From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Let’s have a look at the latest National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios, and see how they cater for the 100 TWh of energy storage recommended by the Royal Society.
I’ll focus on their Consumer Transformation scenario, which assumes mass take up of heat pumps, as opposed to mainly hydrogen heating, as this is the most likely route:
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https://www.nationalgrideso.com/future-energy/future-energy-scenarios/documents
Electricity generation in 2050 is projected to be 875 TWh, compared to about 300 TWh now. Peak demand will be 113 GW. Given that winter demand is higher than summer, we might assume an average of 110 GW then; allowing for plant breakdowns and maintenance, we would need to plan for at least 120 GW of firm capacity.
125 TWh is to be used for electrolysis, but nearly all of this will go to transport, leaving just 12 TWh for electricity generation. Burning this in a thermal power station would only yield about 6 TWh. Other storage is miniscule, just over 100 GWh, only enough to smooth demand for an hour or so at peak times on a day to day basis.
Storage Capacity
These are the projected capacities:
| I/C | 20.95 |
| Bio | 0.21 |
| BECCS | 8.8 |
| Nuclear | 15.9 |
| Hydrogen | 21.24 |
| CCS Gas | 5.97 |
| Solar | 78.69 |
| Offshore Wind | 115.04 |
| Onshore Wind | 44.43 |
| Other Ren | 10.76 |
Capacity GW
Ignoring Interconnectors, there is just 62 GW of dispatchable capacity, including hydrogen. As we know, solar produces virtually nothing in winter, and if wind power is down to 10% of capacity, that would provide only 16 GW.
Even with I/Cs working flat out, we still only have 98 GW. This is however extremely unlikely, as a dunkelflaute would leave NW Europe dangerously short of wind power as well.
But this is only the tip of the problem. Assuming we have a seven day period when wind power is below 10%, which is known to be extremely common, we would need that 21 GW of hydrogen burning capacity to generate 3.5 TWh. But to produce that much electricity, these power plants would need to inout approximately twice as much hydrogen energy, as they would work at 50% efficiency. That means 7 TWh of hydrogen.
However as the top chart shows, there would only be 12 TWh of hydrogen produced during the whole year for use in electricity generation, and this is all likely to be used up just to meet the usual daily peaks and troughs of supply and demand. (In fact I suspect we will need much more, but that is a separate issue).
In reality then, we are unlikely to have enough hydrogen to keep those hydrogen generators going for even a week. And if we get 56 days of low wind power, as we did in 2018, we are truly up the creek; for a situation like that we would need at least 50 TWh of hydrogen.
Just as a double check, I have run a model of the expected generation from the capacity figures above. Hydrogen is obviously zero, as this is only converting wind power already counted. I have also excluded gas, as the expectation is this will only be used in emergency. The FES also assume that I/C s will lead to net exports, so this too is excluded.
| UF | TWH | ||
| I/C | 20.95 | ||
| Bio | 0.21 | 0.85 | 2 |
| BECCS | 8.8 | 0.85 | 66 |
| Nuclear | 15.9 | 0.95 | 132 |
| Hydrogen | 21.24 | ||
| CCS Gas | 5.97 | ||
| Solar | 78.69 | 0.11 | 76 |
| Offshore Wind | 115.04 | 0.45 | 453 |
| Onshore Wind | 44.43 | 0.25 | 97 |
| Other Ren | 10.76 | 0.6 | 57 |
| TOTAL | 883 |
This suggests that over the year as a whole, the grid is no better than self sustaining, and that there is no spare capacity to produce the 100 TWh of storage demanded by the Royal Society.
This equates to about 140 TWh of electricity for electrolysis, and would need about 300 GW of offshore wind power, nearly three times the planned capacity.
Innumeracy is a near requirement for membership in the Green Blob.
I’m working on a magic carpet that has no emissions and when it’s not being used for transportation it can be connected to the grid to provide virtually free electricity. I just need money to develop it through the next couple of decades to have it ready by 2050.
