Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce barely
any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them that
years ago.
--
bert

On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 21:33:42 +0000
bert ] wrote:

Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce
barely any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith
Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them
that years ago.

You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.

--
Davey.

Well no wind, no power, blustery variable direction wind, broken turbine or
no power.
Not rocket science is it.

Not to worry, all the unemployed and prisoners will be able to use
converted bikes to top it up.
Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________


"bert" ] wrote in message
...
Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce barely
any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them that
years ago.
--
bert

Yes storage of electricity efficiently is what is needed for these sorts of
sources.
What happened to wave and tidal power?
Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________


"Davey" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 21:33:42 +0000
bert ] wrote:

Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce
barely any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith
Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them
that years ago.

You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.

--
Davey.

On 29/10/2014 01:14, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 21:33:42 +0000
bert ] wrote:

Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce
barely any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith
Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them
that years ago.

You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.


What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package. I do wonder if people don't know that.

--
Cheers, Rob

"bert" ] wrote in message
...
Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce barely
any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them that
years ago.

And anyone with even half a brain would realise that this was all known
before they were built by the installers.
This is all long understood, there are no great revellations here.
Wind turbines are only part of a renewable energy system.

"RJH" wrote in message
...
On 29/10/2014 01:14, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 21:33:42 +0000
bert ] wrote:

Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce
barely any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith
Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them
that years ago.

You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.


What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package. I do wonder if people don't know that.

Exactly so.
There are a lot of people here too thick to comprehend this.
They will be here soon spouting their ignorant dross.

It will take decades to provide the complete package

In message , Davey
writes
On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 21:33:42 +0000
bert ] wrote:

Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce
barely any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith
Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them
that years ago.

You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.

I wonder why people have to keep using this argument to knock wind
generation. It was never intended as a total replacement for other
forms of power generation, but as a top up when available, therefore
reducing the amount of coal, gas, nuclear used.

Maybe the people complaining could all be put on a treadmill attached to
a generator, they should provide enough power to support a small town.



--
Bill

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Yes storage of electricity efficiently is what is needed for these sorts of
sources.
What happened to wave and tidal power?

What about damming each end of Loch Ness, and using excess wind power to
pump in seawater (you could do it from both ends)?


--
Ian

In article ,
Bill writes:
I wonder why people have to keep using this argument to knock wind
generation. It was never intended as a total replacement for other
forms of power generation, but as a top up when available, therefore
reducing the amount of coal, gas, nuclear used.

Therein lays the big misconception...

It takes days to spin up and spin down a nuclear plant - you can't
turn it off and on each time the wind blows.

Coal can be more responsive, but still can't be turned on and off
anything like quickly enough to cope with wind instability.

Gas can, but then you hit the next problem -- you will only get a
viable return on your gas power station if you can run it most of the
time. No one will build a gas power station which operates only when
the wind isn't blowing -- the electricity would be too expensive to
sell to the grid. Or to look at it another way, if you want to use
wind, you always have to build two power sources - one for when the
wind blows and one for when it doesn't, and that makes the electricity
twice as expensive as building one power source (actually it's much
worse than that, but I hope that gives you the an idea of the problem).

Maybe the people complaining could all be put on a treadmill attached to
a generator, they should provide enough power to support a small town.

When you understand the issues, maybe you could try thinking of some
viable solutions?

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Bill wrote:

I wonder why people have to keep using this argument to knock wind
generation. It was never intended as a total replacement for other
forms of power generation, but as a top up when available, therefore
reducing the amount of coal, gas, nuclear used.

There is absolutely no point in reducing the amount of nuclear used,
once installed it's far better to use absolutely all of the capacity.
Turning down the nuclear power output on windy days would be a very
silly thing to do.

--
Chris Green
·

On Wed, 29 Oct 2014 04:02:57 -0000, Brian Gaff wrote:

Yes storage of electricity efficiently is what is needed for these sorts
of sources.

+1

What happened to wave and tidal power?

No big subsidies to give the the owners a nice profit. Remember wind
gets a paid a premium price if they can generate and get paid if they
generate too much...

The market is completly distorted.

