Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

As the 2035 announcement is big news, and Boris has now committed himself to RE by sticking his neck out once again, having recently discussed Kermit the Frog and claimed that being green is easy, I thought I'd look to see how the news is being covered and explanations of what is being proposed and needed.

I thought this BBC news article was nice, and having been a long term fan of Highview and LAES, it's nice to see they suggested it (and provided a link) when discussing storage:

All UK's electricity will come from clean sources by 2035, says PM

But this article jumped out at me, as it not only gives a nice brief overview of the targets, issues, technologies etc, but also has the word 'net' in the title, and a few times throughout, which for me, clarifies things a lot, and makes it far more possible now for us to meet that target, especially if we ramp up off-shore wind, and perhaps move to annual CfD auctions, from biennial:

The UK’s 2035 net zero electricity target: how could it be achieved?

Is the 2035 target doable?

From a technical perspective, yes, but there are significant policy hurdles to overcome. Energy industry lobbyists point to slow planning consent, infrequent windfarm auctions and insufficient grid infrastructure. Many experts believe the energy market needs to be totally redesigned to adapt to changing needs, potentially overseen by a new body.

Martyn1981

And speaking of needing more off-shore wind generation, what we need are really big fans, like Boris!

GE turns up Haliade-X prototype to 14MW

GE Renewable Energy’s Haliade-X prototype in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, has started operating at 14MW, making it the first player in the industry to operate a wind turbine at this power output.

The Haliade-X 14MW is an uprated version of the Haliade-X 13MW, which received its type certification in January 2021.

The GE Renewable Energy team has now officially started certification measurements on the Haliade-X 14MW.

One turbine can generate up to 74 gigawatt hours of gross annual energy production, based on typical German North Sea wind conditions.

shinytop

NigeWick said:

shinytop said:

You say he's arrived late; which comparable countries/economies are ahead in the race?

Depends what you call a comparable country. Norway is doing quite well.

And, why should a country be "comparable"? Surely any country that has the political will can become energy independent using renewables plus storage.

"The Government of Costa Rica expects the country will generate more than 99% of its electric energy from renewable resources in 2020. ... In 2020, Costa Rica has generated 72% of its energy from hydropower, 14.9% from geothermal sources, 12% from wind and 0.54% ​​from biomass and solar panels."

Of course it matters who we compare ourselves with.  Costa Rica is a small country with a tropical climate whose economy is dominated by tourism and service industries.  Norway is a large country with a small population and a huge sovereign wealth fund (source - oil and gas) that enables it to invest large amounts of money in RE and green initiatives (e.g. EV subsidies).  Both have long- established hydro capability, which is established technology.   

A better comparison would be the other top 20 GDP countries. 

https://researchfdi.com/world-gdp-largest-economy/

How are we doing against these?
  

shinytop

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

Martyn1981 said:

Boris is talking big again, and now that it suits him (and denial won't work anymore) he seems to like renewables, and believe in AGW/science.

It's a tad frustrating to hear him saying what so many of us have been saying for decades, but if they can deliver on this, then all the best to them, they may have arrived late to the tent, but at least they've stopped pee'ing into it from outside.

UK electricity generation to be fossil fuel free by 2035, says Boris Johnson

The prime minister has confirmed plans to eliminate fossil fuels from UK electricity generation by 2035.

Speaking during the Conservative party conference, Boris Johnson said the proposed shift would help the UK decarbonise, while softening the impact of the kind of gas price fluctuations that have prompted fears of a winter energy crisis in recent weeks.

“What I’m saying is we can do for our entire energy production by 2035 what we’re doing with internal combustion engines in vehicles by 2030,” he said, during a visit to a Network Rail site in Manchester.

Johnson said removing gas from electricity generation would help safeguard against future price surges.

“We will be reliant on our own clean power generation, which will help us also to keep costs down.”

Isn't this new and big? What do they think will fill the gas gap?  Big new (expensive) announcements on nuclear - probably including SMRs?  Have we seen any models/proposals on how this will be achieved beyond that?

[I'm not suggesting I think these solutions are the right way forward but I am speculating on what the govt intend to announce for COP26]

I'm only guessing here, but I think Boris is 'bending the truth', but of course I hope that we can reach 100% RE (or RE + HPC (I'm going to leave out nuclear now, just to simplify my comment, and also because any new nuclear, or SMR development, is unlikely to result in actual generation before 2035)).

