On the other hand...
Out headlong rush to renewable power is having consequences. Those consequences are causing questions to be asked. Questions I have constantly put forward, only to be nixed every time on here.
After all I know nothing and can be dismissed out of hand as an alarmist.
So, on Friday, the UK had a fairly significant power outage. Trains stopped running, at least one hospital had a failed backup generator fail to start and Newcastle Airport terminal went dark.
So what happened. Well a relevantly insignificant <800mw gas power station had to emergency power down due to an internal issue.
This caused a cascade power demand at a peak time which overloaded the Hornsea offshore wind farm connection. It, quite simply, disconnected to protect itself.
But the Hornsea wind farm is rated at a nameplate power of 6GW. It, quite simply, just went away. The UK grid, usually under fairly high stress, started to go into cascade failure protection and started shutting down high power consumption sites where the grid frequency dropped the most.
Where are the fast reacting power sources to cover this demand? Well those are mainly gas and they were either already working or offline for routine maintenance.
It took all day to sort out the mess and, finally, the problem was resolved and things got back to a semblance of normal.
This I have gleaned from many different sources using the knowledge that I have gained from this very site.
I'm very sure that the final analysis will show two things.
1 - that when renewable sources were added to the grid, the standard protections were put in place without any real consideration to the difference between standard power stations and the very on-off nature of renewable energy
2 - That Coal nameplate power was taken offline and replaced with renewable nameplate power to the same capacity.
Why is this critical? Because Coal delivers somewhere close to 90% of nameplate power over the long term. Whereas renewables deliver between 0% and 60% of their nameplate power.
Meaning that the UK grid has been losing power for years, if not close on two decades. Analysis showed that exactly this situation was avoided, narrowly, 3 times over the last two months alone. But luck has no place in country wide power generation and delivery and luck ran out on the 4th time.
So, why am I posting this now? To say "look I was right"? NO, not really. I don't care if you believe me or not or if you live in lala land or some wonderful renewable energy haven in the sky. What I care about is transitioning from our fossil fuel systems to near 0 CO2 emission generating systems as fast as possible.
So what this long intro is about is this article which has popped up in the UK press.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-7353297/amp/Surge-electric-car-sales-crash-National-Grid-2040.htmlThe fact that it is the first time I've seen any outlet, stating the problem this clearly, is significant. What is more significant is that it is likely to be only the first of a succession of warnings which will stunt our transition to near 0 CO2 emission generating systems unless there is a clear answer which covers it.
The problem is that the only answer which can resolve this situation, without spending more on the grid than we do on wind farms, is to double our Nuclear power strategy and deliver it in half the time.
Just about everything the article says is simple truth viewed from a neutral standpoint. There is no real capacity in the UK generating system to cover a transition of fuel energy to electrical EV energy. Even if we only need to transition half of it due to the additional efficiencies of Electric, there simply is not anything like enough capacity to even scratch the surface. Trying to rapidly ramp up EV's is only going to make things worse, much, much worse.
People need to stop riding their hobby horses about "green" power and start getting into net 0 CO2 emission power generation. And they need to get there fast.
Otherwise the UK is going to wind up like Germany. CO2 emissions rising and a rapid shift to coal fired power.
After all the UK has 300 years worth of coal under the ground at 1970's consumption levels.
Every time the UK grid has a blackout, from now on, renewable energy and EV's will take the blame. That blame will grow and grow into a movement to rival all the greens in the country and overwhelm them.
Far from the UK leading a charge to 0 carbon emissions, the danger is that the UK will go with Germany and drive the other way into Coal.
Is that really what the "Renewable Energy" people want? Honestly I thought they wanted what I did.