Didcot Powerstation Fire - Looks bad :(
Discussion
Scuffers said:
that's been talked about and played with for decades.
the issues are really all about the costs and difficulties of transferring said heat to where you want it.
Birmingham have been doing various schemes for years, trouble is on the scale of a power station, it's just not economic, the current best systems are smaller CHP systems where the heat is used on the same site.
this is one of Birmingham's schemes
http://chp.decc.gov.uk/cms/district-heating-birmin...
That isn't utilising waste heat though, maybe they should build a hospital nearby. Wasn't there a swimming pool which was heated by the Crematorium across the road on the news some while ago? I seem to remember that causing some lively debate!the issues are really all about the costs and difficulties of transferring said heat to where you want it.
Birmingham have been doing various schemes for years, trouble is on the scale of a power station, it's just not economic, the current best systems are smaller CHP systems where the heat is used on the same site.
this is one of Birmingham's schemes
http://chp.decc.gov.uk/cms/district-heating-birmin...
Scuffers said:
TimJMS said:
Gas can be whacked up and down with ease. Dinorwig in Wales can go from nothing to full output in less than a minute.
yes, they can, but that's somewhat missing the point.Dinorwig is only 1 storage facility, we need 5-6 of them this size, and using wind-power to 'charge them' is actually more problematic (unlike what they were designed to be used with - Nuclear)
the other issue is ramping up Gas at a moments notice is actually pretty bad for their efficiency, not to mention the lack of gas storage.
now we get to the real issue, what to do when there is no wind, which looking historically is like 90+ % of the time.
The dash for gas was partly based on the flexibility of gas turbines. Problem was to get the thermal efficiency the needed to be combined cycle with a steam generator and turbine. In order to get the costs down the designs and materials used meant that the steam boilers could tolerate fewer cold starts, and had in some cases to be nursed up onto full load. While effectively running open cycle the efficiency is a little below that of decent modern PF thermal plant. So they were put on baseload. Hence it ended up that we pissed all our nice clean gas up the stacks of CCGTs, put our miners out of work, all in the cause of an ideology.
Now we're doing something very similar over another aspect to that false ideology
FiF said:
226bhp said:
FiF said:
phumy said:
RemyMartin said:
McWigglebum4th said:
Oh tecnical learny stuff
I always thought they were just big hollow concrete tubes
Though why they build power stations away from the sea is a mystery to me
Because desalination is fooking expensive. I always thought they were just big hollow concrete tubes
Though why they build power stations away from the sea is a mystery to me
It will have been thought about before, but why are we wasting heat energy in this way; Just cooling off water and letting the steam rise out of the top into the atmosphere? Why can't it be harnessed and used?
It all depends upon the local conditions and the solutions have to be tailored to that. For example one PS in Queensland is on the coast and draws cooling seawater from an area of mangrove swamps. The presence of mangroves gives rise to an increase in H2S, which gives corrosion problems that you don't face elsewhere. So you pick different materials, more expensive in purchase price, and slightly more costly in fabrication, but it basically works. The PS a couple of hours inland, built near an opencast, uses water piped from Lake Awoonga and doesn't have the same problems. But for them the cost of the pumping and pipework rom that lake and their own reservoir are costs that the first PS doesn't have.
On the subject of additional cost it has been argued that the very high thermal efficiencies claimed by the Danes for their PF fired thermal plants is partly down to the very cool cooling water from the Baltic. This gives the possibility to extract a fraction more energy from the cycle and push up efficiency by a half a percent. That sort of increase in efficiency could save a station like Drax over 60,000 tonnes of coal per year. Not an insignificant amount in financial terms..
the one we had was only a small MAGNOX one too, but the lake it used for cooling was huge and significantly hotter than it would have been.
(there was another thread that covered all this a while back)
V8 Fettler said:
On the coldest, darkest winter's evening, when the frost is thick, the air is still and demand for electricity is at its highest, how much electricity will the windmills and solar be contributing to the grid?
It's the high cost of electricity that kills pensioners, primarily due to an incoherent energy policy, part of which is the drive to wind and solar.
There are lessons to be learnt .... from the Germans. More coal-fired Drax please.
