The Death of King Coal

[UncleEbenezer]

The UK is not a cold country, except for a few weeks in the winter.
It would save a great deal more money if the UK population could be educated and encouraged to live their lives without the need to heat their houses to tropical temperatures.

Fuel poverty is a real issue in the UK. So too are the health consequences of living in cold damp drafty housing stock. It is easy for the rich to wave these things away.

regards, dspp

Fuel poverty is such a corrupt measure that it has been argued that the Queen is on the border of fuel poverty.

I've never lived in a house that was hot in winter, and I suffer if I walk in to an overheated house for more than a few minutes. I also struggled with heated offices before I gave up working in them. I'm warm-blooded, which means my body regulates its own temperature over a wide range of outdoor temperature, including pretty-much everything the British climate gives us. Just so long as it's in good health, and not suppressed by silliness like stuffy indoor environments.

[Nimrod103]

The UK is not a cold country, except for a few weeks in the winter.
It would save a great deal more money if the UK population could be educated and encouraged to live their lives without the need to heat their houses to tropical temperatures.

Fuel poverty is a real issue in the UK. So too are the health consequences of living in cold damp drafty housing stock. It is easy for the rich to wave these things away.

regards, dspp

It is not easy for the rich either, if they have to live at ambient temperatures as well. Perhaps banning central heating entirely might be a start?
Regarding drafty, I always thought that ventilation was a good thing. Houses with chimneys and open windows are generally healthier places to live compared to sealed boxes.

[dspp]

Try facts,

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... lities.pdf

"Summary
1. A household is in fuel poverty if it is on a low income and faces high costs of keeping
adequately warm and other basic energy services. Fuel poverty is driven by three main
factors: household income, the current cost of energy and the energy efficiency of the
home.
2. Fuel poverty is associated with cold homes. England’s housing stock is made up of
relatively energy inefficient properties which can result in homes that are difficult or costly
to heat. However, households can be cold without being in fuel poverty if people choose
not to heat their homes adequately where they have the means to do so.
3. A social gradient in fuel poverty exists; those on lower household incomes are more likely
to be at risk of fuel poverty, contributing to social and health inequalities.
4. The most recent data on fuel poverty in England[*] indicates that there were 2.28 million
fuel-poor households in 2012.1
5. Cold homes can affect or exacerbate a range of health problems including respiratory
problems, circulatory problems and increased risk of poor mental health. Estimates
suggest that some 10% of excess winter deaths are directly attributable to fuel poverty
and a fifth of excess winter deaths are attributable to the coldest quarter of homes.2,3

etc"

https://www.cse.org.uk/downloads/report ... health.pdf
"The link between ill health and poor quality housing is well established. Health
improvements in Britain over the past 100 years have resulted far more from
collective intervention in the environment than from the development, or even
provision, of curative health care (Byrne, 1993). Improvements in housing in
particular are associated with a broad range of health improvements. "

(the Queen is not in fuel poverty, as she fails the definition of being on a low income.)

The rich can sneer, the poor die. There are many more studies out there if you really want to read into the subject, this briefing paper has a reference list at the end as a starting point.

regards, dspp

[* it is far worse in Scotland, https://www.eas.org.uk/en/fuel-poverty- ... lth_50521/ ]

[Nimrod103]

Try facts,

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... lities.pdf

"Summary
1. A household is in fuel poverty if it is on a low income and faces high costs of keeping
adequately warm and other basic energy services. Fuel poverty is driven by three main
factors: household income, the current cost of energy and the energy efficiency of the
home.
2. Fuel poverty is associated with cold homes. England’s housing stock is made up of
relatively energy inefficient properties which can result in homes that are difficult or costly
to heat. However, households can be cold without being in fuel poverty if people choose
not to heat their homes adequately where they have the means to do so.
3. A social gradient in fuel poverty exists; those on lower household incomes are more likely
to be at risk of fuel poverty, contributing to social and health inequalities.
4. The most recent data on fuel poverty in England[*] indicates that there were 2.28 million
fuel-poor households in 2012.1
5. Cold homes can affect or exacerbate a range of health problems including respiratory
problems, circulatory problems and increased risk of poor mental health. Estimates
suggest that some 10% of excess winter deaths are directly attributable to fuel poverty
and a fifth of excess winter deaths are attributable to the coldest quarter of homes.2,3

etc"

https://www.cse.org.uk/downloads/report ... health.pdf
"The link between ill health and poor quality housing is well established. Health
improvements in Britain over the past 100 years have resulted far more from
collective intervention in the environment than from the development, or even
provision, of curative health care (Byrne, 1993). Improvements in housing in
particular are associated with a broad range of health improvements. "

(the Queen is not in fuel poverty, as she fails the definition of being on a low income.)

