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UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

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Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#71

Post by throwaway894345 »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #61
nerdawson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would make it dependent on the countries it hopped through and subject to their political whims. The Gibraltar issue crops up every now and then for instance so having control over an electrical connection gives the Spanish government more leverage. Same with France and the dispute over fishing waters. Only recently France were threatening to cut off power to Jersey.

There is a very easy way for the UK to solve the Gibraltar issue. The same line of reasoning would also allow it to drastically improve its relationship with Argentina.

“There is a very easy way for Ukraine to solve the Russia issue”. In the case of Gibraltar, the UK can merely bypass Spain for its energy needs.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#72

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

argsnd wrote: post #69
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very easy way for the UK to solve the Gibraltar issue. The same line of reasoning would also allow it to drastically improve its relationship with Argentina.

Yeah just hand over any territory anyone ever makes a weak claim to just to avoid conflict despite the wishes of the people who live there. Has your "Z" bumper sticker arrived in the mail yet?

Let’s conveniently forget that Gibraltar is actually territorially part of Spain, most essential facilities are provided by Spain, that a significant proportion of jobs necessary to it are held by Spaniard and that Gibraltar economy is due to it being a tax haven which would stop if it was part of Spain. Oversee territories are a shame on every countries that still hold them be it the UK or France.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#73

Post by pxeger1 »

mabbo wrote: post #10
popol12 wrote: post #5

Sounds inefficient How big are the loss on such a high distance connection ?

High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) is much more efficient at transmission over long distances than AC. It can throw off your intuition on these things. In China, there is a 3300 km line like this moving 12GW of power. This is a little bit longer, but not by much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

The reason AC is often believed to be more efficient is because higher voltages of either type are more efficient (less loss to electrical resistance), and it's much easier to step voltage up and down using AC.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#75

Post by jodrellblank »

giorgioz wrote: post #16
_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #6

This sounds like brexiteer project. Doubt this will actually happen. 3800 km of undersea HVDC cable just to circumvent the EU. 3800 km is the distance from St.Petersburg to Marocco.

Yes it does, I'm not sure why they can't just put wind turbines in the UK. I'm sure there is plenty of wind there too. Also it would seem the south of France or Portugal would be much closer for the solar part.

Right now (Sunday afternoon) the UK is getting about 1/3rd of the nations power from wind turbines, more than any other single source:

https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live

https://winderful.uk/

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#76

Post by arinlen »

mike_hearn wrote: post #32
_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #6

This sounds like brexiteer project. Doubt this will actually happen. 3800 km of undersea HVDC cable just to circumvent the EU. 3800 km is the distance from St.Petersburg to Marocco.

Brexit isn't mentioned anywhere and the physics of it would be the same regardless of the EU existing or not. The reason to go direct to Morocco are that transmission through regular AC grids would lose virtually all the power before it gets anywhere near the UK. 10GW is a hell of a load and you can't just pretend a grid is a bathtub at these scales. But as you brought it up, even if there was a semi-conductor breakt…

> Brexit isn't mentioned anywhere and the physics of it would be the same regardless of the EU existing or not.

The point of mentioning Brexit is to stress that the physics alone makes this sort of project hard to justify on technical grounds, specially when there is a wealth of renewable energy projects right around Britain's corner.

You need to be specially motivated to circumvent any of the low-hanging fruit projects with European nations to head down to Africa to get your electricity.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#77

Post by sofixa »

Veen wrote: post #58
bdauvergne wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK which of course never used unrelated subject like fishing rights or immigration as a political leverage. \s Every country in the EU submit to the majority law, that's the idea of an union, even France or Germany do not have everything to their liking every time.

Which is precisely why the UK is no longer in the EU. It no longer has to follow "majority law" and can do what is in its own best interests.

> and can do what is in its own best interests.

If it did that, it wouldn't have gotten out of the common market. The UK is way past sensible choices in its best interests, and is firmly in the "cut its nose to spite the EU".

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#78

Post by throwaway894345 »

cptcobalt wrote: post #64
throwaway894345 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t 4 hours of battery storage much too low? How is that considered “reliable”? What am I missing?

Indeed, if we're assuming that they'll charge during the day to discharge at full power at night, it won't cover all of overnight use, but with the current composition of grids typically it's what you need to cover after sundown until most go to sleep (and energy use reduces). A project like this doesn't need to reduce base load, but there surely needs to be renewable (or nuclear) energy projects to replace base load…

Interesting, but does this assume Morocco won’t have a cloudy week or something (I understand that Morocco’s climate is almost always sunny, but even still)? I always assumed the threshold for “reliable renewable energy” began at a week’s worth of storage.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#79

Post by Veen »

sofixa wrote: post #63
mike_hearn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brexit isn't mentioned anywhere and the physics of it would be the same regardless of the EU existing or not. The reason to go direct to Morocco are that transmission through regular AC grids would lose virtually all the power before it gets anywhere near the UK. 10GW is a hell of a load and you can't just pretend a grid is a bathtub at these scales. But as you brought it up, even if there was a semi-conductor breakt…

> The EU wants the UK to be subservient to the Commission for ideological, political and economic reasons. The UK doesn't want to be back in that situation. What a load of Brexiteer crap. The UK was never subservient, they were among the top decision makers and powers in the EU. Brexit UK wants to have its cake and eat it too and is simply impossible. You can't be independent from the EU on trade and power simply bec…

No post body was provided.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#80

Post by nyokodo »

jodrellblank wrote: post #62

UK is currently generating 30GW from all sources[1], so 10GW is a third of the national power requirement. Germany has just had a hard lesson in having significant energy dependency on Russia. Morocco is UK's 61st largest trading partner[2]. Morocco isn't Russia, but handing your life support to a distant and culturally different country in a less stable world region with limited history of partnership (European colo…

> Morocco isn't Russia, but handing your life support to a distant and culturally different country… seems daft.

Perhaps, but making yourself a vital part of keeping the lights on for a country with a brutal colonial history within living memory, a much more capable military, and a military base 36 miles from Tangier… seems even more daft.

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