Yes folks, its cheaper to heat with electricity!

[dennis]

What makes you think reactors run on uranium?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Was the funeral televised?

I must have been doing something more interesting, like watching paint dry..

Now a resurrection..THAT would have been worth televising.

[geoff]

Even my mother-in-law watched it

... In Indonesia

I think that I must have been watching paint dry or something

I missed it

[Doctor Drivel]

It isn't. Is the water getting away from Ironbridge fast enough? No it isn't. Without a restriction below Ironbridge the water will flow faster. What are the restrictions? One is the high water level at the end.

Maxie, the river bed and banks are like a pipe. Make it deeper and wider and more water runs down. Simple eh? Understand training walls. Liverpool has them underwater in Liverpool Bay approaching the Mersey. They create an underwater river: bed, and banks (training walls). This diverts water through channels quickly and increases currents keeping the deep water shipping channel deep. Now that is when underwater. Clog the channel with sand the flow drops like a stone.

[Doctor Drivel]

Maxie, were you playing in your Paddy band at the time? Wow! Fantastic. Was this green paint on the walls

[geoff]

In message , Doctor Drivel writes

You really are stupid, aren't you

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Jules saying something like:

Half a dozen freezer guts would do the job.

[Edward W. Thompson]

Efficiency of a cogeneration gas turbine plant is of the order of 80% somewhat more than 'up just a little'.

[Mark Ayliffe]

On or about 2008-05-01, Tony Bryer illuminated us with:

Well it would be an order of magnitude bigger for a start. The Rance estuary is tiny by comparison. Probably rather greater silt content, but I have no way be being sure on that. And of course Rance isn't twin-lagoon.

[Mark Ayliffe]

On or about 2008-05-01, magwitch illuminated us with:

I spent it helping a friend & his father polish their collection of exotic cars. Lovely weather for that.

[Mark Ayliffe]

On or about 2008-05-01, geoff illuminated us with:

Umm, with respect, that's downstream of Shewsbury and would not cause flooding there. That one helps cause the problems at Ironbridge though.

Absolutely.

OK, I'll give this one last go*. There is absolutely no way that tidal effects 100 miles downstream cause or even contribute to flooding in Shrewsury. The "message" of the water backing up is going to travel at more or less walking pace. Even if it's at the speed of the bore (which it won't be), that's only 10MPH. It would take 10 hours for the "back-up" to reach Shrewsbury, even at bore speed, by which time the tide at Gloucester is near low tide.

The reason for flooding at Shrewsbury, as others have said, is that there is a large plain *above* the town, which can collect a lot of water, but there is a narrowing of the river channel around where it flows out of the city centre. Not quite a gorge like at Ironbridge, but the river can't overtop its banks and spread over a flood plain, so it just gets deeper and deeper. Anyone has seen the river in full flow at Ironbridge knows full well that tides simply aren't relevant.

• One can lead a horse to water, but one can only hold it's head under for so long.

[The Luggage]

AFAIK, the Calder Hall reactors never caught fire, it was the open- topped 'Windscale Pile no 1'

HTH

TL

[The Luggage]

That is only true for enclosed pipes. As soon as you have a free surface, the only thing that the downstream restriction can do is to lift the surface level at that point. You can't push water uphill unless it's in a pipe. The level of the Severn estuary cannot have any effect on the water level at Shrewsbury.

If you don't believe me, go and get a degree in chemical engineering, where this is 1st / 2nd year stuff.

TL

[The Luggage]

I have the back of an envelope here... The Severn project might produce 9GW with a load factor of 23%, and use a basin 185 square miles in area (FoE report

mean output would be 2.1 GW, or 11 MW/square mile.

To generate even the peak electricity requirement of about 100 GW, you would need a basin of 9000 square miles. All of it with the same tidal range as the Severn estuary. Actually, the mean tidal range is probably only half that, so you need 18,000 sq miles. That is equivalent to butting a barrage round the whole of mainland Britain, about 5 miles off shore, and generating power from that. Not feasible, methinks.

TL

[Doctor Drivel]

Maxie! Amazing! You being a fabulist too. All that Conga line dancing and Paddy band playing has affected you. Wow! And you going to Butlins and all that. Amazing Maxie. Amazing.

Maxie resplendent.....

[Doctor Drivel]

Maxie, resplendent in a frock up a tree.

"stupid" Maxie did scream and shout ..he thinks all people are silly no doubt ..he thinks he is of greater mind ..the smart and sophisto kind

..the truth, Maxie is warped up top ..he swings up trees in polka dot ..on a beach he fleeces them all ..while wearing a gown only seen in a ball

[Mark Ayliffe]

On or about 2008-05-02, The Luggage illuminated us with:

A pair of barrages across the Irish sea perhaps? ;-)

[Doctor Drivel]

That is only true for enclosed pipes. As soon as you have a free surface, the only thing that the downstream restriction can do is to lift the surface level at that point.

[Jules]

I saw somewhere that people were generally using a water/antifreeze mix for the subterranean loop, and fitting a heat exchanger mechanism so that the refrigerant loop was kept small and maintainable.

I suspect there's lots of room for screw-ups - not only when it comes to figuring out loop sizes, but also with the pump/compressor choice. i.e. getting something that sort-of works is perhaps easy, but getting something that maximises efficiency might be a little more tricky...

(I noticed last week that my local power company gives rebates for houses with ground-source heat pumps, but only if they have gov't approval - homebrewing doesn't count! :-)

cheers

Jules

[Roger]

The message

from The Luggage contains these words:

Looking at it another way they claim the Severn Barrage could generate

5% (or more) of the nations electricity needs. Other things being equal 5% from 185 square miles equates to 100% from 3700 square miles. Even if the mean tidal range is as little as 50% (I am not in a position to check atm) of that at Bristol 7400 square miles is a good deal less than 18000.

The Wash, The Solent, Morecambe Bay and The Moray Firth could all give enclosures of similar size to the Severn. The Firth of Forth could be

50% larger, The Firth of Clyde could be positively huge with a barrage both sides of Arran and there are a considerable number of long sea lochs in Scotland that would give at least as big an enclosure as The Humber (70 square miles).