gjeffery
Well-Known Member
"Holland produces 865 million kWh electrical energy"
Rather impressive - should that be 865MW ?
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Rather impressive - should that be 865MW ?
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Thames Estuary Wind Farm
- Thread starter Colin_S
- Start date
Peppermint
Well-Known Member
The dutch are more pragmatic about the job too.
They try to erect the windmills in an industrial setting rather than a bit of wild country. They go for a more mixed approach to energy in general with insulation and conservation balanced by mixed fuels.
When I first started doing business in Holland the nurseries I called on all had a pretty big wind generator. The install was a way of subsidizing the growers of Holland without upsetting the EU. Politics again. None of the nurseries I visit now have a wind turbine. No subsidy you see.
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They try to erect the windmills in an industrial setting rather than a bit of wild country. They go for a more mixed approach to energy in general with insulation and conservation balanced by mixed fuels.
When I first started doing business in Holland the nurseries I called on all had a pretty big wind generator. The install was a way of subsidizing the growers of Holland without upsetting the EU. Politics again. None of the nurseries I visit now have a wind turbine. No subsidy you see.
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Beagle
Well-Known Member
More or less... YES.... it's the units (kWh) you pay for... Average Dutch family (2000) were good for 3.300 kWh/year.
<hr width=100% size=1>Never attempt to teach a pig to sing.
It is a waste of time and it annoys the pig.
<hr width=100% size=1>Never attempt to teach a pig to sing.
It is a waste of time and it annoys the pig.
ColinW
Well-Known Member
It's amazing how people who are anti wind power use the arguments that "it will never produce significant amounts of power" and "power stations will need to be kept on spinning reserve in case the wind drops". Surely one of these statements negates the other one. Wind will never produce more than 10-15% of our electricity, even its supporters recognise that, so the amount of spinning reserve necessary is no more than is already maintained now. They have to it now to cover the loss of a supply source (like the 1000MW channel links) or a sudden jump in demand, like an Eastenders transmission suddenly breaking down resulting in a million kettles being switched on. The simple (simplistic maybe) fact to me is that every kilowatt hour produced by wind is a kilowatt hour that my kids might be able to cook with gas.
No government is going to start up another nuclear program, why would a politician risk his job for something that wouldn't come on line until after he's left office. That's not the way they think!
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No government is going to start up another nuclear program, why would a politician risk his job for something that wouldn't come on line until after he's left office. That's not the way they think!
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AlexL
Well-Known Member
Not so - because the gas "saved" by the wind farms, is mostly spent making the concrete to put the damn things up to start with. All the figures for how much CO2 they save assume there is no spinning reserve behind them, that they don't take millions of cubic meters of concrete to build and don't have loads of diesel powered boats on a permanent maintenance shedule.
Don't get me wrong, I am not "anti-green" in fact I have built my own hugely efficient, super-insulated house with condensing boiler, low temp underfloor heating, heat recovery ventillation etc. etc.
I am anti wind farms because they are a political 'solution' because people can point at them and feel good. Re my previous post, they are not a 'real' solution to either the CO2 issue or the natural gas running out issue, and are diverting much needed resources from research and investment in real solutions.
Besides why doesn't anyone question why the UK power consumption is going up by 2% (? from a previous post) per year - perhaps this is where the effort should be on using less power to start with.
I heartily agree with the previous poster on Combined heat and power- I would have installed one in my house if they were a bit more available a couple of years ago when I built it - electicity generated at the point of use is allways going to be more efficient than electicity transmitted on the grid.
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Don't get me wrong, I am not "anti-green" in fact I have built my own hugely efficient, super-insulated house with condensing boiler, low temp underfloor heating, heat recovery ventillation etc. etc.
I am anti wind farms because they are a political 'solution' because people can point at them and feel good. Re my previous post, they are not a 'real' solution to either the CO2 issue or the natural gas running out issue, and are diverting much needed resources from research and investment in real solutions.
Besides why doesn't anyone question why the UK power consumption is going up by 2% (? from a previous post) per year - perhaps this is where the effort should be on using less power to start with.
I heartily agree with the previous poster on Combined heat and power- I would have installed one in my house if they were a bit more available a couple of years ago when I built it - electicity generated at the point of use is allways going to be more efficient than electicity transmitted on the grid.
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Colin_S
Well-Known Member
Seeing as the post has created some lively debate (did anyone actually visit the linked site BTW?) I've just been 'playing' with some numbers based on the data provided on the site.
The cost of the installation is some £105M. Presumably this is just the construction and does not include running costs. The estimated output is 280M kwh per annum. This should generate an income of some £4 - 500M over the proposed 20 year life of the installation.
The farm is reckoned to produce enough (average output) electricity to supply 100,000 households. I reckon that would need another 200 similar sized farms to cover the whole UK plus perhaps a similar number to supply industry, etc. NIMBY - more like in everyone's back yard springs to mind.
