'Where will all this energy come from in the future"

[admin]

I have been asked by Fred Starr.....
"........to
ask people who are proposing various solutions to address the question of where the primary energy is coming from........"
Fred Starr.

Its a good question. My answer (Dave Andrews) is to exchange the value of 25 future years worth of coal, and gas, for sufficient wind turbines, biomass and associated plant to replace it, reduced massively by spending a large part of the 25 years worth of coal and gas bills on whatever insulation measures, and chp measures, Dave Olivier, Jeremy Harrison and Bill Orchard can agree is a fair divvying up.

Kind Regards

Dave A
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: 07 December 2008 19:18
To: Chris Hodrien; Claverton En Gp- Email; Dave EU Andrews
Subject: Re: [Claverton-Group] Fw: Future of the gas grid + mCHP [RE-SEND] and Coal

Dear Chris,
You are broadly correct,in your analysis, but I think
you should have stopped writing as soon as you thought
of the line......
"They are all behaving as though they expect
reasonably-priced LNG to flow forever, and "will worry
about it later" if it doesn't.""
This is the biggest issue facing the UK. Consumption
of natural gas is over 90 million tonnes oil
equivalent, considerably in excess of the amount of
oil used for transport.
To replace our usage of natural gas with coal, taking
into account conversion losses, (ie coal to SNG and
coal to electricity)would require about 200 million
tonnes of coal per annum. If this was subjected to
carbon capture this would increase to about 220
million tonnes.
Almost all of this would be imported coal.This level
of coal production was last reached in the UK in the
middle fifties.We are presently producing one tenth of
that level.
It means that arguing about the merits of different
forms of CHP, and payback times, is pretty pointless,
unless there is agreement on where the primary energy
is coming from.
So perhaps I can end by adding a line from me ......
"Some people are behaving as though they expect
reasonably-priced COAL to be imported forever,and
"will worry about it later" if it doesn't."
Fred
PS: I call upon Dave Andrews as Leader of Claverton to
ask people who are proposing various solutions to
address the question of where the primary energy is
coming from.
Fred Starr




---
>

> Subject: Re: Future of the gas grid + mCHP
>
>
> William, (-please remember to cut messrs Holbrook
> and Olson off these message headers as requested, as
> I now have).
> - Quite agree on CHP economies of scale.
> Likely gas industry business response more complex
> because of the higher price/profit they charge for
> domestic-scale gas supply - this argument/issue has
> "rolled on forever" within BG. They have certainly
> strongly supported the mCHP R&D work - I think they
> want to support both scales of CHP, they don't give
> a d*mn about UK energy strategy and just see mCHP as
> a new class of customers they can sell to in short
> term.
> I see no sign of any strategic thought within any of
> the gas industry players on a "post-NG" future -
> even medium-term coal-SNG, never mind H2 or DH
> networks. They are all behaving as though they
> expect reasonably-priced LNG to flow forever, and
> "will worry about it later" if it doesn't.
> I sincerely doubt that investment in DH networks,
> unless heavily subsidised by my proposed "CROCs" for
> CO2 reduction, will meet their "over-greedy"
> rate-of-return criteria any decade soon, any more
> than it has in the last 30 years. The blunt fact is
> that on this criterion, the existing crowd would not
> invest in creating the existing gas grid (= lower
> cost per kWh sold than DH networks) itself if it
> didn't already exist!! My own R&D organisation was
> "savaged" because the industry became entirely
> fixated on replicating gas business (upstream,
> downstream, both UN-regulated) everywhere else in
> the world instead, where far better pickings are
> available than the UK. This opportunity is almost
> endless for them because the world natural gas
> industry is still immature (still in major growth
> phase).
> I see powerplant waste heat-CHP-DH grid construction
> as more likely a power industry diversification,
> "picking-up" supplementary heat sources like gas,
> biomass along the way, since they control the "big",
> low-cost waste heat source (your "10:1 heat pump") =
> much better payback than gas fuel. The gov't could
> easily encourage this by quotas, subsidy (CROCs) or
> legislation change if it chose. The minute such a
> grid exists, then the gas industry will encourage
> gas-CHP plants (like yours) to feed it. But I doubt
> you'll get subsidised gas from them: any subsidy/tax
> break/capital allowance would have to come from
> gov't. I just despair of OFGEM pricing policy in
> the gas area, no innovation or incentives at all.
> Their rigorous weeding-out of cross-subsidies, just
> to satisfy Thatcherite economic theories, has
> already caused enormous damage and missed
> opportunities and bear no relation to national
> energy strategies at all, with the very small
> exception of worthy subsidised house insulation
> schemes. Similarly there is still no sign of the
> Gov't (DECC) having any desire to interfere in
> "directing" the proportion of gas used between CCGT
> central/remote plant, large CHP plant and the
> "traditional" gas market (inc' embedded smaller CHP
> plants) - for example a moratorium on new non-CHP
> CCGT plant construction.
>
> John B - as a fellow gas-man, do you agree with this
> analysis? (-or do you think things are even worse?!)
> Chris.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: William Orchard
>
> Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 10:22 PM
> Subject: RE: Future of the gas grid + mCHP
>
>
> Chris,
> Work done by EU and others show CHP using large
> scale CHP more economic than the micro CHP.
> Gas best used in large scale CHP in terms of
> conversion to useful product.
> This option maximises CO2 savings from use of gas
> in cities.
> It is thus of benefit to the Gas industry itself
> to use gas in this way and invest in the heat
> networks for the benefit of consumers.
> It also then takes the gas industry which is
> basically a heat supply by gas degraded in local
> boilers to low grade heat piped heat in buildings,
> into a heat supply industry.
> This allows them to then decarbonise the whole of
> the heat sectors requirements for heat.
> William.
>
> W R H Orchard MA(Oxon) MBA CEng FIMechE MCIBSE
> MIET FEI
>
> Managing Director
>
> Orchard Partners London Ltd
>
> 2 Dunmore Road
>
> London SW20 8TN.

