Power generation

[piratelassie]

With all the talk about wind power being dependent on the wind, wave power being in it's infancy, oil going to run out[within 40 or 50 or ?? number of years] coal being too deep, another sourse of energy production which Scotland has is HYDRO.This could supply countless megawatts. One thing we are not short of is rain.

[Phill]

But doesn't Mr Salmond want to sell all this water to the draught ridden English?

[ducati]

With all the talk about wind power being dependent on the wind, wave power being in it's infancy, oil going to run out[within 40 or 50 or ?? number of years] coal being too deep, another sourse of energy production which Scotland has is HYDRO.This could supply countless megawatts. One thing we are not short of is rain.

I'll bet someone has counted the countless megawatts. :lol:

[John Little]

The coal is not 'too deep'.

The SNP don't want to use it.

That's all.

On the other hand, if the SNP committed themselves to researching carbon capture and exporting it, with coal, then Scotland could have full employment and be rich beyond their wildest dreams according to;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/scotland/newsid_9784000/9784792.stm

Now there's a way to fully fund what you want.

If only the SNP did not have this principle about not using coal.....

[ywindythesecond]

With all the talk about wind power being dependent on the wind, wave power being in it's infancy, oil going to run out[within 40 or 50 or ?? number of years] coal being too deep, another sourse of energy production which Scotland has is HYDRO.This could supply countless megawatts. One thing we are not short of is rain.

Hydro is an excellent energy source Piratelassie, but in the 1950s most suitable locations were developed and there are few remaining large scale locations suitable for development. Although hydro development covers a very large part of the Highlands, it only adds up to a maximum of 1.5GW http://www.hi-energy.org.uk/Renewables/Hydro-Energy.htm total capacity. The benefit of hydro electricity is that it can be delivered at the turn of a tap, but once the water has been used, you have to wait until it rains again so it has to be used wisely. So hydro power is used mostly for fine tuning generation to match demand and for emergency power if a conventional generator fails. In the last 24 hours according to http://www.hi-energy.org.uk/Renewables/Hydro-Energy.htm at 7.55am, 3801MWh hydro power was used, about 11% of capacity.

Pump storage hydro uses surplus power in quiet periods to pump water uphill so it can be used in high demand periods or for instant response to a large demand fluctuation or generator failure. Once the water is gone, it is gone until it can be pumped back up again. Dinorwig Pump storage scheme at 1728MW counts for over 60% of the country's PS capacity but if it was run at full power it would be empty in five hours.

Small scale hydro will not provide any useful volume of electricity and indeed the incentive to develop small scale hydro is for personal financial gain at the expense of other bill payers under the Feed in Tariffs regime. http://www.fitariffs.co.uk/

Hydro sounds good, and it is good for the purposes it is used, but as we have used all the best locations for only 1.5GW of capacity, even if we develop all the less good sites, we will make no real difference to baseload capacity.

[Flynn]

The energy problem isn't lack of supply, the problem is excess demand. Get rid of (purely as an example) dishwashing machines - after all, the only energy consuming appliances a kitchen really needs is a fridge an oven, and a sink - and all other unnecessary household appliances and suddenly we don't 'need' so much energy.

[Kenn]

Make it mandatory for all new builds to have solar panels and assist existing ones to install them.

[RagnarRocks]

A little known problem with hydro is building all those dams and holding all that water has affected the worlds rotational spin so there you go clean energy effects climate change just by shifting huge volumes of water and holding them there!

[sids]

A little known problem with hydro is building all those dams and holding all that water has affected the worlds rotational spin so there you go clean energy effects climate change just by shifting huge volumes of water and holding them there!

Tell us about the magnitude and consequences of this effect. By how much has it slowed or speeded-up the Earth's rotation?

[Shaggy]

A little known problem with hydro is building all those dams and holding all that water has affected the worlds rotational spin so there you go clean energy effects climate change just by shifting huge volumes of water and holding them there!

