Osterley Becomes 89th Step-Free London Underground Station
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Rail Technology Magazine.
So I went to Osterley station and took these pictures.
Note.
- Osterley station is Grade II Listed and was built in the style of Charles Holden.
- It does look that there is also step-free access between train and the platform for most wheelchair-users, buggy-pushers and case-draggers.
- The two new lift-towers are typical steel-and-brick constructions.
I don’t think that the most militant member of the Heritage Taliban will object to the quality of the design and the construction.
Sun Cable’s Australia-Asia PowerLink
Two weeks ago, in How Clean Energy And Jobs Can Flow From Morocco to The UK, I talked about a plan to generate electricity using solar arrays in Southern Morocco and use an underwater interconnector to bring it to the UK.
If you think that project was ambitious and distinctly bonkers, then that project is outshone by Sun Cable‘s Australia-Asia PowerLink, which is shown in this SunCable graphic.
These are a few facts about the project.
- Electricity will be generated by solar panels in the Northern Territories of Australia.
- There will be 12,000 hectares of solar panels in Australia, which will create 3.2 GW of electricity for distribution.
- There will be a 36-42 GWh battery in Australia.
- There will be 4,200 km of submarine HVDC cable to deliver the electricity to Singapore and Indonesia.
- It looks like there will be batteries in Darwin and Singapore.
- The link could supply up to fifteen percent of Singapore’s electricity.
It is certainly an ambitious project, that will contain the world’s largest solar array, the world’s largest battery, and the world’s longest submarine power cable.
Note.
- Currently, the largest solar park in the world is Bhadia Solar Park in India, which is half the size of the solar array proposed.
- At 720 km, the North Sea Link is the largest undersea HVDC is operation.
- The largest battery in the UK is Electric Mountain in Snowdonia, which is only 9.1 GWh.
- A Tesla Megapack battery of the required size would probably cost at least ten billion dollars.
This is certainly, a project that is dealing in superlatives.
Is The Australia-Asia PowerLink Possible?
I shall look at the various elements.
The Solar Panels
I have flown a Piper Arrow from Adelaide to Cairns.
- My route was via Coober Pedy, Yulara, Alice Springs and Mount Isa.
- There didn’t seem to be much evidence of rain.
- The circle from South to East took four days of almost continuous flying, as Australia is not a small country.
- It left me with the impression of a flat featureless and hot country.
Having seen solar panels on flat areas in the UK, the Australian Outback could be ideal for solar farms.
Sun Cable are talking about 10,000 hectares of solar panels, which is roughly 38.6 square miles or a 6.2 mile square.
Given enough money to source the solar panels and install them, I would expect that the required solar farm could be realised.
The Cable
Consider.
- The North Sea Link is a 1.4 GW cable that is 720 km. long.
- I would size it as 10008 GW-km, by multiplying the units together.
- The Australia-Asia PowerLink will be 4200 km or nearly six times as long.
- But at 3.2 GW as opposed to 1.4 GW, it will have 2.3 times the capacity.
- I would size it as 13,400 GW-km.
Whichever way you look at it, the amount of cable needed will be massive.
The Battery
Currently, the largest battery in the world is the Bath County Pumped Storage Station, which has these characteristics.
- Peak power of 3 GW
- Storage capacity of 24 GWh.
Sun Cable’s 36-42 GWh battery will be the largest in the world, by a long way.
But I don’t think pumped storage will be suitable in the usually dry climate of Northern Australia.
The largest lithium-ion battery in the world is the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia, which is only 150 MW/194 MWh, so something else will have to be used.
As Highview Power are building a CRYOBattery for the Atacama region in Chile, which I wrote about in The Power Of Solar With A Large Battery, I wonder, if a cluster of these could provide sufficient storage.
Opening Date Announced For Dartmoor Line
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railnews.
This is the first couple of sentences.