You're stating the obvious, but that's why the UK generation mix is varied and managed. No one is arguing that wind and solar is as dispatchable as conventional generators.It's the high cost of electricity that kills pensioners, primarily due to an incoherent energy policy, part of which is the drive to wind and solar.
There are lessons to be learnt .... from the Germans. More coal-fired Drax please.
The renewable and energy efficiency levies that you reckon help kill pensioner's equates to only ten percent of the average bill and ironically covers initiatives such as insulating and fitting new boilers to those very same pensioners home.
I agree with the energy policy comment you make but its a consequence of a feckless government pandering to those voters who have the same uninformed views as you.
Drax by the way also claims renewable subsidy since it started blending woodchip with its coal. Whoda thunkit?
Scuffers said:
as far as I know, there has only ever been one inland Nuclear plant in the UK for this very reason, you need an un-imaginably large heat-sink.
the one we had was only a small MAGNOX one too, but the lake it used for cooling was huge and significantly hotter than it would have been.
(there was another thread that covered all this a while back)
Harwell.the one we had was only a small MAGNOX one too, but the lake it used for cooling was huge and significantly hotter than it would have been.
(there was another thread that covered all this a while back)
hidetheelephants said:
It isn't non-polluting or fuel-less; this is nonsense promulgated by the green lobby. For every windmill there is a spinning reserve back-up, which burns either coal or gas.
Wind generation is indeed nonpolluting and it uses no fuel. The majority of generation in the UK has backup thankfully, that's the benefit of a National Grid and an EU connected one at that. Wind isn't a base load generator, there is only 11GW installed in total.There's loads to read about it online - don't just adopt the views of the Daily Mail - that way an aneurism lies
Fizpop said:
V8 Fettler said:
On the coldest, darkest winter's evening, when the frost is thick, the air is still and demand for electricity is at its highest, how much electricity will the windmills and solar be contributing to the grid?
It's the high cost of electricity that kills pensioners, primarily due to an incoherent energy policy, part of which is the drive to wind and solar.
There are lessons to be learnt .... from the Germans. More coal-fired Drax please.
You're stating the obvious, but that's why the UK generation mix is varied and managed. No one is arguing that wind and solar is as dispatchable as conventional generators.It's the high cost of electricity that kills pensioners, primarily due to an incoherent energy policy, part of which is the drive to wind and solar.
There are lessons to be learnt .... from the Germans. More coal-fired Drax please.
The renewable and energy efficiency levies that you reckon help kill pensioner's equates to only ten percent of the average bill and ironically covers initiatives such as insulating and fitting new boilers to those very same pensioners home.
I agree with the energy policy comment you make but its a consequence of a feckless government pandering to those voters who have the same uninformed views as you.
Drax by the way also claims renewable subsidy since it started blending woodchip with its coal. Whoda thunkit?
FiF said:
Conveniently ignoring why Drax have been forced to go down this route.
'Forced' might be a bit strong. Drax have their own biomass company so have essentially taken control of a large portion of their fuel supply after what has been a pretty turbulant time in the coal supply market, with pretty high prices dropping to historically low ones recently. They've taken a PR win in making one of the biggest carbon emmitters in Europe now one of the greenest and have put themselves up as the vanguard of the biomass industry. Carbon targets may have started the initiative, but they've certainly picked it up and ran with it.
And given that their profits were at nearly £500 million last year, they ain't suffering from it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-2...
An electrical fault in a power station. Wow, who would've guessed it.
An electrical fault in a power station. Wow, who would've guessed it.
normalbloke said:
Scuffers said:
as far as I know, there has only ever been one inland Nuclear plant in the UK for this very reason, you need an un-imaginably large heat-sink.
the one we had was only a small MAGNOX one too, but the lake it used for cooling was huge and significantly hotter than it would have been.
(there was another thread that covered all this a while back)
Harwell.the one we had was only a small MAGNOX one too, but the lake it used for cooling was huge and significantly hotter than it would have been.
(there was another thread that covered all this a while back)
Fizpop said:
V8 Fettler said:
On the coldest, darkest winter's evening, when the frost is thick, the air is still and demand for electricity is at its highest, how much electricity will the windmills and solar be contributing to the grid?
It's the high cost of electricity that kills pensioners, primarily due to an incoherent energy policy, part of which is the drive to wind and solar.
