6 ms·

Dunkirk auction result boosts the case for offshore wind energy in France

36 points by Osiris30 7y ago

reallydontask 7y ago
I wonder what will be the actual price that charged to the consumer.
fooblitzky 7y ago
Does wind-power help with removing some of the energy from the atmosphere that global warming is putting in? Or because electricity ends up converted back into heat, does it make no difference?
- pietjepuk88 7y ago
  I would say it only helps because it prevents (or reduces) the amount of additional green house gasses released in the atmosphere. I doubt converting wind energy to electricity and then "storing" that electricity/energy somehow and somewhere (such that it doesn't turn into heat) is a stupidly inefficient way of using that wind mill to reduce further global warming. Use the electricity, and don't use the fossil fuel that would have otherwise been used. Related question I guess for someone with more knowledge about this... If green house gas concentrations were as they were before the industrial revolution, but we were outputting in the current world's energy consumption in heat, what would the temperature rise be? I'm guessing it's almost negligible, with the sun's radiation hitting the earth in one hour supposedly being enough to power the entire earth for a year.
  - jabl 7y ago
    From https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015GL063514 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201... > Over the long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere, the cumulative CO2‐radiative forcing exceeds the amount of energy released upon combustion by a factor >100,000.
- wcoenen 7y ago
  It makes no difference overall, but locally there are effects from mixing. Normally at night, land tends to cool faster than the air higher up because of the difference in emissivity. But the increased turbulence and mixing from wind turbines counteracts this, resulting in localized warming of land. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.09.009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.09.009
- pjc50 7y ago
  No, only radiating it to space can do that.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  To start the amount being removed is absolutely minuscule compared to the amount around. On top of that close to the surface (which is where even the tall turbines are relative to the full scale of things) we're only seeing a tiny fraction of the actual energy in the atmosphere due to surface friction slowing down winds near the surface. And yeah even if we were actually capturing any appreciable amount of the energy most of it does become waste heat once it's used so it just enters back somewhere else.
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  I don't think you appreciate the scale of the energies involve here. The heat accumulation of global warming is many orders of magnitude greater than electric consumption (not even wind power generation). Even if you could perfectly store and remove all the energy that wind power generated, it would be barely a rounding error. The key is lowering CO2 production.
legulere 7y ago
€50/MWh sounds a lot cheaper than £92.50/MWh (+inflation) that Hinkley Point C will cost in the UK.
- ljf 7y ago
  Certainly does... and don't forget that we are tied into paying that price for the life of the plant. And then on the hook for the decommissioning costs and storage of the waste. And are basically paying for much of the development cost, and providing a low interest loan... I cannot wait until storage options work financially and the case for coal, gas and nuclear is a moot point as the costs of renewables are so low.
  - jabl 7y ago
    > don't forget that we are tied into paying that price for the life of the plant. Construction + 35 years, actually. (expected life 60-80 or more years) > And then on the hook for the decommissioning costs and storage of the waste. Not sure how it works in the UK, but in most places nuclear operators are required to pay a certain percentage of operating revenue into a government fund to cover the decommissioning and waste storage costs. Exactly so the taxpayers aren't left with the cleanup bill. > And are basically paying for much of the development cost, and providing a low interest loan... What the UK is largely paying for is actually capital costs due to refusing to provide a state guaranteed low interest loan. Had they done that they could have gotten it for half the price. Here's one alternative way to finance similar projects in the UK: http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/energy/energy/the-nuclear-rab-model/ http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/energy/energy/the-nuclear-rab-mo...
- jandrese 7y ago
  Yep, just don't count your chickens before they hatch. That was the bid price but it remains to be seen if they can deliver at that price point.
  - aurelwu 7y ago
    With the recent delays at Flamanville 3 because of faulty welds [0] which make a completion before end of 2020 rather unlikely there are big question because that is one of the conditions in the hinkley point C contracts [1] [2]. [0] http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Weld-repairs-to-delay-Flamanville-EPR-start-up http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Weld-repairs-to-d... [1] http://energywatchgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Nuclear-disaster_EPR_EN.pdf#page=4 http://energywatchgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Nucle... (middle of page) [2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2015:109:FULL&from=EN#page=52 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L... (first footnote)

36 points by Osiris30 7y ago

I wonder what will be the actual price that charged to the consumer.

