Wind Turbines

[Justin Passing]

A nuclear industry creates a reserve of experienced nuclear engineers, designers, and technicians

And also a store of fissile material.

UK is currently dependent on US for its nuclear submarines and weapons.

Countries with nuclear power all have, or want, nuclear weapons.

This is not a coincidence.

Better still, the citizens pay for the power at high prices, providing the resources, without the cost appearing in the defence budget.

There is truth in there. Back in undergrad days we went to the research labs asociated with Berkeley magnox nuke station on the Avon. Huge and half secret, is my memory of that. There's value of a facility like that to the country, hard to quantify.
Berkeley won't be fully decommissioned for another 70 years or so.

 

[Justin Passing]

Wind turbines need clear space. Towns and cities make too much turbulence

I've often looked at fences and thought "used solar panels at £0.10p per watt", hmmm...

 

[wobs]

A nuclear industry creates a reserve of experienced nuclear engineers, designers, and technicians

And that's a bad thing because?

And also a store of fissile material.

Which can be reprocessed to make more fuel

Countries with nuclear power all have, or want, nuclear weapons.

You mean like Japan? Or how about Canada?

This is not a coincidence.

Mud slinging. Commercial reactors are not set up to make weapons grade plutonium. Although there is a plant in the US that can use said plutonium. Would you prefer they used it in anger?

Better still, the citizens pay for the power at high prices, providing the resources, without the cost appearing in the defence budget.

We look forward to your evidence that this would be the case if the UK built more nuclear power plants.

 

[JohnD]

And that's a bad thing because?

Why do you suggest it's a bad thing? Or a good thing, come to that?

 

[JohnD]

I'm pleased to see that wind power is currently contributing over 44% of UK electricity needs.

That's a lot of coal and gas we aren't burning and don't need to buy.

 

[ajohn]

'm pleased to see

Me too but we have had over a week of 4 to under 24%. ~4% wasn't just a day either.

 

[jeds]

Only about 330MW as far as far as I can find. Pretty Insignificant % anyway. Far East are doing more. I'd like to see a bigger trial. It's relatively impact free.

Sometime I'll try to work out what could come from turbine-ifying one of the gates at the Thames Barrier. A reliable 3m, sometimes more. It must have been considered in the beginning.

The problem with tidal stream has been the cost, which is higher than that of nuclear. But the engineering is becoming more and more efficient whilst the cost equation becomes more and more favourable to investors. So where tidal stream has been mainly research based over the medium term it will become more and more operational. The UK has led a lot of the research on this and is in a good position.

Unlike tidal barrage schemes, which are basically dead ducks at the moment. On account of the concern over dead ducks!

 

[ajohn]

On account of the concern over dead ducks!

A surpising number of fish breed in the Bristol Channel - in winter. sea fish.

 

[IT Minion]

Salt water is vicious stuff. Immersing a multi million pound turbine in it for 15 years is asking for trouble. Hopefully they'll manage to make it work but it doesn't seem easy.

 

[Justin Passing]

"The civil engineering infrastructure should last almost indefinitely provided it is maintained. The drive systems (gearboxes or belts) will require periodic oil changes/replacement along with bearings in all of the rotating machinery. Most hydro hardware manufacturers quote design lives of 25 years, though this is normally because they have to set a figure, and in many cases the same manufacturers have many turbines out in the field that are over 50 years old and still operating reliably and efficiently."

Continuous maintenance schedule, remote sensing for wear/leaks - standard stuff . None of them are deep afaik - anyone?
Bloody mess if we end up with 37 different companies. Should be nationalised.

 

[wobs]

"The civil engineering infrastructure should last almost indefinitely provided it is maintained. The drive systems (gearboxes or belts) will require periodic oil changes/replacement along with bearings in all of the rotating machinery. Most hydro hardware manufacturers quote design lives of 25 years, though this is normally because they have to set a figure, and in many cases the same manufacturers have many turbines out in the field that are over 50 years old and still operating reliably and efficiently."

Continuous maintenance schedule, remote sensing for wear/leaks - standard stuff . None of them are deep afaik - anyone?
Bloody mess if we end up with 37 different companies. Should be nationalised.

