This is somewhat misleading - it appears to be offsetting energy exported when there's particularly good conditions for renewables against times when there's not. In reality they are still both burning some fossil fuels and importing energy from countries that are burning fossil fuels. What really should matter is the carbon intensity of both electricity production and consumption.
In terms of hard numbers for Scotland, their carbon intensity is 59 gCO2/KWh (https://www.carbonintensity.org.uk/), which is actually pretty great. You can compare against other countries here - https://www.electricitymap.org. Here's the current breakdown of their electricity production:
Wind: 36.5%
Nuclear: 31.1%
Hydro: 16.7%
Gas: 13.5%
Biomass: 1.4%
So right now they are 52.2% renewable energy. Presuming they are running renewables to capacity, this low carbon intensity figure is actually being kept low due to the fact they are sourcing a third of their load from nuclear. Should the Scottish government phase out nuclear as they are currently planning (https://www.gov.scot/policies/nuclear-energy/), then we can expect this carbon intensity to rise as gas is used to pick up the base load when conditions for renewables aren't favourable.
I can't figure out which numbers you added to get 52.2% renewable. I would say wind, hydro, and biomass are renewable, with the possible addition of nuclear. Even just wind and hydro add up to (slightly) more.
It was a typo, it was 53.2% for wind + hydro. Biomass I refuse to count as it is absolutely awful for the environment. Nuclear is not technically renewable either.
Regardless, I agree that getting fixated on the "renewable" label is not particularly productive. What matters is "zero-carbon".
Biomass can cover a range of technologies, some of which are greener than others e.g. if you capture methane from landfills or anaerobic digestion of organic waste then the absolute best thing to do would be to turn it into chemical feedstocks, but burning it for energy is definitely better than just letting it rot and escape into the atmosphere while also burning using fossil methane gas
If we want to get pedantic, there's a finite amount of fissile material. But then again solar isn't technically renewable either, since there's a finite amount of hydrogen in the sun.
As an Australian pulling my hair out about our domestic policies w.r.t to fossil fuel exports / consumption, let me just say I would take token gestures and virtue signalling over total ignorance, passivity and inaction, any day of the week.
I don't think anyone would disagree that wealthy European countries are privileged, or that they should do more. But there is actual, tangible progress being made here. To maintain the hard-line cynical view is in itself a form of 'virtue signalling'.
> One of the world's largest oil producers is moving away from fossil fuels
I mean, afaik, they're not moving away from generating oil and selling it. Arguably given the SWF is based on oil production/extraction revenues the obvious conclusion is that they were over exposed and this dis-investment is more like sensible diversification.
I think this is a great achievement by Scotland but I agree with your general point. I was disappointed to see that the NY Times great series on EU farm subsidies and their massive environmental cost got no traction here but negative news about the EU doesn't seem to get much of an audience.
Excellent resource on this topic: Sustainability Without the Hot Air by David MacKay, a Caltech-trained Oxford physics professor. Free download: http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html.
In the article on Scotland, however, not one word on the most safe, economical, immediately available, and effective technique: reducing consumption. Trying to reach sustainability without lowering consumption feels like trying to make a company profitable without considering lowering costs. I haven't visited Scotland, but most Americans could reduce their energy consumption 75% or more purely improving their lives before any challenging decisions.
---
A short description by MacKay of his book:
"Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" presents the numbers that are needed to answer these questions:
- How huge are Britain's renewable resources, compared with our current energy consumption?
- How big do renewable energy facilities have to be, to make a significant contribution?
- How big would our energy consumption be if we adopted strong efficiency measures?
- Which efficiency measures offer big savings, and which offer only 5 or 10%?
- Do new much-hyped technologies such as hydrogen or electric cars reduce energy consumption, or do they actually make our energy problem worse?
Wherever possible, I answer these questions from first principles.
While I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of reducing energy consumption where it can be done I don't see why we shouldn't do both?
And ofc there is always the danger of things like electric vehicles etc. becoming an case of indulgence: people paying to atone their sins. Consumption and shiny new things alone won't solve the climate emergency.
For the UK the first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about inefficency is heating. I grew up in the alps and we usually have quite well insulated houses (incentivized by government). Using solar and heat exchangers is increasingly common etc.
When I had been to England first, I was shocked at the building standards with these thin walls that barely keep the heat inside. On top they seem to heat a lot with electricity — something which you only would do in an emergency in the alps.
If you can quickly save energy by modernizing heating and insulation go for it and expand renewables as well.
"We want to lower the barriers to the take-up of low carbon heating and cooling. We also want to sustain a viable supply chain for heat pumps beyond the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), while not closing off options for longer term heat decarbonisation.
There are a variety of technologies with potential to contribute to the transformation necessary to meet 2050 targets – including heat networks, heat pumps, hydrogen and biogas. It is not yet clear which combination of these will work best at scale and keep costs down. Different approaches need to be tested further as we develop a long-term plan that delivers the best solution for consumers."
In Denmark we largely heat our houses using waste heat from electricity generation. This will have to be migrated to large scale heat exchanges as fossil fuel power plants are phased out.
I agree with GP regarding British housing standard. It's shockingly bad
Gas. In fact, I don't think I have ever lived in a home with electric heating as the main source.
