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Fake news
#1052034
29th Jan 2018 10:27am
29th Jan 2018 10:27am
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,759 wirral
Excoriator
OP
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Posts: 1,759
wirral
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You don't have to tell lies to generate fake news. It can be done by telling the truth but not all of it. Here is a fine example of this sort of dishonesty from the Daily Torygraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/08/wind-farms-paid-100m-switch-power/ The article is a rant about 'constraint payments' and owes much to the 'Renewable Energy Foundations' - an organisation which sounds as if it is in favour of renewable energy but is, in fact, a pressure group dedicated to killing it off. Last year, the article raves, wind farms were paid £100 million to NOT generate electricity. Worse, it quotes figures helpfully supplied by the REF of £367 million paid up over the past five years. They are paid more per kWh not produced than for what they DO produce. This seems at first glance to be outrageous, but I have no reason to doubt these figures. Nor the claim that the payments have ballooned over the years. So, after all, has the industry so the payments have grown with it. The dishonesty lies in the fact that nowhere does the article make clear that constraint payments are made to ALL generators, coal, gas, oil, whatever, and the payments made to fossil producers are much higher than those paid to the wind farms. Currently about twice as much. This is quite understandable as starting up or switching off a coal power station is for instance s a complicated and expensive business and takes a long time to complete. The National grid - faced with rising or falling demand, therefore turns to wind farms to produce or shed extra generating capacity as they can be switched on or off in seconds, and it costs less. So the long and short of it is that if £100 million had not been paid out to wind farms over the past year, something in excess of £200 million would have been handed out to fossil power generators. In other words, wind power has SAVED us money! The exact opposite is implied by this dishonest article. You might ask why are constraint payments paid to ANY power generator? The reason is that nobody is going to build power generating plant at vast expense without a commitment from the grid that it will be used.and this commitment takes the form of payment for switching them off.
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Re: Fake news
[Re: Excoriator]
#1052041
29th Jan 2018 1:09pm
29th Jan 2018 1:09pm
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Joined: May 2011
Posts: 946 Greasby
Greenwood
Guardian
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Guardian
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 946
Greasby
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I didn't know about constraint payments; that makes interesting reading. There is more interesting reading online that gives a slightly more balanced view, for example an article from 2015 stating how much more gas suppliers are paid. It also mentions the fact that the Renewable Energy foundation is seen as an anti-wind lobbying group. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publicatio...action-scotland-over-constraint-paymentsSelective use of facts can give a very skewed version of reality and we all need to be on our guard against being unduly influenced by this rather clever take on 'fake news'. It's very hard to take anything at face value any more.
Last edited by Greenwood; 29th Jan 2018 1:13pm.
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Re: Fake news
[Re: diggingdeeper]
#1052068
30th Jan 2018 9:30am
30th Jan 2018 9:30am
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,759 wirral
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wirral
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There are alternatives. Demand management is one. Many companies will happily accept limited outages in supply in return for a reduction in the cost of the power.
I would be very happy to do the same for a well-stocked freezer which will continue to protect the food for up to an hour with no power. A 'smart grid' and the 'internet of things' makes things like this perfectly feasible.
People worry about the intermittency of wind farms but usually confuse intermittency with unreliability. They are, of course, intermittent. But they are actually very predictable and when there is wind they are much more reliable than conventional generating plant which can stop working with no warning at all. The same is true of a wind turbine, but it is most unlikely to strike ALL of them in a wind farm at the same time!
So far, there has been little need for storage. the grid has handled things well using gas as back-up for wind.
As regards storage, I am not a believer in batteries. The best method I've seen was developed by Isentropic Ltd which developed a method of using heat to store power. Round-trip efficiency is around 70 to 80% and the heat is stored in tanks of gravel using argon as a working fluid. It appears to be cheap, scalable and can be located anywhere. (You'll find info on the internet) The company went bust, sadly, but the idea seems a good one and the grid level pilot plant they constructed has been taken over by the University of Newcastle which is currently, I believe, running tests on it.
I quite like the idea of providing a LOT more renewable power, sufficient to supply more than 100% of our needs. The excess could be used to electrolyse water into hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles. I suspect less fossil fuel would be used than storing it for making electricity when needed. Again natural gas could be used for back up
Finally, its worth noting that our use of electricity from the grid is actually reducing year on year. More efficient lighting and a general awareness that the efficiency of electrical equipment is worth looking at to save money is probably responsible for this as well as the increasing use of solar panels on peoples roofs.
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AQUARIUM
by lincle. 8th Jan 2021 10:47am
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Toyah . .
by GaryFromWirral. 10th Jan 2021 1:39pm
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Sunrise Tue 8:05am
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