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Other Hondas & General Topics => Off Topic (Non-Honda) => Topic started by: Jocko on December 29, 2020, 01:18:10 PM

Title: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on December 29, 2020, 01:18:10 PM
Let's get all the Gridwatch links and the doomsayers over here and free up the electric cars thread to discuss the vehicles themselves.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on December 29, 2020, 01:26:59 PM
Tidal generation does not require blocking off estuaries. The tidal generators, successfully working off the Orkneys are small units with a similar footfall to an offshore wind turbine. The floating barrage type generators are proving awkward to maintain.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on December 29, 2020, 02:00:30 PM
The floating barrage type generators are proving awkward to maintain.

Not only that, there's a limit to the power to be recovered from estuary tides. Tidal barrages are now falling out of favour as a generation solution. The future is in harnessing power from open tidal flows.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on December 29, 2020, 04:51:55 PM
This is the future of UK tidal energy.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on December 29, 2020, 05:05:25 PM
This is the future of UK tidal energy.


Linked video worth watching too

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on December 29, 2020, 06:49:23 PM
Fusion is coming. When I was a lad they said it might take 60 years. Sounds like 2040 may be a reasonable estimate for first commercial generation.

https://www.iflscience.com/technology/koreas-artificial-sun-breaks-world-record-running-for-an-incredible-20-seconds/?traffic_source=Connatix
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jazzmeister on January 01, 2021, 02:32:00 PM
I this the thread where we argue that there's not enough generation capacity to run a fleet of electric vehicles vs internal combustion

And that unless the electricity is generated in a green manner driving a electric vehicle is not greener at all because the emissions are just being moved around but the net affect is largely the same?
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 01, 2021, 04:34:08 PM
This is interesting about a possible new battery chemistry to provide grid storage,  but in its infancy and plenty of hurdles yet.


Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 01, 2021, 04:37:48 PM
Here are UK gridwatch links,

For all generation

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Just for renewables

https://gridwatch.co.uk/renewables/percent/

The week since last Sunday (27 Dec ) has been bad again for renewables,  especially wind.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on January 01, 2021, 05:51:44 PM
There's another gridwatch site at https://gridwatch.co.uk/ .

I might be wrong but I've got the impression that an EV should have a lower carbon footprint if it's charged from electricity generated by CCGT (>65% efficiency but deduct transmission and battery losses) than a vehicle powered by petrol or diesel (up to 40% efficient but deduct transmission losses plus it's also often operating well away from the optimum efficiency). In addition, natural gas creates less CO2 per unit of energy released https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=73&t=11 while an EV should also use regenerative braking to make its energy use more efficicient.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on January 01, 2021, 07:40:29 PM
EV charging is not going to be the only extra load on the grid.
New gas boilers are going to be phased oy so ALL home heating will be electric eventually.
The Gas power stations will HAVE to be closed to meet CO2 requirements- these provide 50% of our electricity in recent weeks.

You don't have to be a genius to see where we are heading. Either large scale blackouts or renunciation of CO2 goals..
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 01, 2021, 07:58:07 PM
Rather than using gas to make electricity to heat water or run heat pumps to provide heating when electricity is 5x as expensive as gas ( so a heat pump needs to provide 5KW of heat for every 1KW of electricity used just to equal a good gas boiler at over 90% efficiency, when below 10deg C air source heat pump is <2x, and below 5deg C is about 1.5x ). There is also the big upfront cost of heat pump compared to gas boiler.

So to provide equivalent heat to a 24KW gas boiler on a cold winters day your heat pump would consume about 16KW ( or 64 amps from your domestic supply of 80 or 100 amps ).  I have read that heat pumps are better for heating rooms than heating domestic hot water, so presumably you need an immersion heater for hot water ( need to heat hot water to over 60deg C to kill legionella infections ).

So what manufactures may be loathe to tell you is that heatpumps provide most heat when you need it the least - like solar panels.

Governments do not seem to have a plan B for when renewables fail to meet our requirements.......
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 01, 2021, 10:52:31 PM
Here is info on lithium battery fires, a large grid backup battery in Arizona went up in 2019,  the other link is advice to firefighters when attending electric car fires ( Tesla batteries run at about 400volts and water and electricity never make good companions ).  It can take 24 hours to put a car battery fire out,  link within first article to Tesla advice to firefighters

https://www.firerescue1.com/firefighter-training/articles/what-firefighters-need-to-know-about-electric-car-batteries-omiDv8vd87oZ9ZKs/

https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/07/ul-recommendations-now-in-after-2019-lithium-battery-fire-in-arizona/

https://ulfirefightersafety.org/posts/four-firefighters-injured-in-lithium-ion-battery-energy-storage-system-explosion.html
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 06, 2021, 11:47:09 AM
Look at gridwatch site today, on probably the coldest day of year so far with 45GW demand the good old coal fired stations are feeding more into grid than wind and solar combined.  French and Belgian cables flat out and providing as much as our own fans on sticks.... very low winds for next few days ( as often happens in cold weather )   will be expecting my gas boiler to flame out soon because all the gas reserves in UK have been used to prop up wind turbine shortfalls. We have muppets in charge of our energy mix.., zero brain cells rather than zero carbon.

Saw an article in Spectator today about bringing British festivals and celebrations back,  one wag commented.

 'yes lets have a zero carbon festival where kids can dance around a static wind turbine and then go home and sit in the dark'....
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on January 06, 2021, 01:37:49 PM
Look at gridwatch site today, on probably the coldest day of year so far with 45GW demand the good old coal fired stations are feeding more into grid than wind and solar combined.  French and Belgian cables flat out and providing as much as our own fans on sticks.... very low winds for next few days ( as often happens in cold weather )   will be expecting my gas boiler to flame out soon because all the gas reserves in UK have been used to prop up wind turbine shortfalls. We have muppets in charge of our energy mix.., zero brain cells rather than zero carbon.

Saw an article in Spectator today about bringing British festivals and celebrations back,  one wag commented.

 'yes lets have a zero carbon festival where kids can dance around a static wind turbine and then go home and sit in the dark'....

I have an idea. Connect all the BEVs to the Grid and they can keep it running on low wing/sun days. (Yes: it is a suggestion made by others!)

Err When they run out after a few hours, they 're stuffed but my ICE will work as well as ever..

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on January 06, 2021, 03:17:27 PM

I have an idea. Connect all the BEVs to the Grid and they can keep it running on low wing/sun days. (Yes: it is a suggestion made by others!)


At least a couple of energy suppliers pushing V2G

https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/electric-cars/vehicle-to-grid-technology.html
https://www.edfenergy.com/electric-cars/vehicle-grid
https://octopus.energy/blog/vehicle-to-grid/
https://www.virta.global/vehicle-to-grid-v2g

Edit Added third and fourth link
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 06, 2021, 03:31:36 PM

I have an idea. Connect all the BEVs to the Grid and they can keep it running on low wing/sun days. (Yes: it is a suggestion made by others!)


At least a couple of energy suppliers pushing V2G

https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/electric-cars/vehicle-to-grid-technology.html
https://www.edfenergy.com/electric-cars/vehicle-grid

https://www.virta.global/vehicle-to-grid-v2g

Edit Added third link

So they want to wear your electric car battery out instead of having a sensible energy mix that is 'sustainable' even in cold weather with no wind and allows for charging of electric vehicles,  at the moment despite the huge number of fans on sticks we have cluttering up our countryside and sea we cannot rely on them for anything,  if we could control the weather we may stand a chance, but we can't and because of pie in the sky politicians we are at the mercy of it - just like in the stone age - but I suppose the clueless politicians see that as progress...

This is what happens when you try to ban the use of fossil fuels but have nothing to replace them.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on January 06, 2021, 03:42:36 PM

I have an idea. Connect all the BEVs to the Grid and they can keep it running on low wing/sun days. (Yes: it is a suggestion made by others!)


At least a couple of energy suppliers pushing V2G

https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/electric-cars/vehicle-to-grid-technology.html
https://www.edfenergy.com/electric-cars/vehicle-grid

https://www.virta.global/vehicle-to-grid-v2g

Edit Added third link

So they want to wear your electric car battery out instead of having a sensible energy mix that is 'sustainable' even in cold weather with no wind and allows for charging of electric vehicles,  at the moment despite the huge number of fans on sticks we have cluttering up our countryside and sea we cannot rely on them for anything,  if we could control the weather we may stand a chance, but we can't and because of pie in the sky politicians we are at the mercy of it - just like in the stone age - but I suppose the clueless politicians see that as progress...

This is what happens when you try to ban the use of fossil fuels but have nothing to replace them.
I want to avoid using fossil fuels and damaging the environment.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 06, 2021, 07:24:15 PM

I have an idea. Connect all the BEVs to the Grid and they can keep it running on low wing/sun days. (Yes: it is a suggestion made by others!)


At least a couple of energy suppliers pushing V2G

https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/electric-cars/vehicle-to-grid-technology.html
https://www.edfenergy.com/electric-cars/vehicle-grid

https://www.virta.global/vehicle-to-grid-v2g

Edit Added third link

So they want to wear your electric car battery out instead of having a sensible energy mix that is 'sustainable' even in cold weather with no wind and allows for charging of electric vehicles,  at the moment despite the huge number of fans on sticks we have cluttering up our countryside and sea we cannot rely on them for anything,  if we could control the weather we may stand a chance, but we can't and because of pie in the sky politicians we are at the mercy of it - just like in the stone age - but I suppose the clueless politicians see that as progress...

This is what happens when you try to ban the use of fossil fuels but have nothing to replace them.
I want to avoid using fossil fuels and damaging the environment.

Until we get decent stable electricity supply my main concern is the economy not the environment.... people may begin to care less about the environment when we start to get rolling blackouts and the lights and heating pack up.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on January 06, 2021, 08:27:25 PM

I have an idea. Connect all the BEVs to the Grid and they can keep it running on low wing/sun days. (Yes: it is a suggestion made by others!)


At least a couple of energy suppliers pushing V2G




So they want to wear your electric car battery out instead of having a sensible energy mix that is 'sustainable' even in cold weather with no wind and allows for charging of electric vehicles,  at the moment despite the huge number of fans on sticks we have cluttering up our countryside and sea we cannot rely on them for anything,  if we could control the weather we may stand a chance, but we can't and because of pie in the sky politicians we are at the mercy of it - just like in the stone age - but I suppose the clueless politicians see that as progress...

This is what happens when you try to ban the use of fossil fuels but have nothing to replace them.
I want to avoid using fossil fuels and damaging the environment.

Until we get decent stable electricity supply my main concern is the economy not the environment.... people may begin to care less about the environment when we start to get rolling blackouts and the lights and heating pack up.

And what happens when the fossil fuels run out or become so scarce that people are fighting over them and we have nothing to replace them with?
Surely it is more sensible to develop renewables and look for ways to store the energy to even out supply and demand.
The UK is well off for sources of renewables - hydro, wind, wave and tidal (or at least Scotland is). Unfortunately the UK government has squandered most of the fossil fuels.
I would agree that we are as yet unable to run exclusively on renewables without backup and the politicians' ideas to do so are pie in the sky. There is unlikely to be one solution but a combination of many.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on January 06, 2021, 09:15:26 PM
And what happens when the fossil fuels run out or become so scarce that people are fighting over them and we have nothing to replace them with?
Surely it is more sensible to develop renewables and look for ways to store the energy to even out supply and demand.
The UK is well off for sources of renewables - hydro, wind, wave and tidal (or at least Scotland is). Unfortunately the UK government has squandered most of the fossil fuels.
I would agree that we are as yet unable to run exclusively on renewables without backup and the politicians' ideas to do so are pie in the sky. There is unlikely to be one solution but a combination of many.
The fossil fuels won't run out any time soon but people will have to adjust to putting up with a climate significantly different from the recent past. They'll be more worried about the air conditioning for the summer than heating for the winter. At least aircon in the day time is in step with the solar generation.

However, I agree that we need a lot more storage in one form or another. A few more projects such as this https://www.scottishconstructionnow.com/article/scotland-s-largest-hydro-project-approved-by-ministers would have some impact but they need to be subsidised to get them built. I'd put an unreliability tax on the wind and solar energy to create a fund for investing in storage.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on January 07, 2021, 06:56:00 AM
Running air conditioning is a first world problem (both in buildings and cars). I was brought up in an age when there was no air conditioning in buildings (I was 21 before we even had a fridge), and central heating was a luxury (as were fitted carpets). If the first world has to revert to a simpler style of living, it may be no bad thing.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on January 07, 2021, 08:54:12 AM
Running air conditioning is a first world problem (both in buildings and cars). I was brought up in an age when there was no air conditioning in buildings (I was 21 before we even had a fridge), and central heating was a luxury (as were fitted carpets). If the first world has to revert to a simpler style of living, it may be no bad thing.

Seems like you're not that comfy yet
I have a digital thermometer on my desk, and there is an outside temperature probe which I normally dangle on the floor. At the moment it is showing 17.4°C  at desk height and 14.2°C  at floor level.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=4+yorkshiremen&&view=detail&mid=171D5EFB2C61E68A6EC8171D5EFB2C61E68A6EC8&rvsmid=53D4B529149D82E3AA0E53D4B529149D82E3AA0E&FORM=VDRVRV
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Westy36 on January 07, 2021, 09:53:45 AM
Running air conditioning is a first world problem (both in buildings and cars). I was brought up in an age when there was no air conditioning in buildings (I was 21 before we even had a fridge), and central heating was a luxury (as were fitted carpets). If the first world has to revert to a simpler style of living, it may be no bad thing.

I agree with reverting to a more simple style of living.

In our house, if you are cold, put another jumper on! We have central heating, but not a hot house. When I was growing up in the 70's, I remember the central heating being insalled and even then it was only used at christmas time. Tell kids today eh?
 
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 07, 2021, 10:35:41 AM
I'd put an unreliability tax on the wind and solar energy to create a fund for investing in storage.

Far from wind farms getting taxed for unreliability they often get paid NOT to generate  they are called 'constraint payments' - so on a windy day we have an excess of power from wind turbines the grid asks windfarms to shut down and the companies get paid. Then on a no-wind day ( like the last few days and including today ) we get a paltry 5 or 6% of demand from wind.  Don't ask how many trees have been chopped down to built lucrative wind farms... Greenies moaned about pylons,  now they hug the wind turbines which are much bigger and more intrusive than pylons and tend to be in the most scenic areas...

On a windy day there is massively too much wind on the grid, and far more than the UK can handle, on a still day it is pathetic.

Quote from article linked to below..

'Could companies be targeting constraint payments?

The spokesperson for the REF believes that this practise can provide “a perverse incentive to seek out areas with low demand and weak grid connectivity,” therefore it can encourage more operators to take advantage of constraint payments by constructing more farms in such areas.

Furthermore, REF perceives wind farms as a foreseeable market risk which should not be eligible for financial compensations when they have to be restricted in order to prevent grid overloading.

The company does not see such compensations as justifiable, especially as they provide higher income for a restricted period of time compared to when wind farms are actually working. It also warns that this procedure poses “a recognisable risk of siting a development” in low income areas such as less populated counties in Scotland.

The REF spokesperson concluded that “the effects of this perverse incentive are now being seen in many planning applications for industrial wind developments coming forward”.
[/i]


https://www.power-technology.com/features/constraint-payments-rewarding-wind-farms-for-switching-off/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on January 07, 2021, 12:36:35 PM
Running air conditioning is a first world problem (both in buildings and cars). I was brought up in an age when there was no air conditioning in buildings (I was 21 before we even had a fridge), and central heating was a luxury (as were fitted carpets). If the first world has to revert to a simpler style of living, it may be no bad thing.

Ever tried working in an office with an outside temperature of 30C in daytime and 20C at night?

The inside temperature is so uncomfortable it is dangerous to health.

Been there in Africa.

It is not a luxury is many US states...it is a necessity.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on January 07, 2021, 12:47:19 PM
On a windy day there is massively too much wind on the grid, and far more than the UK can handle, on a still day it is pathetic.

Which is exactly the reason why we should be building the storage facilities being argued for. For wind, which is intermittent and reasonably unpredictable by nature, you're not just smoothing out the bumps. The answer has to be in open ended conversion technologies such as hydrogen.

Dumping electricity or putting brakes on feathered turbines is a shameful waste.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 07, 2021, 01:08:53 PM
It is not a luxury is many US states...it is a necessity.

When we lived in Australia we sometimes went out into the older country towns and were impressed by the older buildings with overhanging roofs to shield the walls from hot sun, vents in the walls and under the eaves,  they were cool inside despite being nearly 40deg C outside.  Now compare them with the glass fronted modern houses and offices that require massive amounts of air conditioning even on a day that is just 'warm'.... ( to cut down on the peaks of power use many tower block commercial buildings used overnight electricity to freeze tanks of water and used the ice during the day cool the buildings ) but they still required a lot of power.   Modern architects have forgotten that buildings in a hot climate require designs that are OK ( well maybe ) in temperate areas....

Modern cars also have much larger more steeply raked windscreen and larger dash area than older cars, which is the main reason aircon is now needed on them.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on January 07, 2021, 06:21:05 PM
Ever tried working in an office with an outside temperature of 30C in daytime and 20C at night?

The inside temperature is so uncomfortable it is dangerous to health.

Been there in Africa.

It is not a luxury is many US states...it is a necessity.
Yes I have. I was in the Merchant Navy and some climes 30°C was the night time temperature. Steaming down the Red Sea at 20 knots with a 20 knot following breeze is no picnic. But we are not talking about the rest of the world. We are discussing the energy requirements in the UK. And in my opinion air conditioning in the UK is a luxury, not a necessity.

(https://i.imgur.com/cSXxsa7.jpg)
ss Benattow (Leith) in Dadiangas (General Santos) Philipines.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on January 07, 2021, 09:40:46 PM
I've done my fair share of travelling for work including time on both sides of the Red Sea. In summer, without air conditioning, the best place for the bed is outside.

I can't find it now but not long ago I read an article about how futher summer temperatures would make summer sleeping a challenge because UK buildings aren't designed to keep the sun out. I learned long ago that houses with west-facing bedroom windows are best avoided but plenty are still being built as houses are scattered around to suit the whims of the planners and architects without thought about how to maximise the benefit of the winter sun (when it shines) and minimise excess heating from summer sun. The article also pointed out that people living in urban over-glazed flats or converted offices are already suffering from internal summer night temperatures that make sleep challenging. Air conditioning will soon become a necessity for some in order to get a good night's sleep but the right aircon can also serve as a heat pump for some winter warmth.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 24, 2021, 09:10:09 AM
Check out gridwatch site,  wind 4.8%, solar 0% coal 6%. 
Biomass flat out ( does that mean gas supplies getting low again )


I'll be kind to solar and say it may be snow on the panels

Snowing hard in Shropshire ( the snow is falling straight down, not a breath of wind )
and sticking, temperature -2C where we are...

Oh dear.. the lights and computer still working OK.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on January 24, 2021, 12:24:25 PM
Bright sunshine, no snow and a steady wind here in Fife.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on January 24, 2021, 01:53:39 PM
I'll be kind to solar and say it may be snow on the panels
My panels are covered in snow and producing zero power (the roof slope is too flat to encourage the snow to slide off).

The good news, which you can see on Gridwatch, is that the 2nd interconnector with France is now operational and now importing just under 1GW.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on January 27, 2021, 05:37:17 PM
Hinkley Point C delayed and more expensive https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-55823575 .
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on February 05, 2021, 09:08:54 AM
Australia making even bigger forays into batteries

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/05/worlds-biggest-battery-with-1200mw-capacity-set-to-be-built-in-nsw-hunter-valley-australia
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on February 05, 2021, 05:31:02 PM
Australia making even bigger forays into batteries
There's the usual gap in the specification "power capacity of up to 1,200 megawatts" but no mention of the megawatt-hours. Nonetheless, a step in the right direction. The UK has a few pumped-storage sites which could be developed if the finances look good (which they don't at the moment due to insufficient incentives to provide storage) but batteries might work in England where they can be close to demand centres but tied in to solar or wind generation. Something like this https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/18882539.work-set-start-huge-battery-plant-mannington/ is a tiddler compared to the Australian proposal.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on February 05, 2021, 06:49:19 PM
This may help:
It’s important to note the phrasing “up to 1,200MW”, meaning the final design and size of the scheme is still in development and the company has not given an indication yet of the planned capacity or discharge duration of the project. Nevertheless, CEP. Energy’s battery storage system would be “up to” four times larger in rated output than the 300MW / 1,200MWh Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in California, recently inaugurated and currently the world’s biggest battery energy storage system (BESS).