Full train services will return to the Dartmoor Line in Devon on 20 November. The Department for Transport said the DfT and its partners had ‘accelerated’ the reopening of the railway, because passenger services will now be launched only nine months since funding was approved.
It also says that the initial service between Exeter and Okehampton will be two-hourly, until May 2022, when it will be hourly.
I have looked up the Great Western Railway timetable and there are two sensible morning trains between Paddington and Okehampton on the 24th of November.
- 08:04 – Arrives at 11:18
- 10:04 – Arrives at 13:17
Returning there are two sensible afternoon/evening trains.
- 15:24 – Arrives at 18:24
- 18:20 – Arrives at 21:36
It looks like it would be possible to go from London and Okehampton and return in the same day.
Surbiton Station To Benefit From £6.7m Upgrade
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Rail Technology Magazine.
So I went to Surbiton station to take a few pictures.
It has far too many steps for my liking, although it is a Grade II Listed Building, that opened in 1937.
Shetland Blasts Off Into Space Race As Britain’s First Rocket Launch Pad Skyrora
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This second paragraph, explains what Skyrora are doing.
Skyrora, a technology company with its headquarters in Edinburgh, has agreed a deal for scores of rocket launches over the next decade from a site on Unst, the most northerly of the Shetland islands.
This Google Map shows the most Northerly part of Unst.
There’s not really much there, except birds, trees and the most northerly house in Britain.
Enlarging to the West of the house, gives this second Google Map.
Note the Remote Radar Head Saxa Vord, which has a Wikipedia entry as RAF Saxa Voe.
- It is now a fully-operational radar station again, after closure in 2006.
- It is at the same latitude as St. Petersburg and Anchorage.
- In 1992, it measured a wind speed of 197 mph, before the equipment blew away.
The Wikipedia entry is worth a read, as it gives a deep insight into radar and its tracking of Russian intruders in the Cold War.
This third Google Map shows a 3D closeup of the radar.
No staff are based at Saxa Vord, although maintenance staff do visit.
According to The Times, the space port will be at Lamba Ness, which is to the East of the most northerly house in Britain.
The peninsular in the South-East is marked Lamba Ness.
It may seem a very bleak place, but it could have one thing, that rocketry will need – rocket fuel!
In Do BP And The Germans Have A Cunning Plan For European Energy Domination?, I introduced Project Orion, which is an electrification and hydrogen hub and clean energy project in the Shetland Islands.
The project’s scope is described in this graphic.
Note
- Project Orion now has its own web site.
- A Space Centre is shown on the Island of Unst.
- There is an oxygen pipeline shown dotted in blue from the proposed Sullom Voe H2 Plant to the Fish Farm and on to the Space Centre.
- I suspect if required, there could be a hydrogen pipeline.
The Space Centre on Unst could be fuelled by renewable energy.
Who Are Skyrora?
They have a web site, which displays this mission statement.
Represents a new breed of private rocket companies developing the next generation of launch vehicles for the burgeoning small satellite market.
The Times also has this paragraph.
At the end of last year, the company also completed trials of the third stage of its Skyrora XL rocket, including its orbital transfer vehicle which, once in orbit, can refire its engines 15 times to carry out tasks such as acting as a space tug, completing maintenance or removing defunct satellites.
The company seems to have big ambitions driven by innovation and a large range of ideas.
Conclusion
I shall be following this company.
The Dalston Junction Crossing At Night
This picture shows the diagonal light-controlled crossing at Dalston Junction station at night.
This Google Map shows the junction.
Note.
- The North-South Road is Kingsland High Street.
- The Road going East is Dalston Lane, where my grandmother was born on the North side of the road, about a hundred metres along.
- On the South side of Dalston Lane is Dalston Junction station, with a West-facing bus-stop in front.
- The Road going West is the Balls Pond Road of Beyond Our Ken and Round The Horne fame.
- The building at the West of the junction is the solicitors shown in the first picture.
