The Death Of Fossil Fuels

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IvanV
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by IvanV » Sat Jan 29, 2022 2:03 pm

Grumble wrote:
Sat Jan 29, 2022 10:12 am
New wind record today, 18.43 GW. I don’t think Hornsea 2 is contributing quite yet either.
It seems that there has been some chunky increase in capacity since last winter. The Wiki list of operational and proposed wind farms is not totally up to date. But it seems that Hornsea 2 began generation just before Christmas, though it is not fully open. Triton Knoll is also partly open since last spring. Those two will add up to 2.2GW when fully open. So maybe already open enough to make a noticeable difference.

Gas was down to 2.65GW last night - but there was 1.5GW of coal on which wasn't on the previous night.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Grumble » Sat Jan 29, 2022 2:43 pm

IvanV wrote:
Sat Jan 29, 2022 2:03 pm
Grumble wrote:
Sat Jan 29, 2022 10:12 am
New wind record today, 18.43 GW. I don’t think Hornsea 2 is contributing quite yet either.
It seems that there has been some chunky increase in capacity since last winter. The Wiki list of operational and proposed wind farms is not totally up to date. But it seems that Hornsea 2 began generation just before Christmas, though it is not fully open. Triton Knoll is also partly open since last spring. Those two will add up to 2.2GW when fully open. So maybe already open enough to make a noticeable difference.

Gas was down to 2.65GW last night - but there was 1.5GW of coal on which wasn't on the previous night.
They achieved first power, but that didn’t go to the grid, it’s about commissioning the turbines, the on-site substation and other systems. I don’t think it’s exporting to the grid yet, but I could be wrong. Anyway, as an update ESO say it’s actually 19.5GW! https://twitter.com/nationalgrideso/sta ... 39589?s=21
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by IvanV » Sat Jan 29, 2022 4:09 pm

Grumble wrote:
Sat Jan 29, 2022 2:43 pm
They achieved first power, but that didn’t go to the grid, it’s about commissioning the turbines, the on-site substation and other systems. I don’t think it’s exporting to the grid yet, but I could be wrong. Anyway, as an update ESO say it’s actually 19.5GW! https://twitter.com/nationalgrideso/sta ... 39589?s=21
Looks like Triton Knoll is in a similar situation. So I'm not sure why we seem to have materially more capacity than last winter. It can also be to do with relieving transmission and distribution bottle-necks.

It's not straightforward knowing how much wind is being generated in real time. Real-time widgets like Gridwatch only show "metered wind power". That means metering that is directly communicating in real time with the grid. Other "non-metered" windpower is treated as negative demand. (Obviously it is metered, just not in real-time communication with the grid.) About 25% of generation is non-metered. As it is non-randomly distributed about the country, it can vary from 20% to 30% depending where the wind is. At least that was the case when I looked into it in detail about 3 years ago. As the proportion of offshore, which is all metered, goes up, it should fall as a proportion.

In principle solar could be the same, it is all non-metered. But Sheffield university provides a real-time feed of estimated solar generation, shown in these widgets. Why someone doesn't do the same for non-metered wind, I don't know. There is some data around, but the timing of it is inconvenient.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by bjn » Mon Feb 07, 2022 7:43 pm

So Nissan is ending the development of ICE engines for all markets except the USA, going big on electrification instead. Meanwhile, Volvo is hiving off it's ICE development into a separate company to concentrate on BEVs.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by bmforre » Tue Feb 08, 2022 8:10 am

bjn wrote:
Mon Feb 07, 2022 7:43 pm
So Nissan is ending the development of ICE engines for all markets except the USA, going big on electrification instead. Meanwhile, Volvo is hiving off it's ICE development into a separate company to concentrate on BEVs.
https://www.volvopenta.com/ Marine & Industrial looks like an independent operation. Marine engines are important in Norway.

The industrial engines can be used to handle old auto stuff:
ABBEMA crushes it with Volvo Penta-equipped Metso LT330D.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Grumble » Wed Feb 09, 2022 10:39 pm

Error error error
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Wed Feb 09, 2022 10:41 pm

I've moved a load of fusion-related posts into the "is fusion sh.t?" thread here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1497
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Grumble » Wed Feb 09, 2022 10:56 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 10:41 pm
I've moved a load of fusion-related posts into the "is fusion sh.t?" thread here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1497
Ah, wondered why my post ended up here in response to a fusion post.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Wed Feb 09, 2022 11:03 pm

Sorry, clash of timing!
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by dyqik » Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:46 pm

Thanks to a local town Facebook group argument, I have found out that it's at least twice as efficient to run a natural gas or oil generator at home to power a cold climate heat pump as to run a gas or oil furnace or boiler for heat.

And that's in central Massachusetts.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Grumble » Sat Feb 12, 2022 10:24 am

dyqik wrote:
Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:46 pm
Thanks to a local town Facebook group argument, I have found out that it's at least twice as efficient to run a natural gas or oil generator at home to power a cold climate heat pump as to run a gas or oil furnace or boiler for heat.

And that's in central Massachusetts.
For the benefit of those of us not familiar with Massachusetts, is it particularly cold there?
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by dyqik » Sat Feb 12, 2022 3:57 pm

Grumble wrote:
Sat Feb 12, 2022 10:24 am
dyqik wrote:
Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:46 pm
Thanks to a local town Facebook group argument, I have found out that it's at least twice as efficient to run a natural gas or oil generator at home to power a cold climate heat pump as to run a gas or oil furnace or boiler for heat.

And that's in central Massachusetts.
For the benefit of those of us not familiar with Massachusetts, is it particularly cold there?
The average temperature in December-January- February is around freezing. Lows of -20C happen most years and lows -15 C happen several times a month.

