Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

michaels

GreatApe wrote: »

Nobody asked for your life story, arbiter of truth and goodness

Michael was asking what the hell is Gona happen to peak electricity demand if you electrify heating nationally

The answer is something along the lines of 'its going to go from about 50GW to probably over 200GW' and we can see this by looking at peak demands of already electrified heating nations like Norway Sweden and partially electrified nations like France and extrapolate to UK population size

That you do X y or z in your particular circumstances is irrelevant unless you are planning to convert everyone to live in homes like you think and act like you

I don't know if the 200 is correct but felt that there was a reasoned argument with actual examples of how that 200 could be spread across the day, after all we have night storage heaters and hot water tanks already so there are technical solutions.

michaels

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I consume less than before thanks to more efficient lamps, TV's etc, and better insulation. No lowering of living standards, and lower bills.



Over their life the TCO (total cost of ownership) of BEV's is lower and still falling, so they don't cost more, and the running costs of a heat pump should be less, not more than GCH. And both ICEV's and FF GCH fail to include the true (carbon) cost.



Is there really a cost, a high cost, and one that 'most' are unwilling to pay? Didn't this suggestion come up recently and I supplied evidence (26 quarterly surveys) that the public massively support renewables, support has risen during the time they've been deployed and levies have impacted our bills, folk believe the costs to be more than an order of magnitude greater than they are, and subsidy costs have fallen massively ....... already.

People don't look at TCO they look at how much per month, often only for the finance ignoring insurance, fuel, road tax etc.

I am also more of a believer in how do people choose to spend their money rather than what they say to surveys. And I see people continuing to fly abroad on holidays, buy fossil cars and fitting gas heating boilers

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Oh boy!

I should really ignore this silliness, but I'll waste some time.

I do have a heat pump. I also have a green energy supplier, with partial green gas. Wifey and I own a single 6 year old car, and when finances allow, and costs for a suitable vehicle, large enough to transport building materials (I do maintenance work for the cat rescue I volunteer at), and two large dogs (we board for Guide Dogs, as trainees or when folk are on holiday), becomes available, we will go down that route.

But back to a sensible discussion, for individuals to shift on mass, we need policies and products that will allow all of us.

To place the blame on individuals, or as you previously attempted, to move the blame off Big Oil (and gas) is a rather unpleasant angle that I have little sympathy with.

Big Tobacco knew smoking was seriously harmful from the 1950's, but did all they could to mislead and stall. Big Oil did the same since the 80's, and I'd suggest that Big Auto has been playing similar games with low production EV's, and concept cars for nearly a decade.

Sorry Mart but as you are the arbiter of all things green I do find it surprising that you are not personally putting into practice what you preach. I am not talking about shifting en masse but individuals, such as yourself, who are so vocal about AGW maybe should be leading by example. I am not suggesting you are another Emma Thompson but you have been vocal in arguing against batteries on the basis they are not economical and you don’t have an EV. The only person making those decisions is Mart - not Big Oil, not Big Auto. If it doesn’t stack up financially then you aren’t going to go there no matter how much it will help the planet.

You want policies to make it easier to go green, i.e. you want me and 31m other taxpayers to subsidise a green lifestyle for you? How do you sell that to all the tenants of flats who have no hope of benefitting from green measures for solar, EVs etc?

Are you saying keeping the price of EVs high iand the supply low is a conspiracy on the part of Big Auto?

You can’t realistically compare Big Oil with Big Tobacco? Tobacco is an addiction. What has tobacco done for our standard of living? Using oil (and gas) is either a choice or a necessity depending on how committed you are to being green and ethical.

I don’t normally respond quite so aggressively but if you are going to suggest my post constitutes “silliness” then a slightly more robust response was warranted. I know you are a good guy but you give everyone who doesn’t see the world quite like you do such a hard time. You are the lifeblood of this forum and I know you are passionate about AGW but for those of us less perfect please just cut us a bit of slack and not respond to every post as though we are casting aspersions on your parentage.

As always I will allow you the last word.

