From memory, as I'm clearly wasting my time providing references if they at all challenge anybody's preconceptions.ANTONISH wrote: 3 Aug 2021, 4:23pm As is usual this thread took on a life of it's own - mainly about the pro's and con's of electric vehicles.
I started the thread because whatever low carbon solutions will be used for our heating and transport it will inevitably have to come from the electrical supply.
I'm concerned that we are nowhere near being able to supply the large increase in demand that this entails.
I've yet to see any projections as to the likely demand by 2040.
Nor does there seem to be any ambition of the this government or any alternative to provide a solution.
The dithering about Nuclear power has gone on for decades.
The 3rd round of CfD auctions has finished, and will come on stream in 2023, bringing another 6GW of capacity.
Round 4 is about to start (or bids might be in). I think that is due to produce another 12GW of capacity.
To put that in context, at this precise moment, demand is 34GW, so the new, low carbon electricity produced from the CfD mechanism is significant. The lead time for renewables is relatively short. The CfD 3rd round finished in 2019, and will start producing electricity in 2023, so 4 years from proposal to power. Unlike nuclear, which seems to take forever.
This country has done relatively well in de-carbonising electricity supply.
You're right about nuclear, it seems to be a shambles. And fairly soon there's going to be a dip, as current nuclear power stations go off line, but before Hinkley C starts to produce electricity (in 2026, I think). Bradwell B and Sizewell C are proposed, I don't know how they're going. Though I do remember reading that new nuclear can be built faster, for some reason.
Some of the proposed solutions, like ground source heat pumps, are carbon free, maybe?
It's worth pointing out that some energy use, like petrol engined cars, are notoriously inefficient, as most of the energy is wasted, as heat. I read once, somewhere, that rather than putting a litre of petrol in a car, it would be better to run a generating station with the petrol, and use that to charge electric cars. You'd get more mpg that way than putting it in the tank of an ICE. I know that's a relatively simple and no doubt unfeasible solution. But I daresay the same might apply to diesel generators, which were still used in some remote parts of the UK, up till recently. So the basic principle, using carbon producing energy, but in a more efficient way, might make sense.
I'm relatively sanguine about this. The very wide variety of ways in which electricity can be generated, some carbon free, and especially the increasing use of "smart" grids, which allows a company like EDF to offer electricity at 4.5pence a kWh, makes me think that the "Electric Everything" future is probably feasible.
