The Alternative Green Energy Thread

JKenH

Future technology that could power a city with a device the size of a shipping container may prove a better bet than harnessing the wind

In a key milestone on the road to harnessing fusion power, Lawrence Livermore laboratory announced this week that it had extracted energy from an object the size of a lemon pip at the rate of 10 quadrillion watts (joules per second), albeit for only 100 trillionths of a second. That’s roughly 500 times faster than the entire human population consumes energy.

The experiment is a reminder that the energy density achieved when atoms merge is vastly greater than anything in a lump of coal, let alone a puff of wind. It is also far bigger than can be achieved by nuclear fission and much safer too: no risk of meltdown and with much less high-level radioactive waste. 

The problem, of course, is that reliable fusion power stations were 50 years away in 1950, and were still 50 years away in 2000, so milestones on the road to fusion are greeted with sceptical yawns. But almost everybody in the industry now thinks that jibe is out of date: the stopwatch has started, as one insider put it to me. We are probably less than 15 years away from seeing a fusion power station begin to contribute to the grid. 

The point is not that fusion will certainly come to our rescue, but that there’s probably a 50-50 chance that it will, and governments need to clear the runway to make sure it at least gets a chance to take off.

Edit: source added 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/21/radical-potential-nuclear-fusion-exposes-folly-net-zero-deadline/

JKenH

Renewable power developers have returned almost £4m since April last year – the first time they have repaid any money since 2017

Subsidised wind farms are being required to pay millions of pounds back to the state amid a jump in electricity prices that has made them more commercially lucrative.

Renewable power developers have paid back almost £4m since April last year, marking the first time they have paid any money back since 2017, when the Exchequer received only £595.

The £4m paid by generators dwarfs the £6.2bn they have received from the subsidy system, known as Contracts for Difference (CfD), since 2016.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/08/22/wind-farms-pay-millions-back-government/

EricMears

JKenH said:

The £4m paid by generators dwarfs the £6.2bn they have received from the subsidy system, known as Contracts for Difference (CfD), since 2016.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/08/22/wind-farms-pay-millions-back-government/

Not sure if it's Ken's typo or sloppiness at DT,  but £4m  cannot 'dwarf' £6.2bn !   Presumably paragraph should have said "is dwarfed by ...." 

JKenH

EricMears said:

JKenH said:

The £4m paid by generators dwarfs the £6.2bn they have received from the subsidy system, known as Contracts for Difference (CfD), since 2016.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/08/22/wind-farms-pay-millions-back-government/

Not sure if it's Ken's typo or sloppiness at DT,  but £4m  cannot 'dwarf' £6.2bn !   Presumably paragraph should have said "is dwarfed by ...." 

Correct, Eric. I will blame the Sunday Telegraph. Only subscribers to the Telegraph will know whether that’s true or not. 

QrizB

JKenH said:

Subsidised wind farms are being required to pay millions of pounds back to the state amid a jump in electricity prices that has made them more commercially lucrative.

Renewable power developers have paid back almost £4m since April last year, marking the first time they have paid any money back since 2017, when the Exchequer received only £595.

The £4m paid by generators dwarfs the £6.2bn they have received from the subsidy system, known as Contracts for Difference (CfD), since 2016.

Two thoughts come to mind:

• It's good to see that CfDs work; if the wholesale electricity price rises, the subsidies fall and eventually become revenue streams.
• New wind farms are being built on much cheaper CfDs so the ratio of subsidy-to-revenue should fall in future, even if the price of electricity stays the same

More info (much, much more info) on the official website at https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk

JKenH

Having looked at the recent strike prices and current electricity prices it certainly looks like the CFDs awarded recently are to the electricity customers’ advantage. It must be frustrating or the wind farm investors to have to sell energy at considerably less than market price. In the meantime fossil fuel generators are reaping the rewards through the capacity market.  

Cardew

'The Parish Council of Thunbergia(pop 47)are pleased to announce they are the first district in Europe to achieve carbon neutral status; over 29 years ahead of the EU directive.

As Thunbergia enjoys a microclimate, the leader of the council announced that the district will not be affected by any future global warming caused by the expansion of coal fired power stations in China, India, USA and the Third World.'

JKenH

Wind and solar at a combined 3.16% were contributing less than coal to our breakfast time generation yesterday.

QrizB

JKenH said:

Wind and solar at a combined 3.16% were contributing less than coal to our breakfast time generation yesterday.

Given that the sun had hardly risen at 0733, that's hardly surprising. You could just as easily quote that at 3pm wind and solar combined were contributing 22%, 5x as muchg as coal.

Your screenshot also shows that over 24h we got 3.6% of our electricity from coal and 10.86% from wind & solar combined, a little over 3x as much.

Possible inferences:

1. We haven't built enough renewables yet
2. We need another cross-Channel interconnector
3. Burning coal at all is a reflection of high NG prices across Europe for geopilotical reasons ...

Edit:

I see the price in your graphic is £117/MWh. Wow. Hinkley Point C's strike price is roughly £112 in 2021 £s.

JKenH

The point is actually that once we have closed our coal power stations (imminent) we need to replace it with something else. To have replaced it with wind and solar yesterday at 7.33 we would have needed more than double the current installed UK capacity. 

Yes we need more renewables (and more importantly storage) but we need them now, not in ten years time if we are going to fill the gap left by coal. 

The way we look at this currently is exactly how you see it. Wind and solar were generating 10.6% of our needs at 3pm as you point and at times they meet more than 50% of our generation. You can’t, though, plan an energy strategy based on a best case scenario. You have to plan for the days when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. 

Currently we are relying on ever increasing imports. Potentially there could be a shortage of energy this winter across Europe and where will we be in the queue for what electricity is generated on the continent?

We have made a decision to shut our coal plants. That’s history now. This isn’t about coal it’s about what we replace it with because there will be gaps we struggle to fill. 

We are going to find gas filling the hole left by coal, not wind and solar.