The North Seas Can Be the World's Biggest Power Plant (politico.eu) 74
Alexander De Croo (the prime minister of Belgium), Mark Rutte (the prime minister of the Netherlands), Xavier Bettel (the prime minister of Luxembourg), Emmanuel Macron (the president of France), Olaf Scholz (the chancellor of Germany), Leo Varadkar (the prime minister of Ireland), Jonas Gahr Store (the prime minister of Norway), Rishi Sunak (the prime minister of the United Kingdom), and Mette Frederiksen (the prime minister of Denmark), writing at Politico: We need offshore wind turbines -- and we need a lot of them. We need them to reach our climate goals, and to rid ourselves of Russian gas, ensuring a more secure and independent Europe. Held for the first time last year, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands came together for the inaugural North Sea Summit in the Danish harbor town of Esbjerg, setting historic goals for offshore wind with the Esbjerg Declaration. It paved the way for making the North Seas a green power plant for Europe, as well as a major contributor to climate neutrality and strengthening energy security.
This Monday, nine countries will meet for the next North Sea Summit -- this time in the Belgian town of Ostend -- where France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway and the United Kingdom will also put their political weight behind developing green energy in the North Seas, including the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish and Celtic Seas. Together, we will combine and coordinate our ambitions for deploying offshore wind and developing an offshore electricity grid, putting Europe on the path toward a green economy fueled by offshore green power plants. Collectively, our target for offshore wind in the North Seas is now 120 gigawatts by 2030, and a minimum of 300 gigawatts by 2050 -- larger than any of the co-signatories' existing generation capacity at a national level. And to deliver on this ambition, we are committing to building an entire electricity system in the North Seas based on renewable energy by developing cooperation projects.
This is a massive undertaking and a true example of the green transition in the making. It also requires huge investments in infrastructure, both offshore and on land. It presents us with a political and environmental dilemma as well: We are facing a climate crisis at the same time some of our ecosystems are in decline, and offshore wind is an integral part of both climate action and safeguarding our energy security. Thus, time is of the essence, and we must follow up on the progress already made on reining in the burden of bureaucracy for renewable projects.
This Monday, nine countries will meet for the next North Sea Summit -- this time in the Belgian town of Ostend -- where France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway and the United Kingdom will also put their political weight behind developing green energy in the North Seas, including the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish and Celtic Seas. Together, we will combine and coordinate our ambitions for deploying offshore wind and developing an offshore electricity grid, putting Europe on the path toward a green economy fueled by offshore green power plants. Collectively, our target for offshore wind in the North Seas is now 120 gigawatts by 2030, and a minimum of 300 gigawatts by 2050 -- larger than any of the co-signatories' existing generation capacity at a national level. And to deliver on this ambition, we are committing to building an entire electricity system in the North Seas based on renewable energy by developing cooperation projects.
This is a massive undertaking and a true example of the green transition in the making. It also requires huge investments in infrastructure, both offshore and on land. It presents us with a political and environmental dilemma as well: We are facing a climate crisis at the same time some of our ecosystems are in decline, and offshore wind is an integral part of both climate action and safeguarding our energy security. Thus, time is of the essence, and we must follow up on the progress already made on reining in the burden of bureaucracy for renewable projects.
Singular (Score:1)
It's called the "North Sea" not the "North Seas".
Just like the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic or the Red Sea etc. etc. Singular not plural.
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It's called the "North Sea" not the "North Seas".
Just like the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic or the Red Sea etc. etc. Singular not plural.
I believe they're referring to several seas, in the north, from TFS/A:
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I've heard of the Irish sea, but not the Celtic Sea.
Or is this one of those cases of a body of water being given 2 different names by the people on either side, like the Persian Gulf (which is called the Arabian Gulf by the Arabs)
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I've heard of the Irish sea, but not the Celtic Sea.
An opportunity to educate yourself...?
