Why we need "Net zero"

[SimonD]

24 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Think we are well capable, but politics gets in the way

 

I think this is akin to the general excuse that regulation gets in the way of projects, but it goes far further than that. It's not necessarily the regulation itself, it's more the interpretation of the policy and regulation and the processes put in place, often with incorrect interpretations of the policy and regulations.

 

It's also that in the UK we typically see these large scale projects as technical/engineering projects rather than larger social ones, which leads to mass hysteria, misunderstanding, resistance and a lack of support. In the UK I think there is a cultural tendency to spend more time and effort trying to avoid or circumvent regulations than just go with them and do it - I see this all the time in construction, from small businesses to large scale developer. But it's also about how the 'experts' in the system can continue to apply out of date or irrelevant models used to understand the projects and on which to base decisions. For example, the use of 25 year discount rates when building infrastructure that lasts and provides positive cash flow for a lot longer than that. Or we have the known issue of optimism bias.

 

A good few years ago I looked at doing another Master's degree and looked at the areas of sustainable energy/engineering and the environment and I looked at both UK and overseas Universities. It struck me then that the perspectives of the UK and USA courses tended to focus more on the issues we're facing as being engineering ones, whereas European Universities took at more balanced view considering the social aspect to a greater extend. This seems to me to reflect the problems we're actually facing as we have all the technology we need already, we don't need to rely on new uninvented technology, we just need to learn how to apply it in a way that people can go along with and also, from a political perspective, we actually need to tell companies how and what they're going to do for us and that's where we need politics to step in rather than step out.

 

 

[Mike]

1 hour ago, SimonD said:

It's also that in the UK we typically see these large scale projects as technical/engineering projects rather than larger social ones, which leads to mass hysteria, misunderstanding, resistance and a lack of support

This was something the Danes realised decades ago, at least for wind turbines. Their introduction, back in the 70s & 80s, was partly driven by local energy co-operatives, allowing local citizens to invest in and profit from their local wind turbine(s). I just went looking for some stats and, from here, in 2016, more than half of Denmark’s installed wind capacity was owned by citizens, rather than private companies. That's a lot of citizen involvement in a country where nearly 60% of electricity generation comes from wind power.

 

There are similar schemes in France, allowing local citizens to invest and profit from local solar farms.

 

[Beelbeebub]

Regarding the cost of pylons vs underground. 

 

The 4.5x figure is from this study by the IET & Mott Macdonald. 

 

https://www.theiet.org/media/axwkktkb/100110238_001-rev-j-electricity-transmission-costs-and-characteristics_final-full.pdf

 

It's extremely comprehensive but the TLDR is 

 

Pylons are £1-1.5k per Mw/km lifetime cost (so including capital, maintenance, lifetime etc) depending on the distamce and capacity. 

 

Underground is £4.5-6.5k per Mw/km, again depending on distance and capacity. 

 

So at best 3x at worst 6.5x - 4.5x being a nice central estimate. 

 

Offshore cable is even more expensive at £9k per Mw/km and up. 

 

It's worth noting an older 2010's) consultation reply by the CPRE put the cost differential, based on case studies in Europe (Denmark IIRC) at 3.5x and they had every incentive to pick the lowest figure possible as thry were arguing for more underground cable. 

 

Unless someone can come up with a better study (not handwaving or "well it should be simple to....") we can take it as fact that underground transmission is about 4x the cost of overhead. 

 

So, there is a compelling cost argument to go with pylons. Obviously the people who see them would prefer underground,but we must be aware of the strategy of those who oppose something to insist that a more costly approach be taken, then point to the high cost as a reason not to do the thing. 

 

IIRC national grid has a £35bn plan over the next 5 years to upgrade the grid 

Note that the vast majority of new lines are offshore (so more costly) which was no doubt done to reduce the impact of the lines. There is also a lot of upgrading existing lines with new conductors. 

 

(also this is the transmission network, the local distribution network has it's own set of upgrades)