Wind output reaches new low..

[The Natural Philosopher]

google gasparin CO2 motor.. teeny little model aircraft engine powered from sparklets cartridges..

I saw one fly once. Hilarious. Does about 45 seconds before the tank runs 'dry'

[The Natural Philosopher]

without a full barrage the power output is negligie.

Even by converting the whole severn to a power station, its still less than a couple of modern nukes.

and with a head measured in feet, not thousands of feet, the efficiency will be rubbish too.

[geoff]

I just thought that "low hanging fruit" meant more or less the same thing

[geoff]

What is he, a civet ?

Come on girls, lets stop wasting hot air

[The Natural Philosopher]

Steveie Froth is one of those trolls who always shift the context to win arguments by setting up straw men and then resorting to ad hominems when called out.

He should lay off the Charlie.

[geoff]

In message , Jethro writes

Err ...

did you miss what's been going on in Japan of late ?

[geoff]

He was doing quite well for a while too ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well possibly.

Poor dear isn't getting enough.

[Steve Firth]

TNP is a moron who thinks he knows something about Science and Engineering but who lays his ignorance bare with each post he makes to Usenet. When called on his stupidities, which are many, he pouts, sulks and indulges in petty personal attacks.

That isn't just a personal attack, that's libel. Perhaps you should learn the difference between insult and libel?

[chris French]

Yes Algae, we were at the Big Bang Fair a few weeks ago. One of the stands there had a team researching on just this area. It did sound promising, but practical real life application some way off. And of course as ever, the devil is in the details.

[Matty F]

Use water from the hydro lakes. Hydroelectric power accounts for 57% of the total electricity generation in New Zealand. But there's not enough rain in a year to run the hydro generators at maximum for a year. The power output from hydro can be quickly altered if the wind stops or blows, although that's unlikely over a country the size of the UK.

Not near the power generators.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Correct

although that's unlikely over a country the size of

Incorrect.

In the last few weeks I have seen windpower touch nearly 2GW and fall to as little as 20MW. That's 100:1 change OVER THE WHOLE COUNTRY. In just the two weeks since I have been recording it.

Scale that up to 30% average of the grid and it would be like having 90% of the countries power stations coming online and going offline over a period of less than a day.

Just near the dams :-)

wind may actually work in NZ because of the hydro. It will still be environmentally destructive and wasteful of materials, but its just about possible to top up 75% of water with 25% of wind and make it work, albeit at a cost several times that of nuclear.

[Alan Braggins]

't compete economically with digging it out of the ground yet.)

[Skipweasel]

Oooh, my plums.

[The Natural Philosopher]

well if diesel gets to £5 a liter, and it will, those sorts of processes mean that we will still have some..at £4.99 a litre.

Need a lot of nuclear power to drive the plants though. And don't tell me that we can drive them from windmills. You want a plant like that to be viable, and that means driving it flat out 24x7x365. Not just when there is a full gale blowing in Scotland.

[tony sayer]

OK so the capacity that the windpower sets have is fully backed by Hydro?. Else you must have something else to meet the full load?..

Or is it consistently windier in NZ than here?..

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes, in NZ it is actually. The sets can do the full capacity, just not for 12 months.

So you turn em down when the wind blows.

And pray its not a dry year with no wind..which sadly often go together..

[Matty F]

57% hydroelectricity, 18% natural gas, 10% coal, 7% geothermal, 5% wind, 2% oil. There is a new tidal scheme about to be built. That could generate a huge amount of energy if stupid people don't stop it. There's more geothermal and hydro potential.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Whereas 2 or three good nukes could be tucked almost anywhere, and remove all the coal and oil gas and wind meeds..sigh.

Still NZ is a weird place.

[Matty F]

NZ doesn't have as much plutonium on the beaches. From Sellafield (formerly known as Windscale) "1983 was the year of the "Beach Discharge Incident" in which high radioactive discharges containing ruthenium and rhodium 106, both beta-emitting isotopes, resulted in the closure of beaches along a 10-mile stretch of coast between St. Bees and Eskmeals, along with warnings against swimming in the sea."