Is the Government being honest about the cost of energy?

grahamc2003

pwllbwdr wrote: »

Yes. Drax is using wood pellets in large quantities. They're being imported from Canada in large shiploads, unloaded on Tyneside and then railed to the power station. Transporting and storing biomass has its own issues of course - self-heating and spontaneous combustion in large bulks of the stuff can be problematic.

I don't know if Drax is using UK biomass too.

Drax will soon supply it's own pellets produced from a new facilities it's building in the deep south of the states, shipped about 5 or 6 thousand miles from Baton Rouge.

Their other biofuel plans are currently on hold, seemingly an attempt to get the government to reverse the decrease in the biofuel subsidy it receives.

Drax does use uk biomass for a part of its current co-firing with coal, but the quantities of biofuel required should Drax convert fully to biofuel mean the uk could only ever supply part of it's needs, hence the new pellet facilities where they have plenty of trees to chop down.

I suspect the aims of burning biofuel won't be as beneficial as many imagine once the energy required to dry, reduce to sawdust, compress under very great pressures into pellets and to ship 5 or 6,000 miles is taken into account. But the subsidies will make it worthwhile for Drax to convert, especially since it is effectively living on borrowed time as a coal burner, even though it's not near the end of its design life.

rogerblack

spgsc531 wrote: »

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/65841/7345-elec-gen-2008-2011-et-article.pdf

Page 51.

That is a table of generation NOT installed capacity

Can you point to where you think solar is mentioned on page 51?
It's a page of bargraphs, only mentioning 'renewables'.
If you mean page 58, that does list the figure I gave above for nuclear, but does not break down renewables into solar, just 'wind, wave, solar'.

rogerblack

grahamc2003 wrote: »

There's no such thing as 'peak capacity' in the esi.

Since you have just made it up, could you tell us what it is?

I was referring to the total sum declared peak capacity of all plants.
As this is what DECC figures give for solar. (Not average)

jamesingram

Is the Government being honest about the cost of energy?

I doubt anyone is , most cherry pick data to suit their own agenda
(see examples above )

Here's mine
http://www.zerocarbonbritain.com/
zerocarbonbritain2030 is a positive, realistic vision for an energy progressive society free from fossil fuels. It provides political, economic and technological solutions to the urgent challenges raised by climate science. It explores the synergies between sectors to create the first fully integrated solution to climate change.

http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/circular-economy
"The circular economy is a generic term for an industrial economy that is, by design or intention, restorative and in which materials flows are of two types, biological nutrients, designed to reenter the biosphere safely, and technical nutrients, which are designed to circulate at high quality without entering the biosphere. "

If either of these float your boat , feel free to spread the word

jamesingram

£155bn: the cost of new nuclear power to consumers ??
http://www.eaem.co.uk/opinions/%C2%A3155bn-cost-new-nuclear-power-consumers

Martyn1981

jamesingram wrote: »

£155bn: the cost of new nuclear power to consumers ??
http://www.eaem.co.uk/opinions/%C2%A3155bn-cost-new-nuclear-power-consumers

Holy cow James! Do you think those numbers are accurate?

"How much is EDF asking for? The negotiations have so far been shrouded in secrecy, but for the first time, some figures came out in yesterday's debate.

According to the Energy Fair group of energy consultants and academics, the real cost of nuclear power is at least £200 per MWh. This is much more than the cost of offshore wind power (140 per MWh) or that of onshore wind power (£90 MWh).

Based on this, EDF might be asking for something as high as £165 per MWh for the strike price. A similar figure comes from Steve Thomas of Greenwich University and Peter Atherton of Citi: a strike cost price of £161 per megawatt.

This compares to today’s wholesale price for electricity of around £51 per megawatt.

The government would have to enter into a 30-year contract life for the two proposed plants at Hinkley and Sizewell.

Over this period, then, the total cost to householders and businesses or taxpayers would be £155bn by 2050. That is without any of the additional costs, such as insurance and accident protection, dealing with waste, etc.

