Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

You could look to disagree on perfectly sound grounds as tidal flow, barrages and enclosed lagoons as well as pumped storage need to be considered in the mix too ... all being sources of schedulable or dispatchable power which could displace much of the FF & nuclear capacity being discussed ...

If course, this would require a central strategy to support the required investment & political will to counter a wide range of lobbyists & pressure groups.

HTH
Z

Plus the recent(ish) report that 100% RE for the UK was doable and economical based on current technologies and prices.

Even Euan Mearns a 'devout' nuclear supporter produced these figures for a high leccy demand future (with a shift towards leccy for transport and space heating) a couple of years back:

UK Electricity Part 3: Wind and Solar

... they show a need for 13% from gas (now showing gas/bio-fuels) with just a wind and PV mix, and that's a singular wind mix as he's missing the difference in generation between on and off-shore as they don't correlate exactly.

But what I've always found interesting about his model is how the RE spill rate of about 34% correlates so nicely with a bio-gas production of 13% (be it hydrogen or bio-methane), even at very low efficiencies.

And ...... of course ..... that 'spill' will be after leccy storage is full and no other demand can be found, so it'll be at very low market rates, making up for the low efficiency of large scale chemical storage. So if the leccy is selling at £10/MWh down even into negatives, then at a low efficiency of say 33%, the stored energy still results in leccy at £30/MWh (or less) when resold during higher demand periods.

And we haven't even discussed large scale CAES at 60% efficiency or LAES at around 70% or even 100%+ if combined with waste heat/cold processes. Or current bio-energy that provides about 10% of our generation already, though some of the bio-mass elements are a bit controversial.

I can't help thinking that some or many of the storage solutions might be market led, so the government won't even need to interfere once the economics start to shine from a rational use of a carbon tax, plus the growing economics of RE generation.

Martyn1981

More news on the great hyped hope of SMR's (small modular (nuclear) reactors). If we put enough money in to subsidise the industry, then eventually ....... they'll still be too expensive!

The most optimistic figures I've seen from both the Rolls Royce marketing and the arguments from pro-nuclear supporters, is that SMR's could eventually (2030+) get down to £60/MWh. With the first 5GW or so (10 to 20 SMR's) cost more than HPC's £100/MWh, then falling below HPC and heading for £60 if enough are rolled out.

So there's a chance, that eventually SMR's can get down to a price higher than UK PV, on-shore wind and off-shore wind is now contracting for.

Expect £60/MWh for SMR's in 2030+ to be considerably more than RE + storage by then (assuming 25%-50% of RE gen needs storage), and of course we can have the cheap RE today, displacing CO2 today, and the storage rolled out in modular form, as and when required, tomorrow.

Nuclear displacing far more harmful coal generation is a great idea, but times change, technology changes and .... as they say ...... the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones.

Energy firms demand billions from UK taxpayer for mini reactors

Ten companies hoping to build the plants requested direct government funding, according to the briefing paper by the Expert Finance Working Group on Small Reactors. While the report named the companies involved in the mini nuclear projects, it did not specify who was asking for financial support.

David Lowry, a nuclear policy consultant who obtained the document, said: “SMRs are either old, discredited designs repackaged when companies see governments prepared to throw taxpayers’ subsidies to support them, or are exotic new technologies, with decades of research needed before they reach commercial maturity.”

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

UK Electricity Part 3: Wind and Solar

That is an interesting link in particular

What Figure 6 shows is that realistic levels of storage have no impact on the thermal capacity required. Based on the demand levels of Part 1 – and wind and solar output from 2012 to 2015, we will need about 104GW of thermal capacity in 2050.

We may actually need more than 104GW. When the storage is empty – which it will be at times – the full capacity is required. The 104GW is based on 4 years of capacity factors, but we need the supply infrastructure to cater for exceptional circumstances. In practice, that will probably require 115GW of available capacity. As in the nuclear scenario, some of this will rarely – if ever – be used, and could be provided by diesel or “mothballed” coal plants.
Although storage can’t alter the required backup capacity, it can improve the amount of fossil fuels burned.

Basically suggesting we will need 115GW of mostly idle thermal plants to backup the wind/solar future. Pretty much what I was saying which is that peak daily/weekly demand will need to be covered with CCGTs/OCGTs

We are not going to get rid of them because electricity is vital to everything we do and the storage levels required to not have the thermal backup are so immense that they are unfeasible

NigeWick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

. the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones.

But, were there in large stone quarrying companies lobbying/paying government to keep them in business?

