Home wind turbines dealt a blow

In message , snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk wrote

I listened to a radio program recently where the 'expert' suggested that wind turbines were changing local weather patterns and in coastal locations the effect was to dry the land, to the detriment of farming.

There was indeed a marked disparity, the worst site produced an average of 16 Watt hours a day, the best (on a building) 255 Watt hours a day.

The Interim report of this trial, the Warwick Urban Wind Trial, is at

In true greeny style most figures have been stripped from these reports but some of the data is contained in "Installation and performance of household wind turbines" Client report number 237-412 from the BRE. This is basically the trial interim report but with the performance data (which was replaced by an "attitude survey" in the interim report).

All the locations bar one (which wasn't the worst) had been approved by wind turbine installers as suitable for wind generated electricity and potentially capable of yielding 1,000kW hours each year.

The "poor" location has averaged 16 Watt hours a day (that's sixteen watt hours, not kilowatt hours). On top of an 8 storey building a staggering 180 watt hours a day was generated and this went up to as much as 255 watt hours on the edge of flat roof 7 storey building facing open fields and 30m above the ground (there are two turbines mounted on this building - together they produce 430 watt hours a day).

The best house installation managed 68 Watt hours a day.

The best site is the reference site - a completely bare hill in open country close to the sea in Cornwall with the windmill on a pole at the optimum position on the slope with not a building in sight, this managed 900 watt hours a day.

"...urban wind systems are potentially making a positive contribution to enhancing the energy efficiency of the domestic estate because they give the press something tangible and accessible to talk about.." Just about sums up the hollow propaganda exercise.

On bare fields in Cornwall?

Do you really think a

For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert

(Arthur C Clarke)

That equals roughly tuppence worth of electricity at our local rate.

But wait, we are in an inner city urban environment ...

So are more likely to achieve the 16 watt than the 250, so lets settle on roughly tuppence per month shall we ?

DG

In message , Derek Geldard writes

Mr. Dawes Sr, Mr. Banks and Bankers: If you invest your tuppence Wisely in the bank Safe and sound Soon that tuppence, Safely invested in the bank, Will compound

And you'll achieve that sense of conquest As your affluence expands In the hands of the directors Who invest as propriety demands

etc ...

it's too s**te to copy any more

mary porpinns

Is she related to Mary Porpouts ?

DG

On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 14:35:12 +0000 someone who may be John Rumm wrote this:-

We will soon be able to see and I doubt your interpretation will be shown to be correct.

On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 12:51:15 -0800 (PST) someone who may be snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk wrote this:-

That was certainly the thinking ye olden days. A thinking driven by a requirement to produce electricity as cheaply as possible in an era of low fuel costs. It was also easier to control a small number of large power stations in ye olden days. However, the Scottish Hydro Electric Board demonstrated that even in ye olden days it was possible to control a large number of small power stations when their stations were progressively linked from the mid 1960s onwards. Eventually they had only two control rooms for their hydro stations.

Not if one looks at the whole system. Throwing heat into the atmosphere without making an use of it is not good for efficiency and neither are transmission losses. It is more efficient to make use of it for heating.

I'm sorry if "the rest of us" would rather not think about it, but it is far too important a subject for burring one's head in the sand.

The people who appear to be religious on the subject are those who deny any step forward on the subject.

On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 14:25:24 +0000 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-

In operation. Provided one ignores the emissions involved in converting the ore dug out of the ground into fuel rods. Provided the emissions involved in dealing with the spent fuel rods (which are very high if one reprocesses the fuel but much less with storage at the site). With these two provisions the emissions in operation are low.

In building. Nuclear power stations involve a lot of concrete. They also involve large amounts of rare materials. All of these have to be produced.

It's always reassuring when the best someone can do is insult their opponents.

A point environmentalists have made for a considerable time.

You could buy a lot of diesel for the 1.5million that scheme cost. I wonder who actually paid for it?

A MWe turbine in a typical wind-energy system operating with a 6.5 metres-per-second average wind speed requires construction inputs of

We buy about as much nuclear generated electricity from France as all our "renewable" sources combined.

On Mon, 7 Jan 2008 01:31:54 -0800 (PST) someone who may be snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote this:-

Ah, unreferenced figures.

Meanwhile the following leading article provides a good framework for the discussion

Remember that excruciating picture last autumn of the Prime Minister greeting Margaret Thatcher for tea at No 10? You can bet that Gordon Brown does. For that photo-call ? then hailed as a brilliant tactical coup by jubilant Brownites bent on destablising the Tory party ? is now increasingly seen as helping to turn the son of the manse's glorious summer into his winter of discontent, persuading the public, together with the on-off election, that the Prime Minister was as opportunistic as his predecessor. We don't know precisely what the pair discussed over their china cups, but Mr Brown is now set to revive one of the Iron Lady's most controversial, and least successful, policies ? and with similar effect.

Mrs Thatcher promised a massive expansion of nuclear power. Originally she wanted to build 10 plants, one a year. By the time she published her nuclear White Paper in 1981, this had come down to five, at an indefinite rate. In the end only one saw the light of day ? a full 15 years later ? at Sizewell. Plus ça change. Gordon Brown, like Tony Blair before him, is taking us down the same dead end. This week he will publish his own nuclear White Paper, again hyped as the dawn of a new atomic age. Again, we were originally being promised 10 new reactors, again expectations are now being scaled down: ministers are now deeply reluctant to specify any number at all, insisting that they will leave it to private companies. And again it is unlikely that many will be built, unless the Prime Minister breaks his repeated undertaking ? to be reiterated by Business Secretary John Hutton this week ? not to subsidise them with public money.

