Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I guess having electricity when you need it is sooooo last century … UK families will have to get used to “only using power when it was available”. That constant electricity at home was dangerous anyhow, the unending hum of the wires can drive a man so insane that the only way to cure him is to make him head of the National Grid …
UK persons … comments?
w.
[Update, for those who believe the above is a faked article, I had Green Sand send me a photo and another scan of the actual newspaper. ~ ctm]
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I am British too and recall the power blackouts of the 70’s, due to striking workers. Fortunately we had open fires, with a “wet back” to heat water, a cool pantry and a gas fired fridge then. I can gaurantee any Govn’t which allows and approves of such energy policy will be short lived. To the current “leaders” in the UK, do I need to remind you of the “poll tax” riots? Are you paying attention to what is happening in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq etc? Cold, unemployed and hungry people are angry people.
Sadly I see the same lunacy gearing up here in Australia.
Then again Desertec isn’t all about the money it’s about moving the power generation away from industrialised nations to develop nations and improve conditions for those living in poverty. It’s the green dream.
I commented on this yesterday!
Come on Willis please keep up.
We will soon be a third world country again here in the UK. Back to the MWP!
(Not sarc!)
Sam the Skeptic says:
March 4, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Sam, at Bishop Hill I linked to the Nat Grid where Holliday’s speech to the RAE is discussed and also to the Grauniad who discussed it.
@ur momisugly Poptech
I will only believe you are for real when you show up on a website!
His presentation to the Royal Academy of Engineering was rather interesting.
The scale of the project is pretty impressive, put bluntly to provide a grid capable of supplying all of the UK energy needs given a commitment to an 80% reduction in carbon emissions is met, with a 50% increase in capacity, and about 15% increase in the population.
Now it is not the National Grid’s job to generate the power but it is its job to connect it, transmit it, and distribute it.
Some of it is straightforward as in upgrades to meet the requirements of a new generation of bigger nuclear plants on existing sites. Some less straightforward such as offshore wind generation for which he favours a submarine grid to avoid having point to point landing for individual farms. He would like to see an increase in the power capacity above that of the available submarine interconnects which are currently only rated at 1GWatt.
The intermittency problem does not quite seem how it sounds, and means different things at different timescales. The grid has always had an intermittency problem on the demand side, the introduction of more than a certain propostion of wind powered generation would produce supply-side issues which would be covered by gas powered generation and short periods of smart appliance management of a duration measured in minutes.
The big brutes in the mix are the energy distribution required to charge electric vehicles, and enlarging the proportion of all heating demands. At this stage it seems that supply would be susceptable to short term intermittency both for these services and some smart appliances that have built in latency and so can stand being off for a few minutes such as freezers etc.
Now comes the point of interest here.
He states that the plans to meet the 80% target require a compact between the suppliers and the grid, the government, and the consumer to rethink how electricity demand is distributed throughout the day. Basically put, once road transportation is largely electric the potential demand, that is every appliance, heating, lighting and every vehicle being on charge simultaneously would not be catered for, so some sort of demand management would be required. At no point did he indicate that meeting the total requirement was in doubt.
Other interesting points were the possibility of building a much bigger DC network interconnect with Europe, partly to shed windpower which at peak would exceed UK demand, I think that means after nuclear baseload is subtracted, and that he had no intention of joining a Europe wide synchronous super grid. Synchronous super grids being not for the faint-hearted, particularly if some of the partners are less reliable than others, due to fault propagation. He emphasised the prospect that financing all this investment both in the grid and in the generating capacity on the capital markets was being made substantial cheaper by the UK Government’s commitment. He indicated that the new smart meters are still some time down the road and that the technology would be trialed elsewhere. Finally he said that this was only one scenario, but it was one that met the 80% target but the take up of electric transportion was not certain.
Well it was interesting and certainly a brave new world, for which he appealled to the government and the eductional bodies to provide the engineers needed to build it.
Tee Hee!
Attention politicians of all flavours!
