The reasons why windmills wont work...

[John Rumm]

The three gorges dam project in China would suggest otherwise!

[Roger]

The message from "Doki" contains these words:

There you go.

Seriously misleading headline.

So fly ash is much the same risk as the radiation that has escaped from nuclear power stations. So what. Significant radiation shouldn't be allowed to escape from nuclear plant and normally isn't.

[Dave Liquorice]

I'm missing something the Three Gorges isn't tidal... Though it is a pretty effective at mass destruction.

[Dave Liquorice]

Don't have any within a mile of here and then there are only half dozen, nasty light polluting things they are as well (only half a smiley).

Small ones then.

2MW turbines have a hub height around 70m (200'), blades around 40m (130') long giving something with an overall height of 110m (360'). Think of putting an axle in the middle of a jumbo jet and mounting it like a childs windmill, that is the scale of these things.

[Dave Liquorice]

But they are very predictable and slack water happens four times a day for about an hour, the rest of thetime there is a flow.

However a tidal barrage is using the water level difference to drive the turbines how you manage the level behind the barrage determines how long and at what power level the barrage can generate electricty.

[Dave Liquorice]

It was also built as a "black start" facilty, man with big handle and a torch... (well not quite but you get the picture...)

Or simply asking for another 100MW from each of stations remaining, you don't run a station right at 100% you have a bit of spare capacity, "just in case"...

[Andy Champ]

Edward,

Consider it this way.

The sources of power available to us fit into four categories:

Fossil. Coal, oil, the like. From ancient solar input.

Renewables. (using the word in its usual sense). Wind, hydro, biomass, solar. All driven directly or indirectly by current or very recent solar input.

Fission. Uranium 235 and a few other materials can be easily broken down with the generation of colossal amounts of energy and some rather nasty waste (which is what Windscale is for). One trick is to use waste neutrons to turn useless U238 (depleted uranium) into fissionable plutonium 239, which is great for more power stations and nuclear warheads. Windscale again.

Fusion. Hydrogen isotopes and other light atoms (lithium springs to mind, I'm no expert) can be persuaded under suitable conditions to become different, heavier, atoms with the release of colossal amounts of energy. Suitable conditions are very high pressure and temperature, easily achieved in a star but difficult outside one.

These four categories are unrelated. It actually makes more sense to group fossil (burning coal) with Renewables (includes burning wood) than to link fission and fusion.

Andy

[magwitch]

I can see the horrible orange glow on the horizon of Newmarket 9 miles NW and Haverhill 9 miles SW... how people get to sleep with them I don't know.

We drove past quite a few in Denmark a few Christmases ago... none of them were working on the forward journey (no wind) and they weren't working on the return journey either (too much wind).

[Andy Champ]

[e-mail] wrote: >> ISTR reading that the fly ash from coal power stations is about as

google "coal ash uranium"

1st hit: a little further down, from that obscure and unreliable journal (not) "Scientific American"

(that might wrap, if so )

Andy

[John Rumm]

Yup, I appreciate it is not tidal, but it is a good example of how something superficially green sounding can cause widespread destruction of a vast area.

[Ben Hutchings]

Which anti-immigration propaganda did you get that from? The ONS reports[*] a rise from 55.9 m to 60.6 m over the period 1971-2006. That's less than 5 million more over 35 years.

[Anna Kettle]

Well in that case you must live just down the road from TNP and a hop skip and a jump from me and there was me thinking I lived in a rural and isolated part of the country. Though maybe the truth is that DIYers like to live in places where there is plenty of space to spread out their toys

Street lamps are dreadfully inefficient I think. I have no idea why they cant focus the light down onto the ground rather than light up the sky. It would cost peanuts to do and save lots of energy I'd have thought

Anna

[Anna Kettle]

What do you mean? What is the problem with the rush hour in France happening at the same time as the rush hour in England? I'm all in favour of BST*2. And if the Scots dont like it then they can du different. Thats what devolution is for

Anna

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 20:02:14 on Fri, 7 Mar 2008, magwitch remarked:

Precisely. And they are noisy too.

[Anna Kettle]

I think thats a short sighted attitude and assumes that what happens in Africa is disconnected from what happens here.

One of the main sources of terror attacks is frustrated young men with too much testosterone and not enough of a stake in society

Anna

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 07:56:02 on Sat, 8 Mar 2008, Anna Kettle remarked:

They do, but it scatters back up.

[Roger]

The message from Roland Perry contains these words:

There is a marked difference between modern street lighting where there has been a determined effort to direct the light down towards the road and the older lights that make little or no attempt at directionality. Unfortunately there is also a marked reluctance of those who hold the purse strings to allow change even though, in the long run, there are significant savings to be had.

[Peter Parry]

The problem with urban windmills is simply that they don't produce any significant amount of electricity. This doesn't bother the greenwashers as image is more important than substance.

Solar/wind streetlamps are made

in autumn and winter can often stay alight until as late as 7PM.

[magwitch]

Indeed. I wished we could have afforded you to do some pargetting ;)

Hate, hate, hate them!

Like some not too near neighbours have arc lights on all night for 'security'. I'd have thought they make any burglars' job easier because they light their way to where the mowers etc. are kept.

When the new light nuisance/pollution law came in last year I wrote to the council about it, but no joy... just got a dismissive reply saying the law didn't apply, although reading the guidelines it certainly did.

[magwitch]

Ahhh... the poor lambs, my heart bleeds.

I used to think along these lines, but with the industrial scale killing of their own people in Iraq, Afghanistan and here a few summers ago, I've changed my mind.