Wind Power Scarcity Data Analysis
By Paul Homewood
One of my regular contacts has analysed wind power data over the last five years, using the official half-hourly National Grid data.
The analysis highlights just how intermittent wind power can be:
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/data-portal/historic-generation-mix/historic_gb_generation_mix
Periods when wind meets less than 20% of demand are labelled as Wind Scarcity, and would roughly equate to wind power running at about 25% of capacity. This is not low by any means – as we have seen before, wind power often drops to less than 5%. The calculation for 2023 of 3219 hours represents 36% of the year, so these periods can be regarded as perfectly normal weather.
If we fast forward to the 2030s, we might expect wind capacity to double, but equally demand is likely to be 50% greater too.
In broad brush terms then, the above calculations for 20% of demand, will apply to something like 28% of demand in the 2030s, when average annual demand is projected at around 50 GW. In other words wind might only supply 14 GW at most for 3219 hours a year, based on 2023 outputs. Remember that 14 GW is the maximum – for most of that time, wind output will be much less still.
When gas power stations are shut down, we may only have about 10 GW of dispatchable capacity, from biomass, nuclear and hydro, plus possibly 20 GW from interconnectors. On these figures, we will be short of power for more than a third of the year.
Some of this time may only last for an hour or two at periods of peak demand, but that begs the question of whether we will have enough surplus power at other times of the day to either store electricity or shift demand.
Other exercises have looked at wind droughts that last days on end. This new analysis suggests even in periods of normal weather, we still won’t have enough wind power to run the grid.
NOTES
I can pass on the spreadsheet to anybody interested.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Britain can experience week-long periods when our entire fleet of turbines generates at less than 10% capacity factor.
And in winter when demand is greatest and solar’s contribution is least.
“Wind Is Dominating the UK Power Grid, Pushing Out Fossil Fuels”
……..according to Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-25/how-wind-power-is-taking-over-the-uk-power-grid?embedded-checkout=true
………just because they wish it doesn’t make it so!
What a total load of propaganda . They must be getting desperate to keep coming out with all of their lies .Like the recent one about renewables putting out the most energy .
They completely ignore the facts that a large amount of so called renewable energy comes from ” Biomass ” ,, which is from burning things . Like Drax which uses wood pellets from America .And is subsidised £1.7 million per day .https://news.sky.com/story/power-giant-drax-told-by-own-advisers-to-stop-calling-biomass-carbon-neutral-12866031
Along with several other power stations using the same system they can amount up to 20% of grid demand , and actually produce more CO2 than coal fired power stations .
So not only is wind and solar very unreliable and needs massive subsidies just to exist , it also needs a huge amount of lies told just to keep the Green fraud going .
The National Grid. the CCC and DESNZ et al must know this. So, with no plans at all for grid-scale electricity storage for 2035 for even 2050 they can only be relying on DSR (Demand Side Response), aka rolling blackouts, to avoid a total collapse of the grid.
At what point will generators and all access to hydrocarbon fuels be denied?
Apparently the cost of domestic batteries is plummeting. Most of us will have batteries fitted into our homes so that we can take advantage of the dynamic pricing.
These analyses, such as today’s article, neglect to take into account domestic storage, they always assume a centralised system. Apparently, apart from a few stick-in-the-muds, we will all have 50kWh batteries in our homes.
“we will all have 50kWh batteries in our homes.”
I’m sure your insurance company will be delighted!
I was wondering about that too, but an LFP battery won’t burst into flames like a lithium-ion battery might. So no fire risk. That is what I am told anyhow.
“The advantage is that electricity will be cheaper overall.”
In your dreams!
So does that mean we are all expected to pay thousands to install batteries to insure against future blackouts?
Just like installing diesel generators for the same reason!
Once Upon A Time – We had a reliable electricity system
I guess that’s what you call PROGRESS!!!!
That was my reaction too Paul. In order to continue with using electricity, at the time I want, for a reasonable price, I have to spend thousands on batteries.
The advantage is that electricity will be cheaper overall. If you charge your battery when power is cheap, you will eventually recoup your investment.
Apparently non-dynamic tariffs will still be available for those that don’t want to play this game. However my feeling is these tariffs will be punitive, because the system absolutely requires a high take up of dynamic tariffs and also domestic batteries.
On the other hand, I think it is a valid criticism that these analyses always assume a centralised power system.
Don’t forget batteries only last a few years. Then you have to spend thousands to replace them.
But more importantly, if you can buy electricity cheaper at times of low demand, that simply means everybody else (who cannot afford to spend thousands on batteries) are much worse off.
Meanwhile please prove that you would be better off buying a battery and purchasing electricity at times of low prices. I suspect you will struggle!
BTW – Could you provide some prices for said 50 Kwh batteries?
EBAY give a price of £4850 for a mouldy 5.2KWh!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225757670457
Average domestic demand around 8kWh in UK. Powerwall2 is 13.5kWh but using car battery 20 to 80% that is about 8kWh. So six for your 50. Not a problem in a big house in theory. But big houses have 50% more usage.
Say 6 days of battery for average.
But more than 3 days no wind available happens 10+ times a year. 10+ days happens most years how often I don’t know but once would be a disaster and death for some people, more than that well……
BOT BOLLOCKS ALERT!!!!!
Paul, they say the price of batteries is set to fall by about 50%.
On the LFP batteries themselves on Ebay, I found this 1.2kWh battery for £196.99. Five of them would be 6kWh and cost £985. Not including any other kit of course this is batteries only.
But perhaps that level of investment is within the range of a large proportion of the population. Coupled with the belief that batteries will fall to half the current price, perhaps this is something to consider.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315191722040?itmmeta=01HW8QG0XYR0E8RR9A217EJHPX&hash=item4962e40038:g:sUQAAOSwm~Nl0vtR&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA4AEFsL%2B%2Fxw3po6OI8jZ8Xe3QyxQDOKx6pM3uGhZJs06F7ANVfaRR1zquXC9%2B%2Fz4c59NxcimjjVLzcGcnbhqgVTxlOUbIPjJPHhv3KRzYgRSB3Gs4OWWEj2%2FarV2yp89aMSSdmghSpxBYrXj4hSwxWBCE2c%2BDmcUKS1yjSb0PokSANOl3tA%2FXdV8fDvh2STXlFmvlxIhkDigkcUElfLFsdoXu%2FDpbW0SrbGzIZ1tesPKL14W96k%2BxC7D8YoKIvKlMX8HMnZsDQe80aeUBfta6G7la1JNusFNHhZSDSdysyZtW%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4qPwJfiYw
So 50KWH would work out at £10k, plus the cost of inverters and other infrastructure.
Why on earth would anybody normal waste £10k+ for no obvious benefit?
I have not got £10k to spare. Have you?
And even 50Kwh will only last you 3 days, which is useless when the power supply goes off for 3 weeks on end.
Better off with a diesel generator methinks!
Paul: at half the current price, 50kWh would work out at £4.1k not £10k. Perhaps £5-6k with ancillary equipment.
That’s still a lot of money to me and perhaps you, but there’s a great many people who spend these amounts without blinking.
Also I think 50kWh was somewhat plucked out the air, a much smaller battery, say 8kWh, would still flatten the curves on a scale of a day or two. That would be in reach of a large proportion of households.
If you are not a bot then you really area first class idiot. Which is it to be?
And why would the cost be “plummeting”? And what’s the cost of hooking up 30m households do you think? More fantasies and delusions.
On the battery cost I am just going by what I have read. The cost is paid by better-off people buying domestic batteries. Perhaps instead of going on one less cruise that year. There is then no cost to the taxpayer or to the other bill payers.
Odd – maybe not – that you want to take the country backwards in technology. When I were but a young lad I remember the battery man delivering our (mains) radio’s grid battery each week. But then technology – but not you, kzb – moved on.
It’s simply a way of spreading the cost of energy storage in such a way that the country hardly feels it. Instead of huge centralised batteries or pumped storage costing billions each, we have millions of homes with domestic batteries. Bought by members of the public as an investment, at no cost to the taxpayer or to the billpayer.
Ray is correct, do not engage wit this BS disruptor bot
That’s right, stay in your bubble. Only engage with your echo chamber, that’s the way to win.
kzbkzb : “If you charge your battery when power is cheap, you will eventually recoup your investment.”
Won’t all the national and local grids have to be upgraded enormously to take all the power demand when the price of power is cheap? Instead of everyone using electrcity as and when needed with some peaks early morning and early evening (and perhaps overnight for evs) won’t peak demand skyrocket as not only are all awaiting devices are switched on but also all the household batteries?
I guess so. The grid needs uprating considerably to take the extra load, we know this already.
kzbkzb : “If you charge your battery when power is cheap, you will eventually recoup your investment….Apparently, apart from a few stick-in-the-muds, we will all have 50kWh batteries in our homes.”
According to the Royal Society’s ‘Large-Scale Electricty Storage’ report the 570 TWhrs supplied by wind and solar (80/20 mix) by 2050 will require 50 TWhrs (e) of storage to provide a reliable supply. 50 TWhrs divided by 28m homes is around 2MWhrs so I’m not convinced that 50 KWhrs will be sufficient even though I have not included commercial premises, especially as we will be using far more electricity than today.
I don’t think this is aimed at the long term power shortage problem. It is about people on dynamic tariffs flattening the curve for their own economic benefit. This is on a daily scale, not weeks-long scale. What happens in the Dunkelflaute is still a problem.
At the end of the day you have to pay for the total cost of the system, which inevitably includes significant volumes of capacity that are heavily underutilised and which attempt to provide forms of backup for intermittency. You pay for the system several times over compared with a dispatchable system based on reliable sources – nuclear, fuels and hydro. Batteries are never going to cut it. Take your 50kWh per household over say 20 million households, and you have 1TWh of storage. The Royal Society calculated you would need well over 100TWh of storage.
Who are “they”?. Why will battery costs fall massively? Please provide your properly researched and validated evidence for your claims.
I’m simply repeating what I’ve read.
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/02/26/catl-byd-to-slash-battery-prices-by-50-in-2024-boom-evs-win/#:~:text=CnEVPost%20reports%20that%20in%20order%20to%20secure%20its,Wh.%20That%20translates%20to%20%2456.47%20per%20kWh%20hour.
a 60 kWh battery that costs manufacturers $6,776.00 today will cost just $3,388 12 months from now
I’m putting that forward for you people to knock down, if you can.
These are the arguments you need to address.
There is nothing to shoot down. Just a hope by a chief executive that prices will miraculously fall by the end of this year.
There is the downward trend over the past several years though. The question is, has that trend plateaued or will it continue down? Any reason to think the downwards trend won’t continue ?
What happens in the Dunkelflaute is still a problem.
As there is no proof that humans are responsible for dangerous climate change, can we not have a fleet of coal-fired power stations – some with CHP – and a fleet of nuclear power stations? That would deal with Dunkelflaute and would provide cheap, reliable electricity.
You certainly can’t have enough nuclear by 2050 that is for sure. This is a country that takes 2 years to install some traffic lights. A country that spends untold billions on a railway track without ever actually laying a track.
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24277113.roof-sutton-home-destroyed-huge-fire-breaks/
News item in paper . Roof destroyed by fire .
Solar panels and probably batteries in loft , but that will never get much publicity although the insurance companies will no doubt amend their prices because of such events .
As I said before, lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries are safe. It’s the lithium-ion batteries that burst into flames.
You certainly can’t have enough nuclear by 2050 that is for sure
You are probably correct if such a nuclear construction programme was based on the “standard” UK planning / approval process and followed the Hinkley Point C process for design / procurement / construction.
If an “energy emergency” is declared then my opinion is that a fleet of PWRs based on the Sizewell B design could be achieved by 2050, although the “standard” planning / approval process would need to be sidestepped (because it’s an emergency) and there is the small matter of achieving compliance in the 21st century with the Sizewell B PWR design.
A coherent nuclear construction programme would probably involve existing proven designs (not currently HPC) and SMR.
We don’t have the workforce to achieve it, even if the planning is short circuited somehow. Also, nuclear is the very last area where planning and approval is going to be short circuited.
I’m simply repeating what I’ve read.
Do you not have your own opinion ?
This is not about opinions it is about facts.
50 kWh won’t go far in an all-electric household, as the govt is planning for all of us. Just a reasonable-size heat pump, running constantly in winter, would run that battery flat in a few hours. Then there’s the other demands: water heating; EV charging; all the other domestic users.
Further, as Ray S has often pointed out, the local distribution networks would be totally overloaded.
As for LFP batteries, aiui they are flammable, just much less so than lithium-ion. Anyway, isn’t the plan to “re-purpose” car batteries that are past their best? Those are unlikely to be LFP.
I believe the re-purposing of old EV batteries was planned for central storage rather than being distributed as home batteries. You are right to have safety concerns about that. I wouldn’t want an old worn out Li-ion battery in my house either.
I agree domestic batteries aren’t going to solve th Dunkelflauten problem. But it looks like they can reduce your energy bills and provide you with a lot of energy security.
We don’t have the workforce to achieve it,
We do: it was and is currently at HPC. If the construction programme at HPC is even vaguely similar in format to SXB then the workforce that undertook the enabling works and early civil works at HPC should have wrapped up enabling works and early civil works at SXC by now. Similarly, the work force for the major civil works would move from HPC to SXB as the large scale civil works at HPC near completion. Similar with the M&E work force. And then onto Bradwell (or elsewhere). Obviously, this would need competent high-level strategic planning (ha!) and competent project management for each construction site.
A bigger issue could be the manufacture of equipment for the “nuclear islands”. If it’s an energy emergency then buying “turnkey” from abroad is probably more realistic than supporting British manufacturing industries, unfortunately.
Also, nuclear is the very last area where planning and approval is going to be short circuited.
If it’s an energy emergency then the “nice-to-have” and “wish-list” elements of planning and approval might need to be discarded. SMR offers the possibility of construction at existing power station locations, perhaps utilising existing infrastructure so the planning and approval process could be mainly generic.
This is not about opinions it is about facts.
Unfortunately, net zero is based on a shared belief, not on proven facts.
You need to provide something like 60-80GW capacity in total by 2050. With HPC you’ve provided 3.2GW, it’s cost £33 billion and counting, and will have taken about 10 years from start to finish.
So well done, one down and so only another 18-24 HPC’s to build before 2050.
I agree the RR SMRs would be best on the existing sites, because the local populations are used to the idea of having nuclear reactors nearby. Many of them anyhow. I don’t know why RR keep featuring them on green field sites in their brochures. Also you are going to need a terrific lot of them to provide that much capacity.
major civil works would move from HPC to SXB
Typo ( or time machine needed ! )
Should read ” major civil works would move from HPC to SXC”
Ed Miliband thinks he has a plan ha ha…
We’re seeing more and more tangible engagement from policymakers as they increasingly appreciate the role home batteries have to play in the UK’s clean energy future.
https://givenergy.co.uk/the-rt-hon-ed-miliband-visits-givenergy/
That website explains what I have been trying to say very well.
18-24 HPC’s to build before 2050.
As previously posted: “a coherent nuclear construction programme would probably involve existing proven designs (not currently HPC) and SMR.”
Where do you get the requirement for 18 – 24 HPCs from?
The Sizewell B (SXB) PWR is a proven design. It was on time (site construction period = six years) and on budget (about £3billion), but over 30 years have passed since the design was “accepted” for construction; my limited knowledge is that the design of SXB would not be regarded as “acceptable” for new construction 2024 onwards, although I don’t know what tweaks would be required for the design to be “acceptable” .
As previously posted, the proposed SXC twin PWR station of the early 1990s would have been gift at the estimated construction cost of £3.5 billion, but that would have required competent strategic planning by our glorious leaders. Hah!
There was a time when the CEGB was capable of constructing approx 30GW in 10 years (various fuels).
The current price for a 40.5kWh Tesla Powerwall system is £15,000 plus £800 for the controls, plus installation, delivery and VAT. It comes with a 10 year guarantee. It can charge at up to 11kW and discharge at up to 15kW. All in cost is going to be comfortably North of £20,000, and you need to factor in the loss of investment income or the cost of borrowing on top.
Amortising the investment over 10 years means you need to save at least £2,500 a year through its use. If you managed to save 25p/kWh on average (almost the entire tariff) you would need throughput of 10MWh to break even, or 247 complete charge/discharge cycles per year. OFGEM’s “Home” unit is now down to I think 2.7MWh of electricity a year.
Seriously,
It doesn’t add up…
It doesn’t add up…
Unfortunately, there is much about the “net zero belief” that doesn’t add up.
I want my own “micro combined heat and power station” please!
There’s only so much “waste cooking oil” to go round, and you’ll be in competition with the airlines to buy it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the CCC and DESNZ were not aware of this. And certainly the politicians aren’t (or if they are, the UN/WEF is more important to them than the consumers).
After all, if a former Director of Public Prosecutions can remain completely unaware of Jimmy Savile’s hobby and the “Asian” gang rapists of schoolgirls, almost any “ignorance” of what is going on might be understandable.
Judging by the Horizon Enquiry, which I listen to for an hour or two most days, even if they were told multiple times they won’t remember. If they were given a report to read they won’t have read it but should have done.
I’m sure they are aware. But all problems are solved by wishful thinking. We will reduce demand, technology will advance, everything will become cheaper and numbers can be fudged using averages.
Semantics:
Is it actually a scarcity of wind, or are there additional factors? Wind Scarcity, or scarcity of power from wind generation sector?
A very good point GC. Wind turbine output is determined by the CUBE of the wind velocity as the main multiplying factor. So it isn’t just a lack of wind rather a lack of adequate wind velocity to produce significant generation. And then there is Betz’s Law but let’s not get too technical for now.
Scarcity of wind power
“The wind is always blowing somewhere” is no use when there are no turbines in most of those somewhere places. In fact, a lot of GB wind turbines are clustered together in more or less the same place, the North Sea, good for maximising total energy output, but lousy for avoiding deep wind droughts, when a High or Low pressure system is centred on the North Sea.
South Australia has the same problem, most of their turbines are in the windy hills near Adelaide, but sometimes the wind there dies.
“is no use when there are no turbines in most of those somewhere places.”
Worse still even if there were we would need massive over supply of rarely used grid connections to actually get the power to anywhere useful. The notion of “it’s always windy somewhere” is complete tosh!
It really doesn’t solve the problem to spread things out more. Less windy locations are not economic – it’s why you don;t find wind turbines in the Home Counties apart from the occasional token – Ecotricity near the Madjeski Stadium, Reading, visible form the M4; King’s Langley visible from the M25 near Watford; Ford, Dagenham are about the only ones Londoners will ever see. But weather systems exhibit high degrees of correlation over much longer distances. Take a look at the daily outputs across Europe in 2016:
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/SHEPp/1/
Just one simple example…
If the wind drops in the North Sea you will have Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK all looking to import electricity. Denmark will be paying through the nose for Norwegian hydro while everyone else will be looking to the French nuclear fleet to prop up their grids. No great surprise that Macron has suggested that Switzerland helps fund new nuclear plants as the Swiss will be depending on the French as well. Only because they are ignorant retards can politicians claim that they are improving our energy security at the same time as the Serica Energy chairman says that the socialist government is killing off any investment in our North Sea resources and his company is looking to invest in the Norwegian sector.
Anyone with common sense can see this the logical outcome from windmills and thus there is no way that gas can come off the system. Worse though we are going to have to incentivise those CCGTs to stay available so whatever the eco loons believe they are saving with windmills will be neutralised at best (unlikely) but just add further cost to providing energy.
do we know if the grid can be controlled with sufficient granularity to shut down low priority users (ie us) while maintaining supply to them and their favoured clients (Whitehall, NGOs, Khan’s City Hall, Greenpeace HQ, etc).
Back in the day when we had deep coal mines, they had connections to more than one grid such that even if one grid went down, enough power was always available to keep ventilation fans running and to wind men out of the pit.
Similar arrangements, or at least some very reliable standby generators, were provided for hospitals and some industrial processes (plate glass manufacture, steel smelting) where interuption of the process would be exceptionally problematic.
My guess is that Westminster and Whitehall will be the very last places to be disrupted.
Yes Martin,
Have you noticed how so few of our “leaders” have not dropped dead as a result of getting ‘jabbed’ compared to the young fit athletes who have died of ’cause unknown’ Saline? The devil looks after his own.
my experience in chemical manufacturing was on-site cogeneration from CHP providing electricity and process steam, coupled with dual grid connection. It was calculated that the site could remain operational without gas/grid connection using the multi fuel capability of the CHP setup from at least 2 weeks – this was part of the Year 2000 preparatory planning.
later experience in a hospital was multiple on-site emergency diesel generators as well as dual grid connections.
California Highway Patrol?
Combined Heat and Power
Petrochem plants may have their own generation. Years back I worked on an assessment of a generator at the BASF plant at Seal Sands. It was a steam turbine driven unit.
Yes it very definitely can. Domestic supplies are connected single phase with large numbers connected to low power circuits that can readily be isolated at the last sub station. Larger users are connected three phase to much higher capacity circuits. It is very simple to disconnect domestic users whilst keeping “preferred” users supplied.
https://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/help/whats-the-difference-between-a-single-phase-and-three-phase-electricity-supply
Or just message selected smart meters. The issue becomes at what level do you provoke riots.
So when wind is at zero and demand is at 50GW, we might be 20GW short – or more if wind is low across Europe.
It certainly is not unusual for large anti-cyclones to settle over Europe at any time of year. A wind lull stretching from the Urals to the Mid Atlantic Ridge is only moderately rare – remember those depictions in the film “Titanic” where there really was no significant swell nor wind. That these conditions are so readily dismissed as no-problem genuinely bewilders me.
Where I am in Norway, the vista is blighted by 8 or 10 mega triffids on the horizon. As sure as eggs is eggs, in the winter we experience long periods of no wind at all associated with high pressure. Those are also the coldest days of the year. Funny no one seems to see the inherent weakness of relying on triffid power.
Thet are hidden in averages by Zealots when data is shown to gullible politicians.
Paul, as ever, excellent research which will be ignored by the CCC.
How do I get a copy of the spreadsheet?
michaeldavison@btinternet.com
I would also be interested to see it, unless someone would care to do some more analysis on it themselves. I’d like to see more statistics on how variation is changing.
Michael and others: Paul can see commenters’ email addresses behind the scenes within WordPress, so there is no need to broadcast them to the world at large.
You’re all out of date, you sceptics:
Share of electricity generated by fossil fuels in Great Britain drops to record low (msn.com)
I think I’ve seen this “author” described as “Silly Jilly” on here before now. Nothing’s changed.
“The findings lend support to the aims of the ESO to begin the “groundbreaking and world-leading” step of running a zero-carbon electricity grid for Great Britain for short periods from next year.”
Check your candle stocks now!
The trick will be running for long periods. ‘Short periods’ is a stunt. A “groundbreaking and world-leading” stunt, signifying nothing but how stupid you are.
I do wonder what they will have as standby. As I’ve pointed out before, the grid came quite close to blackouts on 22nd December when they were running with relatively high share of wind. IFA1 interconnector tripped out for 1GW, but the grid batteries seemed to be AWOL, and a small CCGT (380MW) was also admitted as lost. There must have been significant other losses that they’re not owning up to, because the grid frequency fell to 49.275Hz, consistent with something like 3GW tripped offline before pumped storage (primarily Dinorwig) kicked in to arrest the decline: it took a full minute for the frequency to regain 49.5Hz and over 5 minutes to get back above 49.8Hz and 11 minutes to reach 50Hz. If there had been another 4 seconds of delay there would have been automatic blackout load shedding.
Without the inertia they had on the system the frequency would have fallen faster, and the likelihood of blackout much increased. They’re taking big risks by aiming to do without CCGT.
In what way does the UK being “world-leading” in this benefit me?
How selfish can you be? Me, me, me…..when there is a planet to save. Reducing our miniscule production of CO2 by a microscopic amount that will reduce global warming by an amount so small I can’t be bothered to type all the zeros after the decimal point is what you need to focus on. Shame about the Kubicki et al paper that shows that 300ppm is the upper limit for additional CO2 to have any effect due to saturation……
Interested in having a copy of the spreadsheet.
Excellent work! This is the most pleasant source for my go-to energy reading.
Paul,
Don’t you know this is about belief not facts? Who is surprised when a fraudulent response to a non-problem does not make muster?
Now the real issue for the screeching proto cave dweller mob has to be that you have shown you are not a believer and worse challenged their post Enlightenment belief system by checking what data is available. That alone makes you a hater and therefore someone they are allowed to ignore.
therefore someone they are allowed to ignore.
See latest from Jim Dale (the weather guesser) re: no place for non-believers on main stream medjiaa.
He’s obviously lost too many debates on GBN.
I’d like to get a copy of the spreadsheet, please. white.dog9357@fastmail.com
Then there’s this:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/25/britain-risks-relying-on-china-net-zero/
“Angus MacNeil MP, chairman of the energy security and net zero committee, said the IEA’s report must serve as a “wake-up call in the West”.
“He said: “We have seen what happens when all eggs go into the one energy basket. “
Oh, the irony!
It gets worse:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/24/democrats-abandon-tesla-elon-musk-right-
Don’t tell me buying electric was just virtue signalling?
As Tesla sales drop job cuts are planned, the Mail has Musk promising a new battery car for £20,000 or less which has sent shares up 12%. No, there are no details whatsoever on this miracle car which could be on sale by the end of this year which just shows what sort of people have bought the shares.
Faltering EV sales have led to a glut in battery supply which is depressing prices. Much the same happened in the solar panel industry a few years ago. There will likely be a shake out with some bankruptcies before business resumes at higher prices.
Is all this debate to do with reducing our output of carbon (dioxide)? Why? I mean, by 2050 the level will be nearing 500ppm. So let’s just relax
The new paper by Kubicki et al shows that the saturation level for CO2 is just 300ppm which holes the global warming ship below the waterline given we are just over 400ppm now.
It doesn’t, because the warming effect of CO2 is about what depth of air is sufficient to absorb the infra red. If it is absorbed closer to the ground then the lower atmosphere is warmed and the upper atmosphere is cooled. The planet simply reaches a new equilibrium, with a slightly warmer lower atmosphere. It’s certainly not catastrophic for the planet, as the alarmists seem to fear, but it is pretty inconvenient for the human set-up we have.
https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-pg9500adves-euro5–85kw-dual-voltage-23/
The best batteries are those with the highest energy density, in order: nuclear, coal, gas. The rest are merely transitary.
Rather than being a mere rebuttel to kzbkzb, this deserves its own story:
How Canada’s energy experiment backfired – and why smart meter Britain is next (msn.com)
The real world is a b*tch.
Harping back to NG’s plan to risk running with no gas online, there are currently numerous road signs and frequent road closures on the A20 by the Sellindge converter station/Grid substation. The are all signposted “SYN CON TRAFFIC”
NG are now installing very large Synchronous Condensers in selected areas all around the country to provide the inertia, VAr control etc etc.
https://www.modernpowersystems.com/features/featureadding-more-inertia-in-the-uk-10970872/
Will it all work? It might do but it is an incredibly risky and vulnerable way to go about things. Then again I doubt it actually will.
Back in the day when we had a lot of industry , nearly all factories which used a lot of electric motors had to have ” load balancing ” generators to be able to work .
Electric motors have a very large ” lagging power factor ” which will drag down the frequency of the supply and trigger the ROCOF controls to cause blackouts .
Very difficult to explain to someone who does not fully understand electrics , but the system did work for industry .
But now with a lot more non-synchronous generation , [ wind and solar ], it will need a massive , and very expensive system to try to keep the grid going .Even more so if there is an increase in electric motors for heat pumps .
Don’t worry, during Dunkleflaute, at night, fossil fuels & nuclear will keep the lights on, until there are none, then it’ll be dark and cold and hungry just like the 1600’s, yaaayyyy!