The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[Evanivitch]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

And the cost model for the Coal Gasisification ? Especially offshore?


Or are we just dreaming for anything except Renewables?

Well given how quiet it has been I imagine it's not going very well.

[rscott]

PRTVR said:

rscott said:

PRTVR said:

The present problem with gas may have been man made,
Centrica shut down large gas storage facility.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-...

That'd be like the link I posted this morning?

rscott said:

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.

Apologies, went out and when I came back in read the open tab and posted, should have thought about why I would have a Guardian tab open.

It's alright we won't tell anyone

[Willy Nilly]

How do they re-start a coal power station furnace? Not rolled up news paper and kindling I expect?

[Ali G]

Evanivitch said:

Well given how quiet it has been I imagine it's not going very well.

Onshore fracking in the UK is not going very well either - but is not necessarily unviable. Obviously in the US it's going very well indeed. The UK has a pretty decent record for offshore gas and oil, and depending upon how expensive gas imports become UCG may become a viable option.

Currently, the UK should be looking for plans B through to Z given the state of policy at the moment!

[StanleyT]

Evanivitch said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

And the cost model for the Coal Gasisification ? Especially offshore?


Or are we just dreaming for anything except Renewables?

Well given how quiet it has been I imagine it's not going very well.

In the 1960s CEGB were quite up for this. UK research was miles ahead of the rest of the world. Hey we were going to do some gassification (Davy Mcee and the local steel works) under the North Sea at somewhere north of Hartlepool. Anyway AGRs came along with their fancy fission and somewhere along the way the Monkey Hangers still built Hartlepool but with a fission core.

Again in the 1980s I think it was looked at but the miners strike made coal too political then, e.g. mein uncle has since 1983 always said coal should be the main power source, though I think that was a twisted slant. He was a Police Inspector in Rotherham at the time and the miners strike OT and danger money paid his mortgage off in three years. As he used to say, "For every homeless miner, there are three debt free coppers"!

There used to be a book "Going Critical" on the web which discussed this and the Author had a website with a lot of the history of the CEGB and it's foilbles but my GoogleFu fails me to find it.

[LongQ]

Ali G said:

For those who may wish to make use of coal reserves but not wish to mine it.

Underground Coal Gasification

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/energy/UCG.html

Why gasify it?

There are a number of places around the world where coal has been burning underground for some years.

So .... just put in some piping systems for heat transfer and set fire to what is there. Free heat for decades and could be piped around the towns. In fact why not build the towns where the heat it is?

The same sort of concepts seem to work for Iceland.

[V8 Fettler]

Evanivitch said:

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/...

UK stockpiled 60 million tons of coal in 1983 (Hansard), so it's nothing new. Have we ever stockpiled sufficient gas for a year? For a month? Two weeks? The "running out of gas" alarm has been pressed after less than a week of winter weather.

Selby District Council includes Drax and is approx 5 miles from Eggborough, air quality report pdf: http://www.selby.gov.uk/sites/default/files/air%20...

Selby report said:

it is considered that national air quality objectives for PM10 are currently met in Selby.

Selby report said:

Additionally, monitoring results for particulate at Brotherton (carried out as part of a planning application) have been considered and demonstrate that the EU limit value for PM2.5 of 25?g/m3 as an annual average is not being exceeded.

Selby report said:

In 2015, the annual average PM2.5 concentrations measured within one of Selby District Council?s neighbouring authority areas (York) were well below the EU limit value (concentrations measured at 3 York sites were 9.1?g/m3, 10.2?g/m3 and 12.0?g/m3 respectively

[Evanivitch]

V8 Fettler said:

Evanivitch said:

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/...

UK stockpiled 60 million tons of coal in 1983 (Hansard), so it's nothing new. Have we ever stockpiled sufficient gas for a year? For a month? Two weeks? The "running out of gas" alarm has been pressed after less than a week of winter weather.

