Thought it was Sizewell C, but regardless, HPC is a copy of the reactors being built (for decades it seems) in Finland and Flamanville. How many times can the 'well that one was a FOAK, we know what we're doing now' excuse be used?
The UK doesn't need additional nuclear
And they won't be built
This is going to be obvious fairly soon
Because we will be getting reports of 0% fossil fuel hours in the grid
By which point everyone will understand we don't need new nuclear, or tidal or solar and that additional wind will start to curtail existing green sources
This will happen potentially as soon as 2023
Night time demand as low as 20-21GW
6GW existing summer UK nuclear
7.4GW french imports
2.8GW Norway imports
2GW elsewhere imports
18.2GW there while demand is 20-21GW at night
So during nights when the wind blows just 2-3GW we will be 100% non fossil fuels
Why do we need new nuclear or tidal when we will be curtailing at summer night?
The UK grid is fixed no need for additional nuclear
I wish the politicians could see this
Let's hope no new contracts are considered at any price
New nuclear even at £60/MWh (a great price) isn't needed
It's akin to the French building more nuclear...why it isn't needed
Despite all the protests for a better climate, Germans fly so much more than ever before.
This is a bit of universal hypocrisy isn't it.
So what to do?
There doesn't seem to be any technological magic bullet in the offing (nothing that isn't stuck in the theoretical/early development/investment pitching stage anyway), so we're left with incremental improvements like lighter, more efficient aircraft and engines, bio fuel mixes, utilisation, (others?). But nothing that is going to offset the projected growth in aviation.
So, maybe we just have to recognise this and work with it the best we can.
In addition to the UK's Air Passenger Duty (or maybe "instead of" might be a better sell), how about a subtle Carbon Offset Charge. Charged directly to the airline, it's based on maximum capacity of the model of aircraft (so taking into account of the efficiency of that model with those engines), distance, type of fuel, etc. It wouldn't be based on seat sales, so it would incentivise the airlines to cooperate to maximise utilisation to reduce the number of actual flights, and give them more incentive to upgrade their technology faster. The revenue would be ring fenced for projects that remove the equivalent amount of carbon used, plus a surcharge for past emissions, plus a surcharge for government grants for carbon free technology research (just aviation or others as well?).
Ryanair wouldn't be allowed to pass it on as an extra in any shape of form! (ie it wouldn't be directly visible to the end customer - not possible as the actual amount per passenger isn't known until the actual flight takes off).
Hopefully it would kill off the Heathrow expansion, so Boris might like it...
Guilt free flying? (no such thing really, but it might help the presentation as it's actually a green tax....)
Probably not a new idea here, but what do you all think?
The UK, France and Spain should crack on with it, using mostly CSP, Many plants already have 8-9hrs of thermal energy storage scaled up we could get power 24hrs
This will never work
Why should/would the UK invest in and import electricity from thousands of miles away?
Especially since by as soon as 2023 we are already at 100% non fossil fuel in electricity?
And already have a clear path to 90% non fossil year round as soon as 7 years from now by just completing what is under construction and committed to?
Electricity is already solved
Move on to transport (which is global hopefully BEVs work out)
Then there is heating to solve. Very difficult
Could be a deep decarb with offshore wind powering heat pumps and hybrid boilers
Or possibility of heat only nuclear reactors working 6 months of the year for distributed heat or using the waste heat of existing reactors plus district heating.
Maybe for England we could use the 8GW waste heat from hinkley C and B for district heating of East England or even London. Would be enough to meet the heating needs of all of London and then some with heat that is just waste and dumped into the sea currently.
There doesn't seem to be any technological magic bullet in the offing (nothing that isn't stuck in the theoretical/early development/investment pitching stage anyway), so we're left with incremental improvements like lighter, more efficient aircraft and engines, bio fuel mixes, utilisation, (others?). But nothing that is going to offset the projected growth in aviation.
So, maybe we just have to recognise this and work with it the best we can.
