In article <6f39a294-e426-5b01-8e71-bd42745047fa@outlook.com>, Robin
<rbw@outlook.com> wrote:
> On 18/12/2022 16:14, Andy Burns wrote:
> > Robin wrote:
> >
> >> The excess profits it now gives renewables have been tackled by
> >> Contracts for Difference for newer plant. They make generators to
> >> pay if prices are high. But you can't impose CfD's on non-CfD plant.
> >> At least, you can't if you intend to work within the law.
> >
> > If you're .gov.uk, you could if you wanted to surely? ...

> Jim in past posts has indicated he thinks so. I think I've indicated
> before that I'd like to see the legal advice that companies would not
> win a legal challenge. (And for any who doubt it, I can assure you
> companies /do/ have rights under the ECHR and HRA.)

Our current Westminster Gov are in the process of altering such things, but
for their own reasons.

> What the government has pursued are changes to the market as a whole.
> The Energy Prices Act 2022 (Royal Assent on 25/10/22) provided for HMG
> to /offer/ CfD to existing generators and to charge generators getting
> "supernormal" profits. Jim et al may think that too little too late but
> it's notable that the EU struggled to revise its energy market which
> similarly relied on marginal pricing. -

Saying that someone else finds it difficult isn't an excuse for a failure
to act in the National interest when we suffer as a result of an Act of
War.

As it stands the 'discountred' (but still very high) prices we are paying
for Energy will be followed by years of paying far more for the 'borrowing'
being used. In effect, UK Gov is giving us a 'discount' that is really
purchase on the 'never never' at extortionate prices. Tantamount to Loan
Sharking. I do wonder how many MPs have shares in the gas-producing
companies, or get 'consultantcies', etc, from them.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
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In article <5841b429-50c6-3b4f-3409-f1a0b592ea8b@outlook.com>, Robin
<rbw@outlook.com> wrote:

> I think you probably have in mind marginal pricing under which, broadly
> speaking, the most expensive supply sets the price for the whole market.
> That is the approach that was adopted by most electricity markets in
> Europe as efficiency, transparent and a way to encourage low-cost
> generation. Ed the bacon-eater was all for it to encourage renewables.

I appreciate the intent. But not the consequences. The point is that
contracts on a level that impact on the National level like this may need
to have arrangements for when there is an Act of War. Or be pre-empted by
Gov on that basis.

> The excess profits it now gives renewables have been tackled by
> Contracts for Difference for newer plant. They make generators to pay
> if prices are high. But you can't impose CfD's on non-CfD plant. At
> least, you can't if you intend to work within the law.

As above.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
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Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On Mon, 19 Dec 2022 14:15:46 +0000, alan_m <junk@admac.myzen.co.uk>
wrote:

>On 18/12/2022 10:21, Jim Lesurf wrote:
>
>>> And a fire risk if any part of the car gets dented and the damage to one
>>> of the solar panels results in a short circuit.
>>
>> Fortunately, petrol/diesel cars never catch fire in a collision....
>> erm....
>
>Its not the solar panels that are necessarily the main risk in a major
>crash of a EV.
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQZ6lTefEYs

Scary.

It looks as though flaming battery cars have to be left where they are
in a skip full of water for a long time until no longer considered
dangerous, a bit like nuclear waste. Although the timescales are very
different it must make the clearance of a road after such a mishap a
lot more difficult.At least they deliberatelty choose lonely places
for nuclear installations but there won't always be space to leave a
great big skip full of water by the side of a busy road.

Rod

In article <5a592d5eadnoise@audiomisc.co.uk>,
Jim Lesurf <noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote:

> The point is that contracts on a level that impact on the National
> level like this may need to have arrangements for when there is an
> Act of War. Or be pre-empted by Gov on that basis.

I presume the war you're referring to is Putin? Putin is/was a
predictable issue and Trump did just that, he told the Germans what
would happen, he was right.

The act of war was really pressure groups and activists getting our
own energy sources and storage destroyed to the serious detriment of
the country.

We now have the insane situation where not only wood chip but now
fracked gas is transported by CO2 producing ships across the
Atlantic. The last two weeks we've seen yet again how unreliables are
useless when you need them most.

We have a shortage of gas that people need for 23 million gas boilers
in people's homes and our generators need for electricity. The cost
of energy is so high people are cold in their homes with no heating.
A monument to utter and pointless stupidity.

Under these conditions Sunak's decision not to frack is for me
criminal. Perhaps he's not happy they've killed enough people with
lockdowns.

