LnP

Ms Savage didn't say that they've seen lower electricity contract prices, reduced spot price volatility, because of increased output from wind and battery generation during evening peaks. She said they've seen lower electricity contract prices, reduced spot price volatility, and increased output from wind and battery generation during evening peaks. I scanned the article you linked to and didn't see a claim that there's a causal link between the two issues. Australia's electricity is generated 100% from domestic sources - coal, natural gas, wind, solar. 64% from fossils. So it's no surprise that their domestic energy costs have not increased with the conflict in the Middle East. It's tricky comparing between countries but I imagine that even if their renewables are cheaper, it'll be because the generators there are getting the same free ride on intermittency and grid constraints as they are here. Btw, I strongly support decarbonisation. I just think we need to be a bit more clear eyed about how we get there.

This cognitive bias has been well studied and is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. It describes the systematic tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of their ability. We saw it in the pandemic, "I'm not getting vaccinated. I've done my own research. They don't work and are dangerous". We see it with climate change, "It's probably not happening and if it is it's just natural. Nothing to do with human activity". It's tempting, and somewhat satisfying, to write off people who have these views as fruit cakes. But it's better to recognise it as a cognitive bias to which we are all susceptible. The way to deal with it is not to throw more evidence at them. You won't convince them. Better to ask questions to try and get them to think it through for themselves. You are right about the role of legislation. Before the wearing of seat belts was required by law, many people strongly objected. They said, "I will be less safe. I won't be able to escape if the car catches fire", "In case of an accident, I can brace myself against the dash". Clearly ridiculous. But now most of us feel unsafe and naked if we don't have our seat belts on. The legislation eliminated the cognitive bias. By forcing our behaviours to change, our values and attitudes have come into line with our behaviours.

@Beelbeebub, we agree on the required policy outcome, decarbonisation. I described a market driven policy framework for achieving that: Carbon tax to incentivise insulation and renewable electrification - heat pumps, BEVs, etc. The same technologies you advocate. Carbon border adjustment mechanism to control the export of our carbon emissions and to stem the loss of our industrialised businesses. CfDs for North Sea oil and gas landed in the UK so that oil companies take the risk on recoverable reserves. You described things you don't like or think are irrelevant, North Sea oil and gas, and you picked some climate "winners", things you like: Reduce demand (insulation and public transport) electrifiy heating (heat pumps) Electrify transport (EVs) Increase local electricity production (winds, solar, nuclear, storage etc) But what's your proposed policy framework for achieving these things? Subsidies? Picking winners often leads to wrong outcomes. Maybe you missed some important ones off your list. And subsidies don't always work. You don't have to read far into this forum to hear about problems with the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme subsidy. When the Climate Change Act was drafted in 2008, some people advocated picking biomass as a renewable generation winner, but look where we are now. The cost of wind and solar fell so far that they became unexpected winners. Happily, the act was written in a way which allowed those technologies to emerge and succeed. The framework I proposed (not my invention by the way!) would allow new technologies and solutions to emerge. So, what's your proposed policy framework?

@Beelbeebub your points are all well made and I agree that criticising an energy policy as "woke" is unhelpful. It seems to me though that politicians are making energy policies based on culture rather than market forces driven by science and economics. I guess that's just democracy. I think we all agree that we are going to continue to need fossils as we make the energy transition, the question is where should the fossils come from. The current UK administration has decided that they are going to prevent them coming from the UKCS by restricting new licences. That's a cultural decision responding to expectations of parts of the electorate who haven't been presented with an alternative way of dealing with the climate change aspects. An alternative approach would be to manage the transition by reducing fossil consumption using carbon taxes, including a carbon border adjustment mechanism, rather than constraining supply by not issuing licences. We should grant licences with fixed prices for fossils (like renewables CfDs) which are required to be landed in the UK. That would avoid our exposure to geopolitical upheavals, albeit on an admittedly possibly small contribution. Regarding how much is there to be extracted, let the oil companies take the risk on that. Regarding how much of it has suitable quality (mainly sulphur content I think) to be refined in the UK, again let the oil companies take the risk. If the price and volume is right and with the certainty of the CfDs, they will modify their refineries to handle it (install hydrotreaters). This would allow market forces to help us through the transition in a way which possibly reduces the cost and even reduces climate impact by avoiding shipping fossils around the world. Apologies that I'm to some extent repeating something I said before, but now with a different emphasis 🙂.

Nice post and I love the pictures but please can we kill the myth that renewables are not eco friendly because of the materials used in their construction. The data speak for themselves. See my earlier post. CO2e, per kWh of energy produced over the life of the asset for your onshore turbine is 12 g CO2e and to produce the same energy from e.g. natural gas it's 458 g. That includes the embedded carbon in the concrete.

I suppose anybody who wants wind turbines to be built and for the electricity they produce to be affordable. CfDs reduce risk for the generators. Without them, generators would be asking higher prices for their electricity to reflect the risks they would be required to take on. Yes, it does stack up, hugely. The parameter you need to look at is the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions, measured in grammes of CO2e, per kWh of energy produced over the life of the asset. Results as follows (median values of the assets they studied): Coal: 1004 g Natural Gas: 458 g Solar PV: 53 g Offshore wind: 18 g Onshore wind: 12 g Nuclear: 6 g (Clearing the Air, Hannah Ritchie, data source UN Economic Commission for Europe, 2021) According to Drax Group who operate the Lanark and Galloway run-of-river hydro schemes, located in south-west Scotland, it generates 126 MW. Yes, that's nice but it's not going to get us far in the energy transition. The latest allocation round for offshore wind (AR7) procured 70 times that capacity, 8.4 GW. So what? The embedded CO2 in the blades is taken into account in the above life cycle numbers. It's just a waste disposal issue. Same or worse for end of life fossil assets, many of which contain far worse materials - asbestos, mercury and other heavy metals, spent catalysts, etc.

