What fraction of the UK's total power consumption is that? and how long can Dinorwig keep up it's 1.3 GW trick for?
(Aside: I hadn't realized until recently that Dinorwig isn't the only one of these things in the world. There's at least one more in Germany - but with the reservoirs completely man-made- and given there are two, there are probably lots.)
Frank Erskine brought next idea :
Sorry, I misquoted.
At peak about 3%
From memory of a tour there; it can get 2GW for 6 hours from full to empty. The big thing about it is that it was relatively cheap to construct, operates at about 90% efficiency between pumping and output and profits on the difference between cheap off peak (mainly nuclear??) and expensive peak prices.
There's another smaller one in Wales (Ffestiniog??) and one planned or being built in the highlands.
Germany also has a large (cavernous) compressed air storage facility that has a similar function.
AJH
Having been in Munich 3 days last week, I think that results from the high sausage consumption...
I thought that, too. Just checked (Googled) and guess what I found:
The message from "Clot" contains these words:
I am surprised Hansen hasn't been along to muddy the waters. When pump storage schemes came up a bit ago he cited (I think) two in Scotland neither of which I can recall at the moment. IIRC one or possibly both were conventional hydro schemes with the addition of pump storage unlike Dinorwig which is nothing more than a pump storage system.
On Mon, 3 Mar 2008 10:25:11 -0800 (PST) someone who may be Martin Bonner wrote this:-
The aim is to cover the largest likely sudden failure. From memory this is Sizwell B or the connection to France.
Two lines above the line I quoted it says, "Output - 5 hours" That is long enough to re-arrange other forms of generation and wind it up.
On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:05:26 GMT someone who may be "Clot" wrote this:-
There are two. However, Foyers is fairly small.
On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 08:14:50 GMT someone who may be Roger wrote this:-
Excellent, two bits of rudeness in one sentence. Do keep it up.
Foyers was an entirely new station. However, it involved enlarging the reservoir of the earlier private generating station on the site (built for an aluminium works) and a new tunnel. The old tunnel and old building were used to feed/house a modern turbine. The contrast between this turbine and one of the many previous turbines indicates how engineering has advanced.
Cruachan was entirely new.
The head man of the Hydro Board wanted Sloy to be built as a pumped storage scheme. However, the engineering of the day wasn't up to it.
IIRC the first trial of pumped storage was at one of the smaller stations. However, as this involved bolting bits together it was not as quick to react as the alter schemes:-)
What's more any country that has a significant hydro capacity can use their hydro power plant to similar effect. By managing to run it at a part load setting and using the ability to very quickly use generate more or less power in a short time.
I expect that operational reasearch people have worked out the optimum part load settings versus other types of partially loaded gen plant.
The message from David Hansen contains these words:
Do keep your imagination in check.
You have been told before that surnames are a perfectly acceptable form of address between people even today where the intimacy of forenames would be inappropriate.
I doubt very much whether Eric Shipton and H W (Bill) Tilman (two mountaineers and explorers who were welknown when I was a lad) ever used christian names even when sharing a tent.
On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:12:24 +0000 someone who may be David Hansen wrote this:-
Sron Mor. There is/was a detachable pump on the same shaft as the turbine and motor-generator. This allows water to be pumped back into the main reservoir when full output from the main station at Clachan is not needed or when there is very heavy run-off.
I suspect that interconnector is almost flat out in one direction these days. It certainly will be if EdF are to manage their advertised 60% CO2 or C footprint reduction - I can't recall which at present!
I liked that! Did you mean sufficient time for a Dieity to respond to a call to ramp up the Beaufort Scale to get those Woollies' sandcastle windmills going or was it a metaphotical use of the cranking handle?
The Dinorwig scheme wasn't without problems. IIRC, drilling the shaft from Marchlyn Mawr to the Gen Station proved exciting. IIRC yet again - it is a few years ago- Gleesons was a principal contractor but the drilling of the shaft was undertakn by either a French or German company ( could have been a jv) and drilling through slate resulted in collapses in the shaft - not surprising when considerring the material and I think years previous - not that many- explosives had been used to blast the slate for its extraction.
On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 15:20:36 GMT someone who may be Roger wrote this:-
I have been told a great many things, but that does not mean all of them are true.