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article , Ian Jackson
wrote:
In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Yes storage of electricity efficiently is what is needed for these sorts
of sources. What happened to wave and tidal power?

What about damming each end of Loch Ness, and using excess wind power to
pump in seawater (you could do it from both ends)?

It's quite along way to the sea at the southern end.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

In article ,
RJH wrote:
You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.


What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package. I do wonder if people don't know that.

I've often wondered why so many seem to be against any form of 'renewable'
energy. Usually regardless of the economics of the installations costs too.

--
*Nostalgia isn't what is used to be.

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

In article ,
RJH wrote:
On 29/10/2014 01:14, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 21:33:42 +0000
bert ] wrote:

Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce
barely any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith
Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them
that years ago.

You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.


What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package. I do wonder if people don't know that.

which is why Denmark, for example, only generates electricity from wind ;-)

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

In message , charles
writes
In article , Ian Jackson
wrote:
In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Yes storage of electricity efficiently is what is needed for these sorts
of sources. What happened to wave and tidal power?

What about damming each end of Loch Ness, and using excess wind power to
pump in seawater (you could do it from both ends)?

It's quite along way to the sea at the southern end.

Isn't there a canal?
--
Ian

In article , Ian Jackson
wrote:
In message , charles
writes
In article , Ian Jackson
wrote:
In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Yes storage of electricity efficiently is what is needed for these
sorts of sources. What happened to wave and tidal power?

What about damming each end of Loch Ness, and using excess wind power
to pump in seawater (you could do it from both ends)?

It's quite along way to the sea at the southern end.

Isn't there a canal?

yes, but sea water doesn't flow uphill.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

On 29 Oct 2014 12:16:58 GMT
Huge wrote:

On 2014-10-29, Ian Jackson
wrote:
In message , charles
writes
In article , Ian Jackson
wrote:
In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Yes storage of electricity efficiently is what is needed for
these sorts of sources. What happened to wave and tidal power?

What about damming each end of Loch Ness, and using excess wind
power to pump in seawater (you could do it from both ends)?

It's quite along way to the sea at the southern end.

Isn't there a canal?

I imagine it would mightily **** off the users if it started flowing
backwards.



Not to mention Nessie.....

--
Davey.

On Wed, 29 Oct 2014 09:57:15 +0000
Bill wrote:

I wonder why people have to keep using this argument to knock wind
generation. It was never intended as a total replacement for other
forms of power generation, but as a top up when available, therefore
reducing the amount of coal, gas, nuclear used.

But it's backwards, the other sources have to be used to top up wind
power when it isn't functioning, and they need to be running at some
level all the time.
Maybe the new supercomputer at the Met Office will allow the winds to
be accurately forecast. Maybe not.

--
Davey.

In message , charles
writes
In article , Ian Jackson
wrote:
In message , charles
writes
In article , Ian Jackson
wrote:
In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Yes storage of electricity efficiently is what is needed for these
sorts of sources. What happened to wave and tidal power?

What about damming each end of Loch Ness, and using excess wind power
to pump in seawater (you could do it from both ends)?

It's quite along way to the sea at the southern end.

Isn't there a canal?

yes, but sea water doesn't flow uphill.

That's why you use the wind power to drive the pumps (bi-directional
turbines, which of course, when reversed, generate).
--
Ian

On Wednesday, 29 October 2014 11:28:12 UTC, charles wrote:

which is why Denmark, for example, only generates electricity from wind ;-)

only 30% wind according to this, 50% by 2020
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Denmark

In message , Huge
writes
On 2014-10-29, Ian Jackson wrote:
In message , charles
writes
In article , Ian Jackson
wrote:
In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Yes storage of electricity efficiently is what is needed for these sorts
of sources. What happened to wave and tidal power?

What about damming each end of Loch Ness, and using excess wind power to
pump in seawater (you could do it from both ends)?

It's quite along way to the sea at the southern end.

Isn't there a canal?

I imagine it would mightily **** off the users if it started flowing
backwards.


I was working out in East Anglia about 20 years ago on some radio
telemetry kit that monitored water pumping stations and at one I
commented that the second pump wasn't in use. Apparently, even though
we were about 10 miles inland from the sea, if they ran both pumps they
took enough fresh water from the rather small river that eventually they
brought in salt water. Ooooops!





