OT: Gas turbine generators

It was less the efficiency than the inability to go from idle to power in an instant. Overall a good gas turbine without steam is around 37% efficient. But diesel and petrol are in the low 40% range. And its hard to male efficient small gas turbines because of the inability to make smaller and smaller gaps.

But you could at least fill them up at the paraffin pump. ;-)

Tim

They had a Bristol Olympus engine at Hinkley point B for emergency backup.

The company I used to work for generated much of its own electricity. The main power station was at the village of Drinnick, a pre-war coal-fired power station with steam-driven turbines and generators.

It was built by the Electric Construction Company (ECC, confusingly having the same initials as English China Clays!).

Industrial Trent 60 Gas Turbine

This derivative is designed for power generation and mechanical drive, much like the Marine Trent. It delivers up to 66 MW of electricity at

While not UK-based, this might be interesting in this context.

When I worked for BG they has about 12 RB211s that were used as compressors. Powered by gas from the grid.

The Communications and Instrumentation team (C&I) used to maintain the batteries and telemetry and repair the squirrel rat or rabbit nibbled cables.

Any sense in a gas-fuelled piston engined generator?

Yes indeed - that was JET 1 - produced in 1950, which used a P4 chassis but had only 2 seats, with all the back being filled by the engine.

But in the 1960s there were several other prototypes which were P6 shaped with the engine at the front and looking more like normal cars.

The P6's front suspension was actually designed in a way which allowed it to have a very wide engine bay, so that it could accommodate a gas turbine engine. It never did, but the wide engine bay proved very useful when Rover bought the rights to manufacture the Buick V8 engine.

That would very soon have been taxed like petrol if it had caught on!

I don't think they'd save you any money. I think that the (in)efficiency is such that the electricty generated would be no cheaper than that bought from the grid. You may perhaps produce some heat which you could use in the winter, but would be undesirable in the summer.

See also: LPG.

At one time in my career I was tempted to walk out with an RB108* tucked under my arm and install it in the back of my A35 van.

"The Rolls-Royce RB.108 was a pioneering single-spool turbojet designed specifically for VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) applications in the mid-1950s, producing roughly 2,200–2,500 lbf thrust with a high thrust-to-weight ratio. It featured an 8-stage compressor and 2-stage turbine, weighing only 267 lb"

A more senior engineer had taken the front halves of two minis and joined them up. I never got a drive in it.

Formerly Rover Barnoldswick.

Your own version of a Short's SkyVan?

Nah, don't be silly, the A35 was never licensed to fly :)

If pigs could......and Harry Potter had a flying Ford Anglia!

Actually it was Mr Weasley's

Ok: "One of The Harry Potter stories" had a flying Ford Anglia. Better?