Bob.

Bob Latham <bob@sick-of-spam.invalid> wrote:
> In article <5a592d5eadnoise@audiomisc.co.uk>,
> Jim Lesurf <noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> The point is that contracts on a level that impact on the National
>> level like this may need to have arrangements for when there is an
>> Act of War. Or be pre-empted by Gov on that basis.
>
> I presume the war you're referring to is Putin? Putin is/was a
> predictable issue and Trump did just that, he told the Germans what
> would happen, he was right.
>
> The act of war was really pressure groups and activists getting our
> own energy sources and storage destroyed to the serious detriment of
> the country.
>
> We now have the insane situation where not only wood chip but now
> fracked gas is transported by CO2 producing ships across the
> Atlantic. The last two weeks we've seen yet again how unreliables are
> useless when you need them most.
>
> We have a shortage of gas that people need for 23 million gas boilers
> in people's homes and our generators need for electricity. The cost
> of energy is so high people are cold in their homes with no heating.
> A monument to utter and pointless stupidity.
>
> Under these conditions Sunak's decision not to frack is for me
> criminal. Perhaps he's not happy they've killed enough people with
> lockdowns.
>
>
> Bob.
>
>

Fracking may not be the nivirna you hope it is. Note the section about
energy bills.

I also don’t understand the hostility to renewables. Setting the eco
arguments to one side for a moment, what is wrong with using renewables
when they are available and just firing up your thermal plant for those
relatively short periods when renewables can’t provide? Sure it costs more
in capital costs, but not burning fossil fuels for electricity generation
saves an awful lot of foreign exchange payments. The simple fact is we
don’t have enough UK gas, even if we did frack. It’s best to burn as little
of it as possible on simple economic grounds. Nuclear might be a longer
term help, but we’ve neglected building plant and it’s going to be more
than a decade before any significant extra capacity becomes available.

https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/what-potential-reserves-of-shale-gas-are-there-in-the-uk/

Security of gas supply

It has also been suggested that it would increase security of gas supply
for the UK. Domestic production of natural gas from the UK continental
shelf reached a peak in 2000 and declined significantly until 2012. The UK
now imports about half of the natural gas it consumes for heating and
electricity generation. The UK Oil and Gas Authority projected in September
2021 that UK production of natural gas (excluding shale gas) would decline
from 34.9 bcm in 2020 to 8.9 bcm in 2035. The Warwick Business School study
of March 2020 that calculated that UK production of shale gas could meet
between 17 and 22 per cent of UK cumulative consumption between 2020 and
2050, stated that “should the UK wish to have a shale gas industry its role
will be to mask the declining production of the UK [continental shelf] and
displace a limited quantity of imports”. It added: “It will not be a UK
shale gas revolution, but rather an exercise in slowing the increase in
import dependence, thereby improving the UK’s Balance of Payments”.

Energy bills

Some have also suggested that UK shale gas production would reduce the cost
of energy for UK consumers. However, this is based on the false assumption
that UK shale gas would be sold significantly below the international
market price for natural gas. A study published in March 2020 by Warwick
Business School pointed out: “It is widely recognised that the open and
liberal nature of the UK’s gas market means that the market price – the
National Balancing Point (NBP) – is unlikely to be influenced by shale gas
development.”

Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:

> I also don’t understand the hostility to renewables. Setting the eco
> arguments to one side for a moment, what is wrong with using renewables
> when they are available and just firing up your thermal plant for those
> relatively short periods when renewables can’t provide?

What is wrong with renewables?

Let's Do Some Sums.

Take the case of a 1GW load initially supplied by a 1GW CCGT.

The greenies, who as a class Can't Don't Sums, then insist on saving the
planet by adding a 1GW wind farm.

Because they Can't Do Sums, they believe that 'the wind always blows
somewhere' - refusing to believe that sometimes the wind doesn't blow on
their subsidy farm.

In the real world, wind-based subsidy farms produce 36% of plated capacity.

[ 75,610GWh from 11018 windmills for 2020 = 35.9% of the plated
capacity of 24GW]

So when the wind doesn't blow, or isn't blowing strongly enough, or is
blowing too hard, the CCGT has to cut in to supply the missing power.

Now for the sums, using real-world figures:

The CCGT running all the time, and therefore in its optimal
configuration, might be 60% efficient. It therefore uses 1/0.6 = 1.67GW
of gas per GW produced.

