The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[robinessex]

UK at significant risk of gas shortages this winter, warns energy regulator

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63118574

The UK is facing "a significant risk" of gas shortages this winter, according to the industry regulator, which could impact electricity supplies.
Ofgem said due to Russia's war with Ukraine, there is a possibility the UK could enter a "gas supply emergency".
This would lead to supplies being cut to power stations which use gas to generate the country's electricity.
It places firms at risk of running out of money because of huge charges they pay if they cannot deliver electricity.
Gas-fired power stations generate between 40% and 60% of the UK's electricity..........................continues

[alangla]

Matthen said:

Sainsbury's Energy/Eon Next have just sent me the Economy 7 unit rates under the EPG - night rate is one third of the price of day rate (typically it's been 50% up till now) - this translates to it being cheaper for me to bath than shower (stored hot water vs on demand hot water) and cheaper for me to use storage heaters than on demand heating. This will roughly translate into an increase in my energy usage this winter -

Is the cost of generating night rate power really that much lower? Or is there some other game being played to get money out of the tax payer?

You're asking the wrong question. You should really be asking "is night rate power worth that much less" - the answer, especially if it's windy, is almost certainly yes. Less demand at night means less need to burn gas when you can burn coal/generate with wind/nuclear/hydro. Also less demand on the continent, so less cash being offered to send UK power over the interconnects.

[spaximus]

robinessex said:

UK at significant risk of gas shortages this winter, warns energy regulator

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63118574

The UK is facing "a significant risk" of gas shortages this winter, according to the industry regulator, which could impact electricity supplies.
Ofgem said due to Russia's war with Ukraine, there is a possibility the UK could enter a "gas supply emergency".
This would lead to supplies being cut to power stations which use gas to generate the country's electricity.
It places firms at risk of running out of money because of huge charges they pay if they cannot deliver electricity.
Gas-fired power stations generate between 40% and 60% of the UK's electricity..........................continues

Speaking with my sister in law who lives in France. Every household has been sent a letter saying that they can expect rationing of electricity this winter and that people must reduce their usage by 30%. Apparently this is due to the nuclear generating plants they have not running at full capacity and one of the reasons given is a lack of water.

Clearly we are no alone in having issues to contend with and until we get a grip on being self sufficent in generation terms we will always be at risk

[pork911]

pghstochaj said:

Jambo85 said:

Mr Whippy said:

Yup, steam is invisible


That report on Drax though… the whole ‘green’ thing is such a load of rubbish.

Chopping down established natural forest full stop is bonkers, but then shipping it from Canada to the UK, then by train (?) then burning it?

The subsidy basically makes it worth while burning diesel to transport it all that way, generating more fossil co2 and wasting diesel.

£6bn to burn natural forests, sawdust, and twisted logs, shipped from Canada.


It makes my head hurt even trying to comprehend the stupidity.
And that it won’t just start and end here, the stupidity will be infested in everything.

Years of easy money and not having to take it seriously have come to a head.
No more bailouts ffs. Let these morons go to the wall.
Spend money on publicly owned stuff… stop giving money to these cretins to run critical infrastructure.

I agree it is bonkers - assuming it's true. When I lived in West Africa there was a company there buying spent rubber trees, chipping them and shipping somewhere as biomass - a British chap running it so very likely going to Drax. Same nonsense with shipping emissions occurred to me, but also the social injustice as wood/charcoal are needed by the local population for cooking.

Closer to home, in NE Scotland straw bales are sometimes trucked down to Drax to be burned. I similarly thought "surely you'd be better off just burning the diesel that the lorries are using", but did some fag packet maths and actually there was method in the apparent madness. For a by-product with very low value that grows within a year, maybe it's a good thing. Even better if stations were less distance away, and better still if nutrients could be recovered from the ash.

I don't think Drax burns much straw, I think it used to though.