There are lessons to be learnt .... from the Germans. More coal-fired Drax please.
You're stating the obvious, but that's why the UK generation mix is varied and managed. No one is arguing that wind and solar is as dispatchable as conventional generators.It's the high cost of electricity that kills pensioners, primarily due to an incoherent energy policy, part of which is the drive to wind and solar.
There are lessons to be learnt .... from the Germans. More coal-fired Drax please.
The renewable and energy efficiency levies that you reckon help kill pensioner's equates to only ten percent of the average bill and ironically covers initiatives such as insulating and fitting new boilers to those very same pensioners home.
I agree with the energy policy comment you make but its a consequence of a feckless government pandering to those voters who have the same uninformed views as you.
Drax by the way also claims renewable subsidy since it started blending woodchip with its coal. Whoda thunkit?
Please tell me how much electricity windmills and solar will contribute when the grid is under greatest stress on a dark, frosty still night. It is quite important.
V8 Fettler said:
Fizpop said:
V8 Fettler said:
On the coldest, darkest winter's evening, when the frost is thick, the air is still and demand for electricity is at its highest, how much electricity will the windmills and solar be contributing to the grid?
It's the high cost of electricity that kills pensioners, primarily due to an incoherent energy policy, part of which is the drive to wind and solar.
There are lessons to be learnt .... from the Germans. More coal-fired Drax please.
You're stating the obvious, but that's why the UK generation mix is varied and managed. No one is arguing that wind and solar is as dispatchable as conventional generators.It's the high cost of electricity that kills pensioners, primarily due to an incoherent energy policy, part of which is the drive to wind and solar.
There are lessons to be learnt .... from the Germans. More coal-fired Drax please.
The renewable and energy efficiency levies that you reckon help kill pensioner's equates to only ten percent of the average bill and ironically covers initiatives such as insulating and fitting new boilers to those very same pensioners home.
I agree with the energy policy comment you make but its a consequence of a feckless government pandering to those voters who have the same uninformed views as you.
Drax by the way also claims renewable subsidy since it started blending woodchip with its coal. Whoda thunkit?
Please tell me how much electricity windmills and solar will contribute when the grid is under greatest stress on a dark, frosty still night. It is quite important.
I can present facts to you, such as the proportion of energy bills used for green initiatives - but if you're going to be blinkered to them, and refer to some mysterious 'real' costs - then there's not much point.
But for the record, that other 'conventional machinary' is running anyway. And as to the wider point, wind holding back other technologies - well that really is just nonsense.
Fizpop said:
...the proportion of energy bills used for green initiatives...
As I'm not totally sure what that includes, please view what follows with due flexibility Dr Benny Peiser of GWPF fame estimates that green levies and taxes currently make up between 15% and 20% (£210 to £280 ish according to the back my fag packet) of an average household's annual combined gas and electricity bill.
Regarding the future, the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee has calculated, based on Government estimates, that green levies and taxes will add a third to electricity prices by 2020 before any rises (or falls) in wholesale prices are factored in.
HTH
Given that the basis for most if not all of these green taxes and levies is the climate myth, this is unacceptable and it's killing thousands of vulnerable people each winter, who cannot afford to heat their homes.
Fizpop said:
FiF said:
Conveniently ignoring why Drax have been forced to go down this route.
'Forced' might be a bit strong. Drax have their own biomass company so have essentially taken control of a large portion of their fuel supply after what has been a pretty turbulant time in the coal supply market, with pretty high prices dropping to historically low ones recently. They've taken a PR win in making one of the biggest carbon emmitters in Europe now one of the greenest and have put themselves up as the vanguard of the biomass industry. Carbon targets may have started the initiative, but they've certainly picked it up and ran with it.
And given that their profits were at nearly £500 million last year, they ain't suffering from it.
Assuming an all-in cost per MWh today of £100 /MWh (for ease of comparison).... just over half is the wholesale price and approx. 70% of the wholesale price is driven by costs of wholesale gas. The price of carbon (EUAs and the additional tax - Carbon Price Support) equates to approx. 20% of the wholesale price with system opex the remaining 5%. Most commentators project this component to rise in real terms (largely on increasing gas costs from today).
