Remember that one of the reasons HS2 became so expensive is that MPs indulged constituents in the countryside at every consultation and ended up with a railway design that was very attractive but enormously costly.
HS2 is going to be around in form or another for hundreds of years. Best to get it right for the long term and not design on short term finance criteria.
I think government is going have a full scale war nimbyism and I got a feeling they are going to be defeated like they have never been defeated, with new laws in Parliament that will firmly put them in the corner.
Say no to coal, nuclear, pylons, biomass, gas, just say no to everything. The trouble in this country and why we get nothing done is to many moaners. Either scrap it or get on with it
I don't care about seeing pilons and wind turbines in the countryside, they look fine. I get that it would be noisy it you lived right next to one, but I think calling them unsightly is stirring up fuss over nothing. Roads are way more disruptive to the countryside, but because they benefit landowners they don't cause a fuss about them.
You don’t care about the countryside then as long as it get energy to your big city. You don’t care about the miles of hedgerows and trees and killing wildlife for your wind and solar farms. It’s not about being NIMBY it’s about destroying an environment to create net zero
Pylons have been part of our countryside for decades. Doesn’t bother me, doesn’t seem to bother the farmers either. If you want a rainbow, you have to put up with some rain!
You aren't taking into consideration the amount of land that is lost due to the footprints of these pylons. If they are traversing mountains and forests. then no problem. Furthermore, if they can do it for London, why can't they do it elsewhere as in Germany.
100kv and 200kv high voltage ac power lines are not practical or possible underground. You would have to convert it to DC but with a much reduced capacity and cost 10x that of overhead. If farmer Giles and his friends want underground cables he should shoulder the cost. There are plenty of farmers fields around here that have had pylons in them for nearly 100 years, never heard anyone say anything about them - it just part of the landscape.
If you bury electricity cables underground then you have to carefully maintain a tree-free (including hedges) strip above them, to prevent the risk of damage from roots. It's no panacea.
funny that they just in the process of doing it right across Norfolk came right past my village still on going tunnelled under roads fields rivers with very little disruption came in from the north Norfolk coast Norwest project it is.
@Tim_Small Of course you can plant hedgerows on top of underground services...Vegetation restoration & reinstatement is an important part of any cross-country pipeline/infrastructure project...
Have to say, I don't find myself looking at the ploughed field and thinking "there's a spot of natural beauty that would be ruined by a pylon..." Seriously though, yes there will be a loss of productive land for the farmers where those pylons are placed. I guess we're talking 10's of square meters per pylon. I think for the sake of saving the money and actually moving forwards on something that desperately needs movement, the farmers are just gonna have to deal with it. Doesn't seem like it'll wreck their livelihoods.
I'd say a 100 sq meters or yards or more, I can physically get quite close to one where a public walkway intersects a grid line path, and the footprint is quite massive or imposing
Consider all of the way leaves they will get for that land in perpetuity. It almost becomes more financially viable for the small strip of land to have a pylon on it then to grow food on it.
@@johnjakson444 Fair enough, I still wouldn't say that changes the overall calculus though... yes the farmers should have some compensation but they should not be able to hold the govt hostage over this.
I suggest the UK government should connect with California's Pacific Gas and Electric for their research on the financial folly of originally putting everything above ground and then having to bury it later! - Citation: (PG&E did the research and concluded that investing $20 billion in undergrounding power would save them money in the long run)!!!
It would make sense to prioritize the installation of home solar panels by whatever means including subsidies because if the generation of electricity is located where it is consumed, ie homes and EVs then this not only reduces the need for pylons but is also more efficient as transmission of power over long distances is wasteful of energy.
Putting the cables to carry the 14 GW of power across Essex would require cable trenches wider than the M25 through the countryside. Given the relatively short distance AC cables on towers are the only way to go. It might help to increase the Grid voltage to 550kV the towers might be slightly higher but ultimately fewer circuits would be needed.
@@joskowal3711 decades, not seconds, not minutes !!!!! Years and years.... And MORE: DO YOU KNOW THAT METHANE GAS HAS GREATER CLIMATE CHANGE COEFFICIENT THAN CARBON DIOXIDE ???
Unfortunately the piece did not explain why they can bury cables in Germany and not the UK.. was also quite jarring when it said the government has a very large mandate. (20pc is not a large number)
Thinking that putting HV cables in tunnels is a substitute for overhead transmission lines is as bone-headed an idea as you could devise. What cables need are insulation and cooling, and by stringing them up from pylons you get that for free, from the surrounding air, which doesn't wear out or degrade, and is in abundant supply.
@@UKsystems We've had 100 years experience of transmission pylons and got them off to a fine art. Porcelain insulators are generally more reliable than the polymer insulation within cables. Overhead transmission lines are also easier to find faults on, because you can see them easily above ground, especially if inspecting them by helicopter.
@@UKsystems Given the time I've spent driving up and down the country, including visiting power stations, I've rarely seen anyone working on overhead transmission lines.
No way! Trenching and all the associated works involved is never going to be cheaper over hundreds of miles! Added to that even if you do lay the cables as HVDC another massive cost is building converter stations at each end. Pylons don’t require anything so complex.
You need to do your research. underground HVDC has much lower transmission losses, all those noisy hissing and crackling overhead cables are wasting power. Over the lifetime of the project it is cheaper. On top of that there are far less environmental, landscape, community or social economic impacts. What about the costs to agriculture of covering prime agricultural land in pylon foundations and absolutely massive substations. What about the costs to the economy of the tourism industry being badly impacted. What about the health impacts on local residents? All these comments calling people NIMBYs obviously come from urbanites, living miles away from the devastation being planned.
@@brianwade8478 Fine, you're happy to have the 10 fold cost added to your bills then? Trenching all those miles. Added to that even if some space is being taken away from land, the rest of the field can still produce. There isnt some invisible exclusion zone underneath the overhead cables which says stuff can't grow there. You're only looking at the footprint of the pylon base, which isn't that big considering the size of a whole field. The space also isn't being stolen from a farmer. They're being paid a long term lease for the land. "devastation" is a bit over the top, it's not exactly the highland clearances!
@@salibaba Show me where you have any data using contemporary prices which shows the long term cost of undergrounding HVDC is 10x that of pylons? Such numbers are broadcast by those with a financial or political vested interest in keeping down the capital costs to protect the balance sheet of the transmission operators, not the cost to the consumer. I can show you reports, one even produced by National Grid themselves that show over the lifetime of the project undergrounding is comparable or even cheaper. Yes I am talking about devastation. The SSEN TKUP project in NE Scotland was consented by NGESO and given billions of pounds worth of taxpayer commitment by Ofgem with ABSOLUTELY NO ENVIRONMENTAL OR COMMUNITY IMPACT ASSESSMENT, This project involves pylons up to 70m high running right across agricultural land and massive substations. A substation planned 3 miles away from Stonehaven, a town heavily dependent on tourism will occupy an area bigger than the Sellafield nuclear facility with further substations in the area already planned. Nobody in government is thinking about the consequences on health, I know of multiple people who are already receiving medical treatment caused by the stress of finding out their home that they have been paying for for years is now almost worthless or their tourism based business will disappear. You obviously don't understand the fact that if a 70m high pylon is built close to your home, but not on your land, you are entitled to nothing. Yes this is very much like the highland clearances, SSEN are planning on ruining the environment and causing severe impacts on rural communities just to make money. This is nothing to do with reaching net zero, which can be achieved using 21st century solutions, it is about SSEN, NG and SP taking billions off the UK taxpayer
@@brianwade8478 All you have said is wrong and can be refuted even by small kids. Did you even know what they have to do to place beneath and on top of those tubes to lay cables (the ecological disaster is there actually)? Do you know that if they bury it, they will have to create a exclusion zone ON TOP of it? Did you know that the time spent to build those underground takes almost 100 times? compared to pilons If anything goes wrong during the underground boring, the farmers wont be able to work on it for SEVERAL MONTHS. If they have to do a maintenance and discovers that it need replacement or fix anything, they will have to DIG (AGAIN).
