Stuff like glass furnaces you can't just turn on and off at will, you know.
No, but other industries can adjust power consumption. And it is also possible to forecast and plan in advance for times of peak consumption.
Really, which industries can cut power consumption? I would have thought that any industry will always minimise its costs and therefore will not be running using more electricity than it needs to. Reducing consumption therefore means shutting down productive work.
Any industry where energy is a large part of the input cost and you can feasibly switch off for an hour or so on occasion. In exchange for that commitment you would get a substantial discount on your tariff. Or offices or businesses that have a backup generator.
I know CERN, which has a very large energy requirement has a deal like that with the French power company.
CERN is a research site not a company with a production line, the idea that a company can just shut down for an "hour or so" from time to time without incurring costs is laughable. So that discount would have to be very large indeed. As for back up generators, I thought this was all about emissions, those generators run on diesel - hardly environmentally friendly.
Nice strawman. Nobody is suggesting that these companies can shut down without incurring costs. Of course they will incur costs for doing so. The point is that if these costs are more than compensated by either a direct payment or the provision of cheap electricity during normal grid operation, then it will make financial sense for the company to make such an agreement.
At the opportunity cost of being less productive, less efficient and with higher burdens as the electrical company needs to charge consumers in order to pay for providing these incentives rather than spending its money on investing in production capabilities that allow other businesses to produce too.
An all round terrible way to run an economy. Lets pay people to sabotage their business.
No. The electricity company saves money because the cost of providing incentives is less than the cost of building and maintaining a rarely used power station. The manufacturer saves money because the incentive more than compensates for their occasional shutdown. An the environment benefits from the increased use of renewable energies that such flexibility permits. Everyone's a winner.
HurstLlama re "As for back up generators, I thought this was all about emissions, those generators run on diesel - hardly environmentally friendly."
Whilst that that is true, they only run very infrequently, and for short periods, and this mechanism allows us to source more of our power, for more of the time, from renewable sources.
For now, electricity generation does not have to be perfect for the environment, just better....
Sounds to me as though appropriate companies are being paid to run their back-up generator tests. Win-win, in that case, surely?
No. The electricity company saves money because the cost of providing incentives is less than the cost of building and maintaining a rarely used power station. The manufacturer saves money because the incentive more than compensates for their occasional shutdown. An the environment benefits from the increased use of renewable energies that such flexibility permits. Everyone's a winner.
And the consumer pays more; after all, the producer's incentive needs to come from somewhere.
It's just an excuse to allow more unpredictable renewable energy at the cost to the consumer and the economy. It's a sign of failure, not success.
As an aside, the other day we were talking about t'Internet of TatThings. Energy is a place where the IoT could really make a difference, at a great risk of hacking and cost.
Grrrr. There is a big piss-up come reunion scheduled for the 13th December in Lincoln. I was booked to go, got an overnight pass from Herself and everything. Now I learn the bloody train drivers are going out on strike on the 13th, 14th and 16th, so I am going to have to miss it.
The strike is over who pushes a button to close the doors, the driver or the guard. The latter being a post so essential it is years since I can remember seeing one, not since the days of the old slam door trains in fact. God knows where they hide.
No. The electricity company saves money because the cost of providing incentives is less than the cost of building and maintaining a rarely used power station. The manufacturer saves money because the incentive more than compensates for their occasional shutdown. An the environment benefits from the increased use of renewable energies that such flexibility permits. Everyone's a winner.
And the consumer pays more; after all, the producer's incentive needs to come from somewhere.
It's just an excuse to allow more unpredictable renewable energy at the cost to the consumer and the economy. It's a sign of failure, not success.
As an aside, the other day we were talking about t'Internet of TatThings. Energy is a place where the IoT could really make a difference, at a great risk of hacking and cost.
No, the consumer pays less. Remember, the money the electricity company saves from not having to build another power station exceeds the amount paid out in incentives. Whether or not this saving is passed on to consumers depends on other things.
** Diplomacy Post ** Mr. Pulpstar, if my failing memory serves, you are in Sheffield aren't you? Mr. Dancer is in Leeds, the good Doctor is in Leicester and I am in darkest Sussex. It is good to know these things because, whilst Diplomacy is a play by mail game, sometimes personal meetings are useful or necessary.
I have in my Diplomacy career conducted negotiations in numerous boozers, restaurants, the Palace of Westminster and a brothel in Macau, though that was not a PB game I hasten to add.
I wonder if we could persuade Mrs Cyclefree (lady of this parish) to join in. I reckon she would be a fearsome player.
Sounds like a good game. I'll spectate if i may. I've done most of my playing on webdiplomacy but i guess the rules are the same.
From what I can see WebDiplomacy is just another online implementation of the the Diplomacy Game. If you fancy joining us then there is still a space left:
Modular nukes on the Molten Salt design may be coming along in about 5 years, which might help a lot.
Or it might be an economical failure like other nuclear power plants have been for the last 50-60 years, and uranium is a scarce resource unless one moves to fast breeder reactors.
It's deluded to expect something as complex as nuclear power plants to be remotely competitive with oil and natural gas which gush out of the ground or replacing GLS lamps by LEDs with 10% the electricity consumption. Or to be more polite, Sir Humphry has been very badly briefed by his advisers.
'Watchmaking by the tonne'. The phrase used by Sir Arnold Weinstock, 1970, commenting on the continuing difficulties with the UK's Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors.
Grrrr. There is a big piss-up come reunion scheduled for the 13th December in Lincoln. I was booked to go, got an overnight pass from Herself and everything. Now I learn the bloody train drivers are going out on strike on the 13th, 14th and 16th, so I am going to have to miss it.
The strike is over who pushes a button to close the doors, the driver or the guard. The latter being a post so essential it is years since I can remember seeing one, not since the days of the old slam door trains in fact. God knows where they hide.
Lincoln usually has a very good Christmas Market, though I am not sure if it is every year.
