The energy thread

[Skybird]

DUAL FLUID - IS THIS THE SOLUTION?

published 07.08.2022 https://think-again.org/dual-fluid-ist-das-die-losung/

In the current discussions about the further use of the not yet destroyed nuclear power plants in Germany the "Dual Fluid Reactor" appears again and again. This machine seems to have many advantages over the models currently in use. But will it ever be available, and if so, when?

Not without alternatives

There are currently about 440 nuclear power plants in operation around the world, with 55 more under construction. Most of them are pressurized or boiling water reactors ("Light Water Reactor" = LWR), as already described here on the "Axis of Good". They are safe and reliable, but not without alternatives. Today, reactors of a new generation are under discussion: the SMR = "Small Modular Reactor", the MSR = "Molten Salt Reactor" and the DFR = "Dual Fluid Reactor". We want to take a closer look at the latter.

This machine is supposed to burn a large part of the fuel supplied, quite unlike the LWR, which uses only a small percentage and makes long-lived radioactive waste out of the rest. And now this miracle machine is also expected to be able to convert precisely this radioactive "waste" into energy, a nuclear waste incinerator, so to speak.

Perhaps. But the DFR is not completely free of radioactive waste either. Its operation naturally produces radioactive fission products, but with comparatively shorter half-lives, such as iodine 131 (8 days), cesium 137 (30 years) or strontium 90 (30 years).

Fission and chain reaction

Nuclear energy is based on the effect that the atomic nuclei of some heavier elements split into two lighter nuclei when bombarded with neutrons. (Neutrons, which are one type of building blocks that make up atomic nuclei. The other type is protons, which, unlike neutrons, have an electric charge). During said fission, a lot of energy is produced and a few free neutrons are also produced. They have no more place in the nuclei created during the fission, because heavy nuclei have a higher proportion of neutrons to protons compared to light ones.

The free neutrons can now be used to split more nuclei, and so we get a process in which the nuclei of the initial substance are broken into fragments in a chain reaction. In the widely used light water reactors (LWR), the initial substance is the uranium isotope 235, whose nucleus has 92 protons and 143 neutrons.

For the fission to work, however, the neutrons must not be too fast; they must first be slowed down, "moderated", otherwise they would not trigger fission. To do this, they are allowed to run through water from their point of origin in the fuel rod, where they lose their speed until they then encounter a new U235 nucleus in another fuel rod, which they fission.

Not optimal

It is a peculiarity of the U235 nucleus that it can be split only by slow, "thermal" neutrons. Many other heavy nuclei prefer fast neutrons for fission. So in such a reactor, one would not need to slow down the neutrons at all.

And another thing, the low concentration of U235 in natural uranium, which is enriched to 4% in LWR fuel, means that there is 96% of the useless heavy uranium isotope U238 in the fuel rods (which also has 92 protons in the nucleus, but 146 neutrons, hence the name "isotope"). These nuclei are also irradiated with the thermal neutrons, but instead of splitting, they capture the neutron and "transmute" into other substances, some of which are radioactive and have terribly long half-lives. They are the villains of nuclear energy, for which a final repository has been sought for years in deep salt domes so that they cannot endanger anyone with their radiation.

Today's reactors, the LWRs, are therefore anything but optimal. But why do they still dominate the scene? There are historical reasons. It could have to do with the fact that during the Cold War, people were interested in a substance that forms during the aforementioned transmutation of U238: Plutonium, the stuff bombs are made of.

The fast brother

So it happens that a lot of good experience has been gained with the LWR, knowing that it is suboptimal, but also knowing that the way to an improved reactor ready for series production is very long and very expensive.

Even earlier, reactors were built that used nuclear fuels other than U235, and that used fast neutrons. It was discovered that they were not only useful for generating energy, but that some of the abundant neutrons could also be used specifically for the transmutation of certain substances. It was thus possible to hatch a desired substance by irradiating it with fast neutrons. This type of reactor was therefore appropriately named "fast breeder reactor".

However, fast reactors do not play a role in the world's energy supply today. To change that, a group of fearless German engineers and scientists set out to do just that, among them, as an advisor, the popular author of the "Axis of Good" Manfred Haferburg.

Initially based in Berlin, now in Canada, the group is working on a concept that could one day solve all energy problems.

The Dual Fluid Reactor

So what might such a fast reactor look like? You arrange a sufficient amount of fissionable material so that a chain reaction takes place. The resulting heat is somehow transported to a boiler where steam is generated, which then drives a turbine and generator.

