North Sea Wind Farm Claims Title of World's Largest 56
The world's largest offshore wind farm is now fully operational, 55 miles off the coast of Yorkshire. The Hornsea 2 project can generate enough electricity to power about 1.3 million homes - that's enough for a city the size of Manchester. From a report: A decade ago renewables made up just 11% of the UK's energy mix. By 2021 it was 40%, with offshore wind the largest component. Hornsea 2 is part of a huge wind farm development by energy firm Orsted. "The UK is one of the world leaders in offshore wind," Patrick Harnett, programme director for the Hornsea 2 wind farm told BBC News. "This is very exciting after five years of work to have full commercial operations at the world's largest offshore wind farm."
Cost of power (Score:2, Interesting)
According to TFA, the wind farm produces power for $0.06/kwh, which is not too bad, but then compares it to gas generation at $0.52/kwh, which is nonsense. Gas generation is only that expensive because of a temporary surge from the war. There is no reason to put that misinformation into an otherwise informative article.
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For gas, tied to electricity prices, the endusers pays 7p, which will increase on average to 15p per kWh.
The article is basically a lie with numbers, written by some biased idiot.
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the UK produces most of its natural gas domestically anyway.
But gas and oil are fungible commodities. Which means that if someone is willing to pay the market $0.52/kwh, that's the sales price for everyone. Even if it means that your grandma freezes in her flat this winter.
Re:Cost of power (Score:4, Informative)
According to TFA, the wind farm produces power for $0.06/kwh, which is not too bad, but then compares it to gas generation at $0.52/kwh, which is nonsense. Gas generation is only that expensive because of a temporary surge from the war.
It's not looking like that war will end any time soon. Even if it ended tomorrow, would the price go back down to pre-war levels?
PS: Hornsea was designed and laid out using my software, yay!
Re: Cost of power (Score:3)
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Which is nice, but doesn't really help the UK very much.
Re: Cost of power (Score:1)
Electricity price pegged to gas price in UK (Score:4, Informative)
According to TFA, the wind farm produces power for $0.06/kwh, which is not too bad, but then compares it to gas generation at $0.52/kwh, which is nonsense.
The problem in the UK is that the price of gas impacts the cost of electricity, this article [goodenergy.co.uk] has a good explanation.
I live in Scotland, where up to 97% of domestic electricity is generated from renewables, the local dam provides sufficient hydroelectricity for the whole town. But we are still paying for electricity generated from non-renewable sources.
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gas generation at $0.52/kwh, which is nonsense. Gas generation is only that expensive because of a temporary surge from the war.
Gas is as expensive as that at for the gas power plants.
There is no reason to put that misinformation There is no misinformation.
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Who can say just how temporary it is going to be? Folks thought Kiev would be overrun in the first two weeks; the war has gone on for over six months with no end in sight.
And if it's not Putin holding Europe over a barrel of oil (metaphorically speaking), it could be t
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According to TFA, the wind farm produces power for $0.06/kwh, which is not too bad, but then compares it to gas generation at $0.52/kwh, which is nonsense. Gas generation is only that expensive because of a temporary surge from the war. There is no reason to put that misinformation into an otherwise informative article.
But the costs for the wind farm are just that - cost for renewable energy.
There are hidden costs inflicted by fossil fuels that don't show up on the bill. Hidden costs payed by the environment in terms of CO2 emissions but also damages and pollution from mining. The hidden cost of prepping up authoritarian regimes with disastrous results, like we can see in the Ukraine war. The hidden costs to our health and shortened lifespan due to pollution to air and environment.
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Or a sustained market shift away from carbon fuel sources.
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Even when gas was relatively cheap, it was still much more expensive than current wind contracts are selling for. And even at the current price, it's less than half what nuclear costs.
Wind is just so incredibly cheap, and it's getting cheaper. The only places where anything else can compete with it are where fossil fuels and nuclear get massive subsidies and externalize their costs.
1.3 million homes (Score:2)
The Hornsea 2 project can generate enough electricity to power about 1.3 million homes
Is that when wind is at peak strength? What happens during doldrums or weather pattern changes (hello, climate change)? Is there sufficient battery backup power. Do there need to be fossil fuel plants available on standby should such situations arise?
Re:1.3 million homes (Score:5, Informative)
If you'd spent your youth holidaying on England's North Sea coast (which faces east) you would never, never, never even begin to consider the possibility of a day when the East wind is not howling at you at a remarkable rate of knots. You know why the vikings kept invading us? They could get here without rowing and at double speed.
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"Wait a second, why does this like my house?"
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Actually more triple speed. Fast replica of Viking boats do 14 - 20 knots.
A typical pleasure boat does not even do 8 knots.
Put on top: tidal currents, and the boat goes 30 knots or more. (Of course tidal current helps a modern pleasure boat as well)
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That's just the coast. Out to sea, 100m up in the air where the turbines are, the wind is even more consistent and a lot faster.
Re:1.3 million homes (Score:4, Insightful)
The site is rated for 1.3GW. That's peak, not average. When the went is blowing, which is typical year round in the North Sea, everyone is getting cheap clean electricity. When the wind stops, you are paying market price for oil, gas, coal, or nuclear power. If you have enough renewables overlapping such as solar, geothermal, and tidal, you can rely less on fossil fuels for base load power. Even without that overlap from a mature green energy economy, every kilowatt you get from a wind turbine is fewer liters of oil you must burn.