But with the subsidy farm now in operation, the CCGT now has to supply
0.64GW of electricity, in a variable-power regime in which it is not
efficient. The actual efficiency can vary from 0% at start-up, and 25%
to when the combined cycle kicks in, to 40% in the throttled-back case.

Let's not frighten the greenies, and therefore pretend that the CCGT is
now 40% efficient as a backup to the subsidy farm. It therefore uses
0.64/0.4 GW of gas, or 1.6GW of gas to produce the missing 0.64GW of
electricity.

So, the planet-saving subsidy farm has saved, at great expense and a lot
of concrete, un-recyclable plastics, and dead birds, very little gas at
all, under the best circumstances. Rather different than the greenies
hand-waving claims.

Most of us would regard that as LUDICROUS.

Solar is even worse. Some 12% efficient overall.

These real-world problems, that those that Can't Do Sums shut their eyes
to, are caused by the Achilles Heel of renewables: INTERMITTENCY.

--
Spike

On 20/12/2022 13:26, Bob Latham wrote:
>
> In article <5a592d5eadnoise@audiomisc.co.uk>,
> Jim Lesurf <noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> The point is that contracts on a level that impact on the National
>> level like this may need to have arrangements for when there is an
>> Act of War. Or be pre-empted by Gov on that basis.
>
> I presume the war you're referring to is Putin? Putin is/was a
> predictable issue and Trump did just that, he told the Germans what
> would happen, he was right.

On the contrary, Trump was an open admirer of Putin, even to the extent
that on 6th January 2021 he tried to Putinise the American democratic
system. Fortunately he failed, and now the legal chickens are coming
home to roost:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jan-6-trump-criminal-referrals-b2248144.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/19/key-conclusions-house-committee-trump-criminal-referrals-jan-6

Etc, etc, those being just today's stories about the many and various
legal nooses now tightening around Trump.

> The act of war was really pressure groups and activists getting our
> own energy sources and storage destroyed to the serious detriment of
> the country.

Or rather the government back in 2017, one that you voted for, failing
to see the strategic need for energy storage. And mostly they were not
destroyed, rather mothballed due to safety issues which were deemed
uneconomic to repair at the then current market price of gas, and are
now partially being brought back into service:

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/british-gas-owner-centrica-reopens-rough-gas-storage-site-2022-10-28/

> We now have the insane situation where not only wood chip but now
> fracked gas is transported by CO2 producing ships across the
> Atlantic. The last two weeks we've seen yet again how unreliables are
> useless when you need them most.

FALSE!

https://gridwatch.co.uk/
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1107502/Energy_Trends_September_2022.pdf
(p12 chart 5.2)

Renewables are currently generating half the UK's electricity demand,
have made a significant contribution to generation over the past two
months, and over the last four years have been approximately on a par
with fossil fuel generation.

> We have a shortage of gas that people need for 23 million gas boilers
> in people's homes and our generators need for electricity. The cost
> of energy is so high people are cold in their homes with no heating.
> A monument to utter and pointless stupidity.

.... of successive UK governments following the mantra that all public
services should operate within a 'market', even if it means creating a
totally artificial one, the botched creation of the electricity market
being largely responsible for the high prices that we are suffering now.

> Under these conditions Sunak's decision not to frack is for me
> criminal. Perhaps he's not happy they've killed enough people with
> lockdowns.

PUERILE PARANOIA! There is no rational connection between current
electricity prices and lockdowns.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

Java Jive wrote:

> FALSE!
>
> https://gridwatch.co.uk/
>
> Renewables are currently generating half the UK's electricity demand

Right now, that's close enough to true.

For yesterday and today, top two graphs, wind (cyan) and solar (yellow) dominate

<https://gridwatch.co.uk/demand/percent>

but look at this whole year and last whole year, bottom two graphs
gas (light brown) dominates.

