Re: Nuclear back on


John Beardmore wrote:


My hypothetical algorithm will want to know if the grid is going to
want electricity at say, 6pm. If so, it'l wait. If not, it might
conclude that it's better to heat at 4pm, as the house is now 1C colder
than its human occupiers want. Alternatively, if there is still spare
heat in the system, it might wait till later when the grid does want
electricity.

Yes - I support that sort of system - It's just that there will never
be a 'one size fits all' solution.

One size fits all market? E-bay? With lots of software buying and
selling electricity.

snip
Gas is a lot more convenient.

But not remotely sustainable unless it's hydrogen.

Unless there's a breakthrough in converting solar heat to hydrogen,
forget hydrogen.

I was rather thinking of wind and electrolysis.


If the process involves making hydrogen from
electricity, then it will always be better to move the electricity.

Hard though it is at high density, hydrogen is easier to store.

But hugely wasteful. Better to have PHEVs with 100km range than
hydrogen tanks filled with electrolysis. The only sensible renewable
way to make hydrogen is solar or nuclear heat to hydrogen via
chemistry.



I'd go for gas for domestic generation,
and biomass for municipal or farm generation. So a chunk of the 1/3
could be renewable.

Got to be more in the long term.

You'd have a situation where in summer where generation is nuclear and
renewable, with gas only used to meet spikes in demand, or troughs in
renewables. Local boiler generators would have massive capacity (10
million X 5 KW = 50 GW), but would only supply a few percent our needs.

And what is our peak load these days ?

Or did you mean "needs" in terms of GWh / yr ?

Yes, I meant energy.


And this would be linked to water heating.

In Winter, households are prepared to sell electricity at the price of
gas plus say, 20%.

Why so little ?

Because I need the heater anyway. So I can have 95% heat, 5% waste; or
I can have 65% heat, 30% electricity, 5% waste. The marginal cost of
selling 1KWHr of electricity is 2.3% more than the marginal cost of my
gas ((95/100) / 65/70)).

However, I may want a some return on my investment in generators and
smart software. But with so many producers, someone will undercut me -
but I can't be bothered to deal with a 5% margin or less.


So gas becomes a bigger source, but its effective
generation efficiency is close to 100%. Unless you can find a
replacement for gas for home heating, this is an opportunity.

Well, again, wind to H2 springs to mind.

If you're going via electrolysis, forget it. Much better to have wind
to heat pump, and improve the insulation on the boiler you were talking
about. If someone develops solar to hydrogen direct, then hydrogen
might work.

Alex

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Relevant Pages

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