Breaking News. Bp Finds Giant Oil Field Off Mexico

[Kurt Barlow]

it was maybe flushed but the French are here already and they have still some free capacities ..

We will be at the back of a very very long queue - behind Japan, China, Germany (if it reveres its policy), Korea, Taiwan.......

Perhaps EDF might knock up 1 EPR every 5-7 years. Wouldnt even keep up with planned nuc closures

Back to the real world

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

Building aircraft engines is a lot different to builing a wind turbine.

I don't know too much about wind turbines, but I there must be a coil/magnet arrangement like a motor. The most efficient permanent magnets are made out of NdFeB (largely sourced from China). I use these in my current work.

Aircraft turbines are a completely different proposition. There you are using a high temperature turbine to compress the gas as much as possible before ignition. The turbine blades are made out of special nickel superalloys so the turbine can run as hot as possible (the hotter the more efficient).

As regards nuclear technology, funnily enough you can find it in the same place as your aircraft engines. Rolls Royce and Associates (based in Derby) produce and maintain the nuclear reactors used in the Trident submarine fleet, so it's not as if the UK doesn't have any nuclear engineering expertise.

Of course there's a big difference to producing a lightweight reactor for a nuclear sub and a commercial power plant...

[Damik]

The "secondary" zone isn't the problem.

OK go for wind turbines ...

in mean time Indians are already building nuclear power plants ...

http://www.8ak.in/8ak_india_defence_news/2...ts-planned.html

[Damik]

We will be at the back of a very very long queue - behind Japan, China, Germany (if it reveres its policy), Korea, Taiwan.......

Perhaps EDF might knock up 1 EPR every 5-7 years. Wouldnt even keep up with planned nuc closures

Back to the real world

do not be silly ... French are here to make money ...

http://www.edfenergy.com/energychallenge/nuclearissues.html

In less than 20 years, EDF has built up an unparalleled nuclear power generation capacity which helps to safeguard France's energy supply: 58 reactors with a total installed capacity of 63.1 GW provide more than 85% of the electricity generated by EDF and rank France as the second largest electronuclear power generator in the world behind the United States.

[Damik]

From what I recall much of EOns practical expereience is from running wind farms in Germany

Which has notably lower wind speeds and characteristics which are far more fickle

I also recall Eon heavily promoting the need for their new coal fired plant at the same time

they must be idiots. they can make millions with wind turbines, but no, they build a coal plant ... how bizare ....

[Long Way Down]

OK go for wind turbines ...

in mean time Indians are already building nuclear power plants ...

http://www.8ak.in/8ak_india_defence_news/2...ts-planned.html

I'm not anti-nuclear.

I don't expect the UK to generate all it's power from wind. Some, yes. It's all about energy mix.

I do, however understand the problems we have to overcome to build the safest possible design of nuclear stations.

I wouldn't want to live anywhere near the Indian nuclear plants.

[cells]

Since no-one knows how much fusion power will finally cost, how can you write it off commercially ? I could speculate, but it would be pointless.

In the 1940's if you'd told people that you have a computer as powerful as we have today they would have probably said nonsense - it's not possible to fit that many valves on the surface of the planet.

You yourself have correctly identified that new technologies and techniques are being developed all the time, applicable in many different areas of energy production. Is it a step too far to envisage that these developments may allow us to harness fusion power at a much reduced cost to what we currently estimate ?

Current nuclear costs about 3p a kWh but you pay 10-12p a kWh. The difference is the cost of the grid, the utilities, the advertising, the all sorts.

Gas costs less than 1p a kWh. To your house 3p.

If fusion where totally free it would cost you still 7-9p to get it to your door.

That 7-9p a kWh isn’t enough to replace gas at 3p to your door.

On top of everything. There is only a very very very silm chance that fusion will be cheaper than fission. So until we use up most of the fission it will not be commercially viable.

It isn’t just a matter of getting it to work. It is a matter of getting it to work at a cheaper rate than nuclear. That isn’t possible with all known methods even if they improved greatly.

So in summary, fusion has a very slim chance of producing electricity but not the other power we need.

[Damik]

I'm not anti-nuclear.

I don't expect the UK to generate all it's power from wind. Some, yes. It's all about energy mix.