It appears that the Moss Landing has a capacity to supply 300MW for 4 hours so we may be in a position to assume Hunter Valley will be likewise, ergo 4800 MWh
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on February 06, 2021, 08:22:39 PM
In the local news today that a commercial company has applied for planning permission to build a solar farm and battery storage/6 inverter stations/substation, on112 acres of land, to the north of Dunfermline.
The farm will be 29.9MW, able to supply 10,000 homes at peak power. The battery storage will be in the form of 20 containers. There will be 82,500 solar panels.
The land was previously an open cast mine, returned to farmland.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: embee on February 08, 2021, 09:45:49 PM
Simple solution ..................... fewer people.

Oops, sorry, that's another thread.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 09, 2021, 05:34:27 PM
Simple solution ..................... fewer people.

Oops, sorry, that's another thread.

This thread is already well populated  ;D

Agree, population is always the Elephant in the room, the sad part is that because of our population that soon there will be no elephants left to put in the room. No good preserving animals in zoos if there is nowhere for them to live in the wild.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 09, 2021, 05:57:58 PM
. There will be 82,500 solar panels.


Solar in UK is a waste of time, see gridwatch and UK solar rarely gets above 1%,  more often 0%. short daylight hours in winter and more sun in summer when power demand is low.   I found out why government is banning new gas boilers,  they need all the gas they can get to gas to power electricity generation because renewables are so unreliable. They will not mind that electricity will have to be used for heating homes instead of gas, but at a lower efficiency, they will have ticked another carbon box  - and prices will rise ( oh they already have).  At present electricity prices you need a heat pump with recovery at least 5:1 to break even on running costs compared to gas, and that is without the large upfront coast of heatpump installation, with a payback period longer than the average human life expectancy in UK.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on February 09, 2021, 06:37:17 PM
Solar in UK is a waste of time,
The company that is going to the trouble to build the solar farm I referred to obviously doesn't think so.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 12, 2021, 03:56:41 PM
European power grid almost collapsed in January, blamed on 'too much reliance on volatile renewables' - Germany has warned about this before.

https://www.thegwpf.com/8-january-2021-europe-just-skirted-blackout-disaster/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on February 13, 2021, 08:45:02 AM
European power grid almost collapsed in January, blamed on 'too much reliance on volatile renewables' - Germany has warned about this before.

https://www.thegwpf.com/8-january-2021-europe-just-skirted-blackout-disaster/
Thanks for that link. It's interesting that EDF have been encouraging French consumers to minimise their electricity usage in the mornings, presumably to help address a generating shortfall further east. I had noticed from Gridwatch https://gridwatch.co.uk/Demand that there has been a regular reduction in power imported from France to UK between about 7 and 9am but checking yesterday's graph I see there was the rare event of UK exporting to France.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on February 16, 2021, 12:59:27 PM
Interesting power flow on Gridwatch earlier today: UK was burning coal overnight to help export a lot of electricity to Europe (-ve power on the interconnectors = export).
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on February 16, 2021, 02:01:14 PM
Whilst not wanting to appear to be in Culzean's camp, wind power is not proving to be much use in Texas right now...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-56083385
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 16, 2021, 03:01:59 PM
Whilst not wanting to appear to be in Culzean's camp, wind power is not proving to be much use in Texas right now...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-56083385

That is what happens when we rely on power at the whim of nature. California seen as mecca for renewables but when Sun goes down 80% of electricity supplied by fossil fuels... My camp is the one that looks at gridwatch and sees when renewables almost completely disappear for days on end.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: ColinB on February 16, 2021, 03:49:03 PM
Whilst not wanting to appear to be in Culzean's camp, wind power is not proving to be much use in Texas right now...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-56083385

The Texas weather is an interesting case for the climate-change deniers to consider. From a report in Tortoise (https://www.tortoisemedia.com/read/our-planet/) :

It’s freezing in Texas and snowing like crazy in Moscow. You could just write this off as winter, but it’s more interesting than that. Some of the coldest temperatures in Texas in 30 years are a result of what the US National Weather Service is calling an “Arctic outbreak”. The usual low pressure systems that keep the northern hemisphere’s coldest winter air over the North Pole are breaking down because of the warming Arctic, and letting more cold air than usual drift south. Meanwhile more snow fell on Moscow than in any single day since 1973. The dump was 1cm shy of the city’s 24-hour record – but not surprising. As Russia’s winters warm, snow comes later and leaves earlier, but right in the middle blizzards will be bigger because warmer air holds more moisture.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on February 17, 2021, 05:49:55 PM
Whilst not wanting to appear to be in Culzean's camp, wind power is not proving to be much use in Texas right now...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-56083385
However, a lot of the problem is with the thermal plants https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/17/texas-power-blackout-weather-cold and not enough gas coming through the pipes.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on February 17, 2021, 06:29:53 PM
However, a lot of the problem is with the thermal plants https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/17/texas-power-blackout-weather-cold and not enough gas coming through the pipes.

Another problem with Texas is that it's a very good example of the effect of 'small government' and isolation from your neighbours. Texas has it's own grid - cut off from other states so that it can avoid Federal regulation.

Fossil fuel interests spreading disinformation, who'd have thunk it

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/texas-frozen-wind-turbines-john-cornyn-b1803193.html
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 17, 2021, 06:52:09 PM
The problem with renewables is officially called intermittency, but unreliability is another, better word.  Building stuff like nuclear to supply a decent base load is one answer, but the more renewables you have on your grid the more you need backup from quick reaction gas turbine generators, so then you need more gas supplies.  Banning domestic gas heating puts even more load onto the electricity grid, meaning the intermittent nature of renewables becomes an even greater problem. UK demand never normally gets above 45GW,  so the demand in Texas for 70GW was more than the whole of UK.  One major part of problem was that wind turbines froze up, solar panels covered in snow and ice, ( and only work in daylight anyway ). Grid storage solution to such massive demands is a long way off.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/15/us/power-outages-texas-monday/index.html
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on February 17, 2021, 07:32:37 PM
One major part of problem was that wind turbines froze up, solar panels covered in snow and ice, ( and only work in daylight anyway ).

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/texas-frozen-wind-turbines-john-cornyn-b1803193.html

Quote
It’s also important to note that this severe cold snap across Texas has frozen instruments at natural gas, coal, and nuclear facilities.

Along with the limited supplies of gas on hand, the situation has caused a lack of power supply, leading to some 30 to 35 gigawatts of total power outages across the state — almost all from non-functioning gas power plants. Sure, some wind turbines and solar facilities have also been affected, but all through Monday while gas plants were freezing, wind turbines and solar panels actually exceeded expected power delivery.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on February 17, 2021, 09:12:56 PM
Seemingly, Greenland has a very successful wind turbine generation system.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on February 18, 2021, 08:59:12 AM
More discussion about the Texas problem https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-56085733.

I have to wonder to what extent iced-up blades are cause or effect. I would expect moving blades to be more effective at shedding sleet /snow before it becomes a problem but if the turbines stop because the grid has collapsed then they will be more vulnerable to icing up. It's also possible that turbines installed in colder climates are better winter-proofed (eg teflon-coated blades or built-in heaters?).
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 18, 2021, 09:00:56 AM
Seemingly, Greenland has a very successful wind turbine generation system.

Greenland has a very low humidity and plenty of wind.

More discussion about the Texas problem https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-56085733.

I have to wonder to what extent iced-up blades are cause or effect. I would expect moving blades to be more effective at shedding sleet /snow before it becomes a problem but if the turbines stop because the grid has collapsed then they will be more vulnerable to icing up. It's also possible that turbines installed in colder climates are better winter-proofed (eg teflon-coated blades or built-in heaters?).

In order to generate power wind turbines need an outside source of electrical power, and aircraft wings and propellers ice up when flying and they are moving pretty quick.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Westy36 on February 18, 2021, 09:05:42 AM
A bit of a generalisation, but if the average citizen of the states drove around in a Honda Fit as apposed to Dodge Rams or Ford F150, then they would reduce emissions massively. That, and stop all the internal flights.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 18, 2021, 09:34:28 AM
Here is an article ( PDF attached ) showing the dirty side of renewables,  reminds me a bit of the governments who backed Diesel to be the saviour of the world, but they were only looking at CO2,  not the many ways in which diesel is actually dirtier than petrol.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on February 18, 2021, 10:05:10 AM
That article states:

"The UK is already doing well on renewables. Latest figures show that in 2020 they
collectively generated around 45 per cent of our electricity, up nine per cent on 2019. "

Garbage: summer only.


And then goes on about the need for rare elements for super strong magnets needed for wind power:
"As these rare elements are distributed in tiny quantities, vast piles of ore need to be
dug up, processed and refined to produce minuscule amounts. For a single kilo of
gallium – used in energy-efficient light bulbs – 50 tonnes of rock needs to be
excavated, according to Pitron."

I take it from that the writer knows nothing about mining in the real world...eg gold
"GOLD: One ounce, or roughly 30 grams/tonne is high-grade and can be expected to move markets in most cases. Several ounces of gold per tonne is considered to be high-grade for underground mining, although 5 grams gold/tonne is usually economically viable."
https://tinyurl.com/ybmek3sz

(30hms per tonne requires 33 tonnes of rock to get 1kg gold..

His article is just full of facts presented as "bad" when other minerals are just as difficult to extravt
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on February 18, 2021, 10:22:33 AM
As with all these articles, you first have to examine the origin. I'm afraid fossil fuel interests are not going to release their stranglehold on the world without a fight.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 18, 2021, 11:12:08 AM


(30hms per tonne requires 33 tonnes of rock to get 1kg gold..

His article is just full of facts presented as "bad" when other minerals are just as difficult to extract

Gold is not needed in the quantities that these rare earth metals are, and gold is easy to recycle, which the rare earth metals are not. As it said, trashing the environment to save the planet LOL

As with all these articles, you first have to examine the origin. I'm afraid fossil fuel interests are not going to release their stranglehold on the world without a fight.

Don't think the author of that paper has any particular axe to grind,  he a is a technology correspondent.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on February 18, 2021, 11:31:15 AM

Don't think the author of that paper has any particular axe to grind,  he a is a technology correspondent.

Perhaps the owner of the newspaper does? :o
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on February 18, 2021, 12:04:52 PM
As with all these articles, you first have to examine the origin. I'm afraid fossil fuel interests are not going to release their stranglehold on the world without a fight.

Don't think the author of that paper has any particular axe to grind,  he a is a technology correspondent.

He may or may not, but the sources used look particularly one-sided. Look at Shellenberger for example, author of "Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All". He's a known proponent of nuclear power, and has been widely criticised by academic reviewers for using misleading and inaccurate claims to support his arguments.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-stories-michael-shellenberger-tells/

Quote
Troublingly, he seems more concerned with showing climate-denying conservatives clever new ways to own the libs than with convincing environmentalists of anything.

Just because there are bad practices in the solar power industry, and I don't doubt that there are, it doesn't make it all bad. Let's face it - the fossil fuel industry is hardly a bastion for environmental protection, is it?
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on February 18, 2021, 01:34:53 PM
And one of the Texas nuclear plants also tripped out because of the cold https://atomicinsights.com/south-texas-project-unit-1-tripped-at-0537-on-feb-15-2021/ .A

Our eqivalent scenario is more likely to be a heatwave when equipment trips because of inadequate cooling.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on February 19, 2021, 08:30:23 AM
Another renewable energy source: Geothermal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55885086 .
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on February 19, 2021, 10:48:27 AM
Texas is an "oil state" and relies heavily on  natural gas.
It is their reliance on natural gas rather than on renewables which was responsible for most of the outages.
Systems are built to suit normal weather conditions. Parts of Canada and Alaska function at negative temperatures but a week of unseasonal tropical temperatures would probably cause disruption.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-storm/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 19, 2021, 11:23:19 AM
Texas is an "oil state" and relies heavily on  natural gas.
It is their reliance on natural gas rather than on renewables which was responsible for most of the outages.
Systems are built to suit normal weather conditions. Parts of Canada and Alaska function at negative temperatures but a week of unseasonal tropical temperatures would probably cause disruption.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-storm/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

And then there is this.....

Problem with renewables because of their 'whim of nature' intermittency ( unreliability ) is that you end up building far more of them than you actually need,  just to try and get a decent output in the 'bad' times. Then the operators expect to be paid even when their windfarm/solar farm is not needed because of 'oversupply' in the good times.  All I can say is electricity prices have not finished rising yet ( and they have been rising since renewables became more common ).  But to the greenies high prices are a good thing as they hope that makes people use less, enter the electric car.. which needs a lot of electricity.

Seems hot weather as well as cold weather can create problems with renewables.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/18/california-rolling-blackouts-caused-green-energy-p/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on February 19, 2021, 12:14:43 PM
All I can say is electricity prices have not finished rising yet ( and they have been rising since renewables became more common ).

I think energy prices were rising long before renewables appeared on the horizon!  ;D
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on February 19, 2021, 02:44:05 PM
I have been paying an electricity bill for 50 years and I can guarantee, the price has been rising FOREVER.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on February 19, 2021, 03:55:01 PM
All I can say is electricity prices have not finished rising yet ( and they have been rising since renewables became more common ). 
What is going to be required is a mix of energy sources.
Some are going to be more expensive than others.
There is always going to be a tendency to go for the cheapest option but this can work out more expensive in the long term in terms of environmental damage or in having all your eggs in one basket in the event of natural disasters.
As alternative sources are developed and are scaled up they become cheaper and more competitive with conventional sources.

  But to the greenies high prices are a good thing as they hope that makes people use less, enter the electric car.. which needs a lot of electricity.

Using less energy would be a better solution than generating more and more .
There must be vast amounts of energy wasted through inefficient insulation, consumerism and needless travel.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on February 19, 2021, 04:16:42 PM
Never mind the energy used, generating cryptocurrency. Argentina uses the same, I believe.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 19, 2021, 04:22:54 PM
I have been paying an electricity bill for 50 years and I can guarantee, the price has been rising FOREVER.

Yup, price increases are a fact of life, but rise has been much steeper in last decade, in fact it has doubled in last 10 years. 
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on February 19, 2021, 06:35:56 PM
I have been paying an electricity bill for 50 years and I can guarantee, the price has been rising FOREVER.

Yup, price increases are a fact of life, but rise has been much steeper in last decade, in fact it has doubled in last 10 years.

You should change supplier. Electricity prices have been up and down over that last 10 years, but the overall trend has been fairly benign - unlike the big rises during the 70s and mid 2000s when worldwide oil, gas and other fuel prices were going through the roof.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: guest4871 on February 19, 2021, 07:35:30 PM
I follow this discussion and ask myself:

Is the plan to heat homes in the future using only electricity?

My electricity today costs 5 times my gas per kilowatt hour.

Without doing the calculation in detail, I guess my energy bills will go up by at least 3 times that which they are now if we stop using gas in homes.

Will people on low incomes simply be able to afford that? It is serious money.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on February 19, 2021, 08:46:14 PM
I follow this discussion and ask myself:

Is the plan to heat homes in the future using only electricity?
The plan is that we use heat pumps which give several units of heat per unit of electricity used. Hybrid heat pumps such as this https://www.vaillant.co.uk/specifiers/products/arotherm-hybrid-air-source-heat-pump-53953.html#specification are an intermediate option and will use gas or electricity, whichever works out to be cheaper. Producing hydrogen with surplus renewable energy is also being trialled. This can then be used to replace gas.

The other part of the grand plan is to improve insulation to minimise heat losses. The government is offering money to help with the changes https://www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-the-green-homes-grant-scheme .
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on March 08, 2021, 12:26:02 PM
Article from Spectator

The hidden cost of Net Zero

8 March 2021, 11:38am



‘We cannot allow debt to keep rising’, the Chancellor said to Parliament last week, repeatedly emphasising the need to ‘level’ with the public about the size of the national debt. Strange then that just days later it was revealed that ministers have been doing the opposite when it comes to the costs of the fashionable cause of ‘Net Zero’. Instead government officials deliberately hid ‘more realistic’ estimates which showed Net Zero would cost billions more than publicised, while agreeing amongst themselves that the predicted costs were ‘highly uncertain’. These revelations came about after the Treasury was finally defeated in a two-year battle to prevent me seeing documents I’d requested under the Freedom of Information Act. I’d asked for the calculations behind their claim that the cost of decarbonising the UK economy was going to be around £1 trillion. In the event, after two years, they eventually handed over what was essentially a short memo, discussing two competing estimates of the cost, one from the Department for Business Enterprise and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the other from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). The amateurishness of the Treasury analysis is extraordinary: a few figures are jotted down, as if on the back of an envelope, and a crude graph is sketched out, after which a picture to present to the public is decided on. But more importantly, the memo appears to show that the Treasury set out to deceive the public. The mandarins involved felt that the higher BEIS estimate was more credible than the lower figure from the CCC, but shamefully decided to publicise the CCC number anyway.This kind of behaviour by Whitehall officials has become all too common, but the public may not yet be aware of the extent of the deception regarding Net Zero. The two competing estimates were in the vicinity of £1 trillion pounds, give or a take a few hundred billion here or there. But a moment’s reflection shows that this cannot even be close to the true cost. For example, the Energy Technologies Institute estimatesthat retrofitting insulation to the UK housing stock will cost in excess of £2 trillion on its own. And you need to decarbonise transport, the power generation system, industry and agriculture too. At GWPF, where I work, analysts have been building up a more realistic picture of just how much you are going to be required to fork out, and we’ve already reached a total over £3 trillion – or more than £100,000 per household. By the time we are done, it may well be half as much again.Do you have £150,000 to spare? Coming in the wake of the pandemic, I’m pretty sure most people will not. Forcing taxpayers and consumers to spend sums like this seems the height of economic and social foolishness. To do so only to deliver a world in which you will not know from one moment to the next whether there will be any energy to heat your home or even to keep the lights on defies comprehension.Do politicians have any idea of where they are taking us? Or does their thinking on energy policy only extend to posturing and pandering to environmental pressure groups? They can’t keep on like this forever. Eventually, as the bills mount and the reality of energy rationing hits home, the public will turn on them. And this could be sooner than you think. BEIS hopes to clear the way for the grid to control appliances in homes by 2025. The next election could be a good one to lose.

Written byAndrew Montford
Andrew Montford is deputy director of the Global Warming Policy Forum.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on March 08, 2021, 04:43:47 PM
It sounds grand, but the Global Warming Policy Forum is just another lobby group of climate change sceptics.

Read about the GWPF here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Warming_Policy_Foundation
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on March 08, 2021, 05:14:43 PM
I think I posted a link to Andrew Montford either further back in this thread or in another one.
https://www.desmog.co.uk/andrew-montford

There we are
 Re: Climate change.
« Reply #83 on: February 21, 2021, 11:37:53 AM »
https://clubjazz.org/forum/index.php?topic=10901.msg94816#msg94816
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on March 08, 2021, 05:34:48 PM
It sounds grand, but the Global Warming Policy Forum is just another lobby group of climate change sceptics.

Read about the GWPF here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Warming_Policy_Foundation

So everyone on the pro-climate change side is honest and truthful and anyone with a different opinion are biased with an agenda.... yeah !  Scientists who oppose the current climate religion have their funding and media presence removed - ever wonder what happened to prof David Bellamy the darling of the green movement ? He said climate change theory was wrong - and bingo, he disappeared from public sight...

If you want an easy life and a nice little earner - toe the party line
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on March 08, 2021, 05:46:35 PM

If you want an easy life and a nice little earner - toe the party line
Or a bigger earner - support big oil
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on March 08, 2021, 05:47:46 PM
So everyone on the pro-climate change side is honest and truthful and anyone with a different opinion are biased with an agenda.... yeah ! 