>
>
>
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> From: Chris Hodrien

> Subject: Re: Future of the gas grid + mCHP
>
>
> Dear Neil et al,
> I'm sure you're about right (or slightly early)
> for the rough date-frame for NG pricing itself out
> of the market. The credible low-cost medium-term
> fix for imported NG/LNG shortages, to continue using
> the same gas grid infrastructure without massive
> conversion costs, is coal gasification to SNG
> (Synthetic natural Gas) in large central "city-gate"
> plants (to get economies of scale) fitted with 90%
> CCS and ideally urban CHP-DH waste heat recovery, as
> discussed by myself and Fred at the Conference. This
> is already starting to happen now* (minus the CCS
> and CHP) in both USA and China. I'm sure this will
> be the gas industry's preferred initial "Business As
> Usual" solution rather than H2, but that does depend
> on the level of CO2 "tax" (e.g. ETS) at the time.
> This gets you "only" 10% higher CO2 impact than
> current NG per unit of delivered energy, which is
> about 40% lower CO2 than non-CCS coal electricty.
> Re. total GW (GHG) impact, the gas grid is
> surpisingly "tight" (the higher pressure systems
> almost 100% so), so it only comes a "low"- 3rd
> largest methane emitter on DEFRA's UK inventory (see
> DEFRA website). To go beyond 40% CO2 reduction in
> this particular end-use sector (say after 2035,
> en-route to 80% reduction by 2050) would need
> something more radical, probably H2. I don't see how
> it's practical to re-use these pipes for DH hot
> water because they're not insulated, and although in
> theory there could be an in-situ internal insulation
> solution (via a technique called Swage-lining), this
> would take away so much of their diameter (esp' for
> the smaller pipes) that I doubt it's practical. If
> you have to dig them up (to insulate) you might as
> well replace them.There are two radically different
> H2 options:
> 1) Put H2 in the front "bulk supply" end and
> accept whatever energy down-rating results. Requires
> all joints/equipment to be modified to H2-compatible
> seals - probably a big cost number. Significant
> worries on H2 technical impacts on both HP steel
> pipelines and leakage through low-P polythene pipes.
> 2) The National Grid proposal - continue to
> distribute methane (Coal-SNG) through the HP system
> with all its advantages and then themally crack it
> to H2 + solid C (for burial in landfill) at the
> pressure reduction stations (equivalent to William's
> "substations" locations). However, thermal cracking
> is only c. 50% efficient so this does mean a c.50%
> downrating of the upstream HP system.
> While all this is practical, larger-scale urban
> CHP-DH grids would be far more fuel-flexible and
> "future-proof" than gas-fuelled mCHP, critically the
> ability to use the huge amounts of central power
> station waste heat as part of the supply mix which
> is one of the biggest single step-changes that could
> be made to UK (or any country) energy efficiency.
> The
=== message truncated ===




