Posted by harry on April 24, 2009, 8:41 pm
On Apr 24, 8:18 pm, "Lord Gow333, Dirk Benedict's newest fan!"
> > "misterf...@yahoo.com" wrote:
> >> can this type of mis-information, heard by millions of radio
> >> listeners, hurt the wind electric generator industry and the pv panel
> >> industry? :
> >> Talk show host #1:
> >> "Using wind-electric generators and solar panels as BACKUP systems to
> >> fossil fuel electric generation- produces more greenhouse gases than
> >> using fossil fuel generation alone!"
> > I've never heard of them being used as BACKUP but he's probably right
> > since you wouldn't be using their full potential which makes them even
> > worse than usual producers of electricity compared to conventional.
> If this is the discussion I'm thinking of his point was that the fossil fuel
> plant would have to constantly adjust its output over a much wider range
> created by the varying output of the wind/solar arrangement.This wouldn't
> allow the fossil plant to be optimized for a typical load as well as if they
> are the sole source. On windy days you have a big coal plant idling along
> and basically wasting energy, or facing an eventual restart which is when
> they are the least efficient. On calm days you have an underpowered coal
> plant struggling to keep up and overrunning its pollution controls... that
> sort of thing.
> At the end of the day it all comes back to the same storage problems that
> any power production faces.
> LG
> --
> "Keep it simple. If it takes a genius to understand it, it will never work."
> - Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson
I think the answer with all these "Green" energy sources is to have as
diverse a mix of sources as possible, also as wide spread
geographically. So manyof them are intermittant.
I also saw the B&Q offering. It was probably OK if you lived in a
rally windy situation and you did all the installation work yourself.
I went to my home town a few months back & could hardly believe what I
saw. They had two quite large windmills on local gov buildings. They
were in the most sheltered spot yoou could imagine. Can't imagine what
demented oaf had them installed there!
http://www.kirklees.gov.uk/community/environment/renewable/renewable-projects.shtml
Posted by Tim Jackson on April 25, 2009, 2:17 pm
harry wrote:
> I also saw the B&Q offering. It was probably OK if you lived in a
> rally windy situation and you did all the installation work yourself.
I saw it too, didn't see much to be taken seriously. Even given a
suitable location, planning permission, etc., and the unit performing to
spec, payback time was still something in the region of infinity, as you
say, discounting installation costs, I doubted very much that it would
survive long enough to repay the capital, let alone pay interest.
I figured it was either aimed at the "big boys toys" market, or else
belonged on the same aisle as the YBS loft "superinsulator" that didn't
work either. Just because B&Q and their ilk sell it doesn't mean it
works, just that it's hard to prove it doesn't.
Tim Jackson
Posted by Eeyore on April 25, 2009, 8:20 pm
harry wrote:
> I think the answer with all these "Green" energy sources is to have as
> diverse a mix of sources as possible, also as wide spread
> geographically. So manyof them are intermittant.
> I also saw the B&Q offering. It was probably OK if you lived in a
> rally windy situation and you did all the installation work yourself.
> I went to my home town a few months back & could hardly believe what I
> saw. They had two quite large windmills on local gov buildings. They
> were in the most sheltered spot yoou could imagine. Can't imagine what
> demented oaf had them installed there!
>
http://www.kirklees.gov.uk/community/environment/renewable/renewable-projects.shtml
Such publicly funded projects should have to report actual generated power vs
estimated.
Graham
Posted by Eeyore on April 25, 2009, 8:36 pm
harry wrote:
> I went to my home town a few months back & could hardly believe what I
> saw. They had two quite large windmills on local gov buildings. They
> were in the most sheltered spot yoou could imagine. Can't imagine what
> demented oaf had them installed there!
>
http://www.kirklees.gov.uk/community/environment/renewable/renewable-projects.shtml
The college is on the 100 m contour with 145 m clearly visible nearby. But then
it is
called Spen VALLEY !
http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?xB0119&yB3209&z=0&sv=WF15+7LX&st=2&pc=WF15+7LX&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf
Case study on Spen Valley Sports College Wind Turbine (PDF 31kb)
http://www.kirklees.gov.uk/community/environment/renewable/SpenValleySportsCollege.pdf
I assume you had the Civic Centre one more in mind though.
Nicely surrounded by plenty of built up area and a wood.. Approx location shown
by the
blue man it seems.
http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?xA5926&yA9470&z=0&sv=HD2+1JP&st=2&pc=HD2+1JP&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf
XML site map
> >> can this type of mis-information, heard by millions of radio
> >> listeners, hurt the wind electric generator industry and the pv panel
> >> industry? :
> >> Talk show host #1:
> >> "Using wind-electric generators and solar panels as BACKUP systems to
> >> fossil fuel electric generation- produces more greenhouse gases than
> >> using fossil fuel generation alone!"
> > I've never heard of them being used as BACKUP but he's probably right
> > since you wouldn't be using their full potential which makes them even
> > worse than usual producers of electricity compared to conventional.
> If this is the discussion I'm thinking of his point was that the fossil fuel
> plant would have to constantly adjust its output over a much wider range
> created by the varying output of the wind/solar arrangement.This wouldn't
> allow the fossil plant to be optimized for a typical load as well as if they
> are the sole source. On windy days you have a big coal plant idling along
> and basically wasting energy, or facing an eventual restart which is when
> they are the least efficient. On calm days you have an underpowered coal
> plant struggling to keep up and overrunning its pollution controls... that
> sort of thing.
> At the end of the day it all comes back to the same storage problems that
> any power production faces.
> LG
> --
> "Keep it simple. If it takes a genius to understand it, it will never work."
> - Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson