LV or mains

[Andy Burns]

I thought nuclear provided *most* of the overnight leccy, or is that old thinking?

[Mike]

I'd use it if they supplied it at a rate that matched oil or LPG even though it was only overnight.

[N. Thornton]

Fwom:Charles Middleton ( [e-mail]) Subject:Re: LV or mains

yep, simple as that, the wattage figure is what it uses.

well, sort of. The comparisons are usually deliberately misleading and best ignored.

Running halogens at 12v enables the bulb to be designed to run more efficienctly than mains halogens.

While you can compare lumens output for any 2 bulbs, halogens tend to vary somewhat, unlike other bulb types, so its hard to pin them down. As a rough guide, a 12v halogen is typ 1.5 - 2x the efficiency of a mains GLS, but this does vary.

NT

[Morten]

Compact Flourescent Lights :-)

/Morten

[The Natural Philosopher]

How about pumping water up into reservoirs to feed hyrdro electric gerneators for teh morining rush hour?

Or cahrging up battery powered cars?

Or a million and one things that would actually benefort someone.

Have you actually TRAVELLED on a motor way between midnight and 6 a.m.?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Nuclear takes days to run up from cold, but keeping them running doesn't cost much at all. So they are used for 'baseband' power.

Gas and turbibnes are IIRC the fastest run up and are ceap to build.

Drax is still open because though its not worth building another one, it still works, and there is coal still to burn.

Nucelar is not corst effective because of teh extraordinarily high cost of building and running to the safety standards demanded - that vastly exceeed any other type of industrial actvity. The fuel is relatively cheap.

[Andy Burns]

Yes, that is what I was getting at, nuclear stations are churning electrons out night and day, without wanting to get into the pros and cons of different power sources.

So going back to the original point, lighting up the motorways isn't much of a waste ...

[Andy Burns]

I though they did that in Wales?

If anybody had one ... other than milk floats ...

many times, and there's a marked contrast between the lit bits and the dark bits ...

[Andrew Gabriel]

Stored water systems are even faster. Dinorwig in Wales is something like 0 to 2GW in 12 seconds, which is the fastest run up in the world.

and there's not enough alternative capacity spare to replace it.

The highest costs are in the decommissioning of them. As gas prices increase and gas suppliers become more dubious (given our own supplies are running out and we're now an importer), nuclear looks more attractive. Actually, we've been growing nuclear for years -- we've simply been paying the French to build them all along their north coast to supply us, due to political problems building them in the UK.

[Andrew Gabriel]

We do, the Dinorwig emergency resovior in Wales.

[Roger]

The message from [e-mail] (Andrew Gabriel) contains these words:

Have they upgraded the DC link from Lydd? ISTR that the thyristor stacks that were being developed for it circa 1970 were pretty puny affairs. On second thoughts I suppose an undersea cable is an unnecessary extravagance with the Channel Tunnel to provide a much easier route for a much larger cable.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It is, because its adds to theralpollutionm, and there are not enough nuclear powerstatuons so drax still runs at night e.g.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Thats what God gave you headlights for.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I know, Been there, Wonderful thing.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember [e-mail] (Andrew Gabriel) saying something like:

Johnny-come-lately thing. Cruachan was impressive many years before that.

[Mike]

Yep. The fuzz can't hide in the general glare from the lights. Your headlights pick them out miles away.

[Mike]

They can be throttled back very effectively though. Not turned off though agreed.

[The Natural Philosopher]

IUt is bigger than it was then - I looked it up recently.

It was thyratrons back then too. I think its solid state now.

[Roger]

The message from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

The name thyratron doesn't ring any bells with me and the dictionary definition which includes "a gas filled tube" put me in mind of the mercury arc rectifiers of an earlier era. I am sure the devices that were stacked in a spiral fashion round a centre support on the prototype in DC Transmission at Stafford were called thyristors but what happened from then on I don't know because I had left GEC before that equipment got to Lydd for testing.

[Mike]

They were derived from those. A trigger electrode was needed to start them up and then they simply glowed to keep themselves conducting. GTOs are a lot easier to use :-)