GB's cheap Chinese nuclear plant -v- solar

Birdnuts · 01-04-2015 1:09am

SeanW wrote: »

Again, taking reference to global energy costs, on the one hand we have Capt'nMidnight and others telling us how cheap green energy is, then we have the reality on the ground in Germany and Denmark where costs are similar to those of microscopic Pacific islands like Niue, Tuvalau and the Cook Islands that most people have never heard of.

Very simply, I put it to you that somehting has gone very badly wrong in Germany and Denmark. Very badly wrong.

.

A similar pattern emerging in the US

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/10/17/electricity-prices-soaring-in-top-10-wind-power-states/

Birdnuts · 01-04-2015 1:17am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

LOL

_

I don't find any of this funny

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/clean-energys-dirty-little-secret/307377/

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution

Macha · 01-04-2015 1:27am

SeanW wrote: »

Apologies in advance this might be somewhat long.

I would say it's simply not true. I suggest very simply that when a country follows Green policy on energy, costs unavoidably rise.

Sorry but you're objecting to basic facts of how the energy market works. Costs are just not the same as prices. That's why the European Commission called it's report 'Costs AND prices'. If you can't grasp how things like subsidies, exemptions and regulated prices can distort the true cost of energy in retail prices, I really can't help you.

I get that you're trying to argue that renewable systems are more expensive than others but you're doing it in a way that shows glaring gaps in your understanding of market mechanisms like price setting, government interventions, externalities etc

By the way, I find your association of nuclear with right wing politics quite amusing as it is the energy technology that has benefitted the most in the past from state support and even today cannot survive without enormous public subsidies, not to mention the costs of waste disposal and decommissioning coming up as Europe closes down its fleet of old reactors.

As an industry that cannot survive without the state and likes to socialise its costs, I associate it more with communism. No surprise that two of the few big nuclear players in the world are Rosatom and the Chinese state nuclear company. Very right wing indeed...

Capt'n Midnight · 01-04-2015 1:44am

SeanW wrote: »

Paraphrasing

We are only getting 1,664 MW of fossil fuel power being replaced by wind at the moment blah blah blah

Ignore the actual cost and focus on the retail price blah blah blah

Gas has problems because
Nuclear is so slow to respond to demand it has an absolute requirement on gas for load balancing in exactly the same way renewables have.
Nuclear reserves in soft rock are running low , soon the EROEI will be marginal but let's pretend that we haven't found all the easy uranium ( thanks to radioactivity you can locate ores with low flying aircraft )
Let's pretend that Norway isn't supplying more gas to the EU than Russia and that Lithuania won't be importing LNG from the USA.

Let's pretend that France doesn't import a lot of renewables from Germany during the day and has to sell nuclear back at night. Let's ignore France's 20GW of hydro when I say less than 10% fossil.

and some name calling

same old , same old.

You can forget nuclear as a solution to CO2. A decade to build and another decade to become carbon neutral. And that's if there aren't problems and we don't have to mine granite for uranium. And there's a demand for it on a grid that can accept 75% renewables.

Gas is a stepping stone. Building new Nuclear is a 60 year commitment, decade to build , decade before carbon neutral (maybe) , further decade or two before break even financially. And then running it for another 30 years or so depending on the political climate or competition or price of ore.

Gas plants have shorter life cycles. Less capital tied up. Easier to change tack to new generation sources in future because you aren't locked in for decades. And they'll run on hydrogen that could be got if we can improve PV cells.

Remind us again how many Generation III+ nuclear reactors are in full service without teething problems ?

djpbarry · 01-04-2015 9:31am

Birdnuts wrote: »

Sounds like people in glasshouses throwing stones - the damage done to the environment by the mining of rare earth elements for wind turbines…

Other forms of electricity generation use turbines too.

djpbarry · 01-04-2015 9:35am

SeanW wrote: »

The retail price of electricity in Denmark is US$0.40 per unit. Even including the difference between wholesale and retail, and currency exchange, there is still a hell of a difference between 9.25p and 40cents.

There’s also a hell of a difference between a strike price and a retail price. You seem to be completely unwilling to accept this.

SeanW wrote: »

The "Environmental left" is a description of a position that I consider to be common to many of the posters here and for example major world Green parties, and other entities like Greenpeace, who share the same policies - (among others) climate change alarmism, promotion of energy taxation, promotion of weather based renewabe power, opposition to the use of nuclear electricity despite the aforementioned climate change alarmism ... these are things one associates with a mainstream environmental ideology, that has traditionally been considered a Left-of-Centre point of view.

I imagine most of the residents of this board would consider the above to be at least mostly accurate in describing their own views, and it is my view that this view is extremely common. Thusly, while I could repeat the above spiel every time I want to question the ideology, I suggest the term "Environmental Left" is a useful, time saving summary.

In other words, it’s a lazy dismissal of anyone who’s posts you disagree with.

SeanW · 02-04-2015 1:14am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

LOL

some pictures of the environmental impact of nuclear - don't forget about the mining or the soil heaps or leachate
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-05-11/does-nuclear-power-produce-no-co2

Nuclear plants use a LOT of concrete. Sizewell used more than 40 tonnes 10,000 times over. And then there's the concrete used for the waste etc.
http://www.westminster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/160237/SizewellPamphlet_lo.pdf

Yes, these are secondary emissions. They apply to all forms of electricity generation without excoption and have been accounted for in a broad range of studies. See a review of 20 or so studies here: http://www.world-nuclear.org/uploadedFiles/org/WNA/Publications/Working_Group_Reports/comparison_of_lifecycle.pdf

The equivalent of the above for wind mills is the CO2 cost of extracting the rare earth metals for windmills and solar panels, building the things, installing them where they are to operate, often causing a considerable level of environmental destruction in totality for things that will only ever produce small amounts of power and then only depending on the weather.

Macha wrote: »

Sorry but you're objecting to basic facts of how the energy market works. Costs are just not the same as prices. That's why the European Commission called it's report 'Costs AND prices'. If you can't grasp how things like subsidies, exemptions and regulated prices can distort the true cost of energy in retail prices, I really can't help you.

Yes, these things are a part of it, but if prices are stupidly high it's usually for a good reason. Like oh, I don't know, a stupid level of subsidies for wasteful and inefficiency caused by ill-advised energy policy.

As an industry that cannot survive without the state and likes to socialise its costs,

Describing weather based renewables to a tee ...

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Gas is a stepping stone.

Oh, it's a lot more than that - gas like in CCGT plants is the only way to design a power system that co-operate with unreliable renewables. Anything else, including nuclear, is as of yet not flexible enough to deal with the problems that renewables cause.

Too bad that using gas for power generation raises 4 very, very serious problems that have been almost totally ignored.

djpbarry wrote: »

There’s also a hell of a difference between a strike price and a retail price. You seem to be completely unwilling to accept this.