Non energy costs (metering, transmission, distribution, balancing) comprise approx. 30%. These charges are set to rise also as costs of system balancing increase (more wind and a change in market design) and incraasing connection costs rise.
Environmental charges (ROC, LEC, FiT, CfDs, obligations) comprise approx. 10% of retail cost. Will rise but overall impact is small within context of consumers exposure to gas prices.
Supplier costs (risk management, profit, cost to serve) the remaining 10%.
Therefore overall environmental costs are approx. 20% and could be as high as 30% by 2030
In defence of our energy policy with respect to renewables and decarbonisation, the comments about costs of this technology or other are pretty meaningless. If gas is 100 p/th (as it has been before...) low carbon technologies look good value to the consumer... if gas reverts back to 20 p/th (as it has been before) low carbon looks pretty expensive. Government is trying to balance these risks but is compromised by five-year election cycles, massive uncertainty in future commodity prices, uncertainty on future technology costs, etc, etc, The Levy Control Framework (a limit on consumer costs of new low carbon technology) is an innovative policy instrument that is driving effective cost discovery in new renewable plant.
However, more worrying for me is the policy with respect to security of supply.... here I do think they have got it wrong. The lights may well start flickering on a cold November morning this year. Our energy security for this winter may depend on a warm winter... hardly a recipe for success. As for the design of the upcoming capacity auction....!!
Non energy costs (metering, transmission, distribution, balancing) comprise approx. 30%. These charges are set to rise also as costs of system balancing increase (more wind and a change in market design) and incraasing connection costs rise.
Environmental charges (ROC, LEC, FiT, CfDs, obligations) comprise approx. 10% of retail cost. Will rise but overall impact is small within context of consumers exposure to gas prices.
Supplier costs (risk management, profit, cost to serve) the remaining 10%.
Therefore overall environmental costs are approx. 20% and could be as high as 30% by 2030
In defence of our energy policy with respect to renewables and decarbonisation, the comments about costs of this technology or other are pretty meaningless. If gas is 100 p/th (as it has been before...) low carbon technologies look good value to the consumer... if gas reverts back to 20 p/th (as it has been before) low carbon looks pretty expensive. Government is trying to balance these risks but is compromised by five-year election cycles, massive uncertainty in future commodity prices, uncertainty on future technology costs, etc, etc, The Levy Control Framework (a limit on consumer costs of new low carbon technology) is an innovative policy instrument that is driving effective cost discovery in new renewable plant.
However, more worrying for me is the policy with respect to security of supply.... here I do think they have got it wrong. The lights may well start flickering on a cold November morning this year. Our energy security for this winter may depend on a warm winter... hardly a recipe for success. As for the design of the upcoming capacity auction....!!
Scuffers said:
as far as I know, there has only ever been one inland Nuclear plant in the UK for this very reason, you need an un-imaginably large heat-sink.
the one we had was only a small MAGNOX one too, but the lake it used for cooling was huge and significantly hotter than it would have been.
Oldbury and Berkeley were cooled by the Severn, and Oldbury even had its own lagoon to ensure it could be cooled at low tide. A few of the less civilian plants were also river cooled, some using cooling towers.the one we had was only a small MAGNOX one too, but the lake it used for cooling was huge and significantly hotter than it would have been.
There are issues with using the sea as a coolant - sea water/spray is very corrosive, and you have to keep the sea life out of your system
pgtips said:
Assuming an all-in cost per MWh today of £100 /MWh (for ease of comparison).... just over half is the wholesale price and approx. 70% of the wholesale price is driven by costs of wholesale gas. The price of carbon (EUAs and the additional tax - Carbon Price Support) equates to approx. 20% of the wholesale price with system opex the remaining 5%. Most commentators project this component to rise in real terms (largely on increasing gas costs from today).
Non energy costs (metering, transmission, distribution, balancing) comprise approx. 30%. These charges are set to rise also as costs of system balancing increase (more wind and a change in market design) and incraasing connection costs rise.
Environmental charges (ROC, LEC, FiT, CfDs, obligations) comprise approx. 10% of retail cost. Will rise but overall impact is small within context of consumers exposure to gas prices.
Supplier costs (risk management, profit, cost to serve) the remaining 10%.