Ken

JKenH

ed110220 wrote: »

This is a classic pro-FF apologist line. Individuals can do a bit, but ultimately it's government policies and regulations that drive a large part of the change. For example I always chose all-renewable electricity tariffs, have invested money in renewable energy and upgraded my house with insulation and more efficient lighting and appliances to save money. But it's government that decides whether say on-shore wind energy is permitted or blocked, whether nuclear power stations are built or not etc.

As for EVs I'd love to get one but I don't have any off street parking to install a charger so one of those that's available reasonably affordably second hand wouldn't be suitable as the range would be too short (with say a 64 kWh Hyundai Kona EV or Kia Niro I'd only have to charge up once per week and so it wouldn't be such an issue). I have asked my employer if they would install charges or just let me charge up at work (they have an outdoor socket) but the answer is no. Again, government regulation would help if there was a requirement to allow charging at work car parks. The supply of EVs is also in many cases driven by regulations, with manufacturers only importing enough to meet emissions regulations. If these were tightened, the supply of EVs would be increased and more and cheaper second hand EVs would filter down to people who can't afford the ~ £500/month PCP rates of the newer longer range EVs.

Basically people should do as individuals what they can, but it's not a substitute for policies to phase out fossil fuels.

Pro FF apologist or whatever label you want to apply, I am actually pro renewables. I am however a realist as it seems are you, in practice if not in thought.

As @Michaels pointed out there is a cost to being green and unless the government or someone else is picking up the tab the price is too high for most of us. Yes, we will tinker at the edges with a bit of insulation and some LED light bulbs if we think our wallet will benefit but most of us won’t dip our hands very deep into our pockets to save the world. One only has to read the solar pv battery thread to see some of the most fervent green posters arguing it simply isn’t worth it to them to do it.

Is your solution to the EV problem really for the government to make your employer charge your car?

Personal responsibility is a thing of the past - everything is someone else’s fault or responsibility.

Yes, it may ultimately be necessary for the government to take the lead but is it good enough for those who espouse green causes to just sit on their hands and call anyone who suggests they do otherwise a FF apologist?

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

I don't know if the 200 is correct but felt that there was a reasoned argument with actual examples of how that 200 could be spread across the day, after all we have night storage heaters and hot water tanks already so there are technical solutions.

There are ways to smooth heating demand through the day I agree with that but how do you meet the average daily need of 200GW+ of electricity on a cold day? BTW the answer is easy you just beef up the grid and build thermal capacity to equal that 200+GW. So build 200+GW of CCGTs as backup and invest massively into the grid so it can handle some 200+GW peaks and also move vast quantities of electricity (much more than today) vast distances (much more than today). What will be the cost of more or less expanding the capacity of the grid by 4-5x and building 150 new large CCGTs so as to electrify heating?

Using France as a guide = 270GW daily average demand for a cold January day.

As to the claim of 200GW peak we'll look at France they have electrified much more than the UK but still only about 30% of homes are electrically heated the other 70% are not. Our winter peaks are around 50-55GW France sometimes exceeds 100GW this is for two countries with almost the same population. Now let's compare UK summer peaks which are about 35GW to France winter which are closer to 105GW. So no electrical heating Vs 30% electrical heating seems to add 70GW demand. Scale to 100% you get 235GW plus the 35GW normal electricity demand = 270GW estimate

Using Norway as a guide = 290GW

Look at Norway. Their January peak days are around 550GWh = 23GW but that's a country of just 5.3 million scale up to the UK which is 67 million and you get 290GW. This is the average load on a cold January so the actual demand will move both above and below that figure.

Trying to estimate with UK consumption = 200GW

If you look at natural gas useage for January it is about 11 billion cubic meters for that month.
That is an average 350 million cubic meters per day but as you can appreciate this is not a perfect constant that is to say some January days are colder than other January days so let's say just for arguments sake a particularly cold January day uses 30% more than average so 455 million cubic meters

455 million cubic meters of natural gas for a day @ 10.3KWh per meter cube gives an energy output of 195 GW average throughout the day

Minus from that 195 GW what we currently use in CCGTs during January which is about 25GW thermal so outside of power stations we have 170GW of natural gas demand.