Every country needs to build much more nuclear power for our base load. There's no viable alternative other than rationing. Look at the map for Hornsea 2 and Dogger Bank and see how big less than 5GW of wind farm needs. And then realize space for viable sites will run out before we can replace all our oil, gas, and coal plants.
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"The Nuclear Roadmap published by the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) calculated proposed nuclear plants at Sizewell in Suffolk, Wylfa on Anglesey and Bradwell in Essex were all likely to cost in the region of £60 (€65) per megawatt-hour (MWh). In comparison offshore projects selected in the Contracts for Difference (CfD) Allocation Round 3, held last year, will be delivered at a strike price as low as £39.65/MWh."
Nu
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Who are the people in IISD? They appear to be an organization that it opposed to nuclear power so not likely to give nuclear power a fair shake.
Your links point out that nuclear power is not likely to reach their pricing goals of matching the costs of wind power if there's a not wholehearted support for the nuclear power industry. It seems to be a self fulfilling prophecy on if nuclear power meets its goals or not. If the government says it will get nuclear power cheaper than wind power then it will happ
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If you think "the UK government expects to start construction on a new nuclear power plant every year for the next eight years", then it will of course be simply trivial for a brilliant mind such as yours to name the eight plants that will be constructed, in a simple format such as this:
2023: Plant 1, identified by the mighty powers of MacMann's sterling research capabilities as...
2024: Plant 2, identified by the mighty powers of MacMann's sterling research capabilities as...
So have at it, big boy. Name awa
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Never respond to Anonymous Cowards, but seriously WTF are you on about?
Guy quotes someone else and you want him to qualify the person he was quoting?
Do you even understand how language works?
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Bradwell
Hartlepool
Heysham
Hinkley Point
Oldbury
Sizewell
Sellafield
Wylfa
Those are the sites approved for nuclear power plants. There's a possibility for more than one power plant at any given site, or none at any given site. I didn't see an announcement on when construction would start, only that these sites have had been deemed suitable for new nuclear power plant for many years. I found this list in a document published by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change.
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Bradwell: no date for construction to start
Hartlepool: no date for construction to start
Heysham: simply named as a possible site, no consents yet, and so of course no date for construction to start
Hinkley: has been under construction for years; no new plant being built here beyond C
Oldbury: simply named as a possible site, no consents yet, and so of course no date for construction to start
Sellafield (actually Moorside): no date for construction to start
Sizewell: target construction date of 2024, but let's s
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You appear to be arguing with a figment of your imagination, not me. It appears you misunderstand where I'm coming from and If you had not posted as an AC I'd feel more inclined to set the record straight. You are making assumptions which is just making an "ass" out of "u" and "mptions".
I should have known better than to give an AC the time of day.
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Yes, that means that the 1.3GW figure is deceptive
It is not deceptive. It is the peak power.
Just like in any other power plant on the planet.
Or do you think a 500MW nuclear power plant is running 24/365 at peak? Hint: it is not.
They usually run at 85% - 90% peak, and are offline every 3 years for half a year.
Re: 1.3 million homes (Score:2)
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The wind never stops out in the North Sea. Never in recorded history. Name a day when you think it stopped, the weather data says otherwise.
Modern offshore wind has a capacity factor of about 65%. That compares pretty well with other sources, e.g. nuclear is around 70%, down to 50% in France due in part to the hot weather.
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Why pretending to be an idiot?
The plant produces X kWh over a course of a year, which is the amount 1.3 million homes consume over a year.
No idea what your silly questions are aiming at. If you wanted answers you would write a letter to the plant owner and not ask stupid, idiotic, no brainers on /.
Re: Fake news (Score:1, Insightful)
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Whoever marked this simple, factual post as "Troll" must be prevented from ever Modding again.
I agree. It appears that there is a handful of vindictive people with mod points that choose to systematically mod people as troll to ruin their karma. I don't know if there is a coordination among a group of people to ruin the karma of others by moderating any post made by their target as a troll, or there's just piling on after someone in the target class gets a troll mod. This tactic used to be able to tank someone's karma overnight but it appears a change in the karma calculations means it now takes
Re: Fake news (Score:3)
Re:Lets see how it does over time (Score:5, Funny)
Lets see how this fares over say 10 or even 20 years. Add up the true costs, maintenance, uptime, actual power generated, etc and then we'll know if it was a good power source or not.
I can not fathom what a maintenance nightmare these things are going to be. Boats are known as money pits for a reason and wind turbines do not have a stellar maintenance record even under perfect conditions. The sea is not kind.
Maybe you should write to them and express your concerns. I'm sure they haven't thought of that.
Re: Lets see how it does over time (Score:2)
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In this part of the world, we have had wind farms at sea since 1991, so this is not a new and unproven concept.
A lot of things have changed since then. Hardware design, materials used, size etc. and the noteworthy news here are the size, not that it is at sea.
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Still it's a valid question. How does the upkeep costs compare to, say, nuclear?
And sustainability-wise, what kind and how much material is required to build this, and how much could it scale if everybody in the world was suddenly deciding to build wind farms?
Where? (Score:2)
Where are the hourly power generation graphs for these phenomenal windmill farms? Certainly that data must exist somewhere, right?
Come on man! Don't give me a Feel Good News Story. Give me some real-world product data to examine.
Then we can all see if these phenomenal windmill farms are really all they are cracked up to be.
Or is the UK Government trying to pull the blades over our eyes? Trying to cover up the facts that Soylent Green is made from people?
TRANSPARENCY RULEZ
"Can" (Score:2)
"Can generate." Let me know when the summary says "did generate."