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January 9, 2020 at 12:47 pm in reply to: Read First if flying on a Boeing 737 Max–or maybe not! #39511
Richard, the video was a Twitter feed so readily available.
I found the Beeb coverage misleading by their edit of this video, as they even had ‘an expert’ saying that it could not be an engine problem otherwise they would have attempted to return.
If the Beeb was at that time trying not to pour petrol onto the Iran situation they would have been better to have said nothing rather than give a half-baked report.
We are very happy with the hybrids (excellent acceleration and handling) we have used for the last nine years or so, and if Birmingham gives a concession for hybrids that may be an option for you. However we are starting to look at new cars and the Kia Niro or Renault Zoe look interesting as we have solar panels.
Thanks Tippon – you have solved the mystery of my disappearing posts, or at least identified where they went.
I posted other slightly differently worded posts that went through ok, and the conversations continued from there so please ignore the two posts above.
Isn’t hydroelectric still the best form of stored energy ? A river is a plus but you only need a high lake and a low lake. Release water from the top lake to generate electricity when you need it and then pump it back up again when eco energy is plentiful.
Unfortunately we are running out of good places for hydro. Pumped storage is a good alternative and the Germans are using old coal mines for this, but nothing would have beaten a Severn or Wash barrage for size and capacity. Hell if the French can do it why can’t we!
Bob, I’m not disputing that wind and solar reduce gas consumption and potentially reduce CO2 production. Unfortunately if you are not planning to dim all the lights when the sun goes down (ditto very high or very low wind speeds) or to tell factories to close, then the gap has to be bridged. This requires some pretty hairy and potentially costly forecasting as it is necessary to have sufficient gas turbines to balance the short fall in the various regions.
Btw as an Energy Engineer and Chemical Engineer I think I know enough about how wind generators work, and also about our energy system as a whole. What perhaps you do not know is that most Electricity Distribution companies are struggling with just how to encourage solar home owners to install battery storage that will be available to the grid at short notice. (Not as easy as you may think as domestic solar is on a single phase system. rather than three phase so the balancing act is limited to the area served by the nearest transformer.) Better batteries with more capacity would unlock a lot of potential and flexibility.
An additional problem I’ll just touch on is the balancing act that is required between resistive load (e.g. a heating element), and inductive load (e.g. big motors in workshops etc., spinning/non-spinning as Richard says). That too is on an area by area balance.
Power distribution is a finely balanced act as you will see if you look at the report into the major power failure caused by a lightning strike on a Wind Farm in the North Sea.
January 8, 2020 at 6:56 pm in reply to: Read First if flying on a Boeing 737 Max–or maybe not! #39489The Ukrainian plane crash is a big question mark. I wonder why the Beeb are not showing the full video of the plane circling with an engine/wing fire. The plane attempts a turn back to the airport then loses control and crashes. The Beeb only shows the last few seconds.
January 8, 2020 at 4:30 pm in reply to: Read First if flying on a Boeing 737 Max–or maybe not! #39481The problem with kicking Boeing when they are down has reached the point of no longer being able to get that same delicious sense of schadenfreude, as it happens too often.
This week’s Boeing boing, is not for the Max, but all their NG line (the ones actually presently in service), this time it is about the screens in the pilot cabin going blank when they try to land at certain airports. Luckily most of these are in the US or South America with none in Europe! One problem is understandable if not excusable, but this latest news is really a condemnation of the whole company. El Reg Link
The horrible thing is that they really do not know what causes this problem. The quote from the FAA is almost terrifying in its lack of a rationale.
“… the seven runways had “latitude and longitude values” that “triggered the blanking behaviour”, suggesting some kind of memory interaction between onboard computers causing the screens to stop displaying any information until a different runway was selected in the flight plan.”
It is just a software bug . . .
As you know the practice is illegal, but we just do not have anywhere near enough Coastal Watchers/Guards or enforcement vessels.
As we complete the EU withdrawal, we will need some huge investments in marine Coast Guard vessels and Fast Patrol Boats otherwise the problems of fish poaching, illegal deballasting/tank washing/dumping and illegal immigrants will overwhelm our systems.
