UK switches on to green power
onecitizen
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Britain is in the midst of a green energy revolution after production soared to record levels, according to new figures which deal a blow to opponents of renewable energy and a potential boost for consumers.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/uk-switches-on-to-green-power-9566508.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/uk-switches-on-to-green-power-9566508.html
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Meanwhile.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28041525
Except there's no sun and not enough wind to blow a candle out where I am.
Lucky there is such a thing as the national grid then, it moves power from where it is generated to where it is consumed.
The Independent is hopelessly wrong.
During the last 24 hrs, wind provided 3% of the electricity; the record on a windy day is 13%.
Electricity is about 20% of total energy consumption.
Anyhow, whatever happened to your frequent sightings of wind turbines rotating despite there being no wind? I always enjoyed reading your accounts of those.
In truth, part of that is down to low overall demand for electricity. Even so, production was up by 43% over the same period in 2013 - a total of 18.1 TWh.
It is also the case that not all renewable generation is metered - so the true figure is bound to be higher.
I doubt The Independent is even slightly wrong. They weren't talking about the last 24 hours, and weren't just looking at wind generation.
You can present alternative information, but that doesn't make The Independent's information wrong, just different.
We have some hydro electricity, but there is little or no scope for more. Solar is negligible.
The renewable energy sources are varied and as they provide 20% of our our energy needs they are a worthwhile investment for the nation. All energy sources require substantial investment, including nuclear.
Woo and Yey! I for one can't wait for the new, lower electricity bills to land on our doorsteps thanks to this green energy revolution.
The amount of electricity generated from renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydro has soared by 43 per cent in the past year to account for a fifth of production, as newly-built plants came on stream and the weather became windier, the Office for National Statistics has said.
Like.. WOW! Renewables (which include biomass btw) accounted for 20% of production! I'm.. like astounded.
“As the costs of these technologies start falling, now is not the time to prematurely announce a moratorium on onshore wind. Instead of destabilising Britain’s renewable industry just as it gets going, we should be setting clear goals to decarbonise the electricity system by 2030,” Mr Straw said.
Jack Straw's kid is a chip off the old block and knows all about the green stuff. This plan won't cost much, only a tenner. Once we've decarbonised the UK, he can then get on with using the savings to install a champagne network which will parallel the UK's water supply.
But before I get too cynical, why is there no mention of price and performance? Currently-
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Wind 1.83GW (5.59%)
So it's not blowing too well at the moment and 15% off it's peak. But this is all just a bit of spin from the Indie probably to counter this report from the NAO-
http://www.nao.org.uk/report/early-contracts-for-renewable-electricity/
The National Audit Office is not convinced that the Government sufficiently protected consumers’ interests by awarding without competition £16.6 billion worth of early contracts to eight renewable generation projects at risk of investment delay. This decision may provide higher returns to contractors than needed to secure the investment and also limits the amount of remaining budget subject to competition in later rounds
...However, the scale of early contracts for renewables, awarded without competition, may have increased costs to consumers. The Department proceeded with the FIDeR scheme to secure continuing investment in new renewable generation, despite acknowledging that competitive pricing might reveal subsequently that its administratively set strike prices in some cases were too high. It is not clear that the full scale of these commitments was needed so soon to meet the UK’s 2020 renewable energy target.
And the strike price for the new offshore wind is a stonking £144-154/MWh
By way of contrast, here's DECC's cost comparison. It leaves a few things out but has CCGT @£80/MWh, FOAK nuclear @£90/MWh
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/223940/DECC_Electricity_Generation_Costs_for_publication_-_24_07_13.pdf
So £16.6bn added to our electricity bills for '4.5GW' of capacity. If the wind blows. If it doesn't, we'd need to add the CCGT costs as well so our lights do stay on.
There are two faint hopes. One is we tell the EU to f'off, which means we're no longer 'legally bound' to hit their arbitarily imposed targets. The other is the state aid review due in July, which may decide forcing UK consumers to give the wind lobby £16bn+ is just taking the pish.
What do they do on the majority of days when it doesn't?
They use other energy sources. Obviously.