The higher the temperature used, say around 1000°C, the better the efficiency. Unlike in the LWR, water is no longer an option for removing the heat; it would be a nuisance anyway because it would slow down our fast neutrons. So we are looking for a liquid that does not evaporate at 1000 degrees, and that leaves our neutrons alone. Do you have a suggestion? How about liquid lead?

Now let's move on to our fissionable material. These are atomic nuclei heavier than "actinium", so-called actinides; among them also the often mentioned thorium, gladly material from spent fuel elements of LWRs. If you take the right chemical compound here, the stuff also melts at 1000 degrees. So it wouldn't be packed in solid form in fuel rods, as in the LWR, but you could put it in communicating tubes immersed in said bath of liquid lead. This would also have the advantage that new fuel could be fed into these tubes during operation.

So that's the principle of our reactor, which works with two fluids - lead and actinides - moving in separate circuits. Hence the name Dual Fluid Reactor = "DFR."

What are we waiting for?

And there's something else attractive about this design: in conventional pressurized water reactors, there is 150 atmospheres of overpressure in the reactor vessel, but in the DFR there is hardly any overpressure. So we don't need steel vessels with 20-cm walls, which greatly simplifies the construction of such a plant. In addition, the reactor vessel is much smaller because you don't need water as a moderator and because the lead transports the heat better.

So what are we waiting for?

Well, even though the physical issues with the DFR may be solved, there are still a few technical details to work out. For example, where do we get the pump that transports the many tons of 1000-degree lead between the reactor vessel and the heat exchanger at top speed? It's not available at the hardware store, and the turbine for NS1 that the chancellor visited is not available.

Or what about the material for the communicating tubes in which the fuel flows? They're suspended in hot lead and bombarded at close range with a barrage of neutrons. That must be hell. What material can withstand that for years?

Patience

And one more little mental calculation. If such a plant is to supply 300 megawatts of electricity, it will require about 1000 MW of thermal power. This is generated in a reactor vessel of - let's say - 10 cubic meters in volume. That is 100 MW per cubic meter or 100 kilowatts per liter of volume. But hello - nothing can go wrong with cooling....

Dual Fluid Energy Inc. in Vancouver, which is working on the development of the DFR, is of course aware of all these challenges and is therefore cautious in its forecasts: the reactor should be ready for operation in 2034. So Ms. Katrin Göring-Eckardt, who has demonstrated her willingness to talk about nuclear, will have to be patient.

But if it works, it will be nothing other than the beginning of a new era in energy.

(two explanations of terms:

Is energy obtained from the atomic nucleus now nuclear energy or atomic energy? More appropriate would be nuclear energy / nuclear energy. But since for many journalists atoms and nuclei and all that are somehow the same thing, the two terms are used synonymously. And even the organization that takes care of nuclear energy worldwide is called the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The abbreviation DFR for Dual Fluid Reactor could be misleading, because there has been the "Dounreay Fast Reactor" on the northeast corner of Scotland for quite some time. I was once in this plant and had a quite relaxed conversation with an engineer until I asked him where the noise in this thick pipe above my head came from. Oh he said, nothing special, that's a few hundred tons of 500 degree liquid sodium flowing through there).
------------------
The author is Hans Hofmann-Reinecke. He studied physics in Munich and earned his doctorate in nuclear physics.

[Skybird]

ENERGY TRANSITION IN JAPANESE

published 10/15/2022 https://think-again.org/energiewende-auf-japanisch/

For a decade now, nuclear energy in Germany has been committing a slow, agonizing suicide, which came to a miserable end in the haggling over the continued operation of two or three reactors for the winter period. The reason for the nuclear hara-kiri was supposedly the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.

At that time, Japan had also shut down all its nuclear power plants, but not for good. In the meantime, the country is systematically rebuilding its nuclear power supply and planning the construction of new, improved reactors.

Nuclear power in Japan

Japan's annual electricity consumption is about 1000 terawatt hours; with 125 million inhabitants, this results in an annual per capita consumption of 8000 kilowatt hours. For comparison the figures for Germany: 570 TWh, 83 million inhabitants and 6900 kWh per capita and year. A modern nuclear reactor generates around 10 terawatt hours per year, older ones considerably less.

The first nuclear power was fed into the grid in Japan in 1966, and by early 2011 the contribution had grown to 30%. And it was planned to increase to 50% by 2030. The thinking was that Japan would need to reduce its heavy dependence on imported oil to be less exposed to global crises.