Selby District Council includes Drax and is approx 5 miles from Eggborough, air quality report pdf: http://www.selby.gov.uk/sites/default/files/air%20...

Selby report said:

it is considered that national air quality objectives for PM10 are currently met in Selby.

Selby report said:

Additionally, monitoring results for particulate at Brotherton (carried out as part of a planning application) have been considered and demonstrate that the EU limit value for PM2.5 of 25?g/m3 as an annual average is not being exceeded.

Selby report said:

In 2015, the annual average PM2.5 concentrations measured within one of Selby District Council?s neighbouring authority areas (York) were well below the EU limit value (concentrations measured at 3 York sites were 9.1?g/m3, 10.2?g/m3 and 12.0?g/m3 respectively

The entire UK's coal stockpile is the equivalent of two typical US coal power station stockpile.

IET said:

To put these figures in perspective, the average US coal-fired power plant pays $48.00 per ton for coal, stockpiles 212,781.6 tons of coal and has 106,235 tons of coal delivered to it each month.

So your comparison of PM2.5 is possibly a magnitude out due to the scale of the stockpile sites nearby.

1983 was long enough ago that I can say with some certainty that we don't have the facility to do that now. I'd only have to cycle down to Aberthaw to tell you that.

[V8 Fettler]

rscott said:

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?

Using gas for generating base load electricity is wasteful of energy when that gas can be burnt at the final point of the chain (conversion losses, transmission losses etc). Coal is far easier to stockpile than gas, giving security of supply. The UK sits on trillions of tons of coal.

[V8 Fettler]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

And the cost model for the Coal Gasisification ? Especially offshore?


Or are we just dreaming for anything except Renewables?

Perhaps a subsidy is required? Just like "renewables".

[V8 Fettler]

Evanivitch said:

V8 Fettler said:

Evanivitch said:

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/...

UK stockpiled 60 million tons of coal in 1983 (Hansard), so it's nothing new. Have we ever stockpiled sufficient gas for a year? For a month? Two weeks? The "running out of gas" alarm has been pressed after less than a week of winter weather.

Selby District Council includes Drax and is approx 5 miles from Eggborough, air quality report pdf: http://www.selby.gov.uk/sites/default/files/air%20...

Selby report said:

it is considered that national air quality objectives for PM10 are currently met in Selby.

Selby report said:

Additionally, monitoring results for particulate at Brotherton (carried out as part of a planning application) have been considered and demonstrate that the EU limit value for PM2.5 of 25?g/m3 as an annual average is not being exceeded.

Selby report said:

In 2015, the annual average PM2.5 concentrations measured within one of Selby District Council?s neighbouring authority areas (York) were well below the EU limit value (concentrations measured at 3 York sites were 9.1?g/m3, 10.2?g/m3 and 12.0?g/m3 respectively

The entire UK's coal stockpile is the equivalent of two typical US coal power station stockpile.

IET said:

To put these figures in perspective, the average US coal-fired power plant pays $48.00 per ton for coal, stockpiles 212,781.6 tons of coal and has 106,235 tons of coal delivered to it each month.

So your comparison of PM2.5 is possibly a magnitude out due to the scale of the stockpile sites nearby.

1983 was long enough ago that I can say with some certainty that we don't have the facility to do that now. I'd only have to cycle down to Aberthaw to tell you that.

IET said:

They estimated that a 10 per cent increase in coal stockpiles led to a 0.07 per cent increase in air pollution for communities up to 25 miles away from coal plants.

Do they have any facts, or is their report based on guesswork?

Plenty of stockpiling space available at various disused airfields for immediate use. Concrete pads are not difficult to construct.

[V8 Fettler]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

V8 Fettler said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

And the cost model for the Coal Gasisification ? Especially offshore?


Or are we just dreaming for anything except Renewables?

Perhaps a subsidy is required? Just like "renewables".