Where exactly did I say that?

If they're not biased, why have they refused at least 4 FoI requests for transparency on their funding sources?

Quote
Bob Ward, the policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, commented:

"These [FoI] documents expose once again the double standards promoted by ... the GWPF, who demand absolute transparency from everybody except themselves ... The GWPF was the most strident critic during the 'Climategate' row of the standards of transparency practised by the University of East Anglia, yet it simply refuses to disclose basic information about its own secretive operations, including the identity of its funders."
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on March 16, 2021, 09:27:05 AM
Something 'different'...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/good-vibrations-bladeless-turbines-could-bring-wind-power-to-your-home

...but this, I cannot see the point at all. You can already buy electric central heating boiler replacements which are 100% efficient, and ones integrated into electric storage heater ranges which can make use of off peak or intermittent electricity.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/first-microwave-powered-home-boiler-could-help-cut-emissions
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on March 16, 2021, 10:26:04 AM
Looks like it gives the benefits of a combi boiler, only heating when you need it.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on March 16, 2021, 11:06:46 AM
Looks like it gives the benefits of a combi boiler, only heating when you need it.

You can get electric boilers that provide instantaneous hot water, can't see the difference apart from more complexity?
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: embee on March 16, 2021, 12:40:28 PM
An electric water heater efficiency is basically down to insulation not the technology of the energy transfer device. 1kW.hr of heat energy put into water is the same regardless of how you do it. Efficiency of most "devices" usually comes down to heat loss, if it's a mechanical work device then heat is usually undesirable, if it's a heater then it's all desirable. A bog standard immersion heater is pretty efficient...... and cheap and simple and reliable, insulate the container effectively and away you go.

As for the small scale local generators, it's usually a case of the size. Solar and wind have a typical power "density", e.g. solar in the UK latitudes is somewhere round the 1kW/m2 range (ballpark), if you want more power it means a bigger panel area. I don't know what the typical wind power density is (easy enough to estimate) but if you want more power it means a bigger machine. I don't know what power you could expect from a 2m tall domestic wind generator, I doubt it's much on average, it's just not very big.

You have to be a little careful in considering peripheral energy sources like absorbing power from passing vehicles. If you are not careful you end up with extra drag, or it's a hidden "perpetual motion machine" (use the vehicles motion to drive a generator to charge the vehicles etc). It depends whether you can harness the "waste" energy without influencing the source.

It's generally easier to try to reduce demand than improve efficiency. 10% reduction in demand means 10% reduction, simple. I reduce the total fuel consumed by my car by leaving it parked on the drive, it's remarkably effective.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on March 16, 2021, 01:06:46 PM
I have been paying an electricity bill for 50 years and I can guarantee, the price has been rising FOREVER.

Yup, price increases are a fact of life, but rise has been much steeper in last decade, in fact it has doubled in last 10 years.


In the 1970s the price of oil rose from $3 per barrel to $12 in 4 years.

UK inflation has been on a continuous trend since WW2..see chart.
 https://monevator.com/a-history-of-uk-inflation/

The oil price - which drives inflation in all energy sectors is shown here. https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart

Major increases were the 1970-80s and 2000-2010. Since then prices have fallen.


Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: embee on March 16, 2021, 03:02:25 PM
It's surprising how consistent some relative pricing has been. I remember as a 16yr old with a moped and a Saturday job an hour's wages would buy me a bit more than a gallon of petrol or a bit less than 3 pints of beer (not that as a 16yr old I would ever drink beer, oh no, not ever).
Prices today are much the same relatively (unless you are looking at London beer prices of course   :o  ).
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on March 17, 2021, 01:33:26 PM
Some interesting data here: https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/ (https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/)
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on March 24, 2021, 11:05:58 AM
I posted this on another thread, but I thought it might be more interesting here.

https://www.business-live.co.uk/technology/two-nottinghamshire-sites-now-being-20083270

There have been rumblings about this locally for a few months, the closure of several local coal fired power stations and the ideas that are being put forward for redeveloping these highly contaminated industrial sites is causing some friction. I'm rather intrigued by the idea of the fusion reactor, it sounds more suited to the site than a 'market village' of several thousand homes built on dirty land in the middle of nowhere, by the side of a major tidal river.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on March 24, 2021, 11:20:45 AM
I shall be 60 this Summer and I have been following and reading about the potential for fusion power stations since I was a lad. What is interesting is that the proposed date for such has never really moved. Even in 1970 I think they were saying it was 60-80 years away. Now it seems so close.

That drawing of the Tokomak station doesn't half look like a Mr.Fusion though. Wonder if that is deliberate, subconscious or what!
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: sparky Paul on March 24, 2021, 11:39:12 AM
I shall be 60 this Summer and I have been following and reading about the potential for fusion power stations since I was a lad. What is interesting is that the proposed date for such has never really moved. Even in 1970 I think they were saying it was 60-80 years away. Now it seems so close.

Same here... but we are now here and they are building these things, and believe they will be commercially viable. The ITER/DEMO project in France looks particularly impressive.

That drawing of the Tokomak station doesn't half look like a Mr.Fusion though. Wonder if that is deliberate, subconscious or what!

I knew it reminded me of something  ;D

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on March 26, 2021, 07:10:16 AM
In 2020 Scotland met 97.4% of its electricity demand from renewables. It is interesting the way the report is couched as they talk about 97.4% of its equivalent electricity consumption from renewables (my italics). This suggests that sometimes it produces more than it could use and had to export (lack of storage capacity), and at other times it had to call upon non-renewable sources.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on April 13, 2021, 01:46:41 PM
Plans have been submitted for a major "green hydrogen" scheme near Glasgow. The application by ScottishPower includes a 20MW electrolyser, a device that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrical energy - in this case, via wind and solar power. The planned facility will be located near the UK's largest onshore wind farm, Whitelee, owned by ScottishPower. The project includes a combined solar and battery energy storage scheme. It aims to supply hydrogen to the commercial market before 2023.
The facility will be powered by a 40MW solar farm and a 50MW battery energy storage scheme, all of which will be installed about three miles west of Lochgoin reservoir and adjacent to the existing Whitelee extension substation. It aims to create green hydrogen production facilities with clusters of refuelling stations across Scotland.
The Glasgow scheme is designed to provide carbon-free transport and clean air for communities across Glasgow and support industrial hydrogen demand in the region. It will supply enough "green hydrogen" roughly equivalent to fuelling over 550 buses to travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh and back again each day.

https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/itm-power-and-scottish-power-bring-uks-largest-green-hydrogen-plant-to-glasgow/ (https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/itm-power-and-scottish-power-bring-uks-largest-green-hydrogen-plant-to-glasgow/)
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on April 13, 2021, 03:22:27 PM
Switzerland also investing in hydrogen
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/worlds-first-hydrogen-truck-fleet-hyundai-xcient/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on May 26, 2021, 10:19:17 AM
A possible step forward in the search for Nuclear Fusion with a British experiment that seems to reduce the amount of heat inside the reactor.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57232644 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57232644)
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on May 26, 2021, 11:32:59 AM
A possible step forward in the search for Nuclear Fusion with a British experiment that seems to reduce the amount of heat inside the reactor.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57232644 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57232644)

The dream of fusion has been about for as long as I can remember
International co-operation is required.

https://ccfe.ukaea.uk/about-ccfe/culham-centre-for-fusion-energy/

"CCFE operates the world’s largest tokamak experiment, the Joint European Torus (JET), at Culham for fusion scientists around Europe. CCFE is a member of the EUROfusion consortium, which comprises 30 fusion research organisations and universities from 25 European member states plus Switzerland, the UK and Ukraine. Our scientists play a full part in the co-ordinated European research programme run by EUROfusion, including tests at JET.
EUROfusion logo"

Fusion research at CCFE is funded jointly by Euratom and by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council."

Research particularly into things like nuclear fusion is extremely expensive.
Global warming, like Covid, is a worldwide issue. Let's hope the politicians allow the scientists to collaborate and not have everybody re-inventing their own version of the wheel.

Edit added last paragraph.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on May 26, 2021, 01:20:00 PM
The dream of fusion has been about for as long as I can remember

I shall be 60 this Summer and I have been following and reading about the potential for fusion power stations since I was a lad. What is interesting is that the proposed date for such has never really moved. Even in 1970 I think they were saying it was 60-80 years away. Now it seems so close.

That drawing of the Tokomak station doesn't half look like a Mr.Fusion though. Wonder if that is deliberate, subconscious or what!

Yep. This is what I wrote in March.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on May 27, 2021, 11:20:51 AM
Lithium chemistry batteries are a huge fire / explosion risk, and once they are alight they are the very devil to extinguish, looking at the amount of smoke produced those batteries must be full of highly compressed electrical smoke..

https://stopthesethings.com/2020/03/01/giant-batteries-bomb-renewable-energy-storage-systems-literally-setting-the-world-on-fire/

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: E27006 on May 27, 2021, 06:47:23 PM


I have an idea. Connect all the BEVs to the Grid and they can keep it running on low wing/sun days. (Yes: it is a suggestion made by others!)

Err When they run out after a few hours, they 're stuffed but my ICE will work as well as ever..

Your idea is not impractical, I was reading about electric car owners being paid a  modest but useful daily fee for  connecting  up their cars to chargers for the purpose of balancing and stabilising the electricity generating system, in particular stabilising the 50 Hz mains frequency
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on May 27, 2021, 10:42:33 PM


I have an idea. Connect all the BEVs to the Grid and they can keep it running on low wing/sun days. (Yes: it is a suggestion made by others!)

Err When they run out after a few hours, they 're stuffed but my ICE will work as well as ever..

Your idea is not impractical, I was reading about electric car owners being paid a  modest but useful daily fee for  connecting  up their cars to chargers for the purpose of balancing and stabilising the electricity generating system, in particular stabilising the 50 Hz mains frequency
See also my posts in the thread
 Re: Electric cars  Starting
« Reply #2248 on: May 26, 2021, 09:16:02 AM »
No need to pay EV car owners.
It would be possible to buy electricity off peak, store it in the car battery to be used  to power household appliances at peak times or sell back to the grid at peak times.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=vehicle+to+grid+videos+utube&&view=detail&mid=40F88229AD0663EF415C40F88229AD0663EF415C&&FORM=VDRVSR

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=vehicle+to+grid+videos+utube&&view=detail&mid=D8683C8571B8A70FEF9DD8683C8571B8A70FEF9D&&FORM=VDRVSR

Last edit Changed videos (Original video "no longer available")
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: E27006 on May 28, 2021, 07:31:31 AM


See also my posts in the thread
 Re: Electric cars  Starting
« Reply #2248 on: May 26, 2021, 09:16:02 AM »
No need to pay EV car owners.
It would be possible to buy electricity off peak, store it in the car battery to be used  to power household appliances at peak times or sell back to the grid at peak times.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=vehicle+to+grid+videos+utube&&view=detail&mid=40F88229AD0663EF415C40F88229AD0663EF415C&&FORM=VDRVSR

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=vehicle+to+grid+videos+utube&&view=detail&mid=D8683C8571B8A70FEF9DD8683C8571B8A70FEF9D&&FORM=VDRVSR
This idea applies to hydrogen fuel cars.
The hydrogen fuel cell is a temperamental device, does not  "wake up" readily  from a switch off  and hydrogen is very difficult to store mid-term and long-term.
The fuel cell  benefits by being  plugged into the house supply (supplying the power need of the owner's home) or connected to the national grid for the purpose of simply keeping the fuel cell stack active when the car is parked and not transporting.
I met an Engineer who had commissioned and trialled two fuel cells, a long train journey and a lucky coincidence we picked the  same seat and table, (he had also worked for Honda and Nissan, - not on fuel cells projects), we had a one hour conversation about EVs and fuel cells,  not exactly promising news for the fuel cell, much work needed to make them feasible, other than  start up issues , they suffer from contamination of the hydrogen - air interface and  "back firing"  problems with water vapour / drops being a nuisance.
In any event a fuel cell car relies upon having a traction battery and is best thought of as an EV with a  fuel cell to charge the battery 
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on May 28, 2021, 09:07:43 AM
I think we are talking at cross purposes here.

This is the post to which I was referring
 Re: Electric cars
« Reply #2248 on: May 26, 2021, 09:16:02 AM »

I think there is a lot of mileage in vehicle to grid chargers which enable the electric car to become part of the solution to the problem of energy supply rather than part of the problem.
For the last year my car has been quietly rusting away on my driveway doing nothing and even in normal times most vehicles spend the vast proportion of their lives parked outside houses, offices, factories or railway stations
If they were electric vehicles they could be being used as portable power walls.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=V2g+utube&&view=detail&mid=105C617CBF6ED2732FAF105C617CBF6ED2732FAF&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DV2g%2Butube%26%26FORM%3DVDVVXX

https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/electric-cars/vehicle-to-grid-technology.html

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=V2g+utube&docid=608035148647129549&mid=363204C56110A0D9788D363204C56110A0D9788D&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on June 03, 2021, 03:08:17 PM
Funny that we are all being warned about rising sea levels but they are building Hinckley Point C on North Somerset coast pretty much at sea level ( 14 metres above mean sea level ),  and any Tsunami will get funneled up the Bristol channel getting higher as it gets narrower ( just like the Severn Bore does ).  A lot of the power station is below ground level so any water that gets in will stay in there.  Have they learnt nothing from Fukushima.......

Even when ( if ) it comes on line it will only add 3GW to grid, that will bring nuclear up to about 9GW,  but some older stations will be falling off the grid soon.  Again today wind is pitiful, and same tomorrow, and for the next week on the Met Office forecast.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on June 03, 2021, 08:36:45 PM
In the rush to use electrically driven airsource and groundsource heatpumps for heating instead of gas it looks as though the damage refrigerants can do to the environment has been glossed over ( or forgotten).  The Germans are warning that refrigerants are toxic when they get into groundwater and rainwater and are hard to remove. The rollout of the heatpumps will increase the usage of refrigerants many to times its present level.

https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press/pressinformation/trifluoroacetic-acid-from-fluorinated-refrigerants?mc_cid=7a2027d37d&mc_eid=7aaad54516
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on June 09, 2021, 01:58:51 PM
Private Company based in Oxford seems to be making progress on usable Fusion by 'thinking small'.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/meet-the-renegades-building-a-nuclear-fusion-reactor-in-your-neighbourhood/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on July 02, 2021, 05:13:22 PM
It won't be Labour that bring this government down,  it is their one eyed fixation on the stupendously massively costly zero carbon ( it is gonna cost trillions ), and their continued support of HS2.  These new taxes will hit 'former red wall, now blue wall' voters the hardest, and without them conservatives will struggle, because Labour is now the party of metropolitan elite.

https://worldnewsera.com/news/uk/green-tax-hike-britons-face-paying-270-a-year-more-on-gas-and-petrol-under-new-plans/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: nowster on July 03, 2021, 01:58:45 PM
To be fair to the present incompetents, the "carbon zero" targets were set about 15 years ago, before their time.

Something like HS2 is needed because of limited capacity on both the east and west coast main lines. It didn't need to be gold plated as it has been, and other less damaging routes could have been viable.

Boris the Clown is their best bet at the moment. Nobody on the Conservative front bench has the possibility of being as popular amongst the politically naïve as he is.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on July 10, 2021, 10:34:20 AM
Interesting article about 'net zero' - nobody talking about the huge cost to taxpayers and consumers and the sheer unreliability of wind and solar,  and even heatpumps ( which work best when you need them least ).....

See attached PDF article,  because of low availability of present renewables, natural gas power stations will be needed for electrical supply for a long, long time, but not allowed to be used in the most efficient way - in domestic gas boilers.

Take a look at gridwatch site,  since Thursday wind has been around the 0.25GW level, almost indistinguishable from the X axis line on the graph  ???,  and this is happening too often, very often in winter when a cold 'high' settles over country for weeks on end ( 6 to 7 weeks is the longest I have seen without any meaningful input from the fans on sticks, and only a couple of hours a day from solar during winter, and that is without cloud cover).

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on July 10, 2021, 04:50:15 PM
Meanwhile,
Climate Change sceptics have gone very quiet. I wonder why?

Oh maybe because of this:

"Extreme heat is building in the United States, with forecasts of record-breaking temperatures in the states of California and Nevada.

It comes just weeks after another dangerous heatwave hit North America, and the region has experienced the hottest June on record.

California's Death Valley on Friday recorded a high of 54.4C (130F), with similar heat expected this weekend.

Millions of people in the US are under warnings of excessive heat"

"Canada is also bracing for extreme heat, though it is not expected to approach the temperatures seen at the end of last month when the village Lytton in British Colombia reached 49.6C, breaking the country's highest recorded temperature."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57788118



Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on July 10, 2021, 05:09:27 PM
Meanwhile,
Climate Change sceptics have gone very quiet. I wonder why?

Oh maybe because of this:

"Extreme heat is building in the United States, with forecasts of record-breaking temperatures in the states of California and Nevada.

It comes just weeks after another dangerous heatwave hit North America, and the region has experienced the hottest June on record.

California's Death Valley on Friday recorded a high of 54.4C (130F), with similar heat expected this weekend.

Millions of people in the US are under warnings of excessive heat"

"Canada is also bracing for extreme heat, though it is not expected to approach the temperatures seen at the end of last month when the village Lytton in British Colombia reached 49.6C, breaking the country's highest recorded temperature."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57788118

No that is global warming, the religion discarded that name about 1998 when it had been getting colder for previous decade,  unabashed they found another name 'climate change' and this they hoped would cover every eventuality whether hotter, colder, wetter, dryer and allow them to point and say 'look that is climate change effect',  bit like a spread bet.

Now the EU has exempt private and business jets from greenhouse gas rules, the bizjet is the favourite transport of delegates attending the climate change conferences that are scattered all over the planet. The sheer hypocrisy is astounding.  Maybe the delegates know what is really happening and consider it OK to pump jet exhaust into atmosphere,  while plotting more and more carbon taxes on the proles...

[link removed by Admin]
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on July 10, 2021, 07:40:29 PM
Interesting article about 'net zero' - nobody talking about the huge cost to taxpayers and consumers and the sheer unreliability of wind and solar,  and even heatpumps ( which work best when you need them least ).....

See attached PDF article, 

That would be written by this Charles Moore
"Two years after joining The Spectator as a political columnist, Moore became the magazine's editor in 1984, remaining there until 1990. Moore was given this role by the owner, John “Algy” Cluff, whose company Cluff Resources specialises in “support activities” for oil and gas extraction and is co-located with a number of climate change denial think-tanks at 55 or 57 Tufton Street."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Moore,_Baron_Moore_of_Etchingham

And John "Algy" Cluff

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/spotlight-algy-cluff-serial-oil-and-gas-entrepreneur-8451469.html

[link removed by Admin]

Edit added references to "Algy" Cliff

As you say "It's been going on for years"
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on July 11, 2021, 06:02:02 AM
""What we are now doing to the world … is new in the experience of the Earth. It is mankind and his activities that are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways. The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto. Change to the sea around us, change to the atmosphere above, leading in turn to change in the world's climate, which could alter the way we live in the most fundamental way of all.
"The environmental challenge that confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world. Every country will be affected and no one can opt out. Those countries who are industrialised must contribute more to help those who are not."

 November 1989

A certain scientist and politician said that : Mrs Thatcher.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2013/apr/09/margaret-thatcher-green-hero
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on July 17, 2021, 04:38:29 PM
Today the route I was on took me through between two wind turbines on either side of, and close to, the road. The bright light and the blue sky made them quite mesmeric.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on July 20, 2021, 12:13:08 PM
 Smart Systems and Flexibility Plan
Future of National Grid.

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/955445/national-grid-to-lose-control-of-uk-s-power-network-in--smart--energy-plan-955445.html
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on July 20, 2021, 12:43:58 PM
Smart Systems and Flexibility Plan
Future of National Grid.

