Give us a fracking break!

[hidetheelephants]

BIANCO said:

the ill informed.

There's a lot of them about.

[rolando]

Sylvaforever said:

I've been saying this for a number of years after working in renewables,the whole energy industry should be nationalised in the countries interest. Its such a shame as generating electricity from the wind is just so cool, but the way it has been done in the UK just gives the benefits away to fill offshore accounts.

Wind "cool"? You've got to be joking. The 13GW of installed capacity is currently generating a measly 1.15GW, 3.02% of demand. If you want to freeze to death in a cave with no telly, no internet, no leccy light and no heating, that's OK by me — but don'y inflict it on others.

[deeen]

hidetheelephants said:

BIANCO said:

the ill informed.

There's a lot of them about.

We should offer objectors FREE electricity by providing FREE 60 ft windmills in their back gardens, with their gas cut off. If enough accept, no fracking.

[Pooh]

sparkythecat said:

Commercial fracking has never before been undertaken in this country. Given that there has only as yet been limited exploration here, it's far too soon to say that it will have no noticeable effect on residents...apart from the earthquakes, that is

Utter rubbish, I did my first frack in 1990 and it had been going long before that, I have done fracks both on and offshore in the uk for more than 20 years including a hydrochloric acid frack on Furzey Island mentioned above.

[GT03ROB]

Pooh said:

Utter rubbish, I did my first frack in 1990 and it had been going long before that, I have done fracks both on and offshore in the uk for more than 20 years including a hydrochloric acid frack on Furzey Island mentioned above.

God help us. Fracking AND hydrochloric acid ...... We're doomed!

[Pooh]

GT03ROB said:

Pooh said:

Utter rubbish, I did my first frack in 1990 and it had been going long before that, I have done fracks both on and offshore in the uk for more than 20 years including a hydrochloric acid frack on Furzey Island mentioned above.

God help us. Fracking AND hydrochloric acid ...... We're doomed!

I know , acid is used for fracking low permeability, acid soluble formations such as chalk, the chemicals used are much nastier than anything used in shale fracking and as I said, it has been going on for years.
The whole area is bunded to capture any spills and a great deal of care is taken to avoid pollution.

[Efbe]

So how close are we to getting blackouts?

Can someone show me data to prove we are about to run out of energy and so need fracking?

[Elysium]

Efbe said:

So how close are we to getting blackouts?

Can someone show me data to prove we are about to run out of energy and so need fracking?

The two points are separate. We are running short of grid capacity because our coal and nuclear power plants are not at full efficiency and are being phased out. If one of them has a significant issue we will have peak time shortages and the grid is already asking owners of micro generation plant to provide standby cover for this winter.

The fracking is about finding UK sources of gas which is currently imported.

[sparkythecat]

Pooh said:

sparkythecat said:

Commercial fracking has never before been undertaken in this country. Given that there has only as yet been limited exploration here, it's far too soon to say that it will have no noticeable effect on residents...apart from the earthquakes, that is

Utter rubbish, I did my first frack in 1990 and it had been going long before that, I have done fracks both on and offshore in the uk for more than 20 years including a hydrochloric acid frack on Furzey Island mentioned above.

Sorry, I meant onshore hydraulic fracking for shale gas.

[Efbe]

Elysium said:

Efbe said:

So how close are we to getting blackouts?

Can someone show me data to prove we are about to run out of energy and so need fracking?

The two points are separate. We are running short of grid capacity because our coal and nuclear power plants are not at full efficiency and are being phased out. If one of them has a significant issue we will have peak time shortages and the grid is already asking owners of micro generation plant to provide standby cover for this winter.

The fracking is about finding UK sources of gas which is currently imported.

ok makes sense

so how much spare GW do we have to play with?
and how much GW does 1 coal plant and 1 nuclear plant produce?

[Evanivitch]

Efbe said:

Elysium said:

Efbe said:

So how close are we to getting blackouts?

Can someone show me data to prove we are about to run out of energy and so need fracking?

The two points are separate. We are running short of grid capacity because our coal and nuclear power plants are not at full efficiency and are being phased out. If one of them has a significant issue we will have peak time shortages and the grid is already asking owners of micro generation plant to provide standby cover for this winter.

The fracking is about finding UK sources of gas which is currently imported.

ok makes sense

so how much spare GW do we have to play with?
and how much GW does 1 coal plant and 1 nuclear plant produce?

I could give you a link to news stories, but I prefer data.

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

[Efbe]

Evanivitch said:

Efbe said:

Elysium said:

Efbe said:

So how close are we to getting blackouts?

Can someone show me data to prove we are about to run out of energy and so need fracking?

The two points are separate. We are running short of grid capacity because our coal and nuclear power plants are not at full efficiency and are being phased out. If one of them has a significant issue we will have peak time shortages and the grid is already asking owners of micro generation plant to provide standby cover for this winter.

