Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Observa; Britain may face the embarrassment of being forced to ramp up coal power during Glasgow COP26, as a critical undersea cable failure has cut the ability of imported French nuclear power to help maintain the fantasy that Britain’s renewable heavy electricity grid is fit for purpose.
Power prices soar after key electricity cable between UK and France catches fire
British electricity prices jumped by 19 per cent to £475 per megawatt hour on Wednesday.
A key electricity cable between Britain and France has been shut down after a fire, sending wholesale prices soaring.
The fire will reduce imports from France until the end of March 2022, the National Grid has warned.
They said the blaze broke out on Wednesday while planned maintenance was taking place at the site near Ashford in Kent.
Prices of natural gas, which have already been at record highs in recent weeks, soared more than 18 per cent at the news.
British electricity prices meanwhile jumped by 19 per cent to £475 per megawatt hour on Wednesday.
The IFA1 interconnector had been used to import electricity, generated largely by nuclear power, from France.
…
Glenn Rickson, head of European power analysis at S&P Global Platts Analytics, said the fire “couldn’t come at a worse time for the UK”.
…
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/business/energy-prices-france-uk-fire-b1921154.html
This new PR and energy supply disaster comes hot on the heels of recent claims that Britain withdrew hardline climate demands in the free trade agreement being negotiated with Australia.
What can I say BoJo – despite your harsh words and attempted bullying, Australia stands ready to deliver all the coal you need for Britain to stay warm and keep the lights on this winter.
Or you can do what China allegedly does, since they tried to punish Australia by blocking some of our imports – covertly buy Aussie coal through secondary markets, to avoid the embarrassment and loss of face of admitting you can’t live without our coal exports. I hear Singapore provides a discreet service and reasonable fees. If you pay a little extra, they might even relabel the coal shipments as “wood chips”.
BoJo, you better get your order in quickly. Goldman Sachs just forecast an imminent global coal supply crunch which could almost double already sky high current world prices.
On a serious note, my heart goes out to Britons who will be caught by skyrocketing energy prices. But there is still time to avert the worst of this crisis. Write to your MP and demand they produce a rational plan for maintaining reliable and affordable electricity supplies this winter.
Boy, reality can really be uncomfortable can’t it?
Especially when it bites you in the a$$ and won’t let go.
Seems to be SPAM
MODS – ban this guy for this crap
The problem is that this same message keeps popping up, each day with a new name.
Anthony Watts:
Using your name in hopes it flags this comment. Richard Hoard is spamming across multiple articles.
Noted, we’ll investigate.
Here’s your answer!!!!!
James Bull
… trying to predict what is unpredictable (climate change), incapable of predicting what is predicatble (erroneous calculations in engineering projects): is this what now is called “science based society”?
Swapping and adding a few key words does explain things nicely. Add the words agenda science, swap engineering for lobbyist, and stir in tax credits and other incentives to get the clear story.
Modern or post-normal science is brought forward by the same people… persons, groups, congregations, corporations that normalize a belief that sex and conception is a mystery that defies a woman and man’s comprehension, and that a wicked solution to a purportedly hard problem is a good choice. One step forward, two steps backward.
“post-normal science” is either abnormal science or no science at all (i.e., a means to facilitate arriving at a political decision and at its “justification” in public relations terms).
Joao wrote: … trying to predict what is unpredictable (climate change), incapable of predicting what is predicatble (erroneous calculations in engineering projects): is this what now is called “science based society”?
Actually Joao, our predictions are “spot on” to date- going all the way back to 2002 – this one is from 2013. I use my two engineering degrees, logic, quality data and a Ouija board.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/31/blind-faith-in-climate-models/#comment-1130954
An Open Letter to Baroness Verma, October 31, 2013, by Allan MacRae
[excerpt]
So here is my real concern:
IF the Sun does indeed drive temperature, as I suspect, Baroness Verma, then you and your colleagues on both sides of the House may have brewed the perfect storm.
You are claiming that global cooling will NOT happen, AND you have crippled your energy systems with excessive reliance on ineffective grid-connected “green energy” schemes.
I suggest that global cooling probably WILL happen within the next decade or sooner, and Britain will get colder.
I also suggest that the IPCC and the Met Office have NO track record of successful prediction (or “projection”) of global temperature and thus have no scientific credibility.
I suggest that Winter deaths will increase in the UK as cooling progresses.
I suggest that Excess Winter Mortality, the British rate of which is about double the rate in the Scandinavian countries, should provide an estimate of this unfolding tragedy.
As always in these matters, I hope to be wrong. These are not numbers, they are real people, who “loved and were loved”.
Best regards to all, Allan MacRae
“Turning and tuning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer…” Yeats
________________________________
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/27/the-real-climate-crisis-is-not-global-warming-it-is-cooling-and-it-may-have-already-started/#comment-2835920
Well, there is the perfect Trifecta – my work here is done:
In 2002 co-authors Dr Sallie Baliunas, Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian, Dr Tim Patterson, Paleoclimatologist, Carleton, Ottawa and Allan MacRae wrote:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
1. “Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
2. “The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Allan MacRae published on September 1, 2002, based on a conversation with Dr. Tim Patterson:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/10/polar-sea-ice-changes-are-having-a-net-cooling-effect-on-the-climate/#comment-63579
3. “If [as we believe] solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
MacRae modified his global cooling prediction in 2013, or earlier:
3a. “I suggest global cooling starts by 2020 or sooner. Bundle up.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/02/study-predicts-the-sun-is-headed-for-a-dalton-like-solar-minimum-around-2050/#comment-1147149
[excerpt]
See electroverse.net for extreme-cold events all over our planet.
Thank you Allan, I know your work and I was not referring to it. It is unfortunate that decision-makers are unable to tell a good, well researched work from some public relations verbiage that have crying reasoning mistakes all over the place. The last are the ones I was referring to, your work has been greatly inspiring.
Wow! Thank you Joao!
Where dogma meets frostbite
“Write to your MP and demand they produce a rational plan for maintaining reliable and affordable electricity supplies this winter.”
“Write to your MP and demand they produce a rational plan for maintaining reliable and affordable electricity supplies.” – Fixed it.
Oh well, the UK is not quite at the pitchforks and torches level of civil unrest—yet.
Trust me, we’re getting there!!!! My list of Greenalist ruling elites is steadily growing, I’m grinding my axe on the sharpener, driving several nails into my heavy wooden club, oh how this will make the French Revolution look like a Sunday afternoon picnic!!!!! In the words of the 10cc hit, Rubber Bullets, “blood will flow”!!!!! Many of us have literally had enough!!! The only peeps who don’t give a tinker’s cuss about the environment, are the environmentalists!!! Isn’t Socialism grand??? Millions of Humans butchered & slaughtered throughout the 20th century in its name, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol-Pot, Gore, Obama, Biden, ( the last three all indirectly) they ALL made their squillions on such politics, life means nothing to them, just as the climate means nothing to them, it’s merely a means to an end!!! Oh & wasn’t Gore the Vice-President of some bloke called Clinton, who went on national tv & lied to millions of American people, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!” quote unquote!!! How many squillions is he worth now, a lying lawyer??? No wonder America gave Hilary the elbow, who wants the wife of a lying President in the White House???
If any revolt to this nonsense ever actually happens, it will be a race between mass organization and midnight door kicking down visits.
According to recently de-classified documents revealed in an indictment today, Obama’s FBI director told Obama in a briefing, that the FBI had proof that the Russian dossier that started the whole Russian collusion fiasco, had originated from the Hillary campaign and that Hillary not only knew about it, but initiated it.
Pitchfork futures are UP!
So are torches and heavy braided rope.
Visited Berlin some years ago. struck by the lack of mature trees,I project that Axe and chainsaw futures are up as well.
Wanna bet?
The last time there was significant unrest in the UK, London specifically, was when Thatcher introduced the poll tax.
If Britain had a reliable source of electric power, this problem would be nothing more than a glitch.
Yep.
I guess home-grown power is the best.
I have no desire to harp back to the days of Empire, (not the British one, we gave it back), but history has shown that previous empires came to grief by importing things, like men & slaves in the case of the Roman empire to fill the ranks of legions & serve the wealthy elites, because more & more Romans wanted to duck their version of national service!!! So yes, home-grown power is the best, rely too much on others, will cause your downfall!!! Under Tony Bliar, (lawyer/liar are very similar) we gave our nuclear industry away to the Japanese for a pittance, we used to lead the world in nuclear science, now we’re pretty much finished!!!
“we used to lead the world in nuclear science”
Would that include leading the world in nuclear disasters?
“Sellafield was the site in 1957 of one of the world’s worst nuclear incidents. This was the Windscale fire which occurred when uranium metal fuel ignited inside Windscale Pile no.1. Radioactive contamination was released into the environment. … The incident was rated 5 out of a possible 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale”
[from Wikipedia]
1957 was really early days for nuclear power. From your Wikipedia link:
Five years earlier there was another power-related tragedy:
[from Wikipedia]
Smog deaths from coal are irrelevant to a discussion of nuclear power. There are many ways to heat homes besides coal and electricity generated by boiling water with radioactive materials.
If one continues a bit further into the Wiki article:
“The event was not an isolated incident; there had been a series of radioactive discharges from the piles in the years leading up to the accident.[7] In the Spring of 1957, only months before the fire, there was a leak of radioactive material in which dangerous strontium-90 isotopes were released into the environment”
Six decades after the disaster:
“Approximately 6,700 fire-damaged fuel elements and 1,700 fire-damaged isotope cartridges remain in the pile.”
Who is going to be guarding this and all the other dangerous nuclear sites around the world for the next 24,100 years? (half-life of plutonium)
At this point, natural gas is the best source energy for generating electricity in the majority of the US.
However, you make a good case for thorium reactors:
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/ting1/
Yes on natural gas, especially when drillers properly seal the well at the end of its life. There are thousands of abandoned wells. It would be in the industry’s interest to clean them up, but profits come first.
The molten salt based reactors sound great in theory. If only we had the metallurgy to contain the stuff at operating temperatures and pressures and resist corrosion. I noticed the Stanford citation overlooks the corrosion problem.
In the USA we’re now “coming to grief” by importing computer chips for our cars and antibiotics from China, instead of making them ourselves. So when China sent us the Wuhan Flu, bought and paid for by Dr. Fauci, we were caught unprepared.
Most of our chips, and the world’s for that matter outside China, for embedded device processing in everything from autos to appliances comes from Taiwan.
And if the CCP invades there will be a bucket of thermite pored over the essential kit and ignited
I went through ascending management experience, including “charm school” (my friends laugh when I mention this, I have no idea why), and the thing that stuck with me was this: All substantial undertakings must have a serious review of The Critical Path and The Fatal Flaws. Sadly, this has been replaced by an analysis of social justice, whatever that is.