Apply to the UK government for a £10b investment loan. As long as it’s a green carpet, they’ll think it works.
No, the Elites like to pose on red carpets when walking to their private jets … but would probably like a green edging to show they are saving the planet !!
It’s a requirement for employment in government.
Well this is one area of certainty and prediction ( in my humble opinion) that “ green” energy ( ie wind and solar) will be a catastrophic failure. But I am still waiting for a table top experiment maybe nuclear imaging experiment(s) that will put this Co 2 sensitivity debate to bed forever.maybe a greatly enhanced version of the old filter box but enlarged and with modern technology or something. In the meantime maybe I call this a STORY TIP or suggestion so as not to go off topic.
Practical hydrogen power storage and generation is another green fantasy. We (the world’s taxpayers) have pumped billions and billions into research for decades without delivering working solutions.
But with the new-found ability to create new cutting-edge technologies simply by regulatory or legislative fiat, I’m sure this won’t be a problem much longer. Remember cellulosic ethanol?
In the paper today I see that Loganair and Cranfield Aerospace Solutions are going to develop 9 seater Britten-Norman Islanders running on “hydrogen-electric” fuel to make commercial passenger flights in Orkney starting in 2027. The aircraft will have a “zero emmissions hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system”. Flight tests are expected this year.
Good luck with that.
Orkney already has a tiny hydrogen electorlyser project. It’s powered by the O2 Orbital Marine tidal stream generators, which also feed some vanadium flow batteries (and indeed, the electorlysers are probably fed via the batteries). The reason for this elaborate setup is that the tidal turbines produce very flickery power that is quite unsuited to being directly connected to public electricity supply. The small tidal turbines at Bluemull Sound in Shetland were forced to disconnect from the grid until they installed a Tesla battery to act as a smoothing device.
Orcadians seem to specialise in subsidy farming, with the most expensive projects possible sucking funds wherever they may be found. O2 Orbital Marine just snuck under the wire to secure a large chunk of EU Horizon 2020 funding before Brexit. Now they think they can sucker us for billions:
https://www.flottahydrogenhub.com/
https://www.surfnturf.org.uk/
https://www.orkney.com/life/energy/hydrogen
https://forward2030.tech/project-overview
Next time I go to Orkney, I will take the ferry.
Best make sure it’s not the hydrogen powered one.
“They” (the Fools) continue to rush headlong in towards the abyss…nothing will stop them until there’s a crash,,,everyone will pay for this disaster…..some will die. Oh, the humanity!
All the climate change useful idiots suffer from the same syndrome …. do something before it’s too late, and it’s always too late, and full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.
Yes, its not going to happen. What is going to happen?
Probably a national energy disaster as the incompetent ideologues continue regardless with their amateur grid planning. Which may coincide with serious military threats
‘What is going to happen?’: Ask the Chinese or the Russians. They already have that figured out.
“”Consumer Transformation scenario…””
We’ve turned the thermostat down as far as we can
Will acid baths replace cremations?
Electrolysis is 60-70% thermally efficient for H2 production and one still needs to account for compression to 10,000 PSI or production of Liquid H2. LH2 takes at least another 30% of the power but does produce a much more energy dense product. Conversion of H2 to power is probably 80-90% efficient as there are heat losses in the fuel cell. Overall, you would be lucky to get 40% efficiency for storage, but safer than LiIon Batteries, at least by a margin. Conversion to E-Fuels (hydrocarbon fuel which is fungible with existing fuels) drops efficiency to 30% plus the efficiency of conversion of HC’s to power which is 60% at best.
Do the math (if you are not numerically challenged) and you simply cannot make this work.
All we have to do is add one C for every 4 H’s and you have some pretty stable hydrogen that isn’t as leaky or metal-corroding as just the H’s by themselves. Added bonus, far easier to liquify and store, and we already have infrastructure capable of handling it… <sigh>
If we hadn’t found oil and natural gas we would have ended up inventing them out of necessity.