Everything changed with the Fukushima disaster. In the 15 months that followed, all 50 reactors in the country were gradually taken offline. There was a strong anti-nuclear sentiment and demands were made to keep the nuclear power plants shut down forever. The government and the operating company TEPCO were accused of having criminally neglected the protection of the population during the operation of their power plants.

Energy transition in Japanese

The government responded by commissioning an independent authority, the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA), to subject existing power plants to a rigorous safety review. The criteria were to be tougher than in pre-Fukushima times. 33 reactors passed the test. The Fukushima 1 power plant, with formerly 6 reactors, is obviously not among them, but neither is Fukushima 2, located 12 km to the south, with four reactors in which there were no meltdowns.

Of the 33 candidates that were found to be good, ten are currently operating, with the remainder awaiting clearance to resume production. However, in light of the war in Ukraine and gas supply problems, the approval process is to be accelerated. The prime minister called for nine more power plants to come online by winter, plus seven in the summer of 2023, which would make 10 + 9 + 7 =25 reactors in operation.

While Germany has systematically destroyed its fleet of nuclear power plants since Fukushima and is facing a huge problem just in time for winter 22/23, Japan has done exactly the opposite.

This political masterstroke cannot be overestimated. We must keep in mind that Japan was not only the scene of the Fukushima disaster, but that only two or three generations ago the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more than 100,000 people there in a terrible way. Therefore, there is strong resentment in the population against everything nuclear and thus easy game for the opponents of nuclear power. But among the population and the government, reason triumphed over propaganda; in the end, green populists were not given a chance. What a difference to Germany!

And the future?

Japan is also planning for nuclear power in the long term. It has decided to build a new type of reactor that will not harm the environment even in the event of a meltdown. To this end, parts of the plant are being relocated below the earth's surface. The machine itself, however, is a conventional pressurized water reactor. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Hitachi are pursuing this development, which is expected to be completed in the 1930s.

You may now ask why Japan is relying on these old-fashioned monsters, when today there is talk everywhere of new generations of reactors that are supposedly safer, produce hardly any radioactive waste, and which, on the contrary, either use the long-lived radiating legacies of the old reactors as fuel or at least render them harmless.

These models exist today primarily on paper, and the road from paper to a functioning and producing behemoth of steel, concrete, uranium, plutonium and 1000° Celsius, that road is paved with surprises. The country of Japan, in the aftermath of Fukushima, would certainly be the wrong place and it would be the wrong time to risk nuclear surprises there now.


It would not be the first time such a project has caused trouble. Half a century ago, France built and operated such an advanced type of reactor, a "fast breeder" that was supposed to breed more fuel than it consumed and deliver 1200 megawatts of electricity. It was inevitable that there would be a glitch or two, although the population was never endangered. Nevertheless, the project - dubbed "Super Phoenix" - was abandoned in 1997.

The big question

Japan and Germany both look back on a long history with very sophisticated cultures. Both nations are or were parallel, for decades, pioneers in natural sciences and technology. Why do these two nations arrive at completely different strategies in the same situation? Why does Germany opt for nuclear hara-kiri while Japan pursues a proactive, long-term policy? Perhaps there are political scientists or sociologists who have an answer to this question.
-------------------
The author is Hans Hofmann-Reinecke. He studied physics in Munich and earned his doctorate in nuclear physics.

I add a reader'S comment to one of his other blog posts, becasue it fits here as well: A certain "Majestyk" wrote:

However, current events are illogical only until one accepts that these are almost all social weapons and the supposed collateral damage is the real purpose.
The rest is then criminalistics: who has the motive, the opportunity and the means.

[Jimbuna]

European Union countries will be forced to cut electricity use by 5% during peak hours under proposals to stave off a looming winter energy crisis.

The draft EU plan seen by Politico and Reuters - which also includes windfall taxes on energy firms - is designed to temper soaring energy costs that are also stoking inflation, and ensure member states have enough fuel to see it through the colder months.

The 27-nation group has accused Moscow of weaponising gas by slashing supplies in response to sanctions the bloc - along with allies - imposed at the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

"Never before has this Parliament debated the State of our Union with war raging on European soil," European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.

EU countries have already agreed to cut gas use by 15%, and gas storage is now 84% full, exceeding the EU's pre-winter filling target.

But analysts say Europe will still need to slash gas use over winter to avoid storage facilities running dry.

Among the package of measures to ease the impact of soaring inflation is a windfall levy to claw back what the European Commission described as "unexpected profits" from Europe's non-gas fuelled power plants, linked to soaring oil and gas prices stoked by Russia's slashing of supplies.

