Half a loaf is always better than nothing to a starving man. It is just such hard political choices that the Executive has to start making.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

GOVERNMENT SOLVES THE HOUSING PROBLEM

This from today's Scotsman
A FARMER who built two detached houses without planning consent behind a wall of "tattie" boxes was yesterday ordered to tear the buildings down.

Charles Marshall Senior was accused earlier this year of a "serious and blatant" breach of planning controls after the Aberdeenshire company in which he is a partner, Marshall Farms, built two additional homes in a steading conversion development at South Auchinclech, Westhill, on the outskirts of Aberdeen.


Marshall Farms had originally been granted planning permission by Aberdeenshire Council in 1999 to convert the U-shaped steading into five homes.

But the council served an enforcement notice on the company seven months ago after officials discovered that an old bothy, close to the steading, had been demolished and replaced by an almost completed one-and-a-half-storey dwelling house and that a completely new dwelling house had also been partly constructed at the green belt site.

The two unauthorised buildings were hidden from public view behind a massive stack of potato boxes. But Mr Marshall later vigorously refuted suggestion that the wall of boxes had been built around the site to conceal the building activity and vowed to contest the council's action.

Yesterday, however, it was revealed that Marshall Farms has lost its appeal to the Scottish Executive and that Aberdeenshire Council's enforcement order has been upheld by Michael Thomson, an inquiry reporter with the Executive's development department.

Mr Thomson states in his judgment that there is no justification whatsoever for the additional buildings being constructed at the site and that they should be removed.

But, in his report, Mr Thomson made a point of praising the standard of the building work carried out at the site.

In his conclusions, he said: "At the start, I consider it necessary to record that the standard of the building work carried out on the appeal site appears to be of a very high standard.

"The materials used, at least on all the main elevations of the buildings involved, are also exceptional.

"While I found some of the details of the conversion to be incongruous to a scheme of such quality, overall it is rare, in my opinion, to find a developer willing to invest in building to such a standard.

" I therefore consider it all the more curious that so much of the work has been carried out without the benefit of planning permission and has been put in jeopardy as a result."

Mr Marshall, 72, said he was considering his right of appeal to the Court of Session. He said: "It's pathetic, but they have made the decision."

Questioned about the allegations concerning the wall of potato boxes being used to conceal the building work, he said: "They were in a field beside the houses. The boxes were waiting for the tatties to be harvested and the tatties are now harvested. It is a lot of rubbish from start to finish but we will rise to see another day, I am quite sure."

A spokesman for Aberdeenshire Council welcomed the reporter's findings. He said: "The council is pleased that the reporter has recognised the seriousness of the breach of planning control at South Auchinclech, but also wishes to acknowledge the co-operation it has received from Marshall Farms in respect of other planning matters brought to the council's attention.

"This case highlights the importance of following proper planning procedures when proposing a development, and the seriousness we attach to breaches of this nature.

"Marshall Farms will now have three months to demolish the unauthorised houses."
Indeed the importance of proper planning procedures is much more important than creating something useful. Note that this is being enforced neither on grounds of building standards (they were admitted to be of a particularly high standard) nor esthetic standards (unless piles of tattie boxes are considered high art). In this country a sizeable part of most people's income goes on housing. This proves that the cost of housing depends not on the cost of building houses but on government regulations. The fact that Marshall were sufficiently unconcerned about the marginal cost of building 2 houses, with no added land or consent, costs proves that.

It is ever more difficult for first timers to get housing, indeed there are many highland towns where young people are forced out because available houses are being bought as holiday homes. Quite obviously in a free market there would be no shortage because it would be possible to build more. Some years ago a US congressman calculated that housing costs could be reduced by 40%, but that was years ago & it wasn't Scotland - if land was available at market rates & it was permitted to use modern materials & mass off-site manufacturing I have little doubt that new housing costs could be reduced to no more than 25% of current costs.

"Affordable housing" one of the mantras of our government is a cruel lie - it actually means more taxpayer subsidies to allow the state (via housing associations) to build outdated homes which get filled only because of their monopoly position. This allows the state to keep people dependent. Truly affordable houses are entirely attainable - all that is required is that the politicians stop preventing builders building.

