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Written by Alan Shaw
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Thursday, 21 September 2006 |
Tom Johnston and his Chief Engineer Edward McColl who respectively
conceived and realised the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board from
1943 onwards must be turning in their graves!
One of the first proposals tackled from 1949 by McColl was wind power for the remoter areas with back up by diesel power. Six years of research and development were based on the 100kW prototype Costa Head Orkney wind turbine supplied by John Brown's of Glasgow. He concluded that " it was patently cheaper to provide power solely by diesel generation". (see Prof Peter Payne's "The Hydro" page 198-199 Aberden U.P. 1988)
The main criteria for selection of public electricity plant have always been reliability (continuity of supply and safety) and cost. Since Kyoto a third has become dominant in the public mind, and therefore of that of politicians - "saving the planet".
But if, in the course of doing so, small countries are not to be financially ruined by taking on more than their fair share an overall national budget agreed in advance for application of this factor must be agreed by Parliament, The wild application of anything considered "green" is simply not admissable.
The Lib Dem proposal for 100 pc green energy (unspecified) is an example of which to be very wary indeed. It has not been properly thought through. Are Scotland's coalfields, residual natural gas and oilfields not still to be purified and exploited for energy on a million tonne scale? Who or what is to replace our domestic gas fired central and water heating? Modern homes often have no chimney for either fossil or biofuels nor have their prefabricated truss roofs have any strength margin for a wind turbine.
Have the Lib Dems drawn up specifications and compliled realistic national costs for their proposals? I seriously doubt it. The costing of large costs is itself expensive. Leave engineering to engineers. (Other political parties please copy)
The pragmatic French have recently taken action. Electricite de France (EdeF) recently placed orders for materials and equipment for the construction of their Flamanville- 3 (France), EPR nuclear power station The orders include a 350 million euros contract to Alsthom for one 1,750 MW generating unit, the largest steam turbine in the world.
This order has wide implications. EdeF , with state of the art costs on their table, by placing these orders have signalled that traditional economies of scale still operate i.e. the cheapest electricity comes from the biggest units. Recent undocumented claims that microgeneration is cheapest have no foundation.
Alan Shaw |
