Energy costs. Oh dear.......

[Tedx]

Biomass is fossil fuel - wood pellets .

Ah but you see, it's not a fossil fuel.

[servodude]

Biomass is fossil fuel - wood pellets .

Ah but you see, it's not a fossil fuel.

Not yet - give it time (and pressure)

[Tedx]

The National Grid has confirmed wind generated a record 21.6 gigawatts of electricity on Tuesday evening - providing just over half of the UK's power needs.

Various sources.

[Tedx]

I think SUnak is meeting Sturg tomorrow and the Cromarty Firth Green Freeport is expected to be (finally) jointly announced. Rosyth Green Freeport is also expected to win. Pity Aberdeen was unsuccessful.

There's some big offshore wind projects coming. It can't happen too soon imho

[DrFfybes]

"Wind energy is currently supplying almost half of the UK's energy meaning ..." you have confused electrical generation with energy supply.

Exactly. All this green elecricity is good, but it is a drop in thenocean if we want to get off gas.

My energy bill has just come through - we've used 310kWh of electricity which is a pretty constant 10-11 kWh/day all year round, and 3200kWh of gas in the last 4 weeks alone. Over the year we will hit 20,000 kWh of gas and 3800kWh of electricity. Plus car fuel, say 10,000 miles so another 3500kWh, total energy needs about 27000 kWh

So whilst getting 50% of my electricity from wind is good news, at 1900kWh/annum that is going to be nearer 7% of my energy over a year, and less than 5% of it in winter.

Paul

BTW - our energy cost for the last 4 weeks is pretty much double that of a year ago, but we have used about 15% less gas.

[AF62]

My energy bill has just come through - we've used 310kWh of electricity which is a pretty constant 10-11 kWh/day all year round, and 3200kWh of gas in the last 4 weeks alone. Over the year we will hit 20,000 kWh of gas and 3800kWh of electricity. Plus car fuel, say 10,000 miles so another 3500kWh, total energy needs about 27000 kWh

Our energy consumption over the last four weeks has been about 4,500kWh.

Fortunately only 100kWh was electricity and 400kWh of gas, and roughly 4,000kWh was the jet fuel needed to fly the two of us somewhere sunny for the month.

Something odd in this world that 400kWh of gas costs around £40, but 4,000kWh of avtur (plus an aircraft and the crew to fly it) costs £100.

[Lootman]

Something odd in this world that 400kWh of gas costs around £40, but 4,000kWh of avtur (plus an aircraft and the crew to fly it) costs £100.

Assuming that there were 200 people on that flight then shouldn't that £100 airfare be multiplied by 200?

The aviation fuel that plane burns would hardly change if you, your wife and your bags had missed the flight. Getting a 40,000 kg Boeing 737 to 40,000 feet is always going to be the main driver of fuel burn.

My wife and I have a flight booked to LAX soon, in first class on a 4-engined A380. Now that will burn some fuel! The fare was 40 times yours and more than our annual domestic energy bill.

[Tedx]

Worth checking out the Wiki page for constructed, in construction and planned UK offshore windfarms

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... ed_Kingdom

Some of the planned ones are monstrous. And it's also worth considering how much more turbine development will be made in the coming years. These things could be even more powerful.

Repowering/upgrading the older ones might also be an viable option in years to come.

[AF62]

Something odd in this world that 400kWh of gas costs around £40, but 4,000kWh of avtur (plus an aircraft and the crew to fly it) costs £100.

Assuming that there were 200 people on that flight then shouldn't that £100 airfare be multiplied by 200?

£100 each - don’t be silly! It was £50 each for the 5,000km return flight.

[Itsallaguess]

An interesting new report highlighting that during 2022, Britain swung from being a net-importer of electricity to being a net-exporter for the first time in 44 years -

[Last year] Britain saw a 4% drop in electricity demand from 2021 – that’s the third largest year-on-year reduction after 2008 (caused by the shock of the global financial crash) and pandemic-affected 2020. It takes Britain’s overall electricity demand back to values last seen in the 1980s, an 18% reduction from its peak in 2005.

This time two years ago, we stated that COVID lockdowns meant electricity demand would never be so low again. We got it wrong. In fact, 2022 was the lowest year by some margin (2% lower than 2020). We believe the main factors for this drop were the significant increase in prices, the wider media attention on this, and the wider cost of living crisis.

Since 1978, Britain has always used these cables to import more electricity than it exported over a given year. Over the past decade, an average of 5% of the country’s electricity has been imported, helping to reduce the amount it needed to generate itself. However, net imports swung to net exports in 2022 for the first time in 44 years.

Looking at the individual interconnectors, it was the link to France that caused this significant change. In 2021, there were 14 terawatt-hours (TWh) of net imports from France whereas in 2022, there were 10 TWh to France. This is an enormous swing of 24 TWh from a single point of connection, and represents the largest annual change in a single electricity source since the shift from coal to gas in 2015/16. To put 24 TWh in context, this is broadly similar to the amount of electricity Scotland uses each year, or the annual output from Britain’s onshore wind generation.

So what happened?

Over the past year, French nuclear power stations had many maintenance problems which led to significant reductions in their output. In August, 57% of the country’s generation capacity was not being used. Despite a modest recovery, as of January 2023, 15 of its 56 reactors were closed for repairs. All this meant nuclear-reliant France had to import electricity from neighbouring countries.

This led to more electricity being generated in Britain than would otherwise have been the case, to satisfy the additional demand from France. So while Britain’s renewable generation was at a record level, its fossil fuel generation was also higher than in the previous year. Without the problems in France, 2022 could have been the first year that Britain’s wind, solar and hydro combined generated more electricity than its fossil fuels – a milestone that will happen anyway over the next couple of years.

https://theconversation.com/amp/britain ... ars-197506

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[funduffer]

al output from Britain’s onshore wind generation.

So what happened?

Over the past year, French nuclear power stations had many maintenance problems which led to significant reductions in their output. In August, 57% of the country’s generation capacity was not being used. Despite a modest recovery, as of January 2023, 15 of its 56 reactors were closed for repairs. All this meant nuclear-reliant France had to import electricity from neighbouring countries.

This led to more electricity being generated in Britain than would otherwise have been the case, to satisfy the additional demand from France. So while Britain’s renewable generation was at a record level, its fossil fuel generation was also higher than in the previous year. Without the problems in France, 2022 could have been the first year that Britain’s wind, solar and hydro combined generated more electricity than its fossil fuels – a milestone that will happen anyway over the next couple of years.[/i]

https://theconversation.com/amp/britain ... ars-197506

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Interesting, but likely a "one-off", due to the maintenance on the French nuclear power stations last summer.

We seem to have swung back to French power imports in the last month or so.

https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

(see bottom RH graph).

FD

[pje16]

https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
(see bottom RH graph).
FD

Who seem to have a pretty sick sense of humour if you are thinking of donating.
https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/donate.html

[Tedx]

If by 2030, we really do have 50GW of offshore wind, then a poor day might be 20GW and a good day might be 80GW+

What are we going to do with it all?

[Howard]

If by 2030, we really do have 50GW of offshore wind, then a poor day might be 20GW and a good day might be 80GW+

What are we going to do with it all?

I'm trying to use it with my ASHP but it is so economical it's a losing battle.

regards

Howard

[Tedx]

If by 2030, we really do have 50GW of offshore wind, then a poor day might be 20GW and a good day might be 80GW+

What are we going to do with it all?

I'm trying to use it with my ASHP but it is so economical it's a losing battle.

regards

Howard

Well that's my point really. We're closing the gap from both ends. More renewable energy production at one end and more low energy appliances at the other end. We're going to need ideas to mop up all that energy.

I can't see large scale storage working in the near term. Even hydro stores pretty small amounts in the big picture of things. So perhaps it needs broken down to a smaller scale. Maybe every home / business needs an energy storage device? Storage heaters I guess. Cars. Batteries? A compressed air tank? Something else?

[1nvest]

I'm trying to use it with my ASHP but it is so economical it's a losing battle.

regards

Howard

Well that's my point really. We're closing the gap from both ends. More renewable energy production at one end and more low energy appliances at the other end. We're going to need ideas to mop up all that energy.

I can't see large scale storage working in the near term. Even hydro stores pretty small amounts in the big picture of things. So perhaps it needs broken down to a smaller scale. Maybe every home / business needs an energy storage device? Storage heaters I guess. Cars. Batteries? A compressed air tank? Something else?

Lifting/railing a heavy weight/train upwards using surplus input energy, that's released to generate output energy - sounds a simple/clean/friendly choice. I believe there are plans for such a 50 MW storage system for Nevada/California.

... Googling ... https://www.railway.supply/en/ares-grav ... e-problem/

Energy grids fluctuate throughout the day as demand and production increase and decrease. Usually, during peak hours, the demand for electricity is close to or exceeds the production capacity at that time. During off-hours, generally in the night, production capacity far exceeds what is being drawn from the grid. This results in a natural unsteadiness to the energy grid, and experts have been experimenting with ways to make sure that the lights always stay on.
.
.
the Advanced Rail Energy Storage System, or ARES for short.

This technology is essentially a land-based train that takes excess electrical energy and stores it through potential energy gained in large train masses.
.
.
the company claims an 80 percent efficiency rate of energy input to energy output through storage. Each car can deliver constant power for up to 8 hours.
.
.
Nevada’s electrical grid may be stabilized by a fleet of automated trains weighing 300 tons each. The company has specifically designed the system to work best on a grade of 7.2%. This allows the best transfer of energy from potential to kinetic while also allowing the trains to maintain stability.

When each 300-ton train moves down the slope, it can provide 50MW of power to help stabilize the grid. In total, the track for the Nevada system will stretch 9.2 kilometers through the desert with an elevation differential of 640 meters (2100 feet).

I guess that could be linked into tidal energy as well. Tide comes in, water weighs a lot and depresses a hydraulic pump that drags/lifts trains/weights upwards, where they're locked, and released as required to travel downwards to generate electricity as demand rises.

[Tedx]

I was just watching the latest episode of Undecided on YouTube about using bricks/rocks/sand to store excess renewable energy as heat in large community storage 'batteries '

Very cheap to make, no degradation & can store heat between 100-1500 degrees for days.

Ive often thought of our harbours. Since the death of the local fishing fleet, most of these harbours have little more than a few pleasure boats in them. These harbours are large and expensive to maintain.

Put a retractable barrier across the entrance to the harbour and perhaps use renewables to pump the remaining water out at low tide and you have a battery of sorts.

And there are loads of these little harbours all around the UK.

Or am I mental?

[Tedx]

U.S. approves design for NuScale small modular nuclear reactor

WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. nuclear power regulator has certified the design for the NuScale Power Corp's (SMR.N) small modular reactor, the first such approval in the country for the next generation technology.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/01/u ... actor.html

[Tedx]

The transition to a greener economy is worth £71bn and has brought jobs and investment to parts of the UK experiencing industrial decline.

Those are the key findings of a new report written by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

The drive to reach net zero emissions involves more than 20,000 businesses, it calculates.

Some 840,000 jobs are linked to sectors ranging from renewable energy to waste management, it adds.

This has to be where the UK has to go all in on. The propest prospect of thousands of high quality jobs around the UK as well as our energy independence means that, to me at least, it's a no brainer. And none of it is particularly new technology.

Nearly 24gw from renewables and another 4.8 from nukes.

https://grid.iamkate.com/


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64440827

[Tedx]

Electric wallpaper anyone?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64402524