Millennium Dome opened on time, and the 2012 Olympic facilities did too. as did the second Severn crossing. We tend only to pick up on bad news.
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The Hydrogen Powered Vehicle??
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Then either canceled or brushed under the proverbial carpet
If the grid can handle it, why did they need to activate some of the gas fired energy plants last year and at cost of millions per day? This was due to no wind and and no sunshine. Obviously we will be paying for this shortage of energy in our future bills?
As you well know, the Grid and actual power generation are two separate entities. My earlier comments were specifically related to the ability of the grid to carry the power demands, and not related to the method of generation.
You are also well aware, that whilst there are days when renewables may not meet demand, there also days were renewables cover 50% or more of demand and can at time produce excess electrical power. This is why we need more grid level storage so we can build up reserves to cover for periods of low generation periods or high demand. - swings and round abouts.
With regards the cost, we have already paid a lot more for the energy we use than what it actually costs to produce, becasue a government decision to link our energy charges to the cost international gas prices rather than domestic production. So what we pay has little relevance to the cost of actual production in the UK. Successive governments also have their fingers in the choices of how we produce electricity, based on political policies rather than practical demands. We have not had a sensible long term cross party national energy policy for decades.
Currently on this gloomy windless day demand is 36 GW, Renewables 46%. and carbon neutral 52%. Balance is nuclear, gas and imports via connectors. A couple more decent nukes would be an advantage. 😊
From Russia with love? 😆
Preferably not. 🤞
In situations like this where demand outstrips the preferred supply, there are two ways to relieve the situation. In this case either reduce demand, and as most energy goes into making heat, improving insulation to make better use of the energy you do have, or reduce demand or a combination of the two. These are both longer term goals which we should not loose sight of, Or as has happened find a temporary new source - well its not new but buying energy in for short periods.
There is another solution move to a place like Norway or Canada with copious sources of renewables like water/Gravity.
There is another solution move to a place like Norway or Canada with copious sources of renewables like water/Gravity.
Our son is going to a meeting this week to hear of plans to build an SMR on the site of an old power station near to Maesteg. It’s a US company not Rolls Royce.
Rolls-Royce is heading a consortium - I wonder if the US company is part of that consortium.
Don’t think it is.
Micro nuclear reactor developer announces first UK site | Construction News
A developer of micro nuclear power stations plans to build four units in South Wales, to deliver power directly to industrial customers. US-owned Last
www.constructionnews.co.uk
I used to work for Toyota and have had a drive in our hydrogen powered Mirai. It was a superb vehicle, powerful, fast with a real world range of 400 miles and can be refuelled in the fraction of the time an EV can be recharged even on a fast charger. I have an electric iD3 and have to put up with the battery range collapsing from 240 miles in the height of summer to only 130 miles in lower winter temperatures. If I put my foot down and drive at 70 mph I will get nowhere near that. I think I will be towing my caravan with our VW Tiguan diesel for many years to come. Despite all the hype EVs are not the future for towing.
Towing a caravan is a particularly heavy task for any car, and if you were to look at the real fuels usage, you would find similar percentages of extra fuel being used. The present biggest problem with EV's is their small energy storage capabilities compared to that of petrol or diesel. When you consider that some of the biggest capacities of present day BEV batteries are about 100kW (and yes I know there are some bigger than that) that is the energy equivalent of just 10litres of petrol!
So I agree presently BEV's are not going to be able to replace IC cars for towing, unless caravanners re think their towing habits.
But battery technology is continuing to move forward, and both capacity and recharging speeds will improve. When a car has a real world battery capacity of about 500 miles, couple that to faster recharge times then that brings it much closer to our present day IC vehicle options.
Don't hold your breath - while car makers, and their suppliers, are working hard to improve the energy density of batteries their efforts are focussed on reducing the weight and cost of their batteries and increases in range are likely to be a much lower priority, indeed some commentators suggest that EV range won't increase significantly from where it is now.
My own crystal ball suggests that increased charging rates will be introduced which will shorten the recharge time to an acceptable level, even if slower than refuelling with petrol/diesel - but at substantial cost in price per kwh - and caravanners will still have to cope with unhitching to recharge.
They can use renewable energy but it’s not so efficient as using that energy to supply the grids power demands. Using renewable energy to produce hydrogen is referred to as Green Hydrogen as opposed to Blue hydrogen. There are several projects looking to develop green hydrogen facilities in UK using excess energy rather than shut the source down during periods of surplus output.
They do - the Orkney Hydrogen generation uses excess wind power to create the hydrogen https://www.orkney.com/life/energy/hydrogen
Why aren’t they being tapped then? White hydrogen isn’t that easy to extract so presumably it’s not yet seen as financially advantageous
Natural hydrogen - Wikipedia
‘Gold’ hydrogen: natural deposits are all over the world – but how useful is it in our energy transition?
David Waltham, Professor of Geophysics, Royal Holloway University of London, considers the options.
www.iom3.org
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Taking natural hydrogen (and I'm not sure your information about pockets of hydrogen is correct, but I have not researched it) is no better than using oil reserves. Once its used its gone, and look what that has done to cost and availability of oil. Its caused wars pushed prices up when certain countries , companies or individuals think it worth more., and its caused most of pollution and climate change we are witnessing today.
We have to wake up to the fact we must use all sources of energy carefully and not wastefully. At least with solar and wind power we are not held to ransom by greedy people.
Edit;- I have just googled hydrogne reserves, and it does appear there may be such reserves, but the other important comment seems to be the difficulty of accessing them.
Hydrogen is also one of the most abundant gases in the universe so chances are of depleting sources is just about impossible and it is a better stop gap than solar and wind farms. Also a lot cheaper to convert an ICE vehicle to gas than to convert it to battery only. It also means that possibly trillions will be saved by not scrapping old vehicles.
With wind and solar we are being held to ransom by nature when wind does not blow and there is no sunshine and it is greedy people building these wind and solar farms so nothing different there.
Hmm. Saying that most ICE vehicles can be converted to run on hydrogen is like saying most humans are capable of running a marathon. All you need is the huge amount of effort, time and dedication to make it happen.
To run on hydrogen, all you need is a new cylinder head, new parallel injectors, a new parallel fuel distribution system, a new ECU, and new fuel tanks, that - to have any meaningful range - will need to take up the whole of the back seat, and a new fuelling port.
The very fact that Dusty's article on JCB is considered news, is because the challenge of making an hydrogen combustion engine that is useful is hard.
Of course, it has been done before. Mazda had a version of the RX7 that ran on hydrogen (and petrol). BMW had a version of the 7 series that ran on hydrogen (and petrol). Neither of the were successful for a number of reasons, and many of those reasons have not changed over the intervening years.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. It's also very reactive and tends to come stuck to other elements; like oxygen in water. It takes an enormous amount of energy to get the hydrogen to separate from the oxygen (or other elements). On earth, hydrogen is not an energy source, it's an energy storage mechanism, and a not very efficient one.
If you took a solar panel, and stuck it on your house it would reduce your energy bill, when there is sun, not increase it when there is no sun.
With wind and solar, you are not being held to ransom. You are experiencing freedom from the ransom that you are paying the whole of the rest of the time. These are different things.
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The two links in #45 give a pretty good explanation.
