The message
from AJH contains these words:

Anyway for now I'd
be quite happy just to see a comparison on the conversion efficiency
of each type.

Zero if one believes tnp.

I thought it was generally accepted that an overshot wheel was more
efficient than an undershot one.

--
Roger Chapman

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

And educated guess would be the pelton around 65% and the over or
undershot wheel about 2%.

The maximum efficiency of a Pelton wheel is about 90%.

Reaction turbines (the Francis turbine is a reaction turbine) apparently
can have efficiences as high as 95%.

I don't have any engineering books old enough to consider waterwheels.

--
Roger Chapman

On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:40:46 +0100, Roger wrote:

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

And why a high pressure water turbine will be infinitely more efficient
than an overshot water wheel.

You shouldn't use terms, in this case 'infinitely', that you obviously
don't understand.

He's wrong even if one makes allowance for hyperbole. An overshot
waterwheel is not much less efficient than a Pelton wheel, it is less
efficient. A pitchback wheel (a form of overshot wheel) gets close to the
efficiency of a Pelton wheel.

Estimates of water wheel efficiency given in "Stronger Than a
Hundred Men: A History of the Vertical Water Wheel", Johns
Hopkins University Press 1983 a

30% (Wooden undershot)
65% (Wooden overshot)
75% (Poncelet overshot)
85% (Fourneyron horizontal)

See here for details of an evaluation of overshot wheels.

http://www.angelfire.com/journal/pon...#anchor2179811

Mr NP is talking through his hat, or he is if he's sitting on it.

On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:41:27 +0100, Roger wrote:

620 tons per second falling 6 feet liberates a lot of energy.

No it doesn't

It KEEPS its energy.

You don't give up do you.

What is happening is the potential energy at the top has become kinetic
energy at the bottom. The energy is still in the water, it's now moving
faster, the energy has not been "liberated".

Now if only it fell on your head you just might notice the power.

Yes but you are now slowing some of the water down which *will* liberate
some of it's kinetic energy.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:40:01 +0100, Roger
wrote:

|The message
|from Matt contains these words:
|
| It's Dinorwig by the way and not Dinorgig. It was Dinorwic for a
| short period of time before the Welsh nationalists got their way -
| can't see why they caved in, its a lot harder to burn water that a
| holiday cottage.
|
|The village from which it takes its name was Dinorwic on Ordnance Survey
|maps for a long time and due to the vagaries of the OS system lasted
|several years longer than other prominent name changes such as Cader to
|Cadair and Dolgelley to Dolgellau.

Been touring Wales this year and masses of place names have now been
changed to Welsh forms. Some years ago we went to "Conway", whereas all
the signs now say "Conwy". Maybe it is the effect of the Welsh
Parliament.
--
Dave Fawthrop dave hyphenologist co uk Google Groups is IME the *worst*
method of accessing usenet. GG subscribers would be well advised get a
newsreader, say Agent, and a newsserver, say news.individual.net. These
will allow them: to see only *new* posts, a killfile, and other goodies.

The message om
from "Dave Liquorice" contains these words:

620 tons per second falling 6 feet liberates a lot of energy.

No it doesn't

It KEEPS its energy.

You don't give up do you.

What is happening is the potential energy at the top has become kinetic
energy at the bottom. The energy is still in the water, it's now moving
faster, the energy has not been "liberated".

But if, as tnp said, it was the discharge from a turbine, then most of
the energy would have been liberated, just so long as it was the right
sort of turbine.

I have just been for a quick google and found:

"The Kaplan turbine is aimed at very low head sites (down to 2 metres)
- in particular existing mill sites which would require very little
modification to the existing civil works."

So not only would a turbine work, there are commercial applications
already available.

Now if only it fell on your head you just might notice the power.

Yes but you are now slowing some of the water down which *will* liberate
some of it's kinetic energy.

Alright, so for the pedants among you, I should have said can liberate,
so you could be absolutely sure of what I meant without reference to the
previous context.

Or I could take a leaf out of the tnp's book and refer you to the first
law of thermodynamics, but the amount of heat generated in a free fall
probably wouldn't be much more that the 750 watts he erroneously
attributed to the amount of energy that could be extracted from the
water. (That by the way is a guess).

--
Roger Chapman

Been touring Wales this year and masses of place names have now been
changed to Welsh forms. Some years ago we went to "Conway", whereas all
the signs now say "Conwy". Maybe it is the effect of the Welsh
Parliament.

If so, it must be the only one..

