UK energy

[roubaixtuesday]

He's analysing the data and making up his own mind, from a learned perspective,

The quote I gave you does not suggest a learned perspective.

[Biospace]

You do seem quick to be less than complementary of people who don't agree with you.

[roubaixtuesday]

You do seem quick to be less than complementary of people who don't agree with you.

He described the entire science of global warming as "hysterical".

I've suggested that he shouldn't be relied on as a reputable source, nothing stronger.

I think he's the one you might direct that comment at.

[Jdsk]

Euan Mearns... ...he's one of the best people to read to enlighten and to help improve all our thought processes.

Quote from his website, from an article written by him

In late 2007 the Arctic sea ice area took an unexpected plunge and this event is largely responsible for triggering the Global Warming hysteria of recent years.

Referring to Anthropogenic Climate Change as "Global Warming Hysteria" is not compatible with being "one of the best people to enlighten", in my view.

As I said, not claiming he's always wrong, not saying anything about Eigg, but most definitely not a reliable source on Global Warming science.

Statement confirmed:
https://euanmearns.com/the-arctic-sea-i ... es-to-die/

And many similar assertions on his website.

Jonathan

[Biospace]

Do you think his appointment as an Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Aberdeen somehow bring their reputation into disrepute, in your opinion?

[Jdsk]

Do you think his appointment as an Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Aberdeen somehow bring their reputation into disrepute, in your opinion?

It's impossible to tell from the available information on the university's website. It doesn't describe any research or teaching activity or any publications.
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/geosciences/depa ... aff-88.php

Jonathan

PS: I often recommend getting a position like that to people who would like access to paywalled academic publications.

[roubaixtuesday]

Do you think his appointment as an Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Aberdeen somehow bring their reputation into disrepute, in your opinion?

No, he may well have useful contributions in whatever area he works with them on, though "honorary professor" may well not indicate much.

I don't think universities should ban people for publishing contrarian positions, particularly if not part of what they teach, indeed contrarianism is an inherent part of academia.

[Biospace]

I don't think universities should ban people for publishing contrarian positions, particularly if not part of what they teach, indeed contrarianism is an inherent part of academia.

Really pleased to hear so.

[Biospace]

I believe the I Mech E's solution to energy storage was compressed air.

On an ex factory site near the West Somerset coast near my sister in laws farm someone is applying for planning permission to site a battery storage complex.

Al

Pumped hydro and CAES are the only two forms of storage which are high on the ESOI scale - Energy Stored on Energy Invested. Chemical batteries perform poorly on this scale, even if energy 'invested' is clean and renewable from the mining equipment, transportation and processing to manufacturing and distribution, there are the social and environmental 'difficulties'.

https://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploa ... alysis.pdf

As with so many other forms of storage, scaleability becomes a problem, I know there have been ideas of inflating large bags deep underwater, using gravity and even heating up rock underground but time and again, scaling these up is where the problems are, economically, practically and spatially.

It looks like batteries are going to be with us in the short term on both domestic and industrial scales, but unless the technology moves away from lithium it's likely there will be increasing barriers to their mass use, as there are now for fossil fuels (see the links below). CAES doesn't require materials which will be in short supply and/or destructive environmentally or socially and it would work efficiently when distributed widely.

Paris ran a lot of its tram network on compressed air for 30 years from the late 1870s before electricity replaced it, there was a CA power grid serving many users across the city. The cold air from expansion was piped to cellars to cool wine and perishables, the heat on compression piped for space heating. Birmingham and Desden also had air power grids, though I don't think either last as long as the Paris one (operational in the 1970s).

nantes1 air tram.jpg (51.67 KiB) Viewed 731 times

The moment storage is analysed, the more you appreciate how wonderful liquid fuels like kerosene or diesel are, around 10kWh in just one litre. Nuclear will be with us for a while yet, perhaps it will be the driver for more considered use of energy for as long as people like Putin threaten us. Relying on less energy would help us become safer and more resilient.


underwater CAES - https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... gy_Storage
underwater CAES - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 5/full#B33
gravitational mechanical - https://aresnorthamerica.com/
subterranean heat storage - https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/en ... gy-storage

[Psamathe]

Report (relevant) from Australia about small scale nuclear

‘Unproven’ small nuclear reactors would raise energy costs and delay renewable uptake, report says
The next generation of small nuclear reactors being advocated by the Coalition would raise electricity prices, slow the uptake of renewables and introduce new risks from nuclear waste, according to a report from the Australian Conservation Foundation.
...

