Goldman Sachs advert

[IanMacdonald]

Just happened to see this Goldman Sachs commercial which is showing as an advert on YouTube:



The claims it makes for for wind energy just seem to be totally OTT.

Produces maximum output at 10kt windspeed? The energy in wind rises as the cube of the speed, so to design a turbine like that would be crazy.  It would mean wasting 7/8 of the remaining of the energy in a 20kt wind.

Also implies that Grid-scale energy storage WILL be available.

Sachs, who have bought over part of Dong Energy,  have already been in legal trouble:



I think they need to be called on to justify these claims.

[woody]

What do you expect? It is a bank. If they could make money selling their grandmothers they would be on Ebay. I find it quite refreshing that they at least seem to have grasped that an energy transition is under way, that it is self-accelerating and that it will have a big impact on all of us. Try explaining this to Shell. Or our governments.

[tggzzz]

It would mean wasting 7/8 of the remaining of the energy in a 20kt wind.

To highlight the pointlessness of that calculation, it would be wasting 99.9% of the energy in a 100kt wind.

A more useful statistic would be what proportion of the time will it be generating its rated output.

[NivagSwerdna]

I was driving in my car (diesel) the other day and listened to this... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b096jb29  You might have to register to listen but I found it very interesting.  re: Batteries and future electricity distribution.

[IanMacdonald]

To highlight the pointlessness of that calculation, it would be wasting 99.9% of the energy in a 100kt wind.

A more useful statistic would be what proportion of the time will it be generating its rated output.

Not pointless at all, because 20kt winds are common and 100kt winds are rare. So, you are going to build a machine of EIGHT TIMES the nominal capacity -which means a blade swept area eight times larger, after all you can't get something for nothing- just so it can maintain that nameplate output down to 10kt winds? Which will not help if it's a 5kt wind anyway, because that has so little energy it's not worth collecting.

If you stop and think about this for a moment, it's equivalent to building half a terawatt of conventional plant to supply the UK with a peak demand of 60GW. An insanely inefficjent arrangement. 

As for Grid-scale battery storage, there are scientists trying to develop this, true. There is currently no commercial product though. The nearest thing to it is Tesla's Powerwall, with which it would cost a cool trillion to back up the UK Grid for just one week of nil wind.  To claim that battery storage WILL be a game changer is snake oil selling, because it is not yet even known if it can be done, let alone at any sensible cost.

There are also scientists trying to develop cold fusion. (LENR)  There is currently no commercial fusion reactor though, apart from Rossi's somewhat dubious products. Would you consider it acceptable to demand that energy policies are based on the fact that the E-Cat WILL take over the energy market entirely in five years? Or, would you want to wait until a full proof of concept was available? 

[tggzzz]

To highlight the pointlessness of that calculation, it would be wasting 99.9% of the energy in a 100kt wind.

A more useful statistic would be what proportion of the time will it be generating its rated output.

Not pointless at all, because 20kt winds are common and 100kt winds are rare. So, you are going to build a machine of EIGHT TIMES the nominal capacity -which means a blade swept area eight times larger, after all you can't get something for nothing- just so it can maintain that nameplate output down to 10kt winds? Which will not help if it's a 5kt wind anyway, because that has so little energy it's not worth collecting.

If you stop and think about this for a moment, it's equivalent to building half a terawatt of conventional plant to supply the UK with a peak demand of 60GW. An insanely inefficjent arrangement. 

As for Grid-scale battery storage, there are scientists trying to develop this, true. There is currently no commercial product though. The nearest thing to it is Tesla's Powerwall, with which it would cost a cool trillion to back up the UK Grid for just one week of nil wind.  To claim that battery storage WILL be a game changer is snake oil selling, because it is not yet even known if it can be done, let alone at any sensible cost.

There are also scientists trying to develop cold fusion. (LENR)  There is currently no commercial fusion reactor though, apart from Rossi's somewhat dubious products. Would you consider it acceptable to demand that energy policies are based on the fact that the E-Cat WILL take over the energy market entirely in five years? Or, would you want to wait until a full proof of concept was available? 

You are missing the points...

You chose a different but still arbitrary windspeed.

A key problem with the existing installed windpower is the variability of its output. For current UK installed plant and based on the output shown in gridwatch, there is a remarkably simple rule of thumb. The output will be below X% of peak for about X% of the time. Hence it will be <10% of peak for 10% of the year (36 days), etc.

Now a major problem of windpower (and tidal and solar) is what to do when it isn't available: the "dispatch problem". Currently the green brigade completely ignores the cost of keeping conventional plant available for the times when the green plant isn't doing its job. That's deceptive and, IMHO, needs to be corrected.

One way of reducing the dispatch problem would be to ensure that green plant has a higher availability. That can be achieved by by ensuring windpower continues to generate useful power at lower windspeeds. Yes, that probably means it won't be able to generate as much power at higher windspeeds, but that's a separate issue.

I'm all in favour of reliable windpower that we can depend on, since that will enable us to reduce our dependence on gas/coal/oil. In the absence of that, I want the cost of keeping the conventional plant available to be included in the cost of green power.

[Marco]

Dispatch problem gets solved automatically with cost reductions, when renewable electricity gets cheaper than buying coal it doesn't really matter if you need the backup. It just pushes break even a little further into the future.

[tggzzz]

Dispatch problem gets solved automatically with cost reductions,

No, it isnt., unless you install ridiculous overcapacity. All you have to do is look at the measured generated power statistics on gridwatch.

Start by defining the capacity required to ensure green plant is sufficient to ensure that we only lose power for one day per year. Then calculate the cost of keeping conventional plant available for that one day.

[Marco]

No, it isnt., unless you install ridiculous overcapacity.

If it saves money investors won't care about what you think is ridiculous. When renewables are cheaper than fuel for a coal plant they'll get used, without subsidy. We aren't there, for a significant percentage of elecitricty, but we're getting close. If it means keeping the plant on standby for all but one day in a year, that's just what they'll do.

[tggzzz]

No, it isnt., unless you install ridiculous overcapacity.

If it saves money investors won't care about what you think is ridiculous. When renewables are cheaper than fuel for a coal plant they'll get used, without subsidy. We aren't there, but we're getting close. If it means keeping the plant on standby for all but one day in a year, that's just what they'll do.

Whether or not it saves money depends on what is included and excluded. Greenwashers are good at excluding anything inconvenient.

If you ask a good accountant "what is 2+2?", a poor accountant answers "4", but a good accountant answers "what do you want it to be".

If the costs of ensuring adequate dispatch a mouth are included in the costs of windpower, I'll be content. Normally they aren't.

[Someone]

If the costs of ensuring adequate dispatch a mouth are included in the costs of windpower, I'll be content. Normally they aren't.

Dispatchable electrical energy storage is already profitable in the current electricity markets of Australia (and the UK) but its less profitable on 5 to 10 year terms than building open cycle gas turbines, so investment has been on that instead. As gas continues to rise in price storage will come on strong and become the next investment phase.

entirely separate clause....

Renewable generation is profitable at current market rates, the almost zero marginal costs of generation make it a longer investment but still its profitable at current rates. It doesn't need storage to make it profitable or desirable to the market.

You might not like rising consumer prices, but its levelling out the fluctuations in the wholesale market.

[tggzzz]

If the costs of ensuring adequate dispatch a mouth are included in the costs of windpower, I'll be content. Normally they aren't.

Dispatchable electrical energy storage is already profitable in the current electricity markets of Australia (and the UK) but its less profitable on 5 to 10 year terms than building open cycle gas turbines, so investment has been on that instead. As gas continues to rise in price storage will come on strong and become the next investment phase.

The UK energy storage capacity is extremely limited: 33GWh, or about 1 hour of national consumption. Currently it has only three practical justifications:

• to supply short-term peaks, minutes, not hours and certainly not days; classic case is when a TV programme ends and everyone switches on their kettles
• black-start capability: if the entire network fails, then this is used to get the first power station running again. Fortunately we haven't had a Carrington even recently
• for very small-scale remote communities, classically the Scottish islands

The person that develops practical large scale storage of electricity in the UK will become as rich as Croesus.

entirely separate clause....

Renewable generation is profitable at current market rates, the almost zero marginal costs of generation make it a longer investment but still its profitable at current rates. It doesn't need storage to make it profitable or desirable to the market.

If you ignoring the subsidies, that may be true. I don't object to subsidies, but I do object to "conveniently" omitting them from subsequent justifications.

You might not like rising consumer prices, but its levelling out the fluctuations in the wholesale market.

What I dislike is not having electricity coming out the wall. Given current policies, that is increasingly likely. Doubly so if some of the greenwash arguments are believed and acted upon.

[Marco]

practical large scale storage of electricity

As long as lousy round trip efficiency doesn't impact practicality it's not that difficult, so again a problem which can be solved by renewable energy just getting cheap enough. If the current subsidy systems persist for long (ie. electricity having negative cost during peak renewable generation) we might see this happening ... although in the near future I'd expect aluminium smelters to build plants which can cost effectively operate at lower duty cycles first (aluminium being solidified electricity).

[tggzzz]

practical large scale storage of electricity

As long as lousy round trip efficiency doesn't impact practicality it's not that difficult

Really? Please provide pointers to such installed live plant.

N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.

[woody]

I find it remarkable that everybody always points to the subsidy renewables need to operate, but few people recognize that fossil fuels are subsidized much, much heavier and for as long as we can remember.

As fossil fuel subsidy becomes more and more under pressure due to pressing environmental/climate/geopolitical issues and the latest wind turbines manage to generate electricity at a profit without any subsidy, I think that the future is very bright for renewables.

This does not mean we're out of trouble; due to aforementioned problems with renewables (lack of storage) in the short term we will have to get accustomed to the fact that energy is not a dead cheap and virtually endless resource. There will be moments that no (affordable) electricity will be coming out of the wall.

[IanMacdonald]

I'm amazed at the number of posters saying basically, "It doesn't matter if we exaggerate the capability of these products so long as that results in them receiving backing." The only important thing, it seems, being to get these products accepted. Come what may.

The obvious flaw in this approach is that if they do get backed to the absolute hilt and then still fail to do the job that's required of them, where does that leave us? 

In principle we might as well pour an equal amount of money into fusion, thorium, or even cold fusion. We don't know if those can be made to work either, but the rewards from success would be far greater.

[Someone]

N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.

Pumped hydro can be effective and profitable with just 50-100m (a few hundred feet) of head, or use pumped tidal pools in estuaries or other low depth areas. The existing pumped hydro in Australia and the UK uses only a small portion of the available dams, and on those dams only a small portion of the available volume. Its all tradeoffs between storage capacity, water security, blackstart reserves, and environmental concerns, etc so there are no clear boundaries to whats possible. Solid references (for instance "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air") suggest enormous potential in the UK.

If the costs of ensuring adequate dispatch a mouth are included in the costs of windpower, I'll be content. Normally they aren't.

Dispatchable electrical energy storage is already profitable in the current electricity markets of Australia (and the UK) but its less profitable on 5 to 10 year terms than building open cycle gas turbines, so investment has been on that instead. As gas continues to rise in price storage will come on strong and become the next investment phase.

The UK energy storage capacity is extremely limited: 33GWh, or about 1 hour of national consumption. Currently it has only three practical justifications:

• to supply short-term peaks, minutes, not hours and certainly not days; classic case is when a TV programme ends and everyone switches on their kettles
• black-start capability: if the entire network fails, then this is used to get the first power station running again. Fortunately we haven't had a Carrington even recently
• for very small-scale remote communities, classically the Scottish islands

The person that develops practical large scale storage of electricity in the UK will become as rich as Croesus.

Installed energy storage is limited in scale, your own reference says just for pumped hydro that "significant potential still exists in the UK" along with all the other technologies available. There are abundant resources ready to exploit for storage, it just needs investment with a longer term view to put money into it. Along with your 3 useful values for storage a system will create profit for the operator every day on the wholesale energy market, there is already enough price variation in the UK market to run storage on a daily cycle and make a profitable investment on that alone. Australia has even larger daily variations and seasonal extremes from heavy use of air conditioning which increase profitability of all dispatchable plants.

You might not like rising consumer prices, but its levelling out the fluctuations in the wholesale market.

What I dislike is not having electricity coming out the wall. Given current policies, that is increasingly likely. Doubly so if some of the greenwash arguments are believed and acted upon.

When have you been in a rolling blackout/brownout? Its not fallen apart yet and yes things need to be designed in ahead of any major problems but that could be storage or more interconnect capacity, or a different mix of power plants. Fossil fuels are naturally pricing themselves out of the market because of fuel costs, competing demand for the fuel resource just as there is competing demand for the land space needed for mines, renewable energy, farming, etc.

Australia is running close to the limit on generation capacity compared to peak demand (provisioning of 120%, similar to the UK figure of 130%) because of uncertainty in the future of the energy market, people wont invest in storage (or generation) if potential profits there could be capped by the government in the interests of keeping power prices artificially low. The pitfalls of a not completely free or completely controlled market where the tension between the two leaves it in an inefficient state.

[tggzzz]

You might not like rising consumer prices, but its levelling out the fluctuations in the wholesale market.

What I dislike is not having electricity coming out the wall. Given current policies, that is increasingly likely. Doubly so if some of the greenwash arguments are believed and acted upon.

When have you been in a rolling blackout/brownout?

Many many times, mostly but not exclusively in the UK. I well remember revising for exams that would determine the course of my life by candlelight. Not something I want to repeat.

Its not fallen apart yet and yes things need to be designed in ahead of any major problems but that could be storage or more interconnect capacity, or a different mix of power plants.

You seem not to be familiar with the situation in the UK. Last I heard, there was <5% excess capacity, so that if >1 one large plant had unplanned downtime, the lights would have gone out. The formal "notices of insufficiency" (i.e. be prepared for cuts) have been becoming more frequent.

In addition, I have been to local professional I.E.T. meetings where the engineers directly concerned and involved in this explicitly made the point that the lights will go out, for any of several reasons.

