Running 'nukes' in the red

Sorry 'Mod' , I omitted the / , Google £4000/MWh then it is revealed.

I note the UK is supplying 4 GW to the continent this morning. If that were at thousands of pounds per kWh, that would be useful. But it ain’t!! Poster needs to get real and stop trying to spread rubbish.

Starting threads which are blatantly ridiculous, just because they do not like nukes or electric vehicles (or any other topic) should be banned - as they are just there trying to push conspiracy theories. Nothing more.

I’m finished with trying to believe that this poster is just poorly informed. It is simply a subversion activity.

Invoke the "ignore member" facility and perhps then the poster will give up with no audience available.

On a related note, I saw yesterday that Heysham 2 nuclear power station is due to close two years earlier than planned, in 2028. Having worked on the construction of it, this has made me feel very old all of a sudden...

Rob

If I don't find a post interesting I don't click on it to start with. Radical but effective.

That is my own practice - not easy, though, when the thread title is uninformative.

Edited By ega on 11/01/2022 10:26:56

The consensus of opinion is that our electricity infrastructure needs to be upgraded in order to cope with the distribution of the extra electricity that will be needed when gas is no longer available and we all have to rely on heat pumps. Saw an interesting video put together by a heat pump installer who says that with the mix of type of housing stock that we have in this country heat pumps are not the magic answer that our leaders think that they will be. The output from heat pumps is at best 45 degrees and in most cases somewhat lower, so electricity will be used to heat up to an acceptable temperature, and unless the insulation of our houses is much improved we will find we struggle to heat our homes. In Scandinavia heat pumps work as an energy source domestically because their houses are far better insulated than U K houses, complete with triple glazing etc. About sixty years ago there was a change in the way we heat our houses, instead of just a coal fire in a downstairs room, central heating using gas was promoted, you could heat every room in your house using cheap fossil fuel, some of us remember the days before central heating with ice on the inside of bedroom windows and getting dressed downstairs in front of the coal fire before going to school. Using a heat pump to heat the whole house is going to be very expensive as electricity when heating houses works out at about three times more expensive than gas, we all know what is currently happening to gas and electricity prices, a large number of consumers are already being pushed into fuel poverty. Even with comprehensive insulation programmes to upgrade the thermal efficiency of present housing stock, which is very poor in relation to other countries, it is going to cost an eye watering amount of money, if the government step in and finance it we will all be paying higher taxes to fund it. Gas prices will be steadily driven up in order to push consumers into going for a heat pump option to meet the requirements of scaling back usage of gas. I can foresee that a lot of families will close off radiators in most rooms and just heat one or two rooms because they will not be able to afford to live the way we have become used to with cheap fossil fuels. The impact of going “all electric” will need serious improvement to the distribution infrastructure to cope with demand, heat pumps, electric vehicles etc. Renewables such as wind and solar will not be able to fill the supply need because of the variability of the weather, December was a very poor month for renewables output, the country will need to expand its generating capacity and this will inevitably have to be Nuclear, I can’t see us being ready to meet the expected increase because of the long lead times needed to plan a new nuclear facility, it seems as though there is nobody in charge and we are drifting aimlessly into a doomsday scenario where the country will be drastically short of power, on a number of days in winter we sail very close to the edge with little or no spare generating capacity should we succumb to a Beast from the East type weather occurrence. I have foreseen the coming rises in energy prices and have my south facing roof covered with PV panels and much to my wife’s disgust have 7.4 kWh of storage batteries in our conservatory, very pleased in the fact that during the summer months, when the sun shines, I have managed to cut our electric consumption, from the grid, to a third of what it used to be, unfortunately I can’t at the moment go off grid completely but if needs be I will work towards it, the rising price of electricity is a great incentive. Dave W

It all went downhill after nationalisation

Thing is, the British are scruffy and have always lived in dilapidated conditions with underinvested infrastructure, it's our genetic destiny to live like that

Go to somewhere like Austria and there's not a scrap of paper on the streets and the city centre is as sanitised as a dentists waiting room, it's their genetic destiny to live like that

England, Scotland and Wales have always lived behind the curve with poor infrastructure and disinterested investors. It amazes me that we remained nations let alone gave birth to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

The French always seemed to do it better, good roads, bigger canals, advanced industry in the 1700s, early maunfacture of cars and aeroplanes and so on. They get so far and then just lose interest (or become interested in politics).

