UK energy

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Biospace
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Re: UK energy

Post by Biospace »

roubaixtuesday wrote: 9 Dec 2022, 8:41am
Biospace wrote: 8 Dec 2022, 11:26pm
What do I think are large storage technologies? In which case the Wikipedia page encapsulates things fairly well. Or what do I think would work best as large scale storage for the UK? For both nuclear and renewables? We don't yet know how well organised our production side will be, but we do know there is a lot of wind generation already and there is going to be a lot more. Storage a technology which is in development, not yet tried on a large scale. There are a lot of unknowns.

My thoughts: liquid fuel takes up a relatively small volume, does not leak energy and inefficiencies of production necessitate use of surplus-only energy. Could work well for inter-seasonal storage. Batteries are going to be widely owned for personal transport, it will make sense to use them using the Smart Grid despite the environmental costs. Good for lopping off those demand spikes, good for involving the public in an energy discussion. Tidal barrages and lagoons are yet to be trialled on a large scale, tides are totally predicable and reliable for daily production, we have good access to a lot of coastline potential. Added storage comes at a low marginal cost, in large quantities.

There's a lot left out in the above, it's a huge subject with a long way to go. Use of geothermal energy, larger grids and less waste will likely all play a part in reducing storage demands.

What liquids do you think can be used for storage?

What is the basis for "Added storage comes at a low marginal cost, in large quantities." - AFAICT the whole problem with storage is that it's ruinously expensive in large quantities, or indeed not feasible at all.
See the discussion earlier in the thread for the discussion surrounding tidal energy and storage. All storage is expensive, as mentioned above I sense there is a hope millions of individuals' batteries (car, home) will add up sufficiently to kick the state's investment further down the track.

Liquid fuels as a form of energy storage? Many would work, this whole subject is under consideration. From https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3 ... ning-giant, this comment "For DRI to be economically sustainable in Asia, the price of each tonne of carbon dioxide emitted would need to rise to US$100, and the price of green hydrogen fall to US$1 per kilogram" shows how the market is a primary driver of behaviour.

As I'm sure you know, carbon trading in itself is a hotbed of discussion for many.
roubaixtuesday
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Joined: 18 Aug 2015, 7:05pm

Re: UK energy

Post by roubaixtuesday »

Biospace wrote: 9 Dec 2022, 1:16pm
roubaixtuesday wrote: 9 Dec 2022, 8:41am
Biospace wrote: 8 Dec 2022, 11:26pm
What do I think are large storage technologies? In which case the Wikipedia page encapsulates things fairly well. Or what do I think would work best as large scale storage for the UK? For both nuclear and renewables? We don't yet know how well organised our production side will be, but we do know there is a lot of wind generation already and there is going to be a lot more. Storage a technology which is in development, not yet tried on a large scale. There are a lot of unknowns.

My thoughts: liquid fuel takes up a relatively small volume, does not leak energy and inefficiencies of production necessitate use of surplus-only energy. Could work well for inter-seasonal storage. Batteries are going to be widely owned for personal transport, it will make sense to use them using the Smart Grid despite the environmental costs. Good for lopping off those demand spikes, good for involving the public in an energy discussion. Tidal barrages and lagoons are yet to be trialled on a large scale, tides are totally predicable and reliable for daily production, we have good access to a lot of coastline potential. Added storage comes at a low marginal cost, in large quantities.

There's a lot left out in the above, it's a huge subject with a long way to go. Use of geothermal energy, larger grids and less waste will likely all play a part in reducing storage demands.

What liquids do you think can be used for storage?

What is the basis for "Added storage comes at a low marginal cost, in large quantities." - AFAICT the whole problem with storage is that it's ruinously expensive in large quantities, or indeed not feasible at all.
See the discussion earlier in the thread for the discussion surrounding tidal energy and storage. All storage is expensive, as mentioned above I sense there is a hope millions of individuals' batteries (car, home) will add up sufficiently to kick the state's investment further down the track.

Liquid fuels as a form of energy storage? Many would work, this whole subject is under consideration. From https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3 ... ning-giant, this comment "For DRI to be economically sustainable in Asia, the price of each tonne of carbon dioxide emitted would need to rise to US$100, and the price of green hydrogen fall to US$1 per kilogram" shows how the market is a primary driver of behaviour.

As I'm sure you know, carbon trading in itself is a hotbed of discussion for many.
You've completely lost me now, sorry.

Your earlier comment said storage was low marginal cost, this one seems to say all storage is expensive?

And the linked article seems to be about hydrogen in steelmaking, not liquid fuels.

So I'm confused on both points now!
Biospace
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Re: UK energy

Post by Biospace »

roubaixtuesday wrote: 9 Dec 2022, 1:29pm
You've completely lost me now, sorry.

Your earlier comment said storage was low marginal cost, this one seems to say all storage is expensive?

And the linked article seems to be about hydrogen in steelmaking, not liquid fuels.

So I'm confused on both points now!

In context, the low marginal cost comment was in relation to other forms of mass storage and the cost of using tidal energy without adding storage potential.

The link to renewable energy synthesised fuel was indeed relating to the use of hydrogen, the point that it's presently market forces and carbon pricing that are the primary driver of what type of renewable energy synthesised storage is used.
roubaixtuesday
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Re: UK energy

Post by roubaixtuesday »

Biospace wrote: 9 Dec 2022, 1:40pm
roubaixtuesday wrote: 9 Dec 2022, 1:29pm
You've completely lost me now, sorry.

Your earlier comment said storage was low marginal cost, this one seems to say all storage is expensive?

And the linked article seems to be about hydrogen in steelmaking, not liquid fuels.

So I'm confused on both points now!

In context, the low marginal cost comment was in relation to other forms of mass storage and the cost of using tidal energy without adding storage potential.

The link to renewable energy synthesised fuel was indeed relating to the use of hydrogen, the point that it's presently market forces and carbon pricing that are the primary driver of what type of renewable energy synthesised storage is used.
Thanks. So what liquid fuels do you think are viable as long term storage for the UK?
Biospace
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Re: UK energy

Post by Biospace »

roubaixtuesday wrote: 9 Dec 2022, 2:25pm
Thanks. So what liquid fuels do you think are viable as long term storage for the UK?

My thoughts are that with existing production technologies they are not and are not likely to be viable in the literal sense of the word, the production losses are similar to those in converting nuclear energy into electricity.

However a lot of existing infrastructure and technology relies on liquid and gas fuels, what are the environmental costs and benefits of binning hardware well before its serviceable life is over? Discussions with the public need to be had, at the moment there is a growing hostility to the Green Agenda, a lot of it because of the way it's being explained and managed.

To remind us all, part of my response was "My thoughts: liquid fuel takes up a relatively small volume, does not leak energy and inefficiencies of production necessitate use of surplus-only energy. Could work well for inter-seasonal storage.

...There's a lot left out in the above, it's a huge subject with a long way to go. Use of geothermal energy, larger grids and less waste will likely all play a part in reducing storage demands.
"

The more debate about energy storage, the better for all.
Biospace
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Re: UK energy

Post by Biospace »

A week of high demand combined with low wind and solar input should concentrate minds, the more so with Europe's largest nuclear reactor on the front line in a war and gas prices levered up by Putin.

The market price for energy reached a record high earlier in the week, today it's tweeted there's something of a merry-go-round situation involving France, Belgium and Britain and our grid connections,
GB / FR / NL : GB is short of power so NG ESO is buying across the French interconnectors (at around £430/MWh). France is getting power across interconnectors from Belgium. Belgium is importing from GB ... #magicloopflow (1/2) ^PH
Screenshot 2022-12-15 at 17.24.35.png
https://twitter.com/enappsys/status/160 ... qDEWwTWAFw

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Cugel
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Re: UK energy

Post by Cugel »

Imagine - Pukin turns west and decides to rid the UK of its "nazis" because they are bad-mouthing his wonderful democratic republic kleptocracy nation/fiefdom. Pukin will take over Blighty and do a much better job, especially with the protestors.

As a means to make his war upon us, he notices that Seascale/Sellafield is full of what one observer there calls, "The most dangerous stuff in Europe", due to the storage of vast amounts of plutonium, uranium and contaminated nuclear junk much of which has a half life of thousands of years.