I have, however, lived in a shitty rented flat with a crap landlord and needed to buy a portable electric heater because the CH was rubbish and/or broken.
Heat exchange, heat pumps, thermal energy. Plenty of options available. Take a trip around the Nordics and you'd have a hard time finding properties heated with direct electricity.
No argument with the quality of the book, but the late professor might not be too happy with being given to Oxford - he was very much a Cambridge fixture.
The UK has a massive reliance on Gas, I think last time I did some numbers when I read the energy storage whitepaper (I dunno, 2010?). Take the current UK energy consumption and quadruple it, that's how much gas we're importing for cooking and heating.
I mention this because I think any talk of efficiency saving is missing the point. If you improved efficiency by 100%, we're halfway there.
That's not enough numbers however. 31% Gas is generated for electricity.
> The data covers the UK cold weather event on the 1st March, providing insights into the scale of hourly energy flows through both networks. A peak hourly local gas demand of 214 GW occurred at 6pm on the 1st of March, which compared to peak electrical supply of 53 GW occurring at the same time.
This is great news but I wish people would start talking about total energy and not just electric generation. They’re still using a ton of gas and oil for heating and transportation. It would be good to be honest about this.
That's also nibbling around the periphery. The most pressing goal is NET negative total GHGs. This means BOTH sequestration and emissions cuts including going to clean energy, industrial processes and other large sectors like concrete and agriculture. We can't get there by #TeamTrees half-measures or ostensible tokenism like optional consumer-based recycling every now and then, or by allowing corrupt oligarchy/plutocracy to keep resisting taking action.
To these ends, BioCCS is going to have to happen whether we like it or not because pumping and cracking CO2 from air is just too expensive. Ferrous ocean seeding and mega seaweed blooms (like the area from Mexico to Africa now) is going to have to happen if we want to get this under control. Harvest that and either sink it to the bottom of deep trenches or burn it in a sealed chamber and pump the gasses/ash deep underground. Concurrently and in parallel, we can and should switch to scalable renewables / non-FF like fission, solar and wind if/when/until fusion becomes a reality. All-in-all, rapid negative GHGs must be the goal because the ESAS/methane gun hypothesis maybe a Sword of Damocles over our heads that could really put us in a bad spot if it fell. We must get the Arctic sea ice in summer restored or the heating of Arctic Ocean will introduce so much additional energy into a viscous feedback loop that will disrupt weather and climate for the foreseeable future.
Here are some other sucky truths that are necessary:
- FF-based jumbo jets, trains and large cruise/cargo ships will need to find alternative means of locomotion.
- Animal protein production should be curtailed almost entirely.
- Concrete (actually the clinker in Portland cement) and other industrial processes that pollute the air with enormous quantities of CO2, methane and/or other GHGs must capture their emissions and have them sequestered properly.
>- Animal protein production should be curtailed almost entirely.
I could see all the other stuff happening in my lifetime, but not this. There is simply no way that we will find a way to create animal proteins in enough quantities in a way that's safe and as nutritious that people will trust to eat. Perhaps some future society might have it, but definitely not ours in the foreseeable future.
Edit: nearly forgot this - I would love to see some analysis on the net CO2 balance after covering the Atlantic in algae, then transporting it all into trenches and buying it. I also assume this will kill almost all other life in that ocean. If you are of the opinion that this action will save the rest of the world's wildlife, then I suppose it's a trade that can be made.
The unsustainable part of modern life is not the fuel used, it's the sheer number of miles the average person travels, and the miles travelled by the items they purchase (and the number of those items). The modes of tranport you described are incredibly efficient, used properly. Just to pick one example, modern passenger jets get 80mpg+ per person. If you really have to fly a long way (for example, to a climate conference!) it's better to fly than to drive, unless you give a few other people a ride. You'll also need some fast way to ship your replacement protein, unless you are lucky enough to live in certain parts of the world.
I think direct capture to high-value molecules is the future. The Licht group - one of the Carbon X-Prize teams - have some pretty astounding prototypes. Solar-powered direct-air capture to carbon nanofibers with no waste products. It’s like unburning fossil fuels, and ending up with whatever carbon chains we want
I was kinda shocked to learn that long-haul natural gas pipelines are more efficient than long-haul power lines. They also tend not to fail during ice storms.
The Greater Seattle Area has had whole areas without power for days or weeks within recent memory. It's not just an issue for old or rural areas.
Putting all of your eggs into the electricity basket can get people killed. We should work on addressing these problems (or accepting energy diversity) sooner rather than later.
Energy diversity in a carbon constrained world mustn't embrace fracked natural gas. Methane leaks cause warming, and burning it still makes unacceptable levels of CO2.
Diversity is valuable but we should install district heating systems and hydrogen pipelines and whatnot, not fracked gas plants.
Maybe long-haul hydrogen from renewables and fission/fusion would be a better idea than digging ourselves deeper with FFs (natural gas, oil, etc.)?
Another consideration against any kind of fuel pipeline: safety. They're pressure vessels containing vast amounts of energy in the fuel only missing an oxidizer. PG&E certainly can't be trusted to get natural gas pipelines right: remember them blowing-up a neighborhood near SF? (2010 San Bruno; 8 killed, 58 injured)
Electricity and pipelines ultimately transfer energy from one place to another, so getting the fuel source, generator and points of consumption as close together as possible is a good idea from a cost-only perspective. There are other considerations, but renewables and nuclear near consumption is better than putting generation in remote areas... better still than remote gas-fired plants in say New Mexico fueled from gas pipelines from say Canada.
