OT: Another offshore wing farm bites the dust

[The Natural Philosopher]

well you said it.

Nope, I am just pointing out... oh, sod it - read the links

[harryagain]

The Romans were digging up coal shitferbrains.

We had early steam engines less than two hundred years ago.(Driven by coal) We had coal gas powered ICE engines a hundred years ago. The steam turbine around a hundred years ago. We might have in-situ coal gasification shortly.

[Adam Aglionby]

Pelamis

Floating hydraulic snake, developed by guy who studied under Professor Steven Salter of Salter Duck fame.

Have a huge building in Leith docks, which was orginally built for VA Tech builders of power station transformers , who went bust when U.S. stopped spending on power generation and had rolling blackouts.

Hope Pelamis have better luck, certainly could do with better PR, no one has ever heard of them....

Cheers

Adam

[Andy Burns]

Another one I'd not heard of before, is to have heavy floating pontoons in docks, use the rise and fall of them on the tides to pressurise air, which can be used to generate electricity on demand. No idea if the sizes required make it a sensible scheme or crackpot ...

[Tim+]

Possibly useful on sparsely populated islands put I can't see it scaling up cheaply enough to provide much power for the masses.

Tim

[The Other Mike]

Not bust, sold by Jocks to the Brits to the Austrians and then to the Germans who then decided to protect German jobs. Pure asset stripping and protectionism.

Large power transformers used in the UK are now coming from Korea

Who?

[The Other Mike]

The economics of building it might not be right, the finance might be viewed as too long term, it might even lead to silting problems, but "Mostly when you don't need it" is not a credible statement.

That tidal is entirely predictable, years ahead, means that scheduling of conventional generation changing or coming on load can be very easily arranged to meet demand at very close to zero additional cost. On some days that could mean rather than increasing output at 8am it would do so at 4am or 11am or any other time as required. You could find some conventional fossil generation only running from noon to 6pm at close to full output rather than on a variable basis between 8am and 7pm.

On the days the tidal peak didn't coincide with the demand peak then conventional generation would clearly have to make up that shortfall, but the construction of more than one barrier at geographically separate locations (Severn / Morecambe/ Wash), or even multiple barriers at one location goes quite some way in smoothing that output.

For instance, taking today at Morecambe and Weston-Super-Mare from easytide

Morecombe HW 10:34 & 22:51

Weston-Super-Mare HW 05:44 & 18:08

6GW barrage at each, assume an hour after HW the output is close to max, the early morning pickup is covered by Weston, the lunchtime load covered by Morecambe, evening peak covered by conventional generation that ramps down as output from Weston peaks around 7pm. After midnight the output from Morecambe could be used for pumping load, or producing hydrogen.

Reducing gas or coal burn from 14 hours per day to say 8 hours per day on 12GW of generation on a predictable basis, does not instantly make them uneconomic. With current gas prices it could even help the bottom line of a few generators.

[Tim Streater]

[snip]

So you pay more than once to generate the same amount of juice, as I keep saying and people like you keep ignoring.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Exactly. The capital cost of build, the depreciation and the O & M of running 'twin sets, and pearls before swine' is massive and so is the grid needed to handle the balancing flows and all this spends half its time not really being used.

You end up with two systems both at full capacity, and each being used for perhaps half the time.

People in the power industry have been asked and have answered the question 'can you make it work' - and of course you can.

What no one has ever asked them is 'how much will it all cost?' and 'is it actually worth doing at all?'

And from the limited calculations I have done, the answer always seems to be 'far more expensive more environmentally devastating and less carbon reducing than nuclear'

So why not use nuclear instead?

Some times the answer to driving on a nail is still actually a hammer...

It doesn't MATTER that you can balance Morecambe bay with the isle of Wight what matters is the cable you need in between, and the fact that you have two lots of kit instead of one.

When you buy intermittent renewable energy, you are buying only half a solution.

The box clearly says 'batteries not included'

[The Other Mike]

It's more than pay once, it's pay 6x In a country with increasing reliance on imports for all its energy need that might be a real bargain in 40 years time.

Two geographicaly diverse 6GW lumps of tidal generation each peaking twice per day in a very predictable manner (unlike wind, and solar) emphatically does not require 100% standby plant. Nor indeed any greater degree of standby plant above that required for all the other conventional generation on the system.

But forget the economics, I was just totally refuting the statement by TNP that "Mostly when you don't need it" that is not in any shape or form credible.

[The Other Mike]

Maybe you missed what I posted or chose to ignore it

"The economics of building it might not be right, the finance might be viewed as too long term, it might even lead to silting problems, but "Mostly when you don't need it" is not a credible statement. "

Yes, a lot of the generation and the grid is like that and has been like that well before wind ever appeared on the scene. Assets are generally utilised better now but just look at the interconnectors, FR + NED importing just 1.1GW, so maybe we don't need 3GW then. There are a number of double circuit overhead lines that run at 30% loading for 12 months of the year, but instantly move to

100% loading if just one power station drops off line.

Two lumps of 6GW of tidal generation, in the areas mentioned have next to no impact at all on the transmission system given the timescales required for construction of the barriers and existing plant that will be decommissioned by then.

Since you mentioned the Isle of Wight, 2GW of connection capacity is there right now with the closure of Fawley.

In general the overhead line routes with some excess capacity are mostly there. New connections of generation in the South West in particular are encouraged by the connection and use of system charges.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The point of all these inefficiencies is to reduce them, not add to them.

Naive if I may say so. 6GW is not something any existing links could handle.

Indeed. Good place for a nuke really.

[The Other Mike]

I didn't say that. Besides existing unused entry capacity there is lots of generation that will be lost in the North West over the next 15 years or so, coincidentally around 6GW of coal, gas and nuclear, some might be be replaced like for like but others will not. So the existing transmission infrastructure, within the area and at the transmission boundary can already handle that right now.

Individual lines of course will have less capacity, but 1GW of generation is never connected to a single circuit of that capacity.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , The Other Mike writes

Don't forget the economics!

If the capital cost of nuclear is too expensive, I don't see much point in tidal barrages at a yet to be determined but likely even more cost.

If tidal flow is cheaper and well within our engineering expertise, let us keep it in the mix. Otherwise Fracking/gasification seem the only way forward. Dennis has pointed up the profits of that going elsewhere!

>

[harryagain]

Nope. Opposite coasts. eg Severn and Firth of Forth.