The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[tr7v8]

robinessex said:

If I were in charge of a hospital's facilities, I think I'd power up the auxiliary generators every week from now on. Just saying.

I do Data centres for a living, the problem with running gen sets is they really should be run under load and that can be difficult. Most are run every month or so with a full load switch over.

[Evanivitch]

robinessex said:

If I were in charge of a hospital's facilities, I think I'd power up the auxiliary generators every week from now on. Just saying.

As already mentioned elsewhere, increasingly hospitals are operating with Combined Heat and Power systems anyway, so they've been running all along...

[Condi]

xeny said:

I think I'd rather have a planned outage than say a 10% chance of an unplanned one, but presumably we're talking about low single digit %. likelihoods?

Yes, very low percentage. And as much as people like to bang on about batteries not being very useful, what they are very good at is frequency response services so while inertia is lower than in the past there is a lot of stored battery energy which catches any frequency drops, giving the people in the control room time to dispatch what is left in reserve.

As Gary says, if we get a big trip (large interconnector/CCGT or Sizewell) then we might be in trouble, but that is the same on any very tight day in winter. I think the contingency will be less this year that's all.

[PushedDover]

pquinn said:

Been overindulging on your time off? 'Cos you're coming across as a passive-aggressive weirdo arguing for the sake of it.

Because as Durbster said above- it’s beyond boring hearing everyone spout. Continually

[xeny]

PushedDover said:

You’re the one saying we are pooped. I’m guessing because of your first question - decommissioning of non-renewable power generation.

I don’t believe we are exposed (and I ask you too : last power outage because of the system?)
I can take a healthy stab at the amount of enewableUK generation installed since whatever date you want (when back from hols), but I don’t believe it is as important as you do.
The system is working. Tight. But working.

I agree the system is working. We're not pooped yet.

We seem to be replacing non-renewable with renewable (and if their operating characteristics were identical save pollution I would laud that) and presuming that interconnects will cover periods of low renewable supply.

If we continue down that path, I don't see how we won't eventually be caught with our trousers down, and the current gas and french nuclear situation is increasing the likelihood that point is sooner rather than later.

[eliot]

robinessex said:

If I were in charge of a hospital's facilities, I think I'd power up the auxiliary generators every week from now on. Just saying.

From an IT perspective it seems to vary - been on site and the genny is ran weekly with a hard cutover (no ups support) to the offices - felt pretty brutal but nobody seem bothered.

Another hospital when talking about DR for their IT - the answer was relatively simple - we move the patients to another hospital - that was about 15 years ago admittedly - i don’t think that would wash now.

There are national guidelines published on what level of DR should be in place for a clinical system - as you might expect the cheapest (i.e no dr) option is chosen more often than not or quite often the case DR isn’t even considered at-all.

[pghstochaj]

On the biomass station I recently project managed, the EDG is tested weekly under load (it is synced to the grid) and power output just increases. However, we are limited to 50 hours per annum under the Environmental Permit, excluding emergency usage. The EDG is designed for continuous operation (COP) at 1.6 MVA I think. Most stations I have been involved with were running their EDGs during peak power price periods but the Environment Agency is cutting down on this as the engines are not really permitted for that.

Having been on a station where both UPSs failed (one single charger had failed and not been picked up) and where the EDG failed to start, testing is essential under load.

The plant I am currently project managing (energy from waste) is under G99 which makes it a bit more complicated, but this unit will be 4-5 MVA and our grid connection is oversized so I am hopeful we can agree a way to operate it.

Regarding power generation in the UK, from the perspective of a consultant in the power industry, my view (and view of my employer) is that we are (and have been for many years) one bad winter (and one unexpected failure or loss of wind) away from blackouts. Normally we have capacity in gas generation but if the gas supply is strained then that is less reliable. We will see in 3-4 months, crossed fingers for an average winter.

[Gary C]

We test each one of our 8 KV major emergency diesel generators every 15 weeks upto 80% load. Amazingly reliable over the last 35 years but they get quite a bit of maintenance. Had some problem with bore glazing as they often run unloaded on a reactor trip (they automatically start every trip just incase)

Much better than the gas turbines next door.

10,000hp with turbo compressor wheels the size of a dinner plate

Small compared to some, but still impressive when you stood on top when they start

[Talksteer]

Gary C said:

Cobnapint said:

irc said:

We already know large scale nuclear works. We did it. France did it as well. We need to sort out the design and regulation. Then as someone on here said start a building programme so expertise is built up and maintained for at least a couple of decades or longer.

Far too sensible....

nothing is without its penalty though.

Even though I work in the nuclear industry and am a supporter, we still haven't answered the spent fuel storage issue and we probably should before we ramp up nuclear generation.

The spent fuel is safe to handle after 500-1000 years. To get a negative impact after that point you basically have to eat it.

There is plenty of stuff we put in land fill which will kill you if you eat it and never decays.

The nuclear industry should start explaining to the public how it is spending billions to avoid the slight chance of giving a banana dose to someone in a thousand years.

[Gary C]

Talksteer said:

The spent fuel is safe to handle after 500-1000 years. To get a negative impact after that point you basically have to eat it.