Takes one mole of H2 per CO2 to reduced to CO. then 2.2 moles H2 per mole CO to produce HC fuel including F-T synthesis and upgrading. Well established process but overall yield from CO2 is maybe 30% of input energy. Not an ideal energy transfer mechanism.
Yet it has been used preferentially by SASOL for decades. The diesel produced powers the giant coal mining machines…
Sasol uses Coal gasification to produce CO and H2 (syngas). Then Fischer-Tropsch synthesis to produce HC fuels and chemicals in South Africa. Sasol and Shell use Natural Gas to produce syngas and then F-T synthesis to produce a wide range or fuels and lubricants. The Made From Natural Gas note on Shell Rotella T is from the production of high quality base oils from NG in Qatar.
The world has 10X the energy resources of coal and oil combined as NG hydrates off the cost of most continents. If we can tap this resource, we have enough energy for 1000 years.
There are no plans to go as far as LH2 other than possibly for aviation and rocketry. Even so, compression to 150 bar for cavern storage saps energy. Higher pressures are used in transport, but you need a very robust tank.
Obviously, dispatched natural gas will fill the gap. Meanwhile, we have a president stepping on global natural gas supply. Seems, everyone except the consumer is happy with us paying more and turning down thermostats.
The question is always, who is benefiting the most by this bait and switch, tech that won’t work and higher energy prices. This question becomes more acute when it’s clear glut of natural gas in the world. (who needs nukes when there is plenty of natural gas without any additional capital expense)
Voting may help but there is no opportunity to vote with dollars…. energy is a must have.
Last Summer Korean researchers announced an ambient temperature and pressure superconductor Lk-99. In less than a month, American Scientific, Wikipedia, New Scientist and Nature Journals and many others issued retraction indicating that LK-99 could not be replicated as a superconductive concluding yet another dead end for the ‘holy grail’ of energy tech.
Most of us in WUWT are aware of superconductivity’s potential for greatly increasing the efficiency of electrical generation, transmission, and storage by a factor large enough to greatly suppress the world’s demand for energy regardless of the input (Hydrocarbon fuel, Nuke, Renewables). In addition, the tech would enable the scalability of energy generation, storage and distribution form Nano, Micro to Mega. Finally, it would potentially solve several problems for fusion power generation.
In short, SC is potentially the biggest game changer to enhance human flourishing the world has seen since the advent of electrical generation and distribution.
So, what is the punch line?
It’s this, four months after Western Science Journalism had killed off LK-99, in December 2024 Chinese researchers replicated the Korean LK-99 experiment and found it to be a ambient superconductor.
https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/01/04/its-back-researchers-say-theyve-replicated-lk-99-room-temperature-superconductor-experiment/
The outcome: Western Science Journalism has remained silent on this new development, which that thought they had quickly put to rest.
The issue for me:
No one knows the future of LK-99. It’s either the holy grail or it’s not…. either way, the drama of LK-99 will be buried from the view of the American public. It will not be allowed the capture the imagination of Americans.
What we are left with is the dystopia of failing renewable energy tech and rising energy prices with no hope in sight.
The Big Question: Why would the mean green establishment work so hard to quickly snatch any glimmer of hope for something better?
Do they not want a solution to climate change….. LK-99 could be it. But they don’t what the “it” out of Pandora’s box.
So what is their overarching goal?
What are the principles and doctrine they are operating from?
IMHO: They do not want to solve the energy problem. They want to maintain the cash flow of status quo, push a political movement, and do everything possible to hinder hope and human flourishing. They want to depopulate the world to bring about a Green Utopia. They have given up on us. We are the object of their intervention. Climate change and fossil fuel is nothing more than a foil.
Meanwhile, back in the real world where SMR is the inevitable long-term solution for energy, SMR is not a question of if it’s only a matter of how many $billion will be wasted on unworkable wind, solar and batteries before we begin deploying it.
