01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Renewable Britain: A report.

Bristol channel is at high tide. No tidal power would be produced by the
highest tidal range in the UK at this point in time.

Its dark. No solar power is generating anything - unless its under a
streetlamp one supposes.

A ridge of high pressure sits over the UK The total metered wind output
across the whole country is just 31 MW. That's right. 31MW Enough to
supply every household (26 million of them) with about 1.2W

Demand is over 27GW.

The Interconnector to France is totally out of action.

The Interconnector from Holland is running flat out (1GW). Its doing
more than all the wind in the UK by a factor of 20.

Dinorwig is no help. Its being recharged.

Even Scottish hydro is doing feck all - 76MW. But that's more than twice
what the wind is doing.

We hear screams of delight when 'for the first time wind supplied 10% of
the grid'

Let's hear it for the time when despite the vast amounts of money spent
on it, renewable energy was supplying less than 0.05% of the UK demand.

"All the windmills in the UK are not supplying enough electricity to
charge an I pod in every house in the country"

"All the renewable energy in the country - including hydro - is not
enough to light a single energy saving lightbulb in every household in
the country"

That's £10bn and thousands of landscapes ruined, houses devalued and
birds killed, well spent, then.



--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

On Jun 26, 2:23*am, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Renewable Britain: A report.

Bristol channel is at high tide. No tidal power would be produced by the
highest tidal range *in the UK at this point in time.

Its dark. No solar power is generating anything - unless its under a
streetlamp one supposes.

A ridge of high pressure sits over the UK *The total metered wind output
across the whole country *is just 31 MW. That's right. 31MW Enough to
supply every household (26 million of them) with about 1.2W

Demand is over 27GW.

The Interconnector to France is totally out of action.

The Interconnector from Holland is running flat out (1GW). Its doing
more than all the wind in the UK by a factor of 20.

Dinorwig is no help. Its being recharged.

Even Scottish hydro is doing feck all - 76MW. But that's more than twice
what the wind is doing.

We hear screams of delight when 'for the first time wind supplied 10% of
the grid'

Let's hear it for the time *when despite the vast amounts of money spent
on it, renewable energy was supplying less than 0.05% of the UK demand.

"All the windmills in the UK are not supplying enough electricity to
charge an I pod in every house in the country"

"All the renewable energy in the country - including hydro - is not
enough to light a single energy saving lightbulb in every household in
the country"

That's £10bn and thousands of landscapes ruined, houses devalued and
birds killed, well spent, then.

--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.


Why aren't you in bed?

Well why am I not surprised.. also some studies carried out in Italy seem to
suggest that a significant number of wind turbines in one place can
adversely affect the weather in and around the area concerned, often ending
up as less wind than previously. No idea where I read that, but I'm sure I'm
right.
I suppose it shows some naivety to think we can draw power from the wind
and expect the wind to not lose force or the climate change due to the
changed topography or reflective of the site.

Brian

--
--
From the sofa of Brian Gaff -

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Renewable Britain: A report.

Bristol channel is at high tide. No tidal power would be produced by the
highest tidal range in the UK at this point in time.

Its dark. No solar power is generating anything - unless its under a
streetlamp one supposes.

A ridge of high pressure sits over the UK The total metered wind output
across the whole country is just 31 MW. That's right. 31MW Enough to
supply every household (26 million of them) with about 1.2W

Demand is over 27GW.

The Interconnector to France is totally out of action.

The Interconnector from Holland is running flat out (1GW). Its doing more
than all the wind in the UK by a factor of 20.

Dinorwig is no help. Its being recharged.

Even Scottish hydro is doing feck all - 76MW. But that's more than twice
what the wind is doing.

We hear screams of delight when 'for the first time wind supplied 10% of
the grid'

Let's hear it for the time when despite the vast amounts of money spent
on it, renewable energy was supplying less than 0.05% of the UK demand.

"All the windmills in the UK are not supplying enough electricity to
charge an I pod in every house in the country"

"All the renewable energy in the country - including hydro - is not enough
to light a single energy saving lightbulb in every household in the
country"

That's £10bn and thousands of landscapes ruined, houses devalued and birds
killed, well spent, then.



