BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[briantrumpet]

But, but, but freedum or something.

As I've mentioned before, I have a good friend who is such a petrolhead he would literally prefer traffic jams on 6-lane motorways either side of the Seine than a single concession to cycling and walking. He thinks 1970s Amsterdam is soooo much better than the bike-infested green nightmare it is today. I find it utterly bizarre, but hey ho, he's going to carry on being disappointed.

 

[briantrumpet]

And yet gas still sets the price of energy. However many times @PurplePenguin explains this to me, it makes less and less sense to me.

 

[PurplePenguin]

And yet gas still sets the price of energy. However many times @PurplePenguin explains this to me, it makes less and less sense to me.

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Of that mix, only wind and solar are getting their fuel for free. Nuclear is also a price taker due to its complete inflexibility.

Plus, if it is a very small amount of gas, it will only be most efficient generators that are producing.

 

[briantrumpet]

Of that mix, only wind and solar are getting their fuel for free. Nuclear is also a price taker due to its complete inflexibility.

Plus, if it is a very small amount of gas, it will only be most efficient generators that are producing.

Yes, but that 3% is setting the price for everything. IIRC, your point in the past has been that that then helps the investment side of renewables, but with their construction costs plummeting, at what point do we need a new mechanism? It seems like Miliband is edging towards a new formula.

 

[First Aspect]

Of that mix, only wind and solar are getting their fuel for free. Nuclear is also a price taker due to its complete inflexibility.

Plus, if it is a very small amount of gas, it will only be most efficient generators that are producing.

I did some googling. Ramp rate of nuclear is about 1% per minute, Vs gas generator of 2-10%.

Interestingly the SMRs are similar (or expected to be) similar to gas.

 

[PurplePenguin]

Yes, but that 3% is setting the price for everything. IIRC, your point in the past has been that that then helps the investment side of renewables, but with their construction costs plummeting, at what point do we need a new mechanism? It seems like Miliband is edging towards a new formula.

As I said before, gas prices do not vary by the hour in the way that wholesale electricity prices do, so why do you think that gas is setting the half-hourly price?

 

[briantrumpet]

As I said before, gas prices do not vary by the hour in the way that wholesale electricity prices do, so why do you think that gas is setting the half-hourly price?

Because it doesn't vary so wildly, I guess, but (I don't think) that answers why we're using what is increasingly a marginal source of (admittedly reliable) power to set the price of everything, for what feels link in perpetuity, despite its importance having diminished significantly.

You'll probably tell me that I've argued against myself in that paragraph, but I can't shake the incomprehension that one minor fuel source retains such a sway on the whole UK energy market (cf Spain, which I think has decoupled it, without the energy market collapsing).

 

[PurplePenguin]

I did some googling. Ramp rate of nuclear is about 1% per minute, Vs gas generator of 2-10%.

Interestingly the SMRs are similar (or expected to be) similar to gas.

Nuclear can be shutdown/started as you say, but it doesn't make economic or technical sense to do so due to other factors. There's a reason nuclear power stations run constantly.

 

[PurplePenguin]

Because it doesn't vary so wildly, I guess, but (I don't think) that answers why we're using what is increasingly a marginal source of (admittedly reliable) power to set the price of everything, for what feels link in perpetuity, despite its importance having diminished significantly.

You'll probably tell me that I've argued against myself in that paragraph, but I can't shake the incomprehension that one minor fuel source retains such a sway on the whole UK energy market (cf Spain, which I think has decoupled it, without the energy market collapsing).

It's how pretty much every market works. No one sells anything at the minimum price they can afford to, they sell it at the highest price they can get.

 

[briantrumpet]

It's how pretty much every market works. No one sells anything at the minimum price they can afford to, they sell it at the highest price they can get.

Of course. And that's why I think the government should intervene and re-jig now.

I've just seen a post elsewhere saying that globally renewables are adding the same capacity in two days that nuclear is adding in a year.

 

[First Aspect]

Nuclear can be shutdown/started as you say, but it doesn't make economic or technical sense to do so due to other factors. There's a reason nuclear power stations run constantly.

The reality is probably going to be to keep nuclear constant and vary output by charging batteries or other storage, with that being used flexibly with renewables.

Mass energy storage facilities. Coming to brownfield sites near you folks.

 

[PurplePenguin]

Of course. And that's why I think the government should intervene and re-jig now.

I've just seen a post elsewhere saying that globally renewables are adding the same capacity in two days that nuclear is adding in a year.

Anything else you would like the government to step in and price fix? Weetabix? - they're quite steep now.

 

[briantrumpet]

Anything else you would like the government to step in and price fix? Weetabix? - they're quite steep now.

Well they've been fixing it up till now, so what's the difference? Just a different formula. AFAIK they haven't been fixing the price of Weetabix.

 

[PurplePenguin]

Well they've been fixing it up till now, so what's the difference? Just a different formula. AFAIK they haven't been fixing the price of Weetabix.

They haven't been fixing the price. The market has.

 

[briantrumpet]

They haven't been fixing the price. The market has.

The market for gas has, and that's getting less and less tenable. You might as well fix it by the price of Weetabix. You make it sound like there's no alternative. How has Spain managed?