The above slide from Czisch (“An affordable renewable power system for Europe”) shows that Europe is unlikely to be vulnerable to sudden disconnection / sabotage of say a single or several, North African regions since there is considerable redundancy in connection and diversity of supply areas, and European grids of necessity already have existing sophisticated […]
Read More"Real energy security" – Prof. David Elliott, Open University
(Originally Letter to Guardian Newspaper) With the battles continuing over the EU’s access to Russia’s gas supplies via transit arrangement across the Ukraine, it may be worth looking to the future, when a different set of energy options may change the geopolitical realities. Currently we are fighting over the dwindling and increasingly expensive oil and […]
Read MoreWould Europe's use of significant power imports from Africa and the Middle East be "completely barmy" ?
(Some clarifications and extensions made since earlier version) A number of people have made comments similar to this: “I have found Czisch’s plan for an Inter-Continental Grid, with Europe as its centre, unrealistic, politically. The idea that Europe should rely on power imports from Africa and the Middle East is completely barmy. The recent panic […]
Read MoreUK Gas Storage Fiasco Illustrates Folly of Assuming That Markets Can Substitute for Strategic Planning
Headline in the Guardian article covering this, Jan 12th says it all “Plans to Increase Britain’s gas storage capacity left in tatters by credit crunch” What did the economists at Ofgem expect? Only an economist would have any faith in the Market’s ability to replace central planning. Having bemoaned the fact that UK only has […]
Read MorePhysics and Engineering Basis of Multi-functional Compact Tokamak
Kindly provided by Brendan McNamara. Part of the IAEA Fusion Conf Proceedings at Geneva this Oct. Basically small fusion reactors are viable now. Abstract An important milestone on the Fast Track path to Fusion Power is to demonstrate reliable commercial application of Fusion as soon as possible. Many applications of fusion, other than electricity production, have […]
Read More" Why Batteries Not Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are The Future Of Private Motoring" – George Wallis
Wallis’ excellent paper attempts to show why cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells are not the immediate future of private motoring, and why batteries have an important and immediate part to play. Note: (‘Nazi sharks etc.’ refers to a no doubt bad taste joke, made by James May during the recent BBC TV Top Gear show, […]
Read MoreNew Study Puts The Generation Costs For Power From New Nuclear Plants Triple Current U.S. Electricity Rates
A new study puts the generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour — triple current U.S. electricity rates.
see: http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/05/study-cost-risks-new-nuclear-power-plants/ rel=no follow
Current CSP costs (still substantially less than nuclear):
Vinod Khosla gives current CSP at 16 cents kWh (and note PV far higher at 22.4 cents kW/hr – see slide 124 onwards at http://www.slideshare.net/guest76ed37/khosla92507 rel=no follow
Also, good summary of costs can be found here: puts current CSP at 13 – 17 cents kWh: http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/04/concentrating-on-important-things-solar.html/ rel=no follow
Makes CSP look very attractive indeed at 11 cents per kWh by 2011 (cf Ausra & Bright Source CSP plants signed up with PG&E in South West America) – compatible with gas prices, and estimated to reduce to 4-6 cents per kWhr by 2020. Nuclear costs unlikely to reduce, but instead are on an upward trajectory.
First Section Of The 11 MWe 'Abengoa' Concentrating Solar Power Plant
This is the first 11 MWe operating module of three towers currently being built to constitute what will be soon a 50 MWe concentrated solar power (CSP) facility that is sited a few kms west of Seville in Spain near a place called Sanlúcar la Mayor. It works, as most will know, by reflecting solar […]
Read MoreESA, IET and CIGRE Meeting On The Practical Application Of Electrical Energy Storage On The Power Network
We have been asked to remind people of this meeting which is in London, UK, on Wednesday 21 January 2009. Registration can be made through the ESA website, using the link from the ESA home page. This meeting will concentrate on the practical application of deploying storage on advanced power networks, which are being designed […]
Read MoreDECC Updates Its Generation Cost Database, But Misses the Cheapest – CHP DH and Micro CHP
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) had a meeting to discuss the generation costs of energy technologies in November last year. This exercise happens every so often and its objective is to update inputs that might be used in any energy-related modelling work carried out by the department. The link represent DECC’s initial […]
Read More