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Network Rail draws up list of ‘no regret’ electrification schemes - New Civil Engineer

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Bald Rick

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I wonder if relatively short range electric lorries could provide the spoke (to the business) for a hub and spoke haulage model where electrified rail provided the core inter-hub provision? It would require a change of thinking which I believe focuses on door to door, but it would save a lot of foul diesel emissions and reduce motorway traffic no end. If course capacity and loading gauge would need providing, but perhaps the drop in projected passenger use might be a blessing.

Logistics just doesn’t work that way. If it were, the size of the hubs would be enormous, and various products would have much delayed transit, pushing the price up for everyone.

HGVs are a difficult nut to crack, but I suspect green hydrogen may be the answer here’s in the short medium term until battery technology moves on.
 
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GRALISTAIR

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I watch a website called Gridwatch http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ Yesterday or the day before the UK was burning about 2.5GW of coal as wind was minimal when demand was nearly up to 42GW. How much more infrastructure (windmills?) is needed to actually generate the extra 2.5GW on a minimal wind day in winter when coal is no longer burnt? Incidentally the interconnectors were running at peak as well.
half or dozen or so nukes would solve the problem
 

Mordac

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It really isn't. Avoiding the impacts of global warming is the best investment anyone can make from a purely economic standpoint. And the technical solutions are falling into place at a price which will not significantly impact our economy. Low carbon electricity production has rocketed; costs for wind and solar have plummeted. Transport and heating need to switch over to electricity; again the solutions are falling into place. The UK's carbon emissions have already halved from their peak. It's happening.
You should only lower carbon emissions to the point where the marginal cost of doing so is lower than the marginal benefit of reducing them. If you go beyond that point you're making everyone worse of in pursuit of a soundbite ("zero carbon").
 

edwin_m

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So batteries, some pumped storage and electrolysis of water for hydrogen even though very inefficient.
Electrolysis is one means of storing the energy generated by renewables at times when it exceeds demand. In that situation it doesn't matter so much if it's inefficient, it's a question of the cost per unit of energy stored and recovered.
You should only lower carbon emissions to the point where the marginal cost of doing so is lower than the marginal benefit of reducing them. If you go beyond that point you're making everyone worse of in pursuit of a soundbite ("zero carbon").
However it's virtually impossible to quantify the benefit of reducing carbon, because nobody knows with any accuracy the relationship between CO2 and climate change or indeed the cost of its consequences. There are some worrying positive feedbacks such as melting of tundra, which might result in a runaway release of CO2 as local temperatures increase.

What might be more useful would be to compare the ratio of CO2 avoided to money spent. It may well be that spending on railway electrification saves more CO2 than spending the same amount on EVs, but:
  • The EV spend would have to be extra spend on EVs versus the internal combustion vehicles that would otherwise be purchased (but the rail option needs to take into account that electric trains are cheaper to buy than diesels)
  • It has to be compared on a whole life basis, so the extra capital spend on EVs is offset by lower running costs and probably a longer vehicle life (but the reduced cost of running electric trains compared with diesel should also be considered)
  • There may be a "slingshot" effect where spending on EVs helps to reduce their unit costs so a small amount of investment brings a long-term return. This is less likely for rail electrification, as it is a mature technology so potential cost savings are limited.
  • Crucially in my view, and as I posted earlier, if you are the UK government the spending on rail electrification comes from your budget, but a lot of that on EVs comes from someone else's. This and the previous factor may influence government to spend its funds on EVs rather than rail.
 

Bald Rick

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half or dozen or so nukes would solve the problem

3 would be enough.



A very, very large custard pie.

So batteries, some pumped storage and electrolysis of water for hydrogen even though very inefficient.

My guess is mostly batteries. Not much opportunity for pumped storage outside Scotland (which may well be cheaper to build than another grid connection into England, which may well be needed soon).

The hydrogen electrolysis efficiency is a moot point - within a decade on sunny windy days in summer we are going to have 20GW of ‘spare’ electricity in daytime compared to today, assuming half of that is put into batteries or exported then there will still be loads spare to make hydrogen. The issue is what to do with it.
 

themiller

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3 would be enough.




