winfarm locations

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Postby caine » Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:36 pm

what about making convicts walk on tread mills to generate power? :D or instead of comunity service they could do their part to literally power the judicial system.... ::):
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Postby duncan » Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:01 pm

Sharon wrote:How many turbines would be needed to supply Glasgow?


Scotland is the windiest country in Europe, producing enough wind power last month for all the homes in Edinburgh and Dundee.

According to Scottish Power, wind farms produced enough electricity in January to cater for more than 300,000 homes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4302737.stm
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Postby Apollo » Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:19 pm

Did anyone happen to read the Guardian article that was due to appear at the weekend?

I saw one of the news progs previewing the papers on Friday night, and the front page leader appered to be an article that was going to reveal the fallacy of windpower in this country.
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Postby duncan » Mon Feb 28, 2005 5:33 pm

there was also this news item, on the same day as ScottishPower's press release (coincidence?):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4300723.stm
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Postby Apollo » Mon Feb 28, 2005 6:22 pm

Well, that sounds about right to me.

Government policies always seem to revolve around financial burdens and grants. Understandable, as these are more easily measured than really useful things like better efficiency, waste minimisation and new (even old, once rejected) technologies.

Or to be cynical, adopt your pet policy, make sure it can promoted as green, then you can rubbish anyone that speaks up against it on principle, without having to put up a case.
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Postby Sharon » Thu Mar 10, 2005 8:13 pm

200ft turbine in Queens Park... ????

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/hi/news/5036348.html

I doubt it... but interesting idea.
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Postby Alchemist » Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:56 am

More wind farms, mmm. They've got good points and bad
points. Arguements over them being a blot on the landscape,
while these same people condeming fossil and nuclear,
they'd have us all going back to candles and paddy field
mud collectives. I prefer Hydro generation, but yet again
campaigners complaining that they upset the ecosystem
of the mountains, they would argue that black was white.

http://www.saveourhills.org/
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Postby Bruce » Fri Mar 11, 2005 1:39 pm

From today's Building Design Magazine . . .

Image

RMJM this week unveiled images of an innovative 25-storey eco-tower for a brownfield site in the Granton area of Edinburgh.

The £21.5 million tower features 45 low-noise wind turbines that will generate electricity, producing enough surplus electricity to sell back to the national grid.

Plans for the 85m-high tower were drawn up for a local developer which owns the Granton site, at present used as a scrapyard.

According to RMJM, just one small-scale turbine installed 30m up the building would produce enough electricity to meet annual requirements for one apartment in the building.

RMJM director Tony Kettle said: “Edinburgh is a beautiful city with many historic landmark structures… There is the potential to create new structures which say something about the culture of our generation.”


A bit pie in the sky if you ask me!

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Postby Alchemist » Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:52 pm

mmm, that looks cool 8)
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Postby Apollo » Sun Mar 13, 2005 2:56 pm

A reminder to apply your own brains to stories about non-polluting power.

Overheard on a recent politician's TV audience debate (Mr Howard, I think): "I've just bought a Toyota Prius... the lowest emissions of any vehicle due to its use of batteries" or words to that effect.

This is, of course, utter drivel. The Prius uses its petrol engine to charge its battery, so whether it's progressing on battery or engine, its motive power will have come from running the engine and burning petrol. While it uses regnerative braking to charge its battery, I doubt in reality if this will do much more than compensate for the losses arising from using the engine to charge the battery, then using the battery to move the car.

I think Ch5's Gadget Show ran a comparison with it and other small cars, and found... no difference in 'real world' fuel consumption. Hardly surprising really, since all the cars (inc. Prius) were ultimately being moved by the fuel they carried in their tank.
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Postby rmclaggan » Sun Mar 13, 2005 9:24 pm

I think that the biggest contribution we could all have to increasing the amount of renewable energy we consume is by installing pv solar and micro-wind generator equipment on our own property.

Who's up for tenements with south-facing roofs covered in solar pv material and micro wind turbines mounted at the back of tenements nr the roof? Either using the energy to feed into the grid or partially power the flats below. Its not going to solve our energy needs but it would reduce our dependance on fossil fuels dramatically.

I think the wind turbines would be a great idea- you can get small ones designed to be mounted on the side of buildings so that the turbine is above roof level with a max output of 400w.
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Postby escotregen » Mon Mar 14, 2005 8:56 am

rmclaggan I am told that an example of a quite extensive installation of solar panels is one of the Stathclyde Uni buildings (halls of residence?). It's the reddish building that sits atop of the bit of steep inclining ground rising from George Street just between Marland House and the junction with High Street.
I would not be surprised to have this confirmed because this building project was one of the early 90s attempts at 'eco-friendly' specs. Sad to say this included partial cavity fill. This is sad because it's the same spec we used on a new build project at a housing association at that time. It turned into a real disaster; because of the shortage of U.K. on-site construction staff who could adhere to good building practice (not just a sour comment of mine, but the finding of our joint enquiry, and a consequence of the Thatcher/Major era of many companies abandoning any responsibility with regard to apprenticeships and training). The British Agrement Board (spelling?) subsequently withdrew certification of the spec in an effective admission of the reality in the UK. construction industry.
Relevance of all this to the topic is that it illustrates just how huge and complex is the culture change needed if we are to move to a sustainable basis on energy use and consumption. The likes of politicians, and voters, posturing with the use of 'less damaging' cars and sticking wind turbines around the countryside is just not going to materially impact on anything. I repeat my suspicions about the conventional energy producers being so supportive of wind farms; I still suspect it a case of 'setting it up to fail' - after such innovations fail have any meaningful impact on our deteriorating situation the conventional lobby will re-aasert themselves as our 'saviours'... and include the nuclear opition in this saving of the world#
:(
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Postby mpcsmith » Mon Mar 14, 2005 9:32 am

the halls you are referring to is james blyth court and another which i cant remember the name of. these were the cheapest to stay in iirc. i stayed in these halls in my first year of uni. i think the low cost was related to the lower heating and electricity costs due to the efficiency of the building. the build quality and layout of the interiors was not of the highest standard. due to the shape of the exterior some of the rooms, like mine, were a strange triangular shape and a bloody pain in the arse to live in. the panels arent solar but are for heating the building. they have reflective blinds that come down on hot days so that heat is reflected away from them. on cold days the blinds are up revealing the black radiation absorbing insulation which stores in the wall to heat the flats. iirc there were no radiators throughout the entire flat.

to be honest i would be more inclined to go the route of small scale wind generators. these will reduce power costs for the home and indeed if large enough will actually provide an income to the operator as excess power generated can be sold back to the grid. the main problem with these is storage. most use massive capacitors or batteries which can only store energy for a limited time. i believe that alot of current research is going into solving this problem
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Postby duncan » Tue Mar 15, 2005 5:29 pm

the other one was Thomas Campbell court, which was the higher up of the two. IIRC, I thought the rooms had storage heaters? I could well be wrong, it was a few years ago when I stayed there (stayed in both these buildings). Also pretty sure these weren't the cheapest blocks at the time.
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Postby Paper Hankie » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:08 am

Going back a few pages in this topic (I've been offline for a while!!) to answer a question (should probably be a different thread...if so I apologise) there is a door at the start of the Erskine Bridge. I'll post the details as another topic.
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