UK energy

[Jdsk]

Scepticism on carbon capture...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... e-hydrogen

Thanks for that. It's a good letter.

And it greatly helps discussions if they're informed by the state of maturity of the technology that's being discussed. See sky hooks and unobtainium...

Jonathan

[rjb]

Careful you don't mix up the iHD (in home display) which is separate from the Smart Meter. The IHD is the device which is connecting to the smart meter and displaying the data. It's this unit that's struggling to connect to your smart meter. The smart meter is the unit which is measuring your consumption and sending the data to the data collection centre using the mobile or a dedicated network. Even if your IHD is not showing any sensible information you can check the display on your smart meter and measure your true consumption over a 24 hour period for example. If it's not registering your in luck. The energy company can only bill you for the metered consumption. If it's not recording you will have zero consumption and only be billed the standing charge and your supplier should pick that up and replace your meter.

[Biospace]

The question isn't whether nuclear is low-carbon

The mystery as to why you've spent so long defending studies supposing the opposite will remain then, I guess.

It should be pretty clear after all these pages of quibbling that I’ve been "defending" the importance of the inclusion of a broad range of studies and observing real world effects, rather than dismissing those which challenge a consensus.

I'm bearing in mind that solar PV efficiencies could yet improve significantly

Depends what you mean by significant, but I think that's very unlikely given where we are now.

I linked to an Oxford study in the post which set you on your pages of dispute, here it is again

Please explain what you think the study demonstrates and whether you think it is mainstream or not.

The study demonstrates the research which has maintained the steady rises in efficiency in solar voltaics. It's precisely breakthroughs like this that demonstrate how innovation in renewables is improving. The increase in efficiencies from 10% to 14% when I first installed our solar PV around twenty years ago to 22%-24% today is significant, indirect radiation performance has particularly improved and is often quoted as being 25%-30% better than just ten years ago.

The linked study suggests that solar electricity will have the potential to be able to be generated in more and diverse situations, aligning with what I've been advocating: investment in technologies that can deliver clean energy faster, cheaper, and more effectively than waiting years for nuclear to come online.

A diverse energy mix that avoids over-reliance on single large power stations will enhance both resilience and adaptability - many interconnected smaller units rather than a few massive plants.

I agree on diversity.

"Large" and "massive" need quantifying to comment. However, there are economies of scale, efficiency and land use which drive in the opposite direction to your assertion.

Absolutely, there are significant changes on the horizon; the future will see an evolving mix of energy sources tailored to meet our diverse needs. Historically, we have relied heavily on coal, nuclear, and gas, optimising economies of scale without a cost-effective means to enhance resilience and reliability through a greater number of power stations. Alternative strategies were employed to address these challenges.

Today, however, we are witnessing a transformative shift towards a more distributed energy model. The grid as we once knew it is undergoing considerable changes, with substantial capacity being harnessed offshore and numerous small-scale energy sources being integrated across the landscape.

One of the most compelling advantages of nuclear energy is its minimal physical footprint, when everything operates as intended.

[roubaixtuesday]

]


It should be pretty clear after all these pages of quibbling that I’ve been "defending" the importance of the inclusion of a broad range of studies and observing real world effects, rather than dismissing those which challenge a consensus.

We disagree.

Standing up for the facts is not quibbling. It is a fact that nuclear power is a low carbon energy source.

[roubaixtuesday]

OK, let's take a look at that "Oxford Study"

Here's the briefing paper rather than the press release

Britain’s energy demand could be met entirely by wind and solar – both practically and economically

https://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/sites/ ... -solar.pdf

And here's the actual paper it's based on.

https://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/sites/ ... -paper.pdf

Sounds super. There's a whizzy graphic too

Looks ginger peachy.

Let's have a closer look. We find looking at that graphic that almost all of the supply is offshore wind, and most of that floating. Of the solar, almost all is utility scale solar. So I'm not really sure this reflects your "The grid as we once knew it is undergoing considerable changes, with substantial capacity being harnessed offshore and numerous small-scale energy sources being integrated across the landscape." As far as I can tell, most of this is offshore mega projects.

You made a claim on solar efficiency, "that solar PV efficiencies could yet improve significantly" and that's in the policy brief worded: "Significant technological improvements in solar cell efficiency mean that new GB solar installations in 2023 could generate as much, or more, energy per square meter as some sunny Australian locations in the early 2000s." Well, that's very wordy but lacks quantification for a quibbler like me, so let's look in the paper. It concludes we assume 25% efficiency for PV cells. page 31 and whilst reviewing some emerging technologies have demonstrated higher, notes that mass-produced n-type solar modules are available at efficiencies above 25%, although many are in the 20-25% range. I'm no expert in solar, but this doesn't sound like a paper advocating there will be a game changing increase in efficiency to me.

