Yet more power

Dad, commenting on More power cuts: Denmark, Italy:

The polution locally was dire. It suited the politicians well to shift the power generation to the coal fields and shift electricity instead of coal.

OK, and in this the total energy requirement may be reduced, since coal is heavy stuff to drag around the country.

The theory of the CEGB was that it allowed power to be produced by the cheapest available means for what was needed.

And "cheapest" in this context might well be a near synonym for "most efficient".

Drax burnt coal in a system that was only efficient flat out. So it delivered base load. Various hydro power stations stood buy to turn on during commercial breaks when a million kettles were turned on at once. At night, the power from Drax could be used to reverse the hydro power flow at Dinorwic, Loch Ness and Cruachan and pump water back up the hill for the next surge.

One problem in that in this picture is the absence of low grade energy (like, for example, solar energy for heating water and air), and the tendency of everyone involved to forget (deliberately, on some parts) that the cheapest energy is the energy you don't use. I wasn't seriously suggesting moving coal fired power stations back into town, but it seems fair to say that when our cities were beset by smog, the residents had a pretty clear idea of the impact of their heating "systems".

As usual, there's more to say (I haven't even tried to respond to the railways comments). I suspect that feedback is an important concept there, too. But it's tea time.

Comments

[Bill Harvey]

And, of course, Drax is too far from anywhere that could use the low grade energy so it is pumped out in cooling towers, except they did at least set up a large tomato growing greenhouse to use some of the heat. Don't know how that went.

As I said. Gas fired stations should be in town where the electricity is close to demand and the spare heat could be used.

[Hamish]

A lot of this discussion is about the absence of "systems thinking", I suspect. Power stations were moved out of town because they were dirty, and it didn't occur to anyone that the reason for having them out of town goes away when you use gas. On the other hand, gas fired power stations aren't dirty, so presumably wouldn't provide the sort of negative feedback that is required to cause us to check our use of energy.

I suppose regular black/brownouts might do that, but I fear it would just turn into a political bunfight, and we'd finish up with someone like Schwarzenegger in charge.

Using the low grade heat from power stations themselves is one aspect of maximising the efficiency of the system. Efforts at a scale local to the house such as Trombe walls and solar water heating need to be viewed as part of the system as well, though.

Something like:

1. Don't use it.
2. Collect low grade energy (solar) locally.
3. Combined heat and power, as local as possible.
5. Surges in demand in ad breaks from eg pumped Hydro
6. Baseline from conventional large scale power stations, being replaced as fast as possible (which isn't very fast) with renewables.