Great discussion here, some more comments:
heat pumps - yes, a very efficient way to heat the house, you get 3 to 4 kw of heat for every 1kw of power required to run the system - cost? £6k to £14k at the moment, lifespan 20yrs plus, maintenance cost? almost zero. Expensive yes, but even at current prices if you are prepared not to move you can see a profit in about 10 yrs. And, prices WILL go much higher for gas.
gas boilers - a colleagues brother in law is a plumber and he is now fitting more electric boilers than gas boilers.
Carbon trading - its here in the uk and has been for a few years and bigfell is right, it has pushed costs up.
British Energy bought by EDF - as of yesterday the deal was iminent. Centrica Energy are in negotiations with EDF. If the EDF buy goes through, Centrica hope to buy 25% of of the ex BE stock from EDF thus giving a good entry into the technology. Centrica currently operate/own gas and wind power.
Wind farms - the great con (in my opinion). The biggest wind mill currently is about 5mw. A typical gas generating unit is in the region of 230 - 250mw...50 or so turbines per small power station! Bigger power stations are merely made up of multiple gas turbines and a larger stean turbine. UK's biggest power stations are 2000mw plus, thats a lot of windmills.
For a wind farm of say, 100 units, with a max output of 500mw (assuming the biggest units are built), for system security there has to be 350mw of alternative and available ( gas or coal, not nuclear as it takes too long to power up and shut down) back up generation capacity. This is for when the wind is either too strong, too weak or just not there.
Windmills elegant? Do you really want to see the whole of the west seaboard of the uk covered in offshore windmills? I dont! This is the reality if our government want to meet stated objectives on windpower!
Load factor for wind farms is typically around 40%, this means that the turbine is only at full load 40% of the time. The turbines cannot operate in all wind speeds, but they are getting better and acheiving a wider operating window.
Dont even think a b&q style home wind turbine is a good idea for most people. They need clear straight laminar wind flow to work properly (thats why they are putting them offshore) - not available in towns and cities. The payback time? far longer than the life expectany of the windmill.
Like it or not, nuclear will have to play a big part in meeting our future energy needs.
Our Govt. should really be investing heavily in micro generation, its not viable for the vast majority of houses.
Some interesting further reading here:
http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/grid/rein.htmIan