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Britain's Renewable Power Hits New Peak, Fossil Fuel Also Rises (reuters.com) 112

Renewable power sources generated 40% of Britain's electricity in 2022, up from 35% in 2021, while the share of fossil fuel in the energy mix also rose, a report by academics from Imperial College London for Drax Electric Insights showed on Thursday. From a report: Overall generation from renewables has more than quadrupled over the last decade. Wind, solar, biomass and hydro are the main sources of renewable power. Fossil fuel still has a larger share, providing 42% of Britain's power in 2022, which was its biggest contribution to the country's fuel mix since 2016. Iain Staffell of Imperial College London, and lead author of the report, said 2022 had been "a year like no other for the energy industry." Although renewables provide "more cheap, green energy than ever before," he said, the public is feeling the pain of gas prices, which surged in response to supply disruption linked to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February.
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Britain's Renewable Power Hits New Peak, Fossil Fuel Also Rises

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  • by atomicalgebra ( 4566883 ) on Thursday December 29, 2022 @04:25PM (#63166572)
    Fossil fuels are up even though renewables are at an all time high. Sounds like the pro nuclear crowd(aka scientists) have been right all along. Nuclear is the only viable path towards true decarbonization.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by I75BJC ( 4590021 )
      Nuclear Fission, as practiced in the Western World, has proven to be safe and efficient.
      Hopefully, the recent strides in Nuclear Fusion will continue quickly enough to dig the Western World out of the energy hole that they have dug for themselves.
      While this article is optimistic, how does all this "green" energy work during those cloudy months in the British Isles. And other places with intermittent weather/climate?
      • Wind still exists when it's cloudy. The UK mostly relies on wind because it gets cloudy. Anyway, solar can work in light overcast, if less efficiently. It's actually possible to get sunburned under light cloud.
      • by tragedy ( 27079 )

        Efficient in what way? It has not proven to be be particularly cost effictive. It's also not agile or quick in any way. One thing this article shows is that renewables have taken over 30% of Britain's electrical power production in just a decade. How likely is it that you could supply 30% of Britain's electrical power needs in just a decade with fission reactors? Do you think the reactors would even be finished construction in ten years if you started such a project now?

        • by vakuona ( 788200 )

          Yes. Yes, they could. There is no physical reason that building nuclear power plants should take so long except the delays caused by incessant challenges in courts and elsewhere.

          The UK has peak daily electric needs of less than 50GW. 30% of that is 15GW which is roughly equivalent to 5 Hinkley Point Cs. Can be done in 10 years if the will is there.

          Japan and South Korea were able to build nuclear power plants in under 5 years on average.

          • by tragedy ( 27079 )

            Yes. Yes, they could. There is no physical reason that building nuclear power plants should take so long except the delays caused by incessant challenges in courts and elsewhere.

            Nuclear fanboys always say that, but the reality does not seem to match. Plenty of nuclear plants seem to take forever without any challenges in court. That's the excuse you guys always fall back on, but you never seem to demonstrate any truth to that claim.

            The UK has peak daily electric needs of less than 50GW. 30% of that is 15GW which is roughly equivalent to 5 Hinkley Point Cs. Can be done in 10 years if the will is there.

            Hinkley point C has been in the works since 2008 and is not due to be operational until 2027. That's 19 years provided it's really even ready then. It's also currently 50% over budget and probably will hit 100% over budget before it's done. Plus, the con

            • by sfcat ( 872532 )

              So, what are the factors that lead to such a relatively fast turnaround, and is there any reason those factors don't also apply to building renewable plants?

              They built AP1400s from Westinghouse. It is a standardized design. Hinkley like most nuclear power plants are custom designs. The basic problem with most nuclear projects is that physicists are in charge instead of engineers. Physicists like making new designs. Their job is to design experiments to learn new things. Engineers know that it is cheaper and quicker to build something you already have built before. Also, the Korean and Chinese governments wanted these plants to work. The western governme

              • by tragedy ( 27079 )

                It does look like most of those factors would apply to installing renewables too, So if you can speed up installing nuclear, you can speed up installing wind and/or solar.

                • by sfcat ( 872532 )

                  It does look like most of those factors would apply to installing renewables too, So if you can speed up installing nuclear, you can speed up installing wind and/or solar.

                  Why does this matter? Renewables don't suffer from problems of install speed. The problems with renewables are a lack of storage, the horrible inefficiencies they have, that they are unreliable and that they don't scale well (or at all). There are no solutions to those problems anywhere on the horizon. Nuclear has none of those problems. It is like saying that a scooter can replace a delivery van, since it takes the same amount of time to buy either one. You can install all the wind and solar you want

                  • by tragedy ( 27079 )

                    Why does this matter? Renewables don't suffer from problems of install speed.

                    Exactly, renewables are far, far more nimble than nuclear. They scale better too. At least wind and solar do.

                    The problems with renewables are a lack of storage...

                    More a lack of cheap storage. If you don't have spare hydroelectric reservoirs to pump water into, you basically need to use batteries. Consider though, the average British home apparently only uses about 8 kWh per day of electricity. While home storage does not need to use lithium car batteries, those have costs around 120 pounds per kWh. So the batteries for a whole days worth of electrical power f

                    • by vakuona ( 788200 )

                      While I'm sure it's not equal to the amount of fossil fuel offset, nuclear plants have plenty of CO2 production of their own. Some during the construction and eventual decommissioning of the plant, and also from the mining and refining of the fuel. As for emissions between countries, once again you're not comparing to renewables, you're comparing to fossil fuel burning.

                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

                      Not hard to find information showing that the nuclear fuel offset is damn near 100%!

                    • by tragedy ( 27079 )

                      Going by the median values in the article you provided, it pretty clearly shows onshore wind having a similar, but lower carbon footprint than nuclear and offshore wind having essentially the same carbon footprint. Solar it shows in the same order of magnitude and, rooftop solar has a lower maximum value. They're all technologies whose carbon emissions are much, much lower than fossil fuels. The article also notes that most of these figures are speculative. It's not known how long solar panels made in the 2

        • The point is that there is %100 backup for the unreliable power sources in the form of idling nuclear/fossil fuel plants. An idle plant cost almost as much money to run as one producing electricity.
          • by tragedy ( 27079 )

            How would that be efficient? Nuclear tends to be costlier and takes far, far longer to set up. I'm not seeing the efficiency. Especially with your suggestion of an idle nuclear power plant to take over when renewables aren't producing, which makes no sense considering how long it takes a nuclear plant to ramp up.

            • Can't do load-following with Nuclear but you can definitely follow the weather forecast which nowdays is pretty accurate for a 48 hour period.
              • by tragedy ( 27079 )

                It almost certainly would be much more economical to just run at full power and find something to do with any surplus power rather than varying the output of the reactor.

                • Nuclear power plants typically have long term contracts with mandatory obligations to buy a certain amount of power but I don't believe that covers 100% of their output and as you said they can't compete with cheaper alternatives so they end up getting subsidies to cover the shortfalls because unlike renewables, it is a reliable power generator.
                  • by tragedy ( 27079 )

                    I think you meant to reply to a different part of the thread. In any case II don't really see all the extremely long-term obligations as really being a positive for nuclear power. That it needs to be subsidized isn't really a good argument for it either.

    • by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Thursday December 29, 2022 @07:01PM (#63166880) Homepage

      Lets get right on that. If we start today, it might be up and running (actually selling power to the grid) in ...10-20 years?

      If we start building out more solar/wind we can be selling power to the grid in ...6 months.

      I'm not saying nuclear power is bad, I'm saying we can't get thru the regulatory issues and (nimby) lawsuits and get it built in a useful timeframe.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        NIMBYism isn't much of an issue for nuclear in the UK. There aren't many ways people can object to it, and the new ones being built are all on existing sites anyway.