Today in London we have had a mixture of sunshine and showers but throughout most of the week we have had hot sunny days. Here's an idea, when we can use renewables such as the sun, wind and wave power to fuel our lives then do so. When we cannot then we revert back to the fossil fuels/nuclear power. You know have a joined up, intelligent plan for providing energy. We cannot rely on getting energy from abroad for ever; fossil fuels are being depleted rapidly.
If we can improve the yield of the renewals using science and R&D all the better.
And in answer to another posters point. There may be some generous contracts the Green energy industry - and that fundamentally isn't right - but if course the fossil fuel/nuclear energy have never received over-generous contracts ever - no, not ever - of course they haven't - look, a flying pig.
...and they have to pay the cost of building the power stations whether they use them or not. Obviously. Renewable energy is not only expensive to produce, it drives up the cost of electricity from proper power stations.
I am pretty sure we can engineer a system like they use in hybrid cars where the energy source is switchable.
My admittedly sketchy knowledge of how a power station works is that the system needs energy to power the process it doesn't matter the type of energy.
Uhuh. So your joined up and intelligent plan is to invest billions to provide electricity at >£150MWh from renewables so they can generate 100% of demand. Call that 35GW. £16.6bn buys us 4.5GW, so that's £129bn to add to our bills. Then when the climate changes, we'll also need enough fossil fuel or nuclear at around £1bn/GW or less as backup to add to our bills.
But if CCGT and nuclear cost less (almost half) to build and produce electricity, why not use that as primary generation instead?
Your "joined up and intelligent plan" means paying £150+ instead of £80-90/MWh. I'm struggling to see how that's intelligent. But then it does appear to be Ed Davey and the rewables lobby's preferred policy. I can't think why.
Except that's bollocks. Hubbert predicted peak oil in 1956 and the pesky oil & gas industry keeps finding the stuff. Plus we need not rely as much on energy from abroad if we exploit the gas that's here. But the Greens and their business partners really don't like that idea.
They work to that aim.
Rapidly.
Most in charge don't have a skull like head with evil eyes and a world view set in The Mikado.
One can see the psychology of latter types running throughout their lives. Consider Peter Lilley who is up to his ears in shale. Anyone who in the 1980s was drawing on a musical delighting in the phrase "The N serenader and the others of his race" was definitely not forward thinking. Most of us were preparing for the future with The Smiths.
Nor was there ever any love in the changing of some words to "there's young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing queue" and "dads who won't support the kids". He despised the young. After all, they were younger . As The Independent said , if he stayed as Social Security Secretary, it would be "equivalent to Mary Whitehouse being "madam of a brothel". Spitting Image merely depicted him as a commandant at a Nazi concentration camp.
By the late 1990s, he was dismissing any attempt by Labour to move into the future. "Darlings, raise your glasses, to brave modernity / Who needs Nelson or Churchill? The past is so passe / Britain's now about Britpop and the River Cafe / God, this place is so frumpy, let's be more like LA!" I was never any fan of theirs but the idea that this is one of the forward thinkers is preposterous. It's a dinosaur's last fling. Fracking - and everyone's on its little list.
http://euanmearns.com/parasitic-wind-killing-its-host/
First and foremost I didn't say producing 100% of the energy. Secondly with science I am pretty sure we can reduce the cost of producing renewable energy and power stations in the future. I would wonder about the cost-effectiveness about the early fossil-fuel power stations. And I also remember some stuff about how expensive the nuclear power stations are to build and then dispose of. The trouble with people who oppose the renewable market is they seem to think the costs are set in stone and will never be lowered.
Secondly we cannot rely on any other nation to provide the raw materials for our energy needs more than we have to. It is a suicidal policy built on appeasement.
If you think renewables will get cheaper, that is all the more reason for NOT investing until the price comes down.
In practice, the unreliability of wind means it has no economic value; why should we pay anything for something that destabilises the grid?
We don't rely on any single country for fuel. We can buy coal from the US, Poland, Australia or South Africa. We can buy gas from Norway, Qatar or Russia - or get it from under our own feet by fracking. We can buy Uranium from Canada, Australia or the USA.