--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

On 26/06/2012 02:23, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Renewable Britain: A report.

Bristol channel [...] well spent, then.


Did you get this from somewhere else or is it your writing? could I have
the reference please?

Tim W

Tim W wrote:
On 26/06/2012 02:23, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Renewable Britain: A report.

Bristol channel [...] well spent, then.


Did you get this from somewhere else or is it your writing? could I have
the reference please?

His own writing, based on publicly available, verifiable information.

It's not hard to find the current figures on *all* forms of power
generation, updated hourly.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

Tim W wrote:
On 26/06/2012 02:23, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Renewable Britain: A report.

Bristol channel [...] well spent, then.


Did you get this from somewhere else or is it your writing? could I have
the reference please?

Tim W
Its my writing.



--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

"All the windmills in the UK are not supplying enough electricity to
charge an I pod in every house in the country"

Its not a very good example.
It would have more meaning if you stated that they cant even maintain the
telephone network which most people would regard as essential.

John Williamson wrote:
Tim W wrote:
On 26/06/2012 02:23, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Renewable Britain: A report.

Bristol channel [...] well spent, then.


Did you get this from somewhere else or is it your writing? could I
have the reference please?

His own writing, based on publicly available, verifiable information.

It's not hard to find the current figures on *all* forms of power
generation, updated hourly.

Or the tide tables.

apart from those everything else was from here

http://www.gridwatch.co.uk

which updates as frequently as 5 minutes.

and gets its data from www.bmreports.com




--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

harry wrote:
On Jun 26, 2:23 am, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Renewable Britain: A report.

Bristol channel is at high tide. No tidal power would be produced by the
highest tidal range in the UK at this point in time.

Its dark. No solar power is generating anything - unless its under a
streetlamp one supposes.

A ridge of high pressure sits over the UK The total metered wind output
across the whole country is just 31 MW. That's right. 31MW Enough to
supply every household (26 million of them) with about 1.2W

Demand is over 27GW.

The Interconnector to France is totally out of action.

The Interconnector from Holland is running flat out (1GW). Its doing
more than all the wind in the UK by a factor of 20.

Dinorwig is no help. Its being recharged.

Even Scottish hydro is doing feck all - 76MW. But that's more than twice
what the wind is doing.

We hear screams of delight when 'for the first time wind supplied 10% of
the grid'

Let's hear it for the time when despite the vast amounts of money spent
on it, renewable energy was supplying less than 0.05% of the UK demand.

"All the windmills in the UK are not supplying enough electricity to
charge an I pod in every house in the country"

"All the renewable energy in the country - including hydro - is not
enough to light a single energy saving lightbulb in every household in
the country"

That's £10bn and thousands of landscapes ruined, houses devalued and
birds killed, well spent, then.

--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.


Why aren't you in bed?

the truth never sleeps harry.


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

John Williamson wrote:
Tim W wrote:
On 26/06/2012 02:23, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Renewable Britain: A report.

Bristol channel [...] well spent, then.


Did you get this from somewhere else or is it your writing? could I have
the reference please?

His own writing, based on publicly available, verifiable information.

It's not hard to find the current figures on *all* forms of power
generation, updated hourly.

Or the tide tables.

apart from those everything else was from here

http://www.gridwatch.co.uk

Holy crap! I clicked that link and got this:
Firefox can't find the server at www.gridwatch.co.uk
and thought, "The hamster driving the server must've died!"
Then I found this:
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Whew, relief!

which updates as frequently as 5 minutes.

and gets its data from www.bmreports.com

Richard wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

John Williamson wrote:
Tim W wrote:
On 26/06/2012 02:23, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Renewable Britain: A report.

Bristol channel [...] well spent, then.


Did you get this from somewhere else or is it your writing? could I
have the reference please?

His own writing, based on publicly available, verifiable information.

It's not hard to find the current figures on *all* forms of power
generation, updated hourly.