--
Bill

In message , Andrew Gabriel
writes
In article ,
Bill writes:
I wonder why people have to keep using this argument to knock wind
generation. It was never intended as a total replacement for other
forms of power generation, but as a top up when available, therefore
reducing the amount of coal, gas, nuclear used.

Therein lays the big misconception...

It takes days to spin up and spin down a nuclear plant - you can't
turn it off and on each time the wind blows.

Coal can be more responsive, but still can't be turned on and off
anything like quickly enough to cope with wind instability.

Gas can, but then you hit the next problem -- you will only get a
viable return on your gas power station if you can run it most of the
time. No one will build a gas power station which operates only when
the wind isn't blowing -- the electricity would be too expensive to
sell to the grid. Or to look at it another way, if you want to use
wind, you always have to build two power sources - one for when the
wind blows and one for when it doesn't, and that makes the electricity
twice as expensive as building one power source (actually it's much
worse than that, but I hope that gives you the an idea of the problem).

Maybe the people complaining could all be put on a treadmill attached to
a generator, they should provide enough power to support a small town.

When you understand the issues, maybe you could try thinking of some
viable solutions?


Thank you, I stand, or rather at the mo' sit, corrected.

My own personal solution would be nuclear, but some people don't seem to
like that too much.
--
Bill

On Wed, 29 Oct 2014 11:17:17 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package. I do wonder if people don't know that.

I've often wondered why so many seem to be against any form of
'renewable' energy. Usually regardless of the economics of the
installations costs too.

Pure and simple political bias.

"Bill" wrote in message
...

I was working out in East Anglia about 20 years ago on some radio telemetry kit that
monitored water pumping stations and at one I commented that the second pump wasn't in
use. Apparently, even though we were about 10 miles inland from the sea, if they ran
both pumps they took enough fresh water from the rather small river that eventually
they brought in salt water. Ooooops!


Redundancy is often built into water pumping systems so as to
allow continuous operation in the event of breakdown, and allow
off-line maintanance to be carried out.

Ask a silly question etc etc.



michael adams

....

In article ,
Bill writes:
In message , Andrew Gabriel
writes
In article ,
Bill writes:
I wonder why people have to keep using this argument to knock wind
generation. It was never intended as a total replacement for other
forms of power generation, but as a top up when available, therefore
reducing the amount of coal, gas, nuclear used.

Therein lays the big misconception...

It takes days to spin up and spin down a nuclear plant - you can't
turn it off and on each time the wind blows.

Coal can be more responsive, but still can't be turned on and off
anything like quickly enough to cope with wind instability.

Gas can, but then you hit the next problem -- you will only get a
viable return on your gas power station if you can run it most of the
time. No one will build a gas power station which operates only when
the wind isn't blowing -- the electricity would be too expensive to
sell to the grid. Or to look at it another way, if you want to use
wind, you always have to build two power sources - one for when the
wind blows and one for when it doesn't, and that makes the electricity
twice as expensive as building one power source (actually it's much
worse than that, but I hope that gives you the an idea of the problem).

Maybe the people complaining could all be put on a treadmill attached to
a generator, they should provide enough power to support a small town.

When you understand the issues, maybe you could try thinking of some
viable solutions?


Thank you, I stand, or rather at the mo' sit, corrected.

My own personal solution would be nuclear, but some people don't seem to
like that too much.

Nuclear should own most of the base load - the load which is there 24x7.
It can't handle daily cycles.

Coal can deal with daily cycles, providing you don't turn it right off
(so it has to have some of the base load too, to keep it ready for the
next day). It may be that the remaining (presumably more modern) coal
fired stations can be more responsive than coal as a whole used to be.

Gas can be quite responsive to changes during the day.

Hydro and stored water resoviors are most responsive of all, and can
be up to power in well under a minute in some cases (Dinorwig).

Wind would become more useful if a viable technology for large scale
storage of energy was to appear, but even then, it would probably be
much more effective to increase nuclear above base load and have that
storing the excess for when it's needed at a higher load time of day.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On 29/10/2014 10:32, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Bill writes:
I wonder why people have to keep using this argument to knock wind
generation. It was never intended as a total replacement for other
forms of power generation, but as a top up when available, therefore
reducing the amount of coal, gas, nuclear used.