In addition to the UK's Air Passenger Duty (or maybe "instead of" might be a better sell), how about a subtle Carbon Offset Charge. Charged directly to the airline, it's based on maximum capacity of the model of aircraft (so taking into account of the efficiency of that model with those engines), distance, type of fuel, etc. It wouldn't be based on seat sales, so it would incentivise the airlines to cooperate to maximise utilisation to reduce the number of actual flights, and give them more incentive to upgrade their technology faster. The revenue would be ring fenced for projects that remove the equivalent amount of carbon used, plus a surcharge for past emissions, plus a surcharge for government grants for carbon free technology research (just aviation or others as well?).
Ryanair wouldn't be allowed to pass it on as an extra in any shape of form! (ie it wouldn't be directly visible to the end customer - not possible as the actual amount per passenger isn't known until the actual flight takes off).
Hopefully it would kill off the Heathrow expansion, so Boris might like it...
Guilt free flying? (no such thing really, but it might help the presentation as it's actually a green tax....)
Probably not a new idea here, but what do you all think?
Seems like double accounting
Why not just tax the airlines or cars (which is already done)
And government to plants trees or whatever for the offset
Anyway the solution to aviation is
1: self drive software and EVs which takes away the demand for sub 500 mile flights
2: higher motorway speeds of 120mph or even 150mph with self drive EVs which takes away the demand for sub 1000 mile flights
3: mini tunnels with self drive EVs taking away the demand for sea crossing via planes (eg London to Paris or London to Dublin would be very quick in a mini tunnel and EVs directly from one to the other) about 2hours
The above might reduce demand by 50%
The other 50% can be covered by liquid hydrogen or liquid NG planes
Also bear mind that the primary reason why winter demand is higher is actually electrically heated homes rather than lighting. This is easy to see/prove by the fact winter night time demand say 3am is also higher than summer demand at 3am and summer or winter 3am is dark. We can also check and find that there are 1.8 million electrically heated homes in the UK and a significant number of offices shops etc
What I'm trying to say is, excluding heating via electricity, demand for electricity is pretty much constant throughout the year with a small uptick for more lighting hours. If a nation like the UK had distributed heat displace electrically heated homes then total demand would probably be something like 40-50 TWh less. For France if she had distributed heating fed by waste nuclear her electricity demand would be some 150TWh less!
A mega city of 10 million people (roughly the number of people who live inside the M25) could be powered and heated with just one nuclear power station with 4EPRs. The electricity generated would be sufficient for all needs including BEVs. The waste heat of the reactors instead of being dumped into the sea could be dumped into district heating for the colder 6 months. Give the heat away for free (I mean a fixed monthly charge and use as much as you want with the charge based on bedrooms or floor size or even calculated for heat loss, or maybe even totally free with the sum needed to pay for the district heating recovered from Electricity sales). You could have a warm home all year round set it to 22 and forget it. Its waste heat totally 'free' although the distribution will be costly is it going to be more costly than keeping 5 million gas fired boilers going and replacing 300-400 thousand a year at £1500 a go....
Water is also a good heat Conductor. A typical 15mm pipe can easily transfer 30KW of power you only need a 15mm pipe into a house to provide the heating in fact a 15mm pipe would be fine to provide the heating of five homes. And hit water into a home is safer than flamable natural gas into a home
For individuals: Just have one holiday flight a year, fly economy (more people per aircraft), fly with less baggage (lower weight = better fuel efficiency), try and find direct flights to your destination (perhaps take the train to an airport that has direct flights if your local one doesn't).
For airlines: Start weighing people and their baggage together and charge accordingly. No need for green taxes, just charge people according to the amount of aviation fuel they use (and therefore the carbon they generate).
5.18 kWp PV systems (3.68 E/W & 1.5 E).
Solar iBoost+ to two immersion heaters on 300L thermal store.
Vegan household with 100% composted food waste
Mini orchard planted and vegetable allotment created.
New nuclear can load follow a lot better, And France has coped perfectly well with matching summer/winter demand.
Just look at what happened in the "beast from the east" 2, And then imagine it, if we had batteries instead of gas, The was low wind all over Europe, No solar, And if bad seas had meant the LNG tankers could not get the gas to us we would have had power cuts or cold homes, So yes a smaller grid means its easier to build that 7 day battery, or you burn less gas when the wind is low.
A lot of what ive read and the numbers seem to back it up is that Gas has replaced Coal, not wind or solar, so until we can store that wind and solar we are stuck with Gas.
When we do get that 7-14 days of storage i think it will be Flow battery's, Ammonia, Compressed Air, Some sort of synth Gas, or thermal with molten salt.
France matches it by exporting (dumping) cheap leccy at a loss. Those older reactors can't demand follow, when ramped down, if I recall correctly, they first have to be shutdown before restarting, as ramping up is tricky.
The new EPR at HPC can ramp down to 60%, but that's not the same as demand following, and 'can' is not the same as 'will' since the contract docs say that it won't ramp down.
I thought generation from the wind farms was good during the Beast from the East? Wasn't a new record set? Btw, wasn't it German and UK coal that kept France going during the 'Beast' as about a third of their reactors were down due to safety issues?
Yes, totally agree that more nuclear means a smaller battery is then built (we'd effectively be a smaller RE nation, as per my example), but more nuclear, means more cost/expense, monies that could be spent on a bigger battery ..... yes?
No polite way to say it - you are wrong about gas replacing coal. Gas generation the last year or so, is less than we saw around 2008-2010. Gas and coal gen both fluctuated depending on price, so sometimes we had more gas, sometimes we had more coal, but together they totaled approx 75%, now gas and coal are down to about 50% (nuclear has dropped a tad). Also RE gen has risen from approx 5% to 35%. So in summary, RE has displaced coal, and gas is next.
Yes, I think we'll see a mix of storage too, almost certainly bio-gas, but perhaps also bio-mass if that generation starts to demand follow.
Mart. Cardiff. 5.58 kWp PV systems (3.58 ESE & 2.0 WNW)
For individuals: Just have one holiday flight a year, fly economy (more people per aircraft), fly with less baggage (lower weight = better fuel efficiency), try and find direct flights to your destination (perhaps take the train to an airport that has direct flights if your local one doesn't).
For airlines: Start weighing people and their baggage together and charge accordingly. No need for green taxes, just charge people according to the amount of aviation fuel they use (and therefore the carbon they generate).
How about a carbon ration per head? That way 'the poor' could sell some of theirs to the rich? I haven't flown since 2000, but not against it as such, we just need to do less, and find a friendlier way to do it, but imagine selling all those carbon credits ...... then a fortnight in Blackpool!
PS, did you see this (no pressure, it's just that I think you might have missed it)
Probably not a new idea here, but what do you all think?
Rather than off-sets etc, could we simply require airlines to buy/use bio-fuel? Start with a percentage X and set annual increases to 100% by say 2030/40 perhaps?
Mart. Cardiff. 5.58 kWp PV systems (3.58 ESE & 2.0 WNW)
Also bear mind that the primary reason why winter demand is higher is actually electrically heated homes rather than lighting. This is easy to see/prove by the fact winter night time demand say 3am is also higher than summer demand at 3am and summer or winter 3am is dark. We can also check and find that there are 1.8 million electrically heated homes in the UK and a significant number of offices shops etc
What I'm trying to say is, excluding heating via electricity, demand for electricity is pretty much constant throughout the year with a small uptick for more lighting hours. If a nation like the UK had distributed heat displace electrically heated homes then total demand would probably be something like 40-50 TWh less. For France if she had distributed heating fed by waste nuclear her electricity demand would be some 150TWh less!
A mega city of 10 million people (roughly the number of people who live inside the M25) could be powered and heated with just one nuclear power station with 4EPRs. The electricity generated would be sufficient for all needs including BEVs. The waste heat of the reactors instead of being dumped into the sea could be dumped into district heating for the colder 6 months. Give the heat away for free (I mean a fixed monthly charge and use as much as you want with the charge based on bedrooms or floor size or even calculated for heat loss, or maybe even totally free with the sum needed to pay for the district heating recovered from Electricity sales). You could have a warm home all year round set it to 22 and forget it. Its waste heat totally 'free' although the distribution will be costly is it going to be more costly than keeping 5 million gas fired boilers going and replacing 300-400 thousand a year at £1500 a go....