And nobody has considered the effects of widespread electric cars.

Fossil fuels are naturally pricing themselves out of the market because of fuel costs, competing demand for the fuel resource just as there is competing demand for the land space needed for mines, renewable energy, farming, etc.

That's precisely the kind of accountancy jiggery-pokery that I'm talking about.

Australia is...

I make no comments about Australia.

[Someone]

You might not like rising consumer prices, but its levelling out the fluctuations in the wholesale market.

What I dislike is not having electricity coming out the wall. Given current policies, that is increasingly likely. Doubly so if some of the greenwash arguments are believed and acted upon.

When have you been in a rolling blackout/brownout?

Many many times, mostly but not exclusively in the UK. I well remember revising for exams that would determine the course of my life by candlelight. Not something I want to repeat.

Still dodging specifics?
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/444213/The-Last-Big-Blackout-40-years-ago-the-lights-really-did-go-off
1970's was an eternity ago, and despite fossil fuel plants with sufficient capacity they ran out of affordable fuel during worldwide political shenanigans. So how do you prevent that sort of scenario? Energy independence, perhaps with renewables and storage? Or do you have in mind some new energy resource the UK has already but not exploited?

Fossil fuels are naturally pricing themselves out of the market because of fuel costs, competing demand for the fuel resource just as there is competing demand for the land space needed for mines, renewable energy, farming, etc.

That's precisely the kind of accountancy jiggery-pokery that I'm talking about.

Thats the realities of a market economy, if you want more reliable power you can pay for it, such contracts already exist and are available to the public.

[tggzzz]

N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.

Pumped hydro can be effective and profitable with just 50-100m (a few hundred feet) of head, or use pumped tidal pools in estuaries or other low depth areas.

Storage in estuaries is a disreputable claim. Such "batteries" will naturally be replenished when the tide next comes in, so if you want to count them as useful storage of excess wind power, it has to be with two significant conditions:

• it has to be the right time of day to store and use the energy; at other times it is impossible
• any such stored energy has to be used within a couple of hours, before the tide comes in; not much use for wind power outages lasting days due to a blocking high pressure zone

The existing pumped hydro in Australia and the UK uses only a small portion of the available dams, and on those dams only a small portion of the available volume.

Australia maybe, but that certainly isn't the case in the UK.

Its all tradeoffs between storage capacity, water security, blackstart reserves, and environmental concerns, etc so there are no clear boundaries to whats possible. Solid references (for instance "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air") suggest enormous potential in the UK.

You evidently haven't read/understood "Without Hot Air". The second page of chapter 1 contains this important point describing a primary motivation for MacKay writing the book in the first place:

Code: [Select]

“We have a huge amount of wave and wind.” The trouble with this sort of language is
that it’s not sufficient to know that something is huge: we need to know how the one
“huge” compares with another “huge,” namely our huge energy consumption.
To make this comparison, we need numbers, not adjectives.

OK, you use the word "enormous" rather than "huge", but that doesn't change MacKay's point.

Please be aware that your situation in Australia may be very different to the UK situation.

[tggzzz]

You might not like rising consumer prices, but its levelling out the fluctuations in the wholesale market.

What I dislike is not having electricity coming out the wall. Given current policies, that is increasingly likely. Doubly so if some of the greenwash arguments are believed and acted upon.

When have you been in a rolling blackout/brownout?

Many many times, mostly but not exclusively in the UK. I well remember revising for exams that would determine the course of my life by candlelight. Not something I want to repeat.

Still dodging specifics?

Nonsense; now you're just trying to change your point in a stupid way.

You had a presumption which I definitively showed was false. That's not dodging specifics, it is pointing out that you didn't conceive of the reality.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/444213/The-Last-Big-Blackout-40-years-ago-the-lights-really-did-go-off
1970's was an eternity ago, and despite fossil fuel plants with sufficient capacity they ran out of affordable fuel during worldwide political shenanigans. So how do you prevent that sort of scenario? Energy independence, perhaps with renewables and storage? Or do you have in mind some new energy resource the UK has already but not exploited?

If it was "an eternity ago", I wouldn't remember it.

Your other points are merely an attempt to deflect attention from your false conception.

Fossil fuels are naturally pricing themselves out of the market because of fuel costs, competing demand for the fuel resource just as there is competing demand for the land space needed for mines, renewable energy, farming, etc.

That's precisely the kind of accountancy jiggery-pokery that I'm talking about.

Thats the realities of a market economy, if you want more reliable power you can pay for it, such contracts already exist and are available to the public.

Are you saying that jiggery-pokery is the reality of a market economy? If not, then what are you trying to say?

If the generating plant and capacity is not available, then I can't get electricity no matter how much I might be prepared to pay for it. Don't forget the "<5% excess capacity" and "notices of insufficiency".

Never underestimate the shortsightedness, self interest, and general ineptitude of politicians - particularly when they don't want to hear reality.

[tggzzz]

If the costs of ensuring adequate dispatch a mouth are included in the costs of windpower, I'll be content. Normally they aren't.

Dispatchable electrical energy storage is already profitable in the current electricity markets of Australia (and the UK) but its less profitable on 5 to 10 year terms than building open cycle gas turbines, so investment has been on that instead. As gas continues to rise in price storage will come on strong and become the next investment phase.

The UK energy storage capacity is extremely limited: 33GWh, or about 1 hour of national consumption. Currently it has only three practical justifications:

• to supply short-term peaks, minutes, not hours and certainly not days; classic case is when a TV programme ends and everyone switches on their kettles
• black-start capability: if the entire network fails, then this is used to get the first power station running again. Fortunately we haven't had a Carrington even recently
• for very small-scale remote communities, classically the Scottish islands

The person that develops practical large scale storage of electricity in the UK will become as rich as Croesus.

Installed energy storage is limited in scale, your own reference says just for pumped hydro that "significant potential still exists in the UK" along with all the other technologies available. There are abundant resources ready to exploit for storage, it just needs investment with a longer term view to put money into it. Along with your 3 useful values for storage a system will create profit for the operator every day on the wholesale energy market, there is already enough price variation in the UK market to run storage on a daily cycle and make a profitable investment on that alone.

If that really was the case, why hasn't it already been done?

Australia has even larger daily variations and seasonal extremes from heavy use of air conditioning which increase profitability of all dispatchable plants.

Most people recognise that Australia != UK.

[Someone]

N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.

Pumped hydro can be effective and profitable with just 50-100m (a few hundred feet) of head, or use pumped tidal pools in estuaries or other low depth areas.

Storage in estuaries is a disreputable claim. Such "batteries" will naturally be replenished when the tide next comes in, so if you want to count them as useful storage of excess wind power, it has to be with two significant conditions:

• it has to be the right time of day to store and use the energy; at other times it is impossible
• any such stored energy has to be used within a couple of hours, before the tide comes in; not much use for wind power outages lasting days due to a blocking high pressure zone

This old chestnut, you can store and dispatch energy from tidal storage at any planned time. There are no times when it is impossible to produce energy to schedule. Yes it will produce less energy if you demand more storage from the system, and/or reduce the storage capacity if you want it at a specific time, but these are the balances and tradeoffs that also exist to a lesser extent in conventional land based pumped hydro. For tidal systems the energy can be stored either as an empty or full reservoir for moving water to or from on demand, its the scheduling that makes it work as storage rather than a simple generator.