I do, however understand the problems we have to overcome to build the safest possible design of nuclear stations.

I wouldn't want to live anywhere near the Indian nuclear plants.

well then go for French design ...

[Long Way Down]

well then go for French design ...

EDF are making a right ****** up of the EPR they are building.

Not so easy, is it?

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

Current nuclear costs about 3p a kWh but you pay 10-12p a kWh. The difference is the cost of the grid, the utilities, the advertising, the all sorts.

Gas costs less than 1p a kWh. To your house 3p.

If fusion where totally free it would cost you still 7-9p to get it to your door.

That 7-9p a kWh isn’t enough to replace gas at 3p to your door.

On top of everything. There is only a very very very silm chance that fusion will be cheaper than fission. So until we use up most of the fission it will not be commercially viable.

It isn’t just a matter of getting it to work. It is a matter of getting it to work at a cheaper rate than nuclear. That isn’t possible with all known methods even if they improved greatly.

So in summary, fusion has a very slim chance of producing electricity but not the other power we need.

I am not writing fusion off. I am writing commercial fusion off.

--

OK, so I see we've moved slightly there.

It's a long way to 2100. Tell you what, if we don't have commercial fusion by then, I'll buy you a beer.

[cells]

No need - because the whole 30 GW does not need to be backed up

In any case extended low wind periods only occur in the summer when there is loads of idle plant anyway because beleive it or not peak demand occurs in the winter

That ******ing PDF you found me is SHIT I cant get it into excel easily and gave up. You got an excel link?

Now not representative but one of the big farms has a range from 18% to 43% from jan to dec % of capacity.

42.25

43.15

39.15

27.015

17.93

22.21

23

19.54

18.7

39.635

37.81

29.57

The difference between the most demand and least is about 5GW and generally speaking it does seem to correct well for demand vs output of windfarm electricity.

Looking at that very small wind farm sample and the quarterly grid consumption (monthly would be a lot better) it would seem the grid could take 7.5GW of wind in the UK (swing in demand is about 5GW and wind could provide that if we had 7.5GW average which varied from 5GW in Q2/Q3 and 10GW in Q4/Q5).

I am quite surprised by that. It would mean the uk grid could take 15-20% wind without excess costly capacity.

It would be good to have an excel sheet to take a bigger sample and month by month grid demand rather than quarter by quarter but it looks positive.

If you take into account our excess capacity already you might be able to double wind in the uk and use our excess in the opposite way. So currently the excess coal/gas helps in the winter. If we went wind heavy instead they would help in the summer.

So I could see an upper limit of 30-40% wind for the uk grid in the mid term and 15-20% in the longer term when the current plants are phased out in 30 years time.

You would still need to look at hour by hour production through the year vs demand to get a good picture. If there is any big spike even for a few hours it could break the system and the whole idea.

Overall I would up my figure from 10% to 20% and maybe 30% for wind in the uk. Not 100% convinced as I haven’t seen all the raw data just months and quarters.

[Kurt Barlow]

That ******ing PDF you found me is SHIT I cant get it into excel easily and gave up. You got an excel link?

Now not representative but one of the big farms has a range from 18% to 43% from jan to dec % of capacity.

42.25

43.15

39.15

27.015

17.93

22.21

23

19.54

18.7

39.635

37.81

29.57

The difference between the most demand and least is about 5GW and generally speaking it does seem to correct well for demand vs output of windfarm electricity.

Looking at that very small wind farm sample and the quarterly grid consumption (monthly would be a lot better) it would seem the grid could take 7.5GW of wind in the UK (swing in demand is about 5GW and wind could provide that if we had 7.5GW average which varied from 5GW in Q2/Q3 and 10GW in Q4/Q5).

I am quite surprised by that. It would mean the uk grid could take 15-20% wind without excess costly capacity.

It would be good to have an excel sheet to take a bigger sample and month by month grid demand rather than quarter by quarter but it looks positive.

If you take into account our excess capacity already you might be able to double wind in the uk and use our excess in the opposite way. So currently the excess coal/gas helps in the winter. If we went wind heavy instead they would help in the summer.

So I could see an upper limit of 30-40% wind for the uk grid in the mid term and 15-20% in the longer term when the current plants are phased out in 30 years time.

