Tidal Lagoon - Energy from the Ocean, UK Gov is putting money in it

[tggzzz]

Let's see you waste your time doing some numbers first, shall we? I'll just point out that I'm sure the National Grid did their homework before allowing wind farms to be connected to the grid.

As I said, the National Grid considers wind to be more reliable than nuclear in terms of the spare capacity requirement. With nuclear you can instantly lose 1000MW if a reactor is forced to SCRAM. With wind you lose 10-20MW if a turbine fails, tops. Wind is very predictable over the 15 minute periods that the grid uses for planning. More over, the National Grid is used to dealing with sudden spikes and dips in demand because they happen multiple times every day.

You are the one making extraordinary claims that seem to contradict what the experts are saying. The onus is on you to prove them wrong.

Exactly what extraordinary claims am I making?

Note that experts that are not commercially biassed make much less definitive statements - for very good reason. See Mackay's book that has been lauded by "all sides" including greens, politicians, big energy and more. http://www.withouthotair.org

With tidal power you will lose 100% of it on a regular basis. What will you use to cover that loss? The only industrial answer at the moment is conventional plant.

If you have alternatives, let's hear them. If they do stack up, then people will shower you with riches. Seriously!

Have a look at the problems currently being experienced in Hawaii, and the response of their grid. Start with http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/10/19/solar-news-watch-hawaiis-solar-dilemma-it-could-be.aspx

[tggzzz]

Considering that the motion of the tides can be predicted millennia in advance with extreme certainty, I don't think it will be too much of a problem.

It isn't a problem provided that you have the equivalent capacity in conventional plant, and you thermally cycle that plant. That's the only current solution - if you have another solution, patent it and become a multi-billionaire. Or let me know and I'll become one

Otherwise it is a problem, as is demonstrated in Hawaii.

If you don't have an alternative solution, please gracefully concede that point. I'm sure other people would respect that.

[coppice]

Yes, and with conventional plants you might lose 100% of the output at any random time too. What will you use to cover that loss?

Other that some cataclysmic event which destroys much of the  country, can you name a random event which would take down more than one coal, oil or nuclear power station at a time? They fail so infrequently that the chances of 2 failing on the same day are down around the chances of a cataclysmic event. In the case of a cataclysmic event I expect the country would have more to worry about than the loss of power stations. since the distribution grid, and many of the consumer will probably have been taken out in the same event.

[tggzzz]

It isn't a problem provided that you have the equivalent capacity in conventional plant, and you thermally cycle that plant.

You are still completely missing the point. You don't need one conventional plant per tidal plant.

Que?! Who mentioned anything about the number of plants. I'm having difficulty distinguising your constantly changing points from those that might be made by a troll.

You spread the spare capacity over a number of sources, most of it covering existing potential losses. You don't have to completely cycle down entire plants when you can simply reduce or increase the output from a number of them.

Of course; who said anything else? I certainly didn't. I'm having difficulty distinguising your constantly changing points from those that might be made by a troll.

This is all well known, well understood, and has been happening for years. I can't make it any simpler for you.

Please discuss capacity, and how much conventional capacity has to be available when there is an intermittent (predictable or otherwise) source such as a barrage.

All that has been known for years, and so far has only become a problem in Hawaii. But it will become more a problem in more locations in the future.

Please try and sell your "expertise" to the Hawaii authorities - and let us know the results

[tggzzz]

This is futile. 

Yes. Your your ability to misread the question and to make strawman arguments does indeed make it futile.

I, and others, have noticed your inability to answer the question being asked

[coppice]

Other that some cataclysmic event which destroys much of the  country, can you name a random event which would take down more than one coal, oil or nuclear power station at a time? They fail so infrequently that the chances of 2 failing on the same day are down around the chances of a cataclysmic event. In the case of a cataclysmic event I expect the country would have more to worry about than the loss of power stations. since the distribution grid, and many of the consumer will probably have been taken out in the same event.

According to the industry shill it actually happens quite a lot: http://www.world-nuclear.org/uploadedFiles/org/WNA/Publications/Working_Group_Reports/REPORT_OptimizCapacity.pdf

Page 19. Birthday problem. It's not nearly as rare as you think.

Excuse me, but could you just work through the numbers for us, and show us how you draw that conclusion from the paper you cited?

[dannyf]

Tidal Lagoon - Energy from the Ocean, UK Gov is putting money in it

Google "prisoner's dilemma".

Like in a stadium. When everyone is sitting down, your optimal strategy for a better view is to stand up.

When everyone adopt's that "optimal" strategy, everyone is screwed.

[tom66]

The problem I have with an exclusive intermittent power generation grid is it's easy to conceive of a situation where all three sources (wind, solar, tidal) will be simultaneously unavailable, perhaps for hours at a time for any given day. This is not the same as being off for 24 hours a year in a few hour-long intervals. A 0.26% availability failure per year could be filled in by diesel gensets (so called "short term operating reserve") and Dinorwig storage plant in Wales.  But you can't realistically do that for renewables, there isn't enough capacity as it's more like being off for 3-4 hours per day.

For example, wind power, whilst predictable in the short term is very unreliable:


And, we know that solar power obviously doesn't produce much at night, but it's also quite hard to rely on it for day-to-day power (typ average from installed system, hard to find data on UK average):


Tides-  yes, they're predictable, but again, no power during certain times.

So how do you provide power during these low periods?

- You can use grid storage (best option) - but very expensive, especially if you might only have tides available during low wind/solar periods. Batteries pretty much only viable option due to lack of pumped storage.

- You can dynamically price for large industrial customers such as Al smelters and perhaps even retail customers charging EVs/using storage heaters/etc. to encourage usage when energy is cheap and abundant (high wind, high tide, high solar.) Not sure how much of a difference this will make but probably the direction the grid will go in anyway.

- You can use a more reliable fossil fuel or biofuel plant. (Most realistic option IMHO.) Needs to be able to rapidly respond to changing load.

I have a problem with enviromentalists, emphasis on the "mental" bit who seem to think 100% renewable intermittent is practical because "it'll always be windy somewhere."

[tggzzz]

I have a problem with enviromentalists, emphasis on the "mental" bit who seem to think 100% renewable intermittent is practical because "it'll always be windy somewhere."

Naturally I agree with your post, but I'm sure mojo-chan will not address those points but will choose to "answer" points you haven't made.

If you are interested in further solid evidence against the "it'll always be windy somewhere" proposition, you may care to look at  http://www.jmt.org/wind-analysis-report.asp

Unsurprisingly to anyone that lives in the UK and has witnessed how long a "blocking high pressure" lasts (weeks) and the geographical area it covers (all the UK), spatial diversity for wind power is only guaranteed when you are considering the whole of Europe.

[coppice]

Excuse me, but could you just work through the numbers for us, and show us how you draw that conclusion from the paper you cited?

Page 18, average 5.14% "unplanned" unavailability (something broke).

P(A and B) = P(A?B) = P(A|B)P(B) = P(A)P(B) (if A and B are independent)

Thus around 0.26% of the year there will be two unexpected failures, which is about one day a year. Of course it won't be one full day, it will be multiple times totalling about 24 hours over the course of the year.

That's just for nuclear, and actually the stats are worse in some places where there is more seismic activity or where the reactors are mostly older types. When combined with other fossil fuel plant failures you can see that the grid needs significant amounts of spare capacity to be available instantly to avoid problems. That's why the National Grid likes distributed renewable technologies like wind and solar. Unless transmission lines go down they never suddenly drop a few gigawatts off the network without warning.

So, you don't understand what unplanned downtime means. Fair enough. Maybe you should read more.

[Mechanical Menace]

Unsurprisingly to anyone that lives in the UK and has witnessed how long a "blocking high pressure" lasts (weeks) and the geographical area it covers (all the UK), spatial diversity for wind power is only guaranteed when you are considering the whole of Europe.

I totally agree that you'd either need a grid with much better conductors (maybe even room temperature superconductors) covering the entire continent (which would be terrible for energy security) and/or some amazing new grid storage tech to go 100% renewable, I don't think that's a good enough reason to not use them to at least reduce carbon output etc.

It's not like we can't get away with pumping a certain amount of shit into the environment, but I don't think anyone serious would believe we can get away with not reducing it even if they think climate change is a massive international conspiracy. You only have to look back to the 80s to remember real smogs, proper acid rain, and dead waterways from lead and mercury poisoning in the UK, and while we've come an amazing way from that with pollutants you can easily see the effects of there's still a ways to go, especially on the global scale.

[coppice]

I totally agree that you'd either need a grid with much better conductors (maybe even room temperature superconductors) covering the entire continent (which would be terrible for energy security) and/or some amazing new grid storage tech to go 100% renewable, I don't think that's a good enough reason to not use them to at least reduce carbon output etc.

I think room temp superconductors are pretty unlikely to happen now. There was a surge in new materials which made it look like interesting things would be possible, but that ran out of steam some time ago.

With all its wind farms, how much coal has the UK so far avoided burning? The figures from different sources look very different, depending on the biases of the people producing them, but none look very promising. You don't have to stop all coal burning in the near term, but if you aren't biting into it significantly you are just tinkering with things to make some people feel better about themselves.

