German power grid about to go titsup

[Rick... (The other Rick)]

Have a look at

is what the powers that be want for us.

Rick... (The other Rick)

[Nightjar]

this is what the powers that be want for us.

That explains why it seems almost impossible to drive anywhere in Germany without there being a wind farm in view somewhere.

Colin Bignell

[Onetap]

"As a result, surplus wind power cannot be delivered to the markets, and thus either has to be destroyed, dumped on the market at =93negative prices=94, or wind park owners are simply ordered to stop generating."

How would you "destroy" the surplus generated wind power? Are there big load banks in the grid to burn it off? Maybe they have big motors driving fans?

[The Natural Philosopher]

at

what they do is simply feather the windmills and claim for what they COULD have produced.

[Onetap]

Yeah. ;-)

If the Germans can't do sensible wind power, what hope do we have?

Lunatics, asylum, piss-up, brewery, etc.

[The Natural Philosopher]

'sensible wind power' is an oxymoron.

Katastrophe durch technik und politik

[Tim Streater]

That's what'll bring matters to a head.

[Andrew Gabriel]

That's a big issue (I work with several german colleagues). Their electricity prices are doubling as a result of turning off the nucs.

The inability of many countries to build new power grids is a big issue. In the UK, it takes longer now to get through the planning for one new line than it took to build the whole of the original national grid, or the whole of the later supergrids.

The problems with wind are very well known in this group.

[Nightjar]

On 27/01/2012 11:22, Andrew Gabriel wrote: ...

...

Things were easier in those days. The Public Enquiry into the building of Heathrow Airport lasted 45 minutes.

Colin Bignell

[Tim Watts]

wow...

[David Paste]

Could the Germans not make gas from the coal, or does it not work like that? (Just curious)

[The Natural Philosopher]

I suspect that in terms of total energy, coal is coal and its all carbon.

making coal gas to run gas turbines on? ..hmm. I suspect the overall efficiency would not be great.

once again its a nasty hack to satisfy an arbitrary criterion, rather than a holistic analysis of 'what works best'

[Chris Hogg]

Coal gasification is a perfectly viable process, whether done in an old-fashioned 'gas works' or in-situ underground. See

whether you burn the coal directly to generate steam, or convert it into gas first by some process, you still generate the same amount of CO2 in the end so there's no benefit from that POV. Also, the gasification process itself uses energy. Consequently the gas contains less potential chemical energy than the coal it's made from, so the efficiency of that route will be less than by direct combustion. There may be some advantage in in-situ gasification relative to doing it in a gas works, in that you don't have to mine the coal, with all the cost etc. that that entails, and you can gasify coal seams that would otherwise be unworkable. But it will still produce more CO2 than natural gas of the same energy content.

[David Paste]

Oh yeah, I wasn't suggesting it should be done, I was just curious! I did suspect it'd be a worthless idea, but not knowing the efficiencies of various boilers / turbines / whatever, I thought I'd ask anyway.

[David Paste]

I see! Cheers.