NigeWick

GreatApe wrote: »

We are not going to get rid of them because electricity is vital to everything we do and the storage levels required to not have the thermal backup are so immense that they are unfeasible

What if every home/building has solar and a battery capable of holding 24 hours worth of charge (like my Tesla PW2)? Then what if we add 6-10 million BEVs with V2G, capable of charging during off peak & discharging during peak times (like my Nissan Leaf)?

silverwhistle

GreatApe wrote: »

Thanks for this vitally important post it has enriched so many of our lives and was totally necessary and full of so much substance and worth if only you where next to me right now so I could bask in your glow

Thank you so much for confirming an opinion I had of you. I was actually thinking of Cardew when I wrote, but if the cap fits..

zeupater

NigeWick wrote: »

What if every home/building has solar and a battery capable of holding 24 hours worth of charge (like my Tesla PW2)? Then what if we add 6-10 million BEVs with V2G, capable of charging during off peak & discharging during peak times (like my Nissan Leaf)?

Hi

... and what if investment was also made in tidal flow schemes, tidal barrages & multi-segmented tidal lagoons plus hi/lo high volume pumped storage strategic reserves, combined onshore wind/pumped storage schemes and biogas(/fuel) processing to directly displace FF whilst utilising existing plant (with minor modification) .... then again, there's vast potential for smart-control demand smoothing, household, business & transport energy efficiencies reducing overall requirements ... and what happens when all available technologies are considered in a reasonable mix basis as opposed to individually or in small groups? ... well National Grid have looked at the options and they seem to draw a different picture to that offered by those with a bias, whichever the direction ... http://fes.nationalgrid.com/media/1253/final-fes-2017-updated-interactive-pdf-44-amended.pdf ... after-all, their remit is simply to plan & manage available resources to meet consumer demand ....

The 'Energy Matters' 2016 article as referenced by Martyn certainly highlights the scale of the energy issue it discusses, however, there are a number of considerations and assumptions that likely result in overstatement of overall demand to meet a particular narrative, it's also relevant to note that baselines are first established then the effect of additional various technology assumptions are applied on a purely 'guestimated' basis in order to provide no more than a view on the potentials that exist, nevertheless compounding a number of base assumptions & inaccuracies ... for example, the assumption of intra-day heat storage in buildings based on 1C lowering of average temperatures must logically represent a typical building heat-loss in excess of 1.35TWh/day then again, in order to resolve to a 450GWh equivalent of storage for electrical saving using a heat-pump operating at a COP of 3 has been used .... placing this in context, our own home's average total daily heat-loss is currently well below the assumed 45kWh.t and that's for a house of a size which possibly represents at least three typical homes! ... in a nutshell, improving both the average thermal efficiency of existing housing stock and urgently raising requirements for new-build (including minimum performance specifications for heat-pumps) the generation demand & available storage figures change dramatically, therefore the datum-point you put the stake in the ground has a substantial effect on the conclusions ... we've used demand shifting on heating, including intra-day, through utilising thermal mass to our advantage for years, it's not as if it's rocket science ... <looks behind to check safety .. > ... even MrsZ now grasps the concept ... !

HTH
Z

silverwhistle

Martyn1981 wrote: »

the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones.

Well, the Venetians ran out of that gorgeous purple marble from Istria or somewhere, and we no longer get slate from North Wales .. :-)

But in a similar vein to your argument I was thinking about how energy production is evolving in an incremental way. A random item came up on my phone newsfeed about some new wind turbines (x3 ISTR ) in Scotland: so nothing major in the grander scheme of things, but they were on the site of an old coal mine, and linked in to a substation a few miles away.

Similarly in the news is the advent of 9MW, and even more, turbine designs illustrating the rapid progress of the last few years.

It reminds me of my time in IT (for the leccy board as it happens) and the advent of distributed processing and the modular approach.
By the time (if?) HPC gets built it's going to be in a competitive market: its baseload would no doubt be useful, but it's difficult to imagine the context in which it will be operating and how it will be financed.

GreatApe

NigeWick wrote: »

What if every home/building has solar and a battery capable of holding 24 hours worth of charge (like my Tesla PW2)? Then what if we add 6-10 million BEVs with V2G, capable of charging during off peak & discharging during peak times (like my Nissan Leaf)?

Read the link it has far more detail. The basic answer seems to be no adding batteries does not enable you to reduce the backup generators much at all but it does allow you to burn less fuel in those generators.

GreatApe

A solar/wind future is going to be more expensive than most people imagine because it is going to need full backup and significant grid upgrades and significant storage and significant curtailment and despite this will still probably need 10% from thermal generation

We have abandoned nuclear as too expensive which it is compared to !!!!!! but it has been proven to be highly effective and workable and would be even more so with EVs

I hope the french do not give up on nuclear if for no other reason than to have a real comparison between a nuclear 'island' and a green 'island'

The most vocal nuclear advocates did warn of fossil fuel lock in with Solar/PV and they may be correct if you look at the Germans behind schedule and facing huge additional power line needs which no one wants in their back yard and this is only at a level of ~25% Solar/Wind

Well I guess worst case is a high wind and NG scenario which is better than BAU