(this was also drafted as a Scotsman letter but they didn't use it)

Monday, October 31, 2005

OUR AL QAEDA ALLIES

Here is something which isn't getting much in depth reporting:
Police foil bomb attack in Sarajevo
The Times (London) - October 24, 2005, Monday

By: Nick Hawton in Sarajevo

EMBASSIES and foreign organisations in Bosnia have stepped up security after police in Sarajevo arrested two men who were apparently preparing to carry out a suicide bomb attack.

The two, who hold Swedish and Turkish citizenship but who are believed to have come from the former Yugoslavia, are said to have been under surveillance for some time.

According to sources close to the investigation, they were carrying explosives when they were arrested in the suburb of Ilidza on the outskirts of Sarajevo. One report said that the men were planning to attack the embassy of a European Union country.

Weapons and explosives were seized from two buildings that have links with the unnamed men, aged 18 and 20. At least one of them is alleged to have recorded a video reciting Islamic prayers that was intended to be found after his death. A third man, a Bosnian, was arrested and is being held at a separate facility.

There are 7,000 European Union (EUFOR) peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia, including several hundred British troops.

From the very start the western backed forces "liberating the Bosnian nation" were wahabbist loonies publicly committed to the genocide of the 60% of the population who weren't moslems. They made no secret of this it was only the Nazi filth running the Nato governments & media who lied to pretend otherwise. Most of the non-conscript parts of the "Bosnian Army" were actually al Qaeda or Iranian soldiers armed & flown in, despite mandatory UN sanctions, by the US & other Nato members.

At the end of the war al Qaeda etnically cleaned (possibly exterminated) Bocina Donja to set up a terrorist base. Al Qaeda particularly wanted this because they are or at least were, distinctly short of suicide bombers who don't look arabic. Claerly, from the above story, they have got them.

The BBC & other supporters of genocide are clearly in a cleft stick. To properly report this would make it obvious that they have deliberately lied to us, specifically for the purpose of supporting terrorists, for 15 years, not to runs the risk of being found out when major atrocities happen here. There is already reason to think that the triggers for bombs used in London & Madrid are Bosnian. This is getting less coverage than the claim that the Iranians are supplying Iraqis.

While both organisations are both fundamentalist & criminal the Bosnian Nazis appear to be more political, whereas our KLA terrorist friends are more interested in drugs & the sale of schoolgirls, both of which are easier to report.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

X-PRIZES

I am reprinting this from the Jerry Pournelle Site. The role of the X-Prize in stimulating the launch of Rutan's Spaceship One should be well known. For an award of $10 million for the first private trip into space it has been possible to start an industry which has already, among other things, enabled Richard Branson to collect $10 million in advance deposits for his & Rutan's proposed charter version of Spaceship One.

Please note that the UK space programme (?) currently consumes about £400 million a year & is generally considered token even by European standards. The $10 billion proposed is thus just over what we will spend in a dozen years to achieve nothing much anyway, & of course this proposal would only cost money if it succeeded.

Despite the fact that that I proposed something along these lines a few years back & had it soundly rejected (post Dec 20th 94) I have been unable to see the downside of this.
A National Technology Goals Foundation

I have often advocated Grand Prizes for space development. A $10 billion Prize for the first US company to put 31 Americans on the Moon and keep them there, continuously, alive and well, for three years and a day would stimulate all the space development we would need, and build the technological base for solar power satellites. For that matter, a $5 billion prize for the first American company to beam a megawatt of power from space to the continental US for a year would be worth a very great deal, perhaps as much as our expensive involvement in the Middle East.

But in fact why should prizes be confined to space? If Grand Prizes and Grand Challenges are a good idea, why confine them to space?

One objection to prizes is that the US constitution isn't set up to allow them: money has to be authorized and appropriated, and how is that to be done for accomplishments that haven't happened and can't be scheduled?

When I discussed this with Congressman Rohrabacher he suggested a National Space Foundation to which the money could be appropriated and which would award the money when the conditions were fulfilled.

On reflection that is a great idea but it can be carried further than space. Imagine a National Technology Goals Foundation, with an annual $2.01 billion a year appropriation. The $.01 billion is the entire operating budget of the Foundation. The Foundation sets prizes and amounts. Once a Prize is announced, the money is set aside. Interest from the money (if any) reverts to the Treasury. Prize money not obligated can be added to the total so that prizes larger than $2 billion can be announced.

One suspects that for something like a Moon Colony, Congress could be persuaded to replenish the prize fund, but this is for another discussion, as would be a discussion of studying the economic impact of the Foundation to see if it's worth the money.

It looks like a good idea from here.


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