"I vill blow it up, to save my dear troops", he thinks. He does and we all die, including him and the other 8 billion.

***************
I remember the talk of the 60s, with that Harold Wilson and his "white hot heat of technology" that was going to create us all a paradise. "Electricity from nuclear so abundant we needn't bother with any bills for it". Ha ha ha.

And yet some fool is planning to build more of the bluddy things! Cuh!!

Cugel, making a lead suit for later.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
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Mike Sales
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Re: UK energy

Post by Mike Sales »

Cugel wrote: 15 Dec 2022, 7:45pm "The most dangerous stuff in Europe", due to the storage of vast amounts of plutonium, uranium and contaminated nuclear junk much of which has a half life of thousands of years.
Interesting article in The Guardian on this subject.
Since it began operating in 1950, Sellafield has had different duties. First it manufactured plutonium for nuclear weapons. Then it generated electricity for the National Grid, until 2003. It also carried out years of fuel reprocessing: extracting uranium and plutonium from nuclear fuel rods after they’d ended their life cycles. The very day before I visited Sellafield, in mid-July, the reprocessing came to an end as well. It was a historic occasion. From an operational nuclear facility, Sellafield turned into a full-time storage depot – but an uncanny, precarious one, filled with toxic nuclear waste that has to be kept contained at any cost.
Nothing is produced at Sellafield any more. Which was just as well, because I’d gone to Sellafield not to observe how it lived but to understand how it is preparing for its end. Sellafield’s waste – spent fuel rods, scraps of metal, radioactive liquids, a miscellany of other debris – is parked in concrete silos, artificial ponds and sealed buildings. Some of these structures are growing, in the industry’s parlance, “intolerable”, atrophied by the sea air, radiation and time itself. If they degrade too much, waste will seep out of them, poisoning the Cumbrian soil and water.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... clear-site
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
wirral_cyclist
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Re: UK energy

Post by wirral_cyclist »

A friend of mine worked for R-R on their not inSUBstantial 😉 nuclear products.

He related that most radioactive material in storage was the tissue the engineer blew his nose on, or the paper visit suit that was worn inside the containment building each day, and really is not the U/P2xx most folks imagine. So figures for quantity of waste are way higher than one might imagine (though g's of U2xx are much worse than tonnes of snot rag).
He would always avoid any proximity to proper fizzy if possible, but of course he got much higher annual doses of radiation flying to the US than standing anywhere near anything hot (or even once snotty hankies).
Biospace
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Re: UK energy

Post by Biospace »

Cugel wrote: 15 Dec 2022, 7:45pm
Cugel, making a lead suit for later.

So we have a 30-45GW demand in Great Britain, over 45GW plenty of times this week. At times the wind blows at times there's a lot of solar radiation. Sometimes, both. We don't have the vast resource of river potential as Norway and Sweden do, tidal energy hasn't received the financial support to begin to add anything much yet, the same for geothermal. Storage on a large scale is under research and being trialled.

All our current nuclear is going to be out of commission by the end of the decade, other than Margaret Thatcher's Sizewell B (her 1982 Chnacellor showed her the numbers, and the rest of the programme was cancelled) which ends in 2035. Interconnectors increase in number, but Norway's usually abundant hydropower has been limited this year by drought, the French are finding out what relying on nuclear power in the longer term means (they've received energy from us all summer, emergency ones this week) and have had to bail out EDF in totality.

Our North Sea gas has been progressively wound down, coal-powered electricity has all but ended. Putin has shocked us from our delusions of relying on cheap imports, so just do we plan to face three weeks of what we've had this week, in 2029?
rjb
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Re: UK energy

Post by rjb »

Those paper coveralls, cotton gloves, cleaning cloths etc are all classified as low level radioactive waste and were buried at Drigg in a landfill site a few feet under soil. Twenty years ago as I was retiring incinerators were being introduced to reduce the low level waste to ash to reduce the volume and enable it to be placed in steel drums for easier handling and disposal by burying. That waste comes from Sellafield, Power stations, Hospitals. Universities, Mod sites, industrial users etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Level ... Repository
BTW the levels of radiation on the contaminated waste was far lower than common natural materials like Granite for example. :wink:
Last edited by rjb on 15 Dec 2022, 10:29pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Biospace
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Re: UK energy

Post by Biospace »

wirral_cyclist wrote: 15 Dec 2022, 10:08pm A friend of mine worked for R-R on their not inSUBstantial 😉 nuclear products.

