The last coal train?

[Bald Rick]

In summer probably, but in winter peak demand is around 55GW.

No it isnt, and hasn‘t been for years. Try 45GW, and that is a rare event.

 

[JamesT]

No it isnt, and hasn‘t been for years. Try 45GW, and that is a rare event.

Though how long will it be until peak demand starts rising again with the push to electrify transport and heating?

 

[Trainbike46]

Though how long will it be until peak demand starts rising again with the push to electrify transport and heating?

fortunately a lot of the extra demand will be at off-peak times, so hopefully peak demand will not increase by much, but demand will get smoother across the day

 

[JamesT]

fortunately a lot of the extra demand will be at off-peak times, so hopefully peak demand will not increase by much, but demand will get smoother across the day

Peak electricity demand centres on 4-7pm during the week. That’s exactly when people would be turning their heating on having got home from work. If that’s now electrical heating rather than gas I can’t see that it’s doing anything but adding to the peak load.

 

[Mag_seven]

Anyone got anything else to add on "The Last Coal Train" please?

 

[trainswitheddy]

I noticed a few HTAs at Doncaster between Belmont and the Down Decoy, with the collapse of GBRf coal traffic are these likely to be scrapped? What's going on with Freightliners coal wagon fleet also?

 

[norbitonflyer]

Strictly it is water vapour that is seen, as per clouds, steam is water at 100+degrees C. The cooling towers are there to cool the condensing water I believe.

The water that is used to generate steam to drive the turbines is highly purified in order to preserve the turbines themselves, and is used in a closed cycle. After passing through the turbines it is cooled in a heat exchanger so it can go round again.
The other side of the heat exchanger is river water, untreated except for filtering to keep flotsam and fish out, and it is that which is cooled in the cooling towers, before being returned to the river (slightly warmer and much cleaner).
My father worked in the electricity industry for 38 years, latterly at Cottam.
Back on topic, I had a holiday job there in my student days, monitoring the coaling plant to investigate an intermittent fault with the weighbridges that weighed the coal being delivered. After watching the trains for several days I was able to report that the fault only occurred when a Class 47 was hauling the train, instead of the more common 56, the slightly shorter distance from the latter's trailing axle to the leading axle of the first wagon being close enough to an actual wagon's wheelbase to fool the weighbridge into trying to weigh a phantom wagon.
Knowing the difference between a 47 and a 56 was of course the key to spotting this.
Actually, it only took a few hours to realise what was going on, but I thought I ought to test my theory by watching the trains for a few more days, at least until all of Tinsley's fleet had shown up at least once.......

 

[43066]

The water that is used to generate steam to drive the turbines is highly purified in order to preserve the turbines themselves, and is used in a closed cycle. After passing through the turbines it is cooled in a heat exchanger so it can go round again.
The other side of the heat exchanger is river water, untreated except for filtering to keep flotsam and fish out, and it is that which is cooled in the cooling towers, before being returned to the river (slightly warmer and much cleaner).
(My father worked in the electricity industry for 38 years, latterly at Cottam)

I bet your father referred to what came out of the cooling towers as steam, too.

 

[LickeyIncliner]

Use it to conceal a gravity storage unit - winch a big weight up when power is cheap and drop it when there is a tricky peak. Should be a decent power connection nearby!

At risk of dragging this thread back towards railways... has anyone ever looked at the value of using that kind of gravity storage in conjunction with a suburban electric railway, with some of the power for winching the weight up coming back from regenerative braking?

 

[Meerkat]

I noticed a few HTAs at Doncaster between Belmont and the Down Decoy, with the collapse of GBRf coal traffic are these likely to be scrapped? What's going on with Freightliners coal wagon fleet also?

I am curious about what happened/will happen to all the coal train capacity.
Has intermodal mopped up all the spare cl66’s?
Thousands of wagons must be somewhere or got scrapped.
Must be loads of spare storage Loops in various yards where coal trains loitered.
Portbury coalyards look like they are being converted to yet more imported car storage, but the rail loading hoppers are still standing (though the conveyor from Portbury has gone) over the other side by St Andrews Road station with their loops (handy connected place for an intermodal yard with long loops…..)
Immingham has vast coal yards looking underused, and Hunterston is abandoned (surely that deep water jetty, yards and sidings must be useful for something!).
Are there any lines or connections which were basically only useful for coal trains? Do the Drax trains use the Joan Croft flyover?

 

[AlastairFraser]

In summer probably, but in winter peak demand is around 55GW.

That's where we need to really push with storage heaters to make use of the best time.

 

[trainswitheddy]

I am curious about what happened/will happen to all the coal train capacity.
Has intermodal mopped up all the spare cl66’s?
Thousands of wagons must be somewhere or got scrapped.
Must be loads of spare storage Loops in various yards where coal trains loitered.
Portbury coalyards look like they are being converted to yet more imported car storage, but the rail loading hoppers are still standing (though the conveyor from Portbury has gone) over the other side by St Andrews Road station with their loops (handy connected place for an intermodal yard with long loops…..)
Immingham has vast coal yards looking underused, and Hunterston is abandoned (surely that deep water jetty, yards and sidings must be useful for something!).
Are there any lines or connections which were basically only useful for coal trains? Do the Drax trains use the Joan Croft flyover?

