Many of the papers I have included in this version of my web site and its predecessors have arisen because something happened that made me feel I just had to share my thoughts more widely. This happens especially where something has been said publicly that just seems to defy factual logic. The paper “Grid Power” is a good example of this process.
In the first paragraph I explain the circumstances that caused me to write a response to what seemed a comment based on a misunderstanding that was made on national radio and went unchallenged, at the time. Since then the British Government has announced a decision to close all coal fired power stations but seems to want to replace them with Gas fired plants.
Although these should, technically, be less polluting, because of the design and potential of the national electricity grid that they will become a supplier to, this should have been an opportunity to increase the supply of electricity from renewable source of all types, for reasons that are referred to in “Grid Power“.
To spell this out in another way that I hope may help those who have not had the personal experience of seeing power generation and the working of the National Grid at first hand; we have moved enough potential energy out of the Earth’s Crust and converted it into kinetic energy in the atmosphere and waters around us to have an effect on our climate that will continue to grow for decades to come. This increases the opportunity to , tap into this energy that we have already produced ‘for free’ if we harness it using renewable technologies. Including Combined Cycle Gas Fired power stations with renewables is a good idea (perhaps also using Fuel Cells) but not instead of them.
This is because we will pay for such a misguided policy both in our climate and eventually in monetary terms because of the impact on our economy and our desire to mitigate the adverse affects of climate change on our way of life.
Paul Newman
