On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:24:36 +0100 someone who may be Grimly
Curmudgeon wrote this:-

Why does no one mention HEP as a renewable source of energy any more?

****ing NIMBYs and eco-conservationist ******s, that's why.

They were partly responsible for stopping the programme in Scotland,
but the other opposition included the (then) Scottish Office. They
favoured fossil fuel powered plant such as Inverkip, Longannet and
Peterhead. It was claimed it was cheaper to produce electricity in
them than by hydro.

Their arguments soon exploded. Inverkip seldom operated, except in
the miner's strike due to the high cost of oil. Peterhead was built
to burn oil and would have been as big a white elephant as Inverkip,
but it was converted to burn gas from the North Sea. When this was
sent to Mossmorran the station shut down for a while, until the
price of oil became lower and it operated on oil for a while until
converted to burn other gas from the North Sea.

Longannet did better, though eventually the mine flooded and all
coal had to be bought from elsewhere. Good news for the railways,
who bring most of the coal to the place.

Since the ending of the hydro programme the price of the fuel for
hydro stations has not gone up once, unlike the price of the fuel
for thermal power stations. Hydro still has high initial costs, in
building the dams and watercourses, but they then last pretty much
for as long as we want them to.

You can read about the NoSHEB schemes in Power from the Glens
http://www.scottish-southern.co.uk/sseinternet/assets/569CABFE-1165-4ED8-9419-CF3B5A64BC98.pdf

"the first large-scale scheme came into operation, in 1930. This
development, at Rannoch and Tummel Bridge in Perthshire, was built
by the Grampian Electricity Supply Company."

These stations are still producing electricity. That scheme has been
extended with subsequent work.

"The Foyers catchment area was first developed for hydro electric
power in 1896, by the British Aluminium Company. The plant, the
first large scale commercial hydro electric development in Britain,
was in continuous operation until the aluminium smelter it served
closed in 1971.

"In 1974, the Foyers combined pumped storage and conventional hydro
scheme began operating on the shores of Loch Ness. Pumped storage
schemes use machine sets that are designed for dual purpose
operation."

Pretty much in continuous operation from 1896 to today, except for a
few years during conversion [1]. The conventional turbine uses the
pipe BAC installed, the pumped storage scheme uses a new pipe and
the reservoir and catchment was enlarged for that scheme.



[1] http://www.scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst3852.html
has different dates for the redevelopment.



--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000...#pt3-pb3-l1g54