Fiddlers Ferry & Rugeley Power stations to close

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I went to http://www.ukenergywatch.org/Electricity/Realtimeand clicked on "UK Power Stations".

 

It's still showing Ratcliffe as zilch.

[jamie92208]

If large chunks of the grid ever do shut down there is also the problem of a dark start (I think that's the term) Most plants rely on the grid being available to get themselves going again from a shutdown, from the point of view of instrumentation and services, but also there needs to be a connected load, at voltage and frequency, to synchronise with.

I've several friends who worked at Ferrybridge. Apparently they did used to practice 'dark starts'. It went something like this.

1) Start a small diesel generator from a battery.

2. Use that output to start a gas turbine.

3. The Gas turbine output would start other relatively small gas turbines.

4. These gave enough output to start up the machinery for one of the main units, eg coal handling/crushing etc then the boiler.

5. Once one unit was online then the other units would start in turn and the GT;s could be shut down.

IIRC the GT;s were near the base of the main stacks with 4 relatively small metal flues grouped together.

He did tell me what the station consumed to keep going and it was several Megawatts.

 

Jamie

Edited February 10, 2016 by jamie92208

[Mike Storey]

I despair when I read the simplistic bilge generated by some on this thread. Killing even more people through air pollution and through accelerating climate change, just to ensure we get cheap and constant power to our houses, is no longer acceptable. Just read the relevant independent reports and make up your own minds. But don't make up your mind because it stands to reason, dunnit.

 

The economics of coal fired plants no longer stand up, even with de-sulphurisation and the other emerging requirements. Bi-mass burning is beginning to be challenged as just as polluting. LPG is currently cheap but that could change, as is oil-firing. "Green" energy, using present technology, has turned into a quagmire.

 

What is so annoying about this is we are (or were) totally self sufficient in coal yet we have abandoned it instead of looking at ways of making it more environmentally friendly.
Yet we throw millions at foreign companies to build wind turbines .
I know not everyone will agree with this point of view but to any true railwayman there can be no other way.

 

I was, for 40 years professionally, and still am, at heart, a railwayman. That statement is untrue. Coal burning can never be environmentally friendly. It's effect can be marginally reduced, but that's all. Bio-mass burning is becoming contentious as well. i don't see it has a long term future. That is not down to EU regulations or any other rules that have been imposed. That is because the UK has individually signed up to international protocols which require us to reduce carbon emissions. In my opinion, that is quite right, given the figures now emerging over the vast number of people that have died, and are still dying (an increasing figure in London amazingly) due to atmospheric pollution. Much of that is due to internal combustion engines, but the vast majority is due to power generation.

 

Let us please separate our passion over rail freight operation, from our informed opinion about energy policy and the balance needed between energy security and harmful emissions.

[russ p]

Places like North Korea worry about and struggle to provide a reliable electricity supply not 21st century great Britain!

I doubt the big players in Europe have the problems we do, even though they own plenty of ours!

[Revolution Mike]

Places like North Korea worry about and struggle to provide a reliable electricity supply not 21st century great Britain!

I doubt the big players in Europe have the problems we do, even though they own plenty of ours!

 

Sorry but this is a bit of a myth - running a balanced grid is incredibly complex and one of the tools used is the ability to reduce demand from energy intensive users when occasionally necessary. That is generally less about inability to generate enough power, but more about ability for the system to cope with the changes quickly enough when something unexpected happens. The rest of Europe has the same problems we have but has the big advantage that many of the grids are more interconnected (though we are getting there with more connections, though then people complain that we are getting power from Europe and not self-sufficient) - interconnection helps reduce the risks inherent in any grid system as you effectively have more possibilities for getting power onto the grid.  Of course the need/ability for interconnection is another evil plot from the EU....

Edited February 10, 2016 by red death

[russ p]

It's probably a way to get cut price electricity from eastern Europe therefore doing away with yet more quality British jobs. I for one do not want to work in a retail park!!!

