[Graham]

Originally Posted by Chris T

I'd love for that to work, but I know from a friend (who was a power station engineer) how hard it can be to 'switch on' a power station. You have to keep them ticking over rather than letting them stop entirely, unless you have plenty of notice of when you're going to need the extra capacity.

I should have *known* someone was going to pick up on that one...!

Yes, ok, you don't "switch it on" as such, but if you have it in "tick over" mode it's not going to be using anything like the amount of fuel (or generating as much pollution) as when it's going flat out.

Back to the point though ... if we still have to have masses of capacity in reserve, what benefit ultimately is there in wind power?

Because it won't be generating pollution and CO2 most of the time.

I was just challenging etc's suggestion that we could divert money from nuclear programmes and take the country 100% wind-powered. Clearly, even if we're only maintaining 'traditional' power stations for back-up purposes, that's not possible.

Err, I don't think anyone's suggested 100% wind power, the post somewhere above was talking about 20%, but that's still a lot and a big help for reducing emissions.

---------- Post added at 18:42 ---------- Previous post was at 18:40 ----------

Originally Posted by themelon

To be fair if you have ever seen a nuclear power station (or any non-renewable form of energy power station!!) You will have to agree they are not exactly pleasing on the eye, so the idea that they are an eyesore does not wash with me.

Hear hear!

I would rather have a hillside full of wind turbines, or a gigantic hydro electric damn than a dirty great nuclear power plant, warm water in the sea around it, and tonnes of nuclear waste to bury somewhere.

Although I'm not necessarily enamoured of hydro-electric, flooding big areas to supply power isn't the best of solutions, these are very good points.