In my experience, anytime you find “social” being used as a modifier, it can be replaced with “not” and still have the same meaning.
Social justice becomes, not justice.
Social science becomes, not science.
And so on
Heh, that’s like the Chinese fortune cookie…you can add the words “in bed” to the end of any fortune.
Include “climate”.
Climate science becomes, not science.
“sustainability”.
Sustainability was the tool before social justice. And it is still used as a tool. Not enough of the useful idiots jumped on the sustainability bandwagon, so the less intelligent useful idiots were roped in with ‘social justice’ jargon.
Both have differing meanings to everyone. That’s what the ‘they’ do … they take advantage of the pliable useful idiots by using variable language & terms.
‘Social sustainability’ … that’s a thing that can be used for anything.
Single point failure, risk analyses, and critical path engineering analyses have all been replaced by happy thinking and good intentions with political Liberals running the US. There is no other way to explain the totally stuupid wind power build out in the US, including Texas.
Apart from the high prices it is no more than a glitch – for now. If world wide gas had been cheaper and more available, or if gas storage facilities had not been shut down to save money, it would have been.
The real issues will happen in Jan/Feb when demand is 10GW higher…
They would have to recognize that wind and solar are the least green and also the most expensive of renewable energies.
I think, unfortunately, Britain doesn’t have any “green” options except importing coal and re-starting as many coal plants.
Philo,
I’m not sure that the UK can restart coal fired plants.
In the name of the great God Green [for the few], so many have been destroyed.
Not mothballed, destroyed.
Makes the coming winter a bit problematic.
I live inside the M25, and I have candles.
Auto
Better hook up the climate protesters to treadmill generators and mouse cages. This looks serious, unlike the protesters. Putin might break a rib from laughing so hard.
Well we have another 7 HVDC cables in the planning/build stages.
UK used coal power last summer too, when as now there was plant offline for summer scheduled maintenance. Before this month we went 55 days with no coal power at all
It’s amazing how hard the alarmists work to hide the fact that wind and solar just don’t work.
BTW, the only reason why you were able to do without coal, was all of the natural gas and nuclear plants were running flat out.
Griffo just got read of his gas cooker and gas boiler, gone fully solar with solar paneled shed roof (his house roof is shaded by a centuries old TPO oak tree, as a greeny he would not touch it anyway), and now is hoping to make fortune this winter by selling electricity back to the big electricity utilities. I believe he is somwere near Manchester (it always rains there, so I’m told) with the Dec/Jan about 4h of daylight. Just do as Griffo does and says.
I lived in Manchester at the start of my working life. All that needs to be said about the ‘rainy city’ was summed up by a job board outside a factory: “Wanted – waterproof machinists”. Doesn’t say much about the working conditions, does it?
Are you saying those planned Cables are planned to ONLY be connected to Solar and Wind generating plants?
Solar and Wind generating plants, which have yet to be built.
“Solar and Wind landscape destroying plants, which have yet to be built”.
There fixed!!! 😉
No. FYI the “Renewable” in the title comes from Eric, ie. this is simple bs or propaganda on his part.
The comment of Sunsettommy was a question, not seen ? The relation to the title you didn’t understand
Yes, and I gave the answer (“No”). Furthermore, he seems to be confused about these cable thingies so I helped him with a little bit of background.
You have s.th. like an minor idea what HVDC cables mean ?
Yes. High Voltage Directed Current. The most lossless way to carry electrical energy. Currently China is the leader here, and I think this fact itself is a good lesson to us (EU citizens). Even Brazil is ahead of us. And yes, if we have a good and broad High Voltage network with smart network control, that would have the additional benefit of alleviating a lot of the uncertainties of renewables. You know the wind is always blowing somewhere. Hope you know… BTW this network has a high initial cost but it’s minuscule compared to – say – military spending.
Windparcs like HVDC connections 😀
And thanks to the failure of the undersea cable, the grid with renewables have to demonstrate their ability.
Now you may see why Eric talkd about “renewables”.
Yeah. Together with anything else. Eric had to produce a hit piece so he “smuggled” the word “renewable” in the headline. Even the cited text says this: “import electricity, generated largely by nuclear power”. Congratulations.
as a critical undersea cable failure has cut the ability of imported French nuclear power to help maintain the fantasy that Britain’s renewable heavy electricity grid is fit for purpose.
Problems with understanding ? 100% ! 😀
I explained it above :D:D
🙂 this is not the cited text, this is Eric’s addition. Read the actual quote please. All in all:
Problems with understanding? 100%! 😀
It’s his correcct interpretation, formulated as the text of the actual articel I cited, not from th headline 😀
All correct, you may like it or not, but who cares 😀
Okay, so we agree this was his addition. Whether correct or not. In turn, I have a question: what is a “renewable […] cable”? Have you ever heard of it? Pls don’t forget we are talking about a cable that is used to transport mostly nuclear energy (70%). And before you start to bullshit about the rest, well, we don’t know.
Okay, so we agree this was his addition.
Who said otherwise ? No one. 😀
Erics article included an other one, difficul t for you ?
Renewable cable seems to be a cable to be replaced by a new one. 😀
This was a clumsy attempt at being sarcastic, right? 🙂
Quien sabe 😀 ?
You are making basic language comprehension mistakes; no wonder you are so angry and argumentative.
Article within an article is s.th like a song within a song:
It is used to transport electromagnetic energy. It doesn’t really matter where the energy comes from. The whole point is that GB renewables can not meet demand by themselves without fossil fuel backup.
Pure delusion as usual
The cost of a (high voltage direct current) interconnector to ‘where the wind is actually blowing hard enough‘ exceeds the cost of a local nuclear power staion.
And as can be seen, interconnectors canb go down..
How much? 🙂 In China, the first HVDC line had a cost of USD3.6b for the length of 2100 km. China is known for aggressively reducing costs via scaling, furthermore they have “rough” terrain in most of the country where they may produce electricity, so my guess is that this cost can be reduced tremendously.
“station” is the correct word. The cost for a 2.4 GW Russian power “staion” is cc EUR 12b. The Western models cost around 30b in the same output range. All in all, it looks much cheaper to build lines instead of building nuclear power stations everywhere.
Climate is the excuse and mechanism for doing the end run around ratepayers and taxpayers on the cost of transmission lines to nowhere.
Direct Current.
It really is amazing how many things you think yourself an expert in.
The wind may always be blowing somewhere, but if that “somewhere” is thousands of miles away, it is of no value.
Oops, a Hungarism surfaced again… (The DC-converter is called “unidirector”, and the output is “unidirected current”)
Well, this is actually my (broader) field.
Then you should know dc particularly when stressed produces heat, it was not the cable that caught fire it was the sub station on uk soil that set of fire ,the operators drew touch much current that the sub station could not handle,
Why did they do that, because of you and people like you winging ” were burning coal” congratulations now we will be burning a lot more coal.
Khm, “while planned maintenance was taking place”. Look, Lil B, everyone can bullshit. But only a few can bullshit well. You have a long way to go.
Wrong again the maintaince was used as a excuse to justify how long the sub station is off line ,
I see you fudge the reason the sub station burnt ,it was because they drew to much current desperation boy ,like you.
Again, bullshiting well is an art.
Well you should know.
Clumsy. Now you convey the impression you’re a sore loser. If you had come up with it at the first chance, it would’ve been an acceptable riposte. See? You shouldn’t have doubled down on your bullshit. Take it as lesson 1.
Your a waste of space resorting to foul language who has no argument. First class bullshitter ,who avoids the substance of the accusation.
Now you definitely look like a sore loser. If you can’t answer well, don’t answer. This is lesson 2. The other guys now know this (except for Krishna, he is a slow learner). By the way, if you’re ranting in a situation like this, that’s even worse. This was lesson 3.
Answer what?
Your a waste of space resorting to foul language who has no argument
Funny how I had no context for that comment and yet I knew exactly who you were talking to. Nothing new here.
👍
Mr Clarke,
are you suggesting that the operators over rode the very sensitive protection systems that prevent what you call ‘a touch too much’
All electrical systems use protective devices (even your home), and HVDC due to it’s incapacity to withstand overcurrent situations are set to trip very quickly in such an event, much more so than conventional A.C. equipment.
I don’t know where you got the idea that it was wilful over loading the system?
Yes to a degree, you say ” due to its incapacity to withstand overcurrent situations” thats correct it set on fire ,I’ve already explained the political reason why they would want to draw as much current as possible EG if one OR more saftey elements are bypassed to allow a higher flow, a not so familiar/ untried fix might end in disaster, which it seems did happen,
Bad press you know ,burning coal on the run up to cop 26 ,let’s try and screw every last amp out of the interconnectors.
In other word, what you say is pure speculation, right? Furthermore, why an electricity distributor is concerned with bad press? This episode means a 6 month outage, equipment loss, and lost income from this station. Because they wanted to avoid bad press in a topic that is not even their immediate field? National Grid is concerned with power distribution not with power production, you genius.
the maintenance was scheduled months in advance
When it comes to bullshitting well, no one takes a back seat to you.
In what passes for your mind, you honestly believe that they can’t be drawing power if maintenance is going on?
Well, I think the chances are very well against something this B guy (who looks quite clueless) has just pulled out of his ass. FYI his explanation is extremely unlikely, these installations are designed so that in normal use the circuit breaker (and other control circuitry) activates well before overheating can cause fire. However, a short circuit may be able to heat up cabling suddenly, or cause sparks, etc before the circuit breaker activates. BTW, short circuit is the most common fire hazard associated with electrical equipment, and this is completely plausible during maintenance.
A circuit breaker breaks because of a excess of current not heat,
If it does not break then excess heat causes a fire ,it does not break because its faulty.
Your a complete idiot who has no understanding of what your talking about,
The system is designed to operate within certain specific parameters, it clearly was drawing to much current than it was designed to cope with , coupled with a failed cb a fire broke out,
It should never of been drawing to much current in the first place.
Heat comes from current. Please don’t dig your own grave.
Again, you should be much better in making up bullshit.
You have no comprehension of basic electrical installations current does not generate heat unless the draw is excessive and the cable,switch gear is underrated, I’ve already told you this,
Your just compounding the idiot you are .
B Clarke,
Also there still could be a vast amount of heat in an electrical installation generated when a steady HV increase surge occurs between each of the three lines with earthing.
Usually and normally this is very rare and happens due to “faulty” essential line connectors.
Aka faulty and careless operation of an essential connector by the operator of the grid in a given circumstance.
Like for example in the circumstance of a careless rushy powering down or lowering the load on the connector when one side is considerably unstable versus the other side of the connector.
