h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It strikes me as odd to have all these specific taxes, grants and measures, and yet, for some reason, electriciy beyond the first X units for a period of use is cheaper, thus encouraging waste almost as a consumerist economy of scale.

Double Glazing - I have sold double glazing before, so I have a wee bit of knowledge about it.

Double Glazing should never be put in on the sole basis of achieving energy savings. It is not economic on that basis.

However, a £5000 double glazed picture window can add £10,000 to the value of your house.

Another good reason for double glazing is to cut down on noise pollution.

The costs of renewable energies, even at the micro level, are falling all the time. I think that Kelli's figures are correct - with a grant it is becoming interesting for homeowners.

The problem with nuclear is more the cost than the environmental risk. When you factor in research costs, decommissioning and waste management new nuclear power stations are not economic and are unlikely to become so. The kind of subsidies they receive makes the money spent on wind and solar look like peanuts.

sprout

Close but no banana. Recent surveys indicate generating costs from new plant in pence/kWhr of: Nuclear 2.3, Gas 2.2, Coal 2.6, Onshore Wind 3.7 and Offshore wind 5.5.

Do those figures include the cost of storing and monitoring used fuel for two hundred thousand years, or however long the stuff lasts? If not, then they are surely incomplete.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Morning PC

In a way it doesn't matter about storage costs , or even build costs etc.

If we as a nation, and the whole human race in general don't do something quickly to cut the carbon emissions, we won't be around long enough to worry about it!

Novo

The costs are from The Economics of Nuclear Power, Briefing Paper 8, January 2006 by the Uranium Information Centre Ltd.

"With nuclear energy the risk of accidents is factored in along with high estimates of radiological impacts from mine tailings (waste management and decommissioning being already within the cost to the consumer). Nuclear energy averages 0.4 euro cents/kWh, much the same as hydro, coal is over 4.0 cents (4.1-7.3), gas ranges 1.3-2.3 cents and only wind shows up better than nuclear, at 0.1-0.2 cents/kWh average."

Well, it would seem that in the medium term it should be possible to build fission plants that generate different blend of wastes.

Compared to existing plant, they may generate similar amounts of highly-active waste that decays to low levels within decades, but much less radioactively or chemically unpleasant waste that takes centuries or millenia to decay away.

Equally, the dependence on mined uranium would be rather less, since much more energy would be extracted from a given weight of uranium.

I listened to Radio 4 at lunchtime and the estimate for decommissioning old nuclear plants has gone up from £56bn to £70bn. The biggest problem being Sellafield but the point was made that it is the old waste and how it was handled that will cause the biggest problems.

As with most technologies lessons are learned and processes improve which is why I am cool about future nuclear power plants and their environmental footprint.