OT: coal fired generation

[Brian]

Not charcoal - that converts wood to charcoal by heating in a (nearly) sealed container. It does release ‘wood gas’.

‘Gasifier’ wood stoves are any interesting ‘toy’.

[tony sayer]

That silly Green bint Merkel shut down her nuclear stations anyone know if they might be restarted in Germanys hour of need;?....

[Colin Bignell]

Not strictly true. Eight of their 17 plants were shut down in 2011, with the rest scheduled to be phased out by the end of this year. They still had three operational as of January.

Politically, unlikely. There is a very strong anti-nuclear lobby in Germany. Whether it would be practical would depend upon how long they have been shut down and how far down the road of decommissioning they are.

[Paul]

It could take 30 years, for a nuclear strategy to make a significant difference to an energy-deficient country.

No politician is around long enough to make a difference. Even if their intentions were good.

And one of the reasons you can't "put the energy file down", is correlated failure. Like if a country runs out of water, not only does it kill the hydro stations, it also kills the cooling on the nuclear plants. This is one reason you have to invest in stupid stuff (the "energy basket"), to keep your options open.

Paul

[williamwright]

Common knowledge. Throw wood on the fire then coal. See which produces most heat.

Steam engines!

Bill

[Scott]

Could any be bought by us second hand?

[Scott]

I thought we built them on the coast so as to use sea water?

[Andy Burns]

One of the issues the Planning Inspectorate and the anti-sizewell crowd have raised is water-supply (potable rather than cooling) they were over-ruled to approve the site.

[Chris Hogg]

Highly unlikely. They're of old design; the cost of dismantling and rebuilding would probably exceed the cost of a new, modern designed one; at least part of the old one would have to be left in place anyway to 'cool off', radiation-wise (the reactor core and immediate shielding, etc. etc.), so not a chance! Just possibly the turbines, generators and downstream electricity handling stuff, but even that would be 'old'.

[The Natural Philosopher]

One of the selling points of the rolls royce small modulars is that they can be slapped into existing sites to utilise as much of the existing infrastructure as is cost effective.

That might be no more than the steam turbines, generators and switchgear, but every little helps

[Colin Bignell]

On 02/08/2022 02:49, Rod Speed wrote: ...

Not entirely true, but they are rare and usually small:

[Paul]

They are rather nasty pieces of work.

And there's no carry handle on the top.

Paul

[John J]

Units 5 & 6 are currently being un-mothballed according to a local maintenance team employee

[Chris Hogg]

See

for an account of the changes at Drax. My reading of it is that four of the six units at Drax now burn wood chip or similar biomass (straw etc), while the remaining two are or have been converted to CCGT's.

IIRC Drax imports and burns 7.3 million tonnes of wood chip per annum, equivalent to about 13 tonnes or several trees per minute.

How many saplings do you need to plant for their combined growth to be equivalent to thirteen tonnes per minute? Puts the green tree-planting schemes into some sort of perspective!

And there is this, for a different POV:

[Max Demian]

Mostly ammonia and tar.

Then they ignited the coke and passed a limited amount of air through it to make "producer gas" which was carbon monoxide and nitrogen. That was an exothermic reaction so they boiled water and passed the steam through the hot coke to make carbon monoxide and hydrogen - "water gas". That was endothermic, so they switched back to producer gas. The resulting town gas was a (variable) mixture of NH3, H2 and CO, all of which burn, and N2 which doesn't. (That's what I remember from school chemistry.)

[The Natural Philosopher]

I haven't checked but my impression was that drax still had two coal boilers AND CCGT

[SteveW]

And, following Fukishima, all of the UK's nuclear facilities were re-assessed for design weaknesses - such as Fukishama's emergency backup generators being insufficiently protected from natural calamities.

[Colin Bignell]

As were Germany's and those were declared safe.

[Fredxx]

Er, you mean in proportion to the electorate?

[Andrew]

Oz, South Africa, Russia, Indonesia