🙂
cheers
Its likely, my belief is the current draw was greatly beyond the design limits, humam intervention must of played a part in this to allow this to happen someone acting on behalf of some one else being a bit too clever who did not understand the whole system.
But still we do have a point of agreement there;
Faulty and careless operation, a human error.
You say over current and I say line earthing over voltage …
as a result of a human over clever error… 🙂
cheers
The level of your ignorance is so profound that it leaves me speechless.
Cheap circuit breakers use heat from over current to cause the circuit to break.
Quality and high power circuit breakers are triggered by electronics that measure the current and send a signal to the breaker. Much more accurate, much more reliable.
If you give up the notion that you already know everything and spend some time learning from the vast majority of the population that knows more than you do, you might manage to stop coming off as an ignorant ass.
??? who said these were heat activated? MarkW, you again disappoint me.
update: one of my answers to this B idiot may have been easy to misunderstand. I didn’t say breakers are heat activated. Furthermore, they are activated well before the equipment can overheat. I’m pretty sure we agree in this.
You only now admit this because I’ve told you 3 times .
Your out of your depth spoutting some one else’s rubbish
What have you told me? 🙂
Now you’re an A idiot and a liar.
I’ll never forget seeing a Western Electric worker drop a crescent wrench onto a set of 24v bus bars in a large central office! There was a flash so brilliant all you could see was stars! And the wrench was a little puddle on the ground. Didn’t trip one breaker!
You are correct about the current. Sizing the buses in the central office was a job for a dedicated engineer. Flash shorts (like above) don’t usually cause problems. But too heavy of a current draw (think adding a relay rack lineup full of equipment) will cause all kinds of problems over time, both short intervals as well as long intervals. And this was for 24v DC. I can’t imagine what it would be for HVDC.
Thanks Tim, I saw someone thrown across the floor when they tested a buzz bar to see if it was live, it was.
Yep DC can be lethal in the wrong hands.
And you have no idea or clue of the HV protection systems.
Exactly. I thought we should simply run away, that would be the best protection. 😉
I guess this is as close as you are capable of getting, to admitting you are wrong.
So you admit that you have no idea whether the claims you have been making are true or not.
They just feel right to you, and that’s good enough.
Well, no. The “maintenance” is in the press report. Most electrical fires are due to short circuiting. Electric equipment is designed and sized in a way that it doesn’t allow overheating. Short circuiting during a maintenance is much more likely. These 4 claims of mine are non-controversial, I think we all agree in that. What this B cretin claims is extremely implausible, and literally without any evidence. I’m not saying it’s impossible. But this is not the thing I would put any money on. Just a bit of background: these outages are extremely expensive to companies, they try to do their best to save equipment. The outage will be half a year in this case. Would they (manually!) override their safety equipment for essentially propaganda purposes? I’m not entirely sure it’s even possible to override these things. When I mentioned circuit breakers he suddenly came up with another bullshit, the a faulty cb (instead of manual override). These are triply redundant in an installation like this. One single faulty breaker usually won’t cause a fire.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Most fires are caused by high resistance at connections where current and the resistance results in heat. Too small wiring and aluminum wiring can also overheat and cause fires due to current. Replacing circuit breakers with high values can cause overheated wire. Do you even know what size wire is used for 15 amp circuits or 20 amp circuits? Why are wire nuts used instead of soldered connections? Why do 20 amp outlets only have screw connections? Don’t Google the answers either.
I know, and this is expected 🙂
Have you ever worked in electrical power distribution at all? Have you ever thrown a breaker on even a low voltage line let alone a 50 Kv line or higher? Everything you are spouting appears to come from googling rather than from hands on experience. Many of the folks on here have that experience yet you just blithely denigrate their knowledge and experience as if you were the fount of all knowledge. You need to grow up, you sound like you live in your mama’s basement.
So your theory is that it simply overheated and caught fire? During usage? Again, this debate is about this. This idiot claimed this was the case, without any evidence. The press release above says there was a maintenance. A much more plausible reason. The guy changed his explanation when I pointed out that safety equipment would intervene in these cases.
My theory is that I don’t know what happened and neither do you. This is all speculation. The point is that a single point failure occurred that was not planned for.
Now we agree. But you should know, there are less and more plausible speculations.
I call this a speculation. Engineering failures in my experience are very rarely single point (but not exclusively).
B Clarke re: “the operators drew touch much current that the sub station could not handle”
UNLIKELY; these things are monitored, via “protective relaying” and the use of interrupters to trip those circuits when faults, fault conditions (including overloads) occur … NOT to mention human supervision via the regional ‘transmission’ authority for those lines (and substations).
Normally they are, however when you have a agenda of ” can’t be seen to be using coal” i think they over ruled the protections , none of what you stated worked the sub station burnt , it was not the interconnector cable that set on fire, thats probably better rated for excess current , it was the internals in the sub station. Management under pressure?
Hm, why don’t you make up your mind? So was it a faulty circuit breaker or they had manual override? Or both? And how about a little common sense? Do you think they can manually override a station like this?
You really have no idea what went on. A breaker could have been overridden while another branch was worked on. Right now everything is speculation.
Gee, nyolci, how much of this bollixed up energy madness can you take? If a couple of bridges fell down, you surely would have critical things to say to your authorities, woke or unwoke.
I beg your pardon? What are you trying to say here?
Why do people always try to act so smart? Yes, Brazil and china are ahead in this, because they are 3rd world countries making a jump and using latest technology, bypassing a step.
Like African nations that run on cell networks no landlines.
For countries with existing infrastructure, formerly always working systems, its about replacing all that infrastructure.
And BTW, when you are wasting trillions on useless renewables, that is trillions you don’t have available to spend on HVDC lines.
Or hospitals.
Or food.
Just saying.
Not so sure about China 🙂
No, the EU is clearly behind. This is widely known.
We are wasting trillions on a lot of things. The Afghanistan war was a total waste, we couldn’t set up a viable puppet state. Fossil fuel is a total waste too. Fossil fuel companies are the most profitable in the world by a ridiculously large margin. All that profit is waste, furthermore they use it for propaganda (like WUWT).
Since the EU is not a developing country, why do you bring it up?
The things you think are a waste are the standard list of far left whines.
Fossil fuels made the world wealthy, renewables are killing people.
Profit is a waste? Just how big a communist are you?
Okay, my sentence was badly worded. The EU is clearly behind in long distance power distribution. We have to build lines but we can’t agree on things. China is likely at the top at the moment, but even the US (nowadays associated with bad infrastructure) is in a better position that the EU.
Slave trade made the Liverpudlian elite wealthy, tea trade made the southern Chinese wealthy, cocaine trade made the Colombian elite wealthy etc. The world has changed.
Please compare fossil fuel profit margins with – say – car production margins. You will see. We are essentially paying a huge tax to these people without much in return.
China has no problem with right-of-way. The dictators just take the land for whatever they need. HVDC or anything else.
Finding places to run HVDC lines in the EU is a far different proposition!
Nothing to do with place. They can’t make up a coherent energy policy. The NordStream 2 case is a good illustration. Poland etc. are against, Germany wants it. The US wants an EU with shitty energy stability, wants to fcuk the Russians so it’s sponsoring the internal EU resistance against NordStream 2. At the moment when the EU elite makes up its collective mind they will build a HVDC line through the Arc of Triumph in Paris despite any popular protest.
Russia colluuuusion 😉
I said fossil fuels made the world wealthy, you think a few industries that made a small fraction of the population wealthy is an adequate come back?
Your communism is showing again.
In good years, fossil fuel companies make a lot of money.
In bad years, fossil fuel companies lose a lot of money.
Over all the profit margin for the fossil fuel industry is not that different from other industries.
You pay tax to your government, and you pay a market price for the car or fuel you buy.
You’re quite good at cut and paste but I think you don’t have a clue what you are talking about. You certainly don’t understand engineering and the real world constraints of systems. How are you going to get electricity from Ghana to England (that might be the closest spot with extra wind) in a timely and cost-effective manner? What “smart network” software will you be using and how well will it control the entire world network?
Why do you have to bullshit?
Ugh, why do you have to bullshit? BTW we could develop a very good world wide fiber cable network in essentially 30 years without much ado and without the “trillions of dollars” or whatever bullshit. I think you can know what I try to say here.
The “smart network” software is the least of the problems. And this is an engineering problem. The real problems are political, and driven (at least partially) by the fossil fuel lobby.
….we could develop a very good world wide fiber cable network in essentially 30 years without much ado….
Fiber is for comunication , not for power …
Yes. But the effort is comparable. Gee, why do I have to explain everything every time? In the next 30 (well, probably much less) year we can build a network of comparable size with long range HVDC interconnections, with comparable cost. Do you understand now? If not, read the sentence previous sentence again (and again) slowly.
You have to explain, because in advane you were unclear or wrong.
Please, Krishna, don’t. In the last hour you couldn’t write down one single sentence without an annoying error that potentially hindered understanding. You know, rocks and glass house, whatever 🙂
Ah yes, the standard left wing sense of overwhelming superiority makes itself known yet again.
Krishna makes an occasional spelling error.
You on the other hand over and over again screw up basic facts and show no ability to handle either reading comprehension or basic logic.
Krishna was bullshiting about how my writing had been unclear.
Most people are smart enough to not be bothered by an occasional misspelling. Bad grammar on the other hand is an entirely different problem.
Pretty sure that English is not Krishna’s first language, and most native English speakers are tolerant of minor deviations from the standard – just look at our own regional dialects. Perhaps nyolci is also not a native English speaker, and has difficulty both understanding and writing in English.
Again, he was bullshiting about my writing. I just pointed out his writing had problems too.
Interesting when your proved to be clueless ie fibre cable for power,what do you mean ” effort is comparable ” that has no relation at all what are you talking about?
Your talking rubbish, hysterical babel , your repeating some rubbish you have read some were.
Fiber optics are usually a small handful of thin cables, often pushed through existing underground conduits.
HVDC involves thick copper cables, hung from very tall pylons.
Obviously, the level of effort is the same.
I know Mark ,I just want to see what this idiot thinks he knows ,
I’ve asked him several times for costs,materials, ect he refuses to answer , hes clueless , hes been brainwashed into believing its doable ,spouting something some one else has told him down the pub , the practicality of his mad dreams elude him.
Yep, I don’t want to talk to refuse if you know what I mean 🙂 Okay, 1000 km landline is around USD1b. A backbone around all the continents can be build with 100000 km of lines, that’s around USD100b. The backbone is quite enough ‘cos there are extensive national and transnational networks already.
If you quadruple this amount you get a complete upper bound with undersea cables across the Atlantic and the Bering straight, and you are still well below the yearly military budget of the US. That’s it.