(instead of proudly proclaiming your ignorance)
Re: Singular (Score:1)
Well I live in the UK and have never heard of the Celtic Sea before. Sounds like some modern woke invention frankly.
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Tidal power (Score:3)
Why does it seem like tidal power never lifts off? With the amount of water flowing in the North Sea it seems like there should be a near unlimited amount of power up for grabs.
Re:Tidal power (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that it's underwater, my guess it that it's at least one order of magnitude more expensive than solar or wind.
It's not about the amount of energy available. There is "unlimited" energy all over the place, including under our feet. It's about how practical it is to transform it into something we can use.
Re:Tidal power (Score:5, Interesting)
I read an article about this recently. It's largelya chicken or egg thing. The economies of scale aren't there to reduce the build costs of tidal power plants. Likewise the process for permitting such plants and reviewing their environmental impact isn't well established. In essence every new tidal power plant is a pilot project.
I remember reading about wind power during the 1970s "Energy Crisis". It did't manage to get off the ground before OPEC lowered its prices and pulled the rug out of all those promising startups. But the price per kwh for wind power slowly and steadily declined by a factor of 10 between 1980 and 2010, to the point where onshore wind power has one of the cheapest levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of any source. Likewise it wasn't too long ago that people here woudl tell you that solar photovolatics was impractically expensive (then true) and so would never generate a significant amount of electricity (eventually false). It now generates electricity more cheaply than any fossil fuel source and is competitive with wind.
It's *economics* that decides which technologies win, but when we're talking about technology it's a complicated, moving target.
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LCOE is not a valid measure of the cost of a source.
The way its calculated is to add up all the electricity generated over the life of the installation. You then figure the NPV of all the costs incurred over the life, and divide.
This makes the hidden assumption that there is no such thing as intermittency. It doesn't matter when the power is produced.
To compare two generation technologies you have to make the products which they deliver comparable. So the big one is storage or other supplementation for n
Re: Tidal power (Score:2)
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LCOE is just fraudulent accounting. Leaving out huge chunks of cost and then claiming your solution is cheaper. Also comparing two completely different product offerings, one of which is more functional than the other, and pretending they are interchangeable, which they are not.
Make the products comparable. Then include all the costs. And the result is that wind and solar are at least double conventional.
They might still be the right thing to do. But there is no valid argument to the effect that they a
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... Leaving out huge chunks of cost and then claiming your solution is cheaper. Also comparing two completely different product offerings, one of which is more functional than the other, and pretending they are interchangeable, which they are not....
Leaving out huge chunks of cost is actually what has been going on for a long time with regard to traditional fossil fuel derived energy. The resulting pollution has been for free in terms of the energy produced, but of course the cost has just been pushed on to others.
The energy supply and consumption in our societies have evolved from the premise of unrealistically cheap fossil fuels. Realising that we have to change from polluting to clean energy may also lead to changes in the way energy is consumed and
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Come on. Let's take a simple example:
1. I have a nuclear power plant
2. The LCOE of a solar panel is cheaper than the nuclear power plant.
3. I install a thousand of those.
4. The cost of the overall system has increased: The nuclear power plan costs exactly the same. Solar panel costs were just added to the system.
5. LCOE is bullshit: The LCOE being lower than nuclear did made the system more expensive
Another scenario for you:
1. I have a nuclear power plant
2. The LCOE of a solar panel is cheaper than the nucl
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1. I have a nuclear power plant that covers 20% of requirements 24-7.
2. I install low LCOE solar panels and storage which covers, with wind, etc., the rest of the load to 99.99% certainty for half the cost of adding the same amount as nuclear.
The overall cost is reasonable, and I've avoided a strawman argument to boot. And with 20% nuclear, even if there is some shortfall in renewables for a significant period, some baseline load is covered.
In reality, you wouldn't want just one nuclear reactor,
Re:Tidal power (Score:5, Insightful)
The generators tend to clog up. To your average lumps of seaweed and shellfish the structure looks like a nice handy rock with a decent current bringing plenty of food within reach.