Actually, German government currently discusses to plan future HVDC projects overground again, because the underground construction is too expensive and too slow.
You are missing the point, it could all be done cheaper and with much less environmental, community and health impacts by using a combination of offshore and underground. Don't believe the lies from Millibrain, even National Grid have published data showing over the lifetime of a project, underground HVDC is cheaper. The thing is the transmission operators are not interested in long term costs only short term profit and they are certainly not concerned about environmental, landscape, health or community impacts or damage and loss of jobs in other industries such as agriculture and tourism. The Germans can do it, the Danes, the Belgians and the Dutch can do it but not us. Do you realise in the Netherlands they have a law saying that the total number of km of pylons should not increase? If a new pylon line is essential, an equal amount of km should be removed or buried. Why can we not have sensible joined up plans to use 21st century solutions for a 21st century problem like our neighbours?
@@catherinechurchill9877 Didn't list a single fact or figure, just more bluster from an armchair expert. Once you get a degree in electrical engineering then you can convince me with your ramblings. Until then, give evidence or kindly stay silent.
Maybe it would be easier to just build a solar or wind park near London, so you wouldn't need to bring the energy there from Norfolk 🤔 Or better even, make London self-sufficient and put solar on skyscrapers etc.!
When big infrastructure like this happens in France, 10% is added to the budget for compensation. Unsurprisingly, NIMBYs with a wad of "shut up" money in their pocket complain a lot less.
No pylons… HVDC cables can do the job… national grid engineers love to complicate things… well, those days are gone, now we have better solutions, let’s use them.
The problem is that there is a waiting list several years long for the supply of underground cables. They are not the same type of cable as overhead ones, they are much more complicated and there is a lot of demand for them right now. Utilities are forced to use pylons because of the politically imposed short deadlines for converting to low-carbon power sources. I`m all for the conversion, but it needs to be done more gradually so that we can build higher quality infrastructure with fewer negative impacts. Rushing things through means you are stuck with bad infrastructure for the next 50 to 100 years.
However London is getting it to start with is worth that very remote places are not going to be the first because it’s very expensive amount of customers so as technology and method becomes more widespread the cost rapidly decreases so it can move out of population centres or your power costs more
@@UKsystems The point is that energy is required in large conurbations, but the sources of renewable energy are in the remote parts of the UK. There is nothing wrong with London getting a concrete tunnel for carrying electricity, but this has little to do with the subject of the video, which is readying the grid for renewables. And as regards Orkney, Orkney has more energy than it knows what to do with. It is *always* windy there, and there are plenty of wind turbines on the islands (not to mention tidal turbines in the Pentland Firth ). However, because the line connecting the mainland to Orkney is not powerful enough, the energy potential cannot be used to full effect. It’s not so much a problem for the locals (although I’m sure they would appreciate the extra income) as it is an terrible missed opportunity for the rest of the UK, especially for northern Scotland.
@@oronjoffe but even in these places with too much electricity it can still be too expensive to run a new underwater cable in this case it will cost hundreds of millions and require extensive work. It’s also worth knowing that these cables have to be custom manufacture and can take years and years to get made so they could have ordered one you don’t know.
So a small number of people have sway over our country’s future? The same people who decided Brexit was a great idea and their main concern is the price of their house.
Sizewell nuclear power station is conveniently located on the Suffolk coast and has existing grid connections. Why can't North Sea wind power be routed into Sizewell, or even from a North Sea hub sea connected via the Thames Estuary direct into London? What's really going on here? Or even to the Isle of Grain gas powered thermal station on the north Kent coast?
Maybe those objecting to pylons would prefer a nice clean modular nuclear power station instead or a system of electricity rationing in their area so we can get by with less pylons? Honestly if you live in a city you have put up with living near to a lot of big infrastructure. It’s modern life, get over it.
People don't object to pylons for supplying their needs. They object to pylons that exist solely to transport power to the other side of the country. London could be supplied using undersea cables from the wind farms down the coast and up the Themes, rather than pylons across Suffolk and Essex. We already do have nuclear power stations in Suffolk and they are planning to build another one.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191this makes no sense. Electricity can not always be generated nearby. There may also be human and environmental reasons why laying cables along the Thames estuary might not work. It’s just a pylon.
Yes, and of course nuclear (and power stations that burn stuff) all want to be on the coast so as to access seawater for cooling, so even they need pylons taking power inland
If Brisbane is connected to Melbourne in a single 14m diameter single tunnel via Coffs harbour, Newcastle Sydney, Canberra and Albury the Japanese SC maglev can have an overnight container train making daytime fares $10. As it goes directly below Snowy 2 it can have the HVDC cables in it.
I know UK isn't the best country for solar power, but incentivising home solar systems like Germany not only reduces the load on the grid, at times, it can also be helpful if the user is generating more than what they need.
The government was paying people to do it but now they don’t focus because it’s widespread we can do it definitely basically all we have to do is install system and submit a notification form with 30 days we can’t have it because that is not safe in a DIY case if you think about it that you could have 10 amp put in whilst the circuit breaker is providing 16 so 26 could be usedand the cable up so we can’t make it that easy due to safety
Why does the title say that the tunnel is "saving" the green revolution. Anywhere else in the world it would be saying "promoting the green revolution" or dare I say it "upgrading our infrastructure for the benefit of the economy and our customers" x I'm sick of this country's negativity towards change, especially change that will protect this nation and benefit future generations.
Richard, it is unfortunate that the country has largely been brainwashed by lack of proper information. That lack of information is due to the poor standard of journalism these days, little to no research into what is being done, just an acceptance of what they are told. The change we are currently doing and have done for more than twenty years is a disadvantage to the U.K., is unworkable and will more than likely end up with widespread power losses in the relatively near future unless plans are reversed. Our loss of industry is entirely due to high enrgy costs which renewables entail. It is false to say they are cheap. The so called green revolution, or the transition from fossil fuels is practically and technically flawed!
If the 2015 Cameron government hadn't stopped onshore wind and the proposed Navitus Bay offshore wind farm, we would have more power in the south. Stopping roof top solar on new builds was the most irresponsible act of all. Installing at the building stsge is less than half yhe cost of retrofitting. FIT payment could have ended for new build so each house built would be part of the solution, not adding to the problem.
I’ve seen some people saying this isn’t necessary. It is because the national grid has to be below capacity as if someone takes through a cable or it breaks they can reroute it without relies on the grid having the capacity so we have to plan ahead. Also this is happening in central London because it has to be underground, then decide where the rural areas have it above or underground
Well, currently the distribution workers at his limit and because it’s at fails at the higher rate this basically means they will have less failures and them mean less money spent on it
Nothing can be done about the sewage because I live for council has rejected 329 plumbing applications to fix the system so unfortunately every agency is against each other and it’s just not coming to get done at this rate Leicester council actually allow road to be closed for it to be fixed
High voltage DC has less losses in transmission so it a more efficient way to transmit power only thing is are system is AC so it would need additional costly converter stations if thay wanted to divert power elsewhere seems that lady just doesn't get the big picture when it comes to the network , reworking the power network would send your energy bill through the roof
For balance it should be pointed out that tunneling has come on a fair bit and that scheme in London looks fold plated.. The boring company's new TBMs just dive into the ground without that massive shaft. We could quite conceivable bury a lot kore cables with yhat technique.