Look i surgest you get help , you didn’t even know the difference between a fibre optic cable and a power cable till it was pointed out to you,
Thankfully your ramblings ,obsessive belief in a one world government, and power supply will never happen,
Get a job after finishing school,
Get a girlfriend
And buy yourself some bubble wrap.you understand.
The inability of you deniers to understand this example is shocking. One after another comes up with this. No wonder, science denial correlates well with plain, everyday stupidity.
Please get yourself together and write sentences that make sense. What did you want to say here? Due to my “ramblings” and “obsessive whatever” the power supply won’t happen? Your text is full of these contorted sentences.
A bit ago, he made the claim that WUWT was funded by fossil fuel companies. When I asked him for evidence, he just declared that it was something that everyone knew and I was an idiot for questioning it.
Yes Mark,
He does not understand the concept of proof, I think he’s a brainwashed kid with no understanding of the adult world.
A cross continent or intercontinental backbone cable is rather thick, it’s not the cable that’s running to your granny’s house. Furthermore, you can’t just simply weld two fiber cables together, this is not a straightforward technology. You need repeaters etc. and funnily, you need electricity for the repeaters, and not even some nominal amount. There are challenges, don’t be afraid.
The entire bundle is still thinner than an HVDC connector. Actually the problem with splicing fiber optic cables was solved by industry decades ago. I’m not surprised that someone with your level of ignorance wasn’t aware of it.
https://www.vevor.com/collections/fusion-fiber-splicer?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=fiber%20splicer&utm_campaign=AD-All-US-Electrical-Fusion%20Fiber%20Splicer-Fusion%20Fiber%20Splicer-ECPC-20210826-WHJ%20-%209.10%20check&msclkid=e72d5935c0b713b3476838761a6cfab5&utm_content=Fusion%20Fiber%20Splicer
Repeaters are also not the problem you think them to be.
https://www.perle.com/lp/fiber-repeaters.shtml
A cross country backbone cable is about the thickness of an average male forearm. That’s not very thick. Not at all difficult to pull through a conduit.
Where are you going to find the right-of-way? When did the EU become a dictatorship?
It was always like this. Just as the US. Don’t be delusional.
So the EU has always been a collective noun has it, we can eliminate history from your list of achievements.
Please seek help before you bullshit. First try to understand. I know you’ve always had problems with that. This is lesson 4, if you can count up to 4. So, the claim is “The EU was always like [whatever]”. The claim is not “The EU was always in existence”.
I think you really need help, eg every single poster on this thread has disagreed with you several times,
Would you say you are right and every one else is wrong?
That he considers himself to be incapable of error, or at least he has too much pride to admit it when caught out, has become obvious.
I really think his beliefs are being questioned to a point hes contradicting himself in reply, he says the EU was always like this” i say ” so the EU has always been a collective noun”
His response is “the claim is not the EU was always in existence ”
He does not realise i never said the EU was not always in existence , I commented on the EU not pre EU
He’s a fool not worth bothering with.
He really is turning into the Energizer bunny of trolls.
No, there are other posters. And your greater number doesn’t mean you’re right, this is a science deniers’ blog anyway.
No, there are multiple users who expressed bafflement with your explanation (like _Jim). And anyway, regardless of your numbers, you are pushing an explanation that is built entirely on implausible speculation.
The EU and US have always been dictatorships?
Is this just another one of those things that everyone knows?
Or are you simply that delusional.
Phone companies have been installing fiber optic systems for decades. The main backbones for both the phone system and the internet have been fiber optic since the beginning. In many areas we already have fiber optic for internet running directly to individual homes.
Translation: He’s got me by the short and curlies, but my ego is too big to allow me to admit it.
We already have a world wide fiber optic network.
Is there ANYTHING you know that is actually true?
It really is fascinating how you know that everything bad is caused by the fossil fuel industry.
You have been asked for evidence to support your various paranoias, but so far your only response is that everybody who’s willing to spend time with you agrees, so it must be true.
Really? 🙂
Yes. It took around 30 years to build it. The cost was high but nothing like trillions of dollars. I used it as an analogy for long distance, high voltage lines.
No. Even here I wrote that in this specific issue the fossils industry is “at least partially” responsible. Which is true. Look, the Iraqi war is widely attributed to “oil”. I don’t want to go into details here, this is obviously an oversimplification but it is still a “truism”. I haven’t seen so far anything comparable with other resources in recent times.
Back to the fiber (backbone) lines, a comparable high voltage long distance network has no technical issues, we can build it, likely much faster than the fiber stuff and likely cheaper as well. The real problem is political, the “fragmentation” of the world makes this impossible at the moment.
There is no analogy between fibre optic and power lines,
You state “for long distance, high voltage lines” what exactly is long distance?
You also state ” high voltage long distance network has no technical issues,” really again define long distance ?
You state ” high voltage long distance network has no technical issues, we can build it very much faster than fibre stuff and likely cheaper as well” you can build long distance network without defining what that long distance is how can transmission lines be cheaper than fibre optics ,? What materials will you be using? at what cost? On a like for like distance ? Have you ever heard the term voltage drop ? How many sub stations will you need over a given distance ( which you don’t state ) to allow for voltage drop?
Have you any idea what your talking about?
Time and time again, nyolci proves that he has no idea what he’s talking about. But his ego is so vast that he can’t admit it, even to himself.
Ugh, this is a definite refutation, I’m sorry… 😉
You really don’t know? What an idiot you are… We’ve been talking about this already for hours. Gee… Between continents. Between the EU and China. Between the EU and India. Between China and Australia.
Good luck with that let me know when you have built it.
One way you can tell when nyolci is just making it up, he starts insulting those who are questioning his self declared wisdom.
Long distance is intercontinental? And you actually have the gall to declare that others are idiots.
Exactly.
On the other side, how many miles can you go between repeater on a fiber optic line? How much do repeaters cost?
How much do the towers needed for HVDC cost? How much does it cost to string the conductor on the pylons?
I think he based his figures on one power line ,that he’s scaled up to cover the world which is ridiculous , he does not cost infrastructure eg pylons ,pylons would not be suitable every were ,so then we have trenching ,ect basing a costing on a existing line ,does not account for current raw materials prices,
His dream also assumes every government is on board, which can only be a reality in his fantasy new world government.
Security is another area his fantasy world does not cover.
I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince, no one has agreed with him , he’s certainly fanatical about his dream .
It really is amazing how you remain convinced that the oil companies are funding the skeptics.
No data necessary.
Political fragmentation of the world? So you want a one world government, the better control the people.
How delightfully totalitarian of you.
Yes he’s a globalist, bought into the religion of a one world government with a one world power system , hes a product of brainwashing , probably never achieved anything so he believes in this crap for his salvation.
Objection, it’s not a “religion”. The rest is correct.
🙂 you can’t live without bullshiting. You love its smell, don’t you?
English is not your first language, you only learnt the small words.
Yep 🙂 But I have to tell you the same applies to you. There’s almost no post of yours without a faulty sentence.
More insults, Clarke has obviously nailed nyolci.
I just have one question.
How do you say stfu in Hungarian?
We call it “Rich Davis”.
And he then declares that the US has always been a dictatorship.
Does his warped logic mean the usa has gone to war is that what he means by dictatorship is he German by any chance ( sorry normal germans) perhaps his admitted devotion is a reference to the 4th reich World government? The German reich was always about Europe and the world interconnected via a central hub germany.
I don’t see America as a dictatorship its a Republic of states who by and large run themselves apart from some federal laws,
Am I wrong ? It has a Congress and upper house that keeps the checks and balances with a supreme Court that keeps them all within the law and or the constitution. Ok America is seen by some country’s as a world police force which haven’t been a bad thing, even at the hight of American might it has never tried to dominant the world ,
Mark hes just pissed , 😛
He claims that he hates the communists who used to run his country. Then a few days later he waxes poetic about a one world communist government.
I’ve never claimed this. I claimed I hated them in the 80s, and the 90s was a good lesson why this hate was completely misplaced.
Again, you’re making up shit. FYI I’m not German (but I think this is completely irrelevant in this context).
Yep. Except there’s data.
That was quick 🙂 3 sentences all together. Congratulations.
If there’s data, why do you never provide it?
nyolci is feeling the heat of reality, he’s starting to just spew insults. No longer even pretending to invent new lies.
That a lot of idiotic progressives made the claim that Iraq was for oil, doesn’t make it true.
Not having any technical issues is not the same as saying something is easy, or cheap to do. Only someone with absolutely no experience with real world engineering would say some as stupid as claiming that it’s easier to build an HVDC network than an fiber optic one.
Well, I’m neither idiotic nor progressive. And very likely the control of oil and Iraq’s geopolitical situation were the definite factors. They (the US) wanted a pliable puppet in the middle of the Middle East just beside Iran and Syria, and more broadly, the Caucasus.
Yep, that’s why no one has claimed that. The claim was that we could do it without the made up “trillions” price tag you could encounter for every non-fossil proposal in denier forums. The fiber network was the analogy, it’s a worldwide network built in 30 years, with a lot of money but nowhere near the “trillions” bullshiting. Most people have not even noticed we have been building such a big network.
Political fragmentation will always stop a world electric cable network …. what is the next suggestion we all share Nukes????
You might get lucky and a few countries share it until push comes to shove over issues.
What the hell does fiber network have to do with electrical transmission? Straw men are the fallback for losers.
BTW, where is the money to create all this coming from? Chinese slave labor maybe?
Perhaps that there’s an extensive network that has been built in 30 years without excessive costs.
See above.
The fiber optic network was built inexpensively. Therefore a world wide HVDC network can also be built inexpensively.
And to think, you actually consider yourself to be the smart one.
I don’t think either is inexpensive. What I think building a network is completely within our means, and the “trillions” usually surfacing here are way overblown.
He’s also good at the Ali Shuffle, changing subjects in mere nanoseconds.
Where? I have pointed out this piece of news has nothing to do with renewables. The cable was actually used to import nuclear power mostly. We don’t even know about the rest. There’s nothing inherently “renewable” in this cable. Eric, for reasons unclear (a charitable interpretation), tried to present it as a renewable failure. You immediately swallowed this big lump of bullshit without any second thought.
He didn’t try that, it’s you wrong interpretation, as usual, you don’t undertand the mening of what he said, the rest you suckle out of you fingersl.
Huh, Krishna, I’m pretty sure you know well my interpretation is not wrong 🙂
Couldn’t be wronger 😀
In addition to being a self described expert in everything, now he believes himself to be psychic to boot.
You just don’t know when to shut up. You totally misunderstood the title. Clue? Eric doesn’t even bother to explain it to you.
The connection to renewables is the fact that Britain needs that interconnect to make up for the fact that renewables are completely unreliable when it comes to producing power when it is needed.
While I doubt this, this is at least a reason. FYI well before the renewables era there were long distance interconnections, so the fact that there’s an interconnection doesn’t signify much.
