Coal...

It doesn't matter how cheap they are, or how efficient, if it's dark and the wind isn't blowing they don't work.

One development that seems to have gone amiss in our musings is that countries tend to sell their energy to other ones now, French power plants meet some of the U.K's demand if needed. Russia sells gas to other countries through a vast network of pipelines. Mexico also sells some power north to the U.S.

If i'm to take a punt at what might happen, since china is apparently erecting coal power plants like they're going out of fashion, is they might find they have far more energy than they're actually using, what to do, other than sell to others? We may end up buying Chinese power if they can find a way to export it..

Sadly though, politics will probably get in the way of it.

Michael W

If the system was less partisan we could do a lot more with renewables,

Scotland and Ireland can produce vast amounts of wind energy but Whitehall would lay an egg if things started going seriously in that direction

The Scandahooligans are doing better with inter nation co-operation stuff

There are places on earth where the sun shines brightly all day every day, tides are not going away and thus there is and always will be a constant opportunity for very cheap power, we just heed to get it sorted out and put in place.

Surely they could power Denmark on methane from pig flatulence alone

Neil

The argument concerning low night time use is a bit of a fallacy. Once all cars lorries buses and whatever else become all-electric/battery powered then the whole lot will need to be recharged overnight, plus spare batteries for swapping during the day for heavy users

I like the sound of hydrogen cells, but know nothing of the detail

What that glossy story about the Danes doesn't tell you is they regularly dump excess wind energy to the Norwegians at zero or negative cost, who then throttle their hydro generation, only for the Danes to buy energy back at full wholesale price later in the day. They also regularly dump excess energy at zero or negative cost into the German grid system, where there is already an excess from their own offshore wind turbines and with an ongoing lack of North-South transfer capacity within Germany to the major load centres in the south, which then causes the Germans to spill excess energy to the Poles and the Czechs, causing overload problems on their own grids that has led to them installing quadrature booster devices to restrict and control power flow through their networks. The Germans also have significant problems with too much solar PV so the wholesale price regularly goes negative, with solar plant constrained off the system to prevent local overvoltage and ultimately total system collapse.

Denmark has interconnectors to Sweden, Germany and Norway, but It is actually less interconnected in energy transfer terms than either Scotland, the West Midlands, North West England, Yorkshire or the East Midlands. Their total electricity market annually is around 10% of that of the UK. (30TWh vs 350TWh) That such a tiny country (Population similar to either Scotland, Yorkshire or the West Midlands) could 'for one day' generate 140% of their requirements from wind turbines is no real surprise, all it needs is a lack of conventional generation online (for district heating) an overdeployment of wind generation and a suitable weather system.

The UK has interconnectors to France (the first one was built in 1961) The replacement rated at 2GW was built in the early 1980's, with 1GW to the Netherlands, 500MW to the Repubic of Ireland 500MW and 250MW to Northern Ireland.

In addition we have an undersea 2.2GW HVDC interconnector from Hunterston to Deeside about to go live later this year, plus 3.5GW of multiple onshore interconnector capacity to Scotland, with significant onshore transmission upgrades in Scotland such as the Beauly-Denny 400kV circuits specifically built and upgraded to cope with Scottish renewables.

There are also additonal interconnectors to France, Norway and Iceland either already in build (Norway @ 1.4GW scheduled for commmsioning in 2021) or in advanced planning / seabed survey stage.

Also despite all the wind turbines in Denmark their CO2 emissions per capita are higher than the UK 6.51 tonnes vs 6.16 tonnes in 2015 despite starting at around the same level in 2005.

Their electricity prices for domestic consumers are also the highest in Europe and 40% higher than the UK

But when it's dark and not windy anything but renewables is what you require. Just over a week ago a Reactor was taken offline at Torness after 397 days continuous operation, it's now back in service with the next planned shutdown planned for September 2018, 600+MW 24/7/365, In excess of 5TWh per annum per reactor of very low carbon electricity and genuinely keeping the lights on, meanwhile circa 10GW of grid connected wind generation is right now delivering just 645MW and meeting just 1.8% of demand.

My reversible air conditioning system cost €3k including installation. That's for 5.6 kW total heating capacity (from 1.2 kW of electrical input) and consisted of a single outdoor unit and two indoor units. I think that compares favourably with other heating systems. Of course for a geothermal heat pump you are looking at a much higher cost.

Resulting carbon emissions are very low as only about 8% of our electricity generation is from fossil fuel.

Russell.