Most people recognise that Australia != UK.

Which is why I carefully described both and didn't make any blanket statements.

You evidently haven't read/understood "Without Hot Air". The second page of chapter 1 contains this important point describing a primary motivation for MacKay writing the book in the first place

Other than conversing with the Author and contributing to the work, I have also read it. It presents with great technical detail and accuracy technologies and limitations that could provide energy for the UK, you can see all sorts of possible ways froward from its examples. Finding storage to back a 100% renewable electricity grid for the UK is plausible, and profitable, it may not be cheaper for the consumer or more profitable for the operators than the nuclear or gas plants but of the 5 technically feasible energy plans for the UK presented in the book 1 was 100% renewable. There is much detail in the book on the current state of the UKs energy storage infrastructure, and what opportunities are available hence why I referred to it on that specific point.

Fossil fuels are naturally pricing themselves out of the market because of fuel costs, competing demand for the fuel resource just as there is competing demand for the land space needed for mines, renewable energy, farming, etc.

That's precisely the kind of accountancy jiggery-pokery that I'm talking about.

Thats the realities of a market economy, if you want more reliable power you can pay for it, such contracts already exist and are available to the public.

Are you saying that jiggery-pokery is the reality of a market economy? If not, then what are you trying to say?

If the generating plant and capacity is not available, then I can't get electricity no matter how much I might be prepared to pay for it. Don't forget the "<5% excess capacity" and "notices of insufficiency".

Never underestimate the shortsightedness, self interest, and general ineptitude of politicians - particularly when they don't want to hear reality.

When has the UK grid gone completely dark? Thats the event when zero electricity is available at any cost, if you're willing to pay for it either though supply contracts or local storage you can have all the reliability you want. But if you want to stick with lowest cost options, they are less reliable and subject to rolling blackouts to shed power when demand exceeds supply. Why are residences put into blackout? Because they are the lowest cost on the supplier to curtail, contracts plain and simple.

The existing pumped hydro in Australia and the UK uses only a small portion of the available dams, and on those dams only a small portion of the available volume.

Australia maybe, but that certainly isn't the case in the UK.

Energy storage in the UK totals 33GWh from your reference, Dinorwig alone has approximately 10.4GWh of that (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_energy_storage_projects, other references make it 9-10GW) yet its not cycled to that depth routinely (ever?) and the working capacity is around half the theoretical capacity and even that isn't cycled daily. Water is retained in the system for drought relief, flood control, and other water management reasons as discussed above there are competing demands on water in dams beyond electricity storage. The Ffestiniog plant similarly uses less than the full storage capacity available to it.

The British Hydropower Association sees at least a doubling in capacity from already identified resources:
http://www.british-hydro.org/hydro_in_the_uk
GIS studies can find enormous potential for hydro,
be it pumped:
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/jrcsh/files/jrc_20130503_assessment_european_phs_potential.pdf
or otherwise:
http://www.british-hydro.org/UK%20Hydro%20Resource/England%20and%20Wales%20Resource%20Study%20Oct%202010.pdf

[Marco]

Really? Please provide pointers to such installed live plant.

Shall we judge nuclear energy by unsubsidised new builds then? Whether something is practical is different from it being an interesting investment.

N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.

Hydro has great efficiency too. Thermal storage and using hydrogen from electrolysis stored in mines not so much. The INGRID project has a tiny little hydrogen storage demonstrator in Italy though.

[Someone]

N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.

Hydro has great efficiency too. Thermal storage and using hydrogen from electrolysis stored in mines not so much. The INGRID project has a tiny little hydrogen storage demonstrator in Italy though.

Compressed gas is coming along quickly, as are batteries, so there are other options but there are private companies investing in hydro even through the uncertainties:
http://www.quarrybatterycompany.com/what-we-do.html
with some interesting insight here:
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/march-2015-digi-issue/pumped-storage-a-new-project-for-wales/

But it seems this has all been done before and tggzzz will happily post nonsense that is easily proven wrong:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/tidal-lagoon-energy-from-the-ocean-uk-gov-is-putting-money-in-it/?all
and then repeat it all here after being throughly disproven already. There are many ways forward and few of them should be ignored, a diverse mix of distributed generation and storage is the way to a secure and reliable source of energy.

[woody]

GIS studies can find enormous potential for hydro,
be it pumped:
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/jrcsh/files/jrc_20130503_assessment_european_phs_potential.pdf

Thanks for that link. I did not know the data behind PHS. Unfortunately NL is (for obvious reasons) not in the charts. But thankfully we're still part of the EU.

But even this much potential is not enough. On the back of a beermat: Eurostat tells me that the total EU28 energy use for 2015  is approximately 1.600.000 Ktoe (Kiloton oil equivalent). 1Ktoe = 11,63 GWh. Total energy use per year is then 18608 TWh. Or 51 TWh / day. From your linked report I learn that, if we install all realizable potential in the EU in the T2 scenario (and that is a lot of lakes) we're able to store 33Twh energy. That won't get us through one day.

I know that it will not be calm and grey all over Europe and that we will always be able to make energy, be it from waves, tides, geothermic, whatever, but what stands out like a pimple on a nose is that this energy transition is going nowhere if we not also manage to use way less energy that we do now. Fossil fuel spoiled us big time but that party is over.

[tggzzz]

Please don't remove the context when trying to change the point; this forum isn't stackexchange.
(The context was https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/goldman-sachs-advert/msg1338430/#msg1338430 )

Really? Please provide pointers to such installed live plant.

Shall we judge nuclear energy by unsubsidised new builds then? Whether something is practical is different from it being an interesting investment.

That is an entirely different point.

In response to
"The person that develops practical large scale storage of electricity in the UK will become as rich as Croesus."
you stated
"As long as lousy round trip efficiency doesn't impact practicality it's not that difficult".

Again, I ask you to provide pointers to installed plant demonstrating that assertion.

N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.

Hydro has great efficiency too. Thermal storage and using hydrogen from electrolysis stored in mines not so much. The INGRID project has a tiny little hydrogen storage demonstrator in Italy though.

Sure it is efficient. But that's insufficient: you also have to have enough storage, and that is not trivial in the UK.

[tggzzz]

GIS studies can find enormous potential for hydro,
be it pumped:
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/jrcsh/files/jrc_20130503_assessment_european_phs_potential.pdf

Thanks for that link. I did not know the data behind PHS. Unfortunately NL is (for obvious reasons) not in the charts. But thankfully we're still part of the EU.

But even this much potential is not enough.

Precisely. It still surprises me that some people don't want to face that.

I know that it will not be calm and grey all over Europe and that we will always be able to make energy, be it from waves, tides, geothermic, whatever,

Blocking high pressures do cover very large areas, much larger than the UK. Geothermal is very limited. Tidal and solar have guaranteed unavailability; either large scale storage is required or conventional plant needs to be on standby and thermally cycled (which reduces lifespan).

