The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain
Discussion
Talksteer said:
That was typo by me it should have read 5% per minute (not hour) between 60 and 100% output. Thus an EPR could add ~80MWe per minute to the grid or Hinckley Point C adding 1300MWe in 8 minutes.
This is only possible over 80% of the fuel cycle.
PWR are more able to dig themselves out of iodine pits simply because their moderator is their coolant. Thus if core temperature drops you can get some of the reactivity back you lost due to xenon.
PWR's original application was obviously one where the reactor had to be able to respond like an oil fired steam boiler.
How do PWR's overcome the clad failure from power cycling. One of our biggest problems is Pellet/Clad interaction which severely limits our flexibility as it would lead to clad failures. We dont use Zircalloy thoughThis is only possible over 80% of the fuel cycle.
PWR are more able to dig themselves out of iodine pits simply because their moderator is their coolant. Thus if core temperature drops you can get some of the reactivity back you lost due to xenon.
PWR's original application was obviously one where the reactor had to be able to respond like an oil fired steam boiler.
Gary C said:
How do PWR's overcome the clad failure from power cycling. One of our biggest problems is Pellet/Clad interaction which severely limits our flexibility as it would lead to clad failures. We dont use Zircalloy though
It just isn't an issue in PWRs. There were 2 failed PWR fuel pins due to PCI worldwide during the period of 1994-2006, and both occurred in the US where power cycling was not performed.Possible reasons are the lower clad temperature, so less creep of the cladding - and the use of long whole core height fuel pins in PWRs, which permits the addition of a large plenum space which can buffer fission gas pressure. I believe that AGR fuel pins don't have any significant internal gas space.
The mechanism may also be different - in PWRs, the mechanism of PCI is stress corrosion cracking, due to the action of iodine released from the fuel pellets initiating cracks in the zircaloy. Pressure and temperature changes due to further load cycling can lead to crack propagation.
PCI was more of a problem with BWRs, because control is much faster (you can change the circulation pump speed for very rapid power changes, and a variety of other plant transients can cause dramatic power fluctuations - e.g a condenser trip can cause reactor power to increase by 30-40% in the time before the reactor fully trips). Commercial BWR fuel was redeveloped to use a hybrid cladding - high purity, high malleability pure zirconium on the inside, and hard, corrosion resistant zircaloy on the outside; and new operating guidelines about power control in BWRs implemented. The inner zirconium layer retains enough malleability to resist crack formation even under iodine attack, and retains enough integrity to protect the outer zircaloy clad.
The industry has been gearing up for yet more tolerant fuels. One is the use of additives to the fuel pellets - several suppliers have launched fuel pellets containing trace amounts of chromium oxide, which results in much larger fuel grain sizes, with the purported benefit of greater structural stability and reduced fission gas release. Framatome's new fuel also includes exterior chromium plating which is claimed to have a number of benefits: it is much harder than zircaloy, so should resist fretting wear (the most common cause of PWR fuel failure), it also has improved corrosion resistance, and in the event of loss-of-coolant accident, prevents oxidation/ignition of the zircaloy.
Thought-provoking guest piece from the GWPF.
The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
turbobloke said:
Thought-provoking guest piece from the GWPF.
The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
I guess T. May isn't very good at maths then. Maybe someone should have a quiet word in her ear.The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
turbobloke said:
Thought-provoking guest piece from the GWPF.
The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
From a lobby group. The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
Randy Winkman said:
turbobloke said:
Thought-provoking guest piece from the GWPF.
The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
From a lobby group. The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
In any case such precision logic within flawless analysis of content at the link is so convincing it's not convincing at all. As 'shooting the messenger' is simply an ad hominem fallacy, physics and economics denial
is doing really well as usual in these circumstances.What errors are present in points 1-16?
robinessex said:
turbobloke said:
Thought-provoking guest piece from the GWPF.
The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
I guess T. May isn't very good at maths then. Maybe someone should have a quiet word in her ear.The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
I know your thread is boring as you’ve got everyone banned robin but no need to pollute other threads with your GWPF rubbish.
