VW Generators

[harryagain]

Nobody yet knows whether the nuclear waste can be dealt with. So nobody knows the cost. Leaving it for your children to dea lwith is not the answer.

[John Williamson]

Every time you post this drivel, you prove yet again your lack of comprehension of the problem and solutions available. Repeatedly denying that nuclear waste can be dealt with by any of the numerous methods that have been outlined to you over the years does not make your assertions true.

The only problem dealing with nuclear waste is the FUD and NIMBYism of the greens.

As for leaving the problem of disposing of waste to your children, who's going to deal with the waste when your solar panels come to their "end of life" and stop working in a generation or so?

[dennis]

See, wrong answer again. All greens have the wrong answer to everything.

It is the correct answer, you leave it for a few years and then burn it up as fuel. You are leaving the solar panels and wind turbine reprocessing to your kids what is the difference other than it will kill more of them than nuclear will? Just what is better about killing someone with green energy and not killing them with nuke energy?

[John Rumm]

I think the laws of thermodynamics might have something to say about that!

That will be news to national grid...

The FIT system generally seems skewed to encourage use of the least effective and appropriate technologies first. Install small scale hydro that can generate constant power 24/7 and you get a feeble FIT payment for that!

[Johny B Good]

Ok then, let me explain it this way:

A small home generator driven by an ICE is going to be chucking away some 70 to 80 percent of the heat energy input from the fuel, in this case Natural Gas. A gas central heating boiler is only going to transfer circa 80% of the energy into the house, the rest going up the flue.

If you size up the micro CHP plant to match the waste heat to the original CH boiler, the generator output can be used to supplement the grid supply, reducing the high wintertime demand.

At the very least, you'll be saving on electricity at an equivilent cost of some 3 or 4 times the cost of the fuel's energy equivilent with hardly any change to your consumption of gas.

In effect, instead of sending that 20% of waste heat up the flue, you'll be sending the equivilent heat energy into the grid as high value electrical energy.

In the wintertime, you'll still be a net consumer of electricity, the grid connection simply allows you to smooth out your demand whilst making a valuable contribution during peak demand periods, unlike PV which supplies its energy during off-peak periods, placing the grid in danger of becoming unstable once the whole world and their dog get in on the act.

If the whole world and their dog got into the micro CHP 'act', the PSUs wouldn't bat an eyelid since this would contribute to the stability of the grid.

Very old news. They've been using pumped storage facilties (Ffestiniog and Dinorwig) for many decades now so it's certainly very stale news.

My point here is that the grid makes an excellent storage facility from the householders' viewpoint since it can absorb the surplus to useful effect by supplementing the local supply during peak demand periods, reducing stress on the grid as a whole.

The FIT rates will surely drop for solar power as more efficient and cheaper per watt panels appear in the market place in sufficient quantities so as to make their use in the UK start to look like a sensible investment.

Regulations regarding the export of home generated power into the grid will have to be made to restrict the periods during which such energy is permitted to be exported.

This will afflict PV the most since this will require the intermediary of an electrical storage device to delay the export of the surplus energy gained during the off peak daylight hours. In other words, such installations won't be allowed to use the grid as an immediate energy storage sink as is presently the case.

Micro CHP, otoh, might actually be exempted from such time of export restrictions simply because most would only be fired up during times of occupancy when the occupants will be using some or all of the excess electrical energy.

[dennis]

A lot of greens think the grid stores their power and that they don't burn any carbon when the sun goes in. Like I said to harry, the greens always have the wrong answer.

[dennis]

It will never be a sensible way to generate power unless there is some storage available, the tidly bit that is in the grid is several orders of magnitude too small.

It may well be a sensible investment for some, just don't try and kid yourself or anyone else its a green project.

Why will that be true, surely you need the plant to be available to generate power when there is demand and not just from the householder. Its a waste of time if you can't get power when its needed, just like wind and solar is.

>

[John Williamson]

Storage as meant in this application is where the other generators attached to the grid work a bit less hard when yours is working, and harder when it isn't. You can't easily store AC, even in tiny amounts. Flywheel and an alternator, maybe?

