ENERGY MATTERS

[Stanley]

Echoes of wood pellets in Ireland..... Knee-jerk reactions and ill thought out policies plus the dreaded Law of Unintended Consequences, a poisonous combination. Remember the Dangerous Dogs Act?

[Pluggy]

To be fair, they cancelled carbon capture when it became apparent it was a very costly solution to reducing our carbon footprint. Renewables, gas and nuke where considered a more cost effective solution. If you think about it, digging carbon out of the ground, burning it, capturing the carbon again and then processing it so it could be put back in the ground is pretty much a road to nowhere. 100 million would pay the countries state pensions for about 8 hours to put it in perspective. I'm not saying it couldn't have been handled better.

I would defend burning wood chips as well, but that's for another day.

Phase 1 of my DIY solar power electric storage system is coming along. I've got a permanent load of about 15 watts running on batteries (the monitoring system, internet router and business line box which use 5V DC & 12V DC), which is kept charged when available from solar - it uses mains when it isn't. As this time of year there isn't much solar to speak of, so much of it is turned off/ or not implemented yet. I'll add more storage and load when there is enough 'free' power to justify it later in the year. Interstingly, running the low voltage stuff from batteries is more efficient than running it from mains which helps offset the losses in charging and discharging batteries. The 15 watts now was over 20 watts when it was running on mains.

[Whyperion]

So there is 5w loss stepping down and rectifying 240v AC to 12v DC (presumably dissipated as heat in the wall warts and so on ?).

I suppose if one is challenged for safe space to store batteries, and the cost of buying them, it is not efficient for every one, but many appliances effectively step down and rectify - the TV I guess is one, laptops and so on.

[Whyperion]

air pollution, especially in London
We have low emission zones coming in for Road Traffic areas, I'm not sure how effective are the vehicles that are being allowed in. Lack of air movement and cold mornings are bringing back a form of smog, in part blamed on log burners.
I think the Road Fund car licence costs are being re-jigged to a general flat rate of £140 per annum , which does affect my potential choice of car, when the 1600cc engine went up to £220 I got rid of it, pity as it was fairly efficient on the long mileage runs when I had to do them, I dont drive that much other than the company car on some personal business, which is a modern , gutless, 3cyl 1000cc thing. But back to diesels in London, some local authorities are planning charging more for CPZ parking permits base on CO2 etc, which seems slightly strange, if a car is parked up, its not polluting.

[Stanley]

I lit the stove last night. Nice and warm in front room but the problem is this means that with the CH off the shed is not getting any heat! I shall let it go out!

[Stanley]

I can't find it on the web but breaking news that the government is trying to 'cure' the danger of power cuts by holding another auction for stations to bid for extra payments to keep their availability high. So, don't worry about ageing generators, just throw customer's money at them to keep open and do daft things like subsidise Drax to burn biomass which is more polluting than coal.....

[Tizer]

Stanley probably heard this on the BBC news...
`UK 'need not fear electricity blackouts' says ex-National Grid boss' LINK
"The UK has enough energy capacity to meet demand - even on the coldest days when demand is highest, says Steve Holliday, the man who ran National Grid for a decade. He said news stories raising fears about blackouts should stop. His optimism is based on the government's latest auction of capacity for power generation, which starts later today. Firms will bid for subsidies to provide back-up power when needed. The stand-by plants will run for a few days a year during extreme conditions. Much of the back-up will be provided by old gas and coal plants that would otherwise be scrapped. Funded by the bill-payer, they will offer a sort of power insurance policy. Mr Holliday told BBC News: "It's time for the headline of Blackout Britain to end - it's simply wrong. We've been talking about blackouts for 15 years every time it gets cold, but it's a scare story. "The lights haven't gone out yet and thanks to the measures the government is putting in place this week they definitely won't go out in future. The UK has one of the most stable supplies of electricity in Europe."

[Stanley]

That was it Tiz. But he completely disregarded the fact that may of the installations for emergency power supply are either outdated and dirty but in many cases are private diesel powered generators which are, by general agreement the dirtiest of all and inefficient. He can argue as much as he likes but we can't get away from the fact that we are desperately short of modern, clean and efficient generating capacity with a reasonable safety factor in terms of ability to accommodate occasional surges. This statement is an attempt to cover up the complete disaster in planning terms which is the main characteristic of government policy over at least the last thirty years. Fine words butter no parsnips!

[Stanley]

One of the concomitant powers the government has under Brexit as it stands is the option to leave Euratom. The objection is that it is supervised by the EU Court of Justice but scientists point out that much of our standards of design and inspection depend on Euratom and to replace all those would take much more than two years.....