- On the North side of the Balls Pond Road is an East-facing bus stop, which is paired with the one by the station. A bus at the stop can be seen in the first picture.
The diagonal light-controlled crossing can seen crossing between the two sides of the junction between the yellow meshes of the box junction.
The junction has had this layout for a few years now and it works.
- I live about a kilometre to the West of Dalston Junction and regularly take a bus to stop on the West side of the junction before crossing diagonally to catch the Overground.
- Coming home, I catch a bus from just outside the station
- As buses are generally about once every ten minutes, I generally don’t wait long.
- The crossing has made a big improvement to the junction, as it connects the two stations and the Kingsland Road.
How many other busy junctions could be improved by a similar diagonal crossing?
It should also be noted that since the crossing has been installed, Dalston has gained an Aldi, a Co-op. a Marks and Spencer Simply Food Spencer Simply Food, a Pret, a Premier Inn and several better fast food places.
The improvement of the walking routes has certainly brought more people up the junction and to the two stations.
Who Stole All The M & S Gluten-Free Food?
Over the last few weeks, certain gluten-free lines in Marks and Spencer have started getting difficult to find.
Some of the things, I like that have been difficult have included.
- Ginger snap biscuits.
- Gluten-free pies
- Scones
- Bloomer slices
- Gluten-free muesli
Note that my supper is usually something I cook myself from scratch or one of the many M & S ready meals, that contain no gluten. It is usually washed down by a bottle of Adnams low-alcohol beer and followed by some fruit. Tonight, the fruit will be one of my favourites, which are strawberries and bananas.
I did think that the shortage of the lines I mentioned was due to a supply problem.
But then, there have not been shortages of other lines, that I buy, that are not specifically gluten-free.
So is it some gluten-free suppliers are having problems? Possibly.
But!
Regular readers of this blog will know that I believe that those coeliacs on a long-term gluten free diet seem to be unlikely to suffer a severe dose of the dreaded covids. There was no battle with the second dose!
I know for a start that my immune system gives short shift to any viral invaders, as it did with the AstraZeneca vaccine before they came to a truce.
So have others, including some with more medical knowledge than myself, come to the same conclusion about coeliac disease, the immune system, gluten and the covids and have gone gluten-free for safety?
For example, I’ve heard that those suffering from long covid have been tested for coeliac disease.
I’d love to be able to analyse the sales of gluten-free food.
Tesla Batteries Power UK Energy Storage Plan
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
Britain’s energy problems could be alleviated by a new scheme to build power-storage sites across the UK using batteries produced by Tesla, the electric carmaker.
Six sites will be built by Harmony Energy Income Trust.
- The trust intends to raise £230 million in a stock market listing.
- The trust was registered on the 1st October 2021.
- The batteries will be built in rural locations.
- The sites will use Tesla Magapack batteries and Autobidder software.
- These batteries charge up in two hours and provide energy for two hours.
- The sites are “shovel ready”
- All planning permissions and contracts have been signed.
It would appear that everything is ready to go.
This is a paragraph in The Times article.
The trust is a spin-off from developer Harmony Energy, which found the six sites and obtained the permissions for construction. The developer will retain a minority stake after the listing.
It is also said in the article that two sites at Holes Bay in Dorset and Contego in West Sussex, have already been developed using Tesla batteries.
The Harmony Energy web site lists fifteen wind projects and thirteen battery projects.
- The average size of the battery projects is an output of 44 MW.
- If they can supply that for two hours, the average capacity would be 88 MWh.
The company does appear to be developing smaller batteries than the two established energy storage funds; Gore Street and Gresham House. But then everyone can use their own plan.
UK National Grid In Talks To Build An Energy Island In The North Sea
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the New Scientist.
This is the first paragraph.
UK company National Grid has revealed it is in talks with two other parties about building an “energy island” in the North Sea that would use wind farms to supply clean electricity to millions of homes in north-west Europe.
