ENERGY MATTERS

[Tizer]

`Sizewell C: Nuclear power station plans for Suffolk submitted' LINK

[Stanley]

Yes and I heard the interview with the man putting the case against it. He should be listened to by the government. (His biggest fear though was letting China in on the project....)

[chinatyke]

Yes and I heard the interview with the man putting the case against it. He should be listened to by the government. (His biggest fear though was letting China in on the project....)

Xenophobes! Your country is full of them! Seems OK to be anti-Chinese but don't you dare to be anti-muslim or anti-semitic or anti-anything-else.

[Stanley]

You're right China. Trust is in very short supply.

[Tripps]

Xenophobes! Your country is full of them! Seems OK to be anti-Chinese

You're right China. Trust is in very short supply.

Well - following the moves to take back control in Hong Kong, including the threat of mainland troops moving in, the sending of two new state of the art aircraft carriers to a group of island off Taiwan, Taiwan and incidents on the Indian border, China vs India, it didn't take long for our friends in China to start throwing their weight around - taking advantage of the current world virus chaos.

[chinatyke]

What is happening in Hong Kong is a disgrace. It is well overdue that the Chinese government sorted it out because Carrie Lam and her administration seem to be unable to do so. It used to be my favourite city but I wouldn't even go there now. Hong Kong is part of China and is not an independent country.

[Tripps]

What is happening in Hong Kong is a disgrace.

I agree - but probably not for the same reasons as you.

[Tizer]

I've been reading more about China and its activities recently and I agree with Chris Patten that the UK has made big mistakes in cosying up to China in recent decades in the hope of making profits riding on the back of their economic rise in that period. China is now building up an arsenal with the intention of taking control of Taiwan as well as Hong Kong and, as I mentioned elsewhere, to threaten the freedom of South Korea and Japan. The UK needs to reverse Brexit and stop Chinese companies taking over UK companies. Start making what we need here instead of importing everything from China.

Oh, and there's this report...
`Coronavirus: Inside the pro-China network targeting the US, Hong Kong and an exiled tycoon' LINK

[Stanley]

"Start making what we need here instead of importing everything from China."
I'll agree with that bit but as for the rest; China is becoming the major economic force in the world and that involves a long process of change and learning leading to mistakes and bad policies. If you want a model look at what we did in the days of empire. Different case but the same process and we haven't shaken off the corrupting results over 200 years later. It also leads to competition from the waning powers like the USA. It will get worse before it gets better.

[Whyperion]

What is happening in Hong Kong is a disgrace. It is well overdue that the Chinese government sorted it out because Carrie Lam and her administration seem to be unable to do so. It used to be my favourite city but I wouldn't even go there now. Hong Kong is part of China and is not an independent country.

more politics, but in many ways Hong Kong is to China what Northern Ireland is to Westminster. There was some stuff on TV a while back that geographically Hong Kong was hemmed in and could not take advantage of the new economy in China with the high tech and large manufacturies. It also has a comparative aging population. When the UK signed the lease the government of China was different to what China became after WW2

[Tizer]

`First Flight of MagniX eCaravan Showcases Maturity of Electric Aviation' Aviation Today

[Stanley]

A most encouraging report Tiz. They should have addressed the cost of maintaining an efficient battery pack though when speaking about costs. That's where the breakthrough will occur eventually.

[Stanley]

The solar panel fraternity must have had a field day this Spring so far!

[Tizer]

We're getting about 25kWh each day with the full sun. It could be better - there's some haze and also the panels are less efficient at the current high temperatures.

[Stanley]

"less efficient at the current high temperatures."
Interesting, I didn't realise that was the case Tiz.

[Stanley]

May total energy usage £60.

[Tizer]

"less efficient at the current high temperatures."
Interesting, I didn't realise that was the case Tiz.

`Surprisingly, they perform worse as the temperature rises! Solar panels work by using incoming photons to excite electrons in a semiconductor to a higher energy level. But the hotter the panel is, the greater the number of electrons that are already in the excited state. This reduces the voltage that the panel can generate and lowers its efficiency. Higher temperatures also increase the electrical resistance of the circuits that convert the photovoltaic charge into AC electricity. Modern hybrid solar panels are designed to suffer less from the heat, but they can still lose 10 per cent of their rated efficiency on hot days.' Science Focus

[Stanley]

Thanks for that, stored away in the back of my head!

