Article dated 21.01.23 - Scotland’s “Energy Strategy and Just Transition plan” is a disaster in the making.
SUPPOSE THAT SCOTLAND’S CO2 emissions fell tomorrow to zero i.e. that, at midnight, the country ceased to exist. Then according to the “Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change” (MAGICC), based on the latest IPCC climate models, the reduction in the Earth’s temperature in 2100 would be undetectable.
Motivated by the moral necessity and urgency of this achievement, the Scottish Government is proposing a novel energy policy—its “Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan”.
This newsletter reviews its major themes and their implications, and considers briefly the probability of success of the Scottish Government implementing it.
In 2022, due to an insufficient quantity of wind and sun, Scotland’s current collection of wind and solar energy scavenging devices failed to generate about 70% of their nameplate capacity.
Recent exhaustive statistical and econometric analysis of wind generation in Scotland by Edinburgh University shows that it is uneconomic, and destined for taxpayer bailout.
Under the Scottish Government’s novel energy strategy, wind and solar energy scavenging devices are to be greatly expanded.
Hydrogen, an energy carrier that squanders in waste heat a gigawatt of power generation for every gigawatt it carries, is elevated in the Scottish Government’s understanding of energy to the category of a fuel, and also greatly expanded.
Hydrocarbon and nuclear—actual fuels—provide the energy to manufacture and endlessly replace wind turbines and solar panels. They also, in Scotland, provide the power sources that run under all conditions to ensure continuity of energy supply during Scotland’s frequent sunless and windless conditions. These are to be discontinued.
Like all advanced economies, Scotland cannot tolerate even a small measure of power supply fluctuation. Without firm dispatchable thermal standby generation capacity to smooth supply fluctuation, the eventual daily ~40GW amplitude power fluctuation resulting from the proposed expansion of weather dependent electrical generation must be adapted for use in some other way. This will be provided by some form of 180+ day, grid-scale electricity storage—a technical challenge for which no precedent exists, and therefore no cost estimate is available.
No technology candidate for grid scale battery storage technology exists, either today or in the foreseeable future. It occupies a prominent role in The Scottish Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan.
Converting surplus energy to hydrogen for storage and use at grid scale is unprecedented, wasteful, and fraught with risk. 50% of Scotland’s proposed new intermittent generation capacity, installed at a capital cost of around £26 billion, will be wasted in converting its output to hydrogen.
Hydrogen embrittles pipework, renders conventional valves ineffective and, unlike domestic gas, self-ignites under catastrophic decompression. Quantifying the risks of transporting it in bulk on Scottish roads and deploying it as a substitute for domestic gas in Scotland’s densely populated housing estates might be an exciting 10 year research project at the UK Government’s Spadeadam industrial hazard testing facility (“…the remoteness of the area is key to their operations” – Wikipedia”).
But, informed by what the Scottish Government claims is the need for “the fastest possible” transition, it will bypass thorough safety testing and impose live hydrogen trials on Scotland’s citizens. Hydrocarbon gas is to be phased out of Scottish homes from 2030.
Energy densities in energy storage sites located next to Scotland’s towns and cities required by the Scottish Government’s reckless abandonment of thermal standby generation capacity will be measured in millions of tonnes of TNT—a risk for which 12 feet thick reinforced concrete containment domes are installed around nuclear facilities to manage. These risks are entirely unrecognised by Scotland’s current planning processes (or citizens).
For this article in pdf with references, please click here:
Richard Lyon is a former senior oil and gas operations manager with 35 years of international experience, and academic qualifications in electrical engineering and power systems, petroleum engineering, and energy economics.
Scotland’s largest power station – Longannet – being blown up.
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