My guess, and it is only a guess, is that it's probably more like 100% RE net, as like you, I can't see how we would eliminate the need for gas to fill in the gaps from the ~25GW of CCGT's we have. Maybe, just maybe, the CCGT will be running on H2 sourced from RE, but that seems like a mighty task by 2035, not just to build out the storage, but also the electrolysers, and the even larger overcapacity needed to account for the ~50% efficiency.

So, again, all guesses, since we are massively expanding the number of interconnectors, up from 5GW to 7.4GW this year, and 16GW by 2025, then it might be a case that we generate most of our leccy from RE, then balance the FF gas we burn, against RE exports to Europe. There are massive problems with this idea though, the principle one being that our RE generation (mainly off-shore wind) is not exactly lined up with our European interconnectors, so we will also have to massively build out the UK grid to better serve a RE future.

But just for fun, let's run with my admittedly slightly far fetched theory, for now, and pretend we can generate the equivalent of 100% of UK leccy needs from RE. Of that we export 40%, during excess, and import 20% RE generation during shortfalls, and top up with 20% FF gas. That would mean that technically we'd be at about 100%RE 'net'. This would be akin to a PV'er being net neutral if half their leccy comes from PV, and the other half is import but equal to the PV export.

'Net' 100% RE isn't a con, nor a trick, it's just a step/milestone along the way to true 100% RE, and in my fictional example, the exports to Europe would hopefully be displacing FF generation, so the total benefits (like the PV'er helping to decarbonise the local grid) are real.

Sorry for the long waffle as usual, but do I believe Boris, of course not, the other parties (Labour, Lib Dems and Greens) have been pushing for higher targets and goals since the 2000's, so all he's doing is finally accepting that the move to RE is necessary and possible. But I do believe it's possible, and suspect that economics will drive this forward despite what the Tories really believe, so we win anyway, simply by removing the false negatives that working against RE for so long.

PS. We are currently at around 40% RE in the UK, and deploying ~3.5%pa, so 14yrs x 3.5% adds another 49%, add on HPC and we are very close to 100%. Whilst demand will slowly rise for BEV's and space heating, this can of course be balanced by simply ramping up the RE deployment, especially as costs continue to fall, so in theory we could be close to 100% low carbon by 2035, we just need to focus a bit harder, and also ramp up the intraday storage, then the longer term storage. It's actually pretty positive when you think about it, and the only hurdle was right wing negativity, that is now starting to wane.

I'm not arguing with your numbers but sorry but you're not getting away with that .  It's very easy to push for higher targets when you don't have to deliver them.  And anyway, Labour were in power until 2010 and the Lib Dems were part of the coalition until 2015.  Why wasn't all of this done then? 

Martyn1981

There was a push for more RE, and higher building standards, as I already listed for you, but the moment the Tories won a majority in 2015 they undid most of it (having fought Ed Davey throughout the coalition), and bet the farm on shale gas ....... after most of Europe had decided against it, it was a failure in Poland where the best reserves were found, and the US had turned into a Ponzi scheme, with the Oil and gas majors who invested seeing ~$300bn wiped off their share value.

I'm not sure why you seem to want to deny what the other parties tried to do, and what the Tories did to undermine it all?

The good news now, however, is that Boris, and hopefully his party, have now realised that they were completely wrong, and are now getting behind the obvious best choice. Yes we've lost about 5yrs of potential on the efficiency of new builds, demand side PV rollout, and supply side onshore wind and PV, but hopefully we can try to make up for some of those losses going forward, and if necessary accelerate the rollout of RE to compensate.

[Deleted User]

I haven’t read all 611 posts of this thread but what worries me is that the most ardent advocates of RE try to sell it as if it was ‘The Holy Grail’. Domestic energy use accounts for c.20% of our carbon challenge but we hear very little about the other 80%. Watching cricket the other day, one couldn’t fail to notice from the drone shots, streets of pre-War terraced houses which are going to be expensive to insulate and difficult to retro-fit with heat pumps. Who is going to pay for this work to be carried out? One teacher posted recently that just to install a heat pump he was going to have to re-mortgage his home. The response that he got from one RE advocate was ‘suck it up’!

At the same as Boris runs around Manchester in a dress shirt and city shoes, he is happy to announce the reopening of the World so people can fly away at half term. Having spent a large chunk of my life in the air, long range H2 or battery-powered air travel may prove to be as elusive as fusion power has been for the past 50 years. H2 requires large tanks, and batteries mean additional weight. Unlike fuel, battery weight doesn’t reduce the further an aircraft flies. One study has suggested that a battery-powered A380 might on a day of light winds just make it across the Atlantic with 100 passengers. The PM will be OK as he now has his own mini airline comprising one A330 and 2 A320 Neo jets: the latter was very convenient when he wanted to get from London to Newquay for the G7 Conference.

