I could have told you this would happen some day....

[SteamyTea]

The IMF has something to say about fossil fuel subsidies.

 

https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies

 

"$5.9 trillion or 6.8 percent of GDP in 2020"

 

Think that is about  $740 for each person on the planet.

[oldkettle]

9 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

The IMF has something to say about fossil fuel subsidies.

 

https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies

 

"$5.9 trillion or 6.8 percent of GDP in 2020"

 

Think that is about  $740 for each person on the planet.

 

It's obvious BS and you know it. But will you admit it when IMF says otherwise? 🤣

Not hard to find at all 

"Just 8 percent of the 2020 subsidy reflects undercharging for supply costs (explicit subsidies) and 92 percent for undercharging for environmental costs and foregone consumption taxes (implicit subsidies)." 

I.e. Russia supplying Belarus or its own consumers at a reduced cost, SA/Bahrain/Venezuela etc. doing the same. None of them sponsors UK or EU. 

But I am sure we've been through this before. 

 

There are also central bankers claiming climate change is a major threat to the financial system. One has to have guts to call this out. One of them all. 

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/waller-statement-20221202.htm

Edited December 21, 2022 by oldkettle
Quotation

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, oldkettle said:

t's obvious BS and you know it. But will you admit it when IMF says otherwise

I really don't know if it is true or not.  Just said that the IMF has something to say on it.

The thing is, who will you believe, not anyone that disagrees with your uneducated opinion that is for sure.

[Roger440]

16 hours ago, Dillsue said:

 

 

We need to pay what it costs if we want the luxury of reliable, on demand and limitless energy. 

 

 

But we are not paying what it costs.

 

We are paying what succesive governments have decided its going to cost as a result of their policies or lack therof. Some organisations and a handful of people are profiting hugely at our expense.

 

Right now, this week, in the mid US, they are paying $0.009 per kwh. Thats 7.5p!

 

So forgive if i blame our governments entirely for where we find ourselves.

 

I dont see any good for society coming from energy costs being cripplingly high.  A big drop in living standards can surely be the only outcome? 

[Mr Blobby]

On 20/12/2022 at 17:48, oldkettle said:

Great And how do you propose to finance a business that must be on standby 24/7/365 but sell nothing whenever someone else cheerfully says "I can generate now"? I.e. all buildings, machinery, infrastructure, personnel, contracts for all required inputs and the actual stored raw materials must be in place - but cannot function.

 

You seem to think that the wholesale energy market consists solely of a pool in which generators bid in half-hourly (trading period) prices per MWh and all generators are paid at the marginal rate.  While this may be a view of the energy market that is easy for Daily Mail readers to grasp the reality is far more complex.  You may think that you are the first person to identify the shortcomings in such a market but these issues have been well understood anmd addressed by clever people many many years ago.

 

Let me help you.  Alongside the pool is a capacity market and a balancing market.  In addition to this sits a set of ancillary (now called system) services, where market participants receive payments for being available, and for being flexible.  Whether they are idle or not. Participants (I won't call them generators) get paid whether they are dispatched or not because they provide capacity to secure the network.

 

The capacity market and system services payments for things like ramping margin and reserve provide payments to participants for being available.  This is nothing new.  When I first worked on industry privatisation back in the 90s availability payments were made to power stations to cover their costs when idle. 

Daily peaks that requiere small flexible generators to be dispatched for just a few hours of the month in the winter are nothing new.  This has always been the case, even long before wind.  Just think about it.

Peaking plant that comes on rarely are, in my experience on the same site as a much larger power station, relying on the same network connection and administrative functions.  Diesel gas turbines can have diesel sat in the tanks without any issue.  Its not a big deal to have these units sat idle until required.

 

 

On 20/12/2022 at 17:48, oldkettle said:

Great 

And how do you propose to finance a business that must be on standby 24/7/365 but sell nothing whenever someone else cheerfully says "I can generate now"? 

