The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[skwdenyer]

faa77 said:

Forgive if already discussed.

Heard we sell our gas to Europe during Summer at low price and then buy it back during Winter at high price???? Geniuses

Also heard the reason is we don't have enough storage capacity.

Given this energy crisis...... shouldn't we build more capacity so we can use our own gas??

It isn’t “our gas.” It belongs to private companies.

What you’re describing is the market economy everybody raves about

I agree, a large UK strategic reserve, topped up at price minima and released to ease price maxima would be a good plan. Good planning =/= current Government.

It isn’t helped by energy contracts being priced in terms of some international measure of price.

[skwdenyer]

Talksteer said:

skwdenyer said:

On another note, does anyone know anything about the Gates-funded TerraPower project? Is it as good as claimed; and if so, should we be embracing it here?

They are basically developing a sodium cooled fast reactor with the benefit of modern simulation tools. It's basically solving problems (waste and fuel availability) that aren't really problems likely at the expense of factors like construct cost and risk which are problems.

That said they have manned to get the DoE to pay for their first of a kind plant along with X-Energy so they have some chance of actually happening.

Frankly sodium fast reactor have a massively chequered history with the exception of some in the USSR. Even so no SFR has been constructed for a cost comparable to a LWR.

They are also working on a molten salt rector which is conceptually interesting as it is literally just a sphere with molten salt being pumped through it at a crazy flow rates and power density.

Thanks. I thought part of the benefit was that their design could take “spent” fuel from other reactors & use it as “live” fuel, helping to deal with the problem of waste from conventional reactors?

[alangla]

faa77 said:

Forgive if already discussed.

Heard we sell our gas to Europe during Summer at low price and then buy it back during Winter at high price???? Geniuses

Also heard the reason is we don't have enough storage capacity.

Given this energy crisis...... shouldn't we build more capacity so we can use our own gas??

Have a look at the posts on Tuesday about the Rough storage site under the North Sea, that should explain some of it.

[hidetheelephants]

skwdenyer said:

Talksteer said:

skwdenyer said:

On another note, does anyone know anything about the Gates-funded TerraPower project? Is it as good as claimed; and if so, should we be embracing it here?

They are basically developing a sodium cooled fast reactor with the benefit of modern simulation tools. It's basically solving problems (waste and fuel availability) that aren't really problems likely at the expense of factors like construct cost and risk which are problems.

That said they have manned to get the DoE to pay for their first of a kind plant along with X-Energy so they have some chance of actually happening.

Frankly sodium fast reactor have a massively chequered history with the exception of some in the USSR. Even so no SFR has been constructed for a cost comparable to a LWR.

They are also working on a molten salt rector which is conceptually interesting as it is literally just a sphere with molten salt being pumped through it at a crazy flow rates and power density.

Thanks. I thought part of the benefit was that their design could take “spent” fuel from other reactors & use it as “live” fuel, helping to deal with the problem of waste from conventional reactors?

Theoretically a fast MSR can eat SNF with not much in the way of processing beyond turning it into salt, but that's definitely in the TBA part of terrapower's planning; they seem to be making a lot of their plan not having online reprocessing(presumably to appease the handwringers and mitigate the non-existent risk of proliferation) which limits how much can be done about fuel make-up. I agree with TS on sodium cooled reactors; they have a track record of being pits into which infinite funds can and have been poured for no return. Quite how the russians do it is not clear, their activities are opaque so it probably involves doing very dangerous things or just telling a lot of lies.

[hidetheelephants]

Germany spending 600m yoyos on keeping coal going; crickets on the subject of nuclear power. They really don't give a st about the environment.

[Condi]

[Blib]

If only we had a reliable supply of gas right under our feet.

That way, we would be immune to such variables. We'd be able to offer cheap energy to the British public.

I know, I know, I'm bring extremely foolish to suggest such a fantasy.

[Condi]

Blib said:

If only we had a reliable supply of gas right under our feet.

That way, we would be immune to such variables. We'd be able to offer cheap energy to the British public.

I know, I know, I'm bring extremely foolish to suggest such a fantasy.

You're being foolish because you clearly don't understand what a connected world we live in. US gas prices are considerably higher than they were last year despite having a lot of gas under their feet. And if you read the post then it actually reads that we have much cheaper gas than Europe which is why we are burning gas here and exporting power to France across the IC.

US gas prices (Henry Hub)

[Murph7355]

skwdenyer said:

....
I agree, a large UK strategic reserve, topped up at price minima and released to ease price maxima would be a good plan. Good planning =/= current Government.....

I agree with your general position and think there are plenty of things governments could do to give security (to industry and the poor or for everyone) when doling out license for energy production/investing in it....but...

...you are letting your personal political peccadilloes cloud your judgement on the above bit. Energy issues today are very, very little to do with the current government. They are borne of piss poor governments for the last 30yrs.