The graphic omits any mention of intermittency. Storage is covered in the briefing with a rather glib costs continue to fall and these trends look set to continue over the coming decades. For example, lithium-ion batteries declined in cost by 79% between 2008 and 2022" and references a recent report on energy storage from the Royal Society. That's here

https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy ... report.pdf

The Royal society paper does not remotely support such an analysis, I think. There we find rather tens of TWhs of very long duration storage will be needed. The scale is over 1000 times that currently provided by pumped hydro in the UK, and far more than could conceivably be provided by conventional batteries. . Additionally we find Meeting the need for long-duration storage will require very low cost per unit energy stored. In GB, the leading candidate is storage of hydrogen in solution-mined salt caverns, for which GB has a more than adequate potential, albeit not widely distributed. In other words, concentrated very large generation capacity rather than distributed is essential for cost. Also, we find With the overall (round trip) efficiency of 41% assumed for hydrogen, the surplus wind and solar energy that is stored must be at least factor of 1/0.41= 2.4 larger than the deficits that the stored hydrogen is required to fill

The reality of the storage requirement isn't addressed in the paper either; again, glib comments about rapidly lowering costs are made, and references to short term grid scale storage.

So, on my amateur reading, this looks like another unrealistic headline grabbing attempt to justify 100% renewables, which is contradicted by its own references, particularly on storage. Rather than convince on the case for renewables only, it makes clear the significant advantages from a continued nuclear contribution, to reduce storage requirements and also distribute generation away from a the required centralised hydrogen storage. As I said upthread though, this requires modelling of the system to really understand, something I am certainly not capable of, but the National Grid Future Energy Scenarios referenced by Jdsk upthread do.

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/future- ... narios-fes

My judgement is they are far more grounded than this analysis.

[roubaixtuesday]

Some other critiques

https://davidturver.substack.com/p/some ... university

https://manicbeancounter.com/

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com ... er-britain

[axel_knutt]

If it's not registering your in luck. The energy company can only bill you for the metered consumption. If it's not recording you will have zero consumption and only be billed the standing charge and your supplier should pick that up and replace your meter.

If the meter's not working they can bill you for an estimate, even if you've informed them it's not working.
.

[rjb]

In your case the usage figures are readily available, they may be zero but still available. That letter is referencing cases when the meter cannot be read due to access or other issues .

[Biospace]

OK, let's take a look at that "Oxford Study"

Here's the briefing paper rather than the press release

Britain’s energy demand could be met entirely by wind and solar – both practically and economically
...
The Royal society paper does not remotely support such an analysis, I think. There we find rather tens of TWhs of very long duration storage will be needed. The scale is over 1000 times that currently provided by pumped hydro in the UK, and far more than could conceivably be provided by conventional batteries. . Additionally we find Meeting the need for long-duration storage will require very low cost per unit energy stored. In GB, the leading candidate is storage of hydrogen in solution-mined salt caverns, for which GB has a more than adequate potential, albeit not widely distributed. In other words, concentrated very large generation capacity rather than distributed is essential for cost. Also, we find With the overall (round trip) efficiency of 41% assumed for hydrogen, the surplus wind and solar energy that is stored must be at least factor of 1/0.41= 2.4 larger than the deficits that the stored hydrogen is required to fill

I've long been sceptical that even with sufficient storage, solar and wind alone would be the most effective let alone economic way to supply the UK with all its energy needs, even if only for the Grid which presently represents around one fifth of our total energy demand. Upthread, I said this: "Anyone who has done the calculations can see that Britain will continue to need nuclear energy over the next few years but some trends indicate that longer term, we can manage with renewables alone".

A far broader mix of renewables than wind and solar is needed, including geothermal and energy from our surrounding seas and oceans. EROI numbers are sufficiently low for dispatchable wind and solar that Western levels of consumption would need to fall, which at present doesn't factor highly in the whole energy transition discussion.

So, on my amateur reading, this looks like another unrealistic headline grabbing attempt to justify 100% renewables, which is contradicted by its own references, particularly on storage. Rather than convince on the case for renewables only, it makes clear the significant advantages from a continued nuclear contribution, to reduce storage requirements and also distribute generation away from a the required centralised hydrogen storage.

