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UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

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Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#121

Post by tinco »

arlort wrote: post #118
tinco wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop being so adverserial. Parent hasn't stated any pro-brexit sentiment so just assume they're arguing in good faith. The whole idea of the EU is that all nations in it are subservient to the commission. We like it that way because that makes the collaboration more rational and it makes the rising tide lift all the boats. Wether you agree with it or not, the idea of the Brexit is that the UK can be strong without th…

> The whole idea of the EU is that all nations in it are subservient to the commission It really really isn't though

It really is though

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#122

Post by cptcobalt »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #96
throwaway894345 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not that I know anything about this, but isn't it the job of "the grid" to make sure all sources of energy combined can provide the necessary power at all times? No individual power source is ever completely reliable. Please forgive my naive question. I have exactly zero relevant expertise.

Yes!

The grid is one of the world's largest real-time reactive machines. Power is generated on the fly as you need it. You could draw a direct path from your home A/C switching on all the way back up the chain to some source needing to push power to meet your demand.

The supply of the grid is a big mix of diverse sources: renewables, natural gas, hydro, nuclear, coal—whatever. Each power source has different pros and cons, and you cannot really over-index on one to have a reliable grid. For example, nuclear is a fantastic and relatively clean source for base load (obviously, when handled responsibly), but not great to provide power that reacts to the shifts of demand through the day. Solar, obviously, doesn't work at night. The grid operator has to build a supply mix that fits the needs of their region. (And that's typically by facilitating energy market with different energy products where generators bid and participate.)

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#123

Post by alibarber »

logifail wrote: post #57
_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Securing Britain's energy supply by diversifying from EU interconnectors" Also, it's kind of funny how you say it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit and immediately jump into an anti-EU rant, probably not the smoothest transition :D

> "Securing Britain's energy supply by diversifying from EU interconnectors" Honestly, the EU27 have their own home-grown grid problems to deal with[0], helping third countries transit power through the EU territories must be right at the bottom of the list! Austria and Germany had a single electricity price zone ... until October 2018, one of the reasons blamed for the split was "slow grid expansion"[1]. [0] https:/…

This is basically my reading of the situation. After reading the article I was certain the comment section here would look like this, but anyway, my take home is ‘technological advances mean it is now easier just to lay a long cable on the sea floor than all of the political maneuvering needed to transit power across multiple countries’

Obviously- that may be wrong, but let’s see, would be cool if it’s true.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#124

Post by gnfargbl »

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…

I don't think we will actually be getting 10GW net from this. The article itself claims that the project will

> deliver 3.6GW of reliable energy

and

> be capable of supplying 8 percent of Great Britain’s electricity needs

...from which I assume they're projecting a total energy consumption of about 3.6/0.08 = 45GW in 2030.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#125

Post by kibwen »

credit_guy wrote: post #116

I find liquefied Hydrogen to make more sense. In case of conflict (like now), undersea cables can be sabotaged with plausible deniability. The Royal Navy can protect a tanker en route from Morocco to UK, or a convoy of such tankers, there were two times in the not so distant history when it had to do just that. But how do you protect a continuous line of a few thousand km? Separately, if at some random point in the f…

Rather, the thing that makes the most sense is for countries to rely exclusively on local power generation, and completely eliminate their reliance on other countries for energy. There is no infrastructure more fundamental than energy, because energy underlies all other infrastructure. Swapping out oil or coal or gas for liquefied hydrogen (or enormous intercontinental power lines) just trades one poor situation for another. Don't rely on any energy that you couldn't immediately switch over to providing yourself, even if it means paying an eye-watering premium.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#126

Post by a_humean »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #60
a_humean wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has the whiff a brexit about it. The current government is allergic to most forms of UK/EU cooperation. They don't want to give the EU extra leverage in the future, so its a means of diversification esp in the context of a lack of political will (strong NIMBY sentiment) to seriously invest in on-shore wind power in the UK. We already have 3-4 interconnects with EU countries if I recall: France, Ireland, Netherland…

Genuine question: what’s wrong with diversification? Isn’t that a good thing?

There isn't anything wrong with diversification, and this might even be a good idea.

I'm just commenting upon the likely motivations are primarily domestic politics and geopolitics given its pretty obvious that you could achieve similar results by doing this with onshore wind and solar installations in southern Spain with lower technical and cost requirements.

Its definitely true that outside of the EU we are going to be treated differently than if we were EU members. EU members will always come first, and geopolitical spats with say Spain over Gibraltar or France over fishing that would otherwise get mediated via the EU could now be higher risk in future.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#127

Post by mike_hearn »

gghhzzgghhzz wrote: post #120
mike_hearn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK had to implement EU decisions and laws, including those the government and voters directly disagreed with. That is what subservient means, in this context. The fish debacle ( the UK refusing to license EU-based ships). There are lots of licensed EU fishing vessels. Note that Jersey isn't actually a part of the UK, technically it's a Crown Dependency. Anyway. The full story of the dispute is much more complicat…

If you were one of the big 3 then you pretty much get to decide what laws / fines apply and what don't. This was often used to the advantage of the British governments to claim that they were being forced into doing something that they actually wanted to do, but would have an issue passing domestically. Fishing 'debacle' was because the UK governments have no interest in fishing nor in the far wider issue of the sust…

In this case the dispute was with the independent Jersey government and part of their justification for the number of licenses provided was sustainability. You could argue that this justification was a lie I suppose, but it'd be good to have some evidence to support that.

OTOH, the UK government recently (2020) passed laws that overrode Jersey's independence in this regard and there were rumours that the UK was getting ready to basically give the EU what they wanted here in return for concessions in other areas, much to the outrage of people on Jersey itself. However, that hasn't materialized. So I guess we'll see to what extent you're proven right.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#129

Post by dmitriid »

gizajob wrote: post #103
toper-centage wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK playing victim is the reason Brexit happened in the first place. No wonder their residents continue being brainwashed in that sense.

Maybe many of the residents of the UK see the creepy undemocratic bureaucracy of the EU for what it is, and it's single-speed forward into the future federal state of Europe wasn't something they wanted to be a part of. This isn't brainwashing, but people feeling more need for control and action on a local level, not their national parliaments being subsumed and subverted by Brussels, and the diverse peoples of the c…

> creepy undemocratic bureaucracy of the EU

> need for control and action on a local level

Ah you mean that local control and democracy when the party with 13% of the votes gets 0.2% seats in the parliament", right? [1]

[1] Great CGP Grey video on the 2015 General Election in the UK: https://youtu.be/r9rGX91rq5I

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#130

Post by [deleted] »

sudosysgen wrote: post #101
Grimburger wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> handing your life support to a distant and culturally different country As horrible as it sounds, Morocco isn't a nuclear power and would be crushed in an afternoon by UK armed forces while western media across the planet creates a hundred different justifications and the world's diplomats send their congratulations for neutralising the energy terrorists because they couldn't care less what happens to them. This is…

That is not true. The UK doesn't have the force projection capability to do that to Morocco, which is a US ally. The UK would get hammered in an attempt to terrorise Morocco. The only remotely conceivable way that the UK would have of projecting significant power onto the Moroccan mainland is by trying to foment a civil war. Otherwise they would not get anything out of it. If the US even allowed the UK to do such a f…

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