We ara barking up the wrong tree with wind as an energy source.Tidal power would be much more reliable as tidal activity is predictable and constant in as much as when one river reaches slack water for about 1 hour twice per 24 hour day,another river would still be active.
I am likely wrong but I always get the nagging feeling about renewable energy and things like long lasting batteries, that some big oil conglomerate holds the patents to something or many things that could change the world but at the moment it is not in their interests to release that information.
I don’t do conspiracy theories but this is just a niggle where $$$$'s are involved 
Anyone know how many loads of limestone dust or pit props a coal mine gets through in a week or month or other supplies ?
Is Harworth Colliery still mothballed?
Production ceased in 2006, but they continued to ventilate it, drain it and carry out daily shaft/pit bottom inspections at a cost of £1million a year. 
Not heard much about it recently though. Anybody know?
Drift:
Chris1207:
Up here in the land of sheep n haggis, we have the right idea. We have BUCKET loads of wind, and bucket loads of water.So, they use the wind for generation 24x7. At off-peak times (e.g. middle of the night), when the power it generates is being wasted (as it can’t be stored), it’s diverted and used to pump water UP hills, into massive man-made reservoirs. At peak times, when the wind generation can’t meet the requirements… that water is then chucked back down the hill through massive pipes, turning huge turbines.
We currently have 2 of these, capable of generating >700MW… and another 2 currently in planning/construction, capable of up to another 1200MW.
It’s really quite clever… “pumped-storage hydroelectric”, Google it.
There’s a 45 min documentary about it available from NLS, here: ssa.nls.uk/film/2790
Dan Punchard:
What happend to carbon capture ?It got cancelled.
I have seen that in action at the Dinorwig power station in North Wales, my Mum used to live in a cottage on the next hill
When it is operating and you walk over the hill/mountain you can feel the whole hill vibrating very strange sensation.
You can get a tour around the tunnels on a mini bus.
That’s Electric Mountain in Llanberis, Snowdonia.
Brilliant day out, go to the Slate Mine as well & see the Huge Water Wheel that used to use water running off Snowdon to power what seems like hundreds of machines-lathes, presses, drills etc, the prop shaft is about 100 yards long with belts coming off it every few yards. Them Victorians & their Forefathers knew how to harness renewable energy.
In Norway I believe it’s all Hydro Electricity, that’s why they’ve built a Pipe Line to GB so they can sell us all their gas, because they don’t need it & their houses have been properly insulated for thousands of years ! Not like ours built after the war, with 2 inch thick walls then sold to us Mugs as Des Res’es at hugely inflated prices. (But that’s another story)
I’ve never been in a more draughty house or as damp as that cottage in Fachwen (across the lake from Llanberis) and it had three foot thick walls 
but I know what your saying
Energy efficiency is the key but as we save with insulation and the like society brings out more stuff to plug into the network, we are addicted to it myself included while I type this
Contraflow:
bazza123:
…why are we not re opening all our pits in places like South Wales and The Midlands?Because you can’t just “re-open” underground workings that have been abandoned for 20+ years.
I can remember reading years ago about this and they said that they should of kept a small amount of staff at each mine just to keep them open all doing each others jobs but the unions would never agree so was easier to shut them.
It is not the case that home produced coal is cheaper , it is the case that falling coal prices on the world market make buying coal from abroad & shipping it halfway round the world more viable than buying home produced coal .
Then there are the set asides for restoring the open cast sites once coal extraction is finished or no longer economically worthwhile.
All the above factors led to the administration of Scottish Coal
thisismoney.co.uk/money/news … -lost.html
Although there is another issue that future increases in rail transportation of coal & tightening regulations on emissions means that coal extracted in Scotland could not be used in some of the power stations there , but could be used in English power stations , although ever tightening regulations in England meant its use there is now restricted & reducing , coupled to the massive costs of restorations of previously worked sites led to the plug being pulled , thereby circumventing future liabilities .
As for the chances of a UK deep coal mine industry reemerging , I would imagine there is about as much chance of a snowball surviving in the fire of a power station
If this fracking for gas turns out to be as abundant as the press makes out coal use will be reduced even further, but that said even fracked gas is not unlimited, there will be a time when British coal again becomes economically viable like the oil and gas reserves in the North Sea that where not viable 30 years ago are now being extracted using new technology.
del949:
I am not anti nuclear as such but do have the obvious concerns of what to do with the waste product.