The castle has an excellent Victorian prison with unique chapel too, designed to keep the congregation in solitary and awake! Well worth taking in.
** Diplomacy Post ** Mr. Pulpstar, if my failing memory serves, you are in Sheffield aren't you? Mr. Dancer is in Leeds, the good Doctor is in Leicester and I am in darkest Sussex. It is good to know these things because, whilst Diplomacy is a play by mail game, sometimes personal meetings are useful or necessary.
I have in my Diplomacy career conducted negotiations in numerous boozers, restaurants, the Palace of Westminster and a brothel in Macau, though that was not a PB game I hasten to add.
I wonder if we could persuade Mrs Cyclefree (lady of this parish) to join in. I reckon she would be a fearsome player.
Sounds like a good game. I'll spectate if i may. I've done most of my playing on webdiplomacy but i guess the rules are the same.
From what I can see WebDiplomacy is just another online implementation of the the Diplomacy Game. If you fancy joining us then there is still a space left:
Feersum Enjineeya RE "The electricity company saves money because the cost of providing incentives is less than the cost of building and maintaining a rarely used power station. The manufacturer saves money because the incentive more than compensates for their occasional shutdown. An the environment benefits from the increased use of renewable energies that such flexibility permits. Everyone's a winner."
Grrrr. There is a big piss-up come reunion scheduled for the 13th December in Lincoln. I was booked to go, got an overnight pass from Herself and everything. Now I learn the bloody train drivers are going out on strike on the 13th, 14th and 16th, so I am going to have to miss it.
The strike is over who pushes a button to close the doors, the driver or the guard. The latter being a post so essential it is years since I can remember seeing one, not since the days of the old slam door trains in fact. God knows where they hide.
I'm fortunate enough to not use GTR, but a friend informs me that the guards aren't helping themselves by being thoroughly unhelpful to passengers.
Personally, I'd give in to the union's demands on having two safety critical members of staff, but enforce a pay cut for drivers. VTEC had 15,000 applications for 78 driver posts recently:
Kersten England says Bradford 'celebrates, commemorates, works and plays together', despite segregation claims
THE chief executive of Bradford Council has been fiercely critical of a report which named the city as one of the most segregated places in the country.
No. The electricity company saves money because the cost of providing incentives is less than the cost of building and maintaining a rarely used power station. The manufacturer saves money because the incentive more than compensates for their occasional shutdown. An the environment benefits from the increased use of renewable energies that such flexibility permits. Everyone's a winner.
And the consumer pays more; after all, the producer's incentive needs to come from somewhere.
It's just an excuse to allow more unpredictable renewable energy at the cost to the consumer and the economy. It's a sign of failure, not success.
As an aside, the other day we were talking about t'Internet of TatThings. Energy is a place where the IoT could really make a difference, at a great risk of hacking and cost.
No, the consumer pays less. Remember, the money the electricity company saves from not having to build another power station exceeds the amount paid out in incentives. Whether or not this saving is passed on to consumers depends on other things.
That will depend on how much it is used. The more it is used, the more consumers will pay, and the more harm is caused to the economy as production drops.
The problem is the unreliability of renewable energy. That's why these drastic kludges are required. We need mass energy storage, and we need it fast.
And asking industry to cut power usage at certain times is a desperate measure and a sign of failure.
I disagree with this point. It surely makes economic sense to ask (and pay for) industry to cut its consumption on rare occasions rather than building power stations that will very rarely be used.
Stuff like glass furnaces you can't just turn on and off at will, you know.
No, but other industries can adjust power consumption. And it is also possible to forecast and plan in advance for times of peak consumption.
Really, which industries can cut power consumption? I would have thought that any industry will always minimise its costs and therefore will not be running using more electricity than it needs to. Reducing consumption therefore means shutting down productive work.
Any industry where energy is a large part of the input cost and you can feasibly switch off for an hour or so on occasion. In exchange for that commitment you would get a substantial discount on your tariff. Or offices or businesses that have a backup generator.
I know CERN, which has a very large energy requirement has a deal like that with the French power company.
CERN is a research site not a company with a production line, the idea that a company can just shut down for an "hour or so" from time to time without incurring costs is laughable. So that discount would have to be very large indeed. As for back up generators, I thought this was all about emissions, those generators run on diesel - hardly environmentally friendly.
Nice strawman. Nobody is suggesting that these companies can shut down without incurring costs. Of course they will incur costs for doing so. The point is that if these costs are more than compensated by either a direct payment or the provision of cheap electricity during normal grid operation, then it will make financial sense for the company to make such an agreement.
At the opportunity cost of being less productive, less efficient and with higher burdens as the electrical company needs to charge consumers in order to pay for providing these incentives rather than spending its money on investing in production capabilities that allow other businesses to produce too.
An all round terrible way to run an economy. Lets pay people to sabotage their business.
All from the oh so economically literate remoaning faction too.
No problem. Fifteen years might be more likely, but I'm using my usual cynical approach to such proposed systems: the engineering difficulties and gotchas are always underplayed at this stage. Partly because they can't know them until they try it, and partly because they need to make the projects look good value or money (and hoping people fall for the sunk-cost fallacy).
History is littered with people who had brilliant ideas that turned out not quite to work as hyped; a typical example being Maglev (though the Japanese might change that. Or might not).
In the nuke field, when I was a kid (and more interested in nuclear power than a kid should be), Pebble Bed reactors were being hyped as the future. AFAICR Germany's experience with their prototypes were not good.
I'm all for providing seed funding of a number of millions for promising ideas. But we need to be really strict and ruthless in culling those that don't meet the grade.
Then again, I think aneutronic fusion's the future.
re "The problem is the unreliability of renewable energy. That's why these drastic kludges are required. We need mass energy storage, and we need it fast."
a) It's not drastic - this year's demand balancing requirement would be less than 4% of today's peak demand of 50GW, (and it probably was not triggered today anyway).
b) and this is an interim measure whilst mass energy storage is being worked on - again, its not perfect, but its better than the alternatives..