Or the tide tables.

apart from those everything else was from here

http://www.gridwatch.co.uk

Holy crap! I clicked that link and got this:
Firefox can't find the server at www.gridwatch.co.uk
and thought, "The hamster driving the server must've died!"
Then I found this:
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Whew, relief!

Its a miracle the data centre stayed up what with renewable energy being
such an important part of our 'diversity strategy*'

*a system of diverting as much public money as possible into as many
lobby groups pockets as possible. And harrys pocket of course,.



--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

I agree, but that doesn't of itself mean that wind power is not a good
investment. It may be on the grounds that every little helps, but the
economic arguments rely rather a lot on subsidies.

Anyone who thinks that renewable energy will solve all our problems
should have a look at www.withouthotair.com which is a free online book
written by David MacKay, a respected physicist. He shows beyond doubt
that the only solution for the UK is a partial revival of nuclear power:
the sum of all other methods of generating electricity under the best
possible assumptions won't generate enough. It's a long document, but
well worth reading.


--
Clive Page

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:47:37 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

"All the windmills in the UK are not supplying enough electricity to
charge an I pod in every house in the country"

Its not a very good example.
It would have more meaning if you stated that they cant even maintain the
telephone network which most people would regard as essential.

Telephone network or mobile network?
--
http://www.voucherfreebies.co.uk

"mogga" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:47:37 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

"All the windmills in the UK are not supplying enough electricity to
charge an I pod in every house in the country"

Its not a very good example.
It would have more meaning if you stated that they cant even maintain the
telephone network which most people would regard as essential.

Telephone network or mobile network?

The mobile network isn't much use without the wired bit.

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 10:33:17 +0100, dennis@home wrote:

The mobile network isn't much use without the wired bit.

The wired bit tends to work without any mains power at all, either from
exchange batteries or batteries and gensets. Even the small garden shed
remote rural exchanges (concentrators really) have backup power.

Mobile networks generally don't work at all when mains power goes, very few
cells have any backup power supply.

--
Cheers
Dave.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

That's £10bn and thousands of landscapes ruined, houses devalued and
birds killed, well spent, then.

Ten billion - the cost of four Sizewell B reactors.

My wife watched a repeat of Grand Designs last night. An ugly little "Eco
house" that had a vertical access win turbine in the grounds. Cost not
given but a replacement quoted at £40,000. Kevin asked how much electricity
it had generated in a year. Answer - none. But the loon who bought it sat
there, stars in the eyes saying it would work when the problems were sorted
out. "It's experimental". Waste of money and resources.

Clive Page wrote:
I agree, but that doesn't of itself mean that wind power is not a good
investment. It may be on the grounds that every little helps, but the
economic arguments rely rather a lot on subsidies.


well every little doesn't help if the marginal cost of the 'help'
exceeds any possible benefit to the world or the consumer.

Anyone who thinks that renewable energy will solve all our problems
should have a look at www.withouthotair.com which is a free online book
written by David MacKay, a respected physicist. He shows beyond doubt
that the only solution for the UK is a partial revival of nuclear power:
the sum of all other methods of generating electricity under the best
possible assumptions won't generate enough. It's a long document, but
well worth reading.


Sadly David likes renewable energy as well. He only really covers the
energy density issues in his book, He doesn't really scratch the surface
of the intermittency problem or the cost or the ongoing environmental
impact and the complementary issues and costs.





--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
...


"mogga" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:47:37 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

"All the windmills in the UK are not supplying enough electricity to
charge an I pod in every house in the country"

Its not a very good example.
It would have more meaning if you stated that they cant even maintain the
telephone network which most people would regard as essential.

Telephone network or mobile network?

The mobile network isn't much use without the wired bit.

The wired bit generally has quite adequate backup for mains failure.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 10:33:17 +0100, dennis@home wrote:

The mobile network isn't much use without the wired bit.

The wired bit tends to work without any mains power at all, either from
exchange batteries or batteries and gensets. Even the small garden shed
remote rural exchanges (concentrators really) have backup power.