When we`re out of power,
you follow, get it?
Fire his ass.
There are some people here expressing doubts that this could possibly be the – completely insane and at odds with reality – position of the National Grid and/or that there has been misrepresentation by the Telegraph.
Here’s all the proof you need directly from the horse’s mouth:
http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/9A4B4080-3344-4C6D-8A19-411A867682F2/26834/GoneGreenfor2021.pdf
http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Operating+in+2020/
It’s one thing to be ruled by untrustworthy self-absorbed politicans and officials whose primary principle is expediency. That at least still falls within the bounds of rationality. We are now beyond insane and into very dangerous territory indeed and no one, not one person in parliament is pointing out that the emperor not only has no clothes but is also deaf, dumb and blind.
Does that mean you can’t charge your electric car anytime you want?
“Well it was interesting and certainly a brave new world”
There is nothing interesting about that. It is augmenting the expenses and decreasing the redundancy. If there is much more variable energy the expenses to have the same redundancy will be enormous. So they will have to be paid in prices and or in taxes.
This story does not appear on their web-site, why?
walt man says:
March 4, 2011 at 10:58 pm
The Uk will not run out of power (unless gas supplies cease) The talk is about better use of power (more efficient use of power that could reduce the need for additional generators). Current growth of use is minimal.
It will run out of capacity if no replacement stations are built – do you REALLY think that this will be allowed to happen?!
Sadly based on current plans it is true, a series of Coal fired stations are slated for closure as their CO2 emmissions break EU rules, plus the old Nuclear stations are nearing their decommissioning date too. UK gas is running out and being replaced by imports from Europe and the Middle East In short a perfect storm and there are still no firm plans for replacements except by Wind Farms, the replacement Nuclear stations are wishes with only the future locations known and as yet no firm plans. The clock is ticking and the long lead times mean the die is cast for blackouts.
And the UK is sitting on hugh deposits of Coal but even Coal fired stations with CO2 capture are being stopped by the greenies.
All EV owners will be issued with supplementary pedal-powered generators to recharge their cars. Immense ancillary benefits in national fitness are anticipated!
R. de Haan says:
March 4, 2011 at 4:13 pm
The protests have been staged from A to Z.
There is no food shortage, only to high food prizes thanks to the decline of the dollar, the bio fuel scam and high oil prices.
The protests have been triggered by the same scam artists that have pushed the climate change scam and plan for Global Governance.
What you see is an attempt to create the chaos to enable the First Global World Revolution and you better counter it.
You are absolutely right.
Robert
If you want to know what happens when the electricity goes off-line, in our 24/7 technological world, just Google for the effects of the North East backout (I think it was in 2003).
Everything comes to a halt – literally.
.
Poptech says:
March 4, 2011 at 8:19 pm
THIS ARTICLE IS FAKE.
It is not. Listen to BBC Radio 4 how National Grid’s Steve Holliday explains why 2011 is a crucial year for the UK’s energy system. You can hear it all in his own voice, the ”days of permanently available electricity coming to an end” thing included (it is at the end of the 02.45 record).
Just a thought.
Perhaps the Chief Exec of the National Grid has got fed up with trying to integrate unreliable wind into his increasingly strained network. Perhaps this is an inverted, nicely PC and slightly tongue in cheek, way of saying that the Greens and the gullible politicians that follow them have got their energy strategy wrong – THIS is what will happen unless you start thinking rationally.
.
What else do you expect with the chumps in charge? There is the chump-in-chief (Cameron), his deputy chump (Clegg) and then there is Milichump, sorry Miliband, leader of the Labour opposition, the very man who piloted the Climate Change Act through Parliament. The Coalition government even said, in its National Security Strategy review last summer, that the failure to secure a treaty at Copenhagen was “a strategic mistake”. Furthermore the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Huhne, appears to be even more committed to wind farmery than Cameron, Clegg and Miliband.