Water is also a good heat Conductor. A typical 15mm pipe can easily transfer 30KW of power you only need a 15mm pipe into a house to provide the heating in fact a 15mm pipe would be fine to provide the heating of five homes. And hit water into a home is safer than flamable natural gas into a home
Electric heated home are often remote! or they would be on the gas grid, far cheaper than running water pipes.
LONDON (Reuters) - Increasing use of electricity to warm Britain’s homes instead of gas could more than triple power demand from the heating sector by 2050, energy research company Aurora said on Tuesday.
Around 80 percent of British homes are heated by gas, but Chancellor Philip Hammond last week pledged to ban fossil fuel heating systems in new homes built from 2025.
Heating homes from electric sources such as heat pumps could increase power demand from the sector to around 100 terawatt hours (TWh) a year by 2050, from around 27 TWh a year today, Aurora said in new research.
Britain’s total electricity demand is around 320 TWh a year.
Replies
The UK doesn't need additional nuclear
And they won't be built
This is going to be obvious fairly soon
Because we will be getting reports of 0% fossil fuel hours in the grid
By which point everyone will understand we don't need new nuclear, or tidal or solar and that additional wind will start to curtail existing green sources
This will happen potentially as soon as 2023
Night time demand as low as 20-21GW
6GW existing summer UK nuclear
7.4GW french imports
2.8GW Norway imports
2GW elsewhere imports
18.2GW there while demand is 20-21GW at night
So during nights when the wind blows just 2-3GW we will be 100% non fossil fuels
Why do we need new nuclear or tidal when we will be curtailing at summer night?
The UK grid is fixed no need for additional nuclear
I wish the politicians could see this
Let's hope no new contracts are considered at any price
New nuclear even at £60/MWh (a great price) isn't needed
It's akin to the French building more nuclear...why it isn't needed
So what to do?
There doesn't seem to be any technological magic bullet in the offing (nothing that isn't stuck in the theoretical/early development/investment pitching stage anyway), so we're left with incremental improvements like lighter, more efficient aircraft and engines, bio fuel mixes, utilisation, (others?). But nothing that is going to offset the projected growth in aviation.
So, maybe we just have to recognise this and work with it the best we can.
In addition to the UK's Air Passenger Duty (or maybe "instead of" might be a better sell), how about a subtle Carbon Offset Charge. Charged directly to the airline, it's based on maximum capacity of the model of aircraft (so taking into account of the efficiency of that model with those engines), distance, type of fuel, etc. It wouldn't be based on seat sales, so it would incentivise the airlines to cooperate to maximise utilisation to reduce the number of actual flights, and give them more incentive to upgrade their technology faster. The revenue would be ring fenced for projects that remove the equivalent amount of carbon used, plus a surcharge for past emissions, plus a surcharge for government grants for carbon free technology research (just aviation or others as well?).
Ryanair wouldn't be allowed to pass it on as an extra in any shape of form! (ie it wouldn't be directly visible to the end customer - not possible as the actual amount per passenger isn't known until the actual flight takes off).
Hopefully it would kill off the Heathrow expansion, so Boris might like it...
Guilt free flying? (no such thing really, but it might help the presentation as it's actually a green tax....)
Probably not a new idea here, but what do you all think?
This will never work
Why should/would the UK invest in and import electricity from thousands of miles away?
Especially since by as soon as 2023 we are already at 100% non fossil fuel in electricity?
And already have a clear path to 90% non fossil year round as soon as 7 years from now by just completing what is under construction and committed to?
Electricity is already solved
Move on to transport (which is global hopefully BEVs work out)
Then there is heating to solve. Very difficult
Could be a deep decarb with offshore wind powering heat pumps and hybrid boilers
Or possibility of heat only nuclear reactors working 6 months of the year for distributed heat or using the waste heat of existing reactors plus district heating.
Maybe for England we could use the 8GW waste heat from hinkley C and B for district heating of East England or even London. Would be enough to meet the heating needs of all of London and then some with heat that is just waste and dumped into the sea currently.
