The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[hidetheelephants]

Meanwhile at Culham they've devised a new widget for the doohickey; fusion is still 20 years away though, natch.

[alangla]

Gary C said:

alangla said:

Max_Torque said:

Gary C said:

ITS MORECAMBE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

You sound LESSCALM !!!!!!! ;-)

They're in the playoffs and could, theoretically, clinch automatic promotion rather than the annual fight against relegation. If this comes off they'll be projecting a giant shrimp onto the outside of the buildings at Heysham. No wonder they're all less calm!!

Morecambe FC promoted ?, never !

I take it you’ll be projecting that giant shrimp after all?

[Evanivitch]

Some storage tech I wasn't previously aware of but appears to have scaled up nicely.

Zinc-Bromine flow batteries, with 2MWh installed in California. Benefits are they prefer a full discharge-charge cycle, and compliment lithium batteries by providing better long duration performance for both charge and discharge.

https://www.energy-storage.news/news/redflow-suppl...

[hidetheelephants]

The Beeb is covering the Hinkley Point C build; the usual padding added for people who need melodrama in their documentary but still interesting.

[Gary C]

Evanivitch said:

Some storage tech I wasn't previously aware of but appears to have scaled up nicely.

Zinc-Bromine flow batteries, with 2MWh installed in California. Benefits are they prefer a full discharge-charge cycle, and compliment lithium batteries by providing better long duration performance for both charge and discharge.

https://www.energy-storage.news/news/redflow-suppl...

They were thinking of using the redox flow cells in cars. Rock up, drain the discharged electrolytes, fill with charged and drive off

I think they proved to be a challenge to make them light enough, but they would have benefits for cars if they could have been made to work.

[Evanivitch]

Gary C said:

They were thinking of using the redox flow cells in cars. Rock up, drain the discharged electrolytes, fill with charged and drive off

I think they proved to be a challenge to make them light enough, but they would have benefits for cars if they could have been made to work.

I think the other issue, and I'm no expert on them, is that they really prefer a gradual charge/discharge rate which you don't get from driving.

[Gary C]

Evanivitch said:

Gary C said:

They were thinking of using the redox flow cells in cars. Rock up, drain the discharged electrolytes, fill with charged and drive off

I think they proved to be a challenge to make them light enough, but they would have benefits for cars if they could have been made to work.

I think the other issue, and I'm no expert on them, is that they really prefer a gradual charge/discharge rate which you don't get from driving.

That would be a pain, shame really they seemed like an ideal solution (no pun) at first.

[WatchfulEye]

Dungeness B officially dead

"Unique, significant and ongoing" technical challenges cited as the reason.

[Gary C]

Yes, they have had multiple issues with the supporting plant which is a shame as generally the reactors are fine and the cores which are the achilleas heel of the AGRs actually have less hours on the clock than any other.

I must admit, things felt very similar to the time Trawsfynydd was shutdown and never came back and I was expecting this announcement.

Sad day and it won't be long until there are only three operating nuclear stations in the UK.

However, there will be lots of work at the sites for many years to come. Must be the only job in the UK where you are guaranteed a job for at least 3 years (and it will be longer) even if the company went totally bankrupt, you can't lock the gates with nuclear fuel on site.

Edited by Gary C on Tuesday 8th June 21:28

[hidetheelephants]

WatchfulEye said:

Dungeness B officially dead

"Unique, significant and ongoing" technical challenges cited as the reason.

APC were the least experienced bidder and incorporated more of the latest concepts in their bid; it more or less bankrupted the group and drove the group members out of the nuclear biz. It's never worked very well, this parrot has finally ceased to be.

[Gilhooligan]

Sad that Dungeness has closed. That was my favourite station and quite interesting to get a look around noting all the differences it has over the rest of the AGR fleet.

Had a few good work trips staying in Rye whilst working there.

[Gary C]

Gilhooligan said:

Sad that Dungeness has closed. That was my favourite station and quite interesting to get a look around noting all the differences it has over the rest of the AGR fleet.

Had a few good work trips staying in Rye whilst working there.

For me, the eye opener was being able to walk all the way around the reactor. Ours is segregated into four quadrants with a 4 hour fire barrier between east/west and a 1 hour barrier between north/south halves and forms one of the major safety features against fire or hot gas release.

Glad I managed to get to every AGR while they were operating.

[Talksteer]

Evanivitch said:

The amount of HVDC interconnection would be huge. Not only from Iceland to Ireland (as previously proposed at 1GW) but then to the rest of Britain (currently 1GW). Even if it landed at Scotland, it would blow all recent infrastructure improvements out of the water.

There are currently advanced plans to power Singapore via an HVDC link from Australia, that would blow this out of the water!

https://suncable.sg/

This also has storage so equates to 3GW of dispatchable power, however at $16 billion its not particularly different to what a nuclear plant would cost and given 4500km of HVDC cable not a less risky proposition.

[CraigyMc]

Gary C said:

Glad I managed to get to every AGR while they were operating.

That's a pretty extreme form of trainspotting right there.

[Gary C]

CraigyMc said:

Gary C said:

Glad I managed to get to every AGR while they were operating.

That's a pretty extreme form of trainspotting right there.

Yep.

I grew up with a dad that knew every power station in the country too. Trips to the grandparents was commentary of Willington, Drakelow A,B C etc operational status.

But it was nice to walk around the reactor buildings of them.

Heysham 1 feels so cramped.

[Evanivitch]

Talksteer said:

There are currently advanced plans to power Singapore via an HVDC link from Australia, that would blow this out of the water!

https://suncable.sg/

This also has storage so equates to 3GW of dispatchable power, however at $16 billion its not particularly different to what a nuclear plant would cost and given 4500km of HVDC cable not a less risky proposition.

By "advanced plans", they've not secured funding yet.

[Talksteer]

Evanivitch said:

Talksteer said:

There are currently advanced plans to power Singapore via an HVDC link from Australia, that would blow this out of the water!

https://suncable.sg/

This also has storage so equates to 3GW of dispatchable power, however at $16 billion its not particularly different to what a nuclear plant would cost and given 4500km of HVDC cable not a less risky proposition.

By "advanced plans", they've not secured funding yet.

Details.... The definitely have some funding to do the surveying, no idea how that compares to the funding position of the Iceland windfarm.

That people are actively trying to make schemes like this work does lend done general proposition that the energy internet will happen soon rather than later.

Does anyone have any info on whether HVDC costs are coming down with experience?

[Evanivitch]

Talksteer said:

Details.... The definitely have some funding to do the surveying, no idea how that compares to the funding position of the Iceland windfarm.

That people are actively trying to make schemes like this work does lend done general proposition that the energy internet will happen soon rather than later.

Does anyone have any info on whether HVDC costs are coming down with experience?

If you want to ignore details then why waste our time on renewables when fusion is just around the corner

[Gary C]

alangla said:

Gary C said:

alangla said:

Max_Torque said:

Gary C said:

ITS MORECAMBE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

You sound LESSCALM !!!!!!! ;-)

They're in the playoffs and could, theoretically, clinch automatic promotion rather than the annual fight against relegation. If this comes off they'll be projecting a giant shrimp onto the outside of the buildings at Heysham. No wonder they're all less calm!!

Morecambe FC promoted ?, never !

I take it you’ll be projecting that giant shrimp after all?

[Condi]

NG released their winter out-turn report.

Basically says "we expected things to be okay, they kind of were okay, but coal units were particularly unreliable and that's why we had such high prices."

Tbh it doesn't inspire much confidence for 2 or 3 years time when all coal and 2 nukes are gone.

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/195776/do...