[Revolution Mike]

It's probably a way to get cut price electricity from eastern Europe therefore doing away with yet more quality British jobs. I for one do not want to work in a retail park!!!

 

I really despair sometimes. I take it you read my comment that people then complain that we are getting power from Europe...

 

If you don't want interconnection how are you going to provide your reliable electricity supply that is able to react to rapid changes in weather? Or breakdowns in plants?

[D1059]

I have absolutely no problem with the UK pursuing a low (or even zero) carbon emission policy (and remember that includes nuclear), but for the sake of all you hold holy, DON'T switch off current generating capacity until the replacements are online.

 

Whoever mentioned the 70s, the 3 day week and regular power cuts is absolutely right. The winter of 73/74 was a miserable time for all, and we are FAR more dependant nowadays on a reliable 24*7 electricity supply

[Zomboid]

The sums will have been done and the spare generation capacity will be on the other end of the various interconnectors. I don't have visibility of the sums, but given how we view electricity as a human right, they will have been done with a view to keeping up with the likely demand.

How self sufficient have we been for the last 20 years anyhow? We've been mostly burning imported coal and gas.

[russ p]

I really despair sometimes. I take it you read my comment that people then complain that we are getting power from Europe...

 

If you don't want interconnection how are you going to provide your reliable electricity supply that is able to react to rapid changes in weather? Or breakdowns in plants?

If people had had this ideain the 30s we'd all be speaking German now. And don't hide behind 'that was then' as the world is almost as politically unstable now as it was then.

All I'm trying to say is that we should be able to be self sufficient should we need it. Which in turn creates much needed quality employment for those who are unable to work in banking and such like and don't fancy working on a retail park or call centre!

[JeffP]

I've either missed it, or no-one else has mentioned that Germany, who signed up to the same agreements we did, intend to build a load more coal-fired power stations?

[Zomboid]

I've either missed it, or no-one else has mentioned that Germany, who signed up to the same agreements we did, intend to build a load more coal-fired power stations?

That has been mentioned. I've no idea if it impacts their ability to meet their obligations under those agreements though. Their decision was a seemingly kneejerk political one following Fukushima (which was very likely to be repeated in Germany, a country well known for its seismic activity and tsunamis).

[Revolution Mike]

I've either missed it, or no-one else has mentioned that Germany, who signed up to the same agreements we did, intend to build a load more coal-fired power stations?

Discussed on the first page of this thread...nothing at all stops any country building/operating coal except economics.  Germany has made the decision that they don't want nuclear (silly) and don't want to be completely reliant on Russian gas so for base load they don't have many options but to build new coal plants (which won't come cheap).

 

If people had had this ideain the 30s we'd all be speaking German now. And don't hide behind 'that was then' as the world is almost as politically unstable now as it was then.

All I'm trying to say is that we should be able to be self sufficient should we need it. Which in turn creates much needed quality employment for those who are unable to work in banking and such like and don't fancy working on a retail park or call centre!

 

Sorry, what on earth has that got to do with WW2? Don't hide behind smokescreens to try to avoid the questions.

 

I assume you will be sending cheques to coal fired plants to upgrade them sufficiently to meet future emissions standards as well as covering their losses if they can't compete with cheap gas?

 

I'd rather we reduced air pollution from NOx and SOx than worried about meaningless ideas of self-sufficiency in a globalised market (we haven't been self-sufficient for decades). 

 

I actually agree with your general point about employment but that is a much wider problem and trying to conflate the two issues isn't particularly helpful unless you are going to be honest and compare jobs lost with jobs created in other forms of power generation.

[Mike Storey]

I've either missed it, or no-one else has mentioned that Germany, who signed up to the same agreements we did, intend to build a load more coal-fired power stations?

 

Mostly gas actually, but some coal fired plants are planned. This is entirely because they have decided to shut down all their nuclear capacity, after Fukushima, and that their pursuit of green energy solutions, whilst vast, has resulted in an instability of supply which cannot match the loss of nuclear power supply. France is considering going the same way, especially as their latest (and possibly last) nuclear power station in Brittany, is coming in at twice the original budget and is some years late.

 

Ironically, a report has been recently published regarding the after-effects of Fukushima, which states that there are no cases of increased incidence or indication of cancer, which means above the national norms, amongst either the power station staff or the local population. It calculates that more people died during the evacuation than are likely to die over the longer term as a result of the accident. It also deals with the wider aspects of nuclear power, and concludes that, even including Chernobyl, far more people have died from conventional power generation than have been affected by nuclear power. If these conclusions are independently verified, and there has so far been no great disagreement, AFAIK, then it suggests the rationale behind removing nuclear power as an option, is flawed. For once, the UK government seems to have taken the right decision, although cost and other factors remain questionable.

[russ p]

Because if we weren't self sufficient back then we would have been a very easy target to immobilise and invade.

Where are these jobs created by new forms of power generation, Germany!! There is a huge wind farm near where I live, that created a handful and I mean a handful of permanent jobs. There were and still are a few in Yarmouth and Harwich creating the dammed things but the manufacturing was done in Germany.

I aren't interested in meeting emissions targets, if and its a big if they do affect the climate, I would start to confirm once India and south american countries start to do so but I have no intention of debating that here. So I'll keep my cheque while you send yours to Gideon!

[jamie92208]

Mostly gas actually, but some coal fired plants are planned. This is entirely because they have decided to shut down all their nuclear capacity, after Fukushima, and that their pursuit of green energy solutions, whilst vast, has resulted in an instability of supply which cannot match the loss of nuclear power supply. France is considering going the same way, especially as their latest (and possibly last) nuclear power station in Brittany, is coming in at twice the original budget and is some years late.

 

Ironically, a report has been recently published regarding the after-effects of Fukushima, which states that there are no cases of increased incidence or indication of cancer, which means above the national norms, amongst either the power station staff or the local population. It calculates that more people died during the evacuation than are likely to die over the longer term as a result of the accident. It also deals with the wider aspects of nuclear power, and concludes that, even including Chernobyl, far more people have died from conventional power generation than have been affected by nuclear power. If these conclusions are independently verified, and there has so far been no great disagreement, AFAIK, then it suggests the rationale behind removing nuclear power as an option, is flawed. For once, the UK government seems to have taken the right decision, although cost and other factors remain questionable.

That tallies with what we were told in emergency planning when I was working Mike. We had two major chemical plants across the road from a Rugby ground. One of the plants always contained a reasonable quantity of phosgene, as an intermediary. When we were discussing emergency procedures, the advice was always to tell people to stay indoors or in the stands at the Rugby as evacuation in an emergency was very dangerous. It was always seen as a last resort because of the potential number of casualties especially when you needed to evacuate care home and hospital residents.

 

By the way, the plant concerned has now been demolished so I'm not giving any confidential info away.

 

Jamie

[Revolution Mike]

Because if we weren't self sufficient back then we would have been a very easy target to immobilise and invade.

Where are these jobs created by new forms of power generation, Germany!! There is a huge wind farm near where I live, that created a handful and I mean a handful of permanent jobs. There were and still are a few in Yarmouth and Harwich creating the dammed things but the manufacturing was done in Germany.

I aren't interested in meeting emissions targets, if and its a big if they do affect the climate, I would start to confirm once India and south american countries start to do so but I have no intention of debating that here. So I'll keep my cheque while you send yours to Gideon!

 

We weren't self-sufficient in WW2 - hence we had to rely on iron ore imports and huge amounts of weapons and food from the USA! Talk about ignoring history.

 

So you compare a handful of jobs from a few MW of local windfarms with a 160 jobs from a 2000MW plant...as I said compare like with like eg you could try and find out how many employed per MW of generating capacity or similar.

 

Again if you had bothered to read then you would have noticed that I talked about NOx and SOx (nothing to do with carbon emissions) which are about local air quality - the air emissions from coal fired power stations are far worse than almost any other industrial process and the health impacts are huge (whether from heavy metals (mercury) or lung diseases from poor air quality).

[Mike Storey]

Because if we weren't self sufficient back then we would have been a very easy target to immobilise and invade.

Where are these jobs created by new forms of power generation, Germany!! There is a huge wind farm near where I live, that created a handful and I mean a handful of permanent jobs. There were and still are a few in Yarmouth and Harwich creating the dammed things but the manufacturing was done in Germany.

I aren't interested in meeting emissions targets, if and its a big if they do affect the climate, I would start to confirm once India and south american countries start to do so but I have no intention of debating that here. So I'll keep my cheque while you send yours to Gideon!

 

Er, we weren't self-sufficient in WW2, hence the massive convoy operations and military supplies from the USA. There were insufficient miners left to extract the coal, hence the Bevan Boys and productivity actually dropped for a long period, along with strikes and other disruption, kept quiet at the time. Coking coal was in very short supply hence the need to import vast amounts of steel from elsewhere. Our, almost total, dependence on coal-fired power stations (and a largely steam driven rail system) was actually a drawback, hence the push for hydro-power in the 50's, and oil-fired to some extent, although new coal-fired were also built. Germany, despite being supposedly self-sufficient in power station energy, having slave and conscripted labour supplies, and having access to large oil fields for a large part of the war, actually fared worse in terms of industrial production than did the UK. Your thesis is therefore not proven, nicht war?

 

The UK was more self-sufficient in WW1, to begin with, but as the war dragged on, it became less so.

 

If global war ever returns, it is likely to be over so quickly, that energy self-sufficiency would be irrelevant.

[Revolution Mike]

It also deals with the wider aspects of nuclear power, and concludes that, even including Chernobyl, far more people have died from conventional power generation than have been affected by nuclear power. If these conclusions are independently verified, and there has so far been no great disagreement.

 

That is a fairly consistent message in most scientific literature - largely down to the sheer volume of the emissions coupled with "primitive" flue gas cleaning. So you don't need much impurity in the coal to get large amounts of mercury being emitted etc. NOx and SOx can be cleaned up but it costs money to build the flue gas treatment and leads to a loss of thermal efficiency and increased use of reagents/catalysts (depending on what type of flue gas treatment you use).

 

If money is no limit then you can technically build a plant with very low emissions (incl CO2) and some do exist (Greenpeace always bang on about an IGCC plant in the USA), but at some point wider economics kicks in and your plant becomes impossible to run cost-effectively when compared to cheap gas (which doesn't have the same emissions problems).

 

Cheers, Mike

[highpeakman]

Where are these jobs created by new forms of power generation, Germany!! There is a huge wind farm near where I live, that created a handful and I mean a handful of permanent jobs. There were and still are a few in Yarmouth and Harwich creating the dammed things but the manufacturing was done in Germany.

 

 

I believe work has already started on a large wind turbine manufacturing plant on Humberside with many new jobs projected. The actual turbines and generators will be built in Lincoln I believe. 

 

Still German and overseas companies I accept but many UK jobs involved and a lot of investment.

 

https://www.siemens.co.uk/en/news_press/index/news_archive/2014/major-uk-offshore-wind-manufacturing-site-to-be-built-by-siemens.htm

 

http://www.vikingfm.co.uk/localnews/plans-for-second-wind-turbine-factory-on-humber/

 

Another one: Added later

 

http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/CS-Wind-announces-turbine-tower-factory-creating/story-26017781-detail/story.html

 

There are probably more.

 

 

Edit: Added links. 

Edited February 10, 2016 by highpeakman

[locoholic]

What is really stupid is the pathetic progress we have made to reduce our energy demand by reducing waste, insulating houses, etc.

[APOLLO]

I'll try not to be political and get my (gas) engineers head back on. I planned gas main replacement during my last 8 (out of 40) years in the industry. We used a 1 in 20 winter as our base. i.e. we planned for the load during the peak of the coldest (highest load) of the last 20 winters. For some strategic pipelines we used a 1 in 50 figure. I don't know what the electricity producers / planners use, but it's probably similar. You must add onto that planned / projected load growth. It was ALWAYS load GROWTH for us "gas men"  by the way.

 

Now everybody needs to understand peak load. That's about right now (6-30 pm on a cold winters night). There is an actual coldest night every year when loads are at peak, this is statistically recorded and known in both industries. There is a morning (breakfast) peak also, but the evening peak is always higher as people come home, switch on lights, TV, kettle, central heating, cooker etc etc (plug in cars as well soon !!). The actual times vary, but say 4-30 pm to around 7.30pm.

 

So, now factor in a high atmospheric weather regime across the country. Cold air, little or no wind, sun down after 4pm and a very deep frost sets in, SO we can factor out ALL wind / solar, it's of no use at all during this particular peak (which happens more or less at least once every winter for a day or two).

 

We now have a yearly peak load (demand) for both gas and electricity. Lets look at each in turn.

 

Electricity - Base load coal plants (over last couple of years) running, as are Nuclear and CCGT (combined cycle gas turbine), and perhaps the interconnector from Europe also. Wind and solar minimal in this scenario. There should be an adequate % spare generating capacity should one or more plants have problems, or if there are grid transmission problems. This has been sufficient over the last few years, but gets trimmed year on year as plants are closed but not replaced.

 

Remember BASE LOAD - all the above are the big base load generators, working hard on this cold, cold night.

 

Gas - Similar picture regarding loads as everyone comes home. The national gas transmission network can "store" gas at higher pressures, so it's a bit easier to balance loads (This is why low pressure  gas holders are now mostly history). For many years large industrial gas loads have also been interuptable - that is these firms can switch to an alternative fuel at a given notice period (some long, short or instant). The CCGT electricity stations mentioned above are fed off the gas transmission network, and as peak for electricity is at the same time as peak for gas, some of these CCGT plants are interuptable also.

 

The CCGT's WILL get interrupted / shut down before domestic gas supplies are affected at peak times / incidents. If you loose a low pressure gas network (domestic gas network) it is days / weeks to get it back on. Been there / done that - not nice. I doubt there is the manpower in the industry these days also to get such affected gas supplies back on quickly also.

 

SO - don't depend too much on gas to replace coal for the base load. But will we have enough gas? LNG is imported from Qatar Egypt etc. Not vey politically stable over there is it ?. North Sea / Morecambe bay reserves are already past peak, Fracking perhaps to come, this may / may not be our saviour - I honestly just do not know. There is a couple of gas interconnector pipelines that import / export gas to / from Europe. Best not to rely too much on those I suppose (Russian gas). We also have LNG and salt cavity gas storage, but not enough of it (less than a weeks supply). The LNG storage facility at Avonmouth is being decommissioned & scrapped - uneconomic (!!!!).

 

Back then to electricity - base load generation on our cold frosty windless, sunless night a couple of years hence.

 

Coal - mostly gone, those remaining on notice of closure

 

Nuclear - Plants long in the tooth, most also with closure dates, if we are lucky a couple of new ones under construction but generation by them is years away

 

CCGT - Fine - If we have the gas. Watch the coming push for fracking.

 

Interconectors -(from Europe) - A help but won't run the country.

 

Wind and Solar - Not generating so of absolutely NO use on this particular night.

 

Oh, someone mentioned more insulation of houses - bad news here also I'm afraid

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35473203

 

It's not really about politics, or greens, or fossil fuels, or nuclear radiation, or money.

 

It's about supplying the electricity and gas base loads on a freezing cold windless, sunless dark 1 in 20 winters night .

 

Brit15

Edited February 10, 2016 by APOLLO

[Reorte]

What is really stupid is the pathetic progress we have made to reduce our energy demand by reducing waste, insulating houses, etc.

