Climate change policy

[TRITON]

Also that another underwater gas line exploded, due to suspected nefarious countries/terrorism attack.

Ukraine did it

 

[RobinBHM]

2022 - the Nord Stream gas pipelines exploded - believed to be the work of Putins team although difficult to prove conclusively.

These links are built, they are far from robust bits of infrastructure. Also very expensive Morocco

They are robust.

Not many things are robust against bombs

I think the Nord stream was blown by USA or Ukraine not Russia……but it’s a conspiracy theorists dream.

 

[Jacob]

Technology and unconstrained capitalism have caused climate change. Unconstrained capitalism offers no hope. Can technology provide the solution?

 

[RobinBHM]

Something I find quite interesting is how everyone is so obsessed with how electric is made, or stored, or transferred, but when it comes to water supply nobody pays any attention.

Water is as important (if not more so) than electricity yet other than pollution events and the occasional hose pipe ban, nobody is questioning the types of pumps in pumping stations or the size of reservoirs or groundwater aquifers, how water is piped and what those pipes are made of.

people shouting about how we can't possibly meet demand for electric with renewables but don't give a monkeys about how to meet water demands during certain times. So far out of water and electric, it is water that is limited at certain times of year and is far less reliable. Yet we just seem to accept that.

As long as electricity is still flowing out of your sockets what difference does it make if it comes from renewable energy, demanding that it be produced by fossil fuels because you 'feel' it is more reliable makes no sense. If anything it is more unreliable as it's pretty hard for another country to turn off our solar, wind and hydro but they can easily affect oil/gas and uranium supplies.

There hasn’t been a reservoir built since 1989 and since privatisation 35 reservoirs have been sold off

There’s a reason why allowing critical infrastructure to end up in the hands of sovereign wealth funds is a bad idea.

 

[JSW]

Something I find quite interesting is how everyone is so obsessed with how electric is made, or stored, or transferred, but when it comes to water supply nobody pays any attention.

Water is as important (if not more so) than electricity yet other than pollution events and the occasional hose pipe ban, nobody is questioning the types of pumps in pumping stations or the size of reservoirs or groundwater aquifers, how water is piped and what those pipes are made of.

^^This.
Remember you can live for weeks without food, but a matter of days without water.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I'm not a genius - I was adopting a persona of irony/sarcasm/facetiousness - take your pick. I was trying to lead you to a certain Eureka moment of epiphany, but sadly, it missed the mark - maybe too subtle?

How do I know I'm not a genius? It's because I am aware (however superficial my awareness is) that these electricity power supply connections already exist. There is an image shared by Sachakins on this very thread that displays the "IMPORT" power requirement in purple area - I'll reproduce it below.

There has also been recent research into electricity transfer to UK from as far afield as Morocco. Let's get realistic, just for a moment, shall we, about Solar power and fossil fuel power costs, inputs and outputs, etc.

Groundwork:

-It is very, very clear to me that gas powered electricity production is not "cheap". It requires not only a generation plant (££s) but also raw materials (££s) and a great deal of active management (£s). Some of that control and management is automated, but there is still a highly skilled workforce payroll to satisfy.

-It is also very, very clear to me that Solar Power is cheap. Of course there's the cost of land to house it, but land in a desert, let's say is not expensive... Then there's the cost of the solar generation plant (££s). After this, there is no raw material requirement - it's basically free energy input... A skilled workforce is required to maintain, I agree, however, the cost of generation/running is extremely low compared to fossil fuel, due to having no raw material requirement.

-It is equally very clear to me that this Morocco-to-UK electricity supply is deemed viable by those that understand it. I trust the experts in their field, even if the (self-confessed) "free thinker iconoclasts" spout some drivel about "Argument from Authority" or other such bovine excrement.

-Finally, it is pretty obvious to me that since the generation of solar is basically FREE, then voltage drop becomes of little relevance, because you're not trying to minimise loss in order to maximise profit. Pretty much ANY power supplied off the generating capacity counts as profit.


The only real down-side to this explicit Morocco plan is that Morocco is at a similar longitude to the UK and therefore night is the same in both locations. However, if this serves only as a proof of concept (long distance power transfer), then there's no reason why we can't anticipate power transfer of cheap electricity (including free wind - since it won't be limited to domestic power draw requirements) across the globe from time zone to time zone.

There is one potential pitfall in all of this - and no it isn't Putin - multiple transfer routes could easily mitigate that and would only be vulnerable of a massive overt attack, where Putin only really deals in covert and unattributable attacks - the real threat to this becoming reality is, in my view, the fossil fuel industry, who will naturally try every dirty trick in their arsenal to minimise the uptake of renewables in order to maintain their profit stream and to keep their investments making money in the long term. Switching off fossil fuel company profit - when they have functioning generation supply chains that have been invested in for long term income will be the most difficult challenge to overcome. Tufton Street Ghouls will continue to lobby and to hoodwink the general populace of dumb fools that renewables are "more expensive" for many years to come (look at the imaginary and disprovable ideas that people like Tony have immovably wedded themselves to already - despite the facts proving otherwise.) The head of Octopus was on BBC Question Time 3 weeks ago and it was refreshing to see someone on MSM tell the truth that "we have crossed the rubicon - renewables are already cheaper". But holy hell - the non experts on the panel still continued to push back against his established expertise, despite him saying that he "bought more energy than anyone else in the room" <teehee>

So, no, I'm not a genius and am very much aware of that, but I do try to put in some leg work of my own to make up for it.

View attachment 194474

I agree with much of what you now write:

• solar is not free. Panels have a limited lifetime (20-30 years) and cost real money to replace.
• the cost of the Morocco link is far from trivial.
• Vulnerability of supply due to disruptive action may be slightly (not fully) mitigated by multiple cables and routes, but requires multiple investment
• levellised costs of energy (LCOE) shows solar, onshore and offshore wind to be fairly close in lifetime cost - currently less than gas, but dependant on future gas prices
• the fundamental technology difference - gas cost is weighted towards annual costs - other sources to initial investment.

Technology is evolving rapidly with major impact on relative costs and energy security. The choice between long distance connectors, energy storage, overcapacity for wind/solar, use of EVs to feed back energy to grid/home, gas back up etc is unclear.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

They are robust.

Not many things are robust against bombs

I think the Nord stream was blown by USA or Ukraine not Russia……but it’s a conspiracy theorists dream.

Securing assets against terrorist or other "rogue" state threats is somewhat easier if the assets are located onshore within national borders. Lengthy pipelines and cables passing through international territory are inevitably less secure or robust.

Nord Stream may even have been blown by Ukraine as a way to get western support by attributing or assuming the action was initiated by Russia. Who knows - what is certain is it suspended supply of gas to Europe with a predictable impact on energy prices, proving a real vulnerability.

 

[John Brown]

Apologies, I phrased my statement incorrectly. You are reading it right.
What I was trying to say was that we will be using more gas at off peak times if we increase domestic battery charging, as it is the gas generating the extra power we need to meet demand, so as off peak demand rises, we will burn more fossil fuel with the current system to meet it.

Again apologies to you and others for my poor/incorrect statement.
I hope the above clarifies what is was trying to get across.

I see what you're saying, but I would expect that once the off-peak demand exceeds supply, it would cease to be offered at a reduced tariff, rather than ramping up gas fired generators to meet the demand.