I don't particularly disagree with anything you've said Paul

However, is the future well-being of our great.g....t great grandchildren sufficient to make people sacrifice one or more parts of what they own now (be that countryside, wealth or whatever measure you choose) if Nuclear can provide an easier way out until the end of their days? The solar installation you describe would not provide constant power without storage so this requires either a sacrifice of times during which power is available or a higher delivery cost.

I too think that appearance does matter. However a high dependence on appearances produces a situation where appearance is viewed as more important than well-being. By going Nuclear, the country can keep its existing appearance without modification or apparent relative sacrifice for those that live through the period. It can also keep its existing structure: No losses for those that already have and therefore lower likelihoods of social disorder.

Does appearance matter if this is likely to be the conclusion of the man on the Clapham Omnibus?

Paul, if I understand, there are no cost or technical problems, the storage you describe would not increase delivery costs as I stated and the whole problem could be solved by politicians if they so wished?

We should perhaps stop worrying about envionmental design and concentrate instead on the appearance of our buildings and countryside?

Dunno. do we really needy to squander resources on seduction? If I was in a war, I would trade the nicest looking fallout shelter for the safest. It's greed and vanity that has brought mankind to the edge of destruction, maybe correcting those vices where architecture is concerned would make sense?

>>A solar solution would have to include storage to be viable so it wouldn't increase the delivery cost since it wouldn't be feasible without the storage component.<<

Paul: I gather from this that It would be expensive. Why do you think cost is not an issue? Cost is always an issue relative to other things that can be done. It is particularly an issue if the route advocated requires subsidy from the taxpayer by comparision to other potential routes.

For many people, a logical conclusion of your argument, if you can indeed prove or persuade that it could be done economically, would be that Nuclear can be planned for now, and possibly installed later, as a long term but temporary measure whilst we develop 'global solar'. Another conclusion for many would be that other research, such a local solar collection and extensive work into insulating existing properties, can be given lip service with no further real consideration.

A conclusion for us, in the UK, would be that we can rely on the EU to eventually come up with global solar and that we can therefore go along the Nuclear and/or densification route, and do nothing about our planning laws, without having to worry about the long term future for our grandchildren.

And the comfortable conclusion can be drawn that, as energy supply is not really a problem, appearances are more important.

Posted By: jonPaul: I gather from this that It would be expensive. Why do you think cost is not an issue? Cost is always an issue relative to other things that can be done. It is particularly an issue if the route advocated requires subsidy from the taxpayer by comparision to other potential routes.

How much do you think a nuclear reactor costs to build compared to a simple solar system with storage? Not only are nuclear reactors expensive, the decommissioning costs always seem to be forgotten. Don't forget that most of the UK's current nuclear plants are nearing their end-of-life and will costs billions to safely take out of service. There's also no supply safety in nuclear fuel - same problem as oil so it's really not a very attractive solution in any time frame. As for subsidies, the nuclear industry in the UK wouldn't exist without taxpayer subsidy. It must also be mentioned that, in large part, the nuclear industry was a front for the manufacture of nuclear weapons in the UK, at least initially.

The only difficulty with solar generation is that it needs lots of land area - this is why it's more a political problem than anything else. Imagine how many landowners would have to be approached to appropriate an area, say, 1/10th the size of the state of Arizona - though it's probably easier to do in North Africa. The technology itself is very simple compared to a reactor - and could probably be built faster too. Of course, it doesn't help grey and damp Britain achieve energy independence, so that's probably why the nuclear option is being considered. Hmmm, the UK doesn't have any uranium mines ... so it's hard to see how building reactors gives the UK any energy independence either.

I would think tidal barrages and offshore wind would be a better solution for the UK. Though environmentalists don't seem to like tidal power very much either. Better than filling the Irish sea with Caesium 139 though.

Paul in Montreal

Paul

>>How much do you think a nuclear reactor costs to build compared to a simple solar system with storage?<<

A nuclear reactor costs a lot. I have done a brief back of packet check on the flywheel solution you proposed and concluded that storage using the method is likely to be significantly less economic than Nuclear for the typical person: It's a very smple calc to estimate the sizing and associated storage energy of a rotating flywheel. I have only looked at the UK Government data for comparison on this to come to this conclusion (as I have all this information logged and to hand)

Do you have a better source for information on financial costs?