Therefore overall environmental costs are approx. 20% and could be as high as 30% by 2030
In defence of our energy policy with respect to renewables and decarbonisation, the comments about costs of this technology or other are pretty meaningless. If gas is 100 p/th (as it has been before...) low carbon technologies look good value to the consumer... if gas reverts back to 20 p/th (as it has been before) low carbon looks pretty expensive. Government is trying to balance these risks but is compromised by five-year election cycles, massive uncertainty in future commodity prices, uncertainty on future technology costs, etc, etc, The Levy Control Framework (a limit on consumer costs of new low carbon technology) is an innovative policy instrument that is driving effective cost discovery in new renewable plant.
However, more worrying for me is the policy with respect to security of supply.... here I do think they have got it wrong. The lights may well start flickering on a cold November morning this year. Our energy security for this winter may depend on a warm winter... hardly a recipe for success. As for the design of the upcoming capacity auction....!!
I agree with much of what you say, barring the 'non-energy costs'. The charges you highlight, in respect of wind at least are not passed on to the bill payer. Connections are paid for in full by the developer at the distribution level, as are capital costs at transmission and TNUoS is socialised amongst connecting generators for upstream reinforcement. They also pay a Balancing Charge to cover off the additional resource to manage the intermitancy. Remember Ofgem licences protect the bill payer from charges not directly attributed to the functioning of the grid, of which connection wind is not.Non energy costs (metering, transmission, distribution, balancing) comprise approx. 30%. These charges are set to rise also as costs of system balancing increase (more wind and a change in market design) and incraasing connection costs rise.
Environmental charges (ROC, LEC, FiT, CfDs, obligations) comprise approx. 10% of retail cost. Will rise but overall impact is small within context of consumers exposure to gas prices.
Supplier costs (risk management, profit, cost to serve) the remaining 10%.
Therefore overall environmental costs are approx. 20% and could be as high as 30% by 2030
In defence of our energy policy with respect to renewables and decarbonisation, the comments about costs of this technology or other are pretty meaningless. If gas is 100 p/th (as it has been before...) low carbon technologies look good value to the consumer... if gas reverts back to 20 p/th (as it has been before) low carbon looks pretty expensive. Government is trying to balance these risks but is compromised by five-year election cycles, massive uncertainty in future commodity prices, uncertainty on future technology costs, etc, etc, The Levy Control Framework (a limit on consumer costs of new low carbon technology) is an innovative policy instrument that is driving effective cost discovery in new renewable plant.
However, more worrying for me is the policy with respect to security of supply.... here I do think they have got it wrong. The lights may well start flickering on a cold November morning this year. Our energy security for this winter may depend on a warm winter... hardly a recipe for success. As for the design of the upcoming capacity auction....!!
The actual trend with the phasing out of the ROC and the move to CfD is that the cost of renewable generation has to get cheaper, as the effects of that change, although uncertain at this stage looks to be a reduction of 10 to 15% at best.
pgtips said:
Assuming an all-in cost per MWh today of £100 /MWh
assuming this is close to right (and I have no reason to doubt it)this clearly makes a mockery of the price paid to the wind turbine company that are already well over this, before you include the costs of the grid/energy sales co's/etc.
Scuffers said:
assuming this is close to right (and I have no reason to doubt it)
this clearly makes a mockery of the price paid to the wind turbine company that are already well over this, before you include the costs of the grid/energy sales co's/etc.
I quoted the average consumer cost (broad brush including commercial customers.... domestics would pay slightly more). Today wind generators receive wholesale price (circa £55/MWh) plus a ROC (circa £45 /ROC) plus a value associated with the avoided costs for suppliers - approx. £10/MWh. They will pay about £10 /MWh for this 'contract' so receive a net £100 /MWh. It will vary a bit depending on location and contract structure. Fair to say they receive about double the current wholesale price. The costs of onshore wind (including capex, wind speed, construction and financing) vary from ~ 60 £/MWh through to 120 £/MWh... The Govt has now capped the tariff they can receive (90 £/MWh) under a new subsidy framework, but I expect actual prices will be slightly lower than that - 85 £/MWh. The main driver of lower wind prices, will be developers seeing a reduction in the project IRR.this clearly makes a mockery of the price paid to the wind turbine company that are already well over this, before you include the costs of the grid/energy sales co's/etc.
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