Running 'nukes' in the red

I don't like Mr Putin but he does get an unfair press as far as gas supply to the West. There are two "markets" for gas. One is long term fix contract and Russia has thatwith the West. They have maintained the supply to the contracts. The other is the spot market which a free for all. The supply is short term and neither the customer nor the supplier needs to enter the market. Russia is quite within its rights to say no to the spot market. What happens between Russia and the neighbouring countries that it wants to influence is something else.

Little rant over.

JA

Edited By JA on 01/01/2022 17:35:13

Duncan I don’t mind if the fracked gas is sourced from under your house but I certainly don’t want it from under my house, the sites explored in Lancashire proved that the fracked gas wells can cause seismic disturbances, anyway Boris has decreed that gas will be a No go area, we will be all electric, can’t see that happening though. Dave W

A rather less eye-watering display of generating status here:

https://grid.iamkate.com

At the time of posting the only fossil fuel generation is from combined cycle gas.

Just received my joint gas and electric bill ,they weren't wrong about price rises,it made my glass eye water.This might mean I will have to get up and use my machines on economy seven to keep the cost down.

Frank

I'm not an expert on Nuclear Physics, and this is probably a case of "Famous Last Words", so I'm knocking on a hardwood table to be double sure!

As I understand it the PWR reactors will be fine. The AGR reactors are showing problems with the graphite moderators cracking. I've seen some photographs on the internet in the past, but I can't judge if the cracks are bad or really bad. Obviously they would probably be much better better without them, but they're old ladies now!

All I know is that the worst thing for them is thermal cycling. I'm fairly sure that the main enemy for these reactors is "turning on and off again". This seems to be a common solution for many modern systems but not nuclear reactors, I'm sure.

Probably better flat out all the time, than constantly changing the power output.

does anyone know.....?

lets say overnight all gas supplies dried up......

we have enough power supply, wind Nuc etc.....just dreaming......

can the grid actually carry the load without melting.....?

plus,

I'm sure a lot of houses would have to be rewired if that were the case....

might also be a good excuse for household to have 3 phase.....what a boon that would be to our hobby......

Probably better flat out all the time, than constantly changing the power output.

That is why nukes are Base Load generating stations. Thermal cycling of anything is less than ideal.

Its funny, really - power stations don't like being turned off and on too often, but computers (wonders of the age) often don't respond at all unless you turn them off and on again.

it must be because of the electricity, which seems to work best when used with points which are flat, brushes with no bristles, and current which relies on electrons moving backwards.

Cheers, Tim

The reason for running nukes at a steady load (not necessarily flat out) is a reactor physics consideration (which I am not qualified to speak on) not thermal cycling. Something to do with the reactor getting poisoned with short-lived daughter products, which is also the reason why it can be difficult to get them straight back on line, after an inadvertent trip.

The limitation with core life is if cracks in the graphite blocks that comprise the core spread too much, the deformation of the core may prevent the control rods dropping in to shut down, if required.

This limitation was known about, and referenced in the safety case, before approval for construction was given. The last 4 AGRs are/ were subject to very close examination of the core passages during shutdowns as a condition of the life-extensions granted by HMG.

I was sad to see the Longannet chimney come down. In 1970/1971 I used to run (well walk briskly) up it to sharpen my appetite for lunch. It helped with the Munro-bagging.The chimney that you saw was a wind-shield round 4 separate flues with a square spiral staircase (if that makes sense) around a goods lift up the middle.

Scotland has no coal-fired power stations left standing and an oil/gas industry at risk from the green lobby which presumably thinks that electricity comes from a sort of magic money tree.

Interesting times, but the nights are long and the weather can be inclement up here...

Don't be silly, it comes from the hydrogen mine.

Blaming the Green Lobby is naive in my opinion. A major threat to the oil/gas industry is it relies on extracting a limited non-renewable resource. When it's gone it's gone. Oil is the first to run short - we've got about 20 years before shortages bite hard.

In the year I was born there was effectively an unlimited supply of fossil fuels in the world. Wonderful, because energy was cheap and no-one understood burning fossil carbon in huge quantities would cause a problem.

Today the game has changed. The 'unlimited supply' of my youth is running short. There are no magic oil wells!

Over the next 20 to 30 years, the cost of energy based on fossil fuels will rise sharply. Our children and grand-children face a first class energy crisis, and, whatever the answer is, it's not oil and gas.

Diminishing supply isn't the only problem. In the 19th century scientists realised that the earth's average surface temperature was higher than was explained by solar heating : the cause is Greenhouse Effect, where the atmosphere acts as blanket stopping heat radiating out into space. Natural greenhouse effect is a good thing and life on earth is adapted to it. Excessive blanketing would be catastrophic.

Concerns were raised in the 1950s that industry burning fossil fuels on a large-scale might alter climate. However, at that stage, it was thought:

• the amount of man-made Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases was too small to make a difference.
• most excess Carbon Dioxide would be absorbed by the sea.
• the cooling effect of dust produced by burning coal would counterbalance the heating effect of greenhouse gases

All three turned out to be wrong.

In 1988 the first positive link was made between climate change and human activity. Unfortunately, the link wasn't an easy to understand undeniable certainty, it was based on murky statistics with some risk the correlation was false. The uncertainty enabled the nay-sayers and vested interests to cast enough doubt on the science to carry on regardless.

Since then much more evidence has been collected and the theory developed. Events and measurements both strongly suggest that the science is correct and that climate change deniers are badly wrong. What's happening in the real world is as predicted by climate science, not the 'nothing to see here' anticipated by disbelievers.

My view is that fossil fuels were a great boon in their day, but there are now two urgent reasons for switching to alternatives. Denying the need to move on despite the evidence suggests a severe case of wishful thinking.

Dave

Oil is the first to run short - we've got about 20 years before shortages bite hard.

A bit of a pessimsitic estimate Dave ? This :

**LINK**

suggests 56 years at 2016 production levels. And the need for oil won't end with a reduction in burning it - all the plastic insulation used in EVs & the needle coke derived graphite used in lithium batteries comes from oil, for example.

The limitation with core life is if cracks in the graphite blocks that comprise the core spread too much

More than just cracks in the graphite blocks - the block density decreases as well. But monitoring the deterioration has been going on for a while & the results are used to grant the life extensions. At work we manufacture graphite components with defined "features" and from various different grades / types of graphite & carbon used to calibrate the test equipment that is used to survey the reactor cores - some of the graphite we are supplied with has a very open texture & is also quite friable - difficult to measure after machining without changing the part with the measuring equipment.

Nigel B.

I have no problem with the realisation that we cannot go on with energy from coal and gas and oil, but this headlong dash into electic everything just has not been thought through.

We have known for years electrical generation would need some power stations to be 'retired' and replaced and more to be built/added to increase capacity, but governments of all hues have ignored this, pretending it didn't exist or if it did, then there was no urgency to address the problem.

Fine, switch to electric by all means, but make provision so the transfer is smooth, well planned, maintains capacity, allows for increased capacity needs, is cost effective, maintains control within the country and not at the whim of foreign governments, and is affordable first.

It makes no sense either, when we are sitting on loads of NorthSea gas (and oil?) and shale gas, not to use thatwhich is readily available first while we transfer, get a bit of energy independance under us as a country, until we can proceed in an orderly fashion, but no, lets all bow down to the green lobby instead and freeze.

We are told that cars must all go electric, that oil and gas cannot heat our home any more, so again we must use more electric, but where is all this electric going to come from? And how is it going to reach our homes, the distribution system is also surely in need of upgrading to cope with the increased demand? And how is the average family on average incomes going to afford all this change? I for one cannot afford a new electric car or a heat pump and neither would I want noisy heat pump fans clattering along all the while.

We have seen during that past month the frailities of relying on renewables when the sun doesn't shine on endless grey days and the wind doesn't blow either, the effect it has on capacity to meet demand; thank God it wasn't freezing cold as well. The only good news at the moment is that Rolls Royce have got a contract for a load of small nuclear power generators to come on stream in the next few years, but in itself that will not be enough

I suppose someone somewhere knows what they are doing, but I'm not holding my breath!

Chris

I dread to think where this is all going to end🙁

Tony

As far as I can discover Rolls Royce have been awarded a contract for further design studies with a view to building one off in the early 2030s followed by quite a few more. In the meantime the government will assess whether RR are a suitable contractor, followed by safety analysis by NRA. I think we can call this kicking the can down the road. Calder Hall opened in 1956 and took a lot less than 10 years to design and build. It ran safely for many years. We know a lot more about it nowadays, although we'd be even better placed if we hadn't had a long hiatus since building the last station at Sizewell. Most of the designers of that will have retired. No doubt we have a crack team of specialists in Latin and Greek making the decisions.

Things have 'calmed down' a bit now but just put the record straight , a Google of ' £4000MWh '

should provide enough evidence of my belief that £4500MWh was paId at some point TP 1.

Hunterston B is coming off-line at the end of its life. What do you mean by 'calming down'? More silly interpretation of the dials on Gridwatch?

Google not working for me I'm afraid. The closest answer appears to be this one, but it's about the Indian Government buying storage to balance temporary shortfalls in renewable energy.

Looking at Gridwatch a few minutes agoi, I don't think you can draw any conclusions from the dials about the source type of imports and exports. We don't know how they are generated. For example, at the moment the UK is exporting 0.3GW to Ireland. The energy comes from a mixture of renewables, nuclear, gas and biomass plus a little from the continent. All we can say is the energy going to Ireland is definitely not coal, solar, OCGT or oil because these are all 0% in the UK at the moment.

Dave

It's the end of the West of Scotlands industrial past on Friday with this shutdown

If you look at the picture the defunct nucular reactors are at the bottom and above those is the coal terminal for the Ravenscraig steelworks and any coal burning power stations which kept going at the top

I sailed past it all in the 90s with a pal and the whole site is as huge an industrial complex as anything you will ever see in the world, feeding power+coal+iron ore through to the steelworks and engineering concerns that fed the Clyde with steel and engineering plus for anywhere else in the world, there was also a big fabrication/construction yard

The media of course are far too obsessed with covid-cough to notice

Edited By Ady1 on 07/01/2022 17:23:37

It's actually because Torness unit one is offline for refuelling.

Lovelly place, I liked being up there, except when the wind blew so hard that my hard hat was blown off my head and bounced along the road faster than I could run for 100 yards!

Edited By Mark Rand on 07/01/2022 17:43:58