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GB's cheap Chinese nuclear plant -v- solar
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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.
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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/0 -
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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...0 -
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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
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 ?0 -
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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.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.0 -
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
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.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.As an industry that cannot survive without the state and likes to socialise its costs,Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Gas is a stepping stone.
Too bad that using gas for power generation raises 4 very, very serious problems that have been almost totally ignored.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.0 -
Too bad that using gas for power generation raises 4 very, very serious problems that have been almost totally ignored.
- 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).
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.
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.htmlNo, 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.0 -
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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.
I'd love to know the economics of carriage on the The National Grid etc. on those margains.0 -
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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.
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.0 -
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Capt'n Midnight wrote: »PSML
Nuclear flexible ???
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, retailThey 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).
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.
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.htmlNo, 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.
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.
Again, look at France. 90%+ non-fossil, and only 3.7% dependent on gas. All at sane electricity prices delivered to French householders.0 -
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Again, look at France. 90%+ non-fossil, and only 3.7% dependent on gas. All at sane electricity prices delivered to French householders.
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-idUSL6N0UT2F720150114EDF'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.0 -
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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 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.0 -
…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've seen a video of an experiment in Kassel in Germany, biogas comes from farming of corn and suchlike.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.Oil has the same opportunity costs for any selected use…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: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.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).0 -
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.
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?0 -
Capt'n Midnight wrote: »25.4 GWe hydro, vs 63.2 GWe, Nuclear.Load balancing with Germany, Belgium , the UK and Italy.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- 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.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.
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.There are several plants here in the UK producing biogas with slurry and sewage.All of which fall under the heading of “energy”. Gas is used for little else other than as a fuel.No, it doesn’t. Oil has infinitely more uses than gas does.Regardless, that still gives Russia a significant influence over the world’s ability to generate electricity from nuclear power.
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.- Any increase would be good value for money.
- Any increase would be moderate compared to the alternatives more commonly suggested.
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?0 -
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They export power to most of those countries, no?
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.
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 gridThis 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.
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-enDemand 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.0 -
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.0 -
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A large amount of electricity is wasted in the creation of heat.
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.0 -
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Update 07 April 2015
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Flamanville-EPR-vessel-anomalies-under-scrutiny-0704154.htmlAnomalies 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.pdfAreva 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%).0 -
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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?0 -
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?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.…if anything goes wrong with Russia and they cut off the taps, Western Europe goes dark in a short time.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.0 -
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.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.
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.
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 ??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-enWeather is predicable.
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.Actually it's more Norway we've to be nice to.
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.
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.
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 ?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?Oil is only slightly more useful in transport? Then why aren’t we seeing gas-powered cars all over the place?
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.This is a meaningless statement? Have you got some figures to support it?Again, you seem to be stating this as a belief rather than a demonstrable fact? What are you basing this on?0 -
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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.
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.
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.htmlWeather forecasting is very complicatedHow 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?
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 cheaperI 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
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.
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 ??0 -
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.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.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.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…0
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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.0 -
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/0 -
If we have surplus generation then why do we continue to build wind farms all over the country...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.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 grids0
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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.0 -
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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 -Slava ukraini 🇺🇦
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