But I have to note something. I hope you are aware of the fact that your explanation is the complete opposite the other guys here propose. This is just a note, not a “refutation” or something.
Why would you doubt this ,uk is increasing its reliance on European power at the same time its renewables can’t cope , its increasing its renewables but expanding its reliance elsewhere, theres clearly a disconnect, yet you doubt this, then why ?
Some guy proposes using wind power, and this proves that wind power is feasible.
Interconnects did exist before renewables become popular. However the need for them exploded once renewables started being used.
??? I’m a bit lost. I’m sure I haven’t said anything like this.
You’re making things up. Again. Perhaps we should check relevant statistics first, right? Warning, this is not an easy task, the raw number of km-s won’t tell you much in itself.
What’s the matter, too tired to come up with new lies?
The original interconnect was more about balancing the peak demand requirement in neighbouring time-zones. Flattening the (combined) peak benefits both grids. That allows both grids to operate with slightly less reserve capacity, as the neighbour provides some virtual reserve. Gas generation for both baseload and for peak demand is fairly recent in the UK, starting at the former Wilton power plant in 1993. Non-dispatchable power would be even more problematic without gas generation and interconnects. The interconnects work both ways – to absorb some of the excess wind generation, and then to provide some of the power shortfall when the wind dies down. French nuclear is cheaper than other generators though, so most of the power flow is one-way.
Thx.
Nyolci
You put the pest in Budapest!
HVDC cables are an extravagance that could never be economically justified if each region connected by them had adequate dispatchable power generation. They are explicitly imagined as a solution to the intractable intermittency problem of the so-called “renewables”. That is the obvious connection to renewables. Obvious to all but the most ideologically blinded among us (that’s you).
The irony that they end up supplying coal- and nuclear-generated power to make up for the lack of wind and solar seems to be completely lost on you.
No, I put the shit in Rich Davis!
Thank you for your expert opinion.
But where?
For that argument to make any sense everywhere that we have windfarms must have enough redundancy to cover all the areas with windfarms and no wind. And the losses during transmission across the continent.
So let us assume that Europe (inc UK and ROI) can be split into at least 6 regions; NW Atlantic, Iberia, Scandinavia, Central, (quite big that) Sub-Alps, SE Europe (let’s inc Israel and Turkey), Eastern. If independent then No Wind would be a chance of 1 in 6 x 1 in 6 so… blackouts only one year in 20 if every region could cover half a region.
But they aren’t independent. So double that. Every region needs to cover double itself (taking Central as the same size as Iberia).
Your silly aside has at least doubled your costs and doubled the footprint and material inputs required.
This is an underestimate as we assume no energy loss transferring across regions.
And that is for a shutdown of industry no more than 1 year in 20,,, on a average. The years are not independent either – they will bunch up.
Goodbye Europe’s industry.
A world wide electricity distribution network would be a great alleviating factor for sure.
There are much more accurate estimations for this (actually I know this from a top fossils and energy industry expert, a friend of mine, no further details). Wind was just an allegory for there type of resources. I agree with you that some of this is useless, solar probably is the top contender for the “we are better off without it” role.
Perhaps I can say here that you’re an alarmist, right? IRL these cost estimates are quite overblown, and again, the fossils industry (with literally almost a trillion dollars of investment every year) has an active anti-lobbying and propaganda influence in this.
Actually, the renewables have no capacity problem. Their real problem is storing energy. Long distance energy distribution lessens this need.
No, you can’t. Because I demonstrably used UNDERESTIMATES for your idea.
You cannot use the same energy twice. If you want to cover where the wind isn’t blowing – and you want to still cover where the wind is blowing – then you need to have twice the generation.
Solar is even sillier. As you have exactly the same problem but you need to transmit it around half the planet, not just the continent.
Not my idea. And the estimates are generally quite unreliable.
Not necessarily. Again, the capacity is present but not uniformly (in time). Worldwide capacity is much more stable, so long distance lines do help here.
Furthermore, if we could store excess electric energy that would be a good solution. We already have some options. I’m not talking about battery farms, probably the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of. There are certain hydro-stations we can run in reverse, in certain countries these are viable options already. But most importantly we already have “fuel generation” (hydrocarbons from electricity). We waste around 50% of input but if it is wasted during the time it’s not needed anyway, then we don’t really waste anything. Currently the EU’s grid almost collapses if there’s high wind in the North Sea, because of the excess wind generation capacity. We have to shut down power stations etc. I hope you get what I’m talking about. We should scale up this “inverse fuel” industry. The technology is already present, and actually it’s in use in Germany (among others).
And please remember, the fossil fuel industry every year needs almost a trillion dollars of investment. I would call it “expensive”. Just a little bit of perspective: if 1000 km of HVDC line is USD1.8b (very likely much cheaper), we can build 55.000 km from USD100b. This like 140% of the Earth’s equatorial perimeter.
I’m awake again.
What benefit is there for this idea? It’s less efficient than just using hydrocarbons. Emissions are the same.
If you mean you don’t waste the useless wind energy that’s made when not required… OK. But it won’t be as cheap as just using fossil fuels.
And it’s just as green.
No, emissions are not the same if we use atmospheric CO2.
Are you sure? Using excess energy? And really, not using fossils is THE cheap solution in the long run.
The problem you are failing to grasp is that fossil fuel plants have to be kept on hot standby for those occasions where the wind stops blowing or a cloud passes over a solar farm. Hot standby means the plant is burning almost as much fuel as it would have, had it actually been producing power.
Hydrocarbons from sunlight do work, but mother nature has cornered the market in that. Shipping chopped up trees from America using fossil fuels for the transport to burn them in UK powerstations is NOT a good use of resources. The whole point nyolci is missing is that non-dispatchable power generation does not provide useful power. Even his phenomenally expensive electricity to fuel process depends on a reliable power source. Interrupt the power, and the big industrial process shuts down, and would typically have to dispose incomplete material processing – flaring off unusable gasses for safety. Far more efficient to have a gas generator as backup for when the wind stops blowing, but even more efficient is to forget the windmills and use the gas generator continuously. For even greater efficiency, close the inefficient electricity to fuel process as well, and just use the gas generator. To save even more cost, don’t build the windmills or electricity to fuel in the first place. Since the fuel generator would be running continuously, build a modern coal powerstation instead. Disperse the CO2 emissions so that they are recycled into trees.
Hey M, regardless of our disagreement in specifics, thx for the debate.
A world wide electricity distribution network ”
Have you costed this, ? What would the infrastructure look like?
What would it be made from? What is the overall materials cost?
How would transmission move this generation around the planet?
Yes.
OK I can’t wait for your costing of a world wide electricity network.
That one out of five four to go.
You will 🙂
Oh I see its a secret ,your costing to save the world
I won’t be hold my breath.
Either delusional, or he’s getting tired of coming up with new lies.
It might be, if such a thing were remotely possible.
Once again we are just supposed to take your word for it.
You really like to believe in paranoid fantasies, don’t you.
Here you are stating explicitly that long distance energy distribution is a mitigation strategy for the inadequacy of renewables. Thus you admit that the prevalence of HVDC interconnections is due to the goal of dealing with renewables’ intermittency problem.
Yet somehow this is not a renewables failure.
I guess it must be a Trump Administration failure. Isn’t that the go-to answer?
It does lessen the need for storage. But no where near as much as you believe.
BTW, there is no form of storage available. Pumped storage is about tapped out, and your Greens wouldn’t permit any to be built if a good site could be found.
Batteries are too expensive with too short a life expectancy.
and your Greens
Not mine.
Perhaps. China is actively developing them, so I think we have just found another field where they are getting ahead fast.
No. There were HV interconnections back in the 60s when neither solar nor wind were utilized. There are other factors for using them too. Calling an interconnection “renewables conn” is dishonest.
nyolci.
you seem very excited about HVDC.
HVDC, does not produce energy.
Does not make windmill farms or solar farms more productive and reliable.
Does not offer any energy security for the production.
But it seems you already know that.
It is simply a high investment scheme in an attempt to “arrest” a grid blackout, total or partial,(whatever the case may be),due to the elevated risk increase from energy power sources like windmill and solar farms.
When in reality even that highly hypothetical.
Very very unlikely to work as expected when at most needed.
even when battery systems like the one in SA considered too in the scheme… still is quite a useless investment and a silly useless solution, as it never possibly will help a grid out of a blackout condition… most probably it will make it worse.
Oh, well.
Oh, I didn’t know that 😉 Once I drank a lava lamp. It wasn’t lava 😉
I’m guessing you don’t know this, but you are making a real ass of yourself.
If you could screw up your integrity and admit that you messed up, instead of retreating into smart ass territory again, you could take the first step on the road to personal integrity.
Messed up what? Not believing an evidence free speculation about the fire? Not believing this was a renewables’ failure? or what?
In a sense precisely it was you who messed this up. I wrote quite a few answers to you (and to M Courtney) with a normal debate in mind and normal tone. You (unlike M Courtney) didn’t seem to appreciate (or understand this) and used a very adversarial tone. Congratulations.
Sorry to tell you, but if France was using all “renewable” and the cable failed, you would still lose that power. The loss of the cable has nothing to do with the type of electromagnetic power being carried. IT WAS A PHYSICAL DISRUPTION. Cable failures can occur for numerous reasons. The longer the connection, the more exposure there is. Do you have any experience in power distribution design? Does the word “risk” mean anything to you when designs are done for transmission lines? It sure doesn’t sound like it.
Now really tell me what debate did you read. I said this same thing. This cable has nothing to do with renewables, and I’m happy you have arrived to the same conclusion.
You Sir, are the bovine faecal generator, you seem to be full of it, so pray tell, how do you manage to generate it, you know it could be a new source of energy production???
I would like to kindly return your nice words by congratulating for your moms achievement of being the employee of the month in the brothel.
There is absolutely no one on the planet that can even approach the towering intellect that is Noci the Nasty.
And your mom was the runner up.
Grow up, little boi.
The title is about renewable Britain and an not about renewable undersea cable
If your suggestion is right then this idiot Eric screwed up the punctuation. Either way the title doesn’t make sense. Furthermore, even if we corrected it, the fact would remain the same: this cable is not specifically related to renewables.
Marxists such as yourself always accuse others of what they do.
What do I do?
In Norway connection to Norwegian hydro is a large factor…
Please don’t downvote just on a poster’s name. If you truly disagree , say why.
I disagree with Griff a lot but wouldn’t pick a fight on this question. Norwegian hydro is a good source of power. He’s right.
You have my respect I have to say.
The North Sea Link between UK and Norway is due to become operational next month. It may help keep the lights on when the wind fails.
At the expense of the Norwegian consumer. The price of electricity is now at an all time high thanks to them interconnectors. Thank you very much!
