Gas boiler ban looking doubtful

[epsilonGreedy]

2 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Thanks.

 

Interesting.

 

 

To uncover more information on this subject I resorted to Googling for "UK" + the German term used in this debate "Dunkelflaute".

 

As an offshore sailor who has spent hours waiting for the wind to return this issue is not a surprise to me but in the UK media there is a reluctance to feature any negative Green story.

 

Since refreshing my understanding of this subject it appears global gas demand is now triggering concerns over the UK's poor gas storage capacity. As we become more dependent on gas imports we might run out of gas during a cold snap because LPG dock-side import capacity is finite, this assumes there is spot gas on the global market to purchase just in time.

[Ferdinand]

4 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

To uncover more information on this subject I resorted to Googling for "UK" + the German term used in this debate "Dunkelflaute".

 

As an offshore sailor who has spent hours waiting for the wind to return this issue is not a surprise to me but in the UK media there is a reluctance to feature any negative Green story.

 

Since refreshing my understanding of this subject it appears global gas demand is now triggering concerns over the UK's poor gas storage capacity. As we become more dependent on gas imports we might run out of gas during a cold snap because LPG dock-side import capacity is finite, this assumes there is spot gas on the global market to purchase just in time.

 

I wonder if that plays into recent licensing decisions in the UK?

 

FF demand will never fall to zero, but can be mitigated. Consider the recent loopy controversy wrt the small coalmine in Cumbria, whilst Germany has 80 coalmines and will take into the 2040s for them to be phased out - plus a gas pipeline to Russia which can deliver nearly as much gas aiui as the UK's entire annual consumption.  

[SteamyTea]

Gridwatch has generation data of all types.

[epsilonGreedy]

17 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Gridwatch has generation data of all types.

 

 

Pssst don't tell anyone Gridwatch is one of my favourite web sites.

 

I just visited the site and the current generation numbers are a surprise for a late summer morning:

 

53% Gas (16.25 Gw)

16% Nuclear

14% Inbound via European interconnects.

6% Biomass

3% Coal

3% Wind (0.97 Gw)

1% Solar

-2% Exported to Ireland

[ProDave]

Coal plant brought out of standby due to lack of wind   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58469238

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Coal plant brought out of standby due to lack of wind

Or a higher than expected demand by almost 10% compared to the year before.

(I will concede that the last two years have been a bit odd)

[markc]

36 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Pssst don't tell anyone Gridwatch is one of my favourite web sites.

 

I just visited the site and the current generation numbers are a surprise for a late summer morning:

 

53% Gas (16.25 Gw)

16% Nuclear

14% Inbound via European interconnects.

6% Biomass

3% Coal

3% Wind (0.97 Gw)

1% Solar

-2% Exported to Ireland

And the missing bits will be diesel powered containerised gensets 

[SteamyTea]

Just now, markc said:

And the missing bits will be diesel powered containerised gensets 

No diesel came on yesterday, or OCGT.

[epsilonGreedy]

6 minutes ago, markc said:

And the missing bits will be diesel powered containerised gensets 

 

 

Not sure though I missed 0.3Gw of hydro plus 0.24 Gw of pumped hydro.

[epsilonGreedy]

11 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Or a higher than expected demand by almost 10% compared to the year before.

(I will concede that the last two years have been a bit odd)

 

 

We should have built the Seven Barrage because the moon does not have odd years.

 

Too late now to solve the 2025 generation challenge, meanwhile I will put more thought into running a beefy armoured cable from my CU to the generator location in the garden garden via some fancy switch to flip the whole house from mains to garden generator.

[SteamyTea]

11 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

We should have built the Seven Barrage because the moon does not have odd years.

And give the Taffs a shortcut to here, no thanks.

Trouble with the Seven Barrage is the ecological cost.  Don't bother me as I am 200m above sea level, but controlling a few billion tonnes of seawater would have unexpected consequences somewhere.

Now tidal flow turbines are a much more interesting concept.

[epsilonGreedy]

38 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Coal plant brought out of standby due to lack of wind   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58469238

 

 

I wish the politicians would abandon their pursuit of complete coal eradication. Keeping some coal stations on standby for an extra 5 years does not affect annual CO2 emissions and is surely cheaper than quadrupling our national gas storage capacity. The pending closure of about 5Gw of coal capacity combined with the premature closure of nuclear stations due to cracking graphite cores could push us over the edge into blackouts.

 

The present warm summer conditions should not stress the national grid but right now the European interconnects are running at about 80% capacity, coal stations have been fired up to make up a deficit and the global gas market is unstable.

 

£0.30 per Kw hour by Christmas anyone?