It's not like we can't get away with pumping a certain amount of shit into the environment, but I don't think anyone serious would believe we can get away with not reducing it even if they think climate change is a massive international conspiracy. You only have to look back to the 80s to remember real smogs, proper acid rain, and dead waterways from lead and mercury poisoning in the UK, and while we've come an amazing way from that with pollutants you can easily see the effects of there's still a ways to go, especially on the global scale.

The UK didn't have serious smogs in the 80s. That was the 50s and earlier. Cleaning that up was not very hard, and didn't take very long. It just took the political will to enforce the necessary steps. A few winters with enough deaths was sufficient for that. The UK's history with water is very patchy. The Thames is an outstanding example of a river rehabilitated, but the UK has plenty of water which has seen no improvement at all. These things cost a lot, but they are now well understood, and good results are achievable. The picture isn't looking so good right now for renewables.

[Mechanical Menace]

The UK didn't have serious smogs in the 80s. That was the 50s and earlier.

We did in West Yorkshire. Maybe not as bad as the Great Smog but that bad we couldn't play out during breaks at school. I think it was the EU and not local laws that fixed that. But of course we're not London so it doesn't count

With all its wind farms, how much coal has the UK so far avoided burning?

Problem there is how to measure that in comparison to our increased energy use. And we have nowhere near the amount or scale of wind farms that the companies wanted because of NIMBYs like that useless prat Charles Windsor. But I can say that every watt of power we get from renewables or nuclear is 1 watt less from coal, oil or gas.

[tggzzz]

Unsurprisingly to anyone that lives in the UK and has witnessed how long a "blocking high pressure" lasts (weeks) and the geographical area it covers (all the UK), spatial diversity for wind power is only guaranteed when you are considering the whole of Europe.

I totally agree that you'd either need a grid with much better conductors (maybe even room temperature superconductors) covering the entire continent (which would be terrible for energy security) and/or some amazing new grid storage tech to go 100% renewable, I don't think that's a good enough reason to not use them to at least reduce carbon output etc.

Better conductors are a pie-in-the-sky hope, and can't be used for planning.

Energy storage possible and highly beneficial, but currently the technology and scope for it is limited. We should continue to invest in the R&D, and  make plans for how we might be able to use it.

The reduction in CO2 output is one good reason for investing in renewables (diversity and independence being the others), but they aren't a panacea and does come with disadvantages. (As I'm sure you are aware)

It's not like we can't get away with pumping a certain amount of shit into the environment, but I don't think anyone serious would believe we can get away with not reducing it even if they think climate change is a massive international conspiracy. You only have to look back to the 80s to remember real smogs, proper acid rain, and dead waterways from lead and mercury poisoning in the UK, and while we've come an amazing way from that with pollutants you can easily see the effects of there's still a ways to go, especially on the global scale.

Yes, except that in the UK the last "pea souper" smogs in London were in the 1950s, and disappeared when legislation forced domestic city users to burn "smokeless coal", which was more-or-less coke - i.e. coal heated to drive off the volatile chemicals, which were then used for chemicals and town gas.

Of course China is now experiencng "pea soupers" over a wide area, caused by industrial users.

[Mechanical Menace]

Better conductors are a pie-in-the-sky hope, and can't be used for planning.

Oh I know, I was presenting that as a problem with going 100% renewable.

Yes, except that in the UK the last "pea souper" smogs in London were in the 1950s, and disappeared when legislation forced domestic city users to burn "smokeless coal"

The ones I can remember were definitely industrial. They stopped when companies like Microvitec had to clean up their acts and the old chemical plants finally shut down.

Edit: They were rarely even the low end of "pea-soupers" in terms of visibility more like a normal fog there, but they tasted horrid and had people caughing. The asthmatics obviously got the short straw though.

[coppice]

Of course China is now experiencng "pea soupers" over a wide area, caused by industrial users.

No they aren't. I was a child in pea souper London, and I spend lots of time in China. The character of pollution in Beijing is nothing like we had in London. Now Delhi, that is a lot like Beijing. Damnit, I seem to be becoming a connoisseur of air pollutions.

[zapta]

Of course China is now experiencng "pea soupers" over a wide area, caused by industrial users.

No they aren't. I was a child in pea souper London, and I spend lots of time in China. The character of pollution in Beijing is nothing like we had in London. Now Delhi, that is a lot like Beijing. Damnit, I seem to be becoming a connoisseur of air pollutions.

Can you explain the differences?

[zapta]

Better conductors are a pie-in-the-sky hope, and can't be used for planning.

Energy storage possible and highly beneficial, but currently the technology and scope for it is limited. We should continue to invest in the R&D, and  make plans for how we might be able to use it.