Therein lays the big misconception...

It takes days to spin up and spin down a nuclear plant - you can't
turn it off and on each time the wind blows.

Coal can be more responsive, but still can't be turned on and off
anything like quickly enough to cope with wind instability.

Gas can, but then you hit the next problem -- you will only get a
viable return on your gas power station if you can run it most of the
time. No one will build a gas power station which operates only when
the wind isn't blowing -- the electricity would be too expensive to
sell to the grid. Or to look at it another way, if you want to use
wind, you always have to build two power sources - one for when the
wind blows and one for when it doesn't, and that makes the electricity
twice as expensive as building one power source (actually it's much
worse than that, but I hope that gives you the an idea of the problem).

Maybe the people complaining could all be put on a treadmill attached to
a generator, they should provide enough power to support a small town.

When you understand the issues, maybe you could try thinking of some
viable solutions?

to say nothing of the damage caused when shut down and startup
procedures are used too regularly.

---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com

On 28/10/2014 21:33, bert wrote:
Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce barely
any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them that
years ago.

Where's The Natural Philosopher? He hasn't posted for quite a while.

Another Dave
--
Change nospam to gmx in e-mail.

In message , michael adams
writes

"Bill" wrote in message
...

I was working out in East Anglia about 20 years ago on some radio
telemetry kit that
monitored water pumping stations and at one I commented that the
second pump wasn't in
use. Apparently, even though we were about 10 miles inland from the
sea, if they ran
both pumps they took enough fresh water from the rather small river
that eventually
they brought in salt water. Ooooops!


Redundancy is often built into water pumping systems so as to
allow continuous operation in the event of breakdown, and allow
off-line maintanance to be carried out.

That was one of my thoughts, but it wasn't the answer in this case.

It had taken a while and been a long hot summer, so maybe the
calculations for a normal "summer" would have allowed both to run.
Fortunately their local automated monitoring had picked up on it fairly
early on. Plus the radio linked telemetry had reported it!

[For the benefit of the techy types here.]

Quite surprising considering one of the things that I found was 6" tails
on the coax connected to the aerial connector on the cabinet, not good
at any time, even worse at UHF
--
Bill

On Wednesday, October 29, 2014 5:29:06 PM UTC, Another Dave wrote:
Where's The Natural Philosopher? He hasn't posted for quite a while.

He's waiting for the wind turbine to recharge his laptop battery :-)

Owain

"Huge" wrote in message
...
On 2014-10-29, RJH wrote:
On 29/10/2014 01:14, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 21:33:42 +0000
bert ] wrote:

Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce
barely any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith
Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them
that years ago.

You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.


What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package.

IOW, you have to build enough conventional plant to cover periods when
there's
no wind. So why build the windmills in the first place?

It's about saving fuel which becomes more important as it becomes more
expensive.
ie the fuel to power them costs nothing.

It's also about having an energy source that no-one can take away from us.

When there are multiple sources of renewable energy, linked over a large
geographic area, the need for supplimentary power sources reduces. The
supplimentaryt sources will be gas, which is a relatively cheap power
station to build (compareed with coal, oil or nuclear.
Also less pollution.

And we need the smart grid.

"Tim Streater" wrote in message
.. .
In article , Huge
wrote:

On 2014-10-29, RJH wrote:
On 29/10/2014 01:14, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 21:33:42 +0000
bert ] wrote:

Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html

"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce
barely any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith
Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them
that years ago.

You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.

What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package.

IOW, you have to build enough conventional plant to cover periods when
there's
no wind. So why build the windmills in the first place?

Some people apparently like building two power stations to get the
output of one. Go figure.

The cost of fuel for one of them will be zero.
Go figure yourself.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
RJH wrote:
You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.


What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package. I do wonder if people don't know that.

I've often wondered why so many seem to be against any form of 'renewable'
energy. Usually regardless of the economics of the installations costs
too.


It's because they are old men with old men's thinking.
Stuck in a rut.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
RJH wrote:
You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.


What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package. I do wonder if people don't know that.