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/955445/national-grid-to-lose-control-of-uk-s-power-network-in--smart--energy-plan-955445.html

I hope this new body has magic spells similar to Harry Potter to summon up power from renewables ( how about 'ventus' to summon the wind ),  wind is loafing again today ( 0.6GW ) and has been for a while,  solar is OK today ( supplies more than biomass generation for about 8 to 9 hours a day in present summer heatwave ) but hardly makes a dent on UK consumption between October and March...  The only sources of reliable power we have in UK are Gas ( both for heating and CCGT electricity generation ) and Nuclear.  Hope we have signed up with Norway and Russia for some more gas pipes into UK  :(    I had to laugh about the 'keeping consumers energy bills affordable'.  You can have all the batteries you want connected to grid, but you need something to put into them.   For many years now huge amounts have been spent on wind turbines and solar,  relying of heavy subsidies from taxpayer.  If the wind blew strongly everywhere at once the number of installed turbines could supply 40% of demand,  but very often ( way too often for comfort ) the fans on sticks supply <10%,  and often <5%.  Thing is that the turbine operators get paid whether they generate or not,  and often get deliberately built in remote places without the infrastructure to connect to grid, and the operators still get paid 'because it is the grids fault'....
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on July 21, 2021, 11:45:29 AM
hope OVO* and other 'greenenergy' company customers not relying on wind today to power their air conditioning ( * whose electricity comes to your house down the same cables as 'non green' electricity LOL ).   Fans on sticks 0.19GW = 0.5% of demand,  solar down a few GW on yesterday as well due to hazy conditions today.    Lucky for you that if you sign up for green energy and the renewables not performing you still receive  dirty energy ( mainly from Gas CCGT , which is the backstop when green stuff stays in bed ). If the green energy customers only got power when green power was available they may have to decide what to turn off on many days of the year.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on August 02, 2021, 08:30:57 AM
UK hydropower (not the pumped version) is also well down from normal due to unusually dry weather during the past few months in NW Scotland. However, total non-pumped hydro capaciy is less than 1GW so it's a fairly small proportion of the total but the shortfall is similar to the amount of coal-powered generation during the past couple of months.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on August 07, 2021, 11:28:34 AM
 Information Tribunal orders Committee on Climate Change to reveal Net Zero calculations

 London, 7 August 2021

The Information Tribunal has ordered the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to publish the calculations behind its claim that the UK economy can be decarbonised at modest cost.
 
The CCC’s figures were presented to Parliament ahead of the Net Zero emissions target nodded through in June 2019 to enshrine it in law. The case was brought by Andrew Montford, the deputy director of the Global Warming Policy Forum.

The ruling, which dismisses almost all of the CCC’s arguments, comes after a two-year battle to obtain the cost calculations. Extraordinarily, the CCC’s case centred around a claim that it had erased and overwritten the relevant information by the time of the FOI request, just six weeks after the publication of the Net Zero report, and indeed changed and lost it further subsequent to the request. 
 
According to Mr Montford:
 
"By arguing that it has overwritten and erased the spreadsheet data, the CCC has essentially admitted that its internal processes are a shambles. This is not a competent organisation and Parliament needs to investigate as a matter of urgency. If they can’t even manage simple matters of data retention, what hope is there that they can prepare a plausible costing of a multi-trillion pound project such as the decarbonisation of the UK economy?”

During the case, the CCC revealed that their costing does not include any estimate for spending in 2020-2049, but only considered the residual amounts in 2050, after the bulk of the transition. This was not made clear to the MPs when they agreed to bring the Net Zero target into law, and it is likely therefore that MPs were misled.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: fashionphotography on August 07, 2021, 01:19:06 PM
all i know is a report a couple of tears back was stating at that time power stations were struggling and at their limits trying to keep supplies up due to the extensive demand with everything being recharged and demanding more electricity these days. from phone chargers to hoovers etc etc etc.. so how we think were ready for everyone to have electric cars is a bit beyond me.. also what happens with driving tests etc as 99% will be automatic
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on August 07, 2021, 02:41:44 PM
Governments should have been promoting alternative sources of energy to fossil fuels decades ago.
Instead they chose the cheap, short-term unhealthy option.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salter%27s_duck

Edit added link to Salter's Ducks.
 I thought the cost was (deliberately) overestimated by a factor of 10 but perhaps my memory is playing tricks.

Second edit Somebody else remembers the same as I did.
"Apparently still not satisfied that they had killed the Duck, opponents of the project then produced figures overestimating capital costs by a factor of 10, massively underestimating the reliability of undersea cables, and claiming that in mass production each Duck would cost about the same as one prototype. After a long campaign to save the project, Professor Salter's team was forced to disperse in early 1987"

[link removed by Admin]
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on August 07, 2021, 04:30:52 PM
Fossil fuels used for more than just energy, medicines, fertilizers and plastics, as well as roads made out of them ( to name but a few products ).  Mankind was much more unhealthy before we started using fossil fuels, dying from cold and infections, as well as starving ( coal tar soap and all the other disinfectants made from coal and oil ). If not for fossil fuels there would not be a tree left standing on the planet - which would be mainly desert.  Without fossil fuels there may not be many people left on the planet today to moan about fossil fuels.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on August 07, 2021, 05:16:49 PM
Fossil fuels used for more than just energy, medicines, fertilizers and plastics, as well as roads made out of them ( to name but a few products ).  Mankind was much more unhealthy before we started using fossil fuels, dying from cold and infections, as well as starving ( coal tar soap and all the other disinfectants made from coal and oil ).
That's true and then we ripped the *rse out of it.
If not for fossil fuels there would not be a tree left standing on the planet - which would be mainly desert.  Without fossil fuels there may not be many people left on the planet today to moan about fossil fuels.
I don't see how that follows.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on August 07, 2021, 07:15:26 PM

If not for fossil fuels there would not be a tree left standing on the planet - which would be mainly desert.  Without fossil fuels there may not be many people left on the planet today to moan about fossil fuels.
I don't see how that follows.

What would people have used in the absence of fossil fuels - they would have burned wood, just like they still do in many 3rd world countries ( with disastrous results for soil erosion ).   Fossil fuels have kept humans warm and healthy, and enabled them to cook food without stripping the landscape of trees like human locusts.   They used to use charcoal to make steel,  till some bright spark realised that heating coal to yield gas made coke ( a pure form of carbon ) that was cheaper and easier to get and much better for smelting metals,  so even our metals are reliant on fossil fuels.  It would be a cold and damp, dark and unhealthy world devoid of everything we take for granted without fossil fuels, and food would be in short supply as well, we would still be reliant on horses and manual labour.... many of the people on this forum may well not be here.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: guest4871 on August 07, 2021, 07:54:43 PM
We still burn wood in UK - to generate electricity.

It is now called biomass and is classed as a "renewable" (???) energy source!

Biomass power (i.e. wood) accounted for around 12 per cent of the UK's electricity in 2020.

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/biomass-power-renewable-energy-sustainable-b1805168.html

Some people are just "havin a laff"   
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on August 07, 2021, 09:10:37 PM

Some people are just "havin a laff"
I think that is the gist of the article.
Much of the wood is imported from America in the form of pellets and who is to know what type of wood was used.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on August 07, 2021, 09:28:42 PM


What would people have used in the absence of fossil fuels - they would have burned wood, just like they still do in many 3rd world countries ( with disastrous results for soil erosion ).   Fossil fuels have kept humans warm and healthy, and enabled them to cook food without stripping the landscape of trees like human locusts
People have lived sustainably with forests for centuries and would have continued to do so had it not been for mechanised
deforestation.
Much of the Scottish forests (and presumably English and European) were destroyed to provide wood for warships and charcoal to smelt iron and steel for weapons as well as to provide agricultural land and timber for building.
https://treesforlife.org.uk/into-the-forest/habitats-and-ecology/human-impacts/deforestation/
Edit Added second paragraph
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: embee on August 07, 2021, 10:16:36 PM
This is the real problem ...........
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

What we could get away with doing to the environment when I was born back in the 1950s, with 3bn people on the planet, we can no longer get away with today when there are 8bn+
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: guest4871 on August 07, 2021, 11:02:40 PM
This is the real problem ...........
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

What we could get away with doing to the environment when I was born back in the 1950s, with 3bn people on the planet, we can no longer get away with today when there are 8bn+

Or put another way

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1006502/global-population-ten-thousand-bc-to-2050/

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on August 08, 2021, 09:32:10 AM


What would people have used in the absence of fossil fuels - they would have burned wood, just like they still do in many 3rd world countries ( with disastrous results for soil erosion ).   Fossil fuels have kept humans warm and healthy, and enabled them to cook food without stripping the landscape of trees like human locusts
People have lived sustainably with forests for centuries and would have continued to do so had it not been for mechanised
deforestation.
Much of the Scottish forests (and presumably English and European) were destroyed to provide wood for warships and charcoal to smelt iron and steel for weapons as well as to provide agricultural land and timber for building.
https://treesforlife.org.uk/into-the-forest/habitats-and-ecology/human-impacts/deforestation/
Edit Added second paragraph

You cannot rewrite history,  without the charcoal to melt iron and wood to build ships we may all have been speaking French or Spanish. Without iron we would have nothing today, not even kettles or cars.   Mankind made a massive leap forward using fossil fuels - do you really think 70million people could live in UK today using wood to heat houses and cook ?  Even the biomass woodchips we use as 'sustainable' power generations ( LOL ) are shipped from USA Canada in steel ships using bunker oil ( the dirtiest form of oil ).   Coal and coke made steel / metal production cheap and plentiful,  allowing many things to be made quickly and cheaply from metals.  Living sustainably from natural resources means a subsistence level lifestyle ( scratching around in the dirt for food ) for a very small population ( probably less than a million people in UK ). 
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: embee on August 08, 2021, 11:13:31 AM
But it is not the whole answer. The richer countries are accountable for a far greater proportion of the depletion of resources than more populous regions of the World.
Oh indeed yes. I certainly wouldn't point a finger at any specific population region, that's a very complex issue.
The basic principle however would be that with half (to pluck a number for example) the population across the world the problem would be much smaller and much easier to address. Unfortunately little if any emphasis seems to be put on overall population, it seems to be a PC minefield where no-one wants to go. China of course did it, but that was condemned broadly across the west, and even they have since relaxed the rules somewhat. No western politician dares broach that subject.
If you increase the population by 25% and reduce the average CO2 footprint by 25% (or 20% if you want to argue the maths backwards) you essentially don't solve anything, the world still sees the same net effect. If you freeze the population (i.e. one person one child) then you can reduce the CO2 effect with the technical actions you are taking.
The first challenge to tackle most problems is for the participants to accept the issue exists, former USA presidents for example.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: guest4871 on August 08, 2021, 11:59:41 AM

Oh indeed yes. I certainly wouldn't point a finger at any specific population region, that's a very complex issue.
The basic principle however would be that with half (to pluck a number for example) the population across the world the problem would be much smaller and much easier to address. Unfortunately little if any emphasis seems to be put on overall population, it seems to be a PC minefield where no-one wants to go. China of course did it, but that was condemned broadly across the west, and even they have since relaxed the rules somewhat. No western politician dares broach that subject.
If you increase the population by 25% and reduce the average CO2 footprint by 25% (or 20% if you want to argue the maths backwards) you essentially don't solve anything, the world still sees the same net effect. If you freeze the population (i.e. one person one child) then you can reduce the CO2 effect with the technical actions you are taking.
The first challenge to tackle most problems is for the participants to accept the issue exists, former USA presidents for example.

You are absolutely correct in your analysis.

Another problem with population control is that you finish up with an aging population which is the issue that China has.

The world can only sustain a certain population. In history migrations occurred from either resource depletion (famine) or exploitation ( farming moving into Europe) or resource excess (wood to build ships and then coal to mine in the case of Great Britain).

Unfortunately the world's excess population is consuming resource to depletion with nowhere for the world's population to migrate to.

Coupled with that is the falsification of economic growth.

More population = more economic growth but not per capita economic growth.

As an example, UK economic growth since 2007 ( the great age of multiculturalism) has come from population growth through migration. The 2021 census figures might shock a few people with the potential of a 10% increase in population over ten years. No wonder we need more houses. However since 2007 (13 years) UK per capita income has been all but level.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on August 08, 2021, 07:12:28 PM

You cannot rewrite history,  without the charcoal to melt iron and wood to build ships we may all have been speaking French or Spanish. Without iron we would have nothing today, not even kettles or cars.   Mankind made a massive leap forward using fossil fuels - do you really think 70million people could live in UK today using wood to heat houses and cook ?  Even the biomass woodchips we use as 'sustainable' power generations ( LOL ) are shipped from USA Canada in steel ships using bunker oil ( the dirtiest form of oil ).   Coal and coke made steel / metal production cheap and plentiful,  allowing many things to be made quickly and cheaply from metals.  Living sustainably from natural resources means a subsistence level lifestyle ( scratching around in the dirt for food ) for a very small population ( probably less than a million people in UK ).

I don't want to rewrite history.
I would just like the World leaders to ensure a brighter future. They will not do this by making empty promises.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on August 08, 2021, 07:19:49 PM

You cannot rewrite history,  without the charcoal to melt iron and wood to build ships we may all have been speaking French or Spanish. Without iron we would have nothing today, not even kettles or cars.   Mankind made a massive leap forward using fossil fuels - do you really think 70million people could live in UK today using wood to heat houses and cook ?  Even the biomass woodchips we use as 'sustainable' power generations ( LOL ) are shipped from USA Canada in steel ships using bunker oil ( the dirtiest form of oil ).   Coal and coke made steel / metal production cheap and plentiful,  allowing many things to be made quickly and cheaply from metals.  Living sustainably from natural resources means a subsistence level lifestyle ( scratching around in the dirt for food ) for a very small population ( probably less than a million people in UK ).

I don't want to rewrite history.
I would just like the World leaders to ensure a brighter future. They will not do this by making empty promises.

You mean like the empty promises that fans on sticks and solar panels will provide power for EV, heating, cooking, industry and all our other rapidly growing list of electrical needs ( mainly caused by empty - undeliverable promise of net zero carbon )
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on August 08, 2021, 08:08:53 PM
Scotland narrowly missed a target to generate the equivalent of 100% of its electricity demand from renewables in 2020. Figures revealed it reached 97.4% from renewable sources.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on August 08, 2021, 08:40:52 PM

You cannot rewrite history,  without the charcoal to melt iron and wood to build ships we may all have been speaking French or Spanish. Without iron we would have nothing today, not even kettles or cars.   Mankind made a massive leap forward using fossil fuels - do you really think 70million people could live in UK today using wood to heat houses and cook ?  Even the biomass woodchips we use as 'sustainable' power generations ( LOL ) are shipped from USA Canada in steel ships using bunker oil ( the dirtiest form of oil ).   Coal and coke made steel / metal production cheap and plentiful,  allowing many things to be made quickly and cheaply from metals.  Living sustainably from natural resources means a subsistence level lifestyle ( scratching around in the dirt for food ) for a very small population ( probably less than a million people in UK ).

I don't want to rewrite history.
I would just like the World leaders to ensure a brighter future. They will not do this by making empty promises.

You mean like the empty promises that fans on sticks and solar panels will provide power for EV, heating, cooking, industry and all our other rapidly growing list of electrical needs ( mainly caused by empty - undeliverable promise of net zero carbon )
No. I was referring to previous COP meetings on climate change.
 Sharma got at least one thing right "Alok Sharma warns world is ‘dangerously close’ to climate change ‘catastrophe’"
It's time they actually did something rather than have a talking shop setting targets decades in the future.
Edit Added 2nd paragraph
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 02, 2021, 10:21:46 PM
Just watched this --- A lot more positive than Cop 26
Orkney: Britain's Green Islands with Julia Bradbury and Alex Beresford
Julia and Alex visit the beautiful, green Orkney Islands, and discover how Orcadians harness their extreme weather.
https://www.itv.com/hub/orkney-britains-green-islands-with-julia-bradbury-and-alex-beresford/10a1712a0001

    Today 8.30pm
    30 mins

You may have to sign in for ITV if in England.
I can only sign in for STV in Scotland. (I get a message " not available in your region" from ITV

Worth a watch.

   

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 13, 2021, 10:41:45 AM
Well after a few days of furious activity the wind dropping again,  solar is out because of the time of year ( it is useless between Oct and March in UK ) and cloudy weather.  We have coal fired stations running supplying 5% of a fairly low ( for time of year ) 34GW demand... Biomass ( woodchips shipped from USA in oil powered ships ) about 6.5%..  Good old reliable nuclear 17%.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: ColinS on November 13, 2021, 10:55:10 AM
As someone who started their career in the industry and fully understand the pros and cons.  +1 for nuclear power.  But preferably UK generated, not French.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: peteo48 on November 13, 2021, 11:23:28 AM
As someone who started their career in the industry and fully understand the pros and cons.  +1 for nuclear power.  But preferably UK generated, not French.

These "modular" nuclear power stations developed by Rolls Royce look very promising.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 13, 2021, 11:41:55 AM
As someone who started their career in the industry and fully understand the pros and cons.  +1 for nuclear power.  But preferably UK generated, not French.

These "modular" nuclear power stations developed by Rolls Royce look very promising.

No good relying on governments in UK to make sensible decisions,  just like in period before WW2 it was private industry that financed the making weapons despite no money / orders from Government of the day.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 13, 2021, 11:44:01 AM
As someone who started their career in the industry and fully understand the pros and cons.  +1 for nuclear power.  But preferably UK generated, not French.

These "modular" nuclear power stations developed by Rolls Royce look very promising.
These "modular" nuclear power stations to be developed by Rolls Royce look very promising.
and would you want one in "your back yard".
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on November 13, 2021, 12:00:36 PM
Cop26 is too late.

We are NOT going to stop climate change, achieve 1.5C rise or anything near that.

Prepare for life with a rising temperature.

(Politicians know this, it's all for show)
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: ColinB on November 13, 2021, 12:01:50 PM
.... and would you want one in "your back yard".

I'd much rather live next door to one of those than a coal, gas, or woodchip power station that squirts it's effluent over the surrounding countryside!
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 13, 2021, 12:08:29 PM
Cop26 is too late.

We are NOT going to stop climate change, achieve 1.5C rise or anything near that.

Prepare for life with a rising temperature.

(Politicians know this, it's all for show)
Hopefully it's got people thinking about this.
I think more good will come out of the protests than the official talks.
If the politicians see the strength of feeling reflecting in votes they might do something.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2021/nov/13/cop26-live-third-draft-text-expected-as-climate-talks-go-into-overtime

"A scientist’s reaction to the current state of play at Cop26 - the world is now in “damage limitation mode”.

Prof Richard Betts MBE, from the University of Exeter and Met Office Hadley Centre, and director of the technical report for the third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3), said:

We’re now in damage limitation mode. Despite some progress on promises to cut emissions and protect forests, we’re still not yet on track to limit global warming to low levels, so adaptation to current and locked-in climate change is now even more urgent".
Added link and quote.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 13, 2021, 12:19:18 PM
I've recently had a look at this.( I had a free 1 month trial of Amazon Prime)
It's well worth a watch.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Stupid-Pete-Postlethwaite/dp/B07NYW1R28
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 13, 2021, 12:25:34 PM
.... and would you want one in "your back yard".

I'd much rather live next door to one of those than a coal, gas, or woodchip power station that squirts it's effluent over the surrounding countryside!

Or a huge lithium battery that could burst ( explode ) into toxic flames at any time.... They have a history of doing just that.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Neil Ives on November 13, 2021, 12:57:46 PM
I hope that COP26 and accompanying publicity has persuaded a lot of sceptics that global warming is something to worry about.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: peteo48 on November 13, 2021, 12:59:34 PM
On the backyard thing in relation to modular nuclear power stations I think my answer would be yes - bring it on. I rather live near one of those than, say, the Drax power station which burns Canadian wood pellets. It would be like our neighbours wood burning stove on steroids.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 13, 2021, 01:06:10 PM
I hope that COP26 and accompanying publicity has persuaded a lot of sceptics that global warming is something to worry about.

No just a continuation of the normal hype, people only take so much of being bombarded with this stuff 24/7/365 before they turn off.  All the delegates have done  is say what people want to hear and bought themselves another 12 months before they have to meet up and make empty promises again.  Probably won't be the same delegates next time either....  They really need to rename the annual fiasco 'COP-OUT'...

