From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
AUGUST 22, 2021
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dennis Ambler
https://gridwatch.co.uk/demand
We’re currently relying on Europe for 16% of our electricity, as wind power plummets once again. Last night the proportion reached 20% as solar power disappeared.
Our thousands of wind turbines have a theoretical capacity of 24 GW, but are running at less than 2GW. Yet we plan to double that capacity in the next few years.
Are there any grown ups in charge of our energy policy?
The nation which discovered subatomic particles should not be in such a power pickle.
We will need great deal more of imports when all domestic gas boilers are replaced with electric.So called ‘green Hydrogen’ boilers are just an empty pipe dream.
In 2016 a Government organised committee concluded that , even with the highest insulation standards , it would need another 400% generation capacity increase to heat homes with electric .
This has now been ignored with all of the propaganda to go for ” Net Zero” .
Along with the insanity of electric vehicles , [ which would need another massive increase in generation ] , the future is looking very dark , [ black outs through most of the winters .]
That’s simply not true. There is a passive house standard that has the heating load at 15 kWh annually.
On the other hand, 15 kWh isn’t that much more than I put into my electric car on a daily basis to drive something like 25 miles.
I wonder what it would cost to bring the existing housing stock up to passive house standards.
A blogger has calculated the return on investing in insulation vs. the return on investing in new power generation. link It isn’t even close. Insulation wins hands down. As always, take any random information on the web with a grain of salt. It does accord with my experience though.
cB,
I think you fail to grasp the age and construction materials of large numbers of homes throughout the UK.
I’ve heard stories.
Retrofitting insulation, etc., can be a real bear. It would often be cheaper to tear down a house and rebuild. That’s a tragedy where the house is old, lovely, and otherwise high quality. Houses like that give a neighborhood its character.
CommieBob, your passive house standard has a rating of 15KWh as a loading for heating .
With the nearly 30 million homes in the UK ,that would total over 400GWh of generation capacity at any one time , which would need an extra 800% of generation capacity .
So the Government committee was counting a very low figure in extra generation , [ possibly believing heat pumps could do it ]
Anyway , the idea of electric house heating was scrapped at that time because it was realised it was impossible .
But now they are trying to convince people it will somehow work .
As far as I can tell, that 15 kWh was for the whole year, not per day.
As Joel points out above, refitting the existing housing stock to such a level of energy efficiency would be daunting to say the least.
Wow! 15 KWh for a whole year. Sign me up. @ $.20 / KWh here in NY, that would only cost me $3.00 per year. I’m paying about $2400.00 now. Again, WOW!
Don’t jump to sign up so fast.
You have to consider the extra cost of construction. If you’re retrofitting, the cost can be ten times the extra cost of energy efficient new construction. That would make your mortgage payments higher by more than what you’re paying for heat now.
Some folks don’t understand that, with sufficient insulation, you could stay warm and snuggly just with body heat. For instance, when I used to go to the arctic, we were issued with sleeping bags that would keep you alive at -40.
CommieBob , if you thought that 15KWh was for a year , it was no wonder that you were so far out .
https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/average-household-gas-and-electricity-usage
As you can see , the average house uses about 12,000 KWh of energy for heating per year .
Which works out at about 2 hours of your 15KWh per day , every day , or about 4 hours per day for half of the year .
Which comes back to why it is impossible for the UK to go electric home heating .
Doesn’t “passive house” rely heavily on capturing solar energy for heating?
This is England we are talking about.
For what it’s worth … Some relatives in North Dakota have found that they have to keep the blinds closed in the winter because the sun shining in quickly overheats the house.
North Dakota is farther South than Paris.
a) Your relative were likely pulling your leg. Unless one has lived in North Dakota or Minnesota it is difficult to believe how cold it gets there.
b) From the way you relate that tidbit, it sounds like your relatives have central heating and they are only referring to already well warmed southern facing windows.
I have a friend who moved from North Dakota to Tennessee. With friends he loaded a moving truck the day/night before.
Early the next morning, he and his family got in the truck to head south.
They had to keep their winter clothes, coat, gloves and hats on until they were almost to Tennessee. All of those home furnishings were thoroughly chilled by the night’s well below zero Fahrenheit temperatures, acting like ice in a cooler keeping the truck well chilled.
Even with running the truck’s heater full blast they took a very long time to warm the truck insides.
I live in a 1990s house designed to take advantage of southern window facing in much warmer Virginia with much stronger sunlight.
Without central heating it is impossible to overheat the house by sunlight alone.
I can’t tolerate sitting in the sunlight just inside those windows. It blinds me and overheats the sunlit side.
My wife loves it. She’ll sit in that sunlight all day if she could.
Power interruptions have forced us to do without central heating frequently.
Without electricity, I have to fire up the wood stove which takes a day or so to heat the brick chimney enough to start heating the whole house.
Those sunlit windows? They fail to actually heat the house at all and we must pull the shades to keep the windows from window conductive losses to the outside.
I was raised on the Great Plains. I was at the relatives’ place on a sunny winter day when they had to pull down the blinds.
North Dakota is a lot drier than England. You have failed to account for clouds and fog.
North Dakota is a far cry from the UK…
It is also highly dependent on the orientation of the building.
Years ago I looked into building passive solar, etc. I was YOUNG and IDEALISTIC and although I researched the methodology, I was IGNORANT of the rest. When building millions of houses, and trying not to use up too much space, house orientation for solar gain is difficult. I did not do anything to achieve the goal during my working life, with kids in school, etc. I lived where I could afford to.
Now my vacation/retirement log cabin IS situated for solar gain in the winter and is mostly protected from direct sunlight into the house during the summer. I was lucky to find a property that was well suited for the use. Walk out basement open on the south, clear sky to the south, etc. When I am at home I heat with wood, propane furnace to maintain above freezing temperatures when gone. BU generator on an ATS (automatic transfer switch) for when a storm takes out the power, usually in winter, although a 100 ft tree knocked out our power last year during the summer. It also (was dry standing ponderosa pine) provided firewood for most of last winter. It was a neighbor’s tree that fell appropriately down hill toward my wood splitting area. Cut the rounds, roll them DOWN the hill, split and stack, saved a lot of trips to the forest to gather wood.
That blogger you link to has many broken links and calculations made long before this.
A blogger who claims to be a doctor of some sort and whom firmly adheres to belief in a renewable energy future.
Nowhere were listings for retrofit costs for existing houses. Instead, most of the blogger links I tried were broken, including a Scientific American link. Everyone here know SciAm’s lack of interest in genuine science or reality not that it matters if the link is broken.
Nowhere was a listing explaining how building owners were to pay back their retrofit loans. Nor were any calculations described that included the annual loan costs for building owners.
Some government entity has caused the press to estimate their ideas for insulation retrofit cost numbers.
Nothing has has come from the active building retrofitters who have a better concept of what it takes to insulate older houses
Nobody answers the leading questions regarding the insulators who will spring up everywhere seeking a piece of this financial windfall and the facts that they will not understand or understand how to properly retrofit older houses.
Houses built or retrofitted in the 1970-1990 timeframe followed “sealed insulation” procedures that ended up turning healthy houses into sick houses without proper ventilation.
Forcing owners of new houses built in that period to retrofit again to return breathability to the houses.
Yet mr. Phd blogger mentions none of these issues. Blogger calculations sound to be back of the envelope calculations without references from topic experienced personnel..
The simple fact is every existing building presents individual problems towards retro fitted insulations.
From direct experience I can tell you that the $110,000 estimate thrown about barely covers retrofitting new double insulated windows.
Especially if the new retrofits keep to local zoning.
Nor do people having retrofitted insulation understand that modern windows do not have the open/close flexibility older style windows have.
That owners would need new heating/cooling systems to cover the lack of flexibility their previous windows had.
A house I lived in had six foot tall windows and full length screens. Which allowed me to open the top window in upper floors and the lower window on the lower levels.
The heat of the house vented out of the top while causing cooler air to enter the house via the lower windows on the lower floors.
Overnight, this cools the house and the breeze this air exchange causes made for luscious breezes enabling sleep on hot days.
Close the windows in the morning and close the drapes. Insulating houses is the real purpose of drapes, not matching décor.
Keeping air exchanges to the outside minimal, also keeps the house cool on the hottest days.
Modern windows discard all of the old fashioned efficient air exchange concepts and lock owners into closed environment syndromes.
None of which are included in the costs of modern retrofits.
Leaving our current house efficiency retrofit costs far higher than the numbers carelessly thrown around by the press, legislatures and renewable adherents.
Amateur activist Phd bloggers and their years old ruminations are at the low end of unverified estimates.
Nobody will force replacement: trials of injecting hydrogen to existing gas grid are well advanced and all boilers built in last 20 years can cope with the planned hydrogen mix. That’s the main plank of the gas heating strategy.
Does this mean that the government has given up on it’s goal of replacing ALL gas heaters with heat pumps?
Or are you just trying to distract again?
Injecting it into natural gas lines is easy. Keeping it from leaking out and corroding pipes is *hard).
Hydrogen embrittlement will then ultimately destroy the steel pipelines. Another simple solution with disastrous consequences.
Back in the 70s a mate of mine was responsible for rejuvenating the cast iron gas mains under a large area of Sydney Aus north shore. They were choked with rust products & leaking like a sieve.
They developed a caterpillar like track driven machine that traveled the pipes cutting the rust out, a vaccum machine to remove the huge amount of rubbish, & a tractor to drag a plastic pipe through the cleaned out pipes.
The plastic pipe although smaller than the old main, transmitted more gas than the cast iron had when new due to it’s smooth surface.
Took a couple of years, & cost a bomb, but was better than digging up the old pipes to replace them.
I wonder what it would cost to do the same to the whole gas system in the uK, & if a plastic pipe flexable enough to do the job would be hydrogen tight?
Pipeline cast iron connected with coarse threads?
Houses with cast iron pipes and again, coarse threading?
Meaning that all pipelines will have to be replaced.
Houses with threaded pipe installations will need full gas pipe replacement.
Rural houses, town, cities and suburbs will have to dig up every street to replace the mains.
Houses will require substantial reconstruction.
Nah, ain’t happening. Difference of fantasy dreams and reality.
The cheapest way to make hydrogen costs 5 times as much as methane. Adding 20% to the gas supply results in a cost of 20%x5 +80%x1 or 180% of the cost of methane. Now sell that to impoverished pensioners.
Griffo, have you left your brain at butchers?
“The government has announced that by 2025, all new homes will be banned from installing gas and oil boilers and will instead be heated by low-carbon alternatives. The ban is part of a UK action plan to reach carbon net zero by 2050.” That is in 3.5 years time.
When your boiler goes duff, you risk being poisoned by the CO, the horrible brother of that nice and kind CO2 bloke, or you have to install electric, since hydrogen will be minimum a 10 grand + a throw (said tonto Boris) even if you had supply, heat pump is even more costly and it is rubbish in the winter when you need to heat the house.
As an owner of heat pumps for over thirty years, heat pumps are replaced every 8-10 years.
Heat pumps lasting as long as 15 years are a rarity and the heating contractors regularly present replacement plans and mope about replacing the machine before it fails.
Our last heat pump failure was in early January. It took over thirty days before the replacement was truly working.
You are a plank
Hydrogen is just another idiotic boondoggle, since you’ll have to “divorce” it from something, which will take more energy than you get by burning it. Better to just use natural gas straight up.
Uh huh…
Natural Gas Weekly Update (eia.gov)
Gonna need another 170GW of power to keep the lights on at peak demand in a cold winter if gas boilers and cookers were to be replaced with electric ones.
“FREEDOMS CURTAILED”, ANTARCTIC FRONT BLASTS ARGENTINA WITH 6.6FT OF SNOW, + METEOROLOGISTS SAY AUTUMN HAS “ALREADY BEGUN” IN PARTS OF EUROPE
August 23, 2021 Cap Allon
As one recent study found, 87% of the global population is now living in countries which can be considered “repressed”, “closed,” or “obstructed”. This is global totalitarianism. What are they preparing us for?
My comment:
An accurate assessment of the current political disaster – thank you Cap.
In 2002 I published that global cooling would start circa 2020. Nailed it.
My March 2021 paper agrees with your assessment:
“Wolves stampeding the sheep.”
Selected papers:
CLIMATE CHANGE, COVID-19, AND THE GREAT RESET
A Climate, Energy and Covid Primer for Politicians and Media
By Allan M.R. MacRae, Published March 21, 2021, Update 1e published May 8, 2021
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/climate-change-covid-19-and-the-great-reset-update-1e-readonly.docx
THE CATASTROPHIC ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING (CAGW) AND THE HUMANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE CRISES ARE PROVED FALSE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng., January 10, 2020
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/the-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming-cagw-and-the-humanmade-climate-change-crises-are-proved-false.pdf
THE REAL CLIMATE CRISIS IS NOT GLOBAL WARMING, IT IS COOLING, AND IT MAY HAVE ALREADY STARTED
By Allan M.R. MacRae and Joseph D’Aleo, October 27, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/27/the-real-climate-crisis-is-not-global-warming-it-is-cooling-and-it-may-have-already-started/
Hi Alan in the UK we had 2 weeks of summer in July and since then it was the October weather.
Religion used to frighten people with damnation, but most of people tended to discount it, for a while we had Is….c t…..sam but now governments of all colours have realised that china virus and global warming could do just as well or it appears even better. Plague on all their garden sheds.
“So called ‘green Hydrogen’ boilers are just an empty pipe dream.” … with a quite literally empty pipe!
We are not. The article is predicated on a false assumption
What would that assumption be?
That we couldn’t do without imports.
I have a ford and a ferrari. I use the Ferrari 20% of the time. I am not relying in the Ferrari.
Its just nice to have
I see from te downvotes that the cancel culture is alive and well at WUWT
Its getting like the back side of the Guardian.
Oh you could “do without” the imports. It’s called a blackout. Edit: Perhaps not quite yet, if what you say below is true. But getting damn close to it.
Your analogy is meaningless, because in your analogy you can use “the ford” 100% of the time. Wind and solar don’t work 100% of the time, and the “imports”
arewill be what keeps the lights on when they don’t once your “margin” goes negative.Lleo, you are right to say that on average the UK is not importing that percentage of electricity.
But he is quite right to say that just at the moment, when wind has stopped delivering,and night falls, the UK is then short of power to the extent described, and is indeed importing from the EU.
His point is the effect of relying on intermittent sources of generation.
