Brexit, for once some facts.

[oldgroaner]

Telegraph Leader this morning
"
EU citizens will still be allowed to come to live and work in UK after Brexit, Home Secretary reveals

Brexit: What is left?

 

[Woosh]

shouldn't you pleased that brexit is moving in the right direction?
We want a close relationship while retaining the power to say no.

 

[tillson]

.. flecc again I respectfully disagree with the proposition That wind power will be only be a niche player. Even without the full pan european grids, and the advantages it will confer, there are now multiple instances where wind has on occasions produced in excess of 70% of autonomous countries requirements. Ocean based wind , particularly off the windy west coasts of Ireland and Scotland will provide a lot. What has to be addressed is economically storing energy . As wind makes bigger inroads, than it currently does, the requirement for dispatchable power from storage becomes more important. ....

The two words, "on occasions" in the above betray the fact the wind is unpredictable. Therefore energy derived from the wind via turbines or harnessing waves is also erratic and unpredictable. The same can be said for solar energy.

An erratic and unpredictable contribution to our energy requirements may have a small place in the overall energy scheme, but what is essential is a large capacity, stable, predictable and clean method of generating our base energy requirement. What I am describing is a nuclear power station. Several of them in fact.

We know with a degree of certainty what a nuclear power station will output three weeks today, but with wind based or solar based generation, it might be quite a bit or it might be hardly anything. Might be, is of no significant use in a nation's energy strategy and if we place too much emphasis on "might be" generating solutions, it will fail us.

 

[oldgroaner]

shouldn't you pleased that brexit is moving in the right direction?
We want a close relationship while retaining the power to say no.

Feel free to do so,it's poison as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Zlatan]

.. hello you pick a relatively sheltered site on the east coast, 5 miles from the sea, in the shadows of Sweden, Denmark etc and compare it to a location facing out into the Atlantic where the next landmass is what 5000 miles away!!!!. Be fair
Look instead to parts of Cornwall, mull of kintyre and parts north of that.... Look also to the Atlantic seaboard of Ireland.. my friends in Galway claim never to have seen rain falling from the sky,.. it's always horizontal!. If I wanted to site a solar energy farm, I might give Galway a miss and select sunny Kent or better middle Spain. If I want highly efficient wind farm I would pick coastal, Atlantic regions where there is a good fetch.
Engineering is about horses for courses.

No I didn't pick it. The government did. There are two massive coastal wind farms there. ( One at Fraisthorpe,another 4 miles away at Beeford) and the offshore farm is visible from beach at Fraisthorpe.( about 5 miles SE )
Obviously there are windier places in UK , but wind farms are not unique to those places.
The fact is even in windiest places in UK wind farms are not a reliable producer of energy. Yes the NW coast of Scotland is incredibly windy, but as explained that creates other issues. I lived on Barra for a few years, loads more wind, probably windiest place I,ve visited, but lots of days with well over 50 mph, still plenty with sub 8 mph and very very unpredictable. Not to mention the transmission issues.
We look at windstats down west coast and assume its windy all time. I can assure you it is not. This stats are always distorted by the extremes that turbines ( and windsurfers) can not use. The modal wind average of usable wind even on West Coast of Ireland still does not compare with such as Tarifa. ( If it did wind surfers and kiters would flock there, accepted Jamie Knox place does have a few)

It really is the height of stupidity having a power generating system that can not produce power when you actually need it, when at the moment we have little ( if any) system of storing that power.

 

[oldgroaner]

On the power storage theme the use of undersea redundant oil and gas caverns for mass pressure storage is surely a likely area for exploitation
Either simply as a pressure vessel or in more complex arrangements like this

www.europeanpowertogas.com/fm/download/99

 

[oldgroaner]

Purely an observation, but from the standpoint of guaranteed continuous output and the least harm to the environment the winner to my mind (for what that's worth!)
Is Roll of Drums...

Geothermal Energy

Different scenarios are possible of course

 

[Woosh]

Geothermal Energy

you would get into less but similar problem with fracking.
The best solution is offshore generation and storage because it's not in my backyard.
The cost of grid storage is affordable and can make a profit as a commercial venture at the moment.

 

[oldgroaner]

What is baffling is that this lot are fully aware of the possibilities and do nothing about them
https://energy.gov/eere/geothermal/how-geothermal-power-plant-works-simple

you would get into less but similar problem with fracking.
The best solution is offshore generation and storage because it's not in my backyard.
The cost of grid storage is affordable and can make a profit as a commercial venture at the moment.

