ENERGY MATTERS

[Tizer]

It's 4 out of EDF's 8 UK plants. The BBC reports: "Heysham 1 and Hartlepool will have their life extended by five years until 2024, while Heysham 2 and Torness will see their closure dates pushed back by seven years to 2030."
It's not surprising this is happening because it looks increasingly likely that Hinckley C won't go ahead: "Meanwhile, EDF said its 2015 profits fell 68% to €1.18bn mainly due to writedowns on coal-fired plants...The value of plants in the UK, Italy, Poland and Belgium fell, and the company also took charges on its Edison oil and gas exploration business....Its shares have fallen almost 25% since the start of the year." "An EDF board meeting to approve the plan [Hinckley C] earlier this year is thought to have been postponed. Reports suggested the company was struggling to find the cash for its 66.5% stake."

"..Paul Dorfman of the UCL Energy Institute, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Unfortunately, with the best will in the world, it may just not happen. Chris Bakken, the man charged by EDF to construct Hinkley Point, has quit to spend more time with his family, EDF shares have crashed to half their value a year ago; the budget for Hinkley alone is bigger than EDF's entire market value. "Areva - EDF's construction arm - has been bankrupted by the huge costs and time overruns for the same brand of reactor they want to build at Hinkley, so it seems there's a good chance that it simply may not happen." LINK

[Tripps]

Perhaps just as well (ouch) that they have stumbled across 100 billion barrels of oil near Gatwick.


Gatwick Gusher

[Stanley]

I don't think so China. They have transferred it to my 'current live BG account' which is why I think they are rectifying a previous mistake. If you remember they sent me the bill for a property in London..... That was sorted out but I suspect in the process they have cocked up somewhere.
I'm not surprised by your post Tiz. Old Sparky in PE has been warning for a while that this was on the cards. And then there is the fragility of the China subsidy..... They aren't exactly in robust economic health. The big question is what is the permanent solution? Have they just kicked the can down the road for at least another five years? Surely the solution is for the government to take advantage of the low borrowing rates and finance a building programme using resources already present in the UK? If we can build nuclear subs, why not nuclear power stations?
Of course the answer lies in politics.... There is no way the government is going to be brave enough to take action, they will just sit there in their committees going through their Orwellian process of aspirational panels of inquiry and in the end, do nothing. They will react only when the lights go out in the House of Commons.... This cancer of inaction has been going on for over 20 years, not a good way to run a railway, let alone a 'modern economy'. It's enough to make you weep....
Of course they would say that what I propose is impossible.... Remember how we suddenly found ways to finance WW2? This is the same scale of problem.

[Tizer]

'Limited role' for natural gas in UK future energy mix BBC web site

"The use of natural gas for electricity generation in the UK may have to decline significantly over the next 30 years, according to a new study. Without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, gas-fired electricity would have to fall to 10% of the mix to meet emissions targets for 2050. The new study also warns that current government policies will deter investment in gas. The report has been published by the UK Energy Research Centre."....

[Stanley]

Worth reading Old Sparky in PE. He says that several coal fired power stations are being taken off line prematurely because of the collapse in wholesale electricity prices. It's cheaper to pay the penalty for breaking the 'guaranteed supply' clause in their contracts to supply than stand the loss due to the fall in price. With the nuclear plants stalled gas is going to be the only quick and easy fix for the lack of capacity in the system and even that is going badly, only one new build is in progress and that is running outside the budget. Buy candles!

[Pluggy]

The governments energy policy seems to be one of ignore it and it'll go away. I reckon that at the minute, if we had a 'bad day' for demand (usually when its cold) and the grid lost a couple of big stations, they'd struggle to keep everybody's lights on. They can't keep on shutting power stations down without replacing the lost capacity. Green energy can't be an answer without affordable electric storage, and that is some way off.

[Stanley]

Exactly right Pluggy. It beggars belief how negligent all governments have been in safeguarding energy supplies ever since the privatisation of the industry under the Blessed Margaret. All part of the modern attitude of retreating from governmental responsibility and relying on the mythical ability of 'The Market' to solve problems of supply and demand. The bottom line is that if the return on investment isn't high enough to pay fat dividends to shareholders all social responsibility goes out of the window. I can't help going back to Nye Bevan's argument that we should retain control of the 'Commanding Heights of the economy'. But that makes me an Old Lefty and so my opinion is flawed. Tell that to the electors when the lights go out and the CH system doesn't work..... The Market won't pop round and boil a kettle for you.... That's why I have a stove in the front room....

