U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than by burning coal(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
U.K. offshore wind park may generate power cheaper than by burning coal
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-20/plunging-offshore-wind-costs-could-soon-end-u-k-subsidies
156 comments
Silly question, but is wind at sea guaranteed? What if weather patterns change? It's really expensive to put up these offshore turbines, but with systemic climate change is it possible they'd be becalmed?
The sea is a huge area without hills or mountains to reduce the wind speed, and near shore there is a daily guaranteed temperature differential nearby to generate some wind.
So, yes, it's so likely that it's practically guaranteed. Too much wind is an orders of magnitude more likely problem.
So, yes, it's so likely that it's practically guaranteed. Too much wind is an orders of magnitude more likely problem.
>Too much wind is an orders of magnitude more likely problem.
It's worth elaborating that too much wind is as bad as too little wind. The blades can only spin so fast before disintegrating, so wind turbines have transmissions and choose a gear appropriate to the current wind speed. Once wind speeds exceed what the highest gear can handle the turbine locks the blades to prevent damage. In that state it doesn't produce any electricity.
It's worth elaborating that too much wind is as bad as too little wind. The blades can only spin so fast before disintegrating, so wind turbines have transmissions and choose a gear appropriate to the current wind speed. Once wind speeds exceed what the highest gear can handle the turbine locks the blades to prevent damage. In that state it doesn't produce any electricity.
That's not the whole story and is somewhat misleading. Wind turbines feather the blades at high velocity to keep from spinning too fast; they rarely actually have to lock the blades and stop electricity production, and even then that'd be a very localized drop in electricity, more than compensated by increased production from surrounding areas with strong winds.
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Sometimes power is actually used to keep them turning as they need strong wind to start turning. At least that was true 10 years ago or so.
No but you can put far larger turbines up at sea (much easier to transport a 100m blade at sea than taking it down windy back roads up a hill on land).
Larger turbines are more productive especially at lower wind speeds as far as I know.
Larger turbines are more productive especially at lower wind speeds as far as I know.
> "It's really expensive to put up these offshore turbines"
They are more expensive than on-shore wind turbines, but still significantly cheaper than other forms of generation (such as nuclear).
With geographic and technological diversity, "smart grid" demand management, inter-connectors, storage tech, and a modest investment in nuclear baseload, we can get pretty close to 100% low-carbon generation in the UK over the next few decades. Even as grid demand increases with the gradual electrification of heating and transport.
They are more expensive than on-shore wind turbines, but still significantly cheaper than other forms of generation (such as nuclear).
With geographic and technological diversity, "smart grid" demand management, inter-connectors, storage tech, and a modest investment in nuclear baseload, we can get pretty close to 100% low-carbon generation in the UK over the next few decades. Even as grid demand increases with the gradual electrification of heating and transport.
You can't drop nuclear as if that's an averagely priced alternative that you're comparing to.
What options have we got for low carbon generation?
Onshore and offshore wind, Nuclear (all mentioned), solar, hydro. As far as I'm aware all the good hydro sites in Britain have been used up, so there's only solar that really should have been mentioned.
Off shore wind is probably more expensive that solar, does that really change the parents point?
Onshore and offshore wind, Nuclear (all mentioned), solar, hydro. As far as I'm aware all the good hydro sites in Britain have been used up, so there's only solar that really should have been mentioned.
Off shore wind is probably more expensive that solar, does that really change the parents point?
I know solar doesn't actually require clear skies etc etc, but I still laugh whenever it comes up - because of the notouriously-depressing British weather...
In January I was sat in a park in Scotland eating lunch, feeling the sun on my face, and realized that global warming has probably ruined this cliche forever.
No. Wind production in the UK over the last 12 months has varied from 12,456MW (on Jan 7th at 21:00) to 142MW (May 1st 08:50)
Most of that is from the sea.
Most of that is from the sea.
It’s about half and half onshore and offshore, not mostly offshore.
Nothings guaranteed.
Worst case scenario for Britain would be a period of little wind in the North sea, in Winter. That would be unusual, but not unheard of.
I'm not aware of any plausible scenarios where global warming would lead to less wind, but I suppose its locally possible.
Worst case scenario for Britain would be a period of little wind in the North sea, in Winter. That would be unusual, but not unheard of.
I'm not aware of any plausible scenarios where global warming would lead to less wind, but I suppose its locally possible.
Britain is connected to other countries' grids via inter-connectors, so that provides a lot of backup in the system.
Not to forget there's offshore wind on the West coast, and around Scotland too. Not so much yet, but still. The chances of no wind around the whole British Isles, encompassing Western Approaches, Irish Sea, Northern Isles and North Sea is slim. :)
Some winds are generated because of the Earth's structure.
The trade winds are pretty consistent.
My favourite bit of meteorology trivia is that the wealthier areas in British cities are almost exclusively to the west - this is because the prevailing wind is from the west and so pollution producing factories have been placed in the east of the city.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_winds
The trade winds are pretty consistent.
My favourite bit of meteorology trivia is that the wealthier areas in British cities are almost exclusively to the west - this is because the prevailing wind is from the west and so pollution producing factories have been placed in the east of the city.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_winds
You can explore the data here: https://electricinsights.co.uk
You can even split wind into onshore and offshore, although the data is patchy.
Wind varies, but from a quick look offshore hasn't gone to zero over the past year and neither has onshore.
You can even split wind into onshore and offshore, although the data is patchy.
Wind varies, but from a quick look offshore hasn't gone to zero over the past year and neither has onshore.
It's not guaranteed, if you'd ever been sailing you'd know it's definitely not guaranteed!