A very, very large custard pie.



My guess is mostly batteries. Not much opportunity for pumped storage outside Scotland (which may well be cheaper to build than another grid connection into England, which may well be needed soon).

The hydrogen electrolysis efficiency is a moot point - within a decade on sunny windy days in summer we are going to have 20GW of ‘spare’ electricity in daytime compared to today, assuming half of that is put into batteries or exported then there will still be loads spare to make hydrogen. The issue is what to do with it.
Spare electricity from green sources in UK can be exported to neighbouring countries some of whom have generation which is more carbon intense than ours. Although this wouldn’t directly benefit our CO2 emissions, it would reduce regional emissions and contribute to our financial health. When we have a deficit of green electricity e.g. during periods of calm weather, we can import from our neighbours who have surplus hydro-power e.g. Norway or surplus geothermal such as Iceland. It only needs infrastructure putting in place such as the proposed hvdc interconnector from Iceland.
 

HSTEd

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Spare electricity from green sources in UK can be exported to neighbouring countries some of whom have generation which is more carbon intense than ours. Although this wouldn’t directly benefit our CO2 emissions, it would reduce regional emissions and contribute to our financial health. When we have a deficit of green electricity e.g. during periods of calm weather, we can import from our neighbours who have surplus hydro-power e.g. Norway or surplus geothermal such as Iceland. It only needs infrastructure putting in place such as the proposed hvdc interconnector from Iceland.
The Icelandic government is never likely to approve the construction of an interconnector, given how important aluminium smelting is to it's post banking crisis economy and the comparatively low energy prices they enjoy it would be political suicide to do any such thing.

I happen to be rather more gung-ho on the eHighway concept than Bald Rick, but then I have been talking about it for years!
 

randyrippley

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The Icelandic government is never likely to approve the construction of an interconnector, given how important aluminium smelting is to it's post banking crisis economy and the comparatively low energy prices they enjoy it would be political suicide to do any such thing.
Surely that depends on the price they offer the electricity at?
If its as cheap as you say, they could offer it at a decent profit margin yet still retain competitive advantage with aluminium production.
 

HSTEd

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Surely that depends on the price they offer the electricity at?
If its as cheap as you say, they could offer it at a decent profit margin yet still retain competitive advantage with aluminium production.
People in the country will likely view it as leading inevitably to ever higher electricity prices.
A similar problem broke out in Canada when Hydro Quebec first proposed selling electricity outside the province.
 

Nicholas Lewis

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Can the existing underground street electric infrastructure/substations cope with the extra loads bearing in mind that most of it in London, in residential streets, dates back to the 1920's?
As long as users accept that they will be limited to low capacity chargers (ie long recharge times) then the Low Voltage network feeding houses will generally be able to support one EV charger per household. However, there is a concern by electricity distribution companies that if general behaviour is to come home and plug your car in there maybe a risk local distribution transformer capacity may get exceeded hence the push for some control over when your car is actually charged (much more intelligent than Economy 7 though). So you plug it in when you get home and unplug it in the morning and hope it will be sufficiently charged for your daily needs. This will be fine for low mileage users who will only a need a top up but if your a higher mileage daily user I can see potential users being weary of converting to an EV.

The other issue that will need addressing is large amount of housing without off street parking so where are you going to plug in? Flats/Apartment blocks will probably be less of an issue but who is going to pay for the infrastructure.
 

Bald Rick

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Spare electricity from green sources in UK can be exported to neighbouring countries some of whom have generation which is more carbon intense than ours. Although this wouldn’t directly benefit our CO2 emissions, it would reduce regional emissions and contribute to our financial health. When we have a deficit of green electricity e.g. during periods of calm weather, we can import from our neighbours who have surplus hydro-power e.g. Norway or surplus geothermal such as Iceland. It only needs infrastructure putting in place such as the proposed hvdc interconnector from Iceland.

Hmm. Interconnectors are part of the answer, of course, but with one or two exceptions most of our neighbours already have less carbon intense electricity generation. Norway is 98% low carbon, Denmark 80%, France 92%, even the Belgians are over 70%. We are at about 62%, depending on how you count net imports (mostly French and therefore mostly low carbon). The two that are worse than us are Ireland and (oddly) The Netherlands.