Add to this the 50GW of electricity demand that already exists and we are at 220 GW


So we have three estimates going off three different examples
UK estimate 220GW
French estimate 270GW
Norway estimate 290GW

I think the UK estimate is actually best. Because Norway is colder, France is warmer however they have a few million more homes and their homes are a little bigger so we would consume less. So yes go with 220GW as the average electricity demand in a cold January day if you electrify heating. The peak will be higher but that's true average

People will claim heat pumps will allow that figure to be half but I am not convinced also when we used the French and Norway comparison both countries already use a lot of what pumps (although not dominant)

Needless to say....heating is going to be a huge challenge and the UK won't be electrifying any significant quantity of heating without building additional gas fired power stations

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

Pro FF apologist or whatever label you want to apply, I am actually pro renewables. I am however a realist as it seems are you, in practice if not in thought.

As @Michaels pointed out there is a cost to being green and unless the government or someone else is picking up the tab the price is too high for most of us. Yes, we will tinker at the edges with a bit of insulation and some LED light bulbs if we think our wallet will benefit but most of us won’t dip our hands very deep into our pockets to save the world. One only has to read the solar pv battery thread to see some of the most fervent green posters arguing it simply isn’t worth it to them to do it.

Is your solution to the EV problem really for the government to make your employer charge your car?

Personal responsibility is a thing of the past - everything is someone else’s fault or responsibility.

Yes, it may ultimately be necessary for the government to take the lead but is it good enough for those who espouse green causes to just sit on their hands and call anyone who suggests they do otherwise a FF apologist?

Most people simply don't care or have any interest in this topic

People have actual real problems in their lives, addictions stress money problems heath problems (the real type eg having to get a leg cut off due to diabetes not the pretend oh no a coal power station a hundred miles away is gona impact my health negatively)

There isn't an actual need to stop using fossil fuels, it has some very minor impacts which can be solved with future technology (everything can and will be solved with future technology. Earth itself will become a spaceship a planet sized spaceship)

But we will stop using fossil fuels within my lifetime (I expect I'll be around 50+ more years) simply because of software

Self drive software solves transportion

Near AI solves manufacturing and makes everything super cheap. Wind PV nuclear all more or less 'free' once we have near AI manufacturing and construction.

While I am a little wind/PV negative only today when humans build that stuff and the world is limited by production capacity (that is to say humanity needs/wants more stuff than it is able to produce. Housing being one of those things the world needs 5 billion good quality homes and we have some 2.5 billion or so today)

In the near future when we have bear AI and then AI you can indeed go to a world of 100% non fossil fuels. You can do anything at that point assuming the human race isn't deleted when the superintelegence arrives

zeupater

michaels wrote: »

I don't know if the 200 is correct but felt that there was a reasoned argument with actual examples of how that 200 could be spread across the day, after all we have night storage heaters and hot water tanks already so there are technical solutions.

Hi

As the '200' relates to peak power it's pretty easy to test validity ...

Around 20million homes currently use GCH, a further ~2 million use electricity (with ~80% using off peak storage) & an additional ~2million use other forms (LPG, biomass etc) .. (Source)

If average gas usage is ~13MWh/year, then the heat demand is ~11MWh, 20% of which would typically be DHW, leaving space heating at ~9MWh

Typical heat provision in an electric household is also around 13MWh, with ~3/4 currently being provided through off peak tariffs ...

Extrapolating the data gives a following first cut ...
Gas -
Heating: 20,000,000x9 = 180TWh/year
DHW: 20,000,000x2=40TWh/year
Electricity
Heating: 2,000,000x11 = 22TWh/year
DHW: 2,000,000x2=4TWh/year

Rough cut - On requirement days ...
Heating: ~200TWh/~200days = AV ~1TWh/day = 41GW
DHW: 44TWh/365days = AV ~120GWh/day = 5GW

However, allowance must be made for peak demand days, so based on 65kWh of daily heat demand over the heating season we can assess peak being around half again, so around 70GW((41x1.5)+5) in total if evenly distributed ... however, applying 75% of the total heating load to a timed heat environment, mainly over a 7 hour evening gives an idea of peak delivery, so around 160GW (((1TWhx1.5x0.75)/24)x(24/7)) ...