But we are also likely to dump excess wind power onto you at times. That probably pushes the price up for you too if any more sites are suitable for your investment in pumped storage. Sorry for being such bad distant neighbours.
If only the smart meter had a free intermittent electricity spur on it to allow some of the excess to be dumped into immersion heaters and storage heaters – something that could also help level off a later peak in demand.
But the company is making a killing … law of unintended consequences 🙂
Which means we went 310 days WITH coal power!
Meanwhile, with the 7 HVDC cables coming online (from where griff doesn’t say) our energy security is either at the mercy of foreign countries or wind/solar farms that have yet to be built.
Merry Christmas griff, hope you like raw turkey, turkey.
GB went 365 days WITH coal power capacity available to secure supply.
We only failed to use coal more often because artificial “carbon” costs which makes it uneconomic compared to gas.
Right now, coal fired generation is HUGELY in-merit against gas. And wind generation is nowhere to be seen.
The present experience should be a warning for what WILL happen in a future without coal fired capacity.
er… no. That was just a continuous period without.
coal in 2019 and 2020 supplied just 2% of UK electricity.
But it kept the lights on at vital times. It’s not the average that counts it’s the peak that matters.
This is the key point.
It doesn’t matter to a factory that they are only forced to close 2% of the time. They will choose to move to where they don’t have to close down at all.
Meanwhile, gas, Nuclear and Interconnectors from God knows what sources provided far more than renewables.
Where do you imagine the electricity for the UK comes from when it’s becalmed, as it frequently is.
Sure. And battery backup is on the way, also.
And cold fusion.
And generation based on pixie dust and unicorn farts, built with money off the magic money tree…
I have a patent on that.
Also on a quantum electricity confibulator that only lets “good” green electrons into your home or business, not the nasty fossil fuel ones.
send money
You may laugh, I did, but a filter for nuclear power was sold 😀 😀
(No idea if more than one has been sold) 😀
NUKLESTOP
Nuclear fission, source of energy for atomic electricity. In addition to the generally known processes, each fission produces a so-called tachyon momentum, which cannot be converted into electricity like the rest of the released energy. This tachyon pulse, however, gives all forms of energy resulting from fission a special “signature” that cannot be erased for reasons of the law of conservation of energy. Consequently, atomic electricity is also endowed with this tachyonic signature.
This phenomenon is used by NucleoSTOP, the sensational innovative device for filtering out the atomic current!
A compact, handy device, packed with the latest high-tech electronics, makes it easy for YOU to stop using nuclear electricity. The device causes no installation effort, you don’t need an electrician and you don’t have to register the device anywhere.a_Geraet-1
NucleoSTOP is maintenance-free and – thanks to state-of-the-art integrated circuits – has an intrinsic power consumption of only 0.5 – 0.8 watts, depending on the proportion of nuclear power added to normal electricity. The device reliably detects nuclear current from any type of reactor, whether pressurized or boiling water, light, heavy, molten water or fast breeder. It does not matter – with our new product generation – whether the nuclear power was produced domestically or imported from abroad.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
http://www.nucleostop.de/a_Geraet-1.jpg
NucleoSTOP seems to have overcome a long-held principle of physics—that no electron can be distinguished from another.
You’re right. Nobody has actually developed a device to “filter out” select electrons. It can, however, siphon money out of your bank account or wallet.
Success!
I’ve heard of tachyons. I’m wondering what kind of particle a tachyon momentum is.
But have it heard this one:
The barman says “we don’t serve faster than light particles in here”
A tachyon walks into a bar….
This product is just more evidence that a fool and his money are soon parted.
I wonder how many griff and nyolci have bought?
And free beer.
Nocturnal solar is just as likely as battery backup, and probably more efficient.
Yes, with Diesel generators 😀
Griff,
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Or too proud to look.
Before this month was August, a month of summer. After this month, fall and winter are knocking at “your” door. And to have plans for further cables is fine, but they are not able to connnect you to what ever.
So go out and blow some extra wind to the mills and glow some extra sun on the solar panels.with your bright mind. 😀
Good, griff! French nuclear power is very grateful to you for this opportunity to sell their energy to Britons!
A decision very wise indeed, ending home production of power to buy it from foreign countries!… Very patriotic!…
And idiotic.
We buy it because France’s baseload of nuclear is more than they need so they sell it off below anything windmills can produce at.
Not because we need it
It may be below what windmills can produce, but it isn’t less than what coal or natural gas can produce. When you add in the cost of transmitting.
You need it, because you shut down power sources that work, and as a result need to rely on French power sources that work.
MarkW re: “but it isn’t less than what coal or natural gas can produce.”
Easily proved erroneous with this stipulation: In the Short term, yes, but Long term. NO.
“Economics of Nuclear Reactor”
I thought wind energy was “free”?
If UK doesn’t “need it” then why are energy prices soaring without it? Are you admitting that Wind Energy is massively more expensive?
Well they have to sell it somewhere: they can’t turn off the nukes.
summer demand is lower
I don’t have the exact figures for France, but in the UK summer peak demand is 35GW compared to 48 GW in winter…
and the French factories etc shut down in les grandes vacances in August.
No, they don’t shut down. And the “Grandes Vacances” in August are separated in July and August, question of traffic reducing, as explained not for the first time, but the usual reset…..
I have read this utter crap from Nutter Griff only about a week ago, with the same SHIT about french factories….totally and completely wrong, but he doesn’t ever shut the f..ck up when he is wrong!!!!
WTF is wrong with this turdpile Griff???
Is it a record stuck in a groove continually repeating utter crap?
It doesn’t matter how many times griff’s lies are refuted. He believes what he needs to believe.
But they can, and do, turn down the nukes. Load following is performed by French nuclear. However, nuclear has massive capital investment with relatively low fuel costs, so they might as well sell the low-cost electricity wherever there is a market for it, and make full use of that capital investment.
If you insist in using false and verifiable arguments like that of French factories, I recall my invitation to a beer if you happen to come to my place!
Planned electricity keeps people warm in the winter, right? Just liked planned heaters. Or planned furnaces.
Try cooking dinner with the planned electricity.
Griffs job 😀
Perhaps Griff eats crow raw.
All the while, telling everyone who will listen that it’s actually Peking Duck.
thankfully we have access to Nuclear and use gas.
LOL. You need that many additional lines coming from France? Is the Green Energy Grid in the UK that bad?
We will have lines direct to Norway, Germany, Netherlands, 2 more , I think, to France, Belgium and Denmark.
all of which are connected to W European grid.
(and some distant possibility of connection Icelandic offshore wind and Moroccan solar)
And exactly how many GWs per line? What happens when Europe has no spare capacity? What happens if there are disasters or wars in Europe? What happens if the Russians shut down their pipe line to Germany were will the germans get their power from?
A lot of questions griff about power insecurity relying on foreign nations .
What happens when the blocking high stops continental wind as well as the UK’s?
If we are going to use fossil fuels why not use our own instead of paying a premium to foreign suppliers?
The griff family say no.
“2 more , I think,”
No the problem with you is you are incapable of thought.
You just clip out paper cuttings from those crappy grauniads and other BBC crap, and write it here.
Yes, and there are six HVDC cables, in addition to the IFA pair, that already exist connecting the island of Great Britain to “the island of Ireland” (Moyle + East-West), mainland Europe (IFA2 + BritNed + NEMO) and Norway (NSL, just finishing its commissioning tests).
It’s a real pity that the Republic of Ireland recently decided to “temporarily” stop ex-porting electricity to GB (via the East-West link to Wales).
I wasn’t sure what reports of “half the IFA link was down for scheduled maintenance until the 22nd of September before the fire broke out” were talking about, so out of idle curiosity downloaded the “very latest” data from the National Grid (ESO) website and generated the following graph just before (as in “20 minutes before” !) checking in here and seeing this article (and comment) …
URL so other people with too much time on their hands can verify the data (in the “Demand Data Update” file) for themselves :
https://data.nationalgrideso.com/data-groups/demand
Eire more often take than supply.
Ireland was a net exporter of electricity in 2016, 2017, and 2018.
But that might have changed, from the Telegraph (Sept 2021):
“Ireland has been forced to freeze power exports to the UK to prevent a shortage which could have sparked blackouts as surging energy prices continue to cause chaos across Europe.
A toxic combination of low wind speeds and a severe squeeze on the supply of natural gas sent power costs jumping tenfold on the British mainland on Thursday to as much as £2,300 per megawatt-hour, a new record high.
It came as transmission was halted on the Moyle interconnector, which sends electricity from Northern Ireland to Scotland.
Mutual Energy, which owns and operates the undersea cable, said that flows had been stopped for “operational security reasons due to generation shortfall in the all-Ireland single electricity market”.
Ireland’s Single Electricity Market Operator had issued an amber warning on Thursday morning, alerting the public to a “general shortfall” of electricity which could result in power cuts. “
So you’re willing to shut down all the coal plants and go without power every couple of months?
You completely miss the point…It doesn’t matter if you go 50 days or 100 days without using coal. You still need the coal plants in order to deliver reliable power when unreliable power is not available. So while yes, in seems like you use less coal the costs are much higher. In reality since the wind turbines produce so little power (compared to name plate) and because you have to keep coal or other reliable power sources near online, you likely produce as much or possibly even more CO2 – and have much higher costs.
Factories making “wood pellets” and then shipping them halfway across the world makes no sense either.
There is exactly one answer to dramatically reducing CO2 emissions and having reliable power – nuclear. You can get halfway to reducing the emissions through using natural gas. This assumes that CO2 is really a problem that needs to be solved.
griff seems to believe that since those coal plants weren’t providing any electricity to the British grid, that this means the coal plants were completely shut down and not burning any coal.
The fact that those coal plants were able to quickly start putting out power when the wind turbines failed, shows that they had been on hot standby for those “55” days.
Pretty much by definition, you don’t get much power from a cable that is still in the planning/building stages.
Also pretty much by definition, you don’t spend money building new cables, unless you know that the existing cables aren’t enough to handle current or future demand.
Griff do you know whether the lack of wind at the moment is due to man made climate change, if so do you think it’s a good idea to build more wind farms?
Well Giffo The UK will have a tough winter no solar and erratic wind the
COPFLOP 26 will have a cold and dark time by by Alarmist the truth will prevailIf the UK had been building Coal and Nuclear plants like China, they wouldn’t that this problem … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Iu9D5RhqQ
Now that BoJo ¨stabbed France in the back¨ as Macron said today about selling British nuclear-powered subs to Australia, when the deal for French diesel-electric subs was sure, who knows what will happen. There is more underwater than mere power cables!
By the way, the China Australia coal-skirmish, is all about that thing called Pacific NATO by Stoltenberg. Just imagine now China’s attitude!