        The main issue is that only EDF is dumb enough to try building nuclear. Everyone else says no, even with all the free money on offer. Even EDF couldn't fund it completely, they needed Chinese money.

        UK nuclear is owned by the French government and Chinese investors/CCP.

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Lets get right on that. If we start today, it might be up and running (actually selling power to the grid) in ...10-20 years?

        And that is an excuse not to build new nuclear plants because...

        Also, as a resident of the UK, Solar is pretty much a non starter here because we don't get that much sun. It's pitch black at 4PM in December.

        Nuclear is good to provide a base load, let other sources (preferably renewables) handle spikes in demand. We should have been building new plants 20 years ago, but that's another story.

        • And that is an excuse not to build new nuclear plants because...

          As a society, we should build nuclear plants even if they don't pay off right away -we will still need the energy when they finally do come online.

          As an business/investor/lender, it makes no sense to build nuclear plants because they will not begin to payback their costs for much longer than similar investments in solar/wind/etc.

          An immediate return on investment, both in terms of revenue and useful power output.

    • Sounds like the pro nuclear crowd(aka scientists) have been right all along.

      The anti-nuclear sentiment has been largely irrational all along. I personally would rather see nuke power than coal power. And we are going to need lots of nuke power for space exploration and development.

      Nuclear is the only viable path towards true decarbonization.

      Tony Seba and his think tank "RethinkX" believe that a combination of solar power, wind power, and grid-scale batteries can handle all energy needs.

      Solar/Wind/Battery

      • Hint: Tony Seba(whom ever the fuck that is) is wrong.

        And "time-of-use" pricing is just another way to gouge the working man when they get home from work.

        • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

          And "time-of-use" pricing is just another way to gouge the working man when they get home from work.

          And pricing the dinner menu higher than lunch is just a way to gouge dinner diners!

        • by steveha ( 103154 )

          Hint: Tony Seba(whom ever the **** that is) is wrong.

          Pro tip: If you want to convince me, some facts and references would help a lot. You didn't give any!

          Here, just for you, I'll check and see what kind of power plants are being built new right now. Oh, huh, the graph shows over 30 GW of solar being built, around 20 GW of wind being built, over 30 GW of storage being built (about half as batteries and half not specified)... and less than 5 GW of natural gas being built, and a tiny sliver of coal.

          https://l [leylinecapital.com]

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            Better pro-tip: Facts can't convince zealots to change their mind.

            There is no viable plan to build enough storage to overcome wind and solar intermittency. It would also take a century at current construction rates. You also used the wrong figure when talking about storage. Use GWh instead of GW.

            It is not fair to force working people to not use electricity. Which is what your plan entails. And it will not reduce demand. It will merely increase profits for fossil fuel companies.

            • by steveha ( 103154 )

              Facts can't convince zealots to change their mind.

              I will leave it as an exercise for the reader as to whether I am a zealot. I've explained where my ideas come from and provided references. You have been insulting and not provided any facts.

              There is no viable plan to build enough storage

              You haven't explained why Tony Seba's plan isn't viable. My guess is that you didn't bother to watch the video so you don't even know anything about the plan.

              It would also take a century at current construction rates.

              What

              • Annual battery storage is no where near enough. At projected rates of constructed it would take more than a century. Just for the record one hour of storage for the US is 450 GWh's while 12 hours(enough to get thru the day night cycle) is 5400 GWh's. Times 5 for the world. How are we going to build that much? Hint we won't.

                The important fact when discussing batteries is GWh not GW's. FACT!

                You claimed Tony Seba says as your source. That is fucking stupid. You are apparently a Tony Seba Simp.

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Your argument is that we can't build renewable power fast enough, so we should speed up building nuclear power instead. That's some weird logic.

              • No dumbass. My argument is that renewables power(wind and solar) is intermittent and therefore cannot provide power 24/365. Grid level storage, whether it is battery storage, pumped-hydro, etc, is not viable due to construction time and cost. So in order to deep decarbonize we should also build new nuclear. That is elementary logic.
                • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  Then we are fucked because nuclear is even less viable than grid level storage.

