The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain
Discussion
V8 Fettler said:
The prototype was the WAGR at Windscale.
I don't think that anyone can argue that the construction of Dungeness B was not a challenging process, particularly following the financial collapse of Atomic Power Construction.
It's not unusual for design to continue during the construction phase of any major project, although the complexity of the AGR design amplified costs and delays resulting from the design changes.
The clean-up cost for Fukushima (bloated submarine reactors) is estimated at approx $190 billion. AGRs are inherently more resiliant than boiling water reactors, perhaps AGRs designed and maintained by the British at Fukushima could have survived the incident intact.
I've worked on AGR's for over 30 years and I remember well what happened and that the WAGR was the 'prototype'. What I mean, and what was well understood at the time, is that each series of the AGR did little try and reap benefits of series design.I don't think that anyone can argue that the construction of Dungeness B was not a challenging process, particularly following the financial collapse of Atomic Power Construction.
It's not unusual for design to continue during the construction phase of any major project, although the complexity of the AGR design amplified costs and delays resulting from the design changes.
The clean-up cost for Fukushima (bloated submarine reactors) is estimated at approx $190 billion. AGRs are inherently more resiliant than boiling water reactors, perhaps AGRs designed and maintained by the British at Fukushima could have survived the incident intact.
The best example is Hinckley B and Heysham 1, completely different pressure vessels and boilers. The AGR DSC and DSG (if anyone remembers what they were) didn't specify a specific design. At Heysham 1, one of the criteria was a small footprint and replaceable boilers. No effort was made to take the Hinckley design and iron out the design problems, we completely re-did the pressure vessel. Shortly after building the NII at the time raised concerns about the pod boiler closures and ended up welding them in, removing one of the main features of the design and leading to problems 25 years later.
Finally, when Heysham 2/torness were specified, they did take the Hinckley B design and engineer out most of the problems, making our station perform such that last year, unit 8 set the world record for the longest continual run by a power reactor (refuelling on load helps, and uses code I fixed to control the boilers during an exchange)
But even then, we couldn't resist tinkering. The number of drawings I have to trawl through with notes 'torness only' etc is mind boggling for supposed sister stations.
So as such (as was a running joke in the company), each AGR was 'experimental' with their own problems and features and boy have they been fun to work on.
I actually have a Heysham 2 simulator I wrote in VBA under excel in my spare time
MYOB said:
turbobloke said:
Sure! Obfuscate some more, it's almost as entertaining as the ad homs from Paddy and adds nothing to actual evidence, based on scientific and engineering principles (RE<C, EROEI) which indicate clearly that renewables are a costly and pointless distraction. Keep the faith
Meanwhile back in the real world, thank goodness wasting public money aka renewables subsidies is starting to dip.
Sorry, not seen any valid evidence from you. All you need to do is use Google to understand why the Tories wanted to discourage onshore wind. But trust me, you won't find evidence to substantiate my claims. Meanwhile back in the real world, thank goodness wasting public money aka renewables subsidies is starting to dip.
You do realise less subsidies will mean higher prices for consumers?
Paddy tells us the costs are coming down and the industry as a whole seems to be saying the same thing.
I have reservations about treating future deals as "fact" since the developments to which they relate may never start if some of the expected events that allow the low quote do not come about.
But if we accept the numbers from the winning bids, how do the consumer lose, long term, by policy supporting offshore over onshore wind developments as far as subsidies are concerned?
In other ways one might question the whole direction of policy in terms of cost to the consumer but here I'm puzzled as to why it matters if onshore projects should be viable anyway.
LongQ said:
Why?
Paddy tells us the costs are coming down and the industry as a whole seems to be saying the same thing.
I have reservations about treating future deals as "fact" since the developments to which they relate may never start if some of the expected events that allow the low quote do not come about.
But if we accept the numbers from the winning bids, how do the consumer lose, long term, by policy supporting offshore over onshore wind developments as far as subsidies are concerned?
In other ways one might question the whole direction of policy in terms of cost to the consumer but here I'm puzzled as to why it matters if onshore projects should be viable anyway.
Yes, costs are falling but I have no idea if these are enough to negate the fall in subsidies.Paddy tells us the costs are coming down and the industry as a whole seems to be saying the same thing.
I have reservations about treating future deals as "fact" since the developments to which they relate may never start if some of the expected events that allow the low quote do not come about.