El stovey said:
... GWPF rubbish.
Acually, it's Manhattan Institute for Policy Research rubbish.https://economics21.org/inconvenient-realities-new...
Let us know if it's a front for Big Oil.
gareth_r said:
El stovey said:
... GWPF rubbish.
Acually, it's Manhattan Institute for Policy Research rubbish.https://economics21.org/inconvenient-realities-new...
Let us know if it's a front for Big Oil.
The author Mark Mills is linked to the heartland Institute who are funded by Exxon.
He was also “science advisor” to the greening earth society, funded and controlled by the western fuels association.
Mills is also senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for policy research ( where the article was published) which is funded by the Koch brothers of Rock Island Oil and Refinery Company, and again Exxon Mobil and is also described as aiming to “promote climate science contrarianism while defending policies supporting the development of fossil fuels.”
robinessex said:
turbobloke said:
Thought-provoking guest piece from the GWPF.
The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
I guess T. May isn't very good at maths then. Maybe someone should have a quiet word in her ear.The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
In the real world substantial transitions have taken place in a single generation (town gas to natural gas, oil to nuclear).
To unpick this -
1: If we look at electric cars, the current situation is that 2% of new car sales globally are electric. However that is coming from a very low baseline. Electric cars sale double around every 2 years, follow that trend and by 2031 (6 doublings) 100% of cars are BEVs.
2: If you look at rates of battery cost reduction 1 kwh of Lion batteries becomes around 20% cheaper per year. This means that in 2018 $40k BEV's are now superior to equivilent ICE cars and have a much lower cost of ownership. By the early 2020's this reduction in the cost of electric drive trains means that all classes of BEV's will have lower operating costs than equivalent ICE vehicles and by the end of the decade will be outright cheaper to buy. Once this becomes obvious in the early 2020 ever car manufacturer will switch to EV's in one model cycle.
3: The superior economics and driving experience of BEVs will mean that in the period 2025-2040 it is likely serviceable ICE cars will simply be scrapped in the same way that people didn't wait for their Walkmans and CD players to break before replacing them. Shared autonomous cars will simply speed this process up.
4: The battery cost and capability improvements driven by automotive will mean that virtually all other forms of transport will go to BEV between 2025-2040. This will include most aviation, long range shipping is feasible with hydrogen assuming that its volume isn't greatly reduced by automation reshoring the manufacture of goods.
This effectively knocks nearly 50% of primary energy consumption from burning fossil fuels to electricity. If we look at electricity grids:
1: There are already plenty of grids with low CO2 outputs, France is a good example. The UK grid is already 50% low carbon by annual production and the national grid has several pathways to near total emissions free operation. Incidentally these pathways don't rely on giant batteries, vehicle to grid, interconnectors batteries and some gas plants that mostly sit around doing nothing are enough to keep the grid working. Lots of nuclear would be even better!
2: Environmental policies in the rich world are gradually bringing the cost down and increasing the capacity to deploy clean energy. This capacity to produce said products won't dry up when the rich world is saturated, it will percolate to everyone else. With the demand from electric transport going global the demand for the electricity will be there.
3: Currently CCGT is in a slump as utilities are basically either installing renewables or sweating existing assets waiting fr renewables to get cheaper.
There are therefore pretty good pathways to decarbonise transport and electricity by 2050. The major sectors left are industry and space heating/cooling.
The solutions are less obvious here, however I suspect that the principle drivers here will be:
1: Embedded carbon taxes, this will stop offshoring emissions by de-industrializing.
2: Spill over effects from electrification of other industries, most industrial processes should be possible electro-chemically and this will probably open up whole new industries and products.
Talksteer said:
robinessex said:
turbobloke said:
Thought-provoking guest piece from the GWPF.
The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
I guess T. May isn't very good at maths then. Maybe someone should have a quiet word in her ear.The physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future.
https://www.thegwpf.com/mark-mills-inconvenient-en...