Spike <Aero.Spike@mail.invalid> wrote:
> Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I also don’t understand the hostility to renewables. Setting the eco
>> arguments to one side for a moment, what is wrong with using renewables
>> when they are available and just firing up your thermal plant for those
>> relatively short periods when renewables can’t provide?
>
> What is wrong with renewables?
>
> Let's Do Some Sums.
>
> Take the case of a 1GW load initially supplied by a 1GW CCGT.
>
> The greenies, who as a class Can't Don't Sums, then insist on saving the
> planet by adding a 1GW wind farm.
>
> Because they Can't Do Sums, they believe that 'the wind always blows
> somewhere' - refusing to believe that sometimes the wind doesn't blow on
> their subsidy farm.
>
> In the real world, wind-based subsidy farms produce 36% of plated capacity.
>
> [ 75,610GWh from 11018 windmills for 2020 = 35.9% of the plated
> capacity of 24GW]
>
> So when the wind doesn't blow, or isn't blowing strongly enough, or is
> blowing too hard, the CCGT has to cut in to supply the missing power.
>
> Now for the sums, using real-world figures:
>
> The CCGT running all the time, and therefore in its optimal
> configuration, might be 60% efficient. It therefore uses 1/0.6 = 1.67GW
> of gas per GW produced.
>
> But with the subsidy farm now in operation, the CCGT now has to supply
> 0.64GW of electricity, in a variable-power regime in which it is not
> efficient. The actual efficiency can vary from 0% at start-up, and 25%
> to when the combined cycle kicks in, to 40% in the throttled-back case.
>
> Let's not frighten the greenies, and therefore pretend that the CCGT is
> now 40% efficient as a backup to the subsidy farm. It therefore uses
> 0.64/0.4 GW of gas, or 1.6GW of gas to produce the missing 0.64GW of
> electricity.
>
> So, the planet-saving subsidy farm has saved, at great expense and a lot
> of concrete, un-recyclable plastics, and dead birds, very little gas at
> all, under the best circumstances. Rather different than the greenies
> hand-waving claims.
>
> Most of us would regard that as LUDICROUS.
>
> Solar is even worse. Some 12% efficient overall.
>
> These real-world problems, that those that Can't Do Sums shut their eyes
> to, are caused by the Achilles Heel of renewables: INTERMITTENCY.
>

But your sums are based on the idea that the gas plant is throttled back
and that wind power comes and goes rapidly. Plant is not called for when
it’s known not to be needed and wind generation goes up and down on a
country sized scale relative slowly and can be forecast. As to solar
efficiency, that’s a different sort of number. The 88% of light you aren’t
converting to electricity isn’t being paid for nor can it be used for
anything else. I’m raising no green arguments at all, but I’m all for the
rational arguments of being as energy self sufficient as possible. Energy
security helps us stop sending our money out the door overseas and helps
reduce the political power of unsavoury governments that see energy as a
weapon. Already one of the major Middle Eastern LNG exporters to Europe is
making noises about cutting supply unless investigations into a major
bribery scandal are curtailed. Just ignore the green issues - burning gas
for electricity generation is a bad idea when you don’t have that much of
your own left. The days of living off the North Sea are drawing to a close.

On 20/12/2022 14:34, Andy Burns wrote:
> Java Jive wrote:
>
>> FALSE!
>>
>> https://gridwatch.co.uk/
>>
>> Renewables are currently generating half the UK's electricity demand
>
> Right now, that's close enough to true.
>
> For yesterday and today, top two graphs, wind (cyan) and solar (yellow)
> dominate
>
> <https://gridwatch.co.uk/demand/percent>
>
> but look at this whole year and last whole year, bottom two graphs
> gas (light brown) dominates.

That's effectively the same link as I gave above, but the monthly and
yearly averages are difficult to quantify by eye because they are split
into their individual components and are so variable and peaky, which is
why I went in search of a source that gave averages over longer
timespans, which I found at the link you snipped, and which shows that
fossil fuel and renewable generation have been roughly on a par with
each other over the last four years, both varying between a little under
30% to a maximum of 40%.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

Java Jive wrote:

> That's effectively the same link as I gave above, but the monthly and yearly
> averages are difficult to quantify by eye because they are split into their
> individual components

Ok, a site that does the integration for you, rather than by eye

<https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year&start=2021-12-20&&_k=as0f46>

look in the supply box on the left, next question, who counts what as renewable?

In article <tnseqr$mudt$1@dont-email.me>,
Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:

> Fracking may not be the nivirna you hope it is. Note the section
> about energy bills.

Nothing is Nirvana, nothing at all. We do though need gas and will do
for years ahead.

> I also don‘t understand the hostility to renewables. Setting the
> eco arguments to one side for a moment,

That certainly would be sensible as there's nothing eco about the
creation of wind turbines and ..

Very rough CO2 figures but
0.042% x 5% FF-burning x 1% UK = 0.000021%

And that's being very, very generous.

Especially when you consider the rate of increase of CO2 from China,
India, etc. if anyone thinks 0.000021% will have any effect at all
they're nuts. To cause the poverty and the suffering in the UK for
NetZero as we are doing is beyond my vocabulary to describe.