He related that most radioactive material in storage was the tissue the engineer blew his nose on, or the paper visit suit that was worn inside the containment building each day, and really is not the U/P2xx most folks imagine.
Flippin'eck, where are the hundreds of billions alloted to the decontamination efforts going then?
wirral_cyclist
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Location: Wirral Merseyside

Re: UK energy

Post by wirral_cyclist »

Biospace wrote: 15 Dec 2022, 10:27pm
wirral_cyclist wrote: 15 Dec 2022, 10:08pm A friend of mine worked for R-R on their not inSUBstantial 😉 nuclear products.

He related that most radioactive material in storage was the tissue the engineer blew his nose on, or the paper visit suit that was worn inside the containment building each day, and really is not the U/P2xx most folks imagine.
Flippin'eck, where are the hundreds of billions alloted to the decontamination efforts going then?
Well all those supposedly dangerous tissues are tiny in comparison to big bits of infrastructure, and being just as (un) dangerous as per regulations simply an opportunity to earn mega-bucks.
I imagine some parts of the building are quite fizzy - so cross all 7 fingers they do those bits right...
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Cugel
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Re: UK energy

Post by Cugel »

Biospace wrote: 15 Dec 2022, 10:27pm
wirral_cyclist wrote: 15 Dec 2022, 10:08pm A friend of mine worked for R-R on their not inSUBstantial 😉 nuclear products.

He related that most radioactive material in storage was the tissue the engineer blew his nose on, or the paper visit suit that was worn inside the containment building each day, and really is not the U/P2xx most folks imagine.
Flippin'eck, where are the hundreds of billions alloted to the decontamination efforts going then?
On PR to convince the gullible that there's only a few mildly radioactive snotty tissues to be dealt with? :-)

Roubaix mentioned a Guardian article on Sellafield so I has a read. Alarming info in there, with radioactive snotrags not even mentioned. The projected "deal with this immense amount of lethal and useless stuff if you can" price is many billions and likely to grow. Apparently the long term solution is to dig a very deep pit and put it all in there. Will any such pit ever be deep enough, though?

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
Biospace
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Joined: 24 Jun 2019, 12:23pm

Re: UK energy

Post by Biospace »

Cugel wrote: 16 Dec 2022, 7:18am
Biospace wrote: 15 Dec 2022, 10:27pm
Flippin'eck, where are the hundreds of billions allotted to the decontamination efforts going then?
On PR to convince the gullible that there's only a few mildly radioactive snotty tissues to be dealt with? :-)

Roubaix mentioned a Guardian article on Sellafield so I has a read. Alarming info in there, with radioactive snotrags not even mentioned. The projected "deal with this immense amount of lethal and useless stuff if you can" price is many billions and likely to grow. Apparently the long term solution is to dig a very deep pit and put it all in there. Will any such pit ever be deep enough, though?

Cugel

Through-the-roof expensive and national security risk that it is, what are the alternatives to commissioning 5-10GW of nuclear energy to tide us over the next 30 or 40 years given the mess our politicians have landed us in? You ask about a deep enough pit, I wonder will the "Keep Out" signs weather ok for just 10,000 years, let alone the time they're required for?

And what do we plan for the 15-20 years before new nuclear would come on stream? There is certainly a lot more wind energy being built and being planned, more solar too, storage in the form of batteries is going to help, as do increasing amounts of energy flowing from other nations, but where is a steady 35-45GW for 3 week periods with negligible wind and solar input?

There's no way we can store anywhere near 20,000GWh. For example, ten million lots of 50KWh - if V2G were using 10 million cars' batteries - would mean 500GWh of energy, before the 10-15% losses.

Politicians waved through the London Barrage without much problem, why not some which could generate many GW of electricity in controlled release?
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