I say we should give Eck the hutt a free plane ticket to the directly opposite position on the earth to the dam and thus the rotational spin problem is solved

[RagnarRocks]

There you go one item about " the moment of inertia " http://www.theenergylibrary.com/node/11435Have a read amazing how things affect each other and there's more out there if you wish to google it to which ever browser you prefer

[RagnarRocks]

This is for the Three Gorges damm in china onlyThree Gorges Dam, China crosses the Yangtze River in Hubei province, China. It the world’s largest hydroelectric power station by total capacity, which will be 22,500 MW when completed. When the water level is maximum at 175 meters (574 ft) over sea level (91 meters (299 ft) above river level), the reservoir created by the dam is about 660 kilometers (410 mi) in length and 1.12 kilometers (0.70 mi) in width on average. The total surface area of the reservoir is 1045 km2, and it will will flood a total area of 632 km2 of land. The reservoir will contain about 39.3 cu km (9.43 cubic miles) of water. That water will weigh more than 39 trillion kilograms (42 billion tons).A shift in a mass of that size would affect the rotation of the Earth due to a phenomena known as the moment of inertia, which is the inertia of a rigid rotating body with respect to its rotation. The moment of inertia of an object about a given axis describes how difficult it is to change its angular motion about that axis. The longer the distance of a mass to its axis of rotation, the slower it will spin. You may not know it, but you see examples of this in everyday life. For example, a figure skater attempting to spin faster will draw her arms tight to her bodies, and thereby reduce her moment of inertia. Similarly, a diver attempting to somersault faster will bring his body into a tucked position. Raising 39 trillion kilograms of water 175 meters above sea level will increase the Earth's moment of inertia and thus slow its rotation. However, the effect would extremely small. NASA scientists calculated that shift of such as mass would increase the length of day by only 0.06 microseconds and make the Earth only very slightly more round in the middle and flat on the top. It would shift the pole position by about two centimeters (0.8 inch). Note that a shift in any object's mass on the Earth relative to its axis of rotation will change its moment of inertia, although most shifts are too small to be measured (but they can be calculated).

[RagnarRocks]

The insatiable thirst of the world's burgeoning billions has caused a spurt of dam building in temperate regions in the last 40 years, and a scientist with the space agency has found that the reservoirs are affecting Earth's orbital rotation.Although Earth's rate of spin is gradually slowing because of the tidal drag of the moon, the slowing would have been measurably greater if it were not for the influence of 88 reservoirs built since the early 1950's, said the scientist, Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao, a geophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, an arm of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Greenbelt, Md. Each of the reservoirs contains at least 2.4 cubic miles of water weighing 10 billion metric tons. The reservoirs contain the bulk of the world's impounded water.The shift in the distribution of Earth's water caused by the reservoirs has tended to speed the planet's spin. Without lunar tidal drag, the reservoir effect would have reduced the length of a day by 0.2 millionths of a second a day for the last 40 years, The reason for this, he said, is that the shifting of water to mid-latitude reservoirs in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres has increased the amount of the world's water in those latitudes in relation to the Equator. In effect, more water is closer to Earth's axis. Moreover, Earth's axis is being slightly tilted by the weight of water that has collected in the 88 reservoirs, Dr. Chao found, and the shape of the planet's gravitational field has been altered.These effects are several hundred times smaller than natural variations in Earth's motion, Dr. Chao said in an interview, and they pose no danger to people or the global environment. Still, he reported recently in Geophysical Research Papers, the effects of reservoir construction are significant enough that they will have to be taken into consideration in calculating long-term changes in global motion. His conclusions are based on geophysical measurements, international data bases and theoretical calculations.Dam building in the former Soviet Union, Canada, Brazil and other mid-latitude countries has been rapid in the last four decades, and fresh water collected from rivers and other terrestrial sources has increased in this period by 10,000 cubic kilometers, or 10 trillion tons, an amount equivalent to all the moisture in Earth's atmosphere. This water mostly accumulates from rain, which in turn comes from clouds that draw their moisture largely from the evaporation of ocean water.This enormous shift of water from the oceans has somewhat offset the continuing rise in global sea level, which would have been about 1.2 inches greater over the last 40 years if there had been no new reservoirs, Dr. Chao says.Although scientists are uncertain about the causes of the observed rise in sea level, many say they believe that a major cause is global warming and the consequent expansion of liquid water and melting of mountain glaciers. In general, a rising sea level is regarded as a potential threat to many regions because it might eventually inundate low-lying countries like Bangladesh and coastal cities around the world. So the reservoir effect is desirable because it presumably slows the rise in sea level.But another geophysicist, Dr. Dork L. Sahagian of the University of New Hampshire, has said he believes that the reservoir effect is too small to offset the rise sufficiently to rule out future coastal flooding.Geophysicists have little doubt that dam building will continue rapidly until all sources of recoverable water have been exploited, a time some scientists calculate will come in the next century.

[Shaggy]

aargh, blinded by a wall of text :-)

[piratelassie]

Hydro is simply another resorce Scotland has.

