Thorium has been tried before. It's definitely not new. or 'advamced', There's no characteristics of the system which would ease construction problems compared to uranium based reactors.
Just looking at generation as you have done gives a highly misleading picture. According to IEA Denmark generates approximately 35 Terra Watts of electricity. It imports 16.7 Terra watts. In other words it could not have such a high renewable penetration without being plugged into Germany, Sweden and Norway. Most of the imports are generated by nuclear from Sweden or coal from Germany. The time when imports are highest is winter when the wind is low in the North Sea,but at that time all the North Sea littoral countries tend to be affected. So prices are very high. Denmark does export a similar amount of electricity although it is a net importer. Its exports tend to be when prices are very low because the Wind in the North Sea is good and summer means lower demand.
You didn’t understand my comment. Yes it exports nearly as much as it imports. The problem is it imports when it needs to when there is a lack of wind and prices are exorbitant because surrounding countries have the same problem. It exports it times of good wind when prices are low. It could not function without the firm power being available which is the main problem with a grid based on intermittent sources.
That’s disingenuous. Denmark would go dark at time if it was not for power coming in over the inter connectors. If you’re going to move to wind and solar in place of nuclear, you need massive storage capacity and you need some mechanism of maintaining grid inertia to smooth frequency variations. Providing those — a free by product of nuclear — costs a lot, pushing the real cost of renewables as high a nuclear. People arguing for 100% solar and wind need to be honest and account for these costs.
The key reason nuclear is considered expensive is that we’ve not built much over the past few decades, the depth of experience seen in China is lacking, but as for any form of construction as we move from first to nth of a kind price overruns will fall.
It's not 'disngenuous'. You are showing your ideological opposition to interconnectors which are very useful for balancing fluctuating energy resources. You appear to resist these for no other reason than they might help balance renewables. They are usful in general fror grid security. eg The deliberate decision by Texas to isolate itself led to their big blackout in 2021 (mainly caused by gas power station cut-outs). The recent Iberian blackout would probably not happened if Nuclear-dominated france had not consistently refused to upgrade the interconnector links with Spain. And the little Englanders who are reisting more interconnectors with other parts of Euope are in the same boat!
I’m not ideologically opposed to interconnectors, far from it. The point I was trying to make is that interconnectors don’t solve the problem of unpredictable intermittency inherent in wind and solar; they just shift it geographically, ultimately to thermal generation be that nuclear, gas or coal.
Interconnectors could solve the problems of intermittency, but only at the cost of huge redundancy of generating capacity spread across an area greater than weather systems, at which scale transmission losses would also be high. I remain highly sceptical about the economics of that vis-a-vis nuclear located near to demand.
The UK has built a connector to Norway so they can now do the same. The problem is that they are going to need the energy at exactly the same time as Denmark and Germany (still conditions in the North Sea). This happened last winter.
You seem to be advocating the Danish solution. Imagine if the neighbouring countries Denmark buys firm power from had adopted the same Danish solution - no power for anyone. Really your logic is infantile.
I'm saying that interonnectors will help balance fluctuating renewable energy generation. That's something that supported by scientific papers. I suggest you stick to that rather than calling me names. Any further messages containing abuse will be deleted
Of course interconnectors help balance renewable energy by providing a source of firm power when the weather turns bad. If the surrounding countries were also running on intermittent energy like Denmark there would be no power to plug into because they are largely subject to the same climatic conditions.
Denmark is very fortunate in having so many interconnectors to adjacent countries to support it when its dark and windless. Its also still runs many coal stations which it isn't in any rush to shut down.
rather than pushing i/c's we would have been better served to have sorted out internal grid constraints first given the farce we have created with wind being switched off and gas turned up making for very poor headlines.
International interconnectors are only useful if there is a reliable, dispatchable power source at the end of them.
The ability to generate 100% of power from solar and wind in the right conditions is very different from the ability to power a country solely from solar and wind.
THE COUNTRIES AROUND THE NORTH SEA do not often have exactly the same weather conditions additionally there are hydro electric power stations in the Scandinavion areas particularly additionally fairly soon, Wave & tidal power could reliably make up for the lack at times, the Nuclear industry tried in the 1970/80s to undermine wave power as it feared competition setting it back for50 or more years & never has met it's promises also grossly expensive very slow etc.
Surely room for both approaches? Chona's thorium technologies look espdcially promising.
Thorium has been tried before. It's definitely not new. or 'advamced', There's no characteristics of the system which would ease construction problems compared to uranium based reactors.
Just looking at generation as you have done gives a highly misleading picture. According to IEA Denmark generates approximately 35 Terra Watts of electricity. It imports 16.7 Terra watts. In other words it could not have such a high renewable penetration without being plugged into Germany, Sweden and Norway. Most of the imports are generated by nuclear from Sweden or coal from Germany. The time when imports are highest is winter when the wind is low in the North Sea,but at that time all the North Sea littoral countries tend to be affected. So prices are very high. Denmark does export a similar amount of electricity although it is a net importer. Its exports tend to be when prices are very low because the Wind in the North Sea is good and summer means lower demand.