Hydrogen is just about the worst gas to transport, though. (With the possible exception of helium) You'd get so much leakage from a hydrogen pipeline that it'd probably be easier to just synthesize methane and transport that instead...
In other words, hydrogen in the form of hydrogen is really horrible to transport - so horrible that this company is willing to eat the efficiency losses from converting to ammonia and back to avoid having to deal with hydrogen.
Which of course also begs the question of "well why not just use ammonia as the fuel?", but ammonia is highly toxic and thus unsuitable for use in consumer vehicles. But this also should raise some really huge warning signs when considering making a pipeline to transfer ammonia - if you don't trust the oil companies not to leak natural gas, why would you trust them not to leak ammonia?
And all of that still leaves out the fact that hydrogen fuel cell cars really don't 'work' in the way that people expect them to. Range, fill speed, performance - all suffer to the point that battery-electric cars are competitive today, and battery tech will still get better. My go-to article series on this issue is here [0], and they do a better job explaining than I could. Hydrogen might work as a substitute fuel for airliners, but even then it'd likely be easier to synthesize kerosene from scratch.
Your source is wildly out of date, and is almost completely wrong with regards to the current state of fuel cell technology. To give you idea of what he's wrong about, let's jump to part 4 where he says this:
> In reality,
> You cannot fill up like you do with gasoline or diesel. It is actually pretty ridiculous how hard it is to fill up a HFC powered car
> You won't even go 100 miles on current tech hydrogen tanks that are still safe to carry around in a car
> Fuel cells wear out crazy fast and are hard to regenerate
> Hydrogen as a fuel is incredibly hard to make and distribute with acceptably low losses
Not a single one of these claims have survived to this year unscathed, and some have been hilariously debunked.
Fuel cells are showing to be incredibly reliable, totally at odds with your source's claims.
And the last point is at best only partially holding up, but it's looking this one will be fully and loudly debunked pretty soon. As of right now, huge progress is being made on this subject: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/01/28/green-hydrogen-costs-...
> “Based on real cost data from the industry, the analysis shows that a number of hydrogen solutions can become competitive until 2030 already.” says Bernd Heid, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company. “Out of 35 use cases analysed, at-scale hydrogen can be the lowest cost low-carbon solution in 22 use cases – such as in the steel industry and heating for existing buildings. And it can beat fossil-based solutions at scale in 9 use cases – for example in heavy-duty transport and trains.”
So your source's claims are flat out wrong on the broadest scope. You should stop citing it, and in fact it's laughably wrong these days.
Five minutes (refil time) is pretty damn good for that Hyundai! And the range is also far better than I would have expected.
Fuel cell wear has also taken great leaps forward, as you've said.
And so it looks like that (5 year old???) post is now rather out of date. Tech moving faster than expected!
But the last claim, about hydrogen being hard to make and distribute with low losses? Your link has nothing to do with it. "We're reducing production costs by 60% over the next decade, says the industry hype group" is nice and all, but it doesn't address distribution and storage. And in fact the use cases they're listing largely avoid those concerns by (afaict) colocating the production with the consumers.
> But the last claim, about hydrogen being hard to make and distribute with low losses? Your link has nothing to do with it. "We're reducing production costs by 60% over the next decade, says the industry hype group" is nice and all, but it doesn't address distribution and storage. And in fact the use cases they're listing largely avoid those concerns by (afaict) colocating the production with the consumers.
> Renewable hydrogen costs may fall to as low as $1.40 a kilogram by 2030 from the current range of $2.50 to $6.80, BNEF said in the report. That could slide further to 80 cents by 2050, equivalent to a natural gas price of $6 per million British thermal units. Gas in New York closed at $2.17 per million Btu on Wednesday. It last traded above $6 in 2014.
We talked this to death in the 90’s and early 00’s. Containing hydrogen is not a trivial task. Neither is detecting leaks (hydrogen sulfide is added to methane).
Hey rockets use hydrogen, lets use it for everything. Rockets are some of the most expensive machines built by man and the hydrogen fuel lines and tanks - if they even use hydrogen - are measured in meters, not miles.
There are many methods to generate methane. Some of them, IIRC, can even use waste heat from other processes. We don’t have to ransack the tectonic plates for every cubic meter of natural gas.
I implied, perhaps unclearly, that it would be a half-measure that I'm not married to. And, I wonder how or why Japan is so set on spending trillion/s of yen on building-out an entirely new infrastructure without any significant commitment to it from any other major country. I surmise one else is committing because rehabilitating the existing electricity grid with renewables seems the most sensible energy infrastructure policy, while grand, big dreams upfront is ri$ky.
I am not quite sure I understand your point. Renewable electricity has the potential to be the most resilient form of energy we have ever had. You can already generate enough electricity for a typical home by putting solar panels on the roof. The main issue is storage but that is mostly an issue of cost not technology. For about 10-15k you can get enough storage to get you through a multi-day outage. And for double that you could probably go off-grid entirely.
