Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is all true, the NIMBYs are real and we must construct additional pylons... but the largest part of curtailment costs come from the UK energy sector's project mismanagement. 1. We have two undersea cable projects (EGL1&2) to provide transmission capacity between all the new windfarms in Scotland, and SE England where it's used. Both projects are years late. 2. But we keep approving and switching on more windfarm…
I wonder why somebody doesn’t open a datacenter in Scotland. Sounds like they have too much power… also it is a bit chilly, right?
The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain
211–220 of 334 posts
Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain
#212Something like 400,000 people are opposing the Norwich-Tilbury power lines to bring wind energy to where it's used. Including a Green Party MP: https://www.dissmercury.co.uk/news/24840985.green-mp-adrian-... . And you'd better believe wherever they buried the lines they'd have objections and expensive consultations about the disruption and the HoUsE VaLuEs caused by trenching, drilling and service structures. Like th…
Who opposes Power lines? Never heard that this is a thing. As a foreign influence I'd be delighted to target all infrastructure proposals and bombard it with trolls.
I've had a lot of issues with last mile power delivery in residential areas that rely on buried lines and pad mounted transformers. If a transformer on a pole blows up, it can be replaced within 4 hours. Buried lines and pad mounted transformers can easily take 8+ hours due to the excavation requirement. I've had outages that lasted over 24 hours because of buried infrastructure issues. It's nice that it's all hidden until it breaks.
Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who opposes Power lines? Never heard that this is a thing. As a foreign influence I'd be delighted to target all infrastructure proposals and bombard it with trolls.
People oppose everything. * Lattice overhead powerlines? Eyesore (should use the new T style ones), house values, wind noise, hums, WiFi interference, cancer, access roads, hazard to planes, birds * T-frame pylons: boring ( https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/13/electr... ), eyesore (we prefer the lattice ones), most of the above too * Underground: damaging to the environment, end stations are eyesores…
Lovely turn of phrase. I'm going to work it into my next tech talk.
Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain
#214Something like 400,000 people are opposing the Norwich-Tilbury power lines to bring wind energy to where it's used. Including a Green Party MP: https://www.dissmercury.co.uk/news/24840985.green-mp-adrian-... . And you'd better believe wherever they buried the lines they'd have objections and expensive consultations about the disruption and the HoUsE VaLuEs caused by trenching, drilling and service structures. Like th…
Who opposes Power lines? Never heard that this is a thing. As a foreign influence I'd be delighted to target all infrastructure proposals and bombard it with trolls.
https://dorset-nl.org.uk/project/undergrounding/
I'm not involved or anything, but I certainly agree aesthetically. In visiting Canada it often strikes me that what ought to be beautiful landscape looks more like an industrial estate.
Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain
#215Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain
#216Something like 400,000 people are opposing the Norwich-Tilbury power lines to bring wind energy to where it's used. Including a Green Party MP: https://www.dissmercury.co.uk/news/24840985.green-mp-adrian-... . And you'd better believe wherever they buried the lines they'd have objections and expensive consultations about the disruption and the HoUsE VaLuEs caused by trenching, drilling and service structures. Like th…
Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Electricity prices are only very tangentially related to production cost. As you say yourself, grid costs are a factor. > France has lower electricity prices France has incredibly high subsidies for nuclear power, and it's still not enough. And their newest power plant cost 20 billion just in construction for a paltry 1.6GW, and to even begin new ones they need to subsidy them with 100€ per MWh (which is about thirty…
Well the whole clean energy transformation in Germany has a tax payer burden of 3 trillion or more till 2045. Frances nuclear plants didn't even receive 1 trillion of subsidies in total since their existence (according to my quick research). But let's say France and Germany are even in subsidies or France pays slightly more: I thought it's about Co2? Again: France has 1/6 of the Co2 emissions compared to Germany. Jus…
You're also mixing the status quo with your (unclear) desire of how the world should be. Germany spent the last 80 years to build up an energy grid built on coal – nuclear peaked at 30%!. Of course they emit more CO2 today compared to the French!
But if anything, that's an argument for why Germany should start agressively building out renewables (aggression there was abandoned 20 years ago by the Merkel admin).
> 3 trillion or more till 2045
Looking at decades is a surefire way to get big numbers. But depending on your starting points (I guess 1999 during SPD/Greens coalition), that's just €60 billion per year. A lot of money but not exactly shocking.
> The idea to produce wind in the south of Germany is part of such madness.
Even the state of Bavaria - not exactly known to be mad for wind power - classifies more than half of its area as containing locations suitable for wind power. Of course that's nothing compared to Lower Saxony, but that's why they aim for total installed capacity of just 6 GW by 2050 (source for all that is the Bayrischer Windatlas issued by the, again, very sceptical of wind power, CSU government of Bavaria).
You're really just decade old fud against renewables. Do you really think that in the whole of 70 thousand square kilometres of Bavaria there are no points where the wind is strong enough 150 m above ground to produce power profitably? Because that's just not true. And 6 GW, by the way, are just one to four thousand modern turbines. Across the largest state of Germany. There's nothing mad about that at all.
Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who opposes Power lines? Never heard that this is a thing. As a foreign influence I'd be delighted to target all infrastructure proposals and bombard it with trolls.
I would, overhead powerlines are not something you want near any houses for various reasons. Underground is fine.
Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure but some areas are better than others - east coast is preferable because it's more continuous than west coast even though wind is stronger (and gustier) on west coast. It's even more dramatic between countries, I saw in my previous job that for e.g. a country like India with monsoon season typically curtails it's turbines for a large part of the year.
The north of the UK is definitely windier than the south, but I'm not sure that the west is windier than the east - it's certainly wetter? e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/European-Offshore-Wind-A...
From wiki:
> Northern Ireland, Wales and western parts of England and Scotland are generally the mildest, wettest, and windiest regions of the UK, being closest to the Atlantic Ocean, and temperature ranges there are seldom extreme. Eastern areas are drier and less windy
But it being very windy isn't really conducive to building wind farms. You want (a) shallow seas (b) stable and continuous wind. That's why if you look at the map of where wind farms are situated they big offshore farms are concentrated on the east coast of England and Scotland, mostly from Norforlk upwards: https://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/wind-farm-rare-earth-magnets/
It's not that you can't build them on the west, it's just easier.
Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who opposes Power lines? Never heard that this is a thing. As a foreign influence I'd be delighted to target all infrastructure proposals and bombard it with trolls.
I mean just read the link and they're objecting to a 120m-wide trench being dug through their countryside. Which is easy enough to sympathise with.
(Re rail lines — if you build power lines over existing rail lines you could also electrify the rail route at the same time, and get rid of the diesel locomotives).