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 28/04/2017 11:04:05

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 28/04/2017 11:06:02

I hada 6kw and a 3kw reversible aircon put in here a couple fo years ago and questioned the fitter over how thin the power cable was and was stunned by the low current draw he demonstrated.

reading further it seems most H2 is currently from fossil sources. logically if costings permit then hydrolysis from spare renewable capacity could be a way to go. As to the sun not shining all the time.. that rather depends where you are.. it's always daytime somewhere. If the infrastructure as there for transfer of power.. cables, pipes, bottled H2 then again logic suggests solar power from deserts and siting tidal or wind where it's at its height..

What concerns me most about solar is when all those panels need recycling.

I hada 6kw and a 3kw reversible aircon put in here a couple fo years ago and questioned the fitter over how thin the power cable was and was stunned by the low current draw he demonstrated.

reading further it seems most H2 is currently from fossil sources. logically if costings permit then hydrolysis from spare renewable capacity could be a way to go. As to the sun not shining all the time.. that rather depends where you are.. it's always daytime somewhere. If the infrastructure as there for transfer of power.. cables, pipes, bottled H2 then again logic suggests solar power from deserts and siting tidal or wind where it's at its height..

What concerns me most about solar is when all those panels need recycling.

To throw a strange one in to the PV solar generation question.

Why is there no  research into lunar panels to cover the times the sun dont shine

Edited By George Clarihew on 28/04/2017 22:10:15

If we're going for alternative ideas what about nano-hydro? Say my house is 25 ft * 25 ft, annual rainfall in my neck of the woods is 34", that's 1775 cu.ft of water, which weighs 49.4 tons. Height to gutters is 17ft or so, so the energy released by rain falling off the roof is 1,882,920 lbs ft per year. Sounds a lot, but it's only 0.71 kw.hr. Probably more than can be harvested from moonshine, let's stick to drinking it.

On a more serious note, the heat pump chaps could try intercepting the hot water going down the drain and somehow diverting it to their cold source

All it needs is to make rain a practical stored energy source.

Keep the 49.4 tons in a tank on a platform at the 17 feet attach the platform geared to a lowering device braked by the load and you have a pretty powerful reserve of energy for when its not sunny or windy

I thought I'd made it clear that I was being whimsical. 0.71 kw.hr per year is not quite enough energy to make 1 cup of tea per week, or to run the average fan fire for 18 minutes.

To make rain a useful source of energy we need a very large catchment (many tens of square miles), and a lot of fall. Llyn Trawsfynydd covers 1.9 sq. miles, it's catchment area is much bigger. It holds 40 million tons of water, and is about 750 feet above the turbines at Maentwrog hydro station, which produces 30MW on full chat. It can't do full chat continuously in summer as it doesn't rain enough (even in Wales!). Much of the potential for similar schemes has already been tapped, and I can't see us getting away with building more dams in the Scottish Highlands.

There is a proposal to put a hydro station on the Mersey at Woolston, the entire flow of the river will generate 500kw. You'd need 4000 such schemes to replace one Fiddler's Ferry. Even so I support it. There are similar schemes for the Weaver, the main attraction I suppose is that the weirs are already in place having been put in to make the rivers navigable

Yes Duncan. However, the hydro station at Maentwrog, plus the one below Snowdon, apart from being small and unobtrusive, also run a large part of North Wales, due to the low population and lack of industry. The 6 kW water turbine at C.A.T. in Machynlleth can run the entire Centre on its own; lights, display screens, cafe, tills, Everything, yet it is only about 1 metre cubed and no pollution!

Geoff

Yes Duncan. However, the hydro station at Maentwrog, plus the one below Snowdon, apart from being small and unobtrusive, also run a large part of North Wales, due to the low population and lack of industry. The 6 kW water turbine at C.A.T. in Machynlleth can run the entire Centre on its own; lights, display screens, cafe, tills, Everything, yet it is only about 1 metre cubed and no pollution!

Geoff

So that's the answer, get rid of the population and the industry and we've solved the problem. Sounds a bit extreme to me.

6kw will just about boil a kettle and run a fan fire at the same time. My domestic supply is 15 kw and it works even in a drought

Edited By duncan webster on 30/04/2017 10:43:27

No its just we have too many people overall.

The Christchurch(NZ) city council uses biofuel produced at the main sewerage plant to (A) power a large ex marine diesel engine to run a generator to power the sewerage works, and it is also used to fuel vehicles owned by the counc

Ian S C

Climate change could achieve just that whether we like it or not.

The polar ice caps are melting scary fast at the moment and, if it continues, sea-levels will rise by about 70 metres. That completely drowns London and most of our major cities. Birmingham will be OK, but I'm not sure how they'll squeeze all the refugees in!

There's much to be said in favour of Nuclear Power. Cleaning up is expensive, but it's looking as if the mess left by burning billions of tons of fossil fuels will be far, far, worse.

We live in interesting times!

Dave