Rooftop solar doesn't work in winter in climates cold enough that people have heating rather than air conditioning. Like, at all. Not only is the peak heating demand in places like Scotland after dark when solar outputs zero watts every time, the winter capacity factor is so low that there isn't enough power produced to even be worth storing.
I am well aware of the limitations, was merely pointing out that renewables could greatly improve the status quo when it comes to resiliency for a large portion of the population. And the extreme latitudes can still benefit from solar in the summer. It mostly just comes down to cost/benefit tradeoffs.
It seems like the parent comment was suggesting that natural gas was a necessity. I whole heartedly disagree. For winter months in extreme latitudes, other forms of renewables (hydro, geothermal, wind, biomass) should be sufficient.
Seattle is below Paris in latitude. Plenty of sunlight. That is definitely not the problem in terms of energy production.
You have a point about the longevity of roofing materials though. You might want to use longer lived/higher quality roofing materials next time your have your roof renovated, and combine with solar then. Almost anything but asphalt shingles should do: epdm rubber, metal, tiles, slate, ...
Have you been to Seattle? They don’t have Alaska levels of Seasonal Affective Disorder, but it’s pretty bad. Mountains on both sides shave a little time off sunrise and sunset, and partially cloudy is every day. People basically ignore astronomical events because they won’t be able to see them anyway, although we did luck out on the last solar and lunar eclipses.
They have a special term for “overcast with a few moments of sun”: they’re called, “sun breaks”. Sun breaks. A break from clouds that lasts moments. Just a break, then back to work.
The only time the sun comes out reliably in the winter is when the wind shifts to the north and an arctic blast comes through. If it looks sunny outside, put on your heavy coat.
>Seattle is below Paris in latitude. Plenty of sunlight. That is definitely not the problem in terms of energy production.
Tesla has a pretty detailed solar power estimator that uses historical daily sunlight levels at a fine-grained level. When I used it, the time to pay off my costs was close to 25 years, and that involved a lot of assumptions about future energy prices.
The projected battery production in 2080 will only cover about 0,01% of Europe’s electricity demand. Batteries are not scalable and hydroelectric dams have their own geographic requirements which can’t be met in flat countries like The Netherlands or Denmark.
Given that you only need to store energy for about a day[0] and that the batteries last at least three years when you use them like this, world battery production is already 1% of the storage requirements for worldwide 100% renewable.
One forecast I’ve seen estimates that battery production will go up by a factor of four by by 2028.
[0] longer periods with no wind and no sun are dealt with more cost-efficiently with long distance power lines than with storage.
Eventually but that eventually is likely so far away that life will be very different from what we know. Unsuitable for human habitation is a very strong phrase. Humans are incredibly adaptable. It's all the other stuff we need to worry about.
This is actually a very good point. The effects of CO2 on the human mind are probably the most pressing issue. However, we've spent 100 years going from 300 ppm to 410 ppm. It will still take a while even at faster rates to get there.
Exponential growth means the next doubling period is equal to everything before now.
Wikipedia’s article on world energy consumption indicates I’ve overestimated the growth rate, and the real doubling period is 36 years — without decarbonisation, 2056 would be 520 ppm, 2092 would be 740 ppm.
I’d been assuming the growth rate was more like double every 15, presumably because I’d mixed up “energy” and “money”. Oops.
Buried AC lines apparently have higher losses than high tension wires. But you might be right about HVDC.
If you need to move methane a long way I believe you use a large diameter pipe rather than high pressure. You can’t do the same with high tension power lines (forest fires anyone?). And when the pressure drops? You burn some of the methane to boost the pressure.
Scotland does not have an independent grid. There is an EU wide market to trade electric energy between countries. Some days they export elecric energy, other days they import it. Even if 100% of their local production is renewable, the energy they import is probably (partly) not. So I guess the 'equivalent' means that summed up over the entire year, they export at least the same amount of energy that they import.
A number of commentators have pointed out that the 7% deficit figure doesn't make an awful lot of sense as it ignores a lot of factors regarding the structure of the UK economy that wouldn't necessarily be in place for an independent Scotland - so comparing the GERS 7% figure with a 3% figure for an actual independent country in the EU isn't comparing like with like. Makes good headlines though.
To your last point: have Spain changed their position since they said they would not veto a Scottish application to rejoin [1]? I haven’t seen anything to suggest they have.
So how then do you know that Spain will veto a Scottish application to rejoin? Have Spain produced a more up to date statement changing their position? If not, then are you not just spreading FUD?
edit: Also, Johnson shutting down the possibility of a second independence referendum is not the be all and end all: the Scottish government could pass legislation for one without a section 30, which would likely be challenged in court by the UK government. If the supreme court upholds the right for Scots to vote in a referendum, then it goes ahead.
> So how then do you know that Spain will veto a Scottish application to rejoin?
It is what I suspect after living in Spain as an Expat near Gibraltar for 3-4 years. I wasn't aware the official position has changed, however the Spanish Politics is all over the place especially after Vox (a Nationalist / Anti-Immigration party) did quite well in Andalusia.
> Have Spain produced a more up to date statement changing their position?
I think it is irrelevant and I qualified why in my previous post.
> If not, then are you not just spreading FUD?
It is simply a political opinion based on what I have observed after previously living there.