You would still need to look at hour by hour production through the year vs demand to get a good picture. If there is any big spike even for a few hours it could break the system and the whole idea.

Overall I would up my figure from 10% to 20% and maybe 30% for wind in the uk. Not 100% convinced as I haven’t seen all the raw data just months and quarters.

Sorry old boy - thats the best I can do.

However I applaud your evaluation of the data set. The critcal months when the grid is under the most strain is dec, jan, feb. The rest of the year is irrelevant.

I can't see a spike as you describe being a major problem because wind turbines can be feathered to reduce output if necessary

[cells]

Do you think you might be being too conservative regarding nuclear fusion?

The rate of technological advance we have experienced in the last 150 years does not appear to be slowing.

As increasingly powerful computers are being applied to solve engineering problems, this is going to give us massive leverage which could drastically cut development times in the near future.

We may 'hit a wall' at some point, but it doesn't feel to me like this is imminent.

If anything computers seem to be accelerating the rate of progress.

Anything is possible and there are game changers in the works where all bets would be off regarding almost everything.

AI would be a big game changer for example

Disregarding game changing advances which may or may not happen I doubt we will see commercial fusion for a long time.

The simple fact is why would you use fusion when you have a thousand years plus worth of fissionable materials. Once that fissionable material is gone or scares then maybe you cold get fusion.

Personally I believe solar PV cells have the potential to make electricity to the grid so cheap that almost no other source could compete.

We will probably see subsidised fusion and maybe this centaury but I doubt it will be a large percentage of the energy mix. I hope it happens as it would give us a viable way to leave this solar system if we had a portable sun.

So I guess it isn’t impossible. I just put it at one in a thousand chance it will work commercially before 2075 and after that we will be dead so leave it to the next generation.

[cells]

Sorry old boy - thats the best I can do.

However I applaud your evaluation of the data set. The critcal months when the grid is under the most strain is dec, jan, feb. The rest of the year is irrelevant.

I can't see a spike as you describe being a major problem because wind turbines can be feathered to reduce output if necessary

Excess output isn’t going to be a problem as you can easy dump it if you have to do so perhaps in semi useful things like public swimming pools. Not enough juice would be the problem.

Still expensive and only an upper limit of 30% and that is taking the current fossil fuel plants as backup, so if we don’t decommission them. After that or in the mid to long term which is important your looking at 15-20% of the grid without a lot of costly backup.

You still have the other 80-85% to worry about.

Plus your earlier comment about being ok to have a few minutes of blackouts. That most definitely isn’t ok but pumped storage should take care of that.

The important question that remains is how a wind turbine performs day to day, hour to hour. If you see the turbine drop from 40% to 20% during a day for hours that may cause a big problem.

Anyway I would still be against wind turbines unless they were competing without subsidies and a big concern is if they are getting hidden subsidies from the national grid.

Connecting and maintaining thousands maybe tens of thousands of wind turbines will push their cost up which will push our costs up. That would be a hidden subsidy.

[Kurt Barlow]

Excess output isn’t going to be a problem as you can easy dump it if you have to do so perhaps in semi useful things like public swimming pools. Not enough juice would be the problem.

Still expensive and only an upper limit of 30% and that is taking the current fossil fuel plants as backup, so if we don’t decommission them. After that or in the mid to long term which is important your looking at 15-20% of the grid without a lot of costly backup.

You still have the other 80-85% to worry about.

Plus your earlier comment about being ok to have a few minutes of blackouts. That most definitely isn’t ok but pumped storage should take care of that.

The important question that remains is how a wind turbine performs day to day, hour to hour. If you see the turbine drop from 40% to 20% during a day for hours that may cause a big problem.

Anyway I would still be against wind turbines unless they were competing without subsidies and a big concern is if they are getting hidden subsidies from the national grid.

Connecting and maintaining thousands maybe tens of thousands of wind turbines will push their cost up which will push our costs up. That would be a hidden subsidy.

My comment about the occasional blackout was meant as compared to daily rolling blackouts that many 3rd world countries suffer from (and which we will too if we dont get some sort of integrated energy policy together)

[1929crash]

I am not writing fusion off. I am writing commercial fusion off.

--

OK, so I see we've moved slightly there.

It's a long way to 2100. Tell you what, if we don't have commercial fusion by then, I'll buy you a beer.