Suffering that the privileged elite will not suffer of course.

> what is wrong with using renewables when they are available and
> just firing up your thermal plant for those relatively short
> periods when renewables can‘t provide? Sure it costs more in
> capital costs,

A huge cost difference is the operating costs of plant that still has
all the overheads but now has to be fired up and shut down and cannot
run at optimum efficiency.

> but not burning fossil fuels for electricity
> generation saves an awful lot of foreign exchange payments.

Yet we refuse to develop the north sea or frack.

> The simple fact is we don‘t have enough UK gas, even if we did
> frack.

That's not a universally held opinion. Oh I'm quite sure that's part
of the narrative but many don't agree and people who I trust far more
than the government and institutions. I don't trust narratives any
longer, I look to see what's the reason behind them.

> It‘s best to burn as little of it as possible on simple
> economic grounds.

Right. Cheaper to get the USA to frack it, buy it off them at their
profit and ship it across the Atlantic.

> Nuclear might be a longer term help, but we‘ve
> neglected building plant and it‘s going to be more than a decade
> before any significant extra capacity becomes available.

Indeed so we need the gas now!

Bob.

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
> Java Jive wrote:

>> FALSE!

>> https://gridwatch.co.uk/

>> Renewables are currently generating half the UK's electricity demand

> Right now, that's close enough to true.

> For yesterday and today, top two graphs, wind (cyan) and solar (yellow) dominate

> <https://gridwatch.co.uk/demand/percent>

> but look at this whole year and last whole year, bottom two graphs
> gas (light brown) dominates.

A much better site, designed by a scientist/engineer, is

<https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/>

Look at the Monthly graph for Nuclear/Coal/CCGT/Wind. You’ll see that from
27th Nov to 17th Dec, apart from a handful of hours, CCGT produced far more
energy than Wind. A rough guess at the difference over that period suggests
a 6TWh energy shortfall by Wind. That is hard to dismiss.

The blocking High, circa 1044mb or a little higher, that brought this about
was centred on Central Russia. It was huge. If the North Sea was totally
covered in windmills, the energy shortfall would still be there. No Wind =
No Energy.

You can download raw data from the Templar site; it was specifically set up
to deal with the dreamy, hand-waving claims of the Renewables believers by
making available actual data rather than dreams or beliefs.

--
Spike

On 20/12/2022 15:45, Andy Burns wrote:
> Java Jive wrote:
>
>> That's effectively the same link as I gave above, but the monthly and
>> yearly averages are difficult to quantify by eye because they are
>> split into their individual components
>
> Ok, a site that does the integration for you, rather than by eye
>
> <https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year&start=2021-12-20&&_k=as0f46>
>
> look in the supply box on the left

Agrees well with the government source I linked above:

Total fossil fuels: 40.38%
Total renewables: 38.52%

> next question, who counts what as
> renewable?

Solar + Wind + Hydro + Pumped Storage + Biomass

What's your problem?

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 20/12/2022 14:45, Tweed wrote:
>
> Spike <Aero.Spike@mail.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> The greenies, who as a class Can't Don't Sums

This from the man who consistently accuses others of not being able to
do maths - including myself who has a 1st Class Honours in the subject
- but AFAICR whose own qualifications seem to be something to do with
contemporary dance?!

>> Let's not frighten the greenies, and therefore pretend that the CCGT is
>> now 40% efficient as a backup to the subsidy farm. It therefore uses
>> 0.64/0.4 GW of gas, or 1.6GW of gas to produce the missing 0.64GW of
>> electricity.

Regardless of the correctness or otherwise of his actual calculations,
they become irrelevant, which is why I've snipped most of his post, when
the important factor that he has completely missed is added in, which is
that only a small minority of the fossil-fuel generating capacity has to
be kept on standby when it's not actually required to generate:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1094628/DUKES_2022_Chapter_5.pdf

https://www.ft.com/content/1a223fe5-379d-471a-8749-2e15c3d39e39

From 1st:
Total fossil fuel capacity = 42.5GW

From 2nd:
Standby capacity = 5GW

So his calculations are out by a factor of 8.

> But your sums are based on

.... the usual anti-green bigotry leading to gross misrepresentation of
the facts.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 19/12/2022 21:00, Java Jive wrote:
> On 19/12/2022 14:32, alan_m wrote:
>>
>> If it is already known that mining of lithium involves unfair
>> exploitation of the workers could all the EV companies be guilty of
>> breaking modern slavery legislation if they sell EVs in the UK?
>
> Why single out EVs?  Lithium batteries are in all sorts of things
> besides EVs, this laptop I'm typing on, for example.  Yes, we need to
> prevent modern slavery, but equally across the board.

