Author Topic: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.  (Read 28729 times)

Jocko

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Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« 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.

Jocko

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #1 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.

sparky Paul

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #2 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.

Jocko

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2020, 04:51:55 PM »
This is the future of UK tidal energy.


JimSh

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2020, 05:05:25 PM »
This is the future of UK tidal energy.


Linked video worth watching too


richardfrost

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #5 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

Jazzmeister

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #6 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?
Mk I 2007 Honda Jazz 1.5 CVT | Previous car - Mk II 2012 Honda Jazz 1.3 Cvt

culzean

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #7 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.


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

culzean

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #8 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.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2021, 04:49:13 PM by culzean »
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

John Ratsey

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #9 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.
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madasafish

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #10 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..

culzean

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #11 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.......
« Last Edit: January 01, 2021, 10:36:00 PM by culzean »
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

culzean

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #12 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
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

culzean

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #13 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'....
« Last Edit: January 06, 2021, 12:06:21 PM by culzean »
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

madasafish

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Re: Electricity generation. The pros and the cons.
« Reply #14 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..


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