Link to the actual report (rather than the Guardian reporting on the report) https://www.acf.org.au/wrong-reaction

Ian

[Carlton green]

The energy stored within fossil fuel (oil) is rather large compared to anything else, unbeatable though synthetic fuel will likely be similar.

Thermal storage might work for particular applications. Compressed air storage is potentially hazardous - pressure vessels occasionally break - but the technologies associated with compressed air are long established, it uses commonly available materials and many factories have or have had equipment powered by it. I wonder what the overall efficiency of compressing air and then expanding it later to produce electrical power is, perhaps that’s not so important if you’re using excess electricity. Compressed Air energy storage density might be an issue but it isn’t unmanageable, there will be space provided there’s a will to utilise parts of and unused industrial and farm buildings. For domestic users the equipment seems too bulky and complex to me.

As for small scale Nuclear I just don’t accept that it’s use needs to impact on the use of renewables and I don’t accept that the technology is unproven either. We could have small scale nuclear stations built comparatively quickly, parts supply for the large nuclear plants is limited but smaller parts can be made by many more companies, etc.

[Biospace]

The energy stored within fossil fuel (oil) is rather large compared to anything else, unbeatable though synthetic fuel will likely be similar.

Thermal storage might work for particular applications. Compressed air storage is potentially hazardous - pressure vessels occasionally break - but the technologies associated with compressed air are long established and many factories have or have had equipment powered by it. Compressed Air energy storage density might be an issue but it isn’t unmanageable, there will be space provided there’s a will to utilise part of and unused industrial and farm buildings. For domestic users the equipment seems too bulky and complex to me.

As for small scale Nuclear I just don’t accept that it’s use needs to impact on the use of renewables and I don’t accept that the technology is unproven either. We could have small scale nuclear stations built comparatively quickly, parts supply for the large nuclear plants is limited but smaller parts can be made by many more companies, etc.

Synthetic fuels are great energy stores, but the processes are very lossy. However, fuel cells are very efficient things. I'd be surprised if they weren't part of our future.

Compressed air can be very dangerous, as can standing on the top of a wind turbine oiling the gearbox, wiring up solar panels, working on an oil rig, or receiving a rather larger dose of escaped radiation than is good for you or your yet to be conceived kids. Let alone a whole geographical zone which has been wiped out by human error.

All nuclear is expensive, increasingly so and especially the most expensive SMR technology (which I'd have expected to be slightly less so). It's expensive in more than one way, the obvious one which is demonstrated by the French having to nationalise EDF and less obvious one in the amount of excess carbon sent into our atmosphere for decades as delays in getting nuclear plants online means coal and gas is burned instead. And of course the lack of resources for investment in renewable technology - we spend tens of billions every year 'managing' our nuclear waste.

[Carlton green]

Compressed air can be very dangerous, as can standing on the top of a wind turbine oiling the gearbox, wiring up solar panels, working on an oil rig, or receiving a rather larger dose of escaped radiation than is good for you or your yet to be conceived kids. Let alone a whole geographical zone which has been wiped out by human error.

H’mm I think I used the term ‘hazardous’ and few things are without hazards. Pressure vessels can unexpectedly rupture, test and inspection processes are in place to try to prevent that but stuff happens and if you happen to be standing nearby when it does … In contrast standing on a Wind Turbine and the like is a dangerous activity that the individual can personally manage so the two situations aren’t really comparable. Incidentally the UK industrial safety record is pretty good. Additionally safety within the Nuclear Industry is taken exceptionally seriously, the lessons of past accidents are very much learned and part of what happens outside of the UK wouldn’t meet the safety standards applied here.

