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BS: People moaning about windmills
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 27 Mar 06 - 07:36 PM Precisely - lots of different ways, some more efficient than others at this stage of development. And lots more which have never been explored or developed (or like those flywheels in public transport they have been abandoned prematurely), because burning up fossil fuel has always seemed cheaper, since most the cost of the damage caused has never been included in the price paid by the people doing the damage. A rational accounting system under which those kind of costs had to be included would be the biggest single factor in putting us on the right road. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 27 Mar 06 - 06:58 PM There are enormous inefficiencies in the conversion processes. Storing energy in a chemical accumulator also involves changing AC to DC and retrieving it to feed back into the AC grid also involves more inefficiencies. There used to be large storage flywheels - some were used in buses a while ago - they may have the ability to to produce AC output, but you then need to have a very precise match between the frequencies or else you get severe problems that may cause destruction of the equipment. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 27 Mar 06 - 02:58 PM The rigid distinction between "peaking sources" and "base capacity" rests on the assumption that there is not any satisfactory method of storing energy provided by the former. There is no shortage of existing or potential ways of dealing with that problem. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: JohnInKansas Date: 27 Mar 06 - 01:21 PM Re: Multiple comments on existing windmills that are mostly not running. Since wind input is a variable quantity, windmills generally can only be used as "peaking sources." The distribution systems require "base capacity" that is always available, and for this fueled generators, whether coal, oil, or nuclear, are about the only things available. Hydro power generally would be included in base capacity, but is only available in limited areas. As long as the fixed generators can supply all the needed power, dumping additional power in from the windmills would be counterproductive, since it would require reducing the output of the baseline generators to maintain stable distribution network conditions. The fixed/baseline generators operate most efficiently at output near their rated capacity, and actually have little margin for "tweaking" output. A change in baseline output generally requires turning on/off individual machines/plants which is not just a matter of flipping a switch. Restarting a large generator can take several hours, and turning one off takes (often) about half as long as bringing one back on line. Wind generators may be idle because there is insufficient wind available at a given time (or rarely if there's too much wind for safe operation at a given time) but since as currently used they can only supply "peaking power" when and as needed by the grid, they may be shut down during low-demand periods. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're not available to meet an increase in demand, or that they're broke down and/or inefficient. A "windmill farm" generally contracts to provide a certain amount of power continuously, based on the minum wind expected, and must have enough individual windmills to "meet contract commitments" when there's little useful wind. Any time there is more than minimum wind, it's more efficient to run only part of the windmills at higher power, and turn off the ones not needed, than to run all of them at reduced output. IF the farm can find a buyer for an additional bit of power, more of them may be started up; but it depends on instantaneous market conditions whether it's profitable to do so. Some maintenance, and downtime for safety inspections etc., is required, and a "typical" downtime allowance of something like 10% or a little less is "planned maintenance." This means that if 10% of the mills aren't running they're doing what they should be doing. If 90% of them aren't running, it's more likely that it's inefficiency in the power market than that the windmills are defective. Europe, especially, does have some "early design" windmills that have had reliability problems; but you'd have to talk to the operating engineers to know if that's why they don't run more. If, as may happen someday, there were enough widely dispersed windmill farms to depend realiable on "one of them somewhere" will always be able to provide at least X kw, then a fraction of the total windmill capacity could be considered part of the "base capacity" and you'd always be getting at least some of your electrons from wind. In some markets that point may have been reached; but I haven't seen confirmation of it. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 27 Mar 06 - 11:51 AM Windy Miller Windmill World |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 27 Mar 06 - 08:36 AM Thank you for sharing Liz... now where's my sleeping tablet? |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Liz the Squeak Date: 27 Mar 06 - 08:23 AM Here's another share.... they have turbines made of lego bricks in Legoland Windsor.... LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Big Al Whittle Date: 27 Mar 06 - 07:24 AM I used to have a soap on a rope of Windy Miller of Camberwick Green fame. just thought I'd share that with you |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 27 Mar 06 - 07:15 AM The problems generated by nuclear waste are can be controlled far more easily than those from CO2. Cross your fingers when you say that. "Solved" means sorted out safely for the next few thousand years. We haven't done that yet, and there are good reasons for thinking we never will be able to. As and when we have done that would be the time to talk about whether to take up nuclear fission as a way of prodiucing energy, not till then. We've already got a first rate fusion plant in a safe place, and it is set to last us for billions of years, with no maintenance. It's called the Sun, and it gives out all the power we could possibly need. It's just ("just") a question of organsing our arrangements for making that power available to do the things that we need it to do. And cutting out doing stuff that makes things worse in the present (fossil fuel), or stores up big trouble for our children and their children...(nuclear fission). Those aren't easy things, but they aren't impossible. The pity is that the peoples with the power to make the changes that need to be made are the last peoples who are going to be hit by the damage caused by the failure to make the changes. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Geoff the Duck Date: 27 Mar 06 - 04:38 AM In fact - if somebody could harness the bullshit herem mudcat could power the world... Quack! GtD. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 27 Mar 06 - 04:06 AM Lots of small ones allows generation close to user. Less transmission loss, and waste heat can be utilised. If all buildings had solar roofs and wind generators, they would often have excess to feed back to the grid. Most places have scope for micro hydro. Water power started Britain's industrial revolution. Combined heat and power local stations. Many such already operating. Bio mass as in coppiced and pollarded trees, agricultural waste etc. Norfolk has a small station running on chicken shit! Given the levels of investment poured in to nuclear power, alternatives are viable. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST Date: 27 Mar 06 - 04:03 AM Travelling round Europe I see a lot of these windmills and at any one time at least half appear to be not working. The idea is good, the technology faulty. They don't really work well at all. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Bunnahabhain Date: 27 Mar 06 - 03:44 AM A few points... 1. Pumped storage of water between high and low reservoirs. Takes lots of water, and a big height difference, so only useful in some areas. Transmission losses in a power grid are a big problem. To minimise them, you produce the power close to where it is needed, and you transmit it at a high a voltage as possible. This is much easier with large power stations, rather than lots of small ones, which is waht renewable installations tend to be at the moment. And biomass cannot possibly work on a large enough scale. The Brazilian ethanol fuel programme is the best example, and that only works as there is a very large area, which is suitable for a fast growing, energy rich crop. When people talk about Bio fuels for cars in the West, they are normally refereing to Palm oil, produced in South East Asia, on sites cleared of rainforest. Very green! The energy demand of people on this planet is so large, that even if we could grow a very good fuel crop, and harvest it cheaply and efficiently, we would need many times more land in production to grow the fuel. Exactly how much land I'm not sure, but I recall a study showing that our current energy usage was 3-4 times the Net Primary Productivity of the Planet.... You want to get serious about CO2? Minimise usage, Nuclear power stations, and as many sensible renewables as possible, and a whole load of electrolysis plants. We can run everything on electricty and hydrogen if we try. The problems generated by nuclear waste are can be controlled far more easily than those from CO2. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Michael B Date: 27 Mar 06 - 03:05 AM Change of subject; Any body got the words to the Magdelene Launderies as sung by Joni Mitchell with the Chieftans on the CD "Tears of stone"? Thanks, Mike |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 27 Mar 06 - 02:44 AM Salter, the wave power pioneer, does not think the ferro fluid device can be scaled up. Great possibilities for small generators eg navigation buoys. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 26 Mar 06 - 07:31 PM Observer snippet about this ferrofluid story. And Jeffrey Cheung's patent |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST,DB Date: 26 Mar 06 - 10:22 AM We don't seem to like this planet we've inherited, do we? We just have to keep changing it, and tinkering with it, and ripping its surface layers apart to get at the wealth they contain (which, of course, we assume to be infinite). All this frantic activity generates heat though, and heat leads to the the fragile layer that we inhabit becoming unstable. Once it becomes unstable enough (ie. within the next few generations) it won't be habitable any more - then our species will become extinct. I don't believe that there are ANY technical fixes for this situation. We've got to radically re-think the way that we relate to the biosphere. Not a lot of time to do this in, though - we seem to be accelerating along the path towards melt-down whilst generating even more hot air. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 26 Mar 06 - 08:59 AM 100! |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Leadfingers Date: 26 Mar 06 - 08:54 AM And the 100th to boot |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Leadfingers Date: 26 Mar 06 - 08:54 AM HEY TED !! 