Math needs...

all numbers to make sense!

click on the picture: (c) Harm Bengen, www.harmbengen.de

Real and unreal ones.


Carpe diem!

green wind for energy

Sustainable Energy from Druim Ba 

source: Druim Ba Sustainable Energy

Some kind of future his catching up with our area; so far we only watched such future going up from very high and very far, thankful for it not coming any closer. That changed when plans arrived for a huge wind farm that would alter our landscape, hardly making it any nicer.

Will it help to make future any better?

From the DBSE brochure:

On a purely technical basis, the site could accommodate 37 turbines.

A Scoping Report was submitted to the Scottish Government in the spring of 2010, for a wind farm with 31 turbines with generating capacity of 3MW each and a maximum tip height of 155 metres.

As a result of consultation with various consultees, the scope of the project has been reduced to 28 turbines and a reduced tip height of 150 metres maximum.

Interested in all kinds of energy generation, owning a (small) wind generator and depending on an highly efficient CHP-off-grid supply I am always trying to look at such a project from an angle as neutral as possible; it is difficult but clear figures and numbers on a spreadsheet help to keep that angle.

In an earlier post titled new thinking I said:

To question the efficiency of a wind generator asking from what point during its life span the 300ft cast-iron pole based in >1,000 tons of concrete will net generate electricity is seen as an anti sanctum.

That was two years ago! This time it is 28 times 500ft and much more concrete and iron, still you won't find anything answering that pretty simple question. One would think it would be the most straight forward calculation the want-to-be-wind-farming-company would present to its critics. An overall and detailed foot-print calculation putting input and output into relation from birth to death, from first scratch to the final recycling and regenerating process 25 years later; such a calculation could then be presented and steal most of the campaigners' thunder - if it was in favour of the technology producing carbon free energy.

Kiltarlity residents rally to fight plan for wind farm, a legitimate process (update 09-02-11: see what they have to say); however, in the majority of all cases these activities look like lame yogurt-knitters fighting bloated capitalists and vice versa. Pretty much useless when reduced to birds or bats, to "don't want" or "don't like", only, and even less entertaining where one democratic voice wants to eliminate the other:

A meeting led by campaigners against the Druim Ba wind farm will be held at Kiltarlity Village Hall on Saturday from 11am. It is understood that Druim Ba representatives will not be allowed to speak at the meeting.

Seeing what it could look like should rather force them to speak and explain.

source: Druim Ba - Say No

Not allow the representatives to speak matches the picture of the underdog having a sit-in and a yogurt while listening the green energy blues:

The invitation to discuss the project is found in the project's description and even its name: "Druim Ba Sustainable Energy"; so to take it by the word and investigate the project's true sustainability must be the prime aim prior to challenging the project's feasibility; the result could range anything from "Yes, it is!" to "No, it is not!" but any serious campaign could only be based on the above calculation which would then be put into proportionality e.g. with our society's or be it government's targets, the habitats, the environment, may be its costs, ROI, pay-back-time, its disruptiveness, influence or even beauty - or ugliness.

Anything else, a campaign for the campaigners' sake or a non-sustainable shareholder-value-first project are pure entertainment or sheer propaganda!

Apropos...

propaganda: the many words that you read and hear around those catchwords like green and sustainable, renewable or carbon-neutral while lacking numbers and thorough calculations often even proper thinking enhance the feeling of one party trying to pull a fast one on the other. It reminds me very much of the many bubble words that were made about the Highland Expo.

politics: some time ago the collective decision was made that energy generated from wind should become a major part of our grid supply; obviously the collective decision did not include to calculate the technology's footprint - why?

Carpe diem!


update 25-01-2011
P&J: Revised windfarm plans kept under wraps by developers

update 09-02-2011
The Druim ba - Say No website

P&J: Windfarm Protesters storm Village Meeting

Next exhibition:

Abriachan Village Hall, Wednesday 9th February, 2011, 2 - 8 pm

draught-tight or air-proofing...

or is it vice versa?

I am sure our forefathers already tried to find that draught-proof cave...

The other day I was left with the following tweet line:

...(I) prefer draught proofing for general public & getting them to understand concept, couldn't sell ' air flow control'.

I had initially provoked the line when I had criticised the terminology "draught-proofing" as being not good and precise enough in comparison to the term "air tightness" or rather "air flow control". My intention had not been to offend the addressee, an architect, but to make clear that modern construction need to be built to a precise standard, for example to meet a given standard of air-tightness level.