Yup.

[harryagain]

So what is the cost Mr Know it all? Do you even know of anyone that does know?

You and a few other make these stupid remarks/statements. Clearly you have swallowed the propaganda like the credulous fools you are without even slight research.

[harryagain]

You're just not smart enough to get your head around this stuff are you Den? Did you ever go to school?

[harryagain]

Only you are so dense Den. The greens have seen our present situation arising decades ago. You can't even comprehend it now.

[harryagain]

We can't afford the true cost of nuclear power. The costs until now have been hidden. Kicked into the future. Now they are in the open, we can see what a bunch of lies we were told in the past.

The pigeons are coming home to roost.

[John Williamson]

It depends on the final decision, but it will be a tiny fraction of a penny per kilowatt hour generated, even using the most pessimistic assumption of no re-use of fuel after the first time through the reactor. Re-use of fuel or the use of Thorium reactors will reduce this even further.

Then again, *you* keep making vague assertions about how you know how much it will cost, so maybe you'd like to enlighten us?

I note that you have yet again carefully dodged the issue of what's to happen to your solar panels at their end of life.

It doesn't take much research to show that your favoured options of photovoltaic and wind generation are totally useless and actually

*increase* pollution per kilowatt hour of energy used over and above that caused by burning fossil fuels. Though I did meet someone last year who had spent a year researching renewables and came to the conclusion that they're a waste of time, money and effort. That's what he wrote in his thesis, anyway. (In Chinese, as that's where he came from)

[John Rumm]

The greens have been talking bollocks for decades, can't see them talking sense any time soon. According to them we ran out of fossil fuels ages ago.

[Vir Campestris]

I wouldn't get that excited.

It looks as though they are more efficient than conventional boilers - but not by much. About 85% total, so 15% is going up the flue. It's better, but not revolutionary.

What you do get is electricity generation inside that 85%, so it is a good way to make power - but it isn't going to affect your gas bill. In fact, if it's 6:1 heat:power (which seems typical) you'll get slightly less heat from your gas than a good conventional boiler!

Luckily most of the electricity will probably become heat too, so your gas bill might dip slightly.

Andy (who has no mains gas)

[John Rumm]

I would surprised if much of that 20% is actually recoverable though...

And compared with the option of running a 90%+ efficiency boiler, without the added complexity (and potential unreliability and capital costs) of the electrical generation element, its a less clear choice.

(and that is before you consider the extra instability introduced into the grid by even more non dispatchable generation, coupled with the requirement the generation capacity be paid for and duplicated elsewhere).

Perhaps if you replace the room thermostat with remote control by smart grid. That way the national grid can fire up your boiler when it needs its./ If you are lucky that might sometimes correspond to when you want your house heated!

To be fair, one or two of them are beginning to.

Indeed. The nice thing about LFTR is that much of the difficult engineering has already been done and proven. The main outstanding bits are the fuel cycle processing and online refuelling IIUC. Just think you will then have the likes of harry telling us its too dangerous to use all that nuclear waste for fuel, that previously they were telling us it was too dangerous to store, (when they weren't telling us there was no way to do so!)

[John Rumm]

We should get that printed on a tee shirt for the next greenpeace rally ;-)

[The Other Mike]

A useful reference point.

Solar panels with a claimed maximum rating of 1GW have a glass content in excess of 50,000 Tonnes

So in Germany they currently have more than 1.5 million tonnes of glass to get rid of in around 25 years, not just any glass, glass rammed full of cadmium.

[dennis]

Our present situation is caused by the greens, they always get the wrong answer.

[Johny B Good]

Are 90% or better efficiency CH boilers available today? If so, then you have a valid point of concern, especially if you're not bothered about reducing electricity usage.

That's the biggest advantage of micro CHP. you'll most likely be generating the extra electricity when you and everyone else around you is contributing to the peak demand on the grid. Your input _will_ be very much appreciated by the PSUs on account it will be timed to coincide with peak demand thus helping to stabilise the grid rather than, in the case of PV, de-stabilising it.

That's a definite non-starter.

You're preaching to the choir as far as I'm concerned. :-)