Energy Matters Global and Domestic

[NewcastleFalcon]

"We sadly do not own most of the gubbins that goes on offshore wind platforms. That industry has been gobbled up by the Chinese and by the Danes.......we are not getting enough green jobs because so much of the supply chain comes from abroad."

Roger Harrabin BBC Energy & Environment Analyst On Radio 2 Jeremey Vine Show 6th October 2020

So I posed a question on The Pickled Egg Quiz...Who is the largest Wind Turbine Manufacturer in the UK and where is it located.

James came up with MHI Vestas Japanese/Danish venture in the Isle of Wight. But how long is the list of contenders?

Well there is a Korean Firm in Campbelltown Argyll who build Wind Turbine Towers. A boom industry you might expect no problems securing work? Wrong if this article is accurate....

https://renews.biz/62465/unite-and-kint ... -inaction/

CS Wind (A Korean company) has been urged by union Unite and local politicians to seek orders for its Campbeltown turbine tower plant or allow others to take over the facility.

An open letter signed by factory shop stewards as well as councillors and an MP and MSP expresses concern that the company has not secured a single contract since making “almost every” employee at the plant redundant “despite the fact that it is the only one in the country”.

The signatories add that they have been informed by developers the company, headquartered in South Korea, has not even been willing to bid for contracts which the Machrihanish facility would have been suitable for.

Regards Neil

[bobins]

Surely replacing them will just further disrupt the evolution of the area. Meanwhile where are they storing them?

They're stored on the seabed !
I think the concept of 'restoring back to what was' is actually a fairly common concept. I remember being told at Chernobyl that they were going to have to drop the surrounding water levels back down to their original levels as that was a condition of the international funding. The slight problem being that the water was keeping some of the contamination under control - remove the water and the contaminated ground dries and blows around.

[white exec]

Worth a peep at Machrihanish on Google Earth. Ex-MoD and USAF (still listed as nearest European emergency landing for Space Shuttle launcher, iirc) air base, it boasts a 10,000ft+ runway, straight out to sea. Built and enlarged for B52 nuclear use, and nuclear warhead storage. Whole kaboosh sold to the town council for £1 a while back, and now partly a business park. Lots about it, cold war photos too, in the intriguing Campbeltown museum - an old church, with Tardis-like dimensions inside. We explored Arran and Kintyre a few years ago.

[admiral51]

On the assumption that the blades are made on the I O W then i know where they are being stored

Google Earth Fawley Power Station lol

[NewcastleFalcon]

The Celtic Sea Wind Power development got a mention at Prime Ministers Questions today.

Probably a little bit of an illustration of a massive wind generation development area which will boost economies in the region, and provide "green" electricity for the national grid/consumers. As the BBC correspondant so eloquently put it.....much of the gubbins is sourced from elsewhere.

So the key players in the development are a joint venture between France’s Total and the startup Simply Blue Energy to develop floating wind turbines in the Celtic sea, beginning with a 96-megawatt demonstration project called Erebus.
Erebus will be located at a depth of 70 meters, deploying the Windfloat® platform developed by the US firm Principle Power.

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

.and in other Cornwall news, until the next generation of battery chemistry and design emerges, and supercedes Lithium-ion, Lithium is a valuable commodity.

Government backs Europe's first geothermal lithium recovery plant in Cornwall

Not sending miners into the old tin mines with picks and shovels, but drilling a couple of wells one 5.2 kilometres deep the other 2.3 kilometres deep and extracting lithium from the "brine". The granite rocks are rich in Lithium and heat. The extraction method is said to produce no carbon emissions with the geothermal energy being used in the processes rather than fossil fuels.

Where.....the United Downs Industrial Estate near Redruth
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Indus ... -5.1652684


Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Exxon Mobil are a bit out of step with the likes of BP and Shell, who at least in part have seen the beginning of the end for their traditional business model of finding and digging up as much oil and natural gas as they can and supplying it to customers to burn, and inevitably release the CO2 formerly locked up for milllions of years in the place they originally dug it up from. Exxon want business as usual to return and prevail.

https://electrek.co/2020/10/05/egeb-exx ... ergy-jobs/

I think before they give up the ghost the oil companies will come up with some all sorts of different branding of their fuels on the forecourts. E10 (10% BioEthanol) is already on its way to the UK in 2021 as a small measure.

The more likely path is that the rump of the oil business will have to invest in carbon capture and storage developments, alongside increasing production of hydrogen both grey(without carbon capture) and blue (with carbon capture).

Interesting move by Shell if a bit of a marketing exercise in its own right.
https://www.shell.co.uk/media/2019-medi ... shell.html

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Interesting to step back just 200 years. A mere “atom” of time in the history of the planet. Maybe the first time the King of fossil fuels was gorged on in an industrial scale, albeit with actual wooden barrels of oil.

it’s staggering how much every single day is now extracted to fuel our energy feeding frenzy.

...and the story continues in ludricrous ways if this piece is accurate....

Big oil's answer to melting Arctic: cooling the ground so it can keep drilling

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Of course if you have a farm you can have one of these things whizzing round without too many whingers whingeing.

So I wonder who C&F are.....
Delve on the way....

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Well look no further than the Irish Independant on line paper. The firm did make small wind turbines in Athenry, Galway Ireland but this article suggests that is no longer the case...

C&F Group shuts wind turbine business after being hit by tariff issues and red tape in Japan

REgards Neil

[Mandrake]

Despite the name of this video suggesting it is focusing on Tesla battery design, the bulk of the video actually goes into examining the supply chain of the materials used in a Lithium Ion battery and gives some interesting numbers.

[NewcastleFalcon]

I think it'll be like the promise of profitable energy from fusion - it's permanently 20 years away

Rather than striving to recreate fusion on our little planet, the most direct form of harnessing an existing fusion reactor is Solar Power , and of the renewables it has probably made the greatest advances.

The lengthy World Energy Outlook 2020 just published from the International Energy Agency concludes

"Solar becomes the new king of electricity…With sharp cost reductions over the past decade, solar PV is consistently cheaper than new coal- or gasfired power plants in most countries, and solar projects now offer some of the lowest cost electricity ever seen"

If anyone fancies a wade through the executive summary its here...

https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energ ... ve-summary

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I managed the first five paragraphs and then remembered there is some drying paint on the new bedstead that needs watching so I may have another go tomorrow

[NewcastleFalcon]

..and a useful link for UK Solar developments try this portal

https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/

Quite a few Interesting developments both grid-scale and domestic.

REgards Neil

[bobins]

"Solar becomes the new king of electricity…With sharp cost reductions over the past decade, solar PV is consistently cheaper than new coal- or gasfired power plants in most countries, and solar projects now offer some of the lowest cost electricity ever seen"


Regards Neil

Shouldn't that read: "With sharp cost reductions over the past decade, solar PV is consistently cheaper than new coal- or gasfired power plants in most countries, and solar projects now offer some of the lowest cost electricity ever seen during daylight hours."
?