"Green Britain Gears Up for Climate Change Battle"

[NickW]

waste disposal is a political not a technical issue

same then for article then that you forwarded  


nice that you trust in the goodness of people...

I agree the chinese waste disposal issue is at least partly political - I just wanted to point out that PV has an environmental cost (at current prices) too.

[NickW]

Its quite simple then - do not buy PV panels from China. 

German and US manufacturers should have better emmision standards.

-Paul

Agreed - we should be manufacturing more for ourselves but whats the cost differential?

Probably very little - I have been reliably informed that Chinese panels were first imported at half price, until somebody realised they could sell them at full price and then within 6 months the prices had doubled.

-Paul

Thanks Paul. I had heard that chinese imports had effectively wiped out the european vacuum tube manufacturing capacity.  wasnt sure on what the case is with PV.

[martin]

http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2876.0.html
here we are, a responsible country, with responsible politicians............

[billi]

hello

i do understand to calculate all into  a product ( production costs transport etc)

and its perhaps essential for our planet......

 i wonder if you do that as well for the food you eat, the pants you wear, the computer u use the car you drive ,  the oil you use ......

[dhaslam]

Quite apart from the environmental aspects of  cheap Chinese imports there can be serious economic effects. It seems that some areas of the US have very high unemployment because of low price imports closing their factories.  Although there   are laws against (financial) product dumping, this does not apply to cheaply produced products.  Responsible pricing of Chinese products would help their economy and everyone else as well.  In the meantime there are quotas for many Chinese imports into Europe.

[Shay]

Something that I think is been overlooked is the value of using distributed energy systems.
Conventional energy policies continue to focus on the centralised model of electricity generation and distribution despite the gross inefficiencies and costs of maintaining and upgrading the national grid. In our Utopian renewable energy sceanario some semblance of national grid should be maintained to exploit wind and tidal/wave resources as they are generally located some distance from population centres. Renewable’s have enormous potential to contribute to global energy requirements but have to be underpinned with major energy conservation measures and efficient distribution systems. 
Localising energy production empowers people to the extent that they have some control and influence over a vital component of their lives. The presence of local energy systems with the active participation or stake holding of the host community would facilitate a greater awareness of energy use with adoption of energy conservation on a personal level a natural progression.

In comparison to the conventional model of centralised energy generation the advantages of DE are numerous:
    
•Large efficiency savings:
Approximately only 30% of the primary energy used in centralised electricity generation reaches the end user. Losses occur from transmission and distribution networks along with the heat produced during generation been wasted.

•Enhanced security of supply:
Increasing efficiencies reduces fuel consumption and thereby reducing imports. Where DE is based on indigenous renewable resources, fuel supply and fuel cost is easier to guarantee.
The ability of a community to provide such security of supply makes it a more attractive location for business and industry.
DE networks can operate independently off the main grid when power outages occur providing continuous power.

•Benefit to Grid System Operators:
DE can delay the need for transmission and distribution upgrades and help strengthen the grid. Relying on large amount of distributed energy sources improves grid stability as the grid integrity can be still maintained if some of the small sources went offline but if a large base load generator goes offline the whole grid would go down.

•Environmental Benefits:
With greater generating efficiencies and reduction in transmission and distribution losses, DE leads to significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions. DE allows for easier exploitation of renewable energy resources. Biomass fuels need to be close to the source of generation as transporting feedstock’s over large distances would reduce the EROI and negate the environmental benefits of using the renewable feedstock’s in the first place.

•Benefits to Investors:
DE generation systems can brought online more quickly the large scale centralised generation thereby reducing capital exposure for investors. Cashflow is improved by the revenue stream coming online more quickly. Co-operatively owned local energy systems can allow communities to invest in their own futures while enhancing their local economies.

•National and Local Economic Benefits:
Reduction in fuel imports leads to an improved balance of payments.
Locally generated energy and locally sourced fuels generates employment within the host communities with the added multiplier effect to the local economy i.e. money earned locally and spent on local services has knock on economic benefit greater than the initial amount spent.
DE from renewable sources can lead to stable, predictable and in the long term cheaper energy prices. This would make communities attractive to business and industry.

•Higher Quality Power:
DE can produce higher quality power than the grid. This is extremely important for businesses such as server farms or computer data centres.