I would like to see more on this govt's energy policy, the funding of the SMR reactors and what safeguards the govt will insist are signed up to in return for strategic investment.

I do agree that I am hoping for a unicorn there, with the quality that is Kwarteng, Rishi and Johnson. But let's not pretend any govt in our voting lifetimes has done a "good job" on this topic.

[irc]

Condi said:

You're being foolish because you clearly don't understand what a connected world we live in. US gas prices are considerably higher than they were last year despite having a lot of gas under their feet. And if you read the post then it actually reads that we have much cheaper gas than Europe which is why we are burning gas here and exporting power to France across the IC.

US gas prices (Henry Hub)

USA gas prices still only a quarter of Europe though.


https://www.ft.com/content/eb251839-d556-472c-8bbf...

[Blib]

Condi said:

You're being foolish because you clearly don't understand what a connected world we live in. US gas prices are considerably higher than they were last year despite having a lot of gas under their feet. And if you read the post then it actually reads that we have much cheaper gas than Europe which is why we are burning gas here and exporting power to France across the IC.

US gas prices (Henry Hub)

But, if we produced our own gas then we wouldn't be at the mercy of other producers?

We have an abundance of it. Surely, it would be cheaper to get it from under our feet thsn to import it?

[robinessex]

We also have 300 years of coal under our feet as well

[Evanivitch]

robinessex said:

We also have 300 years of coal under our feet as well

Under our homes, national parks and AONB, yes.

[Condi]

Blib said:

But, if we produced our own gas then we wouldn't be at the mercy of other producers?

We have an abundance of it. Surely, it would be cheaper to get it from under our feet thsn to import it?

"We" don't own it - Shell, BP, Total etc own it and they will sell to whoever pays the most, be that here or abroad. It would be cheaper to drill for it here than import it, but only as much as the cost of transporting it to Europe over a longer term. In terms of wholesale price, prices move up and down across the world and we wouldn't disconnect ourselves from the general market movements.

The government are looking to give more licenses to drill, and we have plenty of gas left to look for, but that is more for energy security than for cost reasons. As I posted earlier, US gas prices have more than doubled and they are a big exporter, a long way from their export markets. If they are not insulated with their huge (and very cheap to access) gas reserves, then we stand no chance of insulating ourselves from world prices.

[Gary C]

Evanivitch said:

robinessex said:

We also have 300 years of coal under our feet as well

Under our homes, national parks and AONB, yes.

So what ?

UK coal is deep anthracite, not open cast brown.

We 'could' mine it, but of course we won't

[Evanivitch]

Gary C said:

Evanivitch said:

robinessex said:

We also have 300 years of coal under our feet as well

Under our homes, national parks and AONB, yes.

So what ?

UK coal is deep anthracite, not open cast brown.

We 'could' mine it, but of course we won't

Perhaps you can argue that geographically it qualifies as deep, bit economically it will nearly all come out through open cast methods. It's cheaper, faster.

So what about the spoil?

So what about the local dust pollution?

So what about the heavy infrastructure needed to move it off-site?

Unless you're happy to live next to an open cast coal mine, I'd probably re-consider your thoughts on whether we should return to coal mining or not.

[hidetheelephants]

If steelmaking is part of our industrial policy then there should be mining with enough output to meet some if not all of the coal consumption.

[Evanivitch]

hidetheelephants said:

If steelmaking is part of our industrial policy then there should be mining with enough output to meet some if not all of the coal consumption.

Or bringing hydrogen-based steel making to industrial scale and investing heavily in hydrogen production.

Again, all great and good to say we need more coal. Put your hand up if you want to live next to a coal mine. Because if you think we're opening coal mines and doing it in National Parks/AONB then you're living on a completely different planet.

[hidetheelephants]

Evanivitch said:

hidetheelephants said:

If steelmaking is part of our industrial policy then there should be mining with enough output to meet some if not all of the coal consumption.

Or bringing hydrogen-based steel making to industrial scale and investing heavily in hydrogen production.

Again, all great and good to say we need more coal. Put your hand up if you want to live next to a coal mine. Because if you think we're opening coal mines and doing it in National Parks/AONB then you're living on a completely different planet.

The proposal in Cumbria is a deep mine, the footprint will be small.

[Evanivitch]

hidetheelephants said:

Evanivitch said:

hidetheelephants said:

If steelmaking is part of our industrial policy then there should be mining with enough output to meet some if not all of the coal consumption.

Or bringing hydrogen-based steel making to industrial scale and investing heavily in hydrogen production.

Again, all great and good to say we need more coal. Put your hand up if you want to live next to a coal mine. Because if you think we're opening coal mines and doing it in National Parks/AONB then you're living on a completely different planet.

The proposal in Cumbria is a deep mine, the footprint will be small.

And as an immediate solution to our sources of Coking coal then I'm not against it. But it's still a short term solution to a long term issue.

And it's definitely not representative of all the '300 years' of coal beneath our feet