So not crazy low, but lower than anywhere in the UK.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by jimbob » Sat Feb 12, 2022 5:34 pm

But imagine if global warming wasn't real and Europe ends up with clean, renewable energy that removes its dependence on Russian natural gas for nothing
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Little waster » Sat Feb 12, 2022 6:26 pm

jimbob wrote:
Sat Feb 12, 2022 5:34 pm
But imagine if global warming wasn't real and Europe ends up with clean, renewable energy that removes its dependence on Russian natural gas for nothing
That's basically communism and you know it.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by shpalman » Mon Feb 14, 2022 6:28 pm

Something called ≡-GAP is offering a mobile electric car charging service.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Tue Feb 15, 2022 10:57 am

Interesting, although presumably I will need to be present at first, cos otherwise I'd have to leave my car unlocked for ages.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Feb 15, 2022 11:18 am

Are the vans electric too?
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by lpm » Tue Feb 15, 2022 11:27 am

Makes no sense. The costs are sky high.

The way to turn it into a business would be to convert it to EV specialised RAC/AA/Green Flag breakdown service. Which means punctures and towing to garages after software failures, as well as emergency recharges.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Gfamily » Tue Feb 15, 2022 11:46 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Feb 15, 2022 11:18 am
Are the vans electric too?
And are they charging from batteries or a portable generator in the van?
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by shpalman » Tue Feb 15, 2022 12:12 pm

As far as I know, all statements about the empty set are true because the thing doesn't actually exist yet.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by jimbob » Wed Feb 16, 2022 9:32 am

lpm wrote:
Tue Feb 15, 2022 11:27 am
Makes no sense. The costs are sky high.

The way to turn it into a business would be to convert it to EV specialised RAC/AA/Green Flag breakdown service. Which means punctures and towing to garages after software failures, as well as emergency recharges.
Exactly.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Feb 22, 2022 9:05 pm

The Dakota Access pipeline has lost its appeal, and is now operating without a permit https://earthjustice.org/news/press/202 ... s-pipeline

Nordstrom 2 looks like it's over too.

So bad news all round for fossil fuel operators who like stealing others' land.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by nekomatic » Thu Feb 24, 2022 9:10 am

According to this the methane leaks from Russian gas production make it actually worse for the climate than the coal burning it has replaced. Not that this is topical or anything.
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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by IvanV » Thu Feb 24, 2022 1:18 pm

dyqik wrote:
Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:46 pm
Thanks to a local town Facebook group argument, I have found out that it's at least twice as efficient to run a natural gas or oil generator at home to power a cold climate heat pump as to run a gas or oil furnace or boiler for heat.

And that's in central Massachusetts.
You can get gas boilers (US=furnace) that are 90% efficient. We call them condensing boilers here. It is in fact illegal to install any other kind of gas boiler in a house these days in Britain. Maybe your 50% gain is relative to a less efficient kind of gas boiler?

The heat pump will typically give you 3 times as much heat as pump power that you put into it. And if your heat pump is a ground source heat pump, no reason you shouldn't get that efficiency even in mid-winter in Massachusetts. Bit more difficult with an air-source heat pump when its -15C. But maybe it is cold enough only sufficiently occasionally that on average you still get something like 2.5 across the winter. But let's assume it is ground source and you are getting 3 from it.

So, to be double the efficiency of a 90% efficient boiler, you need 180% output from gas put in. So 1.8/3 = 60%. So you will need your gas-powered pump to be at least 60% efficient to achieve that. I think that's not unreasonable to be able to achieve that, but it sounds a stretch at the 20kW level that we are talking about for domestic heat pumps.

Never heard of such a product existing here. But I find this 2016 BEIS paper on gas-driven heat pumps. (BEIS is the UK dept of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.) It suggests that there are near market products available, and their running costs are 60-80% of the cost of a gas boiler. Not quite as good as the double you mention, which makes me suspect that your comparator was not the 90% efficient condensing boiler. When your objective is zero carbon, a 20%-40% saving just isn't good enough, so doubtless it went on the virtual scrap heap, like a lot of other useful efficiency gains that aren't good enough when your aim is zero. Unfortunately now that our aim is zero carbon in Britain, a lot of sensible things to do aren't being pursued any more, in case they prove the wrong thing to do in 5-10 years time, as we all wait for those fully developed reasonably priced zero-carbon technologies to be put in front of us very shortly, without which we'll never get there.

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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Post by dyqik » Thu Feb 24, 2022 4:33 pm

IvanV wrote:
Thu Feb 24, 2022 1:18 pm
dyqik wrote:
Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:46 pm
Thanks to a local town Facebook group argument, I have found out that it's at least twice as efficient to run a natural gas or oil generator at home to power a cold climate heat pump as to run a gas or oil furnace or boiler for heat.

And that's in central Massachusetts.
You can get gas boilers (US=furnace) that are 90% efficient. We call them condensing boilers here. It is in fact illegal to install any other kind of gas boiler in a house these days in Britain. Maybe your 50% gain is relative to a less efficient kind of gas boiler?
No, it's relative to a 95% efficient furnace or boiler. However, I'm off on the efficiency of home generators.

The COP of a cold climate air source heat pump system is 2.0 at 0F, about the temperature of the coldest 5% of nights in MA. Our average January temperature is between 28 and 32F, where the COP of cold climate air source heat pump is typically 3.0.

The efficiency from fossil fuel to wall plug power for a gas fired power station and the grid is between 40-60%, and the efficiency of a home natural gas generator is around 30% (I was assuming a bit better than 50%).

So it's more like the same efficiency, rather than double. However, a ground source heat pump running off a generator would be double the efficiency.

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