> edit: Also, Johnson shutting down the possibility of a second independence referendum is not the be all and end all: the Scottish government could pass legislation for one without a section 30, which would likely be challenged in court by the UK government. If the supreme court upholds the right for Scots to vote in a referendum, then it goes ahead.
Boris Johnson is going curtain the Supreme Courts interference with how the Commons work so I wouldn't count on that. If one is to believe David Starkey (who is a historian) he believes that the Supreme court shouldn't exist and is something invented by Tony Blair. Dominic Cummings is doing a shake up of the Civil Service. So I wouldn't count on any of that being relevant for too much longer.
I would stress that this is not really an appropriate venue for this sort of political argument – it's fine to talk about constitutional or political matters where the intersect with the story in question, but a shallow "lol those guys are so dumb" is probably not that much of a useful contribution at this point.
Since we are talking hypotheticals, if those pushing for Scottish independence get their way, sometime in the future Scotland may find itself out of the UK and back in the EU.
It's the difference between using and selling to another country.
For example, let's say my energy demand for 1 year is 1 GW. I generate that 1 GW using solar. But I sell 50% of it to a neighbor. Inside my house, I use gas for that missing 50%. Overall, I've "generated 100%" of my needs from renewables. I (Scotland) sell clean energy to my neighbor (Europe).
Pretty sure the UK National Grid does not have interconnects and pricing between Scotland and England in the same way as between UK and interconnect partners in the EU. It's part of the same grid. Scotland has no choice but that some of it be fossil unless and until England and Wales are fully renewable also. Northern Ireland and Orkney do have interconnects.
So they can monitor total renewable generation, and total consumption, but can't have influence on what the shortfall is made up by. I've no doubt the grid will move toward more locality as it redesigns for a smart grid suitable for 100% renewables, and Scottish independence might provoke formal interconnecting.
For now they are both in the same 'house'.
Edit: I find myself newly suspicious of that site's agenda as he links to Watts Up With That, a notorious and extreme denialist site in his blog role. His phrasing may have been carefully chosen to downplay and minimise the achievement. He seems to have a fair time in the oil industry from his about page.
I don't think it's just a question of Scotland not having a choice about where the shortfall is made up by, but of the shortfall having to be made up using fossil fuels.
For context, because Scotland is so big and empty, a disproportionate chunk of UK wind power is based there compared to their population - so much so that if I remember correctly their wind power has to curtail sometimes due to interconnect limits with the rest of the UK. It's kind of hard to get day-by-day or hour-by-hour figures for Scotland alone, but Scottish nuclear + renewables in the entire UK dropped well below Scotland's peak demand a good few times just in the last two months. That shortfall has to be made up using fossil fuels, there's no alternative - and a good chunk of that is going to be Scottish fossil fuel plants due to interconnect limits.
The Scottish government is simply using the fact that a disprortionate amount of UK wind power ended up there to spin themselves as less dependent on fossil electricity than they are. You can't measure progress towards an 100% grid using net figures like this because the last bit of demand is so much harder to satisfy renewably than the first, and countries with the ability to play silly tricks like this with net power can skip the hard part and pretend they've solved the problem. If/when renewable generation in England and Wales increases it might well even roll this figure back as less electricity is imported during peak wind generation, despite the fact that both Scotland and the rest of the UK would be getting more of their actual electricity from renewable sources.
It's the Orkney interconnect that's at capacity. They really need an extra one.
Sure it's a lot of PR, but it's not just empty PR with a grid that's controlled mainland wide, and chooses sources minute to minute depending on availability, demand and price it's the best they can do. Scotland can, and does, encourage a much healthier approach to the adoption of renewables than Westminster. With more powers to the regions outside London, including Holyrood, so much more could, and would be done.
You can make the same criticism for every use of home solar panels, of green suppliers, of the whole transition to sustainable, and even of the entire markets for gas and electric considering we can't segregate individual electrons and atoms.
It's kind of hard to get Scotland figures alone because there is no separate Scottish grid, nor interconnects as such, just the mainland National Grid encompassing the three mainland countries. It's accounting, but it's not silly, it's the market we're all forced to participate in. We could have more precise regional figures with regional grids with interconnects between. We're not really large enough to need or justify that. Scottish independence, if it ever comes, might well see a Scottish grid as separate entity.
You're right that the same criticism could and perhaps sometimes should be aimed at "net zero" homes with solar. Arguably solar is even worse than wind in the UK, because we're so far north that it has an awful capacity factor and it reliably drops off when power is needed the most. Ecohomes and net-zero homes have extra insulation that does provide a benefit in winter, but home solar alone is dubious. (The UK government also basically killed off subsidies for it.) It's a little more useful in countries closer to the equator with better capacity factors and summer aircon rather than winter heating, since output is reasonably closely correlated to demand then, but still won't get us to actual zero even there.
No it's not dubious at all. It's hilariously beneficial considering how far north we are, where I honestly thought it would be very borderline, and probably not worth it at all.
We just about eliminated the electricity component of the typical UK supply of electricity and gas for heating. That's not net zero, or creative accounting, that's actually eliminate use of grid electric for nine or ten months, with a little use in winter. That only because of switching water heating to the panels, that was previously on gas. We're in N Cumbria.
This is about electricity, not energy, demand though, so it's more like your neighbour runs a coal fired power plant that you import 50% of your electricity from.