                  In reality we can build up renewable energy to over 90%, resulting in a great reduction of fossil fuel use at a relatively low cost. From there we look at end game solutions based on how things are developing.

                  • We are fucked but no way is nuclear less viable than grid level storage. In reality no one has been able to deep decarbonize with solar and wind.
                    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                      Nobody has been able to decarbonize with nuclear either.

                      Tell you what. Have your nuclear, but you have to pay for it. I'll do the same with renewables. That means no subsidies, no free insurance, no "someone else will deal with the waste later".

                      Only problem is that it will be 20 years before your investment is generating anything, so in the mean time there's going to have to be a carbon levy for both of us. Obviously mine will be lower and going down every year, yours might improve a bit in a couple of deca

                    • France, Sweden, Switzerland.

                      New nuclear should be funded with public pension funds. It would reduce the cost of new nuclear significantly since 2/3 of the cost is interest on loans. Also public pension funds are long term investments which would benefit from nuclear power significantly.

                      Why can't nuclear have subsidies? Why can only fossil fuels and renewables have subsidies? Nuclear has public liability insurance. And used fuel(aka waste) is a non problem with zero deaths. Even mentioning it makes y

                    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                      None of those countries have decarbonized with nuclear. In fact France is a dire warning not to go all in on nuclear. The cost is staggering and it's proven unreliable. Despite all the experience and a favourable legal/regulatory environment, it's still failing and they are reliant on imported electricity. Can't build any new capacity either.

                    • Being unable to accept a fact that contracts your preconceived notions is a sign of being a zealot.
        • The more people that get solar/battery at home/business the less the grid is stressed and the "peak" usage becomes less so that "time-of-use" pricing should drop
      • I didn’t watch the video, so there may be some trick to his calculation that I’m missing, but I call bs on those numbers. According to this,
        https://www.irena.org/publicat... [irena.org]

        which is the most recent data I could find (2021), grid-scale solar PV costs about $48/MWh generated. In the US, current nuclear plants are operating at a cost of $30/MWh, but even if we use Wikipedia’s high end,
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org],

        nuclear costs $136/MWh. So at 4x the generating capacity you have already e

    • by Uecker ( 1842596 ) on Thursday December 29, 2022 @08:01PM (#63166952)

      Who mods a comment like this insightful? There is no logic or argument whatsoever.

      Let's look at this: Why did renewables and fossil are at an all time high in Great Britain? The reason is that GB stopped being a net-imported of electricity from Europe. Why did this happen? Because France dropped out as an electricity exporter because half (or so) of its nuclear plants are offline due to various issues. Last year, Britain net-imported about 14 TWh from France, this year it net-exported 10 TWh to France. France itself became a net-imported of electricity (ca. 17 TWh). Essentially, fossil fuels for electricity are up in Europe because the nuclear industry in France fails to deliver exactly when needed most.

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        I understand your confusion. In my experience antinuclear scumbags are incapable of basic logic which is why you are incapable of understanding an elementary example.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Someone will claim it's because if delayed maintenance due to the pandemic, but the real reason is that EDF, the state owned company that runs them, is a basket case.

        The reactors are old and coming to end of life. They are expensive to maintain, and EDF has cashflow problems due to the new reactors it is trying and failing to build.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Have you looked at nuclear power in the UK?

      There are currently two plants under construction. One started a decade ago, still years away from operation and the cost is already up to around 10x the original estimate. When it's finished it will be the most expensive form of generation in the country, and consumers will be forced to pay for it even if they don't want to buy that power.

      The other one is looking like it will be even worse.

      Meanwhile renewables get cheaper and more reliable. There are fewer and few

      • Yeah. Hinkley Point C is actually going to lower the price of electricity when it opens. Sizewell C is going to be much cheaper than HPC since it will be funded through things like public pension funds eliminating the greatest cost of new nuclear--interest on loans. Almost 2/3 of the cost of new nuclear projects is interest. Also construction experience will help significantly. Rolls-Royce will be building SMR's.
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          How will Hinkley C low electricity cost, when it is by far the body expensive source of electricity? The final price is unknown, but it is currently about 5x the cost of wind and guaranteed to rise with inflation (i.e. double digit percentage this year, before it's even finished).