If someone refers to people by surname then it is likely that they fall into one of two groups. They might be of an older generation, where it was the fashion that male persons were referred to by their surname while female persons were referred to as Miss or Mrs and their surname. Alternatively they might be an academic, or someone who reads a lot of academic work, where everyone is referred to by their surname for brevity and accuracy.
However, when someone refers to only a small number of people by their surname and these are all people who they disagree with, it doesn't take much mind reading to work out why it is done.
On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 15:08:48 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be Ed Sirett wrote this:-
That was, in theory, the case in Ye Olden Days, when down south there was a CEGB and they had an order to use plant in. However, even they fiddled things in order to accommodate the expensive electricity generated by nuclear plants.
However, these days the market is king at least until gate closure. Presumably the individual operators know such things about the plant they operate and they have an idea about such things for other plant. This is then taken forward in the prices which are offered.
It was the market mechanism which finally revealed the cost of nuclear generation, even if that cost doesn't include the decommissioning cost. The authors of privatisation were reputedly unhappy to discover that the nuclear stations were such white elephants that they were withdrawn from the sale. Later on they were sold and even with various soft contracts [1] they had to be rescued from bankruptcy with my money.
[1] a Nuclear Electricity Agreement forced Scottish Power and Scottish Hydro Electric to take any electricity that Torness and Hunterston B managed to produce, whether they wanted it or not. The proportions each had to take were specified to a tenth of a percent. I can't be bothered to look it up, but it was around 55% for the former and 45% for the latter.
I've never felt the need to take issue with you before, but.....
And what is wrong with that? When I was working, I always answered the phone with my surname, never my first name unless it was someone I knew and had developed a rapport with.
In common with quite a few colleagues, I continued to do so after the company went 'American' and decided that everyone should answer with their first name. My first name is for *me* to decide who I invite to use it, not my employer.
'Mr, Miss, Mrs. Ms.' is a titular form of politeness that one accords to others. It is extremely ill-mannered for any individual to assume the title of 'Mr' when refering to himself or signing a letter. It is, however, good manners for a woman to indicate how she would like to be addressed by enclosing in brackets after her signature on a letter her title. If she doesn't, she must run the risk of being addressed in a manner which may not please her.
There was *no* rudeness when others refered to you by your surname only, they were merely being impolite. That is not the same thing.
No problems with that.
Wrong, see above. I suggest you need to thicken your hide somewhat.
On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 09:10:43 +0000 someone who may be The Wanderer wrote this:-
Being of an older generation, nothing.
If someone referred to everyone as Mr, Miss, Mrs. or Ms. and their surname then that would be a different matter. However if someone leaves out the Mr, while leaving in the Miss, Mrs. or Ms., that is a different matter as they are bring rude to persons of the male persuasion.
It would also be a different matter if someone referred to everyone by their surname. However, if someone refers to only a few people by their surname that are being as rude as the person above.
You appear to assume that I am in some way upset by the way people refer to me. If that is the case then you are wrong.
The message from David Hansen contains these words:
What utter tosh. Nuclear plants make ideal base load suppliers precisely because there is so little difference in cost between having them idle and working them at full power.
The government designed the price mechanism to be hard on both the coal fired and the nuclear generators and to give the instant power merchants all the cream they weren't reserving for the greenies. They even went as far as imposing the CO2 levy on the nuclear industry to further disadvantage them.
There comes a price level where a coal fired generator can be shut down for a period to minimise the operators losses. For the nuclear generator that level is as near giving away free electricity as makes no difference but if the feeble management in control at British Energy had had the guts to play the system they could have forced a change in the way the price mechanism worked rather than being forced into bankruptcy by a gleeful government who got a fire sale share in the business as a reward for bailing them out.
At what price?
You see that as a burden but depending on price the larger share could have been advantageous and pinning it down exactly would still be necessary to avoid arguments between competing retailers.
The message from David Hansen contains these words:
Clearest exposition yet of your ground rules. So it is perfectly ok for you to imply I am a liar when I post a fact but utterly unacceptable when I question the validity of the opinions you try to make out as facts.
More insults. Do keep up the good work.
As it happens I tend to divide the denizens of Usenet into three groups, those I consider friends, those I consider opponents and those I hold in contempt. The division between groups 1 and 2 is not always consistent. Group 3 tend to end up in my kill file which is why you won't have seen me respond directly to Dribble for years and why, possibly, a good many attacks go unanswered.
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