What should be the UK’s priorities in low-carbon energy?
In light of the UK’s stated goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, we asked Engineer readers what mode of low-carbon energy should be the country’s main focus.
Garnering nearly a third of all votes (32%), nuclear enegy was the clear favourite. Despite the difficuties currently plaguing nuclear new build, a signifcant proportion clearly see it – alongside the potential of nuclear fusion – as the UK’s best route to a low-carbon future. The next most popular choice (22%) was energy storage, vital to optimise the contribution of all renewables to the grid. Perhaps surpsingly, offshore wind was backed by just a fifth of repsondents. Wind (onshore and offshore) currently makes the largest contribution to the UK’s energy mix of all low-carbon sources, and its generation capacity is set to continue to grow significantly in the coming years as new offshore farms come online.
Further down the pecking order came marine power (12%), a source of energy with huge potential but which is releatively underdeveloped compared with other renewables like solar and hydro, both of which polled at just five per cent. The ‘none of the above’ option was chosen by four per cent of readers.
“Marine has so much to offer the UK,” wrote ekij in the comments. “The tides swirl around the UK such that there is always generation available somewhere around the country. If designed with a little planning there is no intermittency with tidal power the way there is with wind and solar. Where there is slack tide at one point, the tide is in full flow in another. This is a huge opportunity for the UK and it’s a terrible loss to see us focus elsewhere.”
Reader Alex commented: “For the future, it’s got to be nuclear and wind with storage. Nuclear has disappointed to date, but there is still a chance for next gen or small modular reactors. Solar may be great in southern Europe, but we need more electricity in the winter, when solar is next to useless.”
“Another option that is missing which doesn’t involve any research whatsoever, is low tech, low cost is fitting every building in the country with decent insulation,” said Mark Byrne. “Starting with social housing at no cost to the occupants. One of the biggest problems is stopping it turning into a financial feeding frenzy by the companies who are contracted to do the work.”
As ever, we welcome continued discussion of this matter. Readers should familiarise themselves with our guidelines for the content of comments before submitting, and bear in mind that all comments are moderated to ensure that discussion remains on topic.
I think there’s an option missing – onshore wind would apparently be much cheaper so I think we should get over the objections and just build it. I’m also not an expert enough to understand the storage situation but from the outside it seems absolutely essential to preventing us from having to build huge capacity for peak demands. Companies that are developing these technologies need a market so we should be buying some of it to help it to become cheap like wind has become.
In my opinion, it’s got to be Nuclear. We need a distributed nuclear infrastructure based on SMRs to provide the majority of the baseline capacity. The technology now exists to enable safer systems with reduced waste. However, as covered by ‘the Engineer’ previously fusion technologies appear to be a bit of a white elephant, so investment in SMRs would be better.
Wind and Solar obviously should play an important part in the mix, but ‘we’ don’t want our countryside and shorelines blighted by millions of solar arrays and giant windmills that ultimately cannot support a baseline capacity. Ignoring the ‘greenwash’, Wind and Solar obviously still have a carbon footprint albeit, maybe, reduced but they also have an environment impact with regard to materials used and recycling limitations – a balanced assessment needs to be applied.
I’m not sure what a ‘net zero’ goal is supposed to mean ? But the reality is, there is no energy source that is 100% clean and there is no such thing as free energy. Whatever happens I don’t expect to see my energy bills ever reduce.
If the answer to electric power and concerns about the environment is “Nuclear” then the question was very poorly worded. Until we come up with a real solution to nuclear waste (and include the cost of storage in the price we pretend nuclear power costs) we should not consider it as a serious form of generation. I’m all for continuing research but not for proliferating many more power stations.
Storage has to be part of the answer but it’s only part of the answer. It’s not a generation source in it’s own rite.
“Marine” has so much to offer the UK. The tides swirl around the UK such that there is always generation available somewhere around the country . If designed with a little planning there is no intermittency with tidal power the way there is with wind and solar. Where there is slack tide at one point, the tide is in full flow in another. This is a huge opportunity for the UK and it’s a terrible loss to see us focus elsewhere.