[RagnarRocks]

Well if people request stats then unfortunately it requires a bit of reading Or simply put shift weight it changes spin ....was that easy enough

[RagnarRocks]

Hydro is simply another resorce Scotland has.So you're blinded by txt and choose to ignore it and just carry on regardless of the effects ...I do enjoy a well considered point of view

[mi16]

The energy problem isn't lack of supply, the problem is excess demand. Get rid of (purely as an example) dishwashing machines - after all, the only energy consuming appliances a kitchen really needs is a fridge an oven, and a sink - and all other unnecessary household appliances and suddenly we don't 'need' so much energy.

Have you got your sink wired to the mains?
A bit tough trying to make a pan of soup or a pan of tatties in your kitchen Flynn

[Flynn]

Have you got your sink wired to the mains?
A bit tough trying to make a pan of soup or a pan of tatties in your kitchen Flynn

I did say oven, perhaps I should have said cooker. Happy now?

[mi16]

Apart from your lethal sink, yes

[Flynn]

Apart from your lethal sink, yes The water from your hot tap gets hot by magic does it? Mine uses energy.

[mi16]

That would be the boiler that uses the energy not the sink.Now that you have upgraded your oven to a full cooker, you could use the hob to heat the water.

[secrets in symmetry]

Hydro is an excellent energy source Piratelassie, but in the 1950s most suitable locations were developed and there are few remaining large scale locations suitable for development. Although hydro development covers a very large part of the Highlands, it only adds up to a maximum of 1.5GW http://www.hi-energy.org.uk/Renewables/Hydro-Energy.htm total capacity. The benefit of hydro electricity is that it can be delivered at the turn of a tap, but once the water has been used, you have to wait until it rains again so it has to be used wisely. So hydro power is used mostly for fine tuning generation to match demand and for emergency power if a conventional generator fails. In the last 24 hours according to http://www.hi-energy.org.uk/Renewables/Hydro-Energy.htm at 7.55am, 3801MWh hydro power was used, about 11% of capacity.

Pump storage hydro uses surplus power in quiet periods to pump water uphill so it can be used in high demand periods or for instant response to a large demand fluctuation or generator failure. Once the water is gone, it is gone until it can be pumped back up again. Dinorwig Pump storage scheme at 1728MW counts for over 60% of the country's PS capacity but if it was run at full power it would be empty in five hours.

Small scale hydro will not provide any useful volume of electricity and indeed the incentive to develop small scale hydro is for personal financial gain at the expense of other bill payers under the Feed in Tariffs regime. http://www.fitariffs.co.uk/

Hydro sounds good, and it is good for the purposes it is used, but as we have used all the best locations for only 1.5GW of capacity, even if we develop all the less good sites, we will make no real difference to baseload capacity.That's not a bad post ywindy. :cool:

You didn't mention the planned 600MW pumped storage station at Coire Glas/Loch Lochy, and I vaguely recall plans for a similar one somewhere else. There may be other possibilities for all I know.

You need huge energy storage reservoirs when you try to rely on intermittent renewables like wind.

I'm not convinced that we should subsidise small-scale renewables at all. It's mostly a waste of money in most cases.

[secrets in symmetry]

The planned pumped storage station I "vaguely recalled" is Balmacaan/Loch Ness.

[Flynn]

That would be the boiler that uses the energy not the sink.Now that you have upgraded your oven to a full cooker, you could use the hob to heat the water.

Semantics. You don't get hot water to use in the sink without using energy.

[ywindythesecond]

That's not a bad post ywindy. :cool:

You didn't mention the planned 600MW pumped storage station at Coire Glas/Loch Lochy, and I vaguely recall plans for a similar one somewhere else. There may be other possibilities for all I know.

You need huge energy storage reservoirs when you try to rely on intermittent renewables like wind.

I'm not convinced that we should subsidise small-scale renewables at all. It's mostly a waste of money in most cases.


Thanks Sis. Here is the relevant passage extracted from that most excellent report "Analysis of UK Wind Power Generation November 2008 to December 2010". From memory Foyers can run for around 20 hours.

PUMPED STORAGE HYDRO

Pumped storage hydro is frequently cited as the solution to long periods of low wind output. However, if all four UK pumped storage plants were to be run simultaneously at full capacity, the stored water would be exhausted in around 24 hours. Once exhausted, the reservoirs can only be replenished when there is a surplus of generation over demand, and it takes longer to replenish the reservoirs than it does to empty them.



UK PUMPED STORAGE CAPACITY



Plant

Dinorwig

Ffestiniog

Cruachan

Foyers



Capacity

1728MW

360MW

400MW

300MW



Duration at peak output

5 hours

20 hours

22 hours

Not found





No details of the period at which Foyers can run at full capacity were found, but at a massive flow of 100m³ per second, it is not likely to be of long duration.

The existing 2788MW of installed UK pumped storage hydro plays a key role in balancing the grid. If it is to be used as a replacement for wind in windless times, then it cannot do its current job as well.

Scottish and Southern Energy have announced plans to construct two pumped storage schemes near Loch Ness with capacity of 600-1200MW between them, and have Planning Consent for 60MW at Loch Sloy, near Loch Lomond.

All three new schemes are designed to help meet peak demand. If they were to be used as back-up for wind in protracted low output periods, they would have the same limitations on duration of supply and would be unable to fulfil the purpose for which they are to be built.

It would require the approximate equivalent output of three Cruachan Power Stations (400MW) to replace 1000MW of wind-generated energy for one day. [(1000MW x 24 hours) ÷ (400MW x 22 hours) = 2.72.] The logistics of backing up wind energy with pumped storage hydro are such that even if there were enough suitable locations, the scale and cost of the Civil Engineering exercise to construct it would be prohibitive.

[golach]

With all the talk about wind power being dependent on the wind, wave power being in it's infancy, oil going to run out[within 40 or 50 or ?? number of years] coal being too deep, another sourse of energy production which Scotland has is HYDRO.This could supply countless megawatts. One thing we are not short of is rain.

To have Hydro Power, dams have to be built, glens have to be flooded, whole villages have disappeared from the Scottish Highlands in the not too distant past, a new version of the Clearances again?

[secrets in symmetry]

Scottish and Southern Energy have announced plans to construct two pumped storage schemes near Loch Ness with capacity of 600-1200MW between them, and have Planning Consent for 60MW at Loch Sloy, near Loch Lomond.

All three new schemes are designed to help meet peak demand. If they were to be used as back-up for wind in protracted low output periods, they would have the same limitations on duration of supply and would be unable to fulfil the purpose for which they are to be built.

It would require the approximate equivalent output of three Cruachan Power Stations (400MW) to replace 1000MW of wind-generated energy for one day. [(1000MW x 24 hours) ÷ (400MW x 22 hours) = 2.72.] The logistics of backing up wind energy with pumped storage hydro are such that even if there were enough suitable locations, the scale and cost of the Civil Engineering exercise to construct it would be prohibitive.Do you know what they mean by a "capacity of 600-1200MW between them"? Is 1200MW the maximum they can deliver? If so, what does the 600MW mean? Is it some sort of average?

As you know, a sustainable totally-low-carbon renewable-energy system would need humongous storage facilities. A massive increase in pumped storage in Scotland would be a start, but it wouldn't be much more than a start.

[mi16]

Semantics. You don't get hot water to use in the sink without using energy.


who says we need hot water in our sinks?
you dont get cold water in the sink without energy either

[Rheghead]

Pumped storage and hydro are excellent. We don't have that many suitable sites but Norway does. In the future we will have built ourselves a trans-North sea supergrid which will link our wind turbines, our offshore turbines to pumped storage sites in Norway and perhaps export markets in Europe.

[ducati]

Hydro is an excellent energy source Piratelassie, but in the 1950s most suitable locations were developed and there are few remaining large scale locations suitable for development. Although hydro development covers a very large part of the Highlands, it only adds up to a maximum of 1.5GW http://www.hi-energy.org.uk/Renewables/Hydro-Energy.htm total capacity. The benefit of hydro electricity is that it can be delivered at the turn of a tap, but once the water has been used, you have to wait until it rains again so it has to be used wisely. So hydro power is used mostly for fine tuning generation to match demand and for emergency power if a conventional generator fails. In the last 24 hours according to http://www.hi-energy.org.uk/Renewables/Hydro-Energy.htm at 7.55am, 3801MWh hydro power was used, about 11% of capacity.

Pump storage hydro uses surplus power in quiet periods to pump water uphill so it can be used in high demand periods or for instant response to a large demand fluctuation or generator failure. Once the water is gone, it is gone until it can be pumped back up again. Dinorwig Pump storage scheme at 1728MW counts for over 60% of the country's PS capacity but if it was run at full power it would be empty in five hours.

Small scale hydro will not provide any useful volume of electricity and indeed the incentive to develop small scale hydro is for personal financial gain at the expense of other bill payers under the Feed in Tariffs regime. http://www.fitariffs.co.uk/

Hydro sounds good, and it is good for the purposes it is used, but as we have used all the best locations for only 1.5GW of capacity, even if we develop all the less good sites, we will make no real difference to baseload capacity.