No. The electricity company saves money because the cost of providing incentives is less than the cost of building and maintaining a rarely used power station. The manufacturer saves money because the incentive more than compensates for their occasional shutdown. An the environment benefits from the increased use of renewable energies that such flexibility permits. Everyone's a winner.
And the consumer pays more; after all, the producer's incentive needs to come from somewhere.
It's just an excuse to allow more unpredictable renewable energy at the cost to the consumer and the economy. It's a sign of failure, not success.
As an aside, the other day we were talking about t'Internet of TatThings. Energy is a place where the IoT could really make a difference, at a great risk of hacking and cost.
No, the consumer pays less. Remember, the money the electricity company saves from not having to build another power station exceeds the amount paid out in incentives. Whether or not this saving is passed on to consumers depends on other things.
That will depend on how much it is used. The more it is used, the more consumers will pay, and the more harm is caused to the economy as production drops.
The problem is the unreliability of renewable energy. That's why these drastic kludges are required. We need mass energy storage, and we need it fast.
Whether demand management is considered to be a drastic kludge or sensible practice is, I think, a political matter.
On the topic of mass energy storage: There was a recent New Scientist article on the potential of giant capacitors to replace batteries for some applications. Obviously we generally view large capacitors as being good for supplying large but short bursts of current; apparently, though, there are new ideas on methods of considerably increasing their capacitance. This would be a major breakthrough when you consider the advantages of storing energy in an electric field rather than in chemical form.
No problem. Fifteen years might be more likely, but I'm using my usual cynical approach to such proposed systems: the engineering difficulties and gotchas are always underplayed at this stage. Partly because they can't know them until they try it, and partly because they need to make the projects look good value or money (and hoping people fall for the sunk-cost fallacy).
History is littered with people who had brilliant ideas that turned out not quite to work as hyped; a typical example being Maglev (though the Japanese might change that. Or might not).
In the nuke field, when I was a kid (and more interested in nuclear power than a kid should be), Pebble Bed reactors were being hyped as the future. AFAICR Germany's experience with their prototypes were not good.
I'm all for providing seed funding of a number of millions for promising ideas. But we need to be really strict and ruthless in culling those that don't meet the grade.
Then again, I think aneutronic fusion's the future.
Disciplined pluralism, indeed. (Have you read Tim Harford's book "Adapt"? Encouragingly, I noticed that in the last Budget there was a few tens of millions set aside for running a competition for modular molten salt reactors, which improved my opinion of Osborne by at least two orders of magnitude.
I agree - it's an extremely promising technology, especially for the UK with its heap of radioactive waste, and the government ought to seriously fund research.
re "The problem is the unreliability of renewable energy. That's why these drastic kludges are required. We need mass energy storage, and we need it fast."
a) It's not drastic - this year's demand balancing requirement would be less than 4% of today's peak demand of 50GW, (and it probably was not triggered today anyway).
b) and this is an interim measure whilst mass energy storage is being worked on - again, its not perfect, but its better than the alternatives..
4%. Four percent?
That's terrible. It's awful. It's lamentable.
As for your second point: I'm a firm believer that we plan for the future using today's technology, and don't rely on some mystical, magical solution being around the corner. Because more often than not they don't live up to their promise.
That doesn't mean we don't try to develop them; just that we cannot rely on the new solutions living up to their promise. If they do fair enough. But we have to plan for the future using the best of what we have now.
The problem with unpredictable renewables is that they've gone ahead on the basis of mass energy storage coming along later. It hasn't, so we're having to do this demand balancing rubbish to keep the lights on.
Modular nukes on the Molten Salt design may be coming along in about 5 years, which might help a lot.
Or it might be an economical failure like other nuclear power plants have been for the last 50-60 years, and uranium is a scarce resource unless one moves to fast breeder reactors.
It's deluded to expect something as complex as nuclear power plants to be remotely competitive with oil and natural gas which gush out of the ground or replacing GLS lamps by LEDs with 10% the electricity consumption. Or to be more polite, Sir Humphry has been very badly briefed by his advisers.
'Watchmaking by the tonne'. The phrase used by Sir Arnold Weinstock, 1970, commenting on the continuing difficulties with the UK's Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors.
Except it's conceptually far simpler than an AGCR, and can 'burn' what is currently regarded as waste. Sure, it's risky, but the capital outlay to prove/disprove the technology is a small fraction of what we're spending on the French white elephant.
Disciplined pluralism, indeed. (Have you read Tim Harford's book "Adapt"? Encouragingly, I noticed that in the last Budget there was a few tens of millions set aside for running a competition for modular molten salt reactors, which improved my opinion of Osborne by at least two orders of magnitude.
I've not read it; would you recommend it?
I've no problem with spending small (if millions can be small) amounts of seed money on such projects. In fact, I demand it. Firstly to develop them on paper; produce safety cases; regulatory work and maybe even lab work. You then pick the most promising and fund them more on a second stage, which may be more of the same, or may even be prototype hardware. And so on until you have one ot two which work.
A downside to this is the media see projects that are culled early as 'millions wasted on scheme x!'.
I just don't want to rely on them working. We need to plan for the immediate future using the best technology that we know works.
"Rillington Place" - the BBC's three parter starts shortly on One. Based on the true story, I recall reading Ludovic Kennedy's chilling book detailing how Timothy Evans was wrongly sent to the gallows and his awful final words as the noose was placed around his neck...."Christie done it".
Disciplined pluralism, indeed. (Have you read Tim Harford's book "Adapt"? Encouragingly, I noticed that in the last Budget there was a few tens of millions set aside for running a competition for modular molten salt reactors, which improved my opinion of Osborne by at least two orders of magnitude.
I've not read it; would you recommend it?