What about geothermal? It’s a long way down to the hot rocks, but once you get there it’s free & no carbon.
The UK doesn’t have the best geothermal resource potential compared with, say, Iceland.
Opinion is not divided on whether nuclear is low carbon. It vies with wind power to be the lowest carbon source of electricity we have.
For the future, it’s got to be nuclear and wind with storage. Nuclear has disappointed to date, but there is still a chance for next gen or small modular reactors.
Solar may be great in southern Europe, but we need more electricity on the winter, when solar is next to useless.
Marine energy has great potential and is not so depndent as wind on a variable source of motive power yet the goverment appears to abandon the various schemes as soon as there is a “financial” difficulty. surely some of the tidal pond schemes could be combined with food producing ideas too!
Another option that is missing which doesn’t involve any research whatsoever, is low tech, low cost is fitting every building in the country with decent insulation. Starting with social housing at no cost to the occupants. One of the biggest problems is stopping it turning into a financial feeding frenzy by the companies who are contracted to do the work.
Buildings that it would be difficult to insulate such as glass covered skyscrapers should be made to offset their energy consumption by paying for other buildings to be insulated. Minimising the energy consumption of new buildings should be built into the planning regulations to a much greater extent than is currently the case.
Back in the 1970s, schemes to construct a barrage (power generation + road/rail crossing) across the Severn Estuary were dismissed by a government committee following an outcry from the ‘environmental lobby’ which cited problems with fish migration. If we had gone ahead with a scheme at that stage then we wouldn’t be asking such questions today; the second scheme would have been around the Firth of Clyde, or somewhere else where the tides are 180deg out of phase with the Severn Estuary., so as to obtain a guaranteed power supply for 24/7.
I wonder if the environmentalists would ‘vote’ the same way nowadays? (The original scheme would also have acted as a second Severn crossing, thus saving the construction of a second massive bridge.)
It was hard to choose but I plumped for storage. But there is still plenty of R&D that needs to be done in high temperature materials and insulation that is common for (advanced) nuclear – and of course the cost reduction (and size if domestic option) – including the gas/steam turbines required for electricity recovery.
— So that the same research could be used for high temperature solar and affordable nuclear.
I think that there are limited opportunities (sites) for hydro/marine (in the UK) and costs might be prohibitive.
The variability and intermittancy issues of wind and solar led me to thinking there still needs to be a base capacity – which might also be required for stability purposes
Ian/Stuart there are a few good or at least prospective geothermal sites in the UK notably Cornwall (~150°C)
Nuclear, certainly … for all the rest we need to see a pricing structure like £10 per MW-h per % capacity factor. So solar PV gets say £10, wind £30 – and this structure would support £90 for new nuclear and perhaps restart some recently mothballed projects.
Why so cheap for renewables? Simply because storage is just too expensive, so we need to encourage a lot of new heavy electrical demand industries prepared to operate on an interruptible basis directed by National Grid when they run and when they don’t, in return for very cheap electricity. Examples are the venerable all-electric CLAUDE process for ammonia-fertiliser manufacture, displacing Haber-Bosch process (natural gas) and ALUMINIUM production which could displace steel in motor manufacturing – construction – food packaging and no doubt other industries if the price is right. It may not be possible to structure this without some intervention – subsidies and/or taxation but it is the only way to address renewables’ intermittency without resorting to a crippling multi £trillion storage ‘solution’
sorry that should of course be £1 per MW-h per % capacity factor:
Solar PV ~ 10% capacity factor > £10 / MWh
Wind ~ 30% capacity factor > £30 / MWh
Nuclear ~ 90%+ capacity factor > £90 / MWh
It also generally involves fracking. Good luck with getting that accepted!
And there are reports that geothermal projects produce low level earth quakes similar to fraking – needs investigating at least.
Some interesting ideas coming up here.
Fracking, geothermal and (hydrogen) storage seem to share much of the same rock fracturing and pumping technologies (and, if reports from the USA suggest similar issues with groundwater..) – so perhaps “dry” fracking projects could be converted to one of the others?
