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UK could obviously be a wind / wave energy super power. Despite multi-decade mismanagement by government, we can be bullish about UK prospects, especially now S
by hunglee2 3y ago
UK could obviously be a wind / wave energy super power. Despite multi-decade mismanagement by government, we can be bullish about UK prospects, especially now Scottish Independence is receding from the conversation
- secfirstmd 3y agoWhy would Scottish independence matter? Are they gonna take their wind with them?
- throwaway0665 3y agoThere are a considerable number of existing wind farms in Scottland
- s0l1dsnak3123 3y agoWell, yes, Scotland has many of the best sites for wind turbine generation in the UK. In all likelihood my country would be able to sell energy and water to the rest of the UK when Scotland finally leaves (I am still certain it will happen in my lifetime).
- martinald 3y agoNot really, most offshore is off the coast of England now, not Scotland.
- anovikov 3y agoAnd this is probably exactly because of Scottish independence concerns in the past...
- martinald 3y agoI don't think there is a huge difference in output of English vs Scottish territorial water wind output. There is a massive shortage of Scottish -> England transmission though. So it's a lot better to build them closer to where the power is needed. However, there is nearly 10GW of HVDC in the pipeline to transmit power from Scotland to England (look up national grid eastern link 1, 2, 3 and 4).
- louthy 3y agoJust to back that up: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-locations-of-constructed-or-planned-offshore-wind-farms-in-the-UK-Map-adapted-from_fig3_307661314 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-locations-of-constru...
- martinald 3y agoThat's from 2010. This is a more up to date one, but still probably outdated: https://www.windenergynetwork.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/A1-Map_Issue-57-WEB.pdf https://www.windenergynetwork.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/...
- scythe 3y agoOne of the major limitations of wind power in England is that new onshore wind farms are very difficult to construct if not totally illegal in England. This is probably part of the reason for the situation another commenter noticed: most UK offshore is currently in England's territorial waters. But another reason is due to shortfalls in the physical interconnection between the Scottish and English power grids. UK must construct additional pylons. There's also major potential for wind farms in Wales, although it's been controversial since some of the sites are on top of peat bogs or scenic hills. >Scotland finally leaves (I am still certain it will happen in my lifetime). Scotland could aim for a Channel Islands-type arrangement where they still enjoy an economic union without an administrative one. That would be similar to the situation that existed before the Acts of Union. Of course, they're quite a bit bigger than Jersey, so it could be tricky.
- tremon 3y agoBut are you then implying that once the UK left the EU, all power transmission wires were cut as well? Because I don't see a reason why England wouldn't still enjoy low prices for wind energy even if Scotland were independent -- if Scotland has overcapacity, they'll have to sell at any price anyway to avoid disrupting their power grid. Besides, the European electricity grid is much larger than the EU, it spans all the way from Ireland to Turkey, and from Finland to Morocco.
- secfirstmd 3y agoThis
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Anon826 3y agoUK government pays for energy projects in Scotland to help Scottish economy. Scotland makes up 7% of UK economy. Scotland claims 100% ownership after independence. Genius SNP.
- jl6 3y agoThe big wind projects aren't "owned" by the UK/Scottish governments, they are private* assets built under a government license. Most likely an independent Scotland would continue to license these wind farms and the energy trade with the rest of the UK would continue under very similar terms. * Actually, many of them are owned by non-UK governments.
- yread 3y agoIsn't it the other way around? British gov sells licenses for windparks for billions. It then guarantees electricity price to a certain degree. This would be presumably paid by the Scottish gov.
- krallja 3y agoThey would take the Scottish coast with them.
- thebruce87m 3y agoScottish independence is directly linked to energy. If Scottish independence is in the news then the amount of oil in the North Sea vanishes overnight. Luckily it all comes back when independence talk dies down.
- walthamstow 3y agoI thought I read that wave/tidal was basically not worth the investment and ecological impact for the power it generates.
- MrsPeaches 3y agoSeawater ain’t no joke. I remember reading a few papers about essentially underwater turbines in tidal estuaries. Where you have natural flow of water that you can just tap. If I recall correctly impact on local wildlife (seals iirc) was lower than expected. Main argument I could see was that water had 1000x the density of air so 1000x the amount of power for a rotor with the same swept area. Of course fluid speeds are lower so it’s not quite that easy. But much more predictable. They did some fancy optimisations in the blades and came up with decent efficiencies. It’s a great little series of papers by Batten and Bahaj et. al from 2006. I assume the art has progressed since then. But yeah, anything with moving parts in seawater is a nightmare as far as I can tell.
- riv991 3y agoTidal energy is not renewable! We'd be tidally locked to the moon in 1000 years if we used Tidal for 1% of our energy consumption. https://cs.stanford.edu/people/zjl/pdf/tide.pdf https://cs.stanford.edu/people/zjl/pdf/tide.pdf
- anovikov 3y agoThat article is based on ridiculous assumptions of future energy consumption growth, and was probably created as a joke. Which backfired since it got seriously quoted in so many places.
- midasuni 3y agoThey have a 2% increase in energy use each year for 1000 years, currently 10^12W That would mean we’d be well into the type 1 civilisation about 10^19W a year and we’ll be on the way to a type 2 civilisation.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y agoI had a friend that lived in the Outer Hebrides (Northwest coast of Scotland). He said it wasn't unusual to have gales in the winter, with >100Km/hr winds. Seems to be a rich local resource.
- neilkk 3y agoWind turbines have a max windspeed beyond which they stop generating, as it's too risky to let the blades spin that fast.
- throwaway2037 3y agoDespite multi-decade mismanagement by government I disagree. Exactly this post shows much much progress the UK has made. Can you share some specifics of "multi-decade mismanagement by government"? Can you compare that to other highly developed countries? especially now Scottish Independence is receding from the conversation Can you explain why this matters? I assume the UK minus Scotland has enough onshore and offshore locations to fully power itself with wind and solar.
- hunglee2 3y ago- Mismanagement UK response to GFC was amongst harshest austerity policies in Europe, leading to infrastructure neglect, local government bankruptcy, degrading of the military and lack of investment in education, healthcare and the rest. This set the scene for Brexit, a policy which increased trade friction with the country's most important trade partners whilst also _increasing_ the immigration it was supposed to reduce. - Scotland Independence Indy movement argument for economic viability was access to wind / wave energy around the cost of Scotland. Over half of UK total wind energy comes from Scotland.