What did you do today (2015)

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

ChrisH – how does it compare against the costs of Hinckley B? Perhaps you could compare the relative lifetime, unit cost and decommissioning costs for us? Remove the politics from the facts?

Too much Daily Mail, not enough facts.

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

On the renewable/fossil

Two reasons that coal “can’t” form.

1 different kind of tree formed the layers

2 at that point of the tree vs fungus arms race ..trees had come up with the revolutionary innovation of cellulose which took time for fungi to counter…so fallen trees had (many) years to lie fallen without rotting. ..this situation will not repeat ( until the arms race moves on)

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

Ain't breeding brilliant, perhaps we ought to look at all the electrical appliances we all use at home seems to me the number is increasing all the time this is modern technology for you, never worked out how coal a naturally produced fuel cannot be burn't safely bring back steam

Mick

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

One further thought-carbon dioxide is released trees etc breathe it in and put oxygen back in the atmosphere if we hadn't chopped dowm great swathes of rain forest and native woodlands a balance could be reached plus as I understand it more oxygen is pumped out by certain forms of plankton than all the remaining forested areas that are left, one day the human race will kill the planet

Mick

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

There are coal stations in Germany that give negligeable effluent, in fact they wash the exhaust and collect the dust and make thermal blocks from it. This must be viable or Germany would not have closed down their nuclear power stations. Locally, houses sprout Solar panels almost daily, I would do it, but I would with whats left of my life never amortize the outlay. With all the methods of power generation outlay costs are enormous and the system must run trouble free for many decades to be viable and this is where nuclear comes in. The tidal barrage system or wave generation need further effort I think as they are reliable and continuous daily cycles. Relying on solar which has need of multiple panels to be efficient is still subject to a daily cycle and low output in occluded skies.

One idea is to use solar heating with water panels to pre-heat water before it enters the heating system, this is efficient but low cost to set up. In fact most middle east countries like Turkey every house has a solar water panel on its roof.

House insulation can be counter effective as the house gets too hot and that is not good for the human life form as illness can come from it. It may save fuel consumption so that is one plus for it. We have variable weather patterns and this also affects our power needs. I have lived in an estate with communal heating, I was never cold and only needed heat/power for bathing or washing. Otherwise this means that each house etc, is heated individually and that is wasteful so perhaps communal heating might be a way?

Clive

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by jason udall on 05/11/2015 08:48:04:

..trees had come up with the revolutionary innovation of cellulose

.

Good point, Jason

MichaelG.

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

Some thing I have pondered on, first law of thermodynamics, if all the fossil fuels we burn to day were the result of energy from the sun millions of years ago which we are unlocking where does all the energy go?

Is 104,426 TWh all lost to space, doubtful, so it must contribute to global warming.

Bob

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Gas is preferred to coal in emission considerations as more of the energy comes from the Hydrogen oxidation producing water than the carbon oxidation producing carbon dioxide than in the case of coal where the balance is more biased to the carbon reaction.

Martin

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Everything on the planet is Solar driven, photo synthesis and Ocean warming and air convection. The Coleralis effect that drives the Roaring Forties both South and North of the Equator are functions of this plus the Ocean currents that circulate our Oceans. One aspect is that the ice caps are melting and reforming more each year with inland Glaciers also melting. One function of the ice caps melting is that the ice water sinks quickly down into the deeps and this forces up warmer water to the surface which in turn feeds the Solar effect of of the Sun on already warmer water which in turn feeds the Hurricanes and Typhoons. The evaporation of the Oceans fills the air with moisture and this precipitates causing devastation and flooding in short time instead of seasonal time.

The Suns sunspot cycle is an 11 year cycle and this also causes ups and downs in our climates. I understand it is at a low at this time? As a child I remember the seasons and the rhymes that described them and that is how they were. Snow came in Jan. and winds in Mar and at Easter we swam in the river! Not any more as the weather cycles have changed and sunny April and May are no longer the norm for us. We get shorter sharper cycles now with one day sunny and two of rain and wind. I know this as i work my bees and their life cycles are disturbed by this and in consequence problems arise beyond any control I have over it!

Comes to mind all the people and organisations that have jumped on the Global warming item and falsified data trying to prove an un-provable item. Polar bears are fine and always will be. The data which collated does not show a warming trend at this time but a disturbed weather pattern caused by what I described earlier, it is just part of a cycle of events and perhaps in a short time we will see plunging temperatures and the need for power escalate to enormous levels as everything is so unpredictable.

Clive

PS. Parts of Spain were cleared of Oak trees to make men of war for the Spanish Navy and to this day remain bare of trees, no re-planting ever took place!

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

if all the fossil fuels we burn to day were the result of energy from the sun millions of years ago which we are unlocking where does all the energy go?

I worked this out a few years ago from wiki numbers…

If you put every known fossil fuel reserve on the planet into a big bonfire and put a match to it the amount of energy released is less than 3 days worth of energy from the sun hitting the earth

The energy loss is huge

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

Muzzer, Not Daily Mail at all – more an appraisal of hard facts.

Solar Panels generate only during the day, you can't store the energy they produce and they don't produce at night, fact. Interestingly ,Australia which has masses of barren, uninhabited, fit for nothing but lizards and snakes land and has very bright sunshine all day every day has no great solar farms. Plus in the UK productive farmland is lost for each solar farm. We also need to eat.

Wind generators can only produce energy within a specified band of wind speed, above and below that, nothing; in between generation is a variable, fact. In winter when it's very cold and more energy is required it's usually because we're in an area of high pressure which means no wind, so then it's another consumer of electricity rather than a producer when we need power the most.

So we always require the coal, oil and nuclear power generating back ups. Hinckley Point, like all nuclear stations by the way, is able to produce all day every day other than when refuelling.

Look also at the gridwatch website mentioned by others above. Last night nuclear was producing over 22% of our needs, as was coal, wind just over 2%. And 2% is good, I have seen it up around 4% on one occasion, but also often at less than 1%.

So not political, just factual – and whoever believes what they read in that rag the Daily Mail for goodness sake!! I suppose there will always be someone……….

Chris

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

Climate change – global warming – call it what you like, but the climate is always changing and always has.

Around 1000AD or so, and I believe before that, in Roman times perhaps, they were growing vines for wine 'way up North'. Who warmed the place up for that?

By the mid 1600's the River Thames used to freeze over, you could ride horse drawn carriages over it, they held fairs and markets on it, alledgely, I wasn't there to see it, it had got so cold. Who cooled the place down?

Now it's in between and still moving and I guess it always will. The only question, is are we contributing to it? Well maybe, the world population is increasing at an ever more rapid rate so that must presumable have some effect as the needs for energy increase.

However, rather than climate change I think we should be more worried by the population growth – is it out of control now? – increasing the need for food, water and fuel (energy) across the planet; these issues are more likely to lead to war, world war, as people struggle to provide for their basic needs in the years ahead. I will probably not see it as I shall have gone by then, but my children and grandchildren? Not a nice thought for them I think.

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 05/11/2015 11:23:19

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

The only thing that stays the same… is that things change

Any attempt to stop nature doing her thing is King Canute politics

The sea was around 200m lower 10,000 years ago

(Although those wiki numbers seem to have changed, yet again… 50m at the moment lol)

Edited By Ady1 on 05/11/2015 11:44:35

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

Ady, in those days Scotland was over where USA is now. I think, gets a bit hazy after all these years.

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

As a resident in a part of Scotland blighted by wind farms, I only wish the same amount of energy was put into wave and tidal power. I often see wind generators either stationary on calm days, or with the blades feathered when the wind is too strong. I've only to look at the sea, less than 100 yards from my home, to see the tide go in and out with a predictable regularity day after day no matter what the weather. And why is generated power rated as "enough to heat xxxxxx thousand homes." Isn't industry the larger user?