The potential of the small modular reactor | Rolls-Royce
Overall, the Rolls-Royce SMR will have the capacity to generate 470mw of low-carbon energy – the equivalent of more than 150 onshore wind turbines – for at least 60 years, helping to support the roll-out of renewable generation.
As part of the UK Government’s ‘The Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution’, £210 million of UK Research and Innovation funding has already gone towards realising the SMR vision for a cleaner and more sustainable future.
For UK, an importer of natural gas, the SMR would be a decent option. But in the US where most of the country is near huge reserves of natural gas and already well established distribution.. why bother.
The US Navy found that the SC SCMES, and SC motors superior due to power of the motor and greatly reduced heat signature (over nuke power) for it’s submarines. The issue is the SC tech was too expensive. But a breakthrough in an ambient superconductive could be a game changer in the real world.
I think that even in the US it would be wise to hedge bets with diverse energy supply. For those dependent on US exports, doubly so. Historically the US has a habit of banning energy exports – it forced ANS to be shipped via Panama to Texas in costly Jones Act US flagged tankers instead of marketing it to Japan. Biden is determined to halt coal and LNG exports it seems.
For some reason there is a strong pro-nuke cadre in WUWT. Not sure why.
Expanding Nuke energy is a very expensive option, far more expensive than what we already have, (NG galore).
It seems the expansion of nuke energy is the politically expedient solution given the current political situation. Yet I seriously doubt that it really is politically expedient.
In the USA, no solution is needed, we have NG and are burning it. The solution to the problem of cheap energy it to increase supply. This is a market and political problem not technological. Renewables are a great option if they were as cheap as natural gas but they are not and never will be by a long shot. Neither is a big capital build up on Nuke power. Let’s not let the false problem or foil of climate change confuse us.
The same market driven political forces under the guise of climate change that seek to hinder the supply of American NG into the global market would also quash any big move to adopt a massive expansion of Nuke power.
Why
Yet, SMR’s since they are relatively scalable would provide decentralized solutions for ships, buildings, local communities, corporations etc but only for the very rich and who have enough power to cut the regulative red tape. Just like Tesla big battery systems are semi-off grid solutions for the very rich.
If the world went totally nuke and fossil fuel use died out completely, human civilization would still be the enemy of those who want to consolidate all capital in order to re-wild the world and run it by AI automation. Goods and services for the elite without the need of people.
The dialectics of 20th century eugenics is maturing into a hideous force in the world. People in general don’t cut the mustard and never have compared to machines or even our own ultimate ideals, ( we are weak, get sick, have variable outcomes, are not always high performers or efficient. We are messy, and die.. all of us) this is the paradox the current eugenics movement fails to grasp as they reach for their insane ideals which only machines can fulfill. No one escapes the inability to cut the mustard of the ultimate ideal. Build AI rooted in some insane ideal, watch out.
Wind, solar, hydrogen and storage are not the solution, they are the problem. Take away the subsidies, tax preferences, regulation forgiveness and mandates and our problems go away. Spend our resources on things we know work. Fossil fuels, nuclear and grid maintenance. Do this and we are all much better off.
A couple of small misunderstandings in the article: Other renewables is a mix of hydro (currently up to 2GW, but limited by rainfall to around 30% capacity factor – but at least dispatchable), and tidal energy, which is not dispatchable, although it may be reasonably predictable. There is no guarantee that a nice big spring tide will coincide with rush hour in the middle of a winter period of Dunkelflaute. Average capacity factors for tidal energy are relatively low, at 25-30% – and much lower during neap tides every fortnight – as well as being eaten into by the need to stabilise the output, at least for tidal stream turbines.
It is not anticipated that the energy store would be filled in a year (just as it has to cover for a run of years with low renewables output). In fact, the RS considers a range of potential electrolyser capacities and estimates wastage due to both surplus generation exceeding the electrolyser capacity, and surplus generation not being usable because the storage is already full. Of course, you have to get lucky to start with, because you could get 4-5 years of needing to draw on storage immediately – but presumably the plan should be not to kill off dispatchable capacity until the risk has been substantially reduced by being able to fill storage to a comfortable level.
