GNRSP Local Mini-Survey

Thanks to the 98 who’ve responded to the GNRSP mini-survey as of this morning. Starting on the analysis today, so if you haven’t already done so please click on the link and add your view, thank you.

 

There is an interesting example of a hydro scheme on the Thames at Reading Hydro – the scheme’s two turbines have a combined maximum power of 46kW (0.000046 GW, GNRSP max. 1GW - 21,739 times bigger than Reading Hydro, and still only 2.2% of the 45GW mentioned below. Riverbank water power got our economy started in the 18^th Century but today it’s, for the most part, a curiosity.

 

I read this morning that:-

 

“The electricity grid needs to be able produce around 45GW peak demand, and to supply all the population night and day, winter and summer. In our interconnected and sophisticated modern world power cuts are disastrous. To prevent power cuts, energy must be always available, and the only way to have that is to have it ready, stored, and able to be converted into electricity immediately (and I mean within seconds, not minutes). Battery technology is nothing like developed enough to store grid-scale electricity, and even if it were, it would be fantastically expensive to install. The largest battery in the world at the moment is in California, and it could power the UK grid in normal use for about 3 minutes. That battery cost about $1.5bn!”

 

The only watery renewable that could bring reliability to a renewables future is the Severn Barrage – generating up to 15GW (a third of UK 45GW base load) which, because it’s tidal, is totally predictable, years ahead! Brilliant, but it won’t happen, ecopolitics, Anglo-Welsh politics etc. It’s the kind of project only dictators could push through – second thoughts, I’ll drop Starmer/Miliband a line.