381–390 of 396 posts
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Why is solar+storage different?
It's the only way to build lots of zero carbon baseload right now. Botch cheaper and faster than nuclear, it also regularly gets deployed with an extremely high success rate. Failure of nuclear builds is a huge huge problem that the industry has not been able to solve.
Haven't seen such mumbo-jumbo for a while. UK has an issue with winds getting too strong because of deforestation. There is a project to re-forest the north coast to coast. Then these trees can be also burned for energy as biomass. Just look it up.
Deforestation is historic, your comment implies it is recent. We know from comprehensive aerial photographs of the UK taken by Germany in the 1930s/40s that the UK has much more forest coverage now than it had then. The UK switched to coal beginning in the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth because of the lack of forests providing a source of wood. The current reforestation projects have nothing to do with "an issue…
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You can transmit a lot of power long distances with HVDC systems. 2GW systems are in development (TenneT 2GW platform & 525kV DC cables) & HVDC interconnectors can be several hindered km long…
But it’s expensive and takes a long time. The U.K. isn’t building enough quickly enough to take benefit of production in the north. Maybe if variable prices encourages energy intensive demand to shift to Scotland that will help, but that’s not quick either.
The UK is leading the world in grid interconnection and offshore wind build out (though all owned by none UK entities), so if they aren’t building quickly enough I don’t know anyone who is….
6% curtailment seems pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things. Around 20-25% curtailment, it becomes economical to run those hydrogen electrolyzers part-time, even with the capital expenditures required. I wouldn't use that hydrogen gas to regenerate electricity, though - there are many industries that can directly consume that hydrogen gas and avoid the lossy round-trip from electricity->hydrogen->electricity. I…
I don't know what the current target is, but 6% is well below what it will eventually be. The article suggests building more physical infrastructure, but that comes with its own cost and environmental impacts, ironically.
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Balancing a nationwide power grid is very complex. Some energy sources can be started and stopped instantly, but are limited - water. Others are plentiful, but unpredictable - wind. Others are predictable, but take a long time to start and stop - gas, coal(several hours), nuclear(1 day to start, fast to stop, but very expensive). A balanced grid will need all of them, will need them in quantities which can cover faul…
> Others are predictable, but take a long time to start and stop - gas, coal(several hours), nuclear(1 day to start, fast to stop, but very expensive). The start time is long but that does not say much about the overall operations. > Modern nuclear plants with light water reactors are designed to have maneuvering capabilities in the 30-100% range with 5%/minute slope, up to 140 MW/minute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…
Arguably, if cost effective, nuclear is best run at full output as consistently as possible, with other systems buffering that supply with demand (hydro storage, batteries, demand response, etc).
https://www.laka.org/nieuws/2022/so-how-flexible-is-nuclear-...
https://www.ianfairlie.org/news/french-report-nuclear-power-...
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Nothing to do with any of the above. Purely a function of how the energy markets in the UK work. There’s no contract providing you with a long term guarantee that the current situation will continue, and the grid doesn’t care if you go bust.
I don't know how the UK grid works. I know banks and investors won't put money into something if the rules don't give them confidence of a return on investment. Sure there are tech counter examples for investors, but banks are more careful.
Banks and investors lend/invest in things that are likely to succeed, and pay them back. But there’s no guarantee, and national grid sure as shit isn’t going to provide that guarantee, why would they take on all that risk?
The only guarantee provided to a wind farm by the grid, is that they’ll be able to participate in the market, and that the grid ensures they will take the power they sell in the market, or compensate them if they can’t (curtailment).
But there are no guarantees that there’s someone in the market to actually buy your power at the price you want to sell it. But as wind produces the cheapest electricity around, it’s a pretty reasonable bet that a wind farm can sell it energy for a profit.
Additionally the grid reserves the right to change how the markets work, within reasonable limits, and no doubt are required to take supplier and consumer issues into consideration. But if you don’t like the changes they make, your only recourse is to sue them, and prove they breached the contract. But there’s no guarantee you’ll win.
A smart bank/investor know all of these things, and will have a decent idea of changes that might impact the business model, and the likelihood of them occurring, and thus include those risks in their investment strategy. But absolutely nobody in this game goes in expecting a sure fire win, that’s just naive.
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Yes both of those franchises are failing, and if they aren't meeting their KPIs then they should have the franchise stripped. Some of that is infrastructure (the cancellation of platform 15/16 at Piccadilly means the new Ordsall chord is basically useless, but they tried to use it anyway), I don't know enough about TPE to fairly attribute it, but with AWC it's franchise operation -- especially staff availability. Som…
I’ve no idea where you get the idea that “the left” (an enormous and diverse block of people) primarily want subsidies for the rich. It seems similar to the same (IMO bad faith) argument American conservatives made about student debt forgiveness - that because a small amount of wealthy people would benefit from a universal thing, it is therefore wrong. The popular opinions I have seen are: - “nationalise the railways…
Nope, 10 years of plain simple facts and it doesn't help. It's still Richard Branson that's stealing everyones money, if only the west coast mainline wasn't run by him then it would be £20 return for Manchester to London. HS2 of course will apparently cost £600 return for every journey and nobody will be able to afford it or something.
HS2 should be cheaper than current trains, if there is the demand.
Currently to run 1000 seats London to Manchester return takes two 11 car trains, each with 3 members of staff (driver, manager, shop) on a 5 hour return trip. That's 10 hours of train and 30 hours of staff per return.
To do that under HS2 will be 2h30 return for a single train and not need a shop, so that's 5 hours of staff and train costs, so should be far cheaper operational costs.
Track costs should be far cheaper than maintaining 150 year old structure
Whether those lower train and staff costs translate to lower fares, lower subsidies, or more subsidies elsewhere on the network, is a political decision.
I fear the government is killing demand though - for 2 of my last 3 trips to London down the west coast I've hired a car and driven, and it wasn't terrible.
I know quite a bit about most of the things discussed in the article from having worked for a renewables company and yet I learned quite some new bits I didn’t know about, for example the intra-UK submarine HVDC connectors (and their eye watering cost). Not a very long article but packed with clearly written and valuable information. Great stuff
We need to figure out how to reduce long distance power transfer. Imagine a global power distribution network, the entire world could be 100% solar & wind. Perhaps one day...
Edit: would have been. Looks like they lost funding. :(
I know quite a bit about most of the things discussed in the article from having worked for a renewables company and yet I learned quite some new bits I didn’t know about, for example the intra-UK submarine HVDC connectors (and their eye watering cost). Not a very long article but packed with clearly written and valuable information. Great stuff
Are there any interesting things you know not mentioned in the article which you want to add here? (I’m curious to hear more)
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Electric cars have utility as we can use them to transport us from one place to another. Bitcoin on the other hand is just a waste of energy
If you don't understanding anything about Bitcoin's properties and the utility that provides, I can understand why you would think its a waste of energy. But many disagree with you for good reason. Some people think clothes driers or Christmas lights are a waste of energy, but it's not for them to decide how other people spend the energy they've paid for. Some people think those things are worth the energy cost and s…