Please con't take this as criticism. If I, or anyone else, is to be persuaded that we should support an idea it is necessary to have information at hand that can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the idea is:

1: Cost effective relative to the importance of the issue
2: Can be implemented in a graduated route
3: Is possible in the political environment

If the above conditions can not be met, then it is, in my opinion, worth spending time looking at other solutions. One of those solutions would be to allow more innovation in the UK to see if any SME builders and/or inventors out there can come up with an answer that none of us have thought about. And, in this case, innovation is more important than appearance.

If the above conditions can be met, then there is no need for innovation in the field. And appearance is more important than innovation.

Good on you Steve

So we should not look at either Nuclear or Paul's proposed solution(s) ?

Where abouts have you built a working version with real costs and real living conditions so that the man on the Clapham Omnibus can see for himself?

Hi Steve

Certainly looks interesting (roofcrete) as mentioned before. But, as the system is unproven, you fall into the 'innovation' group don't you: Where relaxations in planning permission for innovation to prove and develop would speed up the process and be useful to you as inventors/proposers?

Or do planning restrictions help you in that competitors systems or other technologies are delayed or sidelined giving you a competitive edge?

Good luck Steve

When you've built it and proven that the UK's problems can be solved by your system, I will switch my view.

In the meantime, I think that innovation in this field is probably more important than appearance.

Mike,

To avoid hijacking this post. I'll answer this on a more relevant post.

http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1044&page=1#Item_16

Cheers

Steve

I guess this has drifted away from the original post...and brought back by Joe. I think the original question was probably apropos of domestic, but the problem prevails.
Surely, given the possiblities of computer forming, anything is now possible...viz Bilbao etc, but how desirable are these flagship lumps. They happen because they put indifferent cities on the map.
Anyway, domestically luckily people have not rushed to cover their des res with titanium zinc.
I believe, in the UK, most people want a cosy Arts and Crafts type house...despite the rubbish pushed on GD, as most post 20s houses are based on that form, at least till we had noddy boxes forced on us.
Give me a good inter-war semi anytime for character, style, flexibility and value...stick your Barrett box and everything after it.
BTW, wasn't Milton Keynes meant to be a show case for 70s British housing architecture...er!?
I think the architectural fraternity have been very quiet on that one.

Interesting points, Joe.

Ruskin, who came to be so influential in the ensuing Arts and Crafts Movement, drew the distinction between Building and Architecture. See particularly the first chapter of The Seven Lamps. I agree that earlier British vernacular building is appealing and this arises from the the materials and methods employed. Architecture, Ruskin argues, is indeed just that 'stuck-on decorative detailing' or ornament that goes beyond mere building.

This is the Green Building Forum rather than the Green Architecture Forum, and perhaps that leads to emphasis on structure over form, U-values over appearance. Modern building materials give us components of a larger scale and machine made rather than hand wrought textures. If we use them the need for architecture rather than mere building is more pressing.

Posted By: James Nortonwho understand and practice an architecture that is....

(When we get a chance!!!)

and

"A bicycle shed is a building. Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture"

Cue Biff with dozens of pictures of the most finely wrought bike sheds in Chrisendom...!

J

Surely building is the process and architecture is the planning of that process? We talk about vernacular architecture, which had no architects involved, but the builders certainly planned what they were doing. Good architecture can be badly built, and vice versa. I think Ruskin's point is a red herring, and it has a whiff of snobbery too - building is what you peasants do, whereas architecture is what we cultured people do. Personally, I find that structural and aesthetic concerns end up overlapping. For example, a catenary curve, with its constantly changing radius, has a lot in common with Hogarth's 'line of beauty'. That's why people find suspension bridges attractive.

Posted By: James Norton
Cue Biff with dozens of pictures of the most finely wrought bike sheds in Chrisendom...!

Sorry, no bike sheds, but my first chicken shed, c.1974, was designed and nailed together by an architect who was crashing out at ours whilst temporally er, between jobs. It sported a fine finial and decorative moldings retrieved from a skip. The architect then got a job working for Rogers (Zogolovitch and Gough).