HS2 under review

[Davexoc]

11 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

 

So why has there been so much trouble getting the tidal Swansea version approved?

 

Short-termism. Payback on construction costs too long for the bean counters to deal with. In railway terms the franchaise would end before it turned a profit.

[Mike Storey]

27 minutes ago, Davexoc said:

Short-termism. Payback on construction costs too long for the bean counters to deal with. In railway terms the franchaise would end before it turned a profit.

 

Thanks - let's see if the new, improved construction price, cited by Bimble, changes that.

 

Meanwhile, wasn't this thread about something else, once upon a time??......

 

[Mark Saunders]

26 minutes ago, Davexoc said:

Short-termism. Payback on construction costs too long for the bean counters to deal with. In railway terms the franchaise would end before it turned a profit.

 

British Governments no longer do the long term any more as the five year plan/next election are the maximum they can see!

 

 

[Mike Storey]

5 minutes ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

British Governments no longer do the long term any more as the five year plan/next election are the maximum they can see!

 

 

 

I would not blame them - just look at the backlash to HS2 (whatever we think of its merits or otherwise, we all know capacity is the issue), the one long term, civilian plan they had that has not yet sunk without trace. I think it might be that voters have even shorter term expectations than politicians.

 

Never mind. Just get rid of Pacers and apparently the world will be completely fixed.

 

 

[bimble]

could be worse... the Heathrow expansion was proposed three years before HS2... at least they've made a start to HS2...

[jcredfer]

20 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

So why has there been so much trouble getting the tidal Swansea version approved?

 

 

I believe there was a possible problem with mud silting up the bay, or, at least that was a claim for some objectors, as well as finance, as thers have already mentioned.

 

Regards

 

Julian

[black and decker boy]

I think the problem with the tidal barrages is that whilst privately funded, the resulting electricity cost which the government had to sign up to for a very long time (several decades) made new nuclear look cheap.

 

there were also many environmental concerns and the prospect of lots of legal challenges including from the Welsh Government environment regulator (NRW). NRW was formally (ie legally) objecting to the proposed new M4 through Newport due to its impacts on the environment despite it being proposed by the Welsh Government!!!

[billbedford]

There is also the problem that tidal stations give pulses of power four times a day six and a half hours apart. So they will still need fossil fuel back-ups.

[bimble]

50 minutes ago, billbedford said:

There is also the problem that tidal stations give pulses of power four times a day six and a half hours apart. So they will still need fossil fuel back-ups.

 

Not quite, because tides don't go straight out and then stay out till they come back in. They go continiously out, and once at their min, start coming straight back in. So the water is forever either flowing out, or flowing in. And the lagoon type plans retain water, and allow it out at a slower rate than the natural tide to keep the flow going through the turbines until the returning water is enough to generate electricity & refill the lagoon.

[Davexoc]

1 hour ago, billbedford said:

There is also the problem that tidal stations give pulses of power four times a day six and a half hours apart. So they will still need fossil fuel back-ups.

Better than solar, which has one pulse a day and generates nothing for over 12 hours in the winter.....

[Mike Storey]

Just now, Davexoc said:

Better than solar, which has one pulse a day and generates nothing for over 12 hours in the winter.....

 

True, but you are both missing the increasing capacity to store energy. Not there yet, but the progress is phenomenononenenal.

[Davexoc]

4 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

 

True, but you are both missing the increasing capacity to store energy. Not there yet, but the progress is phenomenononenenal.

I hope it does come along soon, because at the moment after a few years of use current batteries seem to degrade significantly. And will hopefully be better than some of the promises made for LED lifetimes, which IMO are somewhat like the MPG figures quoted for road vehicles, based on ideal conditions.....

 

Oh hang on, shouldn't we be talking about HS2, which seems to be very quiet at the moment.

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, bimble said:

 

Not quite, because tides don't go straight out and then stay out till they come back in. They go continiously out, and once at their min, start coming straight back in. So the water is forever either flowing out, or flowing in. And the lagoon type plans retain water, and allow it out at a slower rate than the natural tide to keep the flow going through the turbines until the returning water is enough to generate electricity & refill the lagoon.

