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Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

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Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#241

Post by pfdietz »

macspoofing wrote: post #175
patall wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because its cheaper? Britain is building one new nuclear power plant (Hinkley Point C) which is delayed by many years but has guranteed energy prices of 10 ct per kWh. That's about double what energy costs are usually in europe at this point.

Yes. We know coal and natural gas are cheap energy sources, but we don't want them because they emit CO2. Biomass is a disaster for land-use (so is solar for that matter). It's almost like the process of elimination takes us to hydro and nuclear as the only viable power sources (that are proven to work) that don't actually need some other base load provider. I guess we'll have to waste a few more decades before we re…

Nope, we'll have to wait a while for people like you to clue in how an optimized renewable-only grid is cheaper than one including nuclear (with everyone being charged for their capital cost.)

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#242

Post by dragontamer »

renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

> That's of course the consequence of its decision to phase out nuclear power in the early 2000s. Wind/solar are intermittent and there's no way around that (battery storage isn't nearly mature enough).

Hmmm, in theory, it seems like overbuilding Wind/Solar might work.

Solar continues to generate electricity on cloudy days, its just diminished. Wind works from 5mph all the way to 50mph or so, it makes less energy on 5mph days but the wind almost never truly stops.

Overbuilding Solar/Wind to make up for this however, would cost significant amounts of money. Batteries would be best for storing the excess energy, but maybe other plants (ie: Aluminum manufacturing) can also be used (variable amount of Aluminum based on energy demands).

Both Solar and Wind can "ramp down". Solar panels can safely generate zero-power if you prevent current from flowing. Wind turbines must continue to move, but you can slow down wind turbines by controlling the angles, and grossly "ramp down" the energy produced.

As such, it is safe to overbuild both solar and wind plants... and later "ramp down" if the grid gets too hot.

-----------

But overall, I agree with you that nuclear seems like the simplest solution. Its a shame that the world in general is afraid of uranium. Despite the geopolitics involved, I really do think its the simplest solution to worldwide energy problems.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#243

Post by fyfy18 »

alkonaut wrote: post #190
aksss wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't make an argument that it's carbon neutral -- They don't just burn deadfall, and you can't grow trees faster than you can burn them. Prior to coal, the developed world burned massive amounts of wood, which contributed to massive deforestation. This is literally a step backwards, and not in any good way. When civilization burned wood for energy >500 years ago, sure, because demand was so low. But by the 1700-…

> you can't grow trees faster than you can burn them. This is probably true for the UK (large population, not a lot of forest or areas to plant forest). For e.g. Canada or Sweden it would seem possible. Sweden has 25k square meters (2.5 hectares, or 5 football fields) forest peer person. 85M cubic meters per year is cut down which is around 2% and roughly the same area planted (8.5cubic meters per person). The energy…

Mass reforestation is possible in a generation or two though... In Lithuania for example a lot of reforestation was done in the later half of the last century, the percentage of the land that is forested now is 33% compared to 20% in the 40s.

http://www.china-ceecforestry.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01...

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#244

Post by stordoff »

TwoHeadedBeast wrote: post #217
neilwilson wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need the land for people not trees. The UK has a food deficit. Nut trees would be better than pine. Offshore wind and storage is the way forward. We need to press on with getting that sorted and save the land for other uses.

Can you explain what you mean by food deficit? What counts as food, does wine for example count? How do you measure food? As in what unit, calories, mass, or pounds sterling? Does the UK produce enough food to feed herself, but chooses not to in exchange for foreign 'delicacies' from bananas to olives?

I believe this is what you are looking for:

> Food Production to Supply Ratio is calculated as the farm-gate value of raw food production (including for export) divided by the value of raw food for human consumption. It provides a broad indicator of the ability of UK agriculture to meet consumer demand.

> A high production to supply ratio fails to insulate a country against many possible disruptions to its supply chain. The ratio in 2018 was 61% for all food and 75% for indigenous type food.[1]

My broad understanding is that showing an indigenous type deficit means that it is not _just_ a choice to not do so in exchange for foreign delicacies, as they could be grown in this country but aren't, particularly as "[i]n 2018 the value of imports was greater than the value of exports in each of the broad categories of food, feed and drink except 'Beverages'". It is worth noting that the article states "[s]ourcing food from a diverse range of stable regions, in addition to domestically, enhances food security", so some net negative may not be a bad thing, as it insulates us to some degree from issues that would decrease local production.

Furthermore:

> Domestic production of fresh fruit as a percentage of total new supply for use in the UK was little changed at 17% [...and] for all fresh vegetables was 52%[2]

Even if we were able to produce enough food, in broad terms, to feed ourselves, it may not be able to support a particularly healthy diet, making the imports more of a necessarily than delicacies.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-statistics-p...

[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#245

Post by macspoofing »

pfdietz wrote: post #241
macspoofing wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. We know coal and natural gas are cheap energy sources, but we don't want them because they emit CO2. Biomass is a disaster for land-use (so is solar for that matter). It's almost like the process of elimination takes us to hydro and nuclear as the only viable power sources (that are proven to work) that don't actually need some other base load provider. I guess we'll have to waste a few more decades before we re…

Nope, we'll have to wait a while for people like you to clue in how an optimized renewable-only grid is cheaper than one including nuclear (with everyone being charged for their capital cost.)

