The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[Condi]

PRTVR said:

Not even close, we are talking about a perceived global problem individual actions matter for nothing, it's the global total that counts, the rest of the world doesn't care, you may care, but it's irrelevant, except to give you a false moral high ground.

How can you say the rest of the world doesnt care when China are currently installing so much solar and wind, and even the US under Trump is still going down the renewables route?

This thread seems to have deteriorated into some stupid slagging match, totally devoid of fact and logic.



Ahhhhhhhhhhhmmmmm ouuuuuuuuuuut.

[wst]

People who don't like renewables, a question.

What about tidal power? That's pretty much clockwork.

[PRTVR]

Condi said:

PRTVR said:

Not even close, we are talking about a perceived global problem individual actions matter for nothing, it's the global total that counts, the rest of the world doesn't care, you may care, but it's irrelevant, except to give you a false moral high ground.

How can you say the rest of the world doesnt care when China are currently installing so much solar and wind, and even the US under Trump is still going down the renewables route?

This thread seems to have deteriorated into some stupid slagging match, totally devoid of fact and logic.



Ahhhhhhhhhhhmmmmm ouuuuuuuuuuut.

What is wrong with pointing out how many coal fired power stations that are in use and planned ? China and America are not shutting down its coal fired power stations like we are, why?
Do you not think it's sensible to keep coal till the alternatives are up and running ?

[V8 Fettler]

Condi said:

Ok, but if you accept that GHG's cause global warming and that global warming is bad for all of us, simply installing new or running existing thermal plants isnt the way forwards.

As a 'millennial' (which I suspect most on this thread arnt) its my generation which will be dealing with the consequences and tbh Id rather see investment into CO2 neutral or CO2 free energy production than thermal assets. Its not going to be perfect from day 1, but neither was coal power, so lets persevere with it and overcome the challenges rather than just sticking with what we know until it is too late to prevent climate problems.

Thermal includes fossil fuel and nuclear.

Medium term = fission, long term = fusion.

[PRTVR]

wst said:

People who don't like renewables, a question.

What about tidal power? That's pretty much clockwork.

Can they be built quickly ? How much does the electricity cost? What other problems do they create silting etc,
the cost is a big one how do we compete on a global market shackling ourselves to expensive electricity ?

I do like renewables that work, visited Norway and their hydro electric is amazing, but we cannot build the fjords and we have a massively larger population along with its requirements for electricity,
until fusion can be made to work we have fission to keep the lights on,if we are going to in isolation with the rest of the world decarbonising our electricity production, without gas wind and solar are a nonstarter.

[V8 Fettler]

rxe said:

Kccv23highliftcam said:

What was that about Western Australia and batteries you say??

get your head out of the sand.

Tesla's battery in Australia is tiny in the grand scheme of things. It's a toy, and would provide base load for the UK for about 2 minutes on a winter's evening, probably catching fire in the process. It is effective at stabilising their grid, which has some unique characteristics, but it's not a viable base load supply.

Energy storage is very expensive, and you need sufficient capacity to cover any reasonable period where the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. if you go down this route, your power becomes very expensive. You have to pay for the renewables, you have to pay for the storage, and you have to pay for the backup generators, because no sane government will kill the country by saying "in the event of an unlikely weather circumstance, the lights are going out and lots of people will die".

IMO we have 3 options as a society:

- Say fk it, burn the coal and postpone the problem for a century. We're then fked.

- Go down the renewables + storage route and push ourselves into an eternal economic decline as increased cost means reduced investment in a vicious circle.

- Go balls out for fusion, pour all the renewable money into that, and make it work. Stop pissing about with it, do a proper Manhattan project approach to solving the engineering issues. The science is already solved.

On the basis of the gas supply warning earlier this year, we are already in that position if we have another winter like 1947 or 1963.

[Evanivitch]

PRTVR said:

What is wrong with pointing out how many coal fired power stations that are in use and planned ? China and America are not shutting down its coal fired power stations like we are, why?
Do you not think it's sensible to keep coal till the alternatives are up and running ?

