Fiddlers Ferry & Rugeley Power stations to close

[Mike Storey]

Thank you professor. I cannot claim to have understood half of that, and the other half is debatable. Nonetheless, given the technology is there, the economics seem to be the stumbling block. Are you aware of any initiative to reduce the costs of any of these techniques?

[Mike Storey]

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.

 

I concur. My origins are in Lowestoft, which was dying on its feet when the fishing fleet disappeared, until North Sea gas came along. Once that activity started to reduce.it looked like the same was going to happen, but the White Knight has turned out to be off-shore wind farms, and much the same skills from off-shore gas have transferred.

 

The railway station is still falling to bits though......

[phil-b259]

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!

 

Please desist from ruining a useful and informative discussion about power generation with Eurosceptic propaganda. This forum is meant to be politics free and several of your comments thus far display far too much if that.

 

The simple FACT is the global economy, global politics, sources of conflict, scientific understanding, environmental awareness have changed massively in the past five or six decades, and as such, sticking your head in the sand and pretending the UK, or indeed the world could turn the clock back 50 / 60 years - when individual countries were indeed more self sufficient is plain nonsense - not to mention impossible without a WW2* style global conflict to force the issue.

 

*Even then most of our oil / rubber etc (vital for military equipment) had to be imported from the USA and run the gauntlet of U-boats in the North Atlantic

 

As for doing nothing till others change - have you heard of King Canute who manifestly failed to change the forces of nature by staying put? While yes the likes of India and China are big polluters at present, you get them to change by upping your own game and then encouraging them (possibly through the carrot of increased trade) to do the same.

 

There are of course legitimate questions as to the merits of different approaches taken by various EU countries as to energy security / resilience in an unstable world - we have already touched on France and Germany but basis on facts not political rants.

Edited February 10, 2016 by phil-b259

[russ p]

Well that's your opinion, I'll stick to mine

[jjb1970]

Thank you professor. I cannot claim to have understood half of that, and the other half is debatable. Nonetheless, given the technology is there, the economics seem to be the stumbling block. Are you aware of any initiative to reduce the costs of any of these techniques?

There are efforts to reduce cost all the time. With the normal air pollutants the costs whilst significant are not enterprise threatening or excessive. Wet flue-gas de-sulphurisation has a significant parasitic load (it is just a wet scrubber, you pass the gas through a water mist) but even that is hardly high if compared to the parasitic load of mechanical handling systems in a coal or biomass plant. The large biomass plant I was involved with had a mechanical handling load equivalent to about 16% of plant output, ie. 16% of what was generated was used moving wood around the plant. With SCR the main cost is the reductant (depending on size it can be aqueous urea, aqueous ammonia or for big plants anhydrous ammonia) and the catalyst blocks if you poison the things or they lose their activity. The catalyst is an active material (its actually quite an interesting topic, relying on Bronsted acids on the catalyst) and to replace a set is both expensive to buy and expensive to do the actually replacement work and disposal of the old blocks. They tend to need semi-regular cleaning if used with aggressive fuels too. A significant expense with some of these technologies is waste disposal costs, if you use dry de-sulphurising you may find a buyer for the calcium sulphate for building materials but as often as not you end up paying to get rid of the stuff, often as hazardous waste. And the costs of emissions abatement need to be seen in terms of the potential benefits in continuing to use low cost "dirty" fuels such as coal and residual fuel oil in the case of de-sulphurising the exhaust gas.

Carbon capture is a different ball game entirely and despite a lot of claims to the contrary I saw nothing to suggest it was anywhere near being financially viable. In fact, interest seemed to fade and whereas at one point my employers (both power generation and my later role in a classification society) were doing a lot of work on carbon capture and storage projects it all seemed to stop. Part of it was that in generation coal was seem as politically toxic in the UK and not even particularly attractive financially (not enough to make the financial and engineering nightmares associated with making CCS work combined with the political nightmare of trying to build new coal worthwhile) but part of it was that people just lost confidence after endless over promising and under delivery from those promoting their ideas of how to do it.

I must admit I became very cynical, part of my role was providing independent performance verification for emissions technologies and advising regulators and when it came to CCS the overwhelming majority of the projects I had were just snake oil.

[jjb1970]

I concur. My origins are in Lowestoft, which was dying on its feet when the fishing fleet disappeared, until North Sea gas came along. Once that activity started to reduce.it looked like the same was going to happen, but the White Knight has turned out to be off-shore wind farms, and much the same skills from off-shore gas have transferred.

 

The railway station is still falling to bits though......

It pays my mortgage...... My employer is generally perceived as an oil and gas organisation (I work for one of the trade bodies) but my main role is now offshore renewables. I guess that does mean I have a vested interest in seeing offshore renewables grow, however I also spent many years being paid by companies generating electricity in thermal plants and to oversee marine engine certification and emissions abatement so I guess I've taken both coins.

[28XX]

Hydroelectric can provide that and there's a fair amount of that up in Scotland. Open the sluices by hand (or at worst lugging a small generator over to them).

The most vulnerable part of the grid is the South West. How will Scottish hydro help them? Hydro can dark start at a pinch. Not so Hinkley Point.

[APOLLO]

The most vulnerable part of the grid is the South West. How will Scottish hydro help them? Hydro can dark start at a pinch. Not so Hinkley Point.

 

The Severn Barrage would help supply all of the South East quite comfortably.

 

Base loads guys n gals. Supplying base loads on a freezing cold windless evening, when the wind farms aren't producing. That's what REALLY matters.

 

Sometimes I wonder if there ANY engineers left out there !!!!!

 

Brit15

[Revolution Mike]

Evening peak loads can be very short (and night loads are small) so things like pumped storage can be more useful (pumped using renewables (it is very rare that there is no renewable input to the grid - in fact I was surprised looking at the figures how high it has become) or even excess overnight generating capacity), though of course we could do with more.

 

Cheers, Mike

[Reorte]

The most vulnerable part of the grid is the South West. How will Scottish hydro help them? Hydro can dark start at a pinch. Not so Hinkley Point.

My assumption was that the power from the Scottish hydro is used to start nearby power stations, they're used to start the next lot up etc., unless the grid is less of a grid than I've always thought. The idea of everything going off seems extremely unlikely though (at least I hope it is!)

Edited February 10, 2016 by Reorte

[Dava]

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

 

It's still showing Ratcliffe as zilch.

 

Interesting that on these cold nights Ratcliffe is shown as inactive yet it is emitting smoke & condensate as usual!

 

Dava

[synthnut]

I don't think I trust that site, it still lists Cockenzie!

 

TTFN.

Ben

[phil-b259]

Interesting that on these cold nights Ratcliffe is shown as inactive yet it is emitting smoke & condensate as usual!

 

Dava

As with steam locomotive boilers, to avoid thermal shock it is necessary to allow the to heat up and cool gradually. As such just because the actual generators / turbines have stopped that doesn't mean the heat / smoke / steam producing bits are inactive. The other possibility is that work is required on the transformers or grid connections requiring the station to be electrically offline - but as it takes days to do a propper shutdown, the rest of the plant is kept fully functioning until the electrical work is completed. Edited February 11, 2016 by phil-b259

[WessexEclectic]

I must admit I became very cynical, part of my role was providing independent performance verification for emissions technologies and advising regulators and when it came to CCS the overwhelming majority of the projects I had were just snake oil.

So would you say it's more than just a reluctance to be first adopter and bear all the developement costs?

[Mike Storey]

The Severn Barrage would help supply all of the South East quite comfortably.

 

Base loads guys n gals. Supplying base loads on a freezing cold windless evening, when the wind farms aren't producing. That's what REALLY matters.

 

Sometimes I wonder if there ANY engineers left out there !!!!!

 

Brit15

 

Not unless the increased flooding it would cause to the west is overcome, the probable environmental impact on breeding fish and whales, and the £14 billion (at 2007 prices) it would cost. Despite suggestions that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, I have not seen any resurrection of the scheme? Is that beginning to happen now, despite Hinkley C?

[Rivercider]

Not unless the increased flooding it would cause to the west is overcome, the probable environmental impact on breeding fish and whales, and the £14 billion (at 2007 prices) it would cost. Despite suggestions that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, I have not seen any resurrection of the scheme? Is that beginning to happen now, despite Hinkley C?

I am not sure anyone has completely predicted all the possible effects that building a barrage might have,

no doubt there will be some downsides. But if we are likely to see increased weather events and/or possible sea level

rises in the future then it would also have a positive impact on flood prevention from the sea,

 

cheers 

[jjb1970]

The future for conventional thermal is flexible power, plants that can come on line relatively quickly, ramp up then come off with their output being adjusted to smooth out the peaks and troughs of other forms of generation. Both coal and CCGT plants can do that, most marine engineers would be horrified at just how quickly CCGT units in particular come up to pressure and even coal units ramp up very quickly. The compromise is efficiency, at the risk of speaking in generalisations you can have a plant optimised for maximum efficiency or you can have a flexible plant but it is one or the other. Emissions abatement is a given.

I think a good indicator of how coal is perceived in the UK and increasingly in many other countries is that interest in carbon capture and storage has pretty much evaporated, not just in the UK but it has lost its momentum in most of the countries that were pursuing the concept. Five or six years ago everybody was talking about it and all the big players in the industry had people working on CCS projects or had engineers and commercial people employed to monitor the state of the technology. When I left electricity generation to return to the marine world one of my first responsibilities (because I'd been an emissions specialist in electricity) was supporting efforts at IMO to resolve problems in the international treaties and conventions which needed to be resolved to facilitate CCS. At the time it was quite a high priority work item for IMO. Now there is tumbleweed blowing across the room and it is like the story that never was. I have a good friend (who actually is a professor) who was the R&D manager for emissions controls for one of the big big players in power plant equipment and turn key solutions and she hasn't done anything on CCS for ages as her employer no longer see's it as a priority.

[Mike Storey]

The future for conventional thermal is flexible power, plants that can come on line relatively quickly, ramp up then come off with their output being adjusted to smooth out the peaks and troughs of other forms of generation. Both coal and CCGT plants can do that, most marine engineers would be horrified at just how quickly CCGT units in particular come up to pressure and even coal units ramp up very quickly. The compromise is efficiency, at the risk of speaking in generalisations you can have a plant optimised for maximum efficiency or you can have a flexible plant but it is one or the other. Emissions abatement is a given.

I think a good indicator of how coal is perceived in the UK and increasingly in many other countries is that interest in carbon capture and storage has pretty much evaporated, not just in the UK but it has lost its momentum in most of the countries that were pursuing the concept. Five or six years ago everybody was talking about it and all the big players in the industry had people working on CCS projects or had engineers and commercial people employed to monitor the state of the technology. When I left electricity generation to return to the marine world one of my first responsibilities (because I'd been an emissions specialist in electricity) was supporting efforts at IMO to resolve problems in the international treaties and conventions which needed to be resolved to facilitate CCS. At the time it was quite a high priority work item for IMO. Now there is tumbleweed blowing across the room and it is like the story that never was. I have a good friend (who actually is a professor) who was the R&D manager for emissions controls for one of the big big players in power plant equipment and turn key solutions and she hasn't done anything on CCS for ages as her employer no longer see's it as a priority.

 

Is that because it has proven much easier, and more lucrative, to become expert at carbon trading?

[jjb1970]

Is that because it has proven much easier, and more lucrative, to become expert at carbon trading?

I think the reasons are mainly an unfortunate (or perhaps fortunate?) confluence of political, technical and financial factors.

 

Financially, coal which is the form of generation which has been pretty much made dependent on CCS is not especially attractive at the moment, as evidenced by the fact that operators are accelerating plant closures. Technically carbon capture still has not demonstrated reliable and effective operation on a full scale installation at anything like an affordable cost. And politically coal is toxic to the green movement and within political circles it has limited support as the emphasis is on renewables and depending on political flavour new nuclear with flexible thermal to support those other two preferred options.

 

If two of those factors were positive and one was negative (ie. new coal offered compelling financial benefits and CCS was a proven, low technical and financial risk technology, or the political momentum was with coal and CCS was low risk etc) then I think it'd be a goer. However who wants to invest in something that has not demonstrated that it will work when nobody wants it and there is no financial incentive?

 

Then there is the whole question of where does the captured carbon go? And the necessary infrastructure and associated costs. And there are some significant regulatory/legal barriers to some of the plans thrown around which involve shipping it across national boundaries.

 

I don't want to sound like a record with a scratch as I know how irritating it can be but I keep returning to Kingsnorth 5 & 6 which was the plant E.ON were developing which was intended to have CCS. The CCS plant was going to be almost as big as the power plant itself with a parasitic load of over 25% (ie. for ever four lumps of coal you burn, more than one is just being burned to run the CCS plant), and that parasitic load was not part of the thermal efficiency calculation of 45%. 45% efficiency is not great anyway compared to a CCGT or a large diesel engine, but take a 45% efficient plant then add a parasitic load of over 25% for CCS and it starts looking decidedly unimpressive. And the political heat E.ON took from the green lobby for a couple of years in the late noughties was dreadful.

[Mike Storey]

I noticed that, on Question Time on Thursday night, there was more than one mention of the "new tidal barrage" which I could only presume to mean the Severn barrage. Is there a new initiative for this? I thought it had died for the moment, after the govt decision following the 2009 report?

[Arthur]

Mike, last nights Question Time was from Wales and I think that they were referring to the more recently proposed, and much smaller, Cardiff Tidal Barrage scheme;

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/11445579/Cardiff-tidal-energy-lagoon-could-power-every-home-in-Wales.html

 

The larger scheme hasn't had any mention on the local news (I live just upstream of the old Severn Bridge) for a while and seems to be on hold.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Arthur

[simon47603]

The Barrage in question is the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon. A giant white elephant which hopefully will never get off the ground. In fact it has ended up in the High Court:

 

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/mad-swansea-tidal-lagoon-scheme-heading-for-the-rocks/

 

All types of Renewables are really Subsidy Farms for there owners. When the Subsidies stop. So will the use of Renewables. You have to ask yourself why are we closing Reliable Coal Fired Power Stations. When the rest of the world is rushing to build them:

 

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/12/02/2500-new-coal-plants-planned/

 

Simon

[jjb1970]

The problem with simplistic statistics is they hide a lot of much more complex arguments and particular issues in different countries. One obvious one is that developing economies need a lot of additional capacity quickly (and before people whinge, per capita energy consumption is still a lot less than most developed economies) which favours traditional fossil fuel generation. Some countries are in a similar position thanks to what I'd consider to be an ill judged kneejerk reaction to the Fukushima incident. There is a question of costs, clean electricity is a bit like a lot of other things (healthcare, education, transport infrastructure) in that what you get is determined to a certain extent by what you can afford and poor countries have limited resources. And these articles generally completely ignore the phenomenal growth of renewable energy in countries like China. The standard response to clean energy policies in the UK is "why should we do anything, China is the real polluter, let them do it" which totally ignores the immense investment being made by China in renewable energy. I'm guessing most people here are blissfully unaware that for instance Taiwan has an aspiration for about 3GW of offshore wind in 15 years, that is equal to a third of European offshore wind capacity today just in Taiwan.

That said, personally I do have a lot of issues with some of our policy, costing and subsidy regimes but that is different from not supporting renewables.

[Kenton]

 

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?

As one of a similar mind: - We use what we use and don't give a d@m about pandering to environmentalists, and also being one who has temperatures at "shorts and T-shirt level" in fact probably higher, I just had to do the same check comparing our use. Unbelievably our usage comes in at 70% though it is difficult to find a house of comparable size. Either the comparisons are wrong (which I suspect) or someone out there is heating their fields. We do turn off the radiators in unused bedrooms, the dining room and spare lounge (so about half the house) but the thermostat is set for a comfortable 26'C downstairs and a chilly 18'C upstairs where the fresh air enters through the open windows. Our boiler is new (<3 years) but the property is under insulated (I'm lazy - and could do better on that front) though I am not convinced on the saving (if any) compared to the capital outlay. A neighbour had several inches of extra loft insulation put in and says it made no impact on his energy bills. Now on smartmeters and our energy use is pretty much the same over the whole 24hrs (a slight dip overnight), our kitchen and utility room lights are on all day 24/7 (but the concession is that they are LEDs) I guess to some we are profligate users, but that is just the way we choose to live and to spend our money.

[APOLLO]

Quick update from The Guardian

 

The UK’s biggest energy lobbying group has shifted its position on green energy and will start campaigning for low-carbon alternatives for the first time, in what environmental campaigners are describing as a watershed moment. Lawrence Slade, the chief executive of Energy UK, which represents the big six providers and has been regarded as a defender of fossil fuels, said the shift was urgent in order not to be left behind. “No one wants to be running the next Nokia,” he said, referring to the mobile phone company that was overtaken by forward-looking rivals. “I want to drive change and move away from accepted (old-style) thinking.”

Energy UK wants to see more demand reduction, plus regulatory changes, to help support electricity storage projects that help balance out the peaks and troughs caused by wind and solar power. Slade also believes urgent action is required to encourage power companies to keep existing gas-fired plants running, as well as the provision of aid to make it worthwhile for new ones to be constructed.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/28/top-lobbying-group-green-energy-u-turn

 

Also this from 25 Feb

 

A group representing 60 local authorities has warned that recent closures of large power stations have left Britain heading for power cuts next winter, despite assurances to the contrary from the government.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/25/britain-heading-for-power-cuts-next-winter-say-60-local-authorities

 

We'll (probably) be OK this winter. Come next November(ish) the fun begins !!!!

 

Brit15

Edited February 28, 2016 by APOLLO