No more mobile phones apart from the brick type (that won't work as they
are analogue)! No more tablets!

TV is OK, and trannies powered by ZnC or NiMH. And mains powered desktops.

--
Max Demian

On 20/12/2022 14:16, Spike wrote:
> Because they Can't Do Sums, they believe that 'the wind always blows
> somewhere' - refusing to believe that sometimes the wind doesn't blow on
> their subsidy farm.

And there is a tendency for periods with no wind to coincide with very
cold weather in the Winter i.e. often short days and sometimes mist to
reduce light levels slightly.

MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
> On 20/12/2022 14:16, Spike wrote:

>> Because they Can't Do Sums, they believe that 'the wind always blows
>> somewhere' - refusing to believe that sometimes the wind doesn't blow on
>> their subsidy farm.

> And there is a tendency for periods with no wind to coincide with very
> cold weather in the Winter i.e. often short days and sometimes mist to
> reduce light levels slightly.

We’ve just enjoyed ~20 days like that, with an enormous 6TWh of energy
shortfall from wind over gas. More periods like this have been suggested
for early next year

Someone with an OU Science Foundation course will be along soon to explain
why this isn’t real, and to calculate the size of the battery farms needed
to power the gap. Sixty million car batteries take a lot of finding and a
lot of space.

--
Spike

Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
> On 20/12/2022 14:45, Tweed wrote:
>>
>> Spike <Aero.Spike@mail.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>> The greenies, who as a class Can't Don't Sums
>
> This from the man who consistently accuses others of not being able to
> do maths - including myself who has a 1st Class Honours in the subject
> - but AFAICR whose own qualifications seem to be something to do with
> contemporary dance?!

Getting the ad homs in early is one of your ineffective tactics. It makes
you look silly.

>>> Let's not frighten the greenies, and therefore pretend that the CCGT is
>>> now 40% efficient as a backup to the subsidy farm. It therefore uses
>>> 0.64/0.4 GW of gas, or 1.6GW of gas to produce the missing 0.64GW of
>>> electricity.
>
> Regardless of the correctness or otherwise of his actual calculations,
> they become irrelevant, which is why I've snipped most of his post, when
> the important factor that he has completely missed is added in, which is
> that only a small minority of the fossil-fuel generating capacity has to
> be kept on standby when it's not actually required to generate:
>
> https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1094628/DUKES_2022_Chapter_5.pdf

> https://www.ft.com/content/1a223fe5-379d-471a-8749-2e15c3d39e39

> From 1st:
> Total fossil fuel capacity = 42.5GW

From the first:

Generation from renewable sources decreased 9.3 per cent to 122.2 TWh in
2021. This was driven by less favourable weather conditions for wind, hydro
and solar generation. In particular, wind generation dropped to 64.7 TWh in
2021, down 14 per cent despite increased capacity. This was because of
unusually low average wind speeds across most of 2021.

Fossil fuel generation increased 11.0 per cent in 2021 to 131.4 TWh.
Increased demand for electricity and lower renewable generation increased
the need for fossil fuel generation.

The proportion of electricity generation coming from renewable sources fell
in 2021

> From 2nd:
> Standby capacity = 5GW

That’s behind a paywall.

But you’re saying that my figures, taken from actual operation rather than
wishful thinking, are wrong.

You are free to perform your own calculations for the scenario mentioned.
But for someone whose First Class Honours degree has second level studies
based on Music Appreciation, one could be forgiven for thinking that you
might struggle. This of course might be why you counter real-world argument
with links and a comment by you shouting FALSE! You don’t seem to be able
to gather data and process it for yourself. Perhaps that’s why your first
link shot down your own argument.

> So his calculations are out by a factor of 8.
>
>> But your sums are based on
>
> ... the usual anti-green bigotry leading to gross misrepresentation of
> the facts.

When you put forward a properly-worked counter, I’m sure we’ll be
interested to read it.

