DavecUK
I think there little doubt that the climate is changing but there isn’t enough talk about weather pattern changes due to deforestation. There is too much proof that global temperatures are increasing. One COP went awol because tree ring data showed that the increase may have slowed down. Guess what the arguer had an oil background. The latest COP has added gas as a greener fuel - out of the ground. but LNG etc takes power to liquidise it. Events mean that countries are now hooked on it, Why? Simple and it applies to a lot of going green aspects. The world economy would collapse if it’s done too quickly. We also import goods that generate CO2 where they are made but lets forget that, Sweden wants to include that.
The renewed interest in coal mines is pretty easy to understand, Price increases so Norway decides not to shut one and we talk about opening a new one. Said to be for steel production in our case - a tricky subject. Norway had part shut down theirs. China opening more is interesting as they have spent more on going green than the rest of the world together but have a very big problem to solve. Germany’s greens and public opinion messed up their nuke so have no choice other than to burn some of it. UK nuke - we have being trying to get them built for rather a long time. Finally one. France has plenty of nuke. Mostly state owned share wise, Another but very interesting subject.
We can produce enough electricity from wind but levels vary. The only pure answer to that is rather a lot of storage to handle the dips when output falls. Reports on varying the output from nuke vary. One solution widely used is that a station has several reactors. Excess can also be used to produce hydrogen. Inefficient but very green. Something has to power HGV’s and even trains where tracks are not electrified, Get enough and cars as well which means little change in fill up times unlike batteries. A gas powered turbine can be spun up relatively quickly. Simple storage, Dinorwic handles surges. Hydrogen for turbines too, pass but this is probably why we need more north sea gas. We have the turbines already.
The UK’s solution mostly hits the public. What does a gov advisor say we should do. Insulate is one aspect. Another is to have both a heat pump and a conventional boiler and switch that on when the heat pump can’t cope. Changes to building standards will result in new houses needing less power but not yet and it may well result in increased cost.
Solar - even more storage required.
We already have cables to import and export electricity to other countries. Not sure where boosting that could fit in with that. It might provide a degree of load levelling.