This enviroment saving the

[IT Minion]

You clearly do not understand the grid.
Nor have you provided any evidence to back up anything you have said.

Nor have you to back up your argument.

For example your solar CSP comment about it only being good for 18 hours. Of course it's only good for 18 hours. That's how it is designed to work. CSP isn't supposed to be saving power for days at a time, it's designed to supply energy at a more flexible time before recharging the next day.

 

[IT Minion]

For periods of low wind you either need services that you can shut off (as we already have for industrial users), power that you can ramp up (as we currently have with gas), storage of some form (as we already have with pumped hydro) or interconnectors to an area that does have wind or other dispachable power.

Nuclear doesn't do any of that. All it does is provide a base of power that can't go up or down. It can exist alongside other low carbon power sources but it doesn't compliment or assist them.

 

[Notch7]

The moral high ground will be a good place to be though, as the sea level rises.

very good -I saw what you did there
but just high ground really.

moral high ground not a great flood barrier

 

[wobs]

Nor have you to back up your argument.

For example your solar CSP comment about it only being good for 18 hours. Of course it's only good for 18 hours. That's how it is designed to work. CSP isn't supposed to be saving power for days at a time, it's designed to supply energy at a more flexible time before recharging the next day.

Again you misunderstand.

The solar CSP uses a molten salt reactor for storage. It works in places like the Sahara, and molten salt to provide 18 hrs back up. It kind of makes sense in such areas where the weather is a bit more reliable. But even there, you get the odd day where its not enough owing to the weather.

The issue is that storage costs money (just like all infrastructure), so there is an economic limit before its not worth installing more. In the case of molten salt, its 18hrs. So it is with other storage techniques. You have various techniques available, but all suffer from the same issue.

BTW, I have provided evidence. The issue with your posts is also that you base them on feelings eg. "I'm not sure they have enough limitations..." and

I'm not sure that holds up anymore. Decade old wind farms had a capacity factor typically around 30%. Current stuff gets over 40% and the expected offshore farms being designed and build expect close to 50%. By Building bigger you get into the more reliable higher level winds.

There is a potential need for something that scales up to provide power when renewables lag, and when storage systems like batteries, pumped hydro and compressed gas can't fill the gap. Nukes aren't it though.

But I guess we'll see.

Lacks substance. Its just what you "feel" or want to true.

 

[wobs]

For periods of low wind you either need services that you can shut off (as we already have for industrial users), power that you can ramp up (as we currently have with gas), storage of some form (as we already have with pumped hydro) or interconnectors to an area that does have wind or other dispachable power.

Nuclear doesn't do any of that. All it does is provide a base of power that can't go up or down. It can exist alongside other low carbon power sources but it doesn't compliment or assist them.

In the future, in the UK, we will have more not less demand for constant supply. High energy users such a electro-arc furnace may fit such a use that you describe, but they are less common in the UK these days. The future is electric transport: so cars getting charged on an evening, more trains getting electrified, commercial vehicles running on electric.

Last I read, the estimated demand for vehicle recharging would be about 5GW on the grid.

Wind cannot cover this, as the highest demand (as I said), is usually in the depths of winter. A deep freeze event lasting weeks would render the UK without power, or being overly dependent on Europe for imports of electricity. You cannot import wind energy from other areas of the UK if the whole of the UK is without much wind which is not unusual in a deep freeze situation.

People will still need to heat homes, to charge vehicles, to use computers, and more essential needs.

We need nuclear power, because wind/solar cannot provide baseload power, and we will always need baseload power, because the real world demands constant supply, even without electric cars. With a future of decarbonising, that will increase.

Thinking that wind will do it doesn't make it so.

Edit: I should add that we should not need to go down the route of "For periods of low wind you either need services that you can shut off", when we don't need to. Aside from the economic hit (huge), it would would be morally wrong when we have alternatives. Also would be political suicide, and rightly so.

The baseload supply issue is not going away.

 

[IT Minion]

Wind power is strongest over the winter months. A deep freeze is a red herring, a long period of no wind is more of a concern.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAAegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw3a7YLycp3dNWqVjidkd8G9

CSP doesn't try to do overnight storage. PV is cheaper and better at doing instant power, CSP's advantage is the ability to do dispachable power and meet the evening peaks. It's irrelevant to long term storage, that's accepted.

You still ignore that nuclear doesn't mesh well with renewables. The current level of nuclear power means that wind energy is routinely shed because nuclear power can't ramp down. That isn't going away.

But this discussion is getting deeply uninteresting, I'm happy to leave it here.

