The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[PRTVR]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Jinx said:

silentbrown said:

"feed the grid". Right...

So if it wasn't for those pesky renewables we'd be able to leave all our generating stations running at a constant output 24/7, year long. Perfect...

We would use supplies to provide a base-load and have CCGT on warm standby to come online when needed therefore running on the most efficient cycles. "Renewables" (all are technically renewables - just the time frame is a little extended for some fuels ) randomly come online and cause unnecessary instability to the grid therefore requiring a greater amount of supplies to be on warm standby then if they we not part of the grid. This instability causes increased inefficiency to the point where the "CO2" savings are vastly reduced.

Randomly ?

The weather is incoming - forecasted and known approximately what will be produced.
(I see the reports daily)

OK your believe the weather forecast, personally at times they are a joke,I use to receive daily paid for reports from the met office, I use to find them entertaining rather than factual,
but I was talking to a guy who works for national grid and some of the renewables are not monitored, the increase in renewables is making it harder to balance the grid, imagine a large cloud coming over a large solar farm or a squall hitting a wind farm, this is as well as the variable demand.

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Jinx said:

silentbrown said:

"feed the grid". Right...

So if it wasn't for those pesky renewables we'd be able to leave all our generating stations running at a constant output 24/7, year long. Perfect...

We would use supplies to provide a base-load and have CCGT on warm standby to come online when needed therefore running on the most efficient cycles. "Renewables" (all are technically renewables - just the time frame is a little extended for some fuels ) randomly come online and cause unnecessary instability to the grid therefore requiring a greater amount of supplies to be on warm standby then if they we not part of the grid. This instability causes increased inefficiency to the point where the "CO2" savings are vastly reduced.

Randomly ?

The weather is incoming - forecasted and known approximately what will be produced.
(I see the reports daily)

So you'll know that weather forecasts are often unreliable, particularly if they're from UKMO.

[turbobloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

turbobloke said:

"Wind farms will create more carbon dioxide, say Scientists"

Thousands of Britain’s wind turbines will create more greenhouse gases than they save, according to potentially devastating scientific research to be published later this year (2013).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/windp...

To avoid the inevitable 'sell-by date' nonsense, there isn't one.

Alrternative perspectives to scientists asking good old peat are available, particularly from the wind industry and its supporters.

To avoid the Sell by date?


You've included it in the Bold sub-title ?!?!

There isn't a sell-by date.

Which published research since then has refuted these findings?

The article shows how some turbines are contributing to carbon dioxide emission increases for the UK which overall is bound to 'reduce any reductions' as per the post I replied to.

AC theory is getting old, surely by your reckoning it's now been date-falsified and the grid shouldn't work?

You must surely realise there is no sell-by date cobblers available to you as a get-out-of-jail-free card whenever some science appears that you have no answer to.

[GnuBee]

turbobloke said:

There isn't a sell-by date.

Which published research since then has refuted these findings?

The article shows how some turbines are contributing to carbon dioxide emission increases for the UK which overall is bound to 'reduce any reductions' as per the post I replied to.

AC theory is getting old, surely by your reckoning it's now been date-falsified and the grid shouldn't work?

You must surely realise there is no sell-by date cobblers available to you as a get-out-of-jail-free card whenever some science appears that you have no answer to.

Are you suggesting that unless it's written down nothing has happened in the intervening period? That since 2013 nothing has changed (for better or worse). Given the rate of technological change/churn I think he's only being sensible to call into question someone using "old" data to support a position they're holding today and even worse projecting forward.

[turbobloke]

GnuBee said:

Are you suggesting that unless it's written down nothing has happened in the intervening period? That since 2013 nothing has changed (for better or worse). Given the rate of technological change/churn I think he's only being sensible to call into question someone using "old" data to support a position they're holding today and even worse projecting forward.

A curious post if I may say so.

Has anything happened in the intervening period...two general elections and a referendum come to mind, were you thinking of something else?

Otherwise a tad more precision would help; "nothing" or indeed 'anything' must be too general.

Did you read the article? It has nothing to do with technological change.

It's to do with turbine location, peat (non-degraded / wet / drying out) and carbon emissions. Numbers of turbines, operational in situ, don't get uprooted and moved in large numbers to new locations, unless you can supply referenced information on this to show otherwise. Even then - too late.