Does wind-power help with removing some of the energy from the atmosphere that global warming is putting in? Or because electricity ends up converted back into heat, does it make no difference?

pietjepuk88 7y ago
I would say it only helps because it prevents (or reduces) the amount of additional green house gasses released in the atmosphere. I doubt converting wind energy to electricity and then "storing" that electricity/energy somehow and somewhere (such that it doesn't turn into heat) is a stupidly inefficient way of using that wind mill to reduce further global warming. Use the electricity, and don't use the fossil fuel that would have otherwise been used. Related question I guess for someone with more knowledge about this... If green house gas concentrations were as they were before the industrial revolution, but we were outputting in the current world's energy consumption in heat, what would the temperature rise be? I'm guessing it's almost negligible, with the sun's radiation hitting the earth in one hour supposedly being enough to power the entire earth for a year.
- jabl 7y ago
  From https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015GL063514 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201... > Over the long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere, the cumulative CO2‐radiative forcing exceeds the amount of energy released upon combustion by a factor >100,000.
wcoenen 7y ago
It makes no difference overall, but locally there are effects from mixing. Normally at night, land tends to cool faster than the air higher up because of the difference in emissivity. But the increased turbulence and mixing from wind turbines counteracts this, resulting in localized warming of land. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.09.009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.09.009
pjc50 7y ago
No, only radiating it to space can do that.
rtkwe 7y ago
To start the amount being removed is absolutely minuscule compared to the amount around. On top of that close to the surface (which is where even the tall turbines are relative to the full scale of things) we're only seeing a tiny fraction of the actual energy in the atmosphere due to surface friction slowing down winds near the surface. And yeah even if we were actually capturing any appreciable amount of the energy most of it does become waste heat once it's used so it just enters back somewhere else.
throwaway5752 7y ago
I don't think you appreciate the scale of the energies involve here. The heat accumulation of global warming is many orders of magnitude greater than electric consumption (not even wind power generation). Even if you could perfectly store and remove all the energy that wind power generated, it would be barely a rounding error. The key is lowering CO2 production.

legulere 7y ago

€50/MWh sounds a lot cheaper than £92.50/MWh (+inflation) that Hinkley Point C will cost in the UK.

ljf 7y ago
Certainly does... and don't forget that we are tied into paying that price for the life of the plant. And then on the hook for the decommissioning costs and storage of the waste. And are basically paying for much of the development cost, and providing a low interest loan... I cannot wait until storage options work financially and the case for coal, gas and nuclear is a moot point as the costs of renewables are so low.
- jabl 7y ago
  > don't forget that we are tied into paying that price for the life of the plant. Construction + 35 years, actually. (expected life 60-80 or more years) > And then on the hook for the decommissioning costs and storage of the waste. Not sure how it works in the UK, but in most places nuclear operators are required to pay a certain percentage of operating revenue into a government fund to cover the decommissioning and waste storage costs. Exactly so the taxpayers aren't left with the cleanup bill. > And are basically paying for much of the development cost, and providing a low interest loan... What the UK is largely paying for is actually capital costs due to refusing to provide a state guaranteed low interest loan. Had they done that they could have gotten it for half the price. Here's one alternative way to finance similar projects in the UK: http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/energy/energy/the-nuclear-rab-model/ http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/energy/energy/the-nuclear-rab-mo...
jandrese 7y ago
Yep, just don't count your chickens before they hatch. That was the bid price but it remains to be seen if they can deliver at that price point.
- aurelwu 7y ago
  With the recent delays at Flamanville 3 because of faulty welds [0] which make a completion before end of 2020 rather unlikely there are big question because that is one of the conditions in the hinkley point C contracts [1] [2]. [0] http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Weld-repairs-to-delay-Flamanville-EPR-start-up http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Weld-repairs-to-d... [1] http://energywatchgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Nuclear-disaster_EPR_EN.pdf#page=4 http://energywatchgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Nucle... (middle of page) [2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2015:109:FULL&from=EN#page=52 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L... (first footnote)