FWIW I have written to my MP asking what the government is going to do about it and pointing out that even if you do buy the man made global warming hypothesis (I do not), building hundreds of wind farms is not the answer to the problem they perceive to exist.
It is unclear how this will be resolved politically, given the fact that only 5 or 6 MPs voted against the Climate Change Act. It will probably require an explosion in public opinion first to choke off the subsidies needed for such schemes, and then to reverse the insidious provisions of the Act which enable the energy companies to charge their customers extra to pay for the costs of all this nonsense, including extensions to the national electricity grid to connes to the many proposed offshore wind farms. You could not make this stuff up. Unfortunately it is the state of affairs in the UK as of now.
Anyway.
Why wind power for Britain ?
Just follow the money, as always.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1285456/As-Nick-Cleggs-Spanish-wife-gets-job-Madrid-wind-farm-firm-targeting-Britain-man-pens-irate-letter.html
Nothing new then, pocket-lining.
Nobody will remember in 5 years time, and if they do the ‘papers (big-biz-and-big-money) will make them forget
Money, money and more money.
But no sense, and no morality.
It seems the greens really want a low-carbon-low-population Uk so much that they’ll kill for it.
As for “smart appliances”…..get real, MANY people already wash/dry at night, and have been doing so for decades….electricity is nearly half the price in the night/evening and has been for ages…..how “smart” do you have to be to switch things on later ?
As for our “climate and energy secretary”:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8211944/Chris-Huhne-has-a-blueprint-for-a-green-cold-dark-Britain.html
More money to follow, no doubt.
Thanks, Willis, I had not spotted this.
I bet I’m not the only one who wondered how much Mr Holiday is getting to come out with this sort of drivel. For an answer see:
http://bizblog.projo.com/2008/06/pay-hike-for-na.html
Well, it’s pretty hard running a monopoly. I just love the way they call it ”compensation” now, don’t you? It’s as if the job is so nasty to do that the remuneration is to compensate them for the blight to their lives. Don’t the bankers use the same terminology?
Which reminds me, for those who have not already seen it already, I urge you to read this article, also in the Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8362951/Britain-at-risk-of-another-financial-crisis-Bank-of-England-chief-warns.html
as well as Charles Moore’s piece at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/8362464/Mervyn-King-is-right.-If-the-banks-face-no-risk-we-shall-all-go-down.html#
It’s a funny old world when people place more trust in easily revised articles from the ‘net than the traditional print media. Here’s another scan of the print article though
http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/3773/telegraph.jpg
Sadly there is no need for any conspiracy to embarass the UK regarding it’s energy policy. Our politicans are managing just fine, all by themselves. They’ll be alright and will continue to power the UK with wishful thinking and hot air. The rest of the UK may not be so lucky. Still, at least the last person to leave the UK won’t have to turn out the lights.
It seems as if the public school boys that rule Britain have finally lost the plot.
They do not care about the old, the sick or the poor —-let them freeze seems to be the attitude.
The government of China is alive to the problem of a future shortage in carbon energy sources as it has taken an interest in thorium nuclear power {LIFT } to supply China in the long term.
Our Governments seem to think that treating the electorate as simple minded expendable serfs is par for the course . One can only imagine their delight when sat on some island in the Carribean during a future winter they lift a glass of Krug and toast the mugs that support them back in cold, dark Britain.
Here’s a site, called “Create Your My2050”, where the goal is to bring the UK’s C02 production down to 20% of 1990 levels by 2050: http://my2050.decc.gov.uk/. You do this by picking and choosing various levels of both energy supply and demand. If your demand level outstrips supply, a warning icon appears, and you don’t get to advance in this ultimate Greenie fantasy world. Fun, in a perverse sort of way. Unfortunately, cost has not been factored in. Supposedly, they will do this in a future version.
Dave in Andover UK says:
March 4, 2011 at 5:31 pm
We get all our electricity from France ….. Viva La EDF !!!
No we don’t – the inter-connector can only supply around 2GW, or some 3.5% of maximum UK requirements.