The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[Ali G]

Fission rocks!

It's the solution.

It's the Only solution.

[LongQ]

Oakey said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Ahh

I’m not a Turbine manufacturer- but had a model or two on the desk. Pm me and I’ll try to give you some contacts you could mail and get some of their giveaways ?


Almost ironically the big two manufacturers hub out of Billand Airport - aka Legoland ;-)

One of the displays is pretty realistic :







Lego are also big fans :

Danish toy manufacturer Lego Group has sourced 100% of its electricity from renewables, with the official opening of Dong Energy’s 258MW Burbo Bank 2 offshore wind project in Liverpool Bay.
Lego has invested Dkr6bn (€800m) in 160MW of renewables, with its latest investment a 25% stake in Burbo 2.

Total output from the investments by Lego in renewables now exceeds the energy consumed at all its factories, stores and offices globally, the company said.
In 2016, more than 360 gigawatt hours of electricity were used by Lego to produce the over 75 billion Lego bricks sold, it said.
The company has built the largest Lego brick wind turbine to celebrate the 100% renewables milestone.
Lego Group chief executive Bali Padda said: “This development means we have now reached the 100% renewable energy milestone three years ahead of target.
“Together with our partners, we intend to continue investing in renewable energy to help create a better future for the builders of tomorrow.”

Edited by Paddy_N_Murphy on Saturday 10th February 20:36

Thanks for the offer, I've found out the Chinese do a knock off version for $50 so I'll grab one of those.

I think Lego should now move on to making sure their supply contracts only apply when the suppliers they have contracted from are only used when the suppliers are producing.

I'm sure they could find a way of dealing with random operational cycles by buying carefully according to location.

On the other hand with the new crusade against everything plastic Lego's days are clearly numbered unless they move to entirely wooden or metal toys. So their virtue signalling may not have much of a life to it as PR projects go.

[StanleyT]

I think we should start burning Lego. That'll help the lack of gas as the hydrocarbons get freed by the Carbon Liberation Society power plants.

Or just burn money or graduate trainees in steam raising plant boilers. I sem to remmeber back when energy prices were high the cost per annum of a grauate trainee was about the same per theroretical thermal unit as nuclear fuel. As coincidentally were £10 notes. The man who came up with that calculation is now very senior in the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

Why has the UK never adopted CHP for district heating? I did google it the other day after speaking to a foreign company about it. Is it because six months a year we are too warm for heat recovery to be useful? Waste incinerators could help out loads in this matter? No one seems to like recyling waste to thermal units though, or is it happenning but under the radar so Greenpeace don't find out?

[PRTVR]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Why is dependancy of Gas on Pipelines from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium acceptable to the miserable ones on this thread, but Interconnectors which don't forget SELL energy to,o is not acceptable for electricity?

The problem I have with any interconnectors that make use dependent on an outside country, as with is happening with the problem with gas, the demand for electricity and gas throughout Europe, we will not be prioritized over their own needs,
what happens in a few years time when we have no coal power stations and similar conditions occur but with a high pressure sat over us with no wind, where does the electricity come from?
We would need to make up 20 gw, until we have a reliable UK based electricity generation we should not be shutting down coal stations,
I said all eggs in one basket in regards to gas, it has come home to roost , demand for gas outstripping supply due to technical problems , coal is keeping the lights on and it should till a reliable backup is in place.

[Evanivitch]

PRTVR said:

The problem I have with any interconnectors that make use dependent on an outside country, as with is happening with the problem with gas, the demand for electricity and gas throughout Europe, we will not be prioritized over their own needs,
what happens in a few years time when we have no coal power stations and similar conditions occur but with a high pressure sat over us with no wind, where does the electricity come from?
We would need to make up 20 gw, until we have a reliable UK based electricity generation we should not be shutting down coal stations,
I said all eggs in one basket in regards to gas, it has come home to roost , demand for gas outstripping supply due to technical problems , coal is keeping the lights on and it should till a reliable backup is in place.

So where do you think the coal for British power stations comes from?

[PRTVR]

Evanivitch said:

PRTVR said:

The problem I have with any interconnectors that make use dependent on an outside country, as with is happening with the problem with gas, the demand for electricity and gas throughout Europe, we will not be prioritized over their own needs,
what happens in a few years time when we have no coal power stations and similar conditions occur but with a high pressure sat over us with no wind, where does the electricity come from?
We would need to make up 20 gw, until we have a reliable UK based electricity generation we should not be shutting down coal stations,
I said all eggs in one basket in regards to gas, it has come home to roost , demand for gas outstripping supply due to technical problems , coal is keeping the lights on and it should till a reliable backup is in place.

So where do you think the coal for British power stations comes from?

It really doesn't matter where it comes from it gives you an alternative means of generating electricity, if gas becomes unavailable (think Russia shutting off the tap) or overpriced, coal can and is stockpiled given you time to order more, without it we would be in trouble now.

[rscott]

Isn't the issue that we don't have the same gas storage facilities that we used to, so can't hold enough in reserve.

According to https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/01/u... , we've got less than a third of the storage capacity we had a few years ago.

[Evanivitch]

PRTVR said:

Evanivitch said:

PRTVR said:

The problem I have with any interconnectors that make use dependent on an outside country, as with is happening with the problem with gas, the demand for electricity and gas throughout Europe, we will not be prioritized over their own needs,
what happens in a few years time when we have no coal power stations and similar conditions occur but with a high pressure sat over us with no wind, where does the electricity come from?
We would need to make up 20 gw, until we have a reliable UK based electricity generation we should not be shutting down coal stations,
I said all eggs in one basket in regards to gas, it has come home to roost , demand for gas outstripping supply due to technical problems , coal is keeping the lights on and it should till a reliable backup is in place.

