The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain
Discussion
Talksteer said:
The issue with hydrogen is that electrolisers don't really ramp they need regular baseload power or their own local batteries.
Depends on the scale of the electrolysers whether that's necessary. Sure, if we're trying to run a single several hundred MW electrolyser that's an issue. If we're operating clusters of say 50MW then it's a different case.At a mass produced unit level, we're only upto 24MW at the moment, and individual annual factory capacity of circa 1GW.
Condi said:
PRTVR said:
But what we are talking about is grid level backup that can be maintained for days if not weeks, I personally do not see the need for renewables ,we will have small nuclear reactors with gas backup, where does wind fit in the mix ? apart from complicating the issue by making the balancing act of supply and demand more difficult.
But we don't have small nuclear reactors yet, and thanks to the attitude of governments past and present even getting 1 new nuclear power plant going took 30 years! The RR SMR's are nowhere near ready to start being built, let alone signed for, built and providing a substantial amount of baseload power. There is still the unanswered question of what to do with the (relatively small) amount of high level waste which has been another political hot potato for the last 40 years.I agree that if you were to go back 20 years then things might have been done differently, but you can't go back 20 years, only forwards. Renewables, at times, provide a huge amount of carbon free and low priced power, and yes while it does complicate the balancing of the Grid this is the route politicians have chosen to go down. All the rest of us can do is make the best of the rules which have been set.
Obviously that is contingent on the first one going more or less to plan and multiple buyers choosing to purchase one before the first one is operational. However as a cavaet the advantage of being 500MWe is that you build 12 plants before you are even at the outlay of on HPC by which point you have very much ironed out any issues.
With RAB it is likely that the UK SMR will be competitive with wind on LCOE but obviously with a lower system cost particularly at higher penetrations. It will also be be interesting to see what an AP1000 built under RAB will come in at particularly as it only reached similar costs to HPC after years and years of delays due to factors that hopefully wouldn't be replicated on the UK build.
Evanivitch said:
Gary C said:
Evanivitch said:
Similarly we don't have a large UK domestic coal industry any more (and the damage that does to communities).
You really do have a downer on coal mining don't you 
Sorry, gentle dig (oops, no pun intended)
I grew up with mines and miners and coal power stations so might be inured to it.
Black buildings and slag heaps were playgrounds, coal stocker/reclaimers never seemed that dirty and the area around was green as anything.
My grandad did have emphysema, though he did die at 82, so didn't do too bad.
Gary C said:
In people, or the landscape ? or both.
I grew up with mines and miners and coal power stations so might be inured to it.
Black buildings and slag heaps were playgrounds, coal stocker/reclaimers never seemed that dirty and the area around was green as anything.
My grandad did have emphysema, though he did die at 82, so didn't do too bad.
Both. Communities flooded by old workings, spoil heaps looming large over homes, orange-coloured streams, huge opencast mines abandoned by their owners and left to dangerously fill with water, communities that grew around mine heads and have been in suspended animation ever since, monuments to dozens, sometimes 100+ killed in disasters.I grew up with mines and miners and coal power stations so might be inured to it.
Black buildings and slag heaps were playgrounds, coal stocker/reclaimers never seemed that dirty and the area around was green as anything.
My grandad did have emphysema, though he did die at 82, so didn't do too bad.
That's just within a short cycle of my home. I could be in Aberfan in half an hour or Dowlais.
Yes, I grew up in the post-coal era, but it's always been impossible to avoid it.
I've also seen the same in Australia at other mining operations. Abandoned towns when the mines close, only a hotel and a petrol station still open, and a massive hole in the ground that's someone else's problem. I've seen the boom towns too, making hay.
Evanivitch said:
Gary C said:
In people, or the landscape ? or both.
I grew up with mines and miners and coal power stations so might be inured to it.
Black buildings and slag heaps were playgrounds, coal stocker/reclaimers never seemed that dirty and the area around was green as anything.
My grandad did have emphysema, though he did die at 82, so didn't do too bad.
Both. Communities flooded by old workings, spoil heaps looming large over homes, orange-coloured streams, huge opencast mines abandoned by their owners and left to dangerously fill with water, communities that grew around mine heads and have been in suspended animation ever since, monuments to dozens, sometimes 100+ killed in disasters.I grew up with mines and miners and coal power stations so might be inured to it.
Black buildings and slag heaps were playgrounds, coal stocker/reclaimers never seemed that dirty and the area around was green as anything.
My grandad did have emphysema, though he did die at 82, so didn't do too bad.
That's just within a short cycle of my home. I could be in Aberfan in half an hour or Dowlais.
Yes, I grew up in the post-coal era, but it's always been impossible to avoid it.
I've also seen the same in Australia at other mining operations. Abandoned towns when the mines close, only a hotel and a petrol station still open, and a massive hole in the ground that's someone else's problem. I've seen the boom towns too, making hay.
dickymint said:
I grew up in the S Wales Valley's before during and obviously after the 'miners strike' my memories of which are only happy ones of communities pulling together and helping each other out (my family were not miners) but then I was a Punk and probably give a toss
Not to delve too far off thread topic, but there's definitely a nostalgia attached to the peak of South Wales mining, much of that is attached to the pride of 'honest' work and the relatively good incomes that came from it (but let's not pretend anyone was rich on the coal face).And communities that were somewhat geographically isolated and with little private transport were certainly close communities and ones that I'm sure we're great for many kids growing up.
But ultimately the coal wealth was extracted from those towns and they've been left floundering ever since, and there are huge costs associated with resolving the dangerous and damaging scars left by both state-owned and private industry mineral extraction.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-56073459
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wal... (now one of the deepest freshwater pools in the entire UK)
Germany building massive heat store for district heating, no mention of nuclear power anywhere despite it being as compatible with energy storage as any other generation source. The groupthink is staggering.
Evanivitch said:
A certain BBC show was doing a feature on a nuclear waste management site...
... And they showed a password stuck to the top of a machine.
Ooops... And they showed a password stuck to the top of a machine.
Hope it wasn't us.
There are systems delivered that have passwords that are unnecessary due to the secure environment but cant be removed due to the propriety nature would mean a customisation which would mean excessive testing, so the passwords are made readily available.
Gary C said:
Evanivitch said:
A certain BBC show was doing a feature on a nuclear waste management site...
... And they showed a password stuck to the top of a machine.
Ooops... And they showed a password stuck to the top of a machine.
Hope it wasn't us.
There are systems delivered that have passwords that are unnecessary due to the secure environment but cant be removed due to the propriety nature would mean a customisation which would mean excessive testing, so the passwords are made readily available.
It did look like the last character was added in pen
irc said:
Doesn't he just.Cobnapint said:
irc said:
Doesn't he just.hidetheelephants said:
switched off because it's not profitable rather than because it's unsafe.
Thats not 'quite' fairWe have pushed the AGR's well beyond their design lifetime and while there is some truth in what you say, its more fair to say its the balance between profit and safety that's leading to the shutdowns.
At some point, the carbon cores will not be safe to operate and its becoming harder and nearer to being unprofitable to check, prove and justify why they are safe.
Its also fair to say, the ONR were not really happy for us to pursue a safety case for 10 cracks, then 20 cracks, the 100 cracks then 500 cracks and wanted a encompassing case for each reactor that predicts and works to set end of life parameters as they were getting concerned that continually re-justifying more and more 'cracks' was risking undermining public & Gov confidence in their regulation.
And that means from a commercial organisation, we need to plan for the shutdowns. Its managing the staff, the decommissioning strategy, the ability of Sellafield to take the flasks, the vital component lifetimes etc.
I think even with full gov backing and a non-commercial operation, Heysham 2/Torness would probably shutdown on the same date as now, Heysham 1/Hartlepool could probably manage another 3 years each and Hinkley/Hunterston might have managed another year each.
Dungeness could have managed another 30 years as its core was virtually untouched
Trouble is of course, EDFs focus is on getting the AGR's off the books without too much expense and making its UK profits on HPC and SZC.
Gary C said:
I think even with full gov backing and a non-commercial operation, Heysham 2/Torness would probably shutdown on the same date as now, Heysham 1/Hartlepool could probably manage another 3 years each and Hinkley/Hunterston might have managed another year each.
Dungeness could have managed another 30 years as its core was virtually untouched
Trouble is of course, EDFs focus is on getting the AGR's off the books without too much expense and making its UK profits on HPC and SZC.
Transfer them to Magnox Electric - job jobbed. Dungeness could have managed another 30 years as its core was virtually untouched
Trouble is of course, EDFs focus is on getting the AGR's off the books without too much expense and making its UK profits on HPC and SZC.
Cobnapint said:
irc said:
Doesn't he just.Armchair experts here on PH say we will all have this as a piece of piss in the future. Who is right?
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