The mention of (tidal?) barrages brings up issues of environment (fish migration, river silting, salination of ground water…) . A speculative idea; there is already a tidal barrage in place.
Would it be worth putting some Pelton wheels in it and see what happens with the Thames? ;-?
Might be wrong, but I don’t think geothermal uses the same type of fracking technique as shale gas production.
Mark Byrne: something like https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/home-grants/article/home-grants/energy-company-obligation-eco ?
I think the Jubilee Pool in Penzance was planned to be heated by geothermal means this year but the idea had to be abandoned due to drilling problems not reaching the hot areas required. It will now be conventionally heated.
I think there are two very important component of the decabonised energy system missing here. I don’t think transport and electricity will be much of a problem; renewables are cheaper and its fairly straightforward, once some storage issues are sorted out.
The two factors that are missing are carbon capture and hydrogen production. There is no other way to decarbonise industry; cement, chemicals (such as ammonia etc) and metal production all produce CO2, and pipelines are needed to carry this CO2 to storage sites. This needs government investment to achieve, and indeed BEIS are fully committed to this. Various projects are in different stages of planning, such as Humber etc.
The second factor is hydrogen production, which can either use variably-priced renewables (offshore wind, for example), nuclear (there are various projects going ahead now) or natural gas, either via autothermal or steam methane reforming or the Hazer Process using an iron ore catalyst.
Hydrogen is needed essentially to replace natural gas, and if steam or autothermal reforming is used, then hydrogen production will also require a CO2 pipeline. Gas turbines are being retrofitted by MHPS, there is transport etc.
So, really, the answer to decarbonising the wider economy is most definitely carbon capture and hydrogen. There is no other option. Much more focus should be applied to this fact.
It appears that The Engineer and many correspondents are not aware of basic economics and the importance of cost / benefit analysis. All of the schemes will greatly increase the already crippling cost of electricity in the UK, even the CCC zealots admit to well over £ 1 trillion. The reliability will simultaneously reduce if more renewables are added to our already unstable mix.
So, what is the benefit from this massive investment? If we removed all CO2 from the UKs generation the world emissions would be barely affected: we emit less that 1% now and others are increasing rapidly. Money is needed for many more beneficial projects in the UK, rather than what is at best a pointless exercise in the King Canute style.
Jack Broughton’s pessimistic false analysis ignores the British talent for engineering innovation, Timothy Murphy is right that storage is “absolutely essential,” and Trevor mistakenly thinks that “storage is too expensive”. The trick is to combine 3 headings into ONE new industry, then energy storage costs absolutely nothing, power cuts are history and electricity prices will keep falling.
More than half the vote goes to storage, offshore wind and marine. Together they’d beat nuclear on all criteria, IF we stipulate the need to store energy, NOT electricity. Generating electricity and then storing it, is one definition of lunacy! Curtailment is another. The logical solution is floating (VAWT) wind/wave, tidal stream and tidal range, ALL of which pump water to shared Before-Generator Energy Storage, i.e. cylindrical, pressurized accumulators, near shore and/or floating offshore.
Alex Morris cites the best solution for the UK and anywhere else in the world blessed with a good tidal resource, but he fails to address the crucial question of energy storage. It only needs to be for a few hours at any single tidal barrage to obviate the need to build a second. The Severn Barrage was in the wrong place. The RAEng identified the best location (Aberthaw-Minehead) for the Bristol Channel Barrage in their April 2009 report:-
https://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/responses/severn-tidal-power-phase-one-consultation
“The Minehead scheme provides the largest potential energy, 25TWh/year i.e. 50% more than the Cardiff Weston line, but with much less than 50% the environmental impact. La Rance shows that, despite losing one third of the inter-tidal area, the habitat carrying capacity has increased.”
“The reason for excluding the Minehead to Aberthaw barrage is solely financial and does not take into account additional carbon savings or additional flood protection for the Somerset Levels and potential benefits for fish migration and other environmental impacts.”
25TWh/year, from a structure built to last 200 years or more, equates to 3 nuclear plants being replaced three times. That would be > twice as expensive and create waste we could do without.
No cost/benefit analysis can justify Crossrail, HS2, or a bridge across the Irish Sea! The money and civil engineering skills would be better employed accelerating the transition from FF to everlasting renewables, courtesy of the Sun and Moon. Just be sure to build any barrage with BGES caissons.
Green hydrogen is considered to be the final piece of the puzzle that could make the global energy system carbon-free. Offshore wind has received £400,000 in funding from the UK government, but miles out to sea is the last place any sensible engineer would choose to locate this project. Have they taken leave of their senses?
https://www.pes.eu.com/wind/orsted-and-partners-secure-government-funding-for-hydrogen-project/
Gigastack, funded by the BEIS Hydrogen Supply Competition, will demonstrate the delivery of bulk, low-cost and zero-carbon hydrogen through gigawatt scale polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolysis manufactured in the UK.
Unlike Jack: “The Ørsted vision is a world that runs entirely on green energy. Ørsted develops, constructs and operates wind farms, bioenergy plants and innovative waste-to-energy solutions and provides smart energy products to its customers. Headquartered in Denmark, Ørsted employs 6,080 people, including over 900 in the UK.” Better stuff could be designed and made in Britain.
Good engineering would remove ALL this expensive and vulnerable high voltage gear from the marine environment and locate it onshore, close to a BGES complex delivering an uninterrupted supply of green electricity!!! This would cut the Capex of TOTAL installed capacity and slash O&M costs ever after by > 50%. FLEXIBLE generation – dispatchability is the key design premise.
Thirty 4GW wind farms at £12bn per farm is 12,000 HAWTs @ £30m each. Producing hydrogen miles offshore, in 12,000 separate installations with a design life of only 20 years surely is a third definition of lunacy?!
https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/1850034/floating-wind-to-hydrogen-plan-to-heat-millions-of-uk-homes
A disastrous white elephant, even fixed to the sea bed – floating, this is a non-starter:-
https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/1851001/worlds-biggest-wind-turbine-set-to-start-turning-off-netherlands
I’m very grateful to David Smart for once again pointing out that my analysis of the costs and benefits is flawed. I should not use publications from the CCC, (the source of the £ 1 trillion for subsidy of green energy) and IPCC (for who emits CO2) to get my facts. Perhaps David could point me in the right direction?
Downing Street has shot down claims made by the chancellor, Philip Hammond, that tackling the climate crisis (the 2050 net zero target) would cost £1tn. No 10 warned against any cost estimates which conflated economic costs with public spending.
There are a lot of figures out there on this issue that don’t factor in the benefits or consider the COSTS of NOT doing this. “The costs related to meeting this target are whole-of-the-economy costs, not a fiscal cost, and so it’s not right to frame it as a trade-off for public spending.”
The target has the backing of the CCC, the government’s advisory panel. The CCC has estimated that achieving the net zero target would cost £50bn a year, but obviously that is NOT a subsidy, either from the state or from the consumer.
“£1trillion for subsidy” is just what I said – your false analysis. You read the wrong papers, Jack?
Game-changing innovation, Made in Britain, is a very “beneficial project”, creating thousands of well paid jobs in some of our most deprived communities. Isn’t that why we are engineers? We can construct five wind/wave BGES floaters at a time, in the huge Belfast dry dock. . .
https://reaction.life/harland-wolff-why-the-uk-needs-to-save-historic-belfast-shipyard/
These amazing products would be exported to China, USA, India, Europe, S America, Japan – all round the world. Nobody else can manufacture these designs – we have the IPR.
“Boris Johnson refused to meet with H&W workers on his visit to Northern Ireland.”
Nuclear wins hands down when considering resource use, land area & even factoring in decommissioning. But the finances necessary are inimical to the way the energy market works here.
No private company is wants to shoulder the risk of such a huge capital investment & simply cant get the low interest rates a large government can for a project. Unless that commissioning process changes, wind & storage will be the default solution regardless of relative merits in terms of reliability, materials & land area.