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Renewables Are Now Scotland's Biggest Energy Source
AmiMoJo writes Government figures revealed that Scotland is now generating more power from "clean" technologies than nuclear, coal and gas. The combination of wind, solar and hydroelectric, along with less-publicized sources such as landfill gas and biomass, produced 10.3TWh in the first half of 2014. Over the same period, Scotland generated 7.8TWh from nuclear, 5.6TWh from coal and 1.4TWh from gas, according to figures supplied by National Grid. Renewable sources tend to fluctuate throughout the year, especially in Scotland where the weather is notoriously volatile, but in six-month chunks the country has consistently increased its renewable output.
7.8 + 5.6 + 1.4 = 14.8
It's too late now. We'll have fusion in the next 50 years. It's a known fact since the sixties.
Hence the absence of the word "combined".
It will never work. Just give up.
Oh wait, it's starting to work.
They're building one fast breeder reactor, the rest of the new ones are all VVER. It will likely pave the way for future breeder reactors.
Unfortunately no, they did the opposite of the safe thing and extended the life of old reactors and increased the output.
But just because they're being all twisted and stupid about it doesn't mean they have their head up their ass. They clearly see the benefit in investing in nuclear infrastructure. They have eight new reactors being built that are set to be completed all within the next two years. Probably plans for more on the way. It's a very aggressive strategy, and I'd imagine after the new ones are online the old ones are going to be decommissioned.
The life-cycle carbon footprint of different energy production is very extensively studied, and if eco-freaks don't cre about those, nuclear-freaks tend to come up with very fantastic numbers, manaking to make nuclear almost as clean as renewables by creative and fantastic accounting. For example, there's often some unknown technical magic happening when moving from high-grade uranium to low-grade uranium that requires no extra enrichment. Or by stroke of other kind of magic, we turn all uranium reactor to thorium or other unproved stuff reactors overnight. The biggest issue, though, the nuclear is facing in this new landscape of energy production is the fact that it's rather incompatible with the renewables in the grid. Unless it scales itself down succesfully.
10.3TWh in the first half of 2014. Over the same period, Scotland generated 7.8TWh from nuclear, 5.6TWh from coal and 1.4TWh from gas,
So that's 10.3 TWh renewables vs 14.8 TWh from non-renewable sources.
Interesting numbers game. Certainly only by lumping all the renewables together, and splitting out the other sources, they could make it work. Not exactly a fair comparison. Nevertheless impressive that they are now at about 40% overall coming from renewable sources.
One of the biggest challenges on Scotland has been the decentralisation of energy supply. The grid (high voltage power lines) was built to connect power stations that were usually less than 30 miles from cities and then smaller grid segments out to the less densely populated areas such as the highlands & islands.
The challenge Scotland now faces is that a large amount of renewable energy is being produced in the highlands and islands and coastal projects resulting in power having to be shipped "the other way" through the grid. So Scotland has had an enormous new power line from Beauly in the north to Denny in central region to help. The scandal is that a lot of Scotland's renewable energy is idle or switched off because there is not enough capacity in the grid to use it until the new line comes on board. Nearly every loch in Argyll has some kind of hydro power generation capabuility but it is switched off (except Cruachan)
The new wave power production systems are fabulous, especially the inter-connected wavenet squid system.
Nuclear releases less CO2, but kills more wildlife and releases more radiation
I'd like a source for the 'kills more wildlife'. Even counting just emissions at the plant itself and not the huge amount from coal mining, nuclear power plants emit less radioactive material than coal.
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In addition to transportation, I'm curious about storage. How much "peaking power" comes from renewables (or stored renewables) as opposed to grid purchase (or quick-startup resources such as gas turbine)?
I'm stoked to hear about real-world success in renewable energy, but I see a lot of "fluff" cheerleading in the press without much attention to details about how much this or that project produces, compared to total consumption, and how much power is being consumed by various sectors of society.
As home-built or purchased alt-energy installations become more common, and more people become aware of these issues, I hope we'll see more discussion of these issues in the press. It's about time.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Hell, even oil is renewable. You just need to wait a while.
I remember reading something about so law saying energy cannot be destroyed. ;)
Here in Spain, wind turbines have destroyed many beautiful natural landscapes (while affecting also some wild birds and other fauna).
I wonder wether populating a whole mountain range with huge poles should be considered "clean".
TFA is 190 words long. How is it possible to define this as anything other than a "fluff" piece?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
I'm trying to read this site, but it's quite difficult as they pop up an obnoxious banner that doesn't go away when I click the red close box. Their figures are 7,900,000 birds killed for coal, 330,000 for nuclear. So your citation directly refutes your point: coal kills 24 times more birds than nuclear.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I know you're making that out like it's a bad thing, but I actually think it's a good strategy to hold out as long as you can, because the more time passes, the more likely technology will catch up and make clean up slightly less difficult.
If we leave the mess lying around for a long time where it can be distributed into the atmosphere like at Fukushima if something goes wrong, you mean. What a great idea! Let's create lots of those messes and see if any of them blow up! Whoops, in fact, something like half our messes are exactly like that. Same reactor design, usually sited someplace ignorant where it will flood, with a bunch of spent fuel sitting around on top of it... sometimes more than they had at Fukushima Daiichi.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
there's often some unknown technical magic happening when moving from high-grade uranium to low-grade uranium that requires no extra enrichment
I think you meant the other way around. Yes. It is called the Zippe centrifuge. Russia, Pakistan, China, France use this process and the USA is currently switching to it for uranium separation. Back when France still used gaseous diffusion the process was itself powered using nuclear power plants at Tricastin which are now not required and can be devoted to grid power. BTW separation can theoretically be even more efficient and the USA is currently testing an Australian technology called SILEX.
I suspect that if we had actually allowed nuclear reprocessing R&D to be done for the past 40 years the so called nuclear residue issue would be irrelevant. Processes like SILEX probably have promise helping with that. Problem is no government is interested in having such a low power and tunable isotope separation method like SILEX becoming commonly available. For some reason it was made an US secret despite being originally developed in Australia with minimal university level funding. Do they really think no one else can independently reinvent it? Australia is a country with 23 million people.
There are plenty of projects for modular nuclear power plants the problem is lack of funding. Eskom had one called the PMBR and Terrapower has another called the TWR.
Why on earth would you have a problem with scotland getting their energy from renevables?
He didn't say that anywhere. His problem was solely about whether particular energy uses had been included or not, and whether those *should* count towards the claim made.
You're entitled to agree or disagree with him on that- and I'm not saying I entirely agree- but he didn't say anything about being opposed to Scotland getting its energy from renewables, and it's pretty unreasonable to put words in his mouth on that count.
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I was comparing wind and nuclear, not coal and nuclear. Even the worst estimate for wind is lower than nuclear.
Wikipedia has some slightly different figures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
Even so, in the worst case wind and nuclear are broadly comparable. Coal is, of course, terrible and no-one wants it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
In truth, there is no such thing as a renewable energy source. Some energy sources just happen to be unsustainable on a longer timeline than others.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
None, Scotland gets 8% of the revenue for the UK, has 10% of the population, and pays 12% of the taxes. Scotland in fact (slightly) subsidises England.
The biggest hand waving always comes with decommissioning
Okay, I'll wave my hands about and gobble about 'decommissioning'.
People tend to increase over time. Energy use increases over time. Globally we are not even close to providing the whole world with a grid coverage and capacity that provides the comfortable existence we ourselves would not tolerate losing. Every renewable dream has us whizzing around in electric vehicles. But this could come true only if the future is nuclear. The renewable numbers just don't work out, even when you imagine a magical solution to the storage problem, and especially when you include ground transportation.
So where did this 'decommissioning fable' come from? When was it decided --- and by whom --- that ~60 or so years hence there must be a desolate public park at every site chosen for a gigawatt nuclear plant, today?
Suggest to anyone that a water or sewage treatment plant cannot cost what it costs, it must also gather funds to fund its own destruction and demise and people will shake their heads. But this is crazy! The sewage will always flow downhill to here. We're not going to move a water plant, tear the pipes out of the ground and route them somewhere else. Oh, it's soo much different.
But is it really? Who is telling us we will be using less energy in the future? Should we listen to them?
Decommissioning funds gathered for nuclear plants may seem like a great idea, but it has also become an awful idea. It does not make nuclear energy any safer. It has promoted technological sloth, dissuaded investors from supporting (and injecting R&D to improve) the only clean base load energy source on the table. It has handicapped nuclear from being THE cheapest source of energy. It has enabled the most short-sighted and fuck-stupid forms of corporate vandalism. This is because when anyone owns or acquires an aging nuclear plant, they are faced with a choice --- whether to re-invest and re-structure to replace aging components, as they would for any other source, or trigger its destruction and unlock the magic chest of decommission funding. Getting a little kick to the balance sheet by rendering a productive energy source into a blight on the landscape, something intentionally broken that cannot be fixed.
Such as the Kewaunee Power Station which went offline in 2013 despite that it is in good condition, has maintained a healthy balance sheet, perfect safety record, operating license extended to 2033 and had six months' fuel left in the reactor. All because Dominion is riding the natural gas 'glut' at this brief moment in time. When the glut peaks out Dominion will invest in some other, dirtier short-term solution.
We should be upgrading these plants and taking them to the next level as we do with every other utility. Given the gigawatt-year track record they have demonstrated It is ludicrous to assume that any nuclear plant operating today deserves to be destroyed rather than upgraded. There are too few of them and they are too precious.
Do not feed the vultures.
___
Please see Thorium Remix and my own letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
The landfills are there anyway. They are not talking about creating new landfills so they can harvest energy. They are talking about harvesting energy from something which is already there and the available energy is just being wasted.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
There is also an issue with that graph in that it gives raw numbers of bird deaths. It does not take into account the number of different installations of each type and the energy produced by each installation. For example, if twice as much energy is produced by nuclear than by wind then there are half as many birds killed per unit energy produced.
Coal is, of course, terrible and no-one wants it.
Coal produce a lot more electricity than wind or nuclear.