Beelbeebub

"journalist" has come to mean something different these days. Once it was someone committed to finding and explaining facts and complex topics. Now it includes columnists writing opinions, partisan press releases, commercial press releases (every single one of those 'new poll suggests' articles) and even those idiot "auditors" (any idiot with a go pro and chip on their shoulder) who call themselves "citizen journalists".

I don't agree with this point. But in both cases the maximum grid load is the same as it's demand driven so the grid doesn't need to be bigger. The only difference is the location of the generators is different so some additional work is needed to get the power from it's new source. National grid have identified the current weak links (a big one being on the Scottish borders) and are upgrading them. Another is on the east coast and one across Wales. The cost of these upgrades is expected to add about £50 to bills but save about £40 in curtailment related costs. The last point: yes we will have to add things like storage. Current rates for domestic storage are less than 5p per kWh (£50 per Mwh) I suspect grid scale is less. That's on top of the input electric cost, which would generally be near zero (the whole point of storage). As an aside the capacity of all the EV's currently on the road (5% of all cars now) is about 60Gwh. That could,with the right V2G infrastructure yield as much as the nuclear plants under construction for several hours. They would be the ideal peaker plants.

The French submarine reactor, which is a sub 20% enrichment design, is about 3m diameter and 5m height. So comparable to a large abnormal load like a big transformer or a wind turbine nacelle. It could be road transported (albeit with some restrictions) Obviously the safety margins for military vessels are somewhat different to civilian use. But if the "reactor factory" near a deep water shipyard the ships could come in, have the reactor craned out ,new one dropped in and be on their way. This is essentially what happens to nuclear subs except it:a all about more fraught with the whole 'cutting open the pressure hull' thing. All that said, i'm far from convinced that nuclear powered shipping is going to be a thing.

Yeah, the current "small' reactors are bloody huge. But *if* we could get them to container sized then the logistics of removing them to refuel them becomes much much easier. If they were placed where they could easily be craned out rather than having to do major surgery (refueling nuclear subs involved cutting the hull open) then swapping them out would be not much different from unloading a container ship.

I agree - people willing to regurgitate the oil industry line about climate change being a hoax and a communist plot to destroy our economy can have a lucrative career with think tanks, the speaking circuit and providing papers so politicans can cite 'peer reviewed research' , whilst the scientists diligently studying ocean currents, atmospheric temperatures, rainfall patterns, climate models etc live precariously from academic grant to academic grant.

And the high peak prices are something we already deal with - consumers get a fixed price which is above the absolute lowest but also caps the peaks which can get very high.

Yes, that's why the price per Mwh for a plat with 5% or 30% utilisation is higher than one with +90%. But but it's cheaper to run a plant for 4 months at about £150 Mwh than a plant for 11 months at £100Mwh Btw this is exactly what China is doing with coal. There's lots of 'but china are building coal plants!' but little mention that the utilisation of those plants is falling. It's china's energy security backup because they have lots of coal, but the growth in their demand as they electrify is coming from renewables

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UK production of oil and gas I have - can you tell me how many are in operation today? 2 - one in china that took just over 11 years to build and floating one in russia that also took 10 years to build. And there are 6 or so under construction with intended in service dates sometime before 2030. Ideally we would have gone ahead with the various reactors we had planned back in the early 00's and have several up and running by now, but we seem to be very bad at nuclear construction in the UK. I'm not convinced we will get any better in the timeline we need. We have 2 under construction (hinkley C and sizewell C) with a combined capacity of around 6.5 GW coming online in 2030 and late 2030's. But that only covers the loss from the 5 existing plants shutting down before 2030, and as they are AGR's they are going to be difficult to life extend - not impossible, they will be about 40 years old at planned shutdown and the design has been extended to 50 years at other sites. Without a time machine, nuclear isn't going to dig us out of the hole. Except when they don't keep prices down. Several years ago our gas and elec prices rocketed because a politician 1,500 miles way decided the country next door was his. Our gas and oil prices recently shot up because a politician 3,000 miles away got mad at a country 3,000miles the other way and started flinging bombs about and suddenly, ships with oil bound for us turned round in the ocean and headed to china and the far east because they outbid us. Environmental issues aside, oil and gas are very shaky foundations. We struggled in ww2 for oil. We struggled in the 70's for oil. This isn't going to get better but they don't - they offer (in effect) fixed price deals for capacity. Those prices are lower than a new build gas plant can offer (and that was before the higher gas prices). And whilst there may be a security issue with inverters made in china, in the sense they could be controlled from abroad - and there are strong arguments that the uk or at least europe should be making it's own inverters or at least the software running them - the fact the panels are made in china is irrelevant. Once you have bought them they are yours, they are dumb bits of silicon and glass that create a voltage when illuminated. That's it. Once you have bought them they will last for 25 years or so, churning out power every day. A barrel of oil, on the other hand, can be used one. Then you have to buy a new one. You realise we have wind turbines, right? They tend to do well in the winter. And if the sun doesnt shine and the wind doesn't blow - what will we do? Burn gas in CCGT plants exactly as we do now. The difference is we will be burning gas for a month or two a year rather than all year round. The future energy mix will have nuclear, wind, solar (etc) lots of battery capacity and a good chunk of CCGT plants with gas storage for the times when we need them.

if the SMR was a container sized device that just needed hookup to (ship) power grid, monitoring and cooling - i could see it working if electric drive was used. Then, as you say, the module could be craned on/off fairly easily and exchanged for a factory fresh unit whilst the old one went back to be refueled.

