Interesting Links for 08-03-2012
Mar. 8th, 2012 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewducker- How Labour botched House Of Lords reform, against the will of parliament
- How I Helped Destroy Star Wars Galaxies
- Why the European Parliament should not be abolished
- In Chechnya Putin was voted in by 107% of the votes. Now _that's_ success.
- How to smuggle anything you like past the TSA's body scanners
- The Portal 2 that never was
- The TSA respond to the viral video about body scanners. Oh good, that's me convinced!
- Forcing autistic children to look at people while thinking is counterproductive
- Smaller school classes leads to better student outcomes and higher wages
- Why feminists are better off divided than united
- The true, tragic cost of British wind power
- Green bank headquarters to be based in Edinburgh (well, for the next three years)
Tags:
- airport,
- autism,
- banking,
- children,
- computer_games,
- design,
- economy,
- edinburgh,
- education,
- electricity,
- energy,
- eu,
- europe,
- feminism,
- fraud,
- green,
- labour,
- links,
- lordsreform,
- mmorpg,
- politics,
- portal,
- russia,
- scotland,
- security,
- security_theatre,
- socialisation,
- starwars,
- teaching,
- tsa,
- uk,
- usa,
- vladimirputin,
- voting,
- wind
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-03-08 12:40 pm (UTC)But
Not everyone can do this. All nations can’t do this at the same time. Not without driving up the price of gas and gas turbines.
We happen to have good access to wind (and marine renewables) and we can take advantage of that to avoid getting on the wrong side of a bidding (or shooting) war for gas.
Secondly, the 2020 targets are interim targets. In order to reduce the incidence of global warming we’ll need a set of targets for 2030, 2040, 2050. At some point we’ll need to stop using gas and start using wind etc. So, at some point we will need to go through the expensive development of technology and infrastructure.
There is an argument that we are doing it too soon and taking on unnecessary costs. There is an argument that if we do it sooner we can build an industry that exports valuable manufactured goods and energy to other countries and re-coop our initial investment.
That said, I am utterly in favour of a carbon price that covers the whole economy.
I note in the article that it makes a false assumption about shale gas. That having lots of domestic shale gas exempts us from volatile gas prices caused by demand spikes or politics in other countries. It doesn’t – unless the gas assests are nationalised. If “our” shale gases are traded on the global market then when Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Israel all nuke each other then the price of our gas goes up as other countries bid up the price for gas from a stable democracy.
For me, one of the advantages of wind power is that it acts as a price hedge compared to gas. With 20% (say) or our energy coming from wind power that is 20% of our energy costs that aren’t subject to doubling or tripling, or worse. (Or indeed, which aren’t subject to a sudden collapse in the gas price.)
UK month ahead gas prices in March 12 are circa 63 pence per therm. When we started building gas plants in the UK we were expecting prices of circa 20-25 ppt and I’ve seen prices well over 100 ppt.
I don’t think we can look at energy policy purely on price grounds. There are issues of price risk and political risk and industrial policy to be considered.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-08 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-08 12:46 pm (UTC)Have you read this?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sustainable-Energy-Without-Hot-Air/dp/0954452933/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331210700&sr=8-1
Best book I've read on what's feasible and what isn't.
(also available for free on the author's website)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-08 01:31 pm (UTC)Feminism
Date: 2012-03-08 12:48 pm (UTC)The TSA respond to the viral video about body scanners. Oh good, that's me convinced!
Date: 2012-03-08 01:45 pm (UTC)I'm also glad I'm not in charge of writing a pro-TSA blog :)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 09:19 am (UTC)