Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 364 posts

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

#201

Post by maliker »

ben_w wrote: post #105
neilwilson wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need the land for people not trees. The UK has a food deficit. Nut trees would be better than pine. Offshore wind and storage is the way forward. We need to press on with getting that sorted and save the land for other uses.

The Netherlands, with roughly double the population density of the UK, became a net exporter of food fairly recently. I think they did this by adding a lot of greenhouses. I think the UK probably can’t add so many greenhouses because, in my opinion, local politics means “pretty” is valued more than “functional”. This is also why on-shore wind isn’t already everywhere in the UK even though wind farms don’t prevent agr…

Replying to share a link to a satellite view of Almeria, Spain. All the greenhouses easily visible from space: https://www.google.com/maps/place/El+Ejido,+Almer%C3%ADa,+Sp...

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

#202

Post by Brakenshire »

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…

Scotland is integrated into the UK grid.

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

#203

Post by dntbnmpls »

pfdietz wrote: post #139
aksss wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Solar panels are much cheaper than when the film was made. It's this reduction in cost that's driving the energy disruption, not increase in efficiency (although that helps). Smil's critique seems off base to me. Yes, replacements of energy infrastructure take a long time if the replacing technology is developing slowly. But the cost of PV crashed by a factor of 5 in a decade. This rapid change will lead to existing…

> Solar panels are much cheaper than when the film was made. It's this reduction in cost that's driving the energy disruption, not increase in efficiency (although that helps).

Solar is a nonfactor in energy. It counts for absolutely nothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#/medi...

The only energy disruption we've had is natural gas in the last few decades.

To show you how insignificant solar is, it only makes up 15% of renewables. The largest renewable source is wind ( 3X more energy than solar ).

https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/4-charts-show-renewable...

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

#204

Post by Brakenshire »

anonymousiam wrote: post #178

Good luck next winter.

They currently tend to mothball the small number of remaining coal plants in the summer, and use them in winter, but even that is being forced out of the market over time. Over the course of last year coal was only something like 3%.

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

#205

Post by wazoox »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #9
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).

The UK's combined wind (23GW) and solar (13GW) generation capacity is at least 3x that of nuclear (9.3GW). Capacity factor aside, nuclear is not a necessary component of a future UK grid (with the caveat that it can import nuclear generated power from France over a 2GW interconnector). [1] There are ~269 renewables projects, roughly 40GW, in the planning stages that will add to that existing renewables capacity. [2]…

Check Hinkley Point C. When done it will reliably produce more than 3GWh every hour of every day. More than 28 TWh every year.

Your 269 renewable projects, occupying thousands of times more land space and requiring hundred of times more resources to build, will only produce 3 to 4 times as much at best, while still requiring an equivalent spare capacity (in storage, using unavailable technology, or in gas, coal, ... or nuclear) for times of no wind or no sun.

Renewables are a sham. A waste of money, land and resources. Seriously, I'm quite sure of it now.

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

#206

Post by toomuchtodo »

wazoox wrote: post #205
toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK's combined wind (23GW) and solar (13GW) generation capacity is at least 3x that of nuclear (9.3GW). Capacity factor aside, nuclear is not a necessary component of a future UK grid (with the caveat that it can import nuclear generated power from France over a 2GW interconnector). [1] There are ~269 renewables projects, roughly 40GW, in the planning stages that will add to that existing renewables capacity. [2]…

Check Hinkley Point C. When done it will reliably produce more than 3GWh every hour of every day. More than 28 TWh every year. Your 269 renewable projects, occupying thousands of times more land space and requiring hundred of times more resources to build, will only produce 3 to 4 times as much at best, while still requiring an equivalent spare capacity (in storage, using unavailable technology, or in gas, coal, ...…

> Renewables are a sham. A waste of money, land and resources. Seriously, I'm quite sure of it now.

From Wikipedia on HPC:

> EDF has negotiated a guaranteed fixed price – a "strike price"– for electricity from Hinkley Point C of £92.50/MWh (in 2012 prices),[26][81] which will be adjusted (linked to inflation) during the construction period and over the subsequent 35 years tariff period. The strike price could fall to £89.50/MWh if a new plant at Sizewell is also approved.[26][81] High consumer prices for energy will hit the poorest consumers hardest according to the Public Accounts Committee.

> One analyst at Liberium Capital described the strike price as 'economically insane' in October 2013: "as far as we can see this makes Hinkley Point the most expensive power station in the world... on a leveraged basis we expect EDF to earn a Return on Equity (ROE) well in excess of 20% and possibly as high as 35%".[98] "Having considered the known terms of the deal, we are flabbergasted that the UK Government has committed future generations of consumers to the costs that will flow from this deal"

> 25 September 2019, EDF announced that the total cost of the power station was likely to rise by up to £2.9bn and the total bill could be more than £22bn

This very much sounds like a waste of money and resources.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...

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

#207

Post by scotty79 »

knuffelbert wrote: post #163
dmos62 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The color value is misleading though, since it doesn't account for differences in energy consumption per unit of area. For example Belgium is very densely populated compared to France, so if for example both had the same gCO₂eq/kWh, Belgium would have higher CO₂ intensity per unit of area, but this map would color them the same.

One of us is misunderstanding the map. My understanding the color is gram of CO2 (equivalent) per kWh, so not per area, but per unit of electricity consumed.

Map being a map suggests that some of the geographical information is factored into the displayed data.

In case of this map it isn't. This map could be just a list of country names.

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

#208

Post by dmoy »

jcheng wrote: post #153
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…

Look at the size of those excavators--the bulldozer in the lower left of the image looks like a forgotten child's toy by comparison! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garzweiler_surface_mine#/media...

That is bagger288, it weighs over 10Gg and it's like 100m tall or something

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

#209

Post by pfdietz »

dntbnmpls wrote: post #203
pfdietz wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar panels are much cheaper than when the film was made. It's this reduction in cost that's driving the energy disruption, not increase in efficiency (although that helps). Smil's critique seems off base to me. Yes, replacements of energy infrastructure take a long time if the replacing technology is developing slowly. But the cost of PV crashed by a factor of 5 in a decade. This rapid change will lead to existing…

> Solar panels are much cheaper than when the film was made. It's this reduction in cost that's driving the energy disruption, not increase in efficiency (although that helps). Solar is a nonfactor in energy. It counts for absolutely nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#/medi... The only energy disruption we've had is natural gas in the last few decades. To show you how insignificant solar…

> Solar is a nonfactor in energy. It counts for absolutely nothing.

You appear to be confusing the past with the future.

And, really, a reference from 2016? Four years is FOREVER in the energy business now. PV costs fell by a factor of 5 in the last decade, you know.

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

#210

Post by monadic2 »

torpfactory wrote: post #60
leonardaustin wrote: post #5

Hummm, not sure wood pellets are carbon neutral. I think the UK has just offshored its CO2 emissions to the US. Great video below explaining in more detail. https://youtu.be/6RP-jYDgiMg?t=100

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…

Do we have carbon neutral batteries yet? Last I saw the production chain for lithium-ion was not carbon neutral over the expected lifetime of the product but rather increased carbon emissions. I’m having a hard time finding numbers to compare with wood pellets or coal, though, so I’m curious if you know.
Post reply on HN