Venezuela, a nation where 82% of its electricity comes from renewable energy...

[Marcos]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guri_Dam

Thanks to the Guri Dam and the government policy commenced in the 1960s to produce as least energy from fossil fuels to be able to export the most oil, makes Venezuela a nation where 82% of its electricity comes from renewable energy like hydroelectric. There are other dams across Venezuela serving local needs.

wow, thats impressive and unexpected considering the usual reputation of the country


How much electricity in the UK comes from renewable?

[TAKTAK]

How much electricity in the UK comes from renewable?

Something like 7%

[Funkstar]

What Venezuela's energy usage per head of population compared to the UK though?

I bet it's a really small fraction.

[Marcos]

chances are, much warmer climate too, but its still pretty weak if the UK can't compete

[Whiternoise]

The UK is prepped to be able to cope with a peak power draw of 85GW by 2020. Our last big peak was something like 60GW - though our absolute max capacity as of 07 was somewhere around 75GW. The aim as of 2007 was to provide 33GW power using offshore turbines by '20, but whether there are funds actually earmarked for it and given the crash happened after the proposal - i'm not sure whether that's still on track for 2020.

Venezuela can pump out (quite literally) around 24000kW. Doesn't seem like much, but that's a third of our total capacity.

Sidenote: Tidal is more expensive but far more reliable. The trouble with most renewables like solar and wind is this: Electricity storage is crap, to be frank. It's all very well producing 33GW, but we don't have any efficient ways to store vast amounts of it (although this is sort of how hydro works - i.e. "store" it as potential energy) - this means we can't just say "oh well, build a massive solar array in africa to power the world (or in space). So, what happens when there are gale force winds at night, the farms are at maximum capacity? All that generated power is wasted (unless we develop a reliable and efficient way of storing excess). You also have to keep fossil stations open to allow for demand if there's not enough wind.

I'm all for changing to wind, and if we have to mess up the north sea with turbines then so be it (we've already messed it up with oil rigs anyway) if that's how we're going to get rid of coal/oil/gas. But there are some big hitches in the governments master plan that they should (and probably are) be looking into.

EDIT: @ Marcos, warmer climate makes very little difference to anything except solar power. Hydroelectrics work by pumping water into a reservoir and letting it drain back down again - this works regardless of the temperature (we've got a fair few here).

[TeePee]

Nuclear power contributes 20% or UK electricity, and should certainly be considered to be renewable.

[BUFF]

as it says though the reason is so that they can export more of their fossil fuel so it's not really a "green" decision.

By comparison in 2002 Scotland's electricity generation had 11% renewable & 38% nuclear ( a major chunk of which is end of life)

[Infinite]

Nuclear power isnt renewable though...

[TeePee]

Close enough. It's good clean eco-friendly power.

[Whiternoise]

The after effects aren't though...

Granted that Nuclear safety these days is a million miles from Chernobyl, but nuclear waste is still a very serious issue and is a major problem. There are literally hundreds of square miles which are off limits and will be for the next thousand years unless we find a way of sanitising radioactive material. Even low level waste is an issue, clothes, items used in the high rad areas of the plants, etc must be safely disposed of. We've got better at re-using spent fuel, but the chemicals used in reprocessing are nasty, very nasty - as are the concentrated remains that aren't fission capable any more.

Oh, and it's not that renewable - certainly no more than coal, oil and gas. It's the same situation - you're mining something out of the ground to put into a power station. One day it will run out even if it takes a long time (and likely we'll run out before we dig so deep it becomes impractical). To be honest i doubt we'll mine it all before fusion is properly pioneered, but eh - uranium is not something we can make cheaply in a lab or grow cheaply like a tree. Hydrogen on the other hand...

[Main]

So, what happens when there are gale force winds at night, the farms are at maximum capacity?

They won't be operating if the winds are gale force, since wind turbines are stopped when the wind speed reaches a certain point to prevent them being damaged, otherwise they can fail spectacularly. Not only does this mean the turbine is gone, but you have bits of turbine flying around at high speed potentially smashing up anything nearby. I only found out about that failure video from a recent article about another malfunction.

[TAKTAK]

The after effects aren't though...

Depends what kind of nuclear technology it is using...

If we can harness fusion then we're quids in...

[Whiternoise]

The fact remains that if the wind farm is producing electricity at maximum capacity and there is no demand, it is wasted electricity until we can develop a good way of efficiently storing it for use later. Maybe a capacitor the size of a house...

[BUFF]

Oh, and it's not that renewable - certainly no more than coal, oil and gas. It's the same situation - you're mining something out of the ground to put into a power station. One day it will run out even if it takes a long time (and likely we'll run out before we dig so deep it becomes impractical). To be honest i doubt we'll mine it all before fusion is properly pioneered, but eh - uranium is not something we can make cheaply in a lab or grow cheaply like a tree. Hydrogen on the other hand...

breeder reactors?

[Flibb]

The fact remains that if the wind farm is producing electricity at maximum capacity and there is no demand, it is wasted electricity until we can develop a good way of efficiently storing it for use later. Maybe a capacitor the size of a house...

I assume they still use pumped storage, but its obviously limited by suitable sites.

[nvening]

The fact remains that if the wind farm is producing electricity at maximum capacity and there is no demand, it is wasted electricity until we can develop a good way of efficiently storing it for use later. Maybe a capacitor the size of a house...

One possible use (assuming a suitable power grid is set up) would be to use the electricity to power pumps which pump water to higher altitude reservoirs from lower altitude ones. When more power is needed this can be generated by allowing the water to flow back into the lower altitude reservoirs through a hydroelectric dam. Such reservoir setups exist in scandinavia.