_______________________________________________

[admin]

Neil

The wind resource is larger than the hydro or tidal resource but a fair analogy is that before the coal age our fast-flowing rivers - a relatively concentrated energy source - were dammed from top to bottom to produce waterpower well before people considered the use of windpower.
Why did you assume barrages and not double lagoons with pumping? Pumping should allow them to load follow.
The Channel Islands seem to have a huge tidal stream resource. I believe they still make electricity from oil. Maybe they could make money from energy production instead of "financial services". La Rance in Brittany is
42 yrs old this year.
If you use these energy vectors:
1 DH for a lot of space and water heating (88% of UK population lives in cities, towns and villages of >1,000 people) along with insulation and airtightness
2 synfuels (combine H2 from wind surpluses with sequestered CO2) plus sustainable biofuels for all transport except trams and trains, also reduce car fuel consumption from 8 to 2 litres/100 km as I said at conf.
then you need less electricity and the storage problems are disproportionately reduced, because more of it then comes from firm sources such as hydro, tidal, biomass CHP and (depending on hot dry rocks) geothermal CHP.
I don't think you've yet taken that into account. You've assumed that heating and road transport is extensively electrified which is a £ multi-trillion investment, poses big problems with heating because of the very low load factor and even with road transport has problems; e.g., how do you heat and de-mist electric cars or if you bought a secondhand car how can you afford a replacement battery pack?
You have to get really serious over energy efficiency and then
1. Transport doesn't need 600 TWh/yr delivered liquids and 2. Lighting, domestic appliances, PCs and other office electrical equipment, HVAC ventilation fans, train and tram motors, smoke alarms, heating controls, etc don't need 360 TWh/yr of delivered electricity. Domestic consumption might well be reduced to 1800 kWh/yr or less which is 40 TWh/yr across the UK, less by 2050.

David.

----- Original Message -----Subject: Re: [Claverton-Group] Where is all this primary energy going to comefrom and how are we going to pay for it.