So where do you think the coal for British power stations comes from?

It really doesn't matter where it comes from it gives you an alternative means of generating electricity, if gas becomes unavailable (think Russia shutting off the tap) or overpriced, coal can and is stockpiled given you time to order more, without it we would be in trouble now.

But again we're dependent on foreign imports of goal to meet our needs.

And when the majority of that comes from Columbia and Russia it doesn't provide us any more security than gas and interconnecters.

I agree coal has a place in the UK energy market right now, but it's short lived and has few benefits right now except that we already have the infrastructure.

[rolando]

Evanivitch said:

I agree coal has a place in the UK energy market right now, but it's short lived and has few benefits right now…

Without our dwindling coal powered stations we'd be stuffed — and even more so when high pressure returns and the windmills grind to a halt.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018...

[V8 Fettler]

Evanivitch said:

PRTVR said:

The problem I have with any interconnectors that make use dependent on an outside country, as with is happening with the problem with gas, the demand for electricity and gas throughout Europe, we will not be prioritized over their own needs,
what happens in a few years time when we have no coal power stations and similar conditions occur but with a high pressure sat over us with no wind, where does the electricity come from?
We would need to make up 20 gw, until we have a reliable UK based electricity generation we should not be shutting down coal stations,
I said all eggs in one basket in regards to gas, it has come home to roost , demand for gas outstripping supply due to technical problems , coal is keeping the lights on and it should till a reliable backup is in place.

So where do you think the coal for British power stations comes from?

We can stockpile months of coal, how much gas can we stockpile? Two weeks?

[turbobloke]

Life's a gas, or not if the grid runs out for industrial consumers.

Energy policy and energy security. Lovely.

[PRTVR]

True, we didn't need storage due to the number of gas fields we have, so we are slowly building them, they will help but not totally cure the problem of having most of your electricity generated by a single energy source, we can import gas via ships at area points around the country if needed , I am surprised we are having to depend on coal, but that's the situation we are in and it may happen again.

[rscott]

turbobloke said:

Life's a gas, or not if the grid runs out for industrial consumers.

Energy policy and energy security. Lovely.

Strange isn't it, that people say we can't depend on renewables because we don't have reliable energy storage systems for them.
Yet we're okay to depend on gas even after the closure of over 2/3 of our gas storage.

[turbobloke]

It's an ongoing condition but the politicians of today really do need to wake up and smell the t-butyl mercaptan.

For younger scientists that would be 2-methylpropan-2-thiol.

[Evanivitch]

V8 Fettler said:

We can stockpile months of coal, how much gas can we stockpile? Two weeks?

Oh so because we can store it we therefore have security? I don't agree.

Again, coal obviously has it's place right now, but I'd much rather see that gap filled with nuclear.

[PRTVR]

Evanivitch said:

But again we're dependent on foreign imports of goal to meet our needs.

And when the majority of that comes from Columbia and Russia it doesn't provide us any more security than gas and interconnecters.

I agree coal has a place in the UK energy market right now, but it's short lived and has few benefits right now except that we already have the infrastructure.

What about Australia ? Coal is available from a lot of different countries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_...

[V8 Fettler]

Evanivitch said:

V8 Fettler said:

We can stockpile months of coal, how much gas can we stockpile? Two weeks?

Oh so because we can store it we therefore have security? I don't agree.

Again, coal obviously has it's place right now, but I'd much rather see that gap filled with nuclear.

How much security do you want? 60 million tonnes of stockpiled coal would keep current UK coal-fired power stations running for at least a year, which should see us through any cold snap.

Nuclear has a long construction period, Eggborough can be kept open, could probably build another couple of DRAXs within five years.

[Evanivitch]

V8 Fettler said:

How much security do you want? 60 million tonnes of stockpiled coal would keep current UK coal-fired power stations running for at least a year, which should see us through any cold snap.

Nuclear has a long construction period, Eggborough can be kept open, could probably build another couple of DRAXs within five years.

What's your point? We could say the same of gas.

We supposedly had less than 500,000 tons in 2016 stockpiled, so where will the rest of the 59.5m tons be kept?

And what about the effect on communities and health?
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2017/07/...

[rscott]

V8 Fettler said:

Evanivitch said:

V8 Fettler said:

We can stockpile months of coal, how much gas can we stockpile? Two weeks?

Oh so because we can store it we therefore have security? I don't agree.

Again, coal obviously has it's place right now, but I'd much rather see that gap filled with nuclear.

How much security do you want? 60 million tonnes of stockpiled coal would keep current UK coal-fired power stations running for at least a year, which should see us through any cold snap.

Nuclear has a long construction period, Eggborough can be kept open, could probably build another couple of DRAXs within five years.

Think we all agree gas is a better option than coal though? Surely we should be focusing on replacing the gas storage system which closed down last year, cutting our possible reserves to less than a third of what it was previously. If it were still there, then would we even be talking about possible shortages?

[Evanivitch]

rscott said:

Think we all agree gas is a better option than coal though? Surely we should be focusing on replacing the gas storage system which closed down last year, cutting our possible reserves to less than a third of what it was previously. If it were still there, then would we even be talking about possible shortages?

Agreed.