Taking Norway as an example, they don’t have that much spare capacity in their generation, which is limited by rainfall filling their hydro plants. When we (soon) export to them on windy days it will simply cause them to turn the taps down on their hydro plants; then when we have a few calm days they will turn them back up. It’s not quite pumped storage, but is the next best thing.

But we do have to find a way of storing low carbon energy in this country, in much larger quantities than we do now. As I’ve said before, batteries are likely to be a big part of the answer, especially as they can be very local, and thus ease many of the local network capacity issues.

Scotland will have this problem first. With lots of new wind coming on line up there, the country will be generating far more than there will be Scottish demand for on windy days. Typical daytime demand for the whole of Scotland on an average day is about 4GW - when the wind blows Scotland will soon be generating over 3 times that, and that is approaching the grid capacity to get the power to where the demand is in the South, even allowing for Hunterston being shut down later this year.

Incidentally, I noticed that France had an electricity demand of 90GW earlier today - that’s more than twice our peak demand. Hence we were exporting to them!
 

AM9

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While for urban and city centres I can see a complete move to non ICE wheeled transport, I suspect it will be a long time before Farmer John's tractor is non ICE and the large areas of the rural countryside away from tourist hotspots is likely to similarly trail behind due to lack of EV charge point and wider electricity network issues.
Farmers would probably be free to use diesel on their fields, but there might be a requirement to operate from batteries whilst on public roads. Still, there would be plenty of opportunity for a hybrid to charge those batteries in the fields, (this thread really is getting off-topic talking about farm vehicles! :))

... However, there is a concern by electricity distribution companies that if general behaviour is to come home and plug your car in there maybe a risk local distribution transformer capacity may get exceeded hence the push for some control over when your car is actually charged (much more intelligent than Economy 7 though). So you plug it in when you get home and unplug it in the morning and hope it will be sufficiently charged for your daily needs. This will be fine for low mileage users who will only a need a top up but if your a higher mileage daily user I can see potential users being weary of converting to an EV. ...
The framework for constraining charging when the network is at maximum stress is partly there already. It wouldn't take much work to mandate that cars are precluded from drawing excessive power for charging at the standard domestic rate, delaying the start of charging to when other demand falls (typically around 23:00 hrs, like the old economy 7 cheap time slot). Those insisting on charging as soon they get home early evening would have the choice of electing to pay a higher rate per kWh for the privelege. The push for smart meters is part of the solution to control peak demand when time-related tariffs can be introduced in line with the availability of power.
 
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Nicholas Lewis

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Hmm. Interconnectors are part of the answer, of course, but with one or two exceptions most of our neighbours already have less carbon intense electricity generation. Norway is 98% low carbon, Denmark 80%, France 92%, even the Belgians are over 70%. We are at about 62%, depending on how you count net imports (mostly French and therefore mostly low carbon). The two that are worse than us are Ireland and (oddly) The Netherlands.

Taking Norway as an example, they don’t have that much spare capacity in their generation, which is limited by rainfall filling their hydro plants. When we (soon) export to them on windy days it will simply cause them to turn the taps down on their hydro plants; then when we have a few calm days they will turn them back up. It’s not quite pumped storage, but is the next best thing.

But we do have to find a way of storing low carbon energy in this country, in much larger quantities than we do now. As I’ve said before, batteries are likely to be a big part of the answer, especially as they can be very local, and thus ease many of the local network capacity issues.

Scotland will have this problem first. With lots of new wind coming on line up there, the country will be generating far more than there will be Scottish demand for on windy days. Typical daytime demand for the whole of Scotland on an average day is about 4GW - when the wind blows Scotland will soon be generating over 3 times that, and that is approaching the grid capacity to get the power to where the demand is in the South, even allowing for Hunterston being shut down later this year.