The rich can sneer, the poor die. There are many more studies out there if you really want to read into the subject, this briefing paper has a reference list at the end as a starting point.

regards, dspp

[* it is far worse in Scotland, https://www.eas.org.uk/en/fuel-poverty- ... lth_50521/ ]

There was a photo of the Queen in her sitting room published a few years back, which became rather notorious because it showed the Queen happily huddled up to a 2 bar electric fire, dating I suspect from the 1950s. She and her mother were made of strong Scottish stock, for whom expensive heating is an unnecessary luxury.

I suspect the definition of fuel poverty is like the main defintion of poverty - it is not an absolute but a relative defintion, so while some have more and others less, it can never be eradicated no matter how rich society as a whole becomes.

[dspp]

There was a photo of the Queen in her sitting room published a few years back, which became rather notorious because it showed the Queen happily huddled up to a 2 bar electric fire, dating I suspect from the 1950s. She and her mother were made of strong Scottish stock, for whom expensive heating is an unnecessary luxury.

I suspect the definition of fuel poverty is like the main defintion of poverty - it is not an absolute but a relative defintion, so while some have more and others less, it can never be eradicated no matter how rich society as a whole becomes.

It is easy to wave it away, if you are wealthy and warm.

"Fuel poverty is at crisis levels and now affects 4.5 million UK households. Under the Low Income High Costs definition, a household is considered to be fuel poor if they have required fuel costs that are above average and, if they were to spend that amount, they would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line. Did you know that cold homes are currently a bigger killer across the UK then road accidents, alcohol or drug abuse? (NEA, 2015)"

https://www.nea.org.uk/the-difference-y ... rty%20line.

The Queen does not meet that definition.

Premature cold deaths, approx *8,300/yr (it reduces, provided we do something about it)
Alcohol deaths, approx 7,500/yr**
Drug deaths, approx 3,700/yr***
Road deaths, approx 1,700/yr****

Effects of Living in Fuel Poverty
Health Problems – The consequences of fuel poverty range from psychological stress, worry and social isolation, to causing or exacerbating serious illness such as respiratory and circulatory conditions. Over the next 15 years, it is predicted that over 125,000 premature deaths will occur as a result of people living in cold homes throughout the UK.

Suffering during Childhood – Statistics show that children living in inadequately heated households are more than twice as likely to suffer from conditions such as asthma and bronchitis as those living in appropriate temperatures (Friends of the Earth and Marmot, 2011). Indeed, the risk of experiencing ill health during childhood is 25% higher if the child grows up in poor housing (Harker, 2006).

The Choice between Heating and Eating – Those in fuel poverty often have to face the stark choice between spending what they need to heat their home adequately and falling into debt; or rationing their energy use and living in cold damp homes that are dangerous to their health. Others spend money on fuel and reduce their purchasing of other necessities, such as food. Statistics show that 20% of parents living in fuel poverty regularly go without food so that their children can eat (Cooper et al., 2014).

- dspp


* https://www.nea.org.uk/the-difference-y ... rty%20line.
**https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/bulletins/alcoholrelateddeathsintheunitedkingdom/2018#toc
*** http://www.sdf.org.uk/drug-related-deat ... rd-number/
**** https://www.gov.uk/government/statistic ... 0of%206%25

[TUK020]

And insulating old housing stock is the easy win from a CO2 global warming perspective - far less damaging from an economic perspective than trying to stop flying etc etc.

[Nimrod103]

And insulating old housing stock is the easy win from a CO2 global warming perspective - far less damaging from an economic perspective than trying to stop flying etc etc.

Seeing as almost certainly within 20 years, space heating with fossil fuels will be history, the CO2 argument is rather irrelevant. And super-insulating old houses with solid walls is quite difficult, not to mention problems with insulating listed buildings.

