NT wrote:
On Feb 9, 11:19 pm, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
The Other Mike wrote:
On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:48:03 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
The Other Mike wrote:
On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:01:51 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
By the way predictability is irrelevant. We knwo the sun always goes
down at sunset and isn't there much in winter. That's predictable. It
doesn't mean that solar power is any the more useful as a result. We
still have to burn the coal in winter and at night to cover its
deficiencies.
By predictable renewables I was referring to tidal barrages.
I am sure you were. They predictbility however is IRRELEVANT. Its the
variability that means they have to be balanced - and don't tell me 'its
always high tide somewhere' it may be, but tidal flows are pathetic on
the east coast.and you would STILL need a massive extesnion cable to
balance teh things.
The balancing is done by the conventional generation, just as it
always has been done for decades.
which works ok when you only have a few GW to balance. Bloody
ineffeiceint of course and negates most of the fuel and price gains of
teh variable input elemnt, but yes, you CAN do it.

Until it starts to exceed the undispatchable demand on te grid. Then
you throw it away.

Occasionally the peak of tidal generation will coincide with the
demand peak and if there are a few dozen nukes it may even mean
pumping rather than generating at the pumped storage stations . When
the peak is at other times, then some conventional generation will
drop off the bars, no different to what happens overnight at demand
minimum.
If nearly all the fossil fuelled coal fired stations have to shut down
for a few hours say from mid afternoon till 8pm rather than at 10pm
until 6am, because of the tidal barrrage generation then it matters
not a jot.
well it does

First of all the coalers still have to keep warm by burning caol
Secondly they still have top be there and be maintained.
Thirdly is involves a hiogh power transmission limne that isn't
otherwise utilised.

The net effect is more expensive electricity and zero or very little
carbon reduction.

At one time the big fossil fuelled units 500/600/660MW

were base load and all the others like 60/120/275/300's were up and
down like a whores drawers, but for 20+ years the big coal units have,
with one or two exceptions, not just been base load. They have two
shifted, and load followed. The load min to max recently has been
about 18GW.
Possible is not the same as desirable.

Smoothing demand is teh best way to get the best use of fuel and capital
kit. That's why we built Dinorwig.

Reneable power makes things WORSE not better.

There is currently 18GW oil/coal/CCGT/OCGT reserve above

peak. 14GW of tidal would be useful regardless of when it was
delivered.
No it would be a total disaster in terms of how it affected teh rest of
the grid

14 GW of predictable peak generation, (Severn and Morecambe Bay) is
far preferable to a remote maybe of 10GW of wind
No. its even worse.

Of course it may not work. They were talking about doing this 30+
years ago. F*ck all has happened, not because it isn't feasible, but
because no one wants to say just do it. If it doesn't work then we'll
have a nice dam to cross and admire the mudflats.
Its feasible, but its even more expensive than offshore wind and
infinitely more environmentally destructive.

Its far simpler just to build a nuke

Or better up about 40GW of nukes, and then fill in the corners with gas.

There is one more factor to this not yet mentioned. Total demand is
influenced by the same factors as some intermittent generation, in
particular wind. In simple terms, more wind means more heat loss means
more demand (of course other factors are bigger). So one can reduce
the amount of variation on demand from traditional generation, thus
making it more economically efficient, by including just enough wind
generation to offset the amount of total demand variation due to wind.
The amount is small, much less than the greenies want.
er sorry.

In summer more wind means cooler means less aircon needed.

In winter more wind means atlantic air means warmer means less
electricity needed.

So lets build - um - -1000 windmills!

Yeah! take down the ones we have. Greatest idea since sliced bread.


NT