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Not As Environmentally Friendly As Promised

hunck said:
No profit, no business. Tell you what, oil & gas generate profits orders of magnitude more than wind.

Expecting power generation, on a mass scale whatever the method, to be cheap is a folly.
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Or how about 'not for profit' business? Once upon a time all the utilities in the UK were state owned. Then they were one by one sold off with the promise given that private ownership would be more efficient and prices would go down, not up. Of course, within a few years the price increases started, having not once gone down as promised, and since then prices have outstripped inflation many, many times over with owners and shareholders making massive obscene profits.

Off the coast where I live is the Rampion wind farm. It is huge. All the talk at the time was about how it would be a cheap, renewable form of generating electricity. Not only has it cost a lot, lot more than conventional ways of producing electricity, it produces far less electricity than was promised.
 
kesavaross said:
Or how about 'not for profit' business? Once upon a time all the utilities in the UK were state owned. Then they were one by one sold off with the promise given that private ownership would be more efficient and prices would go down, not up. Of course, within a few years the price increases started, having not once gone down as promised, and since then prices have outstripped inflation many, many times over with owners and shareholders making massive obscene profits.

Off the coast where I live is the Rampion wind farm. It is huge. All the talk at the time was about how it would be a cheap, renewable form of generating electricity. Not only has it cost a lot, lot more than conventional ways of producing electricity, it produces far less electricity than was promised.
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According to the National Grid, wind produced 29.4% of electric power in 2023. That’s not a small amount.

OK the wind doesn’t blow all the time so fossil/nuclear isn’t going anywhere soon, but what’s wrong with endeavouring to produce power by a cleaner method?

I’m with you on state owned utilities being sold/privatised & subsequent price gouging but that ship has sailed - they're all gone. I thought it was a terrible idea back then & I haven’t changed my mind since.
 
hunck said:
According to the National Grid, wind produced 29.4% of electric power in 2023. That’s not a small amount.

OK the wind doesn’t blow all the time so fossil/nuclear isn’t going anywhere soon, but what’s wrong with endeavouring to produce power by a cleaner method?

I’m with you on state owned utilities being sold/privatised & subsequent price gouging but that ship has sailed - they're all gone. I thought it was a terrible idea back then & I haven’t changed my mind since.
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The more wind turbines put up the more the percentage of electricity produce nationwide. My point was the lies about the Rampion wind farm as to the promised amount of electricity produced and the cost of it all which again was far higher than promised.

The problem in the UK with wind farms is that the coldest temperatures in winter are when we get high air pressure which means less windy conditions. That's when wind farms are very inefficient and less electricity is produced by them when more is needed. Wind farms may be environmentally friendly, and even that is being questioned more and more, but they are simply not efficient by any means.

I am all for producing energy by cleaner methods but while profits are god, it seems to me that what matters more is doing a good pr job on something that generates the most profits that appears to be a green alternative is more important than something that actually is.

Yeah, it's sad that ship has sailed and it's all run by private companies.
 
I was watching a program on tide power generation, one of the main problems
seems to be sea organism's making their homes on it and effecting it's efficiency,
This is how a submarine looks after just over 200 days at sea, covered in slime and barnacles.


1707053624102.png
 
When baby disposal diapers or nappy first came out, the promise of saving water from washing dirty cloth diapers.

In the world 20 billion disposal diapers end up in landfills a year and it takes 500 year for a disposal diaper to decompose.

The poop gases also escape into the atmosphere.

We are getting covered up in poop.
 
RaM said:
This is how a submarine looks after just over 200 days at sea, covered in slime and barnacles.
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blimey! is this the sort of thing "they" used to copper-bottom ships against? They may still do it of course but I think that anti-fouling measures may have progressed.

@Rynner?
 
The copper bottom thing was to stop ship worm that attacked wooden ships,
the sub will have a coating to absorb sound to help avoid detection, the large
square panels along the side are likely the passive sonar sensors.
 
As seen on the Cutty Sark. It was a fast ship because of reduced drag on the keel.
 
I saw something in the news about an ex footballer giving a meal for kids, that was plant based to ‘help save the planet’. I hope it was all produce in season and grown in the UK then. I bet it wasn’t I bet it was stuff flown halfway around the world.

He's going to see how he can make football better for the environment. Stop flying to other countries to play? I don’t think so. Stop your supporters coming to watch in those other countries? No I don’t think so either.
 
kesavaross said:
I am all for producing energy by cleaner methods but while profits are god, it seems to me that what matters more is doing a good pr job on something that generates the most profits that appears to be a green alternative is more important than something that actually is.
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You’re really not, as evidenced by your complaints here about wind farms. What other cleaner methods are you in favour of if not wind? As said above, it produced nearly 30% of UK electricity last year.

I’ve read about smaller modular nuclear reactors & thorium reactors but don’t know how feasible they are. They won’t be cheap either.
 
Thing is, you can't just wait for better stuff to be invented to try to be more efficient or economical. That's like being in the middle of nowhere and turning down the first bus out because you'd rather wait for a different driver. Or summat - I know what I mean.
Often, advances in technology and the invention of 'better' alternatives are created by trying to improve on known technology.
 