Sailing is a different use case though. For wind turbines it doesn't matter if the wind died down in a single place, if you have them spread over a large area and in multiple sites. It's definitely not guaranteed that a single one will always work, but pretty much guaranteed that the system overall will never stop.
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> The UK’s already up to 50% nuclear and renewables on the electricity grid
In the last year UK produced
Wow.
The good news is we're not overproducing - even on the most renewable days (Aug 17 at 15:15) when 44% came from wind and 25% from solar, we still had 12% coming from gas, 5% from biomass
(edit - looked at wrong row on my spreadsheet!)
In the last year UK produced
Coal: 3%
Gas: 42%
Nuclear: 20%
Wind: 17%
Solar: 4%
Hydro: 1.4%
Biomass: 6.4%
Pumped 0.66%
Wow.
The good news is we're not overproducing - even on the most renewable days (Aug 17 at 15:15) when 44% came from wind and 25% from solar, we still had 12% coming from gas, 5% from biomass
(edit - looked at wrong row on my spreadsheet!)
For anyone curious, most of the UKs nuclear power is due to be comissioned in the next decade. However most reactors have received short term extensions.
There's currently one reactor under construction, and a bunch more planned, so I expect the current reactors will receive extensions until these or renewables take over.
There's currently one reactor under construction, and a bunch more planned, so I expect the current reactors will receive extensions until these or renewables take over.
Do you happen to know if all the natural gas used to generate electricity in the UK comes from the UK's territory (e.g., the part of the North Sea where they enjoy mineral rights)?
We use gas a lot in central heating (and cooking)
However looking at https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/uk-...
Looks like equal parts domestic gas, electricity, and industry
About half imported, half mined in the UK.
From that page:
"The vast bulk of imports comes direct from Norway. Technically, Russian gas can only arrive via the Belgian and Dutch pipelines, which amount to 10% of total imports. It is estimated that 35% of Europe’s gas comes from Russia, so in theory about 3% of Britain’s gas comes from Russia."
However looking at https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/uk-...
Looks like equal parts domestic gas, electricity, and industry
About half imported, half mined in the UK.
From that page:
"The vast bulk of imports comes direct from Norway. Technically, Russian gas can only arrive via the Belgian and Dutch pipelines, which amount to 10% of total imports. It is estimated that 35% of Europe’s gas comes from Russia, so in theory about 3% of Britain’s gas comes from Russia."
The UK has some LNG import terminals so could import from elsewhere if required.
Often that wind is too strong for these turbines and they have to stop completely to save literally breaking themselves.
https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem...
Looking at that I get a very different view of UK electricity grid, one where natural gas plays its very very common role when wind/solar is not at its peak production.
Would be very interesting to see the UK pledge to get rid of the natural gas plants at some date in the future, rather than say build more of them.
Looking at that I get a very different view of UK electricity grid, one where natural gas plays its very very common role when wind/solar is not at its peak production.
Would be very interesting to see the UK pledge to get rid of the natural gas plants at some date in the future, rather than say build more of them.
It depends on how storage tech develops, but natural gas turbines will continue to play a role for the foreseeable future.
However, that role will increasingly be as contingency/backup for times of scarcity rather than as a continuous baseload. They will only be used during demand peaks that correspond with unfavourable weather conditions, or other unusual scenarios.
This is similar to the current role of the UK's few remaining coal plants.
(I should also note that natural gas use is already in decline in the UK, as is gas turbine generating capacity)
However, that role will increasingly be as contingency/backup for times of scarcity rather than as a continuous baseload. They will only be used during demand peaks that correspond with unfavourable weather conditions, or other unusual scenarios.
This is similar to the current role of the UK's few remaining coal plants.
(I should also note that natural gas use is already in decline in the UK, as is gas turbine generating capacity)
Looking at the last week's production, there's a fair way to go before gas is only being used at times of scarcity: https://electricityproduction.uk/from/all-sources/?t=7d
Notice how the gas usage cycles up and down, tracking the inverse of solar and wind. But add another 10GW of wind and solar, which is likely by the mid 2020s, and gas won't be used at all pretty often. But it isn't going away completely unless storage gets much cheaper.
The biggest challenge now is to start moving residential heating from gas to electric heat pumps. That's a large fraction of our CO2 emissions, and it requires individuals to spend money.
Notice how the gas usage cycles up and down, tracking the inverse of solar and wind. But add another 10GW of wind and solar, which is likely by the mid 2020s, and gas won't be used at all pretty often. But it isn't going away completely unless storage gets much cheaper.
The biggest challenge now is to start moving residential heating from gas to electric heat pumps. That's a large fraction of our CO2 emissions, and it requires individuals to spend money.
I'm talking about aggregate figures for last year. Even looking at the figures on the website you linked, which provides production figures just over the last hour, it shows 21% solar, 20% nuclear and 7% wind.
The current plan is to maintain about 30% of the grid as gas, to provide backup, and then to deal with the carbon emissions using carbon capture and storage. The target is for a net zero electricity grid by 2030.
The current plan is to maintain about 30% of the grid as gas, to provide backup, and then to deal with the carbon emissions using carbon capture and storage. The target is for a net zero electricity grid by 2030.
> "The target is for a net zero electricity grid by 2030."
It's more like 2050 according to National Grid's forecasts. Carbon capture and storage is still a pipe-dream, really. The technology exists (arguably - not proven at scale) but not in an economically viable way.
To put it another way, it's cheaper to avoid emitting carbon in the first place than to try and capture and store it.
It's more like 2050 according to National Grid's forecasts. Carbon capture and storage is still a pipe-dream, really. The technology exists (arguably - not proven at scale) but not in an economically viable way.
To put it another way, it's cheaper to avoid emitting carbon in the first place than to try and capture and store it.
I agree deploying CCS on that scale doesn’t seem very realistic, but that is the formal target of the government.
aggregate figures look like they are moving towards 100% renewable, but look when renewable is at is bottom 12% (bottom level for the last 24hrs). That is when the so called "backup" gas grid burn brightest.
30% of the power usage or 30% of the capacity? A nation that has three times the capacity compared to power usage could produce 100% of the energy on gas and still claim a 33% capacity being based on gas.
2030 sounds good, but the average expected life time of a natural gas power plant is 50 years. I would hazard a guess that the most common type of new power plants being built in the UK (in terms of costs) is natural gas power plants. Is the expectation here that all that investment currently being poured into natural gas will just have to give it up in 10 years?
30% of the power usage or 30% of the capacity? A nation that has three times the capacity compared to power usage could produce 100% of the energy on gas and still claim a 33% capacity being based on gas.
2030 sounds good, but the average expected life time of a natural gas power plant is 50 years. I would hazard a guess that the most common type of new power plants being built in the UK (in terms of costs) is natural gas power plants. Is the expectation here that all that investment currently being poured into natural gas will just have to give it up in 10 years?
> "I would hazard a guess that the most common type of new power plants being built in the UK (in terms of costs) is natural gas power plants."
Absolutely not. There have been almost no new gas power plants built in the UK since 2010 (the only new one is Carrington in 2016, a CCGT which replaced a closed coal plant and which had been under construction since 2008). Since several old gas power plants have closed, there has been a net decrease in gas capacity. And as far as I know, there are currently no gas power plants actively under construction anywhere in the UK.
All new capacity in the UK is coming from:
- Renewables
- Nuclear (although this will probably be a net decrease, as old plants will close. Currently only Hinkley C is under construction, with several other projects on hold or cancelled)
- Inter-connectors
Absolutely not. There have been almost no new gas power plants built in the UK since 2010 (the only new one is Carrington in 2016, a CCGT which replaced a closed coal plant and which had been under construction since 2008). Since several old gas power plants have closed, there has been a net decrease in gas capacity. And as far as I know, there are currently no gas power plants actively under construction anywhere in the UK.
All new capacity in the UK is coming from:
- Renewables
- Nuclear (although this will probably be a net decrease, as old plants will close. Currently only Hinkley C is under construction, with several other projects on hold or cancelled)
- Inter-connectors
That is good news. Looking at Germany, Poland, and US there is a lot of investment into natural gas power plants, and based on the real time data, I made my guess that similar process was ongoing in the UK.
Just a random google gave this: https://www.smart-energy.com/industry-sectors/business-finan...
But I have no numbers to compare £700 million (possible times 3) with wind/solar investment for 2019.
Just a random google gave this: https://www.smart-energy.com/industry-sectors/business-finan...
But I have no numbers to compare £700 million (possible times 3) with wind/solar investment for 2019.
Further information: this particular project (Tees CCPP) is actually a replacement for a former CCGT that was on the same site.
"Historically the Site accommodated a 1,875 MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power station (the former Teesside Power Station) with the ability to generate steam for utilisation within the wider Wilton International site. The Teesside Power Station ceased generation in 2013 and was demolished between 2013 and 2015."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teesside_power_station
https://www.tccpp.co.uk/pdfs/changeConsultationDocuments/NMC...
"Historically the Site accommodated a 1,875 MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power station (the former Teesside Power Station) with the ability to generate steam for utilisation within the wider Wilton International site. The Teesside Power Station ceased generation in 2013 and was demolished between 2013 and 2015."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teesside_power_station
https://www.tccpp.co.uk/pdfs/changeConsultationDocuments/NMC...
> https://www.smart-energy.com/industry-sectors/business-finan...
Yeah, that's disappointing. But development consent approval doesn't necessarily mean they will be built. There are some other CCGT projects that have been approved for a number of years, but construction hasn't started because the economics don't stack up right now.
With the cancellation of several nuclear plants, others being retired over the next 5-15 years, and the ban on coal by 2025, there may indeed be a future deficit of gas generation capacity. It may be that these projects are being developed speculatively in anticipation of that.
Yeah, that's disappointing. But development consent approval doesn't necessarily mean they will be built. There are some other CCGT projects that have been approved for a number of years, but construction hasn't started because the economics don't stack up right now.
With the cancellation of several nuclear plants, others being retired over the next 5-15 years, and the ban on coal by 2025, there may indeed be a future deficit of gas generation capacity. It may be that these projects are being developed speculatively in anticipation of that.
> - Inter-connectors
What's that? Supply from a grid overseas?
What's that? Supply from a grid overseas?
Yes. Sometimes GB exports power to mainland europe and/or ireland, sometimes it's the other way round.
On average GB imports more from europe than exports. It exports more to Ireland than imports.
Doesn't really help with the troughs in wind - when it's calm in the north sea for the UK, it is calm for Denmark too.
Maybe if europe puts a lot of production in Biscay and the Med it will smooth things out - but there's only so much capacity on the interconnects (2GW from France, 1GW from Netherlands, 1GW from Belgium, 500MW to Northern Ireland, 500MW to ROI)
That said, planned interconnects bring it up to 10GW from mainland, 1.5GW to Ireland
On average GB imports more from europe than exports. It exports more to Ireland than imports.
Doesn't really help with the troughs in wind - when it's calm in the north sea for the UK, it is calm for Denmark too.
Maybe if europe puts a lot of production in Biscay and the Med it will smooth things out - but there's only so much capacity on the interconnects (2GW from France, 1GW from Netherlands, 1GW from Belgium, 500MW to Northern Ireland, 500MW to ROI)
That said, planned interconnects bring it up to 10GW from mainland, 1.5GW to Ireland
Essentially all the thermal plants are gas or "biomass" renewables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Engl... (note England only)
It looks like they're all hoping for CCS to become a reality. You're right that it looks infeasible to just turn them all off by 2030. Currently the CCS is getting nowhere either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-201374...
It looks like they're all hoping for CCS to become a reality. You're right that it looks infeasible to just turn them all off by 2030. Currently the CCS is getting nowhere either. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-201374...
30% in terms of power usage, electricity output, not capacity. I can’t remember the exact figure, but it’s plus or minus 5% from there. The 50% current figure for renewables and nuclear is also output.
There's an interesting glut of wind power detractors in this thread right now. Not only that, they all come off quite aggressively for HN.
To see why wind can't get much bigger without a giant breakthrough in storage see these graphs of power production and consumption:
http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
I don't see an obvious connection between those charts and why wind can't get much bigger. It just shows that wind is currently producing ~26% of the power demand. Would you mind spelling it out since it is not self-evident to me?
Wind varies a lot, we're approaching the point where extra wind turbines will fail to displace other power source capacity (the only power source we can vary is natural gas, which can already get close to zero with our current wind capacity).
A doubling of wind capacity will reduce how much gas we'd burn in total, but you'd really start to hit diminishing returns.
A doubling of wind capacity will reduce how much gas we'd burn in total, but you'd really start to hit diminishing returns.
Almost all of them are now only visible to people with showdead on.
yeah they're attaching Bloomberg specifically in a couple of the posts too.
I wonder if someone somewhere has a large vested interest in fossil fuels and is annoyed about the BNEF and Bloomberg's mostly positive reporting on renewables.
I wonder if someone somewhere has a large vested interest in fossil fuels and is annoyed about the BNEF and Bloomberg's mostly positive reporting on renewables.
I've noticed a few very pro-fossil comments in threads. I don't know if there are shills or if there are simply propagandist fossil fuel lovers? Is there any way to empirically study HN commenters? Data scrape + analyze?
I've been using "pro fossil / anti EV / global warming denial" as a pretty useful heuristic to filter the Great Comments Section of Real Life for a while now. Usually goes hand-in-hand with being a Leaver and general contrarian.
To your point, I've found that petrolheads are pretty common even in tech.
To your point, I've found that petrolheads are pretty common even in tech.
Pretty sure digging past comments goes against the guidelines. It's also a primitive an absolutist way of judging a comment (rather than on, say, its substance).
What if the substance of the comment is just erroneous or poorly intention-ed? How am I supposed to tell if it's a paid corporate shill or a genuine fossil fuel lover?
The idea is to assume good faith. If it can't be done, I think not answering is the best course of action.
need to get people to use petrol head to mean someone whose brain has been screwed up by pollution
anyone got a contact at Marvel?
anyone got a contact at Marvel?
It's a perfect topic for the "middlebrow dismissal". Contributors can start from a true-but-myopic fact, that renewables are intermittent. They can then deploy their biases that "everyone else is stupid and hasn't thought about this", and/or "everyone with the opposite opinion is a paid shill", and get very exercised about it.
Global warming attracts a certain kind of "gotcha" nerd who will hunt for the one set of data that can be arranged to make it look not so bad while ignoring all the evidence on the other side of the scale. There's an entire site devoted to that (WUWT).
Meanwhile there's a set of quietly competent engineers keeping the lights on and ignoring all this social media nonsense.
Global warming attracts a certain kind of "gotcha" nerd who will hunt for the one set of data that can be arranged to make it look not so bad while ignoring all the evidence on the other side of the scale. There's an entire site devoted to that (WUWT).
Meanwhile there's a set of quietly competent engineers keeping the lights on and ignoring all this social media nonsense.
Here's a list of off-shore wind projects in Crown Estate waters. Currently, there's about 8GW of capacity in operation, and a further 19GW in various stages of construction or planning.
(This does not include on-shore wind farms, or projects in Scottish waters)
https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/media/3308/offshorewindproj...
(This does not include on-shore wind farms, or projects in Scottish waters)
https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/media/3308/offshorewindproj...
The british once built an empire with large thanks to off-shore wind power.
The money quote: "The price of 39.65 pounds per megawatt-hour ($49.70) was 31% below the level in a similar auction two years ago."
The graph below has £120/MWh in 2015, £57.5 in 2017, and £40 in 2019. Gas costs about £50/MWh.
The auction cleared at £45/MWh (1). This means that the bids referenced in the Bloomberg story have succeeded. Bloomberg have significantly updated their story to reflect the results.
In today’s good news story, we can change “may” to “will” in the headline to match the updated story :)
(1) https://twitter.com/mliebreich/status/1175080738116571136?s=...
In today’s good news story, we can change “may” to “will” in the headline to match the updated story :)
(1) https://twitter.com/mliebreich/status/1175080738116571136?s=...
So just some basics out of the way:
1. Yes, this is good. They should do this and 2. coal is an awful and inefficient power source with lots of carbon emission which is bad. 3. the way we harvest coal is deleterious to humans and bad for the environment even if we ignore carbon. It's an ancient technology we should leave in the dustbin of history next to lead piping.
The challenge of wind turbines is that they're actually fantastically plastic hungry things. While inexpensive in their current state, we need to heavily invest in more sustainable turbine blade options that don't contribute to our other problems (carbon emission in plastics manufacturing and huge unrecyclable and toxic wind turbine blades). [0]
Folks concerned about consistency and peak load shouldn't be. We're making huge strides in energy storage (with sodium ion batteries removing our reliance on lithium[1]) and Gallium Arsenide greatly reducing the cost and size of electrical components while increasing their heat tolerance [2]). Essentially what's left here is tooling and contracts and for dinosaur energy providers to be displaced by newer options.
[0]: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/06/wooden-wind-turbines...
[1]: https://phys.org/news/2019-02-sodium-lithium-boost-sodium-io...
[2]: https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/GaN-replace-silicon-ap...
1. Yes, this is good. They should do this and 2. coal is an awful and inefficient power source with lots of carbon emission which is bad. 3. the way we harvest coal is deleterious to humans and bad for the environment even if we ignore carbon. It's an ancient technology we should leave in the dustbin of history next to lead piping.
The challenge of wind turbines is that they're actually fantastically plastic hungry things. While inexpensive in their current state, we need to heavily invest in more sustainable turbine blade options that don't contribute to our other problems (carbon emission in plastics manufacturing and huge unrecyclable and toxic wind turbine blades). [0]
Folks concerned about consistency and peak load shouldn't be. We're making huge strides in energy storage (with sodium ion batteries removing our reliance on lithium[1]) and Gallium Arsenide greatly reducing the cost and size of electrical components while increasing their heat tolerance [2]). Essentially what's left here is tooling and contracts and for dinosaur energy providers to be displaced by newer options.
[0]: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/06/wooden-wind-turbines...
[1]: https://phys.org/news/2019-02-sodium-lithium-boost-sodium-io...
[2]: https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/GaN-replace-silicon-ap...
That's a joke. There's so many things we should worry about before "unrecyclable and toxic wind turbine blades" become a major issue. It's such a tiny problem even next plastic shopping bags or water bottles. Everything has some drawbacks, but this is so far down the list it's not even worth thinking about.
Given my obvious enthusiasm for the project in hand, I'm not sure why you're so negative about discussing some of the challenges they face.
People (including me) worry all the time about things that are actually a very small issue compared to all the really huge issues they're ignoring. We have finite attention and resources, so getting caught up on the unimportant details like this is a form of bike-shedding and a personal pet-peeve of mine. It doesn't just waste time, but detracts from the more important concerns. And it trips me up personally all the time.
I think you're wrong. I'm a huge fan of green tech but its precisely your "talking about where progress needs to be made is bikeshedding" attitude that set so many people off, and justifiably get a reputation of shouting people down for not being visibly loyal.
Your performative loyalty isn't going to build a better future. Relentless progress will.
Your performative loyalty isn't going to build a better future. Relentless progress will.
I'm not shouting anyone down, I'm merely pointing out that even discussing fixing a small leak in a ship when there's a hundred cannonball sized holes punched through it is dangerously distracting from the real task at hand. That's objectively, practically true for everyone who does not have the job of designing or procuring wind turbine blades. If that happens to be your job, then by all means consider the consequences.
You're merely ignoring all the content and asking how someone could even dream of asking about sustainability when it's so profitable to proceed right now with the status quo.
I've heard this line before. We don't have the luxury of picking and choosing our problems anymore.
I've heard this line before. We don't have the luxury of picking and choosing our problems anymore.
You're straw-manning my argument. Worrying about how easy it is to recycle of windmill blades is akin to worrying about how to recycle oil tankers. Not completely irrelevant, but so close as to be a joke.
The point I'm trying to make here is that wind turbines are so much better than the status quo, which is quite literally killing us, that it's not worth fretting over one of their smallest drawbacks. They have much larger drawbacks to address first. Fretting over the little things takes your limited attention away from more important things and you end up worse off overall. That's a (my) philosophy for life in general, and I stand by it.
The point I'm trying to make here is that wind turbines are so much better than the status quo, which is quite literally killing us, that it's not worth fretting over one of their smallest drawbacks. They have much larger drawbacks to address first. Fretting over the little things takes your limited attention away from more important things and you end up worse off overall. That's a (my) philosophy for life in general, and I stand by it.
Another aspect of turbines is that they are huge steel towers. How is steel made? With fossil fuel and fossil-fuel electricity, in places like China or the Midwestern USA which are, at best, less than 20% clean grid. So, even though we desperately need renewables, it is a sad reality that fossil fuels will aid in producing said renewables.
It's unavoidable that fossil fuels will be needed to spin-up the infrastructure of a total clean global economy. However, there's no better use that fossil fuels can be put to than preparing the ground for totally clean and abundant energy.
However, it's most certainly feasible to make steel without fossil fuels. In the US, many newer iron makers use Direct Reduction of Iron in furnaces fed with CO and H produced from natural gas (and then this DRI product is refined electrically in electric arc furnaces at so-called "Mini Mills" which are not so mini). There's no reason you couldn't just use hydrogen directly produced via electrolysis instead.
...and power-to-gas is also feasible (although approximately twice as expensive to produce per unit energy as electrolytic hydrogen is). And with that synthesized gas, you can also produce any kind of petroleum-derived product via Fischer-Tropsch, including graphite and coke and the resins needed for wind turbine blades. And all these products would be higher purity than those produced from fossil fuels (although the price WILL be higher).
So let's not let perfect be the enemy of the good. Let's transition now as soon as possible whatever we can. And that means off-shore wind.
However, it's most certainly feasible to make steel without fossil fuels. In the US, many newer iron makers use Direct Reduction of Iron in furnaces fed with CO and H produced from natural gas (and then this DRI product is refined electrically in electric arc furnaces at so-called "Mini Mills" which are not so mini). There's no reason you couldn't just use hydrogen directly produced via electrolysis instead.
...and power-to-gas is also feasible (although approximately twice as expensive to produce per unit energy as electrolytic hydrogen is). And with that synthesized gas, you can also produce any kind of petroleum-derived product via Fischer-Tropsch, including graphite and coke and the resins needed for wind turbine blades. And all these products would be higher purity than those produced from fossil fuels (although the price WILL be higher).
So let's not let perfect be the enemy of the good. Let's transition now as soon as possible whatever we can. And that means off-shore wind.
To add, I see down at the bottom people fighting over "consistency".
Wind power is almost always producing something. This production can be statistically modeled. Thus, you can overprovision wind and say that on average, your target of <x> MW is met or exceeded <y> percent of the time. So wind, if planned well, doesn't really need big storage.
Baseload generation is also a fallacy. It only matters that demand is met. Wind has already become the "baseload" in the UK in that wind operators always undercut everyone else on the market, thus displacing other generation.
Baseload demand is the point which demand never falls below. Back in the age of coal, it made sense to meet this baseload demand with large baseload plants, that were big and did not change output and gained economies of scale.
One challenge that I think people overlook in the shift to renewables is grid frequency stability. Big thermal plants have heavy rotors that have a lot of inertia, stopping the grid frequency from changing too quickly in an imbalance. Replace these with inertia-less wind and solar, and you will need another solution for grid stability.
Wind power is almost always producing something. This production can be statistically modeled. Thus, you can overprovision wind and say that on average, your target of <x> MW is met or exceeded <y> percent of the time. So wind, if planned well, doesn't really need big storage.
Baseload generation is also a fallacy. It only matters that demand is met. Wind has already become the "baseload" in the UK in that wind operators always undercut everyone else on the market, thus displacing other generation.
Baseload demand is the point which demand never falls below. Back in the age of coal, it made sense to meet this baseload demand with large baseload plants, that were big and did not change output and gained economies of scale.
One challenge that I think people overlook in the shift to renewables is grid frequency stability. Big thermal plants have heavy rotors that have a lot of inertia, stopping the grid frequency from changing too quickly in an imbalance. Replace these with inertia-less wind and solar, and you will need another solution for grid stability.
Solar may not have inertia, but wind turbines certainly do. It's hard to imagine one of those stopping on a dime.
Smaller batter installations can also help with frequency stabilization. The Tesla installation in South Aus primarily serves the purpose of grid stabilization rather than bulk storage, for example. I think solar needs that stabilization and storage more than wind, it's probably important to have a diversity of sources and locations with renewables to keep any one source from having too large an immediate impact on the grid.
You're absolutely right about baseload being a fallacy. I would argue that balancing the grid is probably an easier problem in the absence of big constant baseload generators like nuclear, than with them.
With renewables providing baseload generation, there is more capacity for variable renewable sources; if these can be sufficiently decorrelated (by geography, type of source, even design of e.g. turbines) then they would have a high likelihood of averaging out to support baseload needs while having greater backbench dispatchable capacity at play. You might only need to overprovision by (making up numbers here) 1.5x rather than 4x to have sufficient dispatchable capacity than if you combined say, nuclear baseload with renewable peaking. The aggregate effect of this would be making the renewable sources cheaper per nameplate Wattage.
Smaller batter installations can also help with frequency stabilization. The Tesla installation in South Aus primarily serves the purpose of grid stabilization rather than bulk storage, for example. I think solar needs that stabilization and storage more than wind, it's probably important to have a diversity of sources and locations with renewables to keep any one source from having too large an immediate impact on the grid.
You're absolutely right about baseload being a fallacy. I would argue that balancing the grid is probably an easier problem in the absence of big constant baseload generators like nuclear, than with them.
With renewables providing baseload generation, there is more capacity for variable renewable sources; if these can be sufficiently decorrelated (by geography, type of source, even design of e.g. turbines) then they would have a high likelihood of averaging out to support baseload needs while having greater backbench dispatchable capacity at play. You might only need to overprovision by (making up numbers here) 1.5x rather than 4x to have sufficient dispatchable capacity than if you combined say, nuclear baseload with renewable peaking. The aggregate effect of this would be making the renewable sources cheaper per nameplate Wattage.
Frequency stability was discussed recently in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20973513
The wind farm tripped unexpectedly easily .. but apparently this can be solved with a software update. As and when we start rolling out batteries they are excellent for frequency response, and are already getting paid for that purpose in some places.
The wind farm tripped unexpectedly easily .. but apparently this can be solved with a software update. As and when we start rolling out batteries they are excellent for frequency response, and are already getting paid for that purpose in some places.
>> Wind has already become the "baseload" in the UK
Give me another place in Europe where Wind is more abundant than UK ?
https://globalwindatlas.info/
Putting wind mills in Greenland and Arctic may produce a whole lot but bringing it to population centers is an issue.
Base load is a bitch, UK is the best case scenario enjoy it.
Give me another place in Europe where Wind is more abundant than UK ?
https://globalwindatlas.info/
Putting wind mills in Greenland and Arctic may produce a whole lot but bringing it to population centers is an issue.
Base load is a bitch, UK is the best case scenario enjoy it.
>> Folks concerned about consistency and peak load shouldn't be. We're making huge strides in energy storage
Solar peaks around noon 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm (I am being charitable here) do we have solid storage that would hold this generated power for delivery from (4:00 pm - 7:00 pm) peak ?
That 4 to 6 hour storage window is still a big issue - if you are talking about Sodium batteries we are a decade or more away from them to be grid scale!
(The reference [1] article still suggests it is in labs not in production)
Solar peaks around noon 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm (I am being charitable here) do we have solid storage that would hold this generated power for delivery from (4:00 pm - 7:00 pm) peak ?