Yes, the UK could probably meet its deficit, at the moment, with gas powered generation. But will it still be able to do this under the green agenda of the present government, which will raise the proportion of intermittent generation at the same time as it increases the demand for things like heat pumps and overnight car charging?
No. And that is the point he is making.
Also, how much longer are those gas powered generation plants be allowed to exist?
as long as they are needed. Th reality of the UK grid is that there is a mix of politics crony capitalism and engineering.
Politics and crony capitalism combine to fleece consumers while talking the renewable talk, but engineers are tasked with maintaining a reliable grid. They know what has to happen, and prepare, but its more than anyones job is worth to stick their heads above the parapet.
What is going on is simply a bit of kite flying. The policies are announced.The stupid Greens are happy, t crony capitalists are happy, but question are asked about cost and reliability and energy security. the public debate begins. This post is part if that debate I answered its point, this is not in any way a salient issue, and its premises are incorrect, let’s move on to issues which are salient.
The conservative party can always be relied upon to do whatever it is that will keep them in power, after they have exhausted every other possible alternative.
Net zero is just an alternative being exhausted. It is impossible to achive at this point in time and the eye watering costs of attempting it are being publicly debated.
That is the real story, not the fact that sometimes it is cheaper to import from idiotic nations who have an over supply of useless renewables than it is to generate yourself.
mate, I built Gridwatch, the original one, Not the fake money making copy referenced here. I have been watching UK energy for ten years now.
There are times when the continent has no energy to spare, and the wind aint blowing and the sun aint shining.
Beyond all the ecofluff, there are engineers who are tasked with maintaining a margin, and they do not include imports or intermittent renewables in their margins.
That margin is down to 5% from around 40%, so they are cutting it damned fine, but until that margin goes negative, we are not reliant on either intermittent renewables or imports.
I used to like this site for being factually accurate, and not promulgating an emotional narrative,
Both Scotland and France have said they can hold the UK to energy ransom by stopping exports.Both are lying.
WE have a lot of renewable energy because the grid is mandated to use it when it is avaialable.We have a lot of imports because when the wind does blow and the sun is shining over Germany, there is a surplus of power being sold off below cost, so we shut down the gas power stations because they cannot compete on price.
That is nothing like the pejorative statement that we are reliant on imports.
That is spinning the facts to suit an emotional narrative, and so is pretty much equivalent to Oreskes et al.
Facts please, we are British.
you can reverse ferret as much as you like. but the fact remains that ‘reliant’ means ‘cannot do without’
WE can, and we do, and we actually export some of the time, too.
Keep telling yourself that as the EU squeezes you in future trade deals 🙂
The EU is increasingly irrelevant to anything, as we are finding out.
Nuclear electricity is Frances secind biggest export. If they choose not to export it, its ther loss.
We import far more energy from Norway and Kuwait in the form of gas than we do from the EU.
Heck american wood pellets are as big as what comes across the interconnecors – wood burning is a steady 3-4GW of baseload.
Being disconncted from the EU is the best chance we have of scrapping the renewable obligation EU directive as well as the Large Combution Plant regulation. Plus we are no longer part of Euratom, so can develop an independent nuclear policy.
Exports to the EU are now above pre referendum levels, and although its always EU items that are marked down in the supermarkets no one is buyig EU stuff – we are still importing some vegetables and fruit and sadly cars.
The trade deal we have is relatvely shoddy, it is true ad te EI is tring its vest to be as awkward as possible and to break up the united kingdom as well. Yes, its war, of a sort. But we are not going to lose it. The whole trade deal itself has a one year break clause – we can sever all ties with a years notice for no reason beyond it being in our interest to do so.
Americas current abject failure as a global power does not mean that the EU is in any way better.
The EU should be irrelevant; unfortunately, the UK seems predisposed at the moment to participate in the same mass lunacy.
Hopefully the UK will come to its senses, and then it can point at the EU and laugh. And every idiot who voted “remain” can kiss the feet of those smart enough to get the UK out.
“The nation which discovered subatomic particles……”
And a lot of other useful stuff that arose spontaneously from a classical liberal tradition. Ironic and unfortunate, then, that such a nation, and too many others, are now in thrall to a collectivist philosophy that has infected nations around the world.
Classical liberalism, another philosophy that took a knee to progress and evolved as liberalism.
As an Aussie based ex UK resident I often keep an eye on the UK outputs. It is a great website with 10 minute % averages. There is always a thick orange line of fossil fuel output and always a thick blue line of the French inter connectors. To answer your question there are NO grownups in charge of energy policy in UK. Thank God our Aussie prime Minister is dragging his heels as much as politically possible.
5 minute averages on my site.
gridwatch.co.uk is a trademark infringing me too copy designed to make money not provide information
He stole my idea, my trademark and a lot of my data and donations
I think the fact your site is ugly and looks like something out of the 80’s rather than the nice alternative might be more the issue. It actually looks like an old MRTG screen we used to run for networks back in the day.
What can we say learn to website code or hire someone.
It was built that way deliberately.I cannot afford to hire someone.
I know how to code a website. That one used to run on 384Mbytes of RAM. T keep the cost down. It oes not have a cookie policy, because it uses no cookies
I understand that WUWT is now fully commercial and has sold its soul to its advertisers.
Gridwatch is there to provide facts. The other gridwatch is there to make money. Decide who you would rather believe and rather support. Your choice
Lot of info there, but not user friendly. What is needed are linked larger images i.e. when you click on an image you get in a new window (say) 4 or 5 times magnification of it.
I built my site to provide information and facts, not to make money. It seem you prefer glossy narrative to facts.
I look there for facts, just pointing out that it difficult to read detail on a monitor without calling for magnification on the browser, up to 300% for the top right corner e.g. pumped, hydro at which point, numbers on the ‘clock dials’ become blurred, and when finished I need reset zoom back to 100%.
It’s you site, your product, your design, you do whatever you consider appropriate.
Thanks for providing up to date info, anyway.
The UK is proud to be the world leader in the Post-Enlightenment.
Post? Modern Enlightenment
Please do not post misleading data.
We do not RELY on Europe for power. It is simply CHEAPER than burning gas, because when the sun shines and the wind blows, French nuclear power is sold below cost..
In winter the UK exports to Europe, as well as being totally self sufficent in energy.
and of course the French all go on holiday in August: demand is lower.
Where have they gone this year, then?
They are out protesting in the streets.
That passed Griffy by
As much other facts 😀
yes, seldom not protesting. Vive le son du canon!
To be fair, they mostly go to other places in France.
And aren’t in the commercial and industrial premises which use electricty…
The amount of decrease in both either is miniscule.
The stores and businesses have to stay open because not everyone is on vacation.
In their holidayhomes the don’t use electricity, griff, we know, they live stoneage like 😀
so what are shopping centres Griff??
You know the ones that had all of their shops closed down last year because of the fake “covidium”, and all the restaurants that are now open using masses of energy to make food??
Sure while Corona restrictions n France ? I’m not.
You never spend any time in France, so WTF are you doing commenting on a country you know nothing whatsover about??
My friend is a plumber in Nice, and he has never been so busy!
Doesn’t it occur to you “The FRENCH ALL” is yet another example of your constant ability to write absolute poop 99% of the time.
As far as I understand the Channel Islands take about 95% of their electricity from France. I also understand that the UK’s generating capacity is such that we are now very close to NOT being self-sufficient in energy.