--
Spike

On 20/12/2022 16:20, Bob Latham wrote:

Fake news that has been reported to
n e w s @ i n d i v i d u a l . n e t
a b u s e @ i n d i v i d u a l . n e t

> In article <tnseqr$mudt$1@dont-email.me>,
> Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Fracking may not be the nivirna you hope it is. Note the section
>> about energy bills.
>
> Nothing is Nirvana, nothing at all. We do though need gas and will do
> for years ahead.
>
>> I also don‘t understand the hostility to renewables. Setting the
>> eco arguments to one side for a moment,
>
> That certainly would be sensible as there's nothing eco about the
> creation of wind turbines and ..
>
> Very rough CO2 figures but
> 0.042% x 5% FF-burning x 1% UK = 0.000021%
>
> And that's being very, very generous.

FALSE! Figures, maths, and therefore conclusions drawn are incorrect.

The first figure in the calculation is the current percentage of
atmospheric CO2, *NOT* its rate of change, but the other figures, where
they are correct at all, refer to annual contributions, ie rates of
change, so cannot be applied to the total atmospheric content of CO2, so
the maths is completely incorrect and misleading. Also ...

1) Man-made emissions have increased atmospheric CO2 by ...
(405-280)/280 = 45%
.... since the pre-industrial era, not 5%:

https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/01/the-global-co2-rise-the-facts-exxon-and-the-favorite-denial-tricks/

2) The UK is responsible for 4.6% of the world's cumulative emissions,
and this is the figure that should be being used in the above
calculation, not 1%, which is the UK's current annual contribution to
emissions:

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emissions

> Especially when you consider the rate of increase of CO2 from China,
> India, etc. if anyone thinks 0.000021% will have any effect at all
> they're nuts.

If we don't try to reduce our emissions, neither will other bigger
polluters.

> To cause the poverty and the suffering in the UK for
> NetZero as we are doing is beyond my vocabulary to describe.

FALSE!

Name a single case where a NetZero policy is causing poverty and
suffering in the UK!

> Suffering that the privileged elite will not suffer of course.
>
>> what is wrong with using renewables when they are available and
>> just firing up your thermal plant for those relatively short
>> periods when renewables can‘t provide? Sure it costs more in
>> capital costs,
>
> A huge cost difference is the operating costs of plant that still has
> all the overheads but now has to be fired up and shut down and cannot
> run at optimum efficiency.

FALSE!

As in my previous post, only 5/42.2GW = 12% of the fossil fuel plant is
required to be on standby, which in total adds about 1p to the cost of a
unit ...

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/jan/opinion-renewables-are-cheaper-ever-so-why-are-household-energy-bills-only-going

.... while the cost of generating by gas is about nine time that of
renewables. Here's The Guardian's round up of the midsummer madness of
fake news that was then being put about by the usual rent-a-mouth mob of
right-wing fakers and liars about the current high costs of electricity:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/25/fact-check-is-net-zero-really-to-blame-for-soaring-energy-bills-green-levies-renewables

>> but not burning fossil fuels for electricity
>> generation saves an awful lot of foreign exchange payments.
>
> Yet we refuse to develop the north sea or frack.

Fracking may well become allowed again, but the problem remains that not
many businesses seem much interested in a technology that will quickly
become a controversial millstone around their necks and may not be able
to repay the huge investment involved. See also below ...

>> The simple fact is we don‘t have enough UK gas, even if we did
>> frack.
>
> That's not a universally held opinion. Oh I'm quite sure that's part
> of the narrative but many don't agree

From The Guardian article above:

"Putting aside the fact that UK gas production has been steady for the
past decade, its longer-term decline is simply because “reserves are
running out”, the National Audit Office says.

[...]

Add in the UK’s decade of shale gas failure and Poland, where a parade
of oil firms gave up on fracking owing to “obstinate geology”, having
spent hundreds of millions of dollars."

> and people who I trust far more
> than the government and institutions. I don't trust narratives any
> longer, I look to see what's the reason behind them.

That's your problem, you don't trust facts, only liars who happen to
agree with your own bigoted opinions.

>> It‘s best to burn as little of it as possible on simple
>> economic grounds.
>
> Right. Cheaper to get the USA to frack it, buy it off them at their
> profit and ship it across the Atlantic.

Wrong, best to burn as little of it as possible on both economic and
environmental grounds.

>> Nuclear might be a longer term help, but we‘ve
>> neglected building plant and it‘s going to be more than a decade
>> before any significant extra capacity becomes available.
>
> Indeed so we need the gas now!