[tggzzz]

N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.

Hydro has great efficiency too. Thermal storage and using hydrogen from electrolysis stored in mines not so much. The INGRID project has a tiny little hydrogen storage demonstrator in Italy though.

Compressed gas is coming along quickly, as are batteries, so there are other options but there are private companies investing in hydro even through the uncertainties:
http://www.quarrybatterycompany.com/what-we-do.html
with some interesting insight here:
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/march-2015-digi-issue/pumped-storage-a-new-project-for-wales/

They are interesting and show promise - but that's all. Many many technologies show promise in the lab and pilot plants, but fail to progress beyond that.

When large scale energy storage is available in the UK, I will welcome it. In this context "large scale" means suitable to store 5 days energy from wind power, since that's a plausible maximum time that a blocking high pressure sits over the UK.

But it seems this has all been done before and tggzzz will happily post nonsense that is easily proven wrong:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/tidal-lagoon-energy-from-the-ocean-uk-gov-is-putting-money-in-it/?all
and then repeat it all here after being throughly disproven already.

Your contention is false; mere wishful thinking.

There are many ways forward and few of them should be ignored, a diverse mix of distributed generation and storage is the way to a secure and reliable source of energy.

There we are in complete agreement. But the critical storage technology is currently unproven so we would be foolish to rely on it.

Until then, the calculated cost of wind power should include the cost of keeping conventional plant on standby.

[tggzzz]

N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.

Pumped hydro can be effective and profitable with just 50-100m (a few hundred feet) of head, or use pumped tidal pools in estuaries or other low depth areas.

Storage in estuaries is a disreputable claim. Such "batteries" will naturally be replenished when the tide next comes in, so if you want to count them as useful storage of excess wind power, it has to be with two significant conditions:

• it has to be the right time of day to store and use the energy; at other times it is impossible
• any such stored energy has to be used within a couple of hours, before the tide comes in; not much use for wind power outages lasting days due to a blocking high pressure zone

This old chestnut, you can store and dispatch energy from tidal storage at any planned time. There are no times when it is impossible to produce energy to schedule. Yes it will produce less energy if you demand more storage from the system, and/or reduce the storage capacity if you want it at a specific time, but these are the balances and tradeoffs that also exist to a lesser extent in conventional land based pumped hydro. For tidal systems the energy can be stored either as an empty or full reservoir for moving water to or from on demand, its the scheduling that makes it work as storage rather than a simple generator.

Sigh.

With tidal power either you can store the energy or you can use it to generate electricity. Too often I've seen addle-brained proponents try to do both, often in successive sentences!

The tidal lagoons that would be used to store energy are automatically fully "topped up" twice a day without wind power. Please explain in simple terms how they could also store extra energy from wind power that could be used the next day when there is effectively zero wind power.

Don't forget that in the UK the only such large scale storage would be in the river Severn. I see the Severn estuary every day, so I know any proposal to increase the maximum height of the water is a non-starter.

As an example, while living here I've seen picture 1 twice http://www.heart.co.uk/bristolsomerset/news/local/west-country-flooding/. It shows water flowing from the sea over the top of the lock gates into the centre of Bristol. Increased maximum height would be a disaster here and elsewhere on the estuary. (And picture 10 shows it flowing around the lock gates!)

[Someone]

GIS studies can find enormous potential for hydro,
be it pumped:
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/jrcsh/files/jrc_20130503_assessment_european_phs_potential.pdf

Thanks for that link. I did not know the data behind PHS. Unfortunately NL is (for obvious reasons) not in the charts. But thankfully we're still part of the EU.

But even this much potential is not enough.

Precisely. It still surprises me that some people don't want to face that.

Not enough for all of Europe, but they found more than 4000GWh in the UK, several days of electricity supply could be held in storage from the realisable resources that have been identified. We've heard from you that these sites don't exist and its not possible, but many much more informed people than yourself disagree. Large scale energy storage in the UK is possible from technical and economic aspects.

[tggzzz]

GIS studies can find enormous potential for hydro,
be it pumped:
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/jrcsh/files/jrc_20130503_assessment_european_phs_potential.pdf

Thanks for that link. I did not know the data behind PHS. Unfortunately NL is (for obvious reasons) not in the charts. But thankfully we're still part of the EU.

But even this much potential is not enough.

Precisely. It still surprises me that some people don't want to face that.

Not enough for all of Europe, but they found more than 4000GWh in the UK, several days of electricity supply could be held in storage from the realisable resources that have been identified. We've heard from you that these sites don't exist and its not possible, but many much more informed people than yourself disagree. Large scale energy storage in the UK is possible from technical and economic aspects.

The engineers that would have to implement any such plan have very significant and well-founded reservations; I know because I've discussed it with them over the years.

I suspect your "informed people", whoever they are, have some political or financial stance they are advancing.

[Someone]

N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.

Pumped hydro can be effective and profitable with just 50-100m (a few hundred feet) of head, or use pumped tidal pools in estuaries or other low depth areas.

Storage in estuaries is a disreputable claim. Such "batteries" will naturally be replenished when the tide next comes in, so if you want to count them as useful storage of excess wind power, it has to be with two significant conditions:

• it has to be the right time of day to store and use the energy; at other times it is impossible
• any such stored energy has to be used within a couple of hours, before the tide comes in; not much use for wind power outages lasting days due to a blocking high pressure zone

This old chestnut, you can store and dispatch energy from tidal storage at any planned time. There are no times when it is impossible to produce energy to schedule. Yes it will produce less energy if you demand more storage from the system, and/or reduce the storage capacity if you want it at a specific time, but these are the balances and tradeoffs that also exist to a lesser extent in conventional land based pumped hydro. For tidal systems the energy can be stored either as an empty or full reservoir for moving water to or from on demand, its the scheduling that makes it work as storage rather than a simple generator.

Sigh.

With tidal power either you can store the energy or you can use it to generate electricity. Too often I've seen addle-brained proponents try to do both, often in successive sentences!

The tidal lagoons that would be used to store energy are automatically fully "topped up" twice a day without wind power. Please explain in simple terms how they could also store extra energy from wind power that could be used the next day when there is effectively zero wind power.

Don't forget that in the UK the only such large scale storage would be in the river Severn. I see the Severn estuary every day, so I know any proposal to increase the maximum height of the water is a non-starter.

As an example, while living here I've seen picture 1 twice http://www.heart.co.uk/bristolsomerset/news/local/west-country-flooding/ It shows water flowing from the sea over the top of the lock gates into the centre of Bristol. Increased maximum height would be a disaster here and elsewhere on the estuary.

I refer you back to the previous discussion where you made a fool of yourself with obviously ludicrous tangents and other nonsense almost identical to what you present here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/tidal-lagoon-energy-from-the-ocean-uk-gov-is-putting-money-in-it/?all

But to take you down memory lane,
A hypothetical tidal dam/dike/barrage is the best thing since slice bread for those worried about flooding, it can hold back the tides and prevent flooding. Perhaps ask the dutch how they like all their dikes. Authorities then have the control over tide heights which is a huge economic benefit before considering power generation or storage capabilities.