Yep. There you go. :D

[ywindythesecond]

Do you know what they mean by a "capacity of 600-1200MW between them"? Is 1200MW the maximum they can deliver? If so, what does the 600MW mean? Is it some sort of average?

As you know, a sustainable totally-low-carbon renewable-energy system would need humongous storage facilities. A massive increase in pumped storage in Scotland would be a start, but it wouldn't be much more than a start.

That was written over two years ago, and at that time it was just a proposal which ranged from 600MW max to 1200MW max.

[sids]

Tell us about the magnitude and consequences of this effect. By how much has it slowed or speeded-up the Earth's rotation?

No answer?

[golach]

Pumped storage and hydro are excellent. We don't have that many suitable sites but Norway does. In the future we will have built ourselves a trans-North sea supergrid which will link our wind turbines, our offshore turbines to pumped storage sites in Norway and perhaps export markets in Europe.

Maybe's aye Maybe's no Rheg
http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/company-news/norway-could-break-scots-green-energy-link.20516762

[secrets in symmetry]

No answer?He did answer - sort of...

He copied and pasted an article from the New York Times and another from somewhere else. The author of the former didn't seem to know much about what he was writing about, and that of the latter didn't seem to understand very much at all.

I doubt that RagnarRocks has any idea at all - but he is invited to prove me wrong....

[secrets in symmetry]

That was written over two years ago, and at that time it was just a proposal which ranged from 600MW max to 1200MW max.Thanks ywindy. I didn't think of that possibility.

[sids]

He did answer - sort of...

He copied and pasted an article from the New York Times and another from somewhere else. The author of the former didn't seem to know much about what he was writing about, and that of the latter didn't seem to understand very much at all.

I doubt that RagnarRocks has any idea at all - but he is invited to prove me wrong....

I'm glad somebody read all the links and stuff.

I tend to trust people who answer simple questions.

[secrets in symmetry]

I'm glad somebody read all the links and stuff.

I tend to trust people who answer simple questions.Me too.

The links were vaguely interesting, but mostly irrelevant - so you don't have to read them. :cool:

[ywindythesecond]

He did answer - sort of...

He copied and pasted an article from the New York Times and another from somewhere else. The author of the former didn't seem to know much about what he was writing about, and that of the latter didn't seem to understand very much at all.

I doubt that RagnarRocks has any idea at all - but he is invited to prove me wrong....
Sorry Sis, if you think Raggy is wrong, it is up to you to prove he is wrong. Not for him to prove anything to you, you threw the stone, so justify it.

[George Brims]

The energy problem isn't lack of supply, the problem is excess demand. Get rid of (purely as an example) dishwashing machines - after all, the only energy consuming appliances a kitchen really needs is a fridge an oven, and a sink - and all other unnecessary household appliances and suddenly we don't 'need' so much energy.
Have you compared the amount of energy used by a dishwasher loaded with several days' dishes vs washing each day's dishes in a separate batch of hot water. I think you will find there isn't much difference.
However I do agree about the problem being one of demand generally. A long time ago when they were proposing the Torness nuclear power station, the SNP claimed that the cost of the plant could provide extra insulation for millions of homes, thereby saving more energy than the plant would produce.

[gaza]

Make it mandatory for all new builds to have solar panels and assist existing ones to install them.

Thats why there are very few new builds going up the regs and requirements cost to much already. :(

[secrets in symmetry]

Make it mandatory for all new builds to have solar panels and assist existing ones to install them.Why are you in favour of solar panels but against windmills?

[secrets in symmetry]

Have you compared the amount of energy used by a dishwasher loaded with several days' dishes vs washing each day's dishes in a separate batch of hot water. I think you will find there isn't much difference.I recently read an article which claimed that dishwashers use less energy than the traditional method, but only if you don't use them until they're full. Unfortunately, I can't remember who wrote the article.


However I do agree about the problem being one of demand generally. A long time ago when they were proposing the Torness nuclear power station, the claimed that the cost of the plant could provide extra insulation for millions of homes, thereby saving more energy than the plant would produce.I wouldn't believe a word the SNP say about nuclear power!

[secrets in symmetry]

Sorry Sis, if you think Raggy is wrong, it is up to you to prove he is wrong. Not for him to prove anything to you, you threw the stone, so justify it.Did you understand anything I wrote?