Most straw is burnt in Brigg, Ely, Sleaford or Snetterton - best part of 1 million tonnes per annum. This of course pushed up straw value a lot over the last decade. It's a imperfect fuel - easy to handle but difficult for boilers.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/renewable-heat-incentive-temporary-changes-to-wood-pellets-quality-requirement

[alangla]

Nuclear fusion station to be built at West Burton https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamsh...

[ianrb]

alangla said:

Nuclear fusion station to be built at West Burton https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamsh...

And does it work yet?

[Mr Whippy]

robinessex said:

UK at significant risk of gas shortages this winter, warns energy regulator

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63118574

The UK is facing "a significant risk" of gas shortages this winter, according to the industry regulator, which could impact electricity supplies.
Ofgem said due to Russia's war with Ukraine, there is a possibility the UK could enter a "gas supply emergency".
This would lead to supplies being cut to power stations which use gas to generate the country's electricity.
It places firms at risk of running out of money because of huge charges they pay if they cannot deliver electricity.
Gas-fired power stations generate between 40% and 60% of the UK's electricity..........................continues

What they fail to note is that without electric, most gas boilers won’t run.

Saving gas by not using it to generate electric, so you can burn it got domestic heat, isn’t a viable solution.

I think we’re going to end up with a Europe wide industrial shut-down and Europe wide rationing.

Why our leadership have brought us to this point I have no idea.

The minister/s responsible for energy for the last 15 years need dragging over the coals.

Then some commitment by government to public owned nuclear infrastructure, top to bottom, and a 50 year plan.
No flipping profiteering business involved. Do the lot from the ground up with public money.
No contracting, sub contracting, cronyism, etc.
A job run by scientists and engineers.

[pghstochaj]

Mr Whippy said:

robinessex said:

UK at significant risk of gas shortages this winter, warns energy regulator

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63118574

The UK is facing "a significant risk" of gas shortages this winter, according to the industry regulator, which could impact electricity supplies.
Ofgem said due to Russia's war with Ukraine, there is a possibility the UK could enter a "gas supply emergency".
This would lead to supplies being cut to power stations which use gas to generate the country's electricity.
It places firms at risk of running out of money because of huge charges they pay if they cannot deliver electricity.
Gas-fired power stations generate between 40% and 60% of the UK's electricity..........................continues

What they fail to note is that without electric, most gas boilers won’t run.

Saving gas by not using it to generate electric, so you can burn it got domestic heat, isn’t a viable solution.

I think we’re going to end up with a Europe wide industrial shut-down and Europe wide rationing.

Why our leadership have brought us to this point I have no idea.

The minister/s responsible for energy for the last 15 years need dragging over the coals.

Then some commitment by government to public owned nuclear infrastructure, top to bottom, and a 50 year plan.
No flipping profiteering business involved. Do the lot from the ground up with public money.
No contracting, sub contracting, cronyism, etc.
A job run by scientists and engineers.

And you’re willing to pay the massive excess cost doing it like that would result in?

[Condi]

ianrb said:

And does it work yet?

It's not built yet.

[Mr Whippy]

pghstochaj said:

And you’re willing to pay the massive excess cost doing it like that would result in?

How is the cost massive and in excess to do it with 50yrs in mind, and engineers and scientists determining the specification over politicians and policy makers (who let’s not forget have comprehensively shown they’re not good at this)?

The cost is the cost.

It’s probably no more expensive than the government back-stopping energy prices for the next two years.


50+ years of security and world leading innovation and economic stimulus. Oooor?

[tamore]

lots of macro political stuff on here, but i'm currently holidaying on anglesey on the south coast. not a wind turbine in sight onshore but i don't think the wind speed has dropped below 20mph since we got here. madness given the cost of onshore wind.

Edited by tamore on Monday 3rd October 22:57

[Matthen]

alangla said:

Matthen said:

Sainsbury's Energy/Eon Next have just sent me the Economy 7 unit rates under the EPG - night rate is one third of the price of day rate (typically it's been 50% up till now) - this translates to it being cheaper for me to bath than shower (stored hot water vs on demand hot water) and cheaper for me to use storage heaters than on demand heating. This will roughly translate into an increase in my energy usage this winter -

Is the cost of generating night rate power really that much lower? Or is there some other game being played to get money out of the tax payer?