If you look at energy consumption as a whole it's not that great though, in 2017 Scotland consumed 149 GWH, of which 24 GWH was electricity.
I don't think any other European countries are really doing any better though, Germany which is often touted as the leader in renewables, generates most of its electricity from fossil fuels (and most of that from coal and peat). This is why we need countries (and people) to take these climate goals seriously - even if you don't accept climate change, it's easy to see that generating 100% of your own energy from renewables will be more economically stable and sustainable in the long term.
>it's easy to see that generating 100% of your own energy from renewables will be more economically stable and sustainable in the long term.
Is it though? Europe doesn't seem like a particularly good spot spot for renewable energy. We've already put hydro pretty much everywhere we can, but the rest needs to be covered by pretty subpar options. Europe is further north than the US, which makes solar much less appropriate of a choice. Europe is also a lot smaller with more population density and that makes wind more difficult to do.
My comment was meant as opposed to relying on fossil fuels imported from other nations; Europe as a whole imports 87% of it's oil [0], most of which comes from Russia [1]. If the same capital would be spent on renewable domestic energy generation, it would lead to a more stable economy in the long term, as well the benefits of local jobs and not funding countries with questionable regimes (where a lot of oil comes from).
It's a completely different story for the US. As I understand, domestic reserves are expected to last until the mid 2030s, but that assumes no new reserves will be discovered. Unfortunately as a lot of our technology comes from the US, it means the world as a whole is pretty dependent on the US energy economy and their political decisions regarding sustainability.
>My comment was meant as opposed to relying on fossil fuels imported from other nations; Europe as a whole imports 87% of it's oil [0], most of which comes from Russia [1].
I misunderstood you then, because I wholeheartedly agree with this. This is also workable politically because of the energy independence plans of the EU. The discussions around Nord Stream 2 are an example of this.
Europe has some of the best spots on the planet for wind generation. Winds are in many places, a near constant companion, and usually within the range that turbines prefer. Any one of Britain, Ireland and the Nordics could supply a huge proportion of Europe's power needs with fully developed offshore wind. With a slim chance of ever being becalmed. Together I wouldn't be at all surprised to find generation capacity above European needs. There's plenty of suitable onshore sites too, and plenty of other European countries not yet mentioned.
Solar is never going to generate as much per panel in Scotland and UK as in California or Saudi, but it's good enough to pay well economically and in terms of emissions and overall impact too. Why wouldn't we use it in the mix? There's plenty of roof space doing nothing else.
New hydro has less scope, but there are suitable sites, and a large selection of locations suitable for pumped storage -- some of them part prepared by already having a lake in a disused quarry!
> Solar is never going to generate as much per panel in Scotland and UK as in California or Saudi, but it's good enough to pay well economically and in terms of emissions and overall impact too. Why wouldn't we use it in the mix? There's plenty of roof space doing nothing else.
Regarding this I live at 54N, and here installing roof top solar will pay for itself in less than 10 years. That's excluding government grants, and any electricity you are paid for exporting, so in reality it could be as little as 5. After that you have free energy for the life of the system - the inverter will last 15-25 years, solar panels will last the life of the building, but will produce less power over time.
>Europe has some of the best spots on the planet for wind generation. Winds are in many places, a near constant companion, and usually within the range that turbines prefer.
And how much area does that require? Sure, the countries with a long coast might be able to do it, but others might not be able to as easily. Even if they can do it, electricity and land prices would be more expensive there than elsewhere. I'm not sure how this would work politically, because business would probably just move to the other parts of the EU.
>the Nordics could supply a huge proportion of Europe's power needs with fully developed offshore wind.
The further you have to transport electricity the less efficient it becomes. And when you say "Nordics" here are you talking about just Denmark or do you include Sweden too? Because remember, Norway is not in the EU.
This kind of an energy solution is likely unthinkable politically as well. It would render some nation states vulnerable to others.
Well the regions with the most wind tend to concentrate in Western Europe, conveniently with lots of Atlantic, North Sea, and to a somewhat lesser extent Baltic coasts. Summer winds down in N Africa.
I include Norway as we're talking about Europe, and there are two interconnects coming with the UK -- one in progress, one planned, and other EU-Norway links coming. UK has about 5 others in progress to Netherlands, Ireland and elsewhere. There's loads of new interconnects in the pipeline within the EU and to surrounding. I've even seen Iceland in one interconnect proposal, which was somewhat surprising. Proposed interconnects to N Africa less so. There's lots of suitable onshore sites too, mainly in spots where other uses of the land are limited.
Politically not at all unthinkable though -- think of most nation's reliance on imported coal, oil, and gas, much of it for generation. That's more risky. Two way interconnect agreements are much less risk by comparison to import only, often from volatile oil and gas states. Reduced reliance on imported fossil energy is one of the big reasons it's heading that way and started in the first place.
So? The grids of the Nordic countries are already interconnected. There's also a 700 MW cable connecting Norway to the Netherlands, and plans for connections to Germany and the UK.
The total energy generated from renewable sources over some time period (let's say a calendar year to account for seasonal variance) equals the total energy consumed in the same period. However, renewable generation does not equal total consumption instantaneously at every moment in that period.
Sadly, the Orkneys could provide even more renewables if Scotland would build a larger export cable. Instead, the islands are forced to build hydrogen plants and turn off wind generators. Last I checked, they were at 108% renewable.
