2021 Climate Change

[kamkar]

I think base load have something to do with fluctuations in power consumption, as you probably know this power usage can fluctuate quite significant, and not all forms of power generation can ramp up fast enough to deal with spikes like that.
these fusion plants there are pretty much no incentive to power them down once they are up and running, so they will be ready at a notice warning, of course you could do the same with a coal plant but that would not be environmentally right to do, a nuclear power plant can probably too ramp up pretty fast.
Anyway with wind as it is right now at least, you do run the risk of having 100ds of windmills sitting idle as there is no wind,,,,, of course fuel to X will remedy that to some degree at least.
Anyway you look at it and with power usage only going up, it is one of the arguments for the smaller local power grids some advocate for, and i can also see the advantages of those, i just cant see how they could be implemented in a metropolis, and more and more people move towards big cities,,,,,,, for reasons i do not fully comprehend as a somewhat introvert person.

 

[Dashmellow]

What is this "base load"? It is always presented as an amount that is always used and which wind can't provide, so something else must be used. But overnight our wind can provide all the power we use, Denmark's wind can provide far more than they use, so everything else can be switched off, or put to other uses like generating hydrogen. If anything, it is wind that provides the base load, everything else is there to top up during peak loads, or calm weather, and that is something nuclear power is extremely poor at doing, and if you try using nuclear for that purpose then it becomes very expensive. The best use for nuclear seems to be for things that need constant load, things like aluminium smelters and hydrogen generators, however with wind power becoming so cheap, those uses would rather build some extra capacity and overproduce during windy times and underproduce during calm times, in return for even cheaper power.

You obviously don't understand the concept of base load power.

Base Load power refers to the minimum amount of electric power needed to be supplied to the electrical grid at any given time. Therefore there are base load power plants like nuclear and coal fired plants which provide the minimum needed electricity, and peaking power plants which meet the fluctuating needs. Base load power plants often must supply reliable power to the grid 24/7. Demand for electricity fluctuates vastly throughout a day, so base load power is not necessarily enough. The grid requires the use of peaking power, which is electricity supplied to match the varying demand in electricity. Natural gas and reservoir hydro power are examples of peaking power plants. Solar and wind are intermittent power sources and may be considered ancillary peaking power plants. They are definitely NOT categorized as base load, however you may wish to rationalize them to be. Increasingly, we are seeing technical improvements that allow for the storage of wind and solar power but that still does no make them base load.

 

[Dashmellow]

When a measurement is quoted in inches I know exactly how long that is. Over here they insist on using centimetres and they mean nothing to me and I have to convert them.

I was brought up with feet and inches. The only US difference from the UK that springs to mind is that peoples weight is always quoted in pounds where we used to use stones and pounds. We are now using kilograms which again mean nothing and I have to use a converter.

My rain gauge has both centimeters and inches but I find the inch measurements easier to see from a distance when I look out my window since the increments are so much larger, plus here in the US inches are the common measurement for rain. Personally, I use both centimeters and inches for measurements depending on what I am measuring.

 

[kamkar]

Yeah if everyone's favorite footy team just lost, there would probably be a spike as people turn off everything at home and head for the pub to drown their sorrows.
On the lead up to that as everyone turn of TV and other appliances to prepare treats for the fight you also see a spike, and if that is not met instantly you will drop below the base line, and then darkness will fall upon the town.
ANd footy fans whos team play that all important match tonight, they will probably be quite miffed as hardcore fans of just about anything can get.

 

[kamkar]

I do my best to accommodate the people on imperial units, even if i think they should get real and join the metric bandwagon, and it is not always i am successful.
But it is what it is, and i also think things are changing, though at a slow pace.

 

[Dashmellow]

Speaking of alternative power sources such as solar and wind, I'm often surprised that ocean wave power has not become as widely adopted as I once thought it would be. There are all kinds of fascinating design possibilities including one that floats on the surface of the ocean like a ribbon undulating in the waves.

In New York City, there has been an fascinating and ongoing pilot project going on that was announced in 2012 and first installed in 2015 that placed tidal turbines at the bottom of the East River. It is essentially like a wind farm underwater in a major river known for very strong tidal currents. Now Verdant, the company behind the project is field testing a new tri-frame design.

