The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[Ivan stewart]

Well details in this thread Just goes to show us plebs
How the politicians and their big ideas have made our electricity as expensive as it is …

[Condi]

Ivan stewart said:

Well details in this thread Just goes to show us plebs
How the politicians and their big ideas have made our electricity as expensive as it is …

You say electricity is cheap, but have you ever been on a bike and tried to generate 1kw for even a short amount of time? Even experienced cyclists struggle to maintain that output.

Electricity is expensive compared to where it was last year, or 2 years ago, but is it expensive given the work done? I'm not so sure.

[phumy]

Condi said:

Ivan stewart said:

Well details in this thread Just goes to show us plebs
How the politicians and their big ideas have made our electricity as expensive as it is …

You say electricity is cheap, but have you ever been on a bike and tried to generate 1kw for even a short amount of time? Even experienced cyclists struggle to maintain that output.

Electricity is expensive compared to where it was last year, or 2 years ago, but is it expensive given the work done? I'm not so sure.

To generate 1kW of energy is physics, its always been the same and always will be the same, it has nothing to do with the cost.

The cost has changed due to getting robbed by all who have their dirty fingers in the sweetie jar.

[PushedDover]

phumy said:

To generate 1kW of energy is physics, its always been the same and always will be the same, it has nothing to do with the cost.

The cost has changed due to getting robbed by all who have their dirty fingers in the sweetie jar.

Unions?

or Politicians (home grown or overseas?)


Either way the spirit you have does not help move the conversation

[Jambo85]

phumy said:

Condi said:

Ivan stewart said:

Well details in this thread Just goes to show us plebs
How the politicians and their big ideas have made our electricity as expensive as it is …

You say electricity is cheap, but have you ever been on a bike and tried to generate 1kw for even a short amount of time? Even experienced cyclists struggle to maintain that output.

Electricity is expensive compared to where it was last year, or 2 years ago, but is it expensive given the work done? I'm not so sure.

To generate 1kW of energy is physics, its always been the same and always will be the same, it has nothing to do with the cost.

The cost has changed due to getting robbed by all who have their dirty fingers in the sweetie jar.

What has distorted it over the last century or so is our access to cheap, energy dense fuels.

[Condi]

phumy said:

To generate 1kW of energy is physics, its always been the same and always will be the same, it has nothing to do with the cost.

Clearly it is physics, but the amount you pay for that work is economics, and the cost has not always been the same. Human progress has largely been made possible by the decreasing cost of that unit of work.

If you really think "it's always been the same", then jump on an exercise bike and pedal for an hour, you'll generate about 0.2Kwh if you're reasonably fit, maybe 0.3kwh if you're particularly fit. That would cost 2p, maybe 4p from your energy company. Is it a lot for an hour of human effort?

Jambo85 said:

What has distorted it over the last century or so is our access to cheap, energy dense fuels.

And that has made us wasteful.

We drive 1500kg of metal to move 80kg of person from place to place... It's hardly efficient is it?

Edited by Condi on Thursday 23 March 07:07

[Ivan stewart]

Condi said:

And that has made us wasteful.

We drive 1500kg of metal to move 80kg of person from place to place... It's hardly efficient is it?

Edited by Condi on Thursday 23 March 07:07

It’s worse than that ,
Some people breed they produce offspring that consumes vast amounts of resources , they then contribute little and the cycle repeats!!

[NRS]

dickymint said:

Condi said:

dickymint said:

Indeed - blackmail!

https://www.netzerowatch.com/the-shameless-blackma...

I thought we agreed that most of this was bks?

Or at least, there is a point in there worth discussing, but it's been dressed up in so much bks that it bares little resemblance to the point in question.

It needed to be re-posted in response to that Sky News video as Orsted are now whinging about the budget and again threatening to pull out! OK "blackmail" is a bit strong but there are many other synonyms that would fit

Just as a general thing, that happens loads with O&G stuff too. There's a LOT of companies saying they will cut investment due to the latest tax hikes.

Ivan stewart said:

Condi said:

And that has made us wasteful.

We drive 1500kg of metal to move 80kg of person from place to place... It's hardly efficient is it?

Edited by Condi on Thursday 23 March 07:07

It’s worse than that ,
Some people breed they produce offspring that consumes vast amounts of resources , they then contribute little and the cycle repeats!!

Yeah, imagine if some people stopped using so much energy complaining about poor lazy people, we'd also save a lot of energy there too.

[Cobnapint]

phumy said:

To generate 1kW of energy is physics, its always been the same and always will be the same, it has nothing to do with the cost.

The cost has changed due to getting robbed by all who have their dirty fingers in the sweetie jar.

Absolutely bang on. And this is why, even if man creates the cheapest, easiest way of generating electricity, the end user will always be paying through the nose because profits have to be made, dividends have to be paid, and bonuses have to be dished out to the big boys at the top.
That's the way it is, and that's the way it will always be.

[Evanivitch]

Cobnapint said:

Absolutely bang on. And this is why, even if man creates the cheapest, easiest way of generating electricity, the end user will always be paying through the nose because profits have to be made, dividends have to be paid, and bonuses have to be dished out to the big boys at the top.
That's the way it is, and that's the way it will always be.

Petrol is cheap when you consider what's required to get it to the car. So cheap we've happily thrown away almost 80% of it's energy content because it's so, so cheap. Even now inflation adjusted it's almost as cheap as it's ever been in decades.

But you sell loads and make a small profit on each bit, you make £Bn.

Same could be said of electrical energy, but instead it's expensive so we're forced to be more efficient with it. Well, except overnight when it's incredibly cheap.

[Condi]

Cobnapint said:

Absolutely bang on. And this is why, even if man creates the cheapest, easiest way of generating electricity, the end user will always be paying through the nose because profits have to be made, dividends have to be paid, and bonuses have to be dished out to the big boys at the top.
That's the way it is, and that's the way it will always be.

Aside from air, which humans haven't yet found a way to charge for (although dive centres beg to differ!), what do you use which doesn't entail someone making a profit? The alternatives may not involve someone making a profit, but you're not guaranteed any electricity either! See Venezuela, China, Cuba, etc.

[Cobnapint]

I'm talking more about wind. The utopian world would be constantly useable windy weather and only wind farms producing our energy.
Even if that were the case, the mechanisms of capitalism and the markets would ensure that energy bills wouldn't be substantially different to the ones we were used to (pre Putin).

[phumy]

Cobnapint said:

phumy said:

To generate 1kW of energy is physics, its always been the same and always will be the same, it has nothing to do with the cost.

The cost has changed due to getting robbed by all who have their dirty fingers in the sweetie jar.

Absolutely bang on. And this is why, even if man creates the cheapest, easiest way of generating electricity, the end user will always be paying through the nose because profits have to be made, dividends have to be paid, and bonuses have to be dished out to the big boys at the top.
That's the way it is, and that's the way it will always be.

Aha, thank you ...exactly as i was saying

[Condi]

Cobnapint said:

I'm talking more about wind. The utopian world would be constantly useable windy weather and only wind farms producing our energy.
Even if that were the case, the mechanisms of capitalism and the markets would ensure that energy bills wouldn't be substantially different to the ones we were used to (pre Putin).

That's completely wrong - the nature of capitalism and the markets is that competition provides you (the customer) with the product at the lowest possible price. If the cost of generation comes down, then the cost to the consumer comes down. No more so is that obvious than commodity markets. Hell, the market is that competitive half the companies selling it did so at such a cheap price they went bust!

[Gecko1978]

Condi said:

And that has made us wasteful.

We drive 1500kg of metal to move 80kg of person from place to place... It's hardly efficient is it?

Edited by Condi on Thursday 23 March 07:07

Well we can move 80kg at 70mph for hours at a time. Go back pre car and how log would it take on a horse an how far could you go in a day. I can drive London to Midlands in 3 hrs with wife kids an dog. Cost about 1/2 tank of fuel so what £30 let's see a horse do that

[ZedLeg]

Gecko1978 said:

Condi said:

And that has made us wasteful.

We drive 1500kg of metal to move 80kg of person from place to place... It's hardly efficient is it?

