No alternative to nuclear power

[FBaggins]

When it comes to keeping Britain's lights on, the Government is between a rock and several rather hard places. A quarter of our ageing power plants will shut by the end of the decade. But demand is set to double as people turn to electricity for heating and to run their cars. And under EU treaty commitments, 30 per cent of our power must be green by 2020. Meanwhile, household fuel bills have trebled since 2004 and 8.5 million people are set to slide into fuel poverty over the next four years.

The proposed solution is for private investors to bankroll £110bn-worth of offshore wind farms and new nuclear power stations. To give them confidence that such investments are safe, the draft Energy Bill published yesterday includes measures to set up complex "contracts for difference" to smooth out some of the uncertainties of the fluctuating electricity price.

The proposal has much to recommend it. Indeed, without it, expensive non-fossil-fuel facilities will struggle to attract the funding they need to get off the drawing board. That the scheme could push up fuel bills even further, possibly by as much as £200 per household a year, is regrettable. But there is no other way to modernise Britain's energy infrastructure and, with so many power stations closing, it is no longer an option to do nothing at all.

New nuclear facilities, in particular, are essential to meeting Britain's future energy needs, because they provide carbon-free, always-on electricity generation to complement the natural intermittency of wind power. And although there are to be new coal plants, they will be subject to emissions limits requiring expensive (and, so far, untested) carbon capture technology.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-no-alternative-to-nuclear-power-7778724.html

[Kolesar]

1. "Improving woeful energy efficiency levels would be the fastest and cheapest way to bring down..."

"...both bills and carbon emissions."

[intaglio]

2. Take off the rose coloured glasses

Firstly this is about a proposed method to remedy the shortcomings of existing nuclear stations with some nuclear and a lot of wind.

Secondly, it does not mention the massive lead time for any new nuclear plant to come on line. Because of this there is difficulty in persuading private business to invest in nuclear - except by applying public subsidy.

Thirdly it ignores the savings that will be coming from the planned smart energy grids - the user end metering is already being tested and the high accuracy metering for supply elements is already being fitted. Apparently the National Grid at present has to depend on a 10 to 20% overcapacity because of losses and poor design of the network.

Fourthly, it ignores renewables other than wind because they tend to be distributed and current power supply models cannot easily factor those in.

The last 2 parts of this came up in discussion in a recent Siemens staff/management roadshow.

Fifthly it ignores load sharing - because, as yet, suitable storage facilities are very far from production - so that is a maybe, admittedly.

[PamW]

3. WRONG!!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!!

Thirdly it ignores the savings that will be coming from the planned smart energy grids - the user end metering is already being tested and the high accuracy metering for supply elements is already being fitted. Apparently the National Grid at present has to depend on a 10 to 20% overcapacity because of losses and poor design of the network.
=======================

The above is completely WRONG!!! It's real simple; the grid is nothing but a bunch of wires. The wires don't "waste energy" except by one means, and that is electrical resistance. Short of superconductivity, there's nothing you can do about the resistance of wires, smart grids don't reduce the resistance of wires. The grid saps about 7% of the energy fed into it due to resistance.

As for superconductivity; that's been looked at. The problem is the energy to run the cooling equipment to keep the superconductors cold exceeds the amount of energy saved by having a superconducting grid.

PamW

[intaglio]

4. Ok, you have more knowledge than the Siemens Techs

Yes, of course.

So all of the infrastructure; the step down transformers at district, area and local level; the poorly sited and routed cables; the choke points, the control circuits that keep the generation in phase; the demand routing (that needs the smart metering I was talking about); in-circuit surge control, demand surge control and environmental (lightning, solar storm) surge control is all "a bunch of wires".

Please inform Siemens and GE of this immediately! They are spending too much on their research and products.
Please inform the British and European Governments, part of whose strategy for reducing energy demand is dependent on Smart metering, that it's all "a bunch of wires".

Additionally you have falsely assumed I was talking about improvements to transmission, which I was not; I refered only to the control of transmission. BTW I am fully aware superconductors will not be on line for the foreseeable future but Very High Voltage direct current transmission is already being tried with some success in Europe.

[PamW]

5. Evidently you don't understand what you've read..

You have erroneously attributed smart grid tools for better managing the system with "saving energy"

All that technology you cite doesn't carry the energy. What carries the energy is simply WIRES!!!!

We don't LOSE energy because we poorly plan. We LOSE capacity; but that doesn't mean we lose energy.

In order to LOSE energy - it has to go somewhere - like being turned into heat.

The tools that GE and Siemens are working on are like a system for managing traffic flow on a highway that has metering lights.

If the highway is poorly managed; then you may not be able to get on the highway when you want; the metering lights stop you.

However, you don't lose energy because you can't get on your favorite freeway.

YES - as someone with a PhD is Physics - I DO know more than a bunch of technicians. Besides, those press releases are also "dumbed down" to be "digestible" to a scientifically illiterate press and public. I wouldn't use those releases as reference material for scientific studies.

PamW

[intaglio]

6. OK tell Her Majesties Government that

I'm done arguing with someone who thinks the energy grid is just "a bunch of wires"

[PamW]

7. OK - stay uninformed

The part that actually carries the energy really is just a bunch of wires.

I know that you don't want to believe that. I know you really want to believe that computers and smart technologies are all transferring energy and losing a bunch of it in the process; but that's not what reality is.

The energy itself is going through wires that can't store energy, or waste energy except through resistance.

It's basic physics - conservation of energy. If electrical energy is being lost; then it has to be converted to heat or some other form of energy.

Energy isn't just "disappearing". That violates one of the basic laws of physics.

I'm not questioning Her Majesty's Government; I believe they know what is correct. I'm questioning your understanding of what you "think" Her Majesty's Government understands.

PamW