73 comments on UK Energy Descent Continues
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73 comments on UK Energy Descent Continues
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We need new nuclear power stations.
And we needed them 10 years ago.
I have an interesting chart from 2003 that shows total electricity provision from all sources and one of the most interesting things is that nuclear provide(ed) about 23% of all consumption despite not even being close to 23% installed capacity.
Nuclear is by far and away the best technology for base load provision.
If wind turbines can benefit from ROC's then a similar system could easily be put in place to encourage baseload power purchasing from nuclear utilities by the electricity distributing companies.
I'm also unconvinced with the govenments "hands off" no subsidies approach.
The job of govenment is to provide stategic guidance, and if necessary, funding to enable projects that are in the public interest but not necessarily the private sectors interest.
Requiring that nuclear power competes with cheap gas is all very well right up to the point that gas is no longer cheap.
Then we need something to bridge the gap between gas and new nuclear.
Some fiscal pain is required now to get new build underway so that we (like the french) will be in a much better position in 20 years time.
Andy
Nuclear is unsustainable and so is a bad option (since it merely increases dependence on unsustainable fuels), unless nuclear is used only as a stepping stone to sustainable energy production.
Tony
By your definition of sustainable, even solar power isn't sustainable cos one day the sun will implode and kill us all.
Only it will occur in a very very long time.
Likewise, nuclear power has hundreds of years worth of extractable reserves of uranium and beyond that Molten Salt thorium breeder reactors have thousands of years worth of fuel in the ground.
Thats good enough for me.
Anyone that truely believes that there is only 80 years worth of Uranium reserves left is guilt of some fairly wooly thinking (that and unquestioning belief in the report that claimed this)
Andy
Would you like to give verifiable calculations on extraction rates of uranium, over the next 80 years? Or should we build up nuclear on an assumption?
You're right that the timescales are important, in the definition of sustainable, but I think we need to be very clear that the timescales projected are real, before plunging into a course of action. I don't think any fuel with a lifetime of less than 150 years warrants consideration, considering how we've used another wonder fuel over the last 150 years.
I haven't heard of molten salt thorium breeder reactors before; how many are operating, at present?
No I wouldn't. Don't be lazy go, and look the extraction rates up for yourself.
What nonsense is this? Look around you. The entire world has been built on cheap oil. Are you suggesting that we should never have bothered with oil because it was "only" going to last 150-200 years.
And in case you hadn't noticed nuclear power stations are only good for approx 50 years of operation anyway. So if the fuel will last longer than the projected life of the power station then it would be entirely sensible to construct it.
Sheesh, I sometimes wonder why I bother commenting here.
As someone once said. "sounds like this bloke started with a conclusion and studiously avoided any facts that might have contradicted his position"
Andy
If, as Chris indicates, the current reactors are on their last legs, then a crash program to build new nuclear capacity is needed.
Probably makes more sense than massively importing electricity from France, which is the only obvious alternative. But since the new plants are likely to be owned and operated by EDF, the profits will be going back to France anyway...
Click to enlarge
Source: Nuclear Britain
However, given the problems experienced in 2006 I think this is now optimistic. For sure availability will be less than is has been and it is in my opinion likely that decommission dates for some reactors will be brought forward.
There is another alternative that is overlooked. Importing renewable power from Iceland via a HV DC line. Replace most NG fired power for the warmer half of the year and smaller amounts in the colder half.
Icelandic domestic demand is largely base load (aluminum smelting) with "other demand" winter peaking. OTOH, there are numerous summer only hydroelectric sites in Iceland (no one has done a proper survey since they are not needed) plus several GW of geothermal power. The untapped wind resource of Iceland is immense.
Landsvirkjun asked a decade ago and there was no interest in the UK for such a link. I have contacts in Iceland, any suggestions on the Scot/Brit end ?
In casual conversations with Arni Benediktsson, Head of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, I have mentioned links to the Faroe Islands, Scotland & Ireland with favorable response. A series of different size transmission lines could be built over time.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Great idea in theory. However in practice there is already a problem in utilising the available wind capacity in Scotland. There is already insufficent transmission north-south capacity which is inhibiting wind developments.
What would make sense is a HV cable running down the west coast of the UK / east coast of Ireland. Wind and tidal potential probably exceeds 70 GW down that line. The UK does not lack in renewable power potential and could in theory be a net exporter. It does lack a framework to allow for the rapid development of this potential. The Government talks but does not act, subsidies are poorly structured and targeted, red tape makes planning and permitting hugely time-consuming and significantly erodes returns for the financiers. Lastly, tidal will probably never happen because the UK seems to be incapable of delivering large scale construction and engineering projects anywhere close to projected timelines and budgets and private finance is not going to take that risk on a multi-billion project. The Channel Tunnel is the best example, and the 2015 (!) Olympics will be another.