That 4 to 6 hour storage window is still a big issue - if you are talking about Sodium batteries we are a decade or more away from them to be grid scale!
(The reference [1] article still suggests it is in labs not in production)
We do have solid storage technology, deployed in the field at smaller scales around ~100MWh, with many GWh installations planned soon: lithium ion:
For example, this recent LA contract got lots of press:
https://boingboing.net/2019/09/14/green-keynes.html
The technology is not hard or mysterious for storing during the daily cycle, it's just a matter of costs falling. And costs are falling dramatically.
The bigger question is what we may do for seasonal storage, or if instead of seasonal storage we just have capacity for 200% of generation and overproduce for much of the year.
For example, this recent LA contract got lots of press:
https://boingboing.net/2019/09/14/green-keynes.html
The technology is not hard or mysterious for storing during the daily cycle, it's just a matter of costs falling. And costs are falling dramatically.
The bigger question is what we may do for seasonal storage, or if instead of seasonal storage we just have capacity for 200% of generation and overproduce for much of the year.
> Solar peaks around noon 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm (I am being charitable here) do we have solid storage that would hold this generated power for delivery from (4:00 pm - 7:00 pm) peak ?
In limited deployment? Yes, absolutely. Sodium batteries make this proposition cheaper. You could make your house entirely off-grid and run-off-storage if your local production options are good.
> That 4 to 6 hour storage window is still a big issue - if you are talking about Sodium batteries we are a decade or more away from them to be grid scale!
No, we're not 10 years away from using sodium ions batteried at this scale. The bulk scale problem is MUCH easier than the micro-scale package problem. Ongoing work on sodium ion batteries will be to work on equivalent package competitors for lithium ion polymer batteries, which still have unparalleled density.
For less robust, large packages the work is done, the compound required is done. We already use old and inefficient batteries in these applications. It's one of Tesla's major business models and why they take your battery pack back from you at the end of life of the car.
In limited deployment? Yes, absolutely. Sodium batteries make this proposition cheaper. You could make your house entirely off-grid and run-off-storage if your local production options are good.
> That 4 to 6 hour storage window is still a big issue - if you are talking about Sodium batteries we are a decade or more away from them to be grid scale!
No, we're not 10 years away from using sodium ions batteried at this scale. The bulk scale problem is MUCH easier than the micro-scale package problem. Ongoing work on sodium ion batteries will be to work on equivalent package competitors for lithium ion polymer batteries, which still have unparalleled density.
For less robust, large packages the work is done, the compound required is done. We already use old and inefficient batteries in these applications. It's one of Tesla's major business models and why they take your battery pack back from you at the end of life of the car.
Realistically it's not so much "stored" as "used to displace CCGT generation". The solar peak in the UK, from my own measurements is not so much "middle of the day" as "middle of the year". The seasonal variation is pretty huge up here in the northern latitudes.
Have a click about on https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html - the best case is getting over 50% of the generation from 9AM to 6PM. The worst case is getting almost nothing for three months in the winter.
Have a click about on https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html - the best case is getting over 50% of the generation from 9AM to 6PM. The worst case is getting almost nothing for three months in the winter.
This is the argument about renewables as far as I'm concerned.
Even if there was no such thing as climate change, long-term we still need to eventually move to renewables.
We have all the non-renewables as the fuel to do so. We can't continue to waste them - once they are gone, you can't bootstrap a renewable energy system.
Even if there was no such thing as climate change, long-term we still need to eventually move to renewables.
We have all the non-renewables as the fuel to do so. We can't continue to waste them - once they are gone, you can't bootstrap a renewable energy system.
May be stupid question: I have always wondered if we build enough windmills will it affect the global windpatterns?
What will happen to the place where all this wind energy goes if we extract it before there? Could it affect rainfall in directly unconnected places? The butterfly effect?
Butterfly effect means, small effects CAN induce big ones. But not necessary in a significant lasting climatechanging way.
Windmills do not change much different, than I would say, a city with scyscrapers does. So it is changing, but to affect the global jetstreams, we probably would have to build really big windmills, directly exploiting those winds on a big scale ...
So sci-fiction we are talking about, not at all, what we have now...
Windmills do not change much different, than I would say, a city with scyscrapers does. So it is changing, but to affect the global jetstreams, we probably would have to build really big windmills, directly exploiting those winds on a big scale ...
So sci-fiction we are talking about, not at all, what we have now...
Building towns, cities, roads, farms, and other comparatively large surface area artificial structures impact windflow, solar absorptance/reflectance, rainfall absorption/runoff, thermal conduction/convection, and others I'm sure. All of which can have an impact on local and in turn regional and then global climates and winds (although not usually in a way we can trace all the way through).
It's worth understanding the impact of all of these in addition to what you ask as well.
It's worth understanding the impact of all of these in addition to what you ask as well.
It can, but the change can be a good thing. For instance, enough off-shore wind can reduce the intensity of hurricanes (in places like New Orleans).
Farmers plant trees for wind-breaks in the Great Plains to reduce erosion of the soil. Wind turbines can serve the same purpose.
Farmers plant trees for wind-breaks in the Great Plains to reduce erosion of the soil. Wind turbines can serve the same purpose.
I've always wondered if it would affect bird migrations.
I look forward to the day when all the windmills have worn out, and the towers are standing around unused, mined out for rare-earth elements, but too expensive to take down. Then, we can stretch cheap mesh between them and generate power with no moving parts, by releasing ions to be carried away by the wind. Alvin Marks (holder of the patent on polarizing sunglasses) got a patent for that back in the '80s.