It was successive governments for which you successively voted that
neglected strategic considerations and thereby largely contributed to
the current situation, making it measurably worse than world events on
their own would have done.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 20/12/2022 17:32, Spike wrote:
> MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
>>
>> And there is a tendency for periods with no wind to coincide with very
>> cold weather in the Winter i.e. often short days and sometimes mist to
>> reduce light levels slightly.
>
> We’ve just enjoyed ~20 days like that, with an enormous 6TWh of energy
> shortfall from wind over gas. More periods like this have been suggested
> for early next year
>
> Someone with an OU Science Foundation course will be along soon to explain
> why this isn’t real, and to calculate the size of the battery farms needed
> to power the gap. Sixty million car batteries take a lot of finding and a
> lot of space.

This person with a 1st Class Honours Degree in Mathematics and Computing
will tell you that currently at such times we have to burn fossil-fuels,
because we haven't implemented any alternatives to doing so, nor any
ameliorating technologies such as carbon capture.

How's "Denialism By Dance" coming along? Found a theatre yet?

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

Java Jive wrote:

> Andy Burns wrote:
>
>> Java Jive wrote:
>>
>>> That's effectively the same link as I gave above, but the monthly and yearly
>>> averages are difficult to quantify by eye because they are split into their
>>> individual components
>>
>> Ok, a site that does the integration for you, rather than by eye
>>
>> <https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year&start=2021-12-20&&_k=as0f46>
>> look in the supply box on the left
>
> Agrees well with the government source I linked above:
>
> Total fossil fuels:  40.38%
> Total renewables:    38.52%

38% isn't "half the UK's electricity demand"

>> next question, who counts what as renewable?
>
> Solar + Wind + Hydro + Pumped Storage + Biomass
>
> What's your problem?

It's tiny but I wouldn't include pumped storage it gives back what it has taken
in, minus efficiency losses

Presumably biomass includes drax, is it as promised, it it really
green/sustainable? I have no problem with it running, but should it be getting
subsidies for burning wood from elsewhere?

On 20/12/2022 18:56, Andy Burns wrote:
> Java Jive wrote:
>
>> Andy Burns wrote:
>>
>>> Java Jive wrote:
>>>
>>>> That's effectively the same link as I gave above, but the monthly
>>>> and yearly averages are difficult to quantify by eye because they
>>>> are split into their individual components
>>>
>>> Ok, a site that does the integration for you, rather than by eye
>>>
>>> <https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=1-year&start=2021-12-20&&_k=as0f46>
>>>
>>> look in the supply box on the left
>>
>> Agrees well with the government source I linked above:
>>
>> Total fossil fuels:  40.38%
>> Total renewables:    38.52%
>
> 38% isn't "half the UK's electricity demand"

To which you replied: "Right now, that's close enough to true."

>>> next question, who counts what as renewable?
>>
>> Solar + Wind + Hydro + Pumped Storage + Biomass
>>
>> What's your problem?
>
> It's tiny but I wouldn't include pumped storage it gives back what it
> has taken in, minus efficiency losses

So? In this discussion, what matters is its contribution to the supply
by renewables, the pumping takes place when there is spare capacity to
do it, and is part of demand, not supply.

> Presumably biomass includes drax, is it as promised, it it really
> green/sustainable?  I have no problem with it running, but should it be
> getting subsidies for burning wood from elsewhere?

I don't know the answer as to how green it really is. One suspects that
burning wood from outside the UK cannot be that green.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

Java Jive wrote:

> Andy Burns wrote:
>
>> 38% isn't "half the UK's electricity demand"
>
> To which you replied: "Right now, that's close enough to true."

Two days or two weeks v.s. a year, which feels like a more appropriate timescale.

Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
> On 20/12/2022 17:32, Spike wrote:
>> MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> And there is a tendency for periods with no wind to coincide with very
>>> cold weather in the Winter i.e. often short days and sometimes mist to
>>> reduce light levels slightly.
>>
>> We’ve just enjoyed ~20 days like that, with an enormous 6TWh of energy
>> shortfall from wind over gas. More periods like this have been suggested
>> for early next year
>>
>> Someone with an OU Science Foundation course will be along soon to explain
>> why this isn’t real, and to calculate the size of the battery farms needed
>> to power the gap. Sixty million car batteries take a lot of finding and a
>> lot of space.
>
> This person with a 1st Class Honours Degree in Mathematics and Computing
> will tell you that currently at such times we have to burn fossil-fuels,
> because we haven't implemented any alternatives to doing so, nor any
> ameliorating technologies such as carbon capture.
>
> How's "Denialism By Dance" coming along? Found a theatre yet?
Ad Homs: Java Jive’s First and Last.

--
Spike