What is the point in coal?

3 Jan 2008

I thought (even with my limited intelligence) that coal was not a source of power that was going to last forever so why has approval been given for a planning application for a coal fired power station dunno

Although it has its bad points I would have thought a nuclear station would have been better dunno

I will obviously bow to anyones superior knowledge on this :thumbup:

3 Jan 2008

Nuclear power is officially the cleanest and safest way to power our homes and business into the 21st century, or thats the official government line anyhow.
Burning coal produces many of the dangerous levels of carbon toxins that pollute the atmosphere and speed up the "greenhouse effect" and the "hole in the ozone layer", BUT, coal is cheap to extract, requires far less safety measures and technological equipment (which is expensive) within the structural building of the plant, money saved again, and doesn't need loads of employees to supervise the process from material to power generation, guess what money saved again!!
I bet you can't guess what I'm getting at wink

3 Jan 2008

Quote by Srne
Nuclear power is officially the cleanest and safest way to power our homes and business into the 21st century, or thats the official government line anyhow.
Burning coal produces many of the dangerous levels of carbon toxins that pollute the atmosphere and speed up the "greenhouse effect" and the "hole in the ozone layer", BUT, coal is cheap to extract, requires far less safety measures and technological equipment (which is expensive) within the structural building of the plant, money saved again, and doesn't need loads of employees to supervise the process from material to power generation, guess what money saved again!!
I bet you can't guess what I'm getting at

I get all that but coal isnt going to last as long a nuclear power so I can only summise that there is a distinct lack of forward planning involved ...
Why doesnt that suprise me :lol2:

3 Jan 2008

so its a case of fuck the planet....just as long as the government save abit of money...this just reeks of double standards...how can the government expect us to comply to a cleaner world if they can't!

3 Jan 2008

Standard issue clothing for the people of Rochester in the near future???
And everyone thought we were the smoggies lol

3 Jan 2008

Quote by Steve
Nuclear power is officially the cleanest and safest way to power our homes and business into the 21st century, or thats the official government line anyhow.
Burning coal produces many of the dangerous levels of carbon toxins that pollute the atmosphere and speed up the "greenhouse effect" and the "hole in the ozone layer", BUT, coal is cheap to extract, requires far less safety measures and technological equipment (which is expensive) within the structural building of the plant, money saved again, and doesn't need loads of employees to supervise the process from material to power generation, guess what money saved again!!
I bet you can't guess what I'm getting at

I get all that but coal isnt going to last as long a nuclear power so I can only summise that there is a distinct lack of forward planning involved ...
Why doesnt that suprise me :lol2:
I think its a case of "well there is coal there still, we might as well use it seeing as its cheap".
This is just the tip of the iceberg in double standards, we were going to convert our car to LPG using a government grant that gave us nearly £1000 off the cost of the installation, BUT then we found out that we HAD to use certain companies to get the grant, and guess what? They're twice the cost of non government subsidised ones, so you don't have to be a genius in mathematics to work out that your actually NOT saving a penny :shock: .
One in a long line of stealth "green measures" implemented by the government to look like it's doing it's bit!! mad

3 Jan 2008

Quote by Mr-Powers
so its a case of fuck the planet....just as long as the government save abit of money...this just reeks of double standards...how can the government expect us to comply to a cleaner world if they can't!

Double standards by the Govt? :shock: Surely not? They'll be telling us next they'll have to import cheaper coal from abroad because our supplies are either seriously depleted or the mines will cost too much to reopen becuase of upgraded safety issues and a decent wage. rolleyes

3 Jan 2008

don't worry.
by the time we poison everything and are cooking one minute and flooded the next we will have somewhere else to destroy.
And we can start all over we will all be dead by then.
I have another world war mad

3 Jan 2008

Fear not my friends...
The planet is saved (well from me at least)
I've sold the 4x4 :-)

3 Jan 2008

Quote by Steve
Fear not my friends...
The planet is saved (well from me at least)
I've sold the 4x4 :-)