Headlines are generally intended to attract attention, I agree. It has this to say about nuclear power,

• Hydrogen storage with (nuclear) baseload generation
  If constant baseload supply is added, the demand that has to be met by wind plus solar supply, supported by storage, is reduced by a constant amount. This allows the size of the wind, solar and storage system to be reduced. However, the cost per MWh of the electricity that wind, solar and storage provides will increase because removing a constant increases the volatility of the remaining demand that they have to meet. It follows that the cost of electricity will be increased by the addition of baseload unless its cost is less than the average cost of electricity without baseload. In the case of nuclear baseload, this will only happen if the cost of nuclear is towards the bottom of the range shown in Table 2 and / or the cost without nuclear is towards the top of the projected range shown in figure 24

[roubaixtuesday]

OK, let's take a look at that "Oxford Study"

Here's the briefing paper rather than the press release

Britain’s energy demand could be met entirely by wind and solar – both practically and economically
...
The Royal society paper does not remotely support such an analysis, I think. There we find rather tens of TWhs of very long duration storage will be needed. The scale is over 1000 times that currently provided by pumped hydro in the UK, and far more than could conceivably be provided by conventional batteries. . Additionally we find Meeting the need for long-duration storage will require very low cost per unit energy stored. In GB, the leading candidate is storage of hydrogen in solution-mined salt caverns, for which GB has a more than adequate potential, albeit not widely distributed. In other words, concentrated very large generation capacity rather than distributed is essential for cost. Also, we find With the overall (round trip) efficiency of 41% assumed for hydrogen, the surplus wind and solar energy that is stored must be at least factor of 1/0.41= 2.4 larger than the deficits that the stored hydrogen is required to fill

I've long been sceptical that even with sufficient storage, solar and wind alone would be the most effective let alone economic way to supply the UK with all its energy needs, even if only for the Grid which presently represents around one fifth of our total energy demand. Upthread, I said this: "Anyone who has done the calculations can see that Britain will continue to need nuclear energy over the next few years but some trends indicate that longer term, we can manage with renewables alone".

A far broader mix of renewables than wind and solar is needed, including geothermal and energy from our surrounding seas and oceans. EROI numbers are sufficiently low for dispatchable wind and solar that Western levels of consumption would need to fall, which at present doesn't factor highly in the whole energy transition discussion.

So, on my amateur reading, this looks like another unrealistic headline grabbing attempt to justify 100% renewables, which is contradicted by its own references, particularly on storage. Rather than convince on the case for renewables only, it makes clear the significant advantages from a continued nuclear contribution, to reduce storage requirements and also distribute generation away from a the required centralised hydrogen storage.

Headlines are generally intended to attract attention, I agree. It has this to say about nuclear power,

• Hydrogen storage with (nuclear) baseload generation
  If constant baseload supply is added, the demand that has to be met by wind plus solar supply, supported by storage, is reduced by a constant amount. This allows the size of the wind, solar and storage system to be reduced. However, the cost per MWh of the electricity that wind, solar and storage provides will increase because removing a constant increases the volatility of the remaining demand that they have to meet. It follows that the cost of electricity will be increased by the addition of baseload unless its cost is less than the average cost of electricity without baseload. In the case of nuclear baseload, this will only happen if the cost of nuclear is towards the bottom of the range shown in Table 2 and / or the cost without nuclear is towards the top of the projected range shown in figure 24

Noting that you're now onto the Royal Society paper I quoted which contradicts the original paper you cited...

I made no comment on cost, merely practicality. The adoption of technology at such a scale and rapidity comes with significant risks.

The cost argument you quote assumes an unprecedented level of hydrogen storage has been installed, together with capacity in generation and transmission to match, and that the costs and efficiency claims for such can be delivered.

I've repeatedly made the point here that storage is not actually being built, and it is a precondition to renewables penetration. It seems we can at least agree on that.

[axel_knutt]

That letter is referencing cases when the meter cannot be read due to access or other issues .

This is the question they're answering:

[Biospace]

I've repeatedly made the point here that storage is not actually being built, and it is a precondition to renewables penetration. It seems we can at least agree on that.

Presumably the Labour government is forging ahead with plans for storage, after years of confusion?

It's likely we agree on far more than just the storage issue. There is a lot of storage sitting on driveways and in carparks in the form of BEVs, there are supposedly around a million on UK roads already.

[reohn2]

I haven't read the whole thread so if this has been posted already my apologies.
Why we the UK public are paying far more for our energy and by how much than the rest of Europe,a nine minute video on YT:- https://youtu.be/eWeQNZnRtZI?si=Wpov3QJm3Y4m2Yd6

[Jdsk]

Britain's last coal-fired power station closes this weekend.

"Q&A: How the UK became the first G7 country to phase out coal power":
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/coa ... ign=buffer

Describes how it happened, using this as a model for other countries, and implications for other technologies. Lots of numbers.

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

...
I did hear some encouraging news about modular reactors today on the BBC so perhaps all is not lost.

The designs have been selected in the government's competition:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/six- ... ompetition

"EDF, GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy International LLC, Holtec Britain Limited, NuScale Power, Rolls Royce SMR and Westinghouse Electric Company UK Limited "

Now down to four:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/small-modul ... on-process

• GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy International LLC
• Holtec Britain Ltd
• Rolls Royce SMR Ltd
• Westinghouse Electric Company UK Ltd

Jonathan