Energy thread

lesfirth

rick_chasey said:

This cold snap is not really good for the energy crisis and materially increases the likelihood of blackouts.

We are having a great demonstration of the fact that if the wind does not blow you will never have enough windfarms.
Check - https://grid.iamkate.com/

morstar

Maybe if they powered up the wind farms to kick start a bit of wind it would help!?

Pross

lesfirth said:

rick_chasey said:

This cold snap is not really good for the energy crisis and materially increases the likelihood of blackouts.

We are having a great demonstration of the fact that if the wind does not blow you will never have enough windfarms.
Check - https://grid.iamkate.com/

That’s where storage comes into play.

Dorset_Boy

Pross said:

lesfirth said:

rick_chasey said:

This cold snap is not really good for the energy crisis and materially increases the likelihood of blackouts.

We are having a great demonstration of the fact that if the wind does not blow you will never have enough windfarms.
Check - https://grid.iamkate.com/

That’s where storage comes into play.

Which ideally means daming a few valleys and building some hydro, like the French did 70 years ago.......

pblakeney

The future of renewables is quite simple. A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations along with storage. Just need tidal to be efficient and cost effective.

masjer

Dorset_Boy said:

Pross said:

lesfirth said:

rick_chasey said:

This cold snap is not really good for the energy crisis and materially increases the likelihood of blackouts.

We are having a great demonstration of the fact that if the wind does not blow you will never have enough windfarms.
Check - https://grid.iamkate.com/

That’s where storage comes into play.

Which ideally means daming a few valleys and building some hydro, like the French did 70 years ago.......

Storage from new battery technologies. Sand batteries look promising.
https://bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61996520

rjsterry

surrey_commuter said:

I have a condensing boiler and want the house to heat up quicker. Is this as simple as turning up the dial on the front of the boiler and if so would going from 60 to 65 be noticeable.

I know I would be sacrificing efficiency

It's mostly down to the heat capacity* and the rate of heat transfer of your house. I'm not sure 5 degrees on the flow temperature will make enough of a difference to be worth the loss in efficiency. Most radiator manufacturers provide tables of heat output for a given size of rad and flow temperature. You should also be able to look up the heat capacity and conductivity of various building materials.

https://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/thermal-mass/

The other consideration is that the human body is a subjective thermometer. Generally we find a room comfortable when the air temperature and the surface temperature of the walls floor and ceiling are within a fairly narrow range. Warm air but cold walls will still feel cold so you need to calculate the net flow of heat into the building fabric (allowing for losses to outside) and then how long you will need to heat at that rate to bring the fabric up to, say 18 degrees.

Or you could get a couple of thermometers - one in the middle of the room and one on an outside wall - and a stopwatch and experiment.

*This also explains Pinno's point about dry air heating up faster than humid air. Water has a much higher heat capacity than air.

surrey_commuter

rjsterry said:

surrey_commuter said:

I have a condensing boiler and want the house to heat up quicker. Is this as simple as turning up the dial on the front of the boiler and if so would going from 60 to 65 be noticeable.

I know I would be sacrificing efficiency

It's mostly down to the heat capacity* and the rate of heat transfer of your house. I'm not sure 5 degrees on the flow temperature will make enough of a difference to be worth the loss in efficiency. Most radiator manufacturers provide tables of heat output for a given size of rad and flow temperature. You should also be able to look up the heat capacity and conductivity of various building materials.

https://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/thermal-mass/

The other consideration is that the human body is a subjective thermometer. Generally we find a room comfortable when the air temperature and the surface temperature of the walls floor and ceiling are within a fairly narrow range. Warm air but cold walls will still feel cold so you need to calculate the net flow of heat into the building fabric (allowing for losses to outside) and then how long you will need to heat at that rate to bring the fabric up to, say 18 degrees.

Or you could get a couple of thermometers - one in the middle of the room and one on an outside wall - and a stopwatch and experiment.

*This also explains Pinno's point about dry air heating up faster than humid air. Water has a much higher heat capacity than air.

Thanks, am always interested in the science behind these things.