The tidal flow might be sinusoidal, but hydro power requires a head of water to be created so the generation will only take place either side of the peaks and troughs.

Still worth doing though; if only the Severn Barrage had actually been built when first seriously proposed (about 80 years ago).

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, billbedford said:

There is also the problem that tidal stations give pulses of power four times a day six and a half hours apart. So they will still need fossil fuel back-ups.

 

1 hour ago, bimble said:

 

Not quite, because tides don't go straight out and then stay out till they come back in. They go continiously out, and once at their min, start coming straight back in. So the water is forever either flowing out, or flowing in. And the lagoon type plans retain water, and allow it out at a slower rate than the natural tide to keep the flow going through the turbines until the returning water is enough to generate electricity & refill the lagoon.

 

1 hour ago, Davexoc said:

Better than solar, which has one pulse a day and generates nothing for over 12 hours in the winter.....

As I suggested earlier the Ray sandbanks was proposed for a tidal power station. The reason they were chosen is the unique tidal flow patterns of the North Sea. Incoming tides are severely restricted by the Straights of Dover, as a consequence most of the water flows into the North Sea around the north of Scotland. This results in high tide in the North Sea is delayed and is still rising as the tide starts falling at Dover. This creates a funnel effect and a tidal flow from north to south over a greater part of the day. The proposal for a tidal power station was made in the 60's before the oil crisis and though the technology was available it was deemed too expensive. There are plenty of 'clean' methods of storing energy such as pumped storage.

[Dava]

I received an invitation to a conference today on Crossrail & Crossrail 2. I've no intention of going but it's interesting that Crossrail 2 already has a Director and a Head, with an assumption it is going to happen, even before Crossrail 1 is working and with big question marks over HS2 North and Northern investment, let alone full MML electrification. 

 

There is just this sense of entitlement to unlimited infrastructure investment in London when much of the rest of the country is still putting up with austerity, old slow diesel trains and bottlenecks like Man Picc-Oxford Rd etc. It's interesting that Scotland has been able to secure much better rail investment that has paid off quite quickly unlike the situation in much of England. The advantage of devolved govt?

[Mike Storey]

8 hours ago, Dava said:

I received an invitation to a conference today on Crossrail & Crossrail 2. I've no intention of going but it's interesting that Crossrail 2 already has a Director and a Head, with an assumption it is going to happen, even before Crossrail 1 is working and with big question marks over HS2 North and Northern investment, let alone full MML electrification. 

 

There is just this sense of entitlement to unlimited infrastructure investment in London when much of the rest of the country is still putting up with austerity, old slow diesel trains and bottlenecks like Man Picc-Oxford Rd etc. It's interesting that Scotland has been able to secure much better rail investment that has paid off quite quickly unlike the situation in much of England. The advantage of devolved govt?

 

Entitlement?? More like critical need, if the forecasts for the 25% growth in London's population over the next 20 years have any accuracy at all.

 

Devolved govt is a great advantage, when it has a single purpose, but the downside is that the devolved govt might have to find the money for such schemes, for no state capital grant or operating grant is devolved with it in London. As it is, the "devolved" Greater Manchester, since 2010, gets no national, operating subsidy for its own transport network. That is where Scotland differs, and the North of England would be better off following the Scottish version, to ensure some reasonable level of Regional development grant is available from the national piggy bank. Otherwise, it might make Pacers look like utter luxury.

 

[Colin_McLeod]

On 30/05/2019 at 19:34, Davexoc said:

What we need is tidal, which is fully predictable.

 

Won't using that energy cause the earth to slow down, and make the days longer!

 

(....over the next few million years)

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

Won't using that energy cause the earth to slow down, and make the days longer!

 

(....over the next few million years)

You've got to catch the tides when you can. Tides are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon (and the sun, pedants please note). But the moons distance from the earth increases every year by a few centimetres so every year the gravitational pull reduces and the tides will be less. This will take a few million years so we don't need to worry about it just yet.

[black and decker boy]

10 hours ago, Dava said:

I received an invitation to a conference today on Crossrail & Crossrail 2. I've no intention of going but it's interesting that Crossrail 2 already has a Director and a Head, with an assumption it is going to happen, even before Crossrail 1 is working and with big question marks over HS2 North and Northern investment, let alone full MML electrification. 