> David,
>
> In terms of UK indigenous resources offshore wind and wave are
> respectively substantially greater and considerably greater than tidal
> (unless Mackay is right about underestimation of stream resource - I
> asked MCT but they were not convinced).
>
> That is - say for a FED of 1,200 TWh/y (40% of current PES which is
> around 2,900 TWh/y) :
>
> * resource of offshore wind is potentially hundreds of TWh/y (indeed -
> over 100 TWh/y from around 40 GW by 2020 hopefully if UK is to achieve
> 15% EU share without unsustainable biofuels / biomass)
> * resource of wave is potentially 100 TWh/y + depending on success / cost
> effectiveness of Pelamis
> * resource of tidal stream is maybe 20 - 30 TWh/y
> * resource of tidal range is maybe 20 - 30 TWh/y too - mainly barrage
> (s) or lagoons
> * sustainable biomass - anybody's guess say 40 -80 TWh/y ?
>
> While tidal may be precisely predictable rather than variable I dont
> think that it should be over-rated - it still has to be load followed.
> In the case of the barrage two intermittent daily pulses each rising 8+
> GW in less than an hour around the spring tide days (ie maybe 150 + times
> a year) is FAR FAR worse than the cummulative output from large offshore
> wind scenarios (eg 40 GW might swing +/- 1 GW an hour and maybe 8+ GW
> once or twice a year). But more and more RE power from any source would
> be needed for heating (and transport sector) so I don't see variability
> as such a major issue as heat can be stored relatively easily.
>
> Even massive inputs in offshore wind / other variable RE (say beyond
> 2030) could be used to heat water for storage and distribution on
> demand - in massive gasometer size heat stores to domestic tanks.
> Offhsore wind and wave are complimentary at more or less 50/50
> combination - ie waves created by wind take longer to arrive across UK).
> If there is also a need to make hydrogen then the conversion losses could
> be minimised by linking up the electrolzers to heat grids (another
> benefit of heat grids).
>
> For example : by say 2040 - 2050 if wind energy supplied half UK energy
> (say 600 TWh/y in my estimated FED) it would require around 185 GW of
> wind mainly offshore. Say biomass delivers 40 TWh/y of electricity and 40
> GW of wave delivers 100 TWh/y of electricity and other RE manages 60
> TWh/y. Assuming electricity 'on demand' is one third of FED (ie around
> 400 TWh/y) then wind would need to supply as much as possible of the
> remaining 200 TWh/y of electricity on demand out of its 600 TWh/y annual
> output. So I think wind could provide much of this. Back-up when it would
> not would be coal gasifier CHP (or gas CHP assuming a gas fest brought on
> by 40p/term ! ?) with older unabated CCGTs, etc in reserve for winter
> anticyclones.
>
> I am not sure why using excess-to-demand RE could not be used for heating
> molten salts for generating electricity on demand (ie as in CSP night
> time operation). Once there are CHP stations / heat grids then processes
> with 'traditional' conversion losses could be utilised - ie heat grids
> provide resilience and flexibility.
>
> Neil
>
>
>
>
>
> On 7 Dec 2008, at 19:51, David Olivier wrote:
>
>> Dave/Fred
>>
>>
>> (1) Assess UK energy needs. In terms of delivered energy they're
>> approximately:
>>
>> (a) 60% heat - some is at very high temps., e.g., cement and glass
>> manufacture & fuel needs to be burned
>> (b) 30% transport fuel - a minority is substitutable by electricity as
>> in rail & trams
>> (c) 10% electricity-specific - lights, domestic appliances, PCs, office
>> equipment, telephones, the internet, doorbells, heating controls et al
>>
>> (2) Invest in negawatts as PG&E, SCE, SCG, SDGE and others did in 1990s
>> under the orders of the California Public Utility Commission & State
>> Energy Commssion. That "supplies" more than any individual renewable.
>> Give consumers feebates to buy very efficient road vehicles so that e.g.
>> Audi brings back the 3ltr/100 km A2 1.2 TDI & even makes a RH drive
>> version. Etc etc.
>>
>> (3) Invest in a mix of
>> (a) Heat
>> solar (as at Marstal, Kungalv)
>> geothermal (incl CHP from hot dry rocks)
>> et al
>> (b) Elec-specific
>> tidal (UK & Channel Islands have best resource in world)
>> hydro
>> biomass/gas CHP
>> (c) Fuel. Apart from gas:
>> Sustainable biomass (e.g., recent German govt. report on EU resources)
>> Synthetic fuels, using H2 from wave/wind/PV surpluses - link to CCS or
>> extract CO2 from atmosphere.
>>
>> Wind and wave are there too. But without today's 60 GW of fossil fuel
>> generating plant, a combination of tidal lagoons, hydro and biomass/gas
>> CHP is a better candidate for keeping the lights on than wind, wave and
>> PV. By comparison, these are adjuncts and depend for their success on a
>> combination of electricity storage and elaborate demand management.
>>
>> (4) Sequester biomass and burn fossil gas wherever this combination
>> improves the energy and air pollution balance compared to burning
>> biomass and refraining from consuming fossil gas. I don't care if a
>> molecule of CO2 entering the atmosphere comes from burning (sustainable
>> or unsustainable) wood or burning gas; the act of emitting CO2 has the
>> same impact on climate change. If a sustainable forest was planted 50 or
>> 100 years earlier, that action should receive a totally separate CO2
>> credit.
>>
>> Because burning 1 kWh wood emits c.2x as many kg of CO2 as burning 1 kWh
>> methane, it's actually more sensible to sequester X kWh of wood and burn
>> X kWh of natural gas than it is to burn X kWh of wood and refrain from
>> burning X kWh of gas. Doing so keeps c. 0.2X kg of CO2 out of the
>> atmosphere.
>>
>> (5) Does CHP extend gas dependency? (See 4 also.) UK waste heat exceeds
>> domestic gas sales of 380 TWh/yr. Phasing out the uninterruptable load
>> of domestic gas heating helps or even solves the gas storage problem.
>> Halving UK gas consumption reduces dependency on Qatar & Russia.
>>
>> If we insulate & draughtproof buildings & use electricity more
>> efficiently gas usage could be cut 75% within decades. That's before we
>> consider other sources of heat for DH networks such as geothermal, solar
>> and industrial waste heat. I doubt that c. 25% of present consumption
>> within a few decades stretches world gas resources unduly.
>>
>> www.inforse.org regularly publishes good; i.e., plausible energy
>> scenarios for the EU-27 saying where the primary energy would come from
>> in a future of energy efficiency and a move towards renewables. Costs
>> about 25 Eu/year.
>>
>> David.