[Neil Howie]

If the problem is storing energy from renewables, say because it was windy last night but electric demand was low, one company is developing compressed air storage to improve the storage efficiency.

Lightsail energy Link (http://lightsailenergy.com/tech.html)


Danielle Fong, Chief Scientist at LightSail Energy, has created a novel way to use tanks of compressed air for energy storage. Compressed air storage is not new but the problem with current methods is that compressing air creates heat energy as the air reaches temperatures of almost 1000 degrees Celsius. Energy is then lost through heat.

LightSail has designed a method of capturing this heat energy and regenerating useful energy from it by injecting a fine, dense mist of water spray which rapidly absorbs the heat energy of compression and provides it during expansion. Fong created a technique for separating the heated water from the compressed air and diverting it into a tank so the heat can be recaptured to reduce energy loss.

[ywindythesecond]

If the problem is storing energy from renewables, say because it was windy last night but electric demand was low, one company is developing compressed air storage to improve the storage efficiency.

Lightsail energy Link (http://lightsailenergy.com/tech.html)


Danielle Fong, Chief Scientist at LightSail Energy, has created a novel way to use tanks of compressed air for energy storage. Compressed air storage is not new but the problem with current methods is that compressing air creates heat energy as the air reaches temperatures of almost 1000 degrees Celsius. Energy is then lost through heat.

LightSail has designed a method of capturing this heat energy and regenerating useful energy from it by injecting a fine, dense mist of water spray which rapidly absorbs the heat energy of compression and provides it during expansion. Fong created a technique for separating the heated water from the compressed air and diverting it into a tank so the heat can be recaptured to reduce energy loss.

That looks neat Neil and if I was in the market for such a product I would want to know more. But it doesn't look to be scalable for national use.

[ywindythesecond]

I'm glad somebody read all the links and stuff.

I tend to trust people who answer simple questions.


Did you understand anything I wrote?

I usually understand everything I read but I confess to not understanding the reference to "all the links and stuff". Please explain, I do not understand what you are referring to.

[sids]

Why are you in favour of solar panels but against windmills?

Could it be because they are different?

[Flynn]

As usual the middle east is way ahead of us when it comes to implementing sustainable living:

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

[macadamia]

I was rather taken by that brave Scottish experiment I read about somewhere - you take the mains water supplied to various areas, interrupt the flow along the way to turn turbines housed in non-invasive low "sheds" which don't pollute the landscape - the water passing through the turbines generates power which can be used as a genuine infinite renewable source which is guaranteed and easy to maintain.....or is that too easy (no subsidies for rich landowners, no kudos for government, application of common sense, etc....?)

[piratelassie]

Pumped storage do'nt require flooding. All you need is two loch's at different levels.




To have Hydro Power, dams have to be built, glens have to be flooded, whole villages have disappeared from the Scottish Highlands in the not too distant past, a new version of the Clearances again?

[ywindythesecond]

http://forum.caithness.org/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by golach http://forum.caithness.org/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://forum.caithness.org/showthread.php?p=1014938#post1014938)
To have Hydro Power, dams have to be built, glens have to be flooded, whole villages have disappeared from the Scottish Highlands in the not too distant past, a new version of the Clearances again?

Just interested golach. I know of a number of places that isolated lodges appear from time to time when water levels in the dams are very low, but I don't know of any whole villages?

[Neil Howie]

That looks neat Neil and if I was in the market for such a product I would want to know more. But it doesn't look to be scalable for national use.

With the usual caveat of "the proof is in the pudding" one of the links from the Press Office page suggests scalability.

Link (http://www.energyharvestingjournal.com/articles/regenerative-air-energy-storage-00004775.asp?sessionid=1)


For truly massive installations, air can be stored in underground caverns, which is the standard for large scale natural gas storage.

as far as I know there are only two caves in the world that currently store Compressed Air for Energy Storage!

[Neil Howie]

As usual the middle east is way ahead of us when it comes to implementing sustainable living:



The Middle East, with its ample sunlight, is emerging as a promising area for growth in the solar industry. Neighboring Saudi Arabia plans to generate one third (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-31/saudi-arabia-completes-its-biggest-solar-power-plant.html) of its electricity from solar in 20 years, which will allow it to divert more of oil and gas for export.

link to MIT technology review (http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512646/abu-dhabi-plugs-in-giant-concentrating-solar-plant/)

[secrets in symmetry]

Make it mandatory for all new builds to have solar panels and assist existing ones to install them.Are you going to explain why you are in favour of solar panels, but against windmills?