Not really because the pressures almost equalise, you are not extracting material, just creating a relatively slight pressure differential that would be miniscule in scale over the underground aquifer.

 

[Woosh]

you underestimate the effect of NIMBY -ism.
There will be plenty of lawyers to suggest you could claim compensation.

 

[Danidl]

No I didn't pick it. The government did. There are two massive coastal wind farms there. ( One at Fraisthorpe,another 4 miles away at Beeford) and the offshore farm is visible from beach at Fraisthorpe.( about 5 miles SE )
Obviously there are windier places in UK , but wind farms are not unique to those places.
The fact is even in windiest places in UK wind farms are not a reliable producer of energy. Yes the NW coast of Scotland is incredibly windy, but as explained that creates other issues. I lived on Barra for a few years, loads more wind, probably windiest place I,ve visited, but lots of days with well over 50 mph, still plenty with sub 8 mph and very very unpredictable. Not to mention the transmission issues.
We look at windstats down west coast and assume its windy all time. I can assure you it is not. This stats are always distorted by the extremes that turbines ( and windsurfers) can not use. The modal wind average of usable wind even on West Coast of Ireland still does not compare with such as Tarifa. ( If it did wind surfers and kiters would flock there, accepted Jamie Knox place does have a few)

It really is the height of stupidity having a power generating system that can not produce power when you actually need it, when at the moment we have little ( if any) system of storing that power.

Zatlan, you are busy mixing sensible engineering related facts with emotive, and highly subjective terms
Let's analyse
Wind is not reliable in the UK???? The wind has been blowing there since before 1701 ... And presumably for the million years before there was a UK. What you really meant to say was the wind does not flow at the power you want at the times you want... Two separate concepts. The response to this is both , wider geographic distribution and energy storage.. additional costs to be sure , but reduces the reliability issue.
Now I have no details on the fraistorpe windfarms, but I cannot believe that the consultants did not do site investigations, and concluded that sites were viable(your term ), when land leasing prices, power distribution and other factors were included. If they didn't, then they were fraudulent.
We can agree that Atlantic coastal regions are better placed, and I was thinking of places such as Barra . The distribution costs and power losses from isolated locations would in the past have made them economically unviable, but with clustering and modern power distribution that changes.
The west coast of Ireland is becoming a Mecca for surfers, but I suspect that the wave heights would not suit windsurfers and I suspect that southern Spain gets slightly more sun.
I agree that it would be stupid to waste money on capacity which cannot be utilised, except where the capital costs of alternatives , including storage, are excessive. The current capital cost of installing a 30 year lifetime turbine is about 1euro per peak watt., Or about 3 to 4 euro per watt averaged over the year. As the grids are strengthened, then the fraction of utilised energy increases, with or without storage. The fact that wind power rises as a cube, means that average speeds always underestimate the energy resource.

 

[tillson]

Zatlan, you are busy mixing sensible engineering related facts with emotive, and highly subjective terms
Let's analyse
Wind is not reliable in the UK???? The wind has been blowing there since before 1701 ... And presumably for the million years before there was a UK. What you really meant to say was the wind does not flow at the power you want at the times you want... Two separate concepts. The response to this is both , wider geographic distribution and energy storage.. additional costs to be sure , but reduces the reliability issue.
Now I have no details on the fraistorpe windfarms, but I cannot believe that the consultants did not do site investigations, and concluded that sites were viable(your term ), when land leasing prices, power distribution and other factors were included. If they didn't, then they were fraudulent.
We can agree that Atlantic coastal regions are better placed, and I was thinking of places such as Barra . The distribution costs and power losses from isolated locations would in the past have made them economically unviable, but with clustering and modern power distribution that changes.
The west coast of Ireland is becoming a Mecca for surfers, but I suspect that the wave heights would not suit windsurfers and I suspect that southern Spain gets slightly more sun.
I agree that it would be stupid to waste money on capacity which cannot be utilised, except where the capital costs of alternatives , including storage, are excessive. The current capital cost of installing a 30 year lifetime turbine is about 1euro per peak watt., Or about 3 to 4 euro per watt averaged over the year. As the grids are strengthened, then the fraction of utilised energy increases, with or without storage. The fact that wind power rises as a cube, means that average speeds always underestimate the energy resource.

Wind is erratic and unpredictable. Mechanically storing the energy produced by wind in order to mitigate the erratic delivery profile is prohibitively expensive and I doubt that sufficient storage sites could be constructed to make wind a significant and stable energy contributor.

At this point in time and for the foresee future, nuclear power is only way to deliver our predicted power requirement.