I remember dong a bit of work in Guernsey telecoms 'machine shop' also
shared with 6 thwacking great diesel gennys and all sittinng over two
weeks of diesel..


Mobile networks generally don't work at all when mains power goes, very few
cells have any backup power supply.



--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 10:33:17 +0100, dennis@home wrote:

The mobile network isn't much use without the wired bit.

The wired bit tends to work without any mains power at all, either from
exchange batteries or batteries and gensets. Even the small garden shed
remote rural exchanges (concentrators really) have backup power.

Mobile networks generally don't work at all when mains power goes, very
few cells have any backup power supply.


True. I forever annoys me when the local "Three" cell station fails when the
village has it's umpteenth[1] powercut for the year. How much would
batteries cost to keep it going for 2 hours (the longest power cut this
year)?

We have always had the odd 10-60 minute outage, but this year (since and
including Dec 2011) we have had 7 power cuts (2 days has 2 each). I wonder
if this has anything to do with EDF having sold all our transmission to the
Chinese (UKPower).

--
Tim Watts

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 10:33:17 +0100, dennis@home wrote:

The mobile network isn't much use without the wired bit.

The wired bit tends to work without any mains power at all, either from
exchange batteries or batteries and gensets. Even the small garden shed
remote rural exchanges (concentrators really) have backup power.

The wired bits will work for a few minutes before the generators kick in.
Its not relevant anyway.


Mobile networks generally don't work at all when mains power goes, very
few
cells have any backup power supply.

They tend to have a battery backup, it doesn't last long.
Nobody (except naive users) expects the mobile network to survive an
emergency.

dennis@home wrote:


Nobody (except naive users)

So that's 64.9 out of the 65 million mobile users then?

expects the mobile network to survive an
emergency.


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

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


Nobody (except naive users)

So that's 64.9 out of the 65 million mobile users then?

You can fool most of the people all the time.


expects the mobile network to survive an
emergency.

You start from the mistaken position that ever home in the country should
have an iPhone, or if they do, not have a solar panel charger for it.

Paul DS.

dennis@home wrote:


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


Nobody (except naive users)

So that's 64.9 out of the 65 million mobile users then?

You can fool most of the people all the time.

The general principle behind, politics, global warming and renewable
energy.




--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

Paul D Smith wrote:
You start from the mistaken position that ever home in the country
should have an iPhone, or if they do, not have a solar panel charger for
it.


No, I don't.
whoosh!

Paul DS.


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

On 26/06/2012 02:23, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Bristol channel is at high tide. No tidal power would be produced by the
highest tidal range in the UK at this point in time.


While I agree with most of your points, consider Morecambe Bay _and_ the
Avon. 90 degrees out of phase, should be good for at least 1 nuke's worth.

Andy

On 26/06/2012 13:04, Paul D Smith wrote:
You start from the mistaken position that ever home in the country
should have an iPhone, or if they do, not have a solar panel charger for
it.

One that works at 2:23 am?

Andy

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:04:23 +0100, Andy Champ
wrote:

On 26/06/2012 13:04, Paul D Smith wrote:
You start from the mistaken position that ever home in the country
should have an iPhone, or if they do, not have a solar panel charger for
it.

One that works at 2:23 am?

The Spanish ones do.

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 02:23:34 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Demand is over 27GW.


Surprised it's that high, what's the lowest (valid) system demand
you've seen sinch gridwatch started?

Andy Champ wrote:
On 26/06/2012 02:23, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Bristol channel is at high tide. No tidal power would be produced by the
highest tidal range in the UK at this point in time.


While I agree with most of your points, consider Morecambe Bay _and_ the
Avon. 90 degrees out of phase, should be good for at least 1 nuke's worth.

morecambe bays not that high a tide

Andy


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

The Other Mike wrote:
On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 02:23:34 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

01:36:31 Tuesday, 26 June 2012
===============================

Demand is over 27GW.