I've no problem with spending small (if millions can be small) amounts of seed money on such projects. In fact, I demand it. Firstly to develop them on paper; produce safety cases; regulatory work and maybe even lab work. You then pick the most promising and fund them more on a second stage, which may be more of the same, or may even be prototype hardware. And so on until you have one ot two which work.
A downside to this is the media see projects that are culled early as 'millions wasted on scheme x!'.
I just don't want to rely on them working. We need to plan for the immediate future using the best technology that we know works.
I think you'd enjoy it. It's pretty much based around how successful that very concept is. In fact, I'd recommend all of Harford's books for explaining economic background in an engaging and entertaining way
Then again, I think aneutronic fusion's the future.
Speaking as a one-time magnetohydrodynamic modeller, I'd say that confining a D-T plasma is enough of a challenge for the time being!
But you must tell me about your carbon nanotube space-straw plan sometime.
It's brilliant, I tells ya! Logical, foolproof and guaranteed to work. All I need is seed money of £2 million, to be paid into my Caymans bank account ...
(Joking mode off).
It's something I describe to people when I want to see them work out how many ways it won't work.
Edit: I bow to your superior knowledge as a magnetohydrodynamic modeller (probably the first time that words been mentioned on PB)!
From memory aneutronic fusion will require at least ten times the amount of energy that D-T fusion does, and we're having enough trouble with that. But it also has massive advantages including the potential for direct energy conversion and no steam cycle required. The French team have been doing some interesting work with it.
Yes, it is a long shot. But it's worth seeding investigations into it, and the knowledge gained might even help 'traditional' D-T fusion and other research. A low chance of working, but massive pay-off if it does gamble.
Disciplined pluralism, indeed. (Have you read Tim Harford's book "Adapt"? Encouragingly, I noticed that in the last Budget there was a few tens of millions set aside for running a competition for modular molten salt reactors, which improved my opinion of Osborne by at least two orders of magnitude.
I've not read it; would you recommend it?
I've no problem with spending small (if millions can be small) amounts of seed money on such projects. In fact, I demand it. Firstly to develop them on paper; produce safety cases; regulatory work and maybe even lab work. You then pick the most promising and fund them more on a second stage, which may be more of the same, or may even be prototype hardware. And so on until you have one ot two which work.
A downside to this is the media see projects that are culled early as 'millions wasted on scheme x!'.
I just don't want to rely on them working. We need to plan for the immediate future using the best technology that we know works.
Gas fired power and imports and/or domestic fracking ? Medium term, tidal barrages (which might also provide pumped storage) ?
Apologies if it has. Scottish pandas can breathe a sigh of relief!
"In contrast Labour currently need a towering lead of 12.6% to win an overall majority, and the boundary changes would move that target even further away, requiring a lead of 13.5%. To even be the largest party Labour would need a lead over the Conservatives of 4.7% (up from 3.9% on the current boundaries)."
I suppose in this febrile atmosphere it is unsafe to say that this is impossible. But I think it is impossible.
Apologies if it has. Scottish pandas can breathe a sigh of relief!
"In contrast Labour currently need a towering lead of 12.6% to win an overall majority, and the boundary changes would move that target even further away, requiring a lead of 13.5%. To even be the largest party Labour would need a lead over the Conservatives of 4.7% (up from 3.9% on the current boundaries)."
I suppose in this febrile atmosphere it is unsafe to say that this is impossible. But I think it is impossible.
He lists 2 conditions for that to be reversed.
The first condition (LD revival) seem dead for a generation, latest ICM has them at just 7%, lowest since June.
The second condition (Labour scottish recovery) also seems dead for a generation, even though the SNP has recorded signs of weakness the Tories are the ones who have benefited in scotland.
So a 3rd way is needed for a Labour breakthrough in small towns or rural areas.
I heard from a senior lib dem today re: Richmond. They think they are 10 points behind Zac, they (oddly) downbeat. But with margin of error and the fact that Zac has no get out the vote data (owned by Tories) then he might be in trouble.
re "The problem is the unreliability of renewable energy. That's why these drastic kludges are required. We need mass energy storage, and we need it fast."
a) It's not drastic - this year's demand balancing requirement would be less than 4% of today's peak demand of 50GW, (and it probably was not triggered today anyway).
b) and this is an interim measure whilst mass energy storage is being worked on - again, its not perfect, but its better than the alternatives..
4%. Four percent?
That's terrible. It's awful. It's lamentable.
As for your second point: I'm a firm believer that we plan for the future using today's technology, and don't rely on some mystical, magical solution being around the corner. Because more often than not they don't live up to their promise.
That doesn't mean we don't try to develop them; just that we cannot rely on the new solutions living up to their promise. If they do fair enough. But we have to plan for the future using the best of what we have now.
The problem with unpredictable renewables is that they've gone ahead on the basis of mass energy storage coming along later. It hasn't, so we're having to do this demand balancing rubbish to keep the lights on.
It's not a good way to run the country.
Batteries haven't advanced radically for 100 years although lithium ion are lighter than lead acid and there's no magic solution just around the corner. The world will have to learn to live with storing energy as fuel (we already do; a domestic oil tank costs £1,000 for a year's consumption) or as hot water in large holes in the ground which can store heat summer to winter (the Danes have developed this).
One form of electricity storage in bulk that is fairly economical is storing water in huge lakes behind hydroelectric dams and releasing water to turn turbines when electricity is needed. But it needs huge mountain ranges, making it more workable in the Italian Alps than the UK.
Yes, base the future on what works now. But politicians seem to prefer glamorous silver bullets.
I heard from a senior lib dem today re: Richmond. They think they are 10 points behind Zac, they (oddly) downbeat. But with margin of error and the fact that Zac has no get out the vote data (owned by Tories) then he might be in trouble.
That's probably the only thing I think I agree with Kinnock.
Progress has been a cancer inside Labour, eating all it's popular policies and churning out crap, but if they make a U-turn on social policy that's a first step.