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

Been touring Wales this year and masses of place names have now been
changed to Welsh forms. Some years ago we went to "Conway", whereas all
the signs now say "Conwy". Maybe it is the effect of the Welsh
Parliament.

If so, it must be the only one..

The only one what?

The Ordnance Survey shifted from Conway to Conwy some years before they
got round to changing Dinorwic to Dinorwig. Somewhere between 1971 and
1974 as opposed to 1986 or later as far as I can tell from the 1:50000
mapping.

It is my experience that Welsh road signs now generally have names in
both Welsh and English at least where the language fadists believe the
Welsh alternative is important but I doubt very much if many of the
natives of Aberhonddu actually call it that even among themselves.

--
Roger Chapman

On 2006-10-14 14:04:31 +0100, Roger said:

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

Been touring Wales this year and masses of place names have now been
changed to Welsh forms. Some years ago we went to "Conway", whereas all
the signs now say "Conwy". Maybe it is the effect of the Welsh
Parliament.

If so, it must be the only one..

The only one what?

The Ordnance Survey shifted from Conway to Conwy some years before they
got round to changing Dinorwic to Dinorwig. Somewhere between 1971 and
1974 as opposed to 1986 or later as far as I can tell from the 1:50000
mapping.

It is my experience that Welsh road signs now generally have names in
both Welsh and English at least where the language fadists believe the
Welsh alternative is important but I doubt very much if many of the
natives of Aberhonddu actually call it that even among themselves.


Certainly when I lived in N Wales in the early to mid 70s it was
Dinorwic on road signs and buses (or bus) and Conwy on road signs and
buses for there.

As far as Aberhonddu is concerned, I (B)rec(k)on you're right....
but then that's not real Wales there.

cupra wrote:

There's an awful lot of paranoia about wind power in this thread :-)


A lot of it is NIMBYism, but that's opinion based - I wouldn't want a wind
farm nearby but I'm happy with Nuclear!

tnp wrote:

Me2. In fact we have one. Dungeness 'B'. OK its 40 miles way, but whats
40 miles in a reactor meltdown?

Its a tad ugly from Dunwich, but not arf so ugly as te 'sculptures' they
are proposing to drop in the sea offshore.

The above is actually an extract from Google but it has been bugging me
sufficiently for me to actually measure how far it was from Dungeness to
Suffolk where it is rumoured tnp has his home.

The closest bit of Suffolk to Dungeness B is Landguard Point, a mere 72
miles away. From previous comments it would appear tnp lives somewhere
in the NW of Suffolk so his 40 miles is getting on for 100 which I
suppose is about par for the course where he is concerned.

Or did he really mean to refer to Sizewell?

--
Roger Chapman

AJH wrote:

On Sun, 08 Oct 2006 22:42:26 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:


We do from £7.99 @ 128kbps to £29.99 @ 512kbps with backup. Unfortunately
we have most customers paying £7.99 not every one is a speed freak or
gamer. Provided that mail arrives and the web isn't too slow people are
happy and £8/month for an always on, full duplex, 128kbps connection is a
real bargin. There are a rather high proportion of low income households
and the company has a social remit.


I don't understand most of the technicalities of this sub thread but I
know quite a few people who would like this sort of speed for that
price, do any companies without social remit offer a product like this
with say a 1GB/month cap?

Wireless or via ADSL?

For ADSL, Metronet do a metered PAYG package for 11.75/month.

http://www.metronet.co.uk/broadband/paygo.shtml

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 18:48:57 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

For ADSL, Metronet do a metered PAYG package for 11.75/month.

In my mind metered with PAYG and a monthly fee don't sit well together.
It's either metered/PAYG or a monthly fee (with/without limit).

Ah looking at it it's just a means of charging when your exceed a given
monthly limit. Prices are good but I expect you get what you pay for,
like cheap/free domains/web/mail services. Up and down more often than a
whores drawers and no support.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 18:48:57 +0100, John Rumm wrote:


For ADSL, Metronet do a metered PAYG package for 11.75/month.


In my mind metered with PAYG and a monthly fee don't sit well together.
It's either metered/PAYG or a monthly fee (with/without limit).

I should have said "starting from"... that is the basic price with all
normal services (email etc) and up to a tad over 400MB of traffic /
month. You then pay a quarter of a penny per meg therafter with maximum
bill capped at £22.74. (and after 5GB they reserve the right to throttle
your throughput at peak times).

However if you are a low volume user[1], then their package is quite good.

[1] We have a number of clients who just browse and email plus download
patches and AV updates. I was quite supprised to find they have monthly
usage figures typically below 300MB/month!

Ah looking at it it's just a means of charging when your exceed a given
monthly limit. Prices are good but I expect you get what you pay for,
like cheap/free domains/web/mail services. Up and down more often than a
whores drawers and no support.

Have a look at www.adslguide.org.uk - you will find they compare quite
well against most of the others.

They were aquired by a plusnet at the start of the year, but don't seem
to have changed in rating much since then.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 00:02:51 +0100 someone who may be John Rumm
wrote this:-

However if you are a low volume user[1], then their package is quite good.

[1] We have a number of clients who just browse and email plus download
patches and AV updates. I was quite supprised to find they have monthly
usage figures typically below 300MB/month!

Indeed. A far better offer than some of the well known names trying
to get into the market from the mobile telephone market.


--
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

Roger wrote:
cupra wrote:

There's an awful lot of paranoia about wind power in this thread :-)


A lot of it is NIMBYism, but that's opinion based - I wouldn't want a wind
farm nearby but I'm happy with Nuclear!

tnp wrote:

Me2. In fact we have one. Dungeness 'B'. OK its 40 miles way, but whats
40 miles in a reactor meltdown?

Its a tad ugly from Dunwich, but not arf so ugly as te 'sculptures' they
are proposing to drop in the sea offshore.

The above is actually an extract from Google but it has been bugging me
sufficiently for me to actually measure how far it was from Dungeness to
Suffolk where it is rumoured tnp has his home.

The closest bit of Suffolk to Dungeness B is Landguard Point, a mere 72
miles away. From previous comments it would appear tnp lives somewhere
in the NW of Suffolk so his 40 miles is getting on for 100 which I
suppose is about par for the course where he is concerned.

Or did he really mean to refer to Sizewell?


Probably.

John Rumm wrote:
Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 18:48:57 +0100, John Rumm wrote:


For ADSL, Metronet do a metered PAYG package for 11.75/month.


In my mind metered with PAYG and a monthly fee don't sit well
together. It's either metered/PAYG or a monthly fee (with/without limit).

I should have said "starting from"... that is the basic price with all
normal services (email etc) and up to a tad over 400MB of traffic /
month. You then pay a quarter of a penny per meg therafter with maximum
bill capped at £22.74. (and after 5GB they reserve the right to throttle
your throughput at peak times).

However if you are a low volume user[1], then their package is quite good.

[1] We have a number of clients who just browse and email plus download
patches and AV updates. I was quite supprised to find they have monthly
usage figures typically below 300MB/month!


When I ran a small ISP offering leased lines we found that about 5% of
customers generated 95% of traffic. THEY were the ones with web servers on.

Other customers had high peak demands, but low average. They tended to
be transferring BIG files occasionally.

However it was very hard to profile customers .. sometimes someone would
decide to email a video to someone else, and block up a pipe for hours...

On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 15:52:30 +0100 someone who may be Dave Fawthrop
wrote this:-

|However, as a means of extracting power from water there is a reason
|why turbines took over, they get more out of the water then a wheel.

At high heads!

Not particularly, though high heads are certainly better for some
types of water turbine and a higher head will mean there is more
energy to be extracted.

The first large scale power station in Iceland was opened in
Reykjavik in 1921 and reached the designed full capacity of 3MW in
1933. This involves a low concrete dam across the river.

http://www.rht.greenisp.org/Planning...01. 09.05.pdf

This looks to me as a very good way of harvesting power from the low head
high volume which they have there.

I haven't looked at it, but it is certainly worth investigating all
sorts of energy conversion.


--
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

On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:04:31 +0100 someone who may be Roger
wrote this:-

It is my experience that Welsh road signs now generally have names in
both Welsh and English at least where the language fadists believe the
Welsh alternative is important

Even in an area that has a rather convoluted history with regard to
whether it is in Wales or England, Monmouthshire, place names in
Welsh had started to appear on road signs in the late 1970s.


--
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

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

When I ran a small ISP offering leased lines we found that about 5% of
customers generated 95% of traffic. THEY were the ones with web servers on.

I think the 95/5 split is still much the same, although it is P2P that
generates the vast bulk of traffic these days.

Have a look at the bandwidth usage graph he

http://www.plus.net/support/broadban...th_usage.shtml


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

AJH wrote:

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 00:02:51 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:


[1] We have a number of clients who just browse and email plus download
patches and AV updates. I was quite supprised to find they have monthly
usage figures typically below 300MB/month!


Thanks for the pointer John, I fumble around maintaining a web
presence for a small charity run by a committee of volunteers. A
couple of our members have a habit of sending huge (1MB) attachments
by e-mail (often word docs including pictures). Two of the management
committee grudgingly have e-mail via dial up but don't use it other
than to receive charity e-mail. These big attachments have the effect
of denying their normal telephone service whilst they download and
timeouts are frequent, so I have had to limit the size of an e-mail
one lady can receive in her e-mail client. I have mooted that they
allow me to install ADSL for them and a cheaper package like this
looks ideal.

I find it is also worth explaining to dialup users the problems of
maintaining a secure system these days without BB. Your not safe online
without keeping the computer patched and up to date, and with current AV
signatures etc. However maintaining that state on dialup is almost
impossible for the casual user these days. If you connect every couple
of days, then the patching traffic will swamp your dialup for hours at a
time! Net result is that email and brosing becomes a very slow and
frustrating experiance.

Other suggestions gratefully received

My usual suggestion would be plusnet PAYG. They have a headline grabbing
service at 9.99/month however by the time you add the missing bits to
the service you are close to the 14.99/month service anyway. So that is
usually the one to go for. Standard included traffic is 2G/month. You
can then buy extra as you need it. No need to pre arrange (although if
you do it is slightly cheaper). However usage between midnight and 8am
is does not come off your usage budget (On occations I have ended up
using half of my pre arranged 6G/month, but then had a further 40G of
"free" traffic in a month)

On the positive side they are platform agnostic, and ar happy for you to
use any connection hardware. You get static IP, control of any number of
email boxes etc, fax2email, decent web portal for control of your
account plus other handy stuff. Support is on an 0845 number, and loads
of automated support tools on the web site. The negatives: support
response times seem to have got slower lately (mainy due to clearing up
the fallout from the rollout of DSLMax it seems) and they have had a few
intermittent network related problems affecting email, newsgroups, and DNS.

Details:

http://www.plus.net/residential/broa...resbb_payglink


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Meanwhile, back to the B&Q machine...

It needs 12.5m/s of wind to produce 1kw,

http://www.bwea.com/images/misc/noabl_c.gif says it's only up to 8 in
the midlands/south of England so no hope of producing 1kW very often.

If it was running flat out all year that's only 24x365 = 8760 kWhr, at
10p/kWhr = £876. We don't need 1kW over night, do we? And when it's
not windy it won't be producing anything so how can the payback be in
3-5 years if it cost £1500 + the support pole and brackets?

Surely it's more efficient to have large ones in windfarms than lots of
these.

Does anyone know about the wind turbine on the business park beside the
M4 in Reading?

writes:

Meanwhile, back to the B&Q machine...

It needs 12.5m/s of wind to produce 1kw,

http://www.bwea.com/images/misc/noabl_c.gif says it's only up to 8 in
the midlands/south of England so no hope of producing 1kW very often.

Ah but what you really need is the root mean cube of the wind speed
which will be ever so slightly higher.

Jon

On 2006-10-15 19:43:22 +0100, said:

Meanwhile, back to the B&Q machine...

It needs 12.5m/s of wind to produce 1kw,

http://www.bwea.com/images/misc/noabl_c.gif says it's only up to 8 in
the midlands/south of England so no hope of producing 1kW very often.

If it was running flat out all year that's only 24x365 = 8760 kWhr, at
10p/kWhr = £876. We don't need 1kW over night, do we? And when it's
not windy it won't be producing anything so how can the payback be in
3-5 years if it cost £1500 + the support pole and brackets?

Surely it's more efficient to have large ones in windfarms than lots of
these.

Does anyone know about the wind turbine on the business park beside the
M4 in Reading?

Yes. It's an eyesore. However, since it's next to a chemical works
it probably doesn't matter - might as well have all the crap in one
place.

On 15 Oct 2006 11:43:22 -0700 someone who may be
wrote this:-

If it was running flat out all year that's only 24x365 = 8760 kWhr, at
10p/kWhr = £876. We don't need 1kW over night, do we?

There are three ways that an operator of such a turbine will gain
financially:

1) reducing the amount of electricity they import. If the occupants
of the house are consuming more electricity than the turbine is
generating then its effect is to stop the electricity meter spinning
round (or the little red light flashing) as fast as it would do
without the turbine.

2) if the occupants of the house are not consuming all that the
turbine is generating then the surplus can be sold to someone else.
Various companies offer to buy the electricity, the price varying
from 4.5p to 10p per kWh the last time I checked.

3) obtaining various government financial instruments, of which ROCs
are the most well known, for the electricity they generate, no
matter where it exported or used on site. This is not easy and the
most likely way of doing it is for the company in 2) to deal with
the administration for a large number of their customers.

Surely it's more efficient to have large ones in windfarms than lots of
these.

Traditional measures of efficiency are to do with how much of the
fuel input is turned into useful work. However, when the fuel is
free a number of other considerations are important.

Home generation as part of a decentralised electricity system does
make sense. There is plenty to be found on the subject in search
engines.

Does anyone know about the wind turbine on the business park beside the
M4 in Reading?

Know what? There are a growing number of wind turbines in such
locations. http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/mwp/casestudies.html and
http://www.good-energy.co.uk/home/38_generators.html highlight some
of them, including the one in Reading.


--
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

David Hansen wrote:
On 15 Oct 2006 11:43:22 -0700 someone who may be
wrote this:-

If it was running flat out all year that's only 24x365 = 8760 kWhr, at
10p/kWhr = £876. We don't need 1kW over night, do we?

There are three ways that an operator of such a turbine will gain
financially:

1) reducing the amount of electricity they import. If the occupants
of the house are consuming more electricity than the turbine is
generating then its effect is to stop the electricity meter spinning
round (or the little red light flashing) as fast as it would do
without the turbine.

2) if the occupants of the house are not consuming all that the
turbine is generating then the surplus can be sold to someone else.
Various companies offer to buy the electricity, the price varying
from 4.5p to 10p per kWh the last time I checked.

3) obtaining various government financial instruments, of which ROCs
are the most well known, for the electricity they generate, no
matter where it exported or used on site. This is not easy and the
most likely way of doing it is for the company in 2) to deal with
the administration for a large number of their customers.

Surely it's more efficient to have large ones in windfarms than lots of
these.

Traditional measures of efficiency are to do with how much of the
fuel input is turned into useful work. However, when the fuel is
free a number of other considerations are important.

Home generation as part of a decentralised electricity system does
make sense. There is plenty to be found on the subject in search
engines.

Does anyone know about the wind turbine on the business park beside the
M4 in Reading?

Know what? There are a growing number of wind turbines in such
locations. http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/mwp/casestudies.html and
http://www.good-energy.co.uk/home/38_generators.html highlight some
of them, including the one in Reading.


--
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

1) yes, but is it worth it? Of the £1500+ maybe £500 goes to B&Q.
If the infrastructure is in place to distribute power and there is no
significant increase in consumption in the country does it make sense
to have 100/1000 etc of these compared with 1 designed to last longer
(expected life of the WS1000 is 10 years) and designed and managed as a
professional service.

2) does the meter run backwards (doubt it!) or is there a cost to
install a additional meter?

My main point is that I can't see how the B&Q WS1000 can generate a
cost effective amount of electricity compared with a windfarm managed
by a power company.

It's interesting that B&Q say it starts producing 100W at 4.5m/s.

Remember that for a third of the time we are asleep and not using the
kettle, TV, lights etc.

It's a good idea but not at £1500 + brackets and an unknown life.

David Hansen wrote:
On 15 Oct 2006 11:43:22 -0700 someone who may be
wrote this:-

If it was running flat out all year that's only 24x365 = 8760 kWhr, at
10p/kWhr = £876. We don't need 1kW over night, do we?

There are three ways that an operator of such a turbine will gain
financially:

1) reducing the amount of electricity they import. If the occupants
of the house are consuming more electricity than the turbine is
generating then its effect is to stop the electricity meter spinning
round (or the little red light flashing) as fast as it would do
without the turbine.

2) if the occupants of the house are not consuming all that the
turbine is generating then the surplus can be sold to someone else.
Various companies offer to buy the electricity, the price varying
from 4.5p to 10p per kWh the last time I checked.

3) obtaining various government financial instruments, of which ROCs
are the most well known, for the electricity they generate, no
matter where it exported or used on site. This is not easy and the
most likely way of doing it is for the company in 2) to deal with
the administration for a large number of their customers.

Surely it's more efficient to have large ones in windfarms than lots of
these.

Traditional measures of efficiency are to do with how much of the
fuel input is turned into useful work. However, when the fuel is
free a number of other considerations are important.

Home generation as part of a decentralised electricity system does
make sense. There is plenty to be found on the subject in search
engines.

Does anyone know about the wind turbine on the business park beside the
M4 in Reading?

Know what? There are a growing number of wind turbines in such
locations. http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/mwp/casestudies.html and
http://www.good-energy.co.uk/home/38_generators.html highlight some
of them, including the one in Reading.


--
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

1) yes, but is it worth it? Of the £1500+ maybe £500 goes to B&Q.
If the infrastructure is in place to distribute power and there is no
significant increase in consumption in the country does it make sense
to have 100/1000 etc of these compared with 1 designed to last longer
(expected life of the WS1000 is 10 years) and designed and managed as a
professional service.

2) does the meter run backwards (doubt it!) or is there a cost to
install a additional meter?

My main point is that I can't see how the B&Q WS1000 can generate a
cost effective amount of electricity compared with a windfarm managed
by a power company.

It's interesting that B&Q say it starts producing 100W at 4.5m/s.

Remember that for a third of the time we are asleep and not using the
kettle, TV, lights etc.

It's a good idea but not at £1500 + brackets and an unknown life.

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 20:41:20 +0100, David Hansen
wrote:

On 15 Oct 2006 11:43:22 -0700 someone who may be
wrote this:-

If it was running flat out all year that's only 24x365 = 8760 kWhr, at
10p/kWhr = £876. We don't need 1kW over night, do we?

Don't worry, in an urban environment you would be extraordinarily
lucky to generate 20W in total overnight.

There are three ways that an operator of such a turbine will gain
financially:

1) reducing the amount of electricity they import. If the occupants
of the house are consuming more electricity than the turbine is
generating then its effect is to stop the electricity meter spinning
round (or the little red light flashing) as fast as it would do
without the turbine.

20W makes a real difference.

2) if the occupants of the house are not consuming all that the
turbine is generating then the surplus can be sold to someone else.
Various companies offer to buy the electricity, the price varying
from 4.5p to 10p per kWh the last time I checked.

The companies buy it for more than they sell it at? Given a bit of
cable and a tolerant neighbour that could be a really good scam.

3) obtaining various government financial instruments,

You mean subsidies?

of which ROCs
are the most well known, for the electricity they generate, no
matter where it exported or used on site. This is not easy and the
most likely way of doing it is for the company in 2) to deal with
the administration for a large number of their customers.

Govmint subsidies - are these not the things the greenwashers are
always complaining about nuclear power stations getting?

Surely it's more efficient to have large ones in windfarms than lots of
these.

Traditional measures of efficiency are to do with how much of the
fuel input is turned into useful work. However, when the fuel is
free a number of other considerations are important.

The most important being that decentralised power is an absolutely
essential component of anti-nuclear paranoia. The problem for the
card carrying CND members who run the ecogroups is that electricity
has a number of advantages over other fuels, but lots of electricity
= nuclear generation. They won't have that - it's against their
religion. So you have to have to try to manipulate the image and
price (through subsidies) of locally generated electricity to make it
look good no matter how inane it may be.

--
Peter Parry.
http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/

On 2006-10-15 23:17:26 +0100, AJH said:

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 19:53:00 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

However, since it's next to a chemical works it probably doesn't matter

You mean the Courage one?

AJH

Exactly.

Both things worthless and a blot on the landscape...

John Rumm wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

When I ran a small ISP offering leased lines we found that about 5% of
customers generated 95% of traffic. THEY were the ones with web
servers on.

I think the 95/5 split is still much the same, although it is P2P that
generates the vast bulk of traffic these days.

Have a look at the bandwidth usage graph he

http://www.plus.net/support/broadban...th_usage.shtml



Interesting.

Peter Parry wrote:
On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 20:41:20 +0100, David Hansen
wrote:

On 15 Oct 2006 11:43:22 -0700 someone who may be
wrote this:-

If it was running flat out all year that's only 24x365 = 8760 kWhr, at
10p/kWhr = £876. We don't need 1kW over night, do we?

Don't worry, in an urban environment you would be extraordinarily
lucky to generate 20W in total overnight.

There are three ways that an operator of such a turbine will gain
financially:

1) reducing the amount of electricity they import. If the occupants
of the house are consuming more electricity than the turbine is
generating then its effect is to stop the electricity meter spinning
round (or the little red light flashing) as fast as it would do
without the turbine.

20W makes a real difference.

2) if the occupants of the house are not consuming all that the
turbine is generating then the surplus can be sold to someone else.
Various companies offer to buy the electricity, the price varying
from 4.5p to 10p per kWh the last time I checked.

The companies buy it for more than they sell it at? Given a bit of
cable and a tolerant neighbour that could be a really good scam.

3) obtaining various government financial instruments,

You mean subsidies?

of which ROCs
are the most well known, for the electricity they generate, no
matter where it exported or used on site. This is not easy and the
most likely way of doing it is for the company in 2) to deal with
the administration for a large number of their customers.

Govmint subsidies - are these not the things the greenwashers are
always complaining about nuclear power stations getting?

Surely it's more efficient to have large ones in windfarms than lots of
these.

Traditional measures of efficiency are to do with how much of the
fuel input is turned into useful work. However, when the fuel is
free a number of other considerations are important.

The most important being that decentralised power is an absolutely
essential component of anti-nuclear paranoia. The problem for the
card carrying CND members who run the ecogroups is that electricity
has a number of advantages over other fuels, but lots of electricity
= nuclear generation. They won't have that - it's against their
religion. So you have to have to try to manipulate the image and
price (through subsidies) of locally generated electricity to make it
look good no matter how inane it may be.


I think that is entirely correct.

The simple answer for our energy needs is go nuclear and go electric.

BUT people equate nuclear power stations with Hiroshima, and that's that.
never mind that the vast majority of nuclear waste is probably so low
level you could stuff it in your pillow and live to be a hundred, and
that fuel grade fissile material is a huge step away from weapons grade
material..thats all TOO DIFFICULT for people to understand, but a
windmill. Thats just about within their grasp. AND its a huge symbol of
how green they are, which a concrete dome on the seashore is not.

On 15 Oct 2006 13:09:20 -0700 someone who may be
wrote this:-

1) yes, but is it worth it? Of the £1500+ maybe £500 goes to B&Q.
If the infrastructure is in place to distribute power and there is no
significant increase in consumption in the country does it make sense
to have 100/1000 etc of these compared with 1 designed to last longer
(expected life of the WS1000 is 10 years) and designed and managed as a
professional service.

It is not an either/or question. Both are needed.

2) does the meter run backwards (doubt it!) or is there a cost to
install a additional meter?

In the sort of simplistic terms beloved by some, no and no. The more
complicated answer is the electronic ones don't and most of the disc
ones don't. Some disc ones don't have a ratchet mechanism and will
run backwards.

On a small scale additional export metering is not necessary. The
precise way of measuring depends on the purchaser and there are
still a few institutional things to resolve.

My main point is that I can't see how the B&Q WS1000 can generate a
cost effective amount of electricity compared with a windfarm managed
by a power company.

See my first reply.

It's interesting that B&Q say it starts producing 100W at 4.5m/s.

Power curves are readily available for inspection of a number of
turbines. If that is the cut-in speed then it is similar to larger
turbines.

Remember that for a third of the time we are asleep and not using the
kettle, TV, lights etc.

That's good. The electricity generated can be sold to others.

It's a good idea but not at £1500 + brackets and an unknown life.

It is something to consider with one's eyes open. Are all the bulbs
in the house energy saving? How is water heated? It is cheaper to
save electricity than produce it. At current prices a local wind
turbine is a long term financial investment. However, it will reduce
one's carbon dioxide footprint within roughly six months, assuming
reasonable wind conditions (which should be measured before
installing one).

There are other things to do first though, solar water heating being
one example.


--
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

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:11:20 +0100 someone who may be Peter Parry
wrote this:-

20W makes a real difference.

Small steps made often enough by enough people are indeed how real
differences are often made.

The companies buy it for more than they sell it at?

Some do, others don't.

This isn't a surprise, the price a company pays for electricity may
be way above what it sells it for. That is an extremely basic fact
in the way the electricity system currently operates.

Govmint subsidies - are these not the things the greenwashers are
always complaining about nuclear power stations getting?

The money I was talking about comes from bill payers, via government
schemes. The amount of money that comes from bill payers to the
nuclear "industry" is vastly greater. For example, until recently
electricity suppliers in Scotland had to take every unit of
electricity that Torness and Hunterston B managed to produce,
whether they wanted to or not. Nuclear also gets direct government
subsidies, unlike onshore wind, including being bailed out of going
bankrupt recently.

Government does invest in new forms of generation. That includes
offshore wind, wave and tidal generation at the moment. Offshore
wind will probably soon be moved into the same position as onshore
wind has been for some time.

Nuclear has never got off the subsidy habit, despite being with us
for a long time.


--
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

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:44:09 +0100 someone who may be The Natural
Philosopher wrote this:-

The simple answer for our energy needs is go nuclear

We have tried that before. It ended in white elephants like Torness.

Even ignoring the waste issue, nuclear stations are large and
inflexible. There are so-far untested claims that recent
improvements in engineering may improve the flexibility a little.
Large and inflexible stations are either on or off. To match this
with a variable demand means having other places round and about to
export the electricity and promoting night time use of electricity.

and go electric.

Why?

BUT people equate nuclear power stations with Hiroshima,

Do many people? I'm sure there are some, but I'm not sure there are
many of them.

and that's that.
never mind that the vast majority of nuclear waste is probably so low
level you could stuff it in your pillow and live to be a hundred,

Most waste is fairly low level. However, that does not mean it is
safe and neither does it alter the fact that not all the waste is
low level.




--
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

The good thing about B&Q's DIY electricity generation stuff is that it
will fairly quickly teach the over-enthusiastic about the limitations
of wind and solar power.

If they had to listen to their wives on a calm, dreary winter day when
there was no electricity, realism would quickly set in!

I've never been happy about the nuclear waste disposal problem; the
only half-sensible approach I ever heard was that since the
radioactives came from a star (supernova) in the first place, the waste
should be fired into the sun.

And given the reliability of rocket-propelled vehicles, that's at
present no answer at all.

But better 100,000 years of dangerously radioactive waste than to
freeze to death in the dark.

Meantime, solar, wind and water can help out in small ways.

--
Windmill, Really t m i l l
@ O n e t e l
. n e t
. u k

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 07:58:18 +0100, David Hansen
wrote:

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:44:09 +0100 someone who may be The Natural
Philosopher wrote this:-

The simple answer for our energy needs is go nuclear

We have tried that before. It ended in white elephants like Torness.

The French seem to manage quite well, and are apparently the only
country in the EU who have met their Kyoto commitment already.


--
Peter Parry.
http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 07:51:37 +0100, David Hansen
wrote:

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:11:20 +0100 someone who may be Peter Parry
wrote this:-

20W makes a real difference.

Small steps made often enough by enough people are indeed how real
differences are often made.

It makes no difference as at that level it will never pay back its
manufacturing energy.

The companies buy it for more than they sell it at?

Some do, others don't.

This isn't a surprise, the price a company pays for electricity may
be way above what it sells it for. That is an extremely basic fact
in the way the electricity system currently operates.

If they do that consistently they won't last long. It is a neat
trick though - must see if it's available here and get a long
extension lead :-).

Govmint subsidies - are these not the things the greenwashers are
always complaining about nuclear power stations getting?

The money I was talking about comes from bill payers, via government
schemes.

Subsidies in other words.

Nuclear also gets direct government subsidies, unlike onshore wind,

Indirect subsidies are not real?

Nuclear has never got off the subsidy habit, despite being with us
for a long time.

Nor has wind and solar.
--
Peter Parry.
http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/

The message
from David Hansen contains these words:

Nuclear also gets direct government
subsidies, unlike onshore wind, including being bailed out of going
bankrupt recently.

Hardly bailed out. More like a sophisticated theft of 90% of the equity
by deliberate manipulation of the rules of the electricity market.

--
Roger Chapman

On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 07:57:56 +0100 someone who may be David Hansen
wrote this:-

The rain is not unintended, it is part of the design. How much
output the rain provides depends on the station itself, but it will
be a relatively small proportion of the total output with most
designs. At Foyers the "straight hydro" turbine is 5MW, the pumped
storage sets total 300MW and assuming there is no "straight hydro"
output from the latter gives a lower limit for that station.

I have now come across some actual figures. Around the time of
privatisation Foyers was generating around 400 million units per
year. 100 million of these were from flows off the catchment and 300
million from pumped storage. Obviously the proportion will depend on
the particular station.


--
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

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 09:01:20 +0100 someone who may be Peter Parry
wrote this:-

We have tried that before. It ended in white elephants like Torness.

The French seem to manage quite well,

Readers may like to note what you snipped from my posting:

================================================== =============

Even ignoring the waste issue, nuclear stations are large and
inflexible. There are so-far untested claims that recent
improvements in engineering may improve the flexibility a little.
Large and inflexible stations are either on or off. To match this
with a variable demand means having other places round and about to
export the electricity and promoting night time use of electricity.

================================================== =============

There are rather fewer places for the UK to export the electricity
and rather fewer connections across which to do so.


--
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

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 09:06:00 +0100 someone who may be Peter Parry
wrote this:-

The companies buy it for more than they sell it at?

Some do, others don't.

This isn't a surprise, the price a company pays for electricity may
be way above what it sells it for. That is an extremely basic fact
in the way the electricity system currently operates.

If they do that consistently they won't last long.

It depends on how long they pay the high prices for and why they are
paying the high prices.

Nuclear has never got off the subsidy habit, despite being with us
for a long time.

Nor has wind and solar.

Incorrect. Onshore wind and solar water heating are not subsidised
by government. Offshore wind will move in that direction shortly.
Solar electricity generation will be subsidised for some time. None
of these subsidies compares to the money poured down the nuclear
hole for decades.


--
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