The Alternative Green Energy Thread

ABrass

The GMB Union has employees from Energy companies, all of which are heavy fossil fuel or nuclear power users. They have a vested interest. That interest is not in renewable power.

JKenH

ABrass said:

The GMB Union has employees from Energy companies, all of which are heavy fossil fuel or nuclear power users. They have a vested interest. That interest is not in renewable power.

And of course we never see any quotes or articles from pro RE bodies.

ABrass

JKenH said:

ABrass said:

The GMB Union has employees from Energy companies, all of which are heavy fossil fuel or nuclear power users. They have a vested interest. That interest is not in renewable power.

And of course we never see any quotes or articles from pro RE bodies.

No, we do a lot. But it's clear that they are pro renewables, until I checked I wasn't aware that GMB were a pro fossil fuels organisation.

JKenH

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

ABrass said:

The GMB Union has employees from Energy companies, all of which are heavy fossil fuel or nuclear power users. They have a vested interest. That interest is not in renewable power.

And of course we never see any quotes or articles from pro RE bodies.

No, we do a lot. But it's clear that they are pro renewables, until I checked I wasn't aware that GMB were a pro fossil fuels organisation.

I doubt anyone else is aware either.

QrizB

JKenH said:

I don’t really care what it is as long as the lights stay on. I love the idea of RE but it is just too intermittent to make up much more of our grid without accompanying storage and the build out of storage just isn’t happening rapidly enough.

I think the plan in the late 70s was to build a Sizewell B PWR every year from 1982 for at least a decade. Sadly, in hindsight, that didn't happen and so here we are in 2021 relying on natural gas for baseload.

There's a report here if you need some bedtime reading:
http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/38852/1/uk-energy-policy.pdf

QrizB

Coincidentally (or otherwise?) there's a consultation ongoing re. the UK national energy strategy:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/planning-for-new-energy-infrastructure-review-of-energy-national-policy-statements

JKenH

While the world is planning to add 235 GW of offshore wind capacity in the next decade China currently has 247GW of coal fired capacity in planning or development. When are we going to stop pretending what we do on this tiny island matters and and perhaps suggest XR pop over to protest in China.

Despite Pledges to Cut Emissions, China Goes on a Coal Spree - Yale E360

JKenH

Britain forced to ask France to cut electricity exports over threat of power surge

Interesting story in today’s Telegraph.

Officials issued a request for “emergency assistance” from France on the morning of Sunday August 29 to cap flows to Britain through giant cables under the sea. 

It came after traders buying and selling power across borders around Europe were temporarily unable to book trades due to problems with the Joint Allocation Office, meaning too much energy would have been coming into Britain via the cable. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/08/britain-forced-ask-france-cut-electricity-exports-threat-power/

JKenH

Ireland freezes power exports to UK as energy costs rocket tenfold

While I was expecting electricity exports to the UK to be cut off sometime this winter I wasn’t expecting it to happen in September. What price security of energy supply?

Mutual Energy, which owns and operates the undersea cable, said that flows had been stopped for "operational security reasons due to generation shortfall in the all-Ireland single electricity market".

The cost of energy has been spiralling across Europe, due in part to calm weather which has drastically reduced the availability of renewable power.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/09/ireland-freezes-power-exports-uk-energy-costs-rocket-tenfold/

QrizB

You can see the French interconnector restriction (which was 400MW for an hour, per the quoted article) and the generally low levels of the Irish interconnector if you look quickly at the Gridwatch charts:

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

I say "look quickly" because it's clearest on the daily charts, and the French dip will scroll off the chart by breakfast-time tomorrow. It should be visible on the weekly chart too, just not as clear.