July 2025: Wind not doing very well

So much like fusion power then "just a few years (i.e. billions of pounds) away" ?

I honestly don't get what that means ?

Ah, I think light is dawning (I must be wind powered).

You seem to think I was suggesting that we maintain "wind + something else" with the "something else" being nuclear thus the expense related to wind power.

I was suggesting we ditch wind (and solar) power and instead just build enough nuclear power to keep the UK toasty warm for decades. It won't happen of course, because the oil lobby would miss out.

Indeed. Which is why people who know better say F*ck 'renewables'. Build nukes.

The driving force behind Gridwatch was a remark in cam.misc that 'by

Indeed. The Greens have forced us unwittingly down a zero carbon route, which can only be provided by their pet hate, nuclear power

Nuclear is dispatchable to a large enough extent

But if you throw renewables off the grid than your dispatch requirements are 10% of what they are now., And we have hydro that can deal with that demand.

Would you care to explain that in English?

Are you saying that nuclear doesn't do well balancing renewables? If so scrap the renewables

That seems to be some interpretation n of the gobbledeygook he posted

And the EU would be *most* upset. Having decided in their infinite wisdom that renewables are *the* answer despite everyone who looks deeply enough realising that they are not. But it will take a Reform government to completely give the EU and its windmill manufacturer sponsors the finger.

From October 28 through November 16, a period of 20 days, Gas generated circa 14GW average while Wind generated 5GW average, with Wind output below Gas for all of the period.

How is that to be stored, if something other than Gas is to make up the shortfall?

A battery would cost £trillions and there would be a recharge problem.

How much Hydrogen would be needed and how would it be used?

There was a similar 14-day period the following January.

Thanks to Templar Gridwatch for the graphs, screenshotted at the time.

Oil is not just used for fuel. While plastics, dyes, paints etc could be manufactured from plant-based raw materials, it would be ruinously expensive to do so compared to stripping down existing complex hydrocarbons. Doing so would also compete with food production in the same way as plant-derived ethanol fuel does already.

Well, I'd imagine there's some context to go with that remark. I've not seen anyone mainstream suggest that anything approaching 100% renewable is feasible with current technology.

Yes it is possible, but make sure nobody's back yard is near it. (See also fracking, natural gas storage).

I guess that's why the most popular and cheap plastic today is poly lactose acid, made from cornstarch

Doing so would also compete with food production in the

Utter tosh The amounts of hydrocarbons entering the plastics and petrochemical market is relatively small compared with its energy use and is not actually that price sensitive.

We were making plastics out of wood and coal years before we were making them out of oil

There are naturally occurring hydrogen deposits underground, in the same way as natural gas is underground. That's as a sort of proof, that hydrogen can be stored underground. As it is already underground.

"The geological stratigraphic accumulation of hydrogen is linked to the presence of multi overlaid doleritic sills and aquifers that seem to play a role to disable upward gas migration and leakage."

"The shallowest reservoir is encountered at 100 m depth while the deepest one sits at roughly 1200 m below surface. The current estimate for the areal extent for the hydrogen gas field is a minimum of 780 km2" <=== not a big tank, disparate deposits in cavities

However, when you think about it, consuming the hydrogen (except as a petrochemical process or as making fertilizer), ties up atmospheric oxygen, so at some point you might have to electrolyze the reaction product, to get your oxygen back.

Then the challenge is extracting the material (without losing it), purifying it, and packaging it (transport to consumption point). Without a pipeline system, trucking it somewhere would be a pain in the ass.

Fusion power has more problems than just money.

It might never be widely deployed, at least initially. I could see one operational plant being built, for the operating experience and to better understand the economics of operating it for a few years.

There are multiple "fuels" that can be burned in these things, and each reaction has a decay chain. One of the reactions is "clean", but... we have limited fuel. All available fuel could be burned up in a few months or a year.

You could go to the moon and mine He3 from the surface, as a fuel.

"the Moon has been bombarded with large quantities of Helium-3 by the solar wind. It is thought that this isotope could provide safer nuclear energy in a fusion reactor"

This is why there were mock-up pictures of a garden tractor on the surface of the moon, plowing up regolith to have its He3 shaken loose and put in tanks :-) The proportion of He3 in earthly underground deposits, is likely quite a bit smaller. The gas from the moon still needs to be separated, into ordinary Helium (not worth lifting off the moon surface), and the He3 fusion fuel.

A lot of these projects, are about as practical as "throwing a million refrigerators into some ocean" :-) We couldn't afford the extension cord for that project.

Paul

Of course. It was some wet behind the ears enthusiastic dreamyGreeny.

But ED Milliband believes it. So did Chris Huhne

I doubt that. Nobody gets high up in politics by being stupid (Biden was still compos mentis when he ascended the greasy pole).

Net Zero would appear to be a policy for eliminating modern economies, and Milliband certainly knows that. The only question remaining is motive.

Grid operators do not think this way.

Grid operators want a mixture of sources.

The French already demonstrated what happens when a number of identical nuke stations all have to be shut down at the same time because of a potential flaw.

Paul

He may have mentioned it off the record - I don't know. But his/the party official line is that fossil fuels and nuclear will continue to attract investment until the limitations of renewables can be addressed.

I don't remember that. Thought he supported nuclear and use of fossil fuels alongside renewables.

Not much use if they don't tell anyone except you.

Its not a function of intelligence, its a function of ignorance, And I give you Angela Rayner, Diane Abbot, Jeremy Corbyn, et all. Thick as mince.

Miloband is a Communist. Communism believes that the only way to change society is to destroy it, and then something better will naturally take its place because 'people are basically nice'. Every time its succeeded something far worse has taken its place, because people are not naturally nice. And democracy is a way to keep their greed selfishness and competitiveness somewhat in check.