The reduction in CO2 output is one good reason for investing in renewables (diversity and independence being the others), but they aren't a panacea and does come with disadvantages. (As I'm sure you are aware)

That's a very practical view of reality, which is often in short supply here.

[Mechanical Menace]

Of course China is now experiencng "pea soupers" over a wide area, caused by industrial users.

...

Can you explain the differences?

vs



The difference is one is in London and the other is outside of London, maybe even more than 50 miles away, so doesn't matter and probably really isn't there

EDIT: Or how dark the London ones were, more (relatively) large particulate matter. Don't think you could use the Beijing ones to safely filter the sun but wouldn't surprise me if they're about even on health risks etc.

[tom66]

Can you point to any major environmental group that is actually advocating that though? I can point to individual lunatics who demand we should irradiate all our food and install reactors in every neighbourhood, but I don't try to claim that it's the mainstream view.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/low-carbon-future

Emphasis mine.

We can cut carbon and keep the lights on
Clean energy is no longer a dream; it's an idea whose time has come. To give just one example, wind power has come a long way in 20 years. Britain now has offshore farms that can supply as much electricity as a conventional power station - and we are still in the early stages of what can be achieved.

We have more than enough wave, wind and tidal energy potential than we need to keep our lights on and our homes warm even on the coldest and darkest days. And while we can't do without fossil fuels entirely in the short term, we can increasingly replace them in all aspects of our lives. We can do this without damaging our economy.

They say that fossil fuels are needed in the short term and seem to imply that we can go without them entirely eventually. I disagree, there simply aren't enough statistically distributed intermittent sources to provide high reliability power and there isn't enough grid storage to make such intermittent sources work - where we could have to rely on storage for days at a time in some cases. Nor is there sufficient biomass or waste that can be burned in converted conventional power plants. We will always have to burn fossil fuels or use nuclear power in this country, barring some kind of fusion revolution which is seemingly always 20 years away.

Nuclear may have problems but it's a helluva lot better than coal or nat gas, which is another sticking point with me and Greenpeace.

[tggzzz]

Of course China is now experiencng "pea soupers" over a wide area, caused by industrial users.

No they aren't. I was a child in pea souper London, and I spend lots of time in China. The character of pollution in Beijing is nothing like we had in London. Now Delhi, that is a lot like Beijing. Damnit, I seem to be becoming a connoisseur of air pollutions.

I bow to your superior knowledge, and I am content that you have more personal experience

[tggzzz]

This is why I don't answer your "questions". They are really just ad-hominem attacks and demands for research because you either refuse to do it yourself or refuse to accept expert opinion. You have yet to explain how what you say can be true and yet the UK and German grids are still functioning and keeping the lights on. I've fully supported my position.

Come on, you are a grown up (I presume). Don't just troll, trying to bait people by insulting them.

I am content to let others judge our relative maturity.

I am more than content to let others judge the solidity of your position and my position

[coppice]

Of course China is now experiencng "pea soupers" over a wide area, caused by industrial users.

No they aren't. I was a child in pea souper London, and I spend lots of time in China. The character of pollution in Beijing is nothing like we had in London. Now Delhi, that is a lot like Beijing. Damnit, I seem to be becoming a connoisseur of air pollutions.

Can you explain the differences?

London's smogs built up when there was sustained fog. Coal particulate from domestic fires built up in the smog, making a dark choking gunge. A tissue over your mouth would go black after a couple of minutes breathing through it. Beijing's worst problems happen when dust blows in from hundred's of km away. It isn't necessarily mixed with fog. Its quite abrasive to breath, and has a much more unpleasant effect of breathing than I remember from childhood London. Put a tissue over your mouth and it goes grey as you breath through it. In the winter Delhi gets periods of a similar dusty effect to Beijing. I'm not sure where their dust comes from.

[Mechanical Menace]

I'm not sure where their dust comes from.

Mainly the Gobi. Think some of it comes from the former USSR.

So there's no actual fog involved in Chinese/Indian smogs, just dust and pollution? Strange use of the word lol.

[G7PSK]

The London pea soupers were quite something. I was born in London (1952) and when I was about 5 or 6 there was a smog that was so thick that when I held my arm out I could not see my own hand, the buses were running the only transport that was, the conductors walked in fron of the bus one foot in the gutter the other on the kerb and shone a torch backwards at the driver who followed the torch, My grand mother took us shopping on Oxford street i you had to stick your nose on the shop windows in order to see inside. The smog was full of sulfur which ate the stone work when it rained leaving streaks on the building fronts. It was that smog which made my parents move us to Cambridge.