Government needs to mandate and fund tidal development, but it won't.
That encapsulates pretty nicely the fundamental reasons the UK is in such a severe energy fix. Ideological mindset. The market knows best... Works fine in times of plenty. Hurts when times are tough, because the market forgot to plan for tough times...
True, the UK is geographically in a good position for renewables. Poor in hydro and solar, but rich in wind and wave.
Is Brown the man with a plan?
Iceland could play the hydro/Norway role with Scotland playing the wind/Danish role. In the future, power could flow north during high winds and Iceland conserves water and geosteam.
I see tidal as being a very small player in UK energy. It generates on a an almost 25 hour cycle which makes it hard to match up with load and the economics are site specific & questionable (at best).
Best Hopes,
Alan
I disagree on tidal. Around the UK there is potential for between 10 and 15 GW of installed capacity, which would generate (approximately ) twice per day on the ebb tide - there are two tides per day. Each generation cycle would last approximately 6 hours, so 12 hours per day.
Sites range from North West (Morecambe Bay, Mersey Estuary, North Wales coast (which would have to be a dike-based barrage), the Severn Estuary in the west, Guernsey/Jersey archipelago in the south, and the Thames Estuary in the south east. High tides strike at different times from west to east which would spread the generation over a slightly longer period than 6 hours.
Tide times are predictable for decades in advance and it would therefore be simple to pre-plan for load-matching. If the UK does not build new nuclear, it will need a significant baseload replacement, tidal can go part of the way to filling that gap. Icelanddic hydro could be scheduled to fill in the missing parts of the cycle under your plan.
Economics are questionable if one considers only barrage-style schemes with (maximum) 20 year private finance. However, if one considers public funding, 50 year life-span and the huge incremental value of flood risk mitigation for a number of cities (London, Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff) the economics begin to stack up. I can imagine insurancve companies would be very keen investors when viewed in that light.
What is the bill to-date for damage in NOLA from hurricane Katrina? Consider the bill for London being flooded and then compare that to the cost of installing all of the above schemes for a total cost in the region of £20 billion - to me that is entering "no-brainer" territory.
Anyhow, it's moot, because no politician in the UK has the balls or the vision to centrally-mandate such development.
Tidal may produce SOME power for 12 hours/24 hour 50 minute cycle (NOT day).
The Louisiana Hydroelectric Power Plant is the closest analogy to the proposed tidal basin projects. It harnesses 1/3rd of the of the Mississippi River as it is spillied into the Atchafalaya Basin. Heads vary from (memory) 2.5 m to .9 m and the eight 9+ m Kvaerner bulb turbines generate 192 MW at max head and 60 MW at minimum. The "shoulder" hours of those 12 hours will generate 1/3rd or so of peak. Geographic diversity will help some (with adequate transmission), but value will be in energy (turning off NG turbines on a predictable schedule) and not in capacity (in part due to the ~25 hour cycle). Coupled with large pumped storage projects and the economic value of these projects will increase significantly.
Beat Hopes,
Alan
Some more colour on transmissions issues in Scotland - http://www.hbp.org.uk/bn6.htm
Sorry about late posting. Did some back of the envelope calculations regarding Alan's scheme for HVDC link between Iceland and Britain.
The numbers quoted in your link point to fixed costs of around £200k/MW plus £500/(MW*km) for HVDC sea cables. Now, as far as I can determine, the distance between Iceland and Britain is about 800 km for shortest path Iceland-Scotland and 1200 km for Iceland-England. (Icelandair gives distance of 1500 km for Glasgow-Reykjavik so perhaps I should have tried harder to find good maps).
For a 1000MW link we have thus a cost-estimate of £600m for Iceland-Scotland, £800m for Iceland-England and £950m for a 1500 km cable.
If we assume obtainable interest rates of 7% and amortization period of 25 years, wikipedia's Amortization calculator yields annual payments of: £51.5m for Iceland-Scotland, £68.65m for Iceland-England and £81.6m for 1500 km cable.
Since I have no idea what the operating costs for such a cable might be, lets just assume they are negligible and move on to the income side of the equation...
For the NorNed cable project (700MW HVDC link between Norway and the Netherlands) the technical uptime is expected to be 97.4%, with planned downtime expected to be 0.9%. For the same cable, transmission loss is 4%.
