New wind follys announced.

penrhyn

The government has announced the sites for huge offshore wind farms, that could supply up to 25% of our electricity needs.
If these were on line today, during the biggest freeze for years, guess how much of a contribution they would be making.

Here is a clue ******all.

moonrakerz

.............and, as they are off-shore the pathetically low amount of power they produce will be subject to around a 50% transmission loss !!

yakky58

I agree. The proposal is that the overall cost is about £75bn if all farms are to be deployed. If there is no wind no power. I am not a fan of nuclear power but assuming they are £10bn per station then we would have at least 7 stations that produce power independently than reliance on the wind.

I could find no costing on maintenance of the farms which would be quite high considering they are over 100km offshore.

As to the job creation, estimated at 75,000 wouldn't nuclear stations provide jobs and a more secure and long lasting supply chain.

Mankysteve

I cant agree at all with the too above threads. The maintenance fees, safety check moving large amount of dangerous fuel about the country will be significantly expensive plus the cost of clean up in 30 years time make the real cost of nuclear power significantly higher than actual cost properly not as winds I must admit but wind has other advantages

Wind turbines are low maintenance. http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file18021.pdf the their estimated maintenance cost for generic offshore wind is £18k a Mw compared to £25k a Mw the wind farm that they conducted the study on. its perfectible reasonable to expect the cost of maintenance to decrease as more are built .

They are a proven technology that can produce significant amounts of power. Although they are not the answer to the problem but they part of the solution true the wind doesn't always blow but using a range of technologies, see Pumped storage like Dinorwig power station with it 75% efficiency rate.

Not quite sure where you got 50% losses from either according to
N. Bareris Negra et al in Loss evaluation of HVAC and HVDC transmission solutions for large offshore wind farms. You'd be looking at around 20% loss max on an Ac grid but they are way to reduce that even more such as High voltage DC grids as well. down to around 6% I cant find anything suggesting anything like 50%.

I'am not saying nuclear isn't part of answer but it isn't a renewable will run out of usable fissionable fuel eventually so not off set it with wind power.

thescouselander

Mankysteve wrote: »

I

I'am not saying nuclear isn't part of answer but it isn't a renewable will run out of usable fissionable fuel eventually so not off set it with wind power.

I know quite a few people in the industry who spend a considerable amount of time and effort to recycling nuclear fuel from reactors. A very high percentage of the used fuel can be recovered and used again. This means we are unlikely to run out of fuel for a very long time.


I'd also dispute that wind turbines generate a "significant" amount of power. This is perhaps the case when the wind is blowing but when the wind is slight or even zero turbines produce nothing. Also the number of turbines required to meet the countries needs will not fit into the space available to us. If we ever move to electric vehicles this will only get worse.

yakky58

Sometime ago I took my son to Sizewell as he wanted to see a reactor. They were in the process of changing some reactor rods which was an interesting process from which I gleaned a useful fact. That 98% of the material was recycled and used again. These rods had been in for 5 years. So we have a long way to go before we run of fuel.

As to managing the waste. If we are really serious about a sustainable energy plan then that is a question we have to face. If you want your lights and TV on then we all have to accept that we may get a reactor near us or a waste holding station. We can't all be nimby's. I for one didn't mind coming from Bradwell originally where we had a station. I am pretty certain they buried low grade waste under some of the sports fields. That is I am afraid a fact if we want to keep the lights on.

Whilst in Australia 2 years back I saw of wind farms, granted they were all on shore but talking with local people they said that they were lucky to get 2 days in 7 usage out of them and had to rely on local generators to maintain supply. This leads me to conclude that whilst they may form part of a energy plan I don't see them, and certainly not £75bn worth, as viable. I'd rather spend capital on generation that is guaranteed. Given that urban and even rural wind generation is considered a joke on this site. I find it hard to believe we can convince ourselves that offshore will be any better.

radiohelen

I can't say I'm a huge fan of nuclear power but it does strike me that in order to maintain supply of electricity we do need to be generating in a variety of ways. I think it's good to have wind farms, it's good to have wave generation, it's also good to have nuclear power. I've lived near two in my lifetime and they have provided jobs in areas that otherwise would have been deadzones and they have never once threatened to explode in an apocalyptic catastrophe! If we are really talking about being green I think we really do have to talk about nuclear power.

Mankysteve

I think we need to reduce the amount concentration on saving the environment while important, It also worth discussing energy security. Most of our Natural Gas reverse have gone so at the moh were nearly holy dependent on fossil fuels that come from not so nice parts of the world. like Russia and the Middle East. Uranium(it would also appear to be something I can't spell correctly is not something we have major reverse of and as such it would foolish to put all your eggs in one basket.

yakky58

I don't disagree with the idea of all the eggs in one basket. Uranium comes from Australia and Canada which I hope would not with hold supplies to us. A diverse energy generation plan is the best course of action. However, and sorry to disappoint the 'greenies' but wind/wave/solar in large quantities will not supply the base load required for UK plc. That will only come from nuclear in the long run.

Conservation of use will help but there is only so much you can switch off. The consumer globalism lead by the US consumer trends increases demand. Look back 15 years, few PC's, mobile phones, ipods etc. Whilst I have switched over to low energy bulbs and installed a solar system and become assiduous is switching things off my usage is just below static.

A long term plan is required not headline stuff like large offshore wind plants.

Mankysteve

indeed about we need a decent long term plan. Unfortunately due to the nature of three year politics there's not enough politicians out there with back bones to push what relay has to be done.

feesh

yakky58 wrote: »

A diverse energy generation plan is the best course of action. However, and sorry to disappoint the 'greenies' but wind/wave/solar in large quantities will not supply the base load required for UK plc. That will only come from nuclear in the long run.



A long term plan is required not headline stuff like large offshore wind plants.

I don't understand this post so I had to jump in.

Aim is to have about 30% power from nuclear, possibly more (we were on about 20% until quite recently but due to recent closures it's less now). There is a target of getting 30% from renewables by 2020, mostly wind at the moment as it's the most mature, but other technologies such as wave and tidal will catch up over the next few years.

That leaves 40% which will be supplied mostly by natural gas and some clean coal.

Seems pretty balanced to me. Just because the media over-hyped the round 3 announcements last week, doesn't mean the government are putting all their eggs in the wind basket. But it's going to be an important chunk of the energy mix, sure, and a lot of research has gone into these figures, they're not just pulled out of the sky! Offshore wind is extremely challenging but it doesn't mean it won't happen.

There has been a spate of research recently about the implications of all of this in terms of baseload and reserve plant - try googling for the Poyry report and the National Grid study if you want the detail.

I think it seems like a pretty well balanced approach myself.