Now the only thing they need to do is support the social safety net, a little protectionist, a bit in favour of some (but not too many) finance regulations, and tone down their foreign policy aggressiveness and they will become electable.
"Ominously for Zac Goldsmith, most of the people who thought Britain would stay in the EU and Hillary Clinton would be president say he will hold his seat in the Richmond Park by-election on Thursday. "
I heard from a senior lib dem today re: Richmond. They think they are 10 points behind Zac, they (oddly) downbeat. But with margin of error and the fact that Zac has no get out the vote data (owned by Tories) then he might be in trouble.
I would think that Goldsmith knows where his votes are in his constituency, the local Tories that are aiding him a bit probably know too.
Anyway since the last poll from Richmond Park had Goldsmith with a 27 point lead, well over 50% and the latest national polls have the LD 37 points behind the Tories, I see little danger for Goldsmith.
Why couldn't the mountain solution work in the Pennines?
Not enough height difference or large enough lakes to store energy summer to winter, plus people would complain if you flooded their valley (Elan Valley style).
The English and Welsh hills are really puny compared to the Alps. The Scottish mountains are pretty modest too.
"Ominously for Zac Goldsmith, most of the people who thought Britain would stay in the EU and Hillary Clinton would be president say he will hold his seat in the Richmond Park by-election on Thursday. "
Wrong, at least I gave decent chances for both Brexit and Trump, but before polling ramped Remain and Hillary.
But Rentoul is up to the only common denominator of Leave and Trump, you don't know about "shy" voters and who is going to vote.
I can't imagine of any "shy" LD voters, and if turnout is around 50% Goldsmith should be ok. Any turnout much higher would probably be a wave of protest against the Tories, any much lower and the LD corpse might snatch it.
Why couldn't the mountain solution work in the Pennines?
Not enough height difference or large enough lakes to store energy summer to winter, plus people would complain if you flooded their valley (Elan Valley style).
The English and Welsh hills are really puny compared to the Alps. The Scottish mountains are pretty modest too.
Why couldn't the mountain solution work in the Pennines?
Not enough height difference or large enough lakes to store energy summer to winter, plus people would complain if you flooded their valley (Elan Valley style).
The English and Welsh hills are really puny compared to the Alps. The Scottish mountains are pretty modest too.
The only (?) solution is tidal power.
There is a good case to invest in thermal power with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). While power generation can be achieved with other options (e.g. renewables plus energy storage), industries such as cement manufacture, iron & steel and oil refining cannot be decarbonised to any great extent without CCS. Therefore, the CO2 transport & storage infrastructure can be shared between power generation and industrial emitters to minimise the cost per tonne of CO2 avoided.
"Ominously for Zac Goldsmith, most of the people who thought Britain would stay in the EU and Hillary Clinton would be president say he will hold his seat in the Richmond Park by-election on Thursday. "
Wrong, at least I gave decent chances for both Brexit and Trump, but before polling ramped Remain and Hillary.
But Rentoul is up to the only common denominator of Leave and Trump, you don't know about "shy" voters and who is going to vote.
I can't imagine of any "shy" LD voters, and if turnout is around 50% Goldsmith should be ok. Any turnout much higher would probably be a wave of protest against the Tories, any much lower and the LD corpse might snatch it.
Why couldn't the mountain solution work in the Pennines?
Not enough height difference or large enough lakes to store energy summer to winter, plus people would complain if you flooded their valley (Elan Valley style).
The English and Welsh hills are really puny compared to the Alps. The Scottish mountains are pretty modest too.
The only (?) solution is tidal power.
Tidal is only part of the overall solution, although with a tidal range of 14 m a few lagoons in the Severn could generate more electricity than UK hydro power will ever produce. Usefully, double lagoons can pump between the two volumes of water, giving a higher total output and being able to follow the load on the national grid, something which Hinkley Point C can never do).
Eh that is not the Queensferry crossing, that is the rail bridge. Behind that is the old road bridge. And behind that and completely out of sight is the new Queensferry Crossing. What a stupid picture.
That Lib Dem interview was pure car crash. What a dim individual.
'She added: “If I don’t win, I’ve got a nice house, a great husband, lovely children and a good job to go back to.”'
Spoken like a true LibDem. Good luck winning back Redcar with attitudes like that.
Redcar was an anomaly in any case - it was strong Labour territory, massive majorities, taken on a massive swing following the initial collapse of the Steel manufacturing.
I think they'll have better chances focusing in other areas, frankly.
That Lib Dem interview was pure car crash. What a dim individual.
'She added: “If I don’t win, I’ve got a nice house, a great husband, lovely children and a good job to go back to.”'
Spoken like a true LibDem. Good luck winning back Redcar with attitudes like that.
Redcar was an anomaly in any case - it was strong Labour territory, massive majorities, taken on a massive swing following the initial collapse of the Steel manufacturing.
I think they'll have better chances focusing in other areas, frankly.
Areas where voters have a nice house, a great spouse, lovely children and a good job?
Eh that is not the Queensferry crossing, that is the rail bridge. Behind that is the old road bridge. And behind that and completely out of sight is the new Queensferry Crossing. What a stupid picture.
Yes - and my wife and I with two friends drove over the old road bridge on it's opening day but due to foggy conditions didn't realise we had arrived in Fife.
"Ominously for Zac Goldsmith, most of the people who thought Britain would stay in the EU and Hillary Clinton would be president say he will hold his seat in the Richmond Park by-election on Thursday. "
So, the residents of Richmond are delusional fools with no concept of the world beyond their local area?
That Lib Dem interview was pure car crash. What a dim individual.
'She added: “If I don’t win, I’ve got a nice house, a great husband, lovely children and a good job to go back to.”'
Spoken like a true LibDem. Good luck winning back Redcar with attitudes like that.
Redcar was an anomaly in any case - it was strong Labour territory, massive majorities, taken on a massive swing following the initial collapse of the Steel manufacturing.
I think they'll have better chances focusing in other areas, frankly.
