Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

silverwhistle

zeupater wrote: »

It's a[STRIKE] one off[/STRIKE] architect design which included solar gain as a primary heating design concept

You do wonder what the involvement of architects is in some modern new builds, but joking aside, it is in the mass builds where we need to do the work. Individual houses are never going to be the problem, and from what I've seen of local building sites solar gain is never a consideration. I'm lucky in my ex-council terrace in having large windows and a south facing aspect to the kitchen and dining room, which is good for my solar panels too. In the future I may be more grateful for the cool north facing lounge and the grass in the shade of my apple trees!



Interesting point you make about the absence of big TVs and halogens as I've never had either. I'd say the introduction of induction hobs and vastly better insulated ovens would also have made a significant difference? But any consumption figures I might mention are massively distorted by the wood burner in the lounge.:cool: I never buy wood though, nor do I pay for gym membership!



Coastalwatch's point though:

Just have to resolve the thorny issue of the unecessary standing daily charge by a small increase in the unit cost of energy to offset this. Not difficult is it?

I pay (with VAT) 21.82p per kWh on a SC=0 tariff, and 6.24666 for gas. It's worth it for me but I can tell you that I keep an eye on my consumption as any increase in my usage would render the tariff uneconomic. I think an EV for me is two years away at least, and that would definitely change all the calculations!

Martyn1981

Too simple, too easy, too obvious, there must be more complicated systems we can use to avoid this?

Just 10% of fossil fuel subsidy cash 'could pay for green transition'

Coal, oil and gas get more than $370bn (£305bn) a year in support, compared with $100bn for renewables, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) report found. Just 10-30% of the fossil fuel subsidies would pay for a global transition to clean energy, the IISD said.

“Almost everywhere, renewables are so close to being competitive that [a 10-30% subsidy swap] tips the balance, and turns them from a technology that is slowly growing to one that is instantly the most viable and can replace really large amounts of generation,” said Richard Bridle of the IISD. “It goes from being marginal to an absolute no-brainer.”

Most experts define fossil fuel subsidies as financial or tax support for those buying fuel or the companies producing it. The IMF also includes the cost of the damage fossil fuel burning causes to climate and health, leading to an estimate of $5.2tn of fossil fuel subsidies in 2017, or $10m a minute. Ending the subsidies would cut global emissions by about a quarter, the IMF estimates, and halve the number of early deaths from fossil fuel air pollution.

GreatApe

The more you think about nuclear heating the more it makes sense

Sub £1/watt (thermal) cost Vs electrifying heating at closer to £10/watt (2 units of offshore wind at rough £4.50/watt plus one unit of backup CCGT at £1/watt =£10/watt)

To create a 100GW nuclear heat grid would probably be sub £150 billion (£80 billion nuclear heat reactors £50 billi distribution £20 billion contingency/other)

So cheap I'd give the heat output for free to homes (but charge for business and industry) with a 15,000 unit limit. The infrastructure cost is only £7/month/home (assuming 2% interest 80 year life 35 million homes on 2050 and the homes use two thirds of heating)

A 'free' national heating service or NHS for short
Not only would households benefit from free heat they would also not need to invest in boilers or heat pumps that need maintaining and replacing every so often at large big often unplanned for cost. Distributed heating is just a pipe in and a very small heat exchanger

The fuel would be super cheap probably around £7.50 per average household per year

GreatApe

The fuel cost for a heat reactor would be very low

Fuel costs in 2017 are quoted as 0.39 cents/kWh (for electricity) so about one third of that 0.13 cents/kWh (for thermal)

About 1/10th the cost of natural gas

The capital cost for a heat reactor would also be low seeing as how you get 3x as many units of heat as you do electricity and the capital cost of a heat only unit would be significantly less than a heat to electricity plant (for obvious reasons)

Nuclear heat is the answer for heating demand not electrical heating
The first would be cheap the second probably 10 x the cost
This should be seriously investigated

pile-o-stone

I'd imagine this will be an issue the world over as we move towards cleaner, intermittent energy generation.

https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/204874/creaking-grid-jams-up-australias-switch-to-green-energy/

Creaking grid jams up Australia’s switch to green energy

"Australia’s financing of cleaner power is slowing because the country’s aging grid isn’t being upgraded quick enough to accept new, intermittent generation and transport it efficiently to demand centers."

GreatApe

pile-o-stone wrote: »

I'd imagine this will be an issue the world over as we move towards cleaner, intermittent energy generation.

https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/204874/creaking-grid-jams-up-australias-switch-to-green-energy/

Creaking grid jams up Australia’s switch to green energy

"Australia’s financing of cleaner power is slowing because the country’s aging grid isn’t being upgraded quick enough to accept new, intermittent generation and transport it efficiently to demand centers."

And this is just the start

For a decade electricity useage has been about flat or falling in most advanced countries as energy efficiency eg 5 watt LEDs replacing 100 watt tungsten bulbs, a 2 watt smartphone replacing a 200 watt desktop etc

When the advanced nations start electrifying heating that will lead to a huge boom in winter demand (and also a significant increase in summer demand). The UK could go from 50GW to 200GW peak winter demand that means you will have to massively upgrade the grid. A huge hidden cost but just as importantly to upgrade the grid to 200GW peak demand (or whatever it finally is) will require the construction of 200 large gas fired stations from now to 2050 and huge new/additional transmission lines and a huge huge number of converter stations and transformers. The type of stuff people don't want in their backyard

zeupater

pile-o-stone wrote: »

I'd imagine this will be an issue the world over as we move towards cleaner, intermittent energy generation.

https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/204874/creaking-grid-jams-up-australias-switch-to-green-energy/

Creaking grid jams up Australia’s switch to green energy

"Australia’s financing of cleaner power is slowing because the country’s aging grid isn’t being upgraded quick enough to accept new, intermittent generation and transport it efficiently to demand centers."

Hi

Strange article really, the majority view in the industry tends more towards distributed generation reducing the load on grid resources whereas centralised generation (coal fired power stations etc) requires massive investment in transmission & distribution infrastructure, especially so in countries with huge open expanses like Australia ...

There's plenty of counter argument being made by community projects increasingly seeking off grid & micro grid solutions, especially so in remote areas with highly reliable RE resources, where local generation solutions plus battery storage increasingly provide highly competitive alternatives ...

The question then revolves around whether political positions & vested interests have held any sway over the message being delivered ...

HTH
Z

GreatApe

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Strange article really, the majority view in the industry tends more towards distributed generation reducing the load on grid resources whereas centralised generation (coal fired power stations etc) requires massive investment in transmission & distribution infrastructure, especially so in countries with huge open expanses like Australia ...

There's plenty of counter argument being made by community projects increasingly seeking off grid & micro grid solutions, especially so in remote areas with highly reliable RE resources, where local generation solutions plus battery storage increasingly provide highly competitive alternatives ...

The question then revolves around whether political positions & vested interests have held any sway over the message being delivered ...

HTH
Z

Distributed supply doesn't help because it doesn't produce energy when it is most needed

Your PV panels on your roof do nothing to add to supply at 6pm in January so the total grid infrastructure needed is no less with PV

And offshore wind farms are large central generation units often tens or hundreds of miles out to sea

The only real distributed energy is onshore wind close to demand centers but your not going to be putting many wind turbines up inside the M25 and again they do nothing sometimes during 6pm winter.

So it's a lie that wind or solar allow a smaller grid they definitely do not!


But batteries will allow a smaller last mile grid. It that's mostly insignificant

Martyn1981

pile-o-stone wrote: »

I'd imagine this will be an issue the world over as we move towards cleaner, intermittent energy generation.

https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/204874/creaking-grid-jams-up-australias-switch-to-green-energy/

Creaking grid jams up Australia’s switch to green energy

"Australia’s financing of cleaner power is slowing because the country’s aging grid isn’t being upgraded quick enough to accept new, intermittent generation and transport it efficiently to demand centers."

Thanks, that's interesting, but also very confusing.

Most of the news I've read this decade about Australia is how their standing charges have risen massively. This was because of what is commonly described as 'the gold plating' of the grid, so that it could cope with ever higher demand.

This was done just in time for demand to fall, as we've all seen, thanks to lower energy lamps, tv's, freezers etc.. So with less (not more) units being bought, the costs had to be put onto standing charges instead.

Now, clearly there's an issue with distributing RE around Australia, but the two stories don't seem to fit together - one of a gold plated oversized grid, and the other of a creaking old grid.

One clear solution, as Z notes, would be distributed generation (plus batts), which Australia can achieve thanks to its excellent (and reliable/predictable) sunshine.

Maybe the truth sits somewhere between the two, and I did do a quick bit of digging to see if Energy Voice (who are big in oil and gas too) was biased, but I found nothing to support that.

GreatApe

Had another thought related to a UK example after posting that yesterday which provides support to the scale of likely costs ...

Why not cost it on say shale gas piping per mile?
Or the actual cold water system?
Why train tunnels?
How are they relevent at all?

Also you could do the backbone of the system as one way low pressure steam which carries about 15 x the energy as your 40 centigrade water heat differential.

1 ton per second of steam would carry away 2.6GW of heat
A 10GW heat station would thus need four pipes transporting 1 tons per second each

Few/no pumps
One way, no need for a return
The steam just condenses into a local grids tank. The water is not lost

Heat pumps sitting alongside batteries make far more sense ... a 4kW.t ASHP setup running at ~60% capacity on a 24hr basis would probably suit the majority of UK home winter heat-load requirements where insulation is at reasonable levels without impacting on peak-load generation & that's the most likely & most cost effective pathway to follow ....

This is unrealistic because people want heat and comfort.
You are suggesting they run the heat pump for 14h a day and have it off for 10 hours a day
Well the 10 hours off would have to be around 11am to 9pm which is when the grid is at the higher portions of the day.

Do you really think a house can stay warm if you turn the heating off at 11am and don't turn it on until 9pm? That is so silly you are basically telling people to have cold homes it's not even heating it's literally cold homes!

But whatever let's assume this was possible
You still don't have much spare capacity in the grid
The difference between say 11am and absolutely peak around 6pm is about 5GW so you'd only be able to convert about 2 million boilers before your low demand time is now as high as your high demand time

So even if you were correct and somehow people are willing to turn off heating between 11am to 9pm (ridiculous) you'd still only be able to convert about 2 million of the 40 million or so boilers.

... now if the heat-pump was integrated into a fuel cell co-gen design using derived bio-gas (or scrubbed air synthetic gas!) delivered through the existing gas grid, we can start to see considerable efficiency gains and a target-able solution leveraging considerable existing assets ... but that's relying on a co-ordinated approach by government, so probably more than a few years down the line! ...

But we don't want dirty fossil fuels being burnt just outside your kitchen creating pollutants irrespective of this natural gas coming from a gas field or from the bums of microorganisms
We'd rather electrify or do District heating


So try as you might, your bit Gona have heat pumps solve heating. You will find you'll have to build one new large CCGT station every 2 months if you actually converted a large number of boilers to heat pumps each year