[admin]

Dear David
del...
Because burning 1 kWh wood emits c.2x as many kg of CO2 as burning 1 kWh
methane, it's actually more sensible to sequester X kWh of wood and burn X
kWh of natural gas than it is to burn X kWh of wood and refrain from burning X kWh of gas. Doing so keeps c. 0.2X kg of CO2 out of the atmosphere.
* You might be correct with the basic statement (2x CO2 per wooden kW.. haven't checked) but the major factor of importance is that CO2 from wood adds no new CO2 to the Biosphere... the CO2 from wood came from the Biosphere and goes back to it for recapture by more trees. CO2 from natural gas is "new carbon to the biosphere" and will contribute to an elevation of the CO2 tonnage that has to be removed.

"Wood sequestration of CO2" is not all that it seems. Mature forests, by definition, have reached the balance point, where the mean annual increment of growth is zero... such a stand liberates as much CO2 from dying sections as it captures with new growth in growing sections.

An excellent way to sequester carbon is to convert biomass to charcoal, then add the charcoal to agricultural soil... the half life of charcoal in soil seems to be in excess of 1000 years. Additionally, there can be a significant advantage to the soil, in terms of enhanced growth, reduced nutrient leaching, and better moisture retention.

Best wishes,

Kevin Chisholm

[admin]

David,
In terms of UK indigenous resources offshore wind and wave are respectively substantially greater and considerably greater than tidal (unless Mackay is right about underestimation of stream resource - I asked MCT but they were not convinced).
That is - say for a FED of 1,200 TWh/y (40% of current PES which is around 2,900 TWh/y) :
* resource of offshore wind is potentially hundreds of TWh/y (indeed
- over 100 TWh/y from around 40 GW by 2020 hopefully if UK is to achieve 15% EU share without unsustainable biofuels / biomass)
* resource of wave is potentially 100 TWh/y + depending on success / cost effectiveness of Pelamis
* resource of tidal stream is maybe 20 - 30 TWh/y
* resource of tidal range is maybe 20 - 30 TWh/y too - mainly barrage (s) or lagoons
* sustainable biomass - anybody's guess say 40 -80 TWh/y ?
While tidal may be precisely predictable rather than variable I dont think that it should be over-rated - it still has to be load followed. In the case of the barrage two intermittent daily pulses each rising 8+ GW in less than an hour around the spring tide days (ie maybe 150 + times a year) is FAR FAR worse than the cummulative output from large offshore wind scenarios (eg 40 GW might swing +/- 1 GW an hour and maybe 8+ GW once or twice a year). But more and more RE power from any source would be needed for heating (and transport
sector) so I don't see variability as such a major issue as heat can be stored relatively easily.
Even massive inputs in offshore wind / other variable RE (say beyond
2030) could be used to heat water for storage and distribution on demand - in massive gasometer size heat stores to domestic tanks.
Offhsore wind and wave are complimentary at more or less 50/50 combination - ie waves created by wind take longer to arrive across UK). If there is also a need to make hydrogen then the conversion losses could be minimised by linking up the electrolzers to heat grids (another benefit of heat grids).
For example : by say 2040 - 2050 if wind energy supplied half UK energy (say 600 TWh/y in my estimated FED) it would require around
185 GW of wind mainly offshore. Say biomass delivers 40 TWh/y of electricity and 40 GW of wave delivers 100 TWh/y of electricity and other RE manages 60 TWh/y. Assuming electricity 'on demand' is one third of FED (ie around 400 TWh/y) then wind would need to supply as much as possible of the remaining 200 TWh/y of electricity on demand out of its 600 TWh/y annual output. So I think wind could provide much of this. Back-up when it would not would be coal gasifier CHP (or gas CHP assuming a gas fest brought on by 40p/term ! ?) with older unabated CCGTs, etc in reserve for winter anticyclones.
I am not sure why using excess-to-demand RE could not be used for heating molten salts for generating electricity on demand (ie as in CSP night time operation). Once there are CHP stations / heat grids then processes with 'traditional' conversion losses could be utilised
- ie heat grids provide resilience and flexibility.
Neil

[admin]

