An ill wind blows for Denmark's green energy revolution

[OnlinePoker]

An article from the U.K.'s Telegraph about how Denmark is turning away from onshore wind power due to public objections and the implications for the U.K. plan to increase their onshore turbine numbers by 10,000.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/7996606/An-ill-wind-blows-for-Denmarks-green-energy-revolution.html

[damntexdem]

1. Something's becoming rotten in the state of Denmark.

hadda be said

[kristopher]

2. Not really - just more rightwind claptrap from the Telegraph

Take a look at the selection of stories in their "earth" section (they are allergic to the word "environment").

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/

[madokie]

9. Isn't that a Murdock rag?

[OnlinePoker]

10. No. I just looked it up and it's owned by Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay

Here's the Wiki entry on them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Frederick_Barclay

[kristopher]

12. No, the Barclay's are different billionaire rightwing pukes...

The paper is well known as the voice of conservatism in England, All you need to do to confirm is review the content of their "earth" page - it is straight right-wing propaganda (including pushing for nuclear power).

[Dogmudgeon]

14. Are you serious?

I just checked out their "Earth" section:

• Organic farms have better soil
  
• Arctic fox on endangered species list
  
• Britain's taste buds destroyed by processed food - National Trust
  
• Rare plant found flourishing on farmland
  
• Climate change is inevitable, says Environment Secretary
  
• Prince Charles: climate change sceptics 'extraordinary'
  ("The Prince of Wales warned that living on the planet would be ''no fun at all'' for future generations unless climate change is addressed")
  
• More wind turbines needed to meet climate change target
  
• Bill Oddie fears sheep rustling on Hampstead Heath
  
• Ryanair boss O'Leary denies man-made climate change
  ("Controversial airline chief denies the existence of man-made climate change, striking a sour note with environmental campaigners.")

Two articles supportive of the human cause of climate disruption. No mention of The Devil's Lightning.

Front page: Barack Obama's new book, "Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters", linked inside. It's complimentary.

Also linked: "'Licence to smoke' cannabis?"

All of that is from the edition of 14 September 2010, retrieved right before noon GMT.

Maybe they ran pro-Cameron editorials -- ?

I did some digging and found that the editor said he ran more pro-Tory editorials than others -- but that was from 2004. But I've seen dozens of articles posted here from the Telegraph that are quite liberal and socially democratic -- first and foremost, the Telegraph is a "broadsheet", an afternoon paper originally intended for the working class to read after work.

Of the Barclay Brothers, they're reclusive super-rich philanthropists. No eeevil nuclear aspirations. No Koch-like political legerdemain. If they are pro-nuclear "enthusiasts", as Mark Cooper calls us, their involvement has been minor and/or incidental. They did buy part of the corpse that was Lehman Bros. They moved to the island of Sark, which still has a government following feudal law, and the locals hated them, so they left, which made the locals hate them even more.

:shrug:

You may be eager to convince everyone that anyone who so much as breathes a word of support for nuclear energy is a baby-killing conservative, but it's not your strongest argument. With most of the Democratic Party pro-nuclear, Cato Institute and the Left Behind crowd anti-nuclear, it's probably a dead issue.

--d!

[bananas]

16. Here's the Climate Change section

CLIMATE CHANGE
Doubt remains over 'climategate'
Lord Lawson says doubts remain over climategate because official inquiries were 'inadequate'

A ‘huge cloud of doubt’ remains over the case for man made global warming, according to Lord Lawson of Blaby, following a new study into the ‘climategate’ scandal.
Arctic fox on endangered species list
Arctic fox joins polar bear on new list of Arctic species in danger of extinction

Polar bears are not the only species in danger from global warming, a new report has warned.
Ryanair boss O'Leary denies man-made climate change
Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary denies man-made climate change. His comments have struck a sour note with environmental campaigners

Controversial airline chief denies the existence of man-made climate change, striking a sour note with environmental campaigners.
Prince takes Royal Train on eco-tour of Britain
Prince Charles takes Royal Train on eco-tour of Britain

The Prince of Wales embarks on a tour of Britain today to promote his sustainable living initiative START.
Temperature records to be made public
Climate scientists are to publish the largest ever collection of temperature records, dating back more than a hundred years, in an attempt to provide a more accurate picture of climate change.

Climate scientists are to publish the largest ever collection of temperature records, dating back more than a hundred years, in an attempt to provide a more accurate picture of climate change.
A cunning bid to shore up the ruins of the IPCC
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The Inter-Academy report into the IPCC, led by Rajendra Pachauri, tiptoes around a mighty elephant in the room, argues Christopher Booker.
Dr Pachauri is damaging the world
Posing with Nobel prizes: Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri, 2007

The IPCC's head should quit to avoid harming the global warming cause further, says Geoffrey Lean.
Overhaul of UN climate change body 'could lead to more mistakes'
A major overhaul of how the UN advises the world on climate change could lead to more mistakes on the impacts of global warming, an Oxford academic has warned.

