Why we need "Net zero"

[JohnMo]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Cold showers are what you need.

Or get some solar and an immersion - nice hot baths/showers unaffected by global energy costs.

[Mattg4321]

11 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

 

Texas petrol prices rose by about 10p a liter or 20% due to the supply shock caused by the recent stupidity. 

 

A state that produces over 5m barrels a day but consumes less than 3m in total (all fossil energy Inc coal) in c country that is the world's largest exporter of oil and gas... is still not insulated from a war on the other side of the planet interrupting oil supplies. 

 

So what chance does the UK have even if it could somehow increace oil production? 

 

Do you know what hasn't changed? 

 

The cost of producing a Mwh of electricity from wind and solar. 

It’s not just the cost, it’s the security of supply. There’s also a benefit for the treasury in the amount of tax that can be taken from producing it at home. 
 

And what’s to stop new licenses for exploration being granted to a state run company (other than them no doubt f’ing it up). Or the state could take a stake and leave operations to someone who knows what they are doing. 
 

Perhaps we need to start thinking about burning coal in the short term again until we can finish a transition away from FF. 

 

I’m seriously worried about the economy. Tax/costs are already at unsustainable levels for business, making the product unaffordable for the average consumer, yet the treasury is still going to need more of our money as it’s still bleeding cash. This is before the impact of this new war. We need to do something fairly drastic imo. 

[Beelbeebub]

With some waht impeccable timing the UK climate change committee has released a report that (amongst other things) looks at the costs of "Net zero" vs the costs of staying as we are today.

 

https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/supplementary-analysis-of-the-seventh-carbon-budget/

 

The TLDR is that the cost of NZ is about £4bn a year or £100bn to 2050.

 

The cost of a single oil crisis (eg the 2022 one) is £40bn to treasury (fuel bill support) and an estimated similar amount to households and businesses. 

 

All in all they conclude the cost of NZ is about equal to a single oil crisis and we are on our second this decade. 

 

Again this is an argument for NZ that makes no reference to climate change. 

[Beelbeebub]

3 hours ago, Mattg4321 said:

It’s not just the cost, it’s the security of supply. There’s also a benefit for the treasury in the amount of tax that can be taken from producing it at home. 
 

And what’s to stop new licenses for exploration being granted to a state run company (other than them no doubt f’ing it up). Or the state could take a stake and leave operations to someone who knows what they are doing. 
 

Perhaps we need to start thinking about burning coal in the short term again until we can finish a transition away from FF. 

 

I’m seriously worried about the economy. Tax/costs are already at unsustainable levels for business, making the product unaffordable for the average consumer, yet the treasury is still going to need more of our money as it’s still bleeding cash. This is before the impact of this new war. We need to do something fairly drastic imo. 

The only way I can see the gas plan working would be if the "company" (nationalised) owned the gas fields, storage, transport and power plants - basically farm to for for electricity.  Not impossible but there are probably any number of pitfalls.

 

As for coal, we wpiod need to open mines and I don't think we have the expertise. 

 

I did wonder if we use waste incinerator plants as our "dark and still weeks" backup. Basically I'm not sure how much plastic actually gets recycled but we do need virgin plastic for alot of things eg medical and food packaging. So why not store the shredded waste for burning when we need it. Yes it would release carbon but the amounts would be much smaller and we wouldnhabe less plastic waste in the enviroment. 

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

burning when we need it.

About 10 TWh/year is turned into electricity.

We use about 320 TWh/year.

But I like the idea for storage.

(Some of the above will be land fill gas)

[-rick-]

11 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

As for coal, we wpiod need to open mines and I don't think we have the expertise. 

 

I think when we shut down our coal plants a significant proportion of the coal they were burning was imported.

 

11 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

I did wonder if we use waste incinerator plants as our "dark and still weeks" backup. Basically I'm not sure how much plastic actually gets recycled but we do need virgin plastic for alot of things eg medical and food packaging. So why not store the shredded waste for burning when we need it. Yes it would release carbon but the amounts would be much smaller and we wouldnhabe less plastic waste in the enviroment. 

 

Not sure this would add up to much, and if you are paying to have electricity generation as part of the incinerator plant then you are generating energy during normal operation. Edit to add: and non-incinerator plants don't have the filtering to clean up the emissions from waste.

 

Best backup we have available to us easily is to reopen gas storage facilities. We could have 80-90 days storage of gas available if we wanted to at reasonable cost. We aren't far off from not needing fossil fuels during the summer months. Lot further to go during the winter months. But still as we deploy more renewables the amount of time that the same amount of gas storage buys increases.

 

None of this helps with short term spikes caused by the current crisis. But at least it is happening as we are coming into spring where our need for gas/heating oil is limited.

 

Edit to add: if you want non-gas, burnable storage, maybe store a stockpile of wood/biomass. You'd have to store it in a way that won't rot down over time (woodchips not a great way to do that) but seems quite doable.

Edited 5 hours ago by -rick-

[saveasteading]

6 minutes ago, -rick- said:

store a stockpile of wood/biomass

It is imported in vast quantities from Canada. A stockpile wouldn't last long and  with stock  rotation won't rot.

 

Whether this biomass is properly sustainable is another matter.

[-rick-]

4 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

It is imported in vast quantities from Canada. A stockpile wouldn't last long and  with stock  rotation won't rot.

 

Talking a 90 day reserve. Drax currently burns it but not sure what else. Assume we would be wanting a reserve that could be burned for 90 days with Drax flat out and likely some other plants also.

 

4 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Whether this biomass is properly sustainable is another matter.

 

Agree.

[SteamyTea]

15 minutes ago, -rick- said:

if you want non-gas, burnable storage, maybe store a stockpile of wood/biomass

Only 4.5 kWh/kg. So after conversion, about 1.5 to 2 kWh.

So a lot of tonnes.

[saveasteading]

Long long ago, I designed, and then my employer built, a very large concrete tank for water storage at a coal mine.

Only later did I learn that this was part of  what was called Scargill-proofing.... doubling all resources at pits.

My apologies to the pit communities that soon closed.

So it reminds me that stockpiling is more than a big pile of stuff. It would be very expensive.