Sorry guys, i think i might be undoing Steve's work
I want to start driving the Jag again
(yes, i know 20mpg isn't good but it's sooooo nice to drive redface

)

3 Jan 2008

Quote by meat2pleaseu
Fear not my friends...
The planet is saved (well from me at least)
I've sold the 4x4 :-)

Sorry guys, i think i might be undoing Steve's work
I want to start driving the Jag again
(yes, i know 20mpg isn't good but it's sooooo nice to drive redface

)
Its like a kind of CO2 exchange programme...
I get rid of the 4x4 so you can drive the Jag :thumbup:

3 Jan 2008

Quote by Steve
Fear not my friends...
The planet is saved (well from me at least)
I've sold the 4x4 :-)

Sorry guys, i think i might be undoing Steve's work
I want to start driving the Jag again
(yes, i know 20mpg isn't good but it's sooooo nice to drive redface

)
Its like a kind of CO2 exchange programme...
I get rid of the 4x4 so you can drive the Jag :thumbup:
Cheers Mate biggrin

can i also have your map of petrol stations in the midlands? lol

3 Jan 2008

Quote by meat2pleaseu
Fear not my friends...
The planet is saved (well from me at least)
I've sold the 4x4 :-)

Sorry guys, i think i might be undoing Steve's work
I want to start driving the Jag again
(yes, i know 20mpg isn't good but it's sooooo nice to drive redface

)
Its like a kind of CO2 exchange programme...
I get rid of the 4x4 so you can drive the Jag :thumbup:
Cheers Mate biggrin

can i also have your map of petrol stations in the midlands? lol

Sure....
I will be using them myself as I have replaced the aforementioned 4x4 with a Saab V6 Turbo Diesel :lol2:

3 Jan 2008

Its like people forget about chernobyl and the genetic mutations that will continue to exist among the human, animal and plant life for at least 22 generations.
the thing is we know nothing about the long term effects of the radiation cloud that swept across east europe.
The nuclear meltdown provoked a radioactive cloud which floated over Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, but also the European part of the Republic of Macedonia, Croatia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia , Latvia, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, The Netherlands, Belgium, Slovenia, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Ireland, France (including Corsica) and the United Kingdom
As far as coal is concerned it is a lot "cleaner" to use than it used to be thanks to modern tech, plus there is still a hell of a lot of it in the ground, despite what Thatcher did to the industry.
I tend to think "better the devil you know" than one that has proven to have caused four square kilometres of pine forest in the immediate vicinity of the reactor to turn ginger brown and die overnight.

3 Jan 2008

Quote by Steve
Nuclear power is officially the cleanest and safest way to power our homes and business into the 21st century, or thats the official government line anyhow.
Burning coal produces many of the dangerous levels of carbon toxins that pollute the atmosphere and speed up the "greenhouse effect" and the "hole in the ozone layer", BUT, coal is cheap to extract, requires far less safety measures and technological equipment (which is expensive) within the structural building of the plant, money saved again, and doesn't need loads of employees to supervise the process from material to power generation, guess what money saved again!!
I bet you can't guess what I'm getting at

I get all that but coal isnt going to last as long a nuclear power so I can only summise that there is a distinct lack of forward planning involved ...
Why doesnt that suprise me :lol2:
The coal extracted is be consumed to provide power by a revolutionary new method (it is actually 30 yr old technology that was abandoned) and at a new type (as before) of power station. - It is hoped that this 'new' technology can be sold to the emerging superpowers (china & india) to drastically cut down on their CO2 emmisions.
Both China and India will continue using coal-fired power stations for at least the next 100yrs and so it is important (though by no means ideal) that this technology should be made available to them cheaply and quickly in order to prevent (or at least slow down) the emmision of huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
You may ask why this technology was not used 30 yrs ago when it was first thought of - and the answer is it was used but not expanded upon because of the miner/govt disputes of the 80's.