"These companies are making revenues they never accounted for, they never even dreamt of," Ms von der Leyen told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

It is "wrong to receive extraordinary record revenues and profits benefiting from war and on the back of our consumers," she added.

"Profits must be shared and channelled to those who need it most."

Chatham House's deputy environment director Antony Froggatt said the targets and taxes are "significant departures" from UK policy.

He said there was "little mention of the importance of demand side measures" in Prime Minister Liz Truss's speech last week, which promised £100bn-plus emergency bailout for households to help with energy bills. Ms Truss opposes a fresh windfall tax on energy producers.

Brussels said its windfall tax plans would raise €140bn on energy companies' profits to cushion the blow of record high energy prices this winter. The cash is likely to attract "significant support" for the policy from member states, Mr Froggatt told Sky News.

Oil, gas, coal and refining firms would be required to make a "solidarity contribution" of 33% of their taxable surplus profits from fiscal year 2022, according to Reuters.

Wind and solar farms and nuclear plants would face a cap of 180 euros (£156) per megawatt hour (MWh) on the revenue they receive for generating electricity, with governments recouping any excess cash and recycling it to support consumers.

The draft could still change before publication as governments thrash out the details, possibly approving them at a meeting of energy ministers on 30 September.

Speaking at the end of the continent's hottest summer in history, Ms von der Leyen stressed how "the climate crisis is heavily weighing on our bills," with heatwaves boosting electricity demand and shutting down hydro power and nuclear plants.

Though she did not make any major climate policy announcements, the EC president did pledge €3 billion (£2.6 bn) for a new European Hydrogen Bank to help "[build] the future market for hydrogen".

She called for better adaptation in the face of increasing droughts and fires, promising to double firefighting capacity over the next year.

[mapuc]

The stress test exercise will complemented by the production of a Blueprint on critical infrastructure incidents and crises.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/pres.../en/IP_22_6238

Markus

[Skybird]

Never let a deep crisis pass unabused. Planned economy is here to stay. And to grow. Quoza rules. Collectivization of debts. Castration of net payers.



Never let a deep crisis pass by unabused.

[Skybird]

In Switzerland, too, the authorities now have warned the population to prepare for a blackout of several days over the winter.



The Neue Zürcher Zeitung describes a possible scenario of a four-day blackout in seven federal states in northern and eastern Germany.
-------------------------

Blackout in Germany: What happens when millions of people have no electricity for days? A scenario

Concerns about a blackout in Germany are growing, and more and more counties are preparing for a power shortage. But what does that mean? We outline what could happen in a worst-case scenario.

Since there has not yet been a power blackout in Germany lasting several days and affecting several federal states, we can only roughly estimate how something like this would play out. Our scenario is based, among other things, on information from the Federal Office for Disaster Relief and Civil Protection, the Berlin Senate, the police and the Charité University Hospital. At some institutions that we asked for information, the answers were decidedly thin, for example at banks. Others did not answer at all, for example mobile phone companies.

An important basis is a 2011 report by the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag, entitled "Gefährdung und Verletzbarkeit moderner Gesellschaften" ("Threats and vulnerabilities of modern societies"). Almost everyone who has ever looked more closely at the subject of blackouts in Germany is familiar with the text. It describes the consequences of a prolonged power blackout as a "national catastrophe" and predicts a "collapse of the entire society."

On Thursday, January 19, 2023, at 8:30 a.m. sharp, the power will go out in the seven German states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, as well as Berlin and Brandenburg. The neighboring areas of Poland and the Czech Republic are also cut off from the European power grid. The reason is overloads in the power grid, which have led to an underfrequency.
Train passengers have to be evacuated from the tracks, children are read a story with a flashlight. Electronic devices stop working.

Day 1

The lights are out. That's the first thing you notice. From one moment to the next, no switch in the house works, no appliance responds. As if the fuse had blown, suddenly everything is silent. No running video, no whirring refrigerator, no drumming washing machine: in a blackout, the background noise is abruptly reduced.

In the center of Hamburg, a packed subway on Line 4 comes to an abrupt halt about 200 meters before Jungfernstieg station - just like everywhere else in the city and in the other six affected states. The cars are packed with people on their way to work. Their evacuation takes hours in many places. Only then do those affected learn that hundreds of thousands of passengers, including those on regional and long-distance trains, have suffered the same fate.

At the airports, arriving planes can still land, but on the instructions of the police, no more planes take off. Since the power went out at the beginning of working hours, people are stuck in elevators everywhere, and many can only be freed after hours. Lucky are those who used an elevator with a built-in battery, which still goes to the next floor even during the power outage.

Laptops and mobile devices still work, but only as long as the battery lasts. Recharging is also only possible with a power bank. Around 36,000 kilometers of power cables have been laid in Berlin alone, and 28,000 in Hamburg. Energy now only flows where there are emergency generators.

The mobile network still works for about half an hour. But after just a few minutes, it is hopelessly overloaded. Everywhere, people hurriedly tried to call their loved ones. Shortly after 9 a.m., nothing works anymore.

E-mails are no solution either. The Internet no longer works either. Messages can only be received via the car radio or battery-powered radios. The voices of the speakers call for calm. People run into the street to find out how far the power outage extends.

The world of cashless payments is convenient, but fatal in days of power outage. Most people barely have a hundred euros in cash in their wallets that morning. Queues quickly form in front of the ATMs, but they disappear just as quickly because there is no more money. The digital payment and electronic cash register systems are also no longer working. Those who still have coins and bills at home have an advantage.

In the evening, the situation in the affected regions looks ghostly. In the major cities, neon signs no longer flash. Not only landmarks like the Brandenburg Gate are completely in the dark, but the entire cities are swallowed up by night. From almost all apartments and houses, all you can see is the glimmer of candlelight and flickering flashlights. At night, temperatures drop below zero degrees.

Those who still want to fill up the car are left empty-handed. Without reception, it is difficult for the emergency services to do their job.

Day 2


The water supply becomes a problem. Without electricity, water stopped flowing through the pipes after just a few hours on the first day, neither in private households nor in public buildings. Those who do not refill empty bottles and containers in time or have a sufficient supply of drinks at home will now find themselves in a tight spot. Without pumping stations, sewage treatment plants cannot function; the escaping wastewater causes environmental damage in many places. Bathrooms are also starting to smell. Healthy people can survive for about three days without drinking water, but for the sick, the elderly and children, the situation becomes serious sooner.

On the part of the state, the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance now triggers the disaster alert. Most of the district councils and the mayors of the independent cities have already done so for their areas of responsibility. The police inform the population via loudspeakers. They recommend that people stay in their apartments and houses.

Those who do not have a full tank in their car will not get far. Gasoline or diesel is no longer coming out of the pumps (emergency generators and manual pumps are currently not part of the standard equipment of gas stations, according to Shell). There are only a few gas stations with emergency power, but these are reserved for police, firefighters and ambulances. Since many people nevertheless try to fill up their tanks here, the operators now receive police protection.

"Rescue services and emergency forces have considerable difficulties in fulfilling their tasks, such as caring for and transporting the injured or fighting fires," reads a forecast in the aforementioned report by the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag.

That hits home. Chaos reigns on the roads of the German states without electricity. The lack of lighting has led to countless accidents. And because the cellular network is dead, no one can inform the emergency services. The police try to keep at least a rough overview with helicopters from the air, but in the end they can only send the ambulances to the biggest pile-ups.

In the evening, about a hundred mostly young men gather in the marketplace of the Hanseatic city of Wismar in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. They carry flashlights and thermos flasks, some also baseball bats. It is one of the first vigilante groups to form here to patrol the city in the dark and prevent break-ins. The local police, who are completely overwhelmed anyway, let them go.
People protect themselves from the cold in their own homes with a jacket. Patients from clinics without functioning emergency power have to be transported to other states.

Day 3

At least January offers one advantage: food that would have gone bad by the third day at the latest in summer can now be cooled on the balcony or in a bag hanging out of the window. Nevertheless, today, now the third day of the blackout, panic sets in for many people. Very few have enough food and, above all, drinking water on hand.

Marc Elsberg, author of the successful thriller "Blackout," says in an interview, "The preparations you should make are actually like for a simple two-week camping vacation." The Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance gets specific in its "Guidebook for Emergency Preparedness and Correct Action in Emergency Situations": among other things, every citizen should have two liters of water per day per person and a ten-day supply of food in the house, as well as candles, flashlights and the necessary medications.

The few supermarkets whose operators have ensured an emergency power supply have now been bought empty. Since the cash registers do not work, cash is needed for payment. Fresh goods that do not need to be cooked were already out of stock by the end of the first day; in the meantime, the remaining shelves are also empty, apart from cleaning agents and spices.

