Renewable energy and storage issues

[BungoWomble]

Since the main problem that is always chucked at those of us who would like to see more renewable energy is the question of energy storage, people might like to know that there are advances being made in that area. Advances are possible with funding.

www.tesla.com/en_GB/powerwall
www.ft.com/content/b62b356e-2d10-11e6-bf8d-26294ad519fc

Tesla is not a mainstream name here, but they are a leader in the production of electric cars, high-end ones with high performance. They're trying to bring the cost down to mid-market range. Tesla is incidentally linked to the SpaceX company, both run by one Elon Musk. Someone give the man a Nobel prize. I wonder what could have been achieved by now if there had been serious political interest.

On an island surrounded by tidal seas you have to wonder at the idiots who thought wind power was the answer.

On an island surrounded by tidal seas you have to wonder at the idiots who thought wind power was the answer.

Depends what the point was. As an energy solution - pants. As a way to funnel taxpayers money to private companies and feather nests, it's beyond compare.

Actually the UK has a very good wind resource. We are the windiest country in Europe so onshore wind is a very good energy technology, as well as tidal - it's also about a third of the cost of tidal energy.

Tidal and wind both good, but onshore wind much cheaper.

More info here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom

Tidal energy is more consistent, doesn't uglify the countryside, doesn't kill birds.

Onshore wind only cheaper because of massive subsidies. Short lived, needs fuel for.maintenance, no compulsion on developers to remove at end of short life, massive carbon footprint from construction and transport.it is a huge scam in the UK.

carbonara glad you noticed that shelters survey does not differentiate between owners and landlords, because no one else has, and they as always fuel the hate with it. Without actually doing anything!!

Only just noticed that this thread has gone live again.

The idea that wind power "uglifies the countryside" is entirely subjective. Someone started that, I wonder why. Aesthetics are malleable. Personally I think wind turbines are beautiful in themselves - very art deco - and a much more aesthetic contribution to the countryside than coal stations, etc. Also much more than, for instance, the old mouldering piles of stones of medieval windmills that many find attractive. The problem of killing birds is more pertinent, but siting them off migration routes and investigating ways of warning the birds that they are there is a much better approach than pretending they are a worse alternative for birds and other animals than fossil-fuel-driven climate change or leaving piles of nuclear waste scattered about.

There is potential in tidal energy that should be investigated too, I hope it will be. All human activities have an impact on the environment. The current energy production methods are destroying it for all species on a global scale. They cannot carry on.

Shelter, who mentioned shelter? I did mention landlords' and btl's role in removing control of energy from the occupants of houses: also the cost of housing generally which means no one has any spare cash now. What has shelter got to do with anything?

Agree - wind turbines are far more visually attractive means of generating energy than coal-fired power stations, massive nuclear reactors or fracking rigs which will be coming soon to the countryside.

The bird deaths thing is a total myth - far more birds are killed each year by domestic cats.

And as for subsidies, don't get me started. Show me any form of energy generation that has not received huge subsidies in it's lifetime? the new Hinkley power station will be getting 3 x the subsidy of onshore wind.

And a wind turbine pays back its lifetime carbon emissions in just 3 to 6 months.

I am always actively delighted to see wind turbines. Perhaps because I remember them only being an idea in the news once upon a time, and they are one futuristic thing that actually happened, and which works much as predicted.

Power generation is an inescapable part of modern life, and as PPs said they are much nicer to look at than large power stations - and they don't spread pollution in the surrounding area. It is absurd to think of them as more of an eyesore than any other form of generation.

Likewise, fossil fuels and nuclear get huge amounts of subsidies too. Where there is electricity generation, there are subsidies. And there is no way they are more of a white elephant than Hinckley Point. (Which if it had to be done, should have been a different type of reactor and a different financial structure.)

All power generation has its negative sides, it would be disingenuous to deny that, and with wind turbines that includes use of rare minerals mined in exploitative conditions, sometimes unwisely (and avoidably) siting them on high quality arable land; and a study has shown they kill bats.

for instance, the old mouldering piles of stones of medieval windmills that many find attractive

I like those too - and they, and old water mills, are directly equivalent to the turbines, just from an older time, meaning that people alive now have been used to them always being there, as were their parents and grandparents. Disliking the sight of wind turbines, is, IMO, deeply political. I don't recall hearing anyone hate the site of them whilst accepting they are useful.

Aesthetics are malleable.

Absolutely; in the 50s and 60s, modern buildings and design were the fashionable thing, and these days, since a shift to aesthetic nostalgia started in the 80s, people frequently bemoan all the original features and old buildings that were destroyed only a few decades ago. Those vocal against the turbines merely go with the current flow about wanting things to look as they did in an idealised past, not surprising given the sense of decadence and decline in many areas of life now. (I often like old-looking things, but wind turbines and solar panels are among the exceptions. And very old houses look gorgeous but they can be a right bugger to keep warm and clean and generally live in.)

It's also worth remembering the uproar the Victorians made about the building of the railways - now they are accepted as a necessary part of modern life.

Battery storage project in Herefordshire:

www.herefordtimes.com/news/local/14944610.Huge_battery_energy_storage_project_for_Herefordshire_approved/?ref=eb

Battery storage project in Herefordshire:

Bit fact lite, and science confused (so unlike all renewable energy plugs). It's really more of a marketing puff piece, isn't it ?

If you read the Guardian piece, it includes biomass (wood chips imported from the USA). Two thirds of our hydro-electric power is pumped storage, so is basically a battery rather than electricity generation.
We also need more base load with wind and solar power because of its uncertainty, so wasted base load is higher than it used to be.

Two thirds of our hydro-electric power is pumped storage, so is basically a battery rather than electricity generation.

That's not such a bad thing ... pump the water up using the sporadic renewables, and then open the sluices and generate power when it's needed.

Problems are:

1. efficiency (or lack thereof) you'd lose 50-70% of the energy in the process
2. environmental - you need the geology/geography to store vast amounts of water, plus the fall to create the head of pressure needed.

Personally, if I needed to store electricity, I'd think about using it to make fuels (like methane, or other hydrocarbons) and then use them for electricity. Which I am sure is not popular these days. But you can't deny that when it comes to energy storage and transportation, it's hard to better oil.

Battery storage model proven to work:

www.edie.net/news/6/Largest-UK-grid-scale-battery-could--transform--the-energy-grid/?utm_source=edietwitter

Battery storage model proven to work:

I sincerely hope not a penny of my money went to prove that batteries work. We knew that already ....

from the article:

The Smarter Network Storage (SNS) facility – reportedly the only one of its kind currently operating on the energy network – can store enough electricity to power 6,000 homes for 1.5 hours at peak times.

So, 6,000 homes for 1.5 hours ... or 375 homes for 24 hours. Needing 8,200 sq. ft.

Assuming we wanted to replicate that capacity to cover 10% of the UK ... well, let's see ...

Homes in UK: 23 million
10% =m 2.3 million

so to give 2.3 millions homes a margin of 1.5 hours requires

2,300,000 / 6000 .=. 383*8,200 .=. 1,061,522,800 sq. ft.

38 square miles (or 4746285.9489 Nanowales.

Not necessarily impossible (assuming linear scaling, which I doubt). But in a country struggling to find enough land to build enough houses for it's current population, and which is being overrun by immigrants I can't see it being an easy project.

Of course another tack is to reduce our appetite for electricity. But seeing as everyone now wants electric cars ...

Incidentally the article was characteristically coy on the efficiency of the scheme - typically lead-acid batteries (the only game in town for big battery installations) are 85% efficient. But then you have to factor in the physics of the inverter being used to turn DC to AC - which tends to fail as voltage drops.

As a proof of concept - useful and interesting. As a model of the future ... I won't hold my breath.

One thing the article was spot on about :

The UK has "multiple gigawatts" of energy storage capacity that is proposed or in the development pipeline. But according to the Renewable Energy Association (REA), this will fail to come to fruition without a joined-up and more supportive policy structure from Government

But we've not had a joined up policy in any infrastructure for decades, so - again - I'm not holding my breath.

Best way to reduce need for electricity ? Reduce population. Would solve almost all the challenges of climate change. But it has the twin drawbacks of being not politically popular, and not something you can make money from. So spin up the windmills - trebles all round !!!

in a country struggling to find enough land to build enough houses for it's current population, and which is being overrun by immigrants

Nailed your political colours to the mast there haven't you, lurkinghusband

Are you really Nigel Farage?

Nailed your political colours to the mast there haven't you lurkinghusband

Missed the there didn't we GrumpyOldBag ?

Now this is more like it. I notice the article is quiet about the efficiency though ...

Current test process is 15%, potential to increase to 70% - I would suspect it will end up around 40%.

Not bothered what wind turbines look like, they are ugly but that wouldn't matter if the economics stacked up . factor in short life, transport and wrong climate and they are carbon producers of no real use.

Mild breezy night tonight, unusually. Demand low at about 37gw and wind power producing 5gw. Last time I looked, typical cold December night, demand knocking on 50gw and wind producing zero.

I am annoyed that wind turbines are being compared with coal fired power stations as aesthetically more pleasing.

I live in S Scotland and acres and acres and acres of beautiful soft rounded hills are being covered by these things. One coal fired sation covering, covering maybe an acre or two is being compared to these monsters.

I'm not against the odd wind turbine, I'm not against windfarms but they should be in the most windy places, not where some landowner or farmer wants to provide for his retirement.

The duke of buccleuch (biggest landowner in Britain) is building a storage system.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-33527826
100Mw but as it's a water storage system it won't be 100MW constantly I don't think(no expert on this) but 100MW entirely so handy for emergencies, but I imagine that once the water has flowed from the loch there will be no more energy until it has refilled. Useful for emergencies.
And we can all feel good that we are funding the future retirement of the duke out of our bills.

Oh and let's all ignore the amount of concrete poured for each turbine, and the huge tracts of land being turned into wide gravel roads so that each turbine can be built and serviced. And the rare earth metals which are required for the magnets which probably cause devastation in Chinese metal mines, but that's China so who cares?
I would like to list how many turbines have been built and what acreage they cover but funnily the figures aren't on line as far as I can see. Wikipaedia has a load of propaganda so I won't quote from that (nor will I fund them)

Wind farms are built in the most windy places, or they would not work as a the business model for the investors you seem to despise.

Nothing like the politics of envy, eh?

Meanwhile it's fine for the Chinese to be making billions of pounds out of ruthlessly exploiting every consumer in the UK who will be paying three times more than we would for wind energy for Hinkley Point, also through our tax bills.