We can sanity check the above against published research, for example (Decarbonising Domestic Heating) ...

Peak heat demand is 170 GW, around 40% lower than previously thought.

... so it's in the right ballpark for the domestic sector, which is supported by research on peak gas demand when the 'Beast from the East' hit the UK in 2018 ... for example ... gas-consumption-beast-from-the-east-gas-system. which analyses all demand ...

Okay, average daily space heating demand for a domestic property of 65kWh with a peak of ~100kWh looks to be in the right ballpark, so let's look at applying a COP of 4 to the domestic property peak, that's 25kWh/day max with an average of ~17kWh ... (at COP 3 it's 33/21 per day etc ....)

So with a 160GW peak we can look at a COP of 4 as requiring an increase in peak generating capacity of ~40GW (~50GW if COP 3) if current timed patterns are maintained, however, if peak heat requirements were met by varying the heating provision hours using heat-pumps as opposed to ramping up power output, the 1.5TWh thermal requirement could be satisfied at ~105GW.t over 14hrs, or 63GW.t over 24hrs, requiring delivery of 26GW or 16GW respectively (COP4, other efficiencies are relative).

At this point it must be remembered that ~10% of the heat demand in the calculation is already supplied by resistive heating at COP1, so 26GW would need to be adjusted to offset & reflect this, becoming ~19GW (26-(26*10%*3)) ... (COP4 dependent etc ... )

... as can be deduced, the difference between peaking at around 200GW.t and having an additional delivered electrical demand which is as much as approximately 10x lower just by managing the reasons for the peak & applying energy multiplication factors available in high COP heat-pumps provides an interesting alternative ....

By the way, our small system technical documentation specifies a COP which exceeds 4.0 in almost all conditions we're likely to experience in the UK! ...

All approximated, but supported, so food for alternative thought paths!

HTH
Z

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

People don't look at TCO they look at how much per month, often only for the finance ignoring insurance, fuel, road tax etc.

I am also more of a believer in how do people choose to spend their money rather than what they say to surveys. And I see people continuing to fly abroad on holidays, buy fossil cars and fitting gas heating boilers

This is yours and Marts hobby

Consider yourself very fortunate if you have a stable family and stable income and stable heath phsycial and mental. Sadly most people don't have all of the above certainly not all of the time.

If you're a diabetic above to lose a foot how much time do you dedicate to considering the merits of hear pumps?

If one of your two kids isn't coming home until after midnight and spending their time on gangs how much time do you dedicate to shopping for a green gas supplier

If your marriage is days away from failure how much time and effort do you put into finding better paid work so as to afford an EV

A man needs a hobby and this is yours and Marts hobby and good on you spend time energy money on your hobby it doesn't have to be a return on investment calculation. Some guys buy fast cars it's their hobby. Some pay thousands to watch a dozen men chase a leather ball. Some spend 2h a day every day in the gym. It's your hobby go nuts.

But don't ask the state to make your hobby a positive return on investment for you (this is a general statement not a statement to you)


Anyway none of you need to worry
Irrespective of what we do the fossil fuel ' problem ' will be solved with software

We will get AI this century, probably before 2050 and once that is here everything is free
We either go the way if the dodo or we enter a stage of economics where whatever we want however massive or difficult a task is basically free and very rapidly (a 8 year nuclear build might take 8 months with AI. A 30 year wind/PV deployment might only take 30 months with AI)

GreatApe

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

As the '200' relates to peak power it's pretty easy to test validity ...