A major overhaul of how the UN advises the world on climate change could lead to more mistakes on the impacts of global warming, an Oxford academic has warned.
IPCC report raises fresh questions over its leadership

The UN's climate change panel must introduce a structure to prevent conflicts of interest, according to a report by the world's top science group that raised fresh questions over the leadership of the body.
IPCC 'must avoid playing politics'

The UN's climate change body has been told to stick to the science and avoid playing politics in a landmark review of how it operates.

[bananas]

17. "Nicknamed the Torygraph because it's so Conservative"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8995660&mesg_id=8996602

TheBigotBasher Sun Aug-22-10 04:13 PM
Response to Reply #1

3. The Telegraph used to be the bible of the Conservative Party

in the UK. Now that the Conservatives have formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats the Telegraph hate that. So they have moved further to the right and much more so on-line. THis is why they should be called the Baggergraph.

The Daily Mail is ultra right wing anyway.

The Express is ultra right wing but only concerned with Diana conspiracy stories.

The Guardian is somewhat mixed having largely backed the Liberal Democrats during the election they are now having a crisis of conscience.

The Independent is left of centre and not aligned to any party.

The rest are rubbish tabloids. he Mirror used to be a good left of centre paper but it is now the unapolagetic organ of the Labour Party and the New Labour (read Neo Con) project.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=324925&mesg_id=324974

truebrit71 Thu Jun-03-10 07:54 AM
Response to Original message

12. The Daily Fail and the Torygraph are right-wing rags..no more objective than the NY Post...

...pay no attention...Only tools "read" those publications..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7221586&mesg_id=7221774
RichardUK Sat Sep-27-08 11:47 AM
Response to Original message
10. Wouldn't wrap my fish in the Telegraph

Nicknamed the Torygraph because it's so Conservative. Fox News in the form of a broadsheet. I suspect the Guardian newspaper has probably declared Obama as a clear winner.

[CJvR]

3. Windy problem.

Appart from the rising resistance to windpower there is little real news.

Wind is simply not a good enough energy source to power a nation. Sure you can use it to reduce carbon emissions slightly but hardly as base power. You build 100 MW of wind power and you are likely to need to build 80 MW of backup power - one for the price of two.

If you want large scale, reasonably carbon neutral, energy production the only options today are hydro and nuclear - and if you think wind produce NIMBY reactions you should try either of those two. However people are not willing to give up their standard of living either so it will be intresting to see what breaks first, resistance or greed.

[kristopher]

4. Horse*hit.

Nuclear power is decidely inferior to renewable energy for meeting climate change and energy security goals.

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[CJvR]

7. Clearly!

That must be why there is some 60 GW of reactors under construction and even more considered as well as life extension programs for the existing plants.

[kristopher]

8. Right...

nuclear power 2008-2056

[CJvR]

11. Yes sure.

I wonder if that graph have taken into consideration the recent German life extension option, or the Swedish decission last year to allow replacement of existing reactors. Or is it just a prognosis of what will happen if the existing reactors are allowed to serve out without any reaction what so ever.

It does only show that we are approaching the expected lifespan of many of the reactors built in the 60'ies and 70'ies. This is a known problem and a prime reason why the nuclear issue is gradually comming back on the agenda. Alternatives? You think politicans wouldn't jump on any realistic alternative rather than having to bring up the uranium ghost from the past?

[NNadir]

13. Actually, the Oyster Creek Nuclear Reactor Produces More Energy Than All of Denmark's Wind

Turbines.

It's a small reactor.

This can be shown very easily by posting links using units of energy, but experience teaches me that posting numbers for anti-nukes is generally a useless enterprise.

I trust you have written to the Daily Telegraph to tell them they are liars and you know better than they do.

I have forwarded one of your recent posts to the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. I'm sure that once they read them, they will cancel the development of the fast breeder reactors.

[CJvR]

15. Another intresting point...

Despite the number of reactors declining, nuclear power generation can actually increase.

In Sweden the political closure of two reactors had no impact on the amount of power generated. Investments in better turbines and more effective generators have allowed a large increase in the power generated from nuclear reactors without actually touching the politically sensitive issue of building any new plants.

[theophilus]

5. All we need to break is teh stoopid. n/t

[NNadir]

6. What "green" energy program? Mostly they drill offshore oil and gas wells.

If you're talking about the wind "red herring," who cares?

The whole damn nation can't produce as much energy from wind as New Jersey produces in the (small) Oyster Creek nucler reactor.

[kestrel91316]

18. Gosh, thank you for your concern

[OnlinePoker]

19. I thought the article would be of a good topic for EE.

If you don't think so, give us reasons why.