Areas where voters have a nice house, a great spouse, lovely children and a good job?
Probably. I've family in Redcar so I knew why that area moved away, briefly, from Labour, but perhaps they could make a push in similar seats, but I'm just guessing that the closest second places for the LDs, not that there are many, are more likely in posher areas than not. Not to say they shouldn't appeal to all areas if they can, but I'm assuming they'll need to martial their resources a bit more ruthlessly, even if the focus becomes on the posh.
Why couldn't the mountain solution work in the Pennines?
Not enough height difference or large enough lakes to store energy summer to winter, plus people would complain if you flooded their valley (Elan Valley style).
The English and Welsh hills are really puny compared to the Alps. The Scottish mountains are pretty modest too.
The only (?) solution is tidal power.
The UK has the second highest tidal range in the world. If we can't make it work....
Eh that is not the Queensferry crossing, that is the rail bridge. Behind that is the old road bridge. And behind that and completely out of sight is the new Queensferry Crossing. What a stupid picture.
Yes - and my wife and I with two friends drove over the old road bridge on it's opening day but due to foggy conditions didn't realise we had arrived in Fife.
Eh that is not the Queensferry crossing, that is the rail bridge. Behind that is the old road bridge. And behind that and completely out of sight is the new Queensferry Crossing. What a stupid picture.
Yes - and my wife and I with two friends drove over the old road bridge on it's opening day but due to foggy conditions didn't realise we had arrived in Fife.
"Ominously for Zac Goldsmith, most of the people who thought Britain would stay in the EU and Hillary Clinton would be president say he will hold his seat in the Richmond Park by-election on Thursday. "
So, the residents of Richmond are delusional fools with no concept of the world beyond their local area?
Lol that isn't ominous for Zac at all, Clinton would win 99-1 (Mike K I think !) vs Trump in Richmond.
And asking industry to cut power usage at certain times is a desperate measure and a sign of failure.
I disagree with this point. It surely makes economic sense to ask (and pay for) industry to cut its consumption on rare occasions rather than building power stations that will very rarely be used.
Stuff like glass furnaces you can't just turn on and off at will, you know.
No, but other industries can adjust power consumption. And it is also possible to forecast and plan in advance for times of peak consumption.
why the fk should they ? Just build a bloody power station
It's amazing to read how on one side leaving the EU will supposedly decimate our industries, bit power shortages and planned brown outs will be fine and won't hurt industry at all.
4 king ludicrous.
it's just yet another sign of this country's fear of investing and doing the simple things.
Like building runways. Eh Zac? Give luddites a bad name so he does.
I still cant understand why we cant have a Motorway between London and Edinburgh
Do you really want to make it easy for Scots to flee south?
Eh that is not the Queensferry crossing, that is the rail bridge. Behind that is the old road bridge. And behind that and completely out of sight is the new Queensferry Crossing. What a stupid picture.
Oh, I don't know. The Forth Bridge is always worth looking at for design brilliance.
The name of the new bridge, Queensferry Crossing, was chosen by public competition. I was disappointed my favoured choice, the Third Forth Bridge, didn't make it to the shortlist.
And asking industry to cut power usage at certain times is a desperate measure and a sign of failure.
I disagree with this point. It surely makes economic sense to ask (and pay for) industry to cut its consumption on rare occasions rather than building power stations that will very rarely be used.
Stuff like glass furnaces you can't just turn on and off at will, you know.
No, but other industries can adjust power consumption. And it is also possible to forecast and plan in advance for times of peak consumption.
why the fk should they ? Just build a bloody power station
It's amazing to read how on one side leaving the EU will supposedly decimate our industries, bit power shortages and planned brown outs will be fine and won't hurt industry at all.
4 king ludicrous.
it's just yet another sign of this country's fear of investing and doing the simple things.
Like building runways. Eh Zac? Give luddites a bad name so he does.
I still cant understand why we cant have a Motorway between London and Edinburgh
Do you really want to make it easy for Scots to flee south?
Let the plane take the strain. Who'd chose to drive from Edinburgh to London if they didn't have to?
"Ominously for Zac Goldsmith, most of the people who thought Britain would stay in the EU and Hillary Clinton would be president say he will hold his seat in the Richmond Park by-election on Thursday. "
So, the residents of Richmond are delusional fools with no concept of the world beyond their local area?
Lol that isn't ominous for Zac at all, Clinton would win 99-1 (Mike K I think !) vs Trump in Richmond.
Tonight, Zac has allegedly had an accident on the way to the hustings and had to change his trousers. Make of that what you will.
And asking industry to cut power usage at certain times is a desperate measure and a sign of failure.
I disagree with this point. It surely makes economic sense to ask (and pay for) industry to cut its consumption on rare occasions rather than building power stations that will very rarely be used.
Stuff like glass furnaces you can't just turn on and off at will, you know.
No, but other industries can adjust power consumption. And it is also possible to forecast and plan in advance for times of peak consumption.
why the fk should they ? Just build a bloody power station
It's amazing to read how on one side leaving the EU will supposedly decimate our industries, bit power shortages and planned brown outs will be fine and won't hurt industry at all.
4 king ludicrous.
it's just yet another sign of this country's fear of investing and doing the simple things.
Like building runways. Eh Zac? Give luddites a bad name so he does.
I still cant understand why we cant have a Motorway between London and Edinburgh
Do you really want to make it easy for Scots to flee south?
But it will make it easier to get the Scots back North of the Wall.
Arguably the Lib Dems are the insurgents in Richmond. As 2016 is the year of insurgency, maybe they'll win. Having said that, I got the other insurgencies wrong.
And asking industry to cut power usage at certain times is a desperate measure and a sign of failure.
I disagree with this point. It surely makes economic sense to ask (and pay for) industry to cut its consumption on rare occasions rather than building power stations that will very rarely be used.
Stuff like glass furnaces you can't just turn on and off at will, you know.
