What do you consider to be the best "con" of recent years?

[Atomic Shrimp]

Can someone explain to me how selling power back to the grid works. I don't mean the economics etc. but what is done with the electricity that someone generates in excess of their own requirements?

It's used by your neighbours or anyone else on the grid who has a net requirement for power at that time. I'm sure it's a bit more technical than this, but essentially, it's just as though your meter runs in reverse, the electricity flows from your house into the collective pool, for anyone to use - and in theory, the power station can ease off the throttle a bit.

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

Champagne or Windows Vista ?

Ooh, what about inkjet printer ink? It's more expensive than even the really best Champagne, volume for volume.

 

[Fifty2One]

Scratch off instant lottery tickets
Those tickets you buy to instantly lose your money. Most people have heard the scam where the North American government scratch lotteries cheat players by continuing to sell and advertise tickets even though the grans prizes have already been given out
NOW the OLG in Ontario Canada has refused to pay out to a winner on a $130,000.00 winning tickets because they claim that the tickets are misprinted the tickets ARE valid tickets and not bogus BUT they are misprinted so even though the tickets say the person is a winner - they are not

 

[Ron_dK]

Can someone explain to me how selling power back to the grid works. I don't mean the economics etc. but what is done with the electricity that someone generates in excess of their own requirements?

You can feed it back to the main net and get paid for it.
However, the costs of a KWhr is approx € 0.09 , while returning electricity will only give you some 0.7 x 0.09 which equals some 0.063 per Kwhr

 

[Len Boorman]

But getting hydrogen unstuck from oxygen always costs energy - and always more energy than you could derive from burning it to generate power - and there's no way around that - it's the laws of thermodynamics.
So converting the power stations to run on it is do-able, but where can we get the hydrogen from, without expending more energy than we save?

Thats where engineers/scientists come into the picture. We do not know the how yet, maybe there is chemical process that could be used. Hydrogen is stuck to many things not only oxygen I believe.

Captain Kirk burst onto the scene a few years ago with a mobile phone. It was Science Fiction then. It is Fact now and way beyond Star Trek vision.

L

 

[Mike375]

It's used by your neighbours or anyone else on the grid who has a net requirement for power at that time. I'm sure it's a bit more technical than this, but essentially, it's just as though your meter runs in reverse, the electricity flows from your house into the collective pool, for anyone to use - and in theory, the power station can ease off the throttle a bit.

I guess that is the part that puzzles me. It is not they could just back of the boiler pressure when my excess power cuts in.

Iimagine the power stations have some sphisticated version of a generator and battery. If we know the average consumption over the day then the generator is run at a level that keeps the battery up. The generator might be limited to 12 volts at 10 amps but the battery can deliver 300 amps at 12 volts. Thus if someone adds a generator that do 1 amp at 12 volts I can back the main generator down to 9 amps at 12 volts and the battery will maintain it charge and dleiver power as required which will range from 300 amps for a few second to 1 amp for hour etc.

But obviously (I think this is the case) the power stations don't have giant batteries, so is there an equivalent of is the power handled in a completelt different way.

 

[Len Boorman]

Yeah I think they handle it a bit differently. I believe basically they generate to meet demand. Bearing in mind that putting on the kettle hardly shows in the demand profile so similarly you feeding back the odd amp to the national grid does not really mean an adjustment to the throttles.

Nuclear generally supplies base load
Coal and Gas can be brought on line to meet anticipated demand profile. Turbines kept warmed up and turning but not generating, Not immediate effect but reasonable short time. Do not know but suggest within 15-30 minutes
Gas Turbine and Hydro can be brought up from dead very quickly. How fast can you hit the button and spin up the turbines. No warm up period required.

My thoughts

L

 

[GaryPanic]

I think (not 100% on this) they store the excess power by pumping water in a hydro lake ( run the pumps to fill the water from a bottom lake to a top lake) then when its required they run the hyrdo electricity - then at night again pump it back up to the top lake

the top lake in essesnces becomes the battery

however I cannot remember where i read this (or I might of even dream it up )
but it sounds reasonable.

 

[Mike375]

I think (not 100% on this) they store the excess power by pumping water in a hydro lake ( run the pumps to fill the water from a bottom lake to a top lake) then when its required they run the hyrdo electricity - then at night again pump it back up to the top lake

the top lake in essesnces becomes the battery

however I cannot remember where i read this (or I might of even dream it up )
but it sounds reasonable.

That sounds logical and would also apply to the differing power demands.

 

[GaryPanic]

from memory - when the power demand is low thats when they pump the water back up

so demand high at 7.30 to 10.30 then afterwards it drops of at a rate of x the power plants run at x % so the power has to be used anyway -pumping the water from bottom lake to top lake at this time stores the power

 

[Mike375]

from memory - when the power demand is low thats when they pump the water back up

so demand high at 7.30 to 10.30 then afterwards it drops of at a rate of x the power plants run at x % so the power has to be used anyway -pumping the water from bottom lake to top lake at this time stores the power

Being like the battery that would ultimately take into account someone who turns the kettle on or feeds the power grid with a generator run by a model aeroplane engine

I would imagine that would also allow them to cater for unexpect high demands or uncommon high demands that would exceed the steam turbine's capacity, again like the battery and the starter motor of the car being a perfect example.