[Tizer]

`Could the coronavirus crisis finally finish off coal?' LINK
`According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), we have seen the largest worldwide decline in coal consumption since World War Two. Only renewables have managed to hold their ground, says Fatih Birol, the executive director of the IEA. The trend was underway even before the coronavirus pandemic. Last year saw the largest fall in coal-powered electricity production on record worldwide. What is striking is the shift away from the fuel isn't down to the efforts of well-meaning environmentalists - though they have played a role. The key issue is what economists call the "marginal cost" of different sources of energy. The idea is simple: once you've built your power stations, it is more expensive to run those that require fuel than ones that rely on wind, rain or sunshine. Think about it. You need to keep buying coal to burn. But once you have installed your wind turbine, solar panel or hydropower plant, the electricity it produces comes pretty much free of charge. Adding momentum is the fact that renewables are now often cheaper to build than new coal. And every year they are getting cheaper still...'.

[Stanley]

Vary true Tiz and you can add in a further factor. Any technology using high temperatures is most efficient when it is run non-stop between scheduled stoppages for planned maintenance. You can't shut a coal fired plant like turning a light off. Even more significant is the attrition when you fire them up again. It's the temperature gradients that do it in both the boilers and the turbines. No matter how gradually you effect the start up you do damage. This applies to steelworks as well particularly blast furnaces. In effect if you shut a furnace down you have to re-line it before you start it again. This applies to a lesser extent to nuclear plants as well.

[Tizer]

I've posted this link not for the story but for the short opening video - you'll all enjoy the demolition pics!
`Britain goes coal free as renewables edge out fossil fuels' LINK

[Pluggy]

Anyone remember the orange knob of the apocalypses (thanks Big Kev) tirade "Trunp digs coal" a while back ?. It sound very hollow now because America is going don the same road we are with renewables. Even the much trumpeted cheap fracking natural gas can't compete with free wind and solar. Nuclear is pricing itself out of the market too, the yanks are closing nuke power stations before their time because its cheaper to close them than face an expensive bill to refurbish them for another stretch. However looking at the other side of the equation I was watching an interview with one of technicians integrating renewables into our grid, for the time being we need large lumps of spinning metal (aka fossil fuel and nuclear turbines) because the huge mass loans a lot of frequency stability to the system. Wind turbines and especially solar have little or no such stability. However (again) they are experimenting with using solar farms grid inverters to rephase reflected reactive energy into useable power again at night when they aren't needed for the solar panels which in turn stabalises things and reduces transmission losses and makes it more efficient. The stray reactive energy is a nuisance generally but snaffling offline solar farms inverters to turn it into saleable power again makes a lot of sense.

[Whyperion]

So if I understand unstabalised energy will be cabled into a solar grid and then appropriately inverted and stabilised out ?

any use for old power stations for growing mushrooms on the inside and solar on the out ?

[Pluggy]

No they are already cabled, its just tweaking the software on the inverter to work with out of phase AC on the grid rather than the DC coming from the panels in daylight. In the interest of citing sources the youtube video is here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONp8dismI-Q

[Tizer]

Thanks for your input Pluggy, you keep us on a even keel when it comes to energy!
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`Coronavirus: Home insulation 'could create cheap jobs' LINK (somehow the BBC manages to preface every news headline with the word Coronavirus now! )
I'm all for improving home insulation but with the caveat that it must be done properly and to a high standard using modern methods. Years ago when the government started giving people free or cheap loft insulation my father had his bungalow done on the scheme. I went to have a look while the fitters were there. There were two of them. One was down below and passing up stuff when needed but spent much of the time in the van. The other was up in the loft but spent a lot of time sitting there using his phone. The job could have been done by one man in half the time.

We all know that many homes were given retrospective cavity wall insulation that was dodgy. Patches of wall left unfilled, other areas wet due to rain leaking in and compromising its efficiency. Good insulation is a high tech business and needs well trained people and good quality control and supervision.