          Sizewell will be just as bad. The cost is due to overruns, not interest. EDF's reactor design is defective, and the ridiculously low cost estimates are only to fudge the figures when the project is being approved. None if their rea

          • Because the strike price is less than the average cost of electricity. Hence it will lower costs. Sizewell will be significantly cheaper because they are getting rid of the interest. So Sizewell will really lower costs for the consumer. The best tool we have to lower poverty in nuclear energy.
            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Building less capacity in 20 year's time is not going to reduce the market rate today.

              If you really want to do something for your kid's energy costs, build wind turbines.

              • And building only wind and solar will result in fossil fuels continuing to exist.
                • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  If you only need them a few times a year max, that's manageable.

                  You need fossil fuel plants for nuclear too, by the way. They need backups that can be kept on standby for when the reactor goes offline without warning. One of the hazards of having your generation highly concentrated.

                  • by sfcat ( 872532 )

                    If you only need them a few times a year max, that's manageable.

                    Oh, so you finally learned what a spinning reserve is. In the past you claimed that spinning reserves weren't needed. So which is it? Also, you are lying about only needing the reserve rarely. On average, a spinning reserved is used about 90% of the time. The truth is that for every watt of wind or solar you backup with a spinning reserve, you burn .9 watts of natural gas. Better than burning coal to be sure but not nearly as clean as you sell it as. Also, since a solar PV plant requires .25 watts of

                    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                      You can go 100% renewable, but it's always a case of cost Vs benefit. It will probably make more sense to keep a bit of gas around for those rare occasions, or maybe biofuels. At least in the next few decades.

                      I mean that's the only choice, right? Because even if you start building 100 new nuclear plants today, they won't be ready for another 20 years.

                    • On average, a spinning reserved is used about 90% of the time.

                      If you have the numbers, then you must have references. Is it that much effort to cite them? While I'm not saying you're just making it up, those citations could be out of date or misleading.

                  • The reality is that you will be using fossil fuels the entire year. And you will not even be able to start tackling the transportation problem.
                    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                      We have already reached the point where multiple countries have been entirely fossil fuel free (for electricity), including the UK, for short periods. So your claim is already provably false.

                    • Dude you a really dumb. You cannot even understand how HPC will lower costs even thought it will be charging significantly less than current average costs. Everything else you state is suspect. And the UK just set the record for fossil fuel usage. So you are claim has already been proven to be false.
                  • You need backup power for sure. I'm not convinced that it has to be dead dinosaurs. But obviously it does need to be reliable.
  • Are they talking about LNG or petrol when they say "gas?"
    • Natural gas. A lot of GB electricity is from gas power plants.

    • by mspohr ( 589790 )

      Methane CH4

    • Also, most homes in the UK are heated by natural gas boilers. This is not going to change quickly and for a good reason, because all other sources of house heating are either expensive (heat pumps) or inconvenient (storage heaters, electric heating in general) and there is a lot of opposition from the general public to be paying more for less comfort and convenience.

      • Just like the rest of the world.
      • GSHPs are cheaper to run than gas central heating, but the capital cost is large, access isn't always possible to dig the holes on an individual homeowner basis, and there isn't always a suitable location in UK homes. For example, in some cities older housing may be terraced with an enclosed paved over and small courtyard only. From https://www.theecoexperts.co.u... [theecoexperts.co.uk]: "In an average home, annual running costs for a ground source heat pump are typically £1,050â"£1,650 per year. By
        • Also, to maximise efficiency requires new radiators or underfloor heating, which is additional capital cost. Currently, electricity from windpower is generated at a lower cost than by natural gas, so the cost from GSHP could be lower. At the current domestic pricing, the payback period from GSHP is long, and given that most able to have it installed would need a loan as AFAIK there are no central government schemes at present, it makes it uneconomic without a different domestic electricity pricing structure
          • I'd be tempted by GSHP, but thr large capital cost is an issue. My first job is improve insulationabd heating control (I've just moved).
            • by crow ( 16139 )