While there are sound economic reasons for interconnectors between various countries — not just between the UK and France — I cannot see how the UK can possibly continue to be self-sufficient given plans to achieve net zero.
I also find it very hard to believe there are not times when we ARE reliant on French energy as a result of our increased dependence on renewables, but would be happy to be proved incorrect.
Both statements are true, but both are misleading. The channel islands have enough expensive dieesl and gas generation to be totally self sufficient. Once again, its simply cheaper to import.
Th UK is also slef sufficient. margins are tight but you have to remember that it is when the wind drops and its midwinter with no sun that the UK is EXPORTING to the rest of Europe. Not only do we have enough capacity, we have a lot left over to prop up the EU nations.
Uk has more chance of being energy independent under a net zero policy actually – cirrently we are a massive importer pf fossil fuels. Obviouly that needs to be replaced with nucler power, and can be now we are no longer bound to EU renewable obligations and Euratoms restricive regulatory frameworks.
Of course net zero is a pipe dream and will collapse as a policy long before we are anywhere near it – it will take at least 70 years for reliance on fossil to become thing of the past.
The truth is out there – you only have to let it in. In February typically there are times when the sun don’t shine and the wind drops to next to nothing and we are EXPORTING to the EU, because it is THEY who rely on OUR exports due to having too much renewable energy! Or at least that is a narrative you can spin ..
The interconnectors are not there to supply needs. They are really there to make money by arbitraging energy prices across national boundaries.
Th UK has about 50GW of conventional generation capacity. if Hinkley point ever get finished that will add another 3…and STOR is being added – cheap diesel and OCGT sets – to ensure adequate margins on the one or two days a year when we need it. The impact of renewables is far more dangerous in terms of frequency stability, which is why they are putting batteries on – not to store energy for months weeks or even days, but for minutes only – to keep the grid frequency up under fault conditions now that there is so little spinning mass on it when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing and the interconnectors are importing and al the gas is shit down..
That is the real crisis…frequency stability – and it nearly brought down the grid a year or so ago. Not because we didn’t have enough renewable energy, but because we had too much.
Facts are not what you read in the papers, Facts are not what you get off websites with advertising support.Facts are what you get off instruments and meters via websites that are not designed to make money. I could have made a fortune out of Gridwatch by selling advertsing space on it and sexing it up for the great unwashed. And pushing renewable energy.I chose not to. Because its about facts and education.
Sadly not meany people are interested in facts. They want a narrative that conforms to their preconceived ideas and makes them feel good. Just look at the downvotes I get for telling the truth.
Peole want it to aall be about evil givernments delibertely driving nations bacl to the stone aage. It isnt like that. It is about incompetent weak givernmente mking up policy to placate both voters and crony capitalists, on the right, and with a strong mix of foreign funded ideology as well, on te left.
The fact is that both the UK and the channel Islands can be self sufficient in electricity, but it is not the cheapest way to do things.
The fact is tat what you read in the papers about net zero policy, is not necessarily what will happen, is happening or even is intended to happen, Its a narrative for public consumption, and by golly, you have all consumed it bones and all. It keeps the liberal left off balance, it keeps the greens out of power, and it keeps nut nuts in Boris bed all snugglesome. Elsewhere in the small print, money is being tossed at nuclear power.
Think how much more Trump might have achieved if he had been a consummate liar.
Net zero wont happen because it cant happen. Its not physically or economically possible in the time frame. All teh things I warned about ten years ago are happening = people are slowly becoming aware of what was foreseen, but not listened to. Now questions about reliability stability and cost of renewables and electric cars and heat pumps are being asked. Well it takes that long for people to wake up. I was worried about generating margin 5 years ago, not yesterday. I researched it, We are ok-ish for now, and money is being thrown at utterly inappropriate STOR technology to make sure we stay that way.
in another 5 years if I live that long, I expect to see realisation dawn that what I wrote ten years ago – that nuclear is not an alternative – it is the only alternative, will become publicly accepted…after every other possible alternative has been tried
so on with te downvotes folks for telling uncomfortable truths. Its not a conspiracy. Its just a political cockup born out of human failings.
But we are OK for now. Just, Unless we get a very bad winter and lose a power station or two, interconnectors are not the problem . No one relies on them, Lack of conventional power is. Because we do rely on that . And the country most liable to ail is probably Germany, who entirely because of a proportional voting system, have allowed Greens to write their energy policy.
Self sufficient? I doubt it. Why else, despite leaving the EU, would we still allow them to fish in our waters?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-gas-electricity-supply-uk-fish-stocks-b1780376.html
You really have swallowed Macros election speeches hook line and sinker havent ‘you?
Drunk the EU koolaid…
Oh well. Its not for me to criticise your religion.
Leo look at “gridwatch” bottom right shows the yearly interconnected stats and the last time that UK exported to France was last September!
Since I wrote it, I do look at it. Actually we exported in february for peak demand in Europe, It doesn’t show on the yearly graphs
https://www.statista.com/statistics/426960/united-kingdom-uk-concern-about-depending-on-foreign-energy/
Your fellow Brits disagree with Griff and you 🙂
Griff is a tosser. I dont care who disagrees with me. It is a question of FACTS.
That the majority of people in Britain dint know the facts is unsurprising. That themajorory of people here refuse to accept them, is.
It’s rare for the UK to export to Europe in winter. Sometimes it occurs very early in the morning, but for the most part we import.
You are right about it being cheaper to get electricity from Europe than burn gas.
I did not know that Holland uses atomic energy.
The UK imports about 36% of its natural gas, and imports large amounts of wood chips from the USA. It imports most of the technology for solar and wind. The UK was energy independent about 15 years ago. It will soon be importing more mainland energy with the new North Sea Link. The UK is a joke.
I see the cancel culture is once again being applied to facts.
It is very sad when WUWT falls prey to mob rule
What would happen if the UK stopped importing natural gas, wood chips, and electricity? What would happen if the UK stopped importing wind turbines and solar panels? (BTW, I noticed that there has been no increase in the solar component in the UK power mix since 2018).
The same as would happen to any country deprived of imports of something it really needs. France and uranium. Germany and russian gas. Scotland and heroin.
That want what the pos siad.
It specifically aid that we relied on electricity imports, not gas imports or wood chip imports. In te case of being denied acess to electricity imports, nothing would happen except the companies that run the interconnects would go bust and EDF would see a massive drop in UK profits
Well, when we realize that the UK was independent of imports for production of electricity only a decade or so ago, (they used domestic oil and coal), the push to Green in the UK has made them dependent on imports for their electricity in multiple ways. This cannot be seen as an improvement.
I’m going Passport to Pimlico
I’m still considering what title to assume.
Resurrect the old anglo-saxon ‘aetheling’ – by now, most British people could claim some form of royal descent!
and why is that? Because it is ‘Les Grandes Vacances’ in France, energy consumption is at its annual low and you can’t switch off the nuclear reactors.
so France is dumping/selling cheap electricity to its neighbours.
So if nuclear is so cheap (in the long run) and so reliable and steady,why don’t the idiot greenies get behind nuclear????
Because there has to be no solution to ensure the problem continues
Renewable/intermittent energy is a perpetual generator of socially indemnified green[backs]. A politically congruent mass environmental gentrification scheme. Spread the blight.
you should check out the massive subsidy to fossil fuel – coming out of your taxes.