Dear All,
Very similar sentiments from the USA this from NEC-Forum@yahoogroups.com regards Ferrand
Energy Message for Investors
Posted by: "Arthur Noel" cluck_market@yahoo.com cluck_market
Date: Sat Dec 6, 2008 7:00 am ((PST))
It is a reality. With oil prices headed for a $1.00/gallon on gasoline and possibly below, investors might think that alternative energy investments are a sucker bet. Rest assured nothing could be farther from the truth. The dropping energy prices will be followed by a serious run up in costs when economic conditions recover. Now is the time to buy into alternative energy.
Its cheap right now. The capital costs of developing alternative energy are all lock step attached to the price of oil. The oil is cheap and the metals, glass, electronics etc are cheap now too.
What you can rely on most of all is that the energy your technology generates will not increase in cost when oil takes off again. When the heard goes out buying oil at any price, your investment will pay off to the limit. Your costs will not be tied to oil's next run up. They will be tied to its last drop.
Here are areas sure to pay off right now.
(1) Energy Conservation Technologies. Things which reduce continuing use of energy.
(2) Solar and Wind Energy. Today these are foolishly cheap.
(3) Geothermal, Tidal and similar Energy.

[admin]

Neil

The wind resource is larger than the hydro or tidal resource but a fair analogy is that before the coal age our fast-flowing rivers - a relatively concentrated energy source - were dammed from top to bottom to produce waterpower well before people considered the use of windpower.
Why did you assume barrages and not double lagoons with pumping? Pumping should allow them to load follow.
The Channel Islands seem to have a huge tidal stream resource. I believe they still make electricity from oil. Maybe they could make money from energy production instead of "financial services". La Rance in Brittany is
42 yrs old this year.
If you use these energy vectors:
1 DH for a lot of space and water heating (88% of UK population lives in cities, towns and villages of >1,000 people) along with insulation and airtightness
2 synfuels (combine H2 from wind surpluses with sequestered CO2) plus sustainable biofuels for all transport except trams and trains, also reduce car fuel consumption from 8 to 2 litres/100 km as I said at conf.
then you need less electricity and the storage problems are disproportionately reduced, because more of it then comes from firm sources such as hydro, tidal, biomass CHP and (depending on hot dry rocks) geothermal CHP.
I don't think you've yet taken that into account. You've assumed that heating and road transport is extensively electrified which is a £ multi-trillion investment, poses big problems with heating because of the very low load factor and even with road transport has problems; e.g., how do you heat and de-mist electric cars or if you bought a secondhand car how can you afford a replacement battery pack?
You have to get really serious over energy efficiency and then
1. Transport doesn't need 600 TWh/yr delivered liquids and 2. Lighting, domestic appliances, PCs and other office electrical equipment, HVAC ventilation fans, train and tram motors, smoke alarms, heating controls, etc don't need 360 TWh/yr of delivered electricity. Domestic consumption might well be reduced to 1800 kWh/yr or less which is 40 TWh/yr across the UK, less by 2050.

David.

[admin]

Dear All,
I see somebody say:
'To echo Fred, where is it all going to come from? 40TWh e per year from biomass seems a huge stretch'
Well, I don't know how much we can get out of biomass, but it seems sensible to try and get all we can, not dismiss it by saying 'there isn't much, so let's not bother'. You can say much the same thing about solar thermal panels on houses.
The German biogas association seems pretty gung ho about supplying lots of methane from anaerobically digested sorghum - that may be a more energy efficient way of generating energy from biomass. I confess to being quite lazy so far in calculating what the potential is from this (the methane would be fed directly into the gas grid). If anybody fancies doing the calculations for this I'd be interested. I guess all we need to know is:
A) kg output of sorghum per hectare
B) quantity of methane per Kg of sorghum
C) Energy density of methane
D) amount of 'spare' land
I would also comment, that however much the anti-biomass fundamentalists may go on about the 'threat' of biomass taking up agricultural land in this country, the amount of land being used for agriculture, in reality, in this country, continues to fall. If there's a gap between theory and reality, maybe people should think about the theory.......

In Germany biogas electricity capacity is now over 1000 MWe just from biomass waste sources, and the Germans reckon there's plenty more where that came from. So I wouldn't call this a limited source, particularly.
Best Wishes,
Dave Toke
-----Original Message-----

Subject: [Claverton-Group] Tidal and biomass RE: Biomass RE: Where is allthis primary energy...
Phil, Neil
Tidal - Chatham House, thought you can guess the sources. The Pentland theory would need a high resolution Doppler sonar survey of the sea bed, along with further modelling, in order to prove/disprove
Biomass - silviculture co-product and energy crops... thirty years ago Forestry Commission and others radically overestimated supply for existing uses, and is quite prepared to see prime timber go up a chimney. Even then...
George
-----Original Message-----