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Why does it seem like tidal power never lifts off? With the amount of water flowing in the North Sea it seems like there should be a near unlimited amount of power up for grabs.
It's expensive, difficult to build and needs a lot of maintenance...
Re: Tidal power (Score:2)
Given a Seven barrage (we are talking North Sea so reasonable to keep the focus on the UK) could generate reliably as much power as at least 4 nuclear power stations and they seem to run to £30 billion each, then the Seven barage has to cost more than £120 billion to be more expensive than nuclear for guaranteed power generation. Yeah sorry I don't buy that. Admittedly the UK is uniquely placed in the world to benefit from tidal power with the Mersey and Pentland Firth being two othe
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Likely due to the maintenance requirements...
Being submerged in seawater rapidly destroys the equipment.
Probably not easy to secure (Score:2, Interesting)
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Thousands of well spaced turbines are hard to target. Take a few out, sure, but that's not going to change anything.
Re:Probably not easy to secure (Score:5, Informative)
Thousands of well spaced turbines are hard to target.
Their output converge to big copper cables that go to land, which are SPOF. Russia has been seen mapping the sea floor near offshore infrastructure of the North Sea just last week https://www.euronews.com/2023/... [euronews.com]
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Rip Russia.
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Which form of energy supply is easy to defend against aggressors?
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Re:Probably not easy to secure (Score:4, Interesting)
Which form of energy supply is easy to defend against aggressors?
How about a decentralized mesh network?
My own house now has solar panels and backup batteries; it produces quite a lot of power. To completely deprive me of power you would have to go to my house and sabotage it. That wouldn't exactly be hard, but if all the houses in my neighborhood also had solar power with storage batteries, it would add up to a lot of work to take them all out.
If a substantial fraction of houses were net electricity generators, and most of large industrial buildings and large parking lots also had solar... and let's imagine a bunch of Tesla Megapack installations scattered around the grid to stabilize it and keep it reliable... it would become difficult to get the whole thing to fail.
I actually really like the idea that all the parking lots and parking garages and industrial buildings with huge flat roofs should all install solar panels. They will pay for themselves, and in places like California they will pay for themselves quickly.
Note that France passed a law requiring parking lots to have solar panels.
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/09/new-law-50-solar-power-over-parking-lots-in-france/ [cleantechnica.com]
Rhode Island is considering a similar requirement:
https://electrek.co/2023/04/07/solar-new-parking-lots-buildings/ [electrek.co]
P.S. From time to time I wonder what would happen if an enemy lit off an EMP bomb above where I live, or if we had another Carrington Event [wikipedia.org].
I wonder if you could design solar panels with a Faraday cage adequate to protect against EMP that nonetheless let the sunlight through to get the power. If it were possible, I wonder how much more expensive it would be.
Solar works well in Australia (Score:3)
But in Europe they have short days in Winter, when they need the power. Europe is a long way north.
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Solar PV panels are more efficient when they're cooler.
This is true, as far as it goes.
But where I live, on most winter days, I really do get poor generation from my solar panels. Winter days are shorter, and where I live we have very cloudy weather in winter.
If it snows, and you don't clear the panels, you will get zero power.
But on very cold days with no clouds in the sky, I have seen pretty good generation for the hours we do have sunlight.
I'm looking forward to seeing how much power my roof can make wh
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I actually really like the idea that all the parking lots and parking garages and industrial buildings with huge flat roofs should all install solar panels. They will pay for themselves, and in places like California they will pay for themselves quickly.
So they pay for themselves, yet no one is building solar park over flat parking lots in any real numbers? I wonder why that is? Perhaps they don't really "...pay for themselves quickly"?
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The rule of thumb for California used to be that solar panels would pay for themselves in 3 to 5 years, which IMHO is "quickly" in the world of infrastructure. But the net metering program in California was just changed to make it a much better deal for the power companies and a much worse deal for the customers, making the new payback period more like 9 years. It's up to you whether 9 years is "quickly".
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-home-solar-installers-brace-slowdown-california-reform-looms-2023- [reuters.com]
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One that is generated based on resources from within your borders.
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I wonder if it’s even possible to protect a large wind farm in the middle of the ocean from an aggressor nation? We have already seen the deeply submerged gas pipelines and fiber lines can be easily damaged.
the united states, an "aggressor nation"? what a surprising plot twist! :o)
https://seymourhersh.substack.... [substack.com]
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Not you, Germany, you got dumb hippies.
Sabotage threat ... (Score:4, Informative)
It can be Europe's power station, but it is also susceptible to Russian sabotage.
In fact, Russian ships with armed guards were mapping the locations of cables [bbc.com] recently ...
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They have maps of all the interconnection cables between countries, the internet cables, gas pipeline in the North Sea... We need to defend it all, regardless of if we build these wind farms or not.
If anything having a large number if turbines in the North Sea will increase the amount of surveillance equipment in operation.
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"The Russians" could also launch ICBMs at any land-based power stations. In fact every way to produce energy is susceptible to destruction. Does that mean we should stop generating power? I don't think so.
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I am not saying it should be built.
Rather, I am merely pointing out is one of the risks of doing so.
Russia has proven that they don't play by any rules except what they make up.
An ICBM is not the same as cable sabotage. If sabotage happens they can deny it easily and blame the victim for doing it.
to the rescue! Australian subs (Score:2)
We've ordered 8 nuke-powered submarines via a UK-US pact to ostensibly fight a naval war over Taiwan.
Redeployed to the North Sea to protect British wind turbines from the Ruskies...
Goodbye Moon (Score:4, Funny)
If you absorb energy from this system, then I belive the Moon will escape from the Earth's orbit (Space 1999 style).
Anything scaled to a global scale always has unintended consequences, but the loss of the moon will definitely not go unnoticed. We will trade climate change for solar system change.
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It's the other way around, harvesting energy from the moon will make it get lower and lower. Launching the moon requires energy.
Though you are right about the consequences being noticed....
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Currently, the moon recedes from Earth at a rate of 4 cm/year. This is the mechanism that causes that: The Moon produces a tidal bulge on Earth. Due to the rotation of the Earth, this tidal bulge actually sits slightly ahead of the Moon. Some of the energy of the spinning Earth gets transferred to the tidal bulge via friction.
This drives the bulge forward, keeping it ahead of the Moon. The tidal bulge feeds a small amount of energy into the Moon, pushing it into a higher orbit.
If we were to start harvesting
Diffuse energy harvesting will kill Wildlife (Score:3)
Wind is cheap and relatively inexpensive however it is diffuse. Wind farming on a large scale will impact numerous species in a manner that farming on land impacts ecosystems. Our generation will witness the extinction of iconic species such as Puffins Gannets, kittiwakes and albatrosses as their habitat is taken by windfarms which will kill them.
The justification that the actual towers up minimal area is specious, the actual space above the oceans where the birds forage is swept by the turbine blades which move at speeds up to 290km/h, these are lethal speeds similar to peregrine maximum speeds.
Numerous seabirds use dynamic soaring which takes them close to the ocean surface and then up higher into faster wind zones. Seabirds regularly fly higher to locate baitfish near the surface. These behaviours make them extremely vulnerable to the wind farm blades.
The wind farms at scale will dramatically alter the ecosystem in the north sea by effectively creating exclusion zones where the birds can't forage and a maze of corridors restricting flight paths. While eagles being killed on land are highly visible poor outcomes which create outrage, birds killed at sea disappear beneath the surface to be ignored and many of these species are already struggling to survive.
Anyone who cares about the environment should be appalled by the potential negative impacts of energy harvesting on this scale. But for many as long as it's not nuclear it's a done deal.
