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From January 2016, another nuclear power station goes off line, closed forever never to produce power, thankfully, and with planned outages of other stations, and recent closure of Ironbridge and others we are heading for a power shortage according to media reports.
While off the coast of wirral and norht wales we have lots of lovely wind turbines, a huge solar park at Toyota in deeside and a few coal and biomass power stations locally.
Discuss.
At this point anything is
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The UK needs to build stuff, but there will be short term pain because successive people have not made decisions.
Build nuclear for baseload use renewables for the rest
Build nuclear for baseload use renewables for the rest
All fine and dandy until you conclude that renewables aren't that good at peak shaving (tidal/hydro excepted).
What we need is a bit less squeemishness about local environmental consequences and a few more big dams in Wales or the highlands.
In the short term throw up some cheap CCGT's to deal with the peaks.
Lol plan A would be all nuclear, the renewables are just to appease the rest
Everybody is frightened of making a decision, airports, motorways, power stations, railways, it all takes years to decide on anything and mean time our infrastructure just gets more and more out of date,
turn off STW
Perhaps some proper outages will make people realise that they ought to be using less, besides wondering how to generate more?
Start getting your solar PV fitted and your house set up for no electricity.
This power shortage issue has been predicted for at least 15 years. Various governments have not taken action due to protests from vested interest or another, not least the narrow minded general public. We all want a power supply but we don't want a wind farm, nuclear plant, solar farm, waste to energy plant, biodigester, Biomass plant, coal fire power station, gas fired power station, water mill and anything else that keeps the computers burning.
If it were me I'd have spent the last 10 years allowing all the micro generation possible rather than the diesel generators (and gas) that have just been sanctioned to take up the power gap in 2019/20.
Onshore wind is OK.
Offshore wind too expensive.
Go nuclear with hydro and tidal to top it up. River Severn Barrage would be a good start.
Just import it from elsewhere, or if it gets bad then the National Grid will tell some heavy usage industries to shut down.
There doesn't seem to have been much of a strategic energy policy in the UK for decades, that won't change until the lights go out IMO, as no one wants power stations situated near them, so they never get built.
Just on the Ironbridge Power Station closure..
I lived there for years, love the place.
In a recent consultation on the closure and environmental impacts, the AONB board ( and World Heritage Site Board) issued out a survey on whether the towers should be pulled down and the site returned to nature.
The overwhelming response was to keep the towers up and the rest of the site cleared and returned to nature..
For some reason (and I agree) the towers form an integral part of the valley, almost iconic.
As for the power shortfall, all I ask is you turn your TV and Kettle off when I need the power.
Cheers 😉
Thorium reactors...
[url= http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/01/16/thorium-future-nuclear-energy/ ]Thorium reactors[/url]
mattyfez - Member
Thorium reactors...
See thats lovely, it's a great idea. Got any plans that we can build tomorrow? See this is where we have been for too many years. Lets try this, lets try that why not the other....
Stuff needs doing today.
Part of the solution is not to keep thinking big power generation but a mix of smaller and local power generation. Have a look at what the Brighton Energy Coop is doing, this can be copied in every city town and village all over the country. Big power into the national grid is very wasteful of the power generated, though we need it we need to get ourselves closer to what we need and realise how valuable a commodity electricity is. A change in habits of when to run various items like dishwashers, washing machines etc if we used them on a windy day and we could see or were aware that power was coming from the windmill down the road.
I know I'm being a bit "in perfect world" but this sort of thing is done in other European and Scandinavian countries as well as on or two Scottish Islands.
Start getting your solar PV fitted and your house set up for no electricity.
Great, loads of electricity in the middle of the day, **** all in the evening when I get home. They don't 'generate all your own electricity' as the marketing puts it, they generate electricity for someone else, and then a coal fired power station runs your TV and heating in the evening.
It's not the worst idea ever, but people only do it because subsidies massively distorted the market. If it were actually traded on the market with the rest of the electricity it would be worth peanuts because you have no idea if you'll have any to sell next month.
There's actually farmers running gas powered generators feeding into the grid making money by being able to meet peaks in demand when the electricity is worth more than the gas required to run them. They then use the exhaust fumes and rejected heat to keep poly tunnels warm and photosynthesis rates high.
Lol plan A would be all nuclear,
Until when? - theres know recoverable uranium to last about 90 years at the current rate of consumption - if we increase the amount of power we produce with nuclear then we're going to get to our next fuel crisis really very quickly indeed. Build too many and the useful life on new reactors will be shorter than the time it takes to decommission them.
So whats 'plan A part two'? The plan for power after we've exhausted nuclear but still have the costs of cleaning it up?
Until when?
From January 2016, another nuclear power station goes off line, closed forever never to produce power, thankfully, and with planned outages of other stations, and recent closure of Ironbridge and others we are heading for a power shortage according to media reports.
So a 40-50 year plan A isn't a bad idea is it? That should be enough time to get some solid stuff worked out. I love the idea of long term thinking, problem is we have been engaged in long term thinking with no doing.
You could probably reduce peak demand by 20% if we introduced variable rate pricing on an hourly basis and get people to adjust the time they do their washing / drying to when we have surples capacity.
Well Germany have just fired up a Fission reactor....
Big power into the national grid is very wasteful of the power generated
No it isn't, and it happens to allow the country to change as demands change, as you can route the electricity where needed.
Solar isn't great in large parts of the country. Last time I was in Ikea Glasgow they had charts showing the electricity their roof mounted solar power produced and it pretty much failed to run the shop almost everyday bar a few days in peak summer.
Have any of you seen the recent settlement information from the 2020 capacity market auction? The number of diesel engine peaking plants that have won 15 year contracts is staggering. If this continues THAT'S where our back-up power for the next 20 years is going to come from.
My view is that what's needed, (or rather has been needed for about the last 15 years) is R&D into large capacity storage so we really could move to a large percentage of renewables without fossils back up plant.
And I'm speaking as an engineer in one of the largest CCGT plants in the country.
mattyfez - Member
Thorium reactors...See thats lovely, it's a great idea. Got any plans that we can build tomorrow? See this is where we have been for too many years. Lets try this, lets try that why not the other....
Stuff needs doing today.
Well the Chinese and Indians are planning to have Thorium plants running within the next 10 years. We just have to hope they are successful or we'll be competing with billions of Chinese and Indians for the last reserves of fossil fuels.
Well Germany have just fired up a Fission reactor....
No they haven't. They've not even tried it out yet, and it won't ever produce any power.
Well Germany have just fired up a Fission reactor....
I think we're going to need the power for more than a millionth of a second.
Nuclear. I know there are some in the industry advocating a return to fast breeders (and no not for bombs).
Well Germany have just fired up a Fission reactor....
No they haven't. They've not even tried it out yet, and it won't ever produce any power.
One of my worst nightmares is that we end up with an energy policy based on the ideas of people who don't know the difference between fusion and fission.
Another important area for R&D is long distance transmission without significant power loss.
AEB and others have been developing some HV DC system that would allow power stations to be "shared" across timezones. You could then ensure that all the power can be used, rather than large power stations "ticking over" when nobody is using the power.
The UK has had a very successful Fusion research program for years, but it is still a long, long way away. ITER isn't even built yet.
hammyuk - Member
Well Germany have just fired up a Fission reactor...
no they haven't, they turned all their fission reactors off after Fukushima.
they're working on a Fusion reactor, but then, who isn't these days?
And as already mentioned, at best we're decades away from the first fusion power station. we need plans that we can start building today.
These are the current GB interconnectors:
2GW to France (IFA)
1GW to the Netherlands (BritNed)
500MW to Northern Ireland (Moyle)
500MW to the Republic of Ireland (East West)
Well the Chinese and Indians are planning to have Thorium plants running within the next 10 years. We just have to hope they are successful or we'll be competing with billions of Chinese and Indians for the last reserves of fossil fuels
So hoping for 10 years time, stuff needs to be started today to sort out the capacity problems.
footflaps - Member
You could probably reduce peak demand by 20% if we introduced variable rate pricing on an hourly basis and get people to adjust the time they do their washing / drying to when we have surplus capacity.
We do for big users, and we are into Triad warning season,
[i]URGENT
TRIAD WARNING ALERT
This is notification that we do anticipate there could be a triad half-hour during any of the following periods:
Date: 15/12/2015
Times: 16:30 - 17:30
Periods: 34 - 35
NEWS:
Forecast demand is anticipated to reach expected triad levels at this time of year
Period 34 – 49,744 MW (Transmission system demand forecast)
Period 34 – 48,493 MW (National demand forecast)
Period 35 – 50,066 MW (Transmission system demand forecast)
Period 35 – 48,860 MW (National demand forecast)
Commentary: Despite temperatures being above seasonal normal, national demand is set to be very high.[/i]
We can get up to 18 of theses warnings between the beginning of November & the end of February, of these 18 3 are for real and if your using big numbers during those times its very expensive around £35 Kw !!
We also get charged a higher distribution cost between 14:30-19:00 about £10,000 a month over the usual energy cost for that time.
Just for reference last months bill was £91,500
dragon - Member
Big power into the national grid is very wasteful of the power generated
No it isn't, and it happens to allow the country to change as demands change, as you can route the electricity where needed.
Sorry you are wrong have a read:
EFFICIENCY IN ELECTRICITY GENERATION - Eurelectric
www.eurelectric.org/Download/Download.aspx?DocumentID=13549
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/06/energy-green-politics
Just for reference last months bill was £91,500
Thats a lot of power for a house in cheshire to be using for christmas lights.
Obviously decimal point in wrong place 😳
also from a customer last week who works in turbines got me thinking about the whole energy shortage, even switched off nuclear power station take huge amounts of power just to stay safe, and Trawsfynydd and Wylva also supplied the night time power to pump water up hill at ELECTRIC MOUNTAIN, Dinorwig.
and we have 3 pumped storage facilities in north wales Stwlan, Dolgarrog, and Dinorwig
Why not just let the voltage on the grid drop as demand increases? Many countries have a mains voltage of 220V.
[quote=thisisnotaspoon ]What we need is a bit less squeemishness about local environmental consequences and a few more big dams in Wales or the highlands.
Yeah, let's not worry about known significant environmental consequences in order to make a tiny improvement to a different part of the environment. Where do you plan to put these big dams anyway? We simply don't have the natural hydro capacity to make a significant dent in our power requirements.
[quote=gobuchul ]River Severn Barrage would be [s]a good start.[/s] environmentally shit
Nor will big dams in Wales or a Severn barrage help at all with the current crisis - if they were even being pushed forwards now they wouldn't produce any power before the first of the new nuclear power stations. I'm far from against renewables, but the only ones which stack up are tidal (for which we have a huge capacity) and a smallish % of capacity through wind - which needs to be situated in the right places.
the only ones which stack up are tidal (for which we have a huge capacity)
So you don't think the Severn Barrage is a good idea but you want tidal?
By tidal I assume you mean the seabed turbines?
There is a massive flaw with seabed turbines, you need to install them in very high current areas, such as the Pentland Firth. You also need big construction vessels to install the huge machines.
Heavy offshore contsuction in high current areas is EXTREMELY difficult and very expensive.
It makes far more sense to use barrages and the power of gravity.
Yep, please explain why the Severn Barrage would be environmentally poo..
Loss of wetlands for migrating [url= http://www.wwt.org.uk/wetland-centres/slimbridge/ ]birds[/url]
Loss of scouring of a large part of the estuary requiring constant dredging.
Vast amount of embedded energy in the concrete and steel.
That's why tidal lagoons are the new plan.
That's why tidal lagoons are the new plan.
Like Czardiff Bay? Loads of practical problems. Cost and intermittent generation for starters.
http://euanmearns.com/a-trip-round-swansea-bay/
Loss of wetlands for migrating birds
Is it not possible to create an alternative location?
Loss of scouring of a large part of the estuary requiring constant dredging.
Not that difficult.
Vast amount of embedded energy in the concrete and steel.
The same issue as offshore wind but everyone loves that. You need concrete and steel to build any type of powerstation.
I'm hoping [url= http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/multi-billion-pound-plans-bridge-6905797 ]this solway firth tidal barrage/bridge (4 miles from my house) [/url]gets the green light as i'll be able to pop over to the lakes on my e-bike in the morning, have a play around and charge it up over lunch, play around some more then head home for tea 😀
Using tidal energy must be more efficient at generating electricity than relying on wind power, it may have a significant cost but it will also be beneficial for transport links as the A75 is in need of major upgrading.
Nuclear power, as in traditional reactors are the short term solution really.. Only problem is the UK isn't and hasn't invested in them over many parliamentary terms.. So we are basically screwed for cheap short to medium term energy.
And we are doing next to nothing in terms of long term safer solutions.
[b]Start getting your solar PV fitted and your house set up for no electricity.[/b]Great, loads of electricity in the middle of the day, **** all in the evening when I get home. They don't 'generate all your own electricity' as the marketing puts it, they generate electricity for someone else, and then a coal fired power station runs your TV and heating in the evening.
[url= https://www.teslamotors.com/en_GB/powerwall ]Tesla - Energy Storage for a Sustainable Home[/url]
[url= http://www.gizmag.com/nissan-used-leaf-batteries-energy-storage-system/38028/ ]Nissan to incorporate used Leaf batteries in stationary energy storage system[/url]
Energy efficiency. That reduces demand. It's a shame that really good, relatively cheap schemes like retro-fitting existing buildings are so unfashionable.
It's as if putting the nations energy supply into the hands of private business has failed to produce a long term energy solution even with incentives, subsidies and tax brakes.
If privatly owned energy companies are failing it is time for the industries to be [b]taken[/b] back and the public's needs and interests to be put before those of "the city".
I don't see how there can be any proper investment or strategic planning when the country has no ownership of the system. Currently all that can be done is to give the suppliers more money and hope they do the right thing with it, which is an idiotic hope.
+1
[quote=mrlebowski ]Yep, please explain why the Severn Barrage would be environmentally poo..
bindun, but huge permanent changes to the existing environment. Loss of lots of natural stuff. No, it's not that easy to replace wetlands for birds or to dredge. Of course you'd also lose one of this country's most significant natural phenomena.
For what are you selling that level of environmental damage? Thankfully sense has been seen and it no longer appears to be on the agenda.
Energy shortages will be meaningless by the time the food wars start. As for competing with China, how is a little place like us going to compete with vast Chinese armies.
But so many people keep on breeding like it all be fine, blindly adding to the problem.
thestabiliser - Member
turn off STW
I read STW as Severn Trent Water ??
Ex-employee 🙂
Psst......... heard the one about importing hydro derived power from Norway ?
Loss of wetlands for migrating birds
intertidal wetlands for migrating birds are ****ed anyway over the next 50-100 years...the rate of sea level rise will overwhelm them faster than the ecosystem can re-establish inland. Time to start making hard choices in environment/mitigation sphere.
What we need is a bit less squeemishness about local environmental consequences and a few more big dams in Wales or the highlands.
I don't see how that's going to help England.
Nothing more that I'd like than an off grid, low usage home (well insulated/passive vent) etc, it can be done. The modern day hippy will prevail.
project - Member
Just for reference last months bill was £91,500
Thats a lot of power for a house in cheshire to be using for christmas lights.Obviously decimal point in wrong place
No Crimbo lights here 😉
We are mid table for our sites, our Edinburgh mill is £125,000 a month & Corby £144,000
Where do you plan to put these big dams anyway?
Ooh, can I suggest somewhere I don't live or like to go?
[quote=gwaelod ]Loss of wetlands for migrating birds
intertidal wetlands for migrating birds are **** anyway over the next 50-100 years...the rate of sea level rise will overwhelm them faster than the ecosystem can re-establish inland. Time to start making hard choices in environment/mitigation sphere.
Yeah, so let's just **** them now and get it over and done with. How much of that sea level change would a Severn barrage prevent when we're making our hard environmental choices?
In my opinion we should:
*Invest in energy storage in particular pumped hydro
*Invest more in tidal and hydro
*Build some reactors along the lines of the IFR (we have a huge stockpile of plutonium so lets start burning it)
*Invest in fusion development (we are but we should do more)
However I'm not worried about the lights going out yet we are not at that point.
It is easy and quick to create wetlands and environments that attract wildlife and birds. Near where I live there are alot of areas that have been used for various mining and industrial activities like open cast mining and gravel pits. In less than 20 years these now disused industrial sites have mostly been converted to 'natural' wetlands and have very quickly and easily become attractive habitats for much British wildlife and even have attracted some breeds of bird that have not been seen in the UK for decades due to a decline and lack of suitable environments.
It's as if putting the nations energy supply into the hands of private business has failed to produce a long term energy solution even with incentives, subsidies and tax brakes.If privatly owned energy companies are failing it is time for the industries to be taken back and the public's needs and interests to be put before those of "the city".
Quite.
It's almost as if the general public doesn't even know that a lot of gas/elec/water infrastructure is foreign owned already. Then we just need the Chinese to build a nuclear power station, that'll mean that we'll be ok for a few more years.
Or as above, they invade as it'll be less hassle for them.
The power of NIMBY is not to be under estimated, I'm trying to get a ESCO project through the planning system, it seems that people are more interested in being able to speed down the local roads and a minor visual impact than decarbonising their energy use
Don't get me going on the Green Party and their energy and agricultural policies, absolutely no idea how they can get away with peddling stuff reminiscent of southeast Asian policies of the 70's
Surely all this talk of alternative methods for generating power to meet demand is treating the symptoms, not the cause?
If energy usage continues to rise at its current rate, is there [b]any[/b] source that can meet demand in the long term (short of the holy grail of fusion)?
Yes I get that we need to sort something out in the short term. What worries me is politicians’ tendency to stick a plaster on something and think they’ve sorted it and can now ignore it (for the rest of their lives / careers, at least). But we have to look at how much we’re using, too. Do we really need that dishwasher, 4th TV on standby, or electric leaf blower?
STW wood-burners For The Win!
We need to do both, steve - reduce consumption and find alternative ways of generating what we do need.
PS dishwashers nowadays are actually more efficient than washing by hand.
[quote=Pz_Steve ]But we have to look at how much we’re using, too. Do we really need that dishwasher, 4th TV on standby, or electric leaf blower?
No, but whilst those are nice headline items, none of them have a significant impact on usage (usage for a dishwasher is quite high, but IIRC it's more efficient in terms of total energy usage than doing dishes the conventional way). We need to look at where the significant savings are to be made - it doesn't have a big impact on leccy usage as most domestic heating in this country is gas, but one of the biggest ones is home insulation.
Got a smart meter today - not telling me anything I didn't broadly know, but it gives instantaneous leccy consumption with single Watt precision (for total usage below 1kW), so will have a play around and see what's using what at some point when everybody else is out. So far usage has been dominated by electric oven for tea.
Edit: writing while molgrips posted, pleased to see confirmation of the dishwasher thing.
+1 for taking electricity generation back into the public sector.
We've had a quarter-century of lack of investment and we're going to be paying a shedload for electricity to make good in years to come.
Thorium reactors are a fantastic idea, but no-one has bothered making one yet. The current government seems to want to cosy up to oil companies, hence the falloff in green energy investment.
but one of the biggest ones is home insulation.
Problem is the research shows that insulation saves little as people still run everything the same as before.
aking electricity generation back into the public sector.
If there is still no government strategy and pandering to NIMBYS then it will make no difference.
[quote=dragon ]Problem is the research shows that insulation saves little as people still run everything the same as before.
eh? I presume most people have ch on a thermostat - what happens if you run that the same as before but add insulation?
Orbiting solar mirrors. Kills 4 birds with 1 stone.
1) Very efficient energy supply
2) Can be used to reflect/manage sun contact with earth
3) Kickstarts a heavy space industry which will help get us out of the current lack of forward-looking and ambition
4) The microwave downlink can also be used to shoot the inevitable godzillas caused by nukerlar radiation.
There's only one minor downside- we don't know how to build them yet, or even if it'll work. But that doesn't seem to worry people when they talk about new nuclear.
Media predict blackouts
Tories push for shale gas
I smell a rat
A blanket ban on halogen spotlights would be a good start, and subsidise the LED replacements. Every house I've been in has at least 10 of the blasted things, usually 50W.