Tidal Testing Underway in New York’s East River

In 2020, Verdant Power deployed their fifth generation Free Flow System turbines with their new TriFrame™ mount in New York’s East River.

www.energy.gov

3 Tidal Turbines
 Pop Into New York City's East River - CleanTechnica

Marine energy company Verdant Power has plopped three tidal power turbines into New York City's East River on one array. This is called the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) Project, and it is indeed the first US-licensed tidal power project.

cleantechnica.com

 

[Nigel]

Base Load power refers to the minimum amount of electric power needed to be supplied to the electrical grid at any given time. Therefore there are base load power plants like nuclear and coal fired plants which provide the minimum needed electricity,

In the UK, the cheapest power comes from wind, so wind is used in preference to other sources, the minimum amount that wind can't supply is effectively zero, thus the base load as in your definition is zero. We no longer have base load from coal, I think we only have one coal plant left now, and that only operates when the weather forecast predicts low winds, so it is used for fill in, not base load. We do have some "base load" from nuclear, but that sometimes produces too much and we have to sell it to our neighbours because it can't be turned off, sometimes for negative prices, so it is not actually used as base load either. Currently we do have about 3GW of gas that is effectively real base load because it can't be shut off because it is providing emergency backup power, but that is being replaced by batteries and is scheduled to lose it's base load status in a few years time. Currently that gas causes a problem with us having to pay the wind turbine operators to turn off the wind turbines at times, thus wasting zero carbon power and burning fossil fuels instead.

Base load power plants do not make sense when cheap wind power can provide all the power some of the time.

 

[kamkar]

Lots of power in moving water.
I remember on TV seeing a experiment in NYC i think it was, where they wanted to put a turbine in the river, it was hard as they could only work at a short time due to current speeds, and when they got it installed it was also promptly broken by the immense powers.

Here we have the 3 belts ( great belt and little belt and Oresund between the Danish capitol and Sweden ), and behind them the Baltic sea as a "reservoir" but the currents dont run that fast in those belts as i recall, but maybe if we plugged one or more of them.
Then there also is the Kiel channel to account for.

BUT blocking a belt or two would be extremely harmful for marine life i am sure.

I am wondering some places have OMG tidal changes, why we Danes have so little of that I difference between low tide and high tide )

 

[Nigel]

Speaking of alternative power sources such as solar and wind, I'm often surprised that ocean wave power has not become as widely adopted as I once thought it would be. There are all kinds of fascinating design possibilities including one that floats on the surface of the ocean like a ribbon undulating in the waves.

We have been trying wave power since the 1970s, never close to being economically viable, and generally it gets destroyed by the waves after a while. There are still new designs appearing, but it is hard to see it ever being cheaper than wind, and it will never produce power when there is a lack of wind.

Tidal is a different matter, there are some promising tidal systems in trial, but they never seem to get beyond trial stage, and even the biggest are tiny compared to a single offshore wind turbine. Maybe one day.

680 tonnes for just 2MW of power, makes the wind turbines look very attractive investments:

'Most powerful' tidal turbine starts generating electricity off Orkney

The Orbital O2, which is anchored off Orkney, has the capacity to meet the annual power demand of 2,000 homes.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Dashmellow]

In the UK, the cheapest power comes from wind, so wind is used in preference to other sources, the minimum amount that wind can't supply is effectively zero, thus the base load as in your definition is zero. We no longer have base load from coal, I think we only have one coal plant left now, and that only operates when the weather forecast predicts low winds, so it is used for fill in, not base load. We do have some "base load" from nuclear, but that sometimes produces too much and we have to sell it to our neighbours because it can't be turned off, sometimes for negative prices, so it is not actually used as base load either. Currently we do have about 3GW of gas that is effectively real base load because it can't be shut off because it is providing emergency backup power, but that is being replaced by batteries and is scheduled to lose it's base load status in a few years time. Currently that gas causes a problem with us having to pay the wind turbine operators to turn off the wind turbines at times, thus wasting zero carbon power and burning fossil fuels instead.

Base load power plants do not make sense when cheap wind power can provide all the power some of the time.

Like I said, however you wish to rationalize it, wind power is not base load power. Plus you are a relatively small island nation where your alternate sources of power are far more easily achieved. For some reason you consistently hold up the UK as some sort of superior shining example compared to vastly larger nations, essentially the size of continents where the transition to wind and solar or the ability to eliminate existing true base load sources are magnitudes greater. It's like turning around a row boat compared to an aircraft carrier.

 

[Nigel]

Lots of power in moving water.
I remember on TV seeing a experiment in NYC i think it was, where they wanted to put a turbine in the river, it was hard as they could only work at a short time due to current speeds, and when they got it installed it was also promptly broken by the immense powers.

Here we have the 3 belts ( great belt and little belt and Oresund between the Danish capitol and Sweden ), and behind them the Baltic sea as a "reservoir" but the currents dont run that fast in those belts as i recall, but maybe if we plugged one or more of them.
Then there also is the Kiel channel to account for.

BUT blocking a belt or two would be extremely harmful for marine life i am sure.

I am wondering some places have OMG tidal changes, why we Danes have so little of that I difference between low tide and high tide )

We have been trying to build a tidal barrage, blocking part of the Severn Estuary for many years, but there are two problems. The one that stops it being built is the devastation it would cause to the estuary bird life. Although it may well do as much good as harm, there would certainly be huge changes to the natural environment. And the other reason is that the power produced would be far less than a single offshore wind farm, more like a single turbine!

