Why we need "Net zero"

[SteamyTea]

3 hours ago, Bramco said:

As a local, it will be the most exciting thing to happen around here for years.... 

I worked near Nottingham when they blew up so cooling towers. We all went outside to watch it.

It went foggy, so only heard the bangs.

Made our factory shake.

[Beelbeebub]

12 hours ago, Oz07 said:

Quarter of a century of reliable power while altering the grid and infrastructure for the next phase of power. Sounds great 👍 

Except we'd have to build a load more coal stations *and* all the infrastructure to supply them (coal trains from the mines, mines, miners) and, assuming they aren't on old sites, the new grid architecture. 

 

And then you'll have to get approval for new coal burners.  I imagine locals will be less than happy about a new combustion plant opening up next door. 

 

I remember going gliding near Radcliffe on Soar back in the late 90's during a mild inversion. As soon as you got to a certain altitude (towed) you got above the "cap"amd could see the brown fug surrounding the station. Lovely. 

[Beelbeebub]

I wonder if the instability contribution from rooftop solar was due to large numbers of inverters going off line at more or less the same time as the upper voltage limit was reached as they all have the same limit. 

 

Likewise if they all had the same reconnection timeout (the report mentions a 180 second delay plus startup check time) you could get a situation where significant (at least locally) chunks of generation is switching off then back on. 

 

Maybe if inverters were required to have  a subtle (say +/-0.2v) random variation to their nominal cutout voltage you wouldn't get whole blocks tripping out the instant a magic number was hit. 

 

Likewise if there was a random delay before reconnect (180-240sec) the capacity coming back online would be more gradual. 

 

IIRC there is something in the ethernet protocol about each node waiting a random time before resending is there has been a packet clash to avoid exactly this sort of unintentional synchronisation. 

[Beelbeebub]

9 hours ago, Tetrarch said:

 

There is disruption and disruption. The outage last April in Spain that disconnected 31GW of power for 10 hours was caused by renewables and the fact that renewable output isn't managed at the correct frequency as it isn't generated by tunable turbines

 

There is a balance to be struck here, the transition needs to be managed and needs to be proceed at a sensible pace. We have got too far over our skis

 

Regards

 

Tet

There is no reason that renewables (wind, solar and battery) cannot generate and maintain frequencies and voltages. It is just that in Spain they were mostly set to follow voltages and frequencies. 

 

Unlike a rotating generator renewables can produce voltage and frequency independently.  You could have an inverter provide a rock steady 50hz regardless of current and voltage. 

 

The dropping of frequency as the grid loads up is entirely a weakness of the old, spinning grid. 

 

If we were building a renewable only grid we could hold 50hz. In fact, I bet that adding spinning ac generators to such a system would be an issue as suddenly you have a device that might start to drag the frequency down in overload.. 

 

The iberian blackout exposed some weaknesses in the way Spain was integrating renewables into the grid not intrinsic issues with renewable generators 

[SteamyTea]

I seem to remember, back in 1973/4 that we had an energy crisis, and to save electricity, the three day week was introduced by the government.

Then, in 1984/5 we had the Miner's Strike.

Then, during the 1990's, we had the Dash for Gas, with 35 new gas turbine power stations being built.

 

I am not sure than 'home grown' energy security is any more secure than any other form.

But with wind and solar, we can, if we ignore NIMBYs, plug in to the existing infrastructure a lot easier and quicker.

 

There is a saying, “Steal a little and they throw you in jail; steal a lot and they make you king” (Eugene O’Neill), surely distributed generation is, by nature, more secure.

[Oz07]

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

Except we'd have to build a load more coal stations *and* all the infrastructure to supply them (coal trains from the mines, mines, miners) and, assuming they aren't on old sites, the new grid architecture. 

Yeh as I say, its crazy we are destroying all this infrastructure. We had a lot of it there. 

 

Can they capture any more of the bad particles nowadays with coal?

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

I seem to remember, back in 1973/4 that we had an energy crisis, and to save electricity, the three day week was introduced by the government.

Then, in 1984/5 we had the Miner's Strike.

Then, during the 1990's, we had the Dash for Gas, with 35 new gas turbine power stations being built.

 

I am not sure than 'home grown' energy security is any more secure than any other form.

 

Started a new job at start of March, offshore gas field, was originally built in late 80s by the government and originally owned by the government. Was used exclusively for gas turbine generators for peak loads.  But when British Gas was privatised it was also.

 

They did in the 80s, no reason why a government couldn't do it again. Drill for Britain, by Britain, and owned by Britain. Then worldwide oil and gas prices don't matter so much.