4 ms·

I don't know what is going on in the UK: * On the one hand, supposedly one of the best users of clean energy (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48

by sambe 7y ago

I don't know what is going on in the UK: * On the one hand, supposedly one of the best users of clean energy (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48711649 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48711649). Side question: where does it all come from? The UK doesn't have a lot of sunshine, nor do I see a lot of wind farms compared to other EU countries. Maybe north and around the coast? Wind seems likely given all the news about record wind output when speeds pick up. Wikipedia's number for zero-carbon production seem quite different than BBC's though. * Government makes a vague declaration for the distant future, but Chancellor says we can't afford to do it. * UK criticized for coal subsidies and lack of transparency (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2130231-uk-government-subsidises-coal-sector-with-356-million-a-year/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2130231-uk-government-s...)

s0l1dsnak3123 7y ago
Most of the UK's renewable energy comes from Scottish wind and tidal farms. Almost all energy-based corruption (I count giving public money in any form to the coal industry as corruption at this point, given all we know) comes from the UK Government. The Scottish Government is no angel either though: they refuse to outright-ban fracking (there's an indefinite moratorium on fracking in Scotland though, which is better than nothing) and they are not serious about keeping north sea oil in the ground.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Coal has declined markedly, in good part thanks to the EU (2020/2025?) target to cease coal burning. Drax is now mostly biomass not coal. Biomass that's mostly imported US pellets from mature woodland, so far from as green as it's painted. Still counted in the renewables total though. Drax remains the UK's largest single emitter. Something like 20% of UK energy is now wind, mainly offshore. There's about 20GW capacity, with 5GW more planned or being built. Many of those are Danish owned or E.On. This is happening despite the government not because of. They've effectively made onshore wind impossible now, hence all the offshore. Solar is about 5% of the total. Nuclear about 20%. We already had a 2008 Act committing to 80% reduction by 2050, all Theresa has done is add the rest.
- sambe 7y ago
  Biomass is actually listed as a separate category (at least on the BBC report I linked). Coal progress looks great but feels contradictory with the New Scientist link. Not a lot of people talking about the large gas dependency...
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Gas is the big elephant in the room as it's about 40% of the total, and a chunk of coal was replaced by gas thanks to rush to gas some years back. I think about 5 or 10% of gas is landfill recovery - small, but surprisingly noticeable. More than I would have guessed, anyway. The rest is a mix of other sources including hydro, pumped hydro, and the interconnects. Biomass seems to get included whenever a piece, or Downing Street press release, wants to tout UK generation at over 50% renewable. Separate when it wants to point out that our biomass sources aren't ideal, or the real breakdown of progress. :) This is a rather nice page that shows the decline of coal in recent years, how long since last used, with real time updates: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/may/25/the-power-switch-tracking-britains-record-coal-free-run https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/... Drax capacity is 2/3 biomass, 1/3 coal, but coal now seems to be used as generation of last resort to meet demand when other sources can't. Not sure how or why the subsidies are paid. Maybe some is to keep plants run ready but idle - but that's a complete guess, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find it's just free money for no good reason. I do know Drax got a subsidy to convert that last third to biomass when the total coal phase out comes... It's all rather embarrassing for the UK. There is clear creative accounting. Progress since the coalition in 2010 has been more via (reluctantly) abiding EU targets and industry building renewables for simple economics than UK policy. The cross-party committees on climate change have been on the ball but that's not policy. Government tries to take full credit for all of course, but in truth is holding progress back.
arethuza 7y ago
Where I live in Scotland there appear to be small groups of windmills every few kilometres and with most of the nearby hills have large windfarms - this map appears to be a bit out of date, but you get the idea: https://esenergyvis.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/number_of_turbines.jpg https://esenergyvis.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/number_of_tu... The areas of Scotland that have no windfarms look like the various national parks and/or particularly scenic areas. Having said that, I was quite surprised to see this windfarm from a nearby mountain: https://sse.com/whatwedo/ourprojectsandassets/renewables/Stronelairg/ https://sse.com/whatwedo/ourprojectsandassets/renewables/Str... At 600m its no wonder it is described as "one of their windiest sites" - I suspect you probably can't even see that windfarm from a public road.
RobAley 7y ago
You don't need to speculate, the data is available online. For instance, for quarterly data Ofgem publish here : https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/electricity-generation-mix-quarter-and-fuel-source-gb https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/electricity-generation-... For "live" hourly data : http://gridwatch.co.uk/ http://gridwatch.co.uk/ For what it's worth, wind tends to be heavily concentrated in (windy!) areas (or off-shore), so if you don't frequent them you may not notice.
- sambe 7y ago
  These seem like excellent resources! It's still odd that the UK has been criticised for coal subsidies and the transparency around this if coal has shrunk so dramatically and even imports are relatively small.
mattlondon 7y ago
Right now, 24% of UK's grid is from solar, and wind 9%: https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk This will obviously change as conditions change!
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  It's a beautifully sunny day to day and rather windy. The issue is that 40% of electricity on the grid (and 57% of the electricity generated in the country) comes from gas at the time I'm writing this.
ptah 7y ago
you should see the futuristic landscape of wind turbines in scotland set against dramatic rural landscapes with ancient farm walls and hedges, a sight to behold
m-i-l 7y ago
> where does it all come from? The UK doesn't have a lot of sunshine, nor do I see a lot of wind farms compared to other EU countries For Scotland at least the stats are: - Onshore wind 7.8GW - Hydro 1.655GW - Offshore wind 0.623GW - Solar PV 0.344GW Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Scotland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Scotland (referencing https://www.scottishrenewables.com/forums/renewables-in-numbers/ https://www.scottishrenewables.com/forums/renewables-in-numb... ) Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United... it isn't quite as clear for the UK as a whole but is probably a similar breakdown.

