Germany facing blackouts...

Potemkin Villager · Post by **Potemkin Villager** » 02 Sep 2011, 19:11

Whilst this is all fascinating stuff it does rather avoid just a tad the ever so ticklish question as to wether closing down nukes in Germany will lead to blackouts!

Give the age of the nuke fleet in the UK this is not a question of purely academic interest.

Just because a story appears in the Daily Mail and our attention is drawn to it by LB3 does not mean there is not a single iota of truth in it.

I would be truly interested to hear some workable ideas as to how to run an electricity grid system mainly with intermittent renewables and no base load generating plant.........

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 02 Sep 2011, 20:41

I would be truly interested to hear some workable ideas as to how to run an electricity grid system mainly with intermittent renewables and no base load generating plant.........

Yes, I'm looking forward to this?!

JavaScriptDonkey · Post by **JavaScriptDonkey** » 02 Sep 2011, 23:39

Roger Adair wrote:
I would be truly interested to hear some workable ideas as to how to run an electricity grid system mainly with intermittent renewables and no base load generating plant.........

You certainly can't run hospitals and industry on an intermittent supply.

You'd need geothermal or lots of low head hydro to generate a base and hope it's sunny and windy when it's time for your emergency operation.

As we're on an island I rather like the idea of using tidal flow but I'd led to believe it needs a significant drop to be viable.

Potemkin Villager · Post by **Potemkin Villager** » 03 Sep 2011, 12:27

The following is from the impartial World Nuclear Association but presumably cannot all be lies!

"Denmark's electricity mix

Robust connection between Norway's hydro turbines and West Denmark's wind turbines holds the key to successful exploitation of wind for Denmark, and the German and Swedish connections are nearly as importantc. The power imported from Sweden (6.6 billion kWh in 2008, 5.0 billion kWh in 2007, 1.7 billion kWh in 2006, 7.6 billion kWh in 2005) is almost half nuclear and half hydro. The power imported from Germany (1.4 billion kWh in 2008, 1.5 billion kWh in 2007, 4.0 billion kWh in 2006, 0.6 billion kWh in 2005) is largely generated by brown coal and nuclear power. (Germany itself imports 11 to 17 billion kWh/yr from France, which is 75-80% nuclear.) Norway is almost all hydro.

Hence nuclear power provides an essential part of Denmark's electricity. In 2008, with imports of 1.4 billion kWh from Germany and 6.6 billion kWh from Sweden, it would seem that about 3.6 billion kWh used was nuclear – nearly 11% of total final consumption, and over half of the domestic consumption from wind."

Denmark is of course an interesting case in energy terms having dumped domestic nuclear power years ago but in reality still heavily dependent on non domestic nuclear power. If Germany goes down the same path the question remains as to where the Danes are going to substitute their imports from Germany?

Take away the balancing supplies from Norwegian hydro and nuclear imports from Germany and Scandanavia and all those gleaming Danish windturbines become just so much useless junk!

An Inspector Calls · Post by **An Inspector Calls** » 03 Sep 2011, 15:34

Germany is connected to the European Grid. They'll import (nuke) from France.

We'll just have to hope we can manage without the French inter-connector this winter . . .

Potemkin Villager · Post by **Potemkin Villager** » 03 Sep 2011, 20:45

I expect it may be some very considerable time indeed before anybody responds with workable ideas as to how to run an electricity grid system mainly with intermittent renewables and no base load generating plant. This is probably because there really aren't any and this appears to be the mission impossible that Merkel has committed Germany to pursue.

Given Germany's historical record with politically inspired and ambitious, nay even grandiose, adventures that have ended badly for all concerned this Green dream has a high potential to turn into at best a farce and at worst a nightmarish disaster.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 04 Sep 2011, 08:40

Roger Adair wrote:I expect it may be some very considerable time indeed before anybody responds with workable ideas as to how to run an electricity grid system mainly with intermittent renewables and no base load generating plant.

CAT did a couple of years ago and it's been discussed at length on PS so I don't suppose anybody has much new to add. Your question was framed in a loaded way. Why not just, how do we provide the country's electricity needs without burning fossil fuels or using uranium?

Of course it is possible, with demand reduction being at the head of the strategy list.

JavaScriptDonkey · Post by **JavaScriptDonkey** » 04 Sep 2011, 09:40

biffvernon wrote:
CAT did a couple of years ago and it's been discussed at length on PS so I don't suppose anybody has much new to add. Your question was framed in a loaded way. Why not just, how do we provide the country's electricity needs without burning fossil fuels or using uranium?

