The Alternative Green Energy Thread

JKenH

Bitcoin demand could see energy crisis

Bitcoin mining operations worldwide now use an estimated 120 TWh of electricity per year, enough to power countries like Malaysia or Sweden, according to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.It's estimated most of it is derived from fossil fuels.In one US town, Dresden in upstate New York, an 80-year-old power station has recently been re-tooled and fired up with gas, to power to a block chain mining facility.

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7243669/bitcoin-demand-could-see-energy-crisis/

JKenH

Rolls-Royce seeks £300m for 'mini-nuke' power stations

A consortium led by Rolls-Royce is in talks to raise £300m for the development of mini nuclear reactors it hopes can make Britain a world leader in renewable energy and power the “green industrial revolution”.

The refreshed design, which takes up about the space of two football pitches, has upped the output by 30 megawatts to 470 megawatts - enough to power 1m homes.

The consortium expects it will cost more than £2bn to get to the stage where it can start constructing the first min-reactor. The first is priced at £2.2bn, but unit costs are expected to fall to £1.8bn after the first five are operational.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/17/rolls-royce-seeks-300m-mini-nuke-power-stations/

QrizB

That's an interesting article but disappointingly vague. I'm not blaming the Telegraph, it took me three or four tries to find a version of the story that specified whether it was a 470MWt or 470MWe design. According to The Engineer it's 470MWe, which is hardly a "mini nuke"; each of the two AGR reactor cores at Hinkley Point B, for example, is rated at 660MWe.

Tom Samson, UK SMR consortium CEO, said: “Nuclear power is central to tackling climate change, economic recovery and energy security. To do this it must be affordable, reliable and investable and the way we manufacture and assemble our power station brings down its costs to be comparable with offshore wind at around £50 per megawatt-hour.”

It will be interesting to see how they get on.

JKenH

Having grown up in the nuclear age I have never have been a big fan of nuclear power stations (safety concerns primarily) but if we have to move away from fossil fuels I believe it is a good idea to investigate all potential technologies. Security of electricity supply is important and a broad mix of generation (and storage) technologies can’t be a bad thing even if some work out more expensive than others. 

JKenH

18.23 GW wind generation around 5pm today. Is this a new record?

https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?start=2021-05-21&&_k=n5906j

JKenH

Vilifying Western oil companies is a very bad way to fight climate change

Green victories over the likes of Shell risk handing Russia and the petro-states political leverage over the world's energy supplies

Environmentalists should think twice before celebrating the week that shook Big Oil to the core. Green activist victories against Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron are pregnant with unintended consequences. 

One of them is to interfere with future crude supply just as the market tightens ineluctably as a result of declining oil wells and chronic lack of past investment, increasing the risk of a violent price spike in the early 2020s and a disruptive shock before the world has reduced its economic dependency on oil. 

It is to tackle global warming the wrong way round, vilifying the drillers when the essential problem is the rest of us: global consumers, governments, and above all Xi Jinping’s China.

If we want to cut fossil use, there is a beautifully simple, fair and clean market mechanism that avoids diversionary witch hunts: price fossils properly with a carbon tax and dividend (recycled to the least well off). This takes political courage, so instead we put oil executives in the dock, glibly dishing out moral opprobrium.  

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/31/vilifying-western-oil-companies-bad-way-fight-climate-change/

JKenH

China drives rise in coal-fired power plants

Maybe this is where the green warriors should be targeting their fire. What is the point of China switching to EVs when they are building new coal plants to produce and power them? 

The number of coal-fired power stations granted approval globally has risen for the first time since 2015 – with China making up two thirds of all plans for the heavily polluting plants.

Revealing the trend in its World Energy Investment report published today, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says: “This is a reminder that energy transitions do not follow a simple story line.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/06/02/china-drives-rise-coal-fired-power-plants/

China is adding more wind and solar than it is coal generation but it can’t keep up with demand for electricity and that is what is driving the construction of new coal plants. So what do we tell China? Stop building and driving electric cars until RE can cope with the extra demand?  It is all about marginal generation - what is meeting that? In China the switch to EVs is not helping the planet as every kWh consumed is another kWh that has to be generated and as they can’t build out enough RE it is coming from coal. 

China has been unable to find enough clean energy to meet rapid increases in demand, with renewables meeting only half of China’s power consumption growth last year. New coal-fired power installations reached 38.4 GW in 2020, more than three times the amount built by the rest of the world, according to a February research report.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-china-coal-idUSKBN2BK0PZ

EricMears

JKenH said:
Maybe this is where the green warriors should be targeting their fire. What is the point of China switching to EVs when they are building new coal plants to produce and power them? 

Whilst I share the disappointment that they still need to burn coal, there is still point in switching to BEVs

Tailpipe emissions  from an ICEV are released at street level into what may already be a highly polluted area with very little effective treatment in mitigation.  Power station emissions are (or at least can be and I'd hope the new plant does) thoroughly cleaned up before release at a high level where they'd get massively diluted before dropping to ground level.

JKenH

EricMears said:

JKenH said:
Maybe this is where the green warriors should be targeting their fire. What is the point of China switching to EVs when they are building new coal plants to produce and power them? 

Whilst I share the disappointment that they still need to burn coal, there is still point in switching to BEVs

Tailpipe emissions  from an ICEV are released at street level into what may already be a highly polluted area with very little effective treatment in mitigation.  Power station emissions are (or at least can be and I'd hope the new plant does) thoroughly cleaned up before release at a high level where they'd get massively diluted before dropping to ground level.

Good to see someone taking the wider environmental view. We can become obsessed with CO2 at the expense of the environment as a whole. 

Edit: you may be interested in this article. 

Can diesel engines CLEAN urban air?

A rather shocking report finds that, depending on the environment a diesel car is operating in, it can actually clean the air it’s driving through.

https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/can-diesel-engines-clean-urban-air/

EricMears

JKenH said:

Edit: you may be interested in this article. 

Can diesel engines CLEAN urban air?

A rather shocking report finds that, depending on the environment a diesel car is operating in, it can actually clean the air it’s driving through.

https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/can-diesel-engines-clean-urban-air/

Note however the 'sting in the tail'
"Emissions Analytics clarifies, that it would be a broad stroke to say that diesel engines clean the air. This is purely a measurement of particulates, and ignores nitrogen oxides and other gaseous emissions. "

Afraid I remain to be convinced that particulates are a more serious problem than any of the other products of combustion (all of which can be remedied in a well-designed power station).