The use of non intermittent renewable sources such as biomass/biogas which generate electricity constantly much in the same way as coal or gas fired plant could complement or greatly reduce conventional base load capacity . Numerous dispersed energy sources capable of been independent of each other and utilising a range of renewable resources could reduce the need for large reserve capacity resulting in a more reliable and stable power supply.

[Paulh_Boats]

Shay,

I see the spirit of what you type, but there are a lot of technical issues that contradict with the practicality of electrical power. USA has a fragmented supply system and its rubbish with brown outs, white outs and power cuts far more likely than the National Grid. Our grid is one of the best in the world in terms of efficiency, reliability and load balancing.

Also I don't see any facts and figures, for example the relative loss of transmission and generation. Transmission is 92% efficient or better for example.

Here is a table of the grid power losses at peak power:
http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/sys_06/dddownloaddisplay.asp?sp=sys_Table7_4

99.99% of buildings are wired into the National Grid, I hope you are not suggesting that figure reduces because its a huge infrastructure problem that would cost billions.


The single glaring problem is the lack of CHP power stations.... the 35%-65% that is lost as heat at the power station could heat many homes in the winter.

-Paul

[NickW]

its horses for courses really.

Distributed energy systems work well for relatively low powered users - households etc but for a modern industrialised economy they just wont cut it. As Paul said In the US the fragmented system causes allot of Brown and blackouts. Same problem in Australia.

Try running electric arc furnaces on intermittant distributed power - no chance.

For that you either need large hydro / geothermal - which we dont have in any significant quantities or we use coal, gas, oil or nuclear.

IMO DE workd very well in combination with a reliable baseload but DE will never replace the grid as we know it - not without major societal change (basically back to an agrian society).

[Shay]

Business as usual will win out as a huge shift to de-centralised generation will never happen.

Heavy Industry as ye say requires serious generating plant. However 56% of the European Unions population still live in rural areas. There is still huge potential for smaller urban settlements to meet there energy needs from the likes of Bio-gas using aerobically digested animal slurries, food and human wastes and bio-mass feed stocks supplemented with wind, small scale hydro, solar thermal (and maybe some pv) and of course conventional bio-mass. The technologies are low tec and robust. Bio-gas and Bio-mass electrical generation can operate as base load plant as they are not intermittent. Such settlements could operate in island mode through use of their own wires micro-grid piggybacked onto the existing electrical infrastructure feeding into or taking from the national grid where appropriate. AD has the added advantages of treating wastes and producing a nutrient dense digestate that is more acceptable to spread on land and is taken up easier by plants.

Reduced transmission distances, greater generation efficiencies, CHP etc. surely could make a significant dent in overall electrical consumption and in turn base load plant requirements?

Logically existing conventional fossil and nuclear generation plant needs to be retained (after all a lot of carbon was used in their construction). It’s the massive expansion of it at the expense of possibly more sustainable and renewable technologies that worries most.

[KenB]

Paul, List

Also I don't see any facts and figures, for example the relative loss of transmission and generation. Transmission is 92% efficient or better for example.

I agree that the HV and supergrid have the highest efficiency, but when you come down to the local distribution from the sub-station, the efficiency is not quite as good.

I went for the DUKES BERR figures which show a near constant distribution loss of around 8% over the last 36 years.

http://stats.berr.gov.uk/energystats/dukes5_1_2.xls



Ken

[Ivan]

Ken, Paul,

Can you do me a favour? I think I'm being a bit thick here, but the excel sheet that Ken has given shows distribution losses of around 30% in 2006. This is rather higher than previous figures that have been quoted on the forum (8%). Which is right? If they are both right, why the difference? I think I've misunderstood something somewhere along the line.

Also, in Ken's spreadsheet, the losses seem to be growing steadily from 17% to 30% over the last 30years. That isn't a good advert for the grid. Any ideas why this figure is increasing so much?


Ivan

[Paulh_Boats]

Ivan,

The losses are in TWh, not percent!

17.5/216.5 in 1970 = 8.08%
31/382.36  in 2006 = 8.1%

-Paul

[Ivan]

Ah, I knew I must be being thick! That also explains the steady increase - due to increased output. Thanks, Paul