No the standing charge is to pay the distribution network operator who operates the local distribution network that connects to National Grid. They have massive cost at the moment because they’re replacing the distribution work piece by piece locally to you.
@@UKsystems Q1. So where do National Grid their money from? Q2. Why and where are the DNOs replacing the distribution network? I see no evidence of this. Apparently the DNOs take about 15% of the customers electricity bill, but in my case the standing charge is now closer to 50% in the summer. My local DNO, UK Power Networks, give no breakdown on their website of their finances or of any ongoing or planned infrastructure maintenance or upgrades. Totally opaque. No transparency whatsoever as to what they are doing with MY money, not theirs.
@@grahamcook9289 it is on parts of the network that are redundant so you dont know but most isthe individual dervice equiptment to each house. and the national grid gets money straight from the government,
If the NIMBYs had their way during industrialisation, we would still be an agrarian society without paved roads, canals, rail, electricity, airport, electricity, internet access etc.
ffs this is what i am talking about we should do here in germany for maybe 2 decades now, but no its too costly, no the states and federal government cant get on the same page, no it wont work because of ground water, no, the technology is not there yet (ofcause not if you dont try and invest), ... though why go back to the pylons, just make a huge industry out of doing such tunnels under all of the UK, sure it will cost money, but again you will establish a huge industry that will benefit you. There is nothing what lifts up future generations better than a solid infrastructure. well done and good for you UK
Let’s have temporary pillions until such time they can be replaced by underground possibly supercooled cables to reduce the resistance and a legal guarantee that the pillions will only be temporary for a fixed maximum number of years.
I don’t have a horse in this race, but the national grid guy at the end was wrong, u can bury HV DC, its point to point though, no need to put pylons over the top, if u want more capacity, bury more conduits/ducts when u have the trench open, the conduits r the cheap part compared to the approvals, planning, cleaning tractors etc. National grid should s worried about $$$, that’s all. Underground is NEVER cheaper. Big boy pants on, build the pylons and keep the lights on. 😊
Excellent. Quite happy to see a few pylons, far better than massive coal and gas stations pumping out gas for miles. Glad to see Labour modify planning, so we get cheap clean energy in the most efficient way. Farmer Giles should be happy, as his costs will decrease for energy, and certainly should not be allowed to block such infrastructure. And the land is the UKs, not exclusively his.
@@Kiyoone it is, I’ve put my electric bill down by two thirds building my own system. Next year I’ll be getting disconnected from the grid for good. Pay back will only be 5.4 years.
3:35 Germany is building 2 x 2GW north-south HVDC connections - something like 650Km and 750Km long. It's largely thanks to NIMBYs forcing the cables to be buried that has lead to the whole thing being years behind schedule and many times over budget.
@Channel4News The fact that you allowed complete misinformation to go unchallenged in this piece is irresponsible and misleading. There is absolutely no scenario where underground HVDC transmission is cheaper than Overhead power lines. And there is no National grid report that says otherwise. Also HVDC needs huge converter stations (in addition to regular sub-stations) to take it to and from AC at either end. In addition the environmental impact of cable trenches is larger than overhead while the embodied carbon of the cables is massively greater as are the emissions caused by the installation.
@@UKsystems I do my research every day; this is my job. A HVDC link would require BOTH AC/DC converter stations and standard substations on the distribution network. Show me a case study where underground HVDC transmission is cheaper than AC overhead transmission. If you’ve done the research share it.
Underground Network Is Much Better! To lay the Underground Electricity Infrastructure the Power Transmission needs to be done at Low Voltage with Power Conversions enabled by the Capacitor Banks and then through the Transformers - Low Voltage Transmission! But when comes to distribution point it goes by High Voltage Transmission to the Grid to avoid Power Losses. From Grid to Home is Nonetheless the Power Modulators with the Capacitance Banks in place to avoid the Voltage Fluctuations.
It sounded like underground cables would have less capacity than cables between pylons. I can think of other issues: if you want to add cables later, then underground is trickier; difficulty of accessing underground cables.
He avoided going into the detail, but if that is what you wish for. AC transmits both active power, and reactive power. We only need the active power part. The AC nature of the transmission causes the polarity of the line to change in reference to the surrounding of the cable, either air for pylons, or earth for underground. Air and earth have different capacitances so the amount of power loss increases when sticking the cable underground. You then have a load of other headaches to deal with, heat being a big on. DC only transmits the active power so doesn’t suffer these power losses, but stepping it up and down from low voltage to high voltage is a lot more complex, expensive and unreliable compared to a good ol’ transformer. Therefore HVDC only becomes cost effective when the length of cable goes above a certain distance, or needs to be run under to ocean/ground as there is no other option available. Which isn’t true here.
We use more electricity each year that goes by. Burying cables would be a non starter. The fact of the matter is that we need more power lines above ground
J.poore 2017 found that a vegan world would use 70% less farmland as it happen 50% of the total landmass of the uk is used solely for animal agriculture, I can't help but think if more people stopped buying murdered animal flesh then this land issue wouldnt be a problem
Wait wait the more I think about it the more annoyed I get. How is agriculture not a 'scar on the landscape' or the roads that cut through it, but when it's something they don't profit from they get all mad
That last bit makes no sense, if a buried cable does not have enough capacity. You can just bury another one next to it. Why would it require a pylon on top of the buried cable?
i came here to say this. i really don't understand this argument against burying cables. there may be other good arguments against burying - but this one doesn't make sense.
@@fTooe simple argument against it is "Losses" With Overhead at 400kvAC cables losses are about 1-2% every 100 miles. Against 8-10% under ground. And even worse under sea. That is why the UK undersea connectors to France, Norway, Denmark etc are all HVDC, with massive DC-AC convertor stations at each end to return the power to HVAC. Do all that and you are looking at 10x the cost. At the end of all that, you would just get some "other" NIMBY objecting to the unsightly convertor stations. So they would be no better off anyway.
@@fToo the land can’t be used underneath as there’s 10 m either side of the cable that has to be completely clear and unused so it really disrupts the land when you could use it below a pylon
@@UKsystems yes, and you need to think about faults. Faults are easier to find and fix on over head line. Yes, you could dig a tunnel and run the cables in it, like the London power tunnels. But that would cost even more.
London needs a tunnel because of how it’s built everywhere else could have a tunnel or overhead. This is a good idea to experiment with a tunnel because it has to be done at any cost.
You think purchasing land and running overhead cables in London is as practical as doing it through fields? Once again, the only thing two tier in this country is people's cognitive ability.
Can you please explain how overhead Gables are going to be running in London without demolishing? Half of it in most places overhead is practical because even underground line is buried for anything other than feeding one property 10 m either side is generally required to be left clear and you can’t use the land really, so it disrupts the land usage a lot more than not sticking objects in the air
don't worry those pylons won't be there for long the folly of those Off shore wind turbines will be short lived fusion energy will make them obsolete plus when Donald Trump gets back in and the price of oil drops it will be impossible to justify the incredible maintenance and incredible cost of offshore wind turbines those pylons will be down in less than 15 years
Actually no America does not control the oil prices where the UK would get it from all Europe. You cannot rely on her technology that is only experimental because they may get it working but being able to produce power stations is still gonna take 10 to 20 years on top of that.