The big holes in the analysis by the RS are
By contrast, NGESO and the FES simply fail to consider the need for storage at all because in addition they only consider one year of weather on the supply side – and that in rudimentary fashion. Mostly, they rely on their intra day models. They also place a ridiculous amount of reliance on interconnectors to bail out problems, with no proper consideration as to whether there would be adequate dispatchable generation to supply them. The low figure for electricity import given in the diagram masks huge swings between imports and exports. The exports are not likely to be accepted either, simply leading to large scale curtailment.
Yes, very clear & succinct summary.
But it’s all going swimmingly to plan isn’t it?
Record low for coal, gas-fired power as grid goes green (msn.com)
Cheap power bills here we come.
Small scale solar can produce in winter, if it’s not overcast all the time. A couple in North Idaho have built an off grid property with a 10KW solar array they can tilt up and down for the changing seasons. They have enough battery capacity to go for two weeks without doing any major conserving of power, and that includes their power hungry incinerating toilet, a CNC plasma cutter, and arc welders. They have an Army surplus diesel generator and a propane fueled generator for backup. The diesel generator can charge the battery bank in 5 hours.
The solar setup with battery bank cost $50K but given that the power company wanted $20K just to run power to their property, plus more $ to connect, plus the never ending $ for a power bill, $50K was a bargain.
Then they put a smaller, fixed row of solar panels as an awning over the second floor deck on the west side of their house/shop, but that’s shaded until noon-ish then by trees a few hours later.
If they’d put a sun altitude tracker on the 10KW array they’d get more power, especially in winter. In summer the tracker really wouldn’t be needed unless they add a heck of a lot more electric equipment. They just bought a Ford Lightning pickup (and discovered it’s shite at towing a trailer up their road) so that’ll be a large drain on their battery.
If you want to watch the adventures of Riley and Courtney, their YouTube channel is Ambition Strikes.
“Small scale solar can produce in winter, if it’s not overcast all the time…”
It depends how far north you are. In the UK it doesn’t produce at all from about November through February. Don’t believe me? Just take a look here:
https://energynumbers.info/gbgrid
At 9am UK time its zero, and its not going to be much better at noon. And then, even were it to produce during peak sunlight, the problem is the short days…. You will have peak demand at about 6pm, when its totally dark. Solar may have some use at the equator and near. But not anywhere in Europe.
Which has not stopped the SNP and the Greens in Scotland from trying to use it. But its basically hopeless.
It is now Noon UK time and solar is producing 2.99%
Sun altitude varies much less in winter than in summer. Also, the angle between sunrise (SE) and sunset (SW) is much reduced. There is little to be gained in winter by solar tracking at higher latitudes. Also, atmospheric attenuation even absent clouds is increased by the low sun angle and greater thickness of atmosphere that the rays pass through.
In summer there can be advantage in tracking between East and West to increase the capture after sunrise and before sunset. Indeed, commercial solar farms in Australia optimise for those hours, and often find themselves curtailing at midday in the face of negative prices and excess rooftop solar.
Example of utility solar midday curtailment in South Australia.
Consequences for revenues valued at Regional Reference Price
A couple in North Idaho have built an off grid property with a 10KW solar array
THAT is an example of a good use case for solar. I’m curious – how much space does it take up and how big is the battery bank?
Now multiply that times x million and you have the amount of solar and battery that would be required to power the nation – a point greens seem to miss.
“They have an Army surplus diesel generator and a propane fueled generator for backup. The diesel generator can charge the battery bank in 5 hours.”
Idaho averages less than 4 hours a day of sunlight in December. Those generators are running frequently. I would be willing to bet they use electricity only for lighting. It would take a lot of batteries to keep a single room warm when temps are frequently in the twenties and rarely get above forty.