UK energy

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roubaixtuesday
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Re: UK energy

Post by roubaixtuesday »

simonineaston wrote: 8 Oct 2024, 12:49pm
Perhaps we should build more nuclear power stations
Prof Lovelock, who was very often right, as he had no political axe to grind, (see too Prof D Nutt) pointed out long ago that adoption of nuclear energy would have bought us enough time to develop alternative energy sources so we could have moved away from fossil fueled power in time to avoid the worst climate change.
His view was that we’ve missed that boat and we are now firmly in the Anthropocene with all its attendant difficulties and that the irony is that it was largely due to the “green” movement that the political support for nuclear disappeared and is now only creeping back when it is too late. :lol:
Again, and without wishing to appear rude, a league table of ways in which our countries are respectively wrecking our environment is the very stuff that's at the heart of why we’ll never survive!
Whilst IMO nuclear could be very useful as a transition in advanced economies, it was never a solution for everywhere in the world.

I think you can equally argue that it's used rhetorically as a convenient bit of green bashing to avoid the substantive issue of the need to move to renewables.
Jdsk
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Re: UK energy

Post by Jdsk »

Nutt tried as hard as was possible to classify recreational drugs according to the evidence of effect, and especially to the evidence of harm. It was an excellent attempt, but it hasn't worked yet in the UK.

Jonathan
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simonineaston
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Re: UK energy

Post by simonineaston »

The point re Nutt & Lovelock is that sensible, knowledgable, intelligent and practical experts can point a way ‘till they’re blue in the face, but they’re always outnumbered by idiots…
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
Biospace
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Re: UK energy

Post by Biospace »

roubaixtuesday wrote: 7 Oct 2024, 7:49pm
Biospace wrote: 7 Oct 2024, 7:02pm We can only hope Keir Starmer can be trusted.

Is it not the lack of an energy policy/politicians' failings over the last quarter century which has supercharged the stratospheric British energy price rises in recent years, which now allows for this boast of falling prices? I would prefer to hear of something concrete for energy storage rather than promises of lots of brave new nuclear plus £22 billion investment in prolonging burning fossil fuels to make electricity.

I look at the Danish approach to energy and ask what has gone so very wrong with policy making in Britain.

The payback period for going offgrid with domestic solar, heat pump, solar thermal, thermal storage and chemical battery storage will continue to fall, unfortunately it is out of reach for almost all of those who don't own their own homes or who have limited cash to spend.
UK and Danish per capita emissions are almost exactly the same, according to OECD.
...
The comments were directed at consumer experience as a result of failings of successive UK politicians and the deleterious effect on our economy of volatile and high energy prices. Printing yet more money to pay for energy price caps has placed the UK economy in yet more debt.

Denmark has one of the healthiest economies in Europe, didn't suffer the price spikes we did for heating our homes and isn't going to be paying another nation inflated prices, for decades, for lots of energy. They're simply getting on with increasing their energy storage and renewable energy sources.

The numbers (2023) comparing renewables with fossil fuels for the UK and Denmark, as % of their total energy consumption are:
  • Oil and Gas
    74.2% UK
    57.3% Denmark
  • Renewables
    19.2% UK
    41.34% Denmark
I don't understand see how emissions per capita can be similar for Danish and UK citizens given these numbers.

Screenshot 2024-10-10 at 16.02.04.png
roubaixtuesday
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Re: UK energy

Post by roubaixtuesday »

Biospace wrote: 10 Oct 2024, 4:19pm
I don't understand see how emissions per capita can be similar for Danish and UK citizens given these numbers.


Your OurWorldinData source shows the same.

My rough guess is also about the same; Oil and coal are both about 2x the carbon intensity of gas; (oil+coal)+(gas/2) are about the same for both countries and Denmark has slightly higher per capita energy consumption.
Capture.PNG
Jdsk
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Re: UK energy

Post by Jdsk »

roubaixtuesday wrote: 10 Oct 2024, 4:35pm
Biospace wrote: 10 Oct 2024, 4:19pm I don't understand see how emissions per capita can be similar for Danish and UK citizens given these numbers.
Your OurWorldinData source shows the same.
...
Confirmed:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-e ... ry=GBR~DNK

Jonathan
Biospace
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Re: UK energy

Post by Biospace »

roubaixtuesday wrote: 10 Oct 2024, 4:35pm Your OurWorldinData source shows the same.

My rough guess is also about the same; Oil and coal are both about 2x the carbon intensity of gas; (oil+coal)+(gas/2) are about the same for both countries and Denmark has slightly higher per capita energy consumption.
The much lower emissions from gas clearly plays a large part in this (I'd overlooked the reason for our Dash for Gas) but other factors are likely at play, also.

Typically, the more industry per capita, the more emissions, for example. Denmark's shipbuilding industry is 6x to 9x larger than ours as a proportion of GDP, their renewables manufacturing 2x to 3x larger. We've reduced our emissions enormously through offshoring manufacturing industry.

Much is made of how low carbon our electricity Grid is growing, here is a comparison with Denmark (with almost no hydro and no nuclear) -

share of electricity by low carbon source.png
roubaixtuesday
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Re: UK energy

Post by roubaixtuesday »

Biospace wrote: 10 Oct 2024, 5:29pm
roubaixtuesday wrote: 10 Oct 2024, 4:35pm Your OurWorldinData source shows the same.

My rough guess is also about the same; Oil and coal are both about 2x the carbon intensity of gas; (oil+coal)+(gas/2) are about the same for both countries and Denmark has slightly higher per capita energy consumption.
The much lower emissions from gas clearly plays a large part in this (I'd overlooked the reason for our Dash for Gas) but other factors are likely at play, also.

