Compact fluorescent lamps failing

[The Natural Philosopher]

Wrong. If we all had electric cars, we would charge them overnight on cheap rate.

I did the sums,and at current prices £3k of lead acid batteries in the boiler room is enough to power a house for 24 hours. If cheap rate/peak rates were at suitably high differentails, people would find that cost effective. a smart charger.inverter that responds to line voltage, going from charge to supply as line voltage drops..

PLUS you CAN modulate a reactor.

Or just dump extra heat. At .01p per KWH fo he uranium,you can afford to.

Its already been established that most of the cost of nuclear generation are nothing to do with the fuel. So wheher is generating power or not once you have it built and stafed maks little difference t he cost base.

Battery cars and battery houses.

we would still have them.

>

[The Natural Philosopher]

There could be uranium mines in the UK if uranium were sufficiently expensive. Its in just about all rocks to some extent, and in sea water.

And fast breeder reactors would become cost effective if the price were high, too.

[The Natural Philosopher]

That's because they have done SOME of the sums, and suffered cognitive dissonance on the answers.

[DM]

While in general I think CFL's are a good solution for certain applications, that is a pretty small sample size to come to a conclusion on.

It is good advice to currently avoid using them in enclosed fittings unless specified for that purpose.

The big problem with CFL's is the variability of the different brands and even batches from different manufacturers. This makes it virtually impossible to make any conclusive statement about them.

As more cheap imports start appearing due to market demand they could potentially get an even worse reputation for poor colour and reliability. It is easy to see poor quality electrolytic caps getting used, which, especially in enclosed fittings, will dry out and cause problems.

cheers

David

[<me9]

It's as much the turbine design as the 'boiler' design. It affects coal/oil fired stations as well. The reactors can be shut down quickly -- It's a safety requirement. The problem is designs that will only take a maximun number of starts, from cold, or warm. A lot of large coal burning systems weree designed for a maximum of under two dozen cold starts, but more warm starts. Under the current 'efficient' running regime many are running at well over the designed number of starts. Rolling reserve is lossy, so is frowned upon these days, but can cope with changes of demand quickly. Dinorwic (and other pumped schemes) were intended to reduce the need for rolling reserve.

[<me9]

Or sell it off for district heating. A reactor is a good source of hot water, without going through the inefficiencies of electrical generation. A large loss in piping would be required to match these inefficiencies.

[Man at B&Q]

I like that, apart from the lead bit, but I'm sure that will be overcome in time. A bit like cold water storage tanks to even out mains pressure fluctuations?

The change in infrastructure to support domestic energy being 100% electric will be needed anyway when the oil/gas runs out/is controlled by the enemy.

[Bob Eager]

Sounds a bit like wind turbines.

[Man at B&Q]

There's a big difference between being reliant on a STEADY AND CONTINUOUS flow of gas that can be switched off at a moment notice (think Ukraine) and cannot easily be stock piled for long term security of supply and uranium which will come by the boat load and be easily stockpiled for long enough to overcome difficulties of supply.

MBQ

[<me9]

Why electricity? It is at most 50% efficient (A thermodynamic law). Transmission losses for pumped hot water could be a lot less than that. A nuclear district heating system could be more effective in urban areas.

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:31:15 +0000 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-

Ah, proof by assertion.

Not everybody has a car at the moment, but even if everyone did one would need to consider the environmental impact of the batteries.

Then there is the question of how much load they would represent.

Not to any extent with current designs for electricity generation. As I said, there are claims about future designs.

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:47:48 GMT someone who may be wrote this:-

As i have said on more than one occasion, if such power stations are so attractive then they can be built in cities.

[David Hansen]

On 22 Nov 2007 14:15:23 GMT someone who may be "Bob Eager" wrote this:-

Wind turbines are used in a different way at the moment and have different characteristics [1]. However, it has been shown that they can be easily incorporated into the system at up to 20% of total generation. Above 20%, at todays prices, it becomes expensive to accommodate them. Wind is already producing over 8% of electricity in Scotland, it may be 9 or 10% by now.

[1] a small number of large power stations which can essentially be on or off and may suddenly fail is a different proposition to a large number of small generators whose output can be predicted very well in the timescales that matter in the UK. The large number of small generators are particularly easy to treat statistically.

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 06:17:21 -0800 (PST) someone who may be "Man at B&Q" wrote this:-

The Germans and a number of other people on the mainland manage to store gas for a fair amount of time.

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:14:37 +0000 someone who may be DM wrote this:-

It is, but it is more of a sample size than some others have. I have also seen them used in enclosed fittings in a number of buildings.

[Andy Hall]

It could be provided that there are good controls and means of transfer. For example, in the greater Moscow area there are district heating systems run from huge generation stations. The heat is switched on on Oct 1st. Regardless. This year it was quite warm on Oct 1st and heat wasn't really necessary. Most apartment buildings using the system are relatively old and don't have good individual controls. Fortunately people were able to address the problem by opening all the windows....

[Andy Hall]

The problem is that these things are woefully inadequate in terms of the amount of energy generated for a given amount of environmental impact.

We know that there is a lot of wind in Scotland - more than in other parts of the country. Much of it is hot air, of course.

[Andy Hall]

[Adam Aglionby]

Development and deployment, at points UK was world leader in research and development into both wave and wind power but research is expensive and falling oil costs meant less customers. Fully dropped the ball on that one.

All the nuclear designs currently being considered are of US origin I think.

Working deliverable systems would find a market with developing economies building new plant and selling the carbon credits to wheezing old economies grandfathering the last out of stuff.

But the stuff that was in use 50 years ago is still too hot to handle.

Political will was missing not technology, Battersea Power Station had water washing clean up on its emmisions and it was designed in 1926, political will behind that was fear that smog would damage paintings in the National Gallery, remained one of most efficient coal burners on the grid till closure.

Difficult to quantify , in that we have no experince of cleaning up after either, on damage stakes Chernobyl and surrounds still dont look too good, neither did parts of Cumbria and the Scottish Borders which still had hightened levels of radio activity restriciting animal movements 10 years on.

Adam

[Derek Geldard]

They have their limitations and they are not mysterious. I've looked at them in a work related capacity. They are at the stage CFL's were

20 years ago, in an "It's really good they can do that" sense.

Currently they can be used to good effect to light display cabinets instead of 10w halogens, they make glassware sparkle. But to light this room I am sitting in (23' x 12' ) to office standards would require untold thousands of them as opposed to 250w (electrical) of CFL's. Still, not that bad of course my mother used to have a single

200w filament lamp in the front room of the house I grew up in and that was half this size.

We are getting there, just, but like British Railways, not very fast.

You need *me* to tell you ?

DG