There is plenty of stuff we put in land fill which will kill you if you eat it and never decays.

The nuclear industry should start explaining to the public how it is spending billions to avoid the slight chance of giving a banana dose to someone in a thousand years.

Not sure the public really cares about 100 years let alone 1000 years.

We really should answer this issue that's been kicked down the road so many times, especially as it should be simple.

We need to explain to the public that we can store it safely and easily, but we need to actually do it.

[TGCOTF-dewey]

Talksteer said:

Gary C said:

Cobnapint said:

irc said:

We already know large scale nuclear works. We did it. France did it as well. We need to sort out the design and regulation. Then as someone on here said start a building programme so expertise is built up and maintained for at least a couple of decades or longer.

Far too sensible....

nothing is without its penalty though.

Even though I work in the nuclear industry and am a supporter, we still haven't answered the spent fuel storage issue and we probably should before we ramp up nuclear generation.

The spent fuel is safe to handle after 500-1000 years. To get a negative impact after that point you basically have to eat it.

There is plenty of stuff we put in land fill which will kill you if you eat it and never decays.

The nuclear industry should start explaining to the public how it is spending billions to avoid the slight chance of giving a banana dose to someone in a thousand years.

You sure, I'm not a HP, but if what you say is true, it's odd that Onkalo's safety case design basis is 100,000 years... The delta between 1000 and a couple of orders of magnitude beyond that is huge in cost and complexity.

Not saying you're wrong, just curious. What are the dose rates?

[Evanivitch]

TGCOTF-dewey said:

You sure, I'm not a HP, but if what you say is true, it's odd that Onkalo's safety case design basis is 100,000 years... The delta between 1000 and a couple of orders of magnitude beyond that is huge in cost and complexity.

Not saying you're wrong, just curious. What are the dose rates?

Safe enough that you'd have to eat it, means that it is still a risk if it gets into the ground water...

[TGCOTF-dewey]

Evanivitch said:

Safe enough that you'd have to eat it, means that it is still a risk if it gets into the ground water...

I understand that, but I'm curious about dose rates at 500 and 100,000.

Is the case based on decay to background levels?

[irc]

Anthing in this idea? Stop/restrict electricity exports to Europe so that high demand there does not push up UK prices.

https://dailysceptic.org/2022/09/13/the-u-k-can-sl...

[gazapc]

irc said:

Anthing in this idea? Stop/restrict electricity exports to Europe so that high demand there does not push up UK prices.

https://dailysceptic.org/2022/09/13/the-u-k-can-sl...

And when the situation is reversed and we need to import power and Europe has surplus power? Do we think they will just forget this?

Billions spent on interconnectors that sit idle.

Higher prices in Europe possibl6 meaning support for Ukraine starts to wobble.


Overall it is a bad idea.

[JagLover]

irc said:

Anthing in this idea? Stop/restrict electricity exports to Europe so that high demand there does not push up UK prices.

https://dailysceptic.org/2022/09/13/the-u-k-can-sl...

We rely on electricity imports during time of high demand in winter and will be wanting electricity from France once they have brought their Nuclear power stations back online.

So it is a two way street really.

[Hill92]

irc said:

Anthing in this idea? Stop/restrict electricity exports to Europe so that high demand there does not push up UK prices.

https://dailysceptic.org/2022/09/13/the-u-k-can-sl...

That would be exceptionally short sighted and bloody stupid. But no surprise for those two authors.

[Murph7355]

gazapc said:

irc said:

Anthing in this idea? Stop/restrict electricity exports to Europe so that high demand there does not push up UK prices.

https://dailysceptic.org/2022/09/13/the-u-k-can-sl...

And when the situation is reversed and we need to import power and Europe has surplus power? Do we think they will just forget this?

Billions spent on interconnectors that sit idle.

Higher prices in Europe possibl6 meaning support for Ukraine starts to wobble.


Overall it is a bad idea.

It's a bad idea if not backed up by other areas of policy, including and especially self sufficiency.

The govt needs to get smarter with UK generators to protect against spikes in prices like we've seen. All countries do.

[alangla]

1.5GW of coal showing on Gridwatch just now, which is the most I've seen in a while. What stations is it that are left? Ratcliffe? Part of Drax? anything else?

[skwdenyer]

Gary C said:

Talksteer said:

The spent fuel is safe to handle after 500-1000 years. To get a negative impact after that point you basically have to eat it.

There is plenty of stuff we put in land fill which will kill you if you eat it and never decays.

The nuclear industry should start explaining to the public how it is spending billions to avoid the slight chance of giving a banana dose to someone in a thousand years.

Not sure the public really cares about 100 years let alone 1000 years.

We really should answer this issue that's been kicked down the road so many times, especially as it should be simple.

We need to explain to the public that we can store it safely and easily, but we need to actually do it.

I’m quite a big believer in the power of progress to resolve many issues. For instance, the reactors being worked on with Gates foundation support look very interesting, with the potential to use what we currently call “nuclear waste” as a fuel.

There’s also the silliness around THORP - we had one of only 2 reprocessing plants, and we shut ours down because of a downturn after the GFC. Pretty daft IMHO. Could we restart it?