[mailto:claverton-group-bounces@claverton-energy.com] On Behalf Of Neil Crumpton
Sent: 09 December 2008 11:35
To: Philip Harris
energy...
Phil,
Thanks for your views on biomass - I did say a guess - figures are nowhere near set in stone within FOE. My guestimate did include imports not just UK - though that is wide open to critique too. If '
sustainable' UK biomass resource (indigenous + imported) is maybe more like 2 or 20 TWh/y then fine - I await your collated figures and will pass them on to relevant FOE campaigners. We are not impressed with the large (300 MW+) 'electricity-only' biomass schemes beginning to get proposed at UK ports (ie imported biomass from around the world). Biomass really should be CHP fired only (and we may do more on the 'pyrolysis and charcoal back to land' technology ?).
Re tidal stream - I asked MCT Ltd what they thought about Mackay's view - and they were not inclined to agree. Also regarding the enhanced pumping of lagoons that Dr Mackay wrote a paper on (ie greatly increased energy generation) as far as I can tell most pumping either 'moderate' (additional 25 - 30 % ) or 'enhanced' (2 to 4+ times !) is mainly 'storage' in reality. Its not extracting 'virgin' additional tidal range energy from the Severn. The input pumping energy and the output received back is probably in parity (ie little NET gain). The benefit is a potentially considerable capability for 'dispatch-on-demand'. This is good for grid integration particularly in a renewable world - and lagoon owner income (sell when 'pool' prices are high).
Neil



On 9 Dec 2008, at 11:03, Philip Harris wrote:
> DAVE A WROTE (re gas supply scene )
> ** Can I congratulate Neil on a well thought out, carefully written
> and hence readable piece. We need more of this style of writing.**
> ----------
> I agree with Dave A.
> However in a later piece, following Fred's excellent questions about
> sourcing all primary energy supplies, Neil writes
> ** sustainable biomass - anybody's guess say 40 -80 TWh/y ? ** I think
> that Neil, (and Dr Czisch?) could be massively over estimating the
> potential for UK or even for EU biomass supplies.. I hope FoE can
> revisit estimates for biomass.
> I am updating and checking my earlier round-up of estimates of
> biomass energies before posting to "Conference Presentations". I am
> only looking at ball-park figures derived from official data.
>
> Defra yield figures suggest that a million hectares of miscanthus
> could substitute not much more than 10% of coal presently burned in UK
> power stations:- or ~4% of total electricity, or under 16TWh(e) of
> total ~406TWh(e) per year (2006 figures).This would be 1Mha of
> precious ploughable surface (maximum around 7Mha was ploughed in
> WWII) if allocated to highest yielding biomass (miscanthus) . The UK
> imports up to 50Mt (2006) of coal for power generation per year and
> used ~57Mt coal to produce around 148TWh(e) per year in 2006.
> Obviously TWh heat would be higher number, if heat could be used in
> district heating.
>
> I am also looking at a case study for Wales with projections for lower
> yielding willow coppice on land unsuited to arable cropping, where
> 0.7Mha maximum surface could supply perhaps 8TWh(e) per year.
> More realistically, the study projects that farmers might actually be
> persuaded to grow energy coppice on only 10% of that max.
> possible suitable surface in Wales, with an annual yield of around
> 0.5Mt of oven dry wood, (lower energy density than coal) providing
> perhaps around 0.8TWh(e) per year. This study's perhaps realistic
> very low figure is matched with even lower estimates for "existing
> forest wastes" in Wales. Greater future use of forests and woodlands
> for biomass, rather than for timber or pulp, could be expected to
> boost these very low figures. Nevertheless, total 'woodland' in the UK
> does not appear to be more than 2.8M ha, and harvestable yields per
> annum from forest and woods seem potentially lower than yields from
> dedicated energy crops.
> I will try to collate these figures in a fully referenced and more
> easily accessed form.
> To echo Fred, where is it all going to come from? 40TWh e per year
> from biomass seems a huge stretch.
> best
> Phil
> (apologies if I am copying to wrong people - I do not yet understand
> the email system for Claverton.)
> - ---------- By the way, David Mackay is a hotshot physicist, and if
> his recalculation of Tidal Stream is correct (apparently somebody
> thinks his calculation is wrong), we really need to know.
> By Mackay's account TS is potentially a resource comparable even with
> wind. Mackay still seems to see a huge gap unfillable by renewables in
> total, however. Lets hope he has underestimated the build out for wind
> and our capacity for structural adjustment.
>
>
>
>
>

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