Gridwatch and power generation today

[David]

Today is an example of the case against relying too much on renewables.

Winter, so cold.

Blocking high over the UK, so little wind.

Grey skies over the UK, so little sun.

Looking at Gridwatch we are getting roughly 2% of power from solar and 2% of power from wind.

As it is Sunday I assume that the demand is less than during the week. Let us see what tomorrow brings!

As I said, something of a warning. Simple arithmetic suggests that if we had 10 times the current infrastructure for solar and wind based generation that would meet only 40% of current demand. During the day.

Cheers

Dave R

[Tim Streater]

Getting to 10 times the current infrastructure for solar and wind would:

a) cost trillions

b) there are days when the sun shines and the wind blows. On those days, most of this extra infrastructure would not be needed. So it would be shut down.

Running stuff that way is just what the Soviets did. They were rubbish at maintenance so they built large numbers of extra passenger planes so there were always enough working planes to operate. Which is an unbelievable waste of society's resources. And now we're trying to duplicate this in the energy sector.

There's a reason that capitalist countries are richer than socialist ones, and this is an example of it. In short, they use their resources more efficiently.

[Jethro_uk]

As long as you accept that the closer you get to "100% efficiency" the less you have to deal with anything out of the ordinary.

The problems start when morons don't realise this, pare everything down to the bare minimum in the question for efficiency, and then wonder why a blown fuse can bring a factory to a halt.

[The Natural Philosopher]

there is more than one definition of efficiency.

MTBF, and availaibilty (uptime)are some of them

[Jethro_uk]

Not to a bean counter. "How cheap can we do this for ?" is the only issue.

Yes. But only to the people viewed as a cost rather than an income stream to the bean counters.

[The Natural Philosopher]

tyes to a bean counter if he loses custom because of them

Not all bean countres are as stupid as you think

[BillD]

Not true of Norway.

and this is an example of it. In short, they use their resources

[Tim Streater]

If you are trying to imply that Norway is a socialist country, then you are wrong; it is not.

[BillD]

It was when it had the government do their oil and gas and most of their power generation which is what made them much richer now than most other similar countries.

[Jethro_uk]

I didn't say they were. But they follow the rules of their world.

[Dave Liquorice]

Bean Counter: Knows the cost of everything, the value of nothing.

Bloke has £4,000/year contract to look after 20 £2,000 boilers. He does so, occasional parts but that's all the boilers all keep chugging along working well for several years.

Bean counters spot this annual £4,000 expense, summon bloke, ask if he can do the job for £2,000, nope, contract ends, boilers stop being maintained.

Next year a boiler breaks down, bloke is called out, boiler is fooked, needs to be replaced. £2,000 plus installation plus call out.

9 months later another breaks down, £2,000 plus installation plus call out. Hum, "saving" that £4,000 maintenance contract expense has cost 'em somewhat more than £4,000 *and* there 18 more old boilers still out there, unmaintained and so quite likely to also die due to lack of maintenance *and* the new ones aren't being maintained either...

[The Natural Philosopher]

All other things being equal...

which is manifestly population poor and oil rich. Cf arab oil states.

No, they dont.

They just have a lot more. For now.

[The Natural Philosopher]

bean counter notoces this and reinstates contract

[harry]

Hello Wodders. You've been told many times. Norway is not a socialist country.

[Brian Gaff]

This is why there is so much fuss being made about some way to store it of course. It seems to me that before we turn the uk into one big windfarm we need to solve the elecctricity storage problem. Brian

[Jethro_uk]

Except the previous offer isn't available. Bloke might have retired or let the boiler fixing business. Beancounter (who clearly doesn't know the score, or they wouldn't have made the previous decision) now has to engage a new contractor on a less favourable deal.

A good example of beancounters costing money was a previous job, when the IT Ops guys were "required" to move to an annualised hours contract to eliminate overtime payments. It was forced through in the teeth of strong resentment.

Until October the following year when every single member of the team had worked their annualised hours. Cue much (unsuccessful) backtracking from the new beancounters (mysteriously the old one found a new job just before the shit/fan interface). Eventually they had to reinstate the old contracts - from January - and effectively pay double time for the two months left in the year.

Now I'm sure the IT Ops guys would make a complete Horlicks of running the company finances, so there are skills to beancounting. The problem is IT Ops guys don't get to point at a beancounter and ask "WTF do they do ?" - even if their understanding of the answer is pretty much the same as a beancounters of what a Network Support Technician does.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Are we an example of those capitalist countries then? A model of efficiency?

Or are you referring to the US? Preferring to spend billions building a wall while many of their war veterans starve on the streets?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Please give your example of a socialist country that you hate so much. And an example of a capitalist one you admire.

[Tim Streater]

The real mistake is ever giving the bean counter that sort of authority. He should only be able to flag it up to management, who call the Operations Chief and get the real skinny from him. The Ops guy should then prepare (alternatively: why hasn't he already done this?) a justification for maintaining the £4k contract, based on boiler cost, effect on operations of having an unplanned boiler outage, time to replace, cost of replacement, likelihood of replacement being required based on age of boiler, etc etc.

The OpsChief should be able to justify all his outgoings in a similar way. Or mebbe it's the Chief Financial Officer's job to keep all this stuff under constant review, I dunno.

[Tim Streater]

You're belling the cat again, Brian.