You can store and/or generate electricity with a tidal system, yes as you store more the generation capacity drops to zero but there is a working range between solely generating and solely storing which you seem unable to acknowledge. Equally long term storage is pointless as you can get free generation on each cycle of the tide, scheduling when to curtail generation or absorb electricity and hold the water to dispatch the power later is a gamble but one that all the market players do already with their bidding for contracts. A tidal power system is a unique generator and storage capacity that is inextricably linked to the tides 745 minute cycle but it can deliver reliably scheduled power at any time during that cycle as the operator determines is appropriate. Tides have been able to be predicted for hundreds of years, electricity demand can be predicted with surprising accuracy, combine the two and you can predict when is the best time to deliver power and when it should be absorbed for pumping.

Its a small storage and generation capacity compared to the resources available in the entire rest of the UK, but so are most single projects when looked at in isolation.

Your "arguments" hold about as much water as a colander, how about I suggest the UK disbands it airforce because it could theoretically be used to destroy London? You could use a large power plant or storage system to wreak havoc on the country or bankrupt its operator but that would not be a great idea, just because you can come up with ways to use it for detriment doesn't mean anyone is suggesting that is how it should or would be used.

[tggzzz]

N.B. pumped storage or other hydro is difficult in the UK; a 2000ft peak is officially a mountain, and there aren't many of those.

Pumped hydro can be effective and profitable with just 50-100m (a few hundred feet) of head, or use pumped tidal pools in estuaries or other low depth areas.

Storage in estuaries is a disreputable claim. Such "batteries" will naturally be replenished when the tide next comes in, so if you want to count them as useful storage of excess wind power, it has to be with two significant conditions:

• it has to be the right time of day to store and use the energy; at other times it is impossible
• any such stored energy has to be used within a couple of hours, before the tide comes in; not much use for wind power outages lasting days due to a blocking high pressure zone

This old chestnut, you can store and dispatch energy from tidal storage at any planned time. There are no times when it is impossible to produce energy to schedule. Yes it will produce less energy if you demand more storage from the system, and/or reduce the storage capacity if you want it at a specific time, but these are the balances and tradeoffs that also exist to a lesser extent in conventional land based pumped hydro. For tidal systems the energy can be stored either as an empty or full reservoir for moving water to or from on demand, its the scheduling that makes it work as storage rather than a simple generator.

Sigh.

With tidal power either you can store the energy or you can use it to generate electricity. Too often I've seen addle-brained proponents try to do both, often in successive sentences!

The tidal lagoons that would be used to store energy are automatically fully "topped up" twice a day without wind power. Please explain in simple terms how they could also store extra energy from wind power that could be used the next day when there is effectively zero wind power.

Don't forget that in the UK the only such large scale storage would be in the river Severn. I see the Severn estuary every day, so I know any proposal to increase the maximum height of the water is a non-starter.

As an example, while living here I've seen picture 1 twice http://www.heart.co.uk/bristolsomerset/news/local/west-country-flooding/ It shows water flowing from the sea over the top of the lock gates into the centre of Bristol. Increased maximum height would be a disaster here and elsewhere on the estuary.

But to take you down memory lane,
A hypothetical tidal dam/dike/barrage is the best thing since slice bread for those worried about flooding, it can hold back the tides and prevent flooding. Perhaps ask the dutch how they like all their dikes. Authorities then have the control over tide heights which is a huge economic benefit before considering power generation or storage capabilities.

Sigh. That's true in isolation, but in conjunction with your other ideas, it just doesn't add up.

You have acknowledged that wind power needs energy storage. If not you should account for the cost of idle conventional plant in the cost of the wind energy.

You have proposed that tidal barrages can be used to store energy. They can - but only for a short period, not the periods necessary for blocking high zones.

If you try to store energy for more than a few hours with a hypothetical Severn barrage (the best candidate in the UK), then you would have to raise water levels and create floods.

Below you finally acknowledge the points I have been making!

You can store and/or generate electricity with a tidal system, yes as you store more the generation capacity drops to zero but there is a working range between solely generating and solely storing which you seem unable to acknowledge. Equally long term storage is pointless as you can get free generation on each cycle of the tide, scheduling when to curtail generation or absorb electricity and hold the water to dispatch the power later is a gamble but one that all the market players do already with their bidding for contracts.

And when, not if, there is insufficient generating capacity, what happens? Who cares what the spot market price is if you can't get the product!

I presume you do realise that commercial operators will be perfectly happy and willing to have outages, if it means they make more profit. They would, of course, factor the cost of a fine into such a calculation, but fines are usually trivial. You have heard the saga of the Ford Pinto, I presume; that's merely one particularly egregious example of corporate behaviour where profits/risks are concerned.

A tidal power system is a unique generator and storage capacity that is inextricably linked to the tides 745 minute cycle but it can deliver reliably scheduled power at any time during that cycle as the operator determines is appropriate. Tides have been able to be predicted for hundreds of years, electricity demand can be predicted with surprising accuracy, combine the two and you can predict when is the best time to deliver power and when it should be absorbed for pumping.

I refer you to your comments above, which show you know that is an overly rose-tinted viewpoint! You are trying to have your cake and eat it.

[tggzzz]

You evidently haven't read/understood "Without Hot Air". The second page of chapter 1 contains this important point describing a primary motivation for MacKay writing the book in the first place

Other than conversing with the Author and contributing to the work,

Interesting. What was your contribution?

[Someone]

You have acknowledged that wind power needs energy storage. If not you should account for the cost of idle conventional plant in the cost of the wind energy.

Except I made extensive care to not say that but you'll insist I did anyway to further your points. Wind power is economically viable without storage, if you want it reliable you need wild over provisioning across a wide geographic area which may be impossible for the UK. But without any of that simply as a unreliable generator its a profitable enterprise without the need for storage.

lookie here, its an entirely separate clause....

In a fluctuating electricity market such as the UK or Australia has, storage systems are already able to profit and/or improve the security of supply.

entirely distinct and separate operations that do not require each other in the current market today or the predicted market into the future.

You have proposed that tidal barrages can be used to store energy. They can - but only for a short period, not the periods necessary for blocking high zones.

If you try to store energy for more than a few hours with a hypothetical Severn barrage (the best candidate in the UK), then you would have to raise water levels and create floods.

Except you jump straight to straw man arguments which we have previously addressed to try and make outlandish claims, while I never said tidal energy storage would carry over long periods. Its a storage system which happens to have a few hours of practical storage time, which could be part of a mix of storage systems. But you continue to make plainly ridiculous statements that it can't do this or that, or it will be a huge disaster when the opposite is true.

A tidal power system is a unique generator and storage capacity that is inextricably linked to the tides 745 minute cycle but it can deliver reliably scheduled power at any time during that cycle as the operator determines is appropriate. Tides have been able to be predicted for hundreds of years, electricity demand can be predicted with surprising accuracy, combine the two and you can predict when is the best time to deliver power and when it should be absorbed for pumping.

