Quote:
Originally Posted by Maggy J
I'd rather we used as many different energy sources as we can.
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A sensible mix is indeed needed, but it has to be balanced right.
There's no point closing the coal power stations until we have sufficient generating capacity to replace them. Nuclear is the best replacement for coal as it provides the same steady baseload power that a coal power station does, and is reliable. Once we have the nukes online we can scale the coal stations back, as they are pretty dirty things.
Wind can play a part, however it should only be a minority player in the UK energy mix. The UK isn't that large geographically, so its very easy for us to have a high pressure system sit over us (Especially in winter) meaning little or no wind output during times of high demand. Solar can also play a minor part, but as it can't generate at night it can't be relied upon.
Gas is flexible, and is very good at covering the fluctuations from Wind and solar generation because it can be easily wound up and down to match demand. The problem is that gas prices will not stay low, therefore we need to carefully consider before we build too many gas power stations.
In the UK, hydro is not really a big provider of power outside of the Scottish highlands. We don't have the massive mountain ranges needed for really high power hydro installs, and environ-mentalists would go spare if you suggested drowning a valley. Pumped Storage might be worth looking at again if we end up with lots of surplus power, but again its very much dependant on geography.
The biggest waste of time and money at the moment (aside from wind) has to be tidal power. The theory is brilliant, tides are predictable and can therefore provide predictable power. The problem is the amount of power you can get from even the largest tidal power installations is shockingly small.