I've often wondered why so many seem to
be against any form of 'renewable' energy.

Because the electricity from them costs a lot more than from coal.

Usually regardless of the economics of the installations costs too.

In the case of wind because it ****s up the environment completely.

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Bill writes:
In message , Andrew Gabriel
writes
In article ,
Bill writes:
I wonder why people have to keep using this argument to knock wind
generation. It was never intended as a total replacement for other
forms of power generation, but as a top up when available, therefore
reducing the amount of coal, gas, nuclear used.

Therein lays the big misconception...

It takes days to spin up and spin down a nuclear plant - you can't
turn it off and on each time the wind blows.

Coal can be more responsive, but still can't be turned on and off
anything like quickly enough to cope with wind instability.

Gas can, but then you hit the next problem -- you will only get a
viable return on your gas power station if you can run it most of the
time. No one will build a gas power station which operates only when
the wind isn't blowing -- the electricity would be too expensive to
sell to the grid. Or to look at it another way, if you want to use
wind, you always have to build two power sources - one for when the
wind blows and one for when it doesn't, and that makes the electricity
twice as expensive as building one power source (actually it's much
worse than that, but I hope that gives you the an idea of the problem).

Maybe the people complaining could all be put on a treadmill attached
to
a generator, they should provide enough power to support a small town.

When you understand the issues, maybe you could try thinking of some
viable solutions?


Thank you, I stand, or rather at the mo' sit, corrected.

My own personal solution would be nuclear, but some people don't seem to
like that too much.

Nuclear should own most of the base load - the load which is there 24x7.
It can't handle daily cycles.

It can actually, the french do fine.

Coal can deal with daily cycles, providing you don't turn it right off
(so it has to have some of the base load too, to keep it ready for the
next day). It may be that the remaining (presumably more modern) coal
fired stations can be more responsive than coal as a whole used to be.

Gas can be quite responsive to changes during the day.

Hydro and stored water resoviors are most responsive of all, and can
be up to power in well under a minute in some cases (Dinorwig).

Wind would become more useful if a viable technology for large scale
storage of energy was to appear, but even then, it would probably be
much more effective to increase nuclear above base load and have that
storing the excess for when it's needed at a higher load time of day.

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article ,
RJH wrote:
You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.


What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package. I do wonder if people don't know that.

I've often wondered why so many seem to be against any form of 'renewable'
energy. Usually regardless of the economics of the installations costs too.

Because as has been explained many times the two principle ones
available are intermittent. There is nothing on the horizon that come
remotely near to being capable of producing the levels of energy
required and there is nothing on the horizon in terms of storing
significant amounts of electrical energy. So no matter how many
windmills or solar farms you build you still need equivalent back up in
reliable constantly available power and if that back up is nuclear,
whose operation is very green, then having built it you may as well run
it 24/7 and so building all the windmills and solar farms in the first
place is rendered pointless.
Simples
--
bert

In message , Chris Hogg
writes
On Wed, 29 Oct 2014 11:26:55 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

In article ,
RJH wrote:
On 29/10/2014 01:14, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 21:33:42 +0000
bert ] wrote:

Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...Wind-farms-can
-never-be-relied-upon-to-deliver-UK-energy-security.html


"Wind farms can never be relied upon to keep the lights on in Britain
because there are long periods each winter in which they produce
barely any power, according to a new report by the Adam Smith
Institute."

Anyone with an ounce of engineering knowledge could have told them
that years ago.

You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.


What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package. I do wonder if people don't know that.

which is why Denmark, for example, only generates electricity from wind ;-)

LOL! You've been reading Harry! What's worse, you've been taking him
seriously! As Whisky-Dave points out, Denmark only produces 30% of
it's power from wind, although that may be out-of-date, as this Wiki
item suggests a figure of nearly 40% for 2014.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark

Some stuff I've put up befo

Denmark has quite a lot of coal-fired power stations; see
http://carma.org/region/detail/2623032 for 2009 data. AFAIK these
power stations are still in use.