The most dangerous occupations lie in Agriculture, Fishing and Forestry:
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/work/indust ... ndustries/

I would agree that research funding for renewable technologies hasn’t been anywhere near enough and that some money spent on other energy sources has yet - and might never - provided a good return. As far as I can see the biggest issue that we now have is very large scale power storage.

[Biospace]

Compressed air can be very dangerous, as can standing on the top of a wind turbine oiling the gearbox, wiring up solar panels, working on an oil rig, or receiving a rather larger dose of escaped radiation than is good for you or your yet to be conceived kids. Let alone a whole geographical zone which has been wiped out by human error.

H’mm I think I used the term ‘hazardous’ and few things are without hazards.

Additionally safety within the Nuclear Industry is taken exceptionally seriously, the lessons of past accidents are very much learned and part of what happens outside of the UK wouldn’t meet the safety standards applied here.

The most dangerous occupations lie in Agriculture, Fishing and Forestry:
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/work/indust ... ndustries/

Yes, hazardous - sorry!

Your comments about safety in industry likely apply where loss of multiple lives is possible. Whose safety standards apply here - are they French, British, or a combination of both I wonder?

It's fairly clear that if we're going to aim not to use much FF, then at present rates of consumption nuclear is a given. It seems that few are at all concerned with reducing the crazy amounts of consumption we see at the moment, and how it increases year on year. With some thought, lives could be improved yet use less energy, reducing the amount of nuclear needed.

There's little reason for travel within continents by air, what sort of crazy world is this when it's often several times cheaper to fly from one end of England to the other by plane than to take a train? Or that people drive half a mile to pick up the kids from school in a wacking great 4x4?

If there is going to be some sort of imposition of energy rules in decades to come, how evenly will they be applied?

[Carlton green]

Your comments about safety in industry likely apply where loss of multiple lives is possible. Whose safety standards apply here - are they French, British, or a combination of both I wonder?

It's fairly clear that if we're going to aim not to use much FF, then at present rates of consumption nuclear is a given. It seems that few are at all concerned with reducing the crazy amounts of consumption we see at the moment, and how it increases year on year. With some thought, lives could be improved yet use less energy, reducing the amount of nuclear needed.

There's little reason for travel within continents by air, what sort of crazy world is this when it's often several times cheaper to fly from one end of England to the other by plane than to take a train? Or that people drive half a mile to pick up the kids from school in a wacking great 4x4?

If there is going to be some sort of imposition of energy rules in decades to come, how evenly will they be applied?

Nuclear safety in the country is managed by UK statutory bodies who are somewhat rigorous.

As far as I know, and it was someone on this forum who produced the data, electricity consumption in the UK has fallen in recent years.

For reasons I can’t understand it’s more cost effective to fly within the UK than to take a train, the aeroplane will be fossil fuelled and the train might be powered by electricity from renewable generation. To my mind people need to be prepared to travel on trains rather than fly - I haven’t used an aeroplane for well over a decade - but we also need decent train services for ordinary people rather than vanity projects like HS2. We also need decent bus services too, public transport is a right mess and that does a wonderful job of selling cars …

Child transport can be an issue for parents - been there - but I’d remove 4 x 4’s from the road. As a society we should seek to reduce school sizes but increase their number such that children don’t have to travel significant distances from home to school. Likewise many other services that have become over centralised …

There will be no imposition of energy rules, well besides if you can’t pay for it then you can’t have it. As in my earlier posts I’d cap energy usage rates, I’d quite like to cap personal car mileage too but there isn’t an easy enough way of doing it. The UK could use a lot less fossil fuel but it would require a lot of structural changes.

Anyway this all drifts away from the core of the thread, to which we should return.