Christmas lecture

[The Natural Philosopher]

Eigenvalues...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Don't think that really applies these days. Diesels simply have lower running costs - especially in stop start conditions like town deliveries. Although petrol/hybrid technology has rather changed that.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Which is why you get the nonsense of people using Chelsea tractors to take the kids to school.

[charles]

some 10 year go, there was a cartoon in one of the colour weekend newspaper supplements: A woman said "We wnt our child to have plenasty of space, fresh air and security." "So, we've bought a large 4x4 with air conditioning and central locking."

[Tim Streater]

Chelsea tractors are a nonsense whichever way you look at it.

[charles]

I was surprised to see an aquaintance with one last autumn. She didn't seem the type. She bought it as a result of last winter's weather - she lives in the country.

[Richard]

They may not be kosher or halal, but those ham and cheese sandwiches are impressive.

[newshound]

Well 59. Sputnik year. Also Windscale pile fire, opening of Jodrell Bank

Quite a few slightly interesting things that year

I rather like this one:

10 September ? Tony Lock becomes the last bowler to reach 200 wickets in a first-class season,[25] a feat subsequently impossible due to limited-overs cricket and covered pitches

having seen him in action at the Oval a number of times in the early 60's.

[Martin Brown]

One way you can tell is that on this aspect of battery technology I am in full agreement with TNP (and that doesn't happen all that often). About the best we can hope for with electrochemistry is at most another order of magnitude beyond present commercial Lion batteries eg.

Best so far if they can make it commercially viable and reliable.

The problem is that they don't want to listen when the answers don't match their expectations. Back in my day it was going to be sodium sulphur batteries that would save the day. They are slightly better energy density than Lion but also a lot more volatile and tetchy.

Compare that to the energy density per kg of petrol or kerosene and it is obvious just how far the gap still remains. Having air available to burn the fuel in makes a very big difference to the energy density.

Hydrogen could win eventually if someone could make a way to contain it in bulk reliably without cryogenics, leaks or explosions.

In fairness to the Christmas lecturer this year he did attempt to show to a young audience (and they are meant to be childrens' lectures) how much energy different technologies could produce in a fairly graphic way. kWhr is a bit too abstract for the younger members of the audience. AA batteries seems like as good a measure of energy as any to me if you are trying to explain things in very familiar units.

Far better than Blue Peter's infamous "London Double Decker Buses" metric which as a child I had never seen.

[Chris Hogg]

:-)

But imagine having to stop at a motorway service-station to fill up with service-station-style H&C sandwiches! And I actually doubt that the MPH&CS is actually very good.

[mechanic]

They will in due course.

[mechanic]

But plans have been drawn up and intentions announced. We've also had some public consultations in Cumbria, for what they're worth.

[charles]

does everything travel by electricity powered drone?

[mechanic]

The thinking there is that public transport takes away a lot of the journey needs. Plus amenities like schools, shops, doctors etc need to be planned in (planning gain).

[Chris Hogg]

Average UK electricity consumption say 33GW. Triple that if you want all-electric transport as well, so 100GW. HP-C will give us 3GW. So you'll need a total of 33 HP-Cs or equivalent. And that doesn't cater for peak consumption, just average.

I take it you mean Moorside, another 3.something GW. So only another

32 to go, then.

[Vir Campestris]

I used to watch them up to about 10 years ago. They used to be pretty good. But my _kids_ say modern GCSEs are dumbed down...

Andy

[tim...]

yep

but that's all costed in the pay-back period.

because it has come out at 3 times the estimated costs (which were based upon historic data - obviously factored up to today's money)

but there are apparently some new standards that need to be met, that do nothing to improved safety (because no one died when we used the old ones) that have meant that the Infrastructure costs rocketed

(don't ask me what changed, I have no idea)

tim

[charles]

Safety involves things other than death.

of course, a 40 year payback is far too long for modern financial wizards. They want 5 years at most.

[tim...]

oddly, there's one on toady

and it isn't a science program

tim

[tim...]

yes we all know this

but TPTB have decided for us, that we aren't allowed to generate electricity this way in future

and the population is still scared of this, however irrational you may think that is

The storage is there to counter the problem of intermittency. You are double counting.

That IS what they are claiming

we know that

the discussion is about whether it could be there (5 years, 10 years, 20 years), if we put enough effort into it

tim