Wind turbines - can be DIY made?

[Mary Fisher]

Some women are never happy!

Mary

[dennis]

This could well be true. And it is encouraged by the way savings are done in monetary terms. It is quite possible to pay for the energy now at £X /W and save lots of money in 15 years time when its 10x£X /W. It makes economic sense but wrecks the environment.

[dennis]

As long as its a small percentage then maybe. However if you build enough to generate 20% at all times you will need to beef up the distribution system (expensive). Its not going to be easy to move all the power from Linconshire to London at

10am and then from Cornwall to London at 11am, etc. as the winds move around the country.

Unless the power usage follows the weather that is.

[Huge]

It was being pumped anyway. It has a filter pump. And the output water was perceptibly warmed than the input. I shall defintiely do it again next year.

[Huge]

Yes, but it's effing hooj, now. The fireplace in the main sitting room must weigh about 500 tons. Of Carrera marble.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not if the cost of making it in carbon terms exceeds the payback

Thats the trouble with localised power generation. Its pro rata more expensive that centralised - in cash and CO2 generation terms both, and its not necessarily in the best place for efficiency.

[AJH]

ROCs

AJH

[Bob Eager]

Nope. David Hansen did that...my original comment was in response to a post of his.

But come on, I was just making a lighthearted comment. All I get is grief!

[Mary Fisher]

What wrecks the environment?

Mary

[Richard Downing]

Yes, I was considering how expensive a 10,000 litre oil tank would be. If I give up the lawn, and the kids in the school next door don't mind the smell, I could buy enough now at 32p/l to last a decade or so (when oil will cost 3.20/l + UK Gold Plated euro-environ-tax).

R.

[Guy King]

The message from David Hansen contains these words:

Which will be unlikely to occur frequently in the UK!

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 14:40:43 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-

Time will tell whether B&Q manage to shift many or not. However, the manufacturers of such small turbines have been growing steadily for some years.

[dennis]

Move your elderly neighbour into your house and save all his energy needs!

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 17:36:41 GMT someone who may be "dennis@home" wrote this:-

That rather depends on the precise status of the system in any one place. For example if we manage to ditch the white elephant nuclear stations in Scotland then the lines that export electricity to England can be used to export sustainable electricity. On the other hand the distribution system between Beauly and Denny does need upgrading. None of this is unforseen.

It will be very easy, the system to do this already exists and people have looked at what would need to be done to it at various wind penetrations. That work is one of the reason why the 20% figure exists.

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 19:22:32 +0100 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-

It is if one ignores the large losses from a centralised system. However, despite the best attempts of Mr Liar these costs are unlikely to be forgotten.

[Roger]

The message from David Hansen contains these words:

What makes you think I didn't read it? Actually I did so I can say with some certainty that the reason you wouldn't be more precise was because your source wasn't. The relevant paragraph is as follows:

"Fortunately, the need for backup can be reduced, by, for example, distributing wind turbines widely. 'There has not been a single moment in the last 40 years when the wind has not been blowing somewhere in the UK', says Sinden, who has examined decades of wind speed records from weather stations across the country. 'You may have calm, still weather in southern England, but the wind will still be blowing across the Highlands. The key to creating a reliable electricity supply from wind is to have the turbines in lots of different places, even in less windy parts of the country. That way, the need for spinning reserve and other backup is reduced.' "

What a load of tosh. A large stationary high situated over say Lichfield would give little or no useable wind anywhere in England or Wales (including coastal waters) for maybe a week or more. Having wind turbines in Northern Scotland would be next to useless in such circumstances however many they were.

And siting turbines "in less windy parts of the country" would mean even more wasted capacity as the load factor wouldn't even reach the 0.3 that the propagandists expect from a "reasonable" location.

"In evidence he presented to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee in 2003, Sinden showed that if offshore wind power alone were to provide 10 per cent of England and Wales's electricity demand, 3,500 megawatts of conventional capacity could be closed down, but an additional standby generating capacity of 3,135 megawatts would be required, negating most of the benefits."

Sinden goes on to say that the standby capacity could be reduced to 400 megawatts if the 10% was provided by 65% wind, 25% dCHP and 10% solar but no mention is made of what would be the case if wind was left out of the equation not what the installed wind capacity would have to be in order to provide its minor share in reducing the standby capacity.

Sloy is a conventional hydro scheme, not a pump storage scheme, and with an installed capacity of 160 megawatts it wouldn't be any use covering peaks anywhere South of the border with Scotland.

"Pump storage generation offers a critical back-up facility during periods of excessive demand on the national grid system."

Failures? Pull the other one. It would be hard pressed to cover for one large power station.

But as its busy covering "periods of excessive demand on the national grid system" it won't have the capacity to do much of anything else.

But the fossil fuel plant is still required for back-up and while that remains the case it is pointless wasting time, effort, energy and money providing wind generation capacity.

[Peter Ashby]

Depends how it's sold. The polls show people are becoming more and more accepting that things need to be done. What they want is systems whereby firstly they can change their behaviour to reduce costs and secondly that everyone is in the same boat.

Peter

[Mary Fisher]

Your opinion.

>

[Roger]

The message from David Hansen contains these words:

The nuclear power plants at Hunstanton and Torness seem ideally placed to provide electricity for Scotlands central belt rather than for export to England. When they close you will need your upgraded transmission lines from the far North to supply lowland Scotland.

[Andy Hall]

Probably true.

However, if you ask the supplementary questions of:

- Are you prepared to make personal investments with no return?

and

- Are you willing to spend 5-10% of your net income on a product to produce electricity ecologically but with no clear figures of how much and the payback period.?

it gets a little muddy.

For that there needs to be a clear and demonstrable ROI

Most people don't care about that if one looks at behaviour rather than what they would like others to think.