Bishop Hill Miller and the lights
Mar 15, 2013 Energy: coal Energy: grid David Miller covers the environment beat for BBC Scotland and today his big story was the closure of the Cockenzie coal fired power station under EU legislation. His [update: his unnamed colleague's] article on the BBC website was pretty awful stuff, with the first half of the article reporting the fact of the closure (while making no mention of the EU's involvement) and the second half being handed over to WWF to allow them to celebrate it.
Reading this before my first cup of coffee, I was somewhat grumpy in the tweet I sent Miller:
@BBCDavidMiller 50% of article given over to environmentalists. No questioning of whether the lights will stay on. #normalservice
However, Miller seemed to take notice and tweeted back that he would ask the question in an interview he was about to do with someone from Scottish Power, the operators of Cockenzie. The interview is below for those that are interested. It wasn't encouraging.
Reader Comments (21)
Does anyone have any details of the 'brown' coal power plants the Germans are supposedly building?
Do these meet the EU emissions regulations?
Nial.
or perhaps that will be 2013/2014 when the lights (and heat) goes out
How many electrical engineers with an understanding of gridwide strategic planning are WWF, Greenpeas or the Government able to field?
Isn't it about time we sacked a large number of MP's, Eurocrats, civil servants(?) and put some grown-ups in charge of the kindergarten?
The Scots have got all those Subsidy Farms that Alec Salmond is so proud of, so why worry?
Slightly depressing interview. No figures given for the capacity of the closing plant nor what will replace it today. The 'interconnector' from England I suppose.
What madness - if only politicians were compelled to read Booker who ,as we know, has been writing about this for years.
Nial,
I've found a pdf document at RWE's website that might help: The BoA 2&3, High Tech Climate Protection
It provides details for two new units RWE have added to an existing power station. Page 9 states that the new units will meet present emissions requirements which limit flue gas emissions of SO2 to 200mg/cubic metre and emissions of NO2 to 200mg/cubic metre. These requirements match those in the Large Combustion Plant Directive.(See Annex III and VI here)
Isn't it about time we sacked a large number of MP's, Eurocrats, civil servants(?) and put some grown-ups in charge of the kindergarten?
Mar 15, 2013 at 12:22 PM tallbloke
Yes but who in their right mind would want the job? Only mind numb egomaniacs dare to enter politics which rules out anyone who could fix the problems we now face. The only step in the right diection has been the rise of the internet where real people can exchange views with the masses. Only when the thoughts and ideas of suitable candidates are fed directly to the voters without the filtering effect of journalists will things change.
It's so depressing. Scottish power want to convert it to gas but can't make a decision until they know what the UK government are planning.
Given that the experts that successive governments have listened to up to now - WWF, Greenpeace, FOE and the like- insist that we have covered all the bases with renewables, I suspect that any planning will not be for the best.
A sad day!
Funny isn't it? The Scots will draw power from England just as England's drawing it from French nuclear! And the Scots can pretend it's coming from their own wind farms.
David Schofield - and if the English grid can mark it up 50% on its way north it might be a way of clawing back some of the country's money from Holyrood...
Had any of you been to Cockenzie and listened to the station manager as I did almost 30 years ago then you'd know that Cockenzie was pretty much knackered and hugely inefficient even back then but was kept open because of it's support capability of rapidly ramping up in periods of high demand. Converting it to gas is something that should have happened a long time ago regardless of carbon dioxide emissions and EU rules. That it has lasted this long is quite amazing.
One question you may ask yourself is whether the energy cartels find it more profitable to limit supply and whether that is not the main reason they don't mind closing capable power plants without even a murmur of protest.
Mar 15, 2013 at 1:05 PM | Gareth
Those figures (200mg/cubic metre) are from the new EU "Industrial Emissions Directive" which come into force on 1 January 2016 for opted-in plant with greater than 300 MW thermal input.
The figures for the period 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2015 (LCPD opt-in) were 400mg/cubic metre (for SO2 and NO2), so this RWE power station is already out-performing current regulations and will be able to sail through the next set of regulatory hoops on 1 January 2016 problem free.
This document provides a handy summary.
We farmers are also somewhat less than pleased with the WWF at the moment:
http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/16/02/2013/137616/challenging-a-cheap-shot-from-a-charity.htm
Charlie
I liked your comment under that article
"There has been confusion about the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and the WWF (World Wrestling Federation). I found this handy definiton on the internet:
"There is a clear distinction between the World Wrestling Foundation WWF and the "green" WWF.
One of them is a blatantly commercial enterprise that makes money from the gullible with over-hyped stage-managed events with rigged but unbelievable outcomes. The other runs wrestling tournaments."
ROFLMAO!
@David Schofield. The French do not have unlimited Nuclear Electricity production capacity, at the moment they export approximately 30% of their total output of which 84.6 % is by Nuclear. The power is sold to the highest bidder, however there is a political angle to it which does not neccessarily mean a constant supply, in addition, France whist replacing older Nuclear plants with the latest conventional designs and developing Thorium and Fusion, has no intention of becoming the U.K.'s nursemaid.
Not really relevant, but I was looking at the power station today from Arthur's Seat. Odd, but I thought it had closed down a couple of years ago. I have a kind of affection for the place as it opened when I was about 12, so it seems strange that such a large plant has opened and closed within my lifetime. I remember looking at the large fish that used to swim by one of its warm water outlets. Better than an aquarium. I hope it comes back to life as a gas powered plant. And I hope the WWF comes back to life as a charity focused on saving wildlife.
@ David Schofield Mar 15, 2013 at 2:20 PM
There is no way the UK or Scotland could be helped out by France, Ireland or Holland when a new great still comes on at the time when there is too little fossil backup capacity.
The interconnectors can only supply about 1 GW each. Ireland itself currently depends on 16% average wind energy contribution (i.e. about 50% peak) and when the great still runs, all these countries have the same problem. No wind, and at night (sometimes also during the day with cloud cover), no sun. Even France would need its nuclear capacity to fill in the renewable energy gap.
Get your own generator.
Reliable generation of 420 MW being shutdown and the man from the industry sounding excited about it ........... Mind boggling!
So they have a planning application in for a gas station, all well and good though you would have thought that this would have been done years ago to allow enough time for problem sorting and start building ASAP. But off course UK available gas is still in the ground with it likely to stay there given this government's ability to make a decision.
The dialectic?
The strategy is to create a situation with power shortage?
They create the problem and then give the people solutions they want?
Without the problem people will not otherwise give them these solutions?
Have the Brits been dummed down that low?
The only rational is to throw out all MP's that has voted for it and simply not going along on the solutions they want?
I have done the same at home " How to get away from doing laundry".
Just once mix white cloths and one red sweater and the rest of the family will thereafter say "don't worry I will do this myself"
From article, comment by WWF "renewables now generate more of Scotland's electricity needs than either coal or gas...". Is this true? Has anyone got any figures?