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Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

bbc.com

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Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#111

Post by jasoncartwright »

renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

>As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about.

Yeah, that's true, but you've taken a reading there at the worst time of day whilst it's not windy here. The other week we achieved the second lowest carbon intensity daily average ever (the lowest was in the summer last year).

Here's what the UK carbon intensity of electricity looks over a larger time scale (8yrs) https://electricityproduction.uk/carbon-intensity/?t=8y

Also, I don't believe that (whilst I love their visualisation) the Electricity Map UK gCO2/kWh measurement is very accurate. For starters, they don't appear to separate out different types of gas plants. The CO2 intensity of OCGT is 3x that of CCGT.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#112

Post by somedudetbh »

renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

> Coal-related air pollution causes an estimated 10.000 extra deaths each year across the continent. Radiation caused one direct death in Fukushima.

What's the rationale for comparing indirect deaths from coal to direct deaths from radiation?

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#113

Post by iguy »

tomp wrote: post #87
iguy wrote: post #30

This is a good discussion of the accounting of biofuels, with a guy called Tim Searchinger (there is a transcript if you don't want to listen): https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2019/11/manifold-podcast-23-ti... One takeaway is that you should think of farming trees as fuel as a competitor for land use. If it displaces growing food crops, then they will be grown elsewhere, possibly in newly cleared rainforest. Even if no…

> If it displaces growing food crops But does it? Not all food is suitable for growing crops; even less industrial farming crops, which requires tons of (fossil-fueled) fertilizer, so almost no soil is appropriate. But still, I imagine you need certain flatness to even begin thinking about machine farming. Forests on the other hand can grow on all kinds of land, same with free range animals, and presumably doesn't re…

Yea, as I edited when I remembered, the strong trade-off on land area is biomass fuels like corn alcohol. If you can grow that you can certainly grow animal feed.

Some tree-farming is indeed on steep ground, but I couldn't guess what proportion actually. (Big old trees are more likely to be on steep ground, as the ones in the valleys were cut long long ago, but those are much more valuable.)

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#114

Post by clomond »

renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

Minor nitpicks here - battery storage is already reaching deployment ready maturity (its not as far away as you think), but the key attribute that needs solving is not 'baseload' power, but rather 'dispatchabilty'.

Baseload power in the traditional sense (its always on) isn't always a great think either, what you really want is the ability to have it on, or off, or in between depending on the gap in demand that changes and needs to be filled. By this metric, combined cycle gas plants and hydro are the dispatchable options. While the French have figured out rampable/dispatchable nuclear - it is not the standard in reactor designs and the actual desired attribute here is the ability to dispatch energy on demand.

(also, another reason why German electricity emissions are so bad are those plants use lignite (brown coal) - the least efficient and most polluting form of generating electricity (lots of Poland is dependent on brown coal too).

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#115

Post by chrisco255 »

belorn wrote: post #102
chrisco255 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about in Britain, but in the U.S. we do sustainably farm trees used for timber and have done so for the past 100 years.

That is the point where someone bring up photos from almost 100 years ago and make comparison photo of today and notice the obvious: there is a lot more trees in the old photos.

Not 100 years ago, maybe in urban areas that got converted to buildings, but overall, forest acreage in the U.S. has been flat for the past 100 years. If you go back to early 1800s, that would have been a time when acreage was about 25% higher: https://www.fia.fs.fed.us/library/brochures/docs/2012/Forest...

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#116

Post by boustrophedon »

somedudetbh wrote: post #112
renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

> Coal-related air pollution causes an estimated 10.000 extra deaths each year across the continent. Radiation caused one direct death in Fukushima. What's the rationale for comparing indirect deaths from coal to direct deaths from radiation?

What other direct or indirect sources of deaths are there from nuclear power?

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#117

Post by aksss »

fersho311 wrote: post #11

Anyone watch the documentary planet of the humans on YouTube? After watching that, I’m no longer sure what renewable energy even means anymore, which no longer gives these accomplishments any meaning. Can someone help with my disillusionment?

