Power stations burning bio mass

[hedgesparrow]

re waste from households at marchwood those local is a large dome like tent with a chimney sticking out of top a large amount of waste normal for landfill is taken there and burnt, to generate electricity. its only a small piece in jigsaw.

as for generating power we have so many rivers with mill streams once used for making flour or driving the looms. with the generators out now we could generate so much electricity form using water. without having tidal booms.

but thats simple and those in power do not look at simple things. biomass came about good idear lets have biomass without looking where does all the chip going to come from. you need to have tree surgeons with chippers going 7 days a week in all the uk and still not keep up with demand.

[Mike Dempsey]

A local paper mill is having a 50Mw biomass power station built in its grounds by RWE Power. It is estimated that it will use 400,000 tons of timber a year. They are supposed to be using recycled timber from all over the UK and bringing in virgin timber from Scandnavia by ship to Methil docks whick is about 6 miles away. There is nothing sustainable about this plant at all and the amount of energy used to bring in the biomass will be huge. It will meet about 6% of the Scottish Gov's renewable targets and this is why they gave them over £8m in subsidies. The local communities between the docks and the power station are going to have thousands of lorries driving through them.

The ironic thing is that they have a railway line running right into the plant but it is no longer used. What a missed opportunity.

The plant itself is absolutely massive and the chimney is so big that it has a red warning light on top of it for aircraft, yet part of the planning conditions were that no one was supposed to be able to see it!

In my opinion is that if the biomass plants are that good then they shouldnt need any subsidy for either building or for each unit of leccy generated. It is totally unfair for competing industries such as the panel and board companies.

Not only that, the local council is having the windblown trees shredded and delivered to the plant. As someone who mills up logs for making furniture that makes me decidely unhappy.

[openspaceman]

as for generating power we have so many rivers with mill streams once used for making flour or driving the looms. with the generators out now we could generate so much electricity form using water. without having tidal booms.

but thats simple and those in power do not look at simple things. biomass came about good idear lets have biomass without looking where does all the chip going to come from. you need to have tree surgeons with chippers going 7 days a week in all the uk and still not keep up with demand.

 

I suggest you read David McKay's Renewable Energy Without Hot Air.

 

If we exclude Wales and Scotland, because they are hilly and England already receives hydro power from them, then given an area of 130,396km2 an average fall to sea of 110 metres and average rainfall of 1 metre then dividing energy by seconds in the year I make that an average power of 4.45GW, about a tenth of what we consume on a cold day. Worse this assumes you can intercept all the rainfall on its way to the sea when over half evaporates.

 

I'm not knocking renewables but hydro power has cost limits too. It makes sense to have as high a fall as possible because the energy is related to mass time height(fall) time gravity. If you halve the fall then you have to double the mass to get the same output. It will be appreciated that a structure that intercepts twice the mass of water is going to have to be bigger, costs of "things" are roughly in proportion to their size, all other things being equal, so a MW hydropower device is going to cost more as the fall decreases.

[skyhuck]

The only way we as a country can ever be self sufficient in electricity is with nuclear.

[openspaceman]

The only way we as a country can ever be self sufficient in electricity is with nuclear.

 

If you mean self sufficient at current levels of consumption then yes, probably.

 

The delays between decision and commissioning are such that I probably won't see it, however I am in, occasional, receipt of benefits from the efforts to prolong the life and increase the (already magnificent) availability of our ageing nuclear stock.

[renewablejohn]

I suggest you read David McKay's Renewable Energy Without Hot Air.

 

If we exclude Wales and Scotland, because they are hilly and England already receives hydro power from them, then given an area of 130,396km2 an average fall to sea of 110 metres and average rainfall of 1 metre then dividing energy by seconds in the year I make that an average power of 4.45GW, about a tenth of what we consume on a cold day. Worse this assumes you can intercept all the rainfall on its way to the sea when over half evaporates.

 

I'm not knocking renewables but hydro power has cost limits too. It makes sense to have as high a fall as possible because the energy is related to mass time height(fall) time gravity. If you halve the fall then you have to double the mass to get the same output. It will be appreciated that a structure that intercepts twice the mass of water is going to have to be bigger, costs of "things" are roughly in proportion to their size, all other things being equal, so a MW hydropower device is going to cost more as the fall decreases.

 

You can take McKays book with a pinch of salt. Unfortunately he has not rewritten it to correct the errors just added corrective notes.

[renewablejohn]

The only way we as a country can ever be self sufficient in electricity is with nuclear.

 

Not if the electric price keeps going up. At the present rate of increase the only people that will be able to afford electric will be those that generate there own. You only have to look at the increase in PV in Germany to understand what can be done with renewables.

[skyhuck]

Not if the electric price keeps going up. At the present rate of increase the only people that will be able to afford electric will be those that generate there own. You only have to look at the increase in PV in Germany to understand what can be done with renewables.

 

So your really saying that mains electric is going to stop, because people can't afford it???

 

I think the price will continue to rise to the amounts that people can afford, but its going to continue to be a struggle for many.

 

Power companies are making record profits, so its not that powers become so much more expense to produce, they are just squeezing us as hard as they can if demand fell to the point where profits were affected prices would soon start dropping

[openspaceman]

You can take McKays book with a pinch of salt. Unfortunately he has not rewritten it to correct the errors just added corrective notes.

 

I do and I don't agree with some of his conclusions but he's an eminent professor and I chopped trees for a living. I know who's the fool in not getting qualifications so now I just accept free meals from my little brother who chose an academic path and is more than averagely successful in academia.

 

The book is a different approach and it does make one see the limits of technologies.

[hedgesparrow]

I suggest you read David McKay's Renewable Energy Without Hot Air.

 

If we exclude Wales and Scotland, because they are hilly and England already receives hydro power from them, then given an area of 130,396km2 an average fall to sea of 110 metres and average rainfall of 1 metre then dividing energy by seconds in the year I make that an average power of 4.45GW, about a tenth of what we consume on a cold day. Worse this assumes you can intercept all the rainfall on its way to the sea when over half evaporates.

 

I'm not knocking renewables but hydro power has cost limits too. It makes sense to have as high a fall as possible because the energy is related to mass time height(fall) time gravity. If you halve the fall then you have to double the mass to get the same output. It will be appreciated that a structure that intercepts twice the mass of water is going to have to be bigger, costs of "things" are roughly in proportion to their size, all other things being equal, so a MW hydropower device is going to cost more as the fall decreases.

 

i know hydropower is not the bee all but i have only to drive a mile and i know of at least 7 old flourmills which used water to drive the stone. where we have old mill races just with water rushing through doing nothing then what could 50 mills dotted around hampshire produce. we have coal mines. with coal but ot being used. with all the new filtration system we could burn this. its joke that a power station in calshot is running on gas ol rfinery next door. they put a pipeline from milford haven to it 160miles of pipe to feed it gas imported from abroad what was wrong with next door unloading it, take gas .