OT - More on generation (sigh) but what is the alternative to coal?

[Dave Liquorice]

Remember the 3 day week and power cuts on rota published in the newspapers?

[js.b1]

Sadly the only free market is nature. Every other market has a Market Maker and the poor policies resulted in gas being the cheapest choice. ONLY Billing, Meter Reading, MV & LV Cable, Non Nuclear Maintenance etc should have been privatised.

I recall writing a pre O-level study into energy production, stating that coal was the logical choice re self-sufficiency on top of nuclear handling baseband. It received a distinction. It is as relevant and correct today as it was then, it blew a hole through thatchers energy policy.

Which is going to lead to "install new windows and you have to achieve X Y Z other improvements".

Home ownership is going to look like a bigger debt that people ever imagined, all because of imbecile property builders for decades who opposed insulation as something that reduced their profit margins. The week after the first sheets of polystyrene rolled off the production line decades ago, they should have been coated with cement & glass mesh to bond them to walls of houses.

I can see a 100% rise in energy prices within 4-5yrs, and a savage backlash.

Privatising energy planning & generation was insane, it is not just economically strategic, it is absolutely **fundamental** to a countries ability to operate. It will end up as a complete failure of requirement specification and regulation, just like the FSA.

[jgharston]

I'm a lower-case greenie, and my answer is: more coal!

When I was at school in the 1980s we were told there was enough coal in the ground to last another 300 years. In a chemistry lesson we did an energy planning exercise to decide how the future eneergy mix should be planned.

For electricity, we should have about 25%-33% nuclear for continuous base load, 70-odd% coal for the heavy lifting, a scattering of gas for instant-startup load spikes. Where it is economical, site-specific solar for site-specific usages, eg powering parking ticket machines.

Town and cities should be converting waste to energy, electricity and local heating. It's madness to dump useful compact energy sources (rubbish) in the ground instead of using it.

Other than a few for load spikes, using gas for electrity generation is madness. Converting gas to heat to convert to electricity to then send along a lossy transmission network, to then convert back to heat again. Madness! Gas should be used exclusively for end-user heating, only one energy conversion point.

(I suppose with appropriate technology gas-powered transport would be a suitable use, but I prefer vehicles that don't need pressure vessels to contain their fuel.)

People complain about dirty coal. Ok then, use clean coal. Highly pulverised high pressure particulate coal gas, and don't just throw away the "waste", that's by-products. Use the heat by-products for local heating. Scrub the vapour output and collect the by-products. To use the heat byproducts for local heating the power plant will have to be near enough to habitations to transport the heat effectively, but so what, locals can either have cheap heat from the local power station, or go cold.

But of course, it won't happen because it's sensible, and "politics" directs energy policy, not engineering. I'm sure than if this was the 1930s we'd never get the National Grid built, and there'd be more than a dozen socket outlet, power and frequency standards across the country.

JGH

[Tim Watts]

"Said they made the trains run on time" and happened to control the media. I work with a few italians - the trains *actually* running on time was a myth.

[Tim Watts]

Ah yes - I was there too. As a kid, it was hilarious fun. Huddled around the coal fire (as the CH was dead), mother producing sandwiches if the cut happened to prevented cooking at the usual time. Parafin lamp.

I think the difference was: people knew it was down to the unions and it would get sorted in the short term. Imagine the panic if someone told the country "it will take several years to get additional generation on line - this will happen every winter".

We can share - plenty to go around...

[charles]

in my childhood, 1940s/50s, we used to expect power cuts. But we only really relied on electricity for lighting. We had coal fires, a gas cooker and, yes, we had a paraffin lamp which was kept on the kitchen wall.

[Tim Watts]

There were, in effect, when it all started pre 1900.

London had a variety of 2 phase (90 degree), 3 phase and DC systems (including variations within such as X-0-X volt distribution to customers like the US) all with a variery of voltages - all based on small local networks being supplied from one generator who dealt directly with its customers.

Apparantly unifying that lot into a single 3 phase system was a major undertaking that took a very long time to sort out. And that's just London.

[Another Dave]

Neither do I. But it's a useful stick to beat my local (Conservative) MP with. She was one of the signatories to the recent letter from 101 MPs. For some inexplicable reason support for UKIP is quite serious round here.

Another Dave

[Tim Watts]

to be a Demand Control Imminent in effect from 10:23 today (11th).

Are these DCI's routine (ie shed some industrial load on those special tarrifs) or is it bad(TM)?

[David WE Roberts]

At first glance it has the look of a training exercise of some sort. Saturday morning is not a time of peak demand but is a time when people might be persuaded to come in to work and check out their procedures.

If so, the implication is that we are running near the limit and they might decide to do it 'for real' at a weekday time of peak load and want to be sure that it works.

Which does hint at potential 'deep shit'(TM).

[The Natural Philosopher]

No they are not.

And its pretty odd. We have lost half a gig of pellet burner - maybe that's the weekend at that - but are running a massive amount of OCGT.

I suspect something has broken somewhere and caught them on the hop. The actual demand is not that high.

[Andy Burns]

DCI seems to be the 3rd level of warning, they're offering to buy at over half the FIT price for electricity available at 10pm tonight, get your torch out harry ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Golly. 10pm on a saturday night is not a traditional high demand time.

It appears to be a generation shortfall according to BM reports..looks lie they have shut down a lot of kit for the weekend and now realise its going to be bloody cold..

[Andy Burns]

The actual temperatures have undershot their lowest forecast and it's windy oop North, so risk of losing supply from windmills or due to lines being brought down?

[js.b1]

If a HV interconnect has tripped out or sub-station fault, they may not be able to get sufficient power to one area of the country and that means running other stations beyond 100% or shedding some demand.

[Huge]

And Japan never has. They have 2 different kinds of leccy according to where you are in the country.

From Wrongipedia;

Eastern Japan (including Tokyo, Kawasaki, Sapporo, Yokohama, and Sendai) runs at 50 Hz; Western Japan (including Okinawa, Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Nagoya, Hiroshima) runs at 60 Hz.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well it's not a 'high wind grid at risk' warning..its a 'generation shortfall' warning.

Its not windy oop north, either, according to wind forecasts.

I'll dig further..

Hmm. having dug, no hard info anywhere.

France is pulling in less. Its a weekend, Holland still exporting. Wind little and dying. Some Coal and wood going offline for the weekend. OCGT at high levels. Nuclear running flat out. CCGT surprisingly low considering

Reading a bit more into that than is probably justified I'd say some of the big baseload has shut down for the weekend, the wind isn't there, and this has got the grid worried as its going to be colder than expected.

Not sure why OCGT rather than CCGT is up however.

RWE says a teensy bit of oil at Fawley is being burnt, but as yet its not showing on BM reports.

[Terry Casey]

Ditto - except we only had candles - and a torch readily to hand to fill the gap until the first one was lit ...

[Andy Burns]

buried in the jumble of text in that page

"High risk of circuit trippings and distruption to supplies in Scotland and North of England due to high winds. Each affected user has been requested to warn its operational staff to maintain its Plant and/or Apparatus in the condition it is best able to withstand the anticipated disturbance"

Given we've had an unusual NW/SE split hovering over GB for the past week, it seemed feasible, but I didn't check.

Keep an eye on dynamicdemand around 22:00 ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

er that is an OLD warning from January..