COP26 was just a huge wasteful publicity stunt...
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 13, 2021, 01:43:23 PM
Any progress?
 This is what nations said at the closing plenary at COP1 in Berlin in 1995
Attachment.





https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2021/nov/13/cop26-live-third-draft-text-expected-as-climate-talks-go-into-overtime

Extra time live
https://news.sky.com/story/watch-climate-live-full-coverage-of-cop26-conference-from-glasgow-12456916
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on November 13, 2021, 03:31:46 PM
It would be like our neighbours wood burning stove on steroids.
Don't get me started on wood burning stoves, chimineas and all the other new age fashionable crap that is polluting the air where I run. It's horrible running through smoke when you have asthma.

As for having a RR nuclear pod in my back garden, I would much rather that than the incinerator the local scrap dealer intends to put there. I mean - incinerator! Who in their right mind thinks burning stuff is a good idea in this day and age? I'll tell you who. Our damn fool government!

Nuclear for me, until Fusion is ready. Then we can use Bezos' phallic Amazon rockets to deliver all the waste from fission into the sun.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on November 13, 2021, 05:35:48 PM
There should also be potential to use waste heat from small nuclear reactors to keep some houses warm in winter provided they aren't too far away.

Gridwatch https://gridwatch.co.uk/Demand suggests that the French haven't had much spare electricity during the past few weekdays. It's not clear if that's a problem with generation or maybe other countries are out-bidding the UK.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 13, 2021, 09:18:36 PM
There should also be potential to use waste heat from small nuclear reactors to keep some houses warm in winter provided they aren't too far away.

Gridwatch https://gridwatch.co.uk/Demand suggests that the French haven't had much spare electricity during the past few weekdays. It's not clear if that's a problem with generation or maybe other countries are out-bidding the UK.

One of the pair of cables from France was damaged or blew up very recently - so that halved the amount of power UK could siphon off from French nuclear.  Also macron has adopted a fish for electricity scheme,  and is also sending migrants in lieu of volts and amps.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 13, 2021, 09:38:47 PM
COP26 Roundup
https://ukcop26.org/news/

https://www.channel4.com/news/cop26-groundbreaking-climate-deal-within-reach-after-marathon-talks

https://www.channel4.com/news/cop26-has-failed-says-climate-scientist-prof-saleemul-huq

Edit added channel 4 news items

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/cop26-climate-pact-reaction-sharma-b1957240.html

Edit added independent summary
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 13, 2021, 09:48:06 PM

One of the pair of cables from France was damaged or blew up very recently - so that halved the amount of power UK could siphon off from French nuclear.  Also macron has adopted a fish for electricity scheme,  and is also sending migrants in lieu of volts and amps.
Again ?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-58570893
"The company - which owns energy infrastructure like overhead and underground power cables - said there would be a reduction in the amount of electricity available to the network until 13 October following the fire."
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: ColinB on November 14, 2021, 06:56:23 AM

One of the pair of cables from France was damaged or blew up very recently - so that halved the amount of power UK could siphon off from French nuclear.  Also macron has adopted a fish for electricity scheme,  and is also sending migrants in lieu of volts and amps.
Again ?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-58570893
"The company - which owns energy infrastructure like overhead and underground power cables - said there would be a reduction in the amount of electricity available to the network until 13 October following the fire."

Sorry Jim, much though it pains me to agree with Culzean his first sentence is correct. The interconnector is running at half capacity until Oct 2022, and won't be fully restored until May 2023.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/15/kent-burnt-out-electricity-cable-will-take-two-more-years-to-get-back-to-full-service
That'd probably why Gridwatch is reporting much lower levels of imports.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 14, 2021, 07:34:44 AM
Hope they don't overload the remaining cable or they'll be even more reliant on the intermittent juice from Scotland. ::)

Just looked for further information.
Interesting other articles too. There's lots going on.

https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/fire-damaged-ifa1-to-not-return-to-full-capacity-until-oct-2023-due-to-extensive-work-requried
Edit Added link
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 14, 2021, 09:35:00 AM
Sorry Jim, much though it pains me to agree with Culzean

Life 101....

Not everything you agree with is correct, and not everything you disagree with is wrong.

( refer to the signature line at bottom of my posts )
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 14, 2021, 10:26:25 AM
Hope they don't overload the remaining cable or they'll be even more reliant on the intermittent juice from Scotland. ::)


LOL - windfarm owners get paid more 'not to generate' and perversely windfarm owners often build their farms in out of the way places that do not have a good connection to grid, that way they can rake in the 'constraint' payments - which get added to customers bills, so we are paying not to receive electricity, this way lies madness.

https://www.netzerowatch.com/cop26-windfarm-highlights-foolish-energy-policies/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 14, 2021, 11:38:47 AM
[

LOL - windfarm owners get paid more 'not to generate' and perversely windfarm owners often build their farms in out of the way places that do not have a good connection to grid, that way they can rake in the 'constraint' payments - which get added to customers bills, so we are paying not to receive electricity, this way lies madness.

https://www.netzerowatch.com/cop26-windfarm-highlights-foolish-energy-policies/
Another article from 55 Tufton Street
https://www.desmog.com/55-tufton-street/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55_Tufton_Street

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-eurosceptics-climate-change-sceptics-55-tufton-street-westminster-a6866021.html
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: ColinB on November 14, 2021, 12:06:34 PM
Sorry Jim, much though it pains me to agree with Culzean

Life 101....

Not everything you agree with is correct, and not everything you disagree with is wrong.

( refer to the signature line at bottom of my posts )

Nope, I've read this several times and I still don't understand your point. If the implication is that I'm an idiot because I disagree with you then (a) that's offensive to me and demeaning to you, and (b) I didn't offer any opinions, I was just supporting your statements by agreeing with your facts.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 14, 2021, 12:45:38 PM
Sorry Jim, much though it pains me to agree with Culzean

Life 101....

Not everything you agree with is correct, and not everything you disagree with is wrong.

( refer to the signature line at bottom of my posts )

Nope, I've read this several times and I still don't understand your point. If the implication is that I'm an idiot because I disagree with you then (a) that's offensive to me and demeaning to you, and (b) I didn't offer any opinions, I was just supporting your statements by agreeing with your facts.

I am at a loss why you feel insulted, Read it again - what I am actually saying is when I tell someone something they do not agree with they will consider me an idiot, but if I tell them something they agree with they will probably consider me an expert ( confirmation bias,  people who agree with you are always smarter than those who do not )..

Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 14, 2021, 12:58:07 PM
[

LOL - windfarm owners get paid more 'not to generate' and perversely windfarm owners often build their farms in out of the way places that do not have a good connection to grid, that way they can rake in the 'constraint' payments - which get added to customers bills, so we are paying not to receive electricity, this way lies madness.

https://www.netzerowatch.com/cop26-windfarm-highlights-foolish-energy-policies/
Another article from 55 Tufton Street
https://www.desmog.com/55-tufton-street/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55_Tufton_Street

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-eurosceptics-climate-change-sceptics-55-tufton-street-westminster-a6866021.html

Never realised the Scottish Daily Express was based in Tufton Street,  is every newspaper that published the story and the £519,000 constraint payment based in Tufton Street, and are they telling porkies ?

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/exclusive-uk-bill-payers-fork-25408867?mc_cid=23528a85ee&mc_eid=2206e9995b
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 14, 2021, 01:08:45 PM
Scroll down to the bottom of the article you linked to above


https://www.netzerowatch.com/cop26-windfarm-highlights-foolish-energy-policies/
I would imagine the Daily Express sources a lot of its material from Tufton Street.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 14, 2021, 01:48:13 PM
Constraint payments are the bedrock of solar and wind,  and required because they are so unreliable with huge variations in their output hour by hour.     

https://news.stv.tv/scotland/electricity-customers-paid-windfarms-1bn-to-switch-off-turbines?top
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 14, 2021, 03:03:33 PM
Constraint payments are the bedrock of solar and wind,  and required because they are so unreliable with huge variations in their output hour by hour.     

https://news.stv.tv/scotland/electricity-customers-paid-windfarms-1bn-to-switch-off-turbines?top
Why are these payments necessary? Surely it's just the payment system that is wrong.
If somebody runs a taxi firm they can't claim compensation if their taxi is surplus to requirements.
If there was a way of storing the extra energy --in batteries, in the form of hydrogen or in potential energy, there would be no need to shut down excess production in times of plentiful wind and there would be no need to rely on fossil fuels as a backup.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 14, 2021, 04:55:46 PM
Constraint payments are the bedrock of solar and wind,  and required because they are so unreliable with huge variations in their output hour by hour.     

https://news.stv.tv/scotland/electricity-customers-paid-windfarms-1bn-to-switch-off-turbines?top
Why are these payments necessary? Surely it's just the payment system that is wrong.
If somebody runs a taxi firm they can't claim compensation if their taxi is surplus to requirements.
If there was a way of storing the extra energy --in batteries, in the form of hydrogen or in potential energy, there would be no need to shut down excess production in times of plentiful wind and there would be no need to rely on fossil fuels as a backup.

Nobody is going to spend money to build a wind or solar farm unless they are guaranteed a payback because everyone knows how fickle the wind and sun are. So as a bribe the government worked out a payment scheme that would not leave the farm owners out of pocket, whether or not they fed power to the grid.  I have read articles that said 'there was a perverse incentive for farm developers to build the farms in out of the way places that did not have a good connection to national grid, because they got their money whether the farm fed electricity to the grid or not,  and if they produce too much power for the link to grid then the farm owners shrug and say 'not our fault' and put their hand out for constraint payments.  The same thing happened with Hinckley Point nuclear ( LOL ) when government had to promise developers ( Chinese and French ) an exorbitant cost per KWh when site was producing ( another LOL here I think ).   As I write wind contribution to grid continues to drop and of course at this time of year solar is in chocolate teapot category.... Good old renewables,  give you the least when you need it the most...
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: DERMOT on November 14, 2021, 06:14:01 PM
@ culzean  within Europe we are close to zero subsidy wind.
https://www.en-former.com/en/the-era-of-subsidy-free-offshore-wind-begins/

Wind is cheaper than coal, and in middle East solar is coming in At less than oil.

For wind in GB. Last year was 24% average.
Surely being self sufficient has to be a goal for uk.
Solar in uk must be marginal, but it complements wind.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 14, 2021, 07:15:26 PM
Our electrical supply has never been more fragile, due to intermittency of the wind and Sun, and no real reliable base load supply... China and India must be laughing at our gullibility.  The reason gas prices are rising is that we are using it to generate electricity when renewables do not perform, and stupid UK closed down our large gas storage facilities,  we have about four days reserve......shocking

List of coal fired power stations in various countries, Germany is high up on the list with 74, despite having a green halo and turning up at Flop26 and promising the world.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/859266/number-of-coal-power-plants-by-country/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 15, 2021, 10:38:17 AM
Sort of applicable to this thread, as with heatpumps and their low temperature output the government is saying that the insulation on homes will need improving ( not easy to do on a house that is already built ).  Years ago I boarded over the lofts in our house, but in the process had to take some glass fibre insulation out, the stuff that was lying across the joists at right angles to them, and made the loft unusable because you could not see the joists to walk on them.  I left the 100mm of insulation between the joists and boarded over with chipboard and left the removed insulation rolled up in the corner - some in black binbags ( well binbags are not what they used to be,  left on their own for a few years modern binbags crumble away and let the contents spill out everywhere ). Armed with overalls, goggles a mask and gloves I set about getting the wayward fibreglass into bags again ( 20 bags of tightly rolled fibreglass to go to tip ).   I got to wondering what the ideal amount of loft insulation was,  and where the 'point of diminishing returns' was.  See attached PDF.. it seems that after 150mm the gains are miniscule, even after 100mm the gains are dropping off rapidly and I reckon 100mm trapped between ceiling plasterboard and chipboard would be about 150mm worth.    The 'retrofit cavity wall insulation' boys have been around our area 2 to 3 times in last 3 to 4 years, the houses are about 20 years old and already have cavity insulation  in the form of battens of expanded polystyrene 50mm thick ( filling half the cavity ) and are pretty energy efficient,  out of 10 houses in our cul-de-sac 3 had the wall insulation (not us,  I had my doubts where the blown in beads would go, with half the cavity already occupied and open airbricks ) - years ago a guy I worked with had the cavities filed in, and within 12 months had mould on his walls inside the house - he had to buy a dehumidifier and run it 24/7 to control the damp.  Strangely our neigbours who did have the insulation fitted have seen no reduction in heating bills,  but their houses are damper than before.   Food for thought  :-X  The last guy who came round promoting cavity insulation actually said that unless your windows have trickle vents fitted they cannot insulate the cavities,  so maybe they have had problems with dampness  :o seems to me that having trickle vents in windows open would cause more heat loss from building than having cavity insulation would save.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on November 15, 2021, 10:56:37 AM
Building regs say you MUST ventilate with insulation...
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 15, 2021, 11:46:58 AM
Building regs say you MUST ventilate with insulation...

Exactly - to prevent dampness within the structure, it is also required to have a 10mm gap under internal doors... so you stop the heat going out through walls and then blow more heat out with wind blowing in and around the house.   We run a humidity controlled de-humidifier set to 50 % - reckon the dryer your walls are the better they insulate.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: springswood on November 15, 2021, 01:36:33 PM
A single anecdote is obviously useless to prove anything about the worth of insulation. If it weren't I could disprove these opinions with my experience.

Rather than insulation being 'not easy to do' it took one person one morning to insulate the wall cavities in my 110 year old brick and stone faced Yorkshire terrace. The result was around a 20% reduction in heating costs with no damp problems at all and the bonus that the tendency for the front rooms to get too warm on summer evenings as the heat soaked through is also better.

So far this autumn I've only needed my central heating on once.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 15, 2021, 01:55:37 PM
A single anecdote is obviously useless to prove anything about the worth of insulation. If it weren't I could disprove these opinions with my experience.

Rather than insulation being 'not easy to do' it took one person one morning to insulate the wall cavities in my 110 year old brick and stone faced Yorkshire terrace. The result was around a 20% reduction in heating costs with no damp problems at all and the bonus that the tendency for the front rooms to get too warm on summer evenings as the heat soaked through is also better.

So far this autumn I've only needed my central heating on once.

Bear in mind our fairly new houses already had insulation block inner walls with 50mm of expanded polystyrene bats filling half the cavity and still enough cavity to act as a break to stop any water from outside wall crossing the cavity.  Completely filling the cavity means water can get across.  Retro-cavity insulation is well know to be patchy and liable to settle towards lower part of cavity,  which can block airbricks.  There is an organisation set up to deal with the claims from people who have had problems after retro-cavity insulation installation.  Installers are supposed to survey the cavity with a borescope before installing insulation that was never done for the ones in our street.

https://www.moneyadviceonline.co.uk/claims/cavity-wall-claims.html
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on November 15, 2021, 02:04:08 PM
The house I have just moved into has cavity wall insulation. The windows do not have trickle vents but there are airbrick type vents in both bedrooms. There are no dampness or condensation issues in any rooms The internal doors have a 2000+ mm gap beneath them all (we have cats so the doors are all left open to allow them free run off the house).
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on November 15, 2021, 03:00:54 PM
The internal doors have a 2000+ mm gap beneath them all
Ha ha. You had me there for a moment.

My youngest has bought a mid terraced brick faced house with retro fitted cavity wall insulation. The air bricks are blocked up and he has no trickle vents in the windows. They have terrible damp/mould issues in the back bedroom and the bathroom where 'the sun don't shine'. They have treated it and have to leave the windows open more often than not. It really does defeat the purpose of the insulation having to do that, or run a dehumidifier. I will buy him some new windows in a year or two which should hopefully sort that out.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on November 15, 2021, 03:37:09 PM
When I was decorating I took the internal vent covers off to hang the paper. The air bricks were not totally blocked but there was some insulation in the cavity which I just removed. Poked clear the odd blocked hole.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on November 15, 2021, 03:40:16 PM
Might have to do something similar if the mould comes back. Didn't help that they had their tumble drier in the back bedroom for a while and are not generally in the habit of opening windows.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 15, 2021, 04:39:54 PM
The internal doors have a 2000+ mm gap beneath them all
Ha ha. You had me there for a moment.

My youngest has bought a mid terraced brick faced house with retro fitted cavity wall insulation. The air bricks are blocked up and he has no trickle vents in the windows. They have terrible damp/mould issues in the back bedroom and the bathroom where 'the sun don't shine'. They have treated it and have to leave the windows open more often than not. It really does defeat the purpose of the insulation having to do that, or run a dehumidifier. I will buy him some new windows in a year or two which should hopefully sort that out.

Running a dehumidifier actually adds heat to the house by recovering latent heat of condensation ( recovering the energy used to turn the water into vapour in the first place ), as well as drying out the walls to make them much better insulators.  So just like a heatpump you get up to 1.5 x the energy back that it takes to run the compressor.  I have noticed in our house that the room with the dehumidifier in it feels warmer than the other rooms.  A dehumidifier is also the cheapest way to dry clothes that have been spin dried, just put clothes on a rack, turn the humidifier down to 40% close the door to the room and they dry  pretty quick, most dehumidifiers actually have a timed 'laundry' setting where the unit will run non-stop for a period of 1 or 2 hours and then shut off.   As a bonus, even without heated towel rails the towels dry quickly, and the bedclothes have a nice dry feel to them.  I you have an allergy to dust mites the dehumidifier also controls them, as at 50% humidity or below they cannot breed ( that was the reason I got our first dehumidifier many years ago ).

https://www.meaco.com/products/meacodry-dehumidifier-abc-range-20l

http://www.iwilltry.org/b/heat-your-home-with-a-dehumidifier/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Kremmen on November 15, 2021, 05:33:03 PM
I run a desiccant dehumidifier in the garage.

A normal one wouldn't work as the temperatures do drop out there. It can drop the humidity out there from sometimes over 90% to 70% in about an hour, sometimes less.

Don't need one for the house as I've got a whole house warm air system.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: springswood on November 16, 2021, 07:58:19 AM
In a lot of ways I think the problem with retrofitting insulation is ultimately an economic one. The technology has been there for decades and it has always been a cost effective. So I've puzzled, for more than 30 years now, over why isn't it done? The answer I think is, it's not profitable enough. The people with serious money in this world expect a certain rate of return and so the money only goes to where you can get that return.

Some of it is to do with the way people talk about it. Often the value of insulation is expressed as a pay back period. Roughly 3 years for draught proofing, perhaps 10 for cavity wall insulation, 25 for double glazing, say. I think it looks very different if you express it as a return on investment. 33%, 10% and 4% respectively.

It also comes down to marketability. Daniel Kahneman, who got the Nobel prize for economics in 2002, put it in his book Thinking Fast and Slow I believe (and I keep meaning to get round to reading it). Slow thinking is the explicit rational argument that shows insulating your home is a no-brainer. Unfortunately purchasing decisions are generally made by Fast thinking. So double glazing has an immediate appeal, and it's the one aspect of insulation that is marketable and has a fairly solid industry and widespread respect. The rest doesn't give you anything immediate so is very hard to sell and the materials are essentially so cheap it has to be sold on price. The result is often poor quality work and bit of a field day for cowboys. In general a bad reputation for the insulation.

So I quite agree badly installed insulation often causes damp problems. In fact in the four years since I had my walls done I've had two people come to the door offering to fix any damp problems. Which means there's another level. An off-shoot industry making money out of fixing the bad work. And incidentally exacerbating the bad reputation.

Which doesn't alter the fact that getting insulation well installed is great value. And going to get greater value as energy costs inevitably rise.

PS
I completely agree about dehumidifiers. I've been using one to dry my washing for around 10 years.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on November 16, 2021, 08:23:38 AM
This morning at 8.15am, Renewables accounted for 22% of the total demand of 37.85GW.

Coal was 4%.

