Reply to: The True Purpose of Wind Farms

[TimberWolf]

IIRC Carol Vorderman was involved in the design of the ceiling gutters for one of them built into a mountain.

Not a lot of people know that.

Just a bog standard engineering job working as part of a team as far as I can see.

There is a complex system of gutters in the roof of the caves, to collect water that drips down through the rock. Carol Vordeman worked on this part of the station - helping to design this was one of her first engineering jobs before she moved into television.
Energy Resources: Pumped storage reservoirs

[threaded]

Huh? Why not use the "spare" electricity to pump river water back up into dams?

(thereby storing the energy and conserving more fresh water)

IIRC Carol Vorderman was involved in the design of the ceiling gutters for one of them built into a mountain.

Not a lot of people know that.

[TimberWolf]

The grid already has overcapacity and has to be powered down when demand doesn't meet supply potential. Demand fluctuates a lot.

[TimberWolf]

Huh? Why not use the "spare" electricity to pump river water back up into dams?

(thereby storing the energy and conserving more fresh water)

It's possible to get more energy out than put in doing this. If you pump water higher at high tide and generate electricity with it at low tide.

[minestrone]

Huh? Why not use the "spare" electricity to pump river water back up into dams?

(thereby storing the energy and conserving more fresh water)

Terribly inefficient process which would be powered by a horribly inefficient process.

Also we have pretty much used up all of our places where hydro electric can be used efficiently.

[OwlHoot]

Huh? Why not use the "spare" electricity to pump river water back up into dams?

(thereby storing the energy and conserving more fresh water)

[BlasterBates]

...illustrates the point really.

Lets just summarise. If the wind isn't blowing they don't produce electricity. If the wind does blow the wind energy company gets money to shut them down.

However note....these wind mills are huge and can be seen for miles around.

[DimPrawn]

Firms paid to shut down wind farms when the wind is blowing - Telegraph

Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing.

Critics of wind farms have seized on the revelation as evidence of the unsuitability of turbines to meet the UK's energy needs in the future. They claim that the 'intermittent' nature of wind makes such farms unreliable providers of electricity.

The National Grid fears that on breezy summer nights, wind farms could actually cause a surge in the electricity supply which is not met by demand from businesses and households.

The electricity cannot be stored, so one solution – known as the 'balancing mechanism' – is to switch off or reduce the power supplied.

The system is already used to reduce supply from coal and gas-fired power stations when there is low demand. But shutting down wind farms is likely to cost the National grid – and ultimately consumers – far more. When wind turbines are turned off, owners are being deprived not only of money for the electricity they would have generated but also lucrative 'green' subsidies for that electricity.

The first successful test shut down of wind farms took place three weeks ago. Scottish Power received £13,000 for closing down two farms for a little over an hour on 30 May at about five in the morning.

[xoggoth]

If they want to make them acceptable they should make them look nicer, stick feathers on so they look like seagulls. A cute kitten's head in the middle would be great.

[doodab]

This article draws from How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything by Mike Berners-Lee.

Any relation to Tim?

[Sysman]

What's the carbon footprint of ... a cup of tea or coffee? | Environment | guardian.co.uk

...and the best part of that is the comments at the bottom expecially from the concerned envrionmentalists...

Oh dear

Three large lattes per day, by contrast, and you're looking at almost twenty times as much carbon, equivalent to flying half way across Europe.

In other news today it was reported that we should use water on our cornflakes.

But more seriously:

"Hands off my food and drink!"

Edit:

Nearly missed this gem in my haste to post:

This article draws from How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything by Mike Berners-Lee.

[OwlHoot]

In my current role, I quite often have to tootle down into Cornwall to visit Customer sites. I was there twice yesterday, and probably get there at least a handful of times every month. I have YET to see an instance where all of the turbines are actually spinning at any of these "farms, summer or winter.
They seem to hang around like a bunch of the archetypal British workmen, some working hard, others going through the motions, and most just hanging around doing the square root of fook-all!! Whatever the answer is to renewable energy, wind farms it ain't!!!!

Yup, I've been based in Colchester, and having a couple of hours to spare last week I drove to nearby Clacton on Sea, where there's now a vast forest of off-shore windmills. And they were hardly turning - "as Idle as a bunch of painted ships upon a painted ocean" (almost).

Oh and one more glyph to sum up Clacton on Sea: or perhaps

Ah, Zeitghost, yes "Brabazon". I was Googling for Brabant (DOH!), and then remembered the name while driving back yesterday.

[shaunbhoy]

In my current role, I quite often have to tootle down into Cornwall to visit Customer sites. I was there twice yesterday, and probably get there at least a handful of times every month. I have YET to see an instance where all of the turbines are actually spinning at any of these "farms, summer or winter.
They seem to hang around like a bunch of the archetypal British workmen, some working hard, others going through the motions, and most just hanging around doing the square root of fook-all!!
Whatever the answer is to renewable energy, wind farms it ain't!!!!

[OwlHoot]

Reading Watts up With that web site saw this, which to me sums the purpose of modern wind mills:

::

WHS

Also, socialists seem to have a weird compulsion for expensive white-elephant projects involving large propellors.

Shortly after WW2 the Labour government poured money into a giant 8-engined (I think?) propellor plane, despite the UK having invented jet aircraft which, to everyone except the Government, were obviously the future. I don't think any of the contraptions ever flew more than once or twice, and the effort wasted on them put us years behind our competitors in jet aircraft development.

[VectraMan]

I thought they were there to help keep everybody cool during the summer. And we're going to need them too, what with all the global warming that's going to start any minute.