Edited by Condi on Thursday 23 March 07:07

Well we can move 80kg at 70mph for hours at a time. Go back pre car and how log would it take on a horse an how far could you go in a day. I can drive London to Midlands in 3 hrs with wife kids an dog. Cost about 1/2 tank of fuel so what £30 let's see a horse do that

That's all true, doesn't mean cars are efficient. ICE is an incredibly inefficient technology and the amount of virgin materials that go into building them is high.

Add in the modern trend of leasing for 3 or 5 years and chopping your car in for a new one, the car ownership process (like most things) sacrifices real efficiency for profit.

[wombleh]

When you're asking private investors to cough up £25billion for a power plant then they do need a return on it and that return needs to be larger than they'd get for low risk investments.

Or you need government to fund it, not sure I'd want government anywhere near it when they can't even organise a piss up in a pandemic.

[mikey_b]

Gecko1978 said:

Condi said:

And that has made us wasteful.

We drive 1500kg of metal to move 80kg of person from place to place... It's hardly efficient is it?

Edited by Condi on Thursday 23 March 07:07

Well we can move 80kg at 70mph for hours at a time. Go back pre car and how log would it take on a horse an how far could you go in a day. I can drive London to Midlands in 3 hrs with wife kids an dog. Cost about 1/2 tank of fuel so what £30 let's see a horse do that

You are confusing 'effective' with 'efficient'. The car is very effective - it can do a lot of useful work, but in doing so, consumes a lot of energy. Given that cars are, at best, 25% efficient in terms of energy input vs work output, with the other 75% mostly being wasted as hot exhaust gas, your post merely demonstrates how incredibly cheap petrol is for the amount of energy it contains.

The horse, of course, is much less effective but would eventually be able to drag a cart with your family to the midlands on fewer calories than half a tank of petrol contains. 30 litres of petrol contains about 250,000 calories. A heavily working horse needs about 30,000 calories a day, so a horse pulling a cart with your family might take all day to do the journey, but it only consumes 1/8 of the energy the car did.

[Talksteer]

Gary C said:

Condi said:

Gary C said:

4 people for 800MW !

By law, we need 3 engineers in the control room, a shift manager and a plant engineer, a Gen team leader and a gen team of 3 Technicians, a fuel engineer, a fuel team leader and a team of 3 fuel team optechs. Any reduction in those numbers, its a breach and we would have to report it.

Then we also have a permanently manned security team and a team of firearms officers.

Then during a weekday, there are hundreds of us.

all for 1320MW

Yay !

That's partly because you lot voted/insisted on the huge number of people, so it kept people in employment!

The need for fueling team seems a little surprising, is that because fuel processing is basically continuous and there is always fuel stringer part way through assembly or disassembly?

What's the comparable number for Sizewell?

There is obviously a PWR which can be operated by a number of FTEs barely into double figures but we can't talk about it.

[hidetheelephants]

mikey_b said:

Gecko1978 said:

Condi said:

And that has made us wasteful.

We drive 1500kg of metal to move 80kg of person from place to place... It's hardly efficient is it?

Edited by Condi on Thursday 23 March 07:07

Well we can move 80kg at 70mph for hours at a time. Go back pre car and how log would it take on a horse an how far could you go in a day. I can drive London to Midlands in 3 hrs with wife kids an dog. Cost about 1/2 tank of fuel so what £30 let's see a horse do that

You are confusing 'effective' with 'efficient'. The car is very effective - it can do a lot of useful work, but in doing so, consumes a lot of energy. Given that cars are, at best, 25% efficient in terms of energy input vs work output, with the other 75% mostly being wasted as hot exhaust gas, your post merely demonstrates how incredibly cheap petrol is for the amount of energy it contains.

The horse, of course, is much less effective but would eventually be able to drag a cart with your family to the midlands on fewer calories than half a tank of petrol contains. 30 litres of petrol contains about 250,000 calories. A heavily working horse needs about 30,000 calories a day, so a horse pulling a cart with your family might take all day to do the journey, but it only consumes 1/8 of the energy the car did.

Dobbin and a cart will not travel 150miles in a day, 3 days would be good going unless you want the poor thing to end up at the glue factory. Advancement of civilisation has always been predicated on access to cheaper and denser energy sources, I'm surprised anyone is willing to bet against a million year trend on such a flimsy basis.