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Footnotes:

 

[12] Denmark is has the largest proportion of wind generation in the world. It is also has the greatest fossil dependency (mainly on imported coal) and highest cost electricity in the EU, over seven times that in France.

 

 

[13] France produced 536.9 TWh of electricity in 2003; is the largest net exporter of electricity in the EU (103.6 TWh in 2003); and has the highest proportion of nuclear electricity in the World.

 

[14] http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2008/key_stats_2008.pdf Energy in Australia 2009 ibid; note that currency fluctuations and varying time-of-day tariffs make non EC price comparisons dubious.

 

[15] Suzlon S88 - Hub Height: 80m; Maximum Blade Tip Height: 124m; Swept area: 6250m2

 

[16] Energy Statistics 2007 www.ens.dk

 

[17] This would suggest that there are some turbines so badly sited that they will not recover the energy consumed in their construction within their 20 year working lifetime (of course this may be a lot longer than 20 years as they hardly get used). Their carbon footprint rises steeply as their capacity factor falls.

 

[18] 2xEnercon E-126; 7 MW; 18,000 MWh/yr; rotor diameter 126m; hub height 135m; Rysumer Nacken, Germany.

 

[19] http://www.suzlon.com/pdf/Capital%20Wind%20Farm%20Flyer.pdf  

 

[20] The Economics of Wind Energy, www.awea.org

 

[21] Counter intuitively, water vapour reduces air density. The molecular weight of water is 18. As a gas water vapour displaces nitrogen molecules (mw: 28) and oxygen (mw: 32).

 

[23] Measured under Standard Test Conditions (STC) : irradiance of 1,000 W/m², solar spectrum of Air Mass (AM) 1.5 and module temperature at 25°C

 

[24] Average pool price in the NEM last year was AUS$42/MWh = 4.2 cents /kWh. The average commercial return to wind farms (after RECs) was around 9 cents /kWh delivered.

 

[25] 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrate, in tanks measuring 14 m in height and 36 m in diameter, each storing 375 MWh – from Wikipedia

 

[26] Bayswater B Submissions Report - AECOM

 

[27] For example at a recent workshop of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSC)

 

[28] The present ten largest producers of nuclear energy are in order: USA, France, Japan, Russia, Germany, South Korea, Ukraine, Canada, UK and Sweden. Except for Germany and Sweden, all have new nuclear plant under construction or announced. Worldwide there are presently 53 nuclear power stations under construction and another 432 announced or proposed. There are 31 countries with one or more operating nuclear power stations and 9 more with planned stations, including Indonesia.

 

[29] China has 18 new stations under construction (to raise generating capacity by 70 GWe by 2020); 35 planned; and more than 90 proposed. India has 6 new stations under construction (to raise capacity by 41 GWe by 2020); 23 planned (to raise capacity to 470 GWe by 2050); and 15 proposed.

 

[30] cf. Australia 246 TWh in 2004

 

[31] NSW: total thermal capacity (coal & gas) 11,940 MW; all renewable (mainly hydro) 4,600 MW

 

[32] Financial Times, and AFR, 25 Mar 2010, P63 ‘Nuclear power renaissance in Asia’.

 

[33] By market size: Japan 58%; Korea 12%; Taiwan 10%; India 6%; China 4%.

 

[34] Worth over $13billion in exports to NSW in 2009

 

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Travel

Egypt, Syria and Jordan

 

 

 

In October 2010 we travelled to three countries in the Middle East: Egypt; Syria and Jordan. While in Egypt we took a Nile cruise, effectively an organised tour package complete with guide, but otherwise we travelled independently: by cab; rental car (in Jordan); bus; train and plane.

On the way there we had stopovers in London and Budapest to visit friends.

The impact on me was to reassert the depth, complexity and colour of this seminal part of our history and civilisation. In particular this is the cauldron in which Judaism, Christianity and Islam were created, together with much of our science, language and mathematics.

Read more: Egypt, Syria and Jordan

Fiction, Recollections & News

ChatGPT and The Craft

As another test of ChatGPT I asked it: "in 2 thousand words, to write a fiction about a modern-day witch who uses chemistry and female charms to enslave her familiars". This is one of the motifs in my novella: The Craft (along with: the great famine; world government; cyber security and overarching artificial intelligence).

Rather alarmingly, two of five ChatGPT offerings, each taking around 22 seconds to generate, came quite close to the sub-plot, although I'm not keen on the style or moralistic endings.  Here they are:

Read more: ChatGPT and The Craft

Opinions and Philosophy

Carbon Capture and Storage

 

 

(Carbon Sequestration)

 

 

The following abbreviated paper is extracted from a longer, wider-ranging, paper with reference to energy policy in New South Wales and Australia, that was written in 2008. 
This extract relates solely to CCS.
The original paper that is critical of some 2008 policy initiatives intended to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions can still be read in full on this website:
Read here...

 

 

 


Carbon Sequestration Source: Wikimedia Commons

 

This illustration shows the two principal categories of Carbon Capture and Storage (Carbon Sequestration) - methods of disposing of carbon dioxide (CO2) so that it doesn't enter the atmosphere.  Sequestering it underground is known as Geosequestration while artificially accelerating natural biological absorption is Biosequestration.

There is a third alternative of deep ocean sequestration but this is highly problematic as one of the adverse impacts of rising CO2 is ocean acidification - already impacting fisheries. 

This paper examines both Geosequestration and Biosequestration and concludes that while Biosequestration has longer term potential Geosequestration on sufficient scale to make a difference is impractical.

Read more: Carbon Capture and Storage

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