Because they still have large, working domestic reserves of coal.

Everyone that advocates coal in the UK seems to forget that our coal mining industry is tiny and incapable of supporting any significant growth.

We may reserves, but we built towns on and around them!

[PRTVR]

Evanivitch said:

PRTVR said:

What is wrong with pointing out how many coal fired power stations that are in use and planned ? China and America are not shutting down its coal fired power stations like we are, why?
Do you not think it's sensible to keep coal till the alternatives are up and running ?

Because they still have large, working domestic reserves of coal.

Everyone that advocates coal in the UK seems to forget that our coal mining industry is tiny and incapable of supporting any significant growth.

We may reserves, but we built towns on and around them!

We still have coal reserves, we just chose not to use them, in the last year in the north east there was at least two planning application for open cast mines ( with the compulsory protest camp)
I advocate coal only till something else is proven to work and at an economical price.
So if you have coal reserves it OK to use it but if it's not in your country it's not ?

[rolando]

wst said:

People who don't like renewables, a question.

What about tidal power? That's pretty much clockwork.

Suggested reading (which has been posted here before and I apologise for repeating):

A trip round Swansea Bay

Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon and Baseload Tidal Generation in the UK

I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

[Evanivitch]

PRTVR said:

Evanivitch said:

PRTVR said:

What is wrong with pointing out how many coal fired power stations that are in use and planned ? China and America are not shutting down its coal fired power stations like we are, why?
Do you not think it's sensible to keep coal till the alternatives are up and running ?

Because they still have large, working domestic reserves of coal.

Everyone that advocates coal in the UK seems to forget that our coal mining industry is tiny and incapable of supporting any significant growth.

We may reserves, but we built towns on and around them!

We still have coal reserves, we just chose not to use them, in the last year in the north east there was at least two planning application for open cast mines ( with the compulsory protest camp)
I advocate coal only till something else is proven to work and at an economical price.
So if you have coal reserves it OK to use it but if it's not in your country it's not ?

The impacts of open cast on the community and environment is huge. Ask Merthyr Tydfil. Ask Kenfig Hill. Both have been misled and disregarded by mining keeps purely taking the profit and running. There are countless other stories.

Coal stockpiles are unsightly and damaging to health and we would need nearly a 100x the current coal stockpiles in order to have a reliable resource for an expanded coal generation.

I've not said it's okay to use coal, I've said that's why they both have significant coal generation facilities.

[rxe]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

And you clearly don't understand what that particular Battery system was used for ...... and how that is not the same as other storage proposed.

I do. It is intended to support short term fluctuations in the grid caused by power stations coming in and out as For that purpose it works fine.

The problem is that lots of people seem to be extrapolating that battery to "the storage problem is solved". It isn't solved, as the rough calculations above show. Do you disagree with the calculations?

[rxe]

Someone who understands power engineering would surely realise that a battery in each home is fundamentally the same, yet less efficient, than a thumping big storage solution elsewhere. You can break up the trillion dollar battery, and fit bits of it in homes, but it is still a trillion dollar battery.

And no, electric car batteries aren't the solution either, because in the event that there is no generation, people want their cars charged up in morning, not flattened.

[Evanivitch]

rxe said:

Someone who understands power engineering would surely realise that a battery in each home is fundamentally the same, yet less efficient, than a thumping big storage solution elsewhere. You can break up the trillion dollar battery, and fit bits of it in homes, but it is still a trillion dollar battery.

And no, electric car batteries aren't the solution either, because in the event that there is no generation, people want their cars charged up in morning, not flattened.

The intent has never been to flatten an EV battery.

If you have a 40kWh car with a realistic 150mile range, but you only do a 10 mile commute, you could make atleast 50% of that battery available to the grid most days.

[rxe]

They could, but they won't, unless they are handsomely rewarded to do so. See the behaviour of people when petrol shortages happen. At that point, you're back to cost. This is all possible, no one is saying it isn't, but it is (and will continue to be) cost prohibitive.