3 Jan 2008

Quote by Laff_n_Chilli
.. and the answer is it was used but not expanded upon because of the miner/govt disputes of the 80's.

I found myself in a lift with Neil Kinnock today - I always associate him with that.

3 Jan 2008

Quote by TheLovelyOne
.. and the answer is it was used but not expanded upon because of the miner/govt disputes of the 80's.

I found myself in a lift with Neil Kinnock today -
was he any good.............. rolleyes

3 Jan 2008

Quote by markz
.. and the answer is it was used but not expanded upon because of the miner/govt disputes of the 80's.

I found myself in a lift with Neil Kinnock today -
was he any good.............. rolleyes

Possibly a better shag than politician ;)

3 Jan 2008

Quote by TheLovelyOne
.. and the answer is it was used but not expanded upon because of the miner/govt disputes of the 80's.

I found myself in a lift with Neil Kinnock today -
was he any good.............. rolleyes

Possibly a better shag than politician ;)
not exactly setting the bar high there

3 Jan 2008

Quote by easyease
Its like people forget about chernobyl and the genetic mutations that will continue to exist among the human, animal and plant life for at least 22 generations. and the United Kingdom

Forget...??? lol

Some have even got an ad on here.... Have a look!
Mike

3 Jan 2008

What is the point in coal?

Coal isn't pointed, silly .......... it's more sort of blobby rounded! :rascal:
Sam xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

3 Jan 2008

Quote by Steve

I thought (even with my limited intelligence) that coal was not a source of power that was going to last forever so why has approval been given for a planning application for a coal fired power station
Although it has its bad points I would have thought a nuclear station would have been better
I will obviously bow to anyones superior knowledge on this :thumbup:

I don't know, but it could be to help keep what is left of our mining industry going.
Plim confused

3 Jan 2008

I'm not sure but I think that the majority of coal used by power stations is imported ...it used to be from Australia ...don't know if that's still the case.
Economies of scale from large opencast sources as opposed to our labour intensive deep mine coal did for our industry.(of course it's still there and may one day become economic to mine again)
The debate on Nuclear v Conventional power generation is far from straight forward and the true comparatives are blurred as much by political agendas as by the science of the matter. Nuclear power was first introduced into the country to create a source of weapons grade fissionable material. In spite of the govermment of the day assuring us it was a limitless source of virtually free energy it was all a cover to facilitate us becoming a nuclear power.
Cost comparatives are rarely done on an independant and fair basis,The nuclear industry is massivley subsidised and of course we still haven't quite managed to work out what to do with the spent fuel from reactors other than stockpile it at what ultimate there's the cost of decomissioning nuclear plants because they don't have half lifes anywhere near the radiocativity that they absorb during their short lives.
Finally ....a terrorist attack on a coal fired power station is damned inconvenient(assuming no loss of life).....one on a nuclear utility would be a whole different cloud lining .
Just my thoughts confused

3 Jan 2008

I'm not sure but I think that the majority of coal used by power stations is imported ...it used to be from Australia ...don't know if that's still the case.
Economies of scale from large opencast sources as opposed to our labour intensive deep mine coal did for our industry.(of course it's still there and may one day become economic to mine again)
The debate on Nuclear v Conventional power generation is far from straight forward and the true comparatives are blurred as much by political agendas as by the science of the matter. Nuclear power was first introduced into the country to create a source of weapons grade fissionable material. In spite of the govermment of the day assuring us it was a limitless source of virtually free energy it was all a cover to facilitate us becoming a nuclear power.
Cost comparatives are rarely done on an independant and fair basis,The nuclear industry is massivley subsidised and of course we still haven't quite managed to work out what to do with the spent fuel from reactors other than stockpile it at what ultimate there's the cost of decomissioning nuclear plants because they don't have half lifes anywhere near the radiocativity that they absorb during their short lives.
Finally ....a terrorist attack on a coal fired power station is damned inconvenient(assuming no loss of life).....one on a nuclear utility would be a whole different cloud lining .
Just my thoughts confused

Are you sure?