All hell has broken loose in the clinics. It is true that all the larger hospitals in Germany have an emergency power supply that is still working on the third day; emergency operations mainly include the emergency room, intensive care units and surgical areas. But at many smaller sites, patients can no longer be cared for; the fuel for the emergency generators is empty and supplies have not yet arrived. Ambulances from other states are transferring the critically ill to other parts of the country not affected by the blackout, with considerable difficulty.

The injured from traffic and household accidents who are able to do so are trying on their own to get to one of the major hospitals. There, however, the rush is now so great that the police have to guard the entrances and turn people away.

And the military? "A large-scale and prolonged power blackout" would pose "major challenges" for the Bundeswehr, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Defense last year. It turns out to be accurate. Soldiers do have emergency generators and fuel, but neither is nearly enough to power the many health care and even elder care facilities.

It is very cold in the homes between Kiel, Magdeburg and Dresden. Due to the sub-zero temperatures at night, even the last bit of warmth has now escaped from the apartments. People with fireplaces or tiled stoves and sufficient fuel are at an advantage. They can at least heat individual rooms. Everyone else helps out by wearing thick clothing and sleeping under several blankets.

Those who lack something try to barter: Cash for canned soups, ibuprofen for toilet paper, diapers for cat food.

With the closing of supermarkets, the barter economy among people begins. In hospitals, only emergencies and intensive care patients are cared for.

Day 4

A tragedy occurred overnight in a large student dormitory in Dresden. About two dozen residents had gathered in the common room that evening to provide some heat. They fired up the grill that someone had brought from home. They turned off the battery-powered smoke alarm so as not to alert the fire department. All the windows were locked. Presumably, everyone had already lost consciousness when the grill started the fire. It is not the only drama of this kind.

Accidents are piling up in apartment buildings and rented apartments. Injuries that would be harmless under normal circumstances are becoming more dangerous if left untreated. Pensioners who fall sometimes lie undetected for days and die of thirst.

Outside life has also become risky, especially in the evening and at night. While the first few days were largely peaceful, many cities are now experiencing riots and looting. The police are overburdened and, when they do arrive, they do so too late.

After almost a hundred hours of power outage, it is crucial for the human psyche whether an end is in sight or not. Provided the cause of the blackout can be clarified and the power utilities begin to ramp up the networks, the "collapse of society" warned of by the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag can still be prevented.

Thriller author Elsberg is more optimistic in conversation than in his bestseller. He says, "We know from all crisis situations in civilized countries that as long as it doesn't come down to the wire, people don't bash each other's heads in, but help each other."

A good conclusion.

-----------------------

[Jimbuna]

The head of Britain's electricity and gas systems' operator has told households to prepare for blackouts between 4pm and 7pm on weekdays during "really, really cold" days in January and February if gas imports are reduced.

John Pettigrew, the National Grid chief, said blackouts would have to be imposed during the "deepest darkest evenings" in January and February if electricity generators did not have enough gas to meet demand, especially if there is a period of cold weather.

His comments were made at the Financial Times's Energy Transition Summit on Monday.

[Jimbuna]

The ships full of gas waiting off Europe’s coast

By Chris Baraniuk
Technology of Business reporter

The huge tankers are waiting. Off the coasts of Spain, Portugal, the UK and other European nations lie dozens of giant ships packed full of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Cooled to roughly -160C for transportation, the fossil fuel is in very high demand. Yet the ships remain at sea with their prized cargo.

After invading Ukraine in February, Russia curtailed gas supplies to Europe, sparking an energy crisis that sent the price of gas soaring. That led to fears of energy shortages and eye-watering bills for consumers.

"It's built up for about, I would say, five to six weeks," says Augustin Prate, vice president of energy and commodity markets at Kayrros, one of many observers who has watched the situation unfold.

He and colleagues track ships via AIS (Automatic Identification System) signals, which are broadcast by vessels to receivers, including on satellites.

"Clearly it's a big story," he says.

So why are ships loaded with LNG just hanging around Europe, exactly? The answer, as you might have guessed, is a little complicated.

Someone else who has watched the accumulation of vessels is Fraser Carson, a research analyst at Wood Mackenzie. This month, he counted 268 LNG ships on the water worldwide - noticeably above the one-year average of 241. Of those currently at sea, 51 are in the vicinity of Europe.

He explains that European nations plunged into a gas-buying spree over the summer that aimed to fill onshore storage tanks with gas. This was to ensure that heaps of fuel would be available to cover energy needs this winter.

The original target was to fill storage facilities to 80% of their total capacity by 1 November. That target has been met, and exceeded, far ahead of schedule. The latest data suggests storage is now at nearly 95% in total.

Imported LNG has played a key role in getting Europe to this point.