The suspicion has to be that you didn't read the link, or didn't understand the implications of its content, and waded in with some generalist irrelevant non-point.

Feel free to have another go.

[DapperDanMan]

turbobloke said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

turbobloke said:

"Wind farms will create more carbon dioxide, say Scientists"

Thousands of Britain’s wind turbines will create more greenhouse gases than they save, according to potentially devastating scientific research to be published later this year (2013).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/windp...

To avoid the inevitable 'sell-by date' nonsense, there isn't one.

Alrternative perspectives to scientists asking good old peat are available, particularly from the wind industry and its supporters.

To avoid the Sell by date?


You've included it in the Bold sub-title ?!?!

There isn't a sell-by date.

Which published research since then has refuted these findings?

The article shows how some turbines are contributing to carbon dioxide emission increases for the UK which overall is bound to 'reduce any reductions' as per the post I replied to.

AC theory is getting old, surely by your reckoning it's now been date-falsified and the grid shouldn't work?

You must surely realise there is no sell-by date cobblers available to you as a get-out-of-jail-free card whenever some science appears that you have no answer to.

Can we look at the headline for a minute for this past its sell by date article

'Wind farms will create more carbon dioxide, say scientists'

But when you read the article you realise that they are talking about specific sites where under certain circumstances CO2 may be released.

Should the headline not read

Wind farms might create more carbon dioxide under specific site conditions, say three scientists

Also it looks like that research was acknowledged and led in part to

http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/strategy/renewables/Goo...

So again if you look beyond the bluster you find that common sense has prevailed and just reading headlines does not a good argument make.

Forgot to add this one as well

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0045/00455955.pdf

So things have moved on since the original article and in that sense it is out of date - the research however is not out of date.

Edited by DapperDanMan on Thursday 7th September 15:54

[Jinx]

DapperDanMan said:

Can we look at the headline for a minute for this past its sell by date article

'Wind farms will create more carbon dioxide, say scientists'

But when you read the article you realise that they are talking about specific sites where under certain circumstances CO2 may be released.

Should the headline not read

Wind farms might create more carbon dioxide under specific site conditions, say three scientists

Also it looks like that research was acknowledged and led in part to

http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/strategy/renewables/Goo...

So again if you look beyond the bluster you find that common sense has prevailed and just reading headlines does not a good argument make.

Your PDF is from 2010 - the 2013 piece accounts for the practices in the 2010 paper and refutes the mitigation techniques

article said:

The researchers initially believed that well-managed and well-sited peatland wind farms could still cut greenhouse gas emissions, over time, compared to electricity generation overall.
But now they say that the shrinking use of fossil fuels in overall electricity generation has changed the equation, making the comparison less favourable to all peatland wind farms.
“Our previous work argued that most peatland sites could save on net [CO2] emissions,” they said. “But emissions factors [in UK electricity generation as a whole] are likely to drop significantly in the future.
"As a result, peatland sites would be less likely to generate a reduction in carbon emissions, even with careful management.”

[DapperDanMan]

Jinx said:

DapperDanMan said:

Can we look at the headline for a minute for this past its sell by date article

'Wind farms will create more carbon dioxide, say scientists'

But when you read the article you realise that they are talking about specific sites where under certain circumstances CO2 may be released.

Should the headline not read

Wind farms might create more carbon dioxide under specific site conditions, say three scientists

Also it looks like that research was acknowledged and led in part to

http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/strategy/renewables/Goo...

So again if you look beyond the bluster you find that common sense has prevailed and just reading headlines does not a good argument make.

Your PDF is from 2010 - the 2013 piece accounts for the practices in the 2010 paper and refutes the mitigation techniques

article said:

The researchers initially believed that well-managed and well-sited peatland wind farms could still cut greenhouse gas emissions, over time, compared to electricity generation overall.
But now they say that the shrinking use of fossil fuels in overall electricity generation has changed the equation, making the comparison less favourable to all peatland wind farms.
“Our previous work argued that most peatland sites could save on net [CO2] emissions,” they said. “But emissions factors [in UK electricity generation as a whole] are likely to drop significantly in the future.
"As a result, peatland sites would be less likely to generate a reduction in carbon emissions, even with careful management.”

Well it isn't my PDF just a link. So the same scientists create a calculator in 2008 and the 2010 guidelines account for that then in 2013 they come back and say our calculator has moved on and so the guidelines are not good enough. So someone actually listens to the science and implements a plan to mitigate against it but that isn't good enough so they move the goal posts of the science.

[turbobloke]

DapperDanMan said:

Can we look at the headline for a minute for this past its sell by date article

'Wind farms will create more carbon dioxide, say scientists'

But when you read the article you realise that they are talking about specific sites where under certain circumstances CO2 may be released.

That makes my point exactly.

I was replying to a post - this keeps getting snipped out - about reductions in carbon dioxide due to turbines being less than expected, or words to that effect.

Pointing out that some turbines release significant amounts of carbon dioxide in situ due to where they are in situ fitted exactly with the post I was replying to, as this situation with some (not all) turbines will harm the overall CO2 position.

The rest - including headline rewrites, and if you're Jo Abbess ICMTP - is as irrelevant as non-existent sell-by dates.

[Jinx]

DapperDanMan said:

Well it isn't my PDF just a link. So the same scientists create a calculator in 2008 and the 2010 guidelines account for that then in 2013 they come back and say our calculator has moved on and so the guidelines are not good enough. So someone actually listens to the science and implements a plan to mitigate against it but that isn't good enough so they move the goal posts of the science.

Unfortunately they don't move the Windfarms though.

[turbobloke]

Jinx said:

DapperDanMan said:

Well it isn't my PDF just a link. So the same scientists create a calculator in 2008 and the 2010 guidelines account for that then in 2013 they come back and say our calculator has moved on and so the guidelines are not good enough. So someone actually listens to the science and implements a plan to mitigate against it but that isn't good enough so they move the goal posts of the science.

Unfortunately they don't move the Windfarms though.

Indeed.

And for the type/location combination in the research covered by the article I linked to, it would be too little too late in any case.

Mitigation around wholesale bat slaughter isn't good enough either, some studies claim a 30% reducition from operational changes but the situation that could lead to a 90% reduction isn't implemented. It's all out there. Wind fans will know all about it of course as they're so well informed.

[turbobloke]

A change is as good as a rest.

"Birdwatchers See Rare Swift Killed by Wind Turbine"

Result!

"Dozens of birdwatchers who travelled to a Scottish island to see an extremely rare swift have been left distraught after it was killed by a wind turbine."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10...

Link said:

John Marchant, a project coordinator for the British Trust for Ornithology, visited the island on a specially-arranged trip with a group of other birdwatchers and witnessed the death.

The 62-year-old bird enthusiast said he travelled from Norfolk when he heard about the arrival of the bird, which had brown, blue and black bird plumage.

“We were absolutely over the moon and thrilled to see the bird. We watched it for nearly two hours. While we were watching it suddenly it was a bit close to the turbine and then the blades hit it,” he said.

Then again it happened in 2013, so due to the universal variable constant sell-by date applying to bad news for wind turbines it will have come back to life since then due to technological advances.

[LongQ]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

The Bat thing. Still ?
You have not responded with the 'cut in' values and the change - with the results


The peat marshes? The Journalist is hardly the cutting edge of Energy knowledge is he. Nor is he up to date. Nor are you.
The percentile of WTG's installed in the 'Peat scenario' in 2013 was what?

The percentile of WTG's installed in 'Peat Scenario' today in 2017 is what?

Non story, but so typical of your distractive MO.

Not really a non-story since it points out that there is more to the selection of an installation site than people might originally have wanted to acknowledge.

Make enough errors of imbalance (of siting benefits related to a balance of ecology and the apparent objective of CO2 reduction)and the planners and designers will have introduced a long term, hard-to-correct challenge that negates (or perhaps even worsens) the problem they claimed they were trying to fix.

Oddly, considering the objectives of the study of ecology, such matters are not exactly rare. Indeed at any large scale one suspects that most ecology projects fail to some extent and at worst case some large ones produce long term detrimental results and thus fail totally. Mind you it may be a couple of work generations before the full extent of problems become apparent. This lets the original proposers off the hook for any blame carrying.

[LongQ]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Jinx said:

silentbrown said:

"feed the grid". Right...

So if it wasn't for those pesky renewables we'd be able to leave all our generating stations running at a constant output 24/7, year long. Perfect...

We would use supplies to provide a base-load and have CCGT on warm standby to come online when needed therefore running on the most efficient cycles. "Renewables" (all are technically renewables - just the time frame is a little extended for some fuels ) randomly come online and cause unnecessary instability to the grid therefore requiring a greater amount of supplies to be on warm standby then if they we not part of the grid. This instability causes increased inefficiency to the point where the "CO2" savings are vastly reduced.

Randomly ?

The weather is incoming - forecasted and known approximately what will be produced.
(I see the reports daily)

For those who would like to observe the forecasting in action here is a link to bookmark for a while

https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=generation/windf...

The graph shows the initial forecast,a later revised forecast and then the actual metered generation.

Here are the notes provided from the Information link.

"Based on historical outturn data and detailed local wind forecasts, National Grid forecasts likely levels of wind generation for windfarms visible to National Grid, i.e. those that have operational metering and that are included in the latest forecast process. The forecasts are produced for the period from 21:00 on the current day (D) to 21:00 D+2.Wind Generation forecasts are produced by National Grid's own second generation windpower forecasting tool. The predictability of the wind varies with atmospheric conditions and so there may be periods where National Grid's forecast and outturn values differ significantly. Please note that the downloadable data will contain gaps for Original and Updated Forecast values in Settlement Periods that National Grid do not provide forecast values for."

Makes of those what you will it is clear that they must do some secondary guesswork for out put from non-metered sources and the effect that would have on "reducing demand" on the grid.

Having looked at these graphs over some years I note that level of accuracy may have improved marginally as generating location have spread and capacity has increased - but that is to be expected.to some extent. for example, when real levels of generation can be predicted based on several years of measured output rather than a few months one might expect a smoothing of accuracy. Theat does not also imply a smoothing of operational efficacy.

Similarly as potential capacity increases the ability to curtail to match predicted output at the successful generation level is likely to better match actuals to prediction. That would be necessary where other sources have been tasked with filling a predicted renewables void or suspected period of erratic intermittency. Thus, whilst the graph and those that make the decision process that creates it may look pretty accurate in itself, the result is likely to be less effective than might be achievable in a perfect world and potentially, due to operational inefficiencies all round, no better or perhaps worse than a non-wind (and to some extent solar) solution might have been. (But that is yet another aspect of so called green policies for which a comparison experiment will never be possible.)

The result below represents quite a close prediction. They are often, in my observation, much less accurate.

[HairyPoppins]

turbobloke said:

"Birdwatchers See Rare Swift Killed by Wind Turbine"

Result!

"Dozens of birdwatchers who travelled to a Scottish island to see an extremely rare swift have been left distraught after it was killed by a wind turbine."

Darwin in action I'm afraid. If he'd got through the blades he's have met his end at the next risky corner he took.

[rolando]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Big day for renewables Future of Power Generation in Great Britain on Monday - let's see what the next step change is......

Low £70's MW/Hr I would wager.

WTF is a MW/Hr?

[turbobloke]

HairyPoppins said:

turbobloke said:

"Birdwatchers See Rare Swift Killed by Wind Turbine"

Result!

"Dozens of birdwatchers who travelled to a Scottish island to see an extremely rare swift have been left distraught after it was killed by a wind turbine."

Darwin in action I'm afraid. If he'd got through the blades he's have met his end at the next risky corner he took.

A similarly glib comment could be aimed at any humans pinning their future energy hopes on white elephants.

If it all goes ahead as per plans for full decarbonisation, we'll see who adapts and survives the regression to localised medieval lifestyles.

[turbobloke]

rolando said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Big day for renewables Future of Power Generation in Great Britain on Monday - let's see what the next step change is......

Low £70's MW/Hr I would wager.

WTF is a MW/Hr?

The question is, how many blank looks your reply received on the windy side o' the hill.

Basic scientific literacy - gone with the wind.

PnM's figleaf reply is priceless.

[rolando]

turbobloke said:

rolando said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Big day for renewables Future of Power Generation in Great Britain on Monday - let's see what the next step change is......

Low £70's MW/Hr I would wager.

WTF is a MW/Hr?

The question is, how many blank looks your reply received on the windy side o' the hill.

Basic scientific literacy - gone with the wind.

PnM's figleaf reply is priceless.

…and all done without being offensive.

[LongQ]

Well, for those who wager ...

https://freebets.uk/


Just one example of many . I thought this one offered a very balanced claim. Others seemed a bit extreme.