Anyone fancy relying on renewables?
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 16, 2021, 08:51:43 AM
When we had our first Dehumidifier many years ago ( on our third one now, we have only had compressor based ones, because it it gets below 5degC inside your house you have a bigger problem than humidity, and dessicant ones are quite expensive to run because the dessicant has to be dried out inside the machine using a heater  ) I was shocked by the amount of water it was collecting, we had to empty the 3 litre ( IIRC ) a couple of times a day for first few days,  then the time to empty the tank increased and eventually we could run the machine for over a week to collect 3 litres.  Ours is a modern house as well,  I hate to think how much moisture is locked up in the building fabric of older houses with solid stone walls, especially sandstone.   The contractors who were fitting insulation were supposed to do a survey of walls to make sure they were suitable to insulate, but they never seemed to, and just pumped the stuff in willy-nilly,  our walls already had the cavity partly closed off with expanded polystyrene boards when houses were built, so where the new insulation was going to go was anyones guess.   I think Pikeys were the main contractors and they were payed by the job by government,  so they took about as much care as they do when fixing potholes for the council or laying a new drive with an inch of hardcore and half an inch of tarmac.

If you look at my earlier post about loft insulation- where did the advice to put 300mm of glass fibre in the loft come from when the optimum is 150mm ( and maybe 100mm if insulation is sealed in with chipboard, which limits air movement.  300mm makes the loft pretty much unusable and is well past the point of diminishing returns,  it looks to me like lobbying from the insulation industry to increase their sales and gives no real benefit as far as heat loss is concerned.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 16, 2021, 08:58:08 AM
This morning at 8.15am, Renewables accounted for 22% of the total demand of 37.85GW.

Coal was 4%.

Anyone fancy relying on renewables?

Now wind is 14% and dropping and solar 0.5% - madness... still the farm operators will get paid, so they don't care. 
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 16, 2021, 10:03:34 AM
A single anecdote is obviously useless to prove anything about the worth of insulation. If it weren't I could disprove these opinions with my experience.

Rather than insulation being 'not easy to do' it took one person one morning to insulate the wall cavities in my 110 year old brick and stone faced Yorkshire terrace. The result was around a 20% reduction in heating costs with no damp problems at all and the bonus that the tendency for the front rooms to get too warm on summer evenings as the heat soaked through is also better.

So far this autumn I've only needed my central heating on once.

The houses of our neighbours who saw no change in heating bills are detached ( as is our house ),  so more walls have external exposure than your terrace ( so you would expect any 'benefits' from extra insulation to be more apparent ), and were already built with insulation block interior walls and partly insulated cavity.  Untrained and unqualified people just going around spraying polystyrene beads into walls without a survey is madness, and asking for problems.   Problem is it is a massive job to get the stuff back out, and needing to ventilate the house more because of cavity insulation kinda defeats the object...  This is another case of 'diminishing returns' by trying to add more insulation to houses that are already well insulated, probably due to lobbying by insulation manufacturers.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 16, 2021, 11:01:34 AM
This morning at 8.15am, Renewables accounted for 22% of the total demand of 37.85GW.

Coal was 4%.

Anyone fancy relying on renewables?

Yep.
What is required are smarter grids, more development of storage  and more development of alternative forms of renewable generation.
As with the development of renewables there will be no one-size-fits-all solution.
Unfortunately governments choose the short term cheapest solutions rather than sensible investment for the future.

https://www.energy.gov/oe/energy-storage
https://www.environmentalleader.com/2021/11/energy-storage-installations-expected-to-surge-through-2030/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 16, 2021, 01:13:04 PM
This morning at 8.15am, Renewables accounted for 22% of the total demand of 37.85GW.

Coal was 4%.

Anyone fancy relying on renewables?

Yep.
What is required are smarter grids, more development of storage  and more development of alternative forms of renewable generation.
As with the development of renewables there will be no one-size-fits-all solution.
Unfortunately governments choose the short term cheapest solutions rather than sensible investment for the future.

https://www.energy.gov/oe/energy-storage
https://www.environmentalleader.com/2021/11/energy-storage-installations-expected-to-surge-through-2030/

What was needed and more than 20 years ago was some kind of resolve for UK to have more nuclear, instead successive governments prevaricating ( fan - ing ) around - I t makes we weep to see how much money being wasted on HS-2 when we could have had a powerful and stable future-proof grid powered by nuclear for the same money.   Will be ironic if HS-2 cannot run because we do not have enough power  :o

Instead they banned coal and built some highly subsidised fans on sticks,  and solar, which is like a chocolate fireguard in UK.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: ColinS on November 16, 2021, 01:51:52 PM
What was needed and more than 20 years ago was some kind of resolve for UK to have more nuclear, instead successive governments prevaricating ( fan - ing ) around - I t makes we weep to see how much money being wasted on HS-2 when we could have had a powerful and stable future-proof grid powered by nuclear for the same money.   Will be ironic if HS-2 cannot run because we do not have enough power  :o
+1
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on November 16, 2021, 01:56:53 PM
This morning at 8.15am, Renewables accounted for 22% of the total demand of 37.85GW.

Coal was 4%.

Anyone fancy relying on renewables?

Yep.
What is required are smarter grids, more development of storage  and more development of alternative forms of renewable generation.
As with the development of renewables there will be no one-size-fits-all solution.
Unfortunately governments choose the short term cheapest solutions rather than sensible investment for the future.

https://www.energy.gov/oe/energy-storage
https://www.environmentalleader.com/2021/11/energy-storage-installations-expected-to-surge-through-2030/

What was needed and more than 20 years ago was some kind of resolve for UK to have more nuclear, instead successive governments prevaricating ( fan - ing ) around - I t makes we weep to see how much money being wasted on HS-2 when we could have had a powerful and stable future-proof grid powered by nuclear for the same money.   Will be ironic if HS-2 cannot run because we do not have enough power  :o

Instead they banned coal and built some highly subsidised fans on sticks,  and solar, which is like a chocolate fireguard in UK.


Charging EVs at night will mean HS2 would stop at 6pm . But, as charging will be via Smart Meter, the National Grid will use the SM to switch charging off. (Stated aim).

All very logical..
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: peteo48 on November 16, 2021, 02:04:25 PM
Nuclear a no brainer for me. It makes me weep when you think we were amongst the early pioneers in nuclear power for domestic energy use and all that expertise has been binned.

Sincerely hope the RR Modular Reactors are successful.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on November 16, 2021, 04:11:34 PM
Now wind is 14% and dropping and solar 0.5% - madness... still the farm operators will get paid, so they don't care.
Wish I could see the data for Scotland on its own. At the moment it is blowing a gale and the turbines are going like the clappers. Perhaps the 14% is all from Scoland.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: ColinB on November 16, 2021, 04:13:35 PM
Sincerely hope the RR Modular Reactors are successful.

Much is being made of these modular reactors from RR, as if they are in some way new and thereby miraculous. They are not. RR have been building small modular pressurised water reactors for nigh on 60 years now, and sending them to sea in submarines. They are currently working on the 3rd generation of these plants for the Dreadnought class (next generation deterrent boats). What RR are doing is leveraging that experience to create land-based plants. They expect them to be "cheaper" (a relative term, they're still going to be expensive in real money!) because they can be built on a production line in a factory rather than having to construct them in the open air, but obviously mass production requires a decent production run to be economically worthwhile. And they'll still have all the site and certification costs that any other type of nuclear plant would have. Good luck to 'em though.

https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx#/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 16, 2021, 04:31:49 PM
Now wind is 14% and dropping and solar 0.5% - madness... still the farm operators will get paid, so they don't care.
Wish I could see the data for Scotland on its own. At the moment it is blowing a gale and the turbines are going like the clappers. Perhaps the 14% is all from Scoland.

Possibly,  it was very misty by us in centre of England this morning, and although there are some leaves still left on trees, not one of them was even twitching,  of course due to the mist / fog solar was also AWOL..
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 16, 2021, 08:13:53 PM
 Qatar to take £100m stake in Rolls-Royce mini-nuclear reactor venture Investment to help develop small reactors will deepen ties between the FTSE 100 engineering company and the gas-rich Gulf state.??

Anybody behind the Telegraph paywall know any more?

Edit Story's on Guardian site too
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on November 16, 2021, 11:10:22 PM
How about we park up some old nuclear subs in the Thames outside pParliament, fire them up and plug them into the grid. All funded by a friendly Gulf state with a great human rights record. Seem like a plan?
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 17, 2021, 07:46:32 AM
How about we park up some old nuclear subs in the Thames outside pParliament, fire them up and plug them into the grid. All funded by a friendly Gulf state with a great human rights record. Seem like a plan?
It's OK. At the moment they are more than 400 miles from London (but only 30 miles from Glasgow.)

"Qatar is the smallest – and richest per capita – of the Gulf states, as well as the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas."

Edit added quote from Guardian article.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: ColinB on November 17, 2021, 10:21:02 AM
How about we park up some old nuclear subs in the Thames outside pParliament, fire them up and plug them into the grid. All funded by a friendly Gulf state with a great human rights record. Seem like a plan?
It's OK. At the moment they are more than 400 miles from London (but only 30 miles from Glasgow.)

Actually there are NO "old nuclear subs" within 30 miles of Glasgow. Some are at Rosyth (10 miles from Edinburgh) but the majority are at Devonport, ie in the middle of a major English city. And most of these are de-fuelled so just a collection of irradiated material, and would be no use for power generation or as any sort of bomb. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/submarine-dismantling-project

It's not unknown for reactors to be installed in major population centres and operated safely for many years, for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASON_reactor
That's 5 miles from Westminster. Close enough for you? Would anything like that get planning permission now? Probably not, because of the Great British Public's outdated attitude towards nuclear safety (ie Nuclear = bomb = bad = avoid at all costs). That's the real problem that RR have to overcome with their SMR proposal.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on November 17, 2021, 11:17:15 AM
Glasgow city centre to Rosyth is 34 miles, as the crow flies. Rosyth Dockyard is a mile or more closer. Glasgow itself spreads more than four miles in every direction so yes, the old nuclear subs are within 30 miles of Glasgow.
Mind you, the ones based on the Clyde are also old and clapped out, even though they are still in service.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 17, 2021, 11:53:23 AM
How about we park up some old nuclear subs in the Thames outside pParliament, fire them up and plug them into the grid. All funded by a friendly Gulf state with a great human rights record. Seem like a plan?
It's OK. At the moment they are more than 400 miles from London (but only 30 miles from Glasgow.)

Actually there are NO "old nuclear subs" within 30 miles of Glasgow.
I was thinking of Faslane

https://distancecalculator.globefeed.com/UK_Distance_Result.asp?state=SCT&vr=sehest&fromlat=56.06529&fromlng=-4.81269&tolat=55.85783&tolng=-4.24251&fromplace=Faslane,%20Helensburgh,%20Scotland,%20United%20Kingdom&toplace=Glasgow,%20Scotland,%20United%20Kingdom


https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/our-organisation/bases-and-stations/naval-base/clyde

Rosyth
Before I posted I thought the submarines had been decommissioned ages ago.
It seems not.

Seven nuclear submarines were stored at Rosyth in 2007. In 2018, the Public Accounts Committee criticised the slow rate of decommissioning of these submarines, with the Ministry of Defence admitting that it had put off decommissioning due to the cost.
https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/nuclear-graveyard-just-five-miles-19118105



Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: ColinB on November 17, 2021, 01:35:41 PM
I really don’t understand where this discussion is going. There have been previous posts declaring that we need nuclear in order to provide the base capacity when wind and solar aren’t working, and lauding the Rolls Royce initiative to build new modular reactors ... which will be based on their experience and expertise building submarine power plants. And now people appear to be dissing that technology because of a perception that the submarine plants are dangerous, even when decommissioned even if not actually defuelled and dismantled? Doesn’t sound logical to me.

I still think the biggest problem with new nuclear plants - whatever size they are - is not legislative, commercial, or technical but public acceptance, ie the NIMBY problem. We’re still in the “nuclear = bad” mindset; comments here and elsewhere suggest that’s going to be a big problem to overcome.

@JimSh: I interpreted the “old submarines” comment as meaning decommissioned. If you were referring to those still in service yes some are based at Faslane (which, as pointed out, is within 30 miles of Glasgow), others at Devonport. They all operate under a set of safety regulations which are arguably more rigorous than for a land-based plant (not many static plants have to function safely under conditions of shock loading or extreme angles of pitch and roll).
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 17, 2021, 02:35:03 PM
I too would prefer to see nuclear generation of base load instead of from fossil fuels.
The Scottish Government's position has been consistently anti-nuclear for a long time.
I also think that the problem will be a NIMBY one.
I don't know how applicable the Rolls Royce experience of powering nuclear subs is to building power plants or how long it would take to adapt. - or how long it would take the UK government time to get round to building them.
(see earlier post  Reply #139 on: November 13, 2021, 11:44:01 AM »)
I don't like the idea of cosying up to Qatar in order to subsidise them.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Neil Ives on November 17, 2021, 02:47:55 PM
My worry about nuclear power stations, apart from dealing with the spent fuel rods, is complacency. Of course, on a submarine no-one is going to be slack about safety procedures. Historic nuclear power incidents have been due to lack of proper maintenance or lack of foresight when planning their location. In our small island, where is there to go in the event of a Chernobyl type incident? Yes, I know, the Rolls Royce jobbies are just babies compared to Chernobyl but even on a smaller scale, I cannot imagine the chaos resulting from a leak somewhere in the UK.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: ColinB on November 17, 2021, 03:04:47 PM
The Scottish Government's position has been consistently anti-nuclear for a long time.

Hmm, are you sure? Scotland is vehemently opposed to nuclear weapons, but the position on nuclear power seems decidedly foggy to me. As far as I can discover, the policy is here:
https://www.gov.scot/policies/nuclear-energy/
It says “no new nuclear power stations” but that seems to be based on stations such as Hinkley offering poor value for money rather than any doctrinal opposition. The policy is based on a strategy that’s 4 years old with a proviso that it applies to  “current technologies”. A lot’s happened on the climate change front in 4 years, and the policy goes on to say specifically that they’ll need to look at new tech developments such as SMRs. Unless there’s an unexpected dramatic improvement in the availability of reliable renewables such as tidal or hydro, I think the policy’s at risk no matter how good it looks to the man on the Edinburgh tram.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 17, 2021, 03:23:08 PM
My worry about nuclear power stations, apart from dealing with the spent fuel rods, is complacency. Of course, on a submarine no-one is going to be slack about safety procedures. Historic nuclear power incidents have been due to lack of proper maintenance or lack of foresight when planning their location. In our small island, where is there to go in the event of a Chernobyl type incident? Yes, I know, the Rolls Royce jobbies are just babies compared to Chernobyl but even on a smaller scale, I cannot imagine the chaos resulting from a leak somewhere in the UK.

My worry about current energy policy is also complacency of politicians who are crossing their fingers about wind and solar, desperately hoping it will be OK,  but if the UK has a high pressure (cold with no wind ) cold spell this winter then there may well be rolling power cuts, bear in mind that UK only has 4 days reserve of gas.... and using gas to generate electricity uses an awful lot of the stuff...  and solar in UK this time of year is marginal ( and that is being generous ).
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on November 17, 2021, 03:55:46 PM
Or another big Icelandic volcano to erupt for weeks at a time blotting out the sun in the Northern hemisphere around Iceland..
"In 2010, an eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland sent clouds of ash and dust into the atmosphere, interrupting air travel between Europe and North America because of concerns the material could damage jet engines. More than 100,000 flights were grounded, stranding millions of passengers.20 Mar 2021"
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 17, 2021, 04:15:38 PM
The Scottish Government's position has been consistently anti-nuclear for a long time.

Hmm, are you sure? Scotland is vehemently opposed to nuclear weapons, but the position on nuclear power seems decidedly foggy to me. As far as I can discover, the policy is here:
https://www.gov.scot/policies/nuclear-energy/
It says “no new nuclear power stations” but that seems to be based on stations such as Hinkley offering poor value for money rather than any doctrinal opposition. The policy is based on a strategy that’s 4 years old with a proviso that it applies to  “current technologies”. A lot’s happened on the climate change front in 4 years, and the policy goes on to say specifically that they’ll need to look at new tech developments such as SMRs. Unless there’s an unexpected dramatic improvement in the availability of reliable renewables such as tidal or hydro, I think the policy’s at risk no matter how good it looks to the man on the Edinburgh tram.
You are correct

I see that it does say "using current technologies"

"We are opposed to the building of new nuclear stations using current technologies, because and we believe that nuclear power represents poor value for consumers. This is clear from the contract awarded by the UK Government to Hinkley Point C nuclear station in Somerset, which will result in energy consumers subsidising its operation until 2060."
in the document
https://www.gov.scot/policies/nuclear-energy/nuclear-stations/

But in https://www.gov.scot/policies/nuclear-energy/
It is stated
"We are aware of increasing interest in the development of new nuclear technologies such as Small Modular Reactors. We have a duty to assess this and all other new technologies based on safety, value for consumers, and contribution to Scotland’s low-carbon economy and energy future."

The question might then be would the UK Government be likely to make a better hand of SMRs than they did of Hinkley Point or other proposed reactors.
Recent history does not look inspiring.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: TnTkr on November 19, 2021, 05:50:19 AM
Did this thread disappear for yesterday? It has been interesting to follow the discussion but yesterday I couldn't find it from any listing.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: embee on November 19, 2021, 11:42:37 AM
Technology moves on, something often not appreciated. Only a few years ago few people would have thought wind turbines the size of what's being built today would be feasible, LED lamps were a dream and as for a quick electric car with a 200+ mile range, no chance.
I remember several instances when doing engine development work when the old-timers would say "we tried that 20yrs ago and it didn't work". Well, the concept was the same but the reason it didn't work was materials, manufacturing methods, or control systems etc, and those have moved along and now it will work.
I feel nuclear was/is a key player. It's not a perfect solution, but there probably isn't one in the near future. As I've said before, we mustn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If something can be done now and is better than what we have, then do it. You can always replace that when something "better" comes along.

One thing we should be honest about is the folly of burning wood to make electricity. That really is a political con-trick. It's the way it is treated as a "renewable" so zero carbon in the country where it is burned. The carbon is safely locked up in the fuel. When you have a choice of fuels to burn to generate electricity you use the one which releases the least CO2, and that's gas. From what I can find wood is about 1.5 times the CO2 of coal, and 3 or 4 times that of gas. Why would anyone burn wood? Sure it's renewable, but so is gas and coal if you wait long enough. Burning wood means a "carbon debt" for the next 50-100yrs until the trees grow back and re-absorb what you've released, it's stupid counting what it absorbed while it was growing as the "credit card" to borrow for the present.

I'm sure we could reduce the demand for electricity quite easily if we really wanted to. Just thinking about what is used and reducing it 5 or 10% would make a big difference at probably very little cost, bang for buck would very probably be much greater than other technology approaches. It's an attitude thing. Look at all the lights on in big buildings, there's no need for it, easy to switch stuff off either manually or automatically. Reducing demand is a no-brainer, less is better regardless of how it is generated, and in reality it's the dirtiest generation which provides the marginal energy, turn off the kettle and they turn down a gas fired power station, not a wind turbine.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 19, 2021, 12:56:58 PM

One thing we should be honest about is the folly of burning wood to make electricity. That really is a political con-trick. It's the way it is treated as a "renewable" so zero carbon in the country where it is burned. The carbon is safely locked up in the fuel. When you have a choice of fuels to burn to generate electricity you use the one which releases the least CO2, and that's gas. From what I can find wood is about 1.5 times the CO2 of coal, and 3 or 4 times that of gas. Why would anyone burn wood? Sure it's renewable, but so is gas and coal if you wait long enough. Burning wood means a "carbon debt" for the next 50-100yrs until the trees grow back and re-absorb what you've released, it's stupid counting what it absorbed while it was growing as the "credit card" to borrow for the present.

