Dave Andrews | Claverton Group

Owning and Operating Costs of Waste and Biomass Power Plants

Claverton Energy Conference, 23/24/25th October 2009

Dave Andrews, DAEC

Here are some broad brush head line figures for the owning and operating of a particular kind of advanced staged combustion power plant, obtained from a leading manufacturer, suitable for biomass, waste materials and waste wood. The process is essential combustion, but is referred to as gasification / combustion, meaning the material is first charred on a grate, with the off syngas being burnt in a separate adjacent and low level refractory chamber. The char is then burnt at a later stage as it moves down the great. This leads to greater burn up of fuel and lower emissions. The syngas combustion is maintained within the ceramic, and special gas flows prevent the contaminants in the gases fouling and degrading the ceramics.

Existing hydro power statistics

Storage hydropower roughly produces 405 TWh per year in the scenario area and has a storage volume of roughly 241 TWh. Hydropower Scandinavia: Finland 3.062 GW (14.04 TWh) Norway 27.524 GW (132.82 TWh) Sweden 16.236 GW (65.38 TWh) Sum: 46.820 GW (212.23 TWh) http://www.eia.doe.gov/international/RecentHydroelectricInstalledCapacity.xls http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/RecentHydroelectricGenerationKilowatthours.xls Existing Hydropower capacity in the scenario area was roughly 201 […]

Hydrogen – the green currency of the future

All governments have pledged to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions; this effectively means that the world must move to:

Electricity from nuclear, renewable or decarbonised sources
Hydrogen from renewable or decarbonised sources
biomass derived methane gas or hydrocarbon liquids or
heat as a by-product, or from biomass, solar or geothermal sources.

Of these electricity and hydrogen are purely manufactured energy vectors competing as intermediaries between energy sources and final consumers. In recent years the tide seems to have moved to electricity as the ultimate solution, but this article will take issue with this. This is principally because of the severe cost implications associated with either electricity storage or its corollary – demand side management.

Adding New Files to File Libary

This section tells you how to add Files also known as Downloads to the Claverton Site File Libarary Note the max file size is 3 MB. Log in to WordPress using the user name and password supplied to you. Look down the left hand menu and at the bottom you will see Downloads 1.) […]

CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE – TIME TO DELIVER

What is it: Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), the process of capturing carbon emissions when fossil fuels are burnt on large scales such as during the power generation process, has been identified as having a key role in meeting the UK’s pressing climate change targets. CCS has the potential to reduce emissions by coal fired […]

a regular up to date source of hard info on renewable energy- Renew

Need a regular up to date source of hard info on renewable energy? Renew is a 36 page newsletter on renewable energy developments and policy which has been produced by Open University Professor Dave Elliott without a break bi-monthly since 1979. It’s widely seen as a reliable and up to date source of information, news […]

Graduate attacks outsourcing of UK water engineering jobs to India etc as a cheap electoral gimmick by way of keeping water bills down.

The consultant I work for is undergoing a major redundancy process in the water engineering side of the business, with the majority of jobs being lost at graduate level and below.

We have been informed that the reasons for this are that the draft determination from Ofwat appears particularly tough and as such, we won’t be getting any work out of the water companies for possibly as much as a year. It is also apparent that when the work does start to come, unachievable efficiency will be required, forcing consultants to “offshore” work to India and the like.

To make graduates redundant in this country, only to employ staff in India in their place does not seem acceptable. If we, as an industry, are left with this as the only option to be able to survive, then it would seem that Ofwat has got it wrong and we should be doing more to influence its decision making.

This is a very important issue for the country as we have already practically lost manufacturing as an industry and cannot afford to lose construction skills overseas.

It is also clear that the reason for the harsh determination is that the government doesn’t want to put water bills up because it is still hoping to win the approaching General Election.

This is unacceptable and is destroying an industry. What is the ICE doing about this?

Joe Andrews, mailto:joekayaker at hotmail dot com

Senior Electricity and Industry Executives Discuss National Energy Policy at Claverton Energy Group Conference 23/25th October

8th Claverton Energy Group Conference 23/25th October, Wessex Water, Bath BA27WW

Claverton Group's comment on BBC Radio 4 "You and Your's" on the Energy Gap 13th October 2009 – its cheaper to save than to build.

David Porter of the AIP (founded originally by David Andrews as the AIEP to counter the monolithic anti market and anti chp bias of the CEGB – Ed.) needs reminding that grants for A++ fridges etc (say we offer £30 to reduce baseload from 600 to 120 kWh/yr = £750 to save 1 kW) are cheaper […]

Consultation Response from Renewable Energy Association – REA – Renewable Energy Financial Incentives – Feed-in Tariff – FIT

Introduction
We welcome the introduction of Feed-in Tariffs for sub 5MW renewable electricity generation and thank Decc for moving swiftly to pave the way for their introduction in April 2010. The proposals have the potential to foster much wider deployment of renewable energy at the local level and to attract investment in renewable energy from groups as diverse as farmers, commercial companies, social housing providers, local authorities and communities, as well as householders. Apart from helping to meet renewable energy targets, the Tariffs will enable greater consumer choice in the market going forward. A successful scheme will also contribute to economic prosperity through the creation of quality local jobs, wider sector innovation and new manufacturing opportunities.