 

 

The Capacity Market and system services pays for this based on their flexibility. 

 

What about those other participants that are not even generators. Batteries?  DSUs?  How do you think batteries are funded when they don't actually bid into the energy market? 

 

 

On 20/12/2022 at 17:48, oldkettle said:

 Would it surprise you if the resulting cost of the output were say twice the normal level (normal - based on competition with no pressure to cut emissions)? Three times? Is it an acceptable price for the pleasure of knowing the rest is "green"? 

And by the way, the higher is the share of unreliable generation, the higher is the multiplier - for obvious reasons. 

 

It certainly would surprise me if the "resulting cost of the output were say twice the normal level" (whatever normal is).  While marginal plant is typically higher cost, they are funded by payments that are completely seperate to the pool.  The market price is not unduly inflated by their idle time.

 

There are other things that affect the market too, like transmission constraints that would mean the cheapest plant may not be dispatched.  And so much more that I do not have time to explain here.

 

 

The energy market is not perfect.  It is fiendishly complex.  I actually think a move back towards nationalisation instead of wholesale pool prices would be great but that isnt going to happen any time soon.

 

One thing is certain though.  The high cost of electricity at the moment is caused by the high price of gas.  It has nothing to do with wind turbines.

The increase in wind penetration reduces the reliance on that gas generation.  And that is a very good thing.

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2022 by Mr Blobby

[oldkettle]

@Mr Blobby

 

I am sure you believe you wrote a great rebuttal of something I claimed. In reality you did nothing of sorts. Cheap shots at what "I may think" and references to DM only work in your head (and of course for those who support your views) yet they are nothing but cheap shots. 

 

The elephant in the room which you chose to completely ignore describing in great details how everything works is the percentage of the generation that needs to be covered by these peak providers. Would you care to disclose this? All these little diesel generators waiting to play their role - do they cover 50%? 20%? Please, enlighten me, can't wait. 

 

A hint: the relationship between baseload and peak is very roughly 1. Most of the peaks are expected, hell, they do occur daily (on working days) so historically peak providers knew that they would be selling a certain minimum number of hours a year. This makes sense as a business. If the system uses 50% of installed capacity the losses are predictable and manageable. Now take this nothing that our great wind generation capacity (only a little sarcasm here because it is indeed a significant gen - when it works) produces a few times a year, add all this nonscalable (any time soon) nuclear and completely nonscalable bio and of course zero nightly solar and tell me, how much will need to be generated by spare in this scenario? By diesels? By what exactly? These diesels - as I am positive you know full well - are only there to cover a tiny little extra if and when the need arises, the same way a hospital would have one ready. Do you have any choice but admit that close to a 100% of existing FF generation will have to be on standby just in case - unless the storage technology we all want (no sarcasm here) does become available? And if that is indeed the case then the cost of the unit produced will inevitably be way higher because it will only sell for maybe a couple of weeks a year rather than 5 days out of 7.

 

And before I forget: your diesels won't work in 10 years as "Just stop oil" morons will get their wish because most good people don't want to condemn them or explain to their own children and grandchildren how dangerous this crap is. It's nice to support everything good against everything bad. Be careful what you wish for. 

[SteamyTea]

I am starting to think this topic is being trolled.

[IanR]

It's certainly moved a long way from the original topic of Switzerland having a plan where they "may" have to ban EV's for "non-essential" journeys "if" the electricity imports they would normally rely upon in winter get restricted.

 

Trying to connect that story to EV's not being able to replace ICE vehicles in the UK within the next 25 years (the target) is a bit of a stretch.

[Dillsue]

1 hour ago, oldkettle said:

The elephant in the room which you chose to completely ignore describing in great details how everything works is the percentage of the generation that needs to be covered by these peak providers. Would you care to disclose this? All these little diesel generators waiting to play their role - do they cover 50%? 20%? Please, enlighten me, can't wait. 