[Pluggy]

do daft things like subsidise Drax to burn biomass which is more polluting than coal.....

It would depend on who you believe on whether burning wood pellets is worse than burning coal. It depends pretty much on where the wood came from. The doubters (and those who sell newspapers like the Daily Mail) will use the worst case scenario figure which is where they tear down natural forest without replenishing it and chipping the entire tree to make wood pellets. In that case it is worse than burning coal (about 5 times worse). At the other end of the scale where the wood comes from plantations, and they chip the waste that can't be made into useful products like houses and furniture (thus remaining unburnt) and in that case its much better than coal (about 10 times). In an ideal world, burning wood pellets is purely renewable and carbon neutral. The carbon released from burning the wood is absorbed by photosynthesis that goes into producing more wood.

If you want a little light reading on the matter from a reasonably neutral source : https://www.carbonbrief.org/is-burning- ... -than-coal

Or some really light reading (not) here : https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... 290814.pdf

So its much worse if you believe the Daily Mail, or much better if you believe Drax. Personally I'd take anything the Mail says about energy with a truck full of salt. I've read some of their articles on these matters. Its biased on the whole and just plain wrong in many cases (I remember one article sayiing that buying solar panels wasn't cost effective, a waste of money, you can ask myself and Wendy about that, I put it in the top 5 Financial decisions I ever made. Its unbeatable from an investment point of view, getting in when I got in, not so lucrative now ). Drax of course are going to paint a overly rosy picture so they can't really be trusted either.

Looking at it objectively, the worst case scenario is extremely unlikely, no sawmill is going to cut up whole trees to make wood pellets which is low value crap for want of a better word when they could cut up trees to make high value planks and baulks that will fetch good money. And then make wood pellets out of whats left.

I doubt all of Drax's wood would come from where they claim either, alt least some of it will be less than pristine in its history.

So worst case is 5 times worse than coal and best case is 10 times better than coal. Purely taking the middle ground, It comes out better than coal. Not as good as gas, but better than coal.

Looking at it with my eyes and with the price that good quality sawn timber fetches these days. I'd put the figure better than the middle ground but not at Drax's level. So I'm going to say its only half as good as Drax claims which puts it at 5 times better than coal for CO2 output.

The worst case scenario would fit well with that American bloke who sits on the the throne of said land whom I would choose to call 'Fart'.

I did say I'd defend burning wood pellets in an earlier post

[Pluggy]

Having read the BEAC Report in the links above, I'm wondering if the final conclusion from that report :

The energy input requirement of biomass electricity generated from North American wood used by the UK in 2020 is likely to be in the range 0.13 to 0.96 MWh energy carrier input per MWh delivered energy, significantly greater than other electricity generating technologies, such as coal, natural gas, nuclear and wind . The Energy Input Requirement is smallest when (i) the transport distances are minimised, (ii) the moisture content of the biomass is reduced by passive drying and drying using local biomass resources as fuel, and (iii) the energetic efficiency of the technology is maximised.

(emphasis mine)

Has been misconstrued by those of limited intelligence to say that burning Biomass is worse than coal which is the worst for CO2 production.

The report draws no conclusions on that front. The above snippet is talking about the EIR (Energy Input Requirement - the energy required to process and transport the fuel).

Unsurprisingly, the energy required to process waste wood into biomass pellets and ship them across the Atlantic is greater than shipping coal from Russia.

[Stanley]

It's complicated isn't it..... But leaving all the argument on one side you are left with one glaring fact, that you have to occasionally renew large items of plant as they reach their sell-by date and this isn't being done. Therefore the optimistic statement about the health and capacity of our generation plant is flim flam.

[Tizer]

Thanks for that analysis of the biochip versus coal debate Pluggy. It's good to hear what someone like you thinks rather than the those with vested interests.

[Pluggy]

On the upside, whilst electricity plants are closing, the country as a whole is using less electricity. More efficient lighting has a lot to do with this. My kitchen light (5ft flourescent) uses about 80 watts, 30 years ago when I bought it, it was the most efficient lighting in the house. Now much of the rest of the house has got LED bulbs, the old kitchen light is looking like a hungry dinosaur. I'm not the only one who is fitting more efficient stuff. And it shows. The highest ever grid usage days are behind us, (they peaked in the 80's). I'm optimistic (which is a change for me) about the future of the grid. Of course the water is muddied somewhat by all of the solar power and a fair proportion of wind that isn't metered centrally, so the lack of load is all they have to go on so that makes their job more difficult. That has a upside as well, becuase many of them are fairly small in output, losing one is neither here or there. They'd notice Drax going off line.

