Saving the Planet … or is it ?

Why would we need to replace the turbines and generators. Might need to reblade the turbines, but generators, condensers, cooling towers should be reusable.

Nigel makes an excellent point about Tay bridge

You must have missed the ' scorched earth ' series of explosions permanently destroying Didcot, Ferrybridge ,etc ..

There is no chance of 'going back' , to save us.

There are still several coal stations not demolished, but it would take government action to prevent their demolition. If mothballed they probably still have to pay business rates, and cannot be sold for housing. There are also lots of nuclear stations coming to the end of their lives, replacing the reactors with SMRs would give them another 40 years, and an income stream to pay for the decommissioning of the old reactors. With the current crop of politicians of all hues I'll not hold my breath

From Ireland some honest comments.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/0929/1249533-electricity-supply-warning/

Nearly all of the AGR's have 660MW turbine sets , far too big to be fed from SMR's..

Not ideal , but some decent coal-fired boiler sets could be built adjacent to the reactor buildings.

No reason why several SMRs cannot work in parallel to feed one big turbine. Plenty of cotton mills had more than one boiler feeding one engine.

The idea that we are going to build new coal fired stations is for the birds

Given time, and a bit of luck, things may get that bad.

Well done wind , finally Nat Grid being made to make it happen.

Currently providing 42% of demand but I bet they are having worries of stability if it suddenly drops.

Even if all the other objections were put to bed coal isn't a runner for this.

Nuclear turbines are designed to work with the very large volumes of moderately super-heated low pressure steam produced by a reactor. Coal turbines are designed to work with smaller volumes of hot high pressure steam produced by a conventional boiler. Some figures, circa 2000:

• Fossil steam, 538 to 566°C at 2300 to 3500psi
• Nuclear steam, 260 to 290°C at about 1050psi, but with a much higher flow rate, 2.5 tons of steam per second for a 1200MW unit.

The steam difference alters pretty much everything in the generator, from the size, shape and number of blades in the HP, LP and 2-flow LP turbines, to the condenser and all the reheat stages. Nuclear turbines spin at about 100m/s, which is considerably slower than a fossil unit. Nuclear and coal turbines are incompatible; you can't swap them. Geothermal turbines are different again.

Very difficult for anyone outside the industry who isn't also up to speed with energy futures to recommend anything! Coal was once the obvious right answer, but is bottom of the class today. Natural gas gave coal a good kicking, but it's prices too are unstable - gas won't last as the obvious alternative. Oil has never been popular for mass producing electricity, and it's position is weakening - too expensive. Nuclear has eye watering clean-up costs, which look worse than they are because they were dishonestly ignored in the past. Green is rapidly becoming cheaper than other sources, but is unreliable.

My money is on large scale green supplemented by some form of nuclear plus various storage methods. I expect future energy tariffs to change minute by minute to encourage people to use electricity when it's cheap, and strongly discourage consumption whenever green outputs flag. I could be completely wrong. The near future is going to be 'interesting'.

Dave

That's what the smart meter push is for, variable rates during the day to throttle consumption when required

"we're charging you £1 a KwH to save the planet today! Have a nice day!"

Cost more than 15 billion plus so far with 70% of households to go

(Somebody said that they're free)

Edited By Ady1 on 03/10/2021 18:50:39

That 15 Billion has been paid by US through our present electricity bills!

If you have not seen the video clip by AlJazeera - The Dark side of Green Energy - try to find it - maybe here -

Green Energy down Side

The resulting huge increase in manufacture of parts/items requiring use of heavy metals and other exotics ( Iridium, Barium, Neodymium, etc) results in the massive mining of these elements raw materials. The majority of these raw materials are found in world size quantities in non- first world countries - Chilli is the biggest copper producer with a 'hole' 7 x 5km, 500meters deep and a disastrous surrounding area from a wasteland, pollution and contamination point of view, all seeping into the groundwater. Copper mass will increase from 12kg in a typical IC engined car to 50 to 70kg in an 'E' car. The motors magnets will require around 22kg of magnets - from a heavy metal base. It is quoted that all copper production over the last 300 years will have to be repeated again, but this time within 30 years...

China has the largest Heavy metal mines in the world - that video shows the unbelievable disaster developing around those mines - Huge lakes formed from the mining sludge pumped out over open land - sludge containing all the heavy metal residues, acids used in the extraction process, etc. And they are not alone in there production methods - Waste management in all these places cuts into profits...

So the First world sits comfortable on there podium touting how green they are and saving the world...

The ONLY way out of this mess is for people to suffer so badly that we eventually have no choice but to buy less, use less, discard less, want less, fly less...

Edited By Joseph Noci 1 on 03/10/2021 20:43:25

All we've really done is outsource industrial pollution

CoP26 will be a jolly jape with them all flying first class and consuming five star produce from around the planet

No wonder the kids are getting radicalised

Interesting little News item from the BBC : **LINK**

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58578061

… complete with the typically crass aside : Plus, classic car insurance is typically cheap, at least if the vehicle does not do much mileage. However, rates may rise sharply if you tell your insurance provider that there is now a Tesla engine under the bonnet that has made the vehicle significantly quicker.

MichaelG.

Never mind the heavy metals, it jangles my knurdles at the price of Basla wood that the blade manufacturers have cornered the market on for the blade cores. Bet Eddie Keil is fuming.

Regards Ian

Uninsured vehicle if you don’t tell them though!

Boiling water is not easy is it ?

Roy

Edited By roy entwistle on 04/10/2021 11:50:33

Certainly difficult to make a decent hot cup of tes up on a high mountain top!

Edited By V8Eng on 04/10/2021 11:55:40

.

Exactly … That’s why I mentioned “typically crass”

MichaelG.

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adjective

1. showing no intelligence or sensitivity.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 04/10/2021 12:08:18

Going back to SOD's latest (03/10), if I just take 3000 as the expansion ratio of a coal fired set, that is 3 stages of 14.4 ratio, so the IP entry is 208 psi. I do know this is a bit crude, but it shows that somewhere along the HP set the pressure has dropped from 3000 psi to 1000, and probably not very far along. It should therefore be possible to change the blading in the HP or even replace it complete to work on 'nuclear' steam. I will take some convincing that a single SMR boils more water than a big coal fired set, so the condensers and cooling towers should be re-useable.

Yes the power output of my conversion would be lower, and replacing the whole setup might be a bit more efficient, but the depreciation on the existing turbines, alternators, cooling towers etc is over, and they are not cheap.