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Default Windmill nonsense.. Tilting at Wind mills

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 17:24:33 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall
wrote this:-

They are windmills.


Wind mills mill things, generally turning grains into a relatively
fine powder.

Wind pumps pump things, usually water.

Wind turbines produce electricity.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54
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On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:01:34 +0100, David Hansen wrote
(in article ):

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:04:58 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall
wrote this:-

This has very little value.


I'm glad to see that you didn't have any real answers to the points
raised, other than moaning about biased sources. Excellent.

Hardly.

It really isn't worth wasting time when the sources are so unbalanced.




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On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:09:04 +0100, David Hansen wrote
(in article ):

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 17:24:33 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall
wrote this:-

They are windmills.


Wind mills mill things, generally turning grains into a relatively
fine powder.

Wind pumps pump things, usually water.

Wind turbines produce electricity.




Use whatever term you like in attempting to package this.

They remain industrial in appearance and nature.


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"David Hansen" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 17:24:33 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall
wrote this:-

They are windmills.


Wind mills mill things, generally turning grains into a relatively
fine powder.

Wind pumps pump things, usually water.

Wind turbines produce electricity.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh


Unfortunately I 'lost' David's post ... due to a loss of power at my pc ...


however, if I recall correctly he pointed at a URL
http://www.bwea.com/ref/faq.html#payback (?) which seem to claim ...

'The average wind farm in the UK will pay back the energy used in its
manufacture within six to eight months, this compares favourably with coal
or nuclear power stations, which take about six months'

Hmm; talk about 'hand-waving'; Where's the _numbers_?
Fr'instance; a typical wind turbine installation contains n tonne of steel,
n tonne of aluminium, produced from n tonne of ore, x miles of copper .... y
tonnes of concrete ... requiring XXX MegaJoules of input, the power
generated (output) _averages_ at YYY MegaJoules. YYY = XXX at n months.

Ding, bloody Dong! Even the _claim_ from the British Wind Energy
Association - no hint of bias there! - has a variance of thirty-odd percent
! Six months - eight months!
Which is it?

I expect next that David will croon 'Things can only get better!'

There's lies, damm lies and very dodgy statistics ....
six months ... eight months ... ! Imagine an _Engineer_ saying; - "the
bridge will span the gap ... or stop three quarter of the way across" ....
"this aircraft will rotate at 120 Kts ... or it might need 180 Kts' ... !
Yet because it's 'green'; we're expected to gloss over these 'facts', with a
sigh of 'they mean well, Bless them' ?

--

Brian




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Default Windmill nonsense.. Tilting at Wind mills

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 16:05:15 +0100, Brian Sharrock wrote
(in article ):


"David Hansen" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 17:24:33 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall
wrote this:-

They are windmills.


Wind mills mill things, generally turning grains into a relatively
fine powder.

Wind pumps pump things, usually water.

Wind turbines produce electricity.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh


Unfortunately I 'lost' David's post ... due to a loss of power at my pc ...


however, if I recall correctly he pointed at a URL
http://www.bwea.com/ref/faq.html#payback (?) which seem to claim ...

'The average wind farm in the UK will pay back the energy used in its
manufacture within six to eight months, this compares favourably with coal
or nuclear power stations, which take about six months'

Hmm; talk about 'hand-waving'; Where's the _numbers_?
Fr'instance; a typical wind turbine installation contains n tonne of steel,
n tonne of aluminium, produced from n tonne of ore, x miles of copper .... y
tonnes of concrete ... requiring XXX MegaJoules of input, the power
generated (output) _averages_ at YYY MegaJoules. YYY = XXX at n months.

Ding, bloody Dong! Even the _claim_ from the British Wind Energy
Association - no hint of bias there! - has a variance of thirty-odd percent
! Six months - eight months!
Which is it?

I expect next that David will croon 'Things can only get better!'

There's lies, damm lies and very dodgy statistics ....
six months ... eight months ... ! Imagine an _Engineer_ saying; - "the
bridge will span the gap ... or stop three quarter of the way across" ....
"this aircraft will rotate at 120 Kts ... or it might need 180 Kts' ... !
Yet because it's 'green'; we're expected to gloss over these 'facts', with a
sigh of 'they mean well, Bless them' ?



Exactly. If there were a greater degree of honesty rather than trading on
green perception, this would all have more credibility.




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On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:05:15 GMT someone who may be "Brian Sharrock"
wrote this:-

Hmm; talk about 'hand-waving'; Where's the _numbers_?


Feel free to look them up, there are a number of reports on the
subject should you wish to do so. The SDC report on the subject is a
good starting point and has the references.

! Six months - eight months!
Which is it?


You are assuming that all wind turbines are the same. However, they
are not and they are not all installed in the same location either.
As a result there is some variability.

The BWEA claims thus reflect the complications. Personally I would
be suspicious of one figure, it would suggest that an Alastair
Campbell had sexed up the output of the experts in order to make it
look "better" to the public.

I expect next that David will croon 'Things can only get better!'


Nice try, but rather wide of the mark.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54
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Ian White wrote:

The cumulative amount of high-level waste produced by *any* fission
reactor system is almost exactly proportional to the cumulative amount
of heat energy that has been generated. There is no significant
difference between thermal reactors and fast reactors in this respect.


Why?
You seem to make claims like this with great confidence
but as far as I can see without the slightest evidence.

"Considerable experience with reprocessing in France however, has indicated
that a one way fuel cycle based on extracting and processing fresh supplies
of uranium and storing the spent fuel is more economical than reprocessing,
not the least because in the process of plutonium extraction, the volume of
high-level liquid radioactive waste increases about 17-fold."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor


--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
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Default Windmill nonsense.. Tilting at Wind mills

Brian Sharrock wrote:

however, if I recall correctly he pointed at a URL
http://www.bwea.com/ref/faq.html#payback (?) which seem to claim ...

'The average wind farm in the UK will pay back the energy used in its
manufacture within six to eight months, this compares favourably with coal
or nuclear power stations, which take about six months'

Hmm; talk about 'hand-waving'; Where's the _numbers_?
Fr'instance; a typical wind turbine installation contains n tonne of steel,
n tonne of aluminium, produced from n tonne of ore, x miles of copper .... y
tonnes of concrete ... requiring XXX MegaJoules of input, the power
generated (output) _averages_ at YYY MegaJoules. YYY = XXX at n months.

Ding, bloody Dong! Even the _claim_ from the British Wind Energy
Association - no hint of bias there! - has a variance of thirty-odd percent
! Six months - eight months!
Which is it?

I expect next that David will croon 'Things can only get better!'

There's lies, damm lies and very dodgy statistics ....
six months ... eight months ... ! Imagine an _Engineer_ saying; - "the
bridge will span the gap ... or stop three quarter of the way across" ....
"this aircraft will rotate at 120 Kts ... or it might need 180 Kts' ... !
Yet because it's 'green'; we're expected to gloss over these 'facts', with a
sigh of 'they mean well, Bless them' ?



Wind gens have different sizes and ratings, use different technologies,
go up in different areas with different wind profiles, so its no
surprise they dont all have identical energy payback periods.


NT

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On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 23:10:53 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote
(in article ):

Ian White wrote:

The cumulative amount of high-level waste produced by *any* fission
reactor system is almost exactly proportional to the cumulative amount
of heat energy that has been generated. There is no significant
difference between thermal reactors and fast reactors in this respect.


Why?
You seem to make claims like this with great confidence
but as far as I can see without the slightest evidence.

"Considerable experience with reprocessing in France however, has indicated
that a one way fuel cycle based on extracting and processing fresh supplies
of uranium and storing the spent fuel is more economical than reprocessing,
not the least because in the process of plutonium extraction, the volume of
high-level liquid radioactive waste increases about 17-fold."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor




Wikipedia is not exactly Encyclopaedia Brittanica....

No reference is given



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Timothy Murphy wrote:
Ian White wrote:

The cumulative amount of high-level waste produced by *any* fission
reactor system is almost exactly proportional to the cumulative amount
of heat energy that has been generated. There is no significant
difference between thermal reactors and fast reactors in this respect.


Why?


See below.

You seem to make claims like this with great confidence


Long ago in a distant galaxy, the assessment of waste arisings from
various nuclear fuel cycles was part of my job.

but as far as I can see without the slightest evidence.

Unlike you, I am not satisfied by pulling some half-relevant quotation
off the web and calling that "evidence". The information is all
available, but organising and explaining it properly would take far more
time and effort than I'm prepared to donate to the cause.

However, the explanation for the statement quoted at the top of this
message is simple enough. When a heavy atom (usually U-235 or Pu-239)
undergoes nuclear fission, it splits into two lighter atoms of fission
products and releases a certain amount of energy. The atoms of fission
products remain in the fuel, and if the fuel is reprocessed those atoms
end up almost entirely in the high-level waste. The energy from the
nuclear fission ends up as heat, which is used to raise steam and
generate electricity.

Fission is a complex statistical process which can produce a range of
different pairs of fission products, but the fission energies of various
kinds of heavy atoms are very similar. That means there is a fixed
three-way relationship between the numbers of atoms of fuel that have
been fissioned, the amount of heat energy generated, and the amount of
HLW. That relationship comes from the basic physics of fission, so it's
essentially independent of the type of reactor.

Certainly there are many differences between reactor systems, and more
complications than you can possibly imagine, but if you thrash your way
through a much more detailed assessment, you'll find that basic
relationship between energy generation and the resulting amount of HLW
still holds good.

My mug of coffee has gone cold (and after revising, it has now gone cold
twice, dammit). If you want to know more, you'll need to do a lot of
detailed work. I have no doubt that you're intelligent enough to do
that, but at present you are just recycling other people's opinions. For
example, the following statement that you quoted has nothing to do with
fast breeder reactors, which we were discussing - it's about
uranium-fuelled thermal reactors, and the decision whether to do any
fuel reprocessing at all.

"Considerable experience with reprocessing in France however, has indicated
that a one way fuel cycle based on extracting and processing fresh supplies
of uranium and storing the spent fuel is more economical than reprocessing,
not the least because in the process of plutonium extraction, the volume of
high-level liquid radioactive waste increases about 17-fold."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor

The only thing odd about that statement is that factor of 17. If you
operate a once-through system - not reprocessing the spent fuel but
leaving it intact, storing it, and eventually disposing of it as waste -
then there will be *no* high-level liquid radioactive waste at all.

No doubt some further digging would reveal the origins of "17" (I could
make some guesses, but won't). Let's just leave it as yet another
example of what can happen when basically correct information is quoted
out of context.

I'm sorry this whole subject is so desperately complicated... but that's
how it is. It takes an awful lot of time and effort to break through to
the level where you can generate your own information and accurately
judge the information from other sources.


Now please can I go read some bright ideas for cutting sheets of foam?


--
Ian White
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Ian White wrote:

Long ago in a distant galaxy, the assessment of waste arisings from
various nuclear fuel cycles was part of my job.


Are you saying that you worked at a nuclear power station?
Where exactly?

Unlike you, I am not satisfied by pulling some half-relevant quotation
off the web and calling that "evidence".


Whereas you have produced no evidence whatsoever for your beliefs.

The information is all
available, but organising and explaining it properly would take far more
time and effort than I'm prepared to donate to the cause.


You have enough time to write a long account of your views,
but not enough time to find any reference to support them.
I don't think so.

Certainly there are many differences between reactor systems, and more
complications than you can possibly imagine, but if you thrash your way
through a much more detailed assessment, you'll find that basic
relationship between energy generation and the resulting amount of HLW
still holds good.


Does that mean that you believe the person who wrote the article I quoted
was mistaken?
[I suspect I will not get a simple answer - Yes or No - to this.]


--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
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Timothy Murphy wrote:
Ian White wrote:

Long ago in a distant galaxy, the assessment of waste arisings from
various nuclear fuel cycles was part of my job.


Are you saying that you worked at a nuclear power station?


No, nor anywhere in the weapons programme, nor anywhere in any way
secret.

Where exactly?

MYOB.

Unlike you, I am not satisfied by pulling some half-relevant quotation
off the web and calling that "evidence".


Whereas you have produced no evidence whatsoever for your beliefs.

Except all the parts you snipped from my last posting.

The information is all
available, but organising and explaining it properly would take far more
time and effort than I'm prepared to donate to the cause.


You have enough time to write a long account of your views,
but not enough time to find any reference to support them.
I don't think so.

I found enough time to get suckered into trying to explain just one
point that you had queried. My mistake.


Certainly there are many differences between reactor systems, and more
complications than you can possibly imagine, but if you thrash your way
through a much more detailed assessment, you'll find that basic
relationship between energy generation and the resulting amount of HLW
still holds good.


Does that mean that you believe the person who wrote the article I quoted
was mistaken?
[I suspect I will not get a simple answer - Yes or No - to this.]


Well, at least you got one thing right.




--
Ian White
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The message
from "Brian Sharrock" contains these words:

Unfortunately I 'lost' David's post ... due to a loss of power at my
pc ...


however, if I recall correctly he pointed at a URL
http://www.bwea.com/ref/faq.html#payback (?) which seem to claim ...


'The average wind farm in the UK will pay back the energy used in its
manufacture within six to eight months, this compares favourably with coal
or nuclear power stations, which take about six months'


Hmm; talk about 'hand-waving';


More like willy waving. Only a complete ****** could claim that 6 - 8
months compares favourably to 6 months unless of course the object of
the favour was to take longer.

--
Roger Chapman
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Ian White wrote:

Long ago in a distant galaxy, the assessment of waste arisings from
various nuclear fuel cycles was part of my job.


Are you saying that you worked at a nuclear power station?


No, nor anywhere in the weapons programme, nor anywhere in any way
secret.

Where exactly?

MYOB.


You should not lay claim to special expertise
unless you are willing to back up that claim.


--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland


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Timothy Murphy wrote:
Ian White wrote:

Long ago in a distant galaxy, the assessment of waste arisings from
various nuclear fuel cycles was part of my job.

Are you saying that you worked at a nuclear power station?


No, nor anywhere in the weapons programme, nor anywhere in any way
secret.

Where exactly?

MYOB.


You should not lay claim to special expertise
unless you are willing to back up that claim.


The kind of information I've been trying to give you does not depend on
the personal authority of the messenger. My only claim is that I've been
able to check that information for myself, in detail.

If you choose to remain sceptical, it won't help to tell you more about
me. That is a fundamentally wrong way to form opinions about information
that you can verify for yourself.

I keep telling you: if you really want to know, you have to go do the
work. Quoting other people doesn't count. In telling you to mind your
own business about further details from my CV, I am defending that
fundamental principle much more than my own privacy.



--
Ian White
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Ian White wrote:

Ian White wrote:

Long ago in a distant galaxy, the assessment of waste arisings from
various nuclear fuel cycles was part of my job.

Are you saying that you worked at a nuclear power station?

No, nor anywhere in the weapons programme, nor anywhere in any way
secret.

Where exactly?

MYOB.


You should not lay claim to special expertise
unless you are willing to back up that claim.


The kind of information I've been trying to give you does not depend on
the personal authority of the messenger. My only claim is that I've been
able to check that information for myself, in detail.


That is not your only claim.
You claimed - see above - to have special expertise because of your work.

I keep telling you: if you really want to know, you have to go do the
work. Quoting other people doesn't count.


This is called "giving references".
It is a standard part of scientific discussion.


--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
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Ian White wrote:

The kind of information I've been trying to give you does not depend on
the personal authority of the messenger. My only claim is that I've been
able to check that information for myself, in detail.

If you choose to remain sceptical, it won't help to tell you more about
me. That is a fundamentally wrong way to form opinions about information
that you can verify for yourself.

I keep telling you: if you really want to know, you have to go do the
work. Quoting other people doesn't count. In telling you to mind your
own business about further details from my CV, I am defending that
fundamental principle much more than my own privacy.


Ah, youve been trapped by a wally. My commiserations.


NT

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