Electricity generated by a wind turbine

[williamwright]

Under my feet there's 200 years' worth of good quality coal.

Bill

[Rod Speed]

williamwright [e-mail] wrote

Your sig is sposed to have a line with just -- on it in front of it, dinosaur.

[Rod Speed]

williamwright [e-mail] wrote

You never could bullshit your way out of a wet paper bag, dinosaur.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The shape of a future grid in a civilised country is fairly easily defined

Fossil will be slowly phased out as it becomes far more use as a chemical feedstock than as a fuel.

Nuclear will run all baseload.

Some nuclear plants will come equipped with molten salt heatbanks to enable them to deliver above nominal peak output to cope with demand peaks.

Other nuclear plants will supply low grade waste heat to thongs like thousand acre greenhouses to grow tropical and mediterranean foods.

Small reactors will become standard at large industrial plants requiring high levels of heat and/or electricity.

Nuclear produced hydrogen will become the preferred way of smelting metals, although to make steel, carbon is still required of some sort. Perhaps steel will fade from use.

Off grid transport will still need hydrocarbon fuels. Nothing exists in any known or foreseeable technology that can match its safety, energy density or ease of use. If it doesn't come pre-made it will have to be synthesised

Portable reactors will be used in e.g. large construction sites and so on.

By 2060 there will not be a single windmill or solar panel on the UK grid

[Dave Plowman (News]

I'll bet he leaves his car engine running at all times too. To make sure it works when needed.

[Dave Plowman (News]

No I've not. Electricity generation is essential these days. To suggest maintaining that is job creation just shows how little thought you've put into it. Wind required no maintence. If you're going to complain about wind turbine maintenance, then you'd need to include all the various stages of obtaining gas, oil, coal or uranium etc needed to fuel other types of generation in the maintenance of that too. But that wouldn't suit your political view of things.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Dear ol' Turnip. Crystal ball must be red hot. Odd he's so poor since he can predict the future?

[Andrew]

But you keep on telling us that you are already ?

[Andrew]

'Forgetting' to pack the shaft bearings with grease is fairly basic incompetence or management failure

[Andrew]

Over the summer I have been using about 3.5KwH per day for kettle, microwave, A+ fridge-freezer, tv, broadband and radio/lights

[Fredxx]

I recall a visit to Lake Stwlan and the pumped-storage system there. Someone asked why more turbines weren't running. The answer was each non-producing running turbine cost xMW in power, I don't recall the number but it was a significant proportion of its generating power capability.

We were also told that wasn't always the case, but due to fuel price rises there was closer scrutiny of what was running in reserve.

This was decades ago but I doubt much has changed.

[williamwright]

Per unit of leccy produced wind turbines need far more labour and transport than gas or nuclear.

Bill

[alan_m]

Pumped storage has always been expensive. It's not designed to provide a constant base load but short term energy when there is a peak in demand.

mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

[The Natural Philosopher]

The value of a multi-turbine set is that rather than modulating the flow through one big turbine, you can run a fraction of the total at full efficiency.

[Andy Burns]

'F' is the new 'A+'

[Paul]

There are two parts to the wild life. Sensory processing, and decision making.

Selecting better colouration choices for the blades, makes a difference.

Paul

[Rod Speed]

Paul [e-mail] wrote

Very pathetic 'study' given the very low number of dead eagles found. And says nothing useful about sea birds and sea birds are much harder to measure given that its much harder to count the corpses.

Might be better to try video footage with offshore turbines.

Don't buy the speed claim either unless there is clear evidence of the impacts mostly being on the ends of the blades.

[Vir Campestris]

EIGHTY PERCENT! I really did LOL for that.

You know what killed the sailing ship? It wasn't cost, or speed, or reliability. Even out in the deep ocean trades the wind isn't reliable.

A quick google suggested 25% to me.

Andy

[GB]

A good point there. We must avoid putting wind farms in the doldrums.

[Pancho]

UK offshore wind turbines have capacity factors in the high 30% range. They might generate some energy 90% of the time. Also, the wind blows in different geographical areas at different times. So even if it isn't blowing in one area it might be blowing in another and a super grid can distribute the electricity.

So if you have massive turbine over capacity, The supply from different areas, or the suboptimal generation from many areas will be enough to power the grid. Theoretically, 80% is quite achievable, with the only problem being periods of no wind over the entire UK.

In practice, it might be expensive, technologically bleeding edge, but it isn't impossible.