But if we accept the numbers from the winning bids, how do the consumer lose, long term, by policy supporting offshore over onshore wind developments as far as subsidies are concerned?
In other ways one might question the whole direction of policy in terms of cost to the consumer but here I'm puzzled as to why it matters if onshore projects should be viable anyway.
I'm straying too far into areas that were outside my level of expertise so I will stop here.
Perhaps an interesting topic for future historians is why UK development of nuclear power terminated, the 'dash for gas' ensued then halted and finally intermittent renewables were fixated upon, already disproven as a reliable source of energy.
As an aside, Tesla's 'Big Antipodean Battery' has been reported to be capable of supporting 30,000 homes for one hour, allegedly.
Urinating windwards springs to mind.
As an aside, Tesla's 'Big Antipodean Battery' has been reported to be capable of supporting 30,000 homes for one hour, allegedly.
Urinating windwards springs to mind.
Gary C said:
V8 Fettler said:
The prototype was the WAGR at Windscale.
I don't think that anyone can argue that the construction of Dungeness B was not a challenging process, particularly following the financial collapse of Atomic Power Construction.
It's not unusual for design to continue during the construction phase of any major project, although the complexity of the AGR design amplified costs and delays resulting from the design changes.
The clean-up cost for Fukushima (bloated submarine reactors) is estimated at approx $190 billion. AGRs are inherently more resiliant than boiling water reactors, perhaps AGRs designed and maintained by the British at Fukushima could have survived the incident intact.
I've worked on AGR's for over 30 years and I remember well what happened and that the WAGR was the 'prototype'. What I mean, and what was well understood at the time, is that each series of the AGR did little try and reap benefits of series design.I don't think that anyone can argue that the construction of Dungeness B was not a challenging process, particularly following the financial collapse of Atomic Power Construction.
It's not unusual for design to continue during the construction phase of any major project, although the complexity of the AGR design amplified costs and delays resulting from the design changes.
The clean-up cost for Fukushima (bloated submarine reactors) is estimated at approx $190 billion. AGRs are inherently more resiliant than boiling water reactors, perhaps AGRs designed and maintained by the British at Fukushima could have survived the incident intact.
The best example is Hinckley B and Heysham 1, completely different pressure vessels and boilers. The AGR DSC and DSG (if anyone remembers what they were) didn't specify a specific design. At Heysham 1, one of the criteria was a small footprint and replaceable boilers. No effort was made to take the Hinckley design and iron out the design problems, we completely re-did the pressure vessel. Shortly after building the NII at the time raised concerns about the pod boiler closures and ended up welding them in, removing one of the main features of the design and leading to problems 25 years later.
Finally, when Heysham 2/torness were specified, they did take the Hinckley B design and engineer out most of the problems, making our station perform such that last year, unit 8 set the world record for the longest continual run by a power reactor (refuelling on load helps, and uses code I fixed to control the boilers during an exchange)
But even then, we couldn't resist tinkering. The number of drawings I have to trawl through with notes 'torness only' etc is mind boggling for supposed sister stations.
So as such (as was a running joke in the company), each AGR was 'experimental' with their own problems and features and boy have they been fun to work on.
I actually have a Heysham 2 simulator I wrote in VBA under excel in my spare time
Conversations in 2017 with the original designers would be interesting, not much in the way of CAD (if anything) in the 1960s, clash detection must have been a nightmare (different services / structures occupying the same physical space).
Ali G said:
Perhaps an interesting topic for future historians is why UK development of nuclear power terminated, the 'dash for gas' ensued then halted and finally intermittent renewables were fixated upon, already disproven as a reliable source of energy.
As an aside, Tesla's 'Big Antipodean Battery' has been reported to be capable of supporting 30,000 homes for one hour, allegedly.
Urinating windwards springs to mind.
I don't think the Tesla battery in SA is intended to replace any power directly. As an aside, Tesla's 'Big Antipodean Battery' has been reported to be capable of supporting 30,000 homes for one hour, allegedly.
Urinating windwards springs to mind.
Part of it is for frequency control and part for relatively short periods of grid support whilst other systems are brought up to speed should there be another catastrophic failure and black out risk. It's about an attempt to help manage the grid as the previously used inertia systems in the old style generation (FF) disappear. Nothing to do with powering homes directly.
Of course the politicians cannot come right out and say that.
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Stop teasing - did it work or not?
it sure did , i think the state of the south australian infrastructure is the biggest problem. you would think with the amount of annual lightning strikes they get someone would have decided to run cables underground at some point.V8 Fettler said:
Differing designs were almost guaranteed by the initial procurement process (several consortia bidding on a design and build basis), plus "nuclear information" was issued during the design process for each AGR power station, creating the need to re-design.
Conversations in 2017 with the original designers would be interesting, not much in the way of CAD (if anything) in the 1960s, clash detection must have been a nightmare (different services / structures occupying the same physical space).
the procurement process had nothing to do with the differing reactor designs.Conversations in 2017 with the original designers would be interesting, not much in the way of CAD (if anything) in the 1960s, clash detection must have been a nightmare (different services / structures occupying the same physical space).
Just shows, the oil and gas companies were right all along. Well, wind was never going to work, nuclear is unpalatable, we're too far North for solar so that leaves coal and gas. Climate change is a vehicle that o&g companies support in order to increase carbon floor prices and kill coal, the cheaper fuel...
Where will we end up? Gas. Currently being sold as a transitional fuel, which is a way of saying you have 1 choice for the future.
O&G wins as there is 60 - 100 years of gas in the ground.
Where will we end up? Gas. Currently being sold as a transitional fuel, which is a way of saying you have 1 choice for the future.
O&G wins as there is 60 - 100 years of gas in the ground.
jshell said:
Just shows, the oil and gas companies were right all along. Well, wind was never going to work, nuclear is unpalatable, we're too far North for solar so that leaves coal and gas. Climate change is a vehicle that o&g companies support in order to increase carbon floor prices and kill coal, the cheaper fuel...
Where will we end up? Gas. Currently being sold as a transitional fuel, which is a way of saying you have 1 choice for the future.
O&G wins as there is 60 - 100 years of gas in the ground.
I thought the problem with gas was that the UK is too reliant on exporting gas from Russia and this was deemed too risky? Where will we end up? Gas. Currently being sold as a transitional fuel, which is a way of saying you have 1 choice for the future.
O&G wins as there is 60 - 100 years of gas in the ground.
MYOB said:
jshell said:
Just shows, the oil and gas companies were right all along. Well, wind was never going to work, nuclear is unpalatable, we're too far North for solar so that leaves coal and gas. Climate change is a vehicle that o&g companies support in order to increase carbon floor prices and kill coal, the cheaper fuel...
Where will we end up? Gas. Currently being sold as a transitional fuel, which is a way of saying you have 1 choice for the future.
O&G wins as there is 60 - 100 years of gas in the ground.
I thought the problem with gas was that the UK is too reliant on exporting gas from Russia and this was deemed too risky? Where will we end up? Gas. Currently being sold as a transitional fuel, which is a way of saying you have 1 choice for the future.
O&G wins as there is 60 - 100 years of gas in the ground.
wc98 said:
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
You have to wonder if the increase in the Storms and Lightening is die to Climate Change, man ma.......
it could well be apart from the fact there is no discernible trend in storms over multi decadal timescales 
Paddy seems easily gulled.
Extreme weather has been decreasing of late, even The Guardian reckons we're getting safer on a wider basis : "Worldwide, the number of reported deaths from weather-related events has decreased over the past 100 years".
Some reading for less gullible and more independent thinkers. Paddy you can click and read too
https://www.thegwpf.com/indur-m-goklany-global-dea...
turbobloke said:
wc98 said:
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
You have to wonder if the increase in the Storms and Lightening is die to Climate Change, man ma.......
it could well be apart from the fact there is no discernible trend in storms over multi decadal timescales Paddy seems easily gulled.
Extreme weather has been decreasing of late, even The Guardian reckons we're getting safer on a wider basis : "Worldwide, the number of reported deaths from weather-related events has decreased over the past 100 years".
Some reading for less gullible and more independent thinkers. Paddy you can click and read too
https://www.thegwpf.com/indur-m-goklany-global-dea...
Quote
"Whether the magnitude or frequency of extreme weather events has increased because of global warming is not evident from long term data on deaths and death rates from extreme weather events."
Is just plain b
ks. Almost like saying "there is no evidence for global warming because the birth rate in Africa is rising" the causal link is so affected by other factors as to be meaningless.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff