On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 18:17:33 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Anyway, there's absolutely no reason that they should not exceed
100BHP/litre, is there?

Cost
Fuel efficiency.
Tractability.
Noise
Pollution
Fuel.

Racing engines are optimised towards peak power to weight and peak power.

Car engines are optimised towards low production cost, fuel efficiency
and tractability. Theyhave to meet noise and pollution standards. They
have to run off pump fuel. F1 engines may all run on the same 'lowish
octane fuel', but its not what you buy at Tescos..

Both the BMW and Honda units that are around 100 bhp/ltr happily run on 95
octane. And are perfectly happy with town use.

But the F1 cars at 250bhp per liter are not.

I am not saying that 100bhp per liter is some kind of magic limit, but tyou
need VVTor chargers to get it. That knocks fuel efficiency out a bit.

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:30:04 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:27:27 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:50:15 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:36:52 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wittered as usual:


"Matt" wrote in message
m...

100bhp from a petrol 1.6? get real.

The 100bhp mark in a 1.6 was passed many moons ago,

Lord Hall, waht is the average BHP for 1600s on the market?

No idea, do your own research I can't be arsed. As you drive around in
your glorified washing machine ponder the fact that with forced
induction and toxic jungle juice they were getting around 1500bhp out
of a 1.5 litre back in the 1980's.


Oh sure. Very few prodution cars exceed 100bhp/liter. Certainly not
diesels.

My supercharged V8 4 liter jag dpes not crack 400bhp.

Racing engines can crack it to be sure...and especally 2-strokes.

Current F1 enfgines are cranking out 850bhp on 3.5 liters.

At 18,000 RPM using titanuium conrids and pneumatic valves....and about 3
miles a gallon

and your point being?

getting more than 100bhp per liter compromises other factors that are
important in production cars.

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:30:19 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:24:54 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:10:40 +0000, Matt wrote:

The 100bhp mark in a 1.6 was passed many moons ago, the 100bhp per
LITRE mark in production spec engines (both bike and car) was also
passed quite a while ago, hell you can even get a "washing machine"
Smart fortwo - 698cc that turns out 61 bhp (87bhp/litre)

But forget 200bhp, come up with a weedy "140bhp" power system using
battery storage, with a range even remotely comparable to say the
Passat 2 litre TDi and with similar performance (48.7 mpg combined
cycle, 749 mile range, 0-62 9.8 seconds, 130mph are the figures to aim
for)


Its been done already. Sadly I lost the link. I'll look for it an d post it
if I get time.

Oooh I can hardly wait :-) It's just like Christmas, you wait 10
million years for a decent battery system and all of a sudden one
appears from nowhere.

300 miles range, 160mph top speed and 0-60 in sub 6 seconds.

Although I grant you the range on the passat is likley to be greater.

and the fact it has space for 4 or 5 adult size humans and a boot you
can fill with something more than a collapsible toothbrush.

Regardless of price you'd better arrange cryogenic storage for me
though as it will probably take you 500 years to get anywhere near -
unless on board nuclear reactors become the norm :-)

Rubbish. 3 years for some decent concept car, and ten for production.


I've done the sums. Unlike Drivel I AM an enginneer..fully qualified.

Ditto, but don't forget the 48.7mpg "battery" :-)

Well see my new thread - I am keeping drivel plonked. He is doing the
electric car a disservice by spouting nonsense. I would rather engage in
some serious discussion with some kind of factual baisis.

I repeat, read it and see what an electric car with lithium batteries is
already capable of, follow the calculations of what it could be capable of,
and come back.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:30:19 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:24:54 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:10:40 +0000, Matt wrote:

The 100bhp mark in a 1.6 was passed many moons ago, the 100bhp per
LITRE mark in production spec engines (both bike and car) was also
passed quite a while ago, hell you can even get a "washing machine"
Smart fortwo - 698cc that turns out 61 bhp (87bhp/litre)

But forget 200bhp, come up with a weedy "140bhp" power system using
battery storage, with a range even remotely comparable to say the
Passat 2 litre TDi and with similar performance (48.7 mpg combined
cycle, 749 mile range, 0-62 9.8 seconds, 130mph are the figures to aim
for)


Its been done already. Sadly I lost the link. I'll look for it an d post
it
if I get time.

Oooh I can hardly wait :-) It's just like Christmas, you wait 10
million years for a decent battery system and all of a sudden one
appears from nowhere.

300 miles range, 160mph top speed and 0-60 in sub 6 seconds.

Although I grant you the range on the passat is likley to be greater.

and the fact it has space for 4 or 5 adult size humans and a boot you
can fill with something more than a collapsible toothbrush.

Regardless of price you'd better arrange cryogenic storage for me
though as it will probably take you 500 years to get anywhere near -
unless on board nuclear reactors become the norm :-)

Rubbish. 3 years for some decent concept car, and ten for production.


I've done the sums. Unlike Drivel I AM an enginneer..fully qualified.

Ditto, but don't forget the 48.7mpg "battery" :-)

Well see my new thread - I am keeping drivel plonked. He is doing the
electric car a disservice by spouting nonsense.

How do you know if you have me plonked?

I repeat, read it and see what an electric car with lithium batteries is
already capable of, follow the calculations of what it could be capable
of,
and come back.

I have already told you that.

In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:
and the point to electric cars is? Nothing of course, just scatter
brained ramblings.

Can't read the subject, moron? The efficiency of an IC unit is important
in a hybrid car. And a higher BHP per litre *might* make that unit lighter.
Of course Toyota soon realised their mistake in using a stirling cycle
unit. Latest models from them use a V-6.

--
*INDECISION is the key to FLEXIBILITY *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:
The Peugeot 206 1.4HDi beats the Prius in the combined cycle

Is this from the mag that said a Prius averaged 26mpg? Some reliable
mage eh? What bunkum.

You don't understand what combined cycle means? No surprise there. It's
not calculated by any magazine. It's an official figure given as a means
of comparison.

BTW it's nonsense to say the Prius managed 26 mpg overall. It was 23 mpg.
Perfectly dreadful. Many 'gas guzzlers' did better.

--
*Some days we are the flies; some days we are the windscreen.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Both the BMW and Honda units that are around 100 bhp/ltr happily run
on 95 octane. And are perfectly happy with town use.

But the F1 cars at 250bhp per liter are not.

Nor are they road legal, so I'm not quite sure what the point is?

I am not saying that 100bhp per liter is some kind of magic limit, but
tyou need VVTor chargers to get it. That knocks fuel efficiency out a
bit.

Quite the contrary. Variable valve timing raises efficiency and allows
good manners at low speeds. And more sophisticated variations which get
rid of the throttle on petrol engines will raise efficiency further.

Superchargers on the other hand always waste fuel.

--
*Taxation WITH representation ain't much fun, either.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 12:35:40 +0000, Matt wrote:


SNIP


It takes HOURS to get a steam boiler up to pressure. Only gas turbines are
relatively quick.


Which is why the concept of standby with boilers simmering at full pressure
was developed (or even spinning reserve where the turbines are fed with just
enough steam to meet the system losses).

BTW the pulverised fuel boilers in a power station bear very little
resemblance to the conventional cylindrical package boiler so common in
industry.

"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

SNIP


People have been very emotional about nuclear power. i've heard ministers
claiming blatint lies to be facts...

Why is there never any discussion of pebble bed reactors, currently
under development in many parts of the world, notably China?

Is this the same China that was touted on TV a short while ago as building
four/five Coal fired power stations each the size of Drax over the next ten
years?

"Dave Plowman (News)" through a haze of senile
flatulence wrote in message ...
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:

and the point to electric cars is? Nothing of course, just scatter
brained ramblings.

Can't read

** snip senile garbage **

Sad but true.

John wrote:
"Chris Bacon" wrote...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:
SNIP
People have been very emotional about nuclear power. i've heard ministers
claiming blatint lies to be facts...

Why is there never any discussion of pebble bed reactors, currently
under development in many parts of the world, notably China?

Is this the same China that was touted on TV a short while ago as building
four/five Coal fired power stations each the size of Drax over the next ten
years?

AFAIK there's only one China in the world. What are you getting at?

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:40:47 +0000 (UTC), "John"
wrote:


"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

People have been very emotional about nuclear power. i've heard ministers
claiming blatint lies to be facts...

Why is there never any discussion of pebble bed reactors, currently
under development in many parts of the world, notably China?

Is this the same China that was touted on TV a short while ago as building
four/five Coal fired power stations each the size of Drax over the next ten
years?

No reason why not, that sounds half way to a balanced energy policy.

If it wasn't for Thatcher pulling the plug on (at the time very
advanced) UK clean coal research after kicking the crap out of the
miners then we could still be sitting on generous UK controlled gas
reserves, burning a sensible balance of coal in a new generation of
clean coal power stations while profitably exporting similar
technology all over the world (maybe even to China) thus providing
real jobs in the UK, funding an even better NHS, better schools, a few
thousand wind turbines, a couple of tidal barrages and maybe a few
nukes. But no, the bitch was not for turning - (I reckon a couple of
hours at the stake might have changed her)

Instead we have a glorified call centre economy, all the gas has been
exported and ****ed away, the mining industry is non existent, the
lights are about to go out and the government is borrowing again.

Thatcher's Britain, the legacy lives on - but at least they might be
slapping some croc clip electrodes on her old buddy Pinochet's
knackers very soon.

--

"Matt" aka Lord Hall wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:40:47 +0000 (UTC), "John"
wrote:


"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

People have been very emotional about nuclear power. i've heard
ministers
claiming blatint lies to be facts...

Why is there never any discussion of pebble bed reactors, currently
under development in many parts of the world, notably China?

Is this the same China that was touted on TV a short while ago as
building
four/five Coal fired power stations each the size of Drax over the next
ten
years?

No reason why not, that sounds half way to a balanced energy policy.

If it wasn't for Thatcher pulling the plug on (at the time very
advanced) UK clean coal research after kicking the crap out of the
miners then we could still be sitting on generous UK controlled gas
reserves, burning a sensible balance of coal in a new generation of
clean coal power stations while profitably exporting similar
technology all over the world (maybe even to China) thus providing
real jobs in the UK, funding an even better NHS, better schools, a few
thousand wind turbines, a couple of tidal barrages and maybe a few
nukes. But no, the bitch was not for turning - (I reckon a couple of
hours at the stake might have changed her)

Lord Hall, the woman was filth, that is clear. She cut the nose of the UK
for spite because she hated unions. It is all coming back to haunt us. We
could be having clean burning coal power stations and miner bands still
playing too. She was wicked, clearly wicked.

"Matt" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:13:31 GMT, "dennis@home"
wrote:


"Matt" wrote in message
. ..
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:11:37 GMT, "dennis@home"
wrote:

Quite a lot of peak demand is supplied by stored water generation
(inside
welsh moutains)

No, SOME peak demand is supplied by pumped storage schemes

Thats what I said.
Quite a lot and SOME have the same meaning.

No, they will not routinely use the pumped storage capacity for peak
demand because if a conventional generator is lost or there is an
overhead line circuit fault the system could quite rapidly become
unstable. Some peak demand is met by pumped storage but "quite a lot"
would be very severely overstating the case.

For instance, maybe like today, on a typical winter day with plenty of
spare conventional capacity declared available (no constraints) the
contribution from pumped storage at peak would be NIL (remembering
that like every day there will still be a peak demand that is way in
excess of the minimum demand). On unexpected loss of say 500MW of
generation 30 minutes before a peak then pumped storage generation may
be rescheduled to be 200MW, the rest being achieved by picking up load
earlier on other conventional plant, some of the remainder of the
pumped generation may be spinning in air so that loading can be
rapidly achieved, but it won't generate beyond this because of the
increased costs associated with pumped storage. Basically if demand
can be easily met by conventional plant then it will. The huge peaks
so often referred to in publicity blub are in reality a few times a
decade occurance (football/burying royals etc)

and by gas turbines which spin up in a few seconds.

That has not been the practice in the UK for about 30 years, they
didn't even run during the miners strike in the 80's

That's odd, they built the one three miles from me since then.

No, the last gas turbines added to the UK system would have been at
Torness in around 1988 and Sizewell B in 1996, neither are fuelled by
gas but can run up to be on load in around 2 minutes. A gas turbine
in any historical sense related to the UK power industry was always
fuelled by gas oil, a heavier fraction than aviation fuel, and never,
ever by gas. So unless you live next to those two nuclear sites what
they will have actually built near you is a combined cycle gas fired
station which CANNOT be loaded in anything like a "few seconds"

OK a minute or two which is about 60-120 seconds in the context of power
generation that is a few.

Anyway its only 280Mw so its pretty small.

There is a full review of them here
http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/temp/ofgem/c...ew/archive.jsp
FWIW.

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:32:06 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Both the BMW and Honda units that are around 100 bhp/ltr happily run
on 95 octane. And are perfectly happy with town use.

But the F1 cars at 250bhp per liter are not.

Nor are they road legal, so I'm not quite sure what the point is?

I am not saying that 100bhp per liter is some kind of magic limit, but
tyou need VVTor chargers to get it. That knocks fuel efficiency out a
bit.

Quite the contrary. Variable valve timing raises efficiency

Er..only from a woefully low figure that a straight timed fast revving
engine has.


VVT allows a 'racing' engine to perate efficiently when not 'racing' It
doesn't overall do anything that tuning the engine more modestlly would
allow in the first place, other than develop more power without spitting
unburbnt fuel out the exhaust at lower RPM.

and allows
good manners at low speeds. And more sophisticated variations which get
rid of the throttle on petrol engines will raise efficiency further.

Superchargers on the other hand always waste fuel.

Not necessarily either. If you can increae peak peressures and combustion
temperatures you can actually gain efficiency. However thats not the way
they are set up on road cars.

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:15:42 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:40:47 +0000 (UTC), "John"
wrote:


"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

People have been very emotional about nuclear power. i've heard ministers
claiming blatint lies to be facts...

Why is there never any discussion of pebble bed reactors, currently
under development in many parts of the world, notably China?

Is this the same China that was touted on TV a short while ago as building
four/five Coal fired power stations each the size of Drax over the next ten
years?

No reason why not, that sounds half way to a balanced energy policy.

If it wasn't for Thatcher pulling the plug on (at the time very
advanced) UK clean coal research after kicking the crap out of the
miners then we could still be sitting on generous UK controlled gas
reserves, burning a sensible balance of coal in a new generation of
clean coal power stations while profitably exporting similar
technology all over the world (maybe even to China) thus providing
real jobs in the UK, funding an even better NHS, better schools, a few
thousand wind turbines, a couple of tidal barrages and maybe a few
nukes. But no, the bitch was not for turning - (I reckon a couple of
hours at the stake might have changed her)

Instead we have a glorified call centre economy, all the gas has been
exported and ****ed away, the mining industry is non existent, the
lights are about to go out and the government is borrowing again.

Thatcher's Britain, the legacy lives on - but at least they might be
slapping some croc clip electrodes on her old buddy Pinochet's
knackers very soon.

Well, here was goo reason not to have the countries whole energy supplies
at the mercy of a bunch of guys whose sole interest was working less and
earning more.

Sadly she got one lot, but the next lot have taken the reins.

"Matt" wrote in message
...

I've done the sums. Unlike Drivel I AM an enginneer..fully qualified.

Ditto, but don't forget the 48.7mpg "battery" :-)


That's one of the problems.. too many engineers trying to solve the problem
when the real problem has not been identified.
To save a significant amount of energy requires someone to beat the owners
into buying smaller cars.. not in marketing men designing hybrids.

A real saving in energy could be made by removing the speed control from the
driver and letting a properly programmed computer do the job.
This is only a year or two away if someone gets serious about it.

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
reenews.net...

"Matt" aka Lord Hall wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:40:47 +0000 (UTC), "John"
wrote:


"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

People have been very emotional about nuclear power. i've heard
ministers
claiming blatint lies to be facts...

Why is there never any discussion of pebble bed reactors, currently
under development in many parts of the world, notably China?

Is this the same China that was touted on TV a short while ago as
building
four/five Coal fired power stations each the size of Drax over the next
ten
years?

No reason why not, that sounds half way to a balanced energy policy.

If it wasn't for Thatcher pulling the plug on (at the time very
advanced) UK clean coal research after kicking the crap out of the
miners then we could still be sitting on generous UK controlled gas
reserves, burning a sensible balance of coal in a new generation of
clean coal power stations while profitably exporting similar
technology all over the world (maybe even to China) thus providing
real jobs in the UK, funding an even better NHS, better schools, a few
thousand wind turbines, a couple of tidal barrages and maybe a few
nukes. But no, the bitch was not for turning - (I reckon a couple of
hours at the stake might have changed her)

Lord Hall, the woman was filth, that is clear. She cut the nose of the UK
for spite because she hated unions. It is all coming back to haunt us.
We
could be having clean burning coal power stations and miner bands still
playing too. She was wicked, clearly wicked.


Don't be stupid.
It wasn't Thatcher that turned a pay dispute into a political fight.
It was the miners union that vowed to topple the elected government by any
means at its disposal.

Thatcher did what she was elected to do.. make sure that citizens were
protected from the powerful minority.
To do this they changed the rules to get gas and oil into the generating
system so that the miners could never try again.

If the miners had stuck to pay/conditions then we would probably be burning
coal now.. but their leaders choose suicide for them.

Incidentally the clean coal research was mainly to allow us to burn cheap
imported coal and not the stuff that is still in the ground.

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 08:43:10 GMT, "dennis@home"
wrote:

To save a significant amount of energy requires someone to beat the owners
into buying smaller cars..

True. We have lost the plot. 200hp / 150mph / 4x4 when for most
people, most of the time a Nissan Micra would do the same *job* (but
not massage their egos). I know I know, 'big powereful cars are safer'
etc etc but like all the 4x4's stuck in the snowbound traffic .. ok as
long as everyone has got one.

not in marketing men designing hybrids.

True. But I suppose *someone* has to buy then to get some real world
testing done? Did I hear the 'Smart car' has ceased production?
Another marketing failure or just no good / too expensive? Or was it
that we *still* aren't ready for a very compact runabout?

A real saving in energy could be made by removing the speed control from the
driver and letting a properly programmed computer do the job.
This is only a year or two away if someone gets serious about it.

And the steering control. How many million tonns of pollution are
created by thousands of vehicles stuck in 'tailbacks' caused by
'accidents' when (in most probability) those accidents were a function
of poor / inconsiderate driving?

Even making certain things an offence .. like driving whilst on a
mobile phone, driving the wrong side of a keep left sign, driving
without wearing a seat belt, parking in a dissabled bay, speeding,
driving a defective vehicle, parking on a crossing, jumping red
lights, littering and undertaking to name a few .. I see the same
people doing ALL those things daily? What part of the rules *do* apply
to them? The only reason they (more often) get away with it is because
the majority of us don't do it?

As mentioned, a big part of protecting the planet will come with new
technologies but we can probably do better *now* by saving not
squandering... why do so many people have to be forced to do what's
right for the survival of them and their offspring?

It took millions of years to make and we squander it in just 200 years
.....?

All the best ..

T i m

"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
John wrote:
"Chris Bacon" wrote...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:
SNIP
People have been very emotional about nuclear power. i've heard
ministers
claiming blatint lies to be facts...

Why is there never any discussion of pebble bed reactors, currently
under development in many parts of the world, notably China?

Is this the same China that was touted on TV a short while ago as
building four/five Coal fired power stations each the size of Drax over
the next ten years?

AFAIK there's only one China in the world. What are you getting at?

Basically the nonsense of us tying ourselves in knots over Kyoto when China
and Merika et al make our global contributions absolutely insignificant. 10%
of sod all is sod all.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
news

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
reenews.net...

"Matt" aka Lord Hall wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:40:47 +0000 (UTC), "John"
wrote:


"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

People have been very emotional about nuclear power. i've heard
ministers
claiming blatint lies to be facts...

Why is there never any discussion of pebble bed reactors, currently
under development in many parts of the world, notably China?

Is this the same China that was touted on TV a short while ago as
building
four/five Coal fired power stations each the size of Drax over the
next
ten
years?

No reason why not, that sounds half way to a balanced energy policy.

If it wasn't for Thatcher pulling the plug on (at the time very
advanced) UK clean coal research after kicking the crap out of the
miners then we could still be sitting on generous UK controlled gas
reserves, burning a sensible balance of coal in a new generation of
clean coal power stations while profitably exporting similar
technology all over the world (maybe even to China) thus providing
real jobs in the UK, funding an even better NHS, better schools, a few
thousand wind turbines, a couple of tidal barrages and maybe a few
nukes. But no, the bitch was not for turning - (I reckon a couple of
hours at the stake might have changed her)

Lord Hall, the woman was filth, that is clear. She cut the nose of the
UK
for spite because she hated unions. It is all coming back to haunt us.
We
could be having clean burning coal power stations and miner bands still
playing too. She was wicked, clearly wicked.


Don't be stupid.
It wasn't Thatcher that turned a pay dispute
into a political fight.

It was the hag herself. Her government got rid of the coal industry.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:15:42 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:40:47 +0000 (UTC), "John"
wrote:


"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

People have been very emotional about nuclear power. i've heard
ministers
claiming blatint lies to be facts...

Why is there never any discussion of pebble bed reactors, currently
under development in many parts of the world, notably China?

Is this the same China that was touted on TV a short while ago as
building
four/five Coal fired power stations each the size of Drax over the next
ten
years?

No reason why not, that sounds half way to a balanced energy policy.

If it wasn't for Thatcher pulling the plug on (at the time very
advanced) UK clean coal research after kicking the crap out of the
miners then we could still be sitting on generous UK controlled gas
reserves, burning a sensible balance of coal in a new generation of
clean coal power stations while profitably exporting similar
technology all over the world (maybe even to China) thus providing
real jobs in the UK, funding an even better NHS, better schools, a few
thousand wind turbines, a couple of tidal barrages and maybe a few
nukes. But no, the bitch was not for turning - (I reckon a couple of
hours at the stake might have changed her)

Instead we have a glorified call centre economy, all the gas has been
exported and ****ed away, the mining industry is non existent, the
lights are about to go out and the government is borrowing again.

Thatcher's Britain, the legacy lives on - but at least they might be
slapping some croc clip electrodes on her old buddy Pinochet's
knackers very soon.

Well, here was goo reason not to have the countries whole energy supplies
at the mercy of a bunch of guys whose sole interest was working less and
earning more.

A typical stupid snotty uni view. Madness, total madness.

Sadly she got one lot,

Gloating that whole communities were devastated and masses of energy lay
there untouched. What a saddo.

but the next lot have taken the reins.

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Quite the contrary. Variable valve timing raises efficiency

Er..only from a woefully low figure that a straight timed fast revving
engine has.

Isn't that the idea? You get the benefit of a powerful engine when you
need that power, but still have tractability in the form of decent low rev
torque and better efficiency. Have you ever driven essentially the same
engine with and without variable valve timing? I have, and it's a
revelation.


VVT allows a 'racing' engine to perate efficiently when not 'racing' It
doesn't overall do anything that tuning the engine more modestlly would
allow in the first place, other than develop more power without spitting
unburbnt fuel out the exhaust at lower RPM.

Err, if you're happy with an engine that has a poor power output then fair
enough. But variable timing gives you the choice - it's up to you whether
you use the extra performance at high revs.

and allows good manners at low speeds. And more sophisticated
variations which get rid of the throttle on petrol engines will raise
efficiency further.

Superchargers on the other hand always waste fuel.

Not necessarily either. If you can increae peak peressures and combustion
temperatures you can actually gain efficiency. However thats not the way
they are set up on road cars.

Then what is their point in this discussion about road cars? Unless you're
suggesting hybrids will appear in racing cars?

--
*Go the extra mile. It makes your boss look like an incompetent slacker *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Thatcher's Britain, the legacy lives on - but at least they might be
slapping some croc clip electrodes on her old buddy Pinochet's
knackers very soon.

Well, here was goo reason not to have the countries whole energy supplies
at the mercy of a bunch of guys whose sole interest was working less and
earning more.

So this has been applied to all across the board? Not allowing earnings to
rise unreasonably? And since when was coal the only energy in this country?

--
*Forget about World Peace...Visualize using your turn signal.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

dennis@home wrote:
If the miners had stuck to pay/conditions then we would probably be burning
coal now.. but their leaders choose suicide for them.

I still burn about 3 tons of Welsh anthracite yearly...


Incidentally the clean coal research was mainly to allow us to burn cheap
imported coal and not the stuff that is still in the ground.

.... and it costs £185/ton.

John wrote:
"Chris Bacon" wrote...
John wrote:
"Chris Bacon" wrote...
Why is there never any discussion of pebble bed reactors, currently
under development in many parts of the world, notably China?

Is this the same China that was touted on TV a short while ago as
building four/five Coal fired power stations each the size of Drax over
the next ten years?

AFAIK there's only one China in the world. What are you getting at?

Basically the nonsense of us tying ourselves in knots over Kyoto when China
and Merika et al make our global contributions absolutely insignificant. 10%
of sod all is sod all.

Hopefully they'll get their act together and MPBRs will become
a commercially and environmentally option as soon as possible.

The world ought to censure the Americans for their backward
and recalcitrant attitude.

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 02:34:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Well, here was goo reason not to have the countries whole energy supplies
at the mercy of a bunch of guys whose sole interest was working less and
earning more.

A mere 20 years later we have a bunch of gas traders in the city
earning a huge bonus while the gas consumer gets royally screwed,
nancy boys in suits with an excess of hair gel, drinking bottles of
wine at 40k a bottle running the country into the ground .....or
sweaty honest working men ****ted up to eyeballs and coughing up stone
dust before they go down the pub for a pie and pint?

I suppose you have never been underground, I have for a few short
hours and while I wouldn't wish it on anyone, the ones that did go
underground have my utmost respect - they deserved EVERY penny and a
whole lot more. Ultimately a country that is no longer in control of
its energy reserves is a country doomed to failure, back in the rosy
days of Thatcher's rule it might have seemed like a victory for the
Home Counties over the "Slum North" and all those "communists in the
unions" but history will ultimately show that the miners were fighting
not only for themselves but FOR the country and not against it. A
concept that Thatcher could never appreciate. She was the enemy and as
guilty of treason as Lord Haw Haw.

The current lot entrenched in Westminster are just as bad though -
letting the huge reserves that were still recoverable in the Selby
coalfield be abandoned in the past couple of years is to my mind just
as treacherous as what Thatcher did, especially when the "invisible
Nuclear funding" is still leaving via the back door at number 11.


--

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:58:59 GMT, "dennis@home"
wrote:


"Matt" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:13:31 GMT, "dennis@home"
wrote:


"Matt" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:11:37 GMT, "dennis@home"
wrote:

Quite a lot of peak demand is supplied by stored water generation
(inside
welsh moutains)

No, SOME peak demand is supplied by pumped storage schemes

Thats what I said.
Quite a lot and SOME have the same meaning.

No, they will not routinely use the pumped storage capacity for peak
demand because if a conventional generator is lost or there is an
overhead line circuit fault the system could quite rapidly become
unstable. Some peak demand is met by pumped storage but "quite a lot"
would be very severely overstating the case.

For instance, maybe like today, on a typical winter day with plenty of
spare conventional capacity declared available (no constraints) the
contribution from pumped storage at peak would be NIL (remembering
that like every day there will still be a peak demand that is way in
excess of the minimum demand). On unexpected loss of say 500MW of
generation 30 minutes before a peak then pumped storage generation may
be rescheduled to be 200MW, the rest being achieved by picking up load
earlier on other conventional plant, some of the remainder of the
pumped generation may be spinning in air so that loading can be
rapidly achieved, but it won't generate beyond this because of the
increased costs associated with pumped storage. Basically if demand
can be easily met by conventional plant then it will. The huge peaks
so often referred to in publicity blub are in reality a few times a
decade occurance (football/burying royals etc)

and by gas turbines which spin up in a few seconds.

That has not been the practice in the UK for about 30 years, they
didn't even run during the miners strike in the 80's

That's odd, they built the one three miles from me since then.

No, the last gas turbines added to the UK system would have been at
Torness in around 1988 and Sizewell B in 1996, neither are fuelled by
gas but can run up to be on load in around 2 minutes. A gas turbine
in any historical sense related to the UK power industry was always
fuelled by gas oil, a heavier fraction than aviation fuel, and never,
ever by gas. So unless you live next to those two nuclear sites what
they will have actually built near you is a combined cycle gas fired
station which CANNOT be loaded in anything like a "few seconds"

OK a minute or two which is about 60-120 seconds in the context of power
generation that is a few.

Anyway its only 280Mw so its pretty small.

No, you have totally failed to grasp the concept, but then again I
didn't explicitly mention it! In an historical UK electricity system
context i.e everything installed pre 1990, gas turbines used gas oil,
the total installed capacity of this type in the UK would have been
around 2000MW, distributed around most of the large generating
stations both coal, oil and nuclear, together with dedicated sites
where the security of supply requirements would not be met without
them. Most of these would hardly ever run (the last long term running
would have been in the early 1970's and only then for peak demand in
exceptional circumstances as the cost of generation was VERY high)

Combined cycle gas fired power stations which first appeared in the UK
around 1992 are NOT the same thing, they cannot be "spun up in a few
seconds" These CCGT's now comprise around 40% of UK generating
capacity, they are fuelled with natural gas powering a "gas turbine"
and use heat recovery techniques from the gas turbine exhaust gas to
heat water and thus also drive a low pressure steam turbine. Some of
them also supply process heat (steam and/or water) to industrial
premises co-located with the power station.

Now down to the rapidity of loading:

If the unit has been on load in the last few hours with the
expectation of a short term return to generation you might possibly
expect an increase from first firing to full load in around an hour.
If it has been considerably longer than 4-6 hours then look at 2-3
hours from first firing to full load.

In limited circumstances more rapid loading in around 15 minutes on
the gas turbine part of the station is theoretically possible, this
practice however *very* seriously reduces the operational life of
turbine components and thus forms no part of any UK operators regime,
nor is any assumption on this basis made in declaring or despatching
generation.

Anyway its only 280Mw so its pretty small.

There is a full review of them here
http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/temp/ofgem/c...ew/archive.jsp
FWIW.


A few comments on that report:

1) on page 50, the sites deemed as having declared capacities as of
1st April 1990 such as

Cowes
Letchworth
Lister Drive
Norwich
Ocker Hill
Watford

.....are noted as being CCGT's. That is absolutely incorrect, they are
pure gas turbines (open cycle) they should really have been designated
"GT" or "OCGT" in the report. These sites could run up to full load
in a very short period of time typically 2 minutes to synchronisation
and up to around 5 minutes for full load, but almost all of them have
long since shut down. There are other ones remaining which are not
detailed at all in that report located at power stations with
declared black start capability, or where they are required for other
reasons such as at all the nuclear stations where it is desirable to
keep some forced reactor cooling flow after shutdown.

2) it was produced 7.5 years ago and while a lot of the information
may still be current a lot of it isn't, for instance while a few
of the sites listed with consent have since been built, many ran out
of time and lost consent (5 years after initial grant) and at least
one not even mentioned on that report has subsequently been built (in
slightly questionable circumstances it has to be said!)



--

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 09:03:31 GMT, "dennis@home"
wrote:


Incidentally the clean coal research was mainly to allow us to burn cheap
imported coal and not the stuff that is still in the ground.

Not sure where that idea came from, the whole basis of the program was
to enable the use of high sulphur coal commonly found IN the UK! They
sited the large scale test facility where it was for precisely that
reason!


--

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 10:14:13 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:

Don't be stupid.
It wasn't Thatcher that turned a pay dispute
into a political fight.

It was the hag herself. Her government got rid of the coal industry.

With a lot of help from Scargill; during the strike a lot of pits got
flooded and so had to close anyway.

cheers,
Pete.

In article ,
Pete C wrote:
On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 10:14:13 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:

Don't be stupid.
It wasn't Thatcher that turned a pay dispute
into a political fight.

It was the hag herself. Her government got rid of the coal industry.

With a lot of help from Scargill; during the strike a lot of pits got
flooded and so had to close anyway.

Check who paid for the propaganda that you read.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

John Cartmell wrote:
Pete C wrote:
"Doctor Drivel" wrote:
Don't be stupid.
It wasn't Thatcher that turned a pay dispute
into a political fight.
It was the hag herself. Her government got rid of the coal industry.
With a lot of help from Scargill; during the strike a lot of pits got
flooded and so had to close anyway.

Check who paid for the propaganda that you read.

Jesus. Do you *ever* contribute anything useful and relevant?
References to such would be appreciated.

"Pete C" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 10:14:13 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:

Don't be stupid.
It wasn't Thatcher that turned a pay dispute
into a political fight.

It was the hag herself. Her government got rid of the coal industry.

With a lot of help from Scargill;

NO, the hag herself. They run the place.

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:51:25 +0000, Pete C
wrote:

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 10:14:13 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:

Don't be stupid.
It wasn't Thatcher that turned a pay dispute
into a political fight.

It was the hag herself. Her government got rid of the coal industry.

With a lot of help from Scargill; during the strike a lot of pits got
flooded and so had to close anyway.

Even during the darkest days of the strike essential maintenance and
safety checks in accordance with the relevant legislation were always
carried out - semi-continuous pumping in some areas is essential and
nothing I have seen reported at the time or since would suggest that
pits were deliberately flooded or pumping stopped before the final
closure date, and even then recovery of equipment in some cases went
on for months. In fact I vaguely recall some NUM staff actually going
underground to deal with either a fire or a flood during the strike -
totally sanctioned by the union (and despite that I believe they were
never paid by the NCB)


--

"Matt" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 02:34:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:


SNIP political dogma


The current lot entrenched in Westminster are just as bad though -
letting the huge reserves that were still recoverable in the Selby
coalfield be abandoned in the past couple of years is to my mind just
as treacherous

Being relatively local to the Selby coalfield and having watched all the
billboards in the area proclaiming "British Coal - one hundred years of
energy!" or similar wording I was amazed to see the mines on this coalfield
shutdown.
Hopefully McGregors ideas of leaving it in the ground until conditions were
right mean that we have a source of UKenergy after others are depleted

"Matt" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:58:59 GMT, "dennis@home"
wrote:

SNIP


A few comments on that report:

1) on page 50, the sites deemed as having declared capacities as of
1st April 1990 such as

Cowes
Letchworth
Lister Drive
Norwich
Ocker Hill
Watford

....are noted as being CCGT's. That is absolutely incorrect, they are
pure gas turbines (open cycle) they should really have been designated
"GT" or "OCGT" in the report. These sites could run up to full load
in a very short period of time typically 2 minutes to synchronisation
and up to around 5 minutes for full load, but almost all of them have
long since shut down. There are other ones remaining which are not
detailed at all in that report located at power stations with
declared black start capability, or where they are required for other
reasons such as at all the nuclear stations where it is desirable to
keep some forced reactor cooling flow after shutdown.

2) it was produced 7.5 years ago and while a lot of the information
may still be current a lot of it isn't, for instance while a few
of the sites listed with consent have since been built, many ran out
of time and lost consent (5 years after initial grant) and at least
one not even mentioned on that report has subsequently been built (in
slightly questionable circumstances it has to be said!)



When it was in existence the CEGB used to produce a year book with a great
deal of valuable analysis figures for the UK generation and grid capacity.

Is there a similar publication presently available as a central information
source?

"Matt" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 09:03:31 GMT, "dennis@home"
wrote:


Incidentally the clean coal research was mainly to allow us to burn cheap
imported coal and not the stuff that is still in the ground.

Not sure where that idea came from, the whole basis of the program was
to enable the use of high sulphur coal commonly found IN the UK! They
sited the large scale test facility where it was for precisely that
reason!


Was this the fluid bed combustion system which I vaguely recall reading
something about at one time?

"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
John Cartmell wrote:
Pete C wrote:
"Doctor Drivel" wrote:
Don't be stupid.
It wasn't Thatcher that turned a pay dispute
into a political fight.
It was the hag herself. Her government got rid of the coal industry.
With a lot of help from Scargill; during the strike a lot of pits got
flooded and so had to close anyway.

Check who paid for the propaganda that you read.

Jesus. Do you *ever* contribute anything useful and relevant?
References to such would be appreciated.

It was very true though.

Doctor Drivel wrote:
"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
Jesus. Do you *ever* contribute anything useful and relevant?
References to such would be appreciated.

It was very true though.

So what if it was? uk.politics.? is over there --

In article ,
Pete C wrote:
With a lot of help from Scargill; during the strike a lot of pits got
flooded and so had to close anyway.

Safety personnel are exempt from the strike.

--
*Cover me. I'm changing lanes.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.