I think the only decent criticisms had to do with incremental technological process, i.e. solar panels are marginally more efficient than they were when the film was made. On the balance though, I don't think this negates the points the film made - the amount of mining, manufacturing and transportation balanced against the in-service life and the energy actually produced make for a very bad story. Burning biomass is also not good for the planet for the reasons outlined in that film and in this comment thread.

I'm a Vaclav Smil fanboy, so I get repetitive, but he has criticized the renewables industry pretty consistently and long before Michael Moore's film, so his material may be worth a look for those that want a stronger critique that doesn't have Moore's name in the sentence. "Energy and Civilization: A History" is a great book of his, and was relatively recently updated.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#118

Post by clomond »

fersho311 wrote: post #11

Anyone watch the documentary planet of the humans on YouTube? After watching that, I’m no longer sure what renewable energy even means anymore, which no longer gives these accomplishments any meaning. Can someone help with my disillusionment?

I'll try:

In order to solve climate change, we need to decarbonize all of our primary energy sources by shifting from fossil fuels to zero carbon sources (wind, solar, hydro, nuclear). Biomass (wood pellets) should not be treated as 'renewable' when looked at the lens of solving climate change.

I am optimistic because the costs of solar, wind, and energy storage are decreasing rapidly (between 15%-30%+ cost declines PER YEAR). And, in many markets today - these offer the cheapest form of new energy to put online.

Given the 0 marginal cost nature of generation for wind and solar, these sites can generate power without any 'fuel' or other input cost.

While many calculations are available, the EROI (energy return on investment) of these sources is usually ~10+ [1]. This concept was not mentioned in the film, and simply asserted 'coal is used to make solar panels'->'therefore they are not renewable'. An EROI of over 10 means, that by inserting 1 unit of (lets say 100% coal) energy into solar, you get 10 units of solar energy back in the lifetime of the project. This doesn't account for various methods of extending the longevity of solar/wind sites. On an 'energy returned' basis - renewables are a viable solution to decarbonizing the economy.

And circling back to the article - while electricity demand has been impacted by the current economic situation - given the UK's history of coal use (they were the largest coal user historically through the industrial revolution), the fact that this milestone has been reached should not be underestimated and be viewed as an indicator for where the rest of the world is currently heading.

[1] https://rameznaam.com/2015/06/04/whats-the-eroi-of-solar/

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#119

Post by aksss »

grey-area wrote: post #65
wazoox wrote: post #8

And nuclear . Because Brits know that you can't rely 100% on renewables (30% is about the maximum for most countries; "wood pellet" isn't actually renewable, it's forest mining).

Not sure where you got that maximum figure from. Scotland is already near 70% and aiming for 100% renewables. With sufficient storage capacity (hydro and batteries), there's no reason any country couldn't be 100% renewables. Biofuels are a very small part of the mix, and I agree pretty pointless except on a small scale in remote locations to provide heat as well as power. https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/09/23/sco…

The article (probably unintentionally) paints a rosier picture than reality:

>> "Scotland will soon be meeting the equivalent of 100% of its electricity needs from clean energy sources."

This is kind of a weaselly. Two parts of this sentence need explanation: 1) "equivalent of" 2) "electricity needs"

The equivalency is a murky way of saying that they still use fossil fuels but are also engaged in carbon offsets to reach the equivalency. Those carbon offset methods are sometimes dubious - paid someone to plant trees in the amazon, etc. Further, do we really consider burning biomass clean or renewable (I would not)?

The "electricity need" stands apart from the country's heating and transportation needs, at least. So this is a fraction of a fraction of Scotland's energy needs being met by "clean" energy, if you consider the net return of solar and tidal to be worth more energy than was consumed in manufacturing, transporting, installing, and maintaining those facilities before their respective end-of-life.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#120

Post by rapnie »

catalogia wrote: post #76
rapnie wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a documentary a while back related to the Netherlands, where they traced lots of these wood imports as coming from the US, mostly bought from private land owners cutting down pristine forest.

The margins on that must be awful. A simple tax on imported wood would probably resolve the matter by rendering it commercially infeasible to import wood as fuel.

There is also a bad influence of this within the country. As nature reserve organizations saw their budgets cut for many years, there is now a commercial incentive to cut some extra wood here and there. Even the government's own 'Staatsbosbeheer' is suspected (note: not proven) to be doing this.
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