I don't think we should be encouraging people to sit at home in their centrally heated boxes. When they go out, they will more likely want to travel in their heated cars, but the Govt wants people to travel on non heated bicycles.

[dspp]

And insulating old housing stock is the easy win from a CO2 global warming perspective - far less damaging from an economic perspective than trying to stop flying etc etc.

Seeing as almost certainly within 20 years, space heating with fossil fuels will be history, the CO2 argument is rather irrelevant. And super-insulating old houses with solid walls is quite difficult, not to mention problems with insulating listed buildings.

I don't think we should be encouraging people to sit at home in their centrally heated boxes. When they go out, they will more likely want to travel in their heated cars, but the Govt wants people to travel on non heated bicycles.

1. I've insulated my 120-year old terraced house (very typical of much of UK old housing stock) to near-passivhaus levels for trivial cost, just a bit of thought & effort. It can be done.
2. I'm working through insulating a solid (etc) wall grade II listed humongous pile for my girlfriend (very typical of the ancient piles) , to very good effect. It can be done.
- in both cases it can be done. If you care to make it happen. But first you have to care.

3. Space heating with fossil fuels will in time become history. However a) we will get there faster if we insulate; b) if we insulate there is no need to overbuild renewables generation (which is a financial cost and a CO2 cost to build) to compensate for bad buildings; c) there is still a energy cost issue which drives fuel poverty, even if the energy is renewables; d) there are damp & draught issues which drive bad health outcomes, and done correctly insulation assists with them - both are very much a problem in the cold driving windy rains of the UK.

4. Exercise is a completely separate matter. So too is transport. Don't try to shift the argument to irrelevancies.

5. If you want to pretend the problem doesn't exist, and prefer the poor people to all die unhealthy & young, provided they don't cost your tax $$, then just say so. I am sure we could house the poor in wire cages with no roof and let them all die of pneumonia at 40 or earlier. But we don't.

dspp

[Nimrod103]

4. Exercise is a completely separate matter. So too is transport. Don't try to shift the argument to irrelevancies.

I don't think it is unrelated. We need people to travel more by bike and by foot, for their own health and for the cleanliness of the planet. These modes expose people to Britain's sometimes coldish, wet weather. IMHO it is too easy to leave an overheated home, and choose a car over other less comfortable modes of transport for commuting, or a trip into town. The two things are linked.

5. If you want to pretend the problem doesn't exist, and prefer the poor people to all die unhealthy & young, provided they don't cost your tax $$, then just say so. I am sure we could house the poor in wire cages with no roof and let them all die of pneumonia at 40 or earlier. But we don't.

Hyperbole doesn't help discussion. People who lead mollycoddled lives are unlikely to be healthy in the long term.

[GrahamPlatt]

From the Musk Endeavours thread

A large house, equivalent to 25 standard homes, that is run entirely off renewables and is as much a power station as a dwelling.

This was a feasibility demonstration and shows that 25 standard homes can be run without any need for gas or oil, that includes cars too.

With the Tesla power walls it becomes an electrical storage device that is part of a extended power station and with more developments of a similar type, either big houses or standard house, one quickly reach the point when one can retire conventional power stations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSE8PurhfQs

Regards,

[scotia]

Maybe I should have included "in the UK?" in the title. Food for thought:-
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/06/renewables-let-s-address-reality/

[dspp]

Maybe I should have included "in the UK?" in the title. Food for thought:-
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/06/renewables-let-s-address-reality/

Shite well and truly put to bed!

Hardly. He is cherry picking things to suit his agenda. I'm not saying everything is fine and dandy, but nor is it quite as bleak as he portrays.

regards, spp

[scotia]

Maybe I should have included "in the UK?" in the title. Food for thought:-
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/06/renewables-let-s-address-reality/

Shite well and truly put to bed!

Hardly. He is cherry picking things to suit his agenda. I'm not saying everything is fine and dandy, but nor is it quite as bleak as he portrays.

regards, spp

Agreed! Having been retired and out of touch for a number of years, I was not aware of the German increase in Coal Fired Generation - I thought it was only a temporary solution when they closed down their Green Nuclear - at the behest of the Greens, and in response to the Fukushima "disaster".
Stabilisation of the UK Power System is certainly an issue - will distributed batteries suffice or will big flywheels prove necessary? I would be happier with a significant increase of pumped storage.