The fracking is about finding UK sources of gas which is currently imported.

ok makes sense

so how much spare GW do we have to play with?
and how much GW does 1 coal plant and 1 nuclear plant produce?

I could give you a link to news stories, but I prefer data.

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

thanks, but would like to know how much an individual station, coal and nuclear produces.

so either the output of one of each, or how many we have of each would help me calculate it.

edit:
so 15 nuclear with an output of 7GW, so roughly .5GW each
and 9 coal with an output of 14.4GW so roughly 1.5GW each

so how much leeway do we have currently.

Edited by Efbe on Sunday 9th October 22:01

[AdeTuono]

Efbe said:

thanks, but would like to know how much an individual station, coal and nuclear produces.

Edited by Efbe on Sunday 9th October 22:01

That's like asking how many BHP one car has.

[Efbe]

AdeTuono said:

That's like asking how many BHP one car has.

I already worked that out.

would like to know how much spare we have now to ascertain if a failure of one nuclear station or coal station would actually ipac things as suggested.

[Elysium]

Efbe said:

thanks, but would like to know how much an individual station, coal and nuclear produces.

so either the output of one of each, or how many we have of each would help me calculate it.

edit:
so 15 nuclear with an output of 7GW, so roughly .5GW each
and 9 coal with an output of 14.4GW so roughly 1.5GW each

so how much leeway do we have currently.

The power stations vary in size. Currently we have plenty of capacity with daily demand peaking at 40GW. The problem is the winter peaktime, where we need around 65GW.

In 2014 two of the nuclear power stations were switched off and we had less than 5% spare capacity. Very close to the lights going out.

The outlook is worse this winter with potentially 1-2% reserve. The industry is promoting decentralised 'demand response' schemes like this one to smooth peak demand:

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news...

[CrutyRammers]

Efbe said:

AdeTuono said:

That's like asking how many BHP one car has.

I already worked that out.

would like to know how much spare we have now to ascertain if a failure of one nuclear station or coal station would actually ipac things as suggested.

Spare? Not so much.

They already get businesses to turn things off during periods of very high demand (DSRB), then we have nice little dodges like the STOR, aka parking lots filled with diesel generators, to which we pay vast amounts of money in lieu of having proper capacity.

Now when you have to turn off demand because their isn't enough supply, that tells me we don't have any spare capacity.

[Pooh]

sparkythecat said:

Pooh said:

sparkythecat said:

Commercial fracking has never before been undertaken in this country. Given that there has only as yet been limited exploration here, it's far too soon to say that it will have no noticeable effect on residents...apart from the earthquakes, that is

Utter rubbish, I did my first frack in 1990 and it had been going long before that, I have done fracks both on and offshore in the uk for more than 20 years including a hydrochloric acid frack on Furzey Island mentioned above.

Sorry, I meant onshore hydraulic fracking for shale gas.

There is very little difference between drilling horizontally through a sand stone reservoir and doing a sand frack (we have been doing this for many years) and drilling horizontally through a shale bed and doing a sand frack. The different geology of the reservoir has some effect but there is not an environmentally significant difference, in fact the chemicals used are less hazardous than the ones we used to use.
The main hazard to aquifers is when they drill through them to get to the reservoir thousands of feet below, this is the case for all wells not just fracked ones, this has also been done for years both on and offshore and is well understood.

[Efbe]

Elysium said:

The power stations vary in size. Currently we have plenty of capacity with daily demand peaking at 40GW. The problem is the winter peaktime, where we need around 65GW.

In 2014 two of the nuclear power stations were switched off and we had less than 5% spare capacity. Very close to the lights going out.

The outlook is worse this winter with potentially 1-2% reserve. The industry is promoting decentralised 'demand response' schemes like this one to smooth peak demand:

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news...

Ok makes sense. So drax equates to 6% potential total(of 65GW), the other coal stations 2%, and nuclear stations 0.7% each.

If this is right then at peak winter if we lose drax we have issues, but could potentially lose one other coal, or a few nuclear.
It will be way more complicated than this, but gives me a guideline.

So what GW will fracking provide?

[GT03ROB]

Efbe said:

So what GW will fracking provide?

Nothing directly. We need to commit to build new gas fired power plants for that.

[V8 Fettler]

Efbe said:

Ok makes sense. So drax equates to 6% potential total(of 65GW), the other coal stations 2%, and nuclear stations 0.7% each.

If this is right then at peak winter if we lose drax we have issues, but could potentially lose one other coal, or a few nuclear.
It will be way more complicated than this, but gives me a guideline.

So what GW will fracking provide?

http://utilityweek.co.uk/news/national-grid-plays-down-blackout-fears/1220882

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/en...

The grid used to operate with approx 20% reserve IIRC.