Mankind drove numerous species of mega-fauna to extinction with simple hunting, and then with modern agriculture drove many more species to extinction. The new wave of energy farming will result in similar outcomes and future generation will mourn the losses of iconic species.
Re: Diffuse energy harvesting will kill Wildlife (Score:2)
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This will impact puffin access to their access to food supplies and them into greater decline. It will also impact a number of other species in a similar manner to broad-acre farming.
It's just dumb, popular politics paid for with subsidies. I don't mind subsidies things which are low impact and deliver social and environment goods.
Nuclear by comparison is energy dense and instead of taking thousands of square kilometres can fit into a football field sized paddock.
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We should be doing the smart thing instead of the dumb thing.
Nuclear has an evironmental footprint a fraction the size of a wind or solar farm. There's no need to slaughter millions of seabirds.
It is energy dense and available on demand.
The waste can be recycled back into fuel eliminating the "nuclear waste" leaving only isotopes which are harmless in 300 years.
It can supply energy for longer than the sun will shine and almost 100 years of operation has demonstrates that it kills fewer people an hydro or so
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Post-scarcity power options? (Score:2)
I agree that in theory nuclear fission energy can be done well in an environmentally-sound way overall -- except, as I wrote year ago to James P. Hogan in response to his "Know Nukes" essay, that probably requires a change to our socio-politico-economic system because our current system incentivizes organizations to privatize profits and socialize costs and risks. For example, the too-low Fukushima sea wall which saved one group a little bit of money in the short term but then created a disaster for hundred
Are they talking faceplate? (Score:3)
120GW sounds like a lot. 300GW even more. The UK, as a for instance, has demand peaks of 47GW. But the loading factor for wind is going to be about 30 - 35%, so this 120GW is only 40GW deliverable. And worse, you have no control over when this 40GW is delivered. Could be when there is minimal demand. Or it could be that when demand hits 47GW on a cold dark and calm winter early evening your 120GW only delivers about 5GW. For a full 24 hours. Happens. 28GW of UK faceplate delivered around 1GW or less several days last winter.
Can also be (as happened last November) that you have a week or ten days with low winds. Last November 28GW of faceplate delivered 5GW or less for this long. The 120GW would deliver around 24GW during such a period. Often happens in January or February too. There is no solar at that time of year. It has also happened in the summer, but then solar is sharply peaked and falls off in the early afternoon.
Its all very well for amateurs to talk enthusiastically about green this and that, but the fact is that if you try to do this without taking account of intermittency the consequence will be blackouts. So all this wind will require to be duplicated by rapid start gas generation.
You have to remember also that at the same time as they embark on this program for converting generation to wind, they are also doubling or tripling demand. The UK and EU are to ban new ICE car sales from 2030. The UK is to ban replacing oil boilers starting in 2025, and is to start banning gas boiler installation in new builds from 2025.
At the same time as they are converting from conventional to wind and solar they are also working on doubling demand.
The UK is unusual in that it produces real time electricity generation and demand data, which is available from a number of sites. Just take a look at one of them. The pattern is going to be the same for any Northern European country. Eg www.gridwatch.co.uk.
This is not going to work. The best scenario would be that they install enough gas to meet their demand, and use the wind as a supplement. If they do this it will be very bad, because the cost of electricity will be very high. You are running the gas plant in its most inefficient high consumption mode and essentially duplicating facilities. But at least there will be power. This is probably the most likely alternative, pretending to convert to wind but in fact the wind will just be a high costs supplement. If however they go down the route of not having gas duplication of wind supply, the predictable result will be blackouts. And rationing of, for instance, heating and car charging. If the green amateur grid planners get their way this is what will happen, and it will be accompanied by a sharp fall in the number of cars, which will have risen in price at the same time as disposable income falls, because if you raise fuel prices you produce a sharp fall in disposable income. A rise in the number of gas powered generators, which everyone who can afford it will buy. A consumer goods crash. And a high death rate in winter among the old and poor from fuel poverty - choosing between eating and heating. There is already a such a thing now. It will get worse.