Of course it is possible, with demand reduction being at the head of the strategy list.

Your question is also loaded.

Surely it should be how do we provide for the country's electricity needs without generating harmful by products?

I'd be surprised if we managed to achieve it in this country with anything other than gravity (hydro & tidal) although geothermal would be nice.

Ludwig · Post by **Ludwig** » 04 Sep 2011, 09:42

Roger Adair wrote: Given Germany's historical record with politically inspired and ambitious, nay even grandiose, adventures that have ended badly for all concerned this Green dream has a high potential to turn into at best a farce and at worst a nightmarish disaster.

What a cheap argument. Mention anything positive about Germany and along comes the knee-jerk response, "Bunch of Nazis."

I wonder how many people who slag off Germany have any knowledge of the place or ever stop to consider its mostly principled and admirable economic and moral stances since the War.

You sound like we're somehow the wise guys here and Germany is getting it all wrong. As least they're trying to do the right thing.

It's as well to be reminded that the Allied powers were just as responsible as the German people for Hitler's rise, by choosing to squeeze its economy to the point of inevitable political instability. If you think it couldn't happen here, just wait.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 04 Sep 2011, 11:56

Stop in the name of Godwin's Law!

JavaScriptDonkey · Post by **JavaScriptDonkey** » 04 Sep 2011, 12:10

biffvernon wrote:Stop in the name of Godwin's Law!

Further to the base load generation thing, I had a look at the online version of a book I've yet to buy (Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air - MacKay).

His take on tidal can be summarised with a quote,

Totting everything up, the barrage, the lagoons, and the tidal stream farms could deliver something like 11 kWh/d per person (figure 14.10).

There's a lot of reasoned analysis to get to that figure and he doesn't fail to mention the problems. I'm convinced we'll be forced into it despite the glamour of wind farms and I suspect we'll find out that it's good to live on an island.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 04 Sep 2011, 12:17

JavaScriptDonkey wrote: 11 kWh/d per person

That's exactly what our household of three people has bought, averaged over the last 12 months. So I guess that leaves plenty to spare for all the electricity we use embedded in stuff we buy and the lights in the library.

Potemkin Villager · Post by **Potemkin Villager** » 04 Sep 2011, 13:03

JavaScriptDonkey wrote:
biffvernon wrote:Stop in the name of Godwin's Law!

Totting everything up, the barrage, the lagoons, and the tidal stream farms could deliver something like 11 kWh/d per person (figure 14.10).
There's a lot of reasoned analysis to get to that figure and he doesn't fail to mention the problems. I'm convinced we'll be forced into it despite the glamour of wind farms and I suspect we'll find out that it's good to live on an island.

I like the bit about the "glamour" of windfarms.

In deference to Ludwig's sensitivities I will repeat:-

This is a mission impossible that Merkel has committed Germany to pursue as the result of a cynical populist political stroke made with no thought or care to the consequences to be faced by her successors.

Given Germany's preoccupation with zeitgeist, not to mention inter alia, angst, sorge, scheitern and geworfenheit this illusory green dream has a high potential to turn into at best a farce and at worst a nightmarish disaster.

No doubt experts from CAT will be advising them on how to manage with only nice green electrons without the benefit of any nasty radioactive ones in their generating mix.

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Potemkin Villager · Post by **Potemkin Villager** » 04 Sep 2011, 13:08

Ludwig wrote:
As least they're trying to do the right thing.

And what exactly is this "right thing" they are trying to do?

JavaScriptDonkey · Post by **JavaScriptDonkey** » 04 Sep 2011, 13:30

Roger Adair wrote:
Ludwig wrote:
As least they're trying to do the right thing.

And what exactly is this "right thing" they are trying to do?

I think he's assuming that nuclear is necessarily A Bad Thing.

Certainly poorly designed, cheaply built and slovenly maintained nuclear is potentially A Bad Thing but beyond that I think we're down to propaganda.

For instance, many know that Fukushima released radioactive material into the sea but how many know that Uranium is already naturally in the sea at a density of 3.3mg/m^3?

A life time's high level nuclear waste per person in the UK runs to about 2litres in total with a cost subsidy per unit of around 4p. Also known as about half the wind subsidy.

Nuclear Power? Probably for many years yet.