If they are only using waste wood as they claim (small unusable branches and thinnings) then it  is sustainable and useful.
If they are felling trees and pelleting them then, as you say it is counter productive.
1. they would be removing carbon sinks. (trees which will take~50 years to grow)
2. They would be wasting energy processing them and transporting them, especially if imported.
3. they would be releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
https://www.drax.com/sustainable-bioenergy/what-is-a-working-forest/

I had a look on the Drax site after I read your post and was interested in the article on the extension of the pumped storage Cruachan scheme. I had no idea that Drax ran that.
Again more pumped storage would be great but I would imagine there would be lots of objections.
Although looking at the picture it looks as if the scheme could be extended by raising the dam without much environmental damage.
https://www.drax.com/opinion/pumped-storage-hydro-why-its-key-to-a-renewable-future/

Edit Just looked further and the plan just seems to be to run more water out in parallel to existing  outflow without raising dam.
https://www.drax.com/about-us/our-projects/cruachan-2/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: embee on November 19, 2021, 02:12:55 PM
If they are only using waste wood as they claim (small unusable branches and thinnings) then it  is sustainable and useful.

I've read much on the Drax website. They will justify what they are doing, and it suits the government because it gets classed as zero carbon renewable so helps their PR.

Unfortunately that's the con-trick. Think about it.
The carbon is locked up in this "fuel". You also have the option of other fuels. One produces a lot more CO2 than the others for a given amount of energy generated (CO2eq/kWh). Which do you choose to burn, the one which produces the most or the one which produces the least? It's not a case of a perfect solution, it's just the least worst at the moment.

The argument goes that if left as forest litter it will degrade and release the CO2 anyway, but that would take many years, not 30sec in a furnace. Timescale is critical to where we are right now. I suspect a lot of it is not that small anyway and could probably go to making construction products etc. They will want to deal with as big pieces as possible to minimise handling and optimise output. Chipping a big branch is way quicker than feeding loads of small twigs into a machine. I doubt it's the twigs.

It is not a question of whether it is sustainable or renewable, when burned it releases so much CO2 which could be much less if gas was burnt instead. Burn the gas and plant the trees anyway. Cut down trees to use as timber/wood products, don't burn them, keep the carbon locked in. The talk of carbon-capture from flue gas continues, no great outcome as yet (maybe in time), but why put way more CO2 up the flue than you need to when the trees have already done the carbon-capturing during the last 50-100yrs of growth?

I'm happy to be proven misguided and wrong by numbers, but PR blurb from the parties with vested interests carrying out the deed doesn't convince me. It's the same with the domestic gas boiler/heat pump issue, as far as I can see the numbers don't support it but I'm happy to be proven wrong. I'm just an engineer, I work with numbers not propaganda.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 19, 2021, 03:04:43 PM
I don't know whether to believe them or not.
In fact like you I'm quite sceptical but when a tree is taken down only the trunk and larger boughs can be used for construction or furniture.
Much of the smaller branches are useless and would probably be burned on site releasing CO2 without gaining anything from it.
This would be better  converted to electricity (or chipboard or MDF)
Also cultivated trees benefit from thinning. The small trees removed again are useless for timber.
If however trees that could be used as timber are being felled and chipped for profit or to clear ground for monoculture crops or for building then that is despicable for the reasons I gave in my previous post.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/19/drax-dropped-from-index-of-green-energy-firms-amid-biomass-doubts
https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/biodiversity/2021/10/the-battle-over-burning-why-drax-is-being-accused-of-greenwashing
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2021/11/europe-burns-a-controversial-renewable-energy-source-trees-from-the-us


Edit added links the last one is the best
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Neil Ives on November 19, 2021, 05:54:52 PM
I was talking to our two local granddaughters, (9 & 6) about stored energy. They were playing with a clockwork car. We were trying to think of other examples of stored energy. A party balloon, torch battery, a clock pendulum, a child's swing, etc.
It wasn't until later that I remembered that a motor vehicle is able to use energy that's been stored for hundreds of millions of years in fossil fuel.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: embee on November 19, 2021, 06:30:09 PM
..........
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2021/11/europe-burns-a-controversial-renewable-energy-source-trees-from-the-us


Edit added links the last one is the best

Brilliant summary of the situation. I'm sure most of what I have gleaned has come from articles just like that, though I haven't seen that specific one before. Counting wood fuel as zero carbon is a con, it should be made more widely known, but the most important thing is to stop burning it as we are, it's just a bad choice right now.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 19, 2021, 06:32:45 PM
I was talking to our two local granddaughters, (9 & 6) about stored energy. They were playing with a clockwork car. We were trying to think of other examples of stored energy. A party balloon, torch battery, a clock pendulum, a child's swing, etc.
It wasn't until later that I remembered that a motor vehicle is able to use energy that's been stored for hundreds of millions of years in fossil fuel.

With most sources of stored energy you get less back than you put in...   and that includes hydrogen...
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 19, 2021, 06:53:24 PM
..........
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2021/11/europe-burns-a-controversial-renewable-energy-source-trees-from-the-us


Edit added links the last one is the best

Brilliant summary of the situation. I'm sure most of what I have gleaned has come from articles just like that, though I haven't seen that specific one before. Counting wood fuel as zero carbon is a con, it should be made more widely known, but the most important thing is to stop burning it as we are, it's just a bad choice right now.

Wood that falls to forest floor is an important home for fungi and insects at the bottom of food chain,  and if it is all scooped up for burning then biodiversity will suffer.  It is no good concentrating totally on climate change and ignoring or actually making biodiversity a lot worse. The whole zero carbon scheme is full of stupid ideas, quick fixes, wasted money ( which the consumer pays for ) - chopping down rainforest to grow palm oil and sugar cane / corn to make so called bio-fuel is just plain stupid,  especially as the resulting bio-fuel has less energy content and results in worse MPG.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2017/03/wood-not-carbon-neutral-energy-source
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 19, 2021, 06:55:52 PM
..........
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2021/11/europe-burns-a-controversial-renewable-energy-source-trees-from-the-us


Edit added links the last one is the best

Brilliant summary of the situation. I'm sure most of what I have gleaned has come from articles just like that, though I haven't seen that specific one before. Counting wood fuel as zero carbon is a con, it should be made more widely known, but the most important thing is to stop burning it as we are, it's just a bad choice right now.
I think it's an update on one I've read before.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: ColinB on November 19, 2021, 07:08:56 PM
I was talking to our two local granddaughters, (9 & 6) about stored energy. They were playing with a clockwork car. We were trying to think of other examples of stored energy. A party balloon, torch battery, a clock pendulum, a child's swing, etc.
It wasn't until later that I remembered that a motor vehicle is able to use energy that's been stored for hundreds of millions of years in fossil fuel.

Here's a full scale example ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_139
... a practical application of flywheel energy storage in a rail vehicle. Apparently very successful too, in the right place.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 19, 2021, 07:19:06 PM
I was talking to our two local granddaughters, (9 & 6) about stored energy. They were playing with a clockwork car. We were trying to think of other examples of stored energy. A party balloon, torch battery, a clock pendulum, a child's swing, etc.
It wasn't until later that I remembered that a motor vehicle is able to use energy that's been stored for hundreds of millions of years in fossil fuel.

Here's a full scale example ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_139
... a practical application of flywheel energy storage in a rail vehicle. Apparently very successful too, in the right place.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/02/whatever-happened-to-williams-f1s-flywheel-hybrid-idea/

GKN took over the idea of flywheel storage systems, and IIRC no longer make them, as they did not live up to their promise. Unlike a battery they lose energy quickly ( around 50% in 2 hours ) and the spinning flywheel acts as a gyroscope, affecting the vehicles handling.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 26, 2021, 09:28:08 AM
Love the comment I saw today

 ' heat pumps illustrate the first law of financial thermodynamics, money flows from poor people to rich people'.... 

A good example is rich people hoovering up the subsidies on EV, and now heatpumps - and those subsidies come out of the taxes of the less well off.   Note also the owners of wind and solar farms get their lucrative  subsidies whether they generate or not, so much better than buying woodland or other tax dodges, and guess who pays for the subsidies - us consumers,  so money comes out of your pocket and you get nothing for it.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 26, 2021, 12:01:01 PM
It's true the rich are robbing the poor but once again your source is diverting blame from the true culprits

https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-a-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs#:~:text=Conservative%20estimates%20put%20U.S.%20direct%20subsidies%20to%20the,are%20estimated%20to%20total%2055%20billion%20euros%20annually.

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/fossil-fuel-subsidies-cambo-oil-b1964222.html

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 27, 2021, 03:07:42 PM

One thing we should be honest about is the folly of burning wood to make electricity. That really is a political con-trick. It's the way it is treated as a "renewable" so zero carbon in the country where it is burned. The carbon is safely locked up in the fuel.

Drax receiving subsidies from UK Government.

“The government’s plan to tackle climate change through planting trees is in flames as it gives over £800m a year to Drax to be the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions from burning imported wood, compared to £650 million over five years on tree planting and woodlands.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/boris-johnson-drax-power-station-trees-b1964331.html
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on November 28, 2021, 03:54:58 PM
4pm Sunday pm and snowing here.. 1C

Renewable energy is 27% of demand according to Gridwatch..(it's turning dark)..

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 28, 2021, 04:27:24 PM
4pm Sunday pm and snowing here.. 1C

Renewable energy is 27% of demand according to Gridwatch..(it's turning dark)..

You only need to look at the shapes of the historical graphs for renewables to see the basic problem,  it is  either feast or famine....
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 28, 2021, 05:42:53 PM
4pm Sunday pm and snowing here.. 1C

Renewable energy is 27% of demand according to Gridwatch..(it's turning dark)..

You only need to look at the shapes of the historical graphs for renewables to see the basic problem,  it is  either feast or famine....
That's why we need storage.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on November 29, 2021, 08:14:11 AM
Renewables at 21% demand as I write.
Demand is 42GW
Renewables. 9GW

Any thought of storage for the difference is £1000billions  and decades away as the technology does not exist for that level of storage - 300GWhours for say 10 hours of night is unthinkable at present. And of course that would be enough as it assumes we could refill storage in the day - which we cannot with current weather so in reality we might need 4-5 days cover or 1,500GWH.

At present technology levels it is not doable - and totally uneconomic - better order some more nuclear reactors : when they are being decomissioned - after 60 years - that level of storage might be possible.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 29, 2021, 09:31:03 AM
4pm Sunday pm and snowing here.. 1C

Renewable energy is 27% of demand according to Gridwatch..(it's turning dark)..

You only need to look at the shapes of the historical graphs for renewables to see the basic problem,  it is  either feast or famine....
That's why we need storage.

Grid scale storage is eye-wateringly expensive and totally impractical - nuclear does not need grid storage - and once up and running the fuel costs are very low....  Future civilisations may find relics of wind turbines and think about them like we think of the old windmills ... Structures from a primitive society

Wind now back down to about 12% and solar nothing, and will be very low today due to uniformly grey sky ...   Coal is heading for 5% and Gas turbines are burning gas as if there is no tomorrow.. What a bl**dy mess our grid is these days....
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Neil Ives on November 29, 2021, 09:57:53 AM
Maybe more of these. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

I've done the tour of this place. It's like a set from a James Bond movie. I highly recommend a visit.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 29, 2021, 10:17:07 AM
Maybe more of these. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

I've done the tour of this place. It's like a set from a James Bond movie. I highly recommend a visit.

Been there, very impressive - have to say though that pumped water storage is not very efficient - but quick to react for short period cover, and cheaper than having to build more power stations and keep them online to deal with peaks, like the advert breaks in World Cup football matches.   For renewables backup you really need to think that the wind has been absent in UK for many weeks ( like September this year, over 4 weeks never went above a few % ) and quite a few long periods in the past. 
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on November 29, 2021, 10:31:56 AM
Maybe more of these. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

I've done the tour of this place. It's like a set from a James Bond movie. I highly recommend a visit.
Ditto, plus Cruachan.

There are more pumped storage schemes waiting for the economics to stack up https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-57510870. Coire Glas is the biggest. While it doesn't have the generating capacity of Dinorwig, it can sustain its output for a day rather than only helping with shorter peaks in demand or a power station dropping off the system. I would put an unreliability levy on wind turbine generation to make the economics of the storage schemes look attractive.

Has anyone noticed the strange energy flows on the interconnectors at the moment? Energy imported from Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands and much of it being exported to France.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on November 29, 2021, 11:31:38 AM
Maybe more of these. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

I've done the tour of this place. It's like a set from a James Bond movie. I highly recommend a visit.

"The scheme can supply a maximum power of 1,728-megawatt (2,317,000 hp) and has a storage capacity of around 9.1 GWh (33 TJ).[1]"

So to store 10 hours per my prior post (300GWH) - would require 33 such installations..
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on November 29, 2021, 02:18:57 PM
"The scheme can supply a maximum power of 1,728-megawatt (2,317,000 hp) and has a storage capacity of around 9.1 GWh (33 TJ).[1]"

So to store 10 hours per my prior post (300GWH) - would require 33 such installations..
As I commented above, the Dinorwig scheme (and the others of that era) was built to help with demand peaks or a power station failure, not to balance the intermittent renewables.

The proposed Coire Glas scheme can store 30GWh https://www.sse.com/news-and-views/2021/02/investing-in-pumped-storage-could-save-up-to-690m-a-year-on-pathway-to-net-zero/ so that's 10% of your target. It might be creeping towards happening as there's a shortlist of tenderers https://www.scottishconstructionnow.com/articles/tenderer-shortlists-unveiled-for-coire-glas-pumped-hydro-storage-scheme.

There's plenty more potential for high volume pumped storage in Scotland provided people don't mind there being some new lochs with fluctuating water levels.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on November 29, 2021, 02:29:10 PM
Relying on storage in Scotland to solve problems in England seems politically very brave.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on November 29, 2021, 02:44:50 PM
In this country (island) the future for renewables is tidal (never fails) and to a lesser degree, wave power. There's an interesting story in the news today about a new type of tidal generator developed by a subsidiary of Saab. But I do agree we should be looking to nuclear as well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59401199
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on November 29, 2021, 03:09:48 PM
In this country (island) the future for renewables is tidal (never fails) and to a lesser degree, wave power. There's an interesting story in the news today about a new type of tidal generator developed by a subsidiary of Saab. But I do agree we should be looking to nuclear as well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59401199
Surprisingly little has been spent on development of tidal and wave power.
Tidal utterly reliable and predictable.
Again however the best sites for tidal flow are around Scotland.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on November 29, 2021, 03:15:26 PM
UK government has recognised the potential. Every little helps.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-announces-huge-investment-into-scottish-tidal-power (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-announces-huge-investment-into-scottish-tidal-power)
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on November 29, 2021, 03:54:56 PM
UK government has recognised the potential.

With electricity it is all about potential difference  :o
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on December 18, 2021, 09:12:45 AM
This is the thread for moaning about renewable energy.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on December 18, 2021, 11:21:35 AM
UK government has recognised the potential. Every little helps.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-announces-huge-investment-into-scottish-tidal-power (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-announces-huge-investment-into-scottish-tidal-power)

Recognition is one thing.
The UK government is good at promises.
Delivery is another thing.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on December 21, 2021, 03:15:17 PM
This is the thread for moaning about renewable energy.

It is mid afternoon on the 21st December. Cold, overcast and windless.
Renewables account for 12% of 41GW demand.

12%.. Wind 2% and solar 1%

Say no more.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Bazzzer on December 27, 2021, 02:43:36 PM
A sound bite I heard this morning, "Hoping for good weather, whether it's warm weather or windy weather is not an energy policy."
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 15, 2022, 11:03:58 AM
We pretty much the coldest day of the year in our area,  temperature just crept up to 1 deg C... and where are renewables,  there is light cloud so solar hardly anything, and no wind either so fans on sticks producing about 4%..

I can hear the gas whoosing through the pipes to the power stations even from inside our lounge, and hear the coal  and American tree chips conveyors clanking as well....   madness
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on January 15, 2022, 02:49:01 PM
madness
What would be your solution? Label gas as Green like the EU wants to do?
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 15, 2022, 03:29:27 PM
madness
What would be your solution? Label gas as Green like the EU wants to do?

Absolutely,  of course other colours are available...
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on January 16, 2022, 01:42:43 PM
madness
What would be your solution? Label gas as Green like the EU wants to do?

IF the Government's timetable is sacrosanct and it wants to stop using natural gas, it needs largescale hydrogen generation which is economical. It needs to have Largescale production planned and in build now so it can develop it to make it economical and attach it to a large LARGE supply of green electricity.

As there is no such plant planned, the other alternative - apart from using Natural gas - is to let us all freeze on cold winter nights.

I would remind anyone who says Rolls Royce nuclear, the first plant will not be operational until 2040. And if conventional nuclear the lead times from start to output are a MINIMUM of 10 years - and often longer.

Large scale electrical storage through water takes 10 years plus. There are no such plans.
Battery technology does not exist for the loads required.

We will freeze  ("we" excluding politicians of course)
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on January 16, 2022, 04:47:29 PM
Large scale electrical storage through water takes 10 years plus. There are no such plans.
However, plans exist for schemes which would substantially increase the current pumped storage capacity and some have planning consent. However, they are waiting for the commercial aspects to look attractive https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-57510870.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on January 16, 2022, 05:22:03 PM
Large scale electrical storage through water takes 10 years plus. There are no such plans.
However, plans exist for schemes which would substantially increase the current pumped storage capacity and some have planning consent. However, they are waiting for the commercial aspects to look attractive https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-57510870.

Which proves my point: the Government are not serious AND not competent in this area.

(although "in this area" may be superfluous  :'( ;D ;D)
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on January 16, 2022, 10:27:58 PM
Large scale electrical storage through water takes 10 years plus. There are no such plans.
However, plans exist for schemes which would substantially increase the current pumped storage capacity and some have planning consent. However, they are waiting for the commercial aspects to look attractive https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-57510870.
Also expansion of Cruachan scheme
https://www.cruachanexpansion.com/project/
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on January 16, 2022, 10:45:35 PM
Large scale electrical storage through water takes 10 years plus. There are no such plans.
However, plans exist for schemes which would substantially increase the current pumped storage capacity and some have planning consent. However, they are waiting for the commercial aspects to look attractive https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-57510870.

Which proves my point: the Government are not serious AND not competent in this area.

(although "in this area" may be superfluous  :'( ;D ;D)

Just noticed this on Tidal flow which I would think would have great potential.
The name of the developer doesn't sound like a good old fashioned British engineering firm.

"Mauricio Pereira, Head of Renewable Energy here at Bureau Veritas, said: “Quite simply, tidal stream electricity has the potential to become one of the lead sources of renewable energies in the world. The energy potential of tides can be predicted for years to come with tidal turbines able to harness the energy of high and low tides down to the minute."
The government would appear to be happy to sell off the country's utilities to the highest bidder.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Neil Ives on January 16, 2022, 11:04:26 PM
The government would appear to be happy to sell off the country's utilities to the highest bidder.
Nothing new there!
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on January 17, 2022, 11:37:29 AM
Just noticed this on Tidal flow which I would think would have great potential.
The name of the developer doesn't sound like a good old fashioned British engineering firm.

"Mauricio Pereira, Head of Renewable Energy here at Bureau Veritas, said: “Quite simply, tidal stream electricity has the potential to become one of the lead sources of renewable energies in the world. The energy potential of tides can be predicted for years to come with tidal turbines able to harness the energy of high and low tides down to the minute."
The government would appear to be happy to sell off the country's utilities to the highest bidder.
This project http://www.tidallagoonpower.com/projects/swansea-bay/ would have been under construction by now if gov't had been more supportive and choose which version of the Severn barrage you prefer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Barrage.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on January 17, 2022, 11:56:21 AM
The Severn Estuary is a special area of conservation - so no proposal is going to get far - anyway Tony Blair thought it was a good idea, so probably never going to happen..
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on January 17, 2022, 02:04:47 PM
Scottish Government ramping up offshore wind generation with floating platforms.
Estimated additional generation 25,000MW.

"Crown Estate Scotland has today announced the outcome of its application process for ScotWind Leasing, the first Scottish offshore wind leasing round in over a decade and the first ever since the management of offshore wind rights were devolved to Scotland. "

https://www.crownestatescotland.com/news/scotwind-offshore-wind-leasing-delivers-major-boost-to-scotlands-net-zero-aspirations
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-60002110

Edit added BBC Scotland link
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on January 17, 2022, 03:10:01 PM
More windpower without storage is a recipe for disaster.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on January 17, 2022, 03:45:51 PM
More windpower without storage is a recipe for disaster.

