Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

theboylard

Useless site won't let me edit post on mobile view.
Post above all about using cryogenic storage for instant power.

ed110220

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I didn't think we'd get to this point so fast.

100% renewable energy system cheapest for South America

Many (most?) South American countries already get most of their electricity from hydro power. Eg Brazil gets about 80% from hydro. So solar PV and wind would seem like an ideal pairing, as the hydro could be used to balance the solar and wind, just as it's already ideal for quickly responding to changes in demand.

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Could gas from grass rival fracking to heat UK homes?

Further to this article, there's more!

This article from Ecotricity is interesting, and the video well worth 6mins of attention.

Ecotricity challenges fracking with new Green Gas Mills

Seems to me that they are declaring war on fracking, as they plan to follow the industry around and put in planning applications for 'Green Gas Mills' in the same locations.

Here's a Q&A on green gas mills.

But this was only the start of my weekend reading, which all slotted neatly into place, regarding:
future UK generation,
source of generation,
amount of storage needed,
source and amount of back up fuel.

If interested, see my next post!

Martyn1981

Having read this interesting article on Australia and the amount of storage a wind & PV leccy future would need, I applied the numbers to the UK.

How Much Energy Storage Is Needed In A Solar & Wind Powered Grid?

For Aus, it turns out it needs 1/2 days storage. Which in the UK would be approx 500GWh. So question 1 is, is that possible, how much money, and can we afford it (OK questions 1-3).

So 500GWh of storage for the UK, would cost around $80bn (@$160/kWh). That sounds a lot, but is less than the 35yrs of payments we are to make to France and China for HPC (35yrs x 3,200MW x 91%cf x 24hrs x 365days x £102/MWh = £91bn or $115bn).

I appreciate that HPC is generation, not storage, but losing that 7% of generation and installing PV and on-shore wind at half the cost (per MWh) to meet 14% of our leccy needs, would balance it out. So job done!


Next I found this study by Energy Matters

UK Electricity Part 3: Wind and Solar

It suggests that for a 'high electrification' scenario for 2050 (a shift in transport and heating demand to electricity), with annual demand of around 635TWh (v's 350TWh today), we would need 500GWh of storage (plus 500GWh thermal storage) for a wind and PV leccy supply, that 'only' has 12.8% of supply from gas.

Table 3 suggests the need for 280GW of wind (based on on-shore capacity factors, less with off-shore cf's) plus 100GW of PV. This would generate 121% of annual need. And Table 4 suggests that without storage, a further 19.9% would be needed from gas.

Fig 6 shows a graph of gas v's storage.

Now, here's the interesting part, the figure for gas is actually "Gas / Bio fuels". Currently we seem to have 2GW of bio-mass generation, plus 0.5GW of hydro, so that's about 6% of current needs, and I assume we have a lot more bio-gas from various projects around the UK.

If we could meet the gas requirement from bio-fuels, such as the 'Green Gas Mills' idea, then we'd be pretty much at 100% renewable leccy.

I think?

lstar337

I have been saying for years that we should be doing more to harness heat in volcanic areas!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38324177

Scientists in Iceland are drilling in to a volcano to harness the energy from beneath the Earth.
The hole will be 5km deep and is expected to hit temperatures between 400C (752F) and 1000C.

lstar337

lstar337 wrote: »

I have been saying for years that we should be doing more to harness heat in volcanic areas!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38324177

The BBC have done a followup to the article above with a little more info.

Interesting stuff. If it all goes ahead I guess it will be a while before we find out what power output they get from this plant. They don't seem to have a clear idea of what to expect. Gutsy stuff!

lstar337

http://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/update/2016-12-21/uks-first-wind-farm-marks-25th-birthday/

It is 25 years since turbines were first switched on - on December 21 1991 - at Delabole Wind Farm on the north Cornwall coast, generating power for 2,700 homes a year.

Martyn1981

Some good news from India, caught me out, so good news Xmas present.

Quick background brief. We often hear the argument, what's the point in us reducing CO2 emissions when China and India are building 5 coal power stations a day, and 6 on Thursdays.

Well, putting aside the fact that per capita CO2 emissions are low in China, and tiny in India, the real news is that things are changing fast.

China is burning less coal, so as it opens more coal power stations they simply run at lower capacity. Hopefully the 2 year downward trend in coal consumption will continue.

But the big news is in India, where the falling costs of RE may have arrived just in time to prevent/halt their very large planned build out of coal generation:

India predicts it will exceed Paris renewable energy target by half

The Indian government has forecast that it will exceed the renewable energy targets set in Paris last year by nearly half and three years ahead of schedule.

A draft 10-year energy blueprint published this week predicts India will be generating 57% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2027. The Paris climate accord target was 40% by 2030.

Buckley said India’s “absolutely transformational” forecast was also driven by technological advancements that have led to the price of solar energy falling by 80% in the past five years.

“India is moving beyond fossil fuels at a pace scarcely imagined only two years ago,” he said. “Goyal has put forward an energy plan that is commercially viable and commercially justified without subsidies, so you have big global corporations and utilities committing to it.”

In the 2027 forecasts, India aims to generate 275 gigawatts of total renewable energy, in addition to 72GW of hydroenergy and 15GW of nuclear energy. Nearly 100GW would come from “other zero emission” sources, with advancements in energy efficiency expected to reduce the need for capacity increases by 40GW over 10 years.

About 50GW of coal power projects being developed in India would be “largely stranded” under the forecast, Buckley said, with official modelling showing that “none of these plants are required before 2022 and only possible before 2027”.

Martyn1981

Some new UK wind records in late December, and the 'greenest' Xmas day!

Trio of new wind energy records set at end of December

New figures from National Grid show that wind power performed strongly during Christmas week. Fresh half-hourly, daily and weekly records were set on 23rd, 24th and 25th December.

Wind power supplied a new high of 41% of the UK’s electricity needs in a half-hour period on Christmas Day, smashing the previous record of 34%. During this period, 47% of the UK’s electricity came from renewable sources.

A new daily record of 32% of UK electricity was generated by wind on Christmas Day, beating the previous high of 24%. Overall, renewables met 42% of demand on 25th December 2016.

20% of UK electricity was generated by wind in the week ending on 25th December, exceeding the previous 19% record. Renewables provided 28% of total generation in the new record week.

Gregory33

Of course it's the dream!

I'm a fan of certain renewables, but onshore wind isn't one of them.

They are a blight on the picturesque countryside, and having visited friends who live near one, I can confirm they are very noisy!

Offshore wind is a better idea.