I refer you to your comments above, which show you know that is an overly rose-tinted viewpoint! You are trying to have your cake and eat it.

I'm willing to point out and discuss the real drawbacks such systems have but you seem unable to move from your entrenched position of straw man arguments and rubbishing any suggestion from others that renewable energy might be the only way the UK can achieve energy security and independence. You're welcome to point out other energy resources which the UK could use to power themselves into the future but relying on imports and world markets is what caused the blackouts you brought up as the horrible situation that must be avoided.

You evidently haven't read/understood "Without Hot Air". The second page of chapter 1 contains this important point describing a primary motivation for MacKay writing the book in the first place

Other than conversing with the Author and contributing to the work,

Interesting. What was your contribution?

The contribution today is pie, meeting your face, and the world is a slightly better place for it. Some of us actually contribute, learn, and share ideas, rather than trying to squash discussion and I'll make no assumptions about your lack of understanding on the topic so you should be polite and make no assumptions about others knowledge and experience.

[Marco]

Sure it is efficient. But that's insufficient: you also have to have enough storage, and that is not trivial in the UK.

Your mines could store a whole lotta hydrogen.

[tggzzz]

You evidently haven't read/understood "Without Hot Air". The second page of chapter 1 contains this important point describing a primary motivation for MacKay writing the book in the first place

Other than conversing with the Author and contributing to the work,

Interesting. What was your contribution?

The contribution today is pie, meeting your face, and the world is a slightly better place for it. Some of us actually contribute, learn, and share ideas, rather than trying to squash discussion and I'll make no assumptions about your lack of understanding on the topic so you should be polite and make no assumptions about others knowledge and experience.

So, what was your contribution?

[tggzzz]

Sure it is efficient. But that's insufficient: you also have to have enough storage, and that is not trivial in the UK.

Your mines could store a whole lotta hydrogen.

Are you sure? I haven't spotted any such plans, serious or speculative, for that. The nearest I've seen is hydrocarbon lobby claims for CCS of CO2, but they are as yet unproven in practice.

Coal mines are very leaky (especially for hydrogen) and our salt mine caverns are limited.

[Marco]

Are you sure? I haven't spotted any such plans, serious or speculative, for that.

I mentioned INGRID before and underground hydrogen storage is a common enough speculative topic to have its own wikipedia page.

With the ~25% round trip efficiency renewable energy needs to be really really cheap for it to make sense. Throwing some concrete and coating on mine shafts is unlikely to add too much to the cost. If renewable energy ever gets cheap enough for it, I suspect high temperature thermal storage will be a big competitor. Which is also seeing small amounts of research and demonstrators. It's just too far from commercial viability to see any really big efforts though. What's the point? By the time it becomes relevant the patents would have run out and the R&D is straightforward enough, everyone is just waiting till it's wanted/needed for the most part.

[tggzzz]

Are you sure? I haven't spotted any such plans, serious or speculative, for that.

I mentioned INGRID before and underground hydrogen storage is a common enough speculative topic to have its own wikipedia page.

With the ~25% round trip efficiency renewable energy needs to be really really cheap for it to make sense. Throwing some concrete and coating on mine shafts is unlikely to add too much to the cost. If renewable energy ever gets cheap enough for it, I suspect high temperature thermal storage will be a big competitor. Which is also seeing small amounts of research and demonstrators. It's just too far from commercial viability to see any really big efforts though. What's the point? By the time it becomes relevant the patents would have run out and the R&D is straightforward enough, everyone is just waiting till it's wanted/needed for the most part.

Clearly you are following the subject more closely than I am!

We desperately need effective storage mechanisms other than hydro. That requires we try many possibilities to see which, if any, will work out well.

But until one or more is proven, then we shouldn't oversell existing technology. You have avoided that trap, of course.

[paulca]

The Goldman / JPMC model goes like this:

Invest 2 billion into a company to build a wind/solar farm.
While it's being built sell energy futures covering the next 10-20 years, netting several millions in future transactions.
When the farm is complete, sell it to an energy company for 2.5 billion, transferring the future obligations.

Rinse, repeat.

The investment bank nets the profit on the sale of the farm, but also nets future price for the 10-20 years worth of energy it might produce.

The buying energy company is now forced to honor the future price if it remains viable.  So if the current wholesale costs of energy is $0.002 per kw/h and the future price is $0.003, the future is worthless at maturity.  If it's the other way round the future owner will call it.

If the price rises significantly, people start trading the futures about.  Futures are very appealing to energy wholesalers and grid operators as they provide a way to pay a small amount upfront to guarantee a fixed future price.  Should prices rise, they have an amount of guaranteed lower cost energy.

It works out really badly for the new farm owner if it doesn't generate as much as it should, they will need to purchase the energy elsewhere to honor the futures at maturity.  It also works out badly if the wholesale price rises above the future value.

One key thing you might notice here is that the investment bank does not need to worry or care that wind or solar is a good idea or if it will even work, let alone have the slightest care in the environment.  They are in and out of the deal in a year and the only thing they depend on is the demand for energy futures and that the farms can be sold for at least what they paid for them, before they are even switched on.

[coppice]

You evidently haven't read/understood "Without Hot Air". The second page of chapter 1 contains this important point describing a primary motivation for MacKay writing the book in the first place

Other than conversing with the Author and contributing to the work, I have also read it. It presents with great technical detail and accuracy technologies and limitations that could provide energy for the UK, you can see all sorts of possible ways froward from its examples. Finding storage to back a 100% renewable electricity grid for the UK is plausible, and profitable, it may not be cheaper for the consumer or more profitable for the operators than the nuclear or gas plants but of the 5 technically feasible energy plans for the UK presented in the book 1 was 100% renewable. There is much detail in the book on the current state of the UKs energy storage infrastructure, and what opportunities are available hence why I referred to it on that specific point.

Its like you've read a different book from the rest of us. MacKay paints a picture of a UK that could generate its current energy needs from renewable means, but only by being re-engineered into a very different country. He casts doubt at several points as to whether enough materials might be available for some ideas to be scaled. He casts considerable doubt whether the massive scale of engineering required could be undertaken before fossil fuel resources run out. He is quite dispassionate in his assessments of what is possible, but I don't think many read them as a picture of a highly achievable renewable future.

[tggzzz]

You evidently haven't read/understood "Without Hot Air". The second page of chapter 1 contains this important point describing a primary motivation for MacKay writing the book in the first place

Other than conversing with the Author and contributing to the work, I have also read it. It presents with great technical detail and accuracy technologies and limitations that could provide energy for the UK, you can see all sorts of possible ways froward from its examples. Finding storage to back a 100% renewable electricity grid for the UK is plausible, and profitable, it may not be cheaper for the consumer or more profitable for the operators than the nuclear or gas plants but of the 5 technically feasible energy plans for the UK presented in the book 1 was 100% renewable. There is much detail in the book on the current state of the UKs energy storage infrastructure, and what opportunities are available hence why I referred to it on that specific point.

