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Post by edireland on Jan 10, 2014 3:27:20 GMT 9.5
Brussels cannot allow UK to continue with Hinckley, because the 75% subsidy on the electricity generated by Hinckley falsifies competition (I remember UK once was pushing those strict competition rules). And what about the even larger subsidy given to wind turbines or solar panels in the form of ROCs and FiTs? I assume that is competition because its a form of power generation you likeUK/France governments must have something special in the pocket for Germany, as otherwise Merkel will not agree with a rule change. She declared already against, though not very openly (Germany is in the fire-line once Hinckley turns into a Fukushima). Six decades of power reactor operation, both civil and military. Not one significant reactor casualty. (Windscale was not a power reactor and did not release v. large quantities of radioactivity) I think you are rather overstating the risk of Hinkley Point C turning 'into Fukushima'. Not that Fukushima has actually killed anyone, nor inccured enormous unavoidable cleanup costs. (The Maximum cost to 'clean up' land is equal to its value because if it is greater, we can simply put fences up around the land, compulsarily purchase it and leave it until the radioactivity decays to allowable levels). "... using state money. Run the costs of the reactors using the gilt rate ... You end up with an energy cost around €40/MWh" That is created by the government loan guarantees. As I showed (read my post) that implies the tax-payer subsidizes Hinckley with ~€1billion/year (in addition to the strike price)! EDF makes a huge return if you actually run the numbers. If it was using state money the state would make that money and be able to pay down the construction debt in about eight years at that strike price. Then have a reactor good for 52 more years of operation with a production price of roughly €10/MWh. " ... Solar in the UK, I hope you are willing to accept ~60GWe of OCGTs as backup, ..." You should spend some millions for scenario studies. If German and Denmark can do it, and even Scotland is heading towards 100% renewable, why UK not? Germany and Denmark are relying on an enormous stockpile of dispatchable hydro generation in the Alps and Norway This stockpile is not available to the UK. The former also relies on huge quantities of brown and hard coal while the latter has large scale natural gas generators operating for CHP purposes to support its celebrated district heating grid. As to Scotland, you clearly don't seem to understand anything about the United Kingdom. 1) Scotland is absorbing a rather large fraction of the total UK renewable subsidy. It just happens to be in Scotland for the purposes of determining the "percentage of Scottish energy" that is Renewable. The Scottish Government doesn't actually pay the subsidies for renewables, the Treasury in Westminster does. 2) The requiremetn is only for generation to match consumption, enormous transfers across the wider UK grid are to be acceptable in this scenario, which is rather different from what you are proposing. 3) Scotland has 90% or moer of the United Kingdom's entire installed hydro capacity thanks to the now abolished 'North of Scotland Hydro-electric Board'. That rather skews the figure since they have almost all the dispatchable renewable power across the entire Country. You may put a high capacity power line to Norway. Norwegian Statkraft will be very happy to serve UK with pumped storage. Just how high a capacity are you talking about? It would have to be one of the most powerful undersea connections in Human History to make any difference. But it is too busy propping up the German grid. Especially since their trade with Germany brings little earnings (due to over-capacity whole sale prices stay low the whole time, even pumped storage facilities in Germany make losses now). Indeed, which is why we can expect Germany to follow Spain's lead in setting up a tax on renewable generation to pay for the maintenance of these critical pumped storage facilities that are being used over longer timescales than they were intended for and thus are struggling to stay open due to the enormous capital expenses inherent in a pumped storage station that is only used once a week or less. I do not understand that Cornwall along the coast is not filled with solar panels as: - they have excellent sun (better than NL, N-Germany); and - UK Feed-in-Tariffs are ~50% higher than those in Germany. Firstly I don't think you have ever been to the United Kingdom if you don't understand why Solar power wouldn't work that well in Cornwall. It is only sunny compared to the United Kingdom, not in absolute terms. Solar power in the UK will only