Incidentally, I noticed that France had an electricity demand of 90GW earlier today - that’s more than twice our peak demand. Hence we were exporting to them!
We need to be carful on interconnectors they are single point failures causing big loss of generation. Dutch i/c has been off line for weeks due to a cable fault for example. IFA1 suffered from a dragging anchor a couple of years ago as well. The Western Link has had its fair share of issues with cables and connecting across to Norway/Denmark is really stretching undersea links. These security of supply issues will mean gas turbine stations will have to be retained to provide standby power.

The other problem with export especially across channel is the Southern area grid becomes constrained in the evening peak and can't support big export load on top of domestic demand and will get worse when Dungeness B shuts. All fixable but ever more the solution is cables now as more pylons are hard to justify environmentally and thus costly.

Batteries are of limited use but are probably the best solution for managing frequency events now spinning reserve and system inertia is dwindling.
 

Bald Rick

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The framework for constraining charging when the network is at maximum stress is partly there already. It wouldn't take much work to mandate that cars are precluded from drawing excessive power for charging at the standard domestic rate, delaying the start of charging to when other demand falls (typically around 23:00 hrs, like the old economy 7 cheap time slot). Those insisting on charging as soon they get home early evening would have the choice of electing to pay a higher rate per kWh for the privelege. The push for smart meters is part of the solution to control peak demand when time-related tariffs can be introduced in line with the availability of power.

I think it will (eventually) be much smarter than that for car charging. The consumer will put through their car app on their phone how ‘full’ they want the car battery for the next day (or day after, or whenever), will see the price for that, plug in, press go, and the ‘system’ will charge it at a time that best suits the load on the grid and the local Network. I imagine that prices will be highest on the evening before the school holidays start!


We need to be carful on interconnectors they are single point failures causing big loss of generation

Agreed, hence we need more of them; 1 about to be commissioned (IFA2), and three more under construction (Elec Link, North Sea Link, Viking Link), and more planned.
 

paul1609

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3 would be enough.
Rather ignores the fact that 50% of the existing nuclear generation capacity goes off line by 2028. Of course those who claim that Britains railways are only powered by Nuclear Power will have plans to close 50% of the electrified network to compensate.
 

Bald Rick

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Rather ignores the fact that 50% of the existing nuclear generation capacity goes off line by 2028. Of course those who claim that Britains railways are only powered by Nuclear Power will have plans to close 50% of the electrified network to compensate.

But that ignores that the 50%* being decommissioned by then will be effectively replaced almost in full by Hinckley Point C in 2026.

* actually more than 50%, but because that is the older (more than) half, it is much more frequently off line for maintenance etc; when HP C comes on line it will produce similar amounts of electricity.
 
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HSTEd

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But that ignores that the 50%* being decommissioned by then will be effectively replaced almost in full by Hinckley Point C in 2026.
Assuming HPC actually completes close to on time.

actually more than 50%, but because that is the older (more than) half, it is much more frequently off line for maintenance etc; when HP C comes on line it will produce similar amounts of electricity.

Well that is somewhat debatable.
There is no clear trend amongst the AGR fleet that older units perform worse etc, they all do abotu the same, apart from the ones that never received regulator approval for on load fueling which do somewhat worse.

For example Hinkley B actually has a higher cumulative capacity factor over it's life than Torness which is one of (if not the) last of the AGR fleet.

Also the oldest commercial AGR (Dungie B) will probably be the last to decommission! Mainly because it took a very long time to build and didn't work properly for years, so hasn't run up much core fluence
 

paul1609

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But that ignores that the 50%* being decommissioned by then will be effectively replaced almost in full by Hinckley Point C in 2026.

* actually more than 50%, but because that is the older (more than) half, it is much more frequently off line for maintenance etc; when HP C comes on line it will produce similar amounts of electricity.
I understood that the first reactor at Hinckley Point C was due to commission at end of 2025 1.6Gw and the 2nd two years later, has that changed?
 

themiller

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The Icelandic government is never likely to approve the construction of an interconnector, given how important aluminium smelting is to it's post banking crisis economy and the comparatively low energy prices they enjoy it would be political suicide to do any such thing.