              As a society, we should focus GSHP on new construction for the time being. I'm particularly thinking in the United States, where single family homes are built on lots with plenty of space for a heat pump well to be drilled. Once we take care of new construction, we can focus on retrofitting, perhaps eventually requiring retrofits where practical in order to sell the house (so the cost can be factored into the mortgage without stressing the current owner's finances).

              • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
                It's certainly easier to fit GSHP to new. Insulation in existing is better bang-for-the-buck, and even in hot areas, insulation helps, as does increasing thermal mass. Even if you might argue that the technology for GSHP is changing, you could at least mandate that houses have boreholes for GSHP (the expensive, disruptive bit) from the outset.
                • by crow ( 16139 )

                  Also for new construction, we should change any rules that prohibit sharing the wells between homes, so drill one, and use it for four homes. I believe there are some towns that have started doing that.

                  • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
                    There's a village in the UK which built a communal cluster on unused land and then pipes it to houses, although I'd be concerned about how maintenance of that is provided for and loss along pipes.
        • P. S. note, there is an overlap. That covers factors such a local geology and conditions, but also whether the home is additionally, at additional cost, set up to optimise for GSHPs.
          • YMMV, but in my part of the country, gas prices are so much cheaper than electric, that even though heat pumps can be several times more efficient, gas still usually wins, not even considering the amortization of the initial cost.
            • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
              In the UK, GSHPs are very competitive. And this is with electricity being priced in terms of gas production. If it was priced in terms of wind or other sources, then it (GSHP) would be very much the cheaper option.
  • by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Thursday December 29, 2022 @06:31PM (#63166826)

    I've installed air source heat pumps at my home and office.
    They work well (even in cold temps) and are cheap to run. (I also have solar electricity which is fully paid off so now it's free.)
    The cost is comparable to replacing any other kind of heating system and it's cheaper to run so good payback.

    • by rossdee ( 243626 )

      "(even in cold temps)"

      How cold are we talking about? Do they work at -40 degrees?

    • They are great until the outdoor temperature drops below their operating range, then the backup heat kicks in, which is resistive heating elements in most installations. Now you are using 4x the electricity just to keep from freezing - this is why when the entire country plummeted below the working range of an air source heat pump, the sudden spike in electricy use caused shortages and rolling blackouts.

      I guess that is fine for Florida and some of the south, but up north the fallback heat source better b
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @12:06AM (#63167354) Homepage Journal

        Heat pumps run down to -20C, which in the UK means that most places will never ever reach the lower limit. In a few specific, remote places, other solutions are needed.

      • Heat pumps give 4x energy output to input. This declines slowly to 1x at about -20C (0F) but never below 1x. It's a win.

        • Heat pumps give 4x energy output to input. This declines slowly to 1x at about -20C (0F) but never below 1x. It's a win.

          I'm no engineer, but that doesn't sound quite right to me.

          • I am an engineer and that is right

            • How do you get 4x energy output to input? Isn't that like 400% efficiency or something? Please explain or point me to something that explains how this is possible?

              • by mspohr ( 589790 )

                Heat pumps work by moving energy, not by creating energy.
                Burning stuff transforms fuel to energy and is never more than 100% efficient. Electric resistance heat is 100% efficient. Burning fuel varies from 30% to 60% efficient.
                Heat pumps take energy from ambient air, water or ground and move it against a temperature gradient. This takes less energy than creating energy by burning.
                Think of an air conditioner (which is a heat pump). It takes heat from inside a building and moves it to the outside of the buildi

  • ...that people are cheering this simultaneous with headlines like "UK facing catastrophic energy crisis"

    You morons.

    https://www.fsunews.com/story/... [fsunews.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Dagger2 ( 1177377 )

      A big contributor to that crisis was France having a chunk of its nuclear reactors offline for refuelling and repair, meaning the UK couldn't import power from France and in fact was exporting to them instead. France has managed to get most of their reactors back online now so the odds of a catastrophic energy crisis are mostly back to normal levels.

