We should have built more Nuclear power stations decades ago (as the French did) but the Governments refused to listen to the scientific advice, instead listening to the nambi pambie Green peeps. Who whinged about radioactive waste such as overalls and boots etc. which was trivial if you compare to say a popular Cornish Town beach! Just dig down a few inches to the scree (from the old mines) and your Geiger counter will show more radiactivity! or some of the public walkways may even have evidence of the same.

Think I may have been breathing too much of that Radon gas :-( need more alcohol......

Edited by nailit on 27/12/2015 at 14:27

Simle arithmetic: a ball-park consumption of a pure electric car is estimated as 34 KWH for 100 miles.

To recharge overnight (11hours) needs 3KW to be supplied.

1000 cars, 3MW

1000,000 cars, 3000MW. There are 30 million cars now, only a few hundred using mains electricity. (Current capacity of Drax is 3900MW, most nuclear plants are 2000MW or less.) To power similar number of cars then needs another 30 or 40 new stations.

No way can this much extra supply be put in place for many years, even if a government decides to do it, overriding the nimbys, so car ownership will be restricted if IC engines are banned.

(And how is it proposed by the tree-huggers to power the trucks which distribute everything we consume and use? 44 tonners with 24 ton batteries?)

It's strange how there has been years of opposition against nuclear power stations because of the problem of dealing with waste.

Now plans have been put forward for a new power station built at Bradwell using Chinese technology.

I'm sceptical of China given their track record with pollution and disregard for their people's health.

As mentioned above we should have built new power stations years ago with proven methods. Sometimes you just have to pay the money for reliable, clean power for future needs. It's a pretty important part of modern life isn't it?

I'm hoping that the planning and safety consultations fall through before they have a chance to build it.

But what then? It's back to square one. I might be wrong, and Chinese power stations could be the best in the world, but they don't seem to like communicating much, and that's suspicious too.

If the lights start to go out, then you'll see how quickly a civilised society will begin to implode. Maybe I'm being over dramatic, but with the population rising all the time where does it end?

Happy new year.

Edited by corax on 28/12/2015 at 10:50

I'm not against nuclear power at all but, having the Chinese building and operating them does worry me a bit. It is likely there has been incidents in China with nuclear power stations which have not been admitted to, much the same as the soviet union.

Wont matter who builds/designs them there is always an element of risk, that goes for anything man made

although whatever direction we take in producing more power there will always be some opposition

we will still need more power stations if we go all EV`s thats without the extra cabling involved unless new tech comes into play (doubtfull but you never know)

Don't forget the Eton and Oxbridge educated chaps in charge have signed up to a legal requirement to reducing ALL UK CO2 emissions by 80%.

I'm only a grammar school and redbrick university lad but I can figure out that this is completely impossible with our current population.

If there were only a few tens of thousands, as at the time of Alfred the Great, we could grow our own turnips and weave rough habits from our sheeps' wool, living in turf huts, huddling together for warmth in winter.

IIRC there is a hefty fine if we cant comply (I think its impossible) London gets a large fine if we dont clean up I think by 2020, it has been said its unlikely to be cleaned up by 2030

Then there is India, undoing what we have supposedly been doing for years

I think the point about lack of electricity stock is the biggest argument against electric cars. If even half the population had one every city would go dark. Quite unnecessary given the doomsday prediction about oil prices has not come to pass. I remember not so long ago being told it'd soon be a million dollars a barrel and there'll be none left within five years blah blah blah.

I have been looking at National Grid numbers, which are as follows:

Peak demand could be as much as 60 to 70 GW.

Coal and gas can supply 50 GW and nuclear about 10-15.

(But some coal stations are due to close, as are some nuclear plants.)

Maximum from wind (when it blows at the right speed) is about 8 GW

We buy 2GW from France and 1GW from Holland.

Not much margin for increases in demand.

This display is interesting...shows current electricity demand and supply

www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

The problem (other than generation capacity [the REALLY big one]) is that battery-powered cars have a short range, and in reality most people need to 'refuel' their cars during the day (or at least not just before they go to bed) when they are out driving elsewhere, whether visiting family/friends (quite often well over the range of an electrically-powered car) or for work pruposes (similar, but with the added problem of not having hours to wait during a trip for it to recharge [maybe more than once] or having sufficient facilities to do so on the way or at their destination.

I, as someone who lives in a flat, cannot realistically charge my car overnight for obvious reasons, nor canour development afford to pay for the cost of installing charging points/power cabling on every space (including for visitors) - we don't have the space or perhaps even the local distribution capacity. Even if we did, given they would be in communal areas, they would be vulnerable to damage (even in a relatively low crime area we still get some problems in addition to minor accidents) which we would have to pay for (which no doubt would not be cheap).

Electric cars being the 'dominant' form of personal transport is a far-off dream - I would say we're easily 30-50 years away from it being a reality - we need time to slowly build up electricity generating capacity, additional distribution (mostly locally), secure/quick/inexpensive charging points for those who cannot charge at home and less polluting ways of generating the electricity than just moving petrol/diesel pollution from exhaust pipes to power station chimneys (given the losses in distribution), never mind making significant improvements to battery technology (which itself isn't exactly friendly to the environment) to give cars the same range, boot space and performance as petrol/diesel ones.