Seems like double accounting
Why not just tax the airlines or cars (which is already done)
And government to plants trees or whatever for the offset
Anyway the solution to aviation is
1: self drive software and EVs which takes away the demand for sub 500 mile flights
2: higher motorway speeds of 120mph or even 150mph with self drive EVs which takes away the demand for sub 1000 mile flights
3: mini tunnels with self drive EVs taking away the demand for sea crossing via planes (eg London to Paris or London to Dublin would be very quick in a mini tunnel and EVs directly from one to the other) about 2hours
The above might reduce demand by 50%
The other 50% can be covered by liquid hydrogen or liquid NG planes
What I'm trying to say is, excluding heating via electricity, demand for electricity is pretty much constant throughout the year with a small uptick for more lighting hours. If a nation like the UK had distributed heat displace electrically heated homes then total demand would probably be something like 40-50 TWh less. For France if she had distributed heating fed by waste nuclear her electricity demand would be some 150TWh less!
A mega city of 10 million people (roughly the number of people who live inside the M25) could be powered and heated with just one nuclear power station with 4EPRs. The electricity generated would be sufficient for all needs including BEVs. The waste heat of the reactors instead of being dumped into the sea could be dumped into district heating for the colder 6 months. Give the heat away for free (I mean a fixed monthly charge and use as much as you want with the charge based on bedrooms or floor size or even calculated for heat loss, or maybe even totally free with the sum needed to pay for the district heating recovered from Electricity sales). You could have a warm home all year round set it to 22 and forget it. Its waste heat totally 'free' although the distribution will be costly is it going to be more costly than keeping 5 million gas fired boilers going and replacing 300-400 thousand a year at £1500 a go....
Water is also a good heat Conductor. A typical 15mm pipe can easily transfer 30KW of power you only need a 15mm pipe into a house to provide the heating in fact a 15mm pipe would be fine to provide the heating of five homes. And hit water into a home is safer than flamable natural gas into a home
For individuals: Just have one holiday flight a year, fly economy (more people per aircraft), fly with less baggage (lower weight = better fuel efficiency), try and find direct flights to your destination (perhaps take the train to an airport that has direct flights if your local one doesn't).
For airlines: Start weighing people and their baggage together and charge accordingly. No need for green taxes, just charge people according to the amount of aviation fuel they use (and therefore the carbon they generate).
Solar iBoost+ to two immersion heaters on 300L thermal store.
Vegan household with 100% composted food waste
Mini orchard planted and vegetable allotment created.
France matches it by exporting (dumping) cheap leccy at a loss. Those older reactors can't demand follow, when ramped down, if I recall correctly, they first have to be shutdown before restarting, as ramping up is tricky.
The new EPR at HPC can ramp down to 60%, but that's not the same as demand following, and 'can' is not the same as 'will' since the contract docs say that it won't ramp down.
I thought generation from the wind farms was good during the Beast from the East? Wasn't a new record set? Btw, wasn't it German and UK coal that kept France going during the 'Beast' as about a third of their reactors were down due to safety issues?
Yes, totally agree that more nuclear means a smaller battery is then built (we'd effectively be a smaller RE nation, as per my example), but more nuclear, means more cost/expense, monies that could be spent on a bigger battery ..... yes?
No polite way to say it - you are wrong about gas replacing coal. Gas generation the last year or so, is less than we saw around 2008-2010. Gas and coal gen both fluctuated depending on price, so sometimes we had more gas, sometimes we had more coal, but together they totaled approx 75%, now gas and coal are down to about 50% (nuclear has dropped a tad). Also RE gen has risen from approx 5% to 35%. So in summary, RE has displaced coal, and gas is next.
Yes, I think we'll see a mix of storage too, almost certainly bio-gas, but perhaps also bio-mass if that generation starts to demand follow.
For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.
How about a carbon ration per head? That way 'the poor' could sell some of theirs to the rich? I haven't flown since 2000, but not against it as such, we just need to do less, and find a friendlier way to do it, but imagine selling all those carbon credits ...... then a fortnight in Blackpool!
PS, did you see this (no pressure, it's just that I think you might have missed it)
For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.
Rather than off-sets etc, could we simply require airlines to buy/use bio-fuel? Start with a percentage X and set annual increases to 100% by say 2030/40 perhaps?
For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.
Electric heated home are often remote! or they would be on the gas grid, far cheaper than running water pipes.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-energy-demand/uk-power-demand-to-soar-on-plans-to-end-gas-home-heating-research-idUKKCN1R0003