Its like you've read a different book from the rest of us. MacKay paints a picture of a UK that could generate its current energy needs from renewable means, but only by being re-engineered into a very different country. He casts doubt at several points as to whether enough materials might be available for some ideas to be scaled. He casts considerable doubt whether the massive scale of engineering required could be undertaken before fossil fuel resources run out. He is quite dispassionate in his assessments of what is possible, but I don't think many read them as a picture of a highly achievable renewable future.

Precisely.

I've given up responding to "Someone" since he (presumably) makes strange claims that don't seem to be supportable. When repeatedly asked for elucidation, he doesn't respond.

[Someone]

You evidently haven't read/understood "Without Hot Air". The second page of chapter 1 contains this important point describing a primary motivation for MacKay writing the book in the first place

Other than conversing with the Author and contributing to the work, I have also read it. It presents with great technical detail and accuracy technologies and limitations that could provide energy for the UK, you can see all sorts of possible ways froward from its examples. Finding storage to back a 100% renewable electricity grid for the UK is plausible, and profitable, it may not be cheaper for the consumer or more profitable for the operators than the nuclear or gas plants but of the 5 technically feasible energy plans for the UK presented in the book 1 was 100% renewable. There is much detail in the book on the current state of the UKs energy storage infrastructure, and what opportunities are available hence why I referred to it on that specific point.

Its like you've read a different book from the rest of us. MacKay paints a picture of a UK that could generate its current energy needs from renewable means, but only by being re-engineered into a very different country. He casts doubt at several points as to whether enough materials might be available for some ideas to be scaled. He casts considerable doubt whether the massive scale of engineering required could be undertaken before fossil fuel resources run out. He is quite dispassionate in his assessments of what is possible, but I don't think many read them as a picture of a highly achievable renewable future.

All the presented scenarios in Sustainable Energy - without the hot air have open questions as to their ability to be achieved, not just the 100% renewable option. I'm not sure what you're adding to the conversation here?

Renewable generation is already a viable investment.

entirely separate clause...

Energy storage is already a viable investment.

So its not surprising that people are investing in these sorts of projects. The UK has plenty of resources of both to exploit, could they be energy independent? Possibly, but as you say it would be a very different landscape and would likely require change to how and when people consume energy as much as how its produced. The book notes almost all transport would need to be electrified if the UK wishes to be energy independent, which its self would be great transformation.

[paulca]

Renewable generation is already a viable investment.

Really?  Other than hydro dams can you provide a single example of energy storage beyond research prototypes that work on an industrial scale?

[tggzzz]

Renewable generation is already a viable investment.

Really?  Other than hydro dams can you provide a single example of energy storage beyond research prototypes that work on an industrial scale?

Prediction: when challenged to provide proof of his assertion that X esists, he will either (a) assert that X isn't necessary, or (b) not respond presumably hoping everyone won't notice.

Let's hope I'm being too pessimistic in this case. Storage is going to be the key enabling technology, and whoever cracks it will become extremely rich.

[woody]

Let's hope I'm being too pessimistic in this case. Storage is going to be the key enabling technology, and whoever cracks it will become extremely rich.

You are right. Yesterday I stumbled on

http://www.h2-fuel.nl/en/

Looks too good to be true, but if it's not it may well be a solution.

[paulca]

Well as I mentioned in another thread, if we want something which:

* Absorbs sunlight
* Stores the energy in a safe, environmentally friendly and economically viable means
* Stable over many decades
* Can release said energy on demand to produce heat or electricity..

They are called trees.

[tggzzz]

Well as I mentioned in another thread, if we want something which:

* Absorbs sunlight
* Stores the energy in a safe, environmentally friendly and economically viable means
* Stable over many decades
* Can release said energy on demand to produce heat or electricity..

They are called trees.

Trees used like that are merely carbon neutral.

But, as someone pointed out decades ago, they also offer a very good way of dealing with the excess carbon - by sequestering the carbon underground.

[Marco]

http://www.h2-fuel.nl/en/

Looks too good to be true, but if it's not it may well be a solution.

The performance metrics of the fuel seem realistic enough, it's the claim they can cost effectively recycle the waste into new fuel which has the hallmarks of a scam (or inventor self delusion, maybe he's so proud of his slight tweak of hydrogen reclamation technique that he just considers the recycling something he can solve with a bit more money). No papers, no patents, no pilot plant, no nothing.

From Wikipedia quoting MacDonald :
"Sodium metaborate might be hydrogenated back into sodium borohydride fuel by several different techniques, some of which might theoretically require nothing more than water and electricity or heat. However, these techniques are still in active development. As of June 30, 2010, many patents claiming to effectively achieve the conversion of sodium metaborate to sodium borohydride have been investigated but none have been confirmed"

Extraordinary claims, zero evidence.

PS. found a patent at least for the recycling process.

PPS. as far as I can see it's all hand waving. He says "The synthesis process requires the input of energy. Dependent on the actual partial processes involved in the synthesis processes, the energy, for instance, may be required as pressure and/or heat to raise the temperature of the reactants or may be inputted in an electrolysis process." ... the actual partial processes and the way energy is added I can't seem to find.

[woody]

There is a pdf on their site

http://www.h2-fuel.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/H2Fuel-New-doc_UK_02-11-2016_def-V4.pdf

That explains the processes a bit.

Unfortunately I don't have a clue regarding anything chemical so cannot separate facts from fairy tales.

[Someone]

Renewable generation is already a viable investment.
Energy storage is already a viable investment.

Really?  Other than hydro dams can you provide a single example of energy storage beyond research prototypes that work on an industrial scale?

Seems you pulled the wrong quote given your question, the answers are readily available on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage
There are already commercial operations of battery storage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_storage_power_station
Distributed thermal storage is widely used across the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage
And I've worked at sites using compressed air and cryogenic storage. They don't need to be huge grid scale electricity production systems to be energy storage projects, shifting energy use to when its cheapest and storing that energy (or even embodied energy) for future demand is already done routinely and profitably. Looking to oddball projects NZ has a synthetic petroleum plant for energy storage/upcycling (http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/gas-market/nz-gas-sector-history). But even if you narrow down "storage" to things which absorb electricity and release it later back as electricity then batteries are the easy example, as the energy markets have bigger swings in price they will become more and more profitable.

[Marco]

Unfortunately I don't have a clue regarding anything chemical so cannot separate facts from fairy tales.

You just need to learn to spot bullshit :

Reaction formulas s1 and r1 are confirmed by the balance calculation tool for stoichiometric formulas of the WebOC.org website (http://nl.webqc.org/balance.php).

Per kg of hydrogen recovered from the fuel these purely hypothetical reactions are also supposed to be far more efficient than direct electrolysis of water and his economic analysis depends on that fantasy. It's either a scam or an inventor deluding himself and others.

[IanMacdonald]

Well, chemistry isn't my strongest subject either but IIRC the energy needed to split a pair of H-O bonds is well known, as is the smaller amount of energy regained by forming H-H and O-O bonds. If anyone is claiming they can split water without supplying at least the difference, then basically they are making BS claims.

[Marco]

That's a lower bound, actually getting close to it is the problem.

Getting close to the bounds for his reactions will likely be no easier and there is no description of the actual implementation, so it's not likely he can.