The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain
Discussion
rolando said:
rscott said:
Do you specialise in posting old news? This was mentioned back in October and the ASA verdict posted last year.
Only posted it because it had a new 9th January, this year, slant.
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Agree the Wind Energy is not pulling its weight today. Have the lights flickered?
No - because the balanced grid is still working.
..No - because the balanced grid is still working.
Where has wind contributed to that graphic?
I give you credit for being a wind evangelist, and for keeping on
banging the drum.
HoweverI think most people of adult age, just don't see
wind being very effective in delivering a reliable load to the grid.
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Agree the Wind Energy is not pulling its weight today. Have the lights flickered?
No - because the balanced grid is still working.
I would call it an unbalanced grid, a real power station has to be ready to take up the demand, at considerable cost, the more wind generation you have the more backup that is required, the balanced part of the grid is real controllable power stations not wind turbines.No - because the balanced grid is still working.
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Agree the Wind Energy is not pulling its weight today. Have the lights flickered?
No - because the balanced grid is still working.
Spinning up some extra CCGT output is fine, providing its cost is included as part of the cost of using wind power. To put it another way the cost of electricity from a renewable should include the costs to make it an on-demand or baseload source.No - because the balanced grid is still working.
rolando said:
Toltec said:
Spinning up some extra CCGT output is fine, providing its cost is included as part of the cost of using wind power. To put it another way the cost of electricity from a renewable should include the costs to make it an on-demand or baseload source.
Excellent point.That and other costs that operating companies are allowed to avoid when considering viability and pricing have cropped up several times in this thread:
- human health cost e.g. from infrasound
- economic impact e.g. house prices near onshore white elephant eyesores
- environmental impact cost e.g. rare earth extraction and processing clean-ups
- biodiversity WTP cost from large-scale deaths of birds of prey and bats
- conventional-power back-up cost
- baseload cycling cost
- reduced grid reliability cost
- decommissioning cost
When I've mentioned these hidden costs previously all that appeared from renewables activists has been diversion, obfuscation and abuse.
One ideologue even suggested I had no point because I didn't list the corresponding costs for coal, a neat example of diversion and obfuscation combined. It's a curious notion that coal can have an intrinsic cost due to the grid unreliability increase from unreliables (coal is after all not intermittent as power sources go...there is still coal around...and coal fired power stations are hardly mass killers of raptors and bats).
This time it'll be different of course and a rapid, complete and on-topic response can be expected.
turbobloke said:
rolando said:
Toltec said:
Spinning up some extra CCGT output is fine, providing its cost is included as part of the cost of using wind power. To put it another way the cost of electricity from a renewable should include the costs to make it an on-demand or baseload source.
Excellent point.That and other costs that operating companies are allowed to avoid when considering viability and pricing have cropped up several times in this thread:
- human health cost e.g. from infrasound
- economic impact e.g. house prices near onshore white elephant eyesores
- environmental impact cost e.g. rare earth extraction and processing clean-ups
- biodiversity WTP cost from large-scale deaths of birds of prey and bats
- conventional-power back-up cost
- baseload cycling cost
- reduced grid reliability cost
- decommissioning cost
When I've mentioned these hidden costs previously all that appeared from renewables activists has been diversion, obfuscation and abuse.
One ideologue even suggested I had no point because I didn't list the corresponding costs for coal, a neat example of diversion and obfuscation combined. It's a curious notion that coal can have an intrinsic cost due to the grid unreliability increase from unreliables (coal is after all not intermittent as power sources go...there is still coal around...and coal fired power stations are hardly mass killers of raptors and bats).
This time it'll be different of course and a rapid, complete and on-topic response can be expected.
Gas produces less pollution than coal, can be relatively fast reacting, plants are relatively cheap to build and decommission so are a pretty good generation source.
Adding wind power etc. adds more cost, but reduces the amount of gas burnt so reduce CO2 output (for generation certainly, possibly dust to dust) and extends the time the gas supply will last.
Eventually we need better supply sources; nuclear plants that are safer and easier to decommission; fusion that actually is safer, cleaner and cheaper than fission; energy storage systems to even out input from renewables and peak demand. It needs to be not only affordable, but profitable enough so it is worth building. Most of all it needs to be joined up enough so that companies cannot just go for the profitable bits and lets the rest be someone else's problem.
The new Hinckley plant does seem like a deal to make some people money and the rest our problem, not unlike renewables.
The future of power generation is not about how clean it can be, but how much money can be made out of selling the idea of clean power.