Quite a few HTAs were scrapped in 2018 after coal traffic collapsed, same with some of Freightliners wagon fleet (after a period of storage at the LDECRs former Thoresby Colliery Junction sidings)
Some were also cut down and converted for aggregates use
As for the rest of them? We will see I guess? I hope someone here has more answers.

 

[Trainbike46]

Thousands of wagons must be somewhere or got scrapped.

How different are coal wagons from aggregate wagons? if they're similar they could have been used to provide spares for a shrinking fleet overall, though that is entirely speculative.

In any case, there's loads of Drax wagons at Liverpool, which may once have been used for coal, and are now used for biomass

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Sep 2024 ==

That's where we need to really push with storage heaters to make use of the best time.

heat pumps use less energy overall and also have the ability to shift demand somewhat around to avoid peak periods. though keeping in mind mag_seven's post, we should probably move this to another thread

 

[dangie]

heat pumps use less energy overall

Considering the product cost and installation cost many of us will be long gone before recouping any energy saving.

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

Slightly off topic but Port Talbot Steelworks has just received it's last ever shipment of coke (by sea). The dock is now permenantly closed.

Tata Steel have posted a video of it.

 

[Meerkat]

Slightly off topic but Port Talbot Steelworks has just received it's last ever shipment of coke (by sea). The dock is now permenantly closed.

Tata Steel have posted a video of it.

Deep water port with rail connections…..must be some use for it! Though even my crayons are struggling to think of one…..

 

[trainswitheddy]

Deep water port with rail connections…..must be some use for it! Though even my crayons are struggling to think of one…..

Rail ferries where the train travels onto the boat

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

Deep water port with rail connections…..must be some use for it! Though even my crayons are struggling to think of one…..

It does seem a waste but with the historic docks at Barry, Cardiff and Newport still open (just about) and Milford Haven and Avonmouth providing more modern facilities, it's hard to see a role for it. It is linked with Milford as a freeport but that was seen as a pretty empty gesture by the last government.

At least the presence of the steelworks should save it from becoming one of those dreadful marina developments!

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Well, peak demand is usually around 35GW max in the UK, and we are planned to have around 10GW of pumped. So it is true that it will not be a solution for all, but just under 3rd of our peak power needs is a decent percentage.

Dont confuse instantaneous power with energy consumed. The latter is what we use and over a 24hr period its about 700Gwh/day in summer and close to 1TWh on a cold winters day. Dinorwig is brilliant engineering, especially as its 40yrs old, it can ramp from 0 to 1.8GW in just over 10s but its water store will only provide 9.1GWh. The other three pumpers have less power and storage Cruachan 0.44GW 7 Gwh, Ffestiniog 0.36GW 1.4GWh & Falls of Foyer 0.3GW 6GWh. The only other project that may get built in near term, still not authorised, is Coire Glas which will have 30GWh of storage but max output will only be 1.3GW. So best case by 2031, if Coire Glas is built, is 2.8GW instantaneous power 60GWh of storage.

There are other schemes being promoted like Fearna 1.8GW 37GWh but thats in the Lake District so nimbys will be in full flow to stop that unless govt creates a planning environment that cuts out local opposition.

So we are going to need a lot of batteries if the grid is to run fully decarbonised by 2030 although im not sure that our esteemed energy secretary really knows what a decarbonised grid by 2030 really means as ESO (Electricity Supply Operator) is clear that gas will be needed as a back up well into the 2030's.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Dont confuse instantaneous power with energy consumed. The latter is what we use and over a 24hr period its about 700Gwh/day in summer and close to 1TWh on a cold winters day. Dinorwig is brilliant engineering, especially as its 40yrs old, it can ramp from 0 to 1.8GW in just over 10s but its water store will only provide 9.1GWh. The other three pumpers have less power and storage Cruachan 0.44GW 7 Gwh, Ffestiniog 0.36GW 1.4GWh & Falls of Foyer 0.3GW 6GWh. The only other project that may get built in near term, still not authorised, is Coire Glas which will have 30GWh of storage but max output will only be 1.3GW. So best case by 2031, if Coire Glas is built, is 2.8GW instantaneous power 60GWh of storage.

There are other schemes being promoted like Fearna 1.8GW 37GWh but thats in the Lake District so nimbys will be in full flow to stop that unless govt creates a planning environment that cuts out local opposition.

So we are going to need a lot of batteries if the grid is to run fully decarbonised by 2030 although im not sure that our esteemed energy secretary really knows what a decarbonised grid by 2030 really means as ESO (Electricity Supply Operator) is clear that gas will be needed as a back up well into the 2030's.

I think you are right about a totally decarbonised grid being unfeasible until 2040 at least, but I do think we will have to simplify planning for large renewable projects, so we can expect more planned storage to be built.