Nuclear is expensive - but it's cheap compared to the costs of climate change and environmental destruction. The minuscule amount of waste it generates and the tiny land-use requirements per kWh - it's almost magical.

>we'll have to wait a while for people like you to clue in how an optimized renewable-only grid

I'm willing to be clued-in. This isn't an ideological fight for me. I have nothing against solar and wind. I want what you want. Ideally, if you could point me to an example of 100% or near 100% renewable smart grid that is running primarily on wind and solar - the discussion would be over.

Problem is, there isn't one. For all the billions that have been poured into solar and for all the talk about smart-grids, battery and kinetic storage, and molten salt batteries and all kinds of exotic things - you cannot point out ONE example. And it isn't like we aren't trying. Poor Germany is desperately throwing out their billions of surplus hoping it would happen, but the best they could do is 2060!! WTF. ITER, the cold fusion reactor, is supposed to be trialled by 2035[1]!!!. Is that not insanity? And they are signing multi-billion/multi-decade deals with authoritarian Russia to build pipelines for their natural gas at the same time they are decommissioning their nuclear plants!!!

What is going on here?!?!?! What am I missing!?! Please tell me, because I honestly feel I am being gaslighted.

Here an up-to-date energy mix of my home province of Ontario: http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html

Hydro and Nuclear make my province carbon-free today.. not 2050. Today. But we're building windmills (and consequently natural gas plants to provide base-load) because people have been told we need wind to fight climate change. I don't understand what's happening. It feels like religion.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER#Timeline_and_status

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#246

Post by sitkack »

renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

Why not use the nordics hydro to store power and run renewables from their sunnier neighbors?

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#247

Post by kristianp »

Pfhreak wrote: post #46
eloff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CO2 in wood comes from the atmosphere recently, while the CO2 in coal came from the prehistoric atmosphere. That's an improvement. That's also how biofuels work. Wood is a renewable resource when managed sustainably, and carbon neutral. How practical it is, is another matter entirely.

Wood can even be carbon negative if you bury a portion of the biochar. Obviously, there's some challenges in scaling a biochar industry in terms of space, efficiency, etc., but it is possible .

You're not going to get any significant biochar from burning the wood pellets efficiently, are you?

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#248

Post by gibolt »

jasoncartwright wrote: post #111
renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

>As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. Yeah, that's true, but you've taken a reading there at the worst time of day whilst it's not windy here. The other week we achieved the second lowest carbon intensity daily average ever (the lowest was in the summer last year). Here's what the UK carbon intensity of electricity looks over a larger time scale (8yrs) https://e…

Looks like their average during peak season 8 years ago was 550 and now it is around 200. That is an impressive drop

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#249

Post by s1artibartfast »

noir_lord wrote: post #101
praveen9920 wrote: post #15

Bhutan is actually carbon-negative for a while but this is significant. A complete country going off coal. To compare this with one of the biggest contributors to pollution, India, has around 50% of electricity generated by coal. Of course, Britain's electricity consumption may not be comparable to India, or COVID has some effect on this. This certainly is the first step towards a better future

Britain's electricity consumption isn't comparable to India for many reasons - We use ~4 times as much per person but have only 5% the population. 1) We are geographically tiny by comparison 2) Our population is tiny by comparison 3) Our temperatures don't require active cooling in our homes (most of the time) though we do use electricity for heating 4) We are a developed economy which means for the most part highly…

> If the western world wants to try and influence the energy usage in India and China et al then we need to get our consumption down while advancing the state of the art in renewables because can afford to do so exactly because saying "You need to not have the same living standards as us to save the planet while we use as much energy as we want" isn't a reasonable argument in the slightest.

I don't think this is accurate. As you point out France has a relatively high power consumption per capita but has nearly half the CO2 emission than China per capita. This is insane.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#250

Post by pfdietz »

macspoofing wrote: post #245
pfdietz wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, we'll have to wait a while for people like you to clue in how an optimized renewable-only grid is cheaper than one including nuclear (with everyone being charged for their capital cost.)

Nuclear is expensive - but it's cheap compared to the costs of climate change and environmental destruction. The minuscule amount of waste it generates and the tiny land-use requirements per kWh - it's almost magical. >we'll have to wait a while for people like you to clue in how an optimized renewable-only grid I'm willing to be clued-in. This isn't an ideological fight for me. I have nothing against solar and wind.…

> I'm willing to be clued-in. This isn't an ideological fight for me. I have nothing against solar and wind. I want what you want. Ideally, if you could point me to an example of 100% or near 100% renewable smart grid that is running primarily on wind and solar - the discussion would be over.

You are giving the "nothing can ever happen for the first time" argument.

Grids right now use fossil fuels. This does not mean that a fossil-fuel free grid is impossible, or that IF fossil fuels were excluded, renewables could not do the job. It just means that the policies to ban fossil fuels are not yet in place.

If you model what it would take to produce a 0% fossil fuel grid, using plausible numbers for the costs, you will find in most cases that nuclear gets optimized right out of the picture. It's just too expensive. Instead, some combination of wind, solar, possibly hydro if available, short term storage (like batteries) and long term storage (like hydrogen) is cheaper.

Your focus on what exists now is irrelevant to what I was talking about, which is what would be cheapest in a ground-up fossil-free grid using costs as they exist today. The nuclear plants in Ontario are sunk costs. They would not be built today as new plants. As historical remnants, they will eventually disappear, and likely will not be replaced with more nuclear.

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