Did you see that Discovery Channel show where they documented the building of a giant oil platform for oil extraction in the North Sea? All of the things (and forces) they had to deal with... wow.
The North Sea has a -lot- of energy in it, and climate change will probably accentuate that.
> has a goal to source the equivalent of 100% of its electricity demand from renewable energy sources by the end of this year.
> production outstripping demand on 20 out of 30 days and over the whole month providing 109 per cent of electricity demand.
Emphasis mine. This is a great summary of what really happens if you attempt to go full renewable on wind power: you don't control the supply so you need a foreign market to buy your excess production on windy days and to provide power the other days. And no, battery isn't really an option because you can have (and usually have, in anticyclonic conditions) weeks with low wind, and you won't get enough batteries to supply your country for one or more weeks. (I did a calculation for France bases on real power data 2 years ago, and it needed about 4 Tesla Model S battery per inhabitant).
Wind turbines are trivial to downregulate. The foreign market just allows you to shift the strike price for downregulation, making the generation in total more cost-efficient.
Technically you can, but not financially: the advertised energy cost of wind power relies on the fact that turbines produce as much as they can, and in most European countries there has been contracts between windfarms owners and governments to guarantee a buying price, decorelated from the spot market price.
It may be marketed that way in press releases, etc (although I don’t even think that’s true).
But I bet you anything that the people investing in these projects, and the companies pricing their power and betting their future in them, are not doing it on the basis of selling every unit of energy generated.
> But I bet you anything that the people investing in these projects, and the companies pricing their power and betting their future in them, are not doing it on the basis of selling every unit of energy generated.
Wind power has been subsidized a lot in Europe during the past decade, so for at least 80% of the projects, not only the investors cared about selling every unit being generated, but they even relied on them being sold at 3 times the market price!
I don't see why buying external power in weeks with low wind is somehow against the rules — after all you would be stupid to have international power grids and not use them for exactly these purposes. Other than that I could imagine the three new pumped hydro projects that at least I heard of last year could also help with that.
But that international market must rely mostly on something else than wind power, otherwise you don't have anything to buy (there is not so much independent wind regions in Europe). So in practice, a country running 100% renewable (on wind, not talking about Costa Rica running on hydro) ends up running on something like 60% renewable in the best case and the remaining is fossil or nuclear.
So you want to prepare against a scenario where wind everywhere stops for a week? Usually (in Europe at least) there is always wind somewhere and if it stops for a week at your place it might be going even stronger 1000km down south. In times with strong wind you store what you can and export the rest and if there is the very rare event of weeks without wind you use what you stored and then import. And if you have the once a century event of there not beeing wind anywhere (and we assume there is not much hydro, sun, etc as well) then you will have to ration power or fire up these old gas plants of yours.
It is not as if people running a grid don't think about these things in depth. In fact anyone I know in that field constantly plays with scenarios like these and certain plants are only connected to the grid to perform functions like these.
When you talk with a certain type of people about renewables they usually have the undertone of: "They are ideological and really want renewables, but don't really plan it out and it will have all kinds of consequences on our good old grid".
I can't speak for the scots in particular, but my perception is rather different. People in the enrrgy sector usually overanalyze instead of doing too little thinking.
I honestly don’t even understand this argument. These arguments are based on the idea that we will be 100% renewable. I mean, maybe when the world reaches 30-40% renewable may be the time to even start thinking about the problems of a 100% renewable future.
The fact that it’s used to discourage us from solving the current, and very real problems of our majority FF present makes it even more ridiculous.
Finally, there is absolutely no reason we necessarily need to be 100% renewable. There may be a 20% fossil fuel generation future, with a bit of tree planting and other sequestration options that may be good enough. Nuclear may get cheaper by then and we could use nuclear for baseload power. Storage tech could get better and we could use that.
Literally, the last thing we need to be worrying about right now is a 100% renewable future, yet, that’s what dominates renewable energy discussions.
I agree with you on most point (even though you miss another key point: consumption reduction), my argument about the issue with 100% renewable isn't a criticism of renewable as a whole: it's a criticism of this particular article which explicitly talks about going 100% renewable!
What I dislike of criticism like this is, that it always operates on the underlying assumption that they have no idea what they are doing. Implying only the critics know how to calculate things and everybody who does renewable energy is fueled by blind ideology and therefore doesn't even bother.
Unless one knows the scottish plans this kind of criticism only brings one closer to becoming an armchair expert. So instead of actually pointing out a meaningful risk someone didn't calculate for in service of society, ones criticism becomes pure agitation and propaganda to the detrement of it.
And over time what started from a honest doubt can be quite dangerous, as can be observed in alternative medicine, where people first formulated their unease about aspects of the modern medical practise and moved quite rapidely to disregarding it completely and selling people sugar as medicine with real consequences.
It never relied on the assumption that they don't know what they are doing: they know it pretty well it has an economic cost in exchange for a political edge, and they know it only works if they are doing it first. And the criticism stays valid.
> this kind of criticism only brings one closer to becoming an armchair expert. So instead of actually pointing out a meaningful risk someone didn't calculate for in service of society, ones criticism becomes pure agitation and propaganda to the detrement of it.