If you go to Gridwatch and scroll down the home page, theres a list of UK generators that includes fuel type and capacity so if you get your calculator out you can add up whatever figures you want to understand. If youre clever you may be able to paste it into Excel to play around with??

Edited December 22, 2022 by Dillsue

[oldkettle]

10 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

If you go to Gridwatch and scroll down the home page, theres a list of UK generators that includes fuel type and capacity so if you get your calculator out you can add up whatever figures you want to understand. If youre clever you may be able to paste it into Excel to play around with??

 

I have no idea what you want to say here. The current status doesn't matter, only the planned aim - no FF generation - does. How does gridwatch help?? 

[Dillsue]

4 minutes ago, oldkettle said:

 

I have no idea what you want to say here. The current status doesn't matter, only the planned aim - no FF generation - does. How does gridwatch help?? 

I'm trying to help you find the info you want. You asked what percentage peak providers needed to cover. If the wind isnt blowing on a cold winter evening then alternatives need provide not far off 100%. If you look at gridwatch, CCGT alone was doing up to 65% around 12 Dec.

If you want to know generation breakdown in 2050 you should have said that.

Google BEIS energy predictions and youll find forecasts through to 2050 by generation type. Unfortunately for you, FF use is predicted to be 19% in 2040 and 14% in 2050, from memory!!

[SteamyTea]

16 minutes ago, oldkettle said:

I have no idea what you want to say here

FFS.

You seemed, a few replies back, that you knew what was going on because you had access to Gridwatch.

Now you say that information is irrelevant.

 

 

[oldkettle]

@Dillsue

Don't know what to say TBH

I am afraid you have missed the line of conversation completely. I am well aware of how much RE and FF are providing nowadays, this is really not the point. Rhetorical questions, all that. 

[IanR]

19 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

FF use is predicted to be 19% in 2040 and 14% in 2050, from memory!!

 

For me, this is the part of the Net Zero strategy that leaves me with some concern. The 14% FF generation is the higher end of the range, but, as part of the NZ Strategy this is Gas with CCUS. Unabated Gas powered generation is below 1%. My feeling is that CCUS remains, to some extent, snake oil and requires a development in technology that isn't guaranteed. I don't believe the industry is being honest about the level of CCUS that can be achieved today and are making unfounded predictions of capabilities for 2050.
 

The NZ strategy currently, for the lowest cost technology mix to achieve Net Zero, I feel, will likely have shift to a higher reliance on either Nuclear or Hydrogen power generation, which will have higher costs associated than is currently considered.

[Dillsue]

32 minutes ago, oldkettle said:

I am well aware of how much RE and FF are providing nowadays, this is really not the point.

Then read the BEIS forecast doc I pointed you to if you want a finger in the air guesstimate. This is hard work!

[oldkettle]

5 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

Then read the BEIS forecast doc I pointed you to if you want a finger in the air guesstimate. This is hard work!

 

And you are still not getting it 😞

[Dillsue]

14 minutes ago, IanR said:

 

For me, this is the part of the Net Zero strategy that leaves me with some concern. The 14% FF generation is the higher end of the range, but, as part of the NZ Strategy this is Gas with CCUS. 

I think the UK intent would include CCS too. As for viability, we might know in the next 5 or so years- https://www.essar.com/essar-oil-uk-to-build-360-million-carbon-capture-facility-to-deliver-on-its-ambition-is-to-be-a-leading-low-carbon-refinery/

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, oldkettle said:

2 hours ago, Dillsue said:

Then read the BEIS forecast doc I pointed you to if you want a finger in the air guesstimate. This is hard work!

 

And you are still not getting it

Now you are just trolling.

[Dillsue]

16 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Now you are just trolling.

No provocation intended, but if it did then guilty as charged

[SteamyTea]

17 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

No provocation intended, but if it did then guilty as charged

Not you trolling, you speak sense.