[Tizer]

Green energy can't be an answer without affordable electric storage, and that is some way off.

I keep harping on to people about the need for better ways of storing energy as being critical. And carbon capture gets wheeled out too much as an answer to energy problems, due to another type of storage problem - where and how to safely store millions of tons of CO2. But I'm beginning to get a bit concerned about the battery route for storing electricity. Even the small lithium batteries have given trouble with exploding into flames. If we make batteries of much greater capacity are we heading into yet another danger?

[Stanley]

The best way to store surplus energy in my book is pumped storage. Dead simple, non polluting and remarkably efficient. Instantly accessible if needed. The current opinion seems to be that storing carbon is a dead end technology, there is no enthusiasm for it. The concept of biomass substitution is also deeply flawed, it looks as though if all the factors are put in the equation it's actually more polluting than coal.
The bottom line is that tidal power from damming estuaries is the best current technology followed by nuclear with the Holy Grail of Fusion. Trouble is that tidal is too contentious and nuclear looks like a bum steer at the moment. Fusion is too far in the future. Could improved transmission technology make solar power from the deserts a feasible option?
One helpful route that never seems to get a look in is the utilisation of small water power installations using the same energy that drove early industry. If subsidised like solar was, could the aggregate amount produced privately be worth pursuing? Apart from the production of the materials needed, totally non-polluting and more reliable than wind power?

[PanBiker]

One major problem with solar power on a large scale is that a number of the best deserts are war zones. Establishing and then securing the massive areas that would have to be used would be a security nightmare.

[Tizer]

The scientist Jim Al-Khalili (OBE, Professor of Theoretical Physics and Chair in the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey) made a good point at the end of that TV programme about Sellafield that he hoped we would make progress on making nuclear waste harmless by bombarding it with neutrons to convert it to non-radioactive elements. In a Guardian article in 2007 he wrote:

"And, what if there was a way to incinerate the nuclear waste, destroying nearly all that plutonium and dramatically reducing the need for long-term storage? One such strategy is known as accelerator-driven transmutation. The basic idea is to place the radioactive material in a machine and smash it up into much more stable products, with shorter half-lives using a beam of high-energy subatomic particles. The waste would still need to be stored, but would be much less hazardous. At the same time, the process of transmutation would eliminate other biologically toxic products that exist in "normal" nuclear waste.

"The real beauty of the process is that it could generate more energy than is pumped in. The heat generated by splitting the waste nuclei can be used to generate electricity, part of which is used to run the accelerator and the rest fed into the national grid. The failsafe mechanism is that when the beam is turned off, the reaction stops. This type of plant is known as an "energy amplifier" and the idea has been around since the 1990s."
Full article in The Guardian

[Stanley]

Why have I never heard of that before? Sounds like an ideal solution.

[Tizer]

It all depends on how the news media react to a story...or whether they even see it and understand the implications...
Have a look at this web page from 2012: Guinevere

[PanBiker]

Good, they can then keep all their own nuclear waste and reprocess it themselves instead of sending it all to us. We can then see if it works the other way. We could dig up all the stuff buried at Sellafield and send it back.

I have always had a downer on Nuclear energy as there has never been a proper way of dealing with the waste.

[Stanley]

Thanks for the link to Guinevere Tiz.... Can't understand why the media aren't dancing all over it.....

[Tizer]

Here's something closer to home... Energy storage

"Scottish Power is planning to double the size of its hydro-electric power plant which creates and stores energy. It says the UK will need much more energy storage capacity as renewables increase on the National Grid. It says it can add 400 megawatts (MW) of on-demand electricity by building a new dam in front of the existing dam...."

[Stanley]

A sensible project..... I hope they do it. Now, how about estuary tidal power? Is it time to forget the bird sanctuaries? Hard choices in a climate when it is now confidently predicted that next winter we shall fall below minimum generating capacity. (LINK)

[Tizer]

I don't understand why they don't get on with a Severn Estuary tidal project. The objections were against the specific design proposed, while there were other designs that would have less impact on wildlife. But the consultancies don't care, they got paid for coming up with a design whatever the outcome. And there's wave power too. That's in progress but government cutbacks have slowed it. Just think of all the benefits if the government decided to get on and build its own renewable energy projects...