I am convinced there is a colossal difference between 60 and 65, so much so that I am going to tweak it down a degree. Interesting what you say about the fabric of the house becuase I did think it cooled down faster when it went off. As everybody gets up and is out in an hour then I might be better off with the short shap blast of hot air then leave it off and me in front of the logburner.

Edited to add - before I could leave my hand on the rads indefinitely and now I can't.

lesfirth

Pross said:

lesfirth said:

rick_chasey said:

This cold snap is not really good for the energy crisis and materially increases the likelihood of blackouts.

We are having a great demonstration of the fact that if the wind does not blow you will never have enough windfarms.
Check - https://grid.iamkate.com/

That’s where storage comes into play.

There is nothing in the planning stage ,never mind being built, that could come anywhere near replacing the fossil fuel that have been burnt over the last week.

pangolin

lesfirth said:

Pross said:

lesfirth said:

rick_chasey said:

This cold snap is not really good for the energy crisis and materially increases the likelihood of blackouts.

We are having a great demonstration of the fact that if the wind does not blow you will never have enough windfarms.
Check - https://grid.iamkate.com/

That’s where storage comes into play.

There is nothing in the planning stage ,never mind being built, that could come anywhere near replacing the fossil fuel that have been burnt over the last week.

What do you think we should do?

Pross

lesfirth said:

Pross said:

lesfirth said:

rick_chasey said:

This cold snap is not really good for the energy crisis and materially increases the likelihood of blackouts.

We are having a great demonstration of the fact that if the wind does not blow you will never have enough windfarms.
Check - https://grid.iamkate.com/

That’s where storage comes into play.

There is nothing in the planning stage ,never mind being built, that could come anywhere near replacing the fossil fuel that have been burnt over the last week.

Your original comment was that we'd never have enough windfarms. Do you want us to give up because we're nowhere near replacing fossil fuel or would you rather we get as much renewable energy as we possibly can, as quickly as we can so that fossil fuels can be phased out? Zero carbon by 2030 is highly unlikely but if the target was pushed to something more realistic it would just take even longer for us to get there. We certainly need to be more ambitious though if that is your point and ignore or the NIMBYs and naysayers.

I was driving over the Rhigos a couple of weeks ago and was going to take a photo that I thought would have been quite interesting. From one point I could see numerous windfarms, solar farms, an opencast coal mine and what was the last functioning deep mine in Wales (now closed). I think there may also have been the site of a proposed waste to energy site in view as well. It feels like quite a nice progression that many of the former mining sites in the area are now being turned into windfarms.

Dorset_Boy

One of the big issues with wind is that when we get these artic air cold snaps, typically the wind doesn't blow and no electricity is generated by the wind farms when it is needed most.

pangolin

This will certainly put a dampener on all those plans for the UK to be 100% wind powered.

TheBigBean

pblakeney said:

The future of renewables is quite simple. A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations along with storage. Just need tidal to be efficient and cost effective.

It won't cover no wind at slack water at night. Plus it won't adjust for demand.

pangolin

TheBigBean said:

pblakeney said:

The future of renewables is quite simple. A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations along with storage. Just need tidal to be efficient and cost effective.

It won't cover no wind at slack water at night. Plus it won't adjust for demand.

Surely that's what the storage is for.

Hard to imagine it just being those 3 though. Something else like nuclear providing a base seems inevitable.

rick_chasey

pangolin said:

TheBigBean said:

pblakeney said:

The future of renewables is quite simple. A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations along with storage. Just need tidal to be efficient and cost effective.

It won't cover no wind at slack water at night. Plus it won't adjust for demand.

Surely that's what the storage is for.

Hard to imagine it just being those 3 though. Something else like nuclear providing a base seems inevitable.

10-15 year project that so they better get on it.

*govt opens a coal mine*

laurentian

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63950962

pangolin

I find it really hard to know how seriously to take fusion breakthroughs. It is famously always a few years away.

TheBigBean

pangolin said:

TheBigBean said:

pblakeney said:

The future of renewables is quite simple. A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations along with storage. Just need tidal to be efficient and cost effective.

It won't cover no wind at slack water at night. Plus it won't adjust for demand.

