Interesting Links for 21-03-2023

[andrewducker]

1. Massive Semen Explosion after Blaze Hits Bull Artificial Insemination Facility, Firefighters Forced to Dodge 'Projectiles'

(tags:sperm fire headline )

2. Cyclists Now Outnumber Motorists In City Of London

(tags:london cycling cars transport )

3. The ten types of magic

(tags:magic video )

4. Octopus boss Greg Jackson: The UK is going backwards on renewables

(tags:UK renewables regulation electricity )

Comments

[mtbc]

(1): I bet they loved being able to write that headline!

[bens_dad]

3. Did his shirt change colour gradually ?

2+4 So are we getter more or less green?

1. I hope this doesn't become a running theme.

[danieldwilliam]

#4 I'm not persuaded that Jackson from Octopus entirely understands the UK Grid, or grids in general.

The specific problem with the UK Grid is that the UK is long and narrow and our biggest demand centre (London) is at one end of the country. We now find that we have lots of renewable energy at the other end where almost nobody lives. We've quite rationally built the UK grid with the 440kv lines in the south and the smaller 230kv or even 130kv lines north of the Highland Boundary fault. So that's the legacy situation we find ourselves in. That's on top of the standard problem with any grid that they were designed around moving power from 1.0GW or 500MW dense power generators to cities that are dense but a bit more spread-out and now have to move power from smaller, intermittent generators. Upgrading those wires is expensive. (The planning delays are true also, but we are talking billions of pounds for the upgrades).

The more generic issue with his comments is that stranded assets are a real thing as is grid congestion and they both have costs. If you build an expensive set of big wires you want to be certain that the on-puter is going to be in business for decades in order to pay you to build and maintain that bit of infrastructure. You also want to be certain that if you build several new connections they are not all going to try to move power to the same place at the same time - requiring the grid operator to either build more infrastructure or pay people to stop generating. If you get that wrong someone is left holding the bag for that. Probably the end consumer.

So there is a risk of privatised gain and socialised loss in grid investment.

Small generators being able to hook themselves up to the grid is not cost free for everyone else or risk free.

I'm not for a minute suggesting that the UK Grid operator has done a good job. I personally think that it was so obvious that more transmission capacity running north to south was necessary that the operator could have taken on more risk and also that the UK government could have underwritten some of that risk so that the grid operator was not on the hook for it all in a way that threatened their solvency.

[cmcmck]

1, Just as well most of the farmers around here still keep a bull! :o)

[calimac]

1) Did you notice this was four years ago? Still an amazing story, though.

Taking the bull by the horns

[hairyears]

Henceforth, the sirens on fire engines in Victoria shall be known as Sperm Wails.