Geopolitics, especially green, is really a fly in the ointment!
As all businessmen know, no deal is a sure thing until the ink on the signatures dries.
And even then there’s always a chance of something falling through.
Australia has a right to seek the best deal. If that best deal wasn’t the French bid, then the only ones to blame are the French.
… and now, with electronic signatures, inks do dry much faster!…
It was the American nuclear subs which sank the French deal. BoJo had nothing to do with it.
UK nuclear subs with American IT.
Every news report I saw said American nuclear subs. If that’s not so, I apologize.
It is UK subs, as described.
US subs are huge. As Australia is not planning to launch nukes that they don’t have they want the smaller. more versatile and cheaper to maintain UK designs.
US weapons compatible, of course.
Now let’s get NZ and Canada on board, Then the other two former Dominions.
Hmm, actually that might be a bit too scary for Russia, China and France.
The US has two types of subs. Ballistic missile subs and attack subs. Attack subs don’t launch nuclear missiles, though if rumor is correct, may carry nuclear torpedoes, which aren’t any larger than normal torpedoes.
re: “US subs are huge.”
Missile boat or an attack sub?
But “that guy down under” did.
France dislikes British deal (what else is new).
Power cables from France to Great Britain go down causing spike in power costs.
Coincidence?
Biden should have found a way to make France happy. Biden said some kind words, but that doesn’t seem to have impressed the French.
Now some in the French government are saying they can’t count on the U.S. and that Europe needs its own army more than ever.
So, Biden criticized Trump when Trump put pressure on NATO nations to pay their fair share of the NATO defense budget, and Biden claimed this was going to destroy NATO. Yet now, what Biden is doing is much more harmful to the NATO relationship than Trump making them pay their bills.
Biden is a dangerous,clueless fool.
I heard General Keane, a general I put a lot of faith in, say yesterday that France was getting too cozy with the Chicoms, and this deal between the U.S and the UK and Australia, in one sense, was a way of sending a message to France for percieved bad behavior.
I don’t have a problem with sending a message to France, if they are cozying up to murderous dictators, but I think I would have done it in a way to heal the relationship rather than harm it.
The Free World needs to be as united as possible. Biden has no trouble throwing around hundreds of billions of dollars for one thing or another. He could have thrown a few billion France’s way and maybe sweet talked them into moving away from murderous dictators, which might have accomplished the goal without alienating a valuable partner.
Come on, Man!
Reality is so inconvenient. It never intrudes the faculty lounges or ministerial offices but is really annoying elsewhere.
The weaker electrical power generation and distribution systems become, the more we will see these kinds of problems, and the more costs will be driven up. Question is, at what point will people realize we can’t continue down the renewable path without backup?
Intermittent/renewables are backed by redistributive change and lowered expectations.
They are planning to disconnect the poor from the grid whenever wind and solar are not producing enough power.
Then again, it’s not like they are going to be able to afford electricity anyway.
“Question is, at what point will people realize we can’t continue down the renewable path without backup?”
I think we are just about there.
The nations and states that have the most windmills and solar are at the point where they cannot add more windmills and solar without adding enough conventional backup to fill in for the new windmills and solar when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
If they don’t add conventional backup powerplants, and only add more new windmills and solar, then they put their whole electrical grid in jeopardy, because then they cannot power their whole grid if the windmills and solar go down because they have no backups. So people will be sitting in the dark and cold, like they did in Texas.
The Texas arctic cold snap and the failure of windmills during that time is the harbinger of things to come.
Powergrid operators have to take these things into consideration, otherwise they are setting themselves, their grid, and the people who depend on it, up for failure.
Why aren’t we exporting electricity to France?
Rhetorical question I assume
Because back in the 1970s a completely xenophopbic General de Gaulle, who hated Arabs almost as much as he hated Africans – and African Arabs were simply outré – made a unilateral polcicy decision to power all of France’ grid with nuclear reactors so he didn’t need arab oil or gas – France, like Britain, having used up most of its coal.
It now has so much nuclear power it is France’s second largest export.
The reactors are long since paid for, so its all profit now
“France, like Britain, having used up most of its coal.”
Bollox, there’s 400 yrs worth of coal under the UK!
France has closed most of its steel making, so it doesn’t need coal.
We do, on occasion
Lately we’ve been in the summer low demand period in France and since they can’t switch their nukes off/down, they export power, on the cheap
They can switch their nuclear down. They developed “grey” control rods in the 1980s to reduce the output when needed. Only effective when there is excess power available in the fuel rods, so mostly done early in the re-fueling cycle while the fuel rods are relatively fresh. Newer plants built in the load-following capability.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx
It is more profitable to sell cheap power abroad than to reduce production of cheap power.
The interconnector is being made a scapegoat here. The total being supplied by interconnectors is in excess of 11% of demand.
The root of the problem is bad management and planning. Wind has been low all over Europe all year, leading to energy being obtained from other sources mainly gas, just as worldwide demand for gas soars and the effects of EU and UK policies banning fracking and a decline in North Sea production mean importing gas from Russia or the Middle East.
Currently the UK is producing 1.23 GW about 3.67% of demand. For people like Griff wind turbines only start producing at wind speeds of 7mph, reach optimum at about 28mph. These have to be steady otherwise output fluctuates, winds at around 7mph mean supply switching on and off. Gusting winds will also have a dramatic effect especially from low to optimum as output from a wind turbine ramps up rapidly towards optimum.
This is an example of how fragile the UK grid actually is, something many off us have been saying for a good few years.
Wow, who could have ever see this coming?
Anyone that is not looking through “Green Colored” glasses.
Here’s a question: My own local utility has a grand plan to be 100% renewables by a fixed date in the future, as many others do I’m sure. I don’t see how it works, but I’m on the outside looking in. Surely, these utility companies employ a lot of engineers and some are undoubtedly run by engineers. Engineers are by nature practical people. Do the utility company engineers go along with this? I’d like to hear from someone on the inside (an engineer) who can speak to how this is going to work.
“Engineers are by nature practical people.”
You are so yesterday.
LOL! At 73 that is the way I feel…
We now have smart engineers.
See this XKCD cartoon:
xkcd: Spinal Tap Amps
Bring money. There is an obvious need for backup, as wind and solar are without doubt intermittent. Additional backup is needed to support maintenance and random outages. “Green” backup currently is pumped hydro (obviously limited by available terrain) or batteries (economically not feasible), so not sufficient. Practical backup must be immediately dispatchable which currently means gas turbines (or spinning massive generators running at inefficient idle).
Once you pay for that necessary backup, why have any renewable at all? It’s not cheaper considering the lifetimes and maintenance costs to avoid fuel costs.
So all this is to avoid CO2 emissions? Anyone with half a mind can understand that CO2 is NOT the climate driver the alarmist idiots say it is. What utter nonsense.
There is nothing that cannnot be achieved by adding wind and solar power to a fossil or nuclear grid that could not be achived at half the cost and twice the relaibility by not adding any renewables at all.
If an engineer is practical, then he understands something called a “pay check”. He’ll design whatever the freaks come up with.
yes.
Take a look at the National Grid’s ‘future energy scenarios’ prepared by professional grid engineers
griff, this the same kind of idealist pap on getting to net zero every time I look into it. Where is meat in the plan that shows exactly how we get all our energy from renewables, with reliability, and some consideration to economics. Here is what I am talking about (it’s bullshit; a wish is not a plan. I am an engineer with project management experience, and if I show something like that to a board, I’d get laughed out of the room and probably fired.):
“How do we get to net zero?
Reaching net zero will mean a fundamental shift in how things are done, both in the UK and around the world, across all aspects of life. Change doesn’t necessarily have to be bad and many aspects of a lower-carbon way of living will be beneficial to individuals, communities and biodiversity.
Our Future Energy Scenarios describe in detail what net zero might be like for the UK in 2050. At a high level, we know that this challenge will need all the following activities and tools to varying extents:
Our scenarios incorporate all these different elements in different ways and the range in results illustrates that there is still a lot of uncertainty about how to decarbonise. There is no one solution for net zero. Our FES analysis directly models the UK energy sector, but other sectors (for example aviation, maritime and land use) emit greenhouse gases so a whole economy view is needed when assessing net zero. For these ‘other’ sectors we’ve used the CCC pathways in their 6th carbon budget analysis as our basis, more detail of the CCC assumptions used are given in the main report.”
“National Grid’s ‘future energy scenarios’ prepared by professional grid engineers”
That’s quite a niaive comment Griff. Although I recognise that you are just being provocative with another flame bomb to clutter the thread.
Sure, engineers will have been involved in the preparation of National Grid’s FES in a “hands on” role. But the FES is not solely an engineering exercise. The FES is nothing, if not a set of assumptions and scenarios Management will have remained in full control of these.
The management position will be significantly influenced by ESG demands flowing down from the big corporate shareholders through to the Board. That’s just a corporate fact of life.
And the marketing department (calling themselves “corporate communications” or something similar) will have had their hands all over the document before it gets released for public consumption. That’s just another corporate fact of life.
Fast Good Cheap. All engineers know you get to pick two and leave the other behind.
That’s a good question. We frequently hear from oil company geologists etc, but I don’t recall an “inside view” from an HV power engineer…
de-pen-dent
The knock on effects can be unexpected and longer term
https://californianewstimes.com/high-gas-prices-force-closure-of-two-uk-fertiliser-plants/525310/
Soaring gas prices have closed two fertilizer plants in northern England. This is one of the first signs that a global supply shortage could force many energy-intensive industries to curtail activity this winter.
Price of fertilizer rises next spring, price of food rises next autumn.
“Soaring gas prices have closed two fertilizer plants in northern England. (…) Price of fertilizer rises next spring, price of food rises next autumn.”
… and after is increased import of foodstuffs and food security lost …
“Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes”.
William Shatner, Airplane 2
As is per usual the real situation is more complex.
Firsly, power prices spiked 10x higher at £3750 per MWh, about 80 times more than normal prices.
Secondly this was happening before the link was lost – the reality is that there has been a high pressure low wind system over the UK but overcast conditions, so renewables have been delivering next to nothing.
Thirdly the UKs biggest gas storage facility has been closed.
Fourthly world gas prices have spiked through the roof. Tankers are allegedly queueing up at Kuwaiti oil terminals.
Fifthly many nuclear power stations are out for maintenance as normally this is a good time to take them down.
Losing the interconnect was only the last of many issues – of course it has been seized upon by those who are trying to defend renewable power and emphasise UK dependence on Europe.
But the reality is that the generous treament of ‘renewables’ has led to the closure of almost everything else, including gas storage.
In the Telegraph, the usual suspect has defended renewables by saying that the solution would have been more renewables.