Meanwhile, those of us with gas CH are seeing wholesale prices 6 times what they were a year ago. RE isn’t going to help those who cannot afford their energy bills today. 

ABrass

[Deleted User] said:

I haven’t read all 611 posts of this thread but what worries me is that the most ardent advocates of RE try to sell it as if it was ‘The Holy Grail’. Domestic energy use accounts for c.20% of our carbon challenge but we hear very little about the other 80%. Watching cricket the other day, one couldn’t fail to notice from the drone shots, streets of pre-War terraced houses which are going to be expensive to insulate and difficult to retro-fit with heat pumps. Who is going to pay for this work to be carried out? One teacher posted recently that just to install a heat pump he was going to have to re-mortgage his home. The response that he got from one RE advocate was ‘suck it up’!

At the same as Boris runs around Manchester in a dress shirt and city shoes, he is happy to announce the reopening of the World so people can fly away at half term. Having spent a large chunk of my life in the air, long range H2 or battery-powered air travel may prove to be as elusive as fusion power has been for the past 50 years. H2 requires large tanks, and batteries mean additional weight. Unlike fuel, battery weight doesn’t reduce the further an aircraft flies. One study has suggested that a battery-powered A380 might on a day of light winds just make it across the Atlantic with 100 passengers. The PM will be OK as he now has his own mini airline comprising one A330 and 2 A320 Neo jets: the latter was very convenient when he wanted to get from London to Newquay for the G7 Conference.

Meanwhile, those of us with gas CH are seeing wholesale prices 6 times what they were a year ago. RE isn’t going to help those who cannot afford their energy bills today. 

Terraced houses are easier to insulate as they only have two sides that need it. A proactive approach to do it street by street makes it even easier.

Nothing we do now is going to help people who can't afford their bills today. The quickest thing would be to insulate, but we choose not to support that as a country.

Martyn1981

There's actually a lot of good news regarding total energy consumption, and that's just how inefficient most of what we do today is. Burning coal or gas for leccy is only about 40-50% efficient, ICE vehicles are around 25% efficient at best, space heating with gas is about 80% efficient, and UK homes themselves are incredibly inefficient.

Many folk are worried about how we will replace the whole energy consumption that we have, but we don't need to replace the gross energy, since so much is simply wasted. By moving transport and space heating to leccy we actually massively reduce our total energy consumption. Why explore, extract, transport, refine, transport and then finally after all those losses, burn refined oil (petrol) in a car at 25% efficiency, when wind and solar get their fuel supplied for free at the generation plant, and the leccy vehicle is around 75% efficient.

The link I gave regarding the UK being the Saudi Arabia of wind energy shows that just that source of RE is capable of supplying us with 10x to 100x our future leccy needs when all demand has shifted to leccy.

And the best news of course, is that whilst many will complain about the cost of action, they will be glad to know that the cost of inaction is far, far more.

Sadly, had we acted much sooner, the cost would also be less, but instead we listened to all the folk complaining about how much the cost was going to be. What an expensive mistake that was.

Martyn1981

Speaking of costs, the US is wrangling with the same problem too, trying to decide what is a bigger number:

Cost Of Build Back Better Proposal: $3.5 Trillion, Cost Of Catastrophic Climate Change: $551 Trillion

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

There was a push for more RE, and higher building standards, as I already listed for you, but the moment the Tories won a majority in 2015 they undid most of it (having fought Ed Davey throughout the coalition), and bet the farm on shale gas ....... after most of Europe had decided against it, it was a failure in Poland where the best reserves were found, and the US had turned into a Ponzi scheme, with the Oil and gas majors who invested seeing ~$300bn wiped off their share value.

I'm not sure why you seem to want to deny what the other parties tried to do, and what the Tories did to undermine it all?

The good news now, however, is that Boris, and hopefully his party, have now realised that they were completely wrong, and are now getting behind the obvious best choice. Yes we've lost about 5yrs of potential on the efficiency of new builds, demand side PV rollout, and supply side onshore wind and PV, but hopefully we can try to make up for some of those losses going forward, and if necessary accelerate the rollout of RE to compensate.

Although at current European gas prices frackers would be laughing all the way to the bank...