But as LNG continues to be brought ashore, demand for facilities that heat the liquid and turn it back into gas remains high. There aren't very many such plants in Europe, partly because the continent has long relied on gas delivered via pipelines from Russia instead.

So that's one reason why LNG ships are waiting around - some are queuing for access to regasification terminals. In the meantime, Germany and the Netherlands have invested in new regasification facilities. Some, rapidly built using converted LNG ships pinned to docksides, are expected to become operational within months.

On top of this bottleneck, less gas is getting used up in Europe than it otherwise might at present because the weather has been very mild well into October.

Plus, as Antoine Halff, co-founder of Kayrros notes, industrial activities that rely on gas have relaxed. This is something he and his colleagues track by scouring satellite images of factories.

"There's been a very dramatic reduction in cement and steel production in Europe," he says.

It all means that a market situation called contango has emerged for LNG, says Mr Carson. That is, when the future price of a commodity is higher than today's price.

"You would get a higher price for a delivery for January than you would in November," he explains.

Michelle Wiese Bockmann, markets editor and analyst at the shipping journal Lloyd's List, says that just by waiting to deliver in December rather than November, the difference in profit could be in the order of tens of millions of dollars per shipment.

While it is possible that buyers elsewhere in the world could snap up the cargoes of some waiting ships, meaning they might leave and head to Asia, for example, it may yet benefit Europe to have a glut of LNG literally floating around.

Some observers say having the ships wait around is partly a good thing - you want the gas to be available when you need it.

The only spanner in the works is the sobering sums involved. Feverish demand for gas means that countries have already paid extraordinary amounts to secure it.

Germany spent 49.5bn euros (£43.25bn) on imports between January and August, according to the Reuters news agency. That's compared to 17.1bn euros during the same period in 2021.

This is "market forces" at work, says Ms Bockmann. But she emphasises that European nations are "in the best possible position that they could be [in], given the geopolitical situation".

Mr Carson agrees, adding: "In terms of what can actually be done at the moment, the market has responded appropriately."

The real question is what happens next. With gas secured for the coming weeks at least, the price of the commodity in Europe has begun to fall.

Benchmark gas prices in Europe have fallen dramatically since August, but are still more than twice the price they were this time last year.

However, further disruptions to supply and very cold winter months could potentially change the picture yet again.

There's also the global situation to consider. Heightened demand for LNG imports in Europe has boosted competition for gas around the world. Countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh that rely on LNG, but which have less financial leverage in the market, have been stung by the current situation.

In general, some LNG that might traditionally have gone to Asia has this year sailed to Europe. It has effectively been "a huge game of musical chairs", says Mr Halff.

But some Asian nations, notably China, Japan and South Korea, which also use a lot of LNG, will likely seek significant imports in the colder months, potentially fuelling competition between continents.

For Corey Grindal, chief operating officer and head of worldwide trading at LNG producer Cheniere, what's happening in the LNG market is "a very short-term phenomenon".

Diversification of energy supplies in Europe should ease things in the coming years.

He adds that the vast majority of his firm's LNG output this year has already been sold and that Cheniere's production should rise from 45 million tonnes to 55 million tonnes by around 2026.

The current bonanza over gas has concerned some who argue that pivoting to renewables would be better for the planet and possibly more reliable.

"Renewable deployments is great. I am [all] for doing the right thing for the planet that we live on," says Mr Grindal.

However, he argues that the need for gas to heat people's homes and generate electricity is immediate. "We need it today," he says.

What happens tomorrow depends, in varying degrees, on the war in Ukraine, the weather, the rise of renewables, global demand for gas - and hundreds of ships full of LNG sailing either east or west.

[mapuc]

Wasn't it Skybird who had a made some comment on this problem with the windmills ?

Another GOOD NIGHT treat!
Germany has around 30,000 wind turbines. THIRTY THOUSAND. Behind each of these wind turbines, wake vortices are formed which, depending on their location, can last for kilometers.
The vertical mixing of the air causes the moist air to be transported from the layers near the ground to higher ones.
The offshore consequences are in the picture, the onshore consequences are drought and ultimately global warming.

In addition, there are 30,000 conventionally manufactured steel tubes (painted white), 90,000 rotor blades that are not recyclable, 30,000 generators with precious metals and some highly toxic neodymium (depending on the type of gear from 25 to over 200 kg per MW) and last but not least CO2-intensive reinforced concrete -Foundations on (partly cleared) areas. With a term of 10 years.

