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73 comments on Andris Piebalgs on European Energy Security
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My new year's resolution for 2009 is to quit the oil drum!
This mindset is the root of all our problems. We may want it to keep growing, whether it can or not is another matter.
I'm not sure in legal terms how to interpret the words "mandatory target". Do they mean the target is mandatory? or do they mean achieving the target is mandatory? If the latter, we may see some politicians going to jail. My optimism knows no bounds!
The UK needs about 10GW of renewables to get 20%. This is one hell of construction undertaking, given wind's capacity factor and that wave is not yet proven. The Severn barage could supply most of this in a single project, but that's some project as well. Do people appreciate the scale of the problem facing us?
NO!
Not even the people who read TOD ... I find it amazing that people can see that oil production will peak but propose alternatives completely blind to the fact that they could also peak.
Peaking is a phenomenon of consumption of any resource faster than it can be profitably created - if the peaking resource in question happens to be a Liebig minimum for 'something else' then the 'something else' will also peak.
Example resources might be credit, steel, copper, gold, fish, agriculture, tropical jungle, etc. etc. etc.
Example 'something else' - humans.
I've found some one who agrees with me at last!
Lithium and Nickel as well, when we try to build 100's of millions cars with batteries using these metals.
The Severn Tidal Power Group proposal, which appears the most developed and costed, suggests 17 TWh per year from 8.64 GW installed capacity.
UK electricity consumption is 350 TWh per year, so the barrage scheme would supply less than 5%
And electricity is less than 20% of total delivered energy in the UK
I just made some rough approximations to illustrate the difficulty. A project of this scale to deliver 10% is bad enough. I did not take into account that tide is cyclic and therefore the installation would have an RMS of somewhat less than installed capacity. Forgive me for that if you will. The figure of 5% you quote makes things that much worse.
The second point you make is another thing that worries me. To generate 20% of our electricty from renewables by 2020 is to generate 5% of our total energy requirements by 2020. Oh dear!
If this were to displace coal fired plant, then you need to consider the 63% of primary energy wasted as heat. In other words 17 TWh may displace a significantly larger amount of primary energy. The tidal power is free and available every day - for so long as Earth, Moon and Sun continues to spin in space.
The cost lies in loss of amenity and inconvenienced ducks - no solution will suit everyone.
I won't dispute what you say here, the same applies to wind. Cost is a man made concept, but unfortunately money is the only universal "binder" of society.
I mentioned the Diana saga below, but this time I will use it in a more serious note. I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to how much money, both public and private has gone into this. At the end of all we will have no more than we did at the start. If the same amount of effort was put into doing something constructive there would be no problem. The fact is society is by and large none productive. The bed rock of our electrical infrastructure was built 50 years ago. To get a motivated labour force to repeat what was achieved then, especially with the "you can't make me do that its not safe" culture, is going to be a toughie.
Yes, I wasn't meaning that as a comment on the desirability of doing it or not - although I doubt it will ever be constructed (cost 8.3 billion pounds at 1988 prices). If we were serious about a transition to renewables in the UK then more consideration would be given to it than a few ministerial comments and reports left gathering dust.
According to this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Renewable-Energy-Godfrey-Boyle/dp/0199261784 total UK potential is about 53 TWh, nearly all from the 8 largest potential sites in the UK.
Tidal power may be reliable and predictable but it is also variable between spring and neap tides, and peak generation times advance 50 minutes a day, so integration might still be a problem
Also, 350 TWh is consumption, actual generation is more like 380 TWh per year
for starters we can allow shell oil to start using the technology they have developed to mine crude from oil shale in the american west. we can gassify coal and drill off both coasts and in anwar. we can use one type of gasoline in the us. , as opposed to the multi region blends foisted upon the american public by the greenies.