[alancalverd]

You need a certificate to undertake house wiring too.

[Petrochemicals]

You need a certificate to undertake house wiring too.

Yes and you can be criminally prosecuted but you don't need anything to fill up with petrol? How many petrol explosions of cars in garages have you heard of in regards to levelling a house? It is problematic and therefore more expensive to handle.

[Bored chemist]

How many petrol explosions of cars in garages have you heard of

Typically 2000 a minute while the engine is idling.

Cars blow up a lot more often than houses do. Granted , if our houses moved about on wheels...

There's an old (1970s )story about a company trying to get people interested in using hydrogen as a fuel.
They got a tanker truck full of liquid hydrogen, drove it to the edge of a lake, parked it up and dumped the contents onto the water. Then they waited 5 minutes and walked up to it and lit a match.

Then they challenged the oil industry to do the same with petrol...

Let me know if you still think gas is dangerous, and I will see if I can find a hydrogen supplier.

[Timo Meyer]

what do you think of solar systems?

[alancalverd]

Great while the sun shines. You still need an energy store.

[Hayseed]

Why not solve all our problems at the same time.  The ultimate power supply.  Free fuel.  No waste products.  Instant on-off, no storage needed.

Matter-anti-matter.

[syhprum]

Free fuel ! antimatter is the most expencive substance you can obtain.

[Hayseed]

I don't think so.  Anti-matter comes with every thunderstorm.  It's just inverted regular matter.  A large electrical potential, and accelerate the charge backwards.........gets anti-matter.  Probably turn out to be the cheapest fuel ever.

[Bored chemist]

I don't think so.  Anti-matter comes with every thunderstorm.  It's just inverted regular matter.  A large electrical potential, and accelerate the charge backwards.........gets anti-matter.  Probably turn out to be the cheapest fuel ever.

You do not know what you are talking about.

[Bored chemist]

Great while the sun shines. You still need an energy store.

Someone should start a thread about that.

[wolfekeeper]

I'm thinking big storage capacity, suitable for storing energy from the summer for the winter.

Nuclear reactors spring to mind.  The fission process generates energy regardless of seasonal variations.

And even when the reactor is "switched off", so to speak, the uranium fuel within it stores its latent energy for millions of years.

A perfect energy source.  Harmless until activated.  Then providing the equivalent energy of millions of tons of coal and oil.  Without a carbon footprint.

Why aren't we building nuclear reactors?  Instead of windmills.  Don't you feel these modern windmills represent a deplorable regression into the 15th Century, when windmills were all they had.

It's a surprisingly terrible idea. While the cost per kWh of a nuclear reactor, run flat out, is getting close to the cost of other power sources, nuclear reactors cost about four times the cost per watt that natural gas power plants do.

That's problematic, because nuclear reactors which are used only seasonally end up costing about twice as much per kWh.

Or, put it another way, let's say that peak average daily demand is 50% higher than minimum daily demand. That would mean your electricity generation would be around 50% more expensive.

[CliffordK]

Living in a state with wet winters and dry summers, I favor hydroelectric to compliment say solar and wind energy, and also for diurnal shifts.

Nature will naturally make rain and snow to refill the reservoirs. 

When there is high energy production and low consumption, simply store the water.  When there is high demand and low production, release the water.

Now, reservoirs aren't completely without environmental cost.  Taking up large amounts of land, and changing the river environment. 

Pulsing water out of dams may also not be desirable, although one can improve the appearance of flow with paired coupled dams, or even a series of dams.

They also can provide the benefit of flood control (floods may be good for the environment, but not for people), and recreational benefits.  And in some cases making rivers navigable that weren't navigable in the past.

[Petrochemicals]

Living in a state with wet winters and dry summers, I favor hydroelectric to compliment say solar and wind energy, and also for diurnal shifts.

Nature will naturally make rain and snow to refill the reservoirs. 

When there is high energy production and low consumption, simply store the water.  When there is high demand and low production, release the water.

Now, reservoirs aren't completely without environmental cost.  Taking up large amounts of land, and changing the river environment. 

Pulsing water out of dams may also not be desirable, although one can improve the appearance of flow with paired coupled dams, or even a series of dams.

They also can provide the benefit of flood control (floods may be good for the environment, but not for people), and recreational benefits.  And in some cases making rivers navigable that weren't navigable in the past.

We cannot do hydro electric in this country without vast expense, we have not got the mountains or rivers as we are only a small island.

UK biggest Reservoir.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielder_Water

Where as the 3 gorges has a capacity 200 times greater. The advantage of having a river like the yangzee and a nice canyon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Reservoir_Region

[Bored chemist]

We cannot do hydro electric in this country without vast expense

Well, nothing is cheap these days, and Wales is technically another country but...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station
Which illustrates the point that, for energy storage, you don't need a huge reservoir.

[alancalverd]

Depends on how much energy you want to store. Dinorwig stores about 9 GWh, enough to run the National Grid for about 10 - 15 minutes. The entire Scottish hydropower system can supply about 1.5GW and probably represents the economic limit for the UK as it is heavily subsidised.

[Petrochemicals]

Depends on how much energy you want to store. Dinorwig stores about 9 GWh, enough to run the National Grid for about 10 - 15 minutes. The entire Scottish hydropower system can supply about 1.5GW and probably represents the economic limit for the UK as it is heavily subsidised.

'twas in reply to generation. But I do agree that this has possibilities for pumped storage as you don't have to rely on river flow or valley suitability.

It isn't the land area its the river flow and hydrostatic head.  Dinorwig is a our 500m from top to bottom as I remember and and pumps it's water up there during lay times, during peak flow dinorwig is probably going through as much water as all of the rivers in the UK. can you think of any valleys in the UK with a height of 500m and a river big enough to fill the Reservoir to make it big enough to power Bristol? The alps is a good example of scale and hydrostatic
head,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam

This single dam was about the size of the uks biggest Kilder Water. In this example though the Dam was 250m high and the valley it was situated in was about 1km above the village it destroyed. That is a lot of extra power.

[alancalverd]

can you think of any valleys in the UK with a height of 500m and a river big enough to fill the Reservoir to make it big enough to power Bristol?

In a word, no. Thanks to the ice age, the highest point in the UK is one spiky peak less than 1500 m above sea level and we don't have many usefully floodable valleys that haven't already been exploited.

There's an awful lot of water in Kielder, but only just enough to generate 6 MW - say one intercity locomotive - because it's less than 200 m above sea level.

[Petrochemicals]

can you think of any valleys in the UK with a height of 500m and a river big enough to fill the Reservoir to make it big enough to power Bristol?

In a word, no. Thanks to the ice age, the highest point in the UK is one spiky peak less than 1500 m above sea level and we don't have many usefully floodable valleys that haven't already been exploited.

There's an awful lot of water in Kielder, but only just enough to generate 6 MW - say one intercity locomotive - because it's less than 200 m above sea level.

And the drop in height in the generation is negligible, MGH alan. There are places you can get a good drop but the river is not up to much. The Dolgarrog dam  in Wales is one place but the refill speed is pathetic, still it probably generates as much energy as kilder water. It used to power the aluminium works, but that now is an artificial surf centre. It would make quite a good energy store though. You could get alot of pumped storage as it's by a tidal river.

[alancalverd]

Dolgarrog generated 27 MW at maximum capacity, enough for 5 intercity locomotives in principle, but rarely exceeded 25% of its rated output over a year, so could not be relied on for anything other than aluminum smelting (on a rainy day).