The Alternative Green Energy Thread

JKenH

The Ukraine crisis started with Suez

I don’t the think the headline is particularly relevant to the thrust of the article which focuses on rejecting oil and gas in favour of renewables. It is really all about a pet theme of mine - energy security.  

In any case, there’s a huge green prize to be won here. In the longer-term, the environmental agenda is perfectly aligned with the security agenda. 

Over the last few months we’ve learned the hard way that depending on fossil fuels is a threat to our prosperity — and to our sovereignty. If we want to free ourselves from the destabilising effects of volatile energy prices and to snatch the oil weapon from the hands of our enemies, then we must free ourselves from fossil fuels altogether. That can’t be achieved overnight — hence the need for stop-gap measures — but it can be achieved within a generation. 

Fundamental change is coming, the only question is how fast. So far, policy has been driven by climate change objectives, which operate on a timetable stretching into the second half of the 21st century. But the security agenda doesn’t allow us to wait that long. 

https://unherd.com/2022/02/the-ukraine-crisis-started-with-suez/

JKenH

How to balance grids without energy storage. 

This seems a brilliant way of managing demand that is not too intrusive. This two way communication between supplier and consuming device is better than what currently is in the pipeline with smart devices. 

My one reservation is if a system like this gets hacked and every energy consuming device is turned on or off at once there is potential for severe damage to our infrastructure. That same risk applies to current plans to switch on and off electric chargers and heat pumps.

https://youtu.be/NU3woCaFSZs

JKenH

Hackers threaten smart power grids

That's why some countries are choosing "dumber" models out of security fears. The meters that really worry security experts are those that can be remotely switched off. The dangers range from leaving a single house in the dark to causing a widespread blackout by switching smart meters on and off repeatedly, said Kruese, whose company distributes power to about a third of Dutch households. “If you get control of the grid by getting control of the smart meters, you can cause a lot of damage.”

In the U.K., the government has asked the GCHQ intelligence agency to help design security for smart meters — a proactive move for a country that wants to install 53 million smart meters by 2020.

"If somebody could hack into that or turn off very large numbers of meters by mistake, the sudden shock of taking them off the grid — even worse if they were all turned back on at the same time — would cause significant damage," technology consultant Nick Hunn said in September during testimony before a parliamentary committee looking into smart meters.  

https://www.politico.eu/article/smart-grids-and-meters-raise-hacking-risks/

The Cyber Security Challenges of the Internet of Energy

This means for continental Europe a disruptive 3 gigawatt (GW) change, should be able to be handled with. However, if you have control over 300.000 chargers, you’re already having that amount of power at your disposal. Any malicious person, hacker or state actor could, using those chargers, bring down (or heavily disrupt) the grid. By switching those devices on and off, this will create an oscillating effect on the grid (and frequency), and by that disrupt demand/response on high level. This could potentially bring down parts of the European grid.

However, cascading effects could then lead to a catastrophic blackout all over Europe.

https://medium.com/codex/the-cyber-security-challenges-of-the-internet-of-energy-5b6fc966dba7

JKenH

Interview: Mads Nipper, chief executive of oil-turned-wind giant Orsted

Without naming names, Nipper, 55, warns that throwing money at projects could damage the industry long term. “As an industry we must continue to do projects that are actually value-creating,” he says. “That's the only way to ensure that capital keeps flowing long term and that we keep momentum of the green transformation.”

“If somebody is making way too optimistic assumptions or, or just being desperate or eager to get in and paying whatever it takes, that may feel nice now, because countries will get cheap power and they will get high payments for seabed and so on. But the risk of that turning out to be non-value creating projects is relatively high.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/03/06/many-players-renewable-industry-have-yet-put-wind-turbine-sea/

JKenH

Rolls-Royce's plans for mini nuclear power stations take significant step forward

Regulators to review small modular reactor design as Britain bids to end reliance on fossil fuels

While only a seventh the size of the forthcoming Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset, it the price tag is a twelfth of the cost of that project.

The smaller size also makes them usable on parts of old nuclear sites around Britain that already have electric grid access and transport for fuel and waste.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/03/07/rolls-royces-plans-mini-nuclear-power-stations-take-significant/

shinytop

JKenH said:

Rolls-Royce's plans for mini nuclear power stations take significant step forward

Regulators to review small modular reactor design as Britain bids to end reliance on fossil fuels

While only a seventh the size of the forthcoming Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset, it the price tag is a twelfth of the cost of that project.

The smaller size also makes them usable on parts of old nuclear sites around Britain that already have electric grid access and transport for fuel and waste.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/03/07/rolls-royces-plans-mini-nuclear-power-stations-take-significant/

What would be the cost of electricity per kWh generated by one of these? 

QrizB

shinytop said:

JKenH said:

Rolls-Royce's plans for mini nuclear power stations take significant step forward

Regulators to review small modular reactor design as Britain bids to end reliance on fossil fuels

While only a seventh the size of the forthcoming Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset, it the price tag is a twelfth of the cost of that project.

The smaller size also makes them usable on parts of old nuclear sites around Britain that already have electric grid access and transport for fuel and waste.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/03/07/rolls-royces-plans-mini-nuclear-power-stations-take-significant/

What would be the cost of electricity per kWh generated by one of these? 

That's the $64k question, isn't it?

The article states:

It wants to start producing the plants in the early 2030s and charge about £1.8bn for the 470 megawatt units, which will generate enough to power a city the size of Sheffield.

But it isn't clear what that £1.8bn includes, so it's impossible to calculate a LCOE.

JKenH

The problem with LCOE in comparing generation sources is that it doesn’t take into account (nor is it intended to) the impact of intermittency. Wind and solar are very cheap but it seems as they get cheaper and squeeze out other generators then the cost (per MWh) of making up the shortfall when they are not generating becomes much higher. This is why eye wateringly expensive prices are being paid in the capacity auctions.

When that is factored in, nuclear, even at HPC prices, becomes a viable generation option.

shinytop

I saw numbers for HPC of £100 or so?  Doesn't that mean these are around £60 (100*7/12)? Surely that's cheaper than wind plus batteries that would give the same certainty of supply.     

michaels

shinytop said:

I saw numbers for HPC of £100 or so?  Doesn't that mean these are around £60 (100*7/12)? Surely that's cheaper than wind plus batteries that would give the same certainty of supply.     

Why would anyone build plants like HPC if there is an 'off the shelf' alternative that is 40% cheaper?

Also nuclear plus renewables seems like the worst possible mix of power sources, making the renewabes output basically worthless.