Mailwatch(ed) Forum

I will be glad I live on a top floor flat.

And fearful for my father living at the bottom of a hill.

In a country that has many small rivers that never dry up, wouldn't it be an idea to install turbines all over the place so we don't have to rely on the vagaries of the wind?

One of the UK's last remaining coal power plants had to be fired up on Monday morning, as low winds meant the National Grid needed an additional source of energy.

West Burton A, in Lincolnshire, is due to be decommissioned this time next year, but for the moment it is still at the ready if the UK needs more electricity.

The lack of wind was due to the high pressure system in the North West, which has led to calm air in the regions with the most turbines.

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/uk-had-t ... s-12400835

There are problems with that. They usually include creating a reservoir to provide constant flow, and even then the pressure can be an issue. They are expensive to maintain and connections to the grid can be large and unsightly. Economically they are very marginal or negative.

I know this because in France our local lake has just been eliminated by EDF as being uneconomical.

A pal's father, well in to his retirement, is part of a group running a hydro scheme in Stirlingshire. It's quite a commitment, not least because water isn't the only stuff that floats down rivers and streams.

Rather him than me.

You generally need a dam, with all the disruption to riverside land and wildlife that implies.

These things also work best in bigger installations (Something about efficiency I learned and forgot about 30 years ago).

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/harnessing- ... tric-power


It looks as through there are now opportunities to build a private micro-scheme and collect the feed-in tarrif.
Nice, if you have your own private river.

Quite. This is the lake I wrote about, le lac de Vezin, as it was.

If you look at Victorian maps, any fastish-flowing river would have featured mill-races along their length. You don't necessarily need a reservoir, at least in the uplands.
Nevertheless, it's important to bear in mind that the wind blows right across the land, covering every square metre. Watercourses, by contrast, occupy only a tiny fraction of the landscape, so there's a lot less to exploit, and may turn into useless trickles during the summer.

One of the first was in our local 'big house' The Grove, in Carshalton. It used this small mill, which had previously been used for grinding snuff.



It remains, though frequently vandalised. Or at least occupied by the local youth for assorted activities involving illegal substances and fumbling.

The problem was, if I remember my local history, that it produced DC current, so was limited to one house, close by, which had about ten lights and no labour saving devices.

Friend of mine is reinstating the waterwheel on his smallholding in Wales in order to generate electricity.

Builders are in next month.

Killer Whale wrote:If you look at Victorian maps, any fastish-flowing river would have featured mill-races along their length. You don't necessarily need a reservoir, at least in the uplands.
Nevertheless, it's important to bear in mind that the wind blows right across the land, covering every square metre. Watercourses, by contrast, occupy only a tiny fraction of the landscape, so there's a lot less to exploit, and may turn into useless trickles during the summer.

The wind wasn't blowing t'other day - that's why they had to burn coal. Just because small rivers aren't *everywhere* doesn't mean the ones that *are* there can't be used, and with modern technology even low water levels, provided there is a steady flow, can be utilised for generating electricity. Plus, they wouldn't be working alone. They'd be hooked into the same Grid that is already being fed by wind, solar, and nuclear generators.

Malcolm Armsteen wrote:The problem was, if I remember my local history, that it produced DC current, so was limited to one house, close by, which had about ten lights and no labour saving devices.

That's down to the technology available at the time of installation, and the cost thereof. If done today, it would have AC generators installed.


All of the problems thrown up are real, but to a government which is interested in actually doing rather than just talking*, none are insurmountable. We cannot carry on burning things to generate electricity - the atmosphere says No. Every small step - even one that only generates a couple of kilowatts per hour, is a step in the right direction, and once these things get started it's amazing how quickly they can grow into big steps.




* Which is the biggest problem of all - the government's willingness, or otherwise, to stop blethering and actually get on with stuff. Climate change has happened, *is* happening still. The time to act is now.

Cyclist wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 1:14 pm Just because small rivers aren't *everywhere* doesn't mean the ones that *are* there can't be used, and with modern technology even low water levels, provided there is a steady flow, can be utilised for generating electricity. Plus, they wouldn't be working alone.

Yes. I agree. Everything that's exploitable and cost-effective should be in the mix. We need to be wary of waiting for the 'one big solution' that's just around the corner, because it's very likely not. The added advantage of small-scale solutions such as bringing the old mill-races back into use, is that they tend to be locally planned, built and run, with the benefits accruing locally.

Killer Whale wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 1:35 pm Yes. I agree. Everything that's exploitable and cost-effective should be in the mix. We need to be wary of waiting for the 'one big solution' that's just around the corner, because it's very likely not. The added advantage of small-scale solutions such as bringing the old mill-races back into use, is that they tend to be locally planned, built and run, with the benefits accruing locally.

It doesn't even need to be particularly cost-effective at this time. As these projects come on line people will see that they work, then they'll want one like it. As in everything, when demand goes up, costs start to fall. And as they take off people get interested in improving the technology. Just look at home computers. They cost a fraction of what they did 40 years ago, and are infinitely more powerful now.

It just needs a few well-publicised start-up projects. No matter how far the population has retreated from reason, the majority of them think saving the planet is a Good Thing - as long as they don't have to give up their electric toys to do so - and this form of planet-saving suggests they'll end up paying less to run their toys*. It's a no-brainer, and any government worthy of the name should be all over stuff like this.


*Logic suggests using something that falls from the sky for free to generate electricity is, after the initial installation costs, going to be a damn' sight cheaper than paying someone to grow stuff, harvest it, transport it to a power station, and then set fire to it**. And using river water is going to be, at worst, carbon-neutral.


**See Drax power station and bio-mass.

Cyclist wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 1:14 pm That's down to the technology available at the time of installation, and the cost thereof. If done today, it would have AC generators installed.

In some cases, DC generators were used to charge batteries to iron out the fluctuations in such "lighting sets" as they were known.

The irony is that solar generates DC that we then turn back into AC to either run our homes or feed into the grid. A friend has an installation at his home on the south coast that could theoretically run his entire house for at least a day off solar-charged batteries and an inverter.

I'm still mystified why we're not looking at wave power.

Setup costs and NIMBY-ism (Although it's more "not if I have to see it from my balcony"), probably.

Personal renewables probably have a good future.

I'd give the NIMBYs a choice:

Walk your dog past the, admittedly unsightly, means of generating cheap 'green' electricity, or have a brand new block of flats in the village housing 80 refugee families who have fled the rising sea-level in Bangladesh.

They'll probably pick the turbines and transformers, for some reason.

Killer Whale wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 11:58 am If you look at Victorian maps, any fastish-flowing river would have featured mill-races along their length.

This mill has a mill race. A kid from my class drowned in it.

Cyclist wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 5:19 pm I'd give the NIMBYs a choice:

Walk your dog past the, admittedly unsightly, means of generating cheap 'green' electricity...

This is something I have never understood. I remember in the mid-90's seeing for the first time the balletic form of wind turbines in the Lancashire hills. All that human ingenuity , all that engineering cunning being put to such a virtuous use. I still love those things.

Between us, I have been known to time the A9 drive southwards so that we hit the Dessau fields north of Leipzig in the final hour of daylight. It's utterly magical.

We went to Porto to see in New Year 2020, driving from Madrid via Salamanca and another provincial village whose name escapes me for the moment. There was a certain section of the journey, just before we reached the Portuguese border, where they had a chain of wind turbines perched along the contours of a series of natural landscape elevations. It was a breathtaking site to behold and the turbines drew attention to the beauty of the landscape rather than obscure it.

They can't be any worse than the finger-bone like chimneys of the old power stations. Only Battersea managed to make that design look somewhat appealing.

Years ago we were driving to Normandy. Arrived at Cherbourg 6am and drove south. The sun was rising and as we crested a hill we saw spread in front of us a dreamy vista with church steeples rising up out of the mist. And at that moment Raphael Ravenscroft's sax solo played on the CD...

kreuzberger wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 10:02 pm

Cyclist wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 5:19 pm I'd give the NIMBYs a choice:

Walk your dog past the, admittedly unsightly, means of generating cheap 'green' electricity...

This is something I have never understood. I remember in the mid-90's seeing for the first time the balletic form of wind turbines in the Lancashire hills. All that human ingenuity , all that engineering cunning being put to such a virtuous use. I still love those things.

Between us, I have been known to time the A9 drive southwards so that we hit the Dessau fields north of Leipzig in the final hour of daylight. It's utterly magical.

I'm with you on this. I find wind turbines majestic. In Somerset we also have fields of solar-panels and, even these, warm the cockles as evidence that, even in Johnson's Brexit Britain, we are doing something positive to combat global warming/provide cheap sustainable energy. The objectors remind me of the opposition to the early railways defiling the countryside with their infernal fire breathing machines.