I know the energy sector pretty well for multiple reasons and two years ago, I spent two weeks aggregating data and modelling the outcome of a full transition to renewable in the case of France[1] so I don't think I deserve your personal attack here.
There's just about zero chance of no wind even if you only consider the East and West coasts of Britain and Ireland. Both of which have colossal wind generation potential. Chances of the whole of Europe from Portugal to Romania, Malta to Finland being becalmed? Slim. :)
> There's just about zero chance of no wind even if you only consider the East and West coasts of Britain and Ireland.
Almost zero chance, and yet it happens every year!
> Chances of the whole of Europe from Portugal to Romania, Malta to Finland being becalmed? Slim. :)
That's more true, byty that doesn't matter actually:
1- you can't expect one third of Europe to provide power for the whole continent when they are the only one with wind or you need to massively overdimension every country's power generation, to a point which is far from profitable.
2- the European grid don't work this way, you can't pump hundreds of gigawatts from one side of the grid to the other. Each link is only capable of transferring a few gigawatt at best from a country to another.
For the odd day. It never happens for lengthy periods. Most of the time wind will be the right answer for significant generation in Britain and Ireland, with great interconnect export potential, so we'll use proportionally less solar and more wind in the mix than Italy will. :p
I simply don't understand why just about everyone on HN who argues against renewables presumes 100% solar, 100% wind, 100% whatever. Every nation will have an appropriate mix for their differing conditions -- isn't that obvious? Apparently it's really not. Interconnecting to nearby nations to move mainly westerly wind power eastwards, and mainly southerly solar northwards. Yet it's still worthwhile for Romania to be adding wind generation. It's still worthwhile for England and Scotland to add solar.
No one is expecting one nation to actually supply the whole of Europe -- grids are becoming more localised and far smarter within the European super-grid that's aiming for continent wide management. The UK is already seeing moves to demand shifting, and localised demand. We'll see far more of that fine level demand shifting, managing in-home batteries and grids managing ever more generating sources to keep to the best mix of sources at any given moment. Right now they do a fine job as you basically never realise the grid is even there, yet the mix of sources varies across every day throughout the year. How Orkney power companies manage it gives an idea where we're heading.
There's a lot of new interconnects in the pipeline across all of Europe too -- UK has 5 or 6 new ones coming soon. Scotland is progressing to new pumped storage of similar size to Dinorwig, though I'm not sure where in the approval process that currently is, or if it'll ultimately be rejected.
We'll all keep some generation of last resort -- right now, in the UK that's coal. It comes in as less economic than interconnects most of the time. There's a few (three or four IIRC) remaining coal plants, all of which are spending 99% of the time idling. Doing absolutely nothing but being ready for spin up. In five years all the coal will be closed, and it'll be the gas plants at the bottom of the heap. It's already uneconomic to build new gas.
I analysed the Templar website grid watch records for I think 2017 and they showed a period of five days with no wind and overall, wind generation was about 30% of the rated maximum over the year. Also don't forget that turbines close down if the winds are too strong as well as too weak.
Sure, and that's not ever in dispute. That's what the grid manage on a daily basis, and the reason we have a mix of sources, and need to always have a mix of renewables. We're also only using a tiny amount of the renewable potential. Not forgetting offshore alone is even less variable.
The only thing that matters is getting the right mix for the local conditions, and a grid capable of managing the rising amount of generating sources properly, and smartly. So far the grid's side of things is being done pretty well, and is pushing and promoting faster renewable adoption. The Westminster political part not so much.
Wind can provide the bulk of regional need, but clearly can't ever be 100%. The resulting mix also has to allow for keeping the lights on in once in a century conditions as well as normality -- an increasing challenge with changing climate.
World spanning electric grids to me are good idea. As excess renewables can be utilized better which reduces carbon production. Singapore is planning to buy solar electricity with underwater sea cables from Australia which has a huge land mass for solar electricity production.
Note that solar doesn't have the same characteristics as wind: there's plenty of places in the world where you don't have weeks without sun while even the most windy offshore wind farm faces such events every once in a while.
Really great of Scotland. Clearly the adults in the room. Unfortunately, the room is filled with 99.9% children and likely the only way to go at this point is to start seriously looking at carbon capture and storage. Sad, but time to face facts. The children are children and no amount of complaining has or will change that fact.
Well, either that or find ways to enjoy a much warmer earth.
I’m pretty sure a few percentage decrease in Scotland’s fossil fuel usage will make up for all those flights in a few weeks, never mind all the other countries that may be driven to do the same based on the outcome of the summit.
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In terms of hard numbers for Scotland, their carbon intensity is 59 gCO2/KWh (https://www.carbonintensity.org.uk/), which is actually pretty great. You can compare against other countries here - https://www.electricitymap.org. Here's the current breakdown of their electricity production:
Wind: 36.5%
Nuclear: 31.1%
Hydro: 16.7%
Gas: 13.5%
Biomass: 1.4%
So right now they are 52.2% renewable energy. Presuming they are running renewables to capacity, this low carbon intensity figure is actually being kept low due to the fact they are sourcing a third of their load from nuclear. Should the Scottish government phase out nuclear as they are currently planning (https://www.gov.scot/policies/nuclear-energy/), then we can expect this carbon intensity to rise as gas is used to pick up the base load when conditions for renewables aren't favourable.