A good friend is an expert (as in one of the guys the MoD call when they want to know about radar) and has specifically looked at this. His answer is "there are effects but nothing that causes a problem". The radar issue is one raised by non-experts (repeatedly) but is not a concern of the people who are actually in charge of operating our radar. And as for birds, cats kill far more than wind turbines (which don't kill many at all)

For the UK the fossil fuels are running low now. Oil and gas are currently 50% of consumption and that will halve or worse *in the next decade*. Not the next 100 or 50 years but the next 10 years. Unless we want to be dependent on importing gas and oil when 20% of the world supply can be cut off at the whim of a power mad dictator we need another way to power the UK. Nuclear takes ages to build. Far longer than the 10 year time frame. Solar farms are the cheapest form of energy generation and they are quick to build. Yes they are intermittent but one thing they do provide is lots of power when it is sunny, which is also when hot countries (which the UK is becoming) also tend to see highest demand due to air conditioning. Batteries are also becoming cheaper year on year. Right now solar is providing 30% of our electricity, 2x that of gas. At a time when gas prices are high we are saving 2/3 on our national gas bill (of which we import abiut half).

From the OP article "The Energy Secretary on Wednesday said he had granted planning permission to the One Earth Solar Farm development to be built on prime farmland across Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire." (emphasis mine) So prime farmland eh? Must be some of the most productive land in the country. We'll starve without the breadbasket of thr East Midlands that is Newton-On-Trent. Let's have a look at the map of agricultural land quality. The project is the area south of Newton-On-Trent either side of the river. As you can see the land is green which is grade 3 "good to moderate" Grade 3 is 2 sub grades A and B the maps don't distinguish but here's the description Grade 3a (Good): capable, but notable limitations that reduce cropping flexibility or consistency. Grade 3b (Moderate): more restricted: typically fewer arable options and/or less reliable output As you can see neither of these could be described as "prime". Every single time anyone tries to build anything on farmland people start banging on about food security and the land as though it were the best soil in all Europe. In reality nobody is going to put their solar farm on grade 1 land when there is lower grade and available.

The thermal plant (fossil fuel or nuclear) issue during hot weather is more regulatory than technical. These systems have delta T's of several hundred degrees, the increace of 10nornsondegrees at the cold side isn't a major technical problem. But all thermal plants have limits on the temperature of the "used" cooling water. This is for ecological reasons, if you started dumping thousands of m3 an hour af 80C water into a river or the sea you'd kill everything downstream. There are also limits on the amount of water they can take. During hot weather there is a much smaller window between the maximum water temperature leaving and the regulatory limit. This is particularly acute for river cooled plants that may also experience low river flows at the same time.

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Interesting - where can/did you get those figures? 80% of Scottish demand wouldn't be far off the 2.5GW of wind total?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/09/great-britain-grid-operator-issues-another-warning-over-power-supplies-in-heatwave Interesting bit is how the French are having to curb the output of their nuclear stations due to the high temps. The same issue can also affect gas stations. And as the anti-renewable brigade never tire of mentioning, low wind conditions can coincide with heatwaves and drastically reduce the output of wind farms. Right now (1.30pm 9th July) wind is only producing 2.5Gw, about 10% of it's maximum and 1/3 the current gas plant output. Of course, there is one tech that correlates extremely well with heatwaves.... Solar, and that is currently pumping out 14Gw. My own array is powering my portable air con unit and the battery will continue to do that well into the night. Zero impact on the grid. In contrast to the challanges facing renewables in our winter peaks, solving for the likely summer peaks is much easier. Lots of PV, local and grid scale, lots of batteries, local and grid scale.

Yeah, but the idea is they don't leak the heat away during the day when you're out and then be spent in the evening requiring you to use fan heaters. Storage heaters are a shit idea based on the old idea of "spare" elec always going free at night. Which was true in the days of big coal plants. Less so with renewables, batteries, ev's etc. . But there we go. This is the official EPC system that we are forced to adhere to. I get about half as much effect on my epc for replacing all the single glazed windows with double glazing as I do by just swapping the panel heaters to HHR units....