The International Energy Agency web site on Key World Statistics for
energy production and consumption. The latest document they've
produced is he
http://www.iea.org/publications/free...-31287-en.html

Download the pdf file, click on EMISSIONS on the LHS, and scroll down
to the table of Selected Energy Indicators for 2011 where one finds a
column of data for CO2/pop., i.e. CO2 emissions in tonnes per head of
population. The data for Denmark, UK and France are as follows (pp.
51, 57 & 51 respectively):

Denmark 7.48 t CO2/capita
UK 7.06 "
France 5.04 "

(CO2 emissions from fuel combustion only. Emissions are calculated
using the IEAs energy balances and the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines).

So the UK is actually emitting *less* CO2/capita than Denmark *in
total*, despite all their wind power! France's CO2/capita, as
expected, is well down, showing the benefits of nuclear.

AIUI there are occasions when Denmark produces more electricity than
it uses, when it exports the surplus. But equally well, there are
other times when it cannot produce enough for its needs (when the
wind don't blow, for example), when it imports nuclear-generated
electricity from France, and hydroelectric power from Norway and
Sweden via inter-connectors. If it were not for France and
Norway/Sweden, Denmark would be in deep doo-dah at these times.
There's only a certain amount of surplus electricity available in
Europe, so not everyone can rely on doing what Denmark does. With
Germany closing its nuclear generators and relying increasingly on
wind, surplus electricity in Europe is going to be scarce. It won't be
long before the **** hits the fan, or should that be the
wind-generator.

And Germany is now building more coal fired plant.
--
bert

In message , Davey
writes
On Wed, 29 Oct 2014 09:57:15 +0000
Bill wrote:

I wonder why people have to keep using this argument to knock wind
generation. It was never intended as a total replacement for other
forms of power generation, but as a top up when available, therefore
reducing the amount of coal, gas, nuclear used.

But it's backwards, the other sources have to be used to top up wind
power when it isn't functioning, and they need to be running at some
level all the time.
Maybe the new supercomputer at the Met Office will allow the winds to
be accurately forecast. Maybe not.

You must be joking. What use is it top know that there is a xx%
probability that the wind will blow tomorrow where xx is not 00 and not
100
--
bert

bert ] wrote
Dave Plowman (News) wrote
RJH wrote

You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.

What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package. I do wonder if people don't know that.

I've often wondered why so many seem to be against any form of
'renewable'
energy. Usually regardless of the economics of the installations costs
too.

Because as has been explained many times the two principle ones available
are intermittent. There is nothing on the horizon that come remotely near
to being capable of producing the levels of energy required

Yes.

and there is nothing on the horizon in terms of storing significant
amounts of electrical energy.

That's not right. Pumped water for the entire grid works fine.

Main problem is that it isnt suitable for some places like say Holland.

So no matter how many windmills or solar farms you build you still need
equivalent back up in reliable constantly available power and if that back
up is nuclear, whose operation is very green, then having built it you may
as well run it 24/7 and so building all the windmills and solar farms in
the first place is rendered pointless.

True.

In message , bert ]
writes
In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article ,
RJH wrote:
You don't even need engineering knowledge to realise that the wind is
not constant! On how many summer evenings has it dropped to nothing an
hour or so before sunset, just when folks are turning their lights on?

You have to wonder, indeed.


What? Why a right wing think tank produces a pro-industry puff piece?!

Wind power was never supposed to 'keep the lights on'. It was only ever
part of a package. I do wonder if people don't know that.

I've often wondered why so many seem to be against any form of 'renewable'
energy. Usually regardless of the economics of the installations costs too.

Because as has been explained many times the two principle ones
available are intermittent. There is nothing on the horizon that come
remotely near to being capable of producing the levels of energy
required and there is nothing on the horizon in terms of storing
significant amounts of electrical energy. So no matter how many
windmills or solar farms you build you still need equivalent back up in
reliable constantly available power and if that back up is nuclear,
whose operation is very green, then having built it you may as well run
it 24/7 and so building all the windmills and solar farms in the first
place is rendered pointless.
Simples

Assuming that the wind WAS actually blowing at least a little somewhere
in the UK, how many wind turbines would we need to ensure that they
could provide 100% of our needs? Furthermore, if the wind happened to be
blowing fitfully everywhere in the UK, how much excess power would they
be capable of generating?
--
Ian