On the subject of the variable supply that wind generation offers, is it not possible to store overproduction. EG run pumps to fill reservoirs for hydro electric production during peak demand / low wind situations?
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Colin_S on 12/10/2004 00:03 (server time).</FONT></P>
The cost of the installation is some £105M. Presumably this is just the construction and does not include running costs. The estimated output is 280M kwh per annum. This should generate an income of some £4 - 500M over the proposed 20 year life of the installation.
The farm is reckoned to produce enough (average output) electricity to supply 100,000 households. I reckon that would need another 200 similar sized farms to cover the whole UK plus perhaps a similar number to supply industry, etc. NIMBY - more like in everyone's back yard springs to mind.
On the subject of the variable supply that wind generation offers, is it not possible to store overproduction. EG run pumps to fill reservoirs for hydro electric production during peak demand / low wind situations?
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Colin_S on 12/10/2004 00:03 (server time).</FONT></P>
misterg
Well-Known Member
>No government is going to start up another nuclear program, why would a
>politician risk his job for something that wouldn't come on line until after he's left
>office. That's not the way they think!
Point is that politicians (Billy Liar specifically) have put themselves on a hook with the EU climate change agreements, and now that Russia has adopted the Kyoto Protocol, with that too.
The die is already cast, in the form of the "National Allocation Plan" for UK CO2 emmissions (see <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.chpa.co.uk/news_downloads/2004/nap/nap.pdf>here</A>) - Electricity generation CO2 down by 13%. To quote from appendix 'B':
"Generators are not subject to competition from firms outside the EU ETS. Thus, this sector may be better placed to incorporate the marginal cost of carbon to reflect the higher marginal costs of generation from fossil fuels resulting from the scheme. Once the EU ETS comes into force, we expect the value of carbon
to be reflected in electricity prices across Europe."
They also intimate that increased imports of electricity might be a means of reducing UK CO2 emmissions. a) Anybody who knows the nuances of power transmission will realise the limitations on this; b) Just because the power is generated outside the UK, that makes it alright!?
So the generators have to meet their obligations by buying CO2 allowances from a FINITE, EU wide pot. The main way of 'freeing' these allowances is to drive industry out of the EU. Same CO2, different place.
Similar sections on private transport: "vehicle exise duty incentives", "Changes to company car taxation", etc.
Therefore it will probably be the power generators who initiate the nuclear expansion, to the background of a sympathetic government hiding behind targets "that must be achieved".
Sorry for the rant - nothing for or against wind power, just that the game plan has been published, and wind power isn't the whole story. Waiting for the rest to come out.
Andy
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>politician risk his job for something that wouldn't come on line until after he's left
>office. That's not the way they think!
Point is that politicians (Billy Liar specifically) have put themselves on a hook with the EU climate change agreements, and now that Russia has adopted the Kyoto Protocol, with that too.
The die is already cast, in the form of the "National Allocation Plan" for UK CO2 emmissions (see <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.chpa.co.uk/news_downloads/2004/nap/nap.pdf>here</A>) - Electricity generation CO2 down by 13%. To quote from appendix 'B':
"Generators are not subject to competition from firms outside the EU ETS. Thus, this sector may be better placed to incorporate the marginal cost of carbon to reflect the higher marginal costs of generation from fossil fuels resulting from the scheme. Once the EU ETS comes into force, we expect the value of carbon
to be reflected in electricity prices across Europe."
They also intimate that increased imports of electricity might be a means of reducing UK CO2 emmissions. a) Anybody who knows the nuances of power transmission will realise the limitations on this; b) Just because the power is generated outside the UK, that makes it alright!?
So the generators have to meet their obligations by buying CO2 allowances from a FINITE, EU wide pot. The main way of 'freeing' these allowances is to drive industry out of the EU. Same CO2, different place.
Similar sections on private transport: "vehicle exise duty incentives", "Changes to company car taxation", etc.
Therefore it will probably be the power generators who initiate the nuclear expansion, to the background of a sympathetic government hiding behind targets "that must be achieved".
Sorry for the rant - nothing for or against wind power, just that the game plan has been published, and wind power isn't the whole story. Waiting for the rest to come out.
Andy
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Benbow
Well-Known Member
I share the sceptisism of the real value of current wind generaters. However, the one thing that such distributed supplies presumably provide is incredibly robust power. The west is scarily dependant on its infrastructure, and no nautural or man-made disaster could do much damage to a state's total power output if its generators are so thinly spread. In contrast, a grid dependant on highly centralised facilities like nuclear power stations must be much more vulnerable to catastrophic loss.
Or is someone going to tell me that they are all controlled by a single computer in Hemmel Hempstead ?
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Or is someone going to tell me that they are all controlled by a single computer in Hemmel Hempstead ?
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