No, but other industries can adjust power consumption. And it is also possible to forecast and plan in advance for times of peak consumption.
why the fk should they ? Just build a bloody power station
It's amazing to read how on one side leaving the EU will supposedly decimate our industries, bit power shortages and planned brown outs will be fine and won't hurt industry at all.
4 king ludicrous.
it's just yet another sign of this country's fear of investing and doing the simple things.
Like building runways. Eh Zac? Give luddites a bad name so he does.
I still cant understand why we cant have a Motorway between London and Edinburgh
Do you really want to make it easy for Scots to flee south?
Let the TRAIN take the strain. Who'd chose to drive from Edinburgh to London if they didn't have to?
And asking industry to cut power usage at certain times is a desperate measure and a sign of failure.
I disagree with this point. It surely makes economic sense to ask (and pay for) industry to cut its consumption on rare occasions rather than building power stations that will very rarely be used.
Stuff like glass furnaces you can't just turn on and off at will, you know.
No, but other industries can adjust power consumption. And it is also possible to forecast and plan in advance for times of peak consumption.
Really, which industries can cut power consumption? I would have thought that any industry will always minimise its costs and therefore will not be running using more electricity than it needs to. Reducing consumption therefore means shutting down productive work.
Any industry where energy is a large part of the input cost and you can feasibly switch off for an hour or so on occasion. In exchange for that commitment you would get a substantial discount on your tariff. Or offices or businesses that have a backup generator.
I know CERN, which has a very large energy requirement has a deal like that with the French power company.
CERN is a research site not a company with a production line, the idea that a company can just shut down for an "hour or so" from time to time without incurring costs is laughable. So that discount would have to be very large indeed. As for back up generators, I thought this was all about emissions, those generators run on diesel - hardly environmentally friendly.
The CERN deal is about actually firing up experiments. They need a very stable supply for their base load work - keeping a large number of tons of liquid helium, liquid. That is never, ever, ever switched off.
Yeah, but they time their experiments to to avoid power company peak loads. AFAIK it's not onerous as the blocked off times are a small proportion of the up times.
Eh that is not the Queensferry crossing, that is the rail bridge. Behind that is the old road bridge. And behind that and completely out of sight is the new Queensferry Crossing. What a stupid picture.
Oh, I don't know. The Forth Bridge is always worth looking at for design brilliance.
The name of the new bridge, Queensferry Crossing, was chosen by public competition. I was disappointed my favoured choice, the Third Forth Bridge, didn't make it to the shortlist.
If the PM opens it, it will be a truly May the Forth moment!
Comments
Good evening, everyone.
It's just an excuse to allow more unpredictable renewable energy at the cost to the consumer and the economy. It's a sign of failure, not success.
As an aside, the other day we were talking about t'Internet of TatThings. Energy is a place where the IoT could really make a difference, at a great risk of hacking and cost.
The strike is over who pushes a button to close the doors, the driver or the guard. The latter being a post so essential it is years since I can remember seeing one, not since the days of the old slam door trains in fact. God knows where they hide.
Instant Brexit's gonna get you.
It's deluded to expect something as complex as nuclear power plants to be remotely competitive with oil and natural gas which gush out of the ground or replacing GLS lamps by LEDs with 10% the electricity consumption. Or to be more polite, Sir Humphry has been very badly briefed by his advisers.
'Watchmaking by the tonne'. The phrase used by Sir Arnold Weinstock, 1970, commenting on the continuing difficulties with the UK's Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors.
The castle has an excellent Victorian prison with unique chapel too, designed to keep the congregation in solitary and awake! Well worth taking in.
Excellent summary!
Personally, I'd give in to the union's demands on having two safety critical members of staff, but enforce a pay cut for drivers. VTEC had 15,000 applications for 78 driver posts recently:
http://tinyurl.com/h6mjwv8
I've seen them before. I'm very, very dubious. But as ever with this sort of thing, I hope I'm wrong.
Kersten England says Bradford 'celebrates, commemorates, works and plays together', despite segregation claims
THE chief executive of Bradford Council has been fiercely critical of a report which named the city as one of the most segregated places in the country.
http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/14932886.Council_chief_disputes_report_which_lists_Bradford_as_fifth_most_segregated_place_in_country/#comments-anchor
The problem is the unreliability of renewable energy. That's why these drastic kludges are required. We need mass energy storage, and we need it fast.
http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/
http://terrestrialenergy.com/imsr-technology/
https://www.worldenergy.org/news-and-media/news/new-paradigms-for-the-nuclear-energy-sector/
The lengths Lib Dems will go to...
History is littered with people who had brilliant ideas that turned out not quite to work as hyped; a typical example being Maglev (though the Japanese might change that. Or might not).
In the nuke field, when I was a kid (and more interested in nuclear power than a kid should be), Pebble Bed reactors were being hyped as the future. AFAICR Germany's experience with their prototypes were not good.
I'm all for providing seed funding of a number of millions for promising ideas. But we need to be really strict and ruthless in culling those that don't meet the grade.
Then again, I think aneutronic fusion's the future.
a) It's not drastic - this year's demand balancing requirement would be less than 4% of today's peak demand of 50GW, (and it probably was not triggered today anyway).
b) and this is an interim measure whilst mass energy storage is being worked on - again, its not perfect, but its better than the alternatives..
On the topic of mass energy storage: There was a recent New Scientist article on the potential of giant capacitors to replace batteries for some applications. Obviously we generally view large capacitors as being good for supplying large but short bursts of current; apparently, though, there are new ideas on methods of considerably increasing their capacitance. This would be a major breakthrough when you consider the advantages of storing energy in an electric field rather than in chemical form.
https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/11/a-reflexive-liar-in-command-guidelines-for-the-media/508832/
Encouragingly, I noticed that in the last Budget there was a few tens of millions set aside for running a competition for modular molten salt reactors, which improved my opinion of Osborne by at least two orders of magnitude.
As long as the media is the bad guy of the soap-opera, people won't listen.