JA

Ady 1

I totally agree, I am ashamed of my own country especially when visitors from the continent see our conditions, we got a lot of continental visitors in our area of East Sussex. Don’t get me going about the state of our roads compared to the continent, our transport infrastructure is worse than you would find in third world countries. Dave W

I think the opposite about nationalisation. .I would once have agreed with you but not now.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that far too few politicians of all parties, have such a woefully low, even lay-level, knowledge of anything Science and Engineering. If they even know the word 'Engineering'. They prefer the desperately debased word 'technology' - or 'tech' if four syllables are too many.

I doubt many of them would know which single metallic element is crucial to virtually everything in our lives, why petroleum is a fossil mineral but not a fossil fuel, how power differs from energy.... Yet they continue to try to make policies on matters for which such knowledge is key!

Regarding air-source heat-pumps, what Samsaranda tells us is pretty well as a friend in the building trade tells me. A Gas-Safe registree, (such accreditations are incidentally, an easy, hidden income to the Treasury), he admits he could not install such a system in his own home, largely by lack of space. He suggested possibly not mine either - although I could find room for the hot-water tank necessary.

Such a system requires very efficient insulation; replacing all the radiators (and if used, microbore pipes) with new, larger ones; and installing an indirect hot-water tank with auxiliary electric immersion-heater. That has to be designed for such systems - the existing types are not suitable. Installing in a new home as it is built is one thing; but for existing properties the disruption is considerable and at highly-variable but vast cost. The supposed £££ few-thousand grant from the tax-payers is a fraction of a total that can exceed £20 000.

It also appears from elsewhere that running a all-electric home with air-source heat-pump can itself be much more expensive than a mixture of gas and electricity.

Howver, my friend also explained, the boiler manufacturers are now making ones that can be adjusted readily from pure natural-gas to a mixture with hydrogen. The snag of course, is the country being able to produce vast quantities of hydrogen economically and in a "green" way!

I think I'll move into my workshop....

Probably time to close the thread , but for those interested in the 'facts' try accessing ' current-news.co.uk '

an industrial /commercial journal with all the past and up-to-date situation of our energy policy.

At one point the Irish SEM paid £4600/MWh to stop the lights going out.

Rather than arguing, the last ten years of data, averaged to ignore brief extremes, are easily accessible here.

www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-data-and-research/data-portal/wholesale-market-indicators

It occurred to me recently that one of the few "high tech" nations that is reasonably environmentally sustainable is actually North Korea. I think they're "high-tech" on the basis that they have some kind of space/missile program and more than a passing capability in commercial and military nuclear power.

At the time of the Korean war, they had the bulk of the heavy industrial capability in the Korean peninsular.

All this time later their industrial goals have withered and although their per-capita carbon efficiency is quite poor, their lack of commercial activity means that they have a fairly low environmental impact overall.

No part of me wants to live like a North Korean. For me the truth is that this is the required direction of travel, to meet the environmental obligations that have been set out. I don't actually think people will put up with it unless it is brought on slowly. As I look at things, I have to conclude that's exactly what is happening.

Edited By Andy Ash on 11/01/2022 16:30:55

Never mind arguing, someone will have to explain!

In the good old days, one just threw another log on the fire. Now I have to understand Clean Spark, Spark, Dark, Quark and Crack Spreads...

As an aside, I've been impressed twice by smart meters this month.

1. My ex has a simple display in her kitchen showing the rate at which she should consume energy in order to stay within her agreed direct debit, and another showing her actual consumption rate. She can see instantly if a money problem is building. No nasty surprises when the bill arrives!
2. Discussing bills here with me, my daughter rang her meter in Bristol and graphed her consumption over time. The graphs on her smart phone show unexpectedly high usage overnight and when she's at work. Now the hunt is on for a rogue device!

Dave

Fusion will save us, it’s only 30 years away, I think it was only 30 years away when I went to the JET project open day in the mid 80s.

Mike