Why?

Well, the air we breathe among others transports water (humidity) and thermal energy (heat/cold), but also all sorts of dirt, dust, germs and spore. So to set a level for the air exchange rate helps to control the levels of what it contains; many reasons speak for an air tight building envelope:

• it avoids structural damage
• ... draughts
• ... and energy losses;
• it improves noise protection within the building and to/from the outside
• ... and air quality.

Of course, the tighter your envelope becomes the more ventilation is a must; the best solution is to install a controlled automated ventilation system including thermal energy recovery (heat/cold), something that we had installed in our first house in 1981 and love ever since.

I think even the "general public" ought to know and understand these principles as I am a firm believer in customers that not only know what they want but understand why they want it. Ignorance may help to close a clever deal for one side but will turn out to be a bad advisor for both.

The technology exists; what is needed is the understanding and education of both, the industry and the customer accompanied by the will of both to make a difference. Once that happens health and comfort will replace the discussions about morbid homes and heating allowances.

A win-win situation as it will be the time when "Affordables" become affordable.

Carpe diem!

the summer is over

Black Forest

Back in the office; the disastrous every days' global news with 75% on climate and weather catastrophes and the rest on wars and bombs limit my expectations; not pessimism, but sober realism.

Not surprisingly EUROland is still hanging in there; soon the € will return making the headlines as none of the immanent problems have been solved; really, not even addressed but are due worsening. Against all negative figures and American kludge the $ will get stronger; difficult to see what will happen to the £ - my best guess is it will get stronger against the € as the £problems are just such while the €problems are unsolvable and an accumulative disease. Wonder how China will cope with doing the splits between its announcement of appreciating its currency while exports need to keep growing fast; it might comfort the big party that their $assets will be very profitable and help buying out the remaining resources for their own good while they watch the real estate bubbles pop.

The US are approaching Double Dip; not funny, Japan and Europe are following right behind, the question will be who will be able to develop an upturn after what very likely will be a long and deep second dip; its line magnified will look like a bouncing ball loosing its momentum while moving downhill. But then, one country alone won't make it anyway.

Upwards it goes with many other figures; unemployment same as CO2; food and commodity indices are influenced by falling yields and high(er) demands which will mix some hard to digest inflationary figures in what will be deflation for mass products and all assets from housing to shares; some call it stagflation - I believe that is just trivialising what will cause the scissors between poor and rich open ever faster and wider.

On top of all the human race faces an unseen change of its biotope; no matter what it is called the human influence by its mass and the unlimited consumption of limited resources is causing massive disruption and destruction. Anchored deep in the alleged human intelligence the deniers of any human influence - caused by +seven billion energy wasters - are democratically allowed to have their say and frivolously (and ignorantly) dispute what the armies of scientists of all faculties come up with on a global scale.

Any optimism left will see hard times with no good news coming in; the bad news about us finally acknowledging that the endless number of ongoing and unsolved and as such unsolvable crunches is just one big overall crisis will hopefully be the first good news. I wonder how long we will have to wait for that to happen.


Carpe diem!

the fourth revolution

... it can be done!

Be very careful and very censorious when the one or the other lobby tells you that "this" or "that" is the ""one and only" way forward; it will definitely be a mix; a mix of generating energy and a mix of avoiding consumption that will make us more independent, that will reduce our footprint, improve efficiency and give us choices. That's not what the oligopoly wants us to achieve.

Carpe diem!

incentives avoid 3 (8) pplants since 2002

The "B-KWK", the "Bundesverband Kraft-Waerme-Kopplung", a complicated name for what is simply the association of CHP manufacturers and suppliers in Germany has proudly published that the capacity of all installed CHP units since 2002 has avoided to build three average sized power plants in Germany; export included the equivalent of even eight pplants had not to be constructed.

Here is the link; sorry you will need to use some translation software as the association is merely supporting German manufactures - in German language - I was told today. So much for globalisation.

Anyway, it would be interesting to compare the total of paid out incentives with the cost of building those power plants; and then there is the benefit (for...?) of not having had to convince sensible voters and force tough antagonists into actually approve those plants whether nuclear or gas or coal.

Carpe diem!

the crux with foreign incentives

...and why the UK is falling behind: fast!