Surprised it's that high, what's the lowest (valid) system demand
you've seen sinch gridwatch started?


about 22GW I think. Apart from odd gotchas that are obvious failures
upstream.

Hmm I have some 900M that have to be errors and a 13 likewise,..but two
18GW.. MIGHT be possible. Hmm. That was very early on in the project -
might well be software errors then.
There's embedded wind in there as well of course effectively reducing
demand so on a breezy day that might be 2-3GW

mysql select timestamp, demand from day where demand 21500;
+---------------------+--------+
| timestamp | demand |
+---------------------+--------+
| 2011-06-08 09:25:02 | 18928 |
| 2011-06-08 09:30:02 | 18949 |
| 2011-08-07 04:45:01 | 21448 |
| 2011-08-07 04:50:02 | 21377 |
| 2011-08-07 04:55:01 | 21379 |
| 2011-08-07 05:00:04 | 21386 |
| 2011-08-07 05:05:03 | 21376 |
| 2011-08-07 05:10:02 | 21410 |
| 2012-04-20 10:20:01 | 984 |
| 2012-04-20 10:25:16 | 969 |
| 2012-04-20 10:30:02 | 969 |
| 2012-04-20 10:35:36 | 969 |
| 2012-04-20 10:40:02 | 969 |
| 2012-04-20 10:45:11 | 969 |
| 2012-04-20 10:50:01 | 951 |
| 2012-04-20 10:55:01 | 895 |
| 2012-05-15 04:20:02 | 13003 |
| 2012-05-31 05:15:09 | 9766 |
+---------------------+--------+

The 21s look right tho. August holidays low work, low power. Xmas day
is always 5-10GW less than days nearby,.


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
Andy Champ wrote:

On 26/06/2012 02:23, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Bristol channel is at high tide. No tidal power would be produced by
the
highest tidal range in the UK at this point in time.

While I agree with most of your points, consider Morecambe Bay _and_
the Avon. 90 degrees out of phase, should be good for at least 1
nuke's worth.

So you have to pay twice, then.

Staggering figure ion the DT today or was it somewhere else - that we
need to spend £150bn on renewable energy generation to achieve 30%
renewable grid and lord knows how much on grid - for that you could
build 50 GW of nuclear power and have an all nuclear zero carbon
country with ****loads left to export as well, and not need any more pylons


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

Clive Page writes:

I agree, but that doesn't of itself mean that wind power is not a good
investment. It may be on the grounds that every little helps, but the
economic arguments rely rather a lot on subsidies.

Anyone who thinks that renewable energy will solve all our problems
should have a look at www.withouthotair.com which is a free online book
written by David MacKay, a respected physicist. He shows beyond doubt
that the only solution for the UK is a partial revival of nuclear power:
the sum of all other methods of generating electricity under the best
possible assumptions won't generate enough. It's a long document, but
well worth reading.


The odd thing is that you don't have to be a respected physicist to
have been able from the start to see that the UK will, sooner or later,
need nuclear power stations. You just need high school maths.
It's plain that renewables are over-hyped.

The big problem with renewables is energy storage.

If you were trying to do things on a small scale, just for yourself,
and had an acre or two of ground, you could use gravitational storage
in the form of a 40 foot cube of heavy rock which your solar panels and
small wind turbine would raise to a height of 40 feet.

That'd store enough energy for personal needs, provided that you made
efficient use of the energy. A much smaller arrangement could be used
to power remote TV repeater stations, small telephone exchanges, etc.

If I had loads of cash (and a country estate, not a flat in town), I'd
love to experiment with such an arrangement.

When there's excess power, the cube is raised. When power is needed, it
slowly sinks. When no power is needed or generated, nothing moves.
If power is being generated but none is being used, you disconnect the
generating device.

I think you could do it with some kind of differential as used in a
car's transmission.

Maybe it also needs some kind of gear mechanism with an infinitely
variable ratio (a few vehicles have used that).

Well, something like that. I'm not a mechanical engineer, but if I were
Cameron I could afford to hire a few (and would probably have the country
estate besides).