You're talking about Sizewell C, I was talking about Hinkley Point C. In both cases, though in different ways, the funding model is designed to recover the decommissioning costs from bill payers. I agree though that nuclear power is expensive (Hinkley strike price currently £135/MWh) and that decommissioning costs are a risk. At least the funding models are intended to recover all the costs from consumers. My post though was making the point that renewable aren't cheap either. That's because the system costs don't show up in the e.g. £91/MWh strike price agreed for off-shore wind in AR7. The point I was making was the facilities you mentioned - battery storage, hydro storage, hydrogen - are expensive pieces of kit and will only be required to run when the wind doesn't blow. So their capital costs will have to be recovered from the few MWh of electricity they produce, which makes that gap filling electricity very expensive. And if we want to compare intermittent wind with firm nuclear on the same basis, we have to add the cost of the gap filling to the £91/MWh ... in which case wind won't look so cheap. And that's even before we talk about the cost of the grid upgrades required for off-shore wind. BTW, I strongly support decarbonisation and that renewables will play an essential role. I just like decisions to be made on the right information.

EDF go bust? Wholly owned by the French state. Seems rather unlikely.

I think consumers pay it, not the tax payer, but can you link me to a source for this? As far as I know, e.g. for Hinckley Point C, these costs are for EDF. That's according to the Hinckley Point C Funded Decommissioning Programme, which "sets out EDF’s arrangements for managing and disposing of the plant’s waste and the decommissioning of the site". EDF will build up a dedicated fund during the station's operational life to ensure taxpayers do not bear the cost. All explained here. So as far as I can tell, EDF took this on when they agreed the strike price, which is currently £135/MWh.... which might look expensive when compared to £91/MWh for off-shore wind, but maybe it isn't if renewables generators had to pay the full system costs. Generating power "most of the time" is not good enough. We expect our electricity to be delivered all of the time. It's the gap between most of the time and all of the time which is expensive and should be taken into account when comparing renewables with fossils and nuclear.... as well as the grid costs of course.

When people say renewables are cheap, they are saying they are cheap compared to other types of generation - CCGT and nuclear. But the way renewables CfDs work, it's not a fair comparison for two reasons. Renewables are intermittent, CCGT and nuclear are firm power. A MWh of intermittent energy is worth less than a firm one. If the renewables generators had to provide the facilities to deliver electricity when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine (batteries, back-up CCGT etc), they wouldn't be so cheap. And they are in far flung corners of the country, distant from consumers, with a grid which does not have the necessary capacity. This results in curtailment where we pay them for electricity we do not consume, or incur capital costs to increase the grid capacity to connect the far flung places. The costs are there, it's just that the renewables generators don't have to pay them. Consumers and tax payers pay them. Renewables are a good thing but we need an honest discussion about what they cost.

Maybe you missed reading the patent? 😉

Tech startups don't necessarily plan to build and scale. The founders might be working towards a buy out by one of the big companies. Resourcing up to now will probably be by angel investors and private equity. Importantly, they have IP https://www.lens.org/lens/patent/123-310-151-347-508/frontpage?l=en Fully agree and there's a lot of tech innovation going on in the UK. It looks like this company started out with the help of this innovation centre in Bristol https://www.futurespacebristol.co.uk/about-us/. Cambridge has historically been where a lot of this has been going on but Bristol is up and coming. It's cheaper than Cambridge and with e.g. Dyson and Elvie nearby they have critical mass for engineers. https://nusku.co.uk/news/start-up-secures-1-million-funding-to-develop-new-heat-pump-tech#:~:text=Nusku is a Bristol-based start-up that is,from key people in the energy sector

Might be of interest for people looking to replace a gas combi-boiler with no room for a DHW cylinder and don't want the disruption of up-sizing radiators. https://nusku.co.uk/news/nusku-set-to-turbocharge-switch-to-heat-pumps. It's an R290 heat pump with a high flow temperature so presumably some loss of coefficient of performance. In a recent LinkedIn post, they say: "Benefits include: ➡️Integrated hot water cylinder saves space and installation time ➡️Fewer connections for better reliability and lower maintenance ➡️High temperature heat pump reduces need for radiator upgrades ➡️Future-ready system with built-in smart controls for easy use and optimisation ➡️Engineered for minimal noise and disruption to the home Prototypes are being trialled in homes across Bristol, with wider trials to follow ahead of launch next year"

This article from OEUK addresses several of the points discussed in this thread - how much O&G is left, what would be the benefit of extracting it, how quickly and easily can that be done. OK, it’s a trade body so be ready to fact check, but a lot of it makes sense. https://oeuk.org.uk/policy-versus-geology-new-report-reveals-165bn-choice-facing-north-sea-future/ My sense is that the way ahead should be: Don’t ban new O&G fields. Let the O&G companies take the risk whether they can make the economics work. They have a knack of finding new hydrocarbons and extracting them. New licences should be linked to contracts for O&G landed in the UK at a fixed price, not spot prices. Acknowledge that we have a climate emergency. But manage the progress to decarbonisation not by constricting the supply side but by demand side measures, I.e. carbon taxes and carbon border adjustment mechanism. The system costs of renewables need to be accounted for - their intermittency and required grid upgrades. It’s complicated though. I hope our politicians and civil servants have got their heads round all this, but I’m not sure they do. Other countries looking at us won’t see a clean energy superpower, leading the world. They’ll see our deindustrialisation and the cost to our economy, as evidence that our policies are not working.