OT - Gridwatch and renewables snark again

[David]

Just looked and the demand is around 48 GW.

3% from wind, Burger Hall from solar.

OCGT is firing up at the moment, coal is almost exactly matching nuclear, over 3 GW from "green" biomass.

For all the magic thinking spouted in some discussions on the Guardian (sadly, I read this a lot because it seems more balanced than other rags) about "more in-network storage" I can't really see us being independent from fossil fuel for the next couple of decades and if they close the coal burning stations (currently meeting over 12% of demand) the power had got to come from somewhere. Presumably more CCGT power stations and perhaps some nuclear which seems to provide the bulk (currently 67%) of our daily/ nightly power.

Everything seems to be tending towards the stops at the moment apart from the Irish interconnect which is still exporting. We are importing more from France than we are getting from solar and wind combined.

Is there nobody with the power to invest in infrastructure watching these figures? Or is the plan to wait until we have brown outs and then get popular support for masses of emergency spending?

Can you power the Internet (consumer end) from a wood burning stove?

Cheers

Dave R

P.S. the description for OCGT includes the words "seldom used expect from emergencies in the winter". So are we all having a little Winter emergency?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes. Tight but still manageable. But this isnt peak cold yet.

Nope.

It's all a political football and will continue to be dominated by virtue signalling until the lights actually go out.

Close, but no cigar,

Prices must be high enough to make it worth it. Look at hydro as well, VERY high.

>

[Chris Hogg]

I'm quite surprised that we've still got that much coal fired generating capacity in service. It raises the question as to how much coal they burn while on standby waiting for just such a situation as this, and how much CO2 they produce as a consequence.

[tony sayer]

In article [e-mail]>, David [e-mail] scribeth thus

We consider France another nuclear station thats on the end of a 22 odd mile supply cable;)...

Yes some do believe that. I know of an old green woman who'll tell you that, in days of old her ilk were rounded up by Matthew Hopkins!

[Andrew]

Seems to have worked wonders for the Drax share price recently.

[Chris Hogg]

Probably being bought by green investors. The trouble with biomass, in particular wood chips of the sort being burnt by Drax, is that they contribute to CO2 in the atmosphere, short term.

It takes say 50 - 100 years for a tree to grow to maturity, during which time it slowly absorbs CO2 and converts it to cellulose. Then along comes a lumberjack, cuts it down, chips it, feeds it into a power-station furnace where it's burnt in a matter of minutes. The result is that all the CO2 absorbed over those 50 - 100 years is suddenly returned to the atmosphere, and CO2 levels rise. If it was burnt over 50 or 100 years, there'd be a balance, but it isn't and there isn't. The idea that burning biomass of that sort is CO2-neutral is at best a half-truth, at worst a lie.

[Marland]

GH

[Dave Liquorice]

Except what you describe is not sustainable. You are felling and burning trees faster than they are growing. At some point you will run out of trees and yes CO2 levels will be higher.

Sustainable means you grow trees at least as fast as you are felling and burning, you don't run out of trees and CO2 levels are un-affected.

Even better you grow trees faster than you are felling and burning. You don't run out of trees and CO2 levels fall.

[tabbypurr]

Lots of thermopiles. Steam engine & dynamo/alternator. You might be able to use the fire to work as a couple of flame valves too, getting you a regenerative radio driving a speaker.

NT

[Harry Bloomfield]

[e-mail] has brought this to us :

Flame valve ????

[harry]

What we need is more East West grid connections to Norway Denmark. etc.

[Brian Gaff]

Wood burning stoves are being targeted at the moment or had you seen that and it was a sarcastic comment. Brian

[Tim Watts]

That's not correct.

Your scenario missed the fact that a biomass power station occupies a small area and is fed by a huge acreage of forest.

All that matters is that you maintain a stable state, replanting all the forest cut down and have enough forest acreage so that that and tha alone can sustain the power station.

Yes, you'll cause a tiny rise in CO2 because you may have gone from 100% mature forest to some of that being saplings and young trees.

Or you could plant some new forest on open land which would genuinely make it neutral.

It's basically just a fancy solar generator, but with inbuilt storage and predictability. And it looks nice.

[tabbypurr]

NT

[Andy Burns]

Flame rectification, as used by flame failure devices in boilers etc, and the reason running them from UPS, or "IT" genny may not work without an earth/neutral link.

[Chris Hogg]

Each biomass unit at Drax burns 2.3 million tonnes of mostly wood-chip per year; that's a rate of 4.4 tonnes per minute, or roughly two mature pine trees per minute.

So to be sustainable, to take CO2 out of the atmosphere at the same rate as you are producing it from burning that biomass, you have to plant enough saplings such that their aggregated growth is 4.4 tonnes per minute. That's one hell of a lot of saplings, and they'll require a hell of a lot of space. So you replace two trees by acres and acres of saplings in order to mop up the CO2 produced by burning just those two trees.

And that's just for one Drax unit. Six are planned. Let alone anywhere else.

It's unsustainable.

[Tim Lamb]

60 years ago! My engineering course included a bit on *electro thermo dynamics* Long while ago and I may have got the terms wrong. Basically you pass a high temperature ionised gas between two conductive plates and can extract electrical energy.

At the time it was being considered as a way of improving the overall efficiency of steam based generation.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It is sustainbable with respect to *government policy*

And that's what makes it profitable.

There is no such thing in the known universe as sustainable energy. Time only runs one way and entropy determines that direction.

[The Natural Philosopher]

MHD?

[Harry Bloomfield]

[e-mail] used his keyboard to write :

Thanks, the flame failure device principle..