These plant components are exported and imported using ship diesel. Depending on the order situation from or to China etc., i.e. up to halfway around the world.

Original text

Noch ein GUTE NACHT Schmankerl!
Deutschland besitzt rund 30.000 Windräder. DREISSIGTAUSEND. Hinter jedem dieser Windräder bilden sich Wirbelschleppen, die je nach Lage kilometerweit Bestand haben.

Die vertikale Durchmischung der Luft bewirkt einen Transport der feuchten Luft aus den bodennahen Schichten in höhere.
Die Offshore-Folgen sieht man im Bild, die Onshore-Folgen sind Trockenheit und letztendlich Erderwärmung.

Dazu kommen 30.000 konventionell hergestellte Stahlröhren (weiß lackiert), 90.000 Rotorblätter, die nicht recyclefähig sind, 30.000 Generatoren mit Edelmetallen und zT hoch giftigem Neodym (je nach Getriebeart von 25 bis über 200 kg je MW) und last but not least CO2-intensiven Stahlbeton-Fundamenten auf (zT gerodeten) Flächen. Bei einer Laufzeit von 10 Jahren.

Der Ex- und Import dieser Anlagenteile findet per Schiffsdiesel statt. Je nach Auftragslage von oder nach China etc., also bis zu einmal um die halbe Welt.

Markus

[Jimbuna]

It is too expensive for governments to help everyone with their soaring energy bills, the World Bank has warned.

The bank's president said Covid support schemes had not been targeted enough towards the most vulnerable and the debt will take decades to pay off.

David Malpass told the BBC the same policy was being adopted to help people cope with rising energy bills.

"Governments are saying we will take care of everyone, which is just too expensive," he said.

It is pushing global debt to record levels and people at the bottom of the income scale are hardest hit, he said.

It comes as separate research suggests the UK's own energy support scheme is far too expensive in its current form.

The government is limiting average bills for households using a typical amount of energy to £2,500 a year for six months, but will review the support offered from April.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research said the current scheme could cost some £30bn because it was untargeted.

It also said households could save up to £20bn per year if they were incentivised to invest in energy-saving measures like solar panels.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63386350

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

Energy supplier Octopus Energy is to buy its smaller competitor Bulb, after the UK government approved a deal.

Bulb collapsed last year after rising gas and electricity prices, and has since been run by the government.

Its 1.5 million customers will not experience "any change or disruption to their energy supplies", the government said.

The deal is expected to be completed by next month.

Business Secretary Grant Shapps said the move will bring "vital reassurance and energy security to consumers across the country at a time when they need it most".

Octopus had previously requested £1bn in public funding for the deal, but the government announcement made no mention of the money involved in the deal.

The statement said that "due to high market volatility it is impossible" to forecast the true cost of Bulb.

Octopus said the move would bring "an end to taxpayer losses", adding it was "paying the government" to take on Bulb's customers.

London-based Bulb was the biggest of more than 30 energy companies that collapsed last November following a spike in wholesale gas prices, which was partly caused by Covid restrictions ending and has since been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

It was placed into "special administration", meaning it was run by the government through the regulator Ofgem. The special administration measure is only used if Ofgem is unable to find another company to take over an energy firm's customers.

The state bailout of Bulb had been forecast to cost the taxpayer around £2bn by next year. It was the biggest state bailout since the Royal Bank of Scotland collapse during the 2008 financial crisis.

Mr Shapps, who became business secretary this week by Rishi Sunak, said the move highlighted the government's "overriding priority" to protect customers. He added he would do everything he could to "ensure our energy system provides secure and affordable energy for all".

Octopus will continue to use Bulb's technology and branding "for a transitionary period", the government's statement said.

The company, which was founded in the UK in 2015, said that before the Bulb acquisition it served 3.4 million customers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63437352

[Jimbuna]

[Skybird]

No, it hasn't. It sjust that the reserve storage site sin Germany are 98% full, and Germany stops buying gas, so prices drop: Germany is the biggest customer.



We sooner or later start heating again, and consume gas, then buy new gas. And not form Russia, but suppliers in shorter supply. That will cost, and prices will go up again. Next year we will need to refill the reserves, and different to this year then we will not have Russian gas, but mostly only super-expensive LNG gas. Prices will explode.



They predicted a cold winter due to El Nina. Could still happen, if not this year, then next winter 23/24 will be the big crisis. Not only gas, but power alike.

[Jimbuna]

Well i'm doing my bit for the crisis....installed an energy efficient boiler in July at a cost of £2000 and just a couple of dats ago I purchased an air fryer @£285