      Your link is nearly three months old.

      • I think you're trying to be deliberately misleading. Why?

        Here's a link from LAST WEEK https://www.google.com/url?q=h... [google.com]

        Are you suggesting the UK isn't having an energy crisis today?

        Not to mention using another country's nuclear power industry as a ? Refutation? of criticism of the UKs reliance on renewables lies somewhere between irony and a staggering lack of self awareness.

        • by Gonoff ( 88518 )

          Right now, wind turbines are generating 48.5% of the load, Nuclear 16.7% and France (doubtless nuclear) 8.7%. Gas is currently doing 7.5% and coal is currently providing 2.0% of your needs.

          I have a nice app for this. You should get it and see that, while it is good now and it does get less efficient, it is overall getting better. The big need is storage. One method is what Musk offers but there is plenty of other research.

          No, we are not having an energy crisis. We are having a price crisis made by the oil

        • I interpreted "catastrophic energy crisis" to mean "rolling blackouts", especially since you said "UK" and not "Europe". France bringing more of their reactors online should, as I understand it, provide sufficient leeway to avoid that.

          But you were talking about the price instead? High energy prices aren't limited to the UK and they're being capped, so, although bad, I wouldn't describe it as catastrophic, nor as something the UK is facing alone. I agree the high prices are ongoing and that France isn't goin

  • by Budenny ( 888916 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @04:15AM (#63167578)

    People still do not seem to have grasped how this works.

    A country introduces increasing amounts of intermittent generation, in the form of wind or solar.

    This generation capacity is unusable in its raw form because it fluctuates unpredictably in the case of wind, with several day near outages common, or it vanishes completely at peak demand, as with solar in the UK after 4pm in the winter. Solar in the UK delivers almost nothing from November through February, and even when it does deliver, its only for a few hours in the middle of the day.

    This intermittent generation is sold wholesale to retail suppliers. But if offered in raw form, fluctuating unpredictably or dropping out when most needed, no-one would buy it. In raw form it cannot be used as the basis for delivering the predictable and consistent power supplies which their customers require.

    They therefore have to be forced to buy it. To make utilities buy this supply, the government introduces various compulsory purchase regulations.

    This still requires them to do something to make the intermittent supply usable. To do this, you have to use some method of generation which fills in the gaps when wind falls or when the sun sets or becomes dim in winter. The only one that works at a large enough scale and with short enough startup times is gas generation.

    The government then sets pricing or uses other incentives to increase the size of the wind and solar plant, accompanied by compulsory purchase regulations. At the moment this has resulted in an installed parc of about 25GW wind capacity, and about 15GW solar. The solar is negligible at this time of year. and recently the wind supply has dropped below 1GW for days.

    There is then an astonishing unforeseen consequence of increasing the percentage of wind and solar in the generating capacity of the country in this way. Its that gas consumption rises! Who could have thought it? But its a fact. The higher the percentage of intermittent generation in your grid, the more fossil fuels you will end up using, and in particular gas. Which, according to the Guardian recently, amounts to about 60% of UK power generation now despite the fact that wind and solar capacity is close to 100% of UK power demand, that being around 40GW. Plus/minus about 5GW. Lower in summer, lower at night, higher in winter and higher evenings.

    Incidentally, the variability is not just on the downside, its also on the upside, so when the wind blows too hard, or when peak solar happens when there is no demand, there are 'constraint payments', that is, the intermittent suppliers are paid not to deliver.

    The fact is, you cannot get there from here. You cannot eliminate fossil fuel generation by installing more and more intermittent generation. Which does not prevent Conservatives, Labour, SNP and Liberals, all four political parties in the UK, from proclaiming they are going to do it.

