Dong Energy CEO Bullish on Offshore Wind
Uh-oh, my pro-nuke, anti-renewables are not going to like this one. Henrik Poulson, the CEO of Denmark’s Dong Energy says that offshore wind can power the UK without the help of new nuclear plants.
The idea that renewables can scale to solve the world’s energy woes without nuclear drives these people bananas. It will be interesting to see how they explain that the chief executive of a $3 billion/year company, partly owned by Goldman Sachs (not particularly known for foolish miscalculations) could be so wildly misinformed.
Proving that renewables can do the job without fossil fuel or nuclear backup will require actually doing it. Despite years of attempting to do it, it has not yet been done. Brief periods of getting all power from renewables, like 24 hours or somewhat more, do not prove that it is possible.
Craig you have got to be kidding mate. What on earth has happened to your “sniff meter” regarding blogs. Anyway here is my “slightly sarcastic – but well intentioned of course) letter back to this blog:
Well Mr Henrik Poulson of Dong Energy (the same Henrik Poulson not known to make foolish miscalculations) the British Government and the entire UK population and industry need your expertise urgently and I know that with an impeccable reputation like yours, you already have your companies quotation to electrify the UK entirely with wind power ready to email off to Westminster for their overwhelming acceptance.
Voila Mr Poulson, it appears mission accomplished and that England’s energy woes for now an all-time are precisely taken care of.
Can I offer one small amendment to your quotation though Mr Poulson as line item number 2, that you might have overlooked and I know you can easily deliver on this point because of your prominence as the CEO of a 3 Billion $/year company. And that line item 2 should read as follows:
Item 2: On completion of the installation of the Wind Turbines to totally electrify the UK, shown in line item 1, there will be no further requirement for any other sources of energy generation in the UK as per our companies recent blog shared on http://www.2GreenEnergy.com, and we therefore recommend the immediate closure of all of the now redundant UK power generation plants (both nuclear and coal fired) currently in service, to ameliorate the troublesome greenhouse gas emissions crisis we are experiencing globally.
Thank you for what you have been able to deliver to the UK Mr Poulson when so many others have failed, we are gratefully indebted to you and your outstanding technology will definitely make a huge contribution in reducing greenhouse gasses also now that we can close down all of the non-wind generation plants in the UK.
What’s most extraordinary really is that Mr Poulson’s wind power revolution guaranteeing “low cost and abundant power for all people on earth” has waited so long to come to the worlds rescue on these two big ticket issues; global power abundance and availability technology, and greenhouse gas reversal.
Oh well better late than never I say.
Lawrence Coomber
Wind, Solar, and Nuclear all have the same problem in somewhat different forms as none of the three are good at load following.
Wind and solar have an inherently variable resource though on different timescales.
Wind tends to vary on approximately a 4 day time scale (typical residence time of a weather system in the UK) albeit with SOME wind nearly all the time, and a degree of geographical leveling out i.e if there is very little wind in Cornwall (South West England) it will probably be windy in Scotland.
Solar average output per day varies around 5 fold between summer and winter, and has no output at night, there are also substantial differences between one day and another – even one hour and the next.
Nuclear wants to be run constantly at fixed output with a nuclear plant possibly even costing more per hour of operation when ramped down to lower output – ramping the plant may increase thermal stresses etc leading to more maintenance cost and shorter working life. To do the whole job with nuclear would be very expensive as a substantial proportion of output would only be required for a few tens to hundreds of hours a year. This from a technology with a negative learning curve, (Becomes more expensive with increasing cumulative capacity) and which needs a higher per MWh guaranteed price over a longer period than either wind or solar in the UK in order to get built.
No one solution is suited to doing the whole job, however we need to de-carbonise the energy system as quickly as possible to limit climate change.
What is the solution? I would not presume to know the optimal mix, but I would say that a mixture of several low / zero carbon energy systems including most of the following in various proportions.
Wind, Solar, Hydro, Biomass, Geothermal, Nuclear, Tidal and Wave power.
Together with
Demand side management (doing electricity consuming things at times which best suit the grid), energy efficiency, enhancements to the electricity grid to accommodate larger flows of electricity over long distances, and various forms of storage both electrical and thermal.
will give us the best chance of the largest emission savings at lowest cost.
Do I agree with Henrik Poulson?
That depends what he actually meant.
If his meaning was absolute i.e. “Wind can power the UK on its own without any help from other technologies” then I would have to disagree.
If his meaning was that “At this point, offshore wind power can offer a more cost effective means to reduce UK emissions than the proposed Hinkley Point power station for the 7% of UK electricity it is scheduled to produce” then I would entirely agree with him.
Gary,
On the surface your contention sounds reasonable and to a certain measure is commonsense.
However, what’s missing is the competitiveness of power when applied to industrial societies. Nuclear power generating technology, especially when using thorium instead of uranium, are becoming exceedingly versatile and capable of miniaturization.
Inevitably the convenience, reliability, long life and efficiency of these plants, will have so many advantages over other forms of power generation, that the others will become non-competitive except in fringe specialist applications.
Even so, bio-mass, hydro, Geo-thermal,wind and Solar will still play a vital role in specialist applications where such technologies are economic and appropriate.
What’s really stopping advanced nuclear, is out dated fears and prejudices, relating to long superseded designs.
The Japanese are experimenting with thorium reactors so small, that the can be safely installed in the basement of a small building. It’s estimated the City and County of Los Angeles and surrounding area as far as Santa Barbara could be accommodated by just 40 such installations. The cost of each generator would be under $500 million, with the cost of installation and infrastructure less than $ 1 billion additional.
Now $60 billion sounds a lot of money for low cost, zero emission electricity, but that’s allowing for the area to grow by 50% over the next 30 years, and energy needs to double.
In reality, it’s only a fraction of the cost of alternatives.
Gary thank you for that excellent contribution. Although I don’t share those views, you have put together a well laid out and concise argument.
Lawrence Coomber
Craig,
As I read the article you cited it seems to say that offshore wind can supply sufficient electricity to eliminate the need for one particular nuclear power plant.
It seems as if you have read it with the assumption that it suggested offshore wind could eliminate all nuclear power. I don’t see that in this article.
I have seen the point debated elsewhere, just not in this article.