Which is utter nonsense.
They only reasion we had air forces in saudi was to help enfore the Iraq “No fly” area to protect Kurds from Saddam.
And the Kurds are Muslim…a point forgotten by the anti-west Islamic factions.

Basically, that was just a lie told to the peasants…knowing they’d buy it without question.

And not only Muslim but Sunni just as was Saddam Hussein.

It’s not an argument about carbon emissions, it is HMG’s decision to agree to meet the targets for emissions as set by the EU. We have no choice in the matter, although all parties are signed up 100% to the ethos so our grandiose targets have been set. As to whether we can achieve them or not is quite another matter.

A bit tricky finding somewhere to do high level pumped storage in East Anglia I would think. The bottom line is if we don’t want to rely on Russia and it’s satellites for our gas and oil, then nuclear it is. Simples

…..and France for our electricity!:)

Heh heh – during a news item today about the RAF Kinloss closure date, the BBC also said that “A decision on RAF Lossiemouth, and that of RAF Leuchars in Fife, will be announced after the Scottish elections on 5 May.”
Why would the Scottish elections influence the announcement date, I wonder???
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-12492509

Ah! you old cynic, you…and the BBC are not always right……;)

It is also worth attaching numbers to the debate. Already included in the plans to meet the UK’s targets for carbon emissions reduction by 2020 is the construction of nearly 5,000 turbines, both off-shore and on-shore, tom produce about 33Gw of power. At around a third of capacity they will actually produce about 11Gw of power. During the recent cold spell in December turbine output was minimal for the period, the Grid was flat out and had we not been able to buy large amounts of electricity from France the lights would have gone out. Shear madness!

Sven – I think our earlier posts crossed. The 32% figure is the mean percentage of time that the turbine actually turns enough to generate electricity for the grid in a given period. The actual conversion rate is quite high, I believe. So, whereas a nuclear, gas or coal fired station will be producing electricity from demand up to 100% the turbine is 32%., as I understand it.

The fuel maybe free but the costs of development, construction, subsidies to suppliers and landowners and maintenence are not, neither, to emphasise the point, is the cost of having to run duplicate energy production for the majority of the time the turbines are idle. How that can be efficient I do not know.

It is only environmentally un-friendly if you you believe that the emmissions from a typical airshow make the slightest diffeernce to the total carbon emissions globally and if you then believe that they are harmful.

Your second paragraph is a rush of utopian idealism. The costs of tidsal and solar generation to any seriouis effect on the power gemneration we require are enormous and the time-scale will take beyond the day we run out of energy.

The fact is that, as I said, the technology is not available now. I never said it was not possible to develop it. I simply believe we are channelling our efforts misguidedly.

And you have failed to respond to the most serious part of the argument that you need conventional power to back-up wind power because of it’s unpredictability, thus increasing yet further the costs of energy production.