Meanwhile, down at Hinckley Point all is not well. The French Energy Union (CFE-CGC) has now said that starting on construction of Hinckley C should be delayed until 2019 until EDF can solve the problems with a similar reactor in France: "Francis Raillott, of CFE-CGC, which has two seats on the EDF board, said investment should not be made until problems surrounding a project in Flamanville, France - which is years behind schedule and millions of Euros over budget - have been solved. "Right now, Hinkley is too risky for the company," he said. "We think it is better to wait and see. Wait for three years so we can see that everything works... or not." Hinckley C

"Locally, many millions of pounds have been spent on new roads, new training centres, new offices. Companies in and around Somerset have been gearing up for the development, which has promised 25,000 new jobs in the construction phase alone. There are many who say that too much has been invested for Hinkley not to happen now. But in France, it seems there are influential voices now trying to derail the new nuclear train."

[Stanley]

You are right Tiz and could add that even the dash for gas is stalled because of cost overruns and technical problems at the one ongoing project.
The bottom line is the lack of political direction. 'Keeping control of the commanding heights of the economy' has been completely ignored in every area where good governance demands taking responsibility and giving clear policy direction. This is completely lacking and is possibly the biggest political failure of the last 200 years.
I am convinced that power shortages are inevitable as the energy market has failed completely and there is no policy safety net. Our leaders couldn't run a booze up in a brewery. Command economies can be flawed but nowhere near as bad as the present model!

[Big Kev]

The NPower app I have on my phone now has enough data to provide accurate comparisons of energy usage against last year. I'm pleased to see that I've used 5% less gas and 4% less electricity compared to January and February last year. I'm confident it's down to the extra insulation and underfloor heating for the gas saving and led/low energy bulbs for the electricity savings.

[Tizer]

Extra insulation not only saves money and cuts CO2 emissions but it increases the comfort of your home by removing cold surfaces and the layer of cold air that lies against them.

[Pluggy]

Two years ago my father entered into a 3 year fixed price energy contract, back then energy prices were going up all the time and the prices of Gas and Electric fixed for 3 years was attractive. Fast forward to now and he is being stiffed by the prices he signed up for. I went for short term deals and changed tariff a couple of times with the same company, My gas is now 1.99p / kwh, dad is paying 3.67p. Nobody was quite expecting the nose dive in energy prices......

[Tizer]

We filled our heating oil tank at about 23p a litre a few weeks ago. It's not long since we were paying over 70p. When we came here 20 years ago it was 17p. (Those are prices excluding tax and we buy through a local syndicate which gets a cheaper deal from the oil companies.)

Here's a good way of having `solar farms'... LINK
`Europe's largest floating solar farm to open near Heathrow'
"The biggest floating solar farm in Europe is being constructed on a reservoir near Heathrow. More than 23,000 solar photovoltaic panels are being laid on the surface of the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir near Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. The farm, which will be the size of eight football pitches, is expected to generate 5.8 million kilowatt hours of electricity in a year. The energy will be used to part power a nearby water treatment works. Thames Water said construction of the solar farm, which is within five miles (8 km) of Heathrow, will be completed by the end of March. The floating pontoon will be 57,500 sq m in size."

But note the information at the end of the article that Manchester beat them to it!

[plaques]

I wonder if the whole installation will rotate to maximise the daytime angle of the sun?

[David Whipp]

More interesting news today: Smart Energy

"The UK could save up to £8bn a year by using electricity better, the government's infrastructure advisers say.
The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) envisages a smart energy revolution with more cables linking the National Grid to mainland Europe.
NIC also says the UK needs to store much more energy from intermittent renewable like wind and solar.
Fridges, freezers and washing machines could play a part, they say.
Experts believe it is the first step to a full-scale "Internet of Energy", with web-enabled home appliances like freezers and washing machines linked to the grid.
Here's how it would work: At a time of peak demand, an energy firm's computer will contact your smart freezer to ask if power can be switched off for a few minutes to allow your neighbour to use some of the energy to cook dinner."