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There is a lot moving. This is not the only thing happening. I.e. Belgian government is working on incentives to install home battery installations by taxing your peak energy usage. Analog meters are replaced by digital ones, which means electricity price can change on the spot if they want to. Actually visited a company
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The only firms investing in this will be doing so at a guaranteed strike price. That guarantees that they'll make money regardless of whether the idea is stupid.
It's easy for people who have never wanted for electricity to say yes just do without electricity when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.
I've lived in places that rely on generators, lights out at 9pm, which means internet, phone.. everthing. You have a torch by your bed to read a kindle.
There is nothing wrong with innovation however
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Also, a small percentage of reactors have blown up. I calculated it once, thought it was close to 1%, and there have been other incidents since the first power reactors we
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Capacity factors of Nuclear power runs into the 90% range when operated efficiently and generally maintenance can be scheduled in the off peak periods.
Solar and wind have capacity factors in the 30% range and wind essentially has random outages. Solar in winter has significantly lower capacity factors.
While there have been reactors outages and accidents the number of people killed is about the same with wind and solar.
It's not a magical solution however it's far less harmful to the environment than farming.
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The Belgian reactors were well maintained well. It was a manifacturing issue, that showed up afther they used new and improved inspection tools. Reactors in other countries built by the same manefacturer showed similar issues. Thank God it was windy in that period.
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Lets talk about all the incidents including the ones like Chernobyl which went boom. Even the worst nuclear accident actually didn't kill many people. Long term studies haven't found significant excess deaths https://www.chernobyltissuebank.com/. Watch the podcasts and videos by the researchers.
When Fukushima went boom it killed zero people and so far deaths from radiation have been zero. Lets also look at the number of deaths due to civilian nuclear waste storage, also zero.
Why not look at the following si
Re: Are they talking faceplate? (Score:2)
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I don't think they have looked at the numbers critically at all. Its groupthink. Yes, there are many turbines in the North Sea. And they perform as I said, and that makes the idea completely implausible.
As to the idea that innovation means taking risks....etc. No, when you are dealing with the health and economic wellbeing of millions of people, dependent on a vital service (electricity), do the numbers and get them right. And do a pilot first.
The climate activists keep talking the precautionary princi
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If you want to do some numbers look at hydrogen the great hope of wind and solar.
There are three type of hydrogen electrolyzers
1 Alkaline electrolyzers
2 PEM electrolyzers
3 Solid Oxide electrolyzers
Alkaline electrolyzers can't be throttled down to zero load which rules them out for wind and solar unless they're backed by batteries or nuclear. Battery backed Hydrogen is about 2x the cost of other sources.
PEM electrolyzers can be throttled, however they require iridium a rare element where the world supply is
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I think as a slashdot commenter, we should have a tiny bit more modesty. We're just computer guys.
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A little more modesty, I'm an engineer, a numbers guy if you wish and I can't make the numbers work. While the example of hydrogen is an narrow case it is symptomatic of the broader wishful thinking amongst the political decision makers. There are numerous examples with exactly the same constraints.
There are numerous energy analysts and economists who have gone on the record stating that indeterminacy is a much bigger issue than acknowledged by supporters. Wind and solar are populist technologies which sho
Re: Are they talking faceplate? (Score:2)
Not going far enough (Score:2)
In 1981, ir. Lievense presented a plan to use the Markermeer for pumped storage, with wind turbines to pump water into the lake. At 700 km2, this had the potential to cover 35% of the electric power demand of the Netherlands. This plan was abandoned when they realized that the water level in the lake would reach +17 m, and a dam breach would flood Amsterdam.
A later version of the plan put a similar lake in the North Sea, and would use wind power to lower the level in the lake, rather than increasing it. The
Harnessing the ocean makes sense (Score:1)