Obviously you believe the The Propaganda of the BBC and mainstream Media. Have you taken your 6th booster???. Which the government recommends😂. Along with following their green agenda 😂 . Germany has started opening up their coal power stations. UK is sending 12 billion pounds a year to the most corrupt African countries in the world. You will find African leaders parking their yacht next to the Ukrainian oligarchs in Monaco. Over half a million mainly ukrainians killed in this pointless War and the whole country destroyed. How green is that. But never mind UK will bankrupt itself to save point .01% of any so-called planet changing endeavours.. wake up and smell the coffee it's a money laundering exercise sending money over to Africa and Ukraine...😮😮
Big metal pilots cope with wind wooden poles don’t that much like last 10 miles of it that’s feeding some properties and not that many in rural areas is going to stay overhead. Also there’s arguments to do with the fact that below the land can be used as long as you’re not sticking things in the air, but if It’s very not allowed to be digging
@@UKsystems cant remember which Southern UK island got hit by a huge storm recently , but if it made land fall on main land , we would of lost 200,000 roof tops minimum
It's quite simple for the people protesting for not having power lines. Just disconnect them from the grid. They don't want it they don't get it. As well for the farmer if he wants them buried he can play the exact cost. We need infrastructure to grow.
What a waste ! of time, money ! Greenwashing just du to lack basic electricity knowledges of the people. I thought England was a bit cleaver than France and the rest of Europe....
France has some of lowest energy costs in Europe. Do you think if you can’t spell due or clever do you have any right to be talking about the national grid?
wow, wait, how much electricity will be needed in the evening to charge an electric car every day, and we are only talking about physical consumption, not production
This myth was dispelled a decade ago. EV drivers use a cheap eg 7 p / kWh tariff in the off peak hours. Also set appliances like washing machine, dishwasher etc to use these times. So the peak demand is reduced.
Scotland produces a significant amount of renewable energy, much of which is used to power London and other areas in the UK. While Scotland generates energy for the rest of the country, the revenue generated from this energy does not always return directly to Scotland. This raises concerns about how Westminster manages resources and finances, especially given recent cuts to services like the winter fuel allowance that directly affect Scottish residents. It's crucial to ensure that Scotland is fairly compensated for its energy contributions and that its financial interests are protected.
@@andyalder7910 Electricity can indeed lose some energy as it travels long distances through transmission lines, but modern technology has improved efficiency significantly. Typically, high-voltage transmission reduces energy loss, but some energy is still lost as heat due to resistance in the cables. As for revenue, while London generates a considerable amount of its own income, it also relies on energy supplied from other regions, including Scotland. However, the way energy revenues are distributed can be complex. Scotland's energy generation does contribute to the overall UK grid, but the financial returns may not always reflect the level of contribution, which can be a point of contention.
@@JimBanksy Energy prices are determined by a market, the South needs a lot of electricity so please do sell it to us, just don't expect some sort of little extra on top for some undefined reason, as Europe is nearer, and the Thames Estuary is productive. I really don't think you want truly 'fair' pricing in Scotland, everything from internet, SIMs, groceries, stamps, banking, couriers, etc would go up instantly. We are a single market as the UK and that's best for both sides.
@@andyalder7910 Actually, while the Thames does flow into the North Sea, the term 'North Sea' refers to the body of water that lies between Great Britain and mainland Europe. Scotland has a significant coastline along the North Sea, which it shares with other countries, including England and Norway. Additionally, there are historical concerns regarding Scotland's waters, particularly the 1999 agreement that many believe led to the 'stolen waters' of Scotland, where rights to resources and fishing were perceived to have been unfairly allocated. This highlights Scotland's vital role in the North Sea and its resources.
@@andyalder7910 It's true that the North Sea is adjacent to London, but that doesn’t change the fact that Scotland's resources are often undervalued and mismanaged. Many of the facilities extracting resources like oil and gas are owned by a handful of wealthy corporations. For instance, in 2022, BP reported profits of over £20 billion, while Shell announced record profits of nearly £33 billion. These profits don’t always benefit local communities in Scotland. Instead, it often feels like they are milking Scotland for its resources without giving back. This isn’t about supporting our beloved country; it’s about maximizing profits for a few while many in Scotland see little return from our natural wealth.
Almost like the national grid engineers know more about power distribution than the average farmer. Wonder who we'll end up listening to...
Newsnight can have a debate between the two 😂
neither
I doubt the average farmer has much of a clue, but I can understand their concern for the visual impact.
If Germany can do things correctly why can't Great Britain. Also how is it that railways can carry underground loads but National Grid can't.
@@catherinechurchill9877 Germany is not doing things correctly.
Remember that one of the reasons HS2 became so expensive is that MPs indulged constituents in the countryside at every consultation and ended up with a railway design that was very attractive but enormously costly.
This is far from the reason for the over expenditure 😂
Corruption through price gouging tax payer coffers is far more significant.
Particularly the tunnels
@@EVLitterPickerexactly the managment go more than hapf the money paid towards the project .
@@adrianthoroughgood1191exactly! The undergrounding of HS2 KILLED the project. The same must not be allowed to happen to the grid upgrade.
HS2 is going to be around in form or another for hundreds of years. Best to get it right for the long term and not design on short term finance criteria.
Too much nimbyism in this country!
I think government is going have a full scale war nimbyism and I got a feeling they are going to be defeated like they have never been defeated, with new laws in Parliament that will firmly put them in the corner.
Say no to coal, nuclear, pylons, biomass, gas, just say no to everything.
The trouble in this country and why we get nothing done is to many moaners. Either scrap it or get on with it
It's like those that complain about mobile masts and then complain about weak signals.
Yet ye said Yes to Brexit....
I don't care about seeing pilons and wind turbines in the countryside, they look fine. I get that it would be noisy it you lived right next to one, but I think calling them unsightly is stirring up fuss over nothing. Roads are way more disruptive to the countryside, but because they benefit landowners they don't cause a fuss about them.
I agree
You don’t care about the countryside then as long as it get energy to your big city. You don’t care about the miles of hedgerows and trees and killing wildlife for your wind and solar farms. It’s not about being NIMBY it’s about destroying an environment to create net zero
Pylons have been part of our countryside for decades. Doesn’t bother me, doesn’t seem to bother the farmers either. If you want a rainbow, you have to put up with some rain!
@@Militant_Atheist Of cause don't bother farmers, they get a nice yearly rental fee.
You aren't taking into consideration the amount of land that is lost due to the footprints of these pylons. If they are traversing mountains and forests. then no problem. Furthermore, if they can do it for London, why can't they do it elsewhere as in Germany.
Nimby's are why the UK is not as wonderfup a place as it could be
random apostrophes are worse still!
100kv and 200kv high voltage ac power lines are not practical or possible underground. You would have to convert it to DC but with a much reduced capacity and cost 10x that of overhead. If farmer Giles and his friends want underground cables he should shoulder the cost. There are plenty of farmers fields around here that have had pylons in them for nearly 100 years, never heard anyone say anything about them - it just part of the landscape.
Hear hear. Impact on farming?! The footprint is miniscule!
Farmer giles gets paid for it anyway, and a couple of pylons in a field is much less disruption than digging a trench across it.
If you bury electricity cables underground then you have to carefully maintain a tree-free (including hedges) strip above them, to prevent the risk of damage from roots. It's no panacea.
funny that they just in the process of doing it right across Norfolk came right past my village still on going tunnelled under roads fields rivers with very little disruption came in from the north Norfolk coast Norwest project it is.
@Tim_Small Of course you can plant hedgerows on top of underground services...Vegetation restoration & reinstatement is an important part of any cross-country pipeline/infrastructure project...
Have to say, I don't find myself looking at the ploughed field and thinking "there's a spot of natural beauty that would be ruined by a pylon..."
Seriously though, yes there will be a loss of productive land for the farmers where those pylons are placed. I guess we're talking 10's of square meters per pylon. I think for the sake of saving the money and actually moving forwards on something that desperately needs movement, the farmers are just gonna have to deal with it. Doesn't seem like it'll wreck their livelihoods.
I'd say a 100 sq meters or yards or more, I can physically get quite close to one where a public walkway intersects a grid line path, and the footprint is quite massive or imposing
Consider all of the way leaves they will get for that land in perpetuity. It almost becomes more financially viable for the small strip of land to have a pylon on it then to grow food on it.
@@johnjakson444 Fair enough, I still wouldn't say that changes the overall calculus though... yes the farmers should have some compensation but they should not be able to hold the govt hostage over this.
I suggest the UK government should connect with California's Pacific Gas and Electric for their research on the financial folly of originally putting everything above ground and then having to bury it later! - Citation: (PG&E did the research and concluded that investing $20 billion in undergrounding power would save them money in the long run)!!!
Literally just ignore these whiners in the countryside, it's just farming fields, artificial forests and roads.
The same field that grows your food! Nitwit 🙄
It would make sense to prioritize the installation of home solar panels by whatever means including subsidies because if the generation of electricity is located where it is consumed, ie homes and EVs then this not only reduces the need for pylons but is also more efficient as transmission of power over long distances is wasteful of energy.
Putting the cables to carry the 14 GW of power across Essex would require cable trenches wider than the M25 through the countryside. Given the relatively short distance AC cables on towers are the only way to go. It might help to increase the Grid voltage to 550kV the towers might be slightly higher but ultimately fewer circuits would be needed.
180 km line of electricity transport NO, but having methane gas heating home and diesel cars YES !!!?!!!
Crazy!
Methane degrades after a decade compared to centuries for carbon dioxide. It's not a pressing problem.
@@joskowal3711 decades, not seconds, not minutes !!!!!
Years and years....
And MORE: DO YOU KNOW THAT METHANE GAS HAS GREATER CLIMATE CHANGE COEFFICIENT THAN CARBON DIOXIDE ???
@@joskowal3711 carbon dioxide is food for plants. Not a problem
Unfortunately the piece did not explain why they can bury cables in Germany and not the UK.. was also quite jarring when it said the government has a very large mandate. (20pc is not a large number)
Thinking that putting HV cables in tunnels is a substitute for overhead transmission lines is as bone-headed an idea as you could devise. What cables need are insulation and cooling, and by stringing them up from pylons you get that for free, from the surrounding air, which doesn't wear out or degrade, and is in abundant supply.
How are the pylons Have maintenance and insulation still need regular replacement
@@UKsystems We've had 100 years experience of transmission pylons and got them off to a fine art. Porcelain insulators are generally more reliable than the polymer insulation within cables. Overhead transmission lines are also easier to find faults on, because you can see them easily above ground, especially if inspecting them by helicopter.
@@brendanpells912 near me they have to do it manually and replace insulators every 2 years
@@UKsystems Given the time I've spent driving up and down the country, including visiting power stations, I've rarely seen anyone working on overhead transmission lines.
@@brendanpells912 often at night to avoid issues
No way! Trenching and all the associated works involved is never going to be cheaper over hundreds of miles!
Added to that even if you do lay the cables as HVDC another massive cost is building converter stations at each end.
Pylons don’t require anything so complex.
You need to do your research. underground HVDC has much lower transmission losses, all those noisy hissing and crackling overhead cables are wasting power. Over the lifetime of the project it is cheaper. On top of that there are far less environmental, landscape, community or social economic impacts. What about the costs to agriculture of covering prime agricultural land in pylon foundations and absolutely massive substations. What about the costs to the economy of the tourism industry being badly impacted. What about the health impacts on local residents? All these comments calling people NIMBYs obviously come from urbanites, living miles away from the devastation being planned.
@@brianwade8478 Fine, you're happy to have the 10 fold cost added to your bills then? Trenching all those miles.
Added to that even if some space is being taken away from land, the rest of the field can still produce. There isnt some invisible exclusion zone underneath the overhead cables which says stuff can't grow there. You're only looking at the footprint of the pylon base, which isn't that big considering the size of a whole field. The space also isn't being stolen from a farmer. They're being paid a long term lease for the land. "devastation" is a bit over the top, it's not exactly the highland clearances!
@@salibaba Show me where you have any data using contemporary prices which shows the long term cost of undergrounding HVDC is 10x that of pylons? Such numbers are broadcast by those with a financial or political vested interest in keeping down the capital costs to protect the balance sheet of the transmission operators, not the cost to the consumer. I can show you reports, one even produced by National Grid themselves that show over the lifetime of the project undergrounding is comparable or even cheaper. Yes I am talking about devastation. The SSEN TKUP project in NE Scotland was consented by NGESO and given billions of pounds worth of taxpayer commitment by Ofgem with ABSOLUTELY NO ENVIRONMENTAL OR COMMUNITY IMPACT ASSESSMENT, This project involves pylons up to 70m high running right across agricultural land and massive substations. A substation planned 3 miles away from Stonehaven, a town heavily dependent on tourism will occupy an area bigger than the Sellafield nuclear facility with further substations in the area already planned. Nobody in government is thinking about the consequences on health, I know of multiple people who are already receiving medical treatment caused by the stress of finding out their home that they have been paying for for years is now almost worthless or their tourism based business will disappear. You obviously don't understand the fact that if a 70m high pylon is built close to your home, but not on your land, you are entitled to nothing. Yes this is very much like the highland clearances, SSEN are planning on ruining the environment and causing severe impacts on rural communities just to make money. This is nothing to do with reaching net zero, which can be achieved using 21st century solutions, it is about SSEN, NG and SP taking billions off the UK taxpayer
@@brianwade8478 All you have said is wrong and can be refuted even by small kids.
Did you even know what they have to do to place beneath and on top of those tubes to lay cables (the ecological disaster is there actually)?
Do you know that if they bury it, they will have to create a exclusion zone ON TOP of it? Did you know that the time spent to build those underground takes almost 100 times? compared to pilons
If anything goes wrong during the underground boring, the farmers wont be able to work on it for SEVERAL MONTHS.
If they have to do a maintenance and discovers that it need replacement or fix anything, they will have to DIG (AGAIN).
Actually, German government currently discusses to plan future HVDC projects overground again, because the underground construction is too expensive and too slow.
If you don't want pylons then turn of your electricity
You are missing the point, it could all be done cheaper and with much less environmental, community and health impacts by using a combination of offshore and underground. Don't believe the lies from Millibrain, even National Grid have published data showing over the lifetime of a project, underground HVDC is cheaper. The thing is the transmission operators are not interested in long term costs only short term profit and they are certainly not concerned about environmental, landscape, health or community impacts or damage and loss of jobs in other industries such as agriculture and tourism. The Germans can do it, the Danes, the Belgians and the Dutch can do it but not us. Do you realise in the Netherlands they have a law saying that the total number of km of pylons should not increase? If a new pylon line is essential, an equal amount of km should be removed or buried. Why can we not have sensible joined up plans to use 21st century solutions for a 21st century problem like our neighbours?
@@brianwade8478 Are you an electrical engineer? Do you know anything about power transmission that isn't from the internet?
@@gabrieldsouza6541
Do you know anything about power transmission.
Brian Wade is factually correct.
@@catherinechurchill9877 Didn't list a single fact or figure, just more bluster from an armchair expert. Once you get a degree in electrical engineering then you can convince me with your ramblings. Until then, give evidence or kindly stay silent.
@@catherinechurchill9877 I do, and neither Brian nor you are correct.
Maybe it would be easier to just build a solar or wind park near London, so you wouldn't need to bring the energy there from Norfolk 🤔 Or better even, make London self-sufficient and put solar on skyscrapers etc.!
When big infrastructure like this happens in France, 10% is added to the budget for compensation. Unsurprisingly, NIMBYs with a wad of "shut up" money in their pocket complain a lot less.
no to pylons?? then STOP using electricity 😒
No pylons… HVDC cables can do the job… national grid engineers love to complicate things… well, those days are gone, now we have better solutions, let’s use them.
Nimbies
The problem is that there is a waiting list several years long for the supply of underground cables. They are not the same type of cable as overhead ones, they are much more complicated and there is a lot of demand for them right now. Utilities are forced to use pylons because of the politically imposed short deadlines for converting to low-carbon power sources. I`m all for the conversion, but it needs to be done more gradually so that we can build higher quality infrastructure with fewer negative impacts. Rushing things through means you are stuck with bad infrastructure for the next 50 to 100 years.
People LOVE TO COMPLAIN…
Of course it’s important to upgrade the grid, but upgrading the infrastructure in London is not going to help in Orkney.
However London is getting it to start with is worth that very remote places are not going to be the first because it’s very expensive amount of customers so as technology and method becomes more widespread the cost rapidly decreases so it can move out of population centres or your power costs more
@@UKsystems The point is that energy is required in large conurbations, but the sources of renewable energy are in the remote parts of the UK. There is nothing wrong with London getting a concrete tunnel for carrying electricity, but this has little to do with the subject of the video, which is readying the grid for renewables.
And as regards Orkney, Orkney has more energy than it knows what to do with. It is *always* windy there, and there are plenty of wind turbines on the islands (not to mention tidal turbines in the Pentland Firth ). However, because the line connecting the mainland to Orkney is not powerful enough, the energy potential cannot be used to full effect. It’s not so much a problem for the locals (although I’m sure they would appreciate the extra income) as it is an terrible missed opportunity for the rest of the UK, especially for northern Scotland.
@@oronjoffe but it is as london was unable to accept power from some directions
@@UKsystems of course! Read my comment again!
@@oronjoffe but even in these places with too much electricity it can still be too expensive to run a new underwater cable in this case it will cost hundreds of millions and require extensive work. It’s also worth knowing that these cables have to be custom manufacture and can take years and years to get made so they could have ordered one you don’t know.
So a small number of people have sway over our country’s future? The same people who decided Brexit was a great idea and their main concern is the price of their house.
Let them have their underground cables, so long as they're the ones to pay for it.
In the long term underground HVDC is cheaper. The transmission operators aren't interested in that, only short term capital costs.
@@brianwade8478 If what you said is true, EVERYONE would have been using it by now heh?
Sizewell nuclear power station is conveniently located on the Suffolk coast and has existing grid connections. Why can't North Sea wind power be routed into Sizewell, or even from a North Sea hub sea connected via the Thames Estuary direct into London? What's really going on here? Or even to the Isle of Grain gas powered thermal station on the north Kent coast?
It's a capacity thing, you can't just ram more power into the same cables, they hit a physical limit of how much they can transfer.
Maybe those objecting to pylons would prefer a nice clean modular nuclear power station instead or a system of electricity rationing in their area so we can get by with less pylons? Honestly if you live in a city you have put up with living near to a lot of big infrastructure. It’s modern life, get over it.
People don't object to pylons for supplying their needs. They object to pylons that exist solely to transport power to the other side of the country. London could be supplied using undersea cables from the wind farms down the coast and up the Themes, rather than pylons across Suffolk and Essex. We already do have nuclear power stations in Suffolk and they are planning to build another one.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191this makes no sense. Electricity can not always be generated nearby. There may also be human and environmental reasons why laying cables along the Thames estuary might not work. It’s just a pylon.
Yes, and of course nuclear (and power stations that burn stuff) all want to be on the coast so as to access seawater for cooling, so even they need pylons taking power inland
If Brisbane is connected to Melbourne in a single 14m diameter single tunnel via Coffs harbour, Newcastle Sydney, Canberra and Albury the Japanese SC maglev can have an overnight container train making daytime fares $10.
As it goes directly below Snowy 2 it can have the HVDC cables in it.
I know UK isn't the best country for solar power, but incentivising home solar systems like Germany not only reduces the load on the grid, at times, it can also be helpful if the user is generating more than what they need.
The government was paying people to do it but now they don’t focus because it’s widespread we can do it definitely basically all we have to do is install system and submit a notification form with 30 days we can’t have it because that is not safe in a DIY case if you think about it that you could have 10 amp put in whilst the circuit breaker is providing 16 so 26 could be usedand the cable up so we can’t make it that easy due to safety
Ya'll should grow up and master the nuclear power. But hey. "green revolution!!"
@@Kiyoone the issue is nuclear power is good until it goes wrong. Also the UK is struggling with nuclear waste disposal.
Why does the title say that the tunnel is "saving" the green revolution. Anywhere else in the world it would be saying "promoting the green revolution" or dare I say it "upgrading our infrastructure for the benefit of the economy and our customers" x I'm sick of this country's negativity towards change, especially change that will protect this nation and benefit future generations.
Richard,
it is unfortunate that the country has largely been brainwashed by lack of proper information. That lack of information is due to the poor standard of journalism these days, little to no research into what is being done, just an acceptance of what they are told.
The change we are currently doing and have done for more than twenty years is a disadvantage to the U.K., is unworkable and will more than likely end up with widespread power losses in the relatively near future unless plans are reversed. Our loss of industry is entirely due to high enrgy costs which renewables entail. It is false to say they are cheap.
The so called green revolution, or the transition from fossil fuels is practically and technically flawed!
If the 2015 Cameron government hadn't stopped onshore wind and the proposed Navitus Bay offshore wind farm, we would have more power in the south.
Stopping roof top solar on new builds was the most irresponsible act of all. Installing at the building stsge is less than half yhe cost of retrofitting. FIT payment could have ended for new build so each house built would be part of the solution, not adding to the problem.
What did they do to stop solar on new builds?
@@robinbennett5994 It was compulsory on new build houses. They changed the building regs so that was not required.
Did I just hear her say that future electricity pylons are the reason tourists won't visit Suffolk? 🤣
One wonders what the nuclear power stations of Suffolk produce.
Norfolk???? For tourism????? You're telling me people come to look at nondescript dirt fields and patches of grass you can see literally anywhere?
I’ve seen some people saying this isn’t necessary. It is because the national grid has to be below capacity as if someone takes through a cable or it breaks they can reroute it without relies on the grid having the capacity so we have to plan ahead. Also this is happening in central London because it has to be underground, then decide where the rural areas have it above or underground
Okay they want tunnels, they can pay for it. An the government should legislate to remove the need for the lost of value in a property as well.
Seems odd that the arrows denoting the flow of coal powered electricity going to scotland, as if Scotland was unable to power itself....
So what there saying gonna bring bills down except they spending 30 billion so who's paying for that then
Well, currently the distribution workers at his limit and because it’s at fails at the higher rate this basically means they will have less failures and them mean less money spent on it
what is the new government doing on the sewage overflow pipes ? still floater flooding ?
Nothing can be done about the sewage because I live for council has rejected 329 plumbing applications to fix the system so unfortunately every agency is against each other and it’s just not coming to get done at this rate Leicester council actually allow road to be closed for it to be fixed
High voltage DC has less losses in transmission so it a more efficient way to transmit power only thing is are system is AC so it would need additional costly converter stations if thay wanted to divert power elsewhere seems that lady just doesn't get the big picture when it comes to the network , reworking the power network would send your energy bill through the roof
For balance it should be pointed out that tunneling has come on a fair bit and that scheme in London looks fold plated.. The boring company's new TBMs just dive into the ground without that massive shaft. We could quite conceivable bury a lot kore cables with yhat technique.
Invest britain! Ffs!
Is this why my electricity standing charge keeps going up every quarter?
No the standing charge is to pay the distribution network operator who operates the local distribution network that connects to National Grid. They have massive cost at the moment because they’re replacing the distribution work piece by piece locally to you.
@@UKsystems Q1. So where do National Grid their money from? Q2. Why and where are the DNOs replacing the distribution network? I see no evidence of this. Apparently the DNOs take about 15% of the customers electricity bill, but in my case the standing charge is now closer to 50% in the summer. My local DNO, UK Power Networks, give no breakdown on their website of their finances or of any ongoing or planned infrastructure maintenance or upgrades. Totally opaque. No transparency whatsoever as to what they are doing with MY money, not theirs.
@@grahamcook9289 it is on parts of the network that are redundant so you dont know but most isthe individual dervice equiptment to each house. and the national grid gets money straight from the government,
If the NIMBYs had their way during industrialisation, we would still be an agrarian society without paved roads, canals, rail, electricity, airport, electricity, internet access etc.
Surely u mean get our bills up
ffs this is what i am talking about we should do here in germany for maybe 2 decades now, but no its too costly, no the states and federal government cant get on the same page, no it wont work because of ground water, no, the technology is not there yet (ofcause not if you dont try and invest), ...
though why go back to the pylons, just make a huge industry out of doing such tunnels under all of the UK,
sure it will cost money, but again you will establish a huge industry that will benefit you.
There is nothing what lifts up future generations better than a solid infrastructure.
well done and good for you UK
Let’s have temporary pillions until such time they can be replaced by underground possibly supercooled cables to reduce the resistance and a legal guarantee that the pillions will only be temporary for a fixed maximum number of years.
Wonder if underground electrical infrastructure could be more resilient to solar storms?
No, it is not. Besides, it is really expensive and hard to do maintenance. The access to those places are incredibly limited if underground.
@@Kiyoone how do you know that then?
In no scenario are underground transmission cables cheaper than overhead lines.
I don’t have a horse in this race, but the national grid guy at the end was wrong, u can bury HV DC, its point to point though, no need to put pylons over the top, if u want more capacity, bury more conduits/ducts when u have the trench open, the conduits r the cheap part compared to the approvals, planning, cleaning tractors etc. National grid should s worried about $$$, that’s all. Underground is NEVER cheaper. Big boy pants on, build the pylons and keep the lights on. 😊
Excellent. Quite happy to see a few pylons, far better than massive coal and gas stations pumping out gas for miles. Glad to see Labour modify planning, so we get cheap clean energy in the most efficient way. Farmer Giles should be happy, as his costs will decrease for energy, and certainly should not be allowed to block such infrastructure. And the land is the UKs, not exclusively his.
Nimby ruining the benefit of the whole again. **sigh**
Catering to a few people in the country when the benefit of getting cheaper energy for everyone is a easy decision.
Solution is simple, stop living in the big cities, move back to the empty villages in the North, the east and west. No need for pillons
If only you put solar n new builds as standard! This would be a great help
Until half housing estate is on holiday in the summer and his exporting a lot of power to the National grid this is still required
Solar in UK🤣 yeah yeah, very smart
@@Kiyoone I get a decent amount out of the panels about 60% of their rated capacity when it’s overcast that is fine most of the time
@@Kiyoone it is, I’ve put my electric bill down by two thirds building my own system. Next year I’ll be getting disconnected from the grid for good. Pay back will only be 5.4 years.
Need to bring all mothballed coal power stations back online.
3:35 Germany is building 2 x 2GW north-south HVDC connections - something like 650Km and 750Km long. It's largely thanks to NIMBYs forcing the cables to be buried that has lead to the whole thing being years behind schedule and many times over budget.
@Channel4News
The fact that you allowed complete misinformation to go unchallenged in this piece is irresponsible and misleading. There is absolutely no scenario where underground HVDC transmission is cheaper than Overhead power lines. And there is no National grid report that says otherwise. Also HVDC needs huge converter stations (in addition to regular sub-stations) to take it to and from AC at either end.
In addition the environmental impact of cable trenches is larger than overhead while the embodied carbon of the cables is massively greater as are the emissions caused by the installation.
There are so many cases where it’s cheaper, but you refuse to do the research stations are cheaper than transformers for this level of high power
@@UKsystems I do my research every day; this is my job. A HVDC link would require BOTH AC/DC converter stations and standard substations on the distribution network. Show me a case study where underground HVDC transmission is cheaper than AC overhead transmission. If you’ve done the research share it.
You must construct additional pylons.
If everyone is willing to pay more for their electricity and have less reliable service, buried cables could be used rather than overhead wires.
Underground Network Is Much Better!
To lay the Underground Electricity Infrastructure the Power Transmission needs to be done at Low Voltage with Power Conversions enabled by the Capacitor Banks and then through the Transformers - Low Voltage Transmission!
But when comes to distribution point it goes by High Voltage Transmission to the Grid to avoid Power Losses.
From Grid to Home is Nonetheless the Power Modulators with the Capacitance Banks in place to avoid the Voltage Fluctuations.
Professor Green is in full agreement with this as their is a need for Herbal Tunnels
I wonder if these farmers will pay for the underground cables or can we recoup it by stop government subsidising their cottage industry
Wait, sorry, so what did that engineer say we must go with pylons (over burying the cables underground)?
It sounded like underground cables would have less capacity than cables between pylons. I can think of other issues: if you want to add cables later, then underground is trickier; difficulty of accessing underground cables.
It's much more expensive and can cause way more electrical interference, which is an issue
He avoided going into the detail, but if that is what you wish for.
AC transmits both active power, and reactive power. We only need the active power part. The AC nature of the transmission causes the polarity of the line to change in reference to the surrounding of the cable, either air for pylons, or earth for underground. Air and earth have different capacitances so the amount of power loss increases when sticking the cable underground. You then have a load of other headaches to deal with, heat being a big on.
DC only transmits the active power so doesn’t suffer these power losses, but stepping it up and down from low voltage to high voltage is a lot more complex, expensive and unreliable compared to a good ol’ transformer. Therefore HVDC only becomes cost effective when the length of cable goes above a certain distance, or needs to be run under to ocean/ground as there is no other option available. Which isn’t true here.
Hmm, why then do the underground cables work in Germany (among others)?🤔
Get john to fucking pay for the burying of cables then
We use more electricity each year that goes by. Burying cables would be a non starter. The fact of the matter is that we need more power lines above ground
Never look toward germany when thinking about energy... Never look toward Germany in fact !
J.poore 2017 found that a vegan world would use 70% less farmland as it happen 50% of the total landmass of the uk is used solely for animal agriculture, I can't help but think if more people stopped buying murdered animal flesh then this land issue wouldnt be a problem
I thought the pylon designs were being modernised anyway to make them look better. Like they’ve done in Somerset.
Build!
If the pylons were white then they would be more visually appealing, also the designs could be better
The new design is made of fibreglass at his white, but the metal ones can’t be because then they have to be painted every year and it costs a lot
London.......
Wait wait the more I think about it the more annoyed I get. How is agriculture not a 'scar on the landscape' or the roads that cut through it, but when it's something they don't profit from they get all mad
Glad that Labour have changed the rules so NIMBYs can FO instead of holding the country back!
That last bit makes no sense, if a buried cable does not have enough capacity. You can just bury another one next to it. Why would it require a pylon on top of the buried cable?
i came here to say this. i really don't understand this argument against burying cables.
there may be other good arguments against burying - but this one doesn't make sense.
If you have to bury two or three cable to get the same capacity as one pylon, it eventually going to cost more than just building the pylons.
@@fTooe simple argument against it is "Losses"
With Overhead at 400kvAC cables losses are about 1-2% every 100 miles.
Against 8-10% under ground. And even worse under sea.
That is why the UK undersea connectors to France, Norway, Denmark etc are all HVDC, with massive DC-AC convertor stations at each end to return the power to HVAC.
