Energy Matters Global and Domestic

[myglaren]

Just remembered and looked for mines near here and there are any amount.
If I dug deep enough in my garden I would find one.

[mickthemaverick]

That is amazing Steve!! Its a wonder there haven't been more subsidence incidents!!

[NewcastleFalcon]

I thought I knew enough about the proposed link from Morocco to the UK, but as ever Justhaveathink covers the subject in fair detail in his 14 minutes. From overcoming the manufacturing of the cables problems, to a decent explanation of the CFD Contracts for Difference Scheme, and the Strike price.

Worth watching if you want to find out more



Regards Neil

[myglaren]

That is amazing Steve!! Its a wonder there haven't been more subsidence incidents!!

It is indeed.
I haven't heard of any. Most problems with buildings around here are due to all the trees that they planted, many of them too close to houses and the roots undermine them.

I am bang in the centre of that map.

[Gibbo2286]

We're the same here with disused collieries but we had 'Freeminers' too, a lot of their workings were never mapped.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Carbon Capture and Storage, Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage, Carbon Capture and Sequestration.

-a tongue in cheek look

Much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on a program I caught a bit of last night, associated with the marvellous science and innovation of Shell and BP to capture carbon dioxide from their stock in trade Natural Gas. Must have taken ages to think it up.

Maybe they had a focus group from local primary schools and asked them how they could capture a nasty gas, and make sure it didnt escape into the Air, and warm up the planet, for a very long time.

How soon before those active young minds would have gingerly put their hands up and said...

Why not have a very long tube which would send the gas under the sea. Or into very deep holes in the ground.

Shell and BP would then have gone away and thought great idea lets call it CCS, or better still CCUS, and lets build something like that near the coast. We can even use holes we have already dug, but we'll obviously need a few billion from taxpayer to do it. Yes I know we could quite easily do it without any taxpayer input, we've made plenty profits over the years, and this is going to preserve our own natural gas business, but if the Taxpayer is doling it out why not take it. We could even pitch one region against another and make sure each gets a slice of the cake.


Better still we'll be able to produce this new stuff called "Blue Hydrogen" which we can sell at a premium price, because we've had to do all that capturing palaver, those pesky kids came up with. If we play our cards right we could pump it into the gas grid too, with a guaranteed market.

Even better if the gas bubbles up from our leaky holes, no one will be able to see it or measure it, the waves will take care of that. Hang on a minute! New business opportunity! Wonder if we can branch out into dumping Nuclear waste down those tubes under the sea the kids came up with, and it would save the hassle of getting planning consent to drill some very deep holes at Chipping Sodbury.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I thought I knew enough about the proposed link from Morocco to the UK, but as ever Justhaveathink covers the subject in fair detail in his 14 minutes. From overcoming the manufacturing of the cables problems, to a decent explanation of the CFD Contracts for Difference Scheme, and the Strike price.

Worth watching if you want to find out more



Regards Neil

Once you have watched Dave's highly informative video you may find this one equally interesting. It does highlight the potential (no pun intended! ) unwanted consequence of the Morocco plan!!

[bobins]

To misquote the song:
"They paved paradise, and put up a solar farm"

[bobins]

Ooops

Ormonde offshore wind farm debris could be widespread

Quote:
"Debris from an offshore wind farm caused by a "disappointing" maintenance work error could be widespread, an operator has warned.
Swedish energy company Vattenfall said turbine parts fell into the sea at the Ormonde Wind Farm six miles (10km) off the coast at Barrow, Cumbria."

More: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-59028551

[NewcastleFalcon]

The success or failure of the proposed connection will depend on investors being confident that the project can be delivered within the projected strike price, and still produce a continuing return commensurate with the risk they take on. Plenty risks if you scratch the surface. Major negative amongst them, while bits of paper and legal binding agreements may well be stacked up, in reality within the borders of another country, there is no guarantee that the status quo will remain for the life cycle of the project.

Major factor supporting the co-operation will be strong mutual benefit for Morocco and the UK within the project. The connector will enable a revenue generating export for Morocco, and the UK will benefit from a major supply of electricity at the intended price.