Electricity consumption was around 35 TWh 2023-24. This is the same as the electricity production that I quote in the blog post. I am certain this is correct. You can see this statistic for electricity consumption at https://www.enerdata.net/estore/energy-market/denmark/#:~:text=Denmark%20Power%20Consumption,(26%25)%20(2023). Also you can look at 'Our World in Data', which has a run of per capita figures which can be multiplied by the population (a little under 6 million persons) to get the total, again somewhere near 35TWh. See https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/denmark (note look for electricity consumption). I can't comment specifically on your source, that is the IEA. I've commented previously that in general their data on wind and solar energy is rather questionable. See https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/how-the-iea-is-grossly-biased-against
You didn’t understand my comment. Yes it exports nearly as much as it imports. The problem is it imports when it needs to when there is a lack of wind and prices are exorbitant because surrounding countries have the same problem. It exports it times of good wind when prices are low. It could not function without the firm power being available which is the main problem with a grid based on intermittent sources.
That’s just good energy management- the UK should have more international interconnections so that we can do the same
That’s disingenuous. Denmark would go dark at time if it was not for power coming in over the inter connectors. If you’re going to move to wind and solar in place of nuclear, you need massive storage capacity and you need some mechanism of maintaining grid inertia to smooth frequency variations. Providing those — a free by product of nuclear — costs a lot, pushing the real cost of renewables as high a nuclear. People arguing for 100% solar and wind need to be honest and account for these costs.
The key reason nuclear is considered expensive is that we’ve not built much over the past few decades, the depth of experience seen in China is lacking, but as for any form of construction as we move from first to nth of a kind price overruns will fall.
It's not 'disngenuous'. You are showing your ideological opposition to interconnectors which are very useful for balancing fluctuating energy resources. You appear to resist these for no other reason than they might help balance renewables. They are usful in general fror grid security. eg The deliberate decision by Texas to isolate itself led to their big blackout in 2021 (mainly caused by gas power station cut-outs). The recent Iberian blackout would probably not happened if Nuclear-dominated france had not consistently refused to upgrade the interconnector links with Spain. And the little Englanders who are reisting more interconnectors with other parts of Euope are in the same boat!
I’m not ideologically opposed to interconnectors, far from it. The point I was trying to make is that interconnectors don’t solve the problem of unpredictable intermittency inherent in wind and solar; they just shift it geographically, ultimately to thermal generation be that nuclear, gas or coal.
Interconnectors could solve the problems of intermittency, but only at the cost of huge redundancy of generating capacity spread across an area greater than weather systems, at which scale transmission losses would also be high. I remain highly sceptical about the economics of that vis-a-vis nuclear located near to demand.
The UK has built a connector to Norway so they can now do the same. The problem is that they are going to need the energy at exactly the same time as Denmark and Germany (still conditions in the North Sea). This happened last winter.
You seem to be advocating the Danish solution. Imagine if the neighbouring countries Denmark buys firm power from had adopted the same Danish solution - no power for anyone. Really your logic is infantile.
I'm saying that interonnectors will help balance fluctuating renewable energy generation. That's something that supported by scientific papers. I suggest you stick to that rather than calling me names. Any further messages containing abuse will be deleted
Of course interconnectors help balance renewable energy by providing a source of firm power when the weather turns bad. If the surrounding countries were also running on intermittent energy like Denmark there would be no power to plug into because they are largely subject to the same climatic conditions.
https://ilonaragana.substack.com/p/truth-is-above-all-lies
Denmark is very fortunate in having so many interconnectors to adjacent countries to support it when its dark and windless. Its also still runs many coal stations which it isn't in any rush to shut down.
A comment which diverts attention from the central point that I made about Denmark becoming 100% electricity from solar and wind. Besides which coal fired power plant are being replaced with heat pumps, eg see https://www.renewable-energy-industry.com/news/world/article-6798-mega-heat-pump-from-man-energy-solutions-supplies-first-heat-in-esbjerg-denmark - if you look at Figure 1 you'll see there's not much fossil fuel generation left. Obviously the UK should build more international interconnectors
rather than pushing i/c's we would have been better served to have sorted out internal grid constraints first given the farce we have created with wind being switched off and gas turned up making for very poor headlines.
International interconnectors are only useful if there is a reliable, dispatchable power source at the end of them.
The ability to generate 100% of power from solar and wind in the right conditions is very different from the ability to power a country solely from solar and wind.
THE COUNTRIES AROUND THE NORTH SEA do not often have exactly the same weather conditions additionally there are hydro electric power stations in the Scandinavion areas particularly additionally fairly soon, Wave & tidal power could reliably make up for the lack at times, the Nuclear industry tried in the 1970/80s to undermine wave power as it feared competition setting it back for50 or more years & never has met it's promises also grossly expensive very slow etc.