As Mike Weatherley MP said yesterday: "Imagine the renewable energy industry if we had invested over £155bn in it".

Much of this cash would leave the country as EDF is based in France.

We are talking about not some new technology like tidal power, but a mature and not very competitive industry started in 1956."

That's a potential lifetime subsidy, higher than today's domestic 20 year PV FIT!

I'm under no illusions about the high cost of nuclear, but I didn't think it was that bad?

Mart.

spgsc531

Natalie Bennett said on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday:

"at the moment the government is conducting secret negotiations that, although they’ve said they weren’t going to subsidise nuclear, we’re looking potentially at a situation where they could be offering EDF a subsidy of a billion pounds a year with a 30 year contract - £30 billion to subsidise nuclear"

Ben84

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Hiya Ben, you probably know all this already, but ...

No, this is new to me about the supergrid.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Geothermal, there have been several thoughts on building an interconnector between the UK and Iceland. This would be particularly useful as it could add a predictable renewable to the largely unpredictable UK mix. See article and click on 'click here':-

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/how-the-supergrid-could-help-keep-the-lights-on-7640771.html

Waste, can't think of the programme I watched, but it was looking at the burning of all types of general waste with the use of a plasma arc (I think?) powered from the generation gained from burning the waste. US based test plant I think. Can burn, dare I say anything, with very little waste product. Not sure how feasible this really is.

I'm cautious about this. The burning conditions do affect some of the pollutants formed (or not formed), but household waste often contains heavy metals from electronics and old paints, and elements cannot be broken down by burning. So, where they progress to from there is a potential problem.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Biomass, watching that new tv series 'The Genius of Invention', episode one was all about Drax. Near the end they mentioned that one of the 6 boilers was being converted to run on biomass rather than coal. What surprised me, and I hope I didn't mishear this, but they said that another boiler would be converted each year till 3 (of the 6) was running on biomass. That is far faster (and sooner) than I was expecting.

Lots of very interesting stuff going on, and this decade should really stand out.

Mart.

I did read the same thing about three of the six boilers. It's interesting that they're doing this with an old coal plant, rather than spending lots of money and resources building an entirely new plant.

Martyn1981

Ben84 wrote: »

No, this is new to me about the supergrid.

Hiya Ben, in that case you can lose yourself for an hour having a good read of the Desertec site:

http://www.desertec.org/global-mission/

There's the EU-Mena link, and also the Greater East Asia. Very interesting. The EU idea has progressed, and also not progressed with an argument between Spain and Morocco (I think?) over who will pay for an interconnector. Lots going on in China.

The UK link I gave you is a little out of date. I think another Ireland link is now on-line. And of course we also have a north-south UK, which is probably handy for Scotland to sell all their renewables leccy, I think they are now up to about 50% renewables!

This National Grid live link shows what leccy is moving in, out and around the UK on the RHS:

http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Data/Realtime/Demand/demand24.htm

The plasma arc burning thingy(!) I watched could get through anything. I hope I'm not making this up, but I'm sure they said it could even burn concrete - but it was a few years ago, possibly more.

Drax is interesting, all change, let's hope shipping biomass from America is comparable to shipping coal from Australia, S. America and S. Africa. They are actually trying to encourage UK farmers to become suppliers too, but only for a minority of their needs.

So much to read and learn, but so little time!

Mart.

EricMears

Ben84 wrote: »

I did read the same thing about three of the six (Drax) boilers. It's interesting that they're doing this with an old coal plant, rather than spending lots of money and resources building an entirely new plant.

Seems like only yesterday they were building the 'new' Drax station alongside the 'new' Selby coalfield But seriously, it's not particularly 'ancient' and no doubt the turbines, alternators & transformers will have been kept reasonably up to date.

Slotting in just a new boiler is therefore moderately sensible - although I have doubts that carting in shiploads of American wood chips is really the most economical process they could find.