[odysseus2000]

Maybe I should have included "in the UK?" in the title. Food for thought:-
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/06/renewables-let-s-address-reality/

Its a classic example of someone who has been in an established industry for a very long time and can't believe the radical changes being actioned, things that were not possibilities when he was learning his craft are now displacing the stuff he has seen work over all his career and he can't believe that the new ways can be better or as reliable as time tested practice.

Maybe someone slipped him a brown paper bag of the folding stuff or maybe he really believes what he wrote, but the reality and what he wrote have been diverging for a while now and before too long the power system in the UK will be very different and much better than the one which he knew.

Regards,

[scotia]

and before too long the power system in the UK will be very different and much better than the one which he knew.
Regards,

Hopefully. Although computer modelling is now much improved, in operation unexpected gremlins can arise, and I know how difficult it is to carry out live tests on new generation control systems. E.G. the Hornsea/Little Barford failures showed up multiple problems which should not have existed - and I suspect were neither adequately modelled nor tested. And the battery installations which should have alleviated the sudden loss of generation did not cover themselves in glory. I was also surprised at how poor the SCADA systems were which should be monitoring the distributed generation.
So I think festina lente may be worthy of attention before dismissing all older and tested technologies. A few years ago there were proposals for significant pumped storage schemes in Scotland, then one by one they were quietly dropped. Will multiple large battery installations provide an alternative?

[odysseus2000]

and before too long the power system in the UK will be very different and much better than the one which he knew.
Regards,

Hopefully. Although computer modelling is now much improved, in operation unexpected gremlins can arise, and I know how difficult it is to carry out live tests on new generation control systems. E.G. the Hornsea/Little Barford failures showed up multiple problems which should not have existed - and I suspect were neither adequately modelled nor tested. And the battery installations which should have alleviated the sudden loss of generation did not cover themselves in glory. I was also surprised at how poor the SCADA systems were which should be monitoring the distributed generation.
So I think festina lente may be worthy of attention before dismissing all older and tested technologies. A few years ago there were proposals for significant pumped storage schemes in Scotland, then one by one they were quietly dropped. Will multiple large battery installations provide an alternative?

I suspect the only way we will get reliable systems is by competition which hopefully will come via new entrants to the UK generation, transmission and storage scene. It now looks likely that Battery Electric Vehicles will be a big component of the storage installation along with large battery installations such as those that Tesla have demonstrated in Australia.

Whether we should go for a festina lent approach or make haste quickly will depend on what the politicians do with regard to competition and build. As of now existing consumers are being made to pay for all the green tech which imho seems ridiculous when this stuff could be equity funded with guarantees for lower pricing as demonstrated by Berkshire in their wind farms which have significantly lower costs to their consumers than neighbouring systems.

The problem in the UK as I see is that there are too many vested interests supported by politicians who are receiving favours for choosing particular approaches and a general ignorance in consumer and politicians minds as to the potential of renewables. For these reasons I favour new entrants to the market, such as Tesla, to build the system out and if things are set up sensibly to provide good jobs for UK engineers in construction, maintenance and operation, both domestically and for export opportunities as I see renewables and storage as a huge secular growth trend that UK business and investors ought to have a good slice of.

Regards,

[scotia]

I see renewables and storage as a huge secular growth trend that UK business and investors ought to have a good slice of.

Regards,

I'm not in disagreement with this hoped-for state. And I certainly am happy to see the end of all fossil fuel based generation. But I must admit I'm a bit twitchy about rapidly changing policies which may not have been thoroughly examined. Yes - having all electric car batteries with on-line controlled battery charging/discharging may provide some reserve - but chiefly at night when the demand is low - and there will need to be significant improvements in car standardisation and communications links to chargers. As to big battery installations, they are not really big. Currently I believe there are 24GWh of pumped storage in the UK. This is intended to pump at night, and generate during the day. Now in a power system dependent on a significant fraction of wind power, we probably need larger multi-day storage capacities, with SSE proposing a 30GWh scheme at Coire Glas (proposal updated in 2017). However I think the "large" Tesla Battery in South Australia was installed with a capacity of around 130MWh. So it's taking a large leap of faith to believe that Tesla batteries are definitely the solution. I'd feel safer with more pumped storage.

