Wind farms produced 'practically no electricity' during Britain's cold snap.

[NNadir]

It seems the natives are getting restless.

The cold weather has been accompanied by high pressure and a lack of wind, which meant that only 0.2pc of a possible 5pc of the UK's energy was generated by wind turbines over the last few days.

Jeremy Nicholson, director of the Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG), gave warning that this could turn into a crisis when the UK is reliant on 6,400 turbines accounting for a quarter of all UK electricity demand over the next 10 years.

Back to January 2003 - the last time gas demand was this high He said the shortfall in power generated by wind during cold snaps seriously undermined the Government's pledge on Friday to build nine major new wind "super farms" by 2020.

"If we had this 30 gigawatts of wind power, it wouldn't have contributed anything of any significance this winter," he said. "The current cold snap is a warning that our power generation and gas supplies are under strain and it is getting worse

Coal stations are currently used as back-up generation when there is a surge in demand for gas and the wind does not blow – which both tend to happen during cold weather.

The bold of course, is mine, not that there is any surprise - to me at least - that the wind and solar industries, weak as they are, are not interested in doing what I regard as totally essential, the total phase out of dangerous fossil fuel mining and dangerous fossil fuel waste dumping.

The dangerous fossil fuel industry knows this quite well, which is why they are quite happy to fund guys like Amory Lovins and Joschka Fischer.

But they're whistling happy songs in the dark about their gas future in the UK, as the article continues:

Last week, National Grid was forced to issue two warnings about gas supply as demand surged to a record high, forcing it to ask 95 companies to turn off their pipelines.

It lifted the warning on Friday, after problems with Norwegian pipeline gas supply were fixed, but demand may continue
to rise next week with experts forecasting more snow.

In his latest podcast from Number 10, Mr Brown insisted that the UK was not running out of gas.

"National Grid has confirmed that it expects supplies to meet demand. I can assure you: supplies are not running out.

"We've got plenty of gas, of course, in our own back yard – the North Sea – and we also have access to the large reserves in Norway and Netherlands via pipelines."

They have plenty of gas, and if they don't, they can get it from Norway. Isn't that a happy thought?

The source article is here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/6957501/Wind-farms-produced-practically-no-electricity-during-Britains-cold-snap.html">Telegraph, Jan 11, 2010.

[Statistical]

1. My prediction is UK will start construction of a nuclear reactor within a decade.

Wind has a very poor track record of matching demand with supply.

It can be a supplement and when wind is available reduce fossil fuel usage but it can't provide the near continuous reliable output that a reactor can.

In Australia and UK support for nuclear power is slowly growing. Carbon legislation will make it even more difficult for countries to meet quotas without nuclear power.

[NNadir]

2. They will need more than "a reactor," though. They have a wonderful record though. Calder Hall

operated for 54 years before wearing out.

That would easily beat a wind turbine that lasts a year.

[Statistical]

3. Baby steps.

I think they will build a single reactor initially. Likely a GenIII. My guess would be EPR because of close proximity to France. Based on the performance of that eventually they may build more.

[NNadir]

8. One part of me understands this approach, but China and India will build like France, the UK and

the US used to build.

We have a destroyed nuclear manufacturing infrastructure in the West and it's going to cost us - and the environment - big time.

And we still have this little grease stick selling asses running around destroying infrastructure that our country and our planet urgently and desperately need.

By contrast, India fabricated the reactor head for their FBR at Kalapakkam under budget and ahead of schedule and didn't even break a sweat.

We need to get serious in the West.

Time is seriously running out. In fact it has run out, and all we can do is to mitigate the scale of the damage.

When I read papers out of India on their approach to nuclear technology, I basically sit back in awe. It's beautiful important stuff. (I have to say that I'm a CANDU kind of guy - except when I'm an MSR kind of guy.)

They are doing - and doing well - what should have obviously been done decades ago. They are going to have plenty of plutonium to make their thorium work and work well.

I've been to India, and that country has problems on an unimaginable scale, but unlike some of us in the West, they at least will have the tools to do something about them. We may end up far less safe than they are now and believe me, if you've seen what I've seen there - that is a very scary thought.

[truebrit71]

11. "wonderful"? Windscale anyone?

...wonderful my arse..

[Statistical]

12. Apples & Oranges. Windscale was a weapon's plutonium pile. n/t

[truebrit71]

13. Oh..so that means that Windscale wasn't a nuclear power plant?

..because of the fuel it used?

:wtf:

[Statistical]

14. No. It wasn't a power plant becuase IT WASN'T A POWER PLANT.

Tell me how much power windscale produced?






(Psst: I'll give you a hint it is:
0 * your age * your shoe size * you high school GPA * your contributions to Democratic party^2).

[truebrit71]

15. Windscale/Sellafield/Calder Hill

..all the same site..and yes, they produced electricity on that sight...It was a cover for the GB's atomic bomb programme..

[NickB79]

16. They were on adjacent sites, and were separate reactors

With very different designs.

Windscale was SOLELY used for plutonium production and melted down in 1957, while Calder Hill was run as a dual-use plutonium-generating and electricity-generating facility for 47 years before being closed in 2003.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield#Major_plants

[Statistical]

17. Yup the power reactor operated FLAWLESSLY.

Nuclear weapons are dangerous.
Making nuclear weapons is dangerous.

Neither of which has anything to do with nuclear power.

[joshcryer]

6. Carbon legislation ain't happening any time soon.

You can count on that. We just got out of a major worldwide recession. We won't see carbon legislation at least until the end of the decade, if not much later.

[Statistical]

7. In the US I agree. In Europe I am not so sure.

Acceptance and understanding of climate change is higher there.
For example Kyoto treaty was accepted in EU but not in the US.

Even if they passed something in say 2015 that didn't take effect until 2020 and was phased in going for $10 per ton in 2020 to $50 a ton in 2030 would have an impact.

Companies, govt, utilities are forward looking. A utility doesn't want to wait until 2030 when they realize the coal is uneconomical. Even though a bill signed in 2015 would have no immediate impact it would spur necessary demand to diversify power sources.

[joshcryer]

18. Unfortunately, EU is not a major contributor, so their efforts won't help us globally.

The US needs to tax carbon, including import/export, and that will affect those countries we do business with, and force us as a global entity, to be CO2 reducers.

This ain't happening, so even if EU reduces its emissions, it won't affect China or India nor would it compel them to do the same. (Ignore the green-washing on this forum saying China is a bastion of green energy.)

[kristopher]

4. Wind Power Myths Debunked

Wind Power Myths Debunked

November/December 2009

Michael Milligan, Kevin Porter, Edgar DeMeo, Paul Denholm, Hannele Holttinen, Brendan Kirby, Nicholas Miller, Andrew Mills, Mark O’Malley, Matthew Schuerger, and Lennart Soder

International Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Power and Energy Magazine

The natural variability of wind power makes it different from other generating technologies, which can give rise to questions about how wind power can be integrated into the grid successfully. This article aims to answer several important questions that can be raised with regard to wind power. Although wind is a variable resource, grid operators have experience with managing variability that comes from handling the variability of load. As a result, in many instances the power system is equipped to handle variability. Wind power is not expensive to integrate, nor does it require dedicated backup generation or storage. Developments in tools such as wind forecasting also aid in integrating wind power. Integrating wind can be aided by enlarging balancing areas and moving to subhourly sched- uling, which enable grid operators to access a deeper stack of generating resources and take advantage of the smooth- ing of wind output due to geographic diversity. Continued improvements in new conventional-generation technolo- gies and the emergence of demand response, smart grids, and new technologies such as plug-in hybrids will also help with wind integration.

Read the article in full in PDF format: http://www.poweracrosstexas.org/files/IEE_Wind_Power_Myths_Debunked.pdf (11 pages, 1.7MB)


http://poweracrosstexas.org/node/115

[joshcryer]

5. Once weather patterns change so that most of the civilized world is living in heat...

...saturated environment for most of the year, I wonder what that will do to the wind. I have seen *no* reports about how wind will fare with a high emissions scenario (since it looks like that's where we're heading and wind or any renewables for that matter are not reducing our emissions the necessary way).

[NickB79]

9. Actually, a study on the effects of global warming on wind speed was released last year

http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-06-11/news/17207770_1_wind-power-global-warming-study

""It's a very large effect," said study co-author Eugene Takle, a professor of atmospheric science at Iowa State University. In some places in the Midwest, the trend shows a 10 percent drop or more over a decade. That adds up when the average wind speed in the region is about 10 to 12 miles per hour."

This syncs up very well with hypotheses put forth in the book "Under a Green Sky", which discussed the possibility that the Permian Extinction was caused by a runaway greenhouse effect from melting methane clathrates. The author speculated that, in a hotter world with fewer temperature variations between the poles and tropics, there would be a decline in wind speed globally.

[joshcryer]

10. Thank you very much for posting that. It is as I suspected.