The EPC system is pretty crap. I just had an all electric flat done - got a poor E score, mainly because of direct electric heating and hot water. The assessor model 2 options for me. Swap to air to air HP or new high heat retention storage Heaters. They both came out the same points, despite the HP option using 1/3 the electricity. Shrugs.

I love airships but I don't think they are the answer apart from some very niche uses. The biggest issue is the slow speeds mean long cycle times. A 737 can cycle back and forth between London and Rome 4 or 5 times a day, so it's capital and operational costs can be split over many passengers. But the airship might do one leg, maybe a return with fewer people and the capital and operational costs would be similar if not greater than a 737. They do look cool though.

No it isn't - but I would put it lower down the list of priorities than the other two items. Those are bigger bang for your (political capital) buck. If we reduce demand for oil (and gas) from road transport there will be more oil available for things like flying. I'm not in the same camp as "just stop oil" - we will need to extract oil for the foreseeable future for chemicals and things where the intra high energy density is critical (mainly aviation, but also some critical "off grid" applications). I just think we should stop burning oil (gas) if we don't have to. Cars and HPs do need more generation and there are some swapping costs (though less if you just replace with electric at the end of normal life) - but again these are problems we have known "mature" solutions to. They are, in tech nerd speak, technology readiness level 9 "actual system proven in operational environment" Low carbon long haul aviation is TRL 4 at best with short haul at maybe 7 (there are some electric float planes operating in Canada for example) Absent some massive break though in creating hydrocarbons from electricity, water and co2 (which would also solve a whole bunch of other problems) aviation will be tied to fossil fuels for a while yet.

You can play all sorts of tunes with the statistics - do you count methane leaks in that gas heating stats? What exactly is the average uk house? How much worse are high altitude emissions? How do you attribute international flights? Etc. But the co2 emissions from flying are several times less than those from gas heating or private vehicles. Even if you 3x them to account for the altitude flying is only equal to one of those other items (in round numbers) We can definitely replace the majority of heating emissions now, today, with proven tech you can literally buy off the shelf. Likewise, we can replace the majority of cars on the road with EV equivalents that are availible today. There would be no major change to lifestyles or functionality. People would still have warm homes and still be able to drive about. (obviously both of those sectors will see a gradual phase out due to the relatively long life cycles of cars and boilers) But there is no currently available way to replicate the functionality of air travel without carbon emissions. Maybe one day there will be (fingers crossed). If there was I would 100% support swapping to that ASAP, in the same way I support EVs and HPs. But until then, I think we should focus on tackling the two sectors that are - much bigger than aviation - much easier - result in minimal disruption to people's lives. Otherwise we will alienate the public even more. The right wing press already bang on about "Greta stealing your holidays" or some such bollocks whenever any free taxes are applied to air travel. Imagine what would happen if we actually tried to ban air travel.

The average uk house with a gas boiler emiits 4-5t co2e a year. A full transatlantic return flight is about 650kg per person. So say 2 people and allow for lower average occupancy maybe 1t per person so 2t for your trip (4t if a family) You could swap to a HP, take your family on a trip to NY, and still be (a bit) lower carbon than staying at home and keeping your gas boiler. If you had an EV as well, you'd be well ahead.

I rarely fly, maybe 3x in the last decade, though I have flown to NZ once and the US a few times in my younger days. Incidentally my NZ trip took 24h all in. My grandfather visited NZ before the war to study farming techniques and other things. He went by boat. It took over a month. Without air travel International travel woill essentially become impossible for everyone but the super wealthy. If you focus on individual actions everything looks pointless. This is a variation on "the UK is 1% of emissions so why should we do anything". Say we wanted to cut our co2 emissions as a nation by 25%. We could totally ban flying. Nothing leaves the ground. No travel for business or pleasure. No fast cargo of goods. Nothing Can you imagine the public backlash. Holidays abroad, trips to visit friends and families, school exchange trips, sports tours, sports tournaments, academic conferences, specialist consultancy, music and arts tours etc all gone. And we would still need to do something else to reach the target. Or We could insulate our homes and swap to heatpumps. We would end up with warmer, cheaper to run homes that are less dependant on foreign fuels and easily meet our target. Or we could phase in EVs (and more rail) and have cleaner air in our cities, less noise pollution and also easily exceed our target Focusing first on air travel is like religiously turning off your TV at the wall each night to save energy whilst not insulating your loft.

Ha! I can see why you might think that but I'm not a carbon zelot. Being able to move things, including people from one side of that globe to the other in under 24h is a huge benefit. We should be minimising flying where possible. Eg, sub 500 mile (to pick an approximate distance) flights should be replaced with rail, business meetings that could be done remotely should be done remotely. But I would rather we saved carbon by moving to EVs and heatpumps and continue flying (albeit maybe at a slightly lower rate) rather than cut flying so we can drive ICE cars and use gas boilers. And we would save *much* more carbon by doing those things (and improve energy security) than by stopping flying all together.