It seems strange to me that the “spent” fuel is radio active.
If it is still radio active surely that means that it still has some energy left, although of a different kind.
Perhaps investment should be made into finding uses for the spent fuel.
Only the most raving believer in the bs global warming scam would want to accept the inevitable risk of a nuclear disaster at some point in the future.Either through reactor accidents or waste leakage,owing to the increase in the odds,based on the simple law of averages,of replacing coal with nuclear,in a small Island populated by more than 60 million people.
The pro nuclear lot obviously haven’t thought through the potential for making the place an uninhabitable wasteland with no way to evacuate and compensate the population and make up for the lost food production implications.Bearing in min we’re sitting on enough coal to make us self sufficient in cheaper energy than nuclear can provide for the foreseeable future,the choice between coal or nuclear is a no brainer.
mac12:
Contraflow:
bazza123:
…why are we not re opening all our pits in places like South Wales and The Midlands?Because you can’t just “re-open” underground workings that have been abandoned for 20+ years.
I can remember reading years ago about this and they said that they should of kept a small amount of staff at each mine just to keep them open all doing each others jobs but the unions would never agree so was easier to shut them.
That’s assuming you don’t believe it was all just a conspiracy by Thatcher’s government to smash the British unions and make us dependent on imported energy.The idea that the NUM didn’t want to keep the pits open seems to contradict the reasons for the 1984 strike. 
alamcculloch:
We ara barking up the wrong tree with wind as an energy source.Tidal power would be much more reliable as tidal activity is predictable and constant in as much as when one river reaches slack water for about 1 hour twice per 24 hour day,another river would still be active.
The answer to ‘renewables’ is staring everyone in the face.Instead of using offshore oil rigs to drill for oil just send down large drilling type pipes as deep as possible then open the bottom of the pipe to the sea pressure to compress the air in the pipe.Then open the pipe at the top to a compressed air driven generator instead of a wind turbine.Job done.
Dan Punchard:
Bring it back ,I could do with a new NCB donkey jacket!
I`ve got 1 here, and an orange British coal one
There was an article in the Sunday Telegraph a couple of weeks ago about Algy Cuff, who in the 1970s was one of the speculators involved in the North Sea oil exploration with Cuff Oil. I thought that he must have been dead by now but he now runs a company that is looking to commercialise a process that will liquefy coal reserves underground and pump up a fuel that is similar in properties to diesel. It seems that the technology for doing this is actually proven and dates back to the time of the good old NCB, but it now needs scaling up to commercial operation. In principle it is somewhat similar to fracking for gas, but without some of the potential problems. Cuff is targeting the coal reserves under the North Sea which are measured in trillions of tonnes and spread as far across from the North East to Norway. Similar huge reserves of coal are also available off the West Coast under the Irish Sea. The potential for this as a source of fuel is for at least a couple of hundred years, so it is claimed. But then again I can recall as a young lad newspaper headlines of the 1950s saying that nuclear power would provide free electricity for everyone. We can dream.
Carryfast:
mac12:
Contraflow:
bazza123:
…why are we not re opening all our pits in places like South Wales and The Midlands?Because you can’t just “re-open” underground workings that have been abandoned for 20+ years.
I can remember reading years ago about this and they said that they should of kept a small amount of staff at each mine just to keep them open all doing each others jobs but the unions would never agree so was easier to shut them.
That’s assuming you don’t believe it was all just a conspiracy by Thatcher’s government to smash the British unions and make us dependent on imported energy.The idea that the NUM didn’t want to keep the pits open seems to contradict the reasons for the 1984 strike.
What I meant was they would not have got the unions to agree to maybe an electrician driving a loading shovel, so instead of having 1000s of staff all doing there own job have maybe 50 doing enough to pay there wages and keep the mine open for future use
mac12:
Carryfast:
mac12:
Contraflow:
bazza123:
…why are we not re opening all our pits in places like South Wales and The Midlands?Because you can’t just “re-open” underground workings that have been abandoned for 20+ years.
I can remember reading years ago about this and they said that they should of kept a small amount of staff at each mine just to keep them open all doing each others jobs but the unions would never agree so was easier to shut them.
