Last Saturday the power station on my roof (Semington A) generated 22.3 kWh of electrical power. \u00a0It would have been larger had the temperature been a bit lower, say 21 rather than 35 degrees, and the sun a bit higher in the sky (June rather than August). \u00a0But 22.3 kWh is not to be sneezed at. \u00a0I generously exported 18 kWh of this back to the grid for use in the village.<\/p>\n
So much for Semington A; what about the UK as a whole?<\/p>\n
When I got up the country was generating around 25 gigawatts of electricity. \u00a0That's about 6 million times more than Semington A's capacity. \u00a0The source was:<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u00a064<\/strong>% by gas; 19% by nuclear; 8% by biomass; and 6% by wind.<\/p>\n Around 1200, those figures were:<\/p>\n \u2013 \u00a032 GW: 42<\/strong>% by gas; 25% by solar; 15% by nuclear; 4% by biomass; and 3% by wind.<\/p>\n Thus, on a blazing summer day we were burning \u00fcber-expensive gas to generate ~13.5 GW of electricity.<\/p>\n What a desperate state of affairs this is. \u00a0And it has been going on for weeks because there has been very little wind power available because there was so little wind.<\/p>\n Going on for years, more like, as the key strategy in the UK's electricity generation policy over many years now has been diversification with an emphasis on renewables. \u00a0This is understandable, with caveats.<\/p>\n Diversification used to mean ensuring security of supply through a range of sources. \u00a0This began as different sorts of fuel (coal \/ nuclear \/ gas \/ oil \/ hydro \/ storage \/ renewables), but at some point it turned into nuclear and renewables (on a good day) + gas from different countries (which is where we are now).<\/p>\n Thus divergence of fuels became divergence of sources of gas for which we are paying world-prices which are rocketing.<\/p>\n This shift away from fossil fuels was accelerated by the adoption of net-zero targets which saw a rapid loss of coal-fired power to add to the loss of nuclear power as old capacity was not replaced.<\/p>\n There is hubris in this rush to net-zero. \u00a0It seems that the UK always has to be the first to set an example, to be a world leader\u00a0pour encourager les autres<\/em>, and maybe to atone some more for our industrial revolution sins that we did not know were were committing. \u00a0All this, even though we only (currently) have 1% of global emissions and maybe<\/em> 5%<\/a> historically.<\/p>\n Then there are the promised jobs. \u00a0Launching the government\u2019s net-zero strategy last October, the PM said: \u201cThe UK\u2019s path to ending our contribution to climate change will be paved with well-paid jobs, billions in investment and thriving green industries.\u201d \u00a0We shall see; but we usually don't.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, ...<\/p>\n \u2013 Where is the gas storage capacity we now need? (closed down as \"unneeded\" of course).<\/p>\n \u2013 Where is all the much needed insulation (not in cavity walls, that's for sure).<\/p>\n \u2013 Where are the enhanced building standards? (lagging behind that's where).<\/p>\n \u2013 Where is the additional nuclear that might have been built? \u00a0(sacrificed to the cowardice of endless governments that did not stand up to progressive eco-fantasy).<\/p>\n \u2013 Where is \"our\" fracked oil and gas? (safely stranded as a result of scare stories and official funk).<\/p>\n But we are where we are (as they say): with the poor now having to pay \u00a3zillions for basic power sources whilst government wrings its hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last Saturday the power station on my roof (Semington A) generated 22.3 kWh of electrical power. \u00a0It would have been larger had the temperature been a bit lower, say 21 rather than 35 degrees, and the sun a bit higher...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}