Griff could you point out these massive subsidies to the oil and gas industries. The only ones I have ever seen are the massive reverse subsidies from oil and gas to the US government in the form of taxes, lease fees and production fees.
Here you go, for the UK , from your favourite newspaper
UK has biggest fossil fuel subsidies in the EU, finds commission | Fossil fuels | The Guardian
Not the GURADIAN!!!
Bwahahahahaha
Repeating lies over and over again, doesn’t create truth.
These subsidies don’t exist. This has been explained to you many times.
But then, you are still convinced that the output of models is data.
What’s coming out of taxes?
You total plonker!
wWho pockets the 90%+ tax from selling the said “massively subsidised” fossil fuels??
THE GOVERNMENT!
Do you ever buy petrol at a petrol station??
don’t you know it’s the stuff which comes from Russia costs 45roubles (0.5EURO) over there and is already 90% tax!
You in the UK are paying 300% more…so where is the bl…dy subsidy??
Go tell Putin that,cos they are making a fortune out of exporting so called subsidised oil, gas, & coal!
Oh that old chestnut. Ther are tax nbreaks fdor long term investment on everything especially wind.
It is cheap because there’s no (current) demand for it in France and they have to dump it wherever they can – they can’t switch down the nukes.
If only they could switch up wind and sun as and when required, eh, Griff
But it’s like that all the time, not just in August. Therefore the French going on holiday has no effect.
It is cheap because production costs are low
Does that go for Holland and Belgium?
There are 2 aspects to UK grid links…
One is a current situation where France is supplying large amounts of electricity – related to French demand and not being able to turn down nukes.
The other is connecting W Europe into a grid allowing distribution of renewables.
The Ned link is part of that:
BritNed power cable boosts hopes for European supergrid | Energy | The Guardian
Actually belgium has a massive oversupply of gas turbines
But yes peole with subsidised winmills whose output no one wants to buy because its so damned expensive, can get dumped on foreign shores and you still get your brownie points for generating it
Exactly why it was so important to break the EU chains and get out. Now you just need a government that divorces the UK from the “monkey see, monkey do” mass lunacy of energy policies driven by the “climate” crap.
Griff stop talking Bollox!
JUST GO TO FRANCE for once will you!!!!!
Because nuclear is what they make bombs out of.
JF
We did agree that greenies are idiots.
What, never heard of the Hydrogen Bomb
Crikey. I used to make flour bombs
Precsiely because its so cheap (in the long run) and so reliable and steady and because they are idiots.
And of course remember who funds the Green movement,
Hint. It isnt nuclear power companies
Bigger hint. Who stands to lose the most from cheap nuclear electricity. Not wind as long as you have a renewable obligation. Gas and coal do.. Who produces a lot of gas? what sort of governments do they have? do they have a track record of fighting proxy wars using political agitation and cultural destabialisation as weapons?
Yes, they don’t use electricity on the coasts or in the mountains, do they griff.
They don’t use it in empty offices or factories having the annual shut down.
Very few offices or factories completely shut down.
As even in holidyas, the fridges are running in offices, data server will continue to run, because big enterprises don’t close completely, as since years the “grandes vacnces” have been cut in two halfs, for reasons, f.e. traffic. In their holidayhomes or hotels or where ever they pass their time, A/C are active, fridges are running, kitchens are working – so what let you believe, consumption of electricity in France is down because of holidays ??
Let me say, I had, out of my German office responsability for 2 French enterprises in Lyon and Dijon. The one or the other contact was in holidays, but all the time, the French offices were not closed, production and services continued.
When our county started “working from home” instead of at the office, our state electricity usage increased… Because…instead of One building providing the climate control for 100 workers, it was being provided in 100 building
100 workers – 100 buildings vs 100 workers – 1 building
For the building that I used to work in. Not everyone was able to work from home. About 10% of the workers kept working from the office. As a result the entire building still needed to be air conditioned and only in a few areas were they able to turn off the lights.
And they use MORE at vacation spots and Summer Homes than they do when it isn’t August which likely balances out
I may just be a bad boy, but when I’m on vacation, I tend to be less careful of things like energy use.
As said above, while France is in strong corona restrictions, energy consumption is not much lower as usual. Beside the fact, most French stay in France, the consumption in the south will increase, in the north derease, over all, no big difference.
Present French demand is about 45 GW https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
Nuclear power isn’t meant to be turned off and switched on at will. Can you say “base load”? I knew you could. That is where coal and gas come in. Uselessables only gum up the works, in addition to being hideously expensive. That is why France winds up dumping its uselessables elsewhere. It is Bizarro world.
So France is dumping its NO CARBON BASED electricity to its neighbors?
yes.
and bear in mind that this year’s cooler weather in parts of France mean they haven’t had to shut down the nukes because the rivers supplying cooling water are too hot and import electricity from Germany (as they also do when the ageing nukes are out for maintenance), so have more to dump/export
Are they to hot, proof ?
you haaven’t else you would provide it.
?
Griff don’t know sweet F-A about France!
The 2-3 nuclear power stations you see driving along the A6 south of Lyon he has never heard of, (next to the motorway).
They were built smack next to the Rhone river, because water is abundant an very useful.
Bugey 3,580MW
Saint-Alban 2670MW
Tricastin 3,660MW
Cruas 3,660MW
That’s just within 300kms on the same river and supplies 13.5GW
how you gonna replace that with solar and wind?
It would take upwards of 22,500 wind turbines to get even close, and in summer in high pressure areas there’s no wind!
Where would you put them all?
+
The river’s power is harnessed at each dam to produce hydroelectricity
Griff has gotten a chinese whisper and has turned it into a shout…
The efficiency of thermal engines is a function of how hot the working fluid is on turbine entry, and how cold it is on exit from the condenser stages.
In France there are mandated limits to how hot the rivers are allowed to get, so they have to throttle back the nukes anyway to avoid that, and if they didnt the higher outflow temps would reduce the efficiency anyway.
The same is true for fossil fuel powered plants.
That’s a first.. rivers too hot. All the rivers where I live run at least 30C from June to mid September and they use them to cool power plants. The nuke 40 km from my house uses an artificial lake for their water source and it is at least 30C for three months a year. It runs all the time. I seriously doubt rivers in Europe or the UK get above 30C and probably 25C is more like it.
Who is designing the cooling towers? Obviously someone who doesn’t have a clue.
Griff, who else ? 😀
As I pointed out above, efficicincy is reduced with higher outflow temps, but there are legal limits to avoid cooking the fish or something
“and bear in mind that this year’s cooler weather in parts of France mean they haven’t had to shut down the nukes because the rivers supplying cooling water are too hot “
You are being overly dramatic again.
This is not a common event.
The rivers, and it’s only a couple of specific rivers, were not too hot for cooling.
The water temperature was fine for cooling, but the used water after cooling was slightly higher in temperature than the environmental rules allowed for it’s return to the river, and as a protection against any possible harm to river wildlife, reactor power was reduced and in one case reactors were stopped.
With over 50 nuclear reactors in France we don’t need Germanys dirty coal electricity, merci, but as you stated before, summer is a low consumption time, why would we import more electricity that we don’t need?
Yes – because that’s what you do with things that have no value. Give them away.