Surely that's what the storage is for.

Hard to imagine it just being those 3 though. Something else like nuclear providing a base seems inevitable.

There's a need for storage over different periods of time and/or flexible generation to match demand. The listed technologies won't provide any of this nor will nuclear. Batteries do provide intra-day storage/flexibility, but not for more than two hours or so. The most likely solution will be carbon capture and storage using gas.

pblakeney

pangolin said:

TheBigBean said:

pblakeney said:

The future of renewables is quite simple. A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations along with storage. Just need tidal to be efficient and cost effective.

It won't cover no wind at slack water at night. Plus it won't adjust for demand.

Surely that's what the storage is for.

Hard to imagine it just being those 3 though. Something else like nuclear providing a base seems inevitable.

Correct on storage.
I was covering renewables as a major source, not the only source.

pangolin

TheBigBean said:

pangolin said:

TheBigBean said:

pblakeney said:

The future of renewables is quite simple. A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations along with storage. Just need tidal to be efficient and cost effective.

It won't cover no wind at slack water at night. Plus it won't adjust for demand.

Surely that's what the storage is for.

Hard to imagine it just being those 3 though. Something else like nuclear providing a base seems inevitable.

There's a need for storage over different periods of time and/or flexible generation to match demand. The listed technologies won't provide any of this nor will nuclear. Batteries do provide intra-day storage/flexibility, but not for more than two hours or so. The most likely solution will be carbon capture and storage using gas.

I don't think anyone was suggesting a wind turbine or a solar panel was a type of battery

shirley_basso

rick_chasey said:

pangolin said:

TheBigBean said:

pblakeney said:

The future of renewables is quite simple. A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations along with storage. Just need tidal to be efficient and cost effective.

It won't cover no wind at slack water at night. Plus it won't adjust for demand.

Surely that's what the storage is for.

Hard to imagine it just being those 3 though. Something else like nuclear providing a base seems inevitable.

10-15 year project that so they better get on it.

*govt opens a coal mine*

I think the coal mine arguement was to allow the UK to make it's own steel which is higher quality than overseas produced.

TheBigBean

pangolin said:

TheBigBean said:

pangolin said:

TheBigBean said:

pblakeney said:

The future of renewables is quite simple. A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations along with storage. Just need tidal to be efficient and cost effective.

It won't cover no wind at slack water at night. Plus it won't adjust for demand.

Surely that's what the storage is for.

Hard to imagine it just being those 3 though. Something else like nuclear providing a base seems inevitable.

There's a need for storage over different periods of time and/or flexible generation to match demand. The listed technologies won't provide any of this nor will nuclear. Batteries do provide intra-day storage/flexibility, but not for more than two hours or so. The most likely solution will be carbon capture and storage using gas.

I don't think anyone was suggesting a wind turbine or a solar panel was a type of battery

If storage isn't an issue, then you would just use the cheapest technology, so tidal is completely pointless. I was responding to the original comment "A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations" which has since changed.

pangolin

pblakeney said:

The future of renewables is quite simple. A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations along with storage. Just need tidal to be efficient and cost effective.

This post hasn't been edited so I don't think it has changed... but whatever I think we are agreeing.

TheBigBean

pangolin said:

pblakeney said:

The future of renewables is quite simple. A combination of solar, wind and tidal will cover all weather situations along with storage. Just need tidal to be efficient and cost effective.

This post hasn't been edited so I don't think it has changed... but whatever I think we are agreeing.

You're right. My mistake.

TheBigBean

I get tired of a lot of the rubbish that is spoken on the subject.

For example the UK government, wind doesn't affect power prices, so should be subject to extra tax, but now there is a shortage of wind, the high power prices are blamed on wind. Meanwhile, efficient gas generators make a killing in all circumstances.

rjsterry

TheBigBean said:

I get tired of a lot of the rubbish that is spoken on the subject.

For example the UK government, wind doesn't affect power prices, so should be subject to extra tax, but now there is a shortage of wind, the high power prices are blamed on wind. Meanwhile, efficient gas generators make a killing in all circumstances.

