Coal is back - cheap reliable power is needed
tinyurl.com/yc65dunz
I concur - that is what we need as you cannot rely on wind & gas alone.
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The story is paywalled but I can see it's drift.
It's an article by Christopher Booker, history grad and long time joke writer for Private Eye who now writes counter consensus stuff about science. A man who's stated beliefs include Asbestos being safe and passive smoking harmless.
What seems to have happened in Australia is that the ruling coalition has been subject to a coup by it's right wing who, like Booker, deny the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming.
Coal may be cheap in Australia, where it's hauled out of massive open cast sites but not necessarily so here.
We seem to do pretty well on gas and wind.
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Solar is generating 0.001GW at the moment. It's nearly 11pm. Isn't 0.001GW 100,000 Watts. Not bad for darkness.
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>> Solar is generating 0.001GW at the moment. It's nearly 11pm. Isn't 0.001GW 100,000 Watts. Not
>> bad for darkness.
I suspect thats noise
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>> I concur - that is what we need as you cannot rely on wind &
>> gas alone.
You are wrong, for a considerable portion of this year the UK has not used any coal generated power, and if it does its a very small percentage.
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We could have done quite well with solar this year if we had more farms. If this year's weather is repeated due to climate change we need more which in turn should slow down climate change.
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And technology to store the overcapacity.
At the moment, windfarms are paid not to produce if there is too much energy.
Store it in batteries, potential stores (like electric mountain) etc.
With enough batteries we could pretty much go green.
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Totally agree Zippy. We went to Chester on Thursday and there was a wind farm motionless near Elsemere Port. I thought they must be being paid to not generate electricity. With a storage facility for generated electric they could be more useful.... more useful than hydro electric like Dinorwig.
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>>for a considerable portion of this year the UK has not used any coal generated power,
In the depths of winter - when demand is highest there is NO WIND
Powercuts are guaranteed if we have a cold winter - no electricity = no central heating as the gas boiler needs power!
Longannet, near me, a coal burner produced 2,600MW - 24x7 x 50 years with 99.9%+ availability.
The bulldozers are there now.
UK North Sea is falling - tankers from USA/Qatar is no guarantee that there will be enough gas as UK gas storage is old & inadequate. At least with coal you could build bings in the summer & have 3 month buffer stock to see you through the winter.
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Winter will be a challenge for the grid, normally around January and February they kick in, providing around 4-5MGW. Especially when we have those foggy still days. I think by 2025, all the coal power stations will have shut. Not impossible to replace but I don't know what the plan is to replace that power.
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>>I don't know what the plan is to replace that power.
That's the problem - there is no plan.
Ageing nuclear sites - cracks? or even jelly fish (Torness closed down for days 2 years back due to lack of cooling water)
Really cold spell - then we are in the $h1t - old folk, young kids, no heating............. that's when the letters to the papers & Parliament as to why there is no investment in 24x7 generation - it's all gone wrong.
The CEGB & SSEB used to have plans for additional new stations to cover closures due to age - now we have windmills!
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>> >>I don't know what the plan is to replace that power.
>>
>> That's the problem - there is no plan.
I'm sure that national grid have come up with something, but whether it's public or not i don't know.
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Part of the problem is that the inquiry / protest cycle for new power stations whether nuclear or otherwise, is huge. then even when they are being built, there are long decision processes about how the will be funded, just google Hinkley Point C for some of the saga.
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Electricity consumption in the UK is falling, and has been for decades.
For short term power small quick start gas fired station stations are quick to build and dotted around the country, and are very flexible.
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>> In the depths of winter - when demand is highest there is NO WIND
>>
>> Powercuts are guaranteed if we have a cold winter - no electricity = no central
>> heating as the gas boiler needs power!
In the depths of winter, ie the beast from the east, we still did not use much coal.
>> Longannet, near me, a coal burner produced 2,600MW - 24x7 x 50 years with 99.9%+
>> availability.
>> The bulldozers are there now.
Because we dont have any coal, and its not needed.
>> UK North Sea is falling - tankers from USA/Qatar is no guarantee that there will
>> be enough gas as UK gas storage is old & inadequate. At least with coal
>> you could build bings in the summer & have 3 month buffer stock to see
>> you through the winter.
There is a gas pipeline from Europe. There are now few facilities to unload and stick coal from abroad.
The "we need coal" argument is a dead one,
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>> The "we need coal" argument is a dead one,
>>
but fondly remembered in East of Scotland (and other) mining areas with long memories
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>> >> The "we need coal" argument is a dead one,
>> >>
>> but fondly remembered in East of Scotland (and other) mining areas with long memories
>>
Then why did the Labour government shut so many pits?
More than the Tories did.
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>> Then why did the Labour government shut so many pits?
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>> More than the Tories did.
>>
Never let facts get in the way of political misremembering of history
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It doesn't really matter who closed the most, just whether or not it was the right thing to do.
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>> It doesn't really matter who closed the most, just whether or not it was the
>> right thing to do.
Have we missed them? are we significantly worse off?
Nope
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Mine is a Welsh mining family and they all believe the mines are better closed. They tell miserable stories of what it was like, even in modern times.
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>> Never let facts get in the way of political misremembering of history
Of course.
tinyurl.com/yb9yrjdr
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>> >> The "we need coal" argument is a dead one,
>> >>
>> but fondly remembered in East of Scotland (and other) mining areas with long memories
Fondly? Pneumoconiosis, Raynaud's syndrome, 300 a year killed in accidents, Bullying, Strikes, ripped of by solicitors in injury compensation claims, crooked union leaders.
Fantastic, I'd miss that too.
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Can't say I hang around the working mens' pubs since I hung my darts up 15 years ago, but none of the ex-miners wanted their sons to follow them.
Hard as f**k most of them but some pretty worn out specimens by the age of 65.
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>>The "we need coal" argument is a dead one,
UK gas is going south. Conoco close their operation in Southern North Sea next month - gas has run out & the gas processing plant in Louth, Lincolnshire is to be closed.
300-400 well paid jobs to disappear. The beauty of that South North Sea Gas was it was bought at a fixed price agreement with British Gas - buying gas from USA/Qatar can be at spot prices - prices rocket in a cold winter & the bills to you & I rocket.
"European gas" is mostly Russian gas - we do not want to be dependent on Putin et al.
We import Norwegian Gas but the rest of Europe is Russian - 70% of German gas comes from Russia via a pipeline.
50% of the coal burned in Longannet coal was imported from Sth America in the main. 50% was opencast mining in Scotland & hauled by train into the power station - they also burned human sewage & lots of other rubbish than needed to be got rid of.
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By 2030-35 we will be imported 70% of our gas needs. I wonder if we've a plan for the increased infrastructure we'll need in light of this. Energy security should get kicked up the priority list.
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Don't forget we need to import even more gas to charge all the electric cars the government want us to drive too. And you can't rely on anything solar because many are charged at night... or do we all need to also buy a Tesla wall battery/storage box?
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 3 Sep 18 at 19:20
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The petrol/diesel saved more than makes up for it, rtj.
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So where does the extra electricity to charge the cars come from? Are you saying burn fuel derived from petrol/diesel to create the electricity?
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>> So where does the extra electricity to charge the cars come from? Are you saying
>> burn fuel derived from petrol/diesel to create the electricity?
Let's see what happens. Decline in use of electricity for lighting and heating due LED and technology etc may give some slack to play with. Storage of wind/solar (battery banks?) and local fast start gas powered generation will provide some of what's needed.
Biomass and (as above) burning waste are other sustainable sources.
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www.racfoundation.org/motoring-faqs/mobility#a25
How many GWh of leccy could all that 327 billion miles of petrol/diesel produce, with the fumes not coming out at face/lung level?
www.racfoundation.org/data/volume-petrol-diesel-consumed-uk-over-time-by-year
~47 billion litres per year.
www.dieselserviceandsupply.com/Diesel_Fuel_Consumption.aspx
2MW diesel generator requires 71.1 x 3.785 (litres per US gallon) = 540 litres/hour
8760 hours/year, so 4.7 million litres/year to run 2MW constantly
= roughly 20GW could be produced shoving the nation's petrol/diesel into generators.
That's over half the generating power of all over our power stations.
And at a conservative 3 miles per kWh (after including losses in supply/charging), adds up to enough power to drive around 520 billion miles.
Which is more than 327 billion.
Of course that would presume the entire car/van/bus/lorry stock were EVs, but that'll be 20 years to deliver.
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I thought we were meant to be moving away from fossil fuel for cars. Now you're saying we'll burn the diesel to charge cars. What's the longer term plan? Personally I think it's mostly wind and nuclear.
Also how many MW diesel power plants does the UK have or plan to have? And current demand is 27GW... need a lot of 2MW generators then. Or did you mean GW?
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 4 Sep 18 at 00:03
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Can we also locate the many diesel power plants near you rather than me. Thanks.
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The above is just some fag-packet (though accurate) figures to show how current vehicle fuel use is a waste of resources.
Building more on-shore wind would be a good start - cheapest leccy generation there is at this time.
Improved efficiency is an ongoing process.
We can use the Brexit dividend to build Hinkley Point-D, E and F.
Last edited by: Lygonos on Tue 4 Sep 18 at 01:30
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If your post was about 2MW diesel generators then it was really pointless. And if you think diesel providing electric to charge cars is a good idea.... Doubly pointless post.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 4 Sep 18 at 02:51
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>> ..... your post was ....... really pointless.......... Doubly pointless post.
>>
Being up in the middle of the night doesn't make you any less grumpy, does it?
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>> If your post was about 2MW diesel generators then it was really pointless
As mentioned it was fag packet maths - I was using the 2MW stations to quantify efficiency.
Oil burning stations were a mainstay of electricity production last century - many were multifuel or changed use during their operating lives.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_Power_Station
The above had a generating capacity of 1,300MW.
EV use, of course, has a smoothing effect on grid use with comparatively more charging done at night when capacity is underutilised so the extra generating capacity required would be less than the raw Gigawatthourage of EV use.
We currently burn 150,000,000 litres of petrol and diesel every day in cars, vans and lorries.
Maybe there's a better way to do it.
Last edited by: Lygonos on Tue 4 Sep 18 at 07:49
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>> Coal is back - cheap reliable power is needed
>>
>> tinyurl.com/yc65dunz
>>
>> I concur - that is what we need as you cannot rely on wind &
>> gas alone.
>>
Teresa May does!
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I carried out some works recently for a chap who spent most of his life on rigs extracting Gas and oil. Apparently there was a huge store/intervention facility in the North Sea which has now been closed. He stated that it was utter madness.
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Australia ditching "green" - King Coal is back - Bromptonaut