Nuclear is non-carbon based
Actually, griff, you can pull some fuel rods and slow down the rate at which water is heated to steam and run through turbines.
I’m pretty sure they insert control rods rather than pull fuel rods.
I THINK that depends on the design.
I know of no design where the rods are pulled at any time other than refueling.
“and why is that? Because it is ‘Les Grandes Vacances’ in France, energy consumption is at its annual low and you can’t switch off the nuclear reactors.”
The effect of the holidays on electricity consumption is very small, and there are comparatively speaking very few French who are still on holiday. Nearly everybody has chosen to holiday in France this year for obvious reasons.
Why would we not export electricity to make money?, we do it all the time, and it’s only going to increase if all our neighbours carry on down the road of installing unreliable energy sources.
Even if 10% of office workers aren’t on vacation, the office building will still be open and still pulling electricity. About the only thing that might be off, will be a handful of lights.
When factories shut down, the managers usually take advantage to do all the maintenance that can’t be done when the factory is operating. As a result, the electricity drop is minimal for them as well.
The drop in UK consumption over Chruistams is really significant, even with cooking all those turkeys and watching dreadful TV…
A season does not last 25 years…..
Merkel: Europe Will No Longer Need Russian Gas In 25 Years (yahoo.com)
What dreamer !! Beside that, after Aug. 26, Merkel is history, so no more Merkel Europe.
Sounds like a good Saturday Night Live skit – Putin and associates watch Merkel on TV talking about how Europe will no longer need Russian gas in 25 years, then laugh hysterically.
you’re talking utter bollox Griff.
What do you think powers the 3x greater numbers of TGVs, which transports lots of holiday makers at 260km/h??
Hot air??
On top of this the greenies have been trying to force the French gov to change the total energy mix from 70% nuclear to around 50%, by shutting down places like Fessenheim, for no good reason, then failing to find a viable alternative.
You haven’t got a f…..g clue have you!
I lived in France for 20yrs, and still work there many months a year.
You?
Just a clueless screen junkie, presume to write about stuff you haven’t the faintest clue about!
Yes, but only if they are liars, thieves, and/or morons.
“Are there any grown-ups in charge of our energy policy?” Looks like the same ones in charge of the California energy policy. Import needed additional electric energy and turn a blind eye towards how it is generated, and, by the way, pay double for the nonsense.
It was reported in the MSM the other day that the California “power regulators” had contracted to purchase 5 naturla-gas powered generators to try to avoid brownouts and blackouts. The purchase costs $US171M. The report says that these generators will power about 15,000 homes. I hope that the report meant per generator. Just imagine how the Recall would go is we have brownouts or blackouts before folks mail in their ballots.
I happened upon this place as I was exploring recently…
National Grid’s Viking Link interconnector
Expecting plenty more Carbon Free Juice
I did wonder why it was in the middle of Lincolnshire and not nearer the sea, but,, Lincs is A Big Place and Bicker Fen is only 12 miles from the sea.
it is still ‘a fen’ tho, does someone not know the meaning of the word?
None too strong on measuring things neither, I thought football fields were bigger than this:
Quote:”The converter station will be 300m2, the equivalent of around 12 football pitches”
Maybe they were/are worried about Sea Level Rise but then, why put it somewhere that is barely 2 metres above sea level?
ho hum
While you’re there, check this link:
https://www.nationalgrid.com/cable-laying-progress-under-mendip-hills
It will be bringing juice from the new Hinckley C nuclear station
Gotta smile at this quote:
“National Grid’s Hinkley Connection Project will bring low carbon energy from Hinkley Point C to six million UK homes and businesses”
And what do they mean there with 6 million?
is that:
PS try use ‘the original’ Gridwatch Templar rather than the copycat upstarts at dot co dot uk– show a bit of empathy for our man Leo who puts in a lotta work there – and comments on here
I go here. Easier for just a quick glance but Leo’s place is good for historic data
My aunt (80) lives in Bicker. I’m sure she won’t be too happy about all the upheaval in her otherwise quiet little village.
Nuclear power is “low carbon energy”?
Yes.
A soccer field/pitch is 125mx85m so their reference is way off for the size.
The plants are built and the fuel is mined, etc., with fossil fuels
As are the materials used for wind mills and solar panels, and the vehicles and cleaning products used in “maintenance” of said installations, the difference being those probably are a lot MORE “carbon intensive” given the amount of fossil fuel input compared with the electricity they actually produce, relative to Nuclear power plants.
As I have said here many times “You need five tames as many Wind Turbines as the average power demand just to meet the average power demand. And Average Power demand is usually 1/2 to 1/3 of typical daily peaks and 1/4 of summer/winter maximum peak.
In other words you MUST design a power grid on meeting Maximum peaks NOT yearly AVERAGE.
And when the wind don’t blow it doesn’t matter how many windmills you have.
See the last 5 days on gridwatch.
which also handily lists the average demand for various periods.
Max demand in last 18 months seems to have been 42 GW
And, right now, without use-lessables, Nuclear and Hydro produces about %123 of France’s need.
And during that period with average demand at 42GW the contribution of wind has been 2GW, even if we had 10 times the number of windmills they still wouldn’t have reached 50% of demand.
As for importing electricity, is it all being produced by renewable methods?
If the French contribution is from nuclear, why don’t we produce our own from SMRs such as being developed by RR?
Ah, that would upset the greenness, so it is OK to import electricity from nuclear but not to produce it ourselves.
IIRC France is planning to reduce the number of nuclear power stations, so may well not have so much electricity to spare.
And how is this all supposed to fit in with the increase in demand to power EVs, heating etc?
er no: 42 GW is peak demand.
current record for UK wind is 40% of demand.
For 5 minutes, once.
Utterly meaningless.
LMFAO – Griff doesn’t let such “minor details” cloud his advocacy of mass lunacy, er I mean “renewable energy.”
Numbers and their overall meanings are really a challenge for you.
If you had 10 times as many wind mills, the utilization from each would drop as less and less optimal locations have to be utilized for each additional wind mill.
Average power is useless. What matters is how much power is being produced right now.
Excess power in the past was dumped.
Excess power in the future is just fairy dust.
If insufficient power is being generated right now, then the grid collapses.
No, in fact in the UK you need 50 times as many turbines to meet the average demand and 100 times the turbines to meet the peak demand, because the wind isn’t always blowing everywhere.
Wind couldn’t meet average OR peak demand with 500 times the turbines “needed to meet” the demand, because when the wind isn’t blowing, you’re getting nothing, no matter how many you have.
Multiply by any number you want, it doesn’t matter. Wind stops blowing, X times [number of turbines = “capacity to produce” whatever multiple of whatever demand level] = zero.
Just like trying to “build your way out of” outages with solar, while ignoring that inconvenience called night.
Speaking in tongues….
Heat pumps ‘worse’ than gas boilers for warming up homes, admits Energy Secretary (yahoo.com)
What about this? Let’s Build a Global Power Grid – IEEE Spectrum
ROFL what could possibly go wrong 🙂
Lets extend that and build a road and bridges between all the countries of the world so all the illegal immigrants don’t have to take dangerous boat rides.
You tell me. All fossil energy is now shipped globally either my pipe or ship; you have concerns about that?