Toltec said:
turbobloke said:
rolando said:
Toltec said:
Spinning up some extra CCGT output is fine, providing its cost is included as part of the cost of using wind power. To put it another way the cost of electricity from a renewable should include the costs to make it an on-demand or baseload source.
Excellent point.That and other costs that operating companies are allowed to avoid when considering viability and pricing have cropped up several times in this thread:
- human health cost e.g. from infrasound
- economic impact e.g. house prices near onshore white elephant eyesores
- environmental impact cost e.g. rare earth extraction and processing clean-ups
- biodiversity WTP cost from large-scale deaths of birds of prey and bats
- conventional-power back-up cost
- baseload cycling cost
- reduced grid reliability cost
- decommissioning cost
When I've mentioned these hidden costs previously all that appeared from renewables activists has been diversion, obfuscation and abuse.
One ideologue even suggested I had no point because I didn't list the corresponding costs for coal, a neat example of diversion and obfuscation combined. It's a curious notion that coal can have an intrinsic cost due to the grid unreliability increase from unreliables (coal is after all not intermittent as power sources go...there is still coal around...and coal fired power stations are hardly mass killers of raptors and bats).
This time it'll be different of course and a rapid, complete and on-topic response can be expected.
PS appeals to the non-consensus and appeals to small-committee authorities are logical fallacies, not evidence.
turbobloke said:
Toltec said:
I'll admit I was thinking of the basic economics, however I would accept a somewhat higher cost of energy for a noticeable environmental benefit.
May I ask, what is the environmental benefit of wind energy you speak of, when the basis for plugging it at so much public expense is simply not valid? With an O/T warning for the purists (one that's not really needed however) there is no anthropogenic signal in the only two datasets that can support the existence of manmade climate change (energy, from TOA radiative imbalance, and temperature from e.g. UAH LTT) as a result belief in manmade climate change represents belief in invisible entities that should be visible, it's only utter nonsense like "the data don't matter" (IPCC chap) and political patronage that keep this junkscience afloat. Any claimed benefit in terms of climate is illusory.PS appeals to the non-consensus and appeals to small-committee authorities are logical fallacies, not evidence.
As someone, iirc, has already mentioned there is no clean way to produce electricity.
s2art said:
Toltec said:
Adding wind power etc. adds more cost, but reduces the amount of gas burnt so reduce CO2 output
Thats not clear. The impact of erratic wind is to reduce the efficiency of conventional supply. So it balances out for CO2. The savings are not as claimed.Would you say gas and nuclear moving to nuclear and storage eventually? Fossil gas supplies while large are still finite so we will need something else eventually.
Nuclear being a mix of new and current fission technologies as well potentially fusion, storage being any number of existing and proposed forms not just pumped hydro, battery, kinetic and electrochemical conversion.
I don't work in any of the power industries so all I really want is cheapish, reliable electricity that does not cause cumulative environmental damage. Ideally it shouldn't be a blight on the landscape either, but you could consider that as environmental damage so already covered.
On what basis do we want to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in any case - political advocacy alone? Faith / belief? Politics and faith?
Why cut back on plant food, tree food and crop food emissions when there's no empirical data or other credible evidence that those emissions are doing anything harmful to cancel out the obvious benefits?
Why cut back on plant food, tree food and crop food emissions when there's no empirical data or other credible evidence that those emissions are doing anything harmful to cancel out the obvious benefits?
Toltec said:
Interesting, it gets worse then, source?
There are several. Try https://docs.wind-watch.org/Inhaber-Why-wind-power...turbobloke said:
On what basis do we want to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in any case - political advocacy alone? Faith / belief? Politics and faith?
Why cut back on plant food, tree food and crop food emissions when there's no empirical data or other credible evidence that those emissions are doing anything harmful to cancel out the obvious benefits?
Depends who you ask I guess. Purely personally most of the CO2 is down to burning fossil fuels and if you think in a long enough term they are a form of solar energy storage that is being used faster than it is being replenished. Burning stuff tends to release other compounds that are not great as well. There are other things oil can be used to produce which are quite useful to a technological society, though making plastic is becoming a bit of a problem itself.Why cut back on plant food, tree food and crop food emissions when there's no empirical data or other credible evidence that those emissions are doing anything harmful to cancel out the obvious benefits?
Being brutally honest, I have another 30-40 years if I'm lucky and have no kids, while I like the idea of humanity surviving in general providing it doesn't bother me too much before I die it can go f
k itself, I'm not its keeper.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff