Renew Extra Weekly

Posts

Civil and military nuclear mutuality

Until recently, the UK government has always said that civil and military nuclear technologies were separate things, for example in response to claims that expansion of civil nuclear power capacity could lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons making capacity. But, as researchers at the University of Sussex have relentlessly catalogued , there seems to have been a change of view underway, culminating formally in March in a new policy document from No. 10 Downing Street. Entitled ‘Building the Nuclear Workforce of Tomorrow’ it claims that ‘domestic [civil] nuclear capability is vital to our national defence and energy security, underpinning our nuclear deterrent and securing cheaper, more reliable energy for UK consumers’. So they are intertwined and mutually beneficial- we need both! UK Prime Minister Sunak says that ‘in a more dangerous and contested world, the UK’s continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent is more vital than ever’ and that civil nuclear power is the ‘perfect antidote to

District Heating and Cooling- CHP still in there

In his new book for the Institute of Physics, power engineer Paul Woods offers an ‘Introduction to District Heating and Cooling Low carbon energy for buildings’ . He says that, for the UK, ‘a number of studies have estimated the economic potential for heat networks to be between 18% and 43% of the total heat demand’ and adds ‘whichever figure proves to be correct this still represents a huge increase in capacity from the current market share of around 3%’. District Heating (DH) is not a new idea. There are already many heat networks around the world, including large whole-city systems in Moscow, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Stockholm. While the earliest district heating schemes used steam as the heat distribution medium, for example those in Copenhagen and New York, Woods says ‘it is now universally preferred to use hot water’. He notes that heat nets are not a power source as such, just a way of transmitting energy, and use can be made of many types of heat inputs, including heat derive

Rewiring the UK: a new National Grid-ESO plan

The National Grid’s Electricity System Operator (ESO) has unveiled a £58bn investment plan to fast-track the UK’s transition to a net-zero power grid by 2035. It would connect an additional 21GW of offshore wind off the coast of Scotland to the grid, delivering a world-leading offshore wind sector with more than 86GW of capacity in total. It is claimed that that the proposed investment in onshore and offshore network infrastructure would lead to a net benefit to consumers of up to £2.1 billion from avoiding the costs associated with network congestion It's an ambitious programme which would involve some extensive grid upgrades on shore, but would also include a lot more undersea cabling- in all, three times more offshore than onshore by 2035, some of the new undersea grids being very long, linking north and south. There will be shoreline landing-point impacts for the subsea cables, and on shore links from them to the wider grid system, but in general, offshore location should a

UK opts for gas (again) to balance renewables

The use of renewables has expanded dramatically in the UK- supplying around 50% of its power over the year. But it’s not always available. As part of a consultation on Electricity Market Arrangements, the UK Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho has set out a plan to use unabated fossil gas plant to enhance energy security and avoid the risk of power blackouts due to the increasing use of variable renewables. The aim is to boost gas power capacity by ‘broadening existing laws requiring new gas plants to be built net-zero ready and able to convert to low carbon alternatives in the future such as carbon capture and hydrogen to power’ . In her presentation she said: ‘We know that with around 15GW of gas due to come off system in the coming years we will need a minimum of 5GW of new power to remain secure. That might mean refurbishing existing power stations, but will also mean new unabated gas power stations until the clean technology is ready’. This is presented as ‘the latest step in eff

Stephen Salter - a celebrated green energy innovator

Prof Stephen Salter, the Edinburgh University-based innovative engineer and wave energy pioneer, has died, at 85 . He had an illustrious career. His original ‘Nodding Duck’ wave energy device caused a big stir when he first developed it in the mid 1970's and he more or less put wave power on the map at that point. There was talk of wave energy providing all the power the UK could use and the then Labour government eventually provided around £14m in funding for this and other deep sea wave energy devices. Salter was convinced that the way ahead lay in initial tank testing using models, rather than going out to sea with a full scale prototype, as Coventry University (then Lanchester Poly) had done, with mixed results, using a version of his duck. Instead, he focussed on building and using a ‘wide tank’ at the University of Edinburgh in 1977- it was the world's first multi-directional wave tank equipped with absorbing wave-makers. Several other wave devices also emerged around t

100% renewables - but slowly

A new multi-regional energy model attempts to identify the lowest costs energy transition path to 100% renewables by 2100. It is very different from most 100% scenarios. Renewables are not expanded much initially. And transport decarbonisation is left to the near the end of the century - after 2090! So it’s a relatively delayed fossil fuel phase out programme compared with some other 100% renewable scenarios (e.g. LUT and Stanford's look to 2050), although the emphasis on efficient use of energy may reduce overall demand and emissions from the levels they might have reached. The new energy model makes use of three archetype regions, with Italy used as a case study- North (colder weather), Central small, largely populated, highly industrialized (mild weather) and South (warmer weather), with solar and also (oddly) wind seen as mostly in the large latter region. But it doesn’t think long-distance ‘supergrid’ power transmission between these regions will be very prevalent due to it