In the real world substantial transitions have taken place in a single generation (town gas to natural gas, oil to nuclear).
To unpick this -
1: If we look at electric cars, the current situation is that 2% of new car sales globally are electric. However that is coming from a very low baseline. Electric cars sale double around every 2 years, follow that trend and by 2031 (6 doublings) 100% of cars are BEVs.
2: If you look at rates of battery cost reduction 1 kwh of Lion batteries becomes around 20% cheaper per year. This means that in 2018 $40k BEV's are now superior to equivilent ICE cars and have a much lower cost of ownership. By the early 2020's this reduction in the cost of electric drive trains means that all classes of BEV's will have lower operating costs than equivalent ICE vehicles and by the end of the decade will be outright cheaper to buy. Once this becomes obvious in the early 2020 ever car manufacturer will switch to EV's in one model cycle.
3: The superior economics and driving experience of BEVs will mean that in the period 2025-2040 it is likely serviceable ICE cars will simply be scrapped in the same way that people didn't wait for their Walkmans and CD players to break before replacing them. Shared autonomous cars will simply speed this process up.
4: The battery cost and capability improvements driven by automotive will mean that virtually all other forms of transport will go to BEV between 2025-2040. This will include most aviation, long range shipping is feasible with hydrogen assuming that its volume isn't greatly reduced by automation reshoring the manufacture of goods.
<snip>
You have a working crystal ball? If so then the future is more foreseeable to you but I don't fall for carp like that.
Impressive, unlike your baseless dismissal of accurate reporting as 'almost clickbait'. I guess knowing the future must confer great confidence as per the faith statements used to counter rational arguments at times like this.
What does your operational crystal ball tell you about the new technology developments as yet unknown (otherwise they would be known and youn could have specified one or two) which will transform your comments above the level of wishful thinking?
Talksteer said:
-snip-
4: The battery cost and capability improvements driven by automotive will mean that virtually all other forms of transport will go to BEV between 2025-2040. This will include most aviation, long range shipping is feasible with hydrogen assuming that its volume isn't greatly reduced by automation reshoring the manufacture of goods.
-snip-
Interesting comments, shame although hardly unexpected that you appear to have triggered the resident denialist into a frothing rant.4: The battery cost and capability improvements driven by automotive will mean that virtually all other forms of transport will go to BEV between 2025-2040. This will include most aviation, long range shipping is feasible with hydrogen assuming that its volume isn't greatly reduced by automation reshoring the manufacture of goods.
-snip-
I'd be surprised if aviation could achieve BEV by 2040, hybridised certainly but even though cost of batteries is rapidly advancing and will undoubtedly accelerate I haven't seen a breakthrough in energy density that'll enable a lightweight BEV airliner.
Edited by Wayoftheflower on Thursday 4th July 10:37
Talksteer said:
4: The battery cost and capability improvements driven by automotive will mean that virtually all other forms of transport will go to BEV between 2025-2040. This will include most aviation, long range shipping is feasible with hydrogen assuming that its volume isn't greatly reduced by automation reshoring the manufacture of goods.
I doubt both those points. We are some ways off having viable viable battery powered mass air travel. Likewise what makes you think we will be using Hydrogen powered ships any time soon? Just about everything being delivered at the moment is designed to run on HFO, MDO/MGO or LNG. Hydrogen does not feature and I am not aware of any significant levels of R&D for hydrogen propulsion that are going to deliver solutions any time soon. Given that large vessels are typically designed to last up to 25 years, and it can take decades to get any significant form of regulatory change across the industry then I think you're kidding yourself if you expect to see large scale Hydrogen powered shipping by 2040.
Talksteer said:
This effectively knocks nearly 50% of primary energy consumption from burning fossil fuels to electricity.