by sambe 7y ago

s0l1dsnak3123 7y ago

Most of the UK's renewable energy comes from Scottish wind and tidal farms. Almost all energy-based corruption (I count giving public money in any form to the coal industry as corruption at this point, given all we know) comes from the UK Government. The Scottish Government is no angel either though: they refuse to outright-ban fracking (there's an indefinite moratorium on fracking in Scotland though, which is better than nothing) and they are not serious about keeping north sea oil in the ground.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Coal has declined markedly, in good part thanks to the EU (2020/2025?) target to cease coal burning. Drax is now mostly biomass not coal. Biomass that's mostly imported US pellets from mature woodland, so far from as green as it's painted. Still counted in the renewables total though. Drax remains the UK's largest single emitter. Something like 20% of UK energy is now wind, mainly offshore. There's about 20GW capacity, with 5GW more planned or being built. Many of those are Danish owned or E.On. This is happening despite the government not because of. They've effectively made onshore wind impossible now, hence all the offshore. Solar is about 5% of the total. Nuclear about 20%. We already had a 2008 Act committing to 80% reduction by 2050, all Theresa has done is add the rest.

sambe 7y ago
Biomass is actually listed as a separate category (at least on the BBC report I linked). Coal progress looks great but feels contradictory with the New Scientist link. Not a lot of people talking about the large gas dependency...
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Gas is the big elephant in the room as it's about 40% of the total, and a chunk of coal was replaced by gas thanks to rush to gas some years back. I think about 5 or 10% of gas is landfill recovery - small, but surprisingly noticeable. More than I would have guessed, anyway. The rest is a mix of other sources including hydro, pumped hydro, and the interconnects. Biomass seems to get included whenever a piece, or Downing Street press release, wants to tout UK generation at over 50% renewable. Separate when it wants to point out that our biomass sources aren't ideal, or the real breakdown of progress. :) This is a rather nice page that shows the decline of coal in recent years, how long since last used, with real time updates: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/may/25/the-power-switch-tracking-britains-record-coal-free-run https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/... Drax capacity is 2/3 biomass, 1/3 coal, but coal now seems to be used as generation of last resort to meet demand when other sources can't. Not sure how or why the subsidies are paid. Maybe some is to keep plants run ready but idle - but that's a complete guess, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find it's just free money for no good reason. I do know Drax got a subsidy to convert that last third to biomass when the total coal phase out comes... It's all rather embarrassing for the UK. There is clear creative accounting. Progress since the coalition in 2010 has been more via (reluctantly) abiding EU targets and industry building renewables for simple economics than UK policy. The cross-party committees on climate change have been on the ball but that's not policy. Government tries to take full credit for all of course, but in truth is holding progress back.

arethuza 7y ago

Where I live in Scotland there appear to be small groups of windmills every few kilometres and with most of the nearby hills have large windfarms - this map appears to be a bit out of date, but you get the idea: https://esenergyvis.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/number_of_turbines.jpg https://esenergyvis.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/number_of_tu... The areas of Scotland that have no windfarms look like the various national parks and/or particularly scenic areas. Having said that, I was quite surprised to see this windfarm from a nearby mountain: https://sse.com/whatwedo/ourprojectsandassets/renewables/Stronelairg/ https://sse.com/whatwedo/ourprojectsandassets/renewables/Str... At 600m its no wonder it is described as "one of their windiest sites" - I suspect you probably can't even see that windfarm from a public road.

RobAley 7y ago

You don't need to speculate, the data is available online. For instance, for quarterly data Ofgem publish here : https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/electricity-generation-mix-quarter-and-fuel-source-gb https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/electricity-generation-... For "live" hourly data : http://gridwatch.co.uk/ http://gridwatch.co.uk/ For what it's worth, wind tends to be heavily concentrated in (windy!) areas (or off-shore), so if you don't frequent them you may not notice.

sambe 7y ago
These seem like excellent resources! It's still odd that the UK has been criticised for coal subsidies and the transparency around this if coal has shrunk so dramatically and even imports are relatively small.

mattlondon 7y ago

Right now, 24% of UK's grid is from solar, and wind 9%: https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk This will obviously change as conditions change!

mytailorisrich 7y ago
It's a beautifully sunny day to day and rather windy. The issue is that 40% of electricity on the grid (and 57% of the electricity generated in the country) comes from gas at the time I'm writing this.

ptah 7y ago

you should see the futuristic landscape of wind turbines in scotland set against dramatic rural landscapes with ancient farm walls and hedges, a sight to behold

m-i-l 7y ago

> where does it all come from? The UK doesn't have a lot of sunshine, nor do I see a lot of wind farms compared to other EU countries For Scotland at least the stats are: - Onshore wind 7.8GW - Hydro 1.655GW - Offshore wind 0.623GW - Solar PV 0.344GW Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Scotland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Scotland (referencing https://www.scottishrenewables.com/forums/renewables-in-numbers/ https://www.scottishrenewables.com/forums/renewables-in-numb... ) Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United... it isn't quite as clear for the UK as a whole but is probably a similar breakdown.