Amen.

lesfirth

pangolin said:

lesfirth said:

Pross said:

lesfirth said:

rick_chasey said:

This cold snap is not really good for the energy crisis and materially increases the likelihood of blackouts.

We are having a great demonstration of the fact that if the wind does not blow you will never have enough windfarms.
Check - https://grid.iamkate.com/

That’s where storage comes into play.

There is nothing in the planning stage ,never mind being built, that could come anywhere near replacing the fossil fuel that have been burnt over the last week.

What do you think we should do?

I do not have an answer to the problem.

We do not have any big rivers like the French have. Tidal barrages in Morecambe and the Severn estuary would only make a small contribution. ( La Rance barrier in France generates 0.12% of their electric).
Small nuclear generation power plants look a good option to me but that will not please the Green party supporters. The only people who think blue hydrogen is a good idea are the petroleum companies who are making the stuff. Green hydrogen will be made from our surplus electricity from renewables but that is along way off.
The electricity storage technology is coming along at a pace but it can never store enough energy to power the country for a few hours ,never mind a week.

The thread "Maybe we are not doomed after all" started on here in 2017 prompted by a BBC news item that headlined " Renewables provide more than half UK electric of the first time" To the headline reader we were halfway there then but over the past full year renewables only contributed 34% of our electric generation. Despite all the solar panels and wind farms built in the last 5 years there is still a very long way to go. The man who will probably be our next prime minister must know something we dont if he thinks we can be "carbon neutral"by 2030 or maybe he is just telling us what we would like to hear.

I think if we have another cold week in Dec 2030 we will still be depending on burning natural gas. If we are or not whatever we do here in the UK will not make much difference to the global warming.

When I studied electronics many decades ago primitive computers were the size of wardrobes and if you had told the most forward thinking expert what IT would be able to do in 2022 he would think you were mad. I will not live to see it but I hope my grandkids will see a similar change in how we use and generate power.

kingstongraham

Flood more valleys and pump the water up when there's more energy available than required, and let it go down when you need the electric.

TheBigBean

lesfirth said:

pangolin said:

lesfirth said:

Pross said:

lesfirth said:

rick_chasey said:

This cold snap is not really good for the energy crisis and materially increases the likelihood of blackouts.

We are having a great demonstration of the fact that if the wind does not blow you will never have enough windfarms.
Check - https://grid.iamkate.com/

That’s where storage comes into play.

There is nothing in the planning stage ,never mind being built, that could come anywhere near replacing the fossil fuel that have been burnt over the last week.

What do you think we should do?

I do not have an answer to the problem.

We do not have any big rivers like the French have. Tidal barrages in Morecambe and the Severn estuary would only make a small contribution. ( La Rance barrier in France generates 0.12% of their electric).
Small nuclear generation power plants look a good option to me but that will not please the Green party supporters. The only people who think blue hydrogen is a good idea are the petroleum companies who are making the stuff. Green hydrogen will be made from our surplus electricity from renewables but that is along way off.
The electricity storage technology is coming along at a pace but it can never store enough energy to power the country for a few hours ,never mind a week.

The thread "Maybe we are not doomed after all" started on here in 2017 prompted by a BBC news item that headlined " Renewables provide more than half UK electric of the first time" To the headline reader we were halfway there then but over the past full year renewables only contributed 34% of our electric generation. Despite all the solar panels and wind farms built in the last 5 years there is still a very long way to go. The man who will probably be our next prime minister must know something we dont if he thinks we can be "carbon neutral"by 2030 or maybe he is just telling us what we would like to hear.

I think if we have another cold week in Dec 2030 we will still be depending on burning natural gas. If we are or not whatever we do here in the UK will not make much difference to the global warming.

When I studied electronics many decades ago primitive computers were the size of wardrobes and if you had told the most forward thinking expert what IT would be able to do in 2022 he would think you were mad. I will not live to see it but I hope my grandkids will see a similar change in how we use and generate power.

In around 2010, 1MW of solar panels would have cost just under £3m. Just before covid that would have cost around £200k.

Similar progress can be seen in the size of wind turbines.