Indeed conditions are far less propitious than a quarter of a century ago. Back then, power stations were built by a nationalised monopoly, run by nuclear enthusiasts, able to hide the costs of constructing reactors and with no competition. Now we have a liberalised, fiercely competitive energy market. No nuclear reactor has so far been built in such conditions, anywhere in the world. Investors know that they will have to lay out large sums both to construct the plant and to dispose of its waste. And they also know that they will receive no revenue at all for at least a decade, and can have no certainty, in a liberalised market, of what price they will get for their electricity at the end of it. Despite all the ministerial rhetoric about the Government having decided to "allow" the building of nuclear power stations, there is actually nothing stopping their construction. The silence of the sites speaks volumes. Of course it is possible that Mr Brown intends after all to subsidise the atom. Our revelation today of his nuclear waste sweetener invites suspicion.

Other arguments that ministers will advance this week are as flawed as their economics. We will be told that we need the atom to avoid dangerous dependency on overseas energy ? especially Russian gas. But analysis done for the Government's energy White Paper shows that by 2020 ? the earliest any new reactor could come online ? gas supplies will be more, not less secure, coming from a diversity of countries. And as most gas is used in industrial processes and heating homes, nuclear power ? which produces only electricity ? can do little to replace it. We will also be told that it is a major answer to climate change. If it were, it would be well worth accepting not just the environmental risks of the atom, but its dodgy economics too. But even building 10 reactors would only save 8 per cent of Britain's emissions of carbon dioxide, when we actually need to cut them by 10 times as much. Indeed, if the Government really wants to tackle the security and climate issues it should dramatically step up its lamentable efforts at saving energy, which has huge potential and seven times as much effect as nuclear power for every pound spent.

But we do need to keep the nuclear power option open. Climate change is so serious that we simply cannot afford to discard any low carbon technology. It would be far, far better to build a nuclear power station than to give the go-ahead to the coal-fired one planned for Kingsnorth in Kent. But neither should be the priority. The first task is to embark on a massive energy-saving programme energy. The next must be to boost renewables: the Government made a good start with its announcement last month of a massive increase in offshore windpower. Nuclear power may have a part to play. But giving it top billing, as Mr Hutton's officials want, will not only be self defeating, but give support to those critics who have long alleged that New Labour is merely Thatcherism in trousers.

=====================================================================

The holy grail of renewable energy came a step closer yesterday as thousands of mass-produced wafer-thin solar cells printed on aluminium film rolled off a production line in California, heralding what British scientists called "a revolution" in generating electricity.

"Nanosolar is one of several companies .. racing to develop different versions of "thin film" solar technology. It is owned by Internet entrepreneur Martin Roscheisen...the company, which claims to lead the "third wave" of solar electricity, is notoriously secretive and has not answered questions about its panels' efficiency or their durability."

Style over substance perhaps?

They sell them in the Bose shop....

Ooo-oooooooooooooh "British Scientists" call it "a revolution"

and there was I thinking it was a figment of the imagination of a Bowldy-Headed hack in the Grauniad.

Can I buy them online ?

Can I buy them offline ?

Can I buy them at all ?

Can I see some samples

Has anybody seen them working

Does anybody know how long they'll last

Best have another look at that authoritative article then :

"Britain was unlikely to benefit from the technology for some years because other countries paid better money for renewable electricity, it added."

Looks like it's our fault, cheapskates that we are.

"Our first solar panels will be used in a solar power station in Germany," said Erik Oldekop, Nanosolar's manager in Switzerland.

California, Germany, Switzerland, Far away places with strange sounding names, no wonder our money is not good enough for them.

"We aim to produce the panels for 99 cents [50p] a watt, which is comparable to the price of electricity generated from coal."

How do you work that out ?

"We cannot disclose our exact figures yet as we are a private company but we can bring it down to that level. That is the vision we are aiming at."

Fools and their money are soon parted.

DG

Done electrically, from nuclear generated el;ectricity, they are very low.

Emergy use does *not* equal emmissions. There is no reason to suppose that reprocessing generates Co2.

So do bloody windmills,. So do solar panels. Concrete anyway.I refute that rare materials are needed for nuclear power stations.

No, they haven't. The are focussed totally on conserving energy, not generating it cost effectively from non fossil fuel sources.

This post from you demonstrates the Usual GreenMyths.That making power stations generates CO2 in vast quantities. It doesn't. That reprocesssing nuclear fuel does ditto, It needn't.

I have never read such utter bollocks in my life.

The only thing IO agree with is that we need to city C02 emissions by 80%.

The rest is completely the reverse of every single calculation I have made.

Thatcher had north sea gas. It was politically a lot easier to build gas stations than nuclear. They are very cheap to build. Nuclear was quietly dropped as politically too hard to justify.

Today, the conditions are not worse, they are HUGELY better. Oil/gas is so expensive that nuclear energy is actually profitable. Even with the punitive clean up tax imposed on it. Check the rise in share price of British Energy.

There is a practical irreducible minimum to which energy use can be reduced before it impacts severely on lifestyle and social conditiopns. We simply cannot even get food from field to fridge without transporting it in huge quantities. We cannot simply knock 80% off everyones fuel use and 80% off their car use.

Ergo we have to find alternatice energy policies, not as he says'; focus on conservation'

This is a typical piece of greenmyth s**te written by a journalist, not by an engineer or scientist. It contains no facts at all.

California, with the UK.

If you know anything about [photography, you will know that teh light level from even one cloud, knocks back solar energy by about 16 times. Deep and full overcast is more - much more.

Now look out of the window.

Even at massively optimistic efficiencies, we would have to cover an area of the country larger than that used for farming, with solar panels.

Its a different story in the Mojave desert, where a flat sheet of black steel is at egg frying temperatures in minutes.