99 !!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST Date: 26 Mar 06 - 08:46 AM The US used to be #1 in solar cell innovation and production. We have sunk below #5. The beauty and significance of the Turby to me is that it is a double helix. Here is a whimsical piece of art which is not a Turby but moves like one. http://www.carltonartgallery.com/images/Lyman%20Whitaker%20Gallery/Star%20Pole.jpg |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 26 Mar 06 - 08:15 AM BLOODY 'ELL! |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 26 Mar 06 - 08:13 AM "The ferrofluid has nanoparticle monopoles suspended in it." Brain fart again!!! Dunno how teh 'monopoles' got in there - it should have read... "The ferrofluid has madnetic nanoparticle suspended in it." |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 25 Mar 06 - 11:39 AM Of course biomass isn't "the solution". There isn't any "the" solution. It's just one technology among many. Burning stuff you've grown puts back into the atmosphere the carbon dioxide that was taken out of the atmosphere growing it. That's recycling for you. It's carbon dixode neutral. Of course fossil fuel does the same - the difference being that involves putting back into the armosphere the carbon dioxide taken out and stored over millions of years. Not at all a good idea. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST,GtD again Date: 25 Mar 06 - 11:09 AM Biomass isn't really a solution. We pretty much cultivate all the bits of land which can be cultivated already, and burning biomass puts carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, which does not help the greenhouse effect. What we really need to do is remove carbon dioxide from the system - best way I can think of is plant fast growing timber, turn it into paper then instead of recycling the paper, bale it up and sink it in the deep parts of the oceans. That way the cellolose will not decay for millions of years, and so the carbon will be removed from the system. Note - when a tree is growing it takes in carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. Once it has reached maturity the CO2 it takes in is balanced by the CO2 it produces. Quack! GtD. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 25 Mar 06 - 10:12 AM The wind does indeed always blow and the Sun does always shine. Sometimes the wind isn't blowing in some places rather than others, sometimes the clouds or the Earth get in beweeen us and the Sun. That's a matter or organising ourselves a bit better. There are lots of ways of storing up energy so it can be available as and when we need it. Using it to punp up water to a higher resservoir is just one low-tech example, and there are plenty more. "Bio-mass" - using solar energy to grow stuff you can burn later - is another. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST,GtD. Again Date: 25 Mar 06 - 09:45 AM This lot seem to be taking it seriously BLICKY. Quack! Geoff. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST,Geoff the Duck - I got hungry and ate my coo Date: 25 Mar 06 - 09:32 AM Wind doesn't always blow. Sun doesn't always shine. Storing elecricity for when it is needed..... Simple solution in an integrated system would be to use the surplus electricity to split water into its components Hydrogen and Oxygen - e.g. An enhanced project, which can then be stored until needed and recombined either as fuel for cars or in a power station when energy demand exceeds the sun/wave/wind power being produced. The thing about burning hydrogen with oxygen is that the only products are water and heat. Quack! GtD. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 25 Mar 06 - 08:52 AM And by the end of the chapter we're off to Alpha Centauri... |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 24 Mar 06 - 11:55 PM The ferrofluid has nanoparticle monopoles suspended in it. When near a magnet, it is attracted to the ends of the poles, and there it forms an almost frictionless 'mess', allowing some interesting things to happen. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 24 Mar 06 - 09:48 PM From New Scientist website: Everlasting power in the offing It all began with a dollop of gloopy liquid and a misplaced magnet - New Scientist reports "IT LOOKED like a slug moving along the lab bench," says Jeffrey Cheung, a materials scientist at Rockwell Scientific in Los Angeles. "My first reaction was - oh my goodness someone forgot to turn off the sprinkler outside, and this thing has crawled into the lab. The strange thing was, when I moved to the right or the left, it always followed my movements." Then he leaned over to take a closer look. To his surprise, the slug shot off the workbench and rocketed straight at his midriff. That day, Cheung had been doing some experiments using a commercial ferrofluid. As fate would have it, he made two crucial errors. First he lost a bar magnet, which he had borrowed from a colleague for the experiment. Then he spilt a beakerful of the fluid over his lab bench, leaving it covered with a thick layer of reddish-brown goo. What happened ... But then it goes: The complete article is 1235 words long. To continue reading this article, subscribe to New Scientist. Gripping stuff. Reads like the opening of "Skylark of Space" or something like that. I've got to read the rest... |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 24 Mar 06 - 08:02 PM Jeffrey Cheung accidentally invented 'everlasting power' - by using powerful magnets and 'ferrofluid' allowing low power (less than 1 watt per unit) sources of energy due to movement - great for data buoys in the ocean! New Scientist 25 March 2006 P46 |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST,dianavan Date: 24 Mar 06 - 06:46 PM Bunnahab - If wind and solar power were developed, that doesn't mean the existing power grid would be shut down. We can still have hydroelectric power and new sources of energy would supplement that which already exists. Bert - Convential power stations? Do you mean coal generating plants? We use hydro and natural gas here in Canada. Much cleaner but still it creates havoc with the environment. I'm not sure what the answer would be for those who still use carbons. Get with it. Just about anything would be better. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Bert Date: 24 Mar 06 - 05:47 PM ...We're already finding nuclear waste to very inconvenient... You're right Don it is VERY difficult to dispose of. So is the waste from conventional power stations that is being spewed into our atmosphere at an alarming rate. See Cobble's message above. When I was in the nuclear power industry there were 20,000 deaths annually, in The UK alone, attributed to emissions from conventional power stations. Most of these were bronchial problems, people coughing themselves to death. How many deaths are due to nuclear power stations (including Chernobyl)? How many lives have been saved by generating power without all that smoke from conventional power stations? |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Don Firth Date: 24 Mar 06 - 05:15 PM It's hard to find someplace on earth where the sun is not shining and/or the wind is not blowing. The idea is a power grid. Besides, when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, some of that power can be used to charge batteries for use when it's dark and still. No brainer. Unless the moon decides to go off on its own, which astromomers tell us is not due for a few years yet, tides and ocean currents should be around for awhile. There are all kinds of ingenious ways of deriving electrical power there. And, no, the power derived would not be limited to coastal areas. Remember wires? That's how electricity gets from Ross Dam, out in the tall and uncut, all the way to Seattle. One can find all sorts of reasons to give up, especially if there is something that's been done before and some folks think is more convenient. But when everyting is toted up, nuclear power doesn't look that good. We're already finding nuclear waste to very inconvenient. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Bunnahabhain Date: 24 Mar 06 - 04:49 PM My question is this. Why develop nuclear power if its possible to develop solar and wind power? Seems like a no brainer to me. Beacuse the sun doesn't shine all the time, and the wind doesn't always blow. We have no method of storing electricity on the scale needed. Therefore we still need the other power generation, that works on a still night. Various sorts of renewable power have their place, but they could only provide 100% of our needs if we reduced our power consuption drastically. That answer your question? |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST,dianavan Date: 24 Mar 06 - 02:08 PM The 2010 Winter Olympics is supposed to feature sustainable development in Vancouver and the surrounding communities. Wind power will be a feature along the sea to sky highway near Squamish. I hope it works. We certainly need alternatives. I think, at this point, all options should be explored. Hydroelectricity requires dams and the destruction of large tracts of land. Nuclear power plants are pretty ugly too (never mind the waste). I can't think of any energy source that does not in some way impact the environment. Wind power is one of the least damaging. Solar power is pretty good, too. My question is this. Why develop nuclear power if its possible to develop solar and wind power? Seems like a no brainer to me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Cobble Date: 23 Mar 06 - 02:59 PM I like windmills too, there are a lot of not in my backyard types around, WELL TRY MY BACKYARD. 5 miles to Drax power station, 16 miles to Eggbourgh power station then approx 25 miles to Ferry Bridge power station, all coal burners, all spewing out filth and acid, (ask Bill Sables if you dont believe me). Drax is the biggest in Europe, it was putting acid on trees in Norway, nice eh, from the very large chimney it uses to disperse this crap. Three stations eating 1000+ tons each of coal per hour. Yes I would like to see wind and wave power in use a lot more, in this case would'nt you. And as for the not in my backyard type, take the cables away. If they want power at the expence of our health or the waste of resources it is causing, let then light there way with candles. Cobble. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST,DB Date: 23 Mar 06 - 02:24 PM Oh Bunnahabhain, I hope that you are right but I'm afraid that the Earth rapers don't have the imagination or intelligence to go into space. After all once they had beaten the Russians to the Moon they lost interest. Besides having the sense to properly fund space exploration is way beyond those who seem to think that you can get an infinite number of quarts into and out of a pint pot! |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST,Cats Date: 23 Mar 06 - 10:26 AM Sorry I didn't get back sooner, but I've been poorly. The wave power project is not yet commercial but it is being tested out off the Cornish coast. I know nuclear isn't the only alternative, but it does make some people stop and take stock, then you can come in with alternatives. I still like the windmills. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Bunnahabhain Date: 23 Mar 06 - 07:36 AM DB, in a few generations we won't need to clutter up the earth with so much stuff, we can clutter up space instead. Problem |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST,DB Date: 23 Mar 06 - 07:33 AM We are a species that insists on cluttering up the surface of the earth with things. This constant activity, exploitation, building and cluttering leads to the biosphere becoming more disordered and unstable - it will catch up with us in just a few generations and WE CAN'T BUILD OUR WAY OUT OF IT - especially not with things like windmills whose main purposes, I insist, are to give the appearance of doing something about the coming crisis and to make profits for windmill builders. We, as a species, need to start finding ways of reducing our 'footprint' on the earth - not increasing it! |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Big Al Whittle Date: 23 Mar 06 - 07:20 AM think about the circles that you find, in the windmills of your mind..... that pretty much does it for me |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: GUEST,lateral thinker Date: 22 Mar 06 - 08:43 AM instead of building all these things they should shrink people. I read somewhere that alchemists had potions back in the middle-ages that could stunt children's growth so that they would only grow to a third of normal size . That potion's ingredients are now unfortunately lost ,but I can't see why boffins can't somehow come up with a genetic equivalent . Think of all savings on household bills . Think how many package-tourists you'd be able to fit into an aeroplane . |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 22 Mar 06 - 06:35 AM Extraordinary story that, Don. That kind of set up is just what is being given official encouragement, even including subsidy, in other places. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Don Firth Date: 21 Mar 06 - 02:05 PM Well, I dunno. . . . I used to work with a fellow who built his own wind turbine and set it up in his back yard. It supplied all the electrical needs of his house with lots to spare. In fact his meter was running backwards, and the neighbors, far from objecting to his tower (which was not all that high), became very interested in Randy's little windmill and the independence it gave him from the local power grid and its fluctuating rates. But the backward running meter alerted Seattle City Light that something was going on. Inspectors started descending on him, only to discover that Randy had obtained all the necessary building permits (which didn't specifically mention windmills, but certainly did not forbid them), and everything was perfectly legal. Randy discovered that, according to the law, he could sell his excess electricity to City Light. City Light balked. Randy checked with an attorney, the attorney wrote a letter, and City Light continued to read the meter, but instead of sending Randy a bill, they sent him a check. But they were not happy about it. Other inspectors started showing up. One was from either the FAA or CAB, I'm not sure which. Randy lives in south Seattle, not that far from the Seattle-Tacoma International airport. They cited him for his "tower" being a potential hazard to planes coming in to land. Randy said that any plane on its approach to the airport that was low enough to hit the "tower" was already in deep shit, and the windmill would be the least of its problems. Once more to the attorney's office. After a few shouting matches and a few more inspections, Randy agreed to put a flashing red light on the top of the windmill, and apparently they couldn't find anything more to bitch about that could conceivably hold water. Randy's wind turbine is fairly quiet, it can be seen once you get close his neighborhood, but it's hardly "unsightly," and his neighbors think it's kinda cool! Randy hasn't paid an electric bill for some years now, and as I said, he gets a regular check from Seattle City Light. The adage, "You can't fight city hall" is one of those sayings that's encouraged by city hall. illegitami non carborundum! Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 21 Mar 06 - 10:44 AM GUEST 8:47 a.m. said: But I do favor the electricity being generated by wind farms being used locally, and not shipped via high voltage power lines to the cities, suburbs, and industrial parks. GUEST clearly doesn't understand the nature of the electric power industry. Other than little gasoline or diesel generators dedicated to individual users, all electric power producers feed into networks, for supply-smoothing purposes, and it is meaningless to talk about the power being "used locally". Trying to use small scale electric sources on a limited local basis is just ASKING for inefficiency and either waste capacity or unreliability, or both. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 21 Mar 06 - 10:17 AM Small scale decentralised. That is the alternative. |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: Joe Offer Date: 20 Mar 06 - 07:34 PM Antennas bristling from rooftops? Hmmmm. Sounds ominous, like the embassy of your friendly local superpower... |
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Subject: RE: BS: People moaning about windmills From: open mike Date: 20 Mar 06 - 01:43 PM thanks Donuel here is the Netherlands site info avaialbe in english http://www.turby.nl/ |