I certainly do, as both are vulnerable to terrsorist/pirate actions
But at least one can hold stocks of fossil fuel or uranium. Can’t do that with electricity. One burst from an AK47 into a grid in Morrocco and the lights go out in Athens
Completely impossible. Even without trying to tie all remote islands into this grid.
I see visions of Herbert Lom giggling as he pulls the big switch to turn off the whole world’s power…
For heaven’s sake do not let the facts get in the way of a good woke political story!!!
Renewable/intermittents backed by reliables. What is a Green to do. Throw another birdie into the gauntlet, I suppose.
Alberta installed wind capacity 1988 MW
Alberta wind generation 227 MW 11.4% of capacity
During the Texas Freeze fiasco in Feb 2021 when ERCOT lost 40% electric generation from natural gas for 36 hours and 20% for another 40 hours – Which was limited to Texas,
However during a 9 day period starting on Feb 12 and continuing for until Feb 19, The entire north american continent lost 60-95% of electric generation for those 9 days
Texas is what you get when you rely on uncontrolled fossil fuel companies
Loosy wind and solar considered ? 😀
No it is what happens when you let non engineers tell you to run gas compressors with electricity instead of gas and use taxpayer money to help rent seekers get rich putting up windmills.
I see griff is still relying on lies to try and make himself relevant.
It was wind and solar that dropped out. The only reason why natural gas had problems was because the EPA required Texas to replace pumps that were powered from the natural gas being pumped, with pumps powered by the grid. When the grid went down, so did the pressure in the pipelines.
Prior to this new regulation, the pumps wouldn’t have failed and neither would the natural gas power plants.
I’ve never heard of an NG powered pump. Perhaps you really mean compressors. Do you know the difference between a pump and a compressor? It’s possible that there is a scintilla of truth to what you said, but most of it is BS.
Just because you are unfamiliar with the facts of the case doesn’t prove that everyone else is wrong.
Officials for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages most of Texas’ grid, said the primary cause of the outages Tuesday appeared to be the state’s natural gas providers. Many are not designed to withstand such low temperatures on equipment or during production.
February Winter Storm 2021
By some estimates, nearly half of the state’s natural gas production has screeched to a halt due to the extremely low temperatures, while freezing components at natural gas-fired power plants have forced some operators to shut down.
Griffworld
Propaganda = Reality
Remember the Alamo!!!
Texas is what every place should be
Just ask a Texan
Texas is a great nation!
I hope to visit the site of the Texas embassy in London later this year.
If Only…
Not yet.
It is said that a boastful Texan oince visited London
“Why, little ‘ole texas is as big as Europe altogether, you could fit the whole of Britain in one corner of it”
“And think what an improvement that would be” murmured his drinking companion.
Fixed that for you.
That is the most stupid comment you have ever made, and most of your comments are gold medal winning stupid. The Texas freeze up occurred because of uncontrolled brain-washed politicians interfere with important utilities. The politicians and media are all acting like a huge asteroid is heading to Earth, and meanwhile, even if the science behind the IPCC was properly done, the Earth is heading towards a nice mild era, staving off a return of glaciation.
Do please note the UK currently has 5 interconnectors to mainland Europe and 3 more to France, 1 to Denmark and 1 to Germany approved.
Oh no! all that foreign leccy!
Merkel: Europe Will No Longer Need Russian Gas In 25 Years (yahoo.com)
See my comment above as you first linked that site..
I don’t see the relevance to my comment?
Is there anything else you don’t see ? 😀
Er no, it doesnt. It has two to france, one to holland and one to belgium currently operating.
The Norway one is not yet quite operational, and that isnt an EU nation anyway. Ansd is hardly ‘mainlanmd Europe’ – its stuck up on the bleeding edge of it and is barely connected to it
There is no link to Denmark yet either. It is being built. I know of no plans to build one to Germany
So in total there are 4 to mainland europe, one to norway coming onstream soon and a Danish one under construction.
Isn’t it a good thing that the EU hasnt noticed and made every electron fill out forms in triplicate?
“Are there any grown ups in charge of our energy policy?” simple answer: NO!
…and Germany will no longer need Russian gas after 25 years.
Sounds familiar in the parlor game of messaging tricks.
Merkel: Europe Will No Longer Need Russian Gas In 25 Years (yahoo.com)
Germany and Russia are collaborating to build hydrogen-from-methane plants (the process emits a lot of CO2), and ship a MIXTURE of hydrogen and methane, via NORDSTREAM 2, which will be pumping gas starting in November.
The private investors, who are the owners of the commercial project, expect this pipe to last at least as long as NORDSTREAM 1, i.e., 40 years.
The hydrogen will be used for various purposes in Germany
Blowing up kids balloons, mostly. Germany is like a giant kindergarten.
And Gazprom will no longer need “Schroeder the corrupt”, cos Merckel will go and work for them instead!
I visit gridwatch quite a lot and it’s very rare to ever see the European interconnectors at less than maximum supplying the UK. Once in a blue moon you might see one of them with power flowing the other way.
Even when UK wind is close to maximum it appears to be cheaper to source electricity from the continent rather than use natural gas or even biomass.
Of course it is. France in particular only needs about 2/3rds of its nuclear power for 90% of the year.
The rest it exports – mainly to the UK .
You need to understand the economics of nuclear power: Once the reactors are built, and the O & M costs are covered, the fuel is pretty much free. That means that the opportunity cost of selling at even £10/Mwh is pretty much nothing. So even if the spot price goes down to really unprofitable levels for everyone else, nuclear is the last to go offline, because any money they make is gross profit – there really are no significant fuel costs.
Again you seem to have trouble disentangimg nice to have imported dirt cheap surplus power from have to have imported expensive power.
The economics of gas generation are quite different. The plant is wuite cheap and O & M is low – all the cost is in the gas. If the spot price falls below gas costs, why then that plant is offline as fast as it can be shut down. And conversely, when prices are very high, because of insufficient generating margin, it pays to have some dirt cheap inefficient gas guzzling diesel or single stage open cycle gas turbine power . Who cares about emissions when you can get 10 or a hundred times the price of diesel or gas back by keeping the lights on for a few hours?
Naturally this destroys your emissions targets. But who really cares? the law isn’t about reaching emissions targets is it? Conveniently, it’s couched as a ‘renewable obligation’
Yoiu can emit as much as you like provided you have enough windmills spinning away. As in Germany
Everyone probably knows someone even distantly that walked into a financial disaster by overspending, incuring large debts, on the gamble that nothing negative would happen in their world to upset the cart. Then, a job loss, divorce, sudden disability comes along that brings it all down. Western nations are doing just that with energy grids. Borrowing money to buy power from “others” and to invest in “unreliables” on the illusion that they will perform better than they expect.
Ordinary people inside their homes, (about 50 I believe) froze to death in February of this year (2021) in Texas, when the windmill system ground to a dead halt due to extreme cold that thickened the turbines lubes. That took down the regional grid. Froze to death at the latitude of The Bahamas. Boutique windmills and solar panels are the same process and the individual’s folly writ giant.
Know ye that the mortality coming if Western Governments continue on this path of ideological possession will be many magnitudes beyond the man made Texas Disaster. The coming era is COLD.
They froze in Texas because the power suppliers did not, as recommended, winterise their fossil fuel plant: the fossil fuel plant failed.
When it is windy in Ireland, wind electricity is sent to the UK and France.