 

[Brigadier]

Wind power is strongest over the winter months. A deep freeze is a red herring, a long period of no wind is more of a concern.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAAegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw3a7YLycp3dNWqVjidkd8G9

CSP doesn't try to do overnight storage. PV is cheaper and better at doing instant power, CSP's advantage is the ability to do dispachable power and meet the evening peaks. It's irrelevant to long term storage, that's accepted.

You still ignore that nuclear doesn't mesh well with renewables. The current level of nuclear power means that wind energy is routinely shed because nuclear power can't ramp down. That isn't going away.

But this discussion is getting deeply uninteresting, I'm happy to leave it here.

"A deep freeze is a red herring."
Try having no power in a prolonged deep freeze.......

A deep freeze is typically, an anti-cyclonic condition, therefore little wind to speak of.
Therefore, you have to get electricity from somewhere else.

".... wind energy is routinely shed because nuclear can't ramp down."
So what? Wind energy is basically free and zero carbon, so why fuss?

 

[IT Minion]

"A deep freeze is a red herring."
Try having no power in a prolonged deep freeze.......

A deep freeze is typically, an anti-cyclonic condition, therefore little wind to speak of.
Therefore, you have to get electricity from somewhere else.

".... wind energy is routinely shed because nuclear can't ramp down."
So what? Wind energy is basically free and zero carbon, so why fuss?

And nuclear is too cheap to meter. If we're throwing up straw men I've really no interest.

But the anticyclone stuff is interesting. Thanks.

 

[Brigadier]

It's not a strawman.
It doesn't matter if you have to dump excess wind energy, it's not like you're burning the planet doing so.
(also, when you are out and about , see how many wind turbines aren't moving, when their neighbours are? We're already dumping excess wind power routinely).
However, you have to accept that a technological society has to have some electricity to keep it functioning, even at "tick over". As has been shown, wind won't do that in some circumstances. At current levels of technology, nuclear is that reliable supply.

 

[wobs]

And nuclear is too cheap to meter. If we're throwing up straw men I've really no interest.

Another strawman.
The "Too cheap to meter" was a reference to fusion power, not fission.

 

[ellal]

Another strawman.
The "Too cheap to meter" was a reference to fusion power, not fission.

Well according to bojo...

“And if you go there* you will learn that this country has a global lead in fusion research, and that they are on the verge of creating commercially viable miniature fusion reactors for sale around the world, delivering virtually unlimited zero-carbon power"

*There being the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire - ironically almost 90% funded by the EU!

 

[wobs]

Wind power is strongest over the winter months. A deep freeze is a red herring, a long period of no wind is more of a concern.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAAegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw3a7YLycp3dNWqVjidkd8G9

I have already shown evidence why you are wrong in this. The deep freeze event was a long period with hardly any wind for the whole of the UK, and pretty much Europe.

CSP doesn't try to do overnight storage. PV is cheaper and better at doing instant power, CSP's advantage is the ability to do dispachable power and meet the evening peaks. It's irrelevant to long term storage, that's accepted.

Solar CSP with storage is an example I used to show how storage has an economic limit, and this applies to any storage technology. Hans Müller-Steinhagen is an expert in Solar CSP with molten stroage, and quotes 18hrs as the economic limit (in a journal I have from the trade), we can be generous and assume 36hr, but the issue still stands. In the UK, we would use pump storage or some battery technology, it doesn't matter.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.2011.0433

We use wind and solar PV, but the principle is the same. It cannot supply baseload supply in the depths of winter in a deep freeze situation. People would die if the power went out in that situation.

You still ignore that nuclear doesn't mesh well with renewables. The current level of nuclear power means that wind energy is routinely shed because nuclear power can't ramp down. That isn't going away.

You still ignore the fact that they provide a different type of supply. This is likely down to the fact that you don't appreciate how the grid works.

 

[wobs]

Well according to bojo...

“And if you go there* you will learn that this country has a global lead in fusion research, and that they are on the verge of creating commercially viable miniature fusion reactors for sale around the world, delivering virtually unlimited zero-carbon power"

*There being the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire - ironically almost 90% funded by the EU!

They were as surprised as we were.

 

[EFLImpudence]

The "Too cheap to meter" was a reference to fusion power, not fission.

No. It was the promise when Nuclear (fission) was first proposed.

Edited.

 

[ellal]

No. It was the promise when Nuclear (fusion) was first proposed.

Actually the quote was attributed to Lewis Strauss, and he reiterated years later that he was indeed referring to nuclear fission...

However he was also thinking of having a fixed charge for energy (in the same way as water was priced) as putting in meters would be too expensive...

Sadly he didn't understand the concept of the growing exploitation of basic services!