Around 20million homes currently use GCH, a further ~2 million use electricity (with ~80% using off peak storage) & an additional ~2million use other forms (LPG, biomass etc) .. (Source)

If average gas usage is ~13MWh/year, then the heat demand is ~11MWh, 20% of which would typically be DHW, leaving space heating at ~9MWh

Typical heat provision in an electric household is also around 13MWh, with ~3/4 currently being provided through off peak tariffs ...

Extrapolating the data gives a following first cut ...
Gas -
Heating: 20,000,000x9 = 180TWh/year
DHW: 20,000,000x2=40TWh/year
Electricity
Heating: 2,000,000x11 = 22TWh/year
DHW: 2,000,000x2=4TWh/year

Rough cut - On requirement days ...
Heating: ~200TWh/~200days = AV ~1TWh/day = 41GW
DHW: 44TWh/365days = AV ~120GWh/day = 5GW

However, allowance must be made for peak demand days, so based on 65kWh of daily heat demand over the heating season we can assess peak being around half again, so around 70GW((41x1.5)+5) in total if evenly distributed ... however, applying 75% of the total heating load to a timed heat environment, mainly over a 7 hour evening gives an idea of peak delivery, so around 160GW (((1TWhx1.5x0.75)/24)x(24/7)) ...

We can sanity check the above against published research, for example (Decarbonising Domestic Heating) ...

... so it's in the right ballpark for the domestic sector, which is supported by research on peak gas demand when the 'Beast from the East' hit the UK in 2018 ... for example ... gas-consumption-beast-from-the-east-gas-system. which analyses all demand ...

Okay, average daily space heating demand for a domestic property of 65kWh with a peak of ~100kWh looks to be in the right ballpark, so let's look at applying a COP of 4 to the domestic property peak, that's 25kWh/day max with an average of ~17kWh ... (at COP 3 it's 33/21 per day etc ....)

So with a 160GW peak we can look at a COP of 4 as requiring an increase in peak generating capacity of ~40GW (~50GW if COP 3) if current timed patterns are maintained, however, if peak heat requirements were met by varying the heating provision hours using heat-pumps as opposed to ramping up power output, the 1.5TWh thermal requirement could be satisfied at ~105GW.t over 14hrs, or 63GW.t over 24hrs, requiring delivery of 26GW or 16GW respectively (COP4, other efficiencies are relative).

At this point it must be remembered that ~10% of the heat demand in the calculation is already supplied by resistive heating at COP1, so 26GW would need to be adjusted to offset & reflect this, becoming ~19GW (26-(26*10%*3)) ... (COP4 dependent etc ... )

... as can be deduced, the difference between around peaking at around 200GW.t and having an additional delivered electrical demand which is as much as approximately 10x lower just by managing the reasons for the peak & applying energy multiplication factors available in high COP heat-pumps provides an interesting alternative ....

By the way, our small system technical documentation specifies a COP which exceeds 4.0 in almost all conditions we're likely to experience in the UK! ...

All food for alternative thought paths!

HTH
Z

France experiences over 100GW winter peaks (and they are only around 30% electrified with a mix of heat pumps and resistance hearing) enough said! They can just about meet this demand with nuclear plus hydropower plus interconntors imports plus gas fired stations plus coal stations.

Plus we are probably not going to be using all heat pumps there will be a mix of heat pumps and resistance heaters aka just like France Norway Finland Sweden are a mix it's not 100% one tech

The cost of ripping out radiators and pipes and installing big heat pumps will be too prohibitive for many properties and some like flats might simply not even have the option (leaseholders can't just bolt a heat pump unit to the outside wall). And when they ice up or get dirty the COP crashes

In the same way a car might be quoted as 80mpg but in the real world for average drivers might only be 45mpg


Really the more important question is what does the green lobby do when electrifying heating means having to build new gas fired stations. Do they protest and if so how do you add your heat pumps with no thermal capacity to power them when the wind don't blow???

JKenH

I have spent four of the last six days travelling on heritage railways and would be very sad if they are forced to close because all the mines are shut down.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/07/steam-trains-could-die-government-crackdown-coal-heritage-railway/