We will have to see if it happens, the second video was quite damning about solar heat captured by mirrors, but photovoltaics suffer few of those concerns. Have to watch Dave's video again to see what the generation from solar in the UK/Morocco project is based on. ( Looks like its Solar PV)

Generation in project based on Photovoltaic Panels/ Wind together with storage.

If the project goes ahead and becomes a reality, it will be because the financial numbers stack up, and investors see a profit to be made, if it fails it will be because the financial numbers don't stack up and investors weren't prepared to back it.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I have been looking over the Just Have a Think videos which Dave has posted over the last couple of years and there are many with very interesting insights to the issues of the world. However I found this particular one of special interest as it covers a subject which I was completely ignorant of!! Worth a watch if you have time to fill!

[myglaren]

Haven't watched that yet but have heard over the past decade or so that the gulf stream is in danger.

Free energy:

[NewcastleFalcon]

Maybe the gulf stream is collapsing a shade.

At 55⁰ North up here we share the same lattitude as parts of Alaska, and Ice Hockey was sport of the day back in January this year

The aforementioned ice hockey pitch this afternoon, with the skate marks and a lost glove, bad light stopped play!

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

As we struggle to finance Nuclear projects up steps a different way funding them. RAB Regulated Asset Base. Can't pretend to know what exactly that is, but shifts risk from the developer to the Consumer, during the construction phase/ bludgeoning over budget phase/ and the price paid for the energy when it eventually emerges probably 5 to 10 years after they plan to bring the plant on stream.

“The existing financing scheme led to too many overseas nuclear developers walking away from projects, setting Britain back years. We urgently need a new approach to attract British funds and other private investors to back new large-scale nuclear power stations in the UK." Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng

Reminds me of this British Thinking Puts Us One Step Ahead

I hope they dont think that Electricite de France are one of those wholesome British Investors just because they run our entire nuclear industry, or expect to be able to pick those they regard as suitable from a long queue of private investors.

https://www.energylivenews.com/2021/10/ ... w-nuclear/

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

If you want to know more about RAB and by-pass the journalists, and the wise or not so wise words of "interpretation by the internet"....here's the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy thinking, which manage these things on behalf of the people, so the people dont have to think too hard about them.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultat ... ar#history

Save bogging down the post my own yesterday's chip paper column inch or two..

Spoiler: show

I probably come at it from its all a load of old nonsense viewpoint, and maybe try to overthink simplicity.

So if building a new nuclear power plant is decided to be a good thing, here's an old fashioned way.

Come up with a specification for what you want built, Invite tenders from contractors around the world capable of building a nuclear power plant, build the nuclear power plant and release interim payments to the contractor based on how the build is progressing, hand it over and sign it off once all the snagging has been done, make the final payment holding a little retention back for a period during which the successful completion can be proved in accordance with specified performance measures.

Contractors make their profit margin, and the state of the United Kingdom has just bought a Nuclear Power Plant which works, in installments over the construction period.

Now they have to appoint someone to run it. Time for those tenders across companies who are capable of running a nuclear power plant. Yes if they are hopeless they need booting out so no point giving them a contract for 60 years. Keep them on their toes. Have a review against performance targets say every 5 years, but monitor those targets on a daily/weekly/monthly basis throughout as an early warning trigger.

Now time to think about decommisioning costs, and management and disposal of the nuclear waste, repairs maintenance and replacements over the useful life of the plant. Compile a very large spreadsheet add in the capital financing costs over the course of the project, make an estimate of how much electricity you are going to sell and come up with an initial cost/MWh of how much the first MWh out of the plant needs to be priced at.

With my extra couple of conveniently ditched "add-ons" of (waste management and decommisioning) the price differential between solar, wind and storage on a declining cost curve of £/MWh, and Nuclear on an upward cost curve of £/MWh, is going to widen. In a free market that means you are going to sell less Nuclear Electricity and solar wind and their investors are going to sell more, and build more and take more market share. Good job for Nuclear that energy is anything but a free market.

There's the rub. Nuclear is a strategic decision of governments, and only happens because of investments by governments. It makes no financial sense for private investors, good solid British pension funds or anyone else. Governments might as well get off the creative accounting bandwagon and its more noses in the artificially created less-risk returns trough, tell it straight and if they wish to back Nuclear for strategic reasons, "just do it".

Granted my view may be coloured by watching too much Tony Seba and Dave!

Regards Neil