Richard, don’t forget the large scale impacts that are caused by simple human practices such as goat farming and slash & burn agriculture.
Latest research claims that humans caused the Sahara Desert. link
I think the research is quite plausible as I’ve witnessed the small-scale impact of semi-nomadic slash and burn farming on fertile areas of Zambia.
Addendum to previous post. This link is probably more relevant to my point about ships bunkers, but do read the first as it hints at the triple whammy impacts of clearing forests for Palm Oil production in Indonesia and Brazil.
I think the clue is in your question – we do not take a LOT of energy from the sources. With respect to solar, we take a relatively small amount then put it back over a wider area in the form of heat.
Wind energy is an interesting question, but again we only take the bit from the portion that is near the ground that otherwise tends to be dispersed naturally by ground friction and interaction with vegetation.
If by some miracle we could take most of the energy from the wind we would again put it back over a wider area. I guess the nett effect in that imaginary case would be to slow down changes in the weather, and in warmer climates reduce the number of hurricanes.
However, I take your more general point. Because humanity has the capability of making major change, then the law of unintended consequences comes into force. You are therefore completely correct in implying that we cannot be 100% certain that humanity’s actions will have no unintended negative consequences.
I’ll give you a simple example. Removing the many millions of tons of sulfur from ships bunker fuel will definitely cut down air pollution. However, scientific studies show that the emission of SO2/SO3 in oceanic areas results in more cloud formation, more rain and hence global cooling. So one action to improve the quality of the environment may well have a unintended significant negative effect by increasing global warming – we just do not know how many degrees that will be!
My two years old boiler sits on a 13A three pin plug socket. It has been inspected by three different heating engineers without comment. As boiler interlocks fail safe on loss of power I see no safety reason for requiring a boiler to be hard wired.
btw my router sits on an UPS – best protection going against lightning strikes frying everything!
About the only power I need during a protracted outage is power for the gas central heating. With the circulating pump drawing about 200 watts and the boiler safety system at tens of watts I reckon I could get away with a chunky UPS to cover the typical max for outages of 3-4 hours. (ex another Winter of Discontent!)
I too feel for the plight of those who have lost homes or relatives.
The cause of the disaster has been levelled at Climate Change, and certainly the hot dry winds have played a major role in spreading the fires. However that is not the only factor. Trump’s solution to California’s fires may well also apply in Australia. Green lobbyists have prevented the regular setting of fires to clear dead under-bush vegetation which has fed the fires and resulted in increased fire intensity, as well as increased the local spread. link
The big UK domestic electricity providers are currently struggling with how to use and incentivise the use of batteries within domestic solar installations. Unfortunately as most (all?) domestic installations are only single phase any optimisation is limited to the area around the nearest transformer. (Simply put, solar production from a house in sunny Cornwall cannot be used to boil a kettle in rain sodden Manchester.)
Bigger commercial installations on farms etc are 3-phase so the issues are of a much smaller scale, but still there.
Isn’t hydroelectric still the best form of stored energy ? A river is a plus but you only need a high lake and a low lake. Release water from the top lake to generate electricity when you need it and then pump it back up again when eco energy is plentiful.
The French do it better! link
Richard summed up my views. I think that both wind and solar should play a role in our energy balance, but until the problem of storing surpluses to fund the deficits is solved then we will still be heavily reliant on gas turbine technology as this is the only (almost) instant on generation system we have.
It is a great shame that our technical illiterates did not see the flaws in intermittent power generation and plumped to add stored energy such as that given by tidal barrages etc.That is why I am now a proponent of improved battery tech.
I’d certainly expect that the requirements for a Graphics/Games Art course to be very different from those for (say) Medieval Studies. The first could need a very high end GPU/CPU combo whereas a Chrome book may be overkill for the other.
If you know the college/course details an email to the appropriate student union might produce a helpful reply.
Thnx, as I said my wallet is screaming!
Btw thank you for mentioning DSOG. I looked at the stills from the fan remake of LoL and Fable and it made me realise that although it is possible to do a lot of games plant/tree landscaping with randomised procedural algorithms and use of the Turing algorithm it will still need a heck of a lot of artistic tweaking to make it look attractive.
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