Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

michaels said:

Missed opportunity - and perhaps it is now too late to get it right?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61010605

I wonder to what extent my lifetime will be impacted by climate change?  Will it just be in the pocket through higher prices or will we see actual shortages of foodstuffs and severe weather impacts such as floods and heat waves affecting the majority in the UK?

Well, I'm going to go for the positives, and straight out of the traps, the good news is a low carbon leccy target of 95% by 2030. That's totally doable, especially with some additional emphasis on RE. I don't know how much they are including for potentially lengthening the life of SZB, but assuming most old nuclear has gone, and HPC is operational, then the vast majority will be RE, so perhaps 88% RE, 7% HPC and 5% gas*. At least we're getting somewhere.

[*Those are just throwaway numbers, not accurate.]

Now, at that point I assume some of these new nuclear contracts will have been issued, so that will then restrict new RE, to prevent too much overcapacity, but if the contracts haven't been issued, then fears of high RE penetration may be waning, and successful management by NG ESO, could result in another policy change. The public is fickle, so if prices /costs fall, they may be less tolerant of higher nuclear costs then being added, if cheap RE works.

But worst case, we move to low carbon generation, and pay too much for it, which seems like a shame and as you say a missed opportunity, but at least we'll be taking AGW seriously.

Personal ponder, who exactly do the Gov expect to build these reactors? They can't get away with HPC prices now, so they need to be cheaper, but last decade Westinghouse walked away (actually kinda went bankrupt), and Hitachi and Toshiba also gave up on their nuclear ambitions, since they could no longer be profitable for new builds. So are we just left with EDF/Chinese or the Chinese only reactors, or the 'hoped/hyped' Rolls Royce large mini reactors, or Westinghouse again, desperate to survive? None of these will build at anything like a competitive CfD with RE, so we'll have to go down this new RAB route, with the UK (us) directly funding a significant chunk of the costs. Will this get through Parliamentary approval if the RE to nuclear, or RE + storage to nuclear costs are significantly different?

Or they could just allow onshore wind to bloom, with a large crop of beautiful windflowers.

2nd_time_buyer

From the guardian:

"Solar could grow five times from 14GW to 70GW by 2035"

To me this seems pretty significant. Solar is more complementary to offshore wind than onshore wind.

If you can focus the onshore opposition on wind rather than solar that might be a good thing. They will be tilting at windmills whilst solar booms 

Personally, I am with you Martyn, I think wind turbines are beautiful. Few technological advancements are almost all positive. But I think wind turbines are up there there with bikes and dishwashers in that regard.

shinytop

2nd_time_buyer said:

From the guardian:

"Solar could grow five times from 14GW to 70GW by 2035"

To me this seems pretty significant. Solar is more complementary to offshore wind than onshore wind.

If you can focus the onshore opposition on wind rather than solar that might be a good thing. They will be tilting at windmills whilst solar booms 

Personally, I am with you Martyn, I think wind turbines are beautiful. Few technological advancements are almost all positive. But I think wind turbines are up there there with bikes and dishwashers in that regard.

I like dishwashers too but I wouldn't like to see hundreds of them scattered all over the countryside.  

More solar sounds like a good idea; there are a lot of empty roofs.

  

Martyn1981

2nd_time_buyer said:

From the guardian:

"Solar could grow five times from 14GW to 70GW by 2035"

To me this seems pretty significant. Solar is more complementary to offshore wind than onshore wind.

If you can focus the onshore opposition on wind rather than solar that might be a good thing. They will be tilting at windmills whilst solar booms 

Personally, I am with you Martyn, I think wind turbines are beautiful. Few technological advancements are almost all positive. But I think wind turbines are up there there with bikes and dishwashers in that regard.

Yeah, I think there are positives. My biggest takeaway is that we should be able to largely decarbonise the grid this decade. I was concerned that the Gov's obsession with nuclear would slow that down, but looks like their slow and expensive nukes will arrive towards the end of the 2030's, long after the work has been done, so at least the key priority will be achieved.

The biggest benefits from on-shore wind are that they can be better distributed around the country, since a lot of current wind curtailment isn't because we have too much for the UK, but that our (pretty poor) leccy network can't move all of it to where it is needed. Storage and European interconnectors will help with that however.

Once the leccy is low carbon, then shifting industry, transport and space heating over to it, allows for the next big step. Can't help wondering how embarrassing things will get next decade when cheap and fast RE rollout has to be slowed down, to give the slow expensive new nuclear something to do when it finally arrives? [Note - I'm assuming that our current rollout of about 3.5%pa of leccy demand from new RE, will be greater than the annual increase in leccy demand from 'electrifying everything' before adding in new nuclear. M.]

Oh well, could be worse, but can't help feeling guilty for 'da yuff' as we saddle them with all this expensive nuclear leccy and decommissioning and storage costs. The future could have been brighter and cleaner.

2nd_time_buyer

Martyn1981 said:

Oh well, could be worse, but can't help feeling guilty for 'da yuff' as we saddle them with all this expensive nuclear leccy and decommissioning and storage costs. The future could have been brighter and cleaner.

On Radio 4 this morning it was pointed out to Kwasi Kwarteng that prime ministers have repeatedly promised a massive surge in nuclear power plants including Blair in 2006 and Cameron 2014 but none have delivered. I predict, the public will be generally supportive (till the next accident) but the local opposition around new sites will be feverish, costs will escalate, investors will drop out, and they will be trapped in a bureaucratic mire. I will believe it when I see it. 

ed110220

Martyn1981 said:

2nd_time_buyer said:

From the guardian:

"Solar could grow five times from 14GW to 70GW by 2035"

To me this seems pretty significant. Solar is more complementary to offshore wind than onshore wind.

If you can focus the onshore opposition on wind rather than solar that might be a good thing. They will be tilting at windmills whilst solar booms 

Personally, I am with you Martyn, I think wind turbines are beautiful. Few technological advancements are almost all positive. But I think wind turbines are up there there with bikes and dishwashers in that regard.

Yeah, I think there are positives. My biggest takeaway is that we should be able to largely decarbonise the grid this decade. I was concerned that the Gov's obsession with nuclear would slow that down, but looks like their slow and expensive nukes will arrive towards the end of the 2030's, long after the work has been done, so at least the key priority will be achieved.

The biggest benefits from on-shore wind are that they can be better distributed around the country, since a lot of current wind curtailment isn't because we have too much for the UK, but that our (pretty poor) leccy network can't move all of it to where it is needed. Storage and European interconnectors will help with that however.

Once the leccy is low carbon, then shifting industry, transport and space heating over to it, allows for the next big step. Can't help wondering how embarrassing things will get next decade when cheap and fast RE rollout has to be slowed down, to give the slow expensive new nuclear something to do when it finally arrives? [Note - I'm assuming that our current rollout of about 3.5%pa of leccy demand from new RE, will be greater than the annual increase in leccy demand from 'electrifying everything' before adding in new nuclear. M.]

Oh well, could be worse, but can't help feeling guilty for 'da yuff' as we saddle them with all this expensive nuclear leccy and decommissioning and storage costs. The future could have been brighter and cleaner.

I'm not convinced that much, if any new nuclear will be built. Perhaps Sizewell C, but getting [back] to 25% of electricity seems like a fantasy. Mainly all this talk of nuclear is for political purposes. This is why successive governments, Tory and Labour have talked a lot about nuclear for the past 15 years at least, but have only actually got two reactors under construction that won't even replace those that have already closed.

Some like the idea of nuclear for ideological reasons. Construction companies like the prospect of massive contracts. Major trade unions like the employment, especially the relatively skilled jobs. But no one likes the bill or the risk of major delays, so politicians calculate they can get the benefits but not the costs by doing a lot of talking and not much doing with nuclear.

Even Kwarteng's phrasing the other day was oddly fantastical: “There is a world where we have six or seven sites in the UK” as if he was talking of some alternative reality. And by 2050 which is still 28 years away, an absolute age in energy - as far from today as 1994 is!

paul991

in this world  do you want to rely on the Chinese and french to  maintain our nuclear reactors may be  ask putin to join the party 
i think the nuclear option has been chosen to appease the construction industry ,ever roof in every direction should have  pv
 

thevilla

So you dont want a wind farm near your middle England pretty village? No problem.  Where should we place this nuke you've just ordered? Next to the Jag or Range Rover?

paul991

id love to a wind farm in the field behind by house i think the best way to encourage it is the way one  the Scandinavian countries was trying with a percentage of the out put being given to the local community either individual or smallest council

2nd_time_buyer

I am not sure if this is a new Wikipedia page or my Google skills have improved but previously I found it hard to see what farms were coming online and when but it is laid out nicely here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in_the_United_Kingdom

Good to see that with Hornsea 2, Moray East and Triton Knoll coming online this year that will boost output by 3.2 GW with a similar amount in the pipeline for next year. 

You can see monitor all the farms on the Crown Estate asset map (click on the "Offshore wind energy" tab). 

https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/en-gb/what-we-do/asset-map/

(apologies if this is all old hat)