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

"dennis@home" writes:



"mogga" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:47:37 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

"All the windmills in the UK are not supplying enough electricity to
charge an I pod in every house in the country"

Its not a very good example.
It would have more meaning if you stated that they cant even maintain the
telephone network which most people would regard as essential.

Telephone network or mobile network?

The mobile network isn't much use without the wired bit.

True, at the moment, but we may be moving towards an all-mobile
arrangement.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

Tim Watts writes:

We have always had the odd 10-60 minute outage, but this year (since and
including Dec 2011) we have had 7 power cuts (2 days has 2 each). I wonder
if this has anything to do with EDF having sold all our transmission to the
Chinese (UKPower).

Just wait until our glorious leaders, "needing" a huge profit, sell the
(by then) newly-privatised prisons to them.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

"dennis@home" writes:



"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ill.co.uk...
On Tue, 26 Jun 2012 10:33:17 +0100, dennis@home wrote:

The mobile network isn't much use without the wired bit.

The wired bit tends to work without any mains power at all, either from
exchange batteries or batteries and gensets. Even the small garden shed
remote rural exchanges (concentrators really) have backup power.

The wired bits will work for a few minutes before the generators kick in.
Its not relevant anyway.


Mobile networks generally don't work at all when mains power goes, very
few
cells have any backup power supply.

They tend to have a battery backup, it doesn't last long.
Nobody (except naive users) expects the mobile network to survive an
emergency.

Certainly not likely to survive an EMP.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

Windmill wrote:
Clive Page writes:

I agree, but that doesn't of itself mean that wind power is not a good
investment. It may be on the grounds that every little helps, but the
economic arguments rely rather a lot on subsidies.

Anyone who thinks that renewable energy will solve all our problems
should have a look at www.withouthotair.com which is a free online book
written by David MacKay, a respected physicist. He shows beyond doubt
that the only solution for the UK is a partial revival of nuclear power:
the sum of all other methods of generating electricity under the best
possible assumptions won't generate enough. It's a long document, but
well worth reading.


The odd thing is that you don't have to be a respected physicist to
have been able from the start to see that the UK will, sooner or later,
need nuclear power stations. You just need high school maths.
It's plain that renewables are over-hyped.

The big problem with renewables is energy storage.

If you were trying to do things on a small scale, just for yourself,
and had an acre or two of ground, you could use gravitational storage
in the form of a 40 foot cube of heavy rock which your solar panels and
small wind turbine would raise to a height of 40 feet.

That'd store enough energy for personal needs, provided that you made
efficient use of the energy. A much smaller arrangement could be used
to power remote TV repeater stations, small telephone exchanges, etc.

If I had loads of cash (and a country estate, not a flat in town), I'd
love to experiment with such an arrangement.

When there's excess power, the cube is raised. When power is needed, it
slowly sinks. When no power is needed or generated, nothing moves.
If power is being generated but none is being used, you disconnect the
generating device.

I think you could do it with some kind of differential as used in a
car's transmission.

Maybe it also needs some kind of gear mechanism with an infinitely
variable ratio (a few vehicles have used that).

Well, something like that. I'm not a mechanical engineer, but if I were
Cameron I could afford to hire a few (and would probably have the country
estate besides).


its easiire just to pump water into a large header tank. One the size of
a dirtsict water supply tank - about the same size as a church tower -
could probebly keep one person going a few days.


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

Windmill wrote:
Tim Watts writes:

We have always had the odd 10-60 minute outage, but this year (since and
including Dec 2011) we have had 7 power cuts (2 days has 2 each). I wonder
if this has anything to do with EDF having sold all our transmission to the
Chinese (UKPower).

Just wait until our glorious leaders, "needing" a huge profit, sell the
(by then) newly-privatised prisons to them.

Bring back the treadmill? Connect it to a generator?

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

"Windmill" wrote in message
...
"dennis@home" writes:

8

The mobile network isn't much use without the wired bit.

True, at the moment, but we may be moving towards an all-mobile
arrangement.

I hope not, what will the emergency services do when it all goes tits up?