As someone who doesn't really make much effort to not use electricity I was rather shocked when I tried the "compare your usage" thing on my energy provider's website. Apparently I use 63% less electricity and 75% less gas than comparable homes (and even when I changed the parameters to compare with a modern house with a modern boiler instead of an old one with and old boiler it only went down to 50% less gas). What on earth are people doing to use it all? Is turning off lights in rooms you're not in now regarded as making a special effort to save power instead of being normal? Having the temperature at shorts and T-shirt level 24 hours a day?

Edited February 10, 2016 by Reorte

[jjb1970]

One of the problems with the emissions debate is that many conflate air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. Admittedly there is a link as some of the air pollutants do contribute to global warming but emissions of PM, SOx and NOx are primarily of concern for their impact on health and eco-systems. Air pollutants are pretty straightforward to remove from emissions. For SOx you can either use a low sulphur fuel or there are a variety of wet and dry de-sulphurising techniques and non-thermal plasma can work. Wet flue gas de-sulphurising is as basic as it gets and the technical challenge is not about removing SOx from exhaust gas but removing the various contaminants such as polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons from the washwater before discharging it. NOx depends on the combustion process as unlike SOx which is a fuel issue NOx is a part of the combustion process although I am now going to contradict myself by saying some fuels in some combustion processes (eg. diesel engines fuelled by natural gas, LPG or methanol) are low NOx. The de-facto standard against which other options tend to be judged in terms of effectiveness is selective catalytic reduction (SCR) which is extremely effective, has a minimal parasitic load and is a mature technology, it can also be applied to diesels, boilers and other combustion processes as it is a downstream post combustion technology. For boilers you can get rid of the catalyst with some boiler/fuel types and use selective non-catalytic reduction by controlling furnace dwell/residence time and using exhaust gas recirculation along with possibly direct urea injection into the furnace. Diesel engines can use exhaust gas recirculation which is a primary control technique by increasing CO2 levels in the charge air which has a higher specific heat capacity than air and reduces excess air in the combustion process, it works but tends to be less effective than SCR. There has been a lot of work to suppress NOx using advanced combustion management by means of controlling the heat zones within the cylinder via very high pressure, very high precision pulsed fuel injection. Gas turbine NOx abatement is very straightforward, traditionally it was done easily enough with steam injection into the fuel injection but more modern engines use sequential low NOx combustors. With PM it gets more complex as it all tends to be linked to the particular particle size and species of PM. Heavy metals and some other contaminants can be knocked out using active carbon and such like. Even antiquated old electrostatic precipitators are still pretty useful.

So for air pollutants the technology isn't new, it works and in some cases it adds minimally to footprint and parasitic energy demand. My concern was more about the potential for pollution shift. I never saw it as being sensible to just move pollution around. On the other hand it is a complex argument. In the case of oil you can de-sulphurise in refineries but traditional technologies for de-sulphurising oil are energy intensive and add large additional energy loads and carbon emissions to refineries. A lot of modelling has demonstrated for example that whilst it may seem counter-intuitive the carbon emissions of wet flue gas de-sulphurising for heavy oil combustion has a lower carbon footprint than for doing at the refinery and making low sulphur heavy oil.

Carbon capture is another story entirely. There are plenty of techniques which can do it on a small scale but scaling it up to a full size plant has proved technically challenging and hugely expensive, and do we really want to be playing with amine sorbent systems? The only technique I got involved with that really seemed to offer the promise of viable large scale application within a reasonable time frame was IGCC and that is still very expensive and despite claims by some there have been serious issues with reliability and durability primarily because of metallurgy challenges.

[jjb1970]

I've been to the Siemens renewable HQ in Newcastle, very impressive it is too. Despite being German Siemens have invested a lot of money into wind turbine manufacturing and engineering in the UK. Whilst the O&M phase of a wind farm requires limited people there is now a large offshore construction and support market which is keeping quite a lot of companies and their staff going who'd have been in much deeper trouble than they are in the current oil and gas downturn without offshore renewable work.