Solar is now cheaper than nuclear. Even in the UK

Latest Articles

Solar is now cheaper than nuclear. Even in the UK
Page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Next

Downsizer Forum Index -> Energy Efficiency and Construction/Major Projects

Author

Message

OtleyLad

Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 11:46 am Post subject:

Sometimes I think the central reason for using renewables gets lost in the arguing about costs/figures.

The whole idea is surely to cut down/stop burning fossil fuels because it damages the environment.

So what that it costs more money? We want to save the planet don't we?

If a mix of wind/solar/wave/hydro cannot produce 100% of our energy needs all the time, then its ok to burn fossil fuels some of the time to make up the difference.

We are nowhere near the installation of enough renewables to make fossil fuel burning the exception rather than the rule, but we must get there.

mark

Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 2191
Location: Leeds

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 11:52 am Post subject:

JB wrote:

Hairyloon wrote:

JB wrote:

The problem is of course storage and supply consistency so for the moment fossil fuel, nuclear or a combination to provide a 100% base load as needed remain necessary.

I was chatting with a wine turbine salesman the other day, and he was telling me the figures for the fossil fuel backup to windpower (for when it isn't windy). I forget the numbers, but it was much less than you might expect: it is always windy somewhere.

Unfortunately not always. https://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~dcurtis/NETA.html is interesting. It shows total UK power generation over time by source. Peak total UK power production reaches about 40GW. Peak wind production reaches about 4GW but often falls to only a few hundred MW across the whole of the UK. So without storage of some form you will still need something else to make up for that.

Just to add to that it is usually coldest in winter when high pressure systems are over the UK and bringing in polar air - this is not usually associated with high wind speeds ! Wind strengths are higher in low pressure systems which bring warming cloud cover in winter! Worth noting too that average wind strengths fall overnight at the same time solar radiation stops (as the wind systems are ultimately driven by solar power)

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91ï¿½ N

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 12:14 pm Post subject:

OtleyLad wrote:

Cost is not the issue but viability is.

The original comparison was between solar and nuclear, considering just those two sources then as solar can not provide reliable power we would need enough nuclear power to provide all our requirement. If that is available then the extra environmental cost of running a nuclear power station all the time as opposed to just some of the time is probably less than the environmental cost of producing solar panels. Solar panels are extremely green once made but the manufacture of them is not.

Of course the situation isn't as simple as that as we don't just have a choice of those two sources, but a mixture of renewables, fossil and nuclear. UK power consumption varies beteen 20GW and 40GW so I would personally favour a mixture of 50% nuclear, 50% renewable and 50% fossil. The nuclear provides 100% of the minimum UK demand, renewables provide the rest and fossil is brought in as required to make up the shortfall due to inconsistent renewable supply. Good as pump storage is, the sheer scale of pump storage required to make up the potential shortfall is larger than most people imagine.

cassy

Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 1047
Location: South West Scotland

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 12:37 pm Post subject:

OtleyLad wrote:

I agree. The currently available renewable technologies are not perfect but they're a damn sight better than alternatives. There is no comparison between a technology which pollutes once during manufacture and one which pollutes for generations to come.

Scotland plans to have 100% of it's electricity demand produced from renewables by 2020. That's 7 years away and given the rate of windfarm development round here, I reckon we'll make it. I'd like to see an expansion of the hydro scheme. I live beside one and although it does cover a vast area, it operates alongside farming, forestry and wild land. It is a local scenic area, so only a has positive effect on tourism. Maybe windfarm applications should include pumped storage as a matter of course.

Of course, if I had my way everyone would be off-grid because their power use would drop through the floor.

mark

Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 2191
Location: Leeds

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 12:40 pm Post subject:

The elephant in the room is also the UKs manufacturing capacity.

From the Thatcher era onward the UKs manufacturing capacity has been run down increasing our dependence on financial services and other service industries. We have also reduced research and development. The recent recession also decreased demand for energy

This has reduced the demand on our energy consumption however this has been offset by other factors.

There is no no way a Financial and services sector without any underlying manufacturing or R&D to profit from overseas production is sustainable.

So at the end of the day if we don't produce stuff we start the slow slide to becoming a third world country! Subsistence living in such places does not look like UK downsizing (it involves starvation , poor access to education, technology, medicine etc.

So we need to produce stuff and that needs power..any economic recovery generates more demand for power. That means the energy gap is real! We need to use power efficiently - but we might well need more of despite all our efforts to conserve energy !

So in my mind we need conservation of existing power
We need sustainable solar and wind power
We need responsible nuclear power with proper though t to decommissioning
We need clean carbon neutral or low impact use of fossil fuels and biofuels
We need to develop new storage technologies to store wind and solar power.
We need less power hungry manufacturng processes

Above all we need longer term strategies! IN the Thatcher era we closed and capped deep coal mines with hundreds of years of fuel we can't now ge tthat were cheaper and had less environmental impact (if used with new power station technologies) than than the shale oil gas released by fracking that we are seeking today Why - because the political monetarist short term philosophies of Thatcher showed they were uneconomic alongside the North sea gas and imported coal and gas which is now used up, expensive and uneconomic !

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91ï¿½ N

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 12:56 pm Post subject:

cassy wrote:

Maybe windfarm applications should include pumped storage as a matter of course.

Pump storage is good in principle but requires a lot more water and height than people imagine. Imagine for a moment that we decide to use Britain's largest lake, Loch Ness, for Hydroelectric power. We'll drain the entirety of Loch Ness down to sea level (might upset a few people but it is only a thought experiment) and assume 100% efficiency.

Loch Ness is about 56km2 and is about 16m above sea level. We'll ignore the slope of the shore which will overestimate the available energy but makes the calculation easier. So that's;

Volume = 56x10^6 x 16 ~ 10^9 m3
Mass ~ 10^12 Kg
Available energy = mgh = 10^12kg x 10ms-2 x 8m ~ 10^14 J (8m as average altitude of that mass of water)

1KwH = 3.6 x 10^6J

So that would provide about 2 x 10^7 KWh
Or about 20 GWh

Or putting another way draining Britain's largest lake would keep the lights on for just 30 minutes! Hydroelectric schemes need to be very big to make a meaningful impact on power production.

Last edited by Jb on Tue Jun 11, 13 1:14 pm; edited 2 times in total

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 1:09 pm Post subject:
It would settle the Nessie issue.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 1:15 pm Post subject:

JB wrote:

Or about 20 GWh

Or putting another way draining Britain's largest lake would keep the lights on for just 30 minutes! Hydroelectric schemes need to be very big to make a meaningful impact on power production.

Your point is well made but the figures are a little out. The data I have is the UK uses 94GWh per day (2008) rather than 960GWh giving about 300 minutes. Time enough to watch a really good long film.

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91ï¿½ N

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 1:44 pm Post subject:

vegplot wrote:

JB wrote:

Nope.

real time data on UK power consumption shows that the UK is currently consuming 38421MW (it may be different when you look at it but the graph shows the range to be between 25GW and 40GW) . At that rate your 94GWh would only last a little over two hours.

cassy

Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 1047
Location: South West Scotland

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 1:58 pm Post subject:

Our local hydro system produces rough the same as one of our local windfarms (~100MW). So if I also assume 100% efficiency then, 2 windfarms could supply the grid full time (one direct and one via pumped storage).

It's a hilly region, ideal for hydro (200m plus above sea level) and the water passes through several turbines before finally reaching the sea. It's not without it's problems; land purchase to start with, habitat losses, volume of concrete needed, drilling for pipelines etc but it doesn't sound that crazy to me compared to say, trying to bury C02 at sea.

Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4563
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 2:26 pm Post subject:

The UK wants more wind turbines and Nuclear,

Yet Germany is building 26 new Lignite power stations,far dirtier than coal,Why,because they have vast amounts of Lignite reserves,and have scrapped their nuclear power.

I had a visit from a Solar man week before last,
The initial phone call from the sales dept,stated Solar installation prices have reduced by 50%,the rep when he called,stated the cheaper option solar panels were not worth bothering with,and beings my house,1840`s was not insulated to today`s standards,i would not get the full benefit,unless i insulated the outside walls,then plastered over the insulation boards.

Then i was told the other option was an Air Source heat pump,that would cost me 1,000 pounds a year to run.

All this was available under the Green Energy plan they have.

Personally,i don`t see how any of it add`s up,any financial savings will be needed to replace these systems in the future,when the incentive subsidies won`t be around,and will be far more expensive to purchase.

mark

Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 2191
Location: Leeds

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 2:44 pm Post subject:

cassy wrote:

Cassy the problem is that when a high pressure system sets up over the UK it can stays for several weeks and affect wide areas - there was one day when the whole UK wind system was so becalmed it only produced 1% of its possible output - fortunately this didn't happen at peak demand - but it has been known to fall fall to 6% of what it is capable of at peak demand period in January!!! No currently available storage system can deal with this!
Add to this that 60% of Uk population is South of the Humber and most of the useful wind generation sites North of this. Add transmission losses and you can see the problem!

If we rely heavily on wind when the wind doesn't blow we get widespread blackouts ..

WE also need to recognise the gas and oil is running out! I don't think we'll have gas cookers and gas heater in 20 years time ! Coal and wood useage is likely to be rationed , or expensive because of shortage , and heavily taxed (like oil is today). Once fuel shortage sets in those with wood burners and wood supplies won't be self sufficient any more as the politics won't allow it and even wood burning will have to be monitored and controlled when we have blackouts and heating fuel shortage.
We need to slow down our useage . But there is really no way to avoid blackouts and cold winters for the masses without nuclear or more agressive irresponsible use of fossil fuels.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 3:40 pm Post subject:

JB wrote:

Thanks for that. Demand has gone up somewhat since 2008.

cassy

Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 1047
Location: South West Scotland

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 4:23 pm Post subject:

mark wrote:

Cassy the problem is that when a high pressure system sets up over the UK it can stays for several weeks and affect wide areas ...

Mixed renewables would be ideal; it would be daft to rely on just wind. I was focussing on wind and hydro as that in this area, windfarms tend to situated on hilly ground and the technologies seem to be made for each other.

mark wrote:

Add transmission losses and you can see the problem!

Using power at a local level e.g. with local transmission grids would alleviate that problem. Local resources vary and it makes sense to take advantage of local conditions; down south you have more potential for PV for example. It makes more sense to invest in and develop robust, holistic solutions, even if there are many difficulties, than to deal for generations with waste products (CO2 and nuclear waste) when eventually we're going to have to go down the 100% renewable route once nuclear materials and fossil fuels are exhausted anyway.

mark wrote:

If we rely heavily on wind when the wind doesn't blow we get widespread blackouts ..

Not necessarily a bad thing if it helps focus people's attention to the reality of the problem and reduce usage. Rolling brown-outs would be best as people could plan alternative food storage solutions. Very few people (ie. those not on life-support) actually need the amount of electricity they consume.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 13 5:24 pm Post subject:

OtleyLad wrote:

But you hardly ever hear people mention cutting down. Wind/solar seem to be used as an excuse to carry on regardless whereas they barely keep up with rising demand even during a deep recession. If anything in England they may even do more harm than good, i.e. they distract us from the real problem which is we should be dramatically reducing our usage.

As and example, I often mention it but even as of late last year over a third of houses that could have loft insulation still have none according to the government figures.

As for saving the planet take a look at the damage done mining the materials to make solar panels and wind turbines.

	Downsizer Forum Index -> Energy Efficiency and Construction/Major Projects	All times are GMT Page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Next
Page 4 of 5

View Latest Posts