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.

Comments

Too late

[Thanshin]

It's too late now. We'll have fusion in the next 50 years. It's a known fact since the sixties.

Re:Too late

[Vintermann]

Nuclear power has benefited from the near bottomless source of government funds that is called "dual use technology". You know what Sweden, India, Switzerland, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have in common? They all pursued civilian nuclear power as a pretext for starting a nuclear weapons program. Yeah, that's right, even dumpy old Sweden wanted the bomb, and lied to the world and their own public about it. (They did change their minds, though). That's why everyone assumes Iran is lying. They know they lied.

Same with space exploration. Same with the internet. The way to get research funding in the US (and in lots of other countries) is to suggest that the technology has military relevance - with bullshit if necessary. "This kind of computer network will be very useful after a nuclear war! *snort*"

This is, IMHO, the real argument against nuclear power. Development of solar panels and windmills weren't funded for fifty years over clandestine military budgets. God knows where they'd been today if they were. With nuclear, on the other hand, there's every reason to think that the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and picked clean.

Reading and comprehension

[Thanshin]

Hence the absence of the word "combined".

Re:Reading and comprehension

[pushing-robot]

It's still tortured reasoning; they're comparing all renewable sources combined to non-renewables individually. You might just as well say "Russian autos outselling Toyota Corolla, Honda Accord, Ford Fiesta".

Re:Reading and comprehension

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Scotland is producing more from renewable energy combined than all the fossil fuel based sources combined, which is the importent bit really.

Re:Reading and comprehension

[TapeCutter]

Yep, 'weasel words' and hyperbole ruin another 'good news' story.

It will never work

[Anonymous Coward]

It will never work. Just give up.

Oh wait, it's starting to work.

Re:It will never work

[ledow]

The problem you have is that you've looked at the power output and gone "Wow, it works!".

What was the nuclear output before we started dialling down nuclear stations and discouraging their use? How much does this energy cost? How sustainable is it? There's at least one out-at-sea wind-farm in Scotland that has such high maintenance costs precisely because of the local weather that it was considered to abandon it.

Nowhere in the article is there a price. If we're doing this, and it makes energy prices continue to rise (don't forget - total energy price is what I pay [constantly rising] as well as what taxes of mine go to subsidise these projects [also rising]).

I'm sure someone will point at a project where the costs of renewable were low but WAS THIS PROJECT? Scotland is a notoriously remote and inhospitable place and just getting that power back to somewhere useful is going to be an enormous cost. Where is this mentioned? Nowhere.

With EU subsidies, UK subsidies, renewable firms willing to be a loss-leader for a while, rising energy costs to the consumer, etc. there's no way to know for sure quite what this is costing. We might be saving the Earth by costing us a less literal one.

Re:It will never work

[AmiMoJo]

Scotland gets a lot of income from North Sea oil, but that is eventually going to run out. That is why they are investing in renewable energy now. When the oil is gone they will be exporting their wind power, which geography has blessed them with.

The cost isn't that high, relative to other sources. Coal's costs are mostly external and somewhat hidden. Nuclear in the UK is a disaster. The old plants built by the government couldn't be given away, we had to pay people to take them. Recently they have been trying to build new ones, but no-one is interested. In the end only EDF agreed to build one if we paid them double for the energy it generates, guaranteed for the life of the plant, and if it is built by a Chinese company at rock bottom prices.

Re:Nuclear is Clean

[Njorthbiatr]

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.

Re:AND, notT OR

[cryptolemur]

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.

Numbers in summary contradict headline

[wvmarle]

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.

Re:Numbers in summary contradict headline

[Yoda222]

It could also be presented as 10.3 TWh of renewables vs 7 TWh of fossil vs 7.8 TWh of nuclear.

Or another way could be 7 TWh of fossil vs 18.1 of not fossil.

Or 7.8 of nuclear vs 17.3 of non nuclear.

decentralisation of energy supply

[rapiddescent]

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.

Isn't all renewable?

[pablo_max]

Hell, even oil is renewable. You just need to wait a while.

I remember reading something about so law saying energy cannot be destroyed. ;)

Problems with renewable sources

[danielr7z]

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".

Re:Problems with renewable sources

[Kergan]

Looks prettier than Canadian tar sands imho. And I imagine less harmful than hydraulic fracking.

Re:Nuclear is Clean

[TheRaven64]

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.

Re:Misleading title

[Dogtanian]

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.

Re:Paid for by the English

[beelsebob]

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.

'Decommissioning' is a made-up scenario

[TheRealHocusLocus]

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