George Osborne demands massive cuts to windfarm subsidies

[TimberWolf]

The UK is not running out of fossil fuels.

Eh? Did you inadvertently slip "UK" in that sentence, or do you really believe that? If you do believe it, would you care to quantify roughly what amount of fossil fuel reserves you think the UK can yet feasibly recover?

Peak oil is a simply a hypothesis that's been pushed into the forefront of MSM for the last 40 years when they first announced it. And the goalposts are constantly being moved due to economics and recent vast oil reservoir discoveries and oil recovery technologies.

Ah, now you're referring to global oil reserves I assume, a debate which is of secondary interest to me at least. If you are happy for the UK to be reliant on worldwide oil supplies for all our energy needs then so be it. Absolute reliance is something I'm not comfortable with while alternatives exist, and as I've said even with our own energy supplies we will remain heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels for the foreseeable future in any case.

They save nothing.

Well if they [wind turbines] saved nothing, why is it that people prominent in the power industry are not jumping up and down screaming their heads off.

They don't drop the turndown ratio on fossil fuelled power stations. And if power stations did follow the variance of windfarms energy output they would swing like a bitch and use more fossil fuel than was their boilerplate efficiency on a standard turndown.

The fact that their penetration rate into our National Grid is less than 20% is the whole reason we don't experience brownouts, or worse, blackouts.

Yes, 20% maximum is what we are talking about, and then rarely would that happen. Yes it is still potentially quite a lot, was addressed in the previous post, and more on this later in this post.

Nuclear can follow demand but as you state, for some reason, the investment from our taxes seems lacking.

Ultimately fusion will provide all the "free energy" we require, but may be in our children's generation. Paradoxically, the same pattern of base and peak demand will still exist. Perhaps we'll move on from steam generated power to spin electrical generators onto something else...

I'm afraid fusion won't provide free energy in that sense either, and incidentally I sometimes wonder how fusion could ever be as cheap as fission, as the reactor environment is so much more hostile than with fission. There's no guarantee that fusion will even become economically feasible.

No.

The base load power that these power plants supply are working 24/7 constantly, the extra "peaking" power that is required when we wake up an all make a coffee, boil a kettle to make a tea when the ITV ads come on, are addressed by the standby peaking power fossil fuelled plants that are running to plug into the Grid as required. Once again, think kettle.

They have heated up their boilers for steam to power their generators and are ready a good few hours before they are needed.

I need another absinthe...keep it coming comrades, no ad homs, lets keep the chat going!

There are other, and greater, temporal fluctuations in demand than short term fluctuations from kettles being turned on after Eastenders, as tricky as those fluctuation themselves might be. Electrical consumption is higher during the day and, especially, during winter than summer, and this difference is considerably more than 20%. The national grid [currently] has capacity to meet peak winter demand. Now to convince me that the current system has no unused capacity you'd need to explain how we meet winter demand at 6pm, without there being corresponding spare capacity at 3am on a summer's day when demand is much lower. Variations in demand isn't a new or non existing problem.

[AtW]

UK now imports oil, luckily not from Gazprom (unlike Germans) but it's still high cost - all thanks to high taxes on North Oil development, so much for energy security policy.

[EternalOptimist]

....
You point out repeatedly that we would need capacity to cover the times when the wind doesn't blow, which isn't true, .....

You seriously suggest that we dont need to provide backup for when the wind doesn't blow ?

you have slipped your cable, lost the plot, one sandwich short of a picnic mate.




that is rationing, in a country of our latitude and climate, rationing means deaths.

[Cliphead]

If wind turbines are so great why do they need to be subsidised? Won't they return the investment over time?

[TimberWolf]

You seriously suggest that we dont need to provide backup for when the wind doesn't blow ?

you have slipped your cable, lost the plot, one sandwich short of a picnic mate.




that is rationing, in a country of our latitude and climate, rationing means deaths.

No, not "need". Electrical links exist to mainland Europe and Ireland where energy can be bought and sold, and more are being built, changes to the way we consume energy, e.g. smart metering, things that can be turned off during lulls, things that can be turned on during off-peak times, energy storage, etc. Likely those things will come as more things are electrified regardless, which is especially relevant to a nation with dwindling fossil reserves. In practise I expect capacity would increase and excess energy sold, just as it is now. And just as now there will be unused capacity in the grid since demand fluctuates widely.

There may well be an energy shortfall around 2020, but I doubt investing in wind is contributing to that problem, if that's what you're foaming at the mouth with by saying rationing and deaths.

[TimberWolf]

If wind turbines are so great why do they need to be subsidised? Won't they return the investment over time?

Is wind is alone in this respect? Everyone seems to accuse everyone else of subsidies in some form or another, and on costs too. Isn't it also good to have a little capacity onshore in case the world goes crazy, to at least keep some basic infrastructure going, especially when we are so fortunate in our wind potential.

[EternalOptimist]

No, not "need". Electrical links exist to mainland Europe and Ireland where energy can be bought and sold, and more are being built, changes to the way we consume energy, e.g. smart metering, things that can be turned off during lulls, things that can be turned on during off-peak times, energy storage, etc. Likely those things will come as more things are electrified regardless, which is especially relevant to a nation with dwindling fossil reserves. In practise I expect capacity would increase and excess energy sold, just as it is now. And just as now there will be unused capacity in the grid since demand fluctuates widely.

There may well be an energy shortfall around 2020, but I doubt investing in wind is contributing to that problem, if that's what you're foaming at the mouth with by saying rationing and deaths.

Investing in wind is not the problem, it's people relying on it thats the problem.

[TimberWolf]

Investing in wind is not the problem, it's people relying on it thats the problem.

Wind is only going to supply about 20% of UK electrical energy IIRC (although there will be days when that is far exceeded since capacity is usually given as about 30% of potential, AFAIK - "load factor"). The grid's electrical demand has fluctuated by much more than that in the past 24 hours:
National Grid: Electricity demand - Last 24 Hours

Why not look at sites like that instead of the crazy sites and getting all upset?

There have been economic disasters with wind no doubt about it, but if it can work anywhere surely it's the UK. We should be able to beat the Germans on price with their solar anyway, at least until they get that north African grid up and running. In any case, we will mostly be relying on imported gas:


in scenario1 anyway

http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonl...2AppendixA.pdf

[bless 'em all]

The predictable energy output from the fission of Uranium is far more preferable to the 'oh I hope it's blowy tomorrow I want to watch Eastenders' scenario.

[Cliphead]

Is wind is alone in this respect? Everyone seems to accuse everyone else of subsidies in some form or another, and on costs too. Isn't it also good to have a little capacity onshore in case the world goes crazy, to at least keep some basic infrastructure going, especially when we are so fortunate in our wind potential.

There isn't any capacity and never will be. Get yer head out from yer arse.

Nuclear power is the only way to go but you might as well advocate murdering your parents because of all the bad press it's got.

People in this country die because they can't afford to pay for the very basics that requires power. Wonderful world we live in and all the wind blowing isn't going to change that.