generate during the summer, even in Penzance the insolation in December is roughly 0.5kWh/m2.day . Summertime UK power demand peaks at roughly 25GWe, winter demand tops out at roughly 58GWe. Tranfering heating demand to electric power will only incerase that already enormous seasonal swing. That is far larger than Germany or France which have significant summertime cooling loads which simply don't exist in the UK. You do not need that at all, as shown by good scenario studies! Twice in the last five years we have had periods, weeks long, where there has been almost no wind over the entire United Kingdom, this occured during a period of arctic temperatures and enormous banks of fog over most of the land mass. Whats your plan for dealing with these periods? Letting us all freeze is not an acceptable answer. " ... even more once heating has to go all electric to escape fuel imports." With high wind+solar capacity installed: When the sun shines and/or the wind blows, wholesale prices go down towards near zero (as Germany shows). That makes electricity-to-fuel/gas conversion plants economic. And that fuel/gas can be used for transportation and heating and stored. The round trip efficiency on that is horrendously low and the capital costs are enormous. I know, I've run teh numbers. Scotland has or is building a power-to-fuel pilot plant. In Germany several power-to-gas pilot plants (using different methods to create synthetic gas) that inject the gas in the national gas grid. Furthermore BMW/Audi have 2MW power-to-car-fuel pilot plant running. Those produce fuel that is used by their cars. In general those plants are put in places where a lot of CO2 is available. So behind a power plant that burns biomass/waste, etc. Those plants were engineering scale demonstrations to prove that something is technically feasible. They will never be viable without collosal subsidies that dwarf even the ROCs/FiTs stuffed into the hands of renewable generators. And biomass will never be a significant source of power in the United Kingdom, it was once calculated that even with half the landmass of the United Kingdom devoted to the growing of biomass it could only produce enough fuel to support roughly half of our current annual steel production and nothing else.
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Post by sod on Jan 10, 2014 5:15:09 GMT 9.5
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Post by BNC Moderator on Jan 13, 2014 13:33:29 GMT 9.5
BNC MODERATOR Comments by Bas (and subsequent replies) regarding radiation have been deleted. They were de-railing the discussion regarding the costs of solar power and nuclear power which is the topic of this post. Please abide by BNC rules and only post comments pertinent to the topic under discussion.
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Post by sod on Jan 14, 2014 5:01:21 GMT 9.5
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Post by sod on Jan 14, 2014 6:34:14 GMT 9.5
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Post by David B. Benson on Jan 14, 2014 6:50:12 GMT 9.5
BNC Moderator --- Thank you.
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Post by QuarkingMad on Jan 14, 2014 11:24:28 GMT 9.5
Nice job at picking only what you want to read. www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/01/12/polar-vortex-nuclear-saves-the-day/The story was and should always be about diversity. Not your favourite energy choice. During the Polar Vortex, Gas had a massively hard time keeping up with both residential and power gas demand, Nuclear was running at 100% and Wind was assistign the shortfall from the Gas generators. There is only one person here against energy diversity and it is you. You're intermittent Renewables aren't the entire picture.
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Post by trag on Jan 24, 2014 5:38:43 GMT 9.5
12GW of nuclear produced 99GWh or 16%. I think you meant 99 TWh there, instead of GWh. Also, I've seen figures as high as $280 billion estimated for what Germany has squandered on their plan so far. It's bad enough at $130 billion, but at $280 billion, they could have replaced all of their electricity production with CO2-free production in the form of clean, safe, reliable nuclear, instead of the meager 12% or so (discounting "biomass" for obvious reasons) in the form of wind and solar that they've actually managed.
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Post by trag on Jan 24, 2014 5:53:27 GMT 9.5
Now now, Tom. Let's not hold out false hope. Unreliable capacity does not make reliable power. Don't forget that after those 30 years the early-built solar panels will be at EOL and need replacing. So they never get off the merry-go-round of massive annual spending to produce solar capacity.
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Post by sod on Jan 24, 2014 7:01:18 GMT 9.5
Also, I've seen figures as high as $280 billion estimated for what Germany has squandered on their plan so far. It's bad enough at $130 billion, but at $280 billion, they could have replaced all of their electricity production with CO2-free production in the form of clean, safe, reliable nuclear, instead of the meager 12% or so (discounting "biomass" for obvious reasons) in the form of wind and solar that they've actually managed. Do you have any source for that number? (i think at least your claim "so far" is false!) The truth is, alternative power has become too cheap to meter. www.solarserver.com/solar-magazine/solar-news/current/2014/kw04/economics-and-energy-minister-sigmar-gabriel-plans-to-reduce-german-solar-pv-market-to-25-gw-annually.htmlor at least something similar. Read this:
solar power is getting too cheap. self-consumption (with new systems) is cheaper, than feeding the power into the grid. This leaves (much industry doesn t pay) poor private power consumers to shoulder the cost of older alternative power. (that was the investment, which drove the price down to the competitive price it is now!)
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Post by Ed Leaver on Jan 24, 2014 12:12:19 GMT 9.5
Sod: Could you please explain to us provincials the meaning of "(Gabriel) proposes that electricity from self-consumption should be subject to feed-in tariff surcharge fees"? I think I have some notion, but its probably wrong. We're facing similar SOR controversy in my own district, and I'd like to know how yours propose to handle it. Thanks!
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peterc
Thermal Neutron
Posts: 30
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Post by peterc on Jan 24, 2014 19:18:54 GMT 9.5
Ed Leaver : After a reading of de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenverbrauch_%28Solarstrom%29 and the link Sod referred to, I'm not sure that I understand it completely, but here's my take on it, and I'm not offended if anyone says I got it wrong. It seems to be that in Germany, for self-consumers of PV, money is taken out of one pocket and put into the other, i.e they get paid one rate for the energy they produce and pay another rate for what they consume. Even what you produce and consume yourself has to be metered and paid for: it's not allowed to do it in a self-contained system. Up till now the net rate for self-consumed energy was cheaper than what other consumers pay, and it didn't include any element for the EEG-Umlage (the extra charge domestic and some industrial consumers pay to finance the energy-transition (Energiewende)). The proposal now is to include the EEG-supplement in what self-consumers are charged. The new energy minister, Gabriel, seems to be making noises suggesting he has a more realistic view of the energy-Wende than others, but I'm not holding my breath that he will follow it through to its logical conclusion.
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Post by sod on Jan 24, 2014 23:38:15 GMT 9.5
Sod: Could you please explain to us provincials the meaning of "(Gabriel) proposes that electricity from self-consumption should be subject to feed-in tariff surcharge fees"? I think I have some notion, but its probably wrong. We're facing similar SOR controversy in my own district, and I'd like to know how yours propose to handle it. Thanks! Thanks for the Question! The plan is complicated, and i do neither know whether i fully understand it, nor whether we know the final details already. here is a description, but in german: www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/energiewende-industrie-ist-sauer-auf-gabriel/9377150.htmlthere are special rules for very small plants, old plants, new plants and there is a difference between alternative power and conventional (private) power plants. The basis of the additional price are the 6.24 ct per kwh of the EEG. so far it looks like: very small plants are excluded. (mostly private house roof top solar) most rules are only for new plants. New conventional plants must pay 90% of the EEG price. (for example gas power generators in a factory) New alternative power has to pay 70% of the 6.24 ct. (big roof top solar on a factory roof. power-heat combinations will be killed by this measure) Old plants only have to pay about 1 ct per kwh (this seems to be the most recent price addition to the EEG) About 8% of power production seems to be excluded from EEG due to direct consumption. the extra 1 ct is expected to provide an additional revenue of about 500 million €.