The most advanced alternative energy systems based on PV (photovoltaic), biogas (manure sewerage), or CHP (Combined Heat and Power), proven in thousands of applications, are on offer from European markets, dominated by mostly German based companies.

Those companies and their clientele benefit from a wide range of incentives for supplying electricity "back" into the public grid; this is because the enduser sells at least part of what he produces to the providers which helps to improve the return on investment into such innovative means of generating energy. In fact those incentives are actually what makes the complete investment feasible and are often paid for all energy produced even when used right away on site!

The various programmes and incentives are constantly discussed; often they are labelled unfair and an unjustified interference with what is to be "left to the markets"; without doubt the oligopoly of energy suppliers makes and dominates this market and is constantly fighting against anything that might threaten its position.

And threatening it is; the more decentralised the energy supply will become the more ground the oligopoly will loose. What is more, a "fast forward" with supporting and developing the intelligent grid based on decentralised power generation will prove at least some of the gigantic investments and unpleasant political pronouncements against very strong public resistance towards new nuclear or in fact any other kind of power plant avoidable.

While this is all happening accompanied by innovative power saving devices and highly energy efficient construction we can all but watch; as the cheap times of pumping oil a few feet up being burnt in what looks like medieval monsters are counted for investments into new proven technologies are almost impossible and often make no "economic", i.e. monetary sense for us in the UK.

Of course, a weak Pound is one problem, but investing into such advanced technology by importing what is proven is hindered even more by the fact that we lack the support, the incentives that, as above, created a vast market on the Continent. Feasibility lacks commercial viability.

I can hear the "let's do it ourselves!" Well, that is like "inventing the wheel again", needs people and banks ready to invest in technology, lots of wheels, a skilled workforce and yet supportive regulation.

So, we leave it to the markets: happy falling.

Carpe diem!

nuclear waste heritage!

source

A couple of weeks ago under the headline "Forever waste" I referred to problems of the salt mine ASSE in Germany used as a final storage for light and medium contaminated nuclear waste. The storage was used from 1965 until 1978; originally declared safe for at least 100,000 years to come soon penetrating humidity, then water questioned its reliability.

As usual all kinds of sources give you a wide range of choices to select your fears from; while BILD.de in October of 2009 - see photo below with a man filling his wee cup - reported that the daily volume of water penetrating certain areas of the salt mine and only such with no nuclear waste stored in had increased from 30 to 100 litres per day - which in buckets sounds not really threatening - other official sources report water volumes of up to 12m³ - avoiding to say "12,000 litres per day"; what a charming and calming difference?

source

Cleaning up in 420 days

Last week it was decided to clean up the place. Roundabout 126,000 barrels filled with nuclear waste, the majority not even labelled, and dumped in deep, now salt water flooded holes will need to be taken above ground (from 750m down) and precisely examined; not decided, yet, is what to do then with the historic waste the majority of which was dumped in 1976 and 1977 when the closure was imminent and all wanted to get rid of then most probably all kinds of nuclear waste; now the commission allows 4.8 minutes for each barrel for transport above ground and thorough examination.

Odd figures always make one sceptical: so they calculated 10,080 hours to do the complete job!? One year equals 8,760 hours, surely they can work in three shifts, so all will be cleaned up within one year and 55 days.

Besides the threat of the water the salt mine is obviously declared structurally unsafe; life spans of 3 to 10 years are given before the risk of collapse is declared acute; no worries, this time the scientists should be a wee more accurate and the tolerance in their guesses might be a bit closer to reality than 100,000 safe years compared to really only just some dozens of years. It remains to be seen whether the tolerances in guessing and throwing the dice will allow for 420 stress-free days for this 4.8 minute per barrel operation.

Would a € per barrel figure not be more interesting?

May be that tells you why the hurry...

source

Yes, this bracket was once straight.

The globe’s stories about finding appropriate sites for storing nuclear waste even on a minimum scale of sustainability are stories of failure, lies and in the best cases belittlement; never over the last fifty years was just one safe place found but billions have been spent and will now need to be invested into old waste – not to talk about the new one.

It is just another lie that alternative energy is expensive and the driver of cost when it comes to sustainable electricity generation and transport; the real cost for R&D and the waste problematic of nuclear power is dumped on us through separate balance positions. But what is cost against the threat of nuclear contamination? Would you like to own a house around Hanover/Germany and drink fresh water?

final storage sites near Hannover, Germany

Carpe 420 dies!