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-04/global-gas-price-surge-threatens-to-dent-the-economic-recovery

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by epsilonGreedy

[SteamyTea]

42 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

European interconnects are running at about 80%

That may be contractoral obligation. Most of Europe is on a different timezone.

43 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Keeping some coal stations on standby for an extra 5 years does not affect annual CO2 emissions

Coal fired power stations were limited to 20,000 hours run time a few years back (2001 LCPD).

So they are only working within agreed limits, not, as far as I know, breaching them.

 

About this time every year  scare stories go about that claim we don't have enough capacity. Since I started taking an interest in this over 2 decades ago, we have not 'run out'.

Taking the Copernicus view, the best predictor of future usage is past usage patterns. It is not as if the National Grid does not know about future trends, or if they do, they are doing nothing about it. 

[joe90]

1 hour ago, epsilonGreedy said:

We should have built the Seven Barrage because the moon does not have odd years.

Oh I agree, shame to not use all that water power (whatever method you use). Are they not doing similar in Cardiff basin now?

 

1 hour ago, epsilonGreedy said:

meanwhile I will put more thought into running a beefy armoured cable from my CU to the generator location in the garden garden via some fancy switch to flip the whole house from mains to garden generator.

I have similar thoughts, solar panels in my field and/or diesel generator running on chip fat (and refined to run my old diesel car) ?

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, joe90 said:

diesel generator running on chip fat

Comes as a solid lump these days.

[epsilonGreedy]

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

That may be contractoral obligation. Most of Europe is on a different timezone.

 

 

Supply contracts are another dimension of complexity, for example today as solar rose from 1 Gw to 7Gw I thought they would have throttled back on CO2 emitting gas generation but instead we are now exporting 1.4 Gw to Norway while gas generation has remained level. Maybe Norway, Sweden and Denmark are struggling with low wind generation due to the large high pressure system and there is a premium for our solar output.

 

There is a large software development project for energy trading in London that seems to be in trouble judging by the extra £500 to £600 a day bodies they are throwing at it.

[SteamyTea]

8 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

There is a large software development project for energy trading in London that seems to be in trouble judging by the extra £500 to £600 a day bodies they are throwing at it.

That is probably because software engineers do not understand the problems involved.  That is why they are software engineers and not energy traders or renewable energy experts.

And if it is a government funded project, then it will never work.

[Ferdinand]

Well, we are about to be having a sensitivity / resiience test on the gas price.

 

The fire this morning having knocked out the IFA1 2Gw electricity interconnector for the next month.

 

 

[ProDave]

Kerosene is looking good at the moment?  Hardly any increase in that.  When will a Kerosene powered generator be cheaper than mains electricity?

[SteamyTea]

11 minutes ago, ProDave said:

When will a Kerosene powered generator be cheaper than mains electricity

How much is it, then divide by 10.35 [kWh/litre].

Then multiply by 0.4 if you get a proper generator, or 0.25 if it is an old car engine.

You could scavenge some thermal energy as well, maybe 0.1 of the maximum daily input.

 

Kerosene will go up rapidly when air flights increase.  There may be  storage life in aviation fuel and it is being dumped on the open market.

[ProDave]

2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

How much is it, then divide by 10.35 [kWh/litre].

Then multiply by 0.4 if you get a proper generator, or 0.25 if it is an old car engine.

You could scavenge some thermal energy as well, maybe 0.1 of the maximum daily input.

 

Kerosene will go up rapidly when air flights increase.  There may be  storage life in aviation fuel and it is being dumped on the open market.

Kerosene currently about 47p per L.  So divide by 10.25 and multiply by 0.4 gives  1.83  That does not sound right?

 

surely you mean divide by 0.4?  that would give 11.46  Hold on, that is still cheaper than 18p per kWh mains electricity.

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

surely you mean divide by 0.4

Possibly. I was in a meeting at the time.

You will get 40% of the chemical energy as electrical energy.

Edited September 15, 2021 by SteamyTea

[epsilonGreedy]

On 15/09/2021 at 15:35, ProDave said:

Kerosene currently about 47p per L.  So divide by 10.25 and multiply by 0.4 gives  1.83  That does not sound right?

 

surely you mean divide by 0.4?

 

 

I think @SteamyTea is correct. He is saying the raw stored energy in one litre of heating oil is 10.35 KwH and a diesel generator can convert that into electricity with a 40% efficiency.

 

A discussion on a canal boat forum claimed that an Eberspacer hot air heater outputs 5kWh of heat with an hourly fuel burn rate of 0.82l. Clearly oil fired central heating boilers are the technology of the future ?