The same excuse that is always trotted out to defend socialsim when it fails to deliver on any of its promises…
The new interconmnector to Norway ssems to be partially operational – anyway its been importing some power. So in reality UK has only lost about 1.2GW of foreign imports.
What is more telling is that although there is pelnty of gas capacity, its not being used. Gas is presumably simply too expensive and or is being stockpiled for the winter…
The Norway interconnector is under test: recently we were sending power to Norway as part of that test.
I believe some gas plant is also under maintenance in advance of winter.
Coal was brought online at this time last year due to cover maintenance outages too.
“The same excuse that is always trotted out to defend socialsim when it fails to deliver on any of its promises…”
We could say the same of the EU when it fails to deliver on any of its promises… “the solution is more Europe“, we hear say in the Bruxellese jargon. That leads to “XXexits” (only one up to now, but wait and see…)
(I know that almost half of the population of the UK does not agree with me…)
Unfortunately it will take reality in the form of failures for people to understand the grand scheme of renewable energy using wind and solar is not fit for purpose.
Our problem, Eric, is that we have a ‘Tory’ Prime Minister running a Centre Left government. And almost ALL MPs, on both sides of the House, appear to be scientifically illiterate. And because the institutionally socialist and globalist BBC dominates the media scene it is virtually impossible for right of centre views to get a fair hearing.
Same in New Zealand!
Spot on John. Trillion Pound Horror Story delves into the gory details of how ignorant and unfit for purpose they are. Most of the MPs they interviewed confused the national debt with the annual deficit.
Phew
I still have gas heating Thank gawd for that
Not for much longer if Princess Nut Nuts has her way.
Remember to blame the fossil fuel plants when the power goes out.
… if you ae in Texas, in the winter.
Only if you cannot read data
Or simply refuse to.
A really minor quibble but I’m so struggling with this…
Quote:”British electricity prices meanwhile jumped by 19 per cent to £475 per megawatt hour on Wednesday”
Someone has goofed there with either and/or their prices and/or percentages.
With any luck, below is a link to UK wholesale buy/sell prices, typically £100 per MWh
https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=balancing/systemsellbuyprices
and £100 plus 19% does not get you £475……????
The bmreport graph I see today, now at 17:25BST says prices peaked near £4,000 per MWh – from a baseline of about £100
Clearly the mathematics of Climate Science – does anybody in this thing really know what they’re talking about?
edit to add..
We do now see/understand the requirement for Smart meters in everyone’s home?
The Smart meter will be able to respond and react instantly to those price hikes, scare the sh!t out of everybody but especially when they’ve done that, it really rather reduces the urgency for the suppliers to fix the fault.
They’ll simply let prices ride at those insane levels and come out with excuse after excuse to get off repairing the thing and even when they have fixed it, don’t tell anyone and let the money-printing machine keep rolling
No one else seems to “see” it.
If my math is right £475 per mWh is about $0.66 per kWh. That’s about 6 times the average US price. Must be all that cheap off-shore wind I keep reading about. Maybe when we get to 30-40% wind and solar penetration we’ll be able to pay these prices too.
err I just checked and we pay 0,0512€/kWh peak and 0,0113€/kWh off peak.
That’s roughly double what we used to pay before the fools started putting in wind turbines (and now totally stupid solar panels at 60N).
ie, roughly £47,50 per MW/h or 10x cheaper than the quote above.
I know it’s Eastern Europe,but someone’s not doing their sums right!
Re your last sentence: 6 years ago I warned Matt Hancock that he was playing Russian roulette with the Grid, but even I never contemplated the threat of power cuts in September.
I have a post up on Conservative Woman called The Speech Boris Johnson Will Never Make. This details the way ahead while paying lip service to Net Zero.
One big power cut and the government will wobble. Two and it will fall.
JF
Three and it might get a mention in the MSM across the pond.
Conservative leadership long since took leave of their senses unfortunately. I gave up on them after “The heir to Blair” won.
Funny how the UK only gets 23% of its RE nameplate output.
Soon any port can order a compact molten salt reactor barge for delivery in 2026.
The least impacting energy source on nature: https://businessdevelopmentinternational.biz/seaborg-co/
These are the unintended consequences of relying on outside and overseas energy supply lines.
Honestly, if a company director did this s/he would be sacked for gross negligence.
This is a serious misjudgment by UK government and Opposition parties, ALL of whom are bang onside for Net Zero.
Heads should roll but obviously won’t.
Certainly, all the Brits need to do is chin up and sit in the cold and dark.
Living without electricity and heat has after all, been their plan for sometime now.
Please hurry up with your disaster. We need some wake up calls in U.S. policy before it’s too late. It does get cold here, commutes are longer, and the Bernie bots are dumber than ever.
California will deliver, its just a matter of time.
I bet NO ONE ever suspected that relying on undersea cables for power was a weak link in the national power grid… It will also be a weak link if the UK is ever involved in another war.
Build power plants close to where they are mostly needed (factories), and use a reliable power generation technology (coal, gas, nuclear).
Oh, and keep the controls to your national power grid off of the Internet! (US still has to learn this)
How fortunate that at just the moment that gas is in short supply, a brand new gas pipeline into Europe opens up, Nordstream 2. Just in time!
But wait – it’s gas coming from … that place? Where those people live??
Umm – where else can we get gas from?
Given the way market conditions are shaping up, I’d say it’s going to have to come from your pants.
So that’s why your shirt is brown 😂
The “fire” on the electricity interconnector to France broke out on Wednesday 15 September 2021.
French President Macron on 16 October 2020 :
“Following the EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Mr Macron told French radio that if the UK does not allow French fishermen in its waters, the EU would have to block the UK’s energy supplies to the European market.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1349210/Brexit-news-Emmanuel-Macron-France-fisheries-energy-blockade-threat-EU-punishment-vn
Et, voila …
MG
Double-dip La Ninas could also mean we are in for an extra-cold winter.
…with declining north Atlantic temps
I recall part of the case for wind generation is that it would be “home grown”, improving energy security by sheltering the UK from volatile world market fuel prices.
Looks rather hollow today as we see local energy prices sky-rocketing due to world energy prices. Contribution to supply from wind generation sitting in the doldrums (pun intended) for days and weeks.
Here’s the first wave of impact.
WSJ
Surging Energy Prices Close U.K. Factories, Another Bottleneck in a World Full of ThemU.S. fertilizer company halts production at two British plants, citing high natural-gas costs
Soaring natural-gas prices in Britain have prompted U.S. fertilizer maker CF Industries Holdings Inc. to close two U.K. plants, in a sign that Europe’s energy crunch is affecting industry as the economy struggles with several other disruptions amid the recovery from the pandemic.
Businesses across Britain are complaining about high energy costs, with some steelmakers forced to halt production for periods during the day as the price of electricity rises almost seven times higher than at the same point last year. Power markets have also jumped in France, the Netherlands and Germany, ahead of anticipated higher demand in the winter.
On Wednesday, the price for Europe’s regional gas benchmark, the TTF month-ahead contract, closed at a record high of $24.2 per metric million British thermal units, according to S&P Global Platts.
A colder-than-average winter in Europe or Asia could send power prices spiking even higher and potentially prompt electricity blackouts in Europe, Goldman Sachs said in a research note this week.
RG
Following directly from that, in a sweet irony, there is now a shortage of … carbon dioxide! Yes – a shortage.
CO2 gas is used in the meat industry for humane slaughter and is a biproduct of fertiliser manufacturing – which is being curtailed due to high natural gas prices. So costly gas means no fertiliser means no CO2 (!) means no livestock slaughter for meat.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58600583
So…I’ve a great company supplying gas at a good price. It could be better but for the interconnector. Now, what’s the best thing could happen to it to make my business boom???
Thanks but we have plenty of good quality coal – underground
It just needs political will to do something about it
Repeating a prediction I’ve made before, a lucrative market is opening up in Europe and in the United States for mobile gas-fired aero-derivative power generation turbines for use as emergency peaker plants.
Rolls Royce and General Electric are both well-positioned to service this market.
Build these mobile peaker plants as packaged modular components which can be delivered by truck or by rail wherever they are needed and then be quickly assembled on an existing power generation & distribution plant site.
Electricity prices here in the UK are already going up without this disaster. Already the vultures from the energy companies have been knocking doors in our area trying to persuade people to switch supplier in the hope of getting a cheaper deal & thus avoiding the increase. Fortunately I was busy stripping the paint off my front door for repainting at the time. I saw the salesman pause at the end of my garden path after visiting the neighbour on one side, then he must have thought better of it & went to the neighbour on the other side. I wonder if the people he was visiting really understood why electricity prices were rising?
Because natural gas prices have risen substantially
Thanks totally unnecessary restrictions on drilling and production.
So the secret is out how BoJo planned to make the UK carbon-neutral–by importing nuclear-generated (zero CO2 emissions) electricity from France!
From about the 1950’s on, France had built many nuclear reactors, so that France gets about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power, with most of the rest from hydroelectric power plants in the Alps and Pyrenees, and a few percent from wind turbines. France probably leads the world in nuclear power generation per capita.
Over the years, the French have been very smart about nuclear power generation–they even made a deal to have the radioactive wastes buried in Germany!
Hey BoJo, why don’t you learn a lesson from (the late French President) Charles DeGaulle and build your own nuclear power plants?
Current UK policy is to build 17GW of new nuclear, including Hinkley under construction.
However nobody can finance Wylfa or Moorside plants, Sizewell is in doubt and the others would be built by the Chinese, with the obvious problems…
Greens do everything in the power, both legal and illegal, to make it expensive to build nuclear. Then they turn around and say that nuclear is a non-starter because it’s too expensive.
Great Marketing Ploy, Eric; in future, all Australian Coal will be labelled as ‘Black Wood Chips’ to avoid discrimination and boycotts.
Its an idea, feed it straight into Drax and pretend the smell is pine tar 😉
Looks like it stopped working for about a day (Wednesday into Thursday). It would be a bigger problem if it failed for several months like our TAS-VIC link did.
According to the article, it was supposed to be down until March 2022.
There is humor in this with politicians grasping for climate virtue except for the British people who will pay the price for representative failure.
Who pulled the plug on Britain?
“Write to your MP and demand they produce a rational plan for maintaining reliable and affordable electricity supplies this winter.” Eric, you are joking. 99%of our MPs are ignorant and useless.
‘Write to your MP and demand they produce a rational plan for maintaining reliable and affordable electricity supplies this winter.’
Ha ha ha: you obviously don’t live in the UK if you think that would achieve anything!
The North Sea Link came on line just in time.
Might have to use the coal-fired Flying Scotsman.
Knock on effects in EU industrials……..
Energy Crisis Worsens as Rally Hits Europe’s Industry Giants (yahoo.com)
Who cares? Locally sourced is better, they said.