Did you even read what you quoted? I stated very clearly that I accepted there would be a difference between ~9p/kwh and the price on the consumers electric bill. Just not 40 cents worth.

In other words, it’s a lazy dismissal of anyone who’s posts you disagree with.

No, it's my attempt at a succint, accurate description of a common viewpoint, held by a wide variety of principals with little if any deviation from one another.

djpbarry · 02-04-2015 9:42am

SeanW wrote: »

Too bad that using gas for power generation raises 4 very, very serious problems that have been almost totally ignored.

They haven’t been totally ignored, they've been done to death on this forum. To summarize:

Nuclear power is not carbon neutral, not by a long shot.
That source is seven years old. Two words: shale gas. Also, gas is renewable, to some extent. For example, Germany produces about 2.3 GW of electricity from biogas-fired power plants.
There’s not much else that gas can be used for other than generating heat by burning it.
Almost half of the world’s uranium is produced by Russia and two of its satellite states (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).

SeanW wrote: »

Did you even read what you quoted? I stated very clearly that I accepted there would be a difference between ~9p/kwh and the price on the consumers electric bill. Just not 40 cents worth.

Why are comparing wholesale electricity prices in the UK with retail prices in Denmark? It’s daft

I’m asking you why EDF have been guaranteed a wholesale price of twice the going rate in the UK, but you keep avoiding the question.

It’s been suggested that, by the time the plant becomes operational, this could make Hinkley Point the most expensive power station in the world:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/household-bills/10414889/Insane-power-station-deal-will-raise-electricity-prices-for-decades-to-come.html

SeanW wrote: »

No, it's my attempt at a succint, accurate description of a common viewpoint, held by a wide variety of principals with little if any deviation from one another.

No, it’s an attempt to dismiss anyone who doesn’t agree that nuclear power is the silver bullet that will solve all our energy problems. The reality is there are serious questions with regard to the economics of nuclear power, which you absolutely refuse to accept. Any time anyone raises these issues, you avoid the question by dismissing them as a Greenpeace activist and pointing out that renewables are subsidized and their output is variable.

Capt'n Midnight · 02-04-2015 8:39pm

djpbarry wrote: »

There’s also a hell of a difference between a strike price and a retail price. You seem to be completely unwilling to accept this.
In other words, it’s a lazy dismissal of anyone who’s posts you disagree with.

In fairness you can see how nuclear supporters could easily get confused by the difference when Hinkey C has a strike price of 9.25p per unit and Sainsbury's are offering it for 9.36p per unit, retail

I'd love to know the economics of carriage on the The National Grid etc. on those margains.

Capt'n Midnight · 02-04-2015 9:06pm

SeanW wrote: »

Oh, it's a lot more than that - gas like in CCGT plants is the only way to design a power system that co-operate with unreliable renewables. Anything else, including nuclear, is as of yet not flexible enough to deal with the problems that renewables cause.

PSML

Nuclear flexible ???

The existing Flexible power suppliers on on the grid have to respond within 5 seconds. France's reactors are optimised to respond faster than others, at the expense of efficiency and they can ramp up / down in about 6 hours. Within well defined limits.

Back in 1943 General Groves asked for an extended run of the first reactor. This didn't happen because the experts on nuclear knew better. Xenon poisoning affected the first batch of reactors used to breed plutonium in 1944. If you shut down a reactor today you may still have to wait for up to 72 hours to restart.

When you have a grid that can respond to 75% of the maximum outage within 5 seconds the 5 day forecast for wind makes it dependable and reliable compared to something that can go off line without warning, and worse could stay off line for years.

Again a reminder that most of the technologies needed for nuclear also benefit renewables. Cheaper tunnelling technology would help with the waste problem, but it would also make geothermal cheaper too. Materials technology mean better turbines, but since gas and renewables have much shorter life cycles they will benefit sooner.

SeanW · 05-04-2015 12:16am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

PSML

Nuclear flexible ???

I've already conceded the point: in the post you quoted I admitted that nuclear was NOT capable of reacting to the unpredictability of renewables, in fact I accept what appears to be your point that only gas power can complement renewables.

So you not only strawmanned an arugment I never made, but also attacked a claim when I accepted the exact opposite. Way to go!

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

In fairness you can see how nuclear supporters could easily get confused by the difference when Hinkey C has a strike price of 9.25p per unit and Sainsbury's are offering it for 9.36p per unit, retail

If they're going to retail power for 9.36p a unit, it may not be because of Hinkley C (again, I concede it's a bit on the pricey side) but they sure as hell aren't selling it that cheap becuase of green policy which would put energy at about 3 times that cost.

djpbarry wrote: »

They haven’t been totally ignored, they've been done to death on this forum. To summarize:
Nuclear power is not carbon neutral, not by a long shot.

That source is seven years old. Two words: shale gas. Also, gas is renewable, to some extent. For example, Germany produces about 2.3 GW of electricity from biogas-fired power plants.

There’s not much else that gas can be used for other than generating heat by burning it.

Almost half of the world’s uranium is produced by Russia and two of its satellite states (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).

Why are comparing wholesale electricity prices in the UK with retail prices in Denmark? It’s daft

1) Like renewables, nuclear plants produce no CO2 in service, the secondary (lifecycle) CO2 costs are similar to renewables in most studies I have seen, and all are dramatically better than any fossil fuel including gas. They also compare favourably against renewables and dramatically so in fossil fuels in the amount of human deaths caused per X kilowatt hours (e.g. more people will die falling off their roofs to install solar panels per million KWH of solar electricity generated than by the same measure of deaths caused by nuclear electricity). Nuclear also compares favourably to windmills because they don't expose birds (bird strikes) and bats (barotrauma) to their turbines, which are kept indoors in a turbine hall, again for obvious reasons this is not possible with a wind turbine.
2) Accepted on the point of shale gas, not sure how much of the stuff there is, but I'd question the renewability of gas used in vast quantities, I've seen a video of an experiment in Kassel in Germany, biogas comes from farming of corn and suchlike. Again, using farmland and farm inputs (fertiliser, herbicide, fuel for agricultural machinery) for this purpose raises the same Opportunity Costs as are relevant in other parts of the problem: yes, you could use that stuff to grow crops for biogas, or you could all of those things for something else.
3) Seriously, this is simply not credible. You cannot deny that gas is more flexible than other fuels, as such it has higher opportunity costs. For example, you can use gas in your car, and there are people who have converted their cars from refined oils to gas. Gas is also much more useful in central heating systems - you can start it with the flick of a switch and get instant heat - cooking, same properties. It's also a raw material/feedstock in some chemical processes.

Oil has the same opportunity costs for any selected use, coal less so because it can't really be used in a car and is not quite so convenient in central heating, uranium is the "best" in terms of opportunity costs because you can only really use it in nuclear power plants or submarines, there's really nothing else to do with it except leave it untapped. Which is not true of gas, if we stopped burning gas in power plants the price of gas would crash but only for a short time and it would take a very short time for drivers and the motor trade to take notice and eventually pick up the slack.
4) Yes, almost half of Uranium reserves may be in Russia's sphere of influence but you can be sure that's all either going to be used in Russia or sold to China: Russia's on its way to becoming a vassal state of China.
Sources commonly utilised by the West are primarily Canada, Australia and part of Africa. Heck, some energy companies thought we in Ireland had some in Donegal, but we had a Green minister for the environment that denied them exploration licenses :mad:

I’m asking you why EDF have been guaranteed a wholesale price of twice the going rate in the UK, but you keep avoiding the question.

Ok, so if Hinkley C is twice the normal wholesale rate in the UK, that's a premium of, what, 4 and something pence a unit?

That's chickenfeed compared to what green policies add to the price - as they're finding out in Germany and Denmark.

It’s been suggested that, by the time the plant becomes operational, this could make Hinkley Point the most expensive power station in the world:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/household-bills/10414889/Insane-power-station-deal-will-raise-electricity-prices-for-decades-to-come.html

The most expensive power plant maybe, but not the most expensive power source, which will be renewables both directly (in subsidies) and indirectly (in the need to have a full alternative power infrastructure constantly on standby).

No, it’s an attempt to dismiss anyone who doesn’t agree that nuclear power is the silver bullet that will solve all our energy problems. The reality is there are serious questions with regard to the economics of nuclear power, which you absolutely refuse to accept. Any time anyone raises these issues, you avoid the question by dismissing them as a Greenpeace activist and pointing out that renewables are subsidized and their output is variable.

I'm seeing the same policies by people who have similar points of view. You can't blame a person for drawing certain conclusions about that.

In fact, if you think the term "environmental-left" is off the mark, then please show me the error. I challenge yourself and Captn'Midnight to show me why your policy on nuclear electricity is different to those of mainstream environmental groups such as the Green Party.

In fact, I'll be generous: (I may regret this

) I'll happily eat my words on the topic of the "Environmental Left" if yourself, Macha or the Captain can show any large, irreconcilable and fundamental difference of point of view between any of you and any European Green Party on any important issue.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

... And they'll run on hydrogen that could be got if we can improve PV cells.

Great, if hydrogen could be made cheaply for power in the lean periods, find applications in transport especially, that would be very useful, you could use lots of renewable power when the weather is cooperating to make the stuff, then store the energy for use in other places (like the way oil is shipped now) or peak power demand times. It would be particularly promising in transport because you could use a variation of a traditional fuel tank, much better than electric cars which will always be limited by batteries. I'm all for continued research, but right now the only way to move decisevly away from fossil fuels involves a heavy nuclear component, or the good fortune to have rivers, geothermal resource etc.

Again, look at France. 90%+ non-fossil, and only 3.7% dependent on gas. All at sane electricity prices delivered to French householders.

Capt'n Midnight · 05-04-2015 12:02pm

SeanW wrote: »

Again, look at France. 90%+ non-fossil, and only 3.7% dependent on gas. All at sane electricity prices delivered to French householders.

25.4 GWe hydro, vs 63.2 GWe, Nuclear.

Load balancing with Germany, Belgium , the UK and Italy.

A huge % of electrical heating to even out demand.

A huge budget for safety improvements. The old plan of having two reactors per site and relying on them to supply backup and cooling power to each other pretty much guarantees trouble if both go offline at the same time.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/France
France will be spending €1Bn on each plant to keep them working for another 10 years. (€55Bn/58 plants) It's not that long ago that the nuclear industry was promising new build for that sort of money. That's about the cost of new gas or a large fraction of the cost of onshore wind.

French nuclear isn't providing cheap electricity either.

In 2014 the rate is €42/MWh, but CRE proposed an increase to €44 in 2015, €46 in 2016 and €48 in 2017 to allow EdF to recover costs of plant upgrades, which it puts at €55 billion to extend all 58 reactor lifetimes by ten years.

The tl;dr version of the Myth of French Nuclear

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/edf-france-germany-idUSL6N0UT2F720150114

EDF's new chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy said German power consumers are subsidising French power users via the export of cheap renewable energy to France.

Levy told a senate hearing that France imports German power every day nearly all day, and that part of it is re-exported profitably to Britain, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

"The weight of German subsidies for renewables, and coal, is such that the German end consumer pays, via his green taxes, a subsidy to the French consumer," he said.

Capt'n Midnight · 05-04-2015 12:32pm

SeanW wrote: »

I've already conceded the point: in the post you quoted I admitted that nuclear was NOT capable of reacting to the unpredictability of renewables, in fact I accept what appears to be your point that only gas power can complement renewables.

The point is that nuclear also has an absolute requirement for gas.

The UK will need to spend £160m extra a year on spinning reserve just to cover the the larger size of Hinkley C over existing power stations.

Over a 50 year lifetime that's an extra £8 Bn subsidy. Just to cover the unreliability of that one plant. ( unless the UK builds larger plants which is unlikely. Tidal would comprise multiple generators over a large area )

You could get a lot of renewables for that sort of money. Wind, Solar , Tidal lagoons not to mention other ways of spreading load matching like interconnectors, Smart Meters, insulation.

Wind needs no such subsidy because it isn't unpredictable. Also since it's distributed power there is no single point of failure. In fact the constraints to cover local grid stability alone more than cover wind.

djpbarry · 06-04-2015 1:45pm

SeanW wrote: »

…more people will die falling off their roofs to install solar panels per million KWH of solar electricity generated than by the same measure of deaths caused by nuclear electricity.

I’m not even going to dignify this with a response.

SeanW wrote: »

…I've seen a video of an experiment in Kassel in Germany, biogas comes from farming of corn and suchlike.

There are several plants here in the UK producing biogas with slurry and sewage.

SeanW wrote: »

You cannot deny that gas is more flexible than other fuels, as such it has higher opportunity costs. For example, you can use gas in your car, and there are people who have converted their cars from refined oils to gas. Gas is also much more useful in central heating systems - you can start it with the flick of a switch and get instant heat - cooking, same properties.

All of which fall under the heading of “energy”. Gas is used for little else other than as a fuel.

SeanW wrote: »

Oil has the same opportunity costs for any selected use…

No, it doesn’t. Oil has infinitely more uses than gas does.

SeanW wrote: »

4) Yes, almost half of Uranium reserves may be in Russia's sphere of influence but you can be sure that's all either going to be used in Russia or sold to China:

Regardless, that still gives Russia a significant influence over the world’s ability to generate electricity from nuclear power.

SeanW wrote: »

Ok, so if Hinkley C is twice the normal wholesale rate in the UK, that's a premium of, what, 4 and something pence a unit?

That's chickenfeed compared to what green policies add to the price - as they're finding out in Germany and Denmark.

Once again, you’re dodging the question.

SeanW wrote: »

The most expensive power plant maybe, but not the most expensive power source, which will be renewables both directly (in subsidies) and indirectly (in the need to have a full alternative power infrastructure constantly on standby).

And again.

djpbarry · 06-04-2015 1:58pm

SeanW wrote: »

In fact, I'll be generous: (I may regret this ) I'll happily eat my words on the topic of the "Environmental Left" if yourself, Macha or the Captain can show any large, irreconcilable and fundamental difference of point of view between any of you and any European Green Party on any important issue.

I'm putting on my mod hat to respond to this.

No poster, mod or otherwise, has to explain themselves to you or anyone else.

Attack the post, not the poster.

If you have to resort to lazy dismissals of anyone who disagrees with you as an "environmental lefty", then maybe your argument is not on terribly solid ground?

SeanW · 10-04-2015 12:29am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

25.4 GWe hydro, vs 63.2 GWe, Nuclear.

Yes, hydroelectricity is a large part of the French system of low CO2 electricity generation.

Load balancing with Germany, Belgium , the UK and Italy.

They export power to most of those countries, no?

That's about the cost of new gas or a large fraction of the cost of onshore wind.

Accepting this claim for the sake of argument, both are worse value for money. So you get gas plant cheaper than nuclear, great, but you're still burning gas. Or wind - great when the wind is blowing. So neither is any better, even if the headline cost is lower.

French nuclear isn't providing cheap electricity either.

The tl;dr version of the Myth of French Nuclear

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/edf-france-germany-idUSL6N0UT2F720150114

Funny you should mention this because, again I accept this for the sake of argument, it proves that either:

It shows that either the French grid, with all its nuclear power and hydroelectricity, is dramatically superior to Germany's Eastern neighbors, all of whom are in serious trouble because the instability of the German grid is spilling into theirs.
Either that or the subsidised exports are within France's ability to deal with the erratic oversupply. (Read that article BTW, it explains much better than I could many of the negatives of the Energiewende, including being among many others, a frightening destabilising force on Eastern European energy grids.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The point is that nuclear also has an absolute requirement for gas.

This is simply not true - again, refer to my graph posted earlier regarding France. 90%+ non-fossil sources in France, Gas only accounts for ~3.67% of power supplied. It can be avoided.

You could get a lot of renewables for that sort of money. Wind, Solar , Tidal lagoons not to mention other ways of spreading load matching like interconnectors, Smart Meters, insulation.

some of that could help, to be sure, but there's one big problem.

Demand does not follow the weather. Period. I questioned the ideas for demand shedding earlier in this thread - I believe it would be grossly detrimental to what remains of our industrial base and to human quality of life, but these concerns were not addressed for whatever reason.

djpbarry wrote: »

There are several plants here in the UK producing biogas with slurry and sewage.

Good, but remember that your plans (you, Capt'nMidnight, most world Green parties) are planning on gas reliance on a very large scale. Can these sources of renewable gas take the place of imports?

All of which fall under the heading of “energy”. Gas is used for little else other than as a fuel.

This is very important - our society is heavily reliant on energy, and more importantly energy in useable, conventient and flexible forms. If you're seriously suggesting that gas does not have a higher "opportunity cost" because of its relative flexibility than say coal or uranium, I simply cannot take that seriously.

No, it doesn’t. Oil has infinitely more uses than gas does.

True, outside of energy, oil I think is used as a raw material for lots of things, taramacadam, linoleum, plastics, maybe even phamaceuticals, god knows what else. But as an energy source, it's as convenient and flexible as gas in most uses, and only slightly more useful in transport. That's why both oil and gas have stupidly high opportunity costs when wasted in power plants.

Regardless, that still gives Russia a significant influence over the world’s ability to generate electricity from nuclear power.

Russian and C.I.S. uranium reserves are effectively off the table AFAIK as far as Western nuclear programmes go, they're completely irrelevant to all except Russia, it's allies and sphere of influence.

In any case, even if we were importing Uranium from Russia and satellites we'd have one major advantage - Uranium can be hoarded, unlike gas. So even if we imported all our Uranium from the Russian bloc, we could always hoard several years of fuel and then if the Russians did something we couldn't tolerate like destroy another country or shoot down another passenger plane, we could tell them to go to Hell and have ~2 years or whatever to make alternative arrangements.

We can't do this with gas - if anything goes wrong with Russia and they cut off the taps, Western Europe goes dark in a short time.

Once again, you’re dodging the question.
And again.

I didn't dodge anything - I accepted that based on the evidence you showed, Hinkley C and more plants like it could add to UK energy bills. But I maintain that:

Any increase would be good value for money.
Any increase would be moderate compared to the alternatives more commonly suggested.

djpbarry wrote: »

If you have to resort to lazy dismissals of anyone who disagrees with you as an "environmental lefty", then maybe your argument is not on terribly solid ground?

Fine, I won't use the term "environmental-left" any more. But I continue to believe that there is a common point of view on these and other issues and I most certainly do not concede that point.

Capt'n Midnight · 11-04-2015 12:39am

SeanW wrote: »

They export power to most of those countries, no?

it's not a bug it's a feature :rolleyes:

They export power because you can't throttle back nuclear at night. They don't get the same rates for it as the stuff they have to import back in the day.

So you get gas plant cheaper than nuclear, great, but you're still burning gas. Or wind - great when the wind is blowing. So neither is any better, even if the headline cost is lower.

For the Nth time. Nuclear has an absolute requirement for gas because it can't load balance. Simple as. So even if you upgrade the nuclear plants you still end up paying for gas.

In theory wind is intermittent. In practice we get 25% of our power from it in winter and that figure should go up to 40% when the grid can accommodate more. There's no point in tilting at windmills after the horse has bolted.

instability of the German grid

In theory renewables cause intermitterancy , but the recent eclipse showed that in practice the German grid didn't have a problem with 15GW dropping off the system.

This is simply not true - again, refer to my graph posted earlier regarding France. 90%+ non-fossil sources in France, Gas only accounts for ~3.67% of power supplied. It can be avoided.

LOL
Have you already forgotten the 25.4 GWe hydro, vs 63.2 GWe, Nuclear ??

Hydro is dispatchable upon demand, unlike nuclear which needs a lot of advance notice, if you don't have hydro you'll need fossil fuel.

and this week they've imported an average of 3GW from Germany
http://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/eco2mix-echanges-commerciaux-en

Demand does not follow the weather. Period.

Weather is predicable. Dispatchable sources can load balanced, exactly like they have to do with unresponsive nuclear.

I questioned the ideas for demand shedding earlier in this thread - I believe it would be grossly detrimental to what remains of our industrial base and to human quality of life, but these concerns were not addressed for whatever reason.

For the Nth time grid stability rules dictate backup generation provide 75% of load mismatch within 5 seconds and 100% within 90 seconds. Not the response times of hours typical of nuclear.

Down here on earth our laws of physics suggest that the average person probably won't notice if their immersion or storage heater stops heating for intervals of this time. Well insulated buildings should also take longer than this to cool appreciably. Based on the difference between summer and winter demands there's probably 1GW here used for heating. So shedding demand could easily more than match Turlough Hill for short periods.

Good, but remember that your plans (you, Capt'nMidnight, most world Green parties) are planning on gas reliance on a very large scale. Can these sources of renewable gas take the place of imports?

In any case, even if we were importing Uranium from Russia and satellites we'd have one major advantage - Uranium can be hoarded, unlike gas. So even if we imported all our Uranium from the Russian bloc, we could always hoard several years of fuel and then if the Russians did something we couldn't tolerate like destroy another country or shoot down another passenger plane, we could tell them to go to Hell and have ~2 years or whatever to make alternative arrangements.

We can't do this with gas - if anything goes wrong with Russia and they cut off the taps, Western Europe goes dark in a short time.

Actually it's more Norway we've to be nice to.
Even Lithuania is building a terminal so they can import LNG from the US. The UK already do this. Thanks too to renewables the EU is weaning itself off Russian gas.

Like lots of your posts it's almost like you haven't been keeping up with developments in energy over the last decade or so. You'd be surprised at the price of solar these days and it's still dropping and there are many new developments in the pipelines. It's been a very long time since nuclear has demonstrated or proven any substantial technological improvements. And even if there were it would take a long time before they could commercialised.

Any increase would be good value for money.

Any increase would be moderate compared to the alternatives more commonly suggested.

Good value ? Hinkley C is already over 98.5% of the retail price. And The National Grid charge isn't a charity , they charge for carriage. And it would only supply base load power. And since it's index linked it won't get cheaper.

Never , ever forget that while Hinkley C is the latest nuclear technology you have to compare it with what other sources will appear during it's life. So the economics of renewable today can't really be compared to Hinkley in the far future. Except of course that you could install a LOT of renewables for a fraction of the cost long before Hinkley is scheduled to deliver any power.

Gas is a stepping stone towards more renewables. It provides time to develop them. And new gas has less emissions than older fossil fuel plant and you don't have to wait for a decade to see if nuclear will deliver any savings in emissions.

Fine, I won't use the term "environmental-left" any more. But continue to believe that there is a common point of view on these and other issues and I most certainly do not concede that point.

Perhaps the common point of view is evidence based ?

The nuclear industry has consistently failed to deliver on it's promises over the last 70 years, so it's very , very hard to reconcile the spin with the reality. Until nuclear delivers what it promises , on time and on budget there is no reason to believe the propaganda.

Impetus · 11-04-2015 6:16pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

25.4 GWe hydro, vs 63.2 GWe, Nuclear.

Load balancing with Germany, Belgium , the UK and Italy.

A huge % of electrical heating to even out demand.

A huge budget for safety improvements. The old plan of having two reactors per site and relying on them to supply backup and cooling power to each other pretty much guarantees trouble if both go offline at the same time.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/France
France will be spending €1Bn on each plant to keep them working for another 10 years. (€55Bn/58 plants) It's not that long ago that the nuclear industry was promising new build for that sort of money. That's about the cost of new gas or a large fraction of the cost of onshore wind.

French nuclear isn't providing cheap electricity either.

The tl;dr version of the Myth of French Nuclear

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/edf-france-germany-idUSL6N0UT2F720150114

A large amount of electricity is wasted in the creation of heat. A good heat pump (eg Daikin A++ rated) provides 4x heat for the power input - ie a heat pump using 700W of electricity produces 2.8 kW+ of heat. I have them installed in a secondary home in damp Ireland. I can arrive in the house after a flight at 23h00. Power on the system while washing my teeth, and get the temperature in the bedroom up to a wasteful 28C in five minutes. The same system cools the air (in the South of the country, in a conservatory that regularly reaches 40C on a sunny day). It can prevent mould and woodworm by automatically turning on for a few hours and reducing the humidity in the room to say 35% - preserving furniture etc.

These systems can be used for air heating/cooling and water heating - which can in part be used underfloor.

French nuclear might look cheap on one's bill (around 10c per kWh), but the long term costs of nuclear are part of the massive French tax bill, which is one of the highest in the world. It is like free domestic water in Ireland. Only a lot more expensive in lifecycle cost terms.

Capt'n Midnight · 11-04-2015 8:27pm

Impetus wrote: »

A large amount of electricity is wasted in the creation of heat.

The best combined cycle gas can convert up to 60% of the heat into electricity. For the older mostly phased out coal plants it was as low as 25%. The new brown coal plants in Germany are hitting 45%. Overall the improvements in fossil fuel efficiency have resulted in greater CO2 savings than using nuclear power.

For wind, solar and tidal the efficiency isn't that critical because they aren't "wasting" heat. Except of course they displace fossil fuels.

Nuclear is similar, but it's down around 35%. 2/3rd's of the energy is wasted before it leaves the plant. Lots of promised technology could increase the efficiency. It's still being promised after attempts to build it have failed. Heat pollution might be a problem, like the crocodiles living a certain hot river in Florida. But the main point to take away here is that nuclear is very very susceptible to cooling water shortages. Like in summer in France when people like to turn on the AC.

While I was looking for figures on Nuclear thermal efficiency I found this.
http://www.atomeromu.hu/download/1722/EPR%20reaktor1.pdf
Please ignore the schedule on Page 9 as none of the last 4 reactors havebeen finished yet.
Page 17 shows steam temp of 328c ( 1600Mw leccy / 4590 thermal = 35% efficiency )
Page 24 shows one large cost of nuclear. Quadruple safety systems. Assume the incident takes out one, and the second is off line for maintenance you then have the third one working and the fourth is the backup. You can't do nuclear safety on the cheap.

Page 40 I LOL'd at "Predictability based on experience" None of the plants listed is operational. Or on budget. And after 7 years of "project preparation" Calvert Cliffs 3 was put on hold a month ago.

page 18 seems to show that the EPR is more flexible than I had thought between 50% and 100% it can change output by 5% a minute. Then again more recently that's been redefined to 60%-100% And that's before they've actually got one operational.

Capt'n Midnight · 11-04-2015 8:48pm

Update 07 April 2015
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Flamanville-EPR-vessel-anomalies-under-scrutiny-0704154.html

Anomalies have been identified in the composition of the steel in certain parts of the reactor vessel of the EPR under construction at Flamanville,

Google translate from http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/content/download/96443/693392/file/Pr%C3%A9cisions+techniques+sur+les+anomalies+de+fabrication+de+la+cuve+de+l%27EPR+de+Flamanville.pdf

Areva has made mechanical testing in representative areas, which gave values of
Resilience 1 of 36 J and 64 J, for an average of 52 J, below the regulatory limit (60 J).
Areva also measured carbon content in a central core formed on the cover, which
revealed a carbon content of greater than expected (0.30% for a target value
0.22%).

Regulator has warned other countries where EPRs are built

Impetus · 11-04-2015 9:09pm

Using your 60% conversion ratio for gas > electricity, a heat pump system is a no brainer. ie 4x energy output for a 60 % conversion loss.

http://www.daikin.be/docs/ECPEN14-017-tcm478-310779.pdf

Aside from the gross incompetence of the ejits who work for Daikin Ireland. Elsewhere in Europe Daikain rank with Miele in terms of product quality and installation service quality.

Irish Daikin customers are often victims of Daikin Ireland - paying 2x EUR average premium prices, for exceptionally well manufactured product, which one is forced to purchase via Oirish dealers/installers who couldn't be bothered answering emails / orders for more stuff. Which makes one wonder what the response might be in the hopefully unlikely event of a defect?

djpbarry · 13-04-2015 2:31pm

SeanW wrote: »

Good, but remember that your plans (you, Capt'nMidnight, most world Green parties) are planning on gas reliance on a very large scale. Can these sources of renewable gas take the place of imports?

Are they a silver bullet? No, I doubt it. But why does everything that can’t supply 100% of energy needs have to be dismissed as impractical?

SeanW wrote: »

True, outside of energy, oil I think is used as a raw material for lots of things, taramacadam, linoleum, plastics, maybe even phamaceuticals, god knows what else. But as an energy source, it's as convenient and flexible as gas in most uses, and only slightly more useful in transport.

Oil is only slightly more useful in transport? Then why aren’t we seeing gas-powered cars all over the place?

SeanW wrote: »

…if anything goes wrong with Russia and they cut off the taps, Western Europe goes dark in a short time.

It really doesn’t and besides, it’s not going to happen – Russia needs income from gas exports far more than Europe needs Russian gas. Putin is not holding us to ransom like you think he is.

SeanW wrote: »

I didn't dodge anything - I accepted that based on the evidence you showed, Hinkley C and more plants like it could add to UK energy bills. But I maintain that:
Any increase would be good value for money.

This is a meaningless statement? Have you got some figures to support it? Because I’m finding it hard to believe that this deal represents good value for money at a time when subsidies for renewables in the UK are being phased out.

SeanW wrote: »

Any increase would be moderate compared to the alternatives more commonly suggested.

Again, you seem to be stating this as a belief rather than a demonstrable fact? What are you basing this on?

SeanW · 14-04-2015 12:53am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

it's not a bug it's a feature :rolleyes:
For the Nth time. Nuclear has an absolute requirement for gas because it can't load balance. Simple as. So even if you upgrade the nuclear plants you still end up paying for gas.

But it is not absolute. Even if you actually need all that hydro to cooperate with nuclear, gas is not absolutely required. Again, for the Nth time, France. Does. Not. Rely. On. Gas. Period.

In theory wind is intermittent. In practice we get 25% of our power from it in winter and that figure should go up to 40% when the grid can accommodate more.

Winter, yes, like Winter 2010? Don't know if you were in Ireland for this, but it was nasty. My family effectively did not have a Christmas that year because the temperature went down to -17C. Then our central heating failed, and we had to thrown on everything electric to stay alive. Electric radiators, the oven, possibly a few other things, just to keep from freezing over in two rooms of the house. Fun. And we had to use between 4-8KW almost constantly until the freeze ended.

But that weather bomb also came with a severe anti-cyclone, i.e. no wind. Of course solar wouldn't have been much use either. So we know that we can spend a bunch of money on renewables but they will not be any use when we need them most. If anything they will aggravate the need for usually idle electric plant because the rest of the grid will have to cover every scenario from warm breezy summers weekend day when everyone's gone to the beach, to a Christmas 2010 type case where the average temperature is -10, the wind is dead calm but there's a major rush of demand for heating. Oh and as an added bonus, because its Xmas Eve, everyone that isn't cowering in their houses from the cold is charging up their electric cars to go somewhere.

In theory renewables cause intermitterancy , but the recent eclipse showed that in practice the German grid didn't have a problem with 15GW dropping off the system.

Did you read my link? Germany's electrical instabilities are not just "in theory" micro-fluctuations in it routinely cause massive damage to sensitive industrial processes. Not only that, but the instability in the German grid has been spilling over into its Eastern neighbors.

Again this was all explained in the link I gave above, but here's another source for it: http://www.praguepost.cz/opinion/15258-region-german-green-energy-push-needs-a-rethink.html

So by your account of the EdF chief, France is able to benefit nicely from subsidised forced imports from Germany where the same is causing chaos and critical danger in Poland and the Czech republic.

Hmm. I wonder. Why is this? What do the Frenchies have that the Poles and the Czechs do not? I wonder. Oh, that's right - you pointed it out!

Have you already forgotten the 25.4 GWe hydro, vs 63.2 GWe, Nuclear ??

That's what I was looking for. France has 25.4GWe of hydro, as you pointed out! I wonder if having possibly Terawatt/hours of potential storage in all those hydropower dams might have something to do with France being able to profit from subsidised but unreliable green energy while Poland the Czechs presumably don't have this and seem to be panicked by the danger caused by the same factors?

Hydro is dispatchable upon demand, unlike nuclear which needs a lot of advance notice, if you don't have hydro you'll need fossil fuel.

See above.

and this week they've imported an average of 3GW from Germany
http://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/eco2mix-echanges-commerciaux-en

And they've exported much more than that.

Weather is predicable.

(Citation needed)

Weather forecasting is very complicated (in fact the problem was the basis for Chaos Theory). The UK Met Office is spending nearly £100,000,000 on a super-computer that may make their sometimes way off forecasts just a little bit better.

So shedding demand could easily more than match Turlough Hill for short periods.

How short? And to what specific ends? How would this be accomplished? Would immersions, electric heaters etc have to be fitted with devices? How much would all this cost? Where would they get their instructions to turn off?

Actually it's more Norway we've to be nice to.

Wrong again, excluding shale reserves, Russia has by far the greatest proves reserves. Norway is not even in the Top 10.