You're asking the wrong question. You should really be asking "is night rate power worth that much less" - the answer, especially if it's windy, is almost certainly yes. Less demand at night means less need to burn gas when you can burn coal/generate with wind/nuclear/hydro. Also less demand on the continent, so less cash being offered to send UK power over the interconnects.

I'm really not convinced - If you look at the data from octopus agile, the cost of night rate energy is still 35p/kWh most nights: this suggests that "expensive" power is still being run, and night power still has significantly more worth than the 13p/kWh Eon are charging me.

[pork911]

Did the gov bother to set a lower unit cap price for off peak?

[Talksteer]

Jambo85 said:

Mr Whippy said:

Yup, steam is invisible


That report on Drax though… the whole ‘green’ thing is such a load of rubbish.

Chopping down established natural forest full stop is bonkers, but then shipping it from Canada to the UK, then by train (?) then burning it?

The subsidy basically makes it worth while burning diesel to transport it all that way, generating more fossil co2 and wasting diesel.

£6bn to burn natural forests, sawdust, and twisted logs, shipped from Canada.


It makes my head hurt even trying to comprehend the stupidity.
And that it won’t just start and end here, the stupidity will be infested in everything.

Years of easy money and not having to take it seriously have come to a head.
No more bailouts ffs. Let these morons go to the wall.
Spend money on publicly owned stuff… stop giving money to these cretins to run critical infrastructure.

I agree it is bonkers - assuming it's true. When I lived in West Africa there was a company there buying spent rubber trees, chipping them and shipping somewhere as biomass - a British chap running it so very likely going to Drax. Same nonsense with shipping emissions occurred to me, but also the social injustice as wood/charcoal are needed by the local population for cooking.

Closer to home, in NE Scotland straw bales are sometimes trucked down to Drax to be burned. I similarly thought "surely you'd be better off just burning the diesel that the lorries are using", but did some fag packet maths and actually there was method in the apparent madness. For a by-product with very low value that grows within a year, maybe it's a good thing. Even better if stations were less distance away, and better still if nutrients could be recovered from the ash.

A lot is focused on the shipping of biomass around but frankly bulk shipping is very efficient.

An 80,000 tonne bulk carrier only has a 10MW engine. That would consume about 30 tonnes of diesel a day, or 240 tonnes to cross the Atlantic. Wood chips have about half the energy density of diesel but that still equates to about 0.5% of the energy in the fuel bring used to transport it.

The issue with Draxs wood is primarily one of habitat loss and also the fact that it takes decades for a forrest to regrow, and until it does the CO2 emissions are no different to just burning oil.

[PRTVR]

Talksteer said:

Jambo85 said:

Mr Whippy said:

Yup, steam is invisible


That report on Drax though… the whole ‘green’ thing is such a load of rubbish.

Chopping down established natural forest full stop is bonkers, but then shipping it from Canada to the UK, then by train (?) then burning it?

The subsidy basically makes it worth while burning diesel to transport it all that way, generating more fossil co2 and wasting diesel.

£6bn to burn natural forests, sawdust, and twisted logs, shipped from Canada.


It makes my head hurt even trying to comprehend the stupidity.
And that it won’t just start and end here, the stupidity will be infested in everything.

Years of easy money and not having to take it seriously have come to a head.
No more bailouts ffs. Let these morons go to the wall.
Spend money on publicly owned stuff… stop giving money to these cretins to run critical infrastructure.

I agree it is bonkers - assuming it's true. When I lived in West Africa there was a company there buying spent rubber trees, chipping them and shipping somewhere as biomass - a British chap running it so very likely going to Drax. Same nonsense with shipping emissions occurred to me, but also the social injustice as wood/charcoal are needed by the local population for cooking.

Closer to home, in NE Scotland straw bales are sometimes trucked down to Drax to be burned. I similarly thought "surely you'd be better off just burning the diesel that the lorries are using", but did some fag packet maths and actually there was method in the apparent madness. For a by-product with very low value that grows within a year, maybe it's a good thing. Even better if stations were less distance away, and better still if nutrients could be recovered from the ash.