[Stanley]

I like your analysis Pluggy and agree with it. But the problem of ageing plant still remains and is going to have to be addressed, if only in the short term. You can't apply LED technology to the electrodes in an electric steel furnace!

[Big Kev]

NPower are raising prices, 15% on electric and 5% on gas for it's standard tariff customers. BBC News Report

[Pluggy]

They're all putting prices up. I haven't bitten the bullet and renewed my contract which is due. Its going to be fair jump whoever I go. I'm paying less than 2p per kWh for gas at the moment I don't see it being less than 3p when I renew/change. I'm with EDF . Yep evil French company of death and Hinckley Point.....

[Stanley]

I think BG promised to hold prices at the present level but forget for how long. It all goes to bear out my contention that switching suppliers looks good but in the end they are all buying the same energy..... I'll stick to being a dinosaur and paying the bills every month......

[Pluggy]

I renewed with the evil Hinkley Point French firm of death. Big price hike, but It wasn't quite 3p a unit for gas (or it was with VAT). They put a nice positive spin on it sayiong I've saved XXX, in comparison with doing nothing and defaulting to the standard rates perhaps, certainly not in comparison with what I'm paying now. . Its all a big Con. There's more differnce between different tariffs with the same suppllier than there is between different suppliers.

[Stanley]

I think you could be right Pluggy. They all work on the principle that the more confused the customer is, the more likely they are to be a profit centre.....

[Tizer]

I hear that Npower is trying to fight the backlash against its price rises by saying that it's offering 4-year fixes at low rates. To anyone considering that deal just remember this - last time Npower did a one-year fixed rate it stopped after 10 months. The company had defined `one- year' as 10 months in its terms & conditions. It was doing `alternative facts' even before the Trump era began!

[Stanley]

Can you wonder at the fact that I find I have a quieter life being a dinosaur and sticking to BG?

[Tizer]

This is going to upset the apple cart...a report from Transport for London which has been covered in The Times, Sunday Times and Daily Mail this weekend. The first two are not available online except with a subscription so here is the Daily Mail link:
`UK could need 20 more nuclear power stations if electric cars take over our roads and cause ‘massive strain’ on power network' LINK

The Times mentions that we might have to go for hydrogen and LPG fuelled cars but this isn't going to help much with lowering emissions. Making hydrogen is very energy intensive. LPG is fossil fuel.

[Pluggy]

Wikipedia stopped accepting the Daily Mail as a viable contributor of content a while back. I did before they did. Biased, poorly researched, sensationalist, very often outright wrong.

Almost everyone who has an electric car switches to 'Economy 7' dual rate metering and charges their car overnight (they use a fair amount of juice and it makes sense to do it when its cheap). You don't tend to drive when electric is cheap, so charging them overnight makes a lot of sense.. The daily "bathtub" shaped grid load curve will need a lot of electric cars to be charged before it levels out.

A little bit of easily obtained information, and a bit of work with a calculator will give a far more likely and balanced view.

Theres close to a 20 GW difference between the nations electric use during the day and during the night at this time of year. . The "dip" lasts around 7 hours (they don't call it economy 7 for nothing) so 20 GW * 7 hours = 140 GWh of electric extra per day that can be used before we need to think about building more power stations.

The average mileage of a UK car is 7900 miles or an average of 21 miles a day. The average electric car does around 3.5 miles on a kWh so it needs around 6kWh per day to keep it charged. So the 140 GWh of unused capacity will stand 20+ million cars to be kept charged.

Of course that information doesn't sell newspapers.

Big headline "20 million electric cars won't require any more power stations" - Yeah, right.

The world has pretty much abandoned hydrogen as a viable fuel source. Nowadays the vast majority of hydrogen is produced from methane (aka natural gas) and unsurprisingly the major by product of the process is CO2. Using Electric to split water is very inefficient. The only car company that had any commitment in making hydrogen cars was Toyota, and they have announced they will be making full electric cars as well. Pretty much every manufacturer of cars now offers at least one fully electric model. Volkswagon now make most of their models with a fully electric variant (the cynics say they're trying to bury "dieselgate" which probably isn't far from the truth). You can refuel an electric car without leaving home, when did you last see a fuel station that sold hydrogen ?

[Pluggy]

For the future, its more than possible to to use the large batteries in electric cars as storage for electricity, so cars that are left plugged in during the day could have the juice 'pulled out' of them during peak times so they'f actually need less power stations. With the forthcoming 'smart grid' its very doable and its been well studied. There's a market for batteries from written off electric cars to store electric for private storage systems now.

It can be done now that a private individual could use their car's juice during the day and recharge it overnight when its cheap. Many of the cars around here are parked without moving for days on end anyway. Might as well put them to some use.......

That won't sell many newspapers either.