The top 3 are Russia, Iran and Qatar. All hellholes with abominable human rights records and mostly with a very nasty and aggressive world view. Anything that makes us unnecessarily reliant on these entities is inexcusable.

Even Lithuania is building a terminal so they can import LNG from the US.

Lithuania is scared, and it has good reason to be. Russia has fouled up most of its neighbors with aggressive wars and support for corrupt politicians (Bashar Al-Assad, the last leader of Ukraine) who keep their countries impoverished but within Moscows sphere of influence.

Most of their justification is the Russian colonists Stalin sent to those countries in attempt to extermine those nationalities. Ukraine and the Baltic bloc were all badly affected and all now have sizeable Russian populations who are often disloyal and are used by the Kremlin to justify doing whatever the hell it wants to those countries. So the Lithuanians are building an LNG terminal. Great. But it remains to be seen how much good it will do them.

The UK already do this. Thanks too to renewables the EU is weaning itself off Russian gas.

Wrong again, on both counts.
As of 2012, the 2nd largest source of UK gas was LNG imports from Qatar. Renewables are not weaning the EU off Russian gas, they're doing the opposite, as the experience of France vs. Poland/Czech showed above when dealing with dumped exports from Germany, more fast dispatchable plant is required.

Perhaps the common point of view is evidence based ?

It's been the same since the 1970s and possibly earlier. Since you're all the time talking about how renewables are getting better, continuously over time, they must have been really crap back in '78. Yet the same views were being advocated back then by people who I maintain had similar ideologies.

djpbarry wrote: »

Are they a silver bullet? No, I doubt it. But why does everything that can’t supply 100% of energy needs have to be dismissed as impractical?

I'm merely suggesting that they have to be done on a large scale, especially if the plan is to use more of the resource. If a system of making gas is only going to produce at artisan levels, what's the point?

Oil is only slightly more useful in transport? Then why aren’t we seeing gas-powered cars all over the place?

Inertia. Oil has first movers advantage. All the cars are oil powered, so all the fuel stations sell fuel oil (mainly petrol and diesel). A different fuel would need to be radically better to break this cycle. But gas is usable, some people have converted their cars for LNG/CNG and the like, and T. Boone Pickens, American oil-man, in his "Pickens Plan" (which has the support of the Sierra Club BTW) proposes using windmills to displace natural gas from electricity which could in turn be used in new cars, reducing America's requirement for oil.

Needless to say I think the plan is questionable in parts (especially the part about using windmills instead of gas for electricity

), expensive and impractical, except the bit about gas in cars which could actually work.

It really doesn’t and besides, it’s not going to happen – Russia needs income from gas exports far more than Europe needs Russian gas. Putin is not holding us to ransom like you think he is.

I think the conversation between myself and the Captain has shown that potentially both nuclear and renewables have a considerable requirement for quickly dispatchable power backups, though I still tend to believe it's worse where renewables are concerned. France and Norway are nicely set up with their hydropower dams, but for the rest of us, the power system requires gas. And lots of it. And yes, Putin is a warmongering imperialist maniac.

This is a meaningless statement? Have you got some figures to support it?

Just common logic. Spending a small amount extra on non-fossil energy is something I have no problem with. The figures earlier saying 9.25p/kwh were double the wholesale rate. That means that Hinkley C will be about 4.6p/kwh more expensive than fossil fuel fired power stations. That's not really bad. But of course it's just one plant producing a fraction of UK needs, so it won't add that much to electricity bills on its own.

Again, you seem to be stating this as a belief rather than a demonstrable fact? What are you basing this on?

Accepting previously quoted figures suggesting that Hinkley C would be a few pence per kwh more expensive than fossil fuels, but comparing such a cost to what bill payers in Germany and Denmark must pay in Green taxes, it seems like good value to me. It really is very simple. People in Germany and Denmark pay stupid amounts of money for electricity, comparable only to remote Pacific islands, and I maintain that this reflects the cost of Green policies and are a sign of a policy that has failed, especially when said policies also cause a raft of other problems, some of which I touched on above.

Capt'n Midnight · 14-04-2015 2:03am

SeanW wrote: »

But it is not absolute. Even if you actually need all that hydro to cooperate with nuclear, gas is not absolutely required. Again, for the Nth time, France. Does. Not. Rely. On. Gas. Period.

Yawn.

Of course France doesn't need Gas. The GWe of their Hydro is 40% that of nuclear. AND they have neighbours who will happily import and export to load balance. Yes they get 75% of power from nuclear but there is a whole continent underpinning it.

Winter, yes, like Winter 2010? Don't know if you were in Ireland for this, but it was nasty. My family effectively did not have a Christmas that year because the temperature went down to -17C. Then our central heating failed, and we had to thrown on everything electric to stay alive.

So if we had nuclear the central heating wouldn't have failed ??

Excluding Renewables, Interconnectors and pumped storage, how much dispatchable generation do we have on this Island ?
And how does it compare to Peak demand ?? (which wasn't in Jan or Dec 2010 BTW)
We have surplus generation. It's not an issue, wasn't an issue in 2010 not even remotely.

Again this was all explained in the link I gave above, but here's another source for it: http://www.praguepost.cz/opinion/15258-region-german-green-energy-push-needs-a-rethink.html

An opinion piece from 2013 vs. fact that 15GW just dropped off the grid last month and didn't cause problems. For me evidence based wins every time.

Weather forecasting is very complicated

And that's why it takes a decade to get an extra day forecast. But eirgrid publish the forecasts and the measurements. Throw the numbers in a spreadsheet, it's not rocket science. One crevat though our grid can only accept 50% un-synchronised generators so you have to take that into account when comparing predictions.

How short? And to what specific ends? How would this be accomplished? Would immersions, electric heaters etc have to be fitted with devices? How much would all this cost? Where would they get their instructions to turn off?

The "instructions" come from the changes in the 50Hz mains frequency. No network control or connection needed. Simply reduce demand if freq slows down. http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/#all/frequency
As for the cost , you can get microcontroller boards with ADC and USB posted to your door for €1.40. Buying in bulk is a lot cheaper

I think the conversation between myself and the Captain has shown that potentially both nuclear and renewables have a considerable requirement for quickly dispatchable power backups, though I still tend to believe it's worse where renewables are concerned

I'm tired of posting links where nuclear plants have gone off line without warning for extended periods.

If we get a warm summer I predict the Jellyfish will strike again.

Care to predict the chances that the wind forecast two days on eirgrid's site will different to the actual wind by more than the power of a reactor ? ( excluding the grid stability limits that restrict actual wind usage )

Just common logic. Spending a small amount extra on non-fossil energy is something I have no problem with. The figures earlier saying 9.25p/kwh were double the wholesale rate. That means that Hinkley C will be about 4.6p/kwh more expensive than fossil fuel fired power stations. That's not really bad. But of course it's just one plant producing a fraction of UK needs, so it won't add that much to electricity bills on its own.

