andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2023-03-21 12:00 pm
andrewducker) wrote2023-03-21 12:00 pm
Entry tags:
- cars,
- cycling,
- electricity,
- fire,
- headline,
- links,
- london,
- magic,
- regulation,
- renewables,
- sperm,
- transport,
- uk,
- video
Interesting Links for 21-03-2023
- 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 )
no subject
An important consideration is who is the "we" in this situation.
If you own a power station near London or a demand centre near London you have pretty much already paid for the wires between you and the nearest other bits of infrastructure. The maintenance and improvements to the grid are passed on through some market mechanisms to consumers.
If someone wants to put a power station on the wires at the other end of the country (for their own private profit) should they pay for all of the additional wires required to get the power to London, or just the wires to get to the nearest big set of wires? Or should that be paid by power users? Or tax payers?
That's a political and economic decision which is quite complex. I have some sympathy for the UK Grid operator who was uncertain in 2010 about how what the situation would be like in the 2030's and chose to be cautious rather than bold. They would have been badly caught out if, for example, they'd built several big interconnectors at their own risk from the North Sea and the Highland to the Midlands and then Rolls Royce had opened a Small Modular Reactor factory in 2025, selling power stations at $50/MWH -which they have been threatening to do since about 2005.
Batteries etc do help, not least because instead of building some new wires you can stick some batteries either side of the congestion point and shift the power around in time rather than space and that might be cheaper. Also, big long cables under the sea so you bypass the weak bits of the grid in the Highlands and the relatively congested bits of the grid in the Central Belt.
no subject