That’s assuming you don’t believe it was all just a conspiracy by Thatcher’s government to smash the British unions and make us dependent on imported energy.The idea that the NUM didn’t want to keep the pits open seems to contradict the reasons for the 1984 strike.
What I meant was they would not have got the unions to agree to maybe an electrician driving a loading shovel, so instead of having 1000s of staff all doing there own job have maybe 50 doing enough to pay there wages and keep the mine open for future use
As I remember it the only limiting factor in mothballing pits,as opposed to closing them,was mainly the issue of keeping them pumped out to stop them flooding with pit engineering having no connection which the production side of the industry.The 1984 strike had nothing to do with demarcation it was all about keeping the pits open to satisfy the country’s energy demands.Whereas Thatcher’s policy was to wipe them out to remove the establishment’s dependence on a ( rightly ) highly unionised industry.Which explains why the pits were then ordered to be allowed to flood and sealed with concrete to stop them being used again.The idea that had anything whatsoever to do with the miners destroying their own industry by job demarcation,when they’d actually fought to save it,is just tory bs propaganda.
gingerfold:
There was an article in the Sunday Telegraph a couple of weeks ago about Algy Cuff, who in the 1970s was one of the speculators involved in the North Sea oil exploration with Cuff Oil. I thought that he must have been dead by now but he now runs a company that is looking to commercialise a process that will liquefy coal reserves underground and pump up a fuel that is similar in properties to diesel. It seems that the technology for doing this is actually proven and dates back to the time of the good old NCB, but it now needs scaling up to commercial operation. In principle it is somewhat similar to fracking for gas, but without some of the potential problems. Cuff is targeting the coal reserves under the North Sea which are measured in trillions of tonnes and spread as far across from the North East to Norway. Similar huge reserves of coal are also available off the West Coast under the Irish Sea. The potential for this as a source of fuel is for at least a couple of hundred years, so it is claimed. But then again I can recall as a young lad newspaper headlines of the 1950s saying that nuclear power would provide free electricity for everyone. We can dream.
worldcoal.org/coal/uses-of-c … o-liquids/
As for nuclear during the 1950’s to date the truth was/is that it’s just an expensive,dangerous,essential by product of having a nuclear weapons based defence system.Thatcher just tried to take advantage of the idea in thinking that she could also use it to smash the British unions in addition to handing over our self sufficiency in energy provision to foreign exporters.
We still haven’t really come up with an effective way of capturing the power from tidal surges. There are billions of tons of water swirling around our coasts every day; if only we could manipulate it to provide our energy.
In terms of fuel use I believe hydrogen will be a major source soon. Already Honda are manufacturing a production hydrogen car; the major challenge is fixing the hydrogen. If solar power could be used to electrolyse sea water, the by products are oxygen and hydrogen.
If more sunnier parts of the world could be utilised for solar power to fuel these electrolysers, we could have a steady supply of hydrogen to put in fuel cells for cars, trucks etc.
bazza123:
We still haven’t really come up with an effective way of capturing the power from tidal surges. There are billions of tons of water swirling around our coasts every day; if only we could manipulate it to provide our energy.In terms of fuel use I believe hydrogen will be a major source soon. Already Honda are manufacturing a production hydrogen car; the major challenge is fixing the hydrogen. If solar power could be used to electrolyse sea water, the by products are oxygen and hydrogen.
If more sunnier parts of the world could be utilised for solar power to fuel these electrolysers, we could have a steady supply of hydrogen to put in fuel cells for cars, trucks etc.
There’s a whole lot of stuff that’s been tried and tested and working quite well if the truth was told 
I mean we can if you believe it, put a man on the moon send stuff to other planets and search the universe but still rely on coal and other stuff to provide power and heating .
Personally, I think there is still a future for coal, when you look at how many coal fired power stations there are around the world, I don’t think, getting rid of the 12 or so we have is going to make much difference to anything. I also believe, that shutting the pits, was all political, maybe some had to close, but not all of them, I know of pits that were mining seams 10ft thick, that went for miles, that still shut
Nobody seems that concerned about fossil fuels running out yet, so, there must be technology out there for when it does. To put this in perspective,there was a article on the news on BBC other week, about how, in the late 70’s, early 80’s, information was being sent out of Iran, by intelligence operatives, that was undetectable, that technology was what we now know as Bloothtooth, so what technology have they got now, when it comes to alternative fuels.