Do all that and you are looking at 10x the cost.
At the end of all that, you would just get some "other" NIMBY objecting to the unsightly convertor stations. So they would be no better off anyway.
@@fToo the land can’t be used underneath as there’s 10 m either side of the cable that has to be completely clear and unused so it really disrupts the land when you could use it below a pylon
@@UKsystems yes, and you need to think about faults. Faults are easier to find and fix on over head line.
Yes, you could dig a tunnel and run the cables in it, like the London power tunnels. But that would cost even more.
It had to be london 🤷♂️
London needs a tunnel because of how it’s built everywhere else could have a tunnel or overhead. This is a good idea to experiment with a tunnel because it has to be done at any cost.
Finally money well-spent!
Petty landowners.
is this the location of a diddy music video
Strange that once again London can have everything underground & once it gets further out, it’s above ground... two tier once again!
Absolutely.👍
You think purchasing land and running overhead cables in London is as practical as doing it through fields? Once again, the only thing two tier in this country is people's cognitive ability.
Produce a TRILLION pounds a year and you can have your cables underground too, in the meantime enjoy some pilons.
It’s not strange.
It’s basic economics of scale.
Can you please explain how overhead Gables are going to be running in London without demolishing? Half of it in most places overhead is practical because even underground line is buried for anything other than feeding one property 10 m either side is generally required to be left clear and you can’t use the land really, so it disrupts the land usage a lot more than not sticking objects in the air
We privatised the National Grid
And they did not invest
No one is surprised
This is them investing, however they’ve had so many applications blocked in the past exam the distribution network
don't worry those pylons won't be there for long the folly of those Off shore wind turbines will be short lived fusion energy will make them obsolete plus when Donald Trump gets back in and the price of oil drops it will be impossible to justify the incredible maintenance and incredible cost of offshore wind turbines those pylons will be down in less than 15 years
Actually no America does not control the oil prices where the UK would get it from all Europe. You cannot rely on her technology that is only experimental because they may get it working but being able to produce power stations is still gonna take 10 to 20 years on top of that.
Obviously you believe the The Propaganda of the BBC and mainstream Media. Have you taken your 6th booster???. Which the government recommends😂. Along with following their green agenda 😂 . Germany has started opening up their coal power stations. UK is sending 12 billion pounds a year to the most corrupt African countries in the world. You will find African leaders parking their yacht next to the Ukrainian oligarchs in Monaco. Over half a million mainly ukrainians killed in this pointless War and the whole country destroyed. How green is that. But never mind UK will bankrupt itself to save point .01% of any so-called planet changing endeavours.. wake up and smell the coffee it's a money laundering exercise sending money over to Africa and Ukraine...😮😮
❤
The safest bet is to do it underground , I know the ecological impact but with 200mph storms coming soon , wont be much left after a couple of them :(
Big metal pilots cope with wind wooden poles don’t that much like last 10 miles of it that’s feeding some properties and not that many in rural areas is going to stay overhead. Also there’s arguments to do with the fact that below the land can be used as long as you’re not sticking things in the air, but if It’s very not allowed to be digging
@@UKsystems cant remember which Southern UK island got hit by a huge storm recently , but if it made land fall on main land , we would of lost 200,000 roof tops minimum
This is what HS2 money should have gone on, uk wide tunnels, not only is it safer, but when repairs are needed it would cause less disruption.
It's quite simple for the people protesting for not having power lines. Just disconnect them from the grid. They don't want it they don't get it. As well for the farmer if he wants them buried he can play the exact cost. We need infrastructure to grow.
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uhmmm what if it gets flooded ? 🤔
they get out a giant mob and a very big hair dryer
The game is in cheated most likely they are simply going to pump it out
Hey mr nimby farmer, it’s a pylon in a field on your land not your back garden..
Stop rural farmers blocking progress! Otherwise it'll be like HS2 over 10 years to nowhere.
What a waste ! of time, money ! Greenwashing just du to lack basic electricity knowledges of the people. I thought England was a bit cleaver than France and the rest of Europe....
France has some of lowest energy costs in Europe. Do you think if you can’t spell due or clever do you have any right to be talking about the national grid?
Hahaha brilliant 😂😂😂
I h8 green
Then please cut off your electricity connection
@@UKsystems The right answer
Should use the central reservations of motorways for solar panels and running cables
Like the veins of a leaf across the whole country
Would be covered in dust and grime within days, wouldn't work.
wow, wait, how much electricity will be needed in the evening to charge an electric car every day, and we are only talking about physical consumption, not production
This myth was dispelled a decade ago. EV drivers use a cheap eg 7 p / kWh tariff in the off peak hours. Also set appliances like washing machine, dishwasher etc to use these times. So the peak demand is reduced.
Scotland produces a significant amount of renewable energy, much of which is used to power London and other areas in the UK. While Scotland generates energy for the rest of the country, the revenue generated from this energy does not always return directly to Scotland. This raises concerns about how Westminster manages resources and finances, especially given recent cuts to services like the winter fuel allowance that directly affect Scottish residents. It's crucial to ensure that Scotland is fairly compensated for its energy contributions and that its financial interests are protected.
By the time power from Scotland has reached London half of it has been lost in cable resistance.
@@andyalder7910 so why do it then?
@@andyalder7910 Electricity can indeed lose some energy as it travels long distances through transmission lines, but modern technology has improved efficiency significantly. Typically, high-voltage transmission reduces energy loss, but some energy is still lost as heat due to resistance in the cables.
As for revenue, while London generates a considerable amount of its own income, it also relies on energy supplied from other regions, including Scotland. However, the way energy revenues are distributed can be complex. Scotland's energy generation does contribute to the overall UK grid, but the financial returns may not always reflect the level of contribution, which can be a point of contention.
@@JimBanksy We need a HVDC grid, and the best place for that is in the North Sea.
@@JimBanksy Energy prices are determined by a market, the South needs a lot of electricity so please do sell it to us, just don't expect some sort of little extra on top for some undefined reason, as Europe is nearer, and the Thames Estuary is productive. I really don't think you want truly 'fair' pricing in Scotland, everything from internet, SIMs, groceries, stamps, banking, couriers, etc would go up instantly. We are a single market as the UK and that's best for both sides.
Very misleading story those cable tunnels in London were built at least decade ago……….
This is being built currently the one you talking about was power tunnels 1 the one in the video is power tunnels 2
North sea is up beside Scotland not london.
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It's a big sea, Thames drains into the North Sea unless you have an older map that calls it the German Ocean.
@@andyalder7910 Actually, while the Thames does flow into the North Sea, the term 'North Sea' refers to the body of water that lies between Great Britain and mainland Europe. Scotland has a significant coastline along the North Sea, which it shares with other countries, including England and Norway. Additionally, there are historical concerns regarding Scotland's waters, particularly the 1999 agreement that many believe led to the 'stolen waters' of Scotland, where rights to resources and fishing were perceived to have been unfairly allocated. This highlights Scotland's vital role in the North Sea and its resources.
@@JimBanksy Make your mind up, you say the North Sea is not beside London then admit it is beside London.
@@andyalder7910 It's true that the North Sea is adjacent to London, but that doesn’t change the fact that Scotland's resources are often undervalued and mismanaged. Many of the facilities extracting resources like oil and gas are owned by a handful of wealthy corporations. For instance, in 2022, BP reported profits of over £20 billion, while Shell announced record profits of nearly £33 billion. These profits don’t always benefit local communities in Scotland. Instead, it often feels like they are milking Scotland for its resources without giving back. This isn’t about supporting our beloved country; it’s about maximizing profits for a few while many in Scotland see little return from our natural wealth.