Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by brohee » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 10:44 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #127

heipei wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how any German in their right mind can continue supporting coal (especially lignite) even if you were to ignore all the fancy carbon emission calculations. Lignite is won using strip-mining here, and by here I mean in the most populous state of Germany between the major Ruhr area and Düsseldorf/Cologne, all major population centers. From where I live, I have to drive straight through these mines whenever…

Quickest and most straightforward would be to convert those coal plants to natural gas. But that gas has to come from somewhere, and I don’t think they like knowing that “somewhere” is Russia.

Well there is the hope than soon enough, that methane is made from atmospheric CO2, water and renewable energy. That would be pretty awesome as the infrastructure to store and move methane is already there.

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

#182

Post by rb808 » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 10:49 PM UTC

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…

Would be nice if that chart was g/person instead of kWh

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

#183

Post by annamargot » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #154

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mining and transport of uranium ore, processed fuel and nuclear waste. I don’t know how significant those are. Completely and utterly insignificant, to the point where it is downright insulting when they are brought into a discussion about how 10000 people die of coal-related air quality problems every year in Europe. > My main concern with nuclear power is that they still haven’t managed to create any active long…

> Sure we have. Basically we just bury it and hope for the best, it will be someone else's problem anyway. > The Onkalo repository is expected to be large enough to accept canisters [...] until around 2120.[13] At this point, the final encapsulation and burial will take place, and the access tunnel will be backfilled and sealed. We go from "dig it out" to "dig it in". Very sustainable. /s

How much volume are we talking here and how frequently would it need to be disposed of?

I recall reading somewhere that it’s a very manageable amount.

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

#184

Post by cyberpunk » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

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…

Change is happening, slowly (like everything else in germany) -- I used to take the train from Berlin to frankfurt and would pass 60km2 of solar farms starting within about 10km of west berlin..

Let's not pretend germany is agile in any way, anyone who lives here knows that's not true, but things ARE actually moving.. Slowly.. :}

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

#185

Post by bearbin » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

jasoncartwright wrote: post #111

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://e…

Not that I have any stake in the accuracy of electricitymap's statistics, but I don't think there's any point seperating out OCGT from CCGT generation. OCGT makes up a negligible share of realised generation (and indeed, even generation capacity is rather limited). The few plants that are still in operation need very specific market conditions to make their operation worthwhile, especially considering that 3x CO2 output means 3X fuel input, and 3x fuel costs. It's better to think of them as grid-stability mechanisms, like diesel generators, or the industrial load-shedding schemes.

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

#186

Post by tialaramex » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

jasoncartwright wrote: post #111

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://e…

> For starters, they don't appear to separate out different types of gas plants. The CO2 intensity of OCGT is 3x that of CCGT.

What makes you believe that? They list CCGT and OCGT separately, it's just that (unless every site I've seen about UK energy is wrong) there isn't a lot of OCGT generation in the UK because it's uncompetitive. Which would be for the same reason it increases CO2 intensity - it's inefficient to run. In the UK market it doesn't make up for that enough by being cheap to build and fast to spin up so as to create an incentive to build a lot more.

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

#187

Post by basicplus2 » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

But how much, and what is the generation breakdown of power Britain gets from Europe?

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

#188

Post by pvaldes » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 11:12 PM UTC

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?

When they start repeating again that radiation didn't killed anybody, or only one people, or whatever... they lose any credibility.

If they makeup the second part of the statement, I assume that the first is also embellished and that the "but estimated 10.000 deaths" part is also false.

Why they still try such silly strategy first with Chernobyl and now with Fukushima, is a mystery to me. It does not work.

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

#189

Post by jwilliamson » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #161

Serious question, Britain's energy mix is ~80% Nuclear/Hydro and 20% Wind/Solar/Other ('other' must be either natural gas or bio fuels, garbage or wood) ... Why even bother with wind and solar? Why not just do nuclear and hydro and be done with it. I've noticed anytime there's an article that talks about some country reaching 100% renewable energy it is always due to Hydro (and maybe Nuclear). Wind and solar are neve…

A big driver is that wind and solar have only recently become economical. The price of solar power has fallen by 80% since 2010, so large scale plants are all very new. Capacity factors for wind are also improving rapidly, from 25% in 2000 to over 40% today.

Basically we've had 150 years to build out hydro, 70 to build out nuclear, and only a few for wind and solar.

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

#190

Post by alkonaut » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

aksss wrote: post #109

torpfactory wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood pellet burning is a temporary distraction and distortion caused by regulation that allows it to be counted as "renewable". I believe you can make a reasonable argument wood burning is carbon neutral. Unfortunately, land used for growing forests of fuel represents a terrible opportunity cost - you could grow food or let the forests absorb atmospheric carbon, provide animal habitat, re-wilding, etc. However, there…

You can't make an argument that it's carbon neutral -- They don't just burn deadfall, and you can't grow trees faster than you can burn them. Prior to coal, the developed world burned massive amounts of wood, which contributed to massive deforestation. This is literally a step backwards, and not in any good way. When civilization burned wood for energy >500 years ago, sure, because demand was so low. But by the 1700-…

> you can't grow trees faster than you can burn them.

This is probably true for the UK (large population, not a lot of forest or areas to plant forest).

For e.g. Canada or Sweden it would seem possible. Sweden has 25k square meters (2.5 hectares, or 5 football fields) forest peer person. 85M cubic meters per year is cut down which is around 2% and roughly the same area planted (8.5cubic meters per person). The energy content of it is 150-200Twh which is comparable to Sweden’s energy consumption of 350Twh/year.

Obviously as little as possible is really used for energy because the value in wood for other products (timber, paper) is higher, but at least it shows that the forest as a source of energy is viable and largely sustainable. All that’s needed is a huge country full of mostly forest. Places that don’t have ten thousand trees per head to begin with can’t do this obviously, and countries that do have trees will much rather sell toilet paper and bookshelves to the UK than burn pellets.