For this project lets assume a loss of 5%. This means that maximum transmission capacity is reduced from 1000MW to 950MW. A capacity factor of 90% for the cable, means annually transmitted energy is about 7.5TWh. A capacity factor of 50% means 4.16TWh/a. You also have to pay for the power you lose, which means added costs (assuming avg. purchase power price: £21/MWh) of £8.28m for 90% capacity factor and £4.6m for 50% capacity factor.
We have thus:
*For 90% capacity factor:
Iceland-Scotland: Power transmitted; 7.5TWh/a, Costs: £59.78m/a, Unit cost: £7.97/MWh.
Iceland-England: Power transmitted; 7.5TWh/a, Costs: £76.93m/a, Unit cost: £10.26/MWh.
1500 km cable: Power transmitted; 7.5TWh/a, Costs: £89.88m/a, Unit cost: £12.0/MWh.
*For 50% capacity factor:
Iceland-Scotland: Power transmitted; 4.16TWh/a, Costs: £56.1m/a, Unit cost: £13.49/MWh.
Iceland-England: Power transmitted; 4.16TWh/a, Costs: £73,25m/a, Unit cost: £17.61/MWh.
1500 km cable: Power transmitted; 4.16TWh/a, Costs: £86.2m/a, Unit cost: £20.72/MWh.
Conclusion:
The transmission costs for power between Iceland and Britain lie between: £8-12/MWh for a high (90%) utilization link, £13.5-21/MWh for a link that has only 50% utilization.
So the transmission costs alone are some 50-100% of the current price of electricity. Either Icelandic electricity generation costs would have to be 0-50% the cost of UK indigenous or the price of indigenous electricity would have to rise to make it viable. I suspect the price will rise in the UK and I also suspect the cost of generation in Iceland is considerably cheaper than the UK. I wonder how far from financial viability we are and how the economics compares to something like the Severn tidal barrage/lagoons?
In the average summer, Landsvirkjun spills (lets water through the dam without bothering to generate power) 150 MW. Generating cost for this lost power is very close to zero. The industrial price of electricity is linked to the price of aluminum (this is guaranteed 24/7 power 365 days/year), but 2 pence/kWh is a reasonable price equilavent. Summer only power would be cheaper.
Karahnjukar was originally looked at for 2 GW of peak power to Scotland, but no interest in the UK. It is being built for a steady 550-570 MW to run an Alcoa smelter instead .
I can recheck distance from East Iceland to Scottish coast (on land transmission is much cheaper if one can get the clearances). I have floated the idea of several links of different sizes, supplying the Faoroe Islands and continuing onward to Ireland from Scotland, not to England. (Use existing weak HV AC links to northern England).
In the future there can be a link between Scottish & Irish windpower on one end and Icelandic hydro, geothermal and windpower on the other.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Alan, thanks for your response. What I feel about all of this is that a HVDC link that is used to balance wind with hydropower would not be economic. The reason is that the capacity factor for the cable would just be to low.
I think my calculation above shows that high capacity factor is essential to achieving good economy in the project.
IMO the only way to achieve high capacity factor is to use the cable to exchange baseload. If you think about using the cable for windbalancing, then you realize that quite often the wind will be blowing moderately. If the wind is blowing moderately, the cable will be "idling", ready to deliver hydropower should wind decrease or receive windpower if the wind should increase.
If you're exchanging baseload on the other hand, you only have to change direction two times a day (or not at all). (For the NorNed cable there is a ramping limit of 30MW/minute, don't know if this applies to all such cables).
The problem with baseload is that Britain probably has little to spare, and with their cheap hydroelectric power, it remains uncertain if Iceland is interested in coal power. In such a situation, the power would flow southwards only, and the Icelanders would have to ask themselves whether they want to export the power itself or try to add value to it by refining it to aluminum. (As far as I can determine, the investment cost for a 1000MW aluminum plant is 2-3 times the cheapest cost estimate of my cable. So it's not necessarily a better idea)
You also mention the possibility of laying the link via the Faroe Islands. These islands rely heavily on oil and diesel for power generation, but they don't use that much power. I tried out my understanding of the Faroese language at the website of their power company and derived these figures:
Energy:
thermic (oil/diesel): 147,029 MWh/a
hydro: 94,387 MWh/a
wind: 7,509 MWh/a
total: 248,926 MWh/a
capacity:
thermic (oil/diesel): 68.5584 MW
hydro: 31.6 MW
wind: 2.13 MW
total: 98.92 MW
In other words less than 100 MW is required...
Best hopes for sustainable project economics,
Mriswith in Trondheim, Norway