Would that kick start an industry that would in turn dramatically reduce its costs to a point where within 20yrs of emerging, it would not only not only remove a need the subsidy, but also be the cheapest form of energy?

It would also be a help if your energy source didn’t have a finite amount.

If so, you’ve cracked it.
If not, seems pointless

Which industry is this then?

[Evanivitch]

V8 Fettler said:

Do they have any facts, or is their report based on guesswork?

Plenty of stockpiling space available at various disused airfields for immediate use. Concrete pads are not difficult to construct.

Ah the fake-facts approach when you can't defeat good evidence based analysis. Well done.

Again, you don't seem to attend many airfields. They're certainly not sat there doing nothing. Many are hubs for industry, sold to housing and (in my experience) turned into massive car parks! So please, try again...

[V8 Fettler]

Evanivitch said:

V8 Fettler said:

Do they have any facts, or is their report based on guesswork?

Plenty of stockpiling space available at various disused airfields for immediate use. Concrete pads are not difficult to construct.

Ah the fake-facts approach when you can't defeat good evidence based analysis. Well done.

Again, you don't seem to attend many airfields. They're certainly not sat there doing nothing. Many are hubs for industry, sold to housing and (in my experience) turned into massive car parks! So please, try again...

IET article used the word "estimate", do they have any facts?

Elvington is but one example with plenty of space



Plenty of space to build concrete pads at DRAX:

[V8 Fettler]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

V8 Fettler said:

Which industry is this then?

Should I assume your not being droll or stupid?

You can assume whatever you want.

Going back to your earlier post:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Would that kick start an industry that would in turn dramatically reduce its costs to a point where within 20yrs of emerging, it would not only not only remove a need the subsidy, but also be the cheapest form of energy?

Which industry is that then?

[Evanivitch]

V8 Fettler said:

IET article used the word "estimate", do they have any facts?

I'm not sure you quite understand what the word estimate means. Hint, it's not the same as guess.

Elvington is a great choice, I can really see the people of York appreciating a gentle dusting of PM2.5.

[V8 Fettler]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

V8 Fettler said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

V8 Fettler said:

Which industry is this then?

Should I assume your not being droll or stupid?

You can assume whatever you want.

Going back to your earlier post:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Would that kick start an industry that would in turn dramatically reduce its costs to a point where within 20yrs of emerging, it would not only not only remove a need the subsidy, but also be the cheapest form of energy?

Which industry is that then?

Power Generation by wind.

Delabole wind farm was constructed in 1991, so you've had your 20 years plus some, is there currently no subsidy for wind power?

[V8 Fettler]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

V8 Fettler said:

Do they have any facts, or is their report based on guesswork?

Plenty of stockpiling space available at various disused airfields for immediate use. Concrete pads are not difficult to construct.

Your ‘solution ‘ entails collecting coal from around the world, shipping and freighting to Paris ofvtge countryside for storage, and double handling it to the power stations (old one that are being scrapped) and burning ?

Assuming "Paris ofvtge" = "parts of the" . Disused runways for immediate use, concrete pads adjacent to coal-fired power stations within a few months.

[V8 Fettler]

Evanivitch said:

V8 Fettler said:

IET article used the word "estimate", do they have any facts?

I'm not sure you quite understand what the word estimate means. Hint, it's not the same as guess.

Elvington is a great choice, I can really see the people of York appreciating a gentle dusting of PM2.5.

Estimate = approximation = element of guesswork. The Selby DC report contains relevant facts, I can see no relevant facts on the IET webpage you linked to,

[V8 Fettler]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

V8 Fettler said:

Delabole wind farm was constructed in 1991, so you've had your 20 years plus some, is there currently no subsidy for wind power?

Well if you are going to be a smart arse - yes there are projects sanctioned and under construction without subsidy

Does referring to facts = "smart arse" in your world?

27 years after the construction of Delabole, is there currently no subsidy for wind power? A fact: 27 years is a longer time period than 20 years.