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Post by sod on Feb 3, 2014 5:45:58 GMT 9.5
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peterc
Thermal Neutron
Posts: 30
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Post by peterc on Feb 3, 2014 7:34:24 GMT 9.5
Sod - I've no idea what you're getting at with this latest post. The first link is to a graph which seems to show the subsidies which German consumers are to pay for solar PV. It shows for 2012 the incredible sum of 105 billion euro. The second link shows the installed capacity and output for 2012. The output translates into an average of 3000MW over the year, which, comparing with the installed capacity looks correct, because it amounts to a capacity factor of just over 10%, which is usual for Germany.
It's possible they mean that the 105 billion subsidy is what is to be paid over 20 years, but even then, it's a stupendous figure for what corresponds to the output of 3 modern atomic power stations.
It's possible I've misunderstood something here. But if not, you've just shot yourself in both feet.
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Post by cyrilr on Feb 7, 2014 0:46:03 GMT 9.5
The end of 2013 PV installment was 35,692 MWe peak. This only generates an average of 3200 MWe however.
So, 111 billion euros (2013) means over 34 euros per average Watt in subsidies.
For Australian readers. That is a subsidy of 51 Australian dollars per real Watt output.
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Post by cyrilr on Feb 7, 2014 0:52:24 GMT 9.5
For comparison, Olkiluoto, the most expensive most cost overrun nuclear new build, costs 9 billion euros, produces about half the 2013 German PV electricity. So two olkiluoto EPRs would produce as much.
This means even with the most expensive nuclear new build at this moment, you only pay 18 billion euros, with PV the Germans are paying 111 billion euros for the same amount of yearly electricity. And the nuclear output is actually reliable so it displaces coal capacity, whereas the solar capacity is unreliable, it actually has a negative capacity credit because of the mismatch of demand, so needs INCREASED fossil fuel capacity. The nuclear output will generate for 60+ years, longer than the technical lifetime of solar installations.
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Post by sod on Feb 7, 2014 7:06:23 GMT 9.5
For comparison, Olkiluoto, the most expensive most cost overrun nuclear new build, costs 9 billion euros, produces about half the 2013 German PV electricity. So two olkiluoto EPRs would produce as much. This means even with the most expensive nuclear new build at this moment, you only pay 18 billion euros, with PV the Germans are paying 111 billion euros for the same amount of yearly electricity. And the nuclear output is actually reliable so it displaces coal capacity, whereas the solar capacity is unreliable, it actually has a negative capacity credit because of the mismatch of demand, so needs INCREASED fossil fuel capacity. The nuclear output will generate for 60+ years, longer than the technical lifetime of solar installations. Your comparison is plain out false. You compare the EEG cost, accumulated over the last decade, of solar PV in Germany with the building of a nuclear power plant. In the real world, the Hinkley plant subsidy is HIGHER than solar PV subsidy is in Germany (and is paid for a much longer period) The graph above demonstrates, how low the cost of PV solar is today. img.welt.de/img/deutschland/crop124447679/4358729976-ci3x2l-w620/DWO-IP-Energiewende-ha-1500x1000-2.jpgfor the same money (5 billion euro) we now (2012) get 10 times the amount of PV solar, that we got in 2006. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_in_Germany#Statistics
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Post by David B. Benson on Feb 7, 2014 7:45:47 GMT 9.5
Availability must be considered as well as raw capital cost as the electric generators operating must meet the instantaneous (5 or 15 minute interval) demand. About 70% of the maximum demand exists at all times; nuclear power plants are a suitable means to meet this so-called baseload. Solar PV does moderately well in meeting some of the daytime load, presumably only above the baseload figure.
Until such time, if ever, that storage becomes economically feasible solar PV derived power is restricted to when the sun actually shines. In this sense, cost of solar PV alone is only relevant to daytime generation. But worse, some capital has to be allocated to provide generation when the sun does not shine. So simple raw capital cost figures are too simplistic.
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