 

There is just this sense of entitlement to unlimited infrastructure investment in London when much of the rest of the country is still putting up with austerity, old slow diesel trains and bottlenecks like Man Picc-Oxford Rd etc. It's interesting that Scotland has been able to secure much better rail investment that has paid off quite quickly unlike the situation in much of England. The advantage of devolved govt?

But crisisrail2 is wholly funded by TfL/ Mayor of London from business rates and a mortgage against future gate box receipts isn’t it? No central government funds unlike Manchester.

 

TfGM has a development plan for Greater Manchester  with further metrolink lines in the planning stages. Birmingham & Leeds all have similar plans and these cities do receive central government funds.

 

i don’t see the connection from Pacers  ( replacement of which is underway) with primary infrastructure which will last 100+ years

 

 

[Northmoor]

10 hours ago, Dava said:

I received an invitation to a conference today on Crossrail & Crossrail 2. I've no intention of going but it's interesting that Crossrail 2 already has a Director and a Head, with an assumption it is going to happen, even before Crossrail 1 is working and with big question marks over HS2 North and Northern investment, let alone full MML electrification. 

 

There is just this sense of entitlement to unlimited infrastructure investment in London when much of the rest of the country is still putting up with austerity, old slow diesel trains and bottlenecks like Man Picc-Oxford Rd etc. It's interesting that Scotland has been able to secure much better rail investment that has paid off quite quickly unlike the situation in much of England. The advantage of devolved govt?

How is having a Director and a Head (I don't know what you mean by that) a sense of entitlement?  These roles are what you have when a project is underway and funded; how do you "direct" a project without a director?  There has been a considerable amount of CR2 route design already done, because as Black&Decker Boy says, the funding is already in place for the current design phases.  The project team has been in existence for a about a decade already, just as HS2 were probably employing people about 20 years ago.

[Mike Storey]

30 minutes ago, black and decker boy said:

But crisisrail2 is wholly funded by TfL/ Mayor of London from business rates and a mortgage against future gate box receipts isn’t it? No central government funds unlike Manchester.

 

TfGM has a development plan for Greater Manchester  with further metrolink lines in the planning stages. Birmingham & Leeds all have similar plans and these cities do receive central government funds.

 

i don’t see the connection from Pacers  ( replacement of which is underway) with primary infrastructure which will last 100+ years

 

 

 

Currently, virtually all capital public infrastructure expenditure, outside Greater London, qualifies for grant aid from Westminster, even if it does not always get it. (But not necessarily Operating costs - these are no longer grant aided in Manchester, for example.)

 

The point I made was that, in seeking devolution (as many on here are advocating), that might come with a price - no central grants. Hence, the Pacer comment.

 

[caradoc]

Did Manchester not have the opportunity to raise extra funds for transport improvements through a congestion charge, but voted against it ?

 

[Covkid]

14 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

But crisisrail2 is wholly funded by TfL/ Mayor of London from business rates and a mortgage against future gate box receipts isn’t it? No central government funds unlike Manchester.

 

TfGM has a development plan for Greater Manchester  with further metrolink lines in the planning stages. Birmingham & Leeds all have similar plans and these cities do receive central government funds.

 

 

 

But while those metropolitan areas in England are sitting on their hands the Scottish have progressively electrified both inter city and regional routes.  20 years ago who would have believed all four routes between Glasgow and Edinburgh would be electrified, when one was actually just a closed trackbed.

 

There is a whole different dynamic north of the border

[Bernard Lamb]

6 hours ago, Covkid said:

 

But while those metropolitan areas in England are sitting on their hands the Scottish have progressively electrified both inter city and regional routes.  20 years ago who would have believed all four routes between Glasgow and Edinburgh would be electrified, when one was actually just a closed trackbed.

 

There is a whole different dynamic north of the border

Try and explain that to some of the Brexiteers.

Bernard

[locoholic]

25 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Try and explain that to some of the Brexiteers.

Bernard

It's a good argument for English regional devolution. Absolutely nothing to do with Brexit.