I happen to be rather more gung-ho on the eHighway concept than Bald Rick, but then I have been talking about it for years!
Sorry, should have included this link https://askjaenergy.com/2018/04/17/icelink-in-operation-by-2025/ which is an article from Iceland which indicates that the Icelandic government would support it. Of course it would entail harvesting more geothermal power.
 

paul1609

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Also the oldest commercial AGR (Dungie B) will probably be the last to decommission! Mainly because it took a very long time to build and didn't work properly for years, so hasn't run up much core fluence
This rather assumes that it eventually restarts. It hasn't generated since September 2018 owing to ongoing faults and the restart date is continually put back.
 

The Ham

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What happens re lorry batteries. How do these perform? How much longer will a journey take from say Poland to the UK and how much extra will the journey cost paying for a drivers down time or would taco limits mean that enough charge could be taken at a taco break to go to next staging point some 4.5 hours later.

Will current petrol station sites be big enough to cope with cars needing to charge? An 8 pump station can deal with dozens of cars an hour how many in an electric station? 8?

Motorway stations would not be a problem hopefully as all the parking could be "electrified" but if you are down to the red mark on a motorway and you cannot access a motorway station "Sorry all charging points full please proceed to next station" what do you do?

In a tower block area how do all the residents access battery power as there will not be enough curb space to accommodate there cars etc.

I watch a website called Gridwatch http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ Yesterday or the day before the UK was burning about 2.5GW of coal as wind was minimal when demand was nearly up to 42GW. How much more infrastructure (windmills?) is needed to actually generate the extra 2.5GW on a minimal wind day in winter when coal is no longer burnt? Incidentally the interconnectors were running at peak as well.

Can the existing underground street electric infrastructure/substations cope with the extra loads bearing in mind that most of it in London, in residential streets, dates back to the 1920's?

We have many stories promoting electric cars which must come but not much on confirming the infrastructure will all be in place when needed? Similar to the Oven ready deal. Don't worry it will all alright on the night?
I think I have veered off forum Apols.

Sometimes looking at what we're doing isn't all that helpful for what we are likely to be doing in a few years time, it wasn't that long ago (2014) that 1/3 of our electricity came from coal. At that time of you'd have said that we'd have got that down to less than 5% within 7 years people would have worried about rolling blackouts on cold and still days winter days.

The fact that hasn't happened highlights just how well we often work using just in time delivery.

Whilst there's going to be times when EV's aren't going to be as convenient as ICE vehicles, more often than not they'll be more convenient. For instance people highlight those few trips a year where they want to do 200 miles or more in a day and how it's going to take them 30 minutes per charge more. However they fail to realise that for the other 50+ times a year that they fill up with petrol/diesel will no longer need to happen as their car will be charging whilst they do other things.

Likewise everyone appears to assume that the only long term parking which people regularly do where they can charge their car will be at home, well there's very little meaning that it couldn't be at work. That could overcome many of the issues (no driveway, peak power demand, etc.).

I also suspect that WFH would likely overcome several of the issues, of for no other reason that it reduces miles traveled (someone doing 10 miles each way WFH 1 day a week reduces their annual milage by 1,800). However it could also shift the charge to during the daytime when the person's own solar panels could charge it. If their doing 10 miles each way then that (80 miles/week for commuting) could then be done on a single charge on even a fairly low mile range vehicle.

It should also be noted that 10 miles is the average distance for commuting by car, and so it's likely that the vast majority would be able to do weeks worth of driving by having a vehicle with a 200 mile range and only having charged it up once or twice, especially if they WFH at all. As 200 miles would allow for 18 miles each way and 400 miles would allow 36 miles each way assuming 5 days of commuting, either of which would require quite few people doing low single miles of car travel to maintain the 10 miles commuting distance.

Make that 4 days of commuting and the distances increase to 22 miles each way for a 200 mile range cars, whilst 2 days would be 45 miles each way (and those who live the longest distance from work are going to be those who would benefit most from WFH).

Add in the fact that more people are using online shopping, which reduces further the number of miles traveled, and the number of miles we are all likely to do would likely fall.

