The wind merry go round

Coming to the UK if Caroline Lucas has her way.

Denmark has built a lot of windpower. Denmark has got a high carbon tax as well as the EU emission trading system and feed-in subsidies for windmills. Some days the wind blows too hard, so the electricity generators have to pay to get rid of the surplus. Fortunately for Denmark, they can export electricity to Norway, that can store it in hydropower dams. The Norwegians can then stop their own production to sell the Danish electricity to their captive customers with a hefty profit. If it blows harder than a gale, the windmills must all suddenly stop in order not to overrev. Then Denmark buys back electricity from Norway for a very high price. Fortunately, Denmark has almost no manufacturing left. Even the windmill manufacturer Vestas Wind has moved most production abroad, because of high manufacturing costs. But Denmark has got one of the biggest public sectors in the world. They are indeed doing well!

Nicked from here

That Census form

what’s to stop me sending it back in the envelope as the video below would suggest? I would of course fill it in first. I’m like that.

After all I’m just encrypting it for safety.

H/T to Captain Swing

The BBC’s disaster

I watched the BBC today with disgust. Because of the Japanese reactor problems, (I won’t call them a disaster, as I’m amazed that the power plant could withstand simultaneously, an 8.9 Richter scale earthquake and a tsunami at the same time,), their green credentials were shining through like a world war two searchlight. They were in a state of near hysteria in trying to get the message across that Nuclear, was the spawn of the devil. However it was  their own choice of nuclear experts that did much to scupper their aim at taking us back to the stone age. Twice I saw experts calmly state that the radiation releases were what was to expected when you prevent a dangerous over pressurising of the containment vessel, by releasing gases to the atmosphere. And more so that the levels were no cause for alarm. The presenters hated that.

When I consider that the 50 or so plant operatives and the local emergency services must be working in such hard and dangerous circumstances, I’m amazed at what they’ve accomplished.

Of course you hear nothing from the BBC of the heroism that is going on by the minute.

Then again the BBC only has one agenda. It doesn’t do normal.

And before you tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I passed,  first in my class in NBCD (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical warfare, and damage Control). And I held a Nuclear Secret vetting until I retired.

Oops

Disaster:

Amazing photos show great detail. The pilot at low level had no control over his aircraft. It narrowly misses a crowd gathered for the air show and slams into four buildings.

One can only imagine the horror of the occupants inside those buildings.

Probably scared the shit out of them.

UK Uprising

Just a test to make sure it still works. Thanks Max

I’ve been perpetually scared.

One of the reasons why I’m sceptical over the current obsession with Global warming, Climate Change, Climate disruption, is that I’ve heard it all before.

In the 1950’s (Yes I’m that old), we were being scared silly because we were all going to be nuked by those evil Ruskies.

In 1962 a stupid bint called Rachel Carson wrote a book called “The silent Spring” about the danger of DDT. In a knee jerk reaction, Governments banned the use of DDT. A most effective malaria mosquito killer. Oh well Rachel, only 780,000 people died of malaria last year.

In 1970 we were all going to fry from a hole in the Ozone layer caused by CFCs. I still don’t understand the fact that  if  the majority of CFC’s were emitted by the prosperous northern hemisphere, why is the hole over the South pole? Incidentally it has closed up a bit since then.

Global cooling into the next ice age? Anyone remember that from the mid 1970’s?

1976. What a pig of a year. We were in danger of dying from an outbreak of swine flue. Predictions were for thousands to die. Nope, they didn’t.

1979. Topical at the moment. The nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island was going to Melt down. They even made a suitably alarmist film called “The China Syndrome”. The title refers to the concept that, if an American nuclear plant melts down, the core will melt through the Earth until it reaches China. I’m sure, that there are watermelons that still believe that crap.

AIDS. Be scared, very scared. Well no actually. Although 2,ooo,ooo died of HIV in 2009,  the percentage chance of dying from it is 0.0002% . Bearing in mind the population of the Globe is 9 Billion approximately.

1988. Put down that loaded Egg, and step away now. The great salmonella in eggs story by that master story teller, Edwina Curry, a junior health secretary.

1996 Mad cow disease. Mad to think that we were all going to die. Well we didn’t, but 4.4 million cattle were slaughtered.

1999. There's a bug going round. This one was going to invade our computers at the turn of the millennium. Funny that.

2003. Watch that Birdie. This time we were going to be slaughtered by rampaging fowl. Well actually a virus carried within them.

2007. “Bartenders dying in their thousands”. OK, I made that up. The year that the smoking ban came into force,

2009. Bloody swine flue is back.

This morning. Fake charities complaining that the Gubbermint is protecting the drinks industry. We’re supposedly dying from the demon drink. Strange that, as the government’s own figures show that alcohol sales are declining.

Phew. Made it.

3TW of Green power?

Here’s a number you need to keep in mind: 3 Terawatts. That’s about how much power They’re using in the USA right now.

If that were used for 100W incandescent bulbs you’d need 30 billion bulbs.

There’s no way renewable energy is going to come close to that.

That would require over 2 billion square meters of 100% efficient solar panels: that’s about the same area as all the land in Rhode Island (real solar panels are about 25% efficient so you’d need to pave Delaware’s land as well). And of course solar panels don’t do too well at night, so you’d need to at least double that area, that brings us to the land area of Hawaii, plus you’d need a way to store around 40 TWh’s which simply doesn’t exist. And all that ignores factors such as clouds, dirt, animals, etc.

So what about wind? The most powerful wind turbine today is ~7 MW, so you’d need around 500,000 of them. They have a rotor diameter of 126m, so they’d have to be at least 65m apart. That means they’d take up 6 billion square meters, about the same as all of Delaware. I can’t imagine it would be good for anything flying. Now this is the peak power, so we’d have to factor in all the time that the wind isn’t blowing hard enough, or when it’s blowing too hard. Again we need a storage system for mind-boggling amounts of energy. Also, has anyone looked at the climatological effects of taking 3TW of convective energy out of the atmosphere?

Both solar and wind suffer from a fatal flaw: They can’t be controlled. Grid operators can’t dial supply up (They can somewhat do down) to meet demand, and when you’re talking about the electric grid either you balance it or it balances itself…usually in some exciting manner.

Hydro’s pretty much tapped out in that country, not to mention ecomentalists flip their shit whenever someone mentions building dams. Same thing with geothermal, unless we want to start drilling in Yellowstone.

Nuclear could do it, but whenever you mention it the ecomentalists set a record in going from zero to stupid.

That leaves fossil fuels. There’s nothing else. Especially when it comes to moving stuff. We have nothing that comes close to the power density of hydrocarbons when it comes to mobile applications, and hydrocarbons are the only energy source that’s suitable for mobile applications. Everything else (e.g. hydrogen and ethanol) are just ways to make electricity mobile.

Oi! You’re supposed to be dying out.

Just thought the pic looked cute.

Green fail.

 

L.A. community colleges' green energy plan proves wildly impractical. The blunders cost taxpayers $10 million.

The Los Angeles Community College District would become a paragon of clean energy. By generating solar, wind and geothermal power, the district would supply all its electricity needs. Not only would the nine colleges sever ties to the grid, saving millions of dollars a year, they would make money by selling surplus power. Thanks to state and federal subsidies, construction of the green energy projects would cost nothing upfront.

Sounds too good to be true.

Oh Noes it is.

He overestimated how much power the colleges could generate. He underestimated the cost. And he poured millions of dollars into designs for projects that proved so impractical or unpopular they were never built.
These and other blunders cost nearly $10 million that could have paid for new classrooms, laboratories and other college facilities, a Times investigation found.
The problems with Eisenberg's energy vision were fundamental. For starters, there simply wasn't room on the campuses for all the generating equipment required to become self-sufficient. Some of the colleges wouldn't come close to that goal even if solar panels, wind turbines and other devices were wedged into every available space.

and

Weather and geology also refused to cooperate.
Three solar power arrays had to be scrapped because the intended locations were atop seismic faults.

And all you out there advocating Wind Turbines Bird Mincers.

Plans for large-scale wind power collided with the reality that prevailing winds at nearly all the campuses are too weak to generate much electricity. To date, a single wind turbine has been installed, as a demonstration project. It spins too slowly in average winds to power a 60-watt light bulb.

Do read about the whole sorry saga over THERE.

I must beware of my cats.

For Katharine.