Brexit, for once some facts.

[flecc]

it's only because they can send their wastes for reprocessing in the UK.

Not so, France is one of the three major reprocessors and can deal with their own fuel waste.

Anyway, even if they did send it to us we wouldn't reprocess it free, so they wouldn't escape the cost, just add to it with our profit margin.
.

 

[flecc]

It is on par costwise with nuclear power at the moment.
The larger the turbine, the lower the cost.

So I'll look forward to when we outcompete France's cheap nuclear surplus by exporting a huge surplus of power from our wind.

I don't think so.
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[Danidl]

Off subject. In the sea turbine field context that I was answering the figures were and remain nonsense.
.

... Are those wind turbines mounted on platforms at sea or ocean current turbines mounted below sea level . An Irish company Openhydro, with French finance is developing the latter, and they work reliably. There are a limited number of sites globally where they will be appropriate, but as I said earlier, there needs to be diversity as there is no magic bullet.

 

[Danidl]

So I'll look forward to when we outcompete France's cheap nuclear surplus by exporting a huge surplus of power from our wind.

That's how it works at present... Look up the European energy market and the realtime displays of energy flow between the interconnectors.

I don't think so.
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[flecc]

Maybe when they invent a plant that uses waste as fuel things will balance out.

Already done, and France is one of the two world leaders in the nuclear pile method with their Phoenix and Super Phoenix reactors. Dearer than PWR at present, but the mothballed but successful Super Phoenix design will use wastes from stockpiles as the supplies of cheap uranium run low.

And now there's a molten salt reactor that eats nuclear waste.
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[Mal69]

Do I remember a time when England had clever men inventing stuff and innovating or was that just a figment of my imagination?

They were all Scottish.

But seriously, I think the UK is run by short sighted people, its not the inventors fault, most of the good ones are probably working in another country and the ones who aren't are hoovering up the cash and don't care what happens in the future.

 

[flecc]

That's how it works at present... Look up the European energy market and the realtime displays of energy flow between the interconnectors.

Fact remains as I stated, the French nuclear power is the cheapest in Europe, and why they supply so much to so many others. They succeed with economic nuclear, and on a large scale so do others around the world, South Korea for example.

Wind has a place as I've already posted, but our politicians are placing too great a dependance on it. When the time rationing of energy arrives as it surely will, the truth will be learnt.
.

 

[flecc]

... Are those wind turbines mounted on platforms at sea or ocean current turbines mounted below sea level . An Irish company Openhydro, with French finance is developing the latter, and they work reliably. There are a limited number of sites globally where they will be appropriate, but as I said earlier, there needs to be diversity as there is no magic bullet.

I was answering a wind energy post. I'm aware of the sea current turbines, but they will only ever make a miniscule contribution to needs, a bit like wave power.
.

 

[Woosh]

I was surprised by the amount of wind power generation in Spain.

On windy days, wind power generation has surpassed all other electricity sources in Spain; On 21 November 2015 at 4:50 am, 70.4% of the electricity consumed on the Spanish Peninsula was covered with wind power energy.

 

[oldgroaner]

Already done, and France is one of the two world leaders in the nuclear pile method with their Phoenix and Super Phoenix reactors. Dearer than PWR at present, but the mothballed but successful Super Phoenix design will use wastes from stockpiles as the supplies of cheap uranium run low.

And now there's a molten salt reactor that eats nuclear waste.
.

OOer! these Four words sent a shudder down my spine
into a graphite core.

Who not cool it by blowing air through and have filters on top of a 200 Foot high chimney?

Just kidding, but those of a certain age will know what i'm maundering on about!

 

[oldgroaner]

I kid you not this was in "The Times"

They dont seem very impressed!

 

[Danidl]

I was answering a wind energy post. I'm aware of the sea current turbines, but they will only ever make a miniscule contribution to needs, a bit like wave power.
.

.. flecc again I respectfully disagree with the proposition That wind power will be only be a niche player. Even without the full pan european grids, and the advantages it will confer, there are now multiple instances where wind has on occasions produced in excess of 70% of autonomous countries requirements. Ocean based wind , particularly off the windy west coasts of Ireland and Scotland will provide a lot. What has to be addressed is economically storing energy . As wind makes bigger inroads, than it currently does, the requirement for dispatchable power from storage becomes more important. ....

 

[oldgroaner]

And the Financial Times
https://transact.ft.com/en-gb/?play=electric-vehicles

 

[oldgroaner]

.. flecc again I respectfully disagree with the proposition That wind power will be only be a niche player. Even without the full pan european grids, and the advantages it will confer, there are now multiple instances where wind has on occasions produced in excess of 70% of autonomous countries requirements. Ocean based wind , particularly off the windy west coasts of Ireland and Scotland will provide a lot. What has to be addressed is economically storing energy . As wind makes bigger inroads, than it currently does, the requirement for dispatchable power from storage becomes more important. ....

Lord Armostrong stored the problems of energy storage with Hydraulic Accumulators, this should be tried with wind energy too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_accumulator

 

[Danidl]

Lord Armostrong stored the problems of energy storage with Hydraulic Accumulators, this should be tried with wind energy too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_accumulator

Modern equivalents include pumped storage systems where two lakes are dammed or constructed, one in a valley the other on the top of a mountain. A tunnel joins them and when energy can be stored , the generators are used as motors and pump water up hill .. currently in use in a number of countries as a load balancing measure.
Se

 

[Zlatan]

I was surprised by the amount of wind power generation in Spain.

Spain is blessed with numerous reliable winds( Marin, Tramontane etc Uk get none of these)and plenty of places where turbines can benefit from both thermal and adiabatic winds. ( Eg Tarifa...the windsurf capital of Europe has had massive farms for years) The Canaries benefit from similar effects but also get reliable trade winds through summer months which are amplified by local geography,thermall and adiabatic. Thinking UK can rely on wind because Spain can ( to an extent) is as silly as suggesting Lincolnshire rely on Hydroelectricity because they do in the Alps.
The cut in speed for nearly all Turbines utilised on wind farms either offshore or coastal in Uk is 8mph...They do not produce significant power until double that...
Quoting fact that some turbines can generate "power" at 2 mph is very misleading.
The size of turbine required to actually help power demands ( and be tall enough to actually reach more stable airflow simply means their mass is such they need 8mph to get them moving,let alone generating. Visit Beeford on coast and simply count the days they are actually moving , there are more sub 8mph days than plus 16 ones. There has been a massive injustice with wind turbines. The other stupidity wirh them is you still require another system capable of coping independently at maximum demand days so that everything can work on the often sub 12mph wind days.
There have been too many prople with vested interests in selling and promoting wind turbine. Yes , we expect to see them at windy venues ( Pozo,Tarifa,Leucate, Sotavento,Feurteventura,even probably Rhosneigre...but Beeford and Fraisthorpe ?) Somebody is having a laugh...at our expense.

Today has been a fairly windy day, perhaps gusting to 16 mph at times..so for a while the turbines at Beeford will have been moderately generating...but its 8 pm now...and breathless...Windfinder / Wundguru as always saying it should still be blowing a bit...but look outside...it ain't... In Spain however, all those thermals will have now switched off...thecTurbines will have been facing out to sea all day long, in perhaps 25:mph..but around now in many places that onshore thermal will spin around , the win that was flying up son great big hill , will now be cooling..wind will start falling down the hill...turbines will turn around...and start generating again..untill 10 pm ish...probably later..We don't get any of that in UK..
When farmer told us he,d got grant for building turbines at our local uk site we actually thought he was joking. At time wr commented" they,ll have to put motors on them most days, so they look like they are working"...!!!!

Just to put comparison in perspective between Fraisthorpe and a Windy venue like Tarifa. ( site if a massive wind farm on Southern tip of Spain)

Fraisthorpe has 6 months with average wind speed 5 knots. and 6 months with average 6 knots . Throughout the year it has 11% of days over 15 mph.

Tarifa. 6 months average 14 knots. 3 months average 12 knots. 3 months average 15 knots. It has 53% of days over 15 mph...(f4)
( Source. Windfinder, who tend to overestimate windstrength)

 

[flecc]

.. flecc again I respectfully disagree with the proposition That wind power will be only be a niche player.

You've misread my answer, please look again below and you'll see it had answers to two points raised by you. In the second I was referring to sea current turbines only ever making a miniscule contribution, comparing those to wave power, and I stand by that.

"I was answering a wind energy post. I'm aware of the sea current turbines, but they will only ever make a miniscule contribution to needs, a bit like wave power."
.

 

[oldgroaner]

Modern equivalents include pumped storage systems where two lakes are dammed or constructed, one in a valley the other on the top of a mountain. A tunnel joins them and when energy can be stored , the generators are used as motors and pump water up hill .. currently in use in a number of countries as a load balancing measure.
Se

Electric mountain in Snowdonia for instance..

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

 

[Danidl]

Spain is blessed with numerous reliable winds( Marin, Tramontane etc Uk get none of these)and plenty of places where turbines can benefit from both thermal and adiabatic winds. ( Eg Tarifa...the windsurf capital of Europe has had massive farms for years) The Canaries benefit from similar effects but also get reliable trade winds through summer months which are amplified by local geography,thermall and adiabatic. Thinking UK can rely on wind because Spain can ( to an extent) is as silly as suggesting Lincolnshire rely on Hydroelectricity because they do in the Alps.
The cut in speed for nearly all Turbines utilised on wind farms either offshore or coastal in Uk is 8mph...They do not produce significant power until double that...
Quoting fact that some turbines can generate "power" at 2 mph is very misleading.
The size of turbine required to actually help power demands ( and be tall enough to actually reach more stable airflow simply means their mass is such they need 8mph to get them moving,let alone generating. Visit Beeford on coast and simply count the days they are actually moving , there are more sub 8mph days than plus 16 ones. There has been a massive injustice with wind turbines. The other stupidity wirh them is you still require another system capable of coping independently at maximum demand days so that everything can work on the often sub 12mph wind days.
There have been too many prople with vested interests in selling and promoting wind turbine. Yes , we expect to see them at windy venues ( Pozo,Tarifa,Leucate, Sotavento,Feurteventura,even probably Rhosneigre...but Beeford and Fraisthorpe ?) Somebody is having a laugh...at our expense.

Today has been a fairly windy day, perhaps gusting to 16 mph at times..so for a while the turbines at Beeford will have been moderately generating...but its 8 pm now...and breathless...Windfinder / Wundguru as always saying it should still be blowing a bit...but look outside...it ain't... In Spain however, all those thermals will have now switched off...thecTurbines will have been facing out to sea all day long, in perhaps 25:mph..but around now in many places that onshore thermal will spin around , the win that was flying up son great big hill , will now be cooling..wind will start falling down the hill...turbines will turn around...and start generating again..untill 10 pm ish...probably later..We don't get any of that in UK..
When farmer told us he,d got grant for building turbines at our local uk site we actually thought he was joking. At time wr commented" they,ll have to put motors on them most days, so they look like they are working"...!!!!

Just to put comparison in perspective between Fraisthorpe and a Windy venue like Tarifa. ( site if a massive wind farm on Southern tip of Spain)

Fraisthorpe has 6 months with average wind speed 5 knots. and 6 months with average 6 knots . Throughout the year it has 11% of days over 15 mph.

Tarifa. 6 months average 14 knots. 3 months average 12 knots. 3 months average 15 knots. It has 53% of days over 15 mph...(f4)
( Source. Windfinder, who tend to overestimate windstrength)

.. hello you pick a relatively sheltered site on the east coast, 5 miles from the sea, in the shadows of Sweden, Denmark etc and compare it to a location facing out into the Atlantic where the next landmass is what 5000 miles away!!!!. Be fair
Look instead to parts of Cornwall, mull of kintyre and parts north of that.... Look also to the Atlantic seaboard of Ireland.. my friends in Galway claim never to have seen rain falling from the sky,.. it's always horizontal!. If I wanted to site a solar energy farm, I might give Galway a miss and select sunny Kent or better middle Spain. If I want highly efficient wind farm I would pick coastal, Atlantic regions where there is a good fetch.
Engineering is about horses for courses.

 

[Danidl]

Electric mountain in Snowdonia for instance..

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

Yes it appears similar to a facility in the Wicklow hills near Dublin at Tourlogh hill. I had the pleasure as an undergraduate of walking through the mountain as the tunnel was being constructed on a field trip.
There has been a proposal for lowering the cost by selecting suitable sites on coastal cliffs, creating a lake on the cliff and running a pipe down to the sea. Seawater would be pumped up for storage and then released for hydroelectric power on demand.