Yes, if you count the Drax power plant as renewable, sure.
If you add to that deindustrialization and buying everything from abroad and not caring where that energy comes from, it’s super easy.
Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables
141–150 of 313 posts
Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
> paying huge amounts of carbon to import from the Middle East is a good idea You are wrong here. UK oil has a very high carbon footprint. British North Sea oil is sour (high in sulphur). It is the "wrong" type of oil for UK refineries. So it gets sent to other countries around the world for refining. UK oil is viscous, waxy, crude which needs to be heated to pipe it. This means it takes a lot of energy to pipe (hell…
So why not refine it in the UK?
I ask the same question about why Canada sends most of it's oil to the US to be refined. The answer is usually the government doesn't allow it and/or no one wants to take a private capital risk in the economic environment.
Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's only because that chart isn't bookkeeping nuclear as renewable, which is misleading at best.
Why would you classify nuclear as renewable? You can say it's clean energy but it's not renewable.
The definition of renewable is a bit silly, wind and solar come from the sun's nuclear fusion.
Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables
#144> Britain paying highest electricity prices in the world for second year running > Ed Miliband’s net zero targets are facing fresh scrutiny after Britain was found to be paying the highest electricity prices in the developed world. > New data published on Tuesday showed the price paid by UK industry for power was 63pc higher than in France and 27pc higher than in Germany. > Britain is also the second-most expensive c…
This is of course linked to the UKs renewable rollout (and to do with detaips around the UKs energy markets leading to gas dictating the price for noe), but completely misses the fact that the UKs spending isn't just spending but investment. Will be interesting to see in five years time looks like, we could well see a scenario where the UK has abundant cheap electricity being exported to the rest of Europe. Will be i…
Ember has predictions of future EU cross border electricity flows in 2030 and 2040 and it shows the UK becoming a net exporter:
https://ember-energy.org/data/europe-electricity-interconnec...
Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables
#145I'm on a electricity tariff where the per kWh unit price changes every 30 minutes, you're basically being charged at market rate or thereabouts, the prices for the next 28 hours are announced at 4pm every day. Generally the prices betwen 4pm-7pm are expensive and the rest of the time it's cheaper - although with current world events things have gotten a little spicy lately. On really windy days you definitely get to…
My friend has a car which can charge only when prices are low. I'm not totally sure how it works though, does the smart meter communicate this to the car?
Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables
#146I'm on a electricity tariff where the per kWh unit price changes every 30 minutes, you're basically being charged at market rate or thereabouts, the prices for the next 28 hours are announced at 4pm every day. Generally the prices betwen 4pm-7pm are expensive and the rest of the time it's cheaper - although with current world events things have gotten a little spicy lately. On really windy days you definitely get to…
I'm on a similar tariff in the UK and just had a 10kwh battery installed which is just amazing for shaving off all the load between 4-7pm. Whole system installed was ~6k GBP and I think my payback time is going to be < 5 years which I'm super pleased with.
Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables
#147I'm on a electricity tariff where the per kWh unit price changes every 30 minutes, you're basically being charged at market rate or thereabouts, the prices for the next 28 hours are announced at 4pm every day. Generally the prices betwen 4pm-7pm are expensive and the rest of the time it's cheaper - although with current world events things have gotten a little spicy lately. On really windy days you definitely get to…
Why did you choose this plan in place of a fixed price plan?
Not GP but I assume the fixed prices have to be fairly high to account for people using lots of power during peak demand when most people use lots of power?
Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've read this before and I don't understand how this doesn't become/is untenable. Doesn't this mean that solar/wind are insanely lucrative? Also, this would mean that in order to really bring the price down, gas needs to be taken out as a source. But gas is typically the source that balances the grid because its output can be changed quickly. So price wise, you might get a drop but you would lose your ability to rea…
> Doesn't this mean that solar/wind are insanely lucrative? I used to work in wind energy in the Netherlands, it is only profitable there due to government subsidies. It was/is an enormously complicated system to understand on the whole. I was on the environmental impact side (visualizations) during the permitting process. It's high-risk & enormously expensive during the permitting process (i.e. getting permission to…
:-( I'm sitting here looking at huge wind turbines out my front window and I absolutely LOVE them. I get to live in a solarpunk future where I can get where I need to without a car, my kids run out the door and play without getting run over, and I can see clean energy being made for my home (and that of my neighbours).
I'm sure a lot of the cranky old people near me don't like them, but they hate everything and go out of their way to find things to complain about, to be honest.
Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables
#149Yes, if you count the Drax power plant as renewable, sure. If you add to that deindustrialization and buying everything from abroad and not caring where that energy comes from, it’s super easy.
It's a biomass burning power plant. Biomass is absolutely renewable by any definition of "renewable". More can be grown on useful short term timescales.
Also, burning biomass does not affect the long term CO2 makeup of the atmosphere. The CO2 emitted was sequestered a decade ago, not 400 million years ago. Biomass carbon release is the normal carbon cycle of the earth.
Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> paying huge amounts of carbon to import from the Middle East is a good idea You are wrong here. UK oil has a very high carbon footprint. British North Sea oil is sour (high in sulphur). It is the "wrong" type of oil for UK refineries. So it gets sent to other countries around the world for refining. UK oil is viscous, waxy, crude which needs to be heated to pipe it. This means it takes a lot of energy to pipe (hell…
Brent crude is a light, sweet oil. UK oil is extracted from same oilfields as Norways - little difference in quality - and the major extraction from both is Brent crude A handy explainer on Brent quality is here: https://kimray.com/training/types-crude-oil-heavy-vs-light-s...
> Brent crude is a light, sweet oil.
Brent is yesterday's story....
All the oil that would come from the prospective fields if extra drilling were to be permitted would absolutely be the heavy, viscous, waxy stuff.