A , DOUBLE is not a small amount extra.

B , nuclear can only supply base load. Fossil can provide peaking power which can command many multiples of the base load price.

C, so you are saying it's OK to subsidise ONE plant because it won't add much ?
Care to predict to the nearest £10Bn how much the total Hinkey C subsidies will cost over it's life ??

djpbarry · 14-04-2015 10:19am

SeanW wrote: »

Inertia. Oil has first movers advantage. All the cars are oil powered, so all the fuel stations sell fuel oil (mainly petrol and diesel). A different fuel would need to be radically better to break this cycle.

Gas has been used for far longer than oil has, but oil was still the preferred choice for automobiles because it’s liquid.

SeanW wrote: »

I think the conversation between myself and the Captain has shown that potentially both nuclear and renewables have a considerable requirement for quickly dispatchable power backups, though I still tend to believe it's worse where renewables are concerned.

But you continue to avoid demonstrating why. You’re quick to dismiss advocates of renewable energy as “environmental lefties”, but the reality is your own support for nuclear seems to be based on little more than personal beliefs.

SeanW wrote: »

Just common logic.

That’s not a very convincing economic argument.

SeanW wrote: »

Spending a small amount extra on non-fossil energy is something I have no problem with. The figures earlier saying 9.25p/kwh were double the wholesale rate. That means that Hinkley C will be about 4.6p/kwh more expensive than fossil fuel fired power stations. That's not really bad.

100% more expensive than the going rate is “not that bad”?!? Are you kidding? Why is it more expensive at all? You keep telling us nuclear is amazing, yet here we have a situation where the operators of a new facility have to be guaranteed twice the going rate, adjusted for inflation, to convince them to build the facility.

SeanW wrote: »

Accepting previously quoted figures suggesting that Hinkley C would be a few pence per kwh more expensive than fossil fuels, but comparing such a cost to what bill payers in Germany and Denmark must pay in Green taxes…

You keep citing Denmark and Germany as support for your argument that renewables are substantially more expensive to support than nuclear. Ignoring for a moment that retail prices for electricity are heavily influenced by factors other than wholesale prices, explain to me why the operators of a nuclear plant in the UK are being guaranteed twice the going rate for power produced at a time when subsidies for renewables are largely being phased out? Stop avoiding the question. Give me a coherent economic explanation of why it is necessary to provide such massive subsidies for nuclear, bearing in mind that you keep telling us it’s wonderfully cheap?

Birdnuts · 14-04-2015 10:26am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Yawn.

Excluding Renewables, Interconnectors and pumped storage, how much dispatchable generation do we have on this Island ?
And how does it compare to Peak demand ?? (which wasn't in Jan or Dec 2010 BTW)
We have surplus generation. It's not an issue, wasn't an issue in 2010 not even remotely.

If we have surplus generation then why do we continue to build wind farms all over the country that supply little if any usefull power in those conditions. In those conditions it is much more likely we will be importing nuclear and other conventional power sources from the UK and near continent which also experienced those severe weather conditions at the time. All the more reason to review our current crazy energy policies that saw this government sell-off a big chunk of our gas power generation on the cheap. I'd also like your defination of "peak demand" if it isn't on cold, dark winter evenings around the Christmas period when these conditions occured.

PS: We have a tiny amount of pumped storage and that is all we will ever have given the geography needed for it. HP conditions in winter and spring can last for weeks and extend over much of western Europe.

Birdnuts · 14-04-2015 10:46am

djpbarry wrote: »

You keep citing Denmark and Germany as support for your argument that renewables are substantially more expensive to support than nuclear. Ignoring for a moment that retail prices for electricity are heavily influenced by factors other than wholesale prices,?

Green taxes ,subsidies and the cost of wind related pylon sprawl and back up are the main drivers - same in the US. Its a common theme on such grids

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/10/17/electricity-prices-soaring-in-top-10-wind-power-states/

djpbarry · 14-04-2015 1:27pm

Birdnuts wrote: »

If we have surplus generation then why do we continue to build wind farms all over the country...

To cut down on fossil fuel consumption.

Birdnuts wrote: »

In those conditions it is much more likely we will be importing nuclear and other conventional power sources from the UK and near continent which also experienced those severe weather conditions at the time.

Which is why interconnection is a good idea.

Birdnuts wrote: »

Green taxes ,subsidies and the cost of wind related pylon sprawl and back up are the main drivers - same in the US. Its a common theme on such grids

What’s the difference between “green taxes” and “subsidies”? Are they not the same thing? And aren’t they paying for the upfront capital costs of wind power, or “pylon sprawl” as you call it? So aren’t those three things essentially one thing? And don’t those costs essentially disappear once the generation capacity is installed? And for the umpteenth time, can anyone name one form of electricity generation that does not require “back-up”?

Birdnuts wrote: »

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/10/17/electricity-prices-soaring-in-top-10-wind-power-states/

What a wonderfully balanced article.

Birdnuts · 14-04-2015 4:38pm

Far cheaper and more effective to put money into energy saving measures and or converting existing peat/coal stations to gas or sustaineable biomass(forestry/agri waste). The government dances to the wind industries tune in this country far too much and evidence from Germany and elsewhere strongly suggests wind is a rather ineffective and expensive way to reduce emmissions. Wind power needs far more back up too as it is totally non-dispatcheable at time of peak demand, so building ever more across the country, including areas like the midlands makes no sense at all.

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21608646-wind-and-solar-power-are-even-more-expensive-commonly-thought-sun-wind-and

Secondly it is the energy consumer that pays for wind related pylon infrastructure and maintainance. the wind developer only pays for the basic connection of a wind farm to the local grid. Eirgrid wants to spend many billions on the likes of Gridwest to allow more windfarms sprawl across North Mayo. Its all over their literature they send people through the post there, I got some myself recently at my address in Erris.

Thirdly, again you dismiss posters or links that don't conform to your own views on the matter. Is this forum meant for debate or some kind of Eamon Ryan fanpage??

PS: Check out SEAI latest wind atlas. Appears to seriously downgrade the wind potential of the country. Another reason to stop throwing good money after bad at this.

Markcheese · 14-04-2015 4:46pm

If your wind turbines are spinning (and the wind forecast is good) the system needs x amount of spinning reserve - (I assume not the entire amount being produced )
I assume if the winds not predicted to blow much ,the plants that would have been spinning reserve are now producing - but would also need other plants spinning ?
Which is grand if your talking summer, low demand across the system - but what about around Xmas -and massive demand - how much extra installed capacity is there in the system (including wind) to cope with a calm day at peak demand -

GB's cheap Chinese nuclear plant -v- solar

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