Let's say you are correct, for the sake of debate. Where is all this extra power going to be coming from and how are you going to overcome the intermittency problem? I take it that the answer to question one will be more renewable, but the answer to question 2 always gets waved away as being irrelevant whenever I ask it. Apparently we'll all be more efficient, and my next door neighbours car will be charging up my car over night etc. But the reality is, that it's nonsense. This energy has to come from somewhere, and if we are not burning fuels we need something that we can rely upon when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. Do you agree? You set out below some quite interesting ideas, but there appears to be an awful lot of what my old engineering manager used to call 'drawing to fit' rather than 'drawing to actually function'. In other words, you can make all the theories you like but you also can't change the laws of physics, and in a carbon free grid there always has to be something to keep the lights on when the renewables can't do so. I do agree with you that Nuclear is a good option. But then, why not just build lots of nuclear and forget the renewables altogether? Cost of energy would be lower (no duplication required) and energy security would be assured.
Talksteer said:
1: There are already plenty of grids with low CO2 outputs, France is a good example. The UK grid is already 50% low carbon by annual production and the national grid has several pathways to near total emissions free operation. Incidentally these pathways don't rely on giant batteries, vehicle to grid, interconnectors batteries and some gas plants that mostly sit around doing nothing are enough to keep the grid working. Lots of nuclear would be even better!
2: Environmental policies in the rich world are gradually bringing the cost down and increasing the capacity to deploy clean energy. This capacity to produce said products won't dry up when the rich world is saturated, it will percolate to everyone else. With the demand from electric transport going global the demand for the electricity will be there.
3: Currently CCGT is in a slump as utilities are basically either installing renewables or sweating existing assets waiting fr renewables to get cheaper.
There are therefore pretty good pathways to decarbonise transport and electricity by 2050. The major sectors left are industry and space heating/cooling.
The solutions are less obvious here, however I suspect that the principle drivers here will be:
1: Embedded carbon taxes, this will stop offshoring emissions by de-industrializing.
2: Spill over effects from electrification of other industries, most industrial processes should be possible electro-chemically and this will probably open up whole new industries and products.
Indeed... all these things being driven by electricity rather than fossil fuels. But still no real solution to the renewables intermittency problem in sight. 2: Environmental policies in the rich world are gradually bringing the cost down and increasing the capacity to deploy clean energy. This capacity to produce said products won't dry up when the rich world is saturated, it will percolate to everyone else. With the demand from electric transport going global the demand for the electricity will be there.
3: Currently CCGT is in a slump as utilities are basically either installing renewables or sweating existing assets waiting fr renewables to get cheaper.
There are therefore pretty good pathways to decarbonise transport and electricity by 2050. The major sectors left are industry and space heating/cooling.
The solutions are less obvious here, however I suspect that the principle drivers here will be:
1: Embedded carbon taxes, this will stop offshoring emissions by de-industrializing.
2: Spill over effects from electrification of other industries, most industrial processes should be possible electro-chemically and this will probably open up whole new industries and products.
Maersk have committed to being carbon neutral by 2050 - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-maersk-emission...
rscott said:
Maersk have committed to being carbon neutral by 2050 - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-maersk-emission...
Yes, but the devil is in the detail. It's looking to switch to Bio fuels. There is more than a little unease in some quarters about the ecological impact of a substantial switch to widespread biofuel use.. It aint as simple as many would like to believe. andymadmak said:
rscott said:
Maersk have committed to being carbon neutral by 2050 - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-maersk-emission...
Yes, but the devil is in the detail. It's looking to switch to Bio fuels. There is more than a little unease in some quarters about the ecological impact of a substantial switch to widespread biofuel use.. It aint as simple as many would like to believe. rscott said:
Seems like they're open to alternative options - https://www.maersk.com/news/articles/2019/06/26/to... . Interesting to see they've reduced relative co2 emissions by 41% compared to 10 years ago already.