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

Industry is the larger user but it doesn't look as good as homes, the figures quoted are usually the rated capacity not what is actually produced. Tidal is a predictable but does have its problems, ideally you need a high tidal fall and a reasonable speed, most tidal turbines need at least 1kt but at that speed will not produce full power, it is not until the flow is greater than around 3kts do they produce full power. Then it is not for the full 12 hours of a tidal cycle, probably at best 6 hours so a 1Mw tidal turbine will only actually produce 12Mwhrs over a 24 hour period which is better than most wind turbines which for a similar size average about 6Mwhrs. With tidal there are environmental things to consider like marine animals etc, None of it is new as wind, hydro and tidal were all used to mill grain.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by ChrisH on 05/11/2015 11:06:58:…

…Interestingly ,Australia which has masses of barren, uninhabited, fit for nothing but lizards and snakes land and has very bright sunshine all day every day has no great solar farms. ..

Chris

But the take-up of roof-top solar panels on Australian houses has been so great that the traditional business model of power stations and grid networks is under threat. As a result, power "grid connection service fees" for the rest of us have gone up so the power companies can keep their profits up.

Now with the latest generation of Tesla batteries etc, it is getting way more affordable to run off roof-top solar day and night and the future of powerstations is even more uncertain.

One trouble with solar "farms" in the Outback is the rather long distances to get the power to the major cities and the involved transmission losses. And actually most of that country out there is already used for food production. What you blokes call desert, we call prime grazing country.

Edited By Hopper on 05/11/2015 12:32:47

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Posted by Gordon W on 05/11/2015 12:05:08:

Ady, in those days Scotland was over where USA is now. I think, gets a bit hazy after all these years.

Nearer 40,000,000 years ago than 10,000

regards,

Rod

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

Energy from water fall and dams might also not look the best but every little bit would help. Rivers don't usually run dry. Coal takes to long to form.

[JAParticipant @ja]

Posted by Bob Brown 1 on 05/11/2015 10:38:09:

Some thing I have pondered on, first law of thermodynamics, if all the fossil fuels we burn to day were the result of energy from the sun millions of years ago which we are unlocking where does all the energy go?

Is 104,426 TWh all lost to space, doubtful, so it must contribute to global warming.

Bob

If you couple the first sentence with the Second Law of Thermodynamics you arrive at the Heat Death of the Universe — Every thermodynamic process has some inefficiency so producing waste heat, that is un-recoverable energy. Since the universe is, according to the Victorians who came up with the idea, a closed system, this waste energy will gradually increase the temperature of the universe until every thing reaches the same temperature. Then there will be no temperature difference for the First Law, and thus a heat engine, to work.

As usual, we are all dead.

JA

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Mick Henshall on 05/11/2015 09:42:40:

One further thought-carbon dioxide is released trees etc breathe it in and put oxygen back in the atmosphere if we hadn't chopped dowm great swathes of rain forest and native woodlands a balance could be reached plus as I understand it more oxygen is pumped out by certain forms of plankton than all the remaining forested areas that are left, one day the human race will kill the planet

Mick

 

Rainforests are more important as regulators of climate than as carbon sinks. Yes, there is a lot of CO2 locked up in the wood, but once the trees are established they are pretty much steady state (CO2 in = CO2 out). So worth putting trees back if cut down, but best not to cut down to create burger ranches in first place.

As you hint the seas are the main way of getting CO2 back into the ground (as the carbonate shells of plankton), but bogs where peat is actively being laid down are important too.

Coal was made in damp woodlands where thick, peaty soils were laid down in huge layers – rainforest has mostly mineralised soils.

 

Impressed that 5%of current demand is coming from biomass. Cow farts will save the world

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 05/11/2015 20:38:01

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Neil – you need a new thread for climate deniers, Daily Mail / Express readers, windmill haters etc. There was me hoping to read about workshop activities….

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Murray – try here:WORKSHOP PROGRESS THREAD

Neil

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

It is obvious this subject stirs peoples emotions as they see non practical ideas take center place which to a normal person is wrong. Regarding wind farms, a lot of the US wind farms are now derelict and not in use as Shale gas comes in and powers the nation.

Oil is dropping in price per barrel and Oil Companies are cutting back hand over fist to save expensive search programmes. My Son is in the underwater oil and gas exploration business and it is hurting them badly.

Clive

[warwick wilton 1Participant @warwickwilton1]

What i did today is produce 65MWh of renewable energy from solar and I am able to do it in peck times if required. how you may ask?

[Author]

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