Renew Extra Weekly

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 sho...

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...

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 ...

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...

Hydrogen is being talked up as a new clean zero carbon fuel. When you burn it you mainly just get water. But although the planet has a lot of it, in the form of sea/river water and fossil hydrocarbons, it’s hard to separate pure hydrogen gas out. The chemical processing of hydrocarbons is expensive and releases carbon dioxide gas, while the electrolysis of water is clean but not a very efficient use of power.  However it has recently become clear that there may be a substantial natural geological hydrogen resource underground which might be extractable easily and cheaply. The most recent discovery is the largest so far.  Gas measurements taken at a bubbling pool almost 1km underground in a chromium-ore mine in Albania found 84% was pure hydrogen. It was estimated that the mine as a whole was releasing about 200 tonnes of hydrogen annually. There had been some explosions there in the past.   The Albanian find may be the largest so far, but, as Hydrogen Insight has re...

The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says that nuclear power is the ‘perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain’, but things seem to be going a bit amiss with nuclear finance. Basically, not many want to fund new nuclear projects any more, as costs and delays escalate along with political sensitivities.  For example, China’s CGN has halted funding for UK’s part-built Hinkley Point C European Pressurised-water Reactor. CGN may yet restart payments, but, if not, its developer, the French company EDF, will have to fund the completion of the plant alone. Some portrayed CGNs withdrawal from Hinkley as due to China being ‘miffed’ by its exclusion from the Sizewell project. The UK government had earlier taken over CGN’s initial stake in EDF proposed next project, Sizewell C, after concerns about over-reliance on Chinese funding. That would not have gone down well in China. But it was also claimed that CGN was upset by the large Hinkley overrun costs and delays. Well maybe that’s ...

A new report by a retired nuclear expert for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) says there are ‘intrinsic concerns for commercial fusion’, as currently being explored by the large scale ITER device being built in France. It says issues included:                             • excessive cost compared to fission, because of its enormous size and complexity; • low operational availability due to the necessity to frequently replace components damaged by neutron irradiation; • scarcity of tritium fuel, requiring regeneration in operations and probably supplies for start-up from a fleet of fission reactors. The GWPF report ‘Nuclear fusion- should we bother?’ goes on to look in detail at the issues ITER and the mainstream approach face. It is pretty damning. As the author Dr John Carr says in the press release ‘there is a litany of technical difficulties, from degradation of materials due to radiation damage, to...