These are my thoughts.
An Artificial Island on the Dogger Bank
The idea of the North Sea Wind Power Hub in the area of the Dogger Bank has been around for a few years and has a comprehensive Wikipedia entry.
Wikipedia says that it would be an artificial island on the Dutch section of the Dogger Bank and the surrounding sea could eventually host up to 110 GW of wind turbines.
North Sea Wind Power Hub Programme
The Dutch and the Danes seems to have moved on and there is now a web site for the North Sea Wind Power Hub Programme.
The home page is split into two, with the upper half entitled Beyond The Waves and saying.
The incredible story of how the Netherlands went beyond technical engineering as it had ever been seen before. Beyond water management. To secure the lives of millions of inhabitants.
I have met Dutch engineers, who designed and built the Delta Works after the North Sea Floods of 1953 and I have seen the works all over the country and it is an impressive legacy.
And the lower half of the home page is entitled North Sea Wind Power Hub and saying.
Today, climate policy is largely national, decoupled and incremental. We need a new approach to effectively realise the potential of the North Sea and reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. We take a different perspective: harnessing the power of the North Sea requires a transnational and cross-sector approach to take the step-change we need.
Behind each half are two videos, which explain the concept of the programme.
It is a strange web site in a way.
- It is written totally in English with English not American spelling.
- The project is backed by Energinet, Gasunie and TenneT, who are Danish and Dutch companies, that are responsible for gas and electricity distribution networks in Denmark, Ger,many and The Netherlands.
- There are four sections to the web site; Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and North Sea.
It is almost as if the web site has been designed for a British company to join the party.
Hubs And Spokes In North Sea Wind Power Hub Programme
If you watch the videos on the site, they will explain their concept of hubs and spokes, where not one but several energy islands or hubs will be connected by spokes or electricity cables and/or hydrogen pipelines to each other and the shore.
Many electrical networks on land are designed in a similar way, including in the UK, where we have clusters of power stations connected by the electricity grid.
The Dogger Bank
The Dogger Bank is a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about 100 kilometres off the east coast of England.
Wikipedia says this about the geography of the Dogger Bank.
The bank extends over about 17,600 square kilometres (6,800 sq mi), and is about 260 by 100 kilometres (160 by 60 mi) in extent. The water depth ranges from 15 to 36 metres (50 to 120 ft), about 20 metres (65 ft) shallower than the surrounding sea.
As there are Gunfleet Sands Wind Farm and Scroby Sands Wind Farm and others, on sandbanks in the North Sea, it would appear that the engineering of building wind farms on sandbanks in the North Sea is well understood.
The Dogger Bank Wind Farm
We are already developing the four section Dogger Bank Wind Farm in our portion of the Dogger Bank and these could generate up to 4.8 GW by 2025.
The Dogger Bank Wind Farm has its own web site, which greets you with this statement.
Building the World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm
At 4.8 GW, it will be 45 % larger than Hinckley Point C nuclear power station, which is only 3.3 GW. So it is not small.
The three wind farms; Dogger Bank A, B and C will occupy 1670 square kilometres and generate a total of 3.6 GW or 0.0021 GW per square kilometre.
If this density of wind turbines could be erected all over the Dogger Bank, we could be looking at nearly 40 GW of capacity in the middle of the North Sea.
Interconnectors Across The North Sea
This Google Map shows the onshore route of the cable from the Dogger Bank Wind Farm.
Note.
- Hull and the River Humber at the bottom of the map.
- The red arrow which marks Creyke Beck sub station, where the cable from the Dogger Bank Wind Farm connects to the UK electricity grid.
- At the top of the map on the coast is the village of Ulrome, where the cable comes ashore.
The sub station is also close to the Hull and Scarborough Line, so would be ideal to feed any electrification erected.
I would assume that cables from the Dogger Bank Wind Farm could also link the Wind Farm to the proposed Dutch/Danish North Sea Wind Power Hub.
Given that the cables between the wind farms and Creyke Beck could in future handle at least 4.8 GW and the cables from the North Sea Wind Power Hub to mainland Europe would probably be larger, it looks like there could be a very high capacity interconnector between Yorkshire and Denmark, Germany and The Netherlands.
It almost makes the recently-opened North Sea Link to Norway, which is rated at 1.4 GW seem a bit small.
The North Sea Link
The North Sea Link is a joint project between Statnett and National Grid, which cost €2 billion and appears to have been delivered as planned, when it started operating in October 2021.
So it would appear that National Grid have shown themselves capable of delivering their end of a complex interconnector project.
Project Orion And The Shetlands
In Do BP And The Germans Have A Cunning Plan For European Energy Domination?, I introduced Project Orion, which is an electrification and hydrogen hub and clean energy project in the Shetland Islands.
The project’s scope is described in this graphic.
Note that Project Orion now has its own web site.
- Could the Shetlands become an onshore hub for the North Sea Power Hub Programme?
- Could Icelink, which is an interconnector to Iceland be incorporated?
With all this renewable energy and hydrogen, I believe that the Shetlands could become one of the most prosperous areas in Europe.
Funding The Wind Farms And Other Infrastructure In The North Sea
In World’s Largest Wind Farm Attracts Huge Backing From Insurance Giant, I described how Aviva were funding the Hornsea wind farm.
I very much believe that City of London financial institutions will be able to finance a lot of the developments in the North Sea.
After all National Grid managed to find a billion euros in a sock drawer to fund their half of the North Sea Link.
Electrifying The North Sea: A Gamechanger For Wind Power Production?
The title of this section, is the same as that of this article on Engineering and Technology Magazine.
This article in the magazine of the IET is a serious read and puts forward some useful facts and interesting ideas.
- The EU is targeting offshore wind at 60 GW by 2030 and 300 GW by 2050.
- The UK is targeting offshore wind at 40 GW by 2030.
- The article explains why HVDC electricity links should be used.
- The major players in European offshore wind are the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark.
- The foundations for a North Sea grid, which could also support the wider ambitions for a European super-grid, are already forming.
- A North Sea grid needs co-operation between governments and technology vendors. as well as technological innovation.
- National Grid are thinking hard about HVDC electrical networks.
- By combining HVDC links it can be possible to save a lot of development capital.
- The Danes are already building artificial islands eighty kilometres offshore.
- Electrical sub-stations could be built on the sea-bed.
I can see that by 2050, the North Sea, South of a line between Hull and Esbjerg in Denmark will be full of wind turbines, which could generate around 300 GW.
Further Reading
There are various articles and web pages that cover the possibility of a grid in the North Sea.
- National Grid – Interconnectors
- The Guardian – National Grid In Talks Over Plan For Energy Island In North Sea
- The Times – National Grid Planning ‘Energy Island’ In North Sea
I shall add to these as required.
Conclusion
I am coming to the conclusion that National Grid will be joining the North Sea Wind Power Hub Programme.
- They certainly have the expertise and access to funding to build long cable links.
- The Dogger Bank wind farm would even be one of the hubs in the planned hub and spoke network covering the North Sea.
- Only a short connection would be needed to connect the Dogger Bank wind farm, to where the Dutch and Danes originally planned to build the first energy island.
- There may be other possibilities for wind farm hubs in the UK section of the North Sea. Hornsea Wind Farm, which could be well upwards of 5 GW is surely a possibility.
- Would it also give access to the massive amounts of energy storage in the Norwegian mountains, through the North Sea Link or Nord.Link between Norway and Germany.
Without doubt, I know as a Control Engineer, that the more hubs and spokes in a network, the more stable it will be.
So is National Grid’s main reason to join is to stabilise the UK electricity grid? And in turn, this will stabilise the Danish and Dutch grids.
The Anonymous Widower 