That's terrible. It's awful. It's lamentable.
As for your second point: I'm a firm believer that we plan for the future using today's technology, and don't rely on some mystical, magical solution being around the corner. Because more often than not they don't live up to their promise.
That doesn't mean we don't try to develop them; just that we cannot rely on the new solutions living up to their promise. If they do fair enough. But we have to plan for the future using the best of what we have now.
The problem with unpredictable renewables is that they've gone ahead on the basis of mass energy storage coming along later. It hasn't, so we're having to do this demand balancing rubbish to keep the lights on.
It's not a good way to run the country.
But you must tell me about your carbon nanotube space-straw plan sometime.
Sure, it's risky, but the capital outlay to prove/disprove the technology is a small fraction of what we're spending on the French white elephant.
Among the 50 largest cities in america, Trump recorded a swing in his favour in only 3:
In rank of size of city:
1. New York
21. Detroit
28. Las Vegas
In a further 4 there was almost no swing in favour or against:
5. Philadelphia
40. Colorado Springs
41. Virginia Beach
50. Arlington (Texas)
The rest went for Hillary.
I've no problem with spending small (if millions can be small) amounts of seed money on such projects. In fact, I demand it. Firstly to develop them on paper; produce safety cases; regulatory work and maybe even lab work. You then pick the most promising and fund them more on a second stage, which may be more of the same, or may even be prototype hardware. And so on until you have one ot two which work.
A downside to this is the media see projects that are culled early as 'millions wasted on scheme x!'.
I just don't want to rely on them working. We need to plan for the immediate future using the best technology that we know works.
It's pretty much based around how successful that very concept is.
In fact, I'd recommend all of Harford's books for explaining economic background in an engaging and entertaining way
(Joking mode off).
It's something I describe to people when I want to see them work out how many ways it won't work.
Edit: I bow to your superior knowledge as a magnetohydrodynamic modeller (probably the first time that words been mentioned on PB)!
From memory aneutronic fusion will require at least ten times the amount of energy that D-T fusion does, and we're having enough trouble with that. But it also has massive advantages including the potential for direct energy conversion and no steam cycle required. The French team have been doing some interesting work with it.
Yes, it is a long shot. But it's worth seeding investigations into it, and the knowledge gained might even help 'traditional' D-T fusion and other research. A low chance of working, but massive pay-off if it does gamble.
Medium term, tidal barrages (which might also provide pumped storage) ?
Apologies if it has. Scottish pandas can breathe a sigh of relief!
I suppose in this febrile atmosphere it is unsafe to say that this is impossible. But I think it is impossible.
I disagree, but that's irrelevant, as it's also not happening.
"Decision on DSBR Procurement for 2016/17
National Grid will not be procuring Demand Side Balancing Reserve (DSBR) for winter 2016/17.
I hope that goes a little way to assuaging your outrage...
http://www2.nationalgrid.com/UK/Services/Balancing-services/System-security/Contingency-balancing-reserve/DSBR-Tender-Documentation/
https://www.channel4.com/news/richmond-by-election-can-lib-dems-beat-goldsmith
The first condition (LD revival) seem dead for a generation, latest ICM has them at just 7%, lowest since June.
The second condition (Labour scottish recovery) also seems dead for a generation, even though the SNP has recorded signs of weakness the Tories are the ones who have benefited in scotland.
So a 3rd way is needed for a Labour breakthrough in small towns or rural areas.
https://twitter.com/ianjsilvera/status/803705180617318400
https://twitter.com/Josh_Rendall/status/801799454403817472
https://twitter.com/ProgressOnline/status/803684565621600256
One form of electricity storage in bulk that is fairly economical is storing water in huge lakes behind hydroelectric dams and releasing water to turn turbines when electricity is needed. But it needs huge mountain ranges, making it more workable in the Italian Alps than the UK.
Yes, base the future on what works now. But politicians seem to prefer glamorous silver bullets.
Progress has been a cancer inside Labour, eating all it's popular policies and churning out crap, but if they make a U-turn on social policy that's a first step.
Now the only thing they need to do is support the social safety net, a little protectionist, a bit in favour of some (but not too many) finance regulations, and tone down their foreign policy aggressiveness and they will become electable.
https://twitter.com/foreignoffice/status/803674926133616640
Part of an ongoing series.
"Ominously for Zac Goldsmith, most of the people who thought Britain would stay in the EU and Hillary Clinton would be president say he will hold his seat in the Richmond Park by-election on Thursday. "
http://i2.coventrytelegraph.net/incoming/article7534352.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/cars.jpg
Anyway since the last poll from Richmond Park had Goldsmith with a 27 point lead, well over 50% and the latest national polls have the LD 37 points behind the Tories, I see little danger for Goldsmith.
The English and Welsh hills are really puny compared to the Alps. The Scottish mountains are pretty modest too.
Spoken like a true LibDem. Good luck winning back Redcar with attitudes like that.
But Rentoul is up to the only common denominator of Leave and Trump, you don't know about "shy" voters and who is going to vote.
I can't imagine of any "shy" LD voters, and if turnout is around 50% Goldsmith should be ok. Any turnout much higher would probably be a wave of protest against the Tories, any much lower and the LD corpse might snatch it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-38143696
We are awaiting a new UK government CCS policy...
I think they'll have better chances focusing in other areas, frankly.
Lewis: Oh yeah. You gotta nice job, you gotta a nice house, a nice wife, a nice kid.
Ed: You make that sound rather shitty, Lewis.
The name of the new bridge, Queensferry Crossing, was chosen by public competition. I was disappointed my favoured choice, the Third Forth Bridge, didn't make it to the shortlist.
Government by the Twitter, for the twitter
That they will pay for.
https://heatst.com/life/delta-airlines-bans-hillary-bitches-passenger-for-life-refunds-customers/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/11/29/chelsea-made-secret-payment-player-child-sex-abuse-claim/