Yes, they are forward thinking and seem willing to explore stuff. But that 41% reduction (whilst laudable and welcome) is a function in part of natural changes that are happening in the shipping space already. Early scrappage of older (and even some younger ) vessels in the period 2008 - 2018 when the industry was really under the financial cosh helped a lot. Better engines (nowt to do with Maersk per se), alternate fuels, the beginnings of a move away from HFO consumption, the upcoming 2020 sulpher cap, better ship designs, larger vessels offering increased efficiencies, rationalisation of routes all contribute to some degree. It's a mighty big step though from picking off the comparatively low hanging fruit to making the next substantive changes.
andymadmak said:
rscott said:
Seems like they're open to alternative options - https://www.maersk.com/news/articles/2019/06/26/to... . Interesting to see they've reduced relative co2 emissions by 41% compared to 10 years ago already.
Yes, they are forward thinking and seem willing to explore stuff. But that 41% reduction (whilst laudable and welcome) is a function in part of natural changes that are happening in the shipping space already. Early scrappage of older (and even some younger ) vessels in the period 2008 - 2018 when the industry was really under the financial cosh helped a lot. Better engines (nowt to do with Maersk per se), alternate fuels, the beginnings of a move away from HFO consumption, the upcoming 2020 sulpher cap, better ship designs, larger vessels offering increased efficiencies, rationalisation of routes all contribute to some degree. It's a mighty big step though from picking off the comparatively low hanging fruit to making the next substantive changes.
andymadmak said:
Indeed... all these things being driven by electricity rather than fossil fuels. But still no real solution to the renewables intermittency problem in sight.
Shouldn't the rise of battery storage mitigate the intermittency?Vehicle2Grid is already a thing, with the right monetary rewards for "leasing" some of your spare BEV capacity back to the grid you could get enough uptake.
It's easily forgotten that the current "intermittency" problem from consumers (30% greater use of power during the day) was solved by a generating and distribution system a third bigger than necessary. We already pay for intermittency of consumption.
Wayoftheflower said:
Shouldn't the rise of battery storage mitigate the intermittency?
I genuinely don't think so. Grid smoothing is about the best we have been able to do with batteries (see that Tesla array in Australia). By this I mean that the batteries could be used to bridge the brief gap (literally minutes, not hours or days) between a drop off in renewable supply and the 'kick in' of the replacement supply (of whatever form). That 'kick in' supply cannot be nuclear though - Reactors don't like to be ramped up and down very quickly. So we are back to some form of combustion based process for rapid reaction. I was told recently by a very senior guy in battery tech that whilst batteries are 'coming along leaps and bounds' they are still many many years away from being a viable solution to large scale intermittency.
Wayoftheflower said:
Vehicle2Grid is already a thing, with the right monetary rewards for "leasing" some of your spare BEV capacity back to the grid you could get enough uptake.
Again I don't get this. If we just think it through, at some point all that energy that you've given back to the grid needs to come back to you or you cannot drive your own car. If we are going to be 100% electric vehicles by 2040, what will be the charging requirements for all those cars? It feels a bit like that old tales of self sufficiency by cats eating rats and rats eating cats etc. Now one solution is to recognise that the personal freedom of movement that we enjoy today will have to be curtailed. So instead of saying on a Thursday night "hey love, shall we take the car down to Devon this weekend?" you'll be in a " Is this weekend one of our allotted car use weekends?" scenarios. You can use your car only when it is not required for other duties such as supplementing the grid. And what happens if things get particularly calm, cold and dark over a longer period in winter? If energy consumption rises, and renewable generation falls there is only so long that everyones car can keep the country running before we have to resort back to burning something! Wayoftheflower said:
It's easily forgotten that the current "intermittency" problem from consumers (30% greater use of power during the day) was solved by a generating and distribution system a third bigger than necessary. We already pay for intermittency of consumption.
I don't forget that at all, but there is a major difference between building capacity that covers your maximum usage, in the knowledge that at night it might be 30% over specced whilst everyone is asleep, it's quite another to have to build so much extra capacity in renewables just to counter the fact that for long periods it's not ABLE to produce any power, regardless of demand - and do not forget that night time usage is going to soar if everyone is charging electric vehicles whilst they sleep. I just don't think the whole thing is being properly discussed. - certainly not in public anyway. maybe the bigwigs have it all under control?
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