[wst]

rolando said:

wst said:

People who don't like renewables, a question.

What about tidal power? That's pretty much clockwork.

Suggested reading (which has been posted here before and I apologise for repeating):

A trip round Swansea Bay

Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon and Baseload Tidal Generation in the UK

I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

As this thread approaches 50 pages (which is the fewest possible, I have "long pages" on) I welcome any repetition of something that was probably buried around page 23 (or probably 97 on normal view).

Bit disappointed in myself that I forgot slack water. As for the rest, "too dependant on geography", got it.

Out of interest, we had a 54 hour and 50 minute period of zero coal usage on the grid, it ended today. That is a new record.

[Evanivitch]

rxe said:

They could, but they won't, unless they are handsomely rewarded to do so. See the behaviour of people when petrol shortages happen. At that point, you're back to cost. This is all possible, no one is saying it isn't, but it is (and will continue to be) cost prohibitive.

Except the cars are coming onto market to support this and the chargers are coming onto market to support this, and neither are added cost over standard equipment.

Those on ECO7 tariffs already charge for as little as 7p/kWh, so even a penny per kWh sales would be a significant part of their already small costs, and without any exceptional upfront costs.

Edited by Evanivitch on Thursday 19th April 12:42

[Smiler.]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

rxe said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

And you clearly don't understand what that particular Battery system was used for ...... and how that is not the same as other storage proposed.

I do. It is intended to support short term fluctuations in the grid caused by power stations coming in and out as For that purpose it works fine.

The problem is that lots of people seem to be extrapolating that battery to "the storage problem is solved". It isn't solved, as the rough calculations above show. Do you disagree with the calculations?

You calculations are irrelevant - correct or not.

It was designed for a purpose and proved be successful in that purpose.

Storage Batteries and mass Storage batteries will be disgorged for a different purpose and perform differently.
Your version is as stupid as comparing the 3.0l diesel in a BMW 3 series to a 3.0l diesel in a Toyota LandCruiser.



In other news, mass batteries and grid usage on a home level. https://www.ovoenergy.com/home-energy-storage

May I ask the industry in which you "consult"?

I'm assuming you are expert in the field of energy generation & battery technology.


Not looking for an argument, but you seem very aggressive in your posts & overly dismissive of some sound points. Which is a shame as you also make some good & valid points.

[Toltec]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

wst said:

People who don't like renewables, a question.

What about tidal power? That's pretty much clockwork.

Tidal needs Laggons as above- which currently is expensive.
The size of the 'slow speed' turbines required for generation make it prohibitive.

While tidal may be more predictable than wind it still has a similar issue in that extracting energy from a source which has a low energy differential across the generator is always going to be more difficult. As a simple example consider the difference between a low head undershot water wheel and a turbine with a high head of water. While the turbine will require a higher level of technology it will be much more compact and scale to higher outputs than a wheel. I like the idea of tidal power, however the potential energy is from a few metres of head or m/s of velocity so the generator has to be large.

Granted the containment, cooling and auxillary equipment needed to run a high energy plant like nuclear is not small either.

Clean, cheap, reliable - pick two...

[Evanivitch]

wst said:

People who don't like renewables, a question.

What about tidal power? That's pretty much clockwork.

I think Tidal Power is a great solution and can be worked closely with domestic and industrial level storage.

But it also has to be looked at wider than the energy issue. For example, Cardiff Bay is a great example of how a lagoon can be used for cultural and leisure activities. It can be a huge asset to the community.

Swansea bay is a watersports hotspot but suffers because the tide line can be a long, long way away! Placing the Swansea lagoon near the city centre and 2 new uni campuses gives it the chance to be well used for a lot more than just electricity.

That said, I think people massively underestimate how much of a blot the lagoon wall will be at low tide.

[PRTVR]

wst said:

Out of interest, we had a 54 hour and 50 minute period of zero coal usage on the grid, it ended today. That is a new record.

But during the beast from the east coal was delivering 25% of electricity, without it the lights would have gone out.