Such a fall would likely mean that electricity demand wouldn't be so much of a problem. Especially if personal milage drops to the point where personal car ownership isn't viable (even if that's just for those who have more than one car reducing the number of cars in a household) and so those long journeys which are highlighted as issues then stop being so as more of those sorts of trips are done by rail (not all of them or even most of them, but probably more than was the case previously).
 

Irascible

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I wonder if relatively short range electric lorries could provide the spoke (to the business) for a hub and spoke haulage model where electrified rail provided the core inter-hub provision? It would require a change of thinking which I believe focuses on door to door, but it would save a lot of foul diesel emissions and reduce motorway traffic no end. If course capacity and loading gauge would need providing, but perhaps the drop in projected passenger use might be a blessing.

Not in that way, I think. I personally think - especially with modern inventory handling - mini-containers and more freight handling in stations might work in the vague resemblance of how parcels used to be, but the other obvious alternative is just swapping the tractor unit when the battery runs out, so the required change in thinking is about who owns the haulage itself. You could drive your load to a local motorway hub & have a series of autonomous tractor units shift it up to somewhere else where it's collected by a local haulage agent, as an example.

Or of course you could stick it on a train & have it be rather more efficient, if only our logistics these days weren't so time sensitive and we had more terminal facilities and...

Do we have numbers for methane & co2 emissions from hydro-power lakes? generally all the stuff I have access to seems to say "worse than you might think" but not actually how much.
 
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Bald Rick

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Well that is somewhat debatable.
There is no clear trend amongst the AGR fleet that older units perform worse etc, they all do abotu the same, apart from the ones that never received regulator approval for on load fueling which do somewhat worse.

In which case I stand corrected. I got my info from this report



I understood that the first reactor at Hinckley Point C was due to commission at end of 2025 1.6Gw and the 2nd two years later, has that changed?

I understood that the second reactor had ‘caught up’ quite a bit during construction, but I don’t know how that is affecting commissioning.
 

paul1609

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I understood that the second reactor had ‘caught up’ quite a bit during construction, but I don’t know how that is affecting commissioning.
As I understand it the commissioning plan is (was?) flash up reactor 1, run for 18 months, refuel and check for snags. If all OK flash up reactor 2. So the headline rating wouldn't be achieved until towards the end of this decade.

(non serious mode on) We can always de-energise the Great Western West of Reading and the ECML north of Doncaster and Run on Diesel. Might be prudent to build HS2 as a cycle path and cut out the expensive short term railway phase.
 

Irascible

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(non serious mode on) We can always de-energise the Great Western West of Reading and the ECML north of Doncaster and Run on Diesel. Might be prudent to build HS2 as a cycle path and cut out the expensive short term railway phase.

Perhaps provide overhead trolley cables for electric bikes?

( tongue firmly in cheek, as if it wasn't clear )
 

paul1609

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Scotland will have this problem first. With lots of new wind coming on line up there, the country will be generating far more than there will be Scottish demand for on windy days. Typical daytime demand for the whole of Scotland on an average day is about 4GW - when the wind blows Scotland will soon be generating over 3 times that, and that is approaching the grid capacity to get the power to where the demand is in the South, even allowing for Hunterston being shut down later this year.
I believe that Orkney already has that problem in that the installed wind power is higher than the local demand or the ability of the interconnector to the mainland to export. I think I have seen more TESLAs in Orkney as a percentage of cars than anywhere else in the UK. There also seems to be a large fleet of diesel powered Tesla Breakdown Vans there, which is a bit worrying!
 

quantinghome

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You should only lower carbon emissions to the point where the marginal cost of doing so is lower than the marginal benefit of reducing them. If you go beyond that point you're making everyone worse of in pursuit of a soundbite ("zero carbon").
Sure.

But it is far, far more cost effective to stop the worst effects of climate change happening in the first place, rather than try and alleviate the effects once they've happened. So the point of balance between marginal cost and benefit is to get to net-zero emissions. For all we know an analysis of cost v benefits may conclude that going carbon negative would be the most economically effective option.

It seems to me that you view the calls for net-zero as being driven by some ulterior political motive rather than decades of science research and an understanding of the economic consequences of continuing with 'business as usual'.
 
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