That isn't the experience in Canada, where they have the biggest tidal range, where multiple attempts have been made to capture the energy, without success:

Of course the barrage in France has been there since the 60s, but that's a barrage rather than in stream turbines.

Tidal energy is very site specific, and one reason why they didn't do the Severn Barrage - it wasn't repeatable.

Edit:
Also tried in the Humber as a pilot scheme, but that was a flawed system:

Liquidation for Neptune Renewable Energy | TheBusinessDesk.com

NEPTUNE Renewable Energy, the organisation looking to pioneer a tidal power device in the Humber to generate electricity, has gone into liquidation.

www.thebusinessdesk.com

There will be places where it will work well, but as ever, its complicated.

 

[Justin Passing]

It's called the development stage. Development takes time and you get failures for one reason or another.
It can't be discounted on the basis of a couple of those.
The successes get replicated, not the failures. Mostly.
Most schemes currently aren't old or large. Economics are making it look better as time goes by, knowledge grows, investments accumulate.
Some chat: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/23/tidal-stream-energy-costs-ebb-reliability-flows

Comparisons with nuclear are of very limited value. I don't think anyone would pop a NP station on Orkney. Costs are complex - costs to everything that the thing impacts, over a time period, and it depends what value you put on benefits and disadvantages. There's a list of environmental factors, a list of physical issues, a list of economic ones both direct and indirect like provision of jobs, and intangibles like energy security.

 

[ajohn]

I used to fish at a place called Clevdon on the Bristol Channel. One of the highest tidal ranges in the world - rather now and again. The locals are inclined to not believe the claim. It's shown marked out on a wall. Once again it can't be a constant source as tide heights very. Run off rates are high for a while. Costs - capital intensive which will always up costs as articles I linked to concerning nuclear explained.

Wind today from 2-30pm to 8-30am fell from 20gw to ~15. We are importing ~6gw. Take slack periods such as recently we could need several days supply in storage. When we reach Utopia things change. A proportion of gw used to heat homes gets transferred to electricity., Then comes electric cars or does it. I think they see an increased use of public transport due to infrastructure changes needed to go in other directions. All together I think several aspects show why their is interest in nuclear as undesirable as it is. I can't help wondering if modular fits in better than what they appear to be at. More can reduce the need for network changes as they can be closer to where they are needed. All owned by separate companies of course. Interesting to think about wind in that sense too. I assume this is correct

Power stations produce electricity at 25kV. Electricity is sent through the national grid network at 400kV, 275kV and 132kV.


Step-up transformers are used at power stations to produce the very high voltage needed to transmit electricity through the national grid power lines. These high voltages are too dangerous to use for home and businesses and therefore step-down transformers are used locally to reduce the voltages to a safe level, resulting in a supply of:

• Large industrial consumers - 33kV
• Rail network - 25kV to 33kV
• Small industrial consumers - 415V to 11kV
• Residential and small commercial - 230V

The actual national grid info that popped up was about converting to DC power. Inverters are possible so use them. Arguing against Nikola Tesla - why transormers and in some ways it's a pity we didn't use a higher frequency but converters can also be used on AC and increasingly are to produce either AC or DC. from AC. They can also convert DC to AC. Off topic but interesting - they might do it but I wonder why it cropped up

https://www.nationalgrid.com/sites/default/files/documents/13784-High%20Voltage%20Direct%20Current%20Electricity%20%E2%80%93%20technical%20information.pdf

Home heating and this factor is mentioned in places and by a gov advisor. Get your heat pump and keep your gas boiler. That goes on when the heat pump can't cope. The reason for this is housing stock and problems updating insulation. Some also heat with oil. I wont go into how I heated a 5 bed house with a 15kw boiler with some problems. Springs to mind as time for a new boiler and can't do what I wanted. Regs and available boilers. I could have several years ago.

 

[Justin Passing]

HIgh voltages are used for transmission simply to keep currents down -reducing the current-squared losses you get in the cables. It's not part of the equations.

 

[JohnD]

Pleased to see that wind power is contributing over 45% of UK electricity needs at the moment.

Nearly three times as much as the atomic kettles.

The amount of gas saved is enormous