Windmills are eco window dressing. I've known times when an area of high pressure has settled for weeks off the coast. It's been as flat as a fart. Where is the juice coming from during these periods? It will end in rationing to essential services.

 

[Danidl]

You've misread my answer, please look again below and you'll see it had answers to two points raised by you. In the second I was referring to sea current turbines only ever making a miniscule contribution, comparing those to wave power, and I stand by that.

"I was answering a wind energy post. I'm aware of the sea current turbines, but they will only ever make a miniscule contribution to needs, a bit like wave power."
.

Apologies...

 

[Woosh]

Wind is erratic and unpredictable. Mechanically storing the energy produced by wind in order to mitigate the erratic delivery profile is prohibitively expensive and I doubt that sufficient storage sites could be constructed to make wind a significant and stable energy contributor.

At this point in time and for the foresee future, nuclear power is only way to deliver our predicted power requirement. Windmills are eco window dressing.

storage of the output does not have to be sited where the wind farm is.
The output goes to the grid, grid storage operators buy electricity when it's cheap and sell it when they can make a profit.

 

[Danidl]

Wind is erratic and unpredictable. Mechanically storing the energy produced by wind in order to mitigate the erratic delivery profile is prohibitively expensive and I doubt that sufficient storage sites could be constructed to make wind a significant and stable energy contributor.

At this point in time and for the foresee future, nuclear power is only way to deliver our predicted power requirement. Windmills are eco window dressing.

.. agreed . The statement on wind power being erratic. but better to qualify that statement with "on a time scale of seconds to minutes to hours at any specified location."
"Prohibitively expensive". At best an arguable point . It begs the question compared to what and over what time frames . Pumped storage, where available, is a long term solution, but once the civil engineering is done, could last for thousands of years.. flow batteries currently available, are scalable. , Mechanical flywheels .. old technology cheap and cheerful, . Cryogenic gas production , potentially cheap, reliable, and very safe. ... There are loads of option.
Regarding nuclear power,which I do agree the UK needs to have, the drought in France about a decade ago, is an interesting case study. Water levels in the Seine had dropped to levels such that EDF was going to switch them off, as the cooling was inadequate, fortunately the cancule terminated just in time....

 

[tillson]

storage of the output does not have to be sited where the wind farm is.
The output goes to the grid, grid storage operators buy electricity when it's cheap and sell it when they can make a profit.

I know all that, but the rate at which we consume energy means that the storage facility would need hundreds of colossal storage sites for the times when the wind doesn't blow for days or weeks. I doubt we've got enough mountains to build storage lakes on top of anyway. This type of mechanical storage is limited to smoothing out peaks and troughs in the demand placed on a stable base energy supply.

Tidal energy generation has more merit. I know the Earth and moon will rotate around each other with relative certainty for the foreseeable.

 

[Woosh]

I know all that, but the rate at which we consume energy means that the storage facility would need hundreds of colossal storage sites for the times when the wind doesn't blow for days or weeks.

that's true but offshore wind at 100m-200m above ground is much more reliable.
The 8MW Vestas V164 turbine is 220m tall.
Plus, you can do a fair amount of controlling demand through smart metering.

 

[flecc]

Now I have no details on the fraistorpe windfarms, but I cannot believe that the consultants did not do site investigations, and concluded that sites were viable(your term ), when land leasing prices, power distribution and other factors were included. If they didn't, then they were fraudulent.

You are too trusting Danidl. We have a number of these onshore wind farms in hopelessly unsuitable locations and a later report has harshly criticised the fact that they sometimes only manage 8% time of any output. Obviously there were no sound viability assessments before these were placed, they were as the report concluded just cashing in on overly generous subsidies.
.

 

[flecc]

Regarding nuclear power,which I do agree the UK needs to have, the drought in France about a decade ago, is an interesting case study. Water levels in the Seine had dropped to levels such that EDF was going to switch them off, as the cooling was inadequate, fortunately the cancule terminated just in time....

We are an island with all land close enough to the sea, the furthest being 70 miles, so don't have that problem. All our nuclear stations present and future are coastal.
.

 

[tillson]

that's true but offshore wind at 100m-200m above ground is much more reliable.
The 8MW Vestas V164 turbine is 220m tall.
Plus, you can do a fair amount of controlling demand through smart metering.

I've flew off the west coast of Scotland for many years and you can get long periods of calm, even at heights between 1000 - 5000 ft AMSL.When there is no wind, there is no gradient. There is some beneficial gradient between sea level and 200 M when the wind is blowing, but it's a question of what we do when it isn't.