Typically, the more industry per capita, the more emissions, for example. Denmark's shipbuilding industry is 6x to 9x larger than ours as a proportion of GDP, their renewables manufacturing 2x to 3x larger. We've reduced our emissions enormously through offshoring manufacturing industry.

Much is made of how low carbon our electricity Grid is growing, here is a comparison with Denmark (with almost no hydro and no nuclear) -


share of electricity by low carbon source.png
I'd be surprised if industrial emissions are higher in Denmark. I'll see if there's an obvious source.

But I think you're overthinking it TBH; Denmark uses more coal and oil than we do, so it would be surprising if they had much lower emissions.

[Here we go, ourworldindata 2018 is most recent
UK manufacturing, construction + "industry " = 37.62 MT
Denmark 2018 = 4.91
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-e ... untry=~GBR

Popl is 66.75 and 5.79M respectively (same source)

Giving industrial per capita carbon of

Uk 0.564
Den 0.848

You're right! Though the figures are in the noise vs overall totals, and I might well have done something wrong faffingwith these numbers on my mobile]

I would also suspect that as Denmark has higher GDP, they also have higher embodied carbon in imports too. But that's just a guess.
Biospace
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Re: UK energy

Post by Biospace »

roubaixtuesday wrote: 10 Oct 2024, 6:16pm I'd be surprised if industrial emissions are higher in Denmark. I'll see if there's an obvious source.

But I think you're overthinking it TBH; Denmark uses more coal and oil than we do, so it would be surprising if they had much lower emissions.

[Here we go, ourworldindata 2018 is most recent
UK manufacturing, construction + "industry " = 37.62 MT
Denmark 2018 = 4.91
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-e ... untry=~GBR

Popl is 66.75 and 5.79M respectively (same source)

Giving industrial per capita carbon of

Uk 0.564
Den 0.848

You're right! Though the figures are in the noise vs overall totals, and I might well have done something wrong faffingwith these numbers on my mobile]

I would also suspect that as Denmark has higher GDP, they also have higher embodied carbon in imports too. But that's just a guess.
Possibly higher embodied carbon of imports, but their spending is likely of a different nature to ours - perhaps fewer 'luxury' 4x4s. The industrial per capita carbon numbers above highlight how imbalanced the UK economy is - a nation of office workers rather than shipbuilders and manufacturers, one which imports more than it exports. Denmark runs a typical (last decade) trade surplus of around €12billion, compared with our £50billion deficit. The Netherlands runs a surplus of €80billion, Germany around €200billion.

Denmark's 'dirty secret' is its agribusiness, which has become a domestic political issue. The nation is least biodiverse of all the EU, https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/ ... he-eu-2020

GHG emission per capita, agri sector
All GHG from agriculture.png
https://www.wri.org/insights/charts-exp ... -emissions
Biospace
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Re: UK energy

Post by Biospace »

Despite their coal and oil burning which you mention, their heavy industry and trade surplus and no low carbon energy from nuclear power, their per capita GHG emissions from the energy sector has falled to similar levels to ours,

GHG emission per capita, energy sector
All GHG from energy.png
https://www.wri.org/insights/charts-exp ... -emissions
roubaixtuesday
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Joined: 18 Aug 2015, 7:05pm

Re: UK energy

Post by roubaixtuesday »

Biospace wrote: 11 Oct 2024, 3:45pm Despite their coal and oil burning which you mention, their heavy industry and trade surplus and no low carbon energy from nuclear power, their per capita GHG emissions from the energy sector has falled to similar levels to ours,

GHG emission per capita, energy sector
All GHG from energy.png
https://www.wri.org/insights/charts-exp ... -emissions
So what's the overall conclusion here?

Broadly similar emissions despite different approaches?

Your posts give the impression you favour the Danish approach? If so, why?
Jon in Sweden
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Re: UK energy

Post by Jon in Sweden »

Have people in the UK's energy prices settled down now?

Electricity has been really cheap here for over a year now. We pay a grid and delivery charge per kWh (about £0.115) and then an electricity charge on top of that too. Generally, that charge has been about £0.04-0.05 but it's often a lot less. Tomorrow it is £0.008, for example.

It's not really worth us using the fire when it's this cheap. We used about 25 kWh a day for everything at this time of year (our heat pumps are electric too), so for the sake of less than £3 a day, I'm not lighting the fire! Even in deep winter, it's hard to exceed a fiver a day.
Nearholmer
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Joined: 26 Mar 2022, 7:13am

Re: UK energy

Post by Nearholmer »

It’s settled-out a bit, but in the UK there are so many different tariffs, that a straw-poll on this forum would probably produce a very wide range of numbers.

The typical figure used by the regulator to calculate average annual bills at the moment is:
IMG_1756.jpeg
The thing that we’ve been hit by almost as much ad the actual energy prices is the standing charges (fixed daily amount) which have shot up to recoup the cost of suppliers going bankrupt (because the regulator failed miserably to ensure that unsound deals were kept out of the market).

What are the main sources of generation in Sweden? Lots of hydro?
Jdsk
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Re: UK energy

Post by Jdsk »

Nearholmer wrote: 11 Oct 2024, 5:05pm What are the main sources of generation in Sweden? Lots of hydro?
Image
NB that's for generation of electricity, not for consumption of energy.

Jonathan
Nearholmer
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Re: UK energy

Post by Nearholmer »

Ah, yes, next to zero dependence upon price-volatile fossil fuels! Very unlike the UK.
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