[TUK020]

I see renewables and storage as a huge secular growth trend that UK business and investors ought to have a good slice of.

Regards,

I'm not in disagreement with this hoped-for state. And I certainly am happy to see the end of all fossil fuel based generation. But I must admit I'm a bit twitchy about rapidly changing policies which may not have been thoroughly examined. Yes - having all electric car batteries with on-line controlled battery charging/discharging may provide some reserve - but chiefly at night when the demand is low - and there will need to be significant improvements in car standardisation and communications links to chargers. As to big battery installations, they are not really big. Currently I believe there are 24GWh of pumped storage in the UK. This is intended to pump at night, and generate during the day. Now in a power system dependent on a significant fraction of wind power, we probably need larger multi-day storage capacities, with SSE proposing a 30GWh scheme at Coire Glas (proposal updated in 2017). However I think the "large" Tesla Battery in South Australia was installed with a capacity of around 130MWh. So it's taking a large leap of faith to believe that Tesla batteries are definitely the solution. I'd feel safer with more pumped storage.

Has synthetic inertia been proved out at scale anywhere?

[odysseus2000]

I see renewables and storage as a huge secular growth trend that UK business and investors ought to have a good slice of.

Regards,

I'm not in disagreement with this hoped-for state. And I certainly am happy to see the end of all fossil fuel based generation. But I must admit I'm a bit twitchy about rapidly changing policies which may not have been thoroughly examined. Yes - having all electric car batteries with on-line controlled battery charging/discharging may provide some reserve - but chiefly at night when the demand is low - and there will need to be significant improvements in car standardisation and communications links to chargers. As to big battery installations, they are not really big. Currently I believe there are 24GWh of pumped storage in the UK. This is intended to pump at night, and generate during the day. Now in a power system dependent on a significant fraction of wind power, we probably need larger multi-day storage capacities, with SSE proposing a 30GWh scheme at Coire Glas (proposal updated in 2017). However I think the "large" Tesla Battery in South Australia was installed with a capacity of around 130MWh. So it's taking a large leap of faith to believe that Tesla batteries are definitely the solution. I'd feel safer with more pumped storage.

Yes, the large Tesla battery is there for grid stabilisation rather than for storing many GWh of power, but as far as I know there is no practical limit to how much energy could be stored in batteries, nor in the charging and discharge of that energy.

The problem with pumped storage is where would you put it in the UK. Sure there are some good geological opportunities but in the mostly flatter areas one would have to be building big underground facilities which would be expensive.

If one uses BEV then one has a distributed electrical system paid for by the buyers of the vehicles. If you have 1 million BEV each providing 1 kWh then you have a 1 GWh facility for very little additional capital cost. If, as I believe is extremely likely, BEV become the predominant vehicles used in the UK, the numbers become large, so that e.g. with 10 million BEV the same 1 kWh per vehicle becomes a 10 GWh distributed power station. There will have to be a build out of the infra structure, but this looks less of a challenge than was the build out of the original grid, To the BEV virtual power stations one would need large battery banks too. All of this is a huge economic opportunity for the UK.

Regards,

[scotia]

Has synthetic inertia been proved out at scale anywhere?

I'm sure you are aware that Testing and Proving are very difficult to carry out live on large power networks. Even tests which I carried out live (many years ago) on tens of MW generation required lots of preparation. So physically testing the ability of even a single (sizeable) renewable generator equipped with some form of synthetic inertia to see if it can actually provide a rapid response to an injected frequency glitch is not a simple task. I suspect that attempting to check how an entire Offshore WindFarm responds will not take place. So I think that there will need to be recourse to computer modelling, using models from single-generator tests, with assumptions on the load dynamics of the overall system. But the Hornsea/Barford incident certainly dented my trust in such models - since the system components reacted in many ways which had not been expected. Hopefully it may have provided a valuable lesson.
So to briefly answer your question - I don't know of any large scale verifications of synthetic inertia. I'd be happy to be contradicted on this point. It should be possible with solar, wind and battery generation. But I suspect that only a major power loss incident will identify whether or not it works.