But the most important recent development in wind power has nothing much to do with windmills, as such. Roger Ruan at UMn, and Roger Gordon in Canada have both invented small-scale, efficient reactors that can turn power, water, and air into ammonia. This is important because the overwhelming majority of places with useful wind are nowhere near an electrical grid, but many of them have immediate uses for ammonia.
Now, you can put up a windmill anywhere, and it can produce useful liquid fuel and fertilizer any time the wind blows, with no inconvenience to anyone when wind doesn't blow. Farms need large amounts of both fuel and fertilizer, and have lots of space for windmills. Any extra ammonia can be sold to neighbors, so wouldn't need to be transported far. Ammonia is directly useful for fertilizer--you pipe it right into the ground behind plow blades, and soil microbes fix it instantly.
Any manufacturer of windmills should be very excited by this development, because it stands to radically increase the market for windmills. A single windmill is now a useful purchase, and any farm can use one. Industrial ammonia production consumes huge quantities of natural gas, and belches 10 megatons of CO2 every year, not counting exhaust from transporting it and processing it to solid form.
But the most important recent development in wind power has nothing much to do with windmills, as such. Roger Ruan at UMn, and Roger Gordon in Canada have both invented small-scale, efficient reactors that can turn power, water, and air into ammonia. This is important because the overwhelming majority of places with useful wind are nowhere near an electrical grid, but many of them have immediate uses for ammonia.
Now, you can put up a windmill anywhere, and it can produce useful liquid fuel and fertilizer any time the wind blows, with no inconvenience to anyone when wind doesn't blow. Farms need large amounts of both fuel and fertilizer, and have lots of space for windmills. Any extra ammonia can be sold to neighbors, so wouldn't need to be transported far. Ammonia is directly useful for fertilizer--you pipe it right into the ground behind plow blades, and soil microbes fix it instantly.
Any manufacturer of windmills should be very excited by this development, because it stands to radically increase the market for windmills. A single windmill is now a useful purchase, and any farm can use one. Industrial ammonia production consumes huge quantities of natural gas, and belches 10 megatons of CO2 every year, not counting exhaust from transporting it and processing it to solid form.
Onshore wind would be even cheaper if the Conservatives hadn't all but banned it to appease NIMBYs.
You can build bigger, more efficient turbines offshore, and the winds are stronger and more reliable, so offshore being inherently more expensive isn’t actually a solid assumption. All the more so if you include the costs of integrating the generation into the grid.
It is still a pretty good assumption that on-shore is significantly cheaper, even including grid integration costs. After all, a significant portion of off-shore wind's cost is the expensive seaborne transmission.
On-shore is bound to be cheaper for a good while, but fortunately offshore is experiencing a big Renaissance, especially in the USA. I would be surprised if offshore wasn't cheaper by the middle or end of the century, as it does have numerous advantages to on-shore.
graycat(8)
I read it as " U.K. offshore wind prank may generate power cheaper than by burning coal" which is a much more fun story.
"may"
wake me when it does.
Here in Germany we have offshore wind parks that are not connected to the power grid. A lot of nonsense is going on in that area.
wake me when it does.
Here in Germany we have offshore wind parks that are not connected to the power grid. A lot of nonsense is going on in that area.
Wake up
"The auction cleared at £45/MWh (1). This means that the bids referenced in the Bloomberg story have succeeded. Bloomberg have significantly updated their story to reflect the results. In today’s good news story, we can change “may” to “will” in the headline to match the updated story :) (1) https://twitter.com/mliebreich/status/1175080738116571136?s=... "
As mentioned by daveoflynn elsewhere in these comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21028451
"The auction cleared at £45/MWh (1). This means that the bids referenced in the Bloomberg story have succeeded. Bloomberg have significantly updated their story to reflect the results. In today’s good news story, we can change “may” to “will” in the headline to match the updated story :) (1) https://twitter.com/mliebreich/status/1175080738116571136?s=... "
As mentioned by daveoflynn elsewhere in these comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21028451
That sounds bad. Where can I learn more about it?
Skimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Germany it sounds like there is just a perpetual lag, where offshore wind is built and then it takes awhile to get it hooked in. It's been going on since at least 2014, and since that time like 5GW of offshore wind looks to have been hooked up, so I'm not sure there's a problem beyond "things take a while to build".
I couldn't immediately find a good link (via Google). This one mentions unused capacity, but no further background I think https://energytransition.org/2019/02/german-offshore-wind-ca...
>Here in Germany we have offshore wind parks that are not connected to the power grid
Source (incl reason for lack of grid connection) please?
Source (incl reason for lack of grid connection) please?
Can't find a good source immediately. This article mentions "276 MW of fully installed turbines far out at sea not yet feeding power to the electrical grid" https://energytransition.org/2019/02/german-offshore-wind-ca...
Sorry, maybe more googling would bring up something better. It is well known in Germany.
Sorry, maybe more googling would bring up something better. It is well known in Germany.
275MW isn’t much. It’s only 30-40 turbines.
There is an entire wind park. Then it must be another story.
Edit: maybe it is this here: https://www.ingenieur.de/technik/fachbereiche/energie/so-win... - apparently after a couple of years, many of the generators have now finally been connected. That would be good news.
Edit: maybe it is this here: https://www.ingenieur.de/technik/fachbereiche/energie/so-win... - apparently after a couple of years, many of the generators have now finally been connected. That would be good news.
Edit: The UK’s already up to 50% nuclear and renewables on the electricity grid, this is an extra 6GW of capacity, and goes on top of previous auctions which are currently under development, it looks like we’re headed for 60-70% in the mid to late 2020s.