Pretty sure knocking 25 million * 10 * 50W off peak demand will help.
Tripling the price per kWh for some businesses outside of office hours also won't do any harm, and might actually encourage them to switch off their lights / computers overnight.
Educating anyone who turns up a thermostat when it's cold outside. It's a thermostat, it knows what to do. Leave it alone.
Asking everyone to drop the temperature of their hot water tanks by 5C if electrically heated.
Whopping fines for people who waste energy (of any description). Looking at you, Mr Sales Rep sitting in Tesco's car park to eat your lunch while leaving the engine running. Although the above might be punishment enough anyway. But minicabberists never switch their engines off while they're waiting, and a one-off fine of, say, £1000 against all of them will bring in some cash.
Psst......... heard the one about importing hydro derived power from Norway
This thread topic is a bit like groundhog day on here but yes the supergrid will hopefully be the future. I've worked on the Norwegian and Icelandic hvdc interconnector projects.
Offshore wind too expensive.
If you think offshore wind is too expensive wait til you see the price they are demanding for our new nuclear power
If you think offshore wind is too expensive wait til you see the price they are demanding for our new nuclear power
Offshore wind - £121 per MWh.
Hinkley Point nuclear - £92.50 per MWh.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22772441
On balance I prefer the cheaper nuclear option which also produces power when we want it, not when the wind happens to be blowing.
Pan-European lulls in the wind stretching from Spain in the South to Sweden in the North, Britain to the West and Germany in the East are commonplace. The combined wind capacity of these six countries is 97.9 GW. On occasions the output from this gigantic resource falls below 3 GW, a load of 2.9%. At present and for the foreseeable future the only way to mitigate for wind variability is back-up from other dispatchable power sources.
http://euanmearns.com/the-wind-in-spain-blows/
Statoil's Hywind project is interesting, if it works and it should, then offshore wind becomes more environmentally friendly and we can put turbines in deeper water.
[url=
video[/url]
Useful to see the actual production of electricity:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/historical-electricity-data-1920-to-2011
And we must be more efficient since the population has certainly risen since the late 70's but we seem to be using about the same - or maybe it's the reduction in heavy industry and/or 'inter-connectors?
bigjim - MemberOffshore wind too expensive.
If you think offshore wind is too expensive wait til you see the price they are demanding for our new nuclear power
the expensive new nuclear stuff is a stop-gap, using soon-to-be-oudated designs. it's expensive because we're over a barrel.
the future is (should be) small-modular reactors.
(each power station consists of dozens of small reactor cells, their manufacture can be productionised - reducing cost. Each module can be removed for maintenance / end of life - meaning decomissioning can be productionised. Watch this space)
It would be interesting if a mix of distributed power generation (e.g. local wind/water power for villages & houses) with a centralised mix of nuclear and offshore wind to provide the baseline.
It's been reported that in the southern US states the power companies are now seeing a drop in domestic demand.
b r - MemberAnd we must be more efficient since the population has certainly risen since the late 70's but we seem to be using about the same - or maybe it's the reduction in heavy industry and/or 'inter-connectors?
Maybe I'm misreading but we seem to be using almost 50% more? 225-ish twh in the late 70s, 325-ish in the early 2010s. (though, in decline since 2005)
We've been having these threads for years, the debate is always around how to produce more/enough power when the solution is to cut demand: domestic, commercial and industrial.
Three of us including a teenager, we're not on gas and our electricity meters installed in Sept 09 read:
Production: 20970kWh
Consumption: 11768kWh
consumed production: 0kWh
Insulate, solar PV, solar thermal, energy efficient appliances;
If you think offshore wind is too expensive wait til you see the price they are demanding for our new nuclear power
Offshore wind - £121 per MWh.Hinkley Point nuclear - £92.50 per MWh.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22772441
On balance I prefer the cheaper nuclear option which also produces power when we want it, not when the wind happens to be blowing.
But does that include the cost of the nuclear constabulary, armed police guards, transportation and storage of nuclear waste, along with decommisioning and public liability when it eventually goes bang, which one day it will.