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[SteveD]

A friend of mine works commisioning these big fan things. He always goes on about it being an absolute joke.

They are very inefficient - producing AC at the top which is converted to DC down to the bottom, then back to syncronised AC to pipe onto the national grid which results in a big energy loss.

He pipes on about how it makes him laugh that the 'green' brigade support them-the parts get transported all over the world to put them up and how he gets flown all over the country to fix them at least twice a week.

Nukes all the way for me  

[Kevin Wood]

A friend of mine works commisioning these big fan things. He always goes on about it being an absolute joke.

They are very inefficient - producing AC at the top which is converted to DC down to the bottom, then back to syncronised AC to pipe onto the national grid which results in a big energy loss.

He pipes on about how it makes him laugh that the 'green' brigade support them-the parts get transported all over the world to put them up and how he gets flown all over the country to fix them at least twice a week.

Nukes all the way for me  

Yep. You have to be pretty determined to ignore the big picture to see much benefit in this sort of thing. Cue the cretins in Westminster, and the nut muncher brigade...

Kevin

[omegaman2]

id rather look at a windmill than a pylon

[FRE07962128]

id rather look at a windmill than a pylon

Now that is interesting as you mention it! :-? :-?  I have yet to see a series of pylons trailing away from these "wind farms"!   Why is that? :-/ :-/

[miked]

They are underground to the nearest sub station, then the pylons

I would rather live 2 miles from a nuclear plant than 2 miles from a coal plant

Why?

[Albert1]

Love them...love watching the one next to the M25, circa junction 20-ish.  There's an arable farm that starts 5 metres from my back garden - I'd have no issue at all with the farmer applying for permission for a windfarm.

With the price of fossil fuels so high, I find it worrying how much money is flooding into unfriendly governments, e.g. Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and the only-semi-friendly Arab states.  We should worry more about the power of these countries' sovereign investment funds and the assets they are buying up than any perceived side effects of wind farms.

I was also very glad to hear that the London Array (to be the biggest offshore wind farm in the world) has been rescued after Shell showed its true colours and decided it would back out and spend its money digging for more oil instead.

[Phil]

Love them...love watching the one next to the M25, circa junction 20-ish.  .

Thats a firm called RES, they have a wind turbine and solar panels and an office with plenty of insulation, they produce more energy than they use, even in the winter (i fitted the solar shading over the windows about 4 years ago!!)


'Wind Farms' are a bit of a sore subject with me, i like them, but the Thames Array means 'fishermans gat' will be closed and put about another 4 hours on the sail to France!!

They have been fighting the one at Bradwell, these were going to be 121 meters high, and looks like they have won, they will possibly be building a new nuclear power station next to the old one at Bradwell instead, which the locals prefer as they have had one there since 1958!!

As it was water cooled it raised the temp of the river Blackwater by 2 degrees Celcius! Another bonus  

I can't see any problem living next to one, to be honest its better because if it does melt down surely its better to die straight away in the mushroom cloud than 20 years later!!!  

[Martin_1962]

They are underground to the nearest sub station, then the pylons

I would rather live 2 miles from a nuclear plant than 2 miles from a coal plant

Why?

Emmisions.

2 miles is far enough away for any radiation or physical building size, but a lot of CO2 comes out of a coal fired station, no smoke from nuclear

[miked]

With the stack at 650 feet, you would have to be a lot further away than 2 miles to see the effects of CO2 emissions.

Dust and noise emissions are much more likely to affect but these are all heavily policed by the environment agency.

[Marks DTM Calib]

They are very inefficient - producing AC at the top which is converted to DC down to the bottom, then back to syncronised AC to pipe onto the national grid which results in a big energy loss.

Clearly he knows not what he is talking about.

As somebody who many moons ago worked on DC link design including the control electronics (AC-DC-AC), the conversion stage will be 90% plus efficient.

And its a must, it has to be done because its the only way you can insert the power into the 50Hz grid!

Consider the variable AC frequency of a wind turbine and the rock steady 50Hz mega power behind the grid....you cant just connect the two together!

[Marks DTM Calib]

With the stack at 650 feet, you would have to be a lot further away than 2 miles to see the effects of CO2 emissions.

Dust and noise emissions are much more likely to affect but these are all heavily policed by the environment agency.

Lol, they got Rugeley working again yet?

[miked]

Bit of a sore point that.

http://www.internationalpowerplc.com/ipr/news/press/pr2008/2008-08-22/

£70M, wonder if we are going to get a bonus this year...

What a monumental cock-up by a certain OEM.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Bit of a sore point that.

http://www.internationalpowerplc.com/ipr/news/press/pr2008/2008-08-22/

£70M, wonder if we are going to get a bonus this year...

What a monumental thingy-up by a certain OEM.

So, whats the route cause?

Given the cost I am guessing turbines?

[Albert1]

Bit of a sore point that.

http://www.internationalpowerplc.com/ipr/news/press/pr2008/2008-08-22/

£70M, wonder if we are going to get a bonus this year...

What a monumental thingy-up by a certain OEM.

So, whats the route cause?

Given the cost I am guessing turbines?

Do you mean what does Rugeley use to generate power? It's coal powered IIRC.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Bit of a sore point that.

http://www.internationalpowerplc.com/ipr/news/press/pr2008/2008-08-22/

£70M, wonder if we are going to get a bonus this year...

What a monumental thingy-up by a certain OEM.

So, whats the route cause?

Given the cost I am guessing turbines?

Do you mean what does Rugeley use to generate power? It's coal powered IIRC.

Lol, yes I know that, with 2 off 500MW prime movers.

More interested to know what the failures are that have caused such a long term outage on both setups