    You don't believe me? Look carefully here:

    http://www.gridwatch.co.uk/ [gridwatch.co.uk]
    http://www.gridwatch.templar.c... [templar.co.uk]

    or go to the source of both for more than you ever wanted to know about UK power generation:

    https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs... [bmreports.com]

    By the way, as lots of EV owners found out over Christmas, you also cannot replace ICE cars with EVs on a one to one basis and expect to be able to drive in the same way. The problem is it takes far longer to refuel, even when you can find a charging station. This also does not prevent all four UK political parties from attempting to do it. Here is one story (admittedly from the Mail, but its made other mainstream papers also).

    https://journalbreak.com/why-b... [journalbreak.com]

    • by Dagger2 ( 1177377 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @06:05AM (#63167662)

      Yeah, I don't believe you. Any energy generated by wind or solar is energy that doesn't have to be generated by burning stuff.

      And that is in fact what we see: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix-uk?country=~GBR [ourworldindata.org]. As renewable goes up, the total share of coal+gas goes down. I suppose it's true that it's mostly coal that's going down rather than gas, but that's not a bad thing -- coal is even worse than gas is. It's also true that fossil fuels are about 60% right now, but that's down from historical amounts that were more like 70-80% before significant deployment of renewables (and they would be more like 50% if it wasn't for nuclear dropping over a similar time period).

      The data is available right from the UK government [www.gov.uk] if you want to plot it yourself. Gridwatch's graphs have too high a resolution to see it and only go back a year.

      So, why post this bizarre claim, and why back it up with unhelpful graphs?

    • by steveha ( 103154 ) on Friday December 30, 2022 @03:18PM (#63168838) Homepage

      You cannot eliminate fossil fuel generation by installing more and more intermittent generation.

      You haven't mentioned grid-scale battery storage yet.

      Tony Seba and his think tank ("RethinkX") have been saying for years now that we can generate our power purely from solar, wind, and batteries (SWB). According to their plan, you overbuild the generation (which is cheap) and build just enough batteries (which are expensive) so that on the worst day you barely get by... which means that on most days, you have a lot of surplus power.

      IMHO the UK shows just what a disaster renewables are when built without enough batteries to smooth over the intermittency. But if Tony Seba is correct, we should see the situation in the UK improve dramatically as they build some grid-scale batteries.

      In his most recent video, Tony Seba gives more examples of how much battery storage would be needed. He didn't cover the UK but does cover Germany around 14 minutes in. The UK is further north than Germany, but he also covers Alaska which is even further north than the UK.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsnkPLkf1ao [youtube.com]

      I haven't checked RethinkX's models but the premise makes sense to me. Batteries can smooth over intermittency, but are expensive. Solar and wind are cheap but intermittent. Put them together and you should have power that is both cheap and reliable.

      you also cannot replace ICE cars with EVs

      As a person who drives an EV, I have opinions about this.

      For most people, most of the time, a good EV can replace an ICEV. Your anecdote is not particularly useful for figuring out public policy: a person driving a Nissan Leaf had a bad road trip. I drive a Tesla, and I have had only good road trips.

      If we want to generally replace ICEVs with EVs, we will want to provide better cars than the Nissan Leaf, and we will need a reliable and trustworthy charging network. But with better cars and reliable charging, most people will be well-served by EVs.

      Distances are generally longer in the USA than in the UK. I once drove my EV from Washington state to California, about a 16 hour drive. I love my EV and would use it again for that same trip. If it works for me, IMHO it can work for people in the UK.

  • Many years ago, people travelled from all over the UK, and beyond, up to Orkney to try and "save" us from wind turbines. Apparently, they would...

    Make us all sick

    Kill all our animals and all the birds

    Make the place so ugly that tourists would not come

    Everyone is still there so we never got killed and we are probably healthier than the UK average as we are rural.

    No, we still have plenty farm animals. I understand that birds are occasionally found at the base of wind turbines but they are also found at the s

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