Going green?

[Tony S]

We’re going broke lining the pockets of the fat cats promoting our saviour wind power

We no longer have the ability to meet our own power needs. When you look at the figures it is worrying. Over 50% of our power is imported.

In the last month our power came from

Nuclear                          26.04%

Coal                               05.95%

Wind                              04.19%

Hydro                            00.59%

CCGT                           46.97%            (imported gas)

French interconnect     06.09%            (imported electricity)

Dutch interconnect       02.96%            (imported electricity)

The gaps in the figures are made up of other power sources. Solar doesn’t even register

Pumped storage is an anomaly and so I’ve excluded it as it consumes more than it gives but we need it to meet peaks in demand.

 

[binky]

why do you think the government is so keen on fracking?

Whatever happened to energy security?

 

[Tony S]

Whatever happened to energy security?

Maggie sold it on the open market to the French.

It does show what a precarious position we’re in.

 

[binky]

oh yes, as much as green tech isn't the whole answer, it is helping to plug the holes a bit.

 

[Sharpend]

What we need is to strike it rich with a find of a natural resource from the earth below us? 

 

[Tony S]

Water turbines in the likes of the Severn and Forth estuaries will possibly be more expensive than wind turbines but the power output wouldn’t rely on the vagaries of the British weather. Pumped storage and fluctuating power generation go hand in hand, we have just two facilities.

 

[Tony S]

What we need is to strike it rich with a find of a natural resource from the earth below us? 

I seem to recall Maggie buried all the black diamond deposits.

The Black Diamond in Cotgrave was a watering hole I called in at occasionally on my way home from work. Now demolished just like the pit.

 

[Sharpend]

Doesn't mean it isn't down there? No should we leave the EU would we be permitted to disregard the Co emissions as others do and bring our diamonds to the surface? 

 

[NozSpark]

You'd probably have to send kerching down in his full diving gear though

 

[Tony S]

Our salvation is down there, millions upon millions of tons if only we had the will to get to it.

Noz is right, the workings that haven’t collapsed are flooded. You can’t just reopen an old pit. There may be a way of getting to it by fracking but instead of gas and oil extract liquefied coal slurry.

Phil D works on a plant that has its own 1MVA CCGT running on methane from old mine workings below the local area. It supplies enough to run the plant and as it runs continuously it exports at times of low demand.

 

[Blue Duck]

 I right in thinking ze Germans have too much pv? 

trouble is apart from the lobbying of weak willed politicians our grid is ancient and about to be split up into more tiny peices...

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/16/break-up-national-grid-to-prevent-conflict-of-interest-mps-say/

I firmly believe that renewables play a part in securing our energy future but without a strong backbone it will always be left wide open to lobbyists and people in power who have no idea what they are doing!

 

[Tony S]

 I right in thinking ze Germans have too much pv? 

trouble is apart from the lobbying of weak willed politicians our grid is ancient and about to be split up into more tiny peices...

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/16/break-up-national-grid-to-prevent-conflict-of-interest-mps-say/

I firmly believe that renewables play a part in securing our energy future but without a strong backbone it will always be left wide open to lobbyists and people in power who have no idea what they are doing!

Nail hit squarely on head. We need a secure/structured backbone for the system to function reliably. The only option is self reliance for power generation. Get it right and we may be able to reverse the current in more ways than one.

The actual HV distribution system is for the most part very robust.

Where we fall down is the clapped out LV system. Sorry to harp back to this, the EU and the IET dictated our LV voltage was to be 400/230V instead of 433/250V. Yeh, right, we can’t afford to repair the system never mind replace it. You can’t just throttle back the voltage, believe me, I tried it on a 80MVA 11kV system.

 

[Tony S]

Where the hell did they get this from?

It doesn’t tally with their own monthly figures.

 

[binky]

I was going to say solar must register in the numbers, there's enough of it around, though whether they include domestic arrays I wouldn't know.

 

[Tony S]

It doesn’t matter how the figures are massaged we are in power deficit.

Basically we are now franticly looking for this.

 

[Sharpend]

And that massaging of figures applies to all not only power!!!

 

[ruston]

It doesn’t matter how the figures are massaged we are in power deficit.

Basically we are now franticly looking for this.

If that were up here , all the paddles would be gone and the building would now be a charity shop, or a dole office computer room; to apply for jobs that aren't there.