But doesn't hydrogen take so much lecy to produce it is more expensive than most
fuels and worse for the environment unless you use wind and sun for the lecy.
 
RaM said:
But doesn't hydrogen take so much lecy to produce it is more expensive than most
fuels and worse for the environment unless you use wind and sun for the lecy.
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So it calls for a combination of methods, not just reliance on a single one.
 
We like to go to a certain hotel in London and we’ve been going for many years. You get a good view down to the street. There used to be gas (possibly hydrogen) buses as you could she the cylinder shapes on the roof but I haven’t seen them for many years now. I wonder what happened to them.
 
We have gas-driven busses here but that is hydrogen, not methane. The tanks are internal, your busses might just have upgraded to that.
 
Stormkhan said:
Thing is, you can't just wait for better stuff to be invented to try to be more efficient or economical. That's like being in the middle of nowhere and turning down the first bus out because you'd rather wait for a different driver. Or summat - I know what I mean.
Often, advances in technology and the invention of 'better' alternatives are created by trying to improve on known technology.
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Steam cars. Run on alcohol. Low temperature burn (compared to IC) so low pollution. Relatively simple to manufacture. The most advanced ones raised steam in a coil and needed no big boiler plus ready to go in a couple of minutes. Patents bought up by Chrysler and have been sat on ever since.

Look up Abner Doble for starters. Imagine how good they would be if the technology hadn't been blocked for 70 years.
 
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MorningAngel said:
I was trying to see what happened to those buses when I came across this interesting article. Coal powered buses during the war. https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/londons-ww2-experiment-with-coal-powered-buses-54446/
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During WW2 the Germans modified a large number of tanks to run on either stadtgas (town gas) or holzgas (wood gas), though it’s believed that they were only used for driver training and not combat.

holzgas-wood-gas-diagram.jpg


fahrschulpanzer-II.jpg


PzKpfw II with Imbert Holzvergasser wood gas burner

https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/nazi_germany/gas-powered-fahrschulwanne-tanks.php#google_vignette

maximus otter
 
I seem to recall some cars converted to run on propane or some other gas in the late 70s -80s?
 
hunck said:
You’re really not, as evidenced by your complaints here about wind farms. What other cleaner methods are you in favour of if not wind? As said above, it produced nearly 30% of UK electricity last year.

I’ve read about smaller modular nuclear reactors & thorium reactors but don’t know how feasible they are. They won’t be cheap either.
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It's very windy and chilly here ATM yet the Rampion wind farm just off the coast has been shut down because the wind speed is too high for the blades when more electricity is needed because it is cold.

What about when the whole UK experiences almost no wind due to high air pressure?

Also the claim of 30%. Is that all day, everyday and all year round?

I've read a few articles that the authors themselves admit there is no proof for as yet, that wind farms for some unknown reason seem to affect wild life and fishes in the vicinity that is highly detrimental.

I was also reading an article in Nexus about using the current that exists in the ground and air to produce electricity. It's a long article. I believe it's based on the same principle that Tesla used for his Wardenclyff Tower that had a stop put it when it was realised the electricity couldn't be metered.
 
kesavaross said:
It's very windy and chilly here ATM yet the Rampion wind farm just off the coast has been shut down because the wind speed is too high for the blades when more electricity is needed because it is cold.
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I can believe there’s an optimum range of wind speed to drive turbines & probably a maximum. If it gets too windy they may have to be disabled for safety reasons. One of the limitations, but on average there’s probably more on days than off. I’m assuming all this - it really
doesn’t make sense to build huge wind farms which only work a few days a year.

kesavaross said:
Also the claim of 30%. Is that all day, everyday and all year round?
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There’d be daily ups & downs. It’s averaged over the year.

kesavaross said:
I've read a few articles that the authors themselves admit there is no proof for as yet, that wind farms for some unknown reason seem to affect wild life and fishes in the vicinity that is highly detrimental.
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Hmmm…..no proof of yet.... unknown reason..

kesavaross said:
I was also reading an article in Nexus about using the current that exists in the ground and air to produce electricity. It's a long article. I believe it's based on the same principle that Tesla used for his Wardenclyff Tower that had a stop put it when it was realised the electricity couldn't be metered.
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Neither of these are available technology now.

All our current power generation methods have pros & cons. You’re against wind but haven’t suggested any viable ‘clean’ alternatives. So we just carry on as we are.
 
hunck said:
I can believe there’s an optimum range of wind speed to drive turbines & probably a maximum. If it gets too windy they may have to be disabled for safety reasons. One of the limitations, but on average there’s probably more on days than off. I’m assuming all this - it really
doesn’t make sense to build huge wind farms which only work a few days a year.



There’d be daily ups & downs. It’s averaged over the year.



Hmmm…..no proof of yet.... unknown reason..



Neither of these are available technology now.

All our current power generation methods have pros & cons. You’re against wind but haven’t suggested any viable ‘clean’ alternatives. So we just carry on as we are.
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Seeing as we're getting more frequent, heavier rains, it would seem far more sensible (not so sure about it being overly practical in some areas) if as a country we had plans for building more dams for hydro, and hydro screw systems, small scale and larger generators, we get it all for free! (apart from the initial builds.)
 
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