Yes. Storage will be required for the excess energy.

From BBC article
"The inherent unpredictability of the wind means we need masses of overcapacity to allow us to keep the lights on when some of the turbines are not turning. But those looking after the grid need to be more clever than just building more turbines.
That means a growing use of smart technology and increased storage - through batteries or green hydrogen - will become critical in the coming years."

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on January 17, 2022, 04:28:05 PM
Without a doubt, storage is required but it is better to build the generation capacity before the storage than the other way round. And let's face it. In the waters around Scotland, the wind blows virtually all the time. it certainly is a draughty country!
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on January 17, 2022, 06:09:08 PM
More windpower without storage is a recipe for disaster.
Plus there will be the problem of needing additional power lines to get the electricity to England once Scotland is using (or storing) all it can when the wind is blowing properly (and I hope that the generators don't get paid for turning off the turbines when there is excess generation).
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on January 17, 2022, 06:58:09 PM
More windpower without storage is a recipe for disaster.
(and I hope that the generators don't get paid for turning off the turbines when there is excess generation).
No need to turn them off if there is enough storage.
see 0-8min https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0013ptb/reporting-scotland-evening-news-17012022
Edit added BBC reporting Scotland link
last edit Changed lunchtime news link to longer evening news link
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on January 17, 2022, 11:32:08 PM
Unbelievable !!!
( Well not really)

This is how the story about the floating wind turbines is interpreted by the Daily Express ---

"Sturgeon bolsters her Indy war chest! Nicola rakes in £700m as vote threat looms"

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1551587/nicola-sturgeon-Scotland-national-party-indyref-vote-referendum-vote-threat-looms


The Telegraph is a bit more measured

"Nicola Sturgeon reaps £700m from auction to triple UK's offshore wind power
Shell, BP and Scottish Power want to build more floating and fixed turbines but face opposition from fishermen and conservationists "

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/01/17/nicola-sturgeon-reaps-700m-auction-triple-uk-wind-power/

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on February 09, 2022, 12:36:46 PM
Promising news on Nuclear Fusion today. I remember JET opening in 1984 and them saying it could be 40 years before the Fusion problem was solved. Still another 30 years to go I reckon before we can expect the first genuine Fusion power stations to come online.

Story is everywhere but this BBC story seems quite succinct...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60312633
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on February 09, 2022, 03:08:41 PM
I saw that today. I see they are talking about Fracking again and going the North Sea oil and gas route. We need to be self-sufficient in gas if nothing else. We should be building nuclear power stations up and down the country.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on February 09, 2022, 03:29:01 PM
I agree. As a stop gap measure.

I also believe coal is an option to fill the gap. It must be feasible to mine it safely and burn it with carbon capture in place much more effectively than imported it from South America where it is mined by children, or bringing in fabricated wood pellets from former slave plantations in the USA.

But for me, wave and tidal is the huge opportunity we are missing. We are an island, we have estuaries and firths with some of the greatest tidal ranges on the planet. It is free, reliable energy driven by the moon and the sun, and is carbon free from the point of capture.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on February 09, 2022, 03:51:36 PM
Promising news on Nuclear Fusion today. I remember JET opening in 1984 and them saying it could be 40 years before the Fusion problem was solved. Still another 30 years to go I reckon before we can expect the first genuine Fusion power stations to come online.

Story is everywhere but this BBC story seems quite succinct...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60312633

30 years to the first station on line?

It has taken 25 years to break the prior energy output record - set in 1995.
On the basis that the rest of the task is to get the power to be produced for at least 20 years non stop rather than the 5 seconds achieved,  then 100 years sounds more credible.

In reality, fusion power is now where nuclear power was in 1900 - 42 years before the first nuclear reactor ran under Fermi in December 1942.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on February 09, 2022, 04:31:57 PM
In reality, fusion power is now where nuclear power was in 1900 - 42 years before the first nuclear reactor ran under Fermi in December 1942.
I disagree. They have been working on Fusion for a long time already. If Fusion produced weapons grade waste material, you can bet your bottom dollar it would be a lot nearer than it is now. However, the need to do something to offset fossil fuel usage will become an increasingly important validation of the need for this technology. We need to prioritise science now. It is the future.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 10, 2022, 07:48:55 AM
Quote from an article

With the announcement of new drilling licences for oil companies in the North Sea, political reality is finally beginning to dawn on the government with regard to its Net Zero deadline.  It also exposes the absurdity of its previous policy position according to Philip Johnston in today’s Telegraph 08.02.22:

 “The prospect of new licences in the North Sea marks a significant political push-back against net zero, with Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, and Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, seemingly determined to make the policy more rational and voter-friendly.

 Some of the more unrealistic targets for phasing out petrol cars or banning gas boilers need to be revisited as well. In any case, the UK is able to claim a fall in CO2 emissions in part because it outsources them elsewhere. Refusing to exploit our own reserves of gas while importing it from countries that have no renewable energy to speak of is mendacious. Continuing to import goods from countries that still burn vast amounts of coal surely does not help the planet in any way. In these circumstances, it is idiotic to withhold approval to exploit Britain’s own oil and gas supplies in the North Sea, even if it does turn out to be the last hurrah for what was once seen as the nation’s economic salvation.”

 According to Johnston, the U-turn marks the culmination of a thoroughly ill-thought through energy policy which goes back decades.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Kremmen on February 10, 2022, 08:40:46 AM
It makes sense to me to obtain cheaper local energy whilst future low carbon energy is developed.

Relying on expensive imports causing some other part of the world to benefit whilst the global impact doesn't change is illogical.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 10, 2022, 09:05:38 AM
It makes sense to me to obtain cheaper local energy whilst future low carbon energy is developed.

Relying on expensive imports causing some other part of the world to benefit whilst the global impact doesn't change is illogical.

I think the Tories have realised that nett zero is toxic to voters, especially with rocketing energy prices.... They are doing it to save the Tories, not save the world.  Having said that it has become obvious even to politicians how unreliable 'renewables' like solar and wind are, so something had to be done to reduce reliance on the unreliable.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on February 10, 2022, 11:11:46 AM
This is interesting,  the much trumpeted energy bill help from government is not all it seems....  The cost of typical energy bill is due to rise by £700 a year


Here's a full transcript of Martin's analysis on the Government's new £200 energy loan

"I know there is a lot of confusion about the £200 bill credit loan on energy that's due to start in October and much misunderstanding about it. So I want to talk you through in practice how it will work.

"What will happen is this – in October, on every single electricity bill in England, Scotland and Wales, you will either have your bill reduced by £200, or you'll be given a bill credit. If you're on prepay, they'll pay it through your smart meter or they'll give you a voucher or a cheque.

"This is going to happen. There is no choice about it. It is not optional and it is going to happen automatically on every single bill. Then from the following April, and for five years after that, you will then have your bill automatically – without choice – increased by £40 a year. That is how it will work.

"The best way to think of it is as a form of energy bill levy. We already have levies on energy bills, we all pay a part of our bill which goes towards green infrastructure, whether you have green energy or not. A part of our bill goes towards funding the cost of moving customers whose firm has gone bust to a supplier of last resort. That is a levy added to our bill.

"So what's going to happen here, is in October, we'll have rather strangely a negative levy. They will take £200 off bills. And then each April after that, they will add a £40 levy back on them for five years to recoup the cost.

"There is no personal loan to an individual. This isn't about, you borrowed money, you pay it back. So if you're living at home with parents and you move out in two years' time, even though you didn't get the £200, your bill will still be £40 higher – every household will be charged £40 more. You'll simply get your energy bill and it will be higher because of this levy and the one this October will be lower.

"There's no sort of loan account to an individual or even to a household. It's more a negative levy than a positive levy. Hope that clears it up."

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on February 10, 2022, 08:38:09 PM
We should be building nuclear power stations up and down the country.
And it will get worse before it gets better as most of the existing nuclear power stations get retired. One shut recently https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/07/hunterston-b-nuclear-power-station-retires-after-46-years-in-service, another 1GW goes off-line in the summer https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-60316151.

I also believe coal is an option to fill the gap. It must be feasible to mine it safely and burn it with carbon capture in place much more effectively than imported it from South America where it is mined by children, or bringing in fabricated wood pellets from former slave plantations in the USA.
There's a lot of potential for opencast mining in UK were it acceptable but we'll soon discover that there's a shortage of coal-fired power stations. Perhaps developing some of the already proven gas fields would be a better move as the gas turbines can handle the fluctuating demand (caused by the erratic wind and sun generation) better.

But for me, wave and tidal is the huge opportunity we are missing. We are an island, we have estuaries and firths with some of the greatest tidal ranges on the planet. It is free, reliable energy driven by the moon and the sun, and is carbon free from the point of capture.
I agree. At current energy prices projects such as the Swansea Bay lagoon must look profitable while the Hinkley Point C strike price now looks to be a bargain. However, the environmentalists wouldn't agree to the Severn Barrage even of the lights go out. It's a shame it wasn't built 50 years ago before the environmental lobby developed a loud voice.

We can't rely on getting power from Europe to make up any shortfall. How long before I buy a stand-by generator? It will keep the lights on, the fridge cold and the gas boiler working but wouldn't cope with a heat pump.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on March 15, 2022, 09:18:08 AM
Interesting video about 'the weak energy stream of renewables' and their meagre output per acre.... as well as the downsides.  Talking about killing birds, many sites in USA ( especially California ) use mirrors to focus the sun onto 'boilers' - the beams from these mirrors frequently set fire to birds ( sometimes whole flocks ) flying through them...



Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: richardfrost on March 15, 2022, 02:43:20 PM
Interesting video

This has the educational value of The Beano. At one point he actually says "countries such as Africa"! It is the usual string of unsubstantiated 'facts' and opinions. Too hard to watch I'm afraid, so I gave up after 5 minutes.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on March 15, 2022, 03:29:54 PM
Interesting video

This has the educational value of The Beans. At one point he actually says "countries such as Africa"! It is the usual string of unsubstantiated 'facts' and opinions. Too hard to watch I'm afraid, so I gave up after 5 minutes.

If renewables are one thing, they are unreliable,  another thing is that they are very weak energy streams, returning a small amount of energy for the amount of space they occupy... Renewables are virtue signalling writ large, they are nowhere near reliable enough to run an economy, and although supposedly cheap once up and running it is the fact that the operators get paid whether they they generate or not that has upped our electricity bills by at least 25%.  It has been rumoured that many farms are deliberately built in areas with no real grid connection because then the owners can get paid without worrying about generating that electrical stuff...   
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on March 15, 2022, 04:43:56 PM


If renewables are one thing, they are unreliable,  another thing is that they are very weak energy streams, returning a small amount of energy for the amount of space they occupy... Renewables are virtue signalling writ large, they are nowhere near reliable enough to run an economy, and although supposedly cheap once up and running it is the fact that the operators get paid whether they they generate or not that has upped our electricity bills by at least 25%.  It has been rumoured that many farms are deliberately built in areas with no real grid connection because then the owners can get paid without worrying about generating that electrical stuff...

Renewables are already cheaper than fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels are more heavily subsidsed than renewables.(see attachment)
Governments are being controlled by "Big Oil"
Granted renewables need backup.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/59233799
https://www.juneauempire.com/opinion/opinion-investing-in-clean-energy-is-key-to-true-energy-independence/
https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth

Edit added third link
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on March 16, 2022, 09:03:10 AM
The realities of fusion

'Physics is mathematics confined by reality,  engineering is physics confined by money'

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on March 16, 2022, 10:02:00 AM
The heavily subsidised 'renewables' in UK,  energy prices in USA are a fraction of ours, they have 'proper' energy security,  but we do not.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10366275/ROSS-CLARK-DOES-green-tax-energy-bill-actually-pay-for.html
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on March 25, 2022, 05:32:26 PM
For the last 6 days wind power been <5% of UK demand,  for the last 3 days been about 3% - in comparison coal has been almost 5%.   Boris has said he wants 6 large nuclear stations in operation before 2050,  I think Ukraine has concentrated people minds on the basic fact that without reliable energy the west is 'well and truly stuffed'....
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on March 28, 2022, 02:53:31 PM
  I think Ukraine has concentrated people minds on the basic fact that without reliable energy the west is 'well and truly stuffed'....
On the other hand - If we weren't so reliant on fossil fuels we wouldn't be so stuffed.
Lots to think about in this essay.

In a World on Fire, Stop Burning Things

https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/in-a-world-on-fire-stop-burning-things?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on March 28, 2022, 03:43:00 PM
  I think Ukraine has concentrated people minds on the basic fact that without reliable energy the west is 'well and truly stuffed'....
On the other hand - If we weren't so reliant on fossil fuels we wouldn't be so stuffed.
Lots to think about in this essay.

In a World on Fire, Stop Burning Things

https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/in-a-world-on-fire-stop-burning-things?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

Wind power has been below 5% for last 7 days, and this morning 0.45% - while gas was 60%... lets face it renewables are far too unreliable to run a country and have to be backed up 100% by other more reliable stuff like gas and nuclear.  Renewables were a good experiment,  but have proved to be not up to the job.  Remember installed capacity of fans on sticks in UK is north of 25GW,  and solar above 14GW.. do they ever produce anything like that, can pigs fly ?
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on March 28, 2022, 04:15:44 PM
Renewables are OK if paired with storage. We lack enough of the latter although I believe there's an arrangement with Norway https://northsealink.com/en/the-project/why-connect-norway-and-the-uk/ (currently running at half capacity) which supplements storage within UK. In addition to storage which generates electricity, intermittent renewables can be used to create fuel such as hydrogen which can be stored.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on March 28, 2022, 04:28:15 PM
Renewables are OK if paired with storage. We lack enough of the latter although I believe there's an arrangement with Norway https://northsealink.com/en/the-project/why-connect-norway-and-the-uk/ (currently running at half capacity) which supplements storage within UK. In addition to storage which generates electricity, intermittent renewables can be used to create fuel such as hydrogen which can be stored.

Making Hydrogen is not very efficient, and is an energy carrier rather than a fuel and you get less out than you put in.  Hydrogen is also difficult to store, as energy required to compress it...  Fuel cells about 60% efficient but if you factor in the other inefficiencies in making and storing it the end result may be you get 40% of the electricity back that you used to make it.  Hydrogen may be better for lorries where the massive weight of the battery (12,000 KG ) makes a big difference to the actual load the truck can carry, and the recharge time is considerable.  A hydrogen fuel cell and storage tank will be a lot lighter, and refueling time very short.  If only lorries use hydrogen there will be less need for a great many refueling points..
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Bazzzer on March 28, 2022, 06:06:39 PM
I saw this the other day at Milford Haven.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Neil Ives on April 07, 2022, 09:31:28 AM
Some interesting stuff here.

BBC News - Energy strategy: UK plans eight new nuclear reactors to boost production
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61010605
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: embee on April 07, 2022, 12:08:20 PM
Perhaps I'm just being my usual cynical self, but I rather get the impression this is a government "must be seen to be doing something" wish-list rather than a strategic plan.
For example, are there actually any proposals/studies for where these nuclear stations will be placed, who will build them (i.e. will it be the French or the Chinese?), how long will it take (always twice as long as originally suggested and costs ten times as much as the first "wet finger in the air" estimate).

I remember going to a road-show for HS2 back in 2010 (I think). The costing was £30bn and ph.1 completion 2025. That's now £100bn and 2033.
Hinkley Point C anyone?
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: madasafish on April 07, 2022, 03:17:44 PM
Perhaps I'm just being my usual cynical self, but I rather get the impression this is a government "must be seen to be doing something" wish-list rather than a strategic plan.
For example, are there actually any proposals/studies for where these nuclear stations will be placed, who will build them (i.e. will it be the French or the Chinese?), how long will it take (always twice as long as originally suggested and costs ten times as much as the first "wet finger in the air" estimate).

I remember going to a road-show for HS2 back in 2010 (I think). The costing was £30bn and ph.1 completion 2025. That's now £100bn and 2033.
Hinkley Point C anyone?

I believe they plan to place some on existing nuclear sites, thus speeding up planning permission.Some may be small RR plants.

It's the  usual "we had a strategy last year of heat pumps" before we had done any sums.. and now "we have done the sums find that heat pumps mena a HUGE increase in electricity demand."## And we have had weeks before and after Christmas when wind produced half of nothing for weeks on end  - so we need more electricity production when there is no wind.
And add in a Government composed apparently of innumerate people who don't like taking a long view and do not understand science. And dislike Planning.

## for each 4GW of Heat pump energy installed we need an EXTRA 1GW of electricity to drive the heat pumps. Now that has been known for decades but  for last year's Climate Conference ,the UK had NO reliable plans to provide that. (Reliable as in works 24/7/365.)

The National Grid also claimed we needed no "Base load" . Guess what nucs give? Base Load.
Bunch of clueless amateurs.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Jocko on April 07, 2022, 04:21:48 PM
Watching a thing about wind generators this morning and a lady from Scottish Power said it takes one year to build an onshore field and two to build an offshore field but 5 times that to jump through the hoops to get permission to start.
She also pointed out that Scotland is the windiest place in Europe, something Scots have known forever.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: JimSh on April 07, 2022, 04:39:53 PM
Perhaps I'm just being my usual cynical self, but I rather get the impression this is a government "must be seen to be doing something" wish-list rather than a strategic plan.
They don't actually do anything. They just talk about doing impossible things.

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/06/major-misjudgement-how-the-tories-got-their-energy-strategy-so-wrong.

Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: embee on April 07, 2022, 05:56:14 PM
.....I believe they plan to place some on existing nuclear sites, thus speeding up planning permission.Some may be small RR plants.


As far as I can find, there are no example RR SMR plants actually existing, various news articles, quote from May 2021 https://www.rolls-royce.com/media/press-releases/2021/17-05-2021-more-power-and-updated-design-revealed-as-nuclear-power-team-targets-first-place.aspx
"It has also announced it is aiming to be the first design to be assessed by regulators in the second half of 2021 in the newly-opened assessment window, which will keep it on track to complete its first unit in the early 2030s and build up to 10 by 2035."
(my bold text).

They use phrases like "off the shelf components". My guess is that will be bricks, everything else concerned with military/aerospace/nuclear/medical industries is specialised and costs £££££ in my experience.

Now I have great respect for RR, but I also recognise press release content when I see it. Sure they'll do it, but on time and to cost? I won't bet my pension on it and I wouldn't base a strategic energy plan on it.

When in industry I learnt the one thing you don't do is commit to a hard plan with a specified job#1 date when you include unproven technology. It always bites you in the bum. That was one of the principles I found typical of the Japanese suppliers, they did all the R&D up front and when they knew all the answers they would commit it to production, and not before.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: John Ratsey on April 07, 2022, 08:42:03 PM
SMRs aren't a complete jump into the dark. They've been powering some ships and subs for years.

One of their big attractions is the potential to build much of equipment in factory conditions in order to minimise the amount of site assembly. Not quite production line stuff but close. Think of what goes into a gas turbine power power station and how long it takes to build one and you are going in the right direction although I accept that nuclear will be more complicated. Nonetheless, SMRs should be a lot faster to implement than the big nuclear plants. If the NIMBYs are willing to have one near their home then they could have a cheap source of heating using the waste heat.
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: culzean on April 10, 2022, 10:03:17 AM
Thorium breeder reactors are the way to go, thorium a lot safer and much more abundant than Uranium.  I guess the reason thorium has not been used large scale so far is that the products of a thorium reactor are no good for making weapons.....  :o

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power
Title: Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
Post by: Bazzzer on April 19, 2022, 09:19:01 PM
Since Tony Blair told us 20-odd years ago that his holiday flight was "carbon offset" (or some such weasel words) I'm never sure what these environmental assurances actually mean.

The Ecotricity website https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/ tells us that "Welcome to Britain’s greenest energy company. All our electricity is certified green, and also certified vegan. Our gas is a mix of carbon-neutralised natural gas and sustainable green gas."

That's fine then, whatever it means.  :D

Some of the gas that meets these exacting definitions is unfortunately Russian.
https://stroudtimes.com/dale-vinces-statement-on-doing-business-with-russian-supplier-gazprom/