The Irish government, after several years of public pressure, finally launched a forensic investigation of the electric system operating data, which revealed (to the public; energy systems analysts already knew the answer) the counteracting inefficiencies of the CCGT plants, because quantities of imported gas had not decreased with increased wind, as predicted/promised by RE folks, based on their false/feel-good assumptions, such as “one MWh of wind offsets the CO2 of one MWH of dirty fossil fuel”.
After the EU in Brussels was informed, it provided Ireland with funds to build strong connections to the UK and French grids, which are much larger than the Irish grid.
The solution of the grid disturbances and counteracting inefficiencies, is to spread those disturbances over a large area, so they become invisible; Iowa does the same with Illinois.The result was:
1) The Irish wind variations disappeared in the noise of the UK and French grids
2) The Irish CCGTs regained their efficiency, from 40% to about 50%
3) Ireland could build more wind turbines to meet EU RE goals, fight climate change, etc.
4) An EU PR problem was “solved”.
Prior to all that, on an annual basis,17% wind on the Irish grid, resulted in a 57% effectiveness of CO2 reduction, instead of the 100% promised by RE folks.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/world-total-energy-consumption
A great summary!
You really dont understand anything do you?
Really? Compared to the people rubbishing your posts?
Germany is worse. Lesson: don’t rely on wind and solar without a backup.
How is it worse? Have you looked at the German electricity export chart, by nation?
What has that got to do with it?
Again you need to look at the worst case for Germany – cold still foggy winters day.
Unlike the UK they do NOT have enough conventional reserves to cover total loss of renewables/
And their emissions and costs speak for themselves. Electricity the highest price in Europe, emmissions the highest per country per capita and per MWh.
Energiewende has been an unmitigated disaster, dressed up as a total success.
a large chunk of their electricity price is tax and their households use less than (for example) US ones. Their emissions are higher because they don’t have the UK’s natural gas resources and their base is (was) coal
Energiewende has so far managed 51% renewables annually without disaster.
Here’s an honest assessment of can Germany maintain supply security…
Shutting down nuclear and coal – can Germany maintain supply security on renewables alone? | Clean Energy Wire
Yeah, I did and it tells me Germany is paying money that other people take their electricity.
The prize gets negative because there are too much renewables when there is too much sun and wind. Now wonder they are taking it – it’s not only for free they get even paid for it by German tax payer’s money!
This is my final word. I have been compared to griff, told that ny website isnt sexy, told that the majority of brits dont agree with me, and have been cancelled by downvotes.
Is this the NY times or the Guardian?
I THOUGHT we dealt in FACTS here. Not ‘consensus’ or ‘what politicians claim’ or ‘what some self style expert claims’ or ‘waht a left leaning newspaper says’
The FACT is that the UK was a net exporter of electricity to Europe on 2095 x 5 minute periods in 2021 alone.
Europe ‘relies’ on UK electricity on cold winter mornings. Later on the flow reverses of course.
This particular day is illustrative
mysql> select timestamp, demand, french_ict,dutch_ict,nemo, wind, solar from day where (french_ict+dutch_ict+nemo) <0 and timestamp like ‘2021-01-07%’ order by timestamp desc
-> ;
As you can see with a mere 3GW of wind the UK was capable of supplying all its own needs and sending a net outflow to the continent.
This is not uncommon. It has happened over 2000 times (5 minute periods) this year alone.
Flows are not governed by necessity, but by price.
The UK simply does not “Rely On Europe For A Fifth Of Its Power”
It happens to buy a fifth of its power at highly advantageous prices, and sell some back too, when the price is right.
Remember EDF, who run the French nuclear power staions, also run the UK ones, and are a big electricity retailer as well. Why would they NOT buy from their parent company whenever there was electricity available?
“and have been cancelled by downvotes.”
What? c’mon Leo, nobody is being cancelled, don’t let a silly system of +’s and -‘s put you off, just look at our resident Grifters.
‘compared to Griff’ – that means you have been presenting fact based data to this political opinion website…
Thanks for trying. Maybe some people will get the point.
Lies and opinions are only considered facts within the realms of climate science.
By my calculations: 365 days x 24 hours per day x 12 five minute intervals per day equals 105,120. What is the denominator for your statement? And note, wind power peaks in the UK in the winter. Using a winter month, January, is cherry picking. Since April of 2021, wind power in the UK has been pathetic.
Of COURSE it is cherry picking, that is the WHOLE POINT.
I deliberately (cherry) picked a time to show that when demand is high and wind is low, the UK is fully capable of meeting its total demand without needing to import anything.
Thus refuting the assertion that the UK ‘relies’ on electricity imports.
Why is that so hard to understand?
Looking at the data from the UK grid, it seems that (like Texas), natural gas is the “go to” fuel for balancing the grid. Do you know how many GW of natural gas produced electricity is available in the UK? My impression is that going green means getting rid of NG plants eventually. Either they will be shut down by fiat, or they will become uneconomical to operate. And, then what?
Of course the UK can meet their demands as they already have enough gas plants to do that. Not as Germany. And the UK is not relying on Russian gas for that.
Posters here still willfully missing the point: there is essentially now no completely national and independent power industry in any W European country: the entire grid is now intended to work to transfer (renewable) electricity across the whole area. Day ahead prices, based on reliable prediction of next day wind/solar, are set across the continent…
It is not only the UK building links to other nations (e.g Germany Norway link)
We are not unaware. This is just part of the scam. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. The bigger the system, the easier it is to hide problems. Consider the US Federal budget. If Green Energy is what you say it is, why are German residential rates the highest in Europe? You will say “taxes.” I will say surcharges to subsidize Green Energy.
Yes, most of German electricity cost is taxes.
Here’s a breakdown (little out of date, renewable element dropped slightly recently)
What German households pay for power | Clean Energy Wire
Griff, those taxes are used to subsidize wind turbines.
The great “Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz(EEG)-Umlage” that, according to the former Green federal secretary of environment Jürgen Trittin, wouldn’t cost more than a spoon of ice cream per month.
Hell no!
And yet griff still tries to declare that since some percentage of the German grid is provided by renewables, this proves that renewables don’t destabilize the grid.
The problem with day ahead bidding, is there is no penalty for not bidding for days with little wind or sun.
This forces all other providers to constantly ramp up and down the amount they produce which forces them to charge more when they are producing.
The grid is not even close to do what you’re suggesting it is capable of.
Not for Europe, not even for Germany itself.
They are missing the infrastructure in Germany cause it isn’t build bc people don’t want to have the converters or the new to build grid next to their houses. Germany is densely populated.
Same goes for wind farms. New builds are plummeting. NIMBY!
A wonderful tv series called networks included a programme covering the UK power system.
When East Enders finishes the Brit power authorities have to turn on a couple of hydro plants in Wales [assuming the dams are full] and open the tap and let Nuclear generated electricity in from France to provide the power to run millions of electric kettles turned on to make post-East Enders cups of tea.
Try doing that with wind or solar
er… they will still be able to do that whenever we are 100% renewable…
The ‘dams’ you mention are pumped storage units… the grid is building additional ones.
Can some advocate of Green Energy in the UK tell me how much atmospheric CO2 will be reduced by a successful completion of the UK green energy plans?
It would presumably be 100% down on 1990 levels (currently 51% lower than 1990).
Yes. But how will that impact atmospheric CO2 levels?
And that fifth coming from Europe is largely nuclear.