A lot is focused on the shipping of biomass around but frankly bulk shipping is very efficient.

An 80,000 tonne bulk carrier only has a 10MW engine. That would consume about 30 tonnes of diesel a day, or 240 tonnes to cross the Atlantic. Wood chips have about half the energy density of diesel but that still equates to about 0.5% of the energy in the fuel bring used to transport it.

The issue with Draxs wood is primarily one of habitat loss and also the fact that it takes decades for a forrest to regrow, and until it does the CO2 emissions are no different to just burning oil.

Not quite, many moons ago I was on a cruise chatting to a Canadian guy who designed and built power stations, I asked him will they be building wood fired power stations now, we had just commissioned our first in the UK and Canada having lots of trees it seemed logical,
he laughed and explained they had crunched the numbers and the only place it was viable was at the lumber yard using waste products, if you look at the original idea it was to only use waste wood,
he explained that anything else you may as well just use the energy used in harvesting the wood and preparing it, there is very little gain, I asked him what he thought about the UK running them and he said they put it down to the after effects of mad cow disease and laughed .
The problems started when there was not even enough waste wood to feed the monster, the specifications were changed to include sustainable wood,
basically its another export your CO2 production to look and feel good without examining the true cost.

[PRTVR]

As I have been saying for years interconnections are vulnerable, it appears the government agrees with me.
Plans to build a second protection vessel.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-to-build-s...

[hidetheelephants]

Mr Whippy said:

robinessex said:

UK at significant risk of gas shortages this winter, warns energy regulator

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63118574

The UK is facing "a significant risk" of gas shortages this winter, according to the industry regulator, which could impact electricity supplies.
Ofgem said due to Russia's war with Ukraine, there is a possibility the UK could enter a "gas supply emergency".
This would lead to supplies being cut to power stations which use gas to generate the country's electricity.
It places firms at risk of running out of money because of huge charges they pay if they cannot deliver electricity.
Gas-fired power stations generate between 40% and 60% of the UK's electricity..........................continues

What they fail to note is that without electric, most gas boilers won’t run.

Saving gas by not using it to generate electric, so you can burn it got domestic heat, isn’t a viable solution.

I think we’re going to end up with a Europe wide industrial shut-down and Europe wide rationing.

Why our leadership have brought us to this point I have no idea.

The minister/s responsible for energy for the last 15 years need dragging over the coals.

Then some commitment by government to public owned nuclear infrastructure, top to bottom, and a 50 year plan.
No flipping profiteering business involved. Do the lot from the ground up with public money.
No contracting, sub contracting, cronyism, etc.
A job run by scientists and engineers.

A govt actually doing its job would have postponed the decom of HPB and HNB, the extra 2GW would be very useful this winter(and probably next too)

Fusion remains a science experiment.

Subsidising the burning of woodchips is a sick joke, coal would be less polluting.

[ianrb]

Condi said:

ianrb said:

And does it work yet?

It's not built yet.

Was refering to the technology.

[Blue Oval84]

Mr Whippy said:

What they fail to note is that without electric, most gas boilers won’t run.

Saving gas by not using it to generate electric, so you can burn it got domestic heat, isn’t a viable solution.

They are well aware that without electricity a gas boiler won't run. The reason the domestic gas network will be the last thing to be cut off is because to reconnect it they need to go door to door doing the purge and relight, either getting access to, or externally capping each and every address. It would be a complete disaster.

[pquinn]

ianrb said:

Condi said:

ianrb said:

And does it work yet?

It's not built yet.

Was refering to the technology.

The only thing these work for is as a jobs program.

The big projects end up as personal fiefdoms filled with people who can spend an entire career doing very little in a well paid job and promising something might happen given another decade or two of spending.

fk knows what they're going to build as there isn't an actual working design to follow yet, so inevitably it's going to be another research unit/white elephant. (*delete as appropriate)