Nick Jones Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 One of the main issues with the easier renewables is that they are inherently unreliable. That is that wind doesn’t always blow....... and the sun not only never shines at night, but quite often for not much of the day either, with power output fluctuating wildly at the whim of passing clouds. Must be a total nightmare for those trying to balance the grid. Wave power potentially might be more reliable, but still not nearly 100%, and there is little, if any, in service. Tidal could be reliable but it seems the costs and the perceived needs of an estuarine ecosystem already profoundly altered by man are too much to overcome. The reliable renewables, capable of providing baseline power, are hydro, and to a lesser extent things like anaerobic digestion. How green these truly are is increasingly debated. Anyway, AD prefers to export the gas to grid these days as the government pays them more that way. Biomass power is a carbon trading scam. Battery banks are one way of smoothing out the vagaries of renewables, and are just starting to appear (big one just come on line in Scotland). Needs to be a lot more effort and investment, but it’s still a young technology in many ways. As for nuclear...... still an incomplete technology after 80 years, with no decent solutions for dealing with the toxic legacy of the waste fuel or life expired plant. Conclusion, when it comes to making timely provision for UKs future electricity needs, governments of all stripes are asleep on the job and have been for years. You can buy an electric car, but you may need to generate your own power to charge it up. Perhaps the fatberg of mendacity could be rendered down for fuel.....? Emissions probably very toxic though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrookster Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 1 hour ago, Nick Jones said: That is that wind doesn’t always blow....... And even the opposite, particularly in Scotland where the wind is often too strong for power production! I will hopefully get some more "insider" info on the wave generation front later on, as my partner's father leads part of one of these projects up in Scotland. I seem to recall he is trying to find a way to convert alternating wave height and period into an even frequency and power output, which has proved rather more challenging than was originally anticipated. Last I spoke to him they were slowly winning, they are perservering because the potential benefits are huge! Be interesting to ask him about the new battery bank as well, he used to work in that field and still has a lot of knowledge on it. Cheers, Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterC Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 3 hours ago, thebrookster said: And even the opposite, particularly in Scotland where the wind is often too strong for power production! I will hopefully get some more "insider" info on the wave generation front later on, as my partner's father leads part of one of these projects up in Scotland. I seem to recall he is trying to find a way to convert alternating wave height and period into an even frequency and power output, which has proved rather more challenging than was originally anticipated. Last I spoke to him they were slowly winning, they are perservering because the potential benefits are huge! Be interesting to ask him about the new battery bank as well, he used to work in that field and still has a lot of knowledge on it. Cheers, Phil The problem with wave power is its just another form of wind. So its also unpredictable. Tidal lagoons get my vote for predictability. Prof Mackay's numbers show we cannot possibly match demand with green supply. And he includes such extreme measures as covering one quarter of UK land area in wind turbines. In that area no-one could be more than 1km from a w/t in any direction! Nuclear is the only way to bridge the gap, and we have lost the plot on that, globally. When the public start to be fearful of CC we will just have to do without ,....adjust to rationing. Drive your electric car or heat the home, but not both. The grand children will curse us for our inaction today. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janner Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 5 hours ago, Nick Jones said: Wave power potentially might be more reliable, but still not nearly 100%, and there is little, if any, in service. 2 trials ongoing . . No 'production' as such for the grid as far as I am aware John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janner Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 34 minutes ago, PeterC said: The grand children will curse us for our inaction today. +1 John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zetecspit Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 Tidal lagoons have always been THE obvious choice and I really do not understand why so much attention has been given to solar/wind and the assorted other renewable "solutions" Tidal is simple, once built costs to maintain should be relatively low, but most importantly it is totally predictable and reliable with tide time differences around the UK. I guess the initial costs are high, and yes, people will squeal about building them, but the lagoons are a perfectly acceptable habitat for many species.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterC Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 18 minutes ago, zetecspit said: Tidal lagoons have always been THE obvious choice and I really do not understand why so much attention has been given to solar/wind and the assorted other renewable "solutions" Tidal is simple, once built costs to maintain should be relatively low, but most importantly it is totally predictable and reliable with tide time differences around the UK. I guess the initial costs are high, and yes, people will squeal about building them, but the lagoons are a perfectly acceptable habitat for many species.... page 94 et seq. covers tidal. But the diagram page 100 shows it can only supply a small fraction of needs., about 11kWh per day per person. But it exceeds wave resource. http://www.inference.org.uk/sustainable/book/tex/cft.pdf Unfortunately Mackay died very young and is no longer a renewable energy advisor to HMG. Not sure they even have one now..... Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterC Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 2 hours ago, Janner said: +1 John I've bought them a copy of Mackay's book, so they get to see why we failed to rise to the huge challenge. £16-worth of excuses, excuses... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Butterworth Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 Didn't the French build a tidal one years ago? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AB|W Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 I understood that the problem with wave & tidal power was that Europe does not have much coastline in proportion to their populations and were not particularly interested so UK would have to bear the research and development costs alone. However with the UK has some excellent potential sites with some of the highest tidal ranges in the world (combined solar and lunar powered electricity) and we do get some rather powerful waves on the south west coast. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Jones Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 50 minutes ago, David Butterworth said: Didn't the French build a tidal one years ago? Yep, in 1966..... still working. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rance_Tidal_Power_Station 33 minutes ago, AB|W said: However with the UK has some excellent potential sites with some of the highest tidal ranges in the world (combined solar and lunar powered electricity) Absolutely, and which remain unexploited 53 years later! Couldn't bear to copy the French presumably...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterC Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 50 minutes ago, David Butterworth said: Didn't the French build a tidal one years ago? Yes, La Rance. It was a dammed estuary, And is silting up so energy production has tailed off. Tidal lagoons can be designed so that they are scoured by the water flows avoiding La Rance problems. LaR is one reason why the Severn barrage was shelved. Cost kiiled off the Swansea lagoon, for the present. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterC Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 1 hour ago, AB|W said: I understood that the problem with wave & tidal power was that Europe does not have much coastline in proportion to their populations and were not particularly interested so UK would have to bear the research and development costs alone. However with the UK has some excellent potential sites with some of the highest tidal ranges in the world (combined solar and lunar powered electricity) and we do get some rather powerful waves on the south west coast. Alan Mackay's data show that even if UK uses every renewable resource we cant meet demand. May is handwaving, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janner Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 14 minutes ago, PeterC said: Mackay's data show that even if UK uses every renewable resource we cant meet demand. May is handwaving, The only ways to meet demand currently are fossil fuel, this until some big lumps of nuclear generation comes on line, and much, much more imported French nuclear generated power. Not sure if the French option is a viable one, but, never say never John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnD Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 Tidal is potatentially useful AND potanetially disastrous, to wild life. The vast expances of the SEbern Estuary and Morecambe Bay provide essential sustensnce for milions of birds, on migration and in residence. Unless that sand and mud is covered, then exposed twice a day, millions would die. JOhn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Jones Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 18 minutes ago, JohnD said: Unless that sand and mud is covered, then exposed twice a day, millions would die. A greater or lesser evil than full blown climate change......? Room enough in the Severn for both maybe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sprint95m Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 On 6/15/2019 at 3:49 PM, PeterC said: The problem with wave power is its just another form of wind. So its also unpredictable. That is why in Scotland the energy produced from wind is banked. Said banking is basically pumping water up into reservoirs where it can be released to power turbines to meet the fluctuations in electricity demand. Obviously given both the geography and availability of water this works in Scotland. Trials are being carried on alternative banking techniques....... Ian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterC Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 11 hours ago, Sprint95m said: That is why in Scotland the energy produced from wind is banked. Said banking is basically pumping water up into reservoirs where it can be released to power turbines to meet the fluctuations in electricity demand. Obviously given both the geography and availability of water this works in Scotland. Trials are being carried on alternative banking techniques....... Ian. Pumped storage is expensive and entails power losses, IIRC 16% at Dinorwic. It can be done but not cheaply. Pumped storage is presenty used for coping wirh demand peaks for a few minutes. Scotland is also a long way from major consumers in SE and power line losses are also appreciable... The numbers overall just do nto add up, there is not enough renewable resource to meet demand however much is spent. I suspect the exhorbitant cost of 100%-reliable renewable grid will ensure we all slash our demand, and to do that equably will mean rationing...and enforced installation of smart meters. A winter high pressure "blocking high" , with no wind and extreme cold for a couple of weeks cannot remotely be covered by renewables even with storage. Nuclear would be an answer but we have lost the technology and public support. So gas will be on the menu for decades to come , but only for such emergencies, and that ramps up costs too. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Jones Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 I don't normally have a lot of time for Max Hastings, but what he has to say here (in 2012!) is interesting and fits the known facts. Presumably he's house-hunting overseas at present...…. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/10/boris-johnson-unfit-to-be-prime-minister Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2.5piman Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 Hello all, renewable generation is ineffective including tidal. The Swansea bay scheme was scrapped because it produced very little power at an enormous cost, it was never really viable. I hate to think what the maintenace problems with tidal generators would be, offshore wind turbines are having problems with premature wear of the rotor blades. Someone mentioned the 'big battery' in Scotland, 50 Mwatts rating but I don't know the capcity, but it won't be much more (Tesla's 100Mwatt battery in Australia is 109Mwatt hours). Used as back up they will last only minutes. Useful for load balancing to a degree due to the fast response. Nuclear is the only non CO2 emitting technology we have that does work but the cost of fighting law suits is making it quite expensive. Even nuclear, although reliable, has problems as it can't easily be modulated to meet demand so is generally run flat out and fossil fuel stations will have to do the balancing. Alec Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Jones Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 44 minutes ago, 2.5piman said: renewable generation is ineffective including tidal Bit sweeping don't you think..... As for nuclear...… the govt really got us (the uk tax and energy bill paying public) a blinder of a deal. Not. Strike price per MWh of twice the current usual price and rising with inflation...… And we (or rather our grandchildren) get to pick up the unknown decommissioning costs at the end. No doubt you'll sneer at the source but the numbers are interesting https://bhesco.co.uk/blog/swansea-tidal-lagoon-hinkley-point Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeTRacted Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 Apart from the enormous problems and cost in generating all the extra electrical power there is also the problem of distributing it. Currently(!) most houses have a single-phase feed fused at between 60 and 100 Amps. Common types of electricity meters are rated at 100Amps maximum. To power heating currently supplied by gas would require an additional feed of some 70kW or greater to each home - that is around 300Amps if single-phase. The local distribution systems in use are completely incapable of this so every sub-station transformer would need to be quadrupled in capacity along with every feed to every house (and probably converted to three-phase). The grid network itself - cabling, pylons and switching stations - would also have to be uprated by the same degree. What are the chances of getting that massive undertaking planned, organised and completed in the next 30 years? The alternative is changing existing domestic boilers to run on Hydrogen, but that is mostly sourced from LPG so is hardly a renewable, and itself consumes power as a process. Electrolysis is the other option but is at best only 80% efficient using present technology. There is also the problem of energy density with H providing 290Btu/cuft as opposed to 980 for natural gas (approx) so you will need three times as much gas flow, so higher pressure or bigger pipes will be required and burner geometry would probably have to be substantially different. Most likely it will not be possible nor cost effective to modify any existing boiler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Jones Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 The safety implications of H2 are usually glossed over too. Smallest molecule (atom even) means it's good at escaping from containment and also has a very low ignition energy. As for the heating question, UK housing stock just (!) needs to be properly insulated. To do the job properly probably means flattening 90% of UK housing stock (which shamefully would include most mass-market new-builds) and starting again..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AB|W Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 Do I read from you all that present technologies are incapable of meeting demand without continuing to fatally damaging the environment? What then do we need to save the planet for the future of mankind? Perhaps a really virulent pandemic, or perhaps the age old technology of population control - a global war? It might be that mankind, in their rapidly expanding billions aided by successful medication is the problem and even if we solve the short term problems now then in another couple of decades there will be another billion or two to take over the baton in the race to destruction all over again. As we have seen we cannot decide on relatively trivial items such as did the Russians helping Trump, or Brexit, or migration, how is the planet ever to agree on global measures that will be adhered to? I am not a pessimist, but I'm not optimistic about the future. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterC Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 Pessimism is realism, to me. Maybe a global dictator could reign in consumption and human procreation, but democracy...unlikely. Seems to me a population crash is the most likely scenario, triggered by a natural disaster eg big equatorial volcano, > years withut summers >crop failures> famine > disease> mass migration> pandemic. Add in a Middle East war over water. And weather extremes from CC/GW impairing crop growth. A big population crash is surely inevitable. And so it will go on.... Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now