Far better to pick a small site suited for industrial purposes, put in a nuclear station, fence it and be done with it rather than ruining visual amenity in areas where there might occasionally be some wind.
The message from David Hansen contains these words:
The catchment area for Marchlyn Mawr is minute, no more than 3 times the surface area of the reservoir, so the annual rainfall would give no more than 10 foot of water over its surface. Probably not enough water to power even one drain down. More totally inconsequential than "a relatively small proportion".
I don't know whether Marchlyn Bach is part of the equation but it wouldn't alter the dynamics much whether it is or not. It has a similar sized catchment area and what it would gain in ratio of water area to catchment area it would lose in terms of available water as it is much smaller than it bigger brother and embanked to a much lesser extent.
Incidentally while Dinorwig doesn't cost much to run its actual construction was a very expensive operation:
"Dinorwig is comprised of 16km of underground tunnels, deep below Elidir mountain. Its construction required 1 million tonnes of concrete,
200,000 tonnes of cement and 4,500 tonnes of steel."
And some have become points of interest for the public. Footpaths have had to be made, interpretation boards give information.
Mary
Ahem.
Bradford could be regarded as part of Leeds but not vice versa :-)
Mary
I wonder if one day power from rain will be harvested?
Mary
Herne Bay, like most seaside towns, was "ruined" a long time ago. A few windmills in the distance is neither here nor there.
It is already
Google 'hydroelectricity'
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:29:13 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-
As we know from the various reports your assertion about "there might occasionally be some wind" is wrong.
Next.
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 09:17:02 +0100 someone who may be Roger wrote this:-
Er, yes we know that. High capital costs in relation the running cost are a feature of hydro schemes, especially pumped storage. That is also true of nuclear plants.
An interesting sight when I was in Rochester, upstate New York was that they had a couple of small hydro plans, one described as providing enough power for 1500 homes. It makes me wonder whether all the water that goes over the weir at Teddington Lock couldn't be used?
decaying Nuke Power station on a 29mile wide island with 75.000 people is enough, I for one would prefer to see miles of windmills as far as the eye can see. I would have one in the back garden If I could tap it for free :-)
You mean dishonestly.
>
If I had one in the back garden the least they could do is give me free access to 240v !!
If you had one in the back garden they would have already paid for the privilege.
>The message from Tony Bryer contains these words:
Probably not enough head for a Pelton wheel but surely more than enough for an overshot waterwheel. And more volume of water than that which powered a typical mill before the age of steam.
There has been at least one Francis turbine (looks like a ships propeller), fitted on the Manchester ship canal IIRC. Pelton is low flow, high head and taps the obvious places like mountainous regions. As the head gets lower although the total energy might look similar from mass times head times gravity considerations it's harder to get any power. The an extreme example is a tidal current.
I've not seen a conversion efficiency comparison between water wheels and the low head reaction turbines but assume it is similar to the difference between a ships propeller and a paddle steamer.
AJH
The message from AJH contains these words:
I am not at all familiar with a Francis turbine but I would be tempted to compare a paddle steamer to an undershot wheel and rate the overshot rather more highly.
Yes, but its not cost effective.
If you look at the history of the industrial revolution, you will see it started on hand and horse power, migrated to windmills and water mills, and as soon as they could be replaced by steam engines they were, and after that oil powered kit.
There are good reasons for ALL of that. Namely that wind and water power needs a lot of kit to get not very much power. You can't get past the thermodynamic limits, and for water at a small head of a few feet there simply isn't a lot to be gleaned.
That is why you build dams where there is a lot of water than can fall a long way.
Which might at best generate about a horsepower, 750W.....
Pity that: a quick Google states "Peak flow 12 billion gallons (54.50 billion litres) a day; Summer flow usually about 131 million gallons (600 million litres) a day". I couldn't quickly find the difference in levels though.
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