 

[Dashmellow]

We have been trying wave power since the 1970s, never close to being economically viable, and generally it gets destroyed by the waves after a while. There are still new designs appearing, but it is hard to see it ever being cheaper than wind, and it will never produce power when there is a lack of wind.

Tidal is a different matter, there are some promising tidal systems in trial, but they never seem to get beyond trial stage, and even the biggest are tiny compared to a single offshore wind turbine. Maybe one day.

680 tonnes for just 2MW of power, makes the wind turbines look very attractive investments:

'Most powerful' tidal turbine starts generating electricity off Orkney

The Orbital O2, which is anchored off Orkney, has the capacity to meet the annual power demand of 2,000 homes.

www.bbc.co.uk

How can you say it will be cheaper than wind? You don't know that. What is being proposed for the East River is a vast array of ultra-reliable turbines that function 24/7 12 months a year.

 

[Nigel]

How can you say it will be cheaper than wind? You don't know that. What is being proposed for the East River is a vast array of ultra-reliable turbines that function 24/7 12 months a year.

The problem with river systems is that they don't provide enough power:

Verdant Power co-founder and chief marketing officer Trey Taylor says: “Given the East River’s depth and tidal current speed of 2.25m/s, the company’s fifth-generation system or ‘commercial standard system’ has been tailored to this site by using 5m diameter rotors with 35kW nameplate generators – three to a single TriFrame or 105kW. Since installation on 22 October, the TriFrame has generated an average 1MWh per day or enough power for 500 Manhattan apartments.”

That needs 500 turbines to produce the same power as a single offshore wind turbine, obviously the single wind turbine that can be installed in a single day will be far cheaper!

 

[Nigel]

Like I said, however you wish to rationalize it, wind power is not base load power. Plus you are a relatively small island nation where your alternate sources of power are far more easily achieved. For some reason you consistently hold up the UK as some sort of superior shining example compared to vastly larger nations, essentially the size of continents where the transition to wind and solar or the ability to eliminate existing true base load sources are magnitudes greater. It's like turning around a row boat compared to an aircraft carrier.

Both Wind and Solar have the same issues, so USA will end up in the same situation UK currently has in a decade or two, assuming you keep to your commitments! Unless something totally unexpected emerges with fusion power.

 

[kamkar]

Well our American friends, once they get up to running speed, they really move, so fast that their women left at home have to drop everything and man "the pumps" So i would not rule those guys out.

I really hate those equal rights women, for instance here there are now talks about making laws to that women can get into company boards and so on, solely based on equality by numbers, and they call that equality.
These "female dog + plural" dont know it was more or less woman that won the 2 world war,,,,,, sure all the men did the fighting, but if women had not done what they did the men would have their fists to fight with and nothing more.
And i am not even going to mention all the wonderful women in science that have given us so much, and many of them on top of that while being severely discriminated against.
I am also pretty sure if women dropped everything else and when all in on becoming a company CEO one day, they also can, and the only thing stopping them would be them self, its sure as hell not men or Danish society that do it.
But of course then, well forget about 8 hour work days, forget about getting kids and making a family, cuz if you think you can have it all just cuz you are a woman,,,,,, forget it.

And now i better stop as i have been called a misogynist in here before.

 

[Nigel]

sure all the men did the fighting

Meet the Night Witches, the Daring Female Pilots Who Bombed Nazis By Night | HISTORY

They were a crucial Soviet asset to winning World War II.

www.history.com

 

[Dashmellow]

The problem with river systems is that they don't provide enough power:


That needs 500 turbines to produce the same power as a single offshore wind turbine, obviously the single wind turbine that can be installed in a single day will be far cheaper!

Please pay attention. This is a PILOT project. If successful it will be rolled out internationally. As the CEO explains, it is "tailored to this site" and not meant to produce huge amounts of power at this point. It is a proof of concept project that may be expanded. As the CEO further explains, in production it will use turbines that are at least twice the size and be deployed in other river environments on a vaster scale like in the animated demo video I posted.

 

[kamkar]

Yep have to start somewhere.
Here it was pretty much hippies back in the day.

 

[kamkar]

Danish wind history

 

[Dashmellow]

It Rained at the Summit of Greenland. That’s Never Happened Before. (Published 2021)

The showers are another troubling sign of a changing Arctic, which is warming faster than any other region on Earth.

www.nytimes.com

Something extraordinary happened last Saturday at the frigid high point of the Greenland ice sheet, two miles in the sky and more than 500 miles above the Arctic Circle: It rained for the first time.

The rain at a research station — not just a few drops or a drizzle but a stream for several hours, as temperatures rose slightly above freezing — is yet another troubling sign of a changing Arctic, which is warming faster than any other region on the planet.

“It’s incredible, because it does write a new chapter in the book of Greenland,” said Marco Tedesco, a researcher at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. “This is really new.”