RIP Trevor Baylis

[tabbypurr]

picking up each wired phone in series, putting down the one before it.

Cheers. I had no idea they were so cheap now.

NT

[alan_m]

The storage schemes mentioned in this group in the past few months seem to be only viable when they are considered in conjunction with the higher premium paid for "instant" electricity for very short term peak demands. Perhaps not so viable for supplying power throughout a whole night or even to support the grid when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine.

[whisky-dave]

They were and they are pretty bad for the environment chemical wise and not made much anymore, because Lithuim and LiPos are better being smaller and lighter. Otherwise laptiop batteries would be using NiCds wouldn't they ? Or perhaps Lead acid is better .

Yes more than winding a spring.

try it sometime, there;s hand cranks to charge mobile phones you can buy we've brought a few here as a deno for students.

Didn't think that was an issue.

[Andrew]

In 1993 there were no rechargeable batteries as we know them today.

The life scientific on R4 earlier was a program about the lady who developed rechargeable Lithium ion batteries using technology that she was using to develop alternatives to CFCs, at that time. (If I heard it correctly).

[Martin]

Oops! Page not found (404) too many rrrs?

[Andy Burns]

Not a fan of "The Wire" I take it?

[whisky-dave]

I was charging NiCds around 1978 if not earlier. Constant current was the way to charge them.

[Tim+]

Well I never suggested it would be.

A bit like pump storage then? Lack of capacity doesn?t render it pointless if used, as intended, for smoothing demand by responding very rapidly.

No idea. I thought it was quite an interesting idea/project. Sorry to have disappointed you.

Tim

[tabbypurr]

that's weird, cos there certainly were 10 years earlier. Where did they go?

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Eh? Ni-Cads were around long before then. They may have improved somewhat since then, though.

[charles]

In the 1980s, I had to replace some NiCads in piece of measuring equipment,> It turned out that they were over 20 years old. And NiFe Rechargeable) cells were around before that. I remember going round the factory from school in the 1950s

[Rob Morley]

Around 1975 I had a Heathkit calculator that used several NiCads - when the calculator developed a fault we used the NiCads to power the glowplugs in control-line planes, which worked very well.

[Andy Burns]

Just that, given we already have Dinorwig with about 10 Million tonnes of "weights" available, something that only has weights equivalent to a couple of Dinorwig's generators seems a bit tiddly ...

[Tim+]

So you didn?t read the bit about response time then...

Tim

[tabbypurr]

too little output to be much use to the grid. But governments for decades don't seem to have much idea of how to assist the country, with one brief exception.

NT

[Tim+]

So you didn?t read the bit about response time then?

Tim

[Andy Burns]

If 20MW is enough to save the grid, we're rather too close to the edge, it's not much more than a eurostar whizzing along HS1

[alan_m]

Are not most instances of needing instant power predicable so a delay of many seconds can be input to the expected demand?

[DJC]

I got one from Tesco last week. 4.99 plus 10 for the PAYG topup. Branded IMO, it works in as much as I can make and receive calls. After 2 days of cursing I managed to install an non-annoying ringtone. Trying to update the address book is, I have now concluded, more trouble than my blood pressure will stand. In short, its shit.

[tabbypurr]

whoosh