 

[GaryPanic]

Found it --
Pumped storage hydroelectricity produces electricity to supply high peak demands by moving water between reservoirs at different elevations. At times of low electrical demand, excess generation capacity is used to pump water into the higher reservoir. When there is higher demand, water is released back into the lower reservoir through a turbine. Pumped storage schemes currently provide the only commercially important means of large-scale grid energy storage and improve the daily load factor of the generation system. Hydroelectric plants with no reservoir capacity are called run-of-the-river plants, since it is not then possible to store water. A tidal power plant makes use of the daily rise and fall of water due to tides; such sources are highly predictable, and if conditions permit construction of reservoirs, can also be dispatchable to generate power during high demand periods.

 

[Mike375]

Gary

I nearly wore out Google searching on stuff about selling to the power grid and all I was getting was economics, political and environment.

But when you see the answer it is so obvious. I will be a real terror tomorrow with this new found knowledge

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

Thats where engineers/scientists come into the picture. We do not know the how yet, maybe there is chemical process that could be used. Hydrogen is stuck to many things not only oxygen I believe.

If you're looking for hydrogen in great abundance - I think most of it is stuck to the oxygen though.

Captain Kirk burst onto the scene a few years ago with a mobile phone. It was Science Fiction then. It is Fact now and way beyond Star Trek vision.

Sure, but how many other things remained science fiction? Or look really ridiculous now, with the benefit of hindsight?

Some things that seemed improbable in the past turned out to work, but that's no real reason to imagine the same will happen in the future with any given idea that now seems improbable.

 

[GaryPanic]

Gary

I nearly wore out Google searching on stuff about selling to the power grid and all I was getting was economics, political and environment.

But when you see the answer it is so obvious. I will be a real terror tomorrow with this new found knowledge

Most of what i spout out is bullsh*t - but occasionally i have a little gem (lol)



the real eco thing to do which has the biggest return in reducing CO2 and saving money is to super insulate your home - before going onto other projects - the % of housing in the UK that are poorly insulatedis probably very high.

and the payback on insulation is very quick -3-4 years on roof insulation

if we all did just the insulation - then this would have a hugh impact

-- i like to be eco friendly - but the costs must make sense - -

simple solutions will have a hugh effect -
double sided printing of docs for one
also emailing docs and not posting them - reduces the transport cost (some docs need hard copies)- relatively simple solutions - but they mount up

Composting waste in your garden makes more sense - as you are feeding the soil - ratherthan sending it off to a site where it gets dumped with stuff that does not compost - agian a small step but if enough people do it then te effect mount up .

low voltage lighting reduces the co effect -(questionable of the pollution effect once the bulbs have died) - here in the UK theyare now only suppling low voltage bulbs - another small step

 

[Len Boorman]

Some things that seemed improbable in the past turned out to work, but that's no real reason to imagine the same will happen in the future with any given idea that now seems improbable.

My problem is that I am an optimist. I therefore see potential in most things until proven wrong. So yes I agree with you to a point, I like/need to find out what is not feasible by pushing forward on all fronts.

Only when a complete wall is met do I tend to then put the matter on back burner.... so that I can have another go later.

Some people call me a pian in the proverbial at times.

Takes all sorts to make a world

L

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

I consider myself an optimist too, in cases where optimism is capable of working.

Some things we might hope for (faster-than-light travel, for example) aren't really worth hoping for outside of science fiction, because they're already explicitly ruled out by very fundamental laws of physics, etc.

That's not to say the laws of physics couldnt be overturned by some new and huge discovery, but such a thing is really quite unlikely - it would mean that we have to find brand new, and different, explanations for how and why everything works - including stuff like the transisitors and diodes in the computer on which you're reading this.
Engineers and scientists were able to design the electronic components in your PC based on their understanding of physics, if physics is rewritten, we have to work out:
a) How the transistors really work
b) Why we were able to make predictions about how they should work, based on incorrect physics.

It's possible, but really unlikely.

Some things are still unknown, however, and learning or discovering them will only supplement, not overturn our science.

 

[Mike375]

Only when a complete wall is met do I tend to then put the matter on back burner.... so that I can have another go later.

To be able to extract Hydrogen from water and use less energy than was developed by the combinig of the Hydrogen and Oxygen would amout to going down the road of perpetual motion.

Conside the following extreme example:

Lets say when the appropriate mixture of Hydrogen and Oxygen (from memory about 6 parts oxygen by weight to one part hydrogen by weight) we X amount of energy and of course the by product is water.

If we can now extract the Hydrogen and Oxygen for no energy cost we can then reburn them. Perpetural motion.

Of course from a practical point of view we might get "some free" energy to do the extracting. Maybe solar panels heatinh water to drive steam engines to produce electricity to split the water.

 

[Rabbie]

Engineers and scientists were able to design the electronic components in your PC based on their understanding of physics, if physics is rewritten, we have to work out:
a) How the transistors really work
b) Why we were able to make predictions about how they should work, based on incorrect physics.

It depends on how wrong we were in our previous assumptions. Often the effects of previous errors in our understanding of the laws of physics were very small in the way they impacted on our daily life. The differences between Newton's Laws of Motion and Relativity are only significant at high speeds and long distances. Very important in inter-Galactic space travel but insignificant on the journey to work.

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

That's true. Newtonian physics is always wrong, it's just that the errors are insignificantly tiny at everyday scales. So yeah, I suppose we could discover higher (or is it lower) level systems in which our currently-known ones are merely embedded, and only function in the familiar way under certain circumstances.

But that still doesn't mean everything is possible. It must be possible to get to the point where some things can be ruled out with a fair degree of confidence, otherwise, science itself can't be done.