The true cost of wind...

[charles]

and they can trundle along at about 10mph and need to be recharged every 20 miles. Fine

[tony sayer]

In article , Java Jive scribeth thus

ISTR that you posted a link to that site but I didn't remember seeing any references to that. For the sake of clarity can you do it again and direct us to the section that states that please...

[tony sayer]

In article , Java Jive scribeth thus

Power trains with batteries?..

There have been a very few battery locos, very few indeed and totally impractical for all but the shortest lightest journeys..

The average Electric multiple unit takes some 130 kW or more per motored axle IIRC..

A Eurostar in full flight 8 Megawatts...

[The Natural Philosopher]

cripes if there was any project at all that looked like it could make the grade I'd invest in it like a shot. I've looked at dozens. And shaken my head and moved on.

One technology and one alone looks potentally possible but its way early days, and tha's lithium air batteries. They could actually make electric cars viable.

But as I said somewhere else, if all the households in the UK had a

100kWh battery* car all together they could run the UK grid for just 40 minutes.

(about 30 litres of diesel equivalent range wise, or a tad more)

[Java Jive]

[Java Jive]

[tony sayer]

In article , Java Jive scribeth thus

If you could do as requested please....

Thnx..

[The Other Mike]

The ad break / programme end pickup is not really an issue with lots of different channels, audience being split across many of them, less tv viewing etc. The era of 20+ million watching one programme and then all getting up to make a cup of tea or go for a piss is long gone. The nearest you get now to a significant load pickup is a Royal Wedding or Funeral.

Tonight, from 1920 to 2030 the load was just ramping down at a reasonably constant rate despite three soaps (Emmerdale 1900-1930, Eastenders 1930-2000, Emmerdale 2000-2030) finishing within that timeframe. No 1GW pickups, no load pickups at all, nothing of any concern, frequency a high of 50.083Hz, a min of

49.97Hz

UK demand MW @ 5 minute intervals 1920 - 2030

40242 39952 39713 39934 39613 39290 39122 38850 38456 38349 37891 37381 37127 36648 36283

[Java Jive]

[bert]

In message , Tim Streater writes

I've done a bit of blue sky thinking - or was it green fields- and I would like to turn lead into gold to solve the current economic crisis. (That's the one in this household not the global one) I think it, therefore it is. I think it must have been green fields thinking

[bert]

In message , Java Jive writes

Like the garbage you keep posting?

[Java Jive]

All I can say is that I saw a BBC4 documentary comparatively recently, within the last year or so, where the guys in the control centre appeared to 'conducting' live, in the musical sense, the operation of keeping the supply parameters within limits.

[Terry Fields]

You were suggesting not that long ago that lithium hydroxide could be used to capture carbon from power generation, on the grounds that it had been used to absorb CO2 in the Apollo missions, without doing the slightest amount of research as to why this particular compound was used in that specific application.

Your blue-sky thinking appears to be little more than an excuse to project your ego, and one suspects that this is the only 'contribution' it makes.

Oh, and stop quoting the BBC on the topic. Since they adapoted their policy of only presenting the case for CC, and not allowing any contrary view, they are not a reliable source, and haven't been for some time.

[Tim Lamb]

Perhaps, like me, they channel hop to watch something else during the break:-)

[The Other Mike]

Yes they do, and its a highly skilled operation. The figures don't lie, but the interpretation of them in a rush can as there was actually a 221MW pickup between 1930 and 1935 - so 74000 3kW kettles, or 0.3% of the households in the UK got up and switched their kettles on at the end of the 1900-1930 episode of Emmerdale.

Against a background of the load dropping at a rate of just under 4GW per hour or 50MW per minute it's neither here nor there and certainly not worth considering investing billions in some half assed storage technology in every household in the country for.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It is what we have Dinorwig for. and of course all the CCGT plant and coal plant will have some kind off automatic throttling on it so they are in 'cruise control' mode and will just press that fast pedal a bit.

domestic storage only makes sense if you can store enough cheap rate t take you through peak rate and still end up saving money.

And in that particular context, storage heating done proper would be cost effective and valuable.

The calculations on an insulated concrete tank of hot water under the house show its perfectly capable of running central heating by day although off peak demand would be pretty massive - this house needs around 12KW to stay warm on the -5C days, and that means that to run it in pulse mode with 8 hours charge 16 hours discharge would put peak demand at something like 36KW. which is near the limit of a domestic installation.

Its very easy to store heat. What is almost impossible is getting it back into electricity at any reasonable efficiency.

[Tim Streater]

More evidence that JJ can't do sums.

[tony sayer]

In article , Java Jive scribeth thus

****************************************

You're rather missing the point! WNA figures suggest that the fuel might run out in as little as 10 years. Long term, that just as insecure a supply as wind is in the short term. If it's strategic security of supply you want, that means carbon-based, most probably coal or gas from shale or coal.

Plenty? Again, this is a myth. There's a little under 400GWyrs' worth of recyclable material in the UK. Over a 60 year plant lifecycle, such as is planned for new nuclear, that's a mere 6.5GW. It's nothing like enough.

************************************

Where in the WNA journal it says or suggests that the fuel is going to run out in as little as 10 years...

[docholliday93]

That doesn't seem to add up to me - just over 26 million households with 100kWh gives a total of 2600GWh. Current demand about 40GW so around 66 hours (assuming 100% efficiency in conversion, of course) But of course it's never going to happen with current battery technology...

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, they do not, anywhere. ever. say that.

this is a more realistic assessment

depending on the technology. there's shedloads of U-238, which could be bred into plutonium.

theres ten years worth of pu239 for EXISTING reactors.

nowhere.