"Toy" Wind Turbines

[Nemesis]

Have you not heard of the Pentland Firth...?!

Is this not a variety of potato?

 

[biffvernon]

That's Javelin.

Talk of variability and reliability is all pretty silly. We can have a lot more wind input to the grid without any problems and then there is a raft of technologies that will be available long before the perceived problems become a reality.

Grids can be much bigger, stretching from Iceland to Morocco.
Energy storage will become a big part of the system. There are lots of different battery technologies being developed, not least plug in electric cars. Every vehicle in the land could be part of a distributed electricity storage system - you plug the car into the mains when you are not driving it - it automatically takes electricity at times of plenty and feeds it back to the grid (up to a set limit to keep enough in the battery) when there is a shortage. Surplus electricity can be used for old fashioned pumped storage, and for hydrogen production.
Smart metering and smart appliances allow non-time critical appliances, such as deep freezers and a lot of industrial plant, to take power when it suits the grid.

Etc.etc.

We do have enormous problems, first in keeping the lights on during the next 10 years, and then keeping the planet cool for ever. There seems little point in dwelling on imaginary problems and problems for which we already have solutions.

 

[Penners]

Energy storage will become a big part of the system.

The more that you think about that point, the more it becomes apparent that, yes, if we could store energy - electricity, heat, etc. - we could solve an enormous number of problems.

Vast amounts of energy are used to cool things - fridges, freezers, air conditioning, and so on. And the byproduct of this is heat. Meanwhile, vast amounts of energy are used to create heat for heating, electricity generation... you name it.

If it wasn't for the spaces in between the two, we could harness the one for the other.

In order to store heat, would we have to convert it into electricity? Or can heat be stored as such, to an acceptably efficient degree?

 

[Penners]

That's Javelin.

And Crown, and Dell, and Ivory.

 

[Nemesis]

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=427&storycode=3104138&c=2&encCode=0000000001431a84

 

[Penners]

Well, I hadn't considered offering my services to design the next generation of nuclear power stations, but it's an idea.

After all, how difficult can it be?

 

[Nemesis]

Ruler and pencil?


http://www.yhub.org.uk/resources/Climate%20Change%20Micro%20Site/Climate%20ChangeandHistoric%20Environment_English%20Heritage%20Jan%202006.pdf

 

[biffvernon]

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=427&storycode=3104138&c=2&encCode=0000000001431a84

I got a

Thank you for submitting your feedback.
Your comment will be moderated and published accordingly

So that rules my comment out:

Half tinbered mock tudor or a classical portico? We'll be having climbing roses on the wind turbines next.
Let's not bother, eh?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Ruler and pencil?


http://www.yhub.org.uk/resources/Climate%20Change%20Micro%20Site/Climate%20ChangeandHistoric%20Environment_English%20Heritage%20Jan%202006.pdf

And

http://www.helm.org.uk/upload/pdf/MicroWind.pdf
http://www.helm.org.uk/upload/pdf/Wind_Energy_(final).pdf

No less distinguished an architect than Basil "Coventry Cathedral" Spence was the architect to the CEGB during the first nuclear expansion programme in the late 50s / early 60s.
They were still ugly leaking brutes though.

Unlike these:
http://viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk/story/printer_friendly.asp?StoryUid=53&totSlides=19

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Half tinbered mock tudor or a classical portico? We'll be having climbing roses on the wind turbines next.
Let's not bother, eh?

Um, classical portico version's been done, a long time ago:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/moac/currentstudents/peter_cock/photos/chesterton_windmill/

 

[Nemesis]

Well, BD usually moderates then prints my comments, so live in hope.

That's the Basil Spence whose 1970 library in Newcastle is being demolished.

 

[Nemesis]

Not quite the same, but C Stanley Peach was once a noted designer of sub stations:

http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/Default.aspx?id=208865&mode=quick

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Not quite the same, but C Stanley Peach was once a noted designer of sub stations:

http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/Default.aspx?id=208865&mode=quick

Of course - how could I forget Giles Gilbert Scott?

Liverpool Cathedral:
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/building/

Bankside Power Station:
http://www.liverpoolcathedral.org.uk/content/About/TheCathedral.aspx

So easily confused.

 

[Nemesis]

http://www.batterseapowerstation.org.uk/hist1.html

 

[Nemesis]

However:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/content/image_galleries/sizewell_b_tour_gallery.shtml

 

[Gareth Hughes]

And Freddy "Liverpool RC Cathedral" Gibberd:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didcot_Power_Station

That "Country Life" readers voted it Britain's third worst eyesore speaks volumes about the lack of visual discernment of the readers (who'd happily live in a crude, landscape-disfiguring Quinlan Terry pseudo-mansion)

 

[Nemesis]

Well, not all CL readers...

But it did give Hexham the title of Britain's Favourite Market Town.

My attempts to prevent that came too late.

 

[Penners]

Quinlan Terry

Wash your mouth out with soap, after mentioning that name.

His Brentwood Cathedral is an execrable hotch-potch of pastiche bits and pieces, IMO. A cross between a Victorian workhouse and a shopping mall.

But what do I know?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Quinlan Terry

Wash your mouth out with soap, after mentioning that name.

His Brentwood Cathedral is an execrable hotch-potch of pastiche bits and pieces, IMO. A cross between a Victorian workhouse and a shopping mall.

But what do I know?

Enough for me to agree with you on a matter of "taste" for once. Someone (I think it was Roderick Gradidge of blessed memory) once said that the problem with QT is that he tries to put everything he knows into everything he does, with the result that he comes across as an architectural Sorcerer's Apprentice, who's got hold of the recipe for classical architecture but doesn't know how to control it and worst of all, can't turn it off.

Even so, it's better than 90% of what presents itself as "traditional" these days.

 

[Penners]

Enough for me to agree with you on a matter of "taste" for once.

Wow - I've put a gold star by today's date on the calendar. :wink: