The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

No


I’m blaming the reporting of something negligible being whipped up to hysteria levels by the media and those with an agenda

I posted that the recall was as yet undecided and to 'watch that space', hardly hysterical.

Phew I'm innocent in Paddy's eyes, how could I have survived the weekend otherwise

[Evanivitch]

LongQ said:

You have to wonder what this "scare" is all about.

https://www.poeton.co.uk/apticote-900-cadmium-plat...
.

UK MoD won't let Cd near any of their new products. And Hexavalent Chromium is approaching a sunset date with the EU.

It's not surprising that Cd appeared not by design, I've seen it happen on all sorts. Somehow it keeps worming into supply chains.

[V8 Fettler]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

From Renews today


Energy consultancy Aurora
has kicked off a wide-ranging
study of the CfD regime that
will feed into the upcoming
five-year review of the UK’s
Electricity Market Reform
programme.
Researchers are
understood to be working
with BEIS and electricity
regulator Ofgem on modelling
future auction designs,
including the potential
replacement of a strike price
with a price floor.
“We will look at a spectrum
of potential CfD changes
from tweaking referencing
prices and negative price
periods to major changes
such as contract lengths or
moving from strike price to
a floor,” said Aurora head of
renewables Hugo Batten.
A floor could boost
onshore wind, which is
currently excluded from
price supports, by offering
a potentially cost-neutral
government mechanism
outside the £557m pot for
less established renewables,
he added.
“If the price floor was
designed as a weekly rolling
average of £25 per megawatthour,
for example, the
wholesale price is unlikely
to fall below that level for a
whole week and is therefore
very likely to be cost-neutral.”
There is a 99% chance
average capture prices of
onshore wind will keep above
£25/MWh in the 2030s, a 90%
chance of prices being above
£31/MWh and a 50% chance
of topping £49/MWh, the
consultancy predicted.
“A price floor would give
debt providers confidence
that the asset will generate
a certain amount of return,
which will reduce the cost of
capital and encourage more
investment in projects,” said
Batten. The study is expected
to take up to three months
with the findings due out by
November.
BEIS is obliged to start the
review of the EMR, which
includes the CfD regime,
next year under the 2013
Electricity Act.

Your posts frequently need some effort to untangle, but your latest is at a different level.

[LongQ]

Evanivitch said:

LongQ said:

You have to wonder what this "scare" is all about.

https://www.poeton.co.uk/apticote-900-cadmium-plat...
.

UK MoD won't let Cd near any of their new products. And Hexavalent Chromium is approaching a sunset date with the EU.

It's not surprising that Cd appeared not by design, I've seen it happen on all sorts. Somehow it keeps worming into supply chains.

In that case there's a certain irony about the MoD's policy in the 21st century.

When everything else has been abandoned as weaponry on a Health and Safety basis, will long bows be re-introduced? (Obviously without arrows and ensuring that the strings cannot injury anyone.)

Why do they keep claiming to be short of money? Is it because the "safe" alternatives to Cd and similar are really really expensive?


ETA.


Sorry, OT but no doubt there is an equivalent concern somewhere in the Power Generation game.

[LongQ]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

turbobloke said:

Depending on exposure (level and frequency) renal failure and liver cancer aren't trivial!

You didn't say they were. I'm just indicating they're not...

I bet it wouldn't be eliminated if there was value to the Exchequer in taxing it.

[LongQ]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

From Renews today


Energy consultancy Aurora
has kicked off a wide-ranging
study of the CfD regime that
will feed into the upcoming
five-year review of the UK’s
Electricity Market Reform
programme.

Interesting.

Are Aurora the only consultancy that the current Govt. regime partners with for this sort of work?

Does the price floor idea mean that energy (notably electricity) will become relatively cheaper in the future or does a "designer" system suggest that they might be going for capacity via investment at any cost to the consumer?

How many fiddle factors can they build in at the request of BEIS that would allow the market to be, shall we say, fine tuned at a future point?

These and so many other questions will no doubt be answered at some point.

That said it may be wise to have the fiddle factors. I can't imagine that the extent of all the possible changes in the consumer side market as well as the generation side can be factored in to a one-size-fits-any-outcome plan, so fiddle factoring may well be the name of the game for a couple of decades.

[Evanivitch]

LongQ said:

In that case there's a certain irony about the MoD's policy in the 21st century.

When everything else has been abandoned as weaponry on a Health and Safety basis, will long bows be re-introduced? (Obviously without arrows and ensuring that the strings cannot injury anyone.)

Why do they keep claiming to be short of money? Is it because the "safe" alternatives to Cd and similar are really really expensive?

As a general rule, anything that is harmful to your own troops is a bad thing.

Being stuck in a sealed metal tank/ship/submarine/cockpit alongside a known carcinogenic substance is a good example of that.

And when you can use something else instead, why bother?

[LongQ]

Evanivitch said:

LongQ said:

In that case there's a certain irony about the MoD's policy in the 21st century.

When everything else has been abandoned as weaponry on a Health and Safety basis, will long bows be re-introduced? (Obviously without arrows and ensuring that the strings cannot injury anyone.)

Why do they keep claiming to be short of money? Is it because the "safe" alternatives to Cd and similar are really really expensive?

As a general rule, anything that is harmful to your own troops is a bad thing.

Being stuck in a sealed metal tank/ship/submarine/cockpit alongside a known carcinogenic substance is a good example of that.

And when you can use something else instead, why bother?

Have H&S yet introduced ladders for people who need to get into armoured vehicles?

I met a lad, old friend of my Son-in-Law, who was in the military as a fast boat driver. Doing some last minute training in preparation for a deployment overseas (about the third time he was in line to go as I recall but the first 2 were called off) he severely smashed a knee jumping out of a chopper with a full backpack. I think must have been all of 3 years and series of operations before he was vaguely fit again. Then he left the service. There seem to be riskier things to do than be in the vicinity of Cd.

Many years ago I was a regular visitor to a plating company in the vicinity of Heathrow. A typical "dirty" operations factory with vats of chemicals lying around, little by way of protection for the workers and a smell that was, to say the least, interesting. Lots of Chrome, Nickel and Cad plating going on as I recall.

Years later I discovered it was owned by someone quite well known in motorsport circles and more recently I happened to meet the chap and discovered that that he was not just the owner but actually did much of the work himself. He seems to be very fit and healthy for his age.

Presumably he has just been very lucky.

[Evanivitch]

LongQ said:

Have H&S yet introduced ladders for people who need to get into armoured vehicles?

Yes, as well as airbags, crashmats and harnesses.

[turbobloke]

An acerbic take on power policy down under follows. It has a virtual R18 certificate for renewables activisits but a pixellated U for everyone else.

Doubleplusgood Greenthink

http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2018/...

[rolando]

Miniature nuclear reactors could give the UK energy freedom

[turbobloke]

rolando said:

Miniature nuclear reactors could give the UK energy freedom

Thanks for the link, restoring grounds for optimism in the medium- to long-term.

Article said:

This week, an independent expert review commissioned by the government recommended that SMRs be offered the same subsidies given to offshore wind projects.

Better still just swap the subsidy over, or to allow politicians to save green face, offer a suitably intermittent subsidy to offshore wind with SMRs picking up the rest.

[Ali G]

It makes perfect sense.

Presumably RR could do with a bit of a hand, financially, too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44479410

Presumably there are sufficient secure locations dotted around the country.

I have no inside info on why the floating variety would not be a good starting point.

(Trying hard not to antagonise the mods)

[anonymous-user]

rolando said:

Miniature nuclear reactors could give the UK energy freedom

Interesting slightly older article from wired also in the links about the global reduction in reactors being built as countries focus on renewables instead.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nuclear-power-reac...



(Larger version in the links)

Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 11th August 12:54

[Evanivitch]

rolando said:

Miniature nuclear reactors could give the UK energy freedom

I can support the idea of clustering multiples of the reactors at a single site, but they idea that they lend themselves to a more distributed nuclear generation is a non-starters in my opinion. Why take on the years of battling when the whole point is that they are more agile to produce?

I think the production line manufacturing is a good point, but do we have anything like the facility to do so? I can't imagine RR maintain a production line for such small batches that they produce.

[Ali G]

NuScale appear to be going ahead with a 12 module reactor - scheduled to be generating in mid 2020's.

https://newsroom.nuscalepower.com/press-release/co...

I doubt that there is the political will to enable the development of a UK-based equivalent.

[Gary C]

I have heard that edf are considering dropping Sizewell C for smr's.

[turbobloke]

Ali G said:

NuScale appear to be going ahead with a 12 module reactor - scheduled to be generating in mid 2020's.

https://newsroom.nuscalepower.com/press-release/co...

I doubt that there is the political will to enable the development of a UK-based equivalent.

Have to agree and it's disappointing.

[LongQ]

Evanivitch said:

LongQ said:

Have H&S yet introduced ladders for people who need to get into armoured vehicles?

Yes, as well as airbags, crashmats and harnesses.

Are they powered and self deploying/storing items or do the people attempting to access the armoured vehicle in a hurry, for their own protection, have to retrieve and store them themselves? (as was suggested by an H&S consultant some years back to an acquaintance of mine during a training course when he was in the RAF Regiment.)

[turbobloke]

On bulb ban evolution, from LongQ's suggestion in a post on another thread:

The EU version.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/aug/11/swit...

The USA version.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/08/08/obama-light-bulb...