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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 2, 2013 13:19:48 GMT 1
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Post by principled on Feb 2, 2013 17:40:49 GMT 1
It's the rabbits, they're fighting back!
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Post by alancalverd on Feb 3, 2013 2:34:06 GMT 1
Well, that 's two fewer subsidies to drain the taxpayer's pocket.
Pretty neat job, by the looks of it. Looks as though somebody has unscrewed all the flange bolts, as here's no sign of the tower twisting or tearing as it fell. Well done.
Interesting that there don't seem to be any cables coming out of the tower, so presumably it wasn't intended to generate electricity, just subsidies.
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 3, 2013 15:08:51 GMT 1
I met a traveller from a distant shire Who said: A vast and pointless shaft of steel Stands on a hill top… Near it, in the mire, Half sunk, a shattered turbine lies, whose wheels And riven blades and snarls of coloured wire Tell that its owners well their mission read Which did not last nor, nowhere to be seen, The hand that paid them and the empty head. And scrawled around the base these lines are clear: ‘My name is Milibandias, greenest Green. Look on my works, ye doubters, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round this display Of reckless cost and loss, blotless and fair, The green and pleasant landscape rolls away. courtesy of "Dreadnought at Bishop Hill bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/9/millibandias.html |
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Post by principled on Feb 24, 2013 12:12:22 GMT 1
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 24, 2013 18:01:54 GMT 1
Same with Lord Debden ex-Selwyn Gummer.
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Post by rsmith7 on Feb 25, 2013 11:29:45 GMT 1
A friend of mine organises crews for various marine jobs. He was involved with loading the remains of a wave energy device on a ship bound for an Irish scrap yard. A journalist turned up and the renewables "developer" told him the device was a great success and was heading to Norway to be installed as the first fully commercial wave energy convertor. The ship's captain and my friend looked at each other in disbelief at the man's utter contempt for the truth.
We live in strange times...
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Post by rsmith7 on Mar 9, 2013 21:06:14 GMT 1
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Post by principled on Apr 3, 2013 20:31:41 GMT 1
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Post by marchesarosa on Apr 27, 2013 11:14:36 GMT 1
Is wind energy’s future bladeless?Last updated on 26 April 2013, 11:19 am By John Parnell www.rtcc.org/is-wind-energys-future-bladeless/A Tunisian wind energy startup says it is in talks with a number of major industrial players as it looks to move its bladeless wind towers to a commercial scale. Saphon Energy’s sail inspired towers wobble in the wind, with pistons converting kinetic energy to electricity. It says that by removing blades and gearboxes it can “comfortably” reduce the cost of wind energy by 25%. Empirical tests it has conducted suggest bladeless wind devices could be 2.3 to 2.5 times more efficient than three-blade turbines, capturing about 60-70% of the wind’s kinetic energy. “We are in advanced discussions with a couple of companies,” CEO and co-founder Hassine Labaied told RTCC. “We have been overwhelmed with interest from investors and industrial firms. The plan is to remain flexible and consider all the proposals. “We want to find the right partner so we can take the technology to the next level. The dream is to create a new industry here in Tunisia, to build a logistics and manufacturing centre.” The Saphon device wobbles in a 3D knot shape generating electricity via pistons at the same time (Source: Saphon) The absence of rotating blades and a gearbox makes the technology possible at any scale says Labaied. The bladeless technology also means less noise, no risk to birdlife and easier installation. By using the same power-producing pistons to store hydraulic pressure instead of generating electricity, the towers can store energy without needing a battery. The built-up pressure can be released slowly when the wind is not blowing to even-out the supply of power. As well as hoping to enter the towers into the global utility market, Labaied also sees an opportunity for the company to contribute to energy access in Africa. He believes the lower maintenance towers could help provide energy where there is no grid power available. Garage The technology was invented by Saphon’s other co-founder Anis Aouini and Lapaied explains what prompted them to start the company from Aouini’s garage. “Anis and I have been best friends since we were 15. We always shared the dream of one day working on something that was unconventional. He left his engineering job in the oil and gas industry and I left my banking job in Dubai to start out on this venture,” he said. “We tend to forget how many innovations have started out in people’s garages,” he points out. With much of the scepticism about the duo’s device melting away, Lapaied is setting his sights on bigger challenges. “There is a dilemma with growing energy demand, climate change and the need to shift to renewables. For some people this is a choice between affordable polluting energy or expensive clean energy. One day something could come along to provide affordable green energy. “It sounds too good to be true we hope and we can get ourselves in a position to do that.” --------- Discussed here tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/is-wind-energys-future-bladeless/#more-12584
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 27, 2013 13:04:35 GMT 1
From Wikipedia
So a 1 cubic meter pressure vessel working at 70 atmospheres (a reasonable limit for a supposedly low-tech piece of kit) can power an electric cooker for an hour, or a car for 10 minutes.
Is this really a practical energy store?
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Post by marchesarosa on Apr 28, 2013 11:30:09 GMT 1
In areas distant from the grid such devices might be better than nothing at all.
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 30, 2013 8:34:49 GMT 1
A cubic meter of pelleted firewood will run a small house for a year, and a cubic meter of diesel will run a big car for 12,000 miles - or you can burn it in an Aga. That's what I call practical off-grid living, with no capital investment and nothing to go wrong.
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Post by marchesarosa on May 18, 2013 12:34:18 GMT 1
Families will be paying £600 a year towards green energy projects within the next seven years, a study for the Civitas think-tank has found.
The report said the cost of hitting European Union targets on green energy is likely to be more than £16 billion by 2020.
This includes the cost of subsidies for wind farms and nuclear power, improvements to the national grid and VAT on green costs.
Its figures were calculated by the Renewable Energy Foundation, a charity that has campaigned against onshore wind farms.
John Constable, director of the foundation, said the subsidies are likely to cause a decline in living standards.
“One third of this cost would hit households directly through their electricity bills, regardless of income, making it an intensely regressive measure,” he said.
“The remainder of the cost would be passed through from industrial and commercial customers and eventually be met by households from increases in the cost of living.
“The total impact would be in the order of £600 per household per year, assuming 26 million households.”
The study was rejected by the Department for Energy and Climate Change, which argues bills will be brought down as